Chapter 3: True Natures
Some ponies woke up slowly, with the natural lethargy that only gradually turned to wakefulness with the application of morning routines that often involved the need to ingest liberal quantities of caffeine and/or sugar. For all her boundless enthusiasm and energy Diamond Tiara was one of these ponies. She had a well honed and refined morning routine, to the point of scientific thesis.
Step one: boop the snooze switch on her alarm clock and go back to sleep for another five to fifteen minutes.
Step two: repeat step one in five to fifteen minutes.
Step three: consider getting out of bed for another five minutes, at least.
Step four: flop out of bed, proceed to snail crawl on floor until door is reached.
Step five: open door, crawl to bathroom.
Step six: perform the herculean task of rising to the bathroom counter to wash face and brush teeth.
Step seven: shuffle in a zombie-like haze into the kitchen, using keen snout to sniff out nearest source of sugar and/or breakfast.
Step eight: devour sugar and/or breakfast once highly honed hunter instinct locates the target.
Step nine: with sugar now working its miracles within the bloodstream begin acting like a normal, well adjusted pony.
She got as far as step six before being interrupted by the sight of an upside down, grey furred filly hanging from the top of the bathroom window, waving at her from outside with a look that could only be described as blindly lacking in self awareness. Diamond Tiara proceeded to spit out most of the toothpaste she’d foamed up in her mouth, giving the bathroom mirror a nice coating, before rushing over to the window and sliding it open.
“Jeog!” she mouthed around her toothbrush, “What are you doing out here!?”
“Watching you.”
“I know that! But why are... wait, how are you hanging upside down from my roof?” Diamond Tiara tired to poke her head out to look but Jeog had a way of just... being right there in the way, her face nose to nose with Diamond Tiara’s as the odd filly smiled thinly and with entirely too much amusement.
“I’m a really good climber. What are you doing?”
“Huh?” Diamond Tiara blinked, then tapped the toothbrush with a hoof. “This? I’m brushing my teeth.”
“That’s strange.”
“You’re one to talk. How long have you been on my roof? I thought we were going to meet at the lake today?”
Jeog’s ears twitched in a way that reminded Diamond Tiara very much of the way a cat’s might when agitated. “I don’t like the water. I decided to follow you here instead. The roof is comfortable, and shows me things.”
“Things?” Diamond Tiara inquired, eyebrow crawling upward like a curious caterpillar.
“Things,” Jeog confirmed sagely, nodding her fuzzy little head.
Diamond Tiara took a slow, calming breath, and smiled, “Fair enough, but Jeog listen to me, you need to be careful showing up here. If my parents see you they’ll start asking questions. It's hard enough keeping the other foals from talking too much about you, and sooner or later an adult is going to figure out you’re not a foreign exchange student, especially considering you’re never in school.”
“I could go to this school,” Jeog said, a strange light entering her eyes, “The teacher would never know I didn’t belong there.”
“I’d rather not risk it. It's easy enough to take you around town, since most adults won’t really care who you are, and as long as you’re seen with me and act normal...ish they’ll just assume you’re a friend. Which you are. But Miss Cheerilee is sharp, and she’ll figure things out a lot faster if you try to show up at school. I got to figure out what to do when too many ponies start asking who you really are.”
A momentary stillness entered Jeog, her ears going stiff. “When that happens I can go. None will ever find me.”
Diamond Tiara didn’t like the hollowness in the other filly’s voice at those words. It was like Jeog took it as a foregone conclusion that she’d have to leave at some point, and this only reinforced Diamond Tiara’s suspicion that the strange filly might be a transformed kaiju. Sending a letter to Lady Destroyah, or even just telling her parents about this suspicion might have seemed like a logical course of action, but she wanted to build some trust with Jeog, maybe convince her to come forward about her own true nature before having to get the grown-ups involved. The last thing Diamond Tiara wanted was to scare the other filly/maybe-kaiju away.
She put on a reassuring smile, somewhat ruined by the fact that she still had a toothbrush propped halfway in her mouth. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to go anywhere. I’ll figure something out, and in the meantime what we should do is just have fun and get to know each other. If you’re not comfortable with the lake, let’s try the park.”
“The park?”
Diamond Tiara’s toothbrush dropped a bit, “You’re kidding. You don’t know what a park is?”
It was weird seeing a filly roll her eyes while upside down. “I know what parks are. People go there to feed ducks. I also went to a park once to feed...” Jeog trailed off, blinking, then finished with a straightforward tone, “The ducks were nice.”
Something about the way she said that made Diamond Tiara shiver a bit. The feeling wasn’t helped by the way Jeog licked her lips and stared right at her, but Diamond Tiara shook off the unease and said, “Anyway why don’t you give me a minute to finish cleaning up and I’ll meet you around the back of the house. Then we can go get Silver Spoon.”
“Around back. Very well.” Jeog said and Diamond Tiara smiled awkwardly, turning to the sink to spit out the toothpaste and rinse her mouth out.
Finishing, she said, “By the way, how’d you get on my roof in-” she started to say, turning to see that Jeog had vanished. “-...the first place?” She blinked and stuck her head out the window, looking around but not seeing Jeog anywhere. Turning her head up to look at the edge of the roof she frowned, noticing that there were small claw marks in the wood.
“Okay, evidence towards kaijuness increasing.” she said under her breath, and quickly went to brush out her mane and tail before heading out to trot by the kitchen. Her mother was already up, far more the early riser than Diamond Tiara was, and had a plate of already jammed up toast sitting on the table while she typed away on her typewriter.
“Good morning honey!”
“Morning mom. Gotta toast and go, big day today.” Diamond said quickly, snatching up a pair of slices of toast, wolfing down one in record time while placing the other on her back.
“Oh? What are you and Silver Spoon up to?”
Diamond Tiara didn’t miss a beat as she said, “Hanging out with some friends at the park, and then we’ll probably stop by Bon Bon’s Sweet Treats.”
There was a fraction of a moment where Spoiled Rich hesitated, then said with a slightly forced cheer, “Did you need a little spending coin, dear?”
Diamond Tiara managed to control herself so that her ears only twitched rather than go flat against her head. “No, mom, it’s alright. I, uh, have a bit I saved from last time. No worries.”
“Oh... okay.” Her mother’s face brightened as she resumed focusing on her typewriter, “Have a good day then, honey. Don’t stay out too long. Try to be back by evening.”
“Will do.” Diamond Tiara said, pausing briefly by the door to the basement. She opened it, hearing the sound of banging hammers somewhere down in the basement depths. “I’m going out dad! See you later!”
The sound of a dropping hammer, followed by a muffled swear reached her ears, then, “Okay pumpkin! Have fun!” echoed up from below.
Diamond Tiara closed the basement door and trotted out the front of her house, glancing around briefly before cantering around to the back yard, which wasn’t so much a yard as it was a small patch of semi-mowed grass between her house and one of the back roads of Ponyville.
Looking around she whispered, “Jeog? Hey, you back here?”
“Yes.”
Diamond Tiara was somewhat proud of the fact that she didn’t jump that high, nor yelp much louder than squeak before controlling herself. Bristling a bit, she didn’t even turn around to look at the other filly before saying, “New rule, for general social situations; don’t sneak up on ponies.”
“...But it's fun.”
Diamond let out a huff of a laugh as she turned around and held out the other slice of toast she’d grabbed from the kitchen. “Didn’t know if you’d eaten or not yet, so here.”
Jeog tilted her head and sniffed at the toast with its raspberry jam as if uncertain of what it was. She then licked the jam experimentally while Diamond Tiara stood there staring. Then in the blink of an eye her jaws opened and snapped up the toast in one solid bite, giving Diamond Tiara a sudden and vivid recollection of when she and Silver Spoon had been helping Lady Destroyah adjust to being in a new world.
This is another chance to help someone who’s out of place find somewhere to belong. I just have to be careful. Who knows how long she’s been keeping herself hidden? Hmm, I wonder if she knows any of the other kaiju that came her from Earth?
Of course she couldn’t ask too many questions of Jeog yet. She wanted Jeog to come forward herself with information about what she was. If Diamond Tiara pressed to hard herself it might scare Jeog off. The Everfree Forest was beyond huge. If Jeog decided to go disappear into that place it’d be next to impossible to find her.
“Good?” she asked as she watched the other filly lick jam off her lips.
“Mmm, it’s different from what I usually eat. What is it?”
“Toast, of the raspberry jam variety. A Rich family house specially. Mostly because jam goes on sale for half off the first of every month and if there’s one thrifty spender in Ponyville, it’s me.” Diamond Tiara said with a bit of pride. Jeog gave her an odd look and Diamond shook her head, “In any case let’s head out. Spoon’s probably waiting.”
Diamond Tiara kept a careful eye out as they trotted across town to Silver Spoon’s house. Mostly she was watching for how ponies walking about reacted to Jeog. As she’d suspected most adult ponies paid her and Jeog little mind. After all it was hardly strange to see two foals out to begin a long day of playing on the weekend, and while Jeog might not have looked familiar to anypony it wasn’t unusual for new families to move into Ponyville so most likely assumed Jeog was just a new foal out making friends.
Which wasn’t entirely off the mark and Diamond Tiara certainly wasn’t going to correct anypony on the matter.
Diamond did notice that Jeog was looking about in a way that seemed more than casually curious. There was a sharp and tense alertness in the way that Jeog’s frosty eyes kept shifting around, and Diamond Tiara chanced to ask, “What are you looking out for?”
Jeog’s gaze snapped towards Diamond Tiara and for a second she thought she saw a flash of genuine fear in the other filly’s eyes before Jeog said, “No one. Nothing! Definitely not escape routes. Because we’re safe here, yes? Travelers don’t come through here often?”
“Uhh, I guess we get a slow trickle of travelers and merchants, but Ponyville isn’t exactly a tourist hot spot if that’s what you’re asking.” Diamond Tiara said, and she saw Jeog visibly relax.
“Good.” Jeog said without elaboration, and Diamond Tiara decided not to press the matter. Still, it didn’t take a titan of intellect to gather that when Jeog had been on her roof that the filly had been keeping watch for something, something that had her scared. But what?
When they collected Silver Spoon from her house Diamond Tiara’s friend gave Jeog a scrutinizing look while adjusting her glasses. “Good morning. I thought the plan was to meet at the lake.”
“Apparently Jeog isn’t a fan of the water.” Diamond Tiara said, casually waving off the questioning look Silver Spoon gave her, “Thought we’d go play at the park instead. Didn’t Rumble say something the other day about getting a ball game going today?”
“Yes, through he’s in that stupid phase where he thinks filly’s are better at sports than colts so wants all the teams to have even numbers of both. Its dumb. We never end up with even teams.”
Jeog’s voice cut in curiously, “What kind of game is it? Do we chase and kill the ball?”
Silver Spoon gave Diamond Tiara an exceedingly flat look, to which Diamond Tiara laughed nervously and said, “No, Jeog, we kick the ball. Not kill. Kick.”
“Why?”
“The point is to kick the ball through the other team’s goal to score points.”
“Can we kick the other players?”
“No! Uh, not usually. Not unless we’re using Hoofington rules. Which I’m pretty sure we’re not. Look just follow me and Silver Spoon’s lead, okay?” Diamond Tiara fluttered her eyelashes and smiled in a hopeful way. Jeog stared at her, then scratched at her ear idly and nodded.
“Very well. I shall play this game, and try not to kick anything other than the ball.” the strange filly paused, then said, “What if they kick me first? Can I then kick them back?”
Silver Spoon groaned, “That’s called starting a fight, and no, if somepony accidentally kicks you, just ask them to apologize. If they don’t, then call them a jerkface and leave it at that.”
“Jerkface...” Jeog seemed to roll the insult around on her tongue as if tasting it, and seemingly satisfied she literally wagged her tail and said, “I like that.”
As they headed out on the short walk towards Ponyville’s largest park Diamond Tiara took the lead, while Jeog trailed behind a bit, sniffing at seemingly nothing but always ever alert as if she expected something to jump out at her at any given second. Silver Spoon kept close to Diamond, and giving a furtive look back at their unusual companion she whispered to Diamond Tiara.
“Alright, so let’s not kid ourselves, it's obvious she’s a bit loopy, right?”
“Spoon, if she’s literally an alien kaiju from another dimension trapped in a young filly’s body then wouldn’t it be even weirder if she was acting totally normal? I mean you remember that when we first met Lady Destroyah she tried to disintegrate a rock with energy breath and eat the gas that came off it, right?”
When they’d been transported from Earth the kaiju had retained a number of aspects of their physiology, but not all of it. As it turned out Destroyah could use her micro-oxygen breath, and had assumed she had to consume energy like she did back on Earth using that method. However her new equine body was not set up to digest oxidized gas. That had been a frightful experience, having to rush Destroyah to the hospital after she’d nearly choked on something her body was no longer meant to consume. If Jeog was even half as out of sorts in this new world then Diamond could forgive a little ‘loopiness’.
Silver Spoon, however, seemed less enthused, her body tensing a bit at Diamond Tiara’s words. “Yeah, I remember. But here’s the thing, Lady Destroyah might’ve been a bit weird at first, but even then I could tell she wasn’t a danger. She... dang it you know what I mean, DT. From the get go we both felt like Destroyah was a good sort. She has this way of making you feel safe around her. Like nothing can hurt you long as she’s around. Even Sir Xenilla, while way high strung, still had that feeling about him.”
“And what, Jeog doesn’t?” Diamond Tiara asked quietly, glancing back. It didn’t seem Jeog was paying attention to them, following along but rather absorbed with looking out for... whatever she was looking out for.
“No and that’s my point. If anything I get the opposite vibe. Like she’s just a wrong turn from hurting somepony. Do you remember how she looked the other day, when she had Applebloom pinned down like that? I thought she was going to bite Applebloom’s throat out!”
“It... it wasn’t that bad.” Diamond Tiara said, frowning at the memory. Jeog’s deep growl and cold eyes flashed through her mind and she suppressed a shudder. “L-look, she backed off, didn’t she? Give her a chance, Spoon. That’s all I’m asking.”
Silver Spoon sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I really hope you’re right. Just so you know I’m going to be keeping a close eye on her. If I think she’s getting dangerous... I’m going to Ditzy Doo about her.”
“It's not gonna come to that.” Diamond Tiara said with conviction, but a moment of doubt crossed her face.
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Ponyville’s main park was built around a beautiful central fountain not far from a small, scenic bridge over one of the streams that passed through the town. Many well maintained gravel pathways snaked their way through bright green fields of grass dotted by copses of trees and bushes sporting bright berries or flowers. Under the bright sun birds were busy chirping away and flitting between the trees, filling the air with song that easily blended with the shouts of foals at play.
Jeog had heard such sounds before. Before the night of fire that had set the Hunter upon her Jeog recalled fragments of even more distant memory of watching mortals from the hidden places they never looked. Always the tiny ones ran and laughed, romping around with an utter lack of fear.
Had that been what had drawn her to the mortals, so long ago? Those sounds of laughter, and fearless smiles, fueled by some inner light she was as fascinated by as she was confused by it. It was still strange to her, even now. Mortals didn’t make sense. They did so many things that put themselves in danger, seemed oblivious to their own fragile natures, and were never consistent with those odd concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ they always kept talking about.
Yet as much as they confused her, and as much as she was afraid of what might happen if the Hunter found her walking around in broad daylight, there was a nostalgic feeling of familiarity springing up inside Jeog as she followed Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon through the park. Cho Yon had treated the gardens within the old temple well and had often invited the young ones from the town to play there. The sound of foals playing had always been a indicator to her that Cho Yon was at the temple, and he’d even showed her how to play some of the games there. Those games had often involved spinning wooden tops, or hoops, but never a ball.
Her curiosity was piqued, and so far she’d seen nor smelled any sign of the Hunter. Diamond Tiara had assured her that travelers were uncommon in this place, and so far had given Jeog no reason to distrust her. The filly seemed generally unruffled by her, and Jeog had forgotten how good it felt to neither be afraid or have others be afraid of her. It still flew in the face of her instincts, but she decided to try to relax and play with these mortal ponies. Just maybe things would go right, this time, and the Hunter would become a long gone memory.
The park was filled with a great many ponies, the oddly colorful mortals seeming to beam under the sunlight as they pranced, sometimes literally, amid the scene park pathways. Jeog was reminded of a time she’d seen a herd of unbelievably fluffy creatures grazing once in a field, completely oblivious to the dangers around them. Sheep, she thought she’d heard the term to be. Ponies were like slightly less fluffy, incredibly colorful sheep. That occasionally burst into acts of random song and dance. Jeog wondered if it was even possible to comprehend them.
Diamond Tiara led her and Silver Spoon to one of the wider and open fields in the park where Jeog could see a whole pack of the fuzzy little mortals were already gathered. She caught a few familiar scents in the air, recognizing some of the foals from the encounter at the lake the other day. None of the three that had chased her into the bushes, however, so that was a small relief. She’d come so close to losing control of herself the other day that she wasn’t eager to test the limits of her self control again.
“Yo guys!” greeted a light gray pegasus foal, waving merrily to them as they walked up. “You’re just in time, we were about to figure out teams.”
“Great Rumble, hope you all don’t mind if Jeog needs to learn the rules. She’s never played before.” said Diamond Tiara, and then glanced over at one of the other foals with a slightly surprised look that melted into a happy smile. “Hey Gentle Leaf, glad you came out.”
The foal in question was one Jeog had seen before as well, and was a strangely quiet one who never seemed to speak. Gentle Leaf nodded with a small, uneasy smile to Diamond Tiara, but just like the other night didn’t make a sound. Her curiosity turned up a notch, Jeog moved closer to the foal and sniffed at her. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong or sick in her scent, so why was this one not speaking?
“Uh, hey, Jeog, personal space.” Silver Spoon said, pulling Jeog back from the surprised looking Gentle Leaf, who’d blinked nervously at being sniffed.
“I was just seeing if she was ill. Why does she not speak. Was her voice stolen?” Jeog asked, honestly curious, and not sure what this ‘personal space’ thing was that the silver one was talking about.
“Its nothing like that.” Diamond Tiara said, then blinked with realization, “Actually I don’t know why but that’s a personal question and Gentle Leaf doesn’t have to worry about that. Right? We’re not trying to pry.”
Gentle Leaf just gave another nod and waved a hoof as if to say ‘it's cool’, but she gave Jeog a shifty gaze and seemed to make it a point to stand a bit further away from her as the rest of the foals started to discuss the teams of the game. While that was happening the pegasus named Rumble started explaining the rules of the game to Jeog. He spoke in quick words that made Jeog think of fleeing rabbits darting through the bushes, as if the words were tumbling over themselves in a rush to get out of the little foal’s body.
“Okay it's super easy you see this is ball you got two teams and when we shout ‘go’ you gotta kick the ball through the goalposts over there, which are those trees over there for one team and these trees over here for the other team, and you can only use your hooves to kick the ball which is weird because we’ve only got hooves but I guess that rule is there in case a griffin or minotaur show up but you can also use your snout if you want and this one filly Twist is way awesome with her tail and while that’s against the rules we decided to allow players to use their tails because it looked so awesome and-”
And somewhere around that point Jeog checked out mentally from the onrush of words, which seemed to become more garbled in her head the more Rumble talked. She just assumed as long as she kicked the ball towards a tree, she was probably doing okay. Before long the two team ‘captains’ had been decided upon, with Diamond Tiara the head of one team and Rumble in charge of the other one. The two captains choose players from among the other foals one by one, until there were two even groups squaring off across the field.
Jeog found herself facing off with Silver Spoon, who’d coincidentally ended up on the other team. Silver Spoon bounced the ball into the space between them, setting it for the start of the game. Yet oddly Silver Spoon’s eyes remained intently focused on Jeog, as if the ball wasn’t there.
She tilted her head curiously at the filly’s strangely intense stare, but then Diamond Tiara raised a hoof and said, “Alright everypony, play ball!” With the dainty filly’s pink hoof falling all the foals exploded into motion, Silver Spoon going for the ball with surprising speed. Not speed that Jeog couldn’t easily respond to, however, and she batted the ball away, sending it bouncing down the field. Silver Spoon’s eyes narrowed, and then she was off like a shot after the ball along with most the rest of the foals and the game was on.
For the first few minutes Jeog hesitantly moved along with the flow of the game, but soon enough she found herself relaxing and playing without much conscious thought. For all the rules the one named Rumble had jabbered on about, the foals didn’t seem to care much about following them. They scampered about in a laughing pack, bouncing the ball around in such a haphazard manner it seemed most the time they forgot there were even goals or points. Sure the ball might end up flying towards one of the trees that the foals decided were goals on occasion and a team would claim some points, but half the time Jeog was pretty sure the trees that were the ‘goals’ changed and even the team captains weren’t keeping exact track of the points.
Everypony just seemed to be having too much of a good time to care who was winning. She soon found herself feeling strangely light and unconsciously grinning as she chased the ball alongside the other foals, barely paying attention to where she was kicking it.
“Check this out!” Rumble shouted as he bounced the ball up on his snout and with his wings buzzed up into the air and managed an impressive spin to send the ball sailing over the heads of the other foals.
Not even thinking about it, her tail wagging, Jeog sprang up into the air, flipping in mid-air to kick the ball back the other way, landing lightly on her paws disguised as hooves. Smiling, she noticed a bunch of the foals were staring at her, and she blinked.
“What?”
“Whoa! How did you jump that high!?” asked a light purple unicorn filly with a strawberry blonde mane, her eyes wide pools of wonder. Jeog glanced up, realizing she’d probably gotten a good ten feet on that leaping kick. Not hard for her normally, but for a ‘perfectly normal’ mortal child not so much.
Silver Spoon was rubbing her hoof over her face while Diamond Tiara was nervously chuckling. “It wasn’t that high, really. I mean, Rumble got some good height too.”
“Rumble has wings,” replied the other foal.
“And I think she went higher than me anyway,” said Rumble, peering at Jeog. “How’d you pull that off?”
She licked her lips and said, “I’ve always been a good jumper.”
There was a moment of silence as the foals all exchanged looks, and Jeog wondered if she’d ended up blowing her cover that easily, but a second later Rumble grinned and said, ”Cool!”
That seemed to dispel the tension as the foals voiced varying levels of agreement and amazement at Jeog’s jumping skills and in short order the game resumed. However Jeog noticed that Silver Spoon was sticking closer to her than ever, confronting Jeog over the ball at every turn. It wasn’t too bad at first, but inside of a five minutes Jeog was getting a bit irritated at the way the stout, be-speckled filly kept dogging her every move. It was impossible to keep a small growl from building in the back of her throat, and when the ball ended up being kicked off in one direction, the horde of foals stampeding after it, Jeog hung back. Silver Spoon mirrored her, hanging back as well, and Jeog eyed the filly with twitching ears.
“What are you doing?”
Silver Spoon adjusted her glasses, “What do you mean?”
It was hard not to show teeth, and Jeog’s mind flashed with violence for a second, but she quashed it. She could taste the scent from Silver Spoon and while the filly was keeping her emotions under an impressive amount of control Jeog could still smell the sharp tang of fear.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Silver Spoon met her eyes with a surprisingly level and maturely calm gaze for a filly her age. “Should I be? Does Ponyville have a reason to be afraid with you around?”
The blunt and simple question actually set Jeog back on her heels, her tail lashing behind her as her ears drooped. In the span of a couple of seconds she could see many images in her mind’s eye of fire and blood, starting with the horrible blaze of Cho Yon’s temple, followed by a dozen other places since then, from farms she’d hidden in or villages that had taken her in, all suffering once the Hunter found her. She could clearly remember the ship she’d stowed away upon in a final terrified gambit to escape, and even that had not been enough. The Hunter had chased her, the ship and its crew had burned, and Jeog had barely escaped upon a piece of wreckage big enough to keep her from the painful anathema of water.
She choked back her fear, recalling her resolve to try again at living among mortals, and that at the very least there was one among them who wasn’t afraid of her. “I won’t hurt anyone. That’s not why I came here.”
Silver Spoon’s gaze was relentless, “Then why are you here?”
Before Jeog could answer the ball came out of nowhere and bounce off her head with a loud thwack. Her eyes went crossed and she tipped over like a bowling pin, the ball bouncing away a few meters as her vision swirled. Silver Spoon stood in blinking, mute surprise as the other foals ran up, the green hued form of Gentle Leaf blushing furiously as she bowed her head apologetically and grabbed the ball.
Diamond Tiara poked her head over Jeog’s fallen form, “Are you okay?”
Gentle Leaf poked Diamond Tiara’s leg, gesturing at the swirly eyed Jeog, and Diamond Tiara nodded and between the pair they helped Jeog stand back up. “Gentle Leaf didn’t mean it. She was just aiming down the field.”
“Which one is Gentle Leaf?” Jeog asked, “This one.” Pointing at the filly in question, “Or one of the four spinning around her?”
“Wow, that ball hit harder than I thought. Gentle Leaf, you’ve got one heck of a kick,” Diamond Tiara said, causing Gentle Leaf to blush brighter and look away. “Jeog, you able to stand on your own?”
Jeog shook her head like a dog shaking off water, and blinked a few times. “I am beyond the powers of mere mortal play toys to fell!” She teetered slightly, then rapidly steadied herself. “Although the world is still tilting.” She cocked her head to the side. “There. Better.”
“I guess we ought to get back to the game then,” Silver Spoon said, a small frown shading her features as she watched Jeog. The foals all started to rearrange themselves into a new set of starting positions to resume their game, but there was a peal of thunder that rolled across the sky and everyone looked up. Except for Jeog who instinctively hunkered down at the sound of thunder.
“Whoa, what was that!?” said one foal, while another pointed towards the sky to the west of the park.
“Hey, look! Storm clouds!”
Diamond Tiara grimaced, “Were we scheduled for a storm today?”
Suddenly Rumble smacked his forehead and groaned, “Aaaah dang it! I forgot! My brother said the weather patrol was doing an emergency storm exercise today! It’s not on the public schedule.”
“That’s dumb,” complained one of the foals. By now the storm clouds had spread out like a gray stain on the sky and were rapidly starting to blanket Ponyville. The small winged forms of pegasi in bright blue weather vests could be seen guiding the clouds along. Other park goers were making loud, groaning complaints about the situation as they started to vacate the park, some prepared souls unfurling umbrellas in the process.
Diamond Tiara watched the oncoming clouds with a resigned look.
“Its because of the new threat of kaiju attacks. They want the population to get used to surprises. Looks like the park is out for the rest of the day, unless you guys feel like turning this into a round of water polo?”
“Hey I don’t care about playing in the rain,” Rumble said. “Don’t know about the rest of you, but to me catching a cold is just a free day off school.”
“Welllll, I might not mind the rain but...” Silver Spoon gestured at Jeog, who was backing towards the nearest copse of trees with her ears plastered flat against her head. The clouds had gotten directly overhead and Diamond Tiara could see the rain coming like a solid wall, heavy and thick. The look on Jeog’s face was far from merely being irritated at impending discomfort.
“Jeog, what’s wrong? It's just some rain. We can find something indoors to do.”
By now Jeog had managed to get under one of the trees with thicker branches as the rain started to hit, keeping the worst of the water from herself. Though hardly the same kind of thing as being fully immersed in water, the rain would be less than pleasant. It’d douse her foxfire, weakening her, causing pain, and worst of all it’d make it much harder to focus on maintaining her illusion of being a small mortal pony. Even a few minutes in that downpour might break her illusion and reveal her true form, which Jeog wasn’t ready for in the slightest.
Still, she couldn’t just sit under the tree, not with the other foals staring at her.
“What’s up? You seriously got an issue with getting wet or something?” asked Rumble, chuckling under his breath, “And here I thought Diamond Tiara was vain about her mane.”
“H-hey! I just like to keep it well groomed,” Diamond Tiara said defensively, “Appearances are nine tenths of success in business. Besides you don’t see me diving for cover now, do you?”
Rumble nodded, as by this point the rain had already soaked the gathered foals, plastering manes to heads and drooping waterlogged tails. “Nope. And the wet mane look suits you.”
Diamond Tiara gave him a sidelong look, then shook her head and turned her attention back to Jeog. “Okay, you guys can keep playing if you want, but I think I’ll get Jeog somewhere dry until this storm is done with.”
She offered Jeog a hoof, and Jeog hesitantly took it. She looked nervously at the rainfall, sucking in a breath as she braced for the pain and discomfort the torrent would cause as she let Diamond Tiara draw her out from under the tree. The first drops splashed upon her with cold, icy needles, making her shudder. She focused on keeping her illusion maintained, but she could feel it writhing as the downpour hammered her. To a pony the water might just be cold, but to Jeog the water, that much of it, snuffed the aura of foxfire that formed much of her body. It wouldn’t kill her, but walking anywhere was going to be torture. If she lost her concentration...
She must have been making quite the expression because Diamond Tiara was looking at her with worry etched all over her tiny pink features. “Wow, okay, yeah let’s go. Just, uh, stick close to me and-”
Suddenly the water pouring over Jeog lessened considerably and Jeog blinked up to find an umbrella being held above her and Diamond Tiara like a yellow canopy. Next to them, holding the umbrella, Silver Spoon sighed and said, “C’mon, my house is closer. We can dry you off there.”
“Where’d did you get that?” Diamond Tiara asked, and Gentle Leaf appeared around Silver Spoon’s shoulder, pointing at a small saddlebag the filly had brought with her.
“Turns out Gentle Leaf really knows how to prepare for a day out,” Silver Spoon said, turning to look at the mute foal. “Thanks. I’ll return it soon as I can.”
Gentle Leaf just smiled and waved a hoof, and a shivering Jeog just blinked once at the umbrella, then at the filly.
There were words for situations like this. She wasn’t very familiar with them, and barely ever had a reason to speak them. Even the emotion, the odd feeling of debt that came attached to the words, was largely unknown to her. But a very simple piece of cloth attached to a plastic handle was keeping the dreaded water off her already soaked body and while the words were old and unfamiliar on her tongue, she still wanted to say them. Cho Yon would want her to say them.
“Thank you.”
Gentle Leaf just smiled and shook her head. Nearby Rumble and a number of other foals had started up the ball game again, even under the rain. Jeog was a bit envious as Gentle Leaf ran off to join, giving her, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon one last wave.
“Alright then, let’s get going. Silver Spoon, why don’t you squeeze in under here too?” Diamond Tiara said, offering a hoof to her friend.
“Meh, I don’t mind the rain.” Silver Spoon said, “Besides this umbrella isn’t big enough for the three of us. Just walk fast, I don’t want to have to throw myself in the dryer just to get warm again.”
“Dryer?” Jeog asked curiously as the walked.
“Uhhh, how to explain this... its like a metal box that spins clothes to dry them out really fast.”
“Are they magic?” Jeog was more than a bit dubious about these drying boxes.
“If you count being powered by magically charged electrical sockets, sure.”
“Are we to dry ourselves in these magic drying boxes?”
“...No. No, you dry clothes in them.”
Jeog’s head tilted like the world was still spinning.”But ponies don’t wear clothes.”
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon exchanged looks, both of them looking equally embarrassed. Clearing her throat, Diamond Tiara admitted, “It's another of my dad’s inventions. Hasn’t exactly taken off in the mass market, for pretty much the reason you just mentioned.”
The words tumbled around in Jeog’s mind and didn’t quite rattle out correctly. “Your sire creates items of power?”
Diamond Tiara’s gave a short snort of surprise, “Not the way I’d ever heard it put. More like he creates very well intentioned items of dubious economic worth. His heart is in the right place, but he doesn’t really have the business sense for knowing what to make that’ll profit, you know?”
Jeog didn’t. Economics was about as far from her daily thought processes as something could be. Her scrunched face indicated as much. “I don’t understand.” she said truthfully.
“Don’t worry about it. My family’s financial troubles are hardly your problem. I need to find a way to support my parents myself once I get old enough.”
“Or not old enough, given I don’t remember you ever letting age stop you before now,” Silver Spoon said with a faint tone of grousing.
Jeog’s eyes squinted, her tail lashing behind her. While economics weren’t anything she’d ever paid attention to, she did know that mortals had this way of exchanging shiny objects in order to obtain things they wanted. It didn’t make much sense to her, but she’d seen it done enough to mimic the process when she needed to blend in. If she recalled correctly the local mortals liked shiny golden coins as objects of exchange. There were plenty of those coins just laying around in sacks or boxes ponies liked to keep hidden... but Jeog was very good at finding things.
“It is wealth you seek?” Jeog asked, eyes intent and thoughtful.
Beside her Diamond Tiara paused, forcing Silver Spoon to stop so she could keep the umbrella over the two of them. They’d stopped on the bridge over the stream leading out of the park. Diamond Tiara gave Jeog a hesitant look, although Jeog couldn’t fathom what might make the filly nervous about the subject.
“It's not... just wealth. Not by itself. I mean, okay, I get a bit envious of other families that have money. I sometimes hate that I have to see my mom and dad struggling to put food on the table. And yeah, maybe I sometimes feel this dumb, petty feeling that says ‘if only we had money things would be better’. But I don’t want wealth just for the having of it. I want to help. I want my parents to pursue their passions without worrying about feeding me, or being able to send me to a good school. But fact is that no matter how great Equestria is, you still need bits to get by. So yeah, I want bits. All the bits. So I can live how I want, and make sure my parents can too.”
“Diamond...” Silver Spoon’s expression fell as she shifted enough to give her friend a comforting hoof on the shoulder.
“Okay, yeah, sorry about that, just went heavy for a sec,” Diamond Tiara shook her head and smiled at Silver Spoon and Jeog. “It's no biggie, you two. I’ve got all sorts of ideas for making money, and once we get you settled Jeog, hey maybe you can help one of these days. Sorry your first day out got rained on, but there’s always tomorrow.”
Jeog stared at Diamond Tiara, and very slowly nodded. “Yes. Always tomorrow.”
As they resumed their walk back to Silver Spoon’s home Jeog’s mind turned with ideas of her own.
----------
The rest of the weekend went smoother than day one had. Diamond Tiara would manage to crawl out of bed earlier than normal, and convinced Jeog that the bathroom window wasn’t the normal place for friends to meet. There was no more surprise weather, so Diamond was able to show Jeog around town more thoroughly, picking different activities each day. It’d taken the better part of an afternoon to get Jeog to understand that bowling involved rolling the ball down the alley, not kicking it or throwing it. She had this habit of taking things entirely too literally.
Still, Diamond Tiara felt like they were making progress. At least Jeog hadn’t vanished yet. Every evening when it was time for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to pack it in for the day Jeog would split off from them without ever explaining where she was going, and Diamond Tiara’s attempts to follow her had been less than fruitful. Still, each morning Jeog had come back, so something had to be going right.
Today I’ll see if I can get her to talk about what she really is and where she’s living. Diamond Tiara thought firmly that Monday morning, slowly waking up and rolling over in bed, hugging her warm fuzzy pillow close...
...Wait, her pillow wasn’t supposed to be fuzzy.
She opened her eyes to find a gray, furry filly snoozing away in her bed next to her, snuggled up like Diamond Tiara was a pink teddy bear. Now under most circumstances Diamond Tiara’s first instinct would be to scream, as would be appropriate. She managed to bite her lip in time to keep that from happening, instead taking a moment to assess the situation. She had no idea how Jeog had gotten into her room, but for the moment the filly was apparently sleeping peacefully and Diamond Tiara found herself curiously watching.
Jeog’s hooves twitched and pawed at the air, eyes flicking behind closed lids. Was she dreaming? Observing her this closely it seemed only too obvious that this filly wasn’t normal. Diamond Tiara could easily see how her ears were a bit too long and pointed, and that her tail had an entirely too bushy quality to it. And Diamond could swear she saw a hint of pointed canines peeking out from the filly’s mouth.
Diamond Tiara was debating how to best wake Jeog up and get our out of her house without being spotted by her parents when Jeog’s sleepy twitching suddenly grew more intense and frantic. Fearful murmur’s escaped the filly as she started to slowly thrash about, the words indistinct for a time, until Diamond Tiara was able to pick out some of the words.
“Cho Yon... un-yeogn... hawjaewa yeongi... Sanyangkkun!”
Diamond Tiara watched with increasingly wide eyes as there were blue flickers of azure fire across Jeog’s body, her form blurring from that of a little filly to something altogether much larger and taking up most of Diamond’s bed. She saw a momentary glimpse of large canine paws, a tapered vulpine face, and nine thrashing tails, before Jeog thrashed right off the bed. She landed on hard on her back, and the fox-like form flickered with blue fire again and resumed the shape of a young filly whose ice blue eyes snapped open as she sat up fast, breathing heavily.
“It’s okay!” Diamond said quickly, moving to the edge of the bed. “You’re alright, Jeog. You’re just in my room. Uh, which to be fair, why are you in my room?”
Jeog’s panicked looked gradually faded as her eyes settled on Diamond Tiara, the filly’s fast breathing slowing bit by bit. Getting her hooves (or paws?) under her, Jeog collected herself and said, “What’s wrong with me being in your room?”
“Try private space? Parents freaking out? It's not exactly normal for fillies to sleep in the same bed outside of official sleepovers, and usually you ask first.”
Jeog just blinked at her, then asked, “Can I sleep in your bed?”
Diamond Tiara rubbed her forehead, “I get the feeling a point is being missed somewhere here. Look, Jeog, don’t you have your own place to sleep?”
There was an uncomfortably long silence, and Jeog looked at the floor before saying, “Yes. But I don’t like it there anymore. It’s... empty, there.”
Diamond felt her heart clench for a moment. There was a strain of confusion and pain in Jeog’s voice that Diamond Tiara hadn’t often heard in another before. She found she didn’t like hearing it one bit. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slow, hopping off her bed to pat Jeog on the shoulder. “Okay, it's a bit too weird to just let you hop into bed every night, but I’ll tell you what I can do. How about you show me where you live, and I can spruce it up for you, make it feel less empty.”
“Spruce?” Jeog’s nose wrinkled and she licked her lips as if tasting the word. Diamond Tiara offered a warm smile.
“Yeah, spruce! I mean, I can’t afford to get you new rugs and curtains, but I bet I can find some nice plants and flowers to color the place up, maybe snag a poster or two on the cheap from one of the thrift shops in town. You’d be surprised how a few small touches can really warm a place up and make it feel like a home,” Diamond Tiara said with a voice bubbling up with enthusiasm. Partially because she genuinely wanted to help, but there was a bit of an ulterior motive that if she could convince Jeog to show where she lived it’d be one more step to convince her she could trust Diamond Tiara with the whole truth.
However there was a tremor of unease in Jeog as she hesitantly looked away from Diamond. “There’s no reason to go to where I live. I won’t trouble you here if it makes you uncomfortable. I’m... sorry if my being here is strange.” The way she said the word ‘sorry’ made it sound as if it were a word from a foreign language, one rarely used at that.
“Look, it’s okay.” Diamond Tiara said, glancing at the one window in her room. “I’m not sure how you got in with the window locked, but if it really bugs you sleeping at your place then I guess it's fine for you to drop in here. Just make sure my parents don’t spot you, or they might freak out.”
Jeog’s tail started to wag in a way that Diamond found rather adorable. “It’s okay with you?”
“Yes, for now. On the condition you eventually let me see your place and fix it up for you, alright? Not trying to be pushy, just can’t promise you can share my bed all permanent like. Just until you’re comfortable with your own.”
“Agreed.” Jeog said after a moment of consideration.
“Great! Well, now that we got that settled we’ll meet up after school today.” Diamond Tiara went over to her window and unlatched it, opening it wide. Her eyes briefly looked over the unusually large scratch marks along the wood panel outside it, but at this point she was pretty sure she knew where they’d come from. “And next time could you at least knock before coming in?”
Jeog nodded and lightly hopped up onto the window with the dexterity of a cat, easily balancing there as she turned to look back at Diamond Tiara. Her earlier hesitance seemed to have faded, and now there was a look of anticipation glowing in her eyes. “What will you be showing me today I wonder, Diamond Tiara?”
----------
“Ice cream?” Jeog asked in general confusion. She may have learned the Equestrian tongue, but there were still plenty of phrases she wasn’t particularly familiar with. Ice cream was one of them. She, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon stood outside an mortal lair that looked very much like the other dwellings of Ponyville, only this one had exceedingly colorful designs along its roof and edges of bright, swirling patterns that looked vaguely like waves to Jeog. Above the mint colored door was a swinging sign painted with a depiction of a bowl piled high with scoops of multi-colored spheres topped with chocolate. The chocolate Jeog at least recognized, so she guessed this was some kind of mortal treat. Mortal food could be quite tasty and she was often impressed with their capacity for finding new and interesting flavors.
“Yes, cream of ice, food of the most divine origins, whose creation is a mystery for the ages but whose existence blesses Equestria as surely as the love of Duchess Chrysalis,” Diamond Tiara said with a grandiose gesture at the ice cream shop.
“Giver of brain freeze and bringer of diabetes,” Silver Spoon said next to Diamond Tiara. “Yet we forgive ice cream its faults for all the joy it brings into our lives. Especially because I’m the one paying for it today.”
“I-I’ll pay you back.” Diamond Tiara said, head lowering in embarrassment, but Silver Spoon just waved her hoof.
“Forget it, it’s no biggie.”
Jeog’s ear twitched unconsciously. Again this matter of money. She’d begun to enact her plans to alleviate this baffling trouble that affected her mortal companion. Gathering the shiny bits was actually quite easy, given how much of them were left lying around in most mortal lairs, often with only a few locked chests or poorly hidden spaces in the floorboards where they kept the coins. She didn’t know precisely how much Diamond Tiara needed to be happy, but Jeog figured there was no harm in erring on the side of caution in this case.
When the time came Diamond Tiara was surely be surprised and grateful.
“Right, so Jeog, some important heads up info.” said Diamond Tiara, getting Jeog’s attention with a wave. “First off, don’t be overwhelmed by flavor choice. It can be disorienting for a first timer, but just go with your gut with whichever looks the yummiest, but stick to one flavor only for your first time. Later on we can try more advanced techniques like multi-flavored scoops, or actual sundaes.”
“Second rule, don’t lick too hard on cones otherwise your scoop will fall right off, and that is a tragedy we cannot afford. Literally. I’m not buying replacements,” Silver Spoon stated firmly.
“I think for her first time we’ll stick to a bowl,” said Diamond Tiara, “Cones can be hard on first timers.”
Jeog grimaced slightly. “Ice cream sounds difficult.”
“Don’t worry, you’re going to love this. C’mon.” Diamond Tiara led the way inside, and Jeog was assaulted by a kaleidoscope of colors and sugary scents as she entered behind the filly.
The interior of the shop had a black and white tiled floor but the rest of it oozed a shining palette of colors that filled the walls with painted depictions of the very concoctions on sale, surrounding customers in a frosty embrace of ice cream and ice cream related treats. Even the support beams were carved with intricate and surprisingly detailed scoops of ice cream and the various toppings that could go upon them. White or pink circular tables were set up to the spaces on either side of the doorway in, but there was a clear path to the front counter where a wide glass front showed multiple tubes of the many colored ice creams available, and an entire host of toppings on display.
The proprietors of the shop were as bright and colorful as their product, a pair of unicorn mare’s who Jeog imagined were packmates given their similar markings. One had a pale orange coat and deep pink mane, while the other a more creme colored coat and light brown mane streaked with white, both worn in an identical pig-tailed fashion. Both had identically colored mint eyes, and similar wide smiles as they greeting the entering fillies.
“Helloooo and welcome to The Daily Scoop! What can we do for you?”
Diamond Tiara returned their smile. “Hey there Sherbet, Rocky Road. We’re bringing in somepony special today. Her name’s Jeog, and it's her first time trying out ice cream.”
“Oh my goodness, really!?” cried the orange coated mare, propping herself up on the counter, her eyes widening with equal parts surprise and delight. “You’re in for quite the experience then! Heehee, I’m so happy to able to introduce somepony to the wonders of ice cream.”
“But its so odd you haven’t had it before,” said the other mare with the creme colored coat as she rubbed her chin. “Are you from another country, little miss?”
Jeog was aware that Diamond Tiara had been maintaining the illusion that she was a foreign student from Neighpon, and she had no trouble repeating that lie with a completely straight face. The two ice cream mares accepted the story with friendly nods and no questions. Instead the orange one, still grinning a little too widely, gestured to the array of tubs filled with ice cream.
“So do you want me or Rocky to recommend some flavor options, or do you just want to dive in?”
“Chocolate’s always a decent first choice.” said Diamond Tiara, licking her lips as she eyed the ice cream. “Although my personal favorite is strawberry.”
Jeog glanced over the different possibilities, almost dizzied by the number. The creativity of mortals was certainly one of their more fascinating qualities. And as was her want, she didn’t like restricting herself.
“All of them.” she stated bluntly, which earned looks from all present.
The orange mare, Sherbet, actually let out a pleased chuckle. “Not lacking for ambition I see.”
“Uh, Jeog, remember we said to stick to one flavor? Besides, I don’t think I can afford to buy a scoop of every flavor here,” Silver Spoon said, “Might want to tone it down there.”
“But I want to try all of it.”
Rocky Road waved a hoof in dismissal. “For a first time I think we can give some samples on the house.”
Jeog’s head quirked to the side. “You serve food on the roof?”
“Huh? No, just a turn of phrase that means we’ll give something for free just this once.”
“Oh.” Jeog frowned. “Eating on the roof sounded like fun.”
“That a thing they do in Neighpon?”
“...Yes. You should add tables to your roof.”
“Jeog, stop giving them ideas,” Diamond Tiara said quickly, then turned back to Sherbet. “In any case I’ll be having the strawberry sundae with extra pink sprinkles, please.”
“Sure thing! And how about you Silver Spoon?”
“Vanilla with caramel and gummy bears on a cone for me,” Silver Spoon said as she fished into her saddlebag for some bits to place on the counter.
The mares worked quickly, with deft and precise movements that spoke of both love and experience for their work. Jeog followed Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to sit at one of the tables, keeping a curious eye upon the two unicorns, who used their magic as much as their hooves to whip out bowls and scoop out heaps of the ice cream, sprinkling on toppings in what looked almost like a dance to Jeog’s eyes.
She’d always found mortal obsession with work to be a strange thing. In Carrea she’d seen many spend their lives toiling in fields, or going day in and day out living in the same home turned shop. No doubt these two sisters lived in the space above the shop, and would spend their whole lives doing exactly what Jeog saw them doing right now. And for some reason they would do it happily with smiles on their faces until they were old and withered, then finally died.
Why? Didn’t it get boring? She knew mortals got bored of things the same way she did. Even if ice cream turned out to be the most delicious thing in the world, she couldn't get her mind to wrap around the idea of eating it for her entire life, and with the endless well of contentment, happiness, and enthusiasm she saw these two ponies exhibit. Then again, her lifespan was much longer than theirs. She wasn’t even sure she could die normally. Only iron, fire, or water could end her, not time, like it was with mortals. And they had so little of it.
What made them enjoy their short lives so much, doing such simple things?
She’d spent so long running from the Hunter she’d forgotten about some of the burning questions that had drawn her to the mortals, and she felt an odd spark of contentment herself with being reminded of why she found them so interesting. The past few days spent with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, and some of the other foals in Ponyville, had been more interesting than years spent hiding in fear.
“You’re smiling.”
Jeog glanced over to see Diamond Tiara looking at her warmly, a flashy smile on her face. “Its nice to see. Why don’t you do it more often?”
The words took Jeog off guard. She touched her face for a second, finding that she was smiling, although the expression quickly faded as she glanced away from Diamond Tiara. “I smile enough. When I want to.”
“And when’s that?” asked Silver Spoon, eyeing Jeog frankly. “We’ve been showing you what we like to do for fun, but what do you usually do for fun when you’re by yourself?”
A dozen things crossed Jeog’s mind at once, from the simple but still at times pleasurable hunting of small prey in the forest, to the not so long ago excitement of the violent battle with the Timber Wolves. Licking her lips she said, “I like chasing things.”
“Chasing things?” Silver Spoon repeated with a dubious look.
Jeog tried to smile again. Diamond Tiara did say she ought to do it more. The look in Silver Spoon’s eyes, however, suggested the smile wasn’t quite having the same effect on her. Oh well, not Jeog’s problem. “Oh yes, chases are fun. Especially when what I’m chasing can run fast enough to make me have to try.” She leaned towards Silver Spoon. “It’s no fun, you see, when the chase is too short. Not satisfying at all.”
“Uh-huh... and what do you chase?” Silver Spoon said, holding Jeog’s stare without flinching, which Jeog found she rather liked.
“Whatever I want,” Jeog replied simply.
Diamond Tiara, flicking a confused glance between the pair, suddenly perked up and said. “Oh hey, ice creams here!”
Jeog was distracted from thoughts of wondering what it might be like to chase Silver Spoon by the arrival of the ice cream. Sherbet floated the treats over in a glittering aura of magic, carefully setting them before the fillies. Diamond Tiara had a glass boat filled with multiple scoops of ice cream the same color as her coat, all surrounding a banana and topped off with melted chocolate and whipped cream. Silver Spoon had a waffle cone piled up with vanilla, drenched in a thick stream of caramel, and sprinkled with odd little bear shaped gummies. Jeog couldn’t grasp why they were shaped like bears, but perhaps ponies were more predatory than she thought, because Silver Spoon bit into the defenseless bear gummies with clear relish.
As for Jeog, she found a circular tray in front of her piled up with a dizzying array of scoops from every single flavor available. The scoops were bit smaller than the ones Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had, but the cumulative amount of all the flavors made for one impressive array. There was a spoon available, but Jeog ignored it. Shed never needed mortal utensils before, and never trusted anything made out of metal anyway.
Instead she took a breath, then proceeded to dig in.
The cold struck her almost as hard and fast as the flavor. She barely had time to register one piece of sweetness before it was overwhelmed by another, but within seconds she was licking her lips with absolutely, shocked enjoyment.
“You like it?” Diamond Tiara asked, spooning some of her sundae into her mouth as she gave Jeog a knowing smirk.
Taking a moment to extend her tongue and lick some of the ice cream that’d gotten on her nose, Jeog gave a swift nod. “I don’t understand how something this good could be made by mortal means.”
“Weird way of putting it, but I take that to mean you like it,” Diamond said happily, and Jeog responded by proceeding to shove her face back into the tray of ice cream, slurping it up greedily.
Her tail was dancing behind her as she chowed down on one flavor after another, unable to even grasp how Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon were even capable of restraining themselves to eating their own so slowly. Then Silver Spoon cleared her throat rather loudly and said, “Jeog, you might want to pace yourself, or you’ll get brainfreeze.”
Brainfreeze? What was that? It sounded like a dumb mortal thing that didn’t apply to her. Besides how could she possibly stop eating this delicious ice cr-
----------
The young pony couple that had seen the odd gray filly stumble out of the bushes a few days ago were now out on another date, and today had decided to stop by The Daily Scoop for satisfying their sweet tooth.
Only as they approached the establishment both were frozen in place but an unearthly howl of agony that emanated from within the shop like the wail of some horrific beast of Tartarus.
“Uh, honey, what was that?” asked the mare of the pair with wide eyes.
Her coltfriend gulped and gave her a little push down the road away from the ice cream shop. “Don’t know, but I have a sudden craving for donuts instead, how about you dear?”
“Yes. Donuts. Let’s do that.”
----------
“Jeog, come down from there!” Diamond Tiara said, a tad panicked as she looked up at the rafters of the ice cream shop.
“No! The ice cream is still down there! Waiting. Watching.”
“You’re being ridiculous. The ice cream is not out to get you. We warned you about the brainfreeze,” Silver Spoon muttered dejectedly, still trying to wipe caramel out of her mane. More than a little had gotten all over her when Jeog had spontaneously freaked out at the impact of sudden brainfreeze.
Diamond Tiara had watched in mute shock as Jeog had bowled over the table and literally jumped high enough to hook a hoof around the rafters of the roof and clamber up there like a scared cat. Now Jeog hid partially in shadow up among the rafters, peering down at them with shaking blue eyes.
“Wow. You’re friend has got to have the worst first-time reaction to brainfreeze I’ve ever seen,” Rocky Road commented dryly while her sister Sherbet dragged out a mop and bucket from a nearby closet to start cleaning the mess of ice cream that was melting onto the tiled floor.
Diamond Tiara was just glad that neither ice cream mare was questioning how Jeog jumped all the way up to the ceiling. She was almost thankful for athletic savants like Scootaloo who provided benchmarks of physical prowess that made Jeog’s less than normal stunts seem at least partially normal.
Taking a deep breath and adopting as calming a tone as she could she looked up at Jeog and said, “It’s okay. Look, Sherbet is cleaning up the evil ice cream and it won’t hurt you anymore, alright? The brainfreeze is just what happens when you eat it too fast. It’s not poisonous, it’s just cold. That’s why me and Spoon were eating it slowly, like how you’re supposed to.”
Jeog’s little gray face slowly peeked out from the edge of the rafter. “You speak truly? The ice cream wasn’t trying to kill me?”
“Of course it wasn’t silly. You just ate too much too fast. Totally normal mistake. Alright? Will you come down now?”
With a swish of motion and Jeog leaped down from the rafters, laning with ease and smoothing out her coat as if she hadn’t just had a freak out over an attack of brainfreeze.
“What shall we do now?”
Wow, she’s really just going to play it off, huh? Diamond Tiara thought, chuckling under her breath.
“I’ve still got to return Gentle Leaf’s umbrella from the other day,” Silver Spoon said, bumping her saddlebag with a hoof. “We could always head over to her place, see if she wants to play.”
“Gentle Leaf. The silent one,” Jeog said with a musing voice. “She was interesting. Why does she not speak?”
“Kind of a mystery there.” Diamond Tiara said, “Nopony in town really knows. She moved here pretty recently when her parents opened up a Carrean restaurant.”
Diamond noticed that made Jeog flinch slightly. “Carrean? They are from there?”
“I don’t think they are originally, but I heard she and her parents lived there for awhile, years back,” said Silver Spoon. “Guess they liked the food so much they wanted to bring it here to Equestria. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve eaten at their place a few times and the food’s pretty good.”
There was clear hesitance in Jeog’s face but she looked to Diamond Tiara and said, “Then let us go play with Gentle Leaf.”
----------
Even without words Gentle Leaf could show a lot of enthusiasm with body language alone. When asked if she wanted to go out and play she’d offered a beaming grin and almost blurring nod. Her parent had no objections to Gentle Leaf going out to play, and Diamond Tiara was impressed to find out that Gentle Leaf usually helped her parents with running the restaurant by doing some of the cooking and food serving.
“That’s such a pretty manestyle. Super cute,” Diamond Tiara said in honest compliment to the way Gentle Leaf had styled her mane into a simple yet elegant bun with a pair of tails trailing out from it to curl down one side of her neck, the bun held together with a dark metal manepin with a crane design on one end.
A soft green hoof happily played with the bun, Gentle Leaf nodding her thanks as the quartet of fillies trotted through the town, heading towards the fields just outside Whitetail Woods. Since Gentle Leaf was still new to town Diamond Tiara had suggested it’d be fun to stroll around the woods, which were much safer than the Everfree Forest, and maybe play something simple like tag or hide and seek if they got bored with the scenery. Jeog had seemed nervous about the idea at first, but didn’t object when Gentle Leaf showed some enthusiasm for the idea.
“Is that a style ponies wear a lot on Carrea?” asked Silver Spoon, also giving Gentle Leaf’s mane an appreciative look.
The silent filly tilted her eyes up thoughtfully for a moment before nodded again. She tapped the manepin, then made a few gestures around her head, as if to indicate various shapes.
“Ah, I get it. There’s lots of ways to style your mane around a pin like that, right?” Diamond Tiara said, to which Gentle Leaf bobbed her head.
“It's iron.”
“Jeog?” Diamond Tiara glanced at the other filly, who’s frosty eyes seemed fixated on the manepin.
“The metal thing in her mane. It's iron,” Jeog repeated, taking a noticeable step of distance away from Gentle Leaf. “They’re usually made of wood.”
“Huh. That’s kinda neat. I wonder what else they make manepins out of over there?” Diamond Tiara said, wondering why Jeog suddenly looked so uncomfortable.
“Jade. Obsidian. Sometimes bone,” Jeog said, frowning, “Though I haven’t seen bone used in a long time.”
“How long is that? You’re like the same age as we are,” Silver Spoon said, to which Jeog just gave a small smile and said nothing. Diamond Tiara noticed Gentle Leaf’s somewhat confused expression and she offered a reassuring smile.
“I guess since Jeog is from the same region she knows a lot of Eastern stuff too. Hey, that reminds me, can you understand Carrean? Since you lived there for awhile?”
Gentle Leaf held up a hoof and shook it back and forth in a clear gesture of ‘sorta’, looking bashfully at the ground. She then pointed at Jeog and made a confused shrugging motion, then pointed to her ears.
“Uhh, sorry I don’t get what you’re trying to say there.” Diamond Tiara admitted, but Jeog cut in.
“We’ve arrived at the woods. Why did we come here, again?”
“Oh, well these woods are way safer to play in than the Everfree, and since Ponyville holds a lot of festivals and events out here I thought it’d be neat to show you new guys around it. Its actually a really great place for outdoor games when the park is too busy. You said you like to play ‘chase’ right, Jeog? I figure that sounds a lot like tag. What do you say Gentle Leaf, you like tag too?”
The filly gave a firm nod of assent, while Jeog flicked her tail in curious query. “What’s tag?”
“It's beyond simple,” said Silver Spoon. “One pony is ‘it’, and they chase all the other ponies who aren’t ‘it’. You ‘tag’ someone, then they become ‘it’, and chase everyone else. That’s literally all there is to it. Not really a thinking filly’s game, but it gets the blood pumping.”
Jeog’s tail continued to lash around behind her, but there was an interested light in her eyes. “Then which of us is ‘it’?”
“Do you want to be?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Yes. How do we begin? Does the prey get a head start?”
“Uhhh, suuuure. We’ll go with that,” Diamond Tiara responded, “Just remember when you manage to tag one of us we become ‘it’ and we start chasing you.”
Jeog glanced away, whispering under her breath, “A feeling I am familiar with.”
Silver Spoon trotted towards the woods, “So, ten second head start sound good?”
Gentle Leaf smiled and shrugged, tail wagging. She seemed content to just be out and playing, for which Diamond Tiara was grateful. It seemed like, despite her odd mute condition, the filly was starting to feel at home in Ponyville. Now if she could just get Jeog to feel the same way enough to open up a bit more.
“Ten seconds is not long enough, I think,” said Jeog, lazily stretching out her legs, “Thirty is what I will give you. Then I start the chase.”
“Hey, got to give her points for confidence,” said Diamond Tiara, joining Silver Spoon and Gentle Leaf a few paces ahead of Jeog. “Ready?”
Everypony present nodded, and Diamond Tiara turned with a sharp nod. “Then go!”
While far from athletic, and definitely on the weaker end of the earth pony spectrum, Diamond Tiara still could enjoy a good hoof race, and tag was just a prolonged race with no set track. It helped that the weather today was much nicer after the storm a few days back, with the air clear and warm and a cloud speckled blue sky overlooking the fillies as they tore off into Whitetail Woods.
Diamond Tiara flagged a bit behind Gentle Leaf and Silver Spoon. Gentle Leaf in particular seemed like she knew her way around a forest and bounded around small obstacles and tough bits of terrain with barely slowing down. Diamond Tiara had to pace herself a bit more gingerly, knowing all too well her luck with forests and their grasping branches. Still, Whitetail was a practical walk in the park compared to Everfree, and she was a lot less nervous now than she’d been then.
She’d been counting up the thirty seconds in her head, and once they were up she chanced a glance behind her to see where Jeog might be. She blinked, not seeing any sign of the filly at first. Then a streak of blue and gray motion caught Diamond Tiara’s eye and she nearly choked at the sight of Jeog speeding along behind them and to the left like a swooping hawk with legs. That thirty second head start hadn’t been nearly enough! Jeog was catching up to them with disturbing ease. The sight was just further proof in Diamond Tiara’s mind that her new friend was the same being that had saved her and Silver Spoon in the Everfree.
Silver Spoon spotted Jeog’s swift approach next, and gave a sharp whistle that got Gentle Lea’s attention. The other filly looked, seemed briefly startled, then shared a look with Silver Spoon. The two appeared to reach an unspoken agreement and both made a quick turn to the right. Diamond Tiara struggled to keep up, swinging out wider to the left of the other pair.
Jeog sped in between them, forcing Diamond Tiara to go more left, like a gazelle being led off from the herd. Diamond Tiara put her head down and galloped faster, her little pink legs tearing up the ground in a blur. There was a small thrill of fear inside her, yet she was more energized by it than genuinely scared. She cut to the right, looking to link back up with Silver Spoon and Gentle Leaf. A gray bolt of fur leaping from the bushes behind her made her gasp as she threw herself into a quick jumping bound.
Jeog laughed behind her, and Diamond Tiara felt a tug at her tail. When she glanced back, however, Jeog wasn’t behind her, but rather further to her right, grinning so wide Diamond Tiara was certain she could see canines.
Jeog made another pass, rushing hard in at Diamond and swiping with a hoof, one that for a moment almost looked more like a paw. It narrowly missed Diamond Tiara’s tail again, just snagging a few hairs for a second. Giggling, Jeog trailed just behind Diamond Tiara again.
She’s toying with me. Like a cat with a mouse. Well, I’m a fast little mouse!
Lowering her head, already panting like mad from exertion but somehow just not caring about the burning in her legs or lungs, Diamond Tiara put on a burst of speed. Up ahead she saw the forest rise up a bit into a short ridge. Strangely Silver Spoon and Gentle Leaf were there, just standing on the ridge, rather than running. When they spotted Diamond Tiara and Jeog coming in Silver Spoon shouted something that Diamond couldn’t make out, and Gentle Leaf shook her hooves in an obvious ‘stop’ gesture.
Only Diamond was moving way too fast to just stop on a dime. She went right up the ridge even as she dug her hooves in to try to stop herself, pure momentum carrying all the way to the top of the ridge, precariously balanced on the other side.
Jeog, clearly having not anticipated such a sudden stop, bowled right into Diamond Tiara. Their flailing limbs caught Silver Spoon and Gentle Leaf as well, and all four fillies went tumbling down the ridge in a fuzzy, multi-colored tangle. The avalanche of filly limbs ended with a resounding crash into something hard and made of wood, but not so sturdy that four fillies tumbling into it didn’t break it with an audible snap of wooden planks.
Groaning and aching all over, Diamond Tiara saw stars through her swimming vision, and slowly tried to disentangle herself from her friends.
“Ugh, who’s hoof is this?” Silver Spoon asked, and at the hoof’s silent wiggle she said, “Oh, Gentle Leaf. I guess the color should’ve given that away.”
“Is this how tag is played?” asked a dazed Jeog from the top of the pile, “Does this mean everyone is ‘it’ now?”
“N-not normally, Jeog. Hey, Silver Spoon, Gentle Leaf, why’d you two stop like that? Owowow, I think I’ve got a splinter in my flank.”
“Good, ya can git yer cutie mark in’ wreakin’ other ponies stuff then,” said a thickly accented and irate voice from above.
Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes, partially in exasperation at her rotten luck, and partially so she could get a look at Apple Bloom’s deeply frowning face that glared down at her and her friends from the top of the stairs leading to a red painted treehouse. Clambering to her hooves alongside the other fillies, Diamond Tiara saw that they’d rolled right into a relatively clear area with one major tree in the middle where a well crafted and sizable treehouse was built. There was also a log table and benches near the treehouse, a small piano of all things, and most pertinent at the moment a wooden ramp and loop-de-loop that was now in several broken pieces after Diamond and her friends had tumbled into it.
“What was that racket?” came a shout from inside the treehouse, and Scootaloo popped her head out of one of the windows, her eyes locking onto the ruined ramp. “What they hay!? My ramp!”
The little pegasus buzzed her wings and didn’t really fly, per se, so much as angrily buzzed out the window and landed on the grass like a highly agitated bee. “What do you jerks think you’re doing!?”
“Breakin’ our stuff is what,” Apple Bloom said, trotting down the treehouse’s stairs and joining Scootaloo in marching towards them.
“Girls? What’s going on?” Sweetie Belle poked out of the treehouse last, her eyes scanning the scene and almost immediately twitching at the sight as she groaned, “Great. Just great. And the afternoon was nice and quiet, too.”
Diamond Tiara shared worried glances with Silver Spoon, who was recovering her glasses and cleaning them off as she frowned at the situation. Gentle Leaf looked properly scared, shrinking back from the approaching CMC members. Meanwhile Jeog stood very, very still, practically a statue as she stared at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. Diamond Tiara couldn’t tell if Jeog was scared, nonplussed, or what, as her expression was still as an ice pond. Gulping, Diamond Tiara stepped forward, offering an apologetic grimace.
“We’re really sorry Scootaloo. We were just playing and it was totally an accident.”
“Yeah, sure, an accident. Because you guys totally don’t have it in for us,” Scootaloo spat with so much heat in her tone Diamond was surprised she didn’t see steam coming from the filly’s ears.
“We don’t.” said Silver Spoon, “Seriously, this was an accident.”
“Like how yer little gray friend there ruined my bow the other day was an accident?” Apple Bloom asked with a sardonic lift of her eyebrow, making Diamond Tiara realize that she wasn’t wearing her trademark mane bow today.
“Was it really stained that badly?” she asked.
“Yeah, an’ it ain’t like I can just replace it ‘neither. But ya know what, that ain’t here nor there right now. What’re ya’ll gonna do ‘bout Scoots busted ramp, huh? We had to scrounge up plenty o’ bits just ta git the wood ta build it, ya know?” Apple Bloom trotted right up to Diamond Tiara, almost snout to snout, but at she did so a pair of gray forms got in her way.
Apple Bloom blinked then snorted. “Oh, now there’s two of ya protectin’ her?”
Silver Spoon turned a surprised glance at Jeog, who mimicked the look, as both of them had moved to step in Apple Bloom’s way at practically the same instant and had taken up equally protective stances. Silver Spoon adjusted her glasses and managed a small smile, nodding to Jeog before turning her attention back to Apple Bloom. “Looks that way. Besides we all broke the ramp, so your beef is with all of us, not just Diamond. Now how much did that ramp cost?”
“All the wood and nails cost us twenty bits, easy!” Scootaloo said, moving so that she circled slightly around to the right of the group, her wings still buzzing in obvious anger.
Diamond Tiara winced. Twenty bits might have been small change for any working adult. Even her parents, low earners that they were, would still have that on hoof. But for foals that was anywhere from one to two month’s allowance, easy, and that was for foals that actually got allowances. It wasn’t exactly the kind of coin a foal just had on them.
“You want shiny coins, yes?” said Jeog suddenly, eyes glittering. “Then here.”
Diamond Tiara had no idea where Jeog got it from, but it was like she just reached into her big, bushy gray tail and whipped out a cloth bag that made a loud, audible clink of coins as she tossed it to Apple Bloom.
“Jeog, where did you get that from?” Diamond Tiara asked, and Jeog simply shrugged, not answering, her eyes intent on Apple Bloom.
“Filled with the shiny coins you like, isn't’ it?” Jeog asked, her voice oddly... resonant for a second. Apple Bloom’s eyes shone as she opened the bag. Diamond Tiara couldn’t see what was inside, but it did shine with a dull gold light like bits did.
“Don’t know why ya got so much on ya, but this’ll do fine.”
“They still busted up our stuff,” Scootaloo said with frustration.
Apple Bloom shrugged, “Yeah, but long as we can build it again then I ain’t got a’ problem. It was fun building it anyway, right Scoots?”
“I guess so.”
“Well then guess ya’ll can scram, far as I’m concerned-”
“Wait up,” said Sweetie Belle suddenly, eyes narrowing. “Something isn’t right here.”
“What’d ya mean?” Apple Bloom asked, and Sweetie Belle approached her, eyeing the bag with hard suspicion. Suddenly the little unicorn’s horn lit up with pale green magic, the aura grasping the bag and lifting it up.
Jeog stiffened, and Diamond Tiara wondered what was going on and what might have set Sweetie Belle off, but inside of a few moments the ‘bag’ suddenly burst into bright, icy blue flames. Most everypony there gasped and backed away as the bag faded to nothing, leaving only a few blue embers drifting in the air.
“What n’ tarnation was that!?” Apple Bloom shouted, then glared at Jeog, “What’re ya tryin’ ta swindle us with? Magic?”
“But she isn’t a unicorn,” Sweetie Belle said musingly, “I just felt weird magic in the air.”
“Well I don’t care!” shouted Scootaloo, “You jerks owe us and now you tried to lie to us! So you know what, no more miss nice filly! I’m just taking something valuable from you!”
Sweetie Belle frowned, “Scootaloo wait, we don’t have to-”
But it was entirely too late. Scootaloo couldn’t fly, but she could hover up a decent height, and she proceeded to do so and dive bombed Jeog like a over-sized, buzzing wasp. Jeog took the hit straight in the chest, getting bowled over by Scootaloo. The two went rolling around, Jeog letting out a high pitched, very un-filly like snarl, while Scootaloo's limbs flailed in random punches.
Unfortunately the two bowled straight into Gentle Leaf, the blow knocking her bundled up mane loose and sending her iron manepin spinning to the ground a few paces away.
“Gentle Leaf!” Silver Spoon ran up to check on the other filly while Scootaloo and Jeog wrestled around.
“Apple Bloom, do something!” Diamond Tiara cried, “Help me pry them apart before somepony gets hurt.”
Apple Bloom was scowling, but she gave a grave nod. “Ya, fine, ya git yer pal, I’ll git mine. C’mon Scoots, cut it out!”
The two started to gallop towards the wrestling fillies, only it was just then that the two rolling and punching little ponies tumbled right over the iron manepin, with Jeog’s back getting pricked by the sharp end.
The result was instantaneous.
First was a ear splitting, monstrous howl of shocked agony that ripped out of Jeog’s throat, distorted from a filly’s voice into something entirely phantasmal and unnatural as it pierced the air. The filly’s ice blue eyes shot open unnaturally wide, and her entire form distorted.
It was just like what Diamond Tiara had briefly seen that morning when Jeog had been having that disturbed sleep in her bed. Only now the transformation was clear and more complete as the ‘filly’ that had been Jeog seemed to blow up and pop like a balloon, her form tearing away in ragged motes of azure fire. What was left in her place was a much larger form, a giant fox with thick fur of a light gray and blue tinted shade. A thin, vulpine face blazed with pain and anger, Jeog’s eyes still the same frosty pale blue but now with slitted pupils. Her maw was filled with sharp teeth, bared in a snarl. Nine, wide bushy tails writhed behind her as she took huge paws and in pure, pained reflex, swiped them at Scootaloo.
Scootaloo, to her credit, showed her natural athleticism and reflexes by buzzing away in a gliding jump, although by the look on her face her actions were a reaction of pure terror rather than a conscious evasion. Still, the move kept the swiping paw from taking her throat out, and instead just left a shallow set of scratch marks on her shoulder.
“Jeog!” Diamond Tiara shouted, while everypony else was either frozen in horror, or swiftly backing away.
“What n’ tarnation is that thing!?” Apple Bloom said, dumbfounded.
“Scootaloo, are you okay!?” Sweetie Belle, shouted, running to her friend, who was wincing in pain and holding her lightly bleeding shoulder.
“Ugh, y-yeah.”
Silver Spoon was holding Gentle Leaf, who was shaking like her namesake, staring wide eyed at the creature that now stood in Jeog’s place. Diamond Tiara, realizing just how serious things had just gotten, felt her stomach freezing over as she took a tentative step towards the large vulpine being, who was still growling and looking around wild eyed. She could see the spot on the fox creature where the iron manepin had struck. There was an wound there that bled small bits of flicker blue fire, as if the fox didn’t have blood inside her, but rather was made of the blue flames.
“J-Jeog, please, calm down.” Diamond Tiara said. She recognized Jeog, of course. She knew this was the same being that had saved her and Silver Spoon in the Everfree Forest. She had to somehow salvage this situation.
But Jeog’s eyes fluttered in a rapid set of blinks, as if she was only just now coming to realize what she was doing. A bewildered and frankly frightened look came over her fox-like features and the large vulpine backed away from Diamond Tiara, her paws digging up the ground as she scrambled back. Jeog looked about at the fearful expressions on the faces of the foals around her, briefly settled on the injured Scootaloo, and Diamond Tiara saw a flash of regret in the fox’s eyes before Jeog turned around and fled with a burst of incredible speed.
“Jeog, wait!” Diamond Tiara shouted, galloping after her.
She heard Silver Spoon shouting behind her, but didn’t hear what the words were. She just knew that if she let Jeog get away now, she’d might never see her again, or have any chance at setting things right.
----------
The pain in her back from the hated, burning iron was a pale ache in comparison to the way she felt inside. Jeog had not felt like this in some time, a mixture of inwardly directed anger, shame, and the hollow feeling of knowing she was going to be alone again. There was a dose of fear mixed in there too, because she knew her error in exposing herself would bring the Hunter. She could not afford to stay in Ponyville any longer.
Reaching her lair she went inside swiftly, looking around at the random piles of junk. Was there anything here she truly valued? Just useless trinkets she’d taken on random whims. The only thing of real importance was the growing collection of bits she had hidden in one pile that she was going to give to Diamond Tiara, but if she was leaving then was there even a point to that.
Well, perhaps as a parting gift. Diamond Tiara had been... nice. It could be a final gesture, before Jeog moved on. As for this lair, it was made up of old, easily flammable wood. Burning it down to destroy any trackable trace of her being here would make the most sense.
“Jeog, are you here?”
She nearly jumped to the roof in startled surprised. She’d been so focused on her own thoughts even her keen hearing and scent had missed Diamond Tiara’s approach. Somehow the filly had managed to follow her all the way here? Jeog didn’t know whether to be baffled, or impressed.
Wrapping herself in a cloak of foxfire, turning invisible, she backed up against the wall of her cabin lair, staying quiet.
Diamond Tiara was outlined against the cabin door, the small filly trotting inside cautiously, looking around with searching eyes. Jeog smelled no fear from Diamond Tiara, however, or rather what she scented coming off the filly was anxiety and worry, which were much drier and moldy scents than fear’s sharp tang.
“Wow... you’ve collected a lot of stuff,” Diamond Tiara whispered as she looked amid the piled up collections of junk. “How long have you lived out here?”
Jeog stayed silent, not daring to move as Diamond Tiara searched about the cabin. She ran a pink hoof over some of Jeog’s old scrawlings of boredom, the swirling and geometric shapes seeming to draw the filly in. “These are neat. You did them all yourself?”
Jeog didn’t respond, but her tails flicked behind her, pleased despite herself at Diamond Tiara’s interest.
“Look, I know you’re in here,” Diamond Tiara said, voice filling with earnesty. “You don’t have to show yourself if you don’t want to. Just... listen.”
Diamond Tiara’s ears drooped, her posture growing heavy as she sat on her haunches. “I think I just screwed up big time. All this time I pretty much knew what you were, but I was scared that if I came on too strong with you that I might... I don’t know, frighten you off. I should have come right out and asked you if you were the one who saved me and Spoon back in the Everfree. Maybe then I’d know more about you and the whole situation just now wouldn’t have happened. I probably should have went to an adult... but... I was just worried you’d disappear, kinda like you are right now.”
Jeog’s jaws tightened with the rising feel of regret inside her at the sadness in Diamond Tiara’s voice. She didn’t like hearing it at all. Mortal emotions rarely made any sense to her, but she knew she didn’t like the way Diamond tiara sounded right now, and less the thought that she was the source of the filly’s discomfort.
She let the illusion of invisibility melt away from her, revealing her form to Diamond Tiara. She wondered if the filly would flinch at her true form, but Diamond just looked at her with a mix of relief and awe.
“Jeog, good, I... look I’m sorry about everything. I should have been upfront about all of this. Now I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”
“I will leave,” Jeog said plainly, her own tapered ears flattening against her head as she padded forward and flumped down in front of Diamond Tiara, her nine tails curling around her as she did so. Laying down, she was more on eye level with the filly, meeting Diamond’s worried stare. “I cannot stay here.”
“That’s not true. I mean, yeah some ponies are gonna freak, but it's not like you hurt Scootaloo that bad, and once we explain the situation I’m sure everything will be fine. I hope.”
“I shouldn’t have struck the orange one,” Jeog said plainly, her whole posture sagging. “I didn’t intend for that to happen. The pain, it brought out... what I am.”
“And what are you Jeog? Please, help me understand!” Diamond said emphatically, “I want to understand you. What happened back there?”
“It was the iron of Gentle Leaf’s pin. Iron... is bad for me. It hurts in a way few things can. It made me...” Jeog seemed to struggle for words, a small whine escaping her throat. “It made me be me. The me that’s underneath all the other me. The one that knows food, and pleasure, and pain, and clawing and snapping my jaws around throats, but... doesn’t know ball games, and ice cream, and tag, and that I should call people who hurt me ‘jerkface’ instead of tearing them to pieces.”
“W-well... the others will understand. Ponies will understand as long as we can explain it to them that you didn’t meant to hurt Scootaloo. You don’t have to go away.”
“You don’t understand, Diamond Tiara. I must go because my real form has been seen. Word will spread. The Hunter will come. She’ll hurt any who she finds me with,” Jeog said, the fear rising in her voice even as she spoke the words.
Confusion blossomed in Diamond Tiara’s eyes. “Hunter? What Hunter?”
“She has chased me for a long time, across land and ocean both. If she discovers I’m here, she’ll come. She’ll come with fire and iron and pain, and nothing will stop her except my leaving. If I leave, she may still come, but as long as I’m not here she shouldn't hurt anyone and will keep up the chase.”
“I don’t understand. Why is she chasing you? And it looks like you’ve been here a long time. Maybe she’s not after you anymore, whoever she is,” Diamond Tiara said quickly, but Jeog just frowned, shaking her head.
“She chases me because I am Jeog. Her Jeog. I... hurt her, long ago. Her and another. One who mattered to me. But there was fire, and death, and now she chases me, until she finds me, and takes from me what she wants. Death, and power. I know she still hunts me, even if I’ve stayed hidden for many passings of the moon. She’s the Hunter. It's what she does.”
“W-well so what!?” Diamond Tiara said, standing up now, a strong light burning in her eyes. “That doesn’t mean she’ll find you here, and if she does, well, we’ll stop her!”
“You don’t understand. Nothing stops the Hunter. Certainly not little ponies.”
This time Diamond Tiara shook her head, “Hey, this little pony has big friends. And... and here’s the thing, Jeog, even if you ran, others are going to find out about you anyway and look for you. You see I know others like you. Not, uh, normal ponies, you see? They’re from another place too. They can protect you from the Hunter, if she shows up.”
Jeog wasn’t sure what Diamond Tiara was talking about. Others like her? There were no others like her. Not for a very long time. A time before even Cho Yon.
“What do you mean?”
Diamond Tiara stepped towards Jeog, slowly raising a hoof. When Jeog didn’t flinch away, Diamond placed her hoof on Jeog’s snout and stroked it. “Will you trust me? I might not know for sure how everypony will react, and I’m pretty certain I’m, like, grounded forever after this... but if you can trust me, I promise I’ll have you meet my friends who are like you, and once they understand you’re not a threat then they can keep you safe from this Hunter.”
It sounded strange and hard to believe, and a part of Jeog’s instincts were yelling at her to just run away. It would be safer. Burn the cabin, and flee into the night. This land was large, and while the forests here were deep and easy to hide in, there were also many mountains, and canyons, and deep, deep caves she could lose herself inside. The Hunter might one, distant day find her... but not for a long time, and more importantly she couldn’t hurt Diamond Tiara or any other pony in Ponyville.
But she so sorely wanted to trust Diamond Tiara, and not lose what she had here. In only a few days she’d found more enjoyment in the presence of these ponies than she had in years of isolation. Was that worth the risk?
Looking at Diamond Tiara, and seeing the odd light of warmth glowing in those eyes, the mortal light that drew Jeog like a moth to fire, she was reminded of Cho Yon. Even if that had ended in pain, it had been worth the time spent with these special mortals. Unconsciously she leaned into Diamond Tiara’s hoof as it pet her snout, and she let out a heavy sigh.
“I... will stay. ”
“Well, it won’t be easy. After what just happened we’re going to have to do a lot of explaining, and you’ll probably have to earn some trust with them, but I think it’ll all work out.” said Diamond Tiara hopefully. “And who knows, it's possible this Hunter chick won’t ever show up. I mean it's been years right? Maybe she gave up.”
----------
During the evening the port town of Horseshoe Harbor was a quiet place, save for the collection of taverns strung out between the shipping warehouses along its docks. With the looming threat of potential kaiju attacks the sea trade had dropped off to a degree, but Equestrian sailors were brave and hearty folk so there were still plenty of ships moored at the piers and the taverns still mostly full with carousing ponies of the sea. One such tavern, McReedy’s, was particularly packed with three or four crews all washing away the day’s toils from their souls with generous amounts of alcohol.
“Oi, Reedy! Need s’more ale down here!” shouted one burly brown mare as she slammed an freshly drained mug on the table she sat at with a crew of similarly motley sailors.
The whipcord thin old stallion behind the bar with a wispy white mane and faded black coat waved a withered hoof and snagged a mug from the shelf with a glow of unicorn magic, filling it from the tap and floating it over as he said, “Gonna run your tab to a new high Rudder if you keep this up. You even planning on going back to your ship tonight or am I going to have to drag you all out onto the street after you pass out?”
“Ah piss on it Reeds, me and the boys are making good coin running cargo while other crews are shaking over some giant lizards running amok inland. Phah! Everypony around here scares too easy. Hey Tack! What was that story you keep telling? The one you say made you wet your tail back in the day?”
One of the ponies of Rudder’s crew, a stubby pegasus stallion of gray colorings looked sourly away from his Captain. “Aw c’mon Captain’, ya know I don’t like tellin’ that one.”
Rudder let out a belly born laugh, elbowing the much smaller pegasus. “Bah, it's hilarious though! How’d it go? Was like two ‘r three years back, right?”
“I don’t rightly remember. Awhile ago. You’re just gonna bug me until I tell it, ain’t ya?”
“Sure as I’m drunk as a waterlogged merpony,” Rudder said, grinning.
Tack muttered into his drink, taking a long pull, then drew himself up and began his tail. “Right, fine then. So here’s how it goes. You all see, back in the day I was working the docks as a simple hauler. One day I was on shift and saw washing up into the harbor a whole mess of wreckage. Happens sometimes a ship or two that gets taken out by pirates and scuttled will have bits washing up on our shores, due to how close we are to the current that runs out east. Now when that happens the dockmaster does his thing and contacts the naval authorities, but in the meantime it's free salvage for us to check if there’s anything useful in the wreckage.”
The pegasus took another drink, clearly steeling himself. “I knew right away this weren’t a normal wreak. You see it was a clear day all that morning, but when that wreckage started washing up, a fog came with it. Thick as curdled milk that fog was, and cold as fresh frost. I didn’t want to go combing the beach in that fog, but the dock master wasn’t hearing any of it, so me and a few others were sent out looking among the broken up stuff to see if any of it was valuable. I tell you, I knew something wasn’t right from the get go. So we started picking through the stuff, and I knew this wreckage had to be from pirates or something worse. So much of the wood was burned up. And I swear some of the wreckage had claw marks on it, big as my head I tell you. But that wasn’t the worst of it by half.”
Rudder grinned into her mug, “This is the best part.”
Off to the side, in one of the darker lit corner tables, a heavily cloaked figure leaned forward, gold eyes focused on the table with Rudder and her crew with keen interest. Unknowing of his additional audience Tack went on, his voice dropping to a hushed and fearful octave.
“The worst was when we found this... this beast washed up atop one the biggest pieces of the wreckage. Gray and shaggy it was, and at first we thought it might’ve been dead... but soon as we stepped close to it the thing leaped to its paws and let out such a howl I thought it stopped my heart for a second. Like a horrible, monstrous fox or wolf it was, with piercing eyes that looked to steal the soul of any that looked at it. I swear on my mother’s grave it had a tangle of tails behind it like writhing tentacles that lashed out blue fire at us, like from the depths of Tartarus! Dang near scared my coat white, and I know if I hadn’t fled for my life I might never have seen another day again.”
Rudder let out a raucous burst of laughter, slapping the table with a heavy hoof, joined by the rest of the crew as Tack grumbled. “Well, it was dang scary at the time.”
“Hahaah! Oh, Tack, gets me every time, that story. Probably just found a washed up cat and was so scared you thought you saw a crazy beast. Then again, I’ve seen some cats when they get put in the bath, I’d mistake ‘em for beats from Tartarus too. Hah!”
“Where did this beast go?”
All eyes at the table turned at the sound of that voice. Cold and razor sharp, like a whip of rime coated iron, the voice arrested attention while at the same time causing a shiver to discomfort to those that heard it. The voice was feminine, but there was nothing soft or chiming about it. The figure it belonged to was looming, covered in a thick, black cloak with the hood pulled up to shadow the bearer’s face in deep shadow. Only two gold eyes shone out from the depths, like twin daggers.
Rudder’s own overcast gray eyes narrowed as she turned her bulk in her seat, facing the cloaked figure with a frank look. “What’s it to you, an’ for that matter who in blazes are you?”
The rest of the crew tensed as the figure in the cloak remained silent for a second, some hooves moving towards knives or cudgels sheathed through sashes or belts.
“I see you want to be difficult about this for no reason...” the figure said in a musing tone, and Rudder drained her mug of ale and tossed it aside, staring at the cloaked individual.
“What can I say, I’m a difficult mare, and I don’t like strangers questioning my crew until I know who they are and if they’ve got coin to make the questions worth my while.”
By now the other crews seated at various tables had taken note of the confrontation and had halted their own carousing to watch. Unbeknownst to anyone else in the tavern there was one particular patrol in another corner who was watching the cloaked figure with similar interest to what the cloaked one had shown Rudder’s crew. She was a unicorn mare with a midnight black coat, and a flaring orange mane streaked with red and yellow strands. Red eyes twinkled with amused interest as this unicorn mare silently watched the scene unfold.
Meanwhile the cloaked figure stared at Rudder, and there was the smallest hint of a smile in the shadows of the hood. “Well, I have no coin, but perhaps you’ll take something else as payment for the information instead.”
“Oh yeah, what’s tha-” Rudder began to ask, but didn’t finish her sentence before the cloaked figure exploded into motion.
An emerald coated hoof dusted with pearl white scales smashed into Rudder’s jaw faster than the ship captain could blink. The blow lifted the not-so-slim mare right out of her chair and sent her flying head over tail across the tavern to smash into the far wall with enough force to crack the wood. Before any of her crew could properly drop their mouths open in shock or pull weapons free the figure flowed right into two more sweeping strikes, one chopping hoof ramming a sailor’s head straight into and through the table while a back kicking hind leg crunched into another sailor’s chest and sent him skidding across the floor like a hockey puck to bounce off another table, topping it over.
The remaining three sailors at the table had just enough time now to stand, pulling weapons in shaking hooves or mouths. Tack himself, eyes shooting wide like the full moon, flapped his wings in a rush to try and flee only to find his whole body encased in an aura of tightly squeezing gold colored magic.
“Stay.” the hooded figure commanded, “Our business is not concluded.”
“Bollocks to that you crazy hag!” shouted one of the other sailors, stabbing in with a long, curved knife. The cloaked figure spun away from the strike with the speed and grace of a dancing firefly. Even so the sailor was not inexperienced with his knife and the strike was accurate enough that it still tore a long, ragged cut through the cloak, causing it to spill away from the figure it hid.
The cloak billowed up in a field of gold magic, wrapping around the knife wielding sailor’s body like he was burrito and holding aloft just long enough for a fast striking kick to send him hurtling across the tavern and through a window to crash into the street outside in an unconscious heap.
By now Rudder had staggered to her hooves, dazed, with her jaw incredibly sore, but the mare equally hacked off as she glared at the one attacking her and her crew... although she blinked at the sight.
Beneath the cloak was a tall, lithe and feminine form. She had equine features, but smooth and exotic, with almond shaped eyes of blazing gold set in a beautiful but somehow feral face. The mare’s beauty was marred by such hardened, pitilessness that looking at her was like seeing a statue of pure carved jade permanently stained by shadow. The effect was emphasized by several ragged scars that marked her face and neckline. Smooth white scales tipped her snout and ran down her neck and chest, while also gracing the lengths of her legs. If that wasn’t enough to show her foreign nature, the long, curved horns sweeping up and back from her head like the antlers of a deer, currently wreathed in gold magic, certainly did the trick. A deep, raven dark mane of hair fell down past the mare’s shoulders, the straight strands perhaps once being well groomed but now having the dusty, split quality of a mane that had seen a lot of hard travel. Her tail was long and almost serpentine, marked by more pearl scales and a length of more black, raven hairs until they formed an elegant, fan-like tuft at the end.
Even if the mare wasn’t wearing a dark, emerald and gold trimmed, form fitting outfit that Rudder recognized as an eastern martial arts gi, she would have recognized the features of the mare as those of a kirin from the Eastern realms. The gi itself was well worn and tattered in a few places, and sported numerous added belts with pockets and small satchels, along with a long bandoleer of crossbow bolts across the chest. The crossbow the bolts were form was slung over the kirin’s back, a bulky affair of dark wood and a strange, top mounted wooden disc combined with multiple bronze cranking mechanisms that were forged into the crossbow’s stock. The mare also wore a prominent wooden token around her neck, which held an inlay of silver metal forming words that Rudder thought was Carrean, not that she could read it.
“Who are you?” Rudder asked, glowering at the kirin, who looked right at her even as Rudder’s last standing crew member tried to lunge for the kirin’s back. With a contemptuous look the kirin side-stepped the lunging sailor and her cudgel, performing a swift and graceful arm throw that sent the sailor crashing to the floor hard enough to break several floorboards.
“Not one to trifle with. This could have been much easier on you and your crew, captain, if you simply cooperated with me. Now your pain and theirs is your responsibility to bear, until I have what I want,” the kirin said in that same whip cord sharp tone she’d started the conversation with.
By now most the rest of the tavern had cleared out. Rudder hadn’t really expected help from any of the other crews anyway, but hopefully one of them was going to get the town constables. She bared her teeth in a snarl, preparing to charge the kirin, but there was an audible click from nearby as McReedy hefted his own crossbow, of a much simpler Equestrian design, and aimed it at the kirin’s back.
“Can’t have ya wreakin’ my bar, miss, or given my customers concussions. How about you leave nice, slow, and peaceful like?”
The kirin’s eyes didn’t even turn towards McReedy, but Rudder saw something in those gold eyes that froze her to her core, and she thought she saw the kirin’s mane start to twitch on its own, like a tense nest of snakes.
“You do not wish to interfere with me, old one. Your bar is mere wood that can be repaired. The pain of these fools will pass, as long as none of them are truly stupid enough to withhold what I desire. If they are, well...” the kirin didn’t so much smile as just quirk her lips in a disturbingly crazed manner, and the magic holding Tack in place tightened around him, bending one of his wings at an increasingly unnatural angle, eliciting a squeak of pain from the stocky pegasus. “I cannot promise what will happen, then.”
McReedy clearly didn’t like that answer, and with a grim glint in his eye he pulled the trigger on his crossbow. The bolt flew right for the kirin’s neck, but just before it could hit there was a blinding snap of motion that caught the bolt dead still in the air. Rudder and McReedy both starred in pure shock at what they were seeing.
Twisting around and writhing like a living thing, the kirin’s mane had come to life and curled around the crossbow bolt, stopping it in mid-air. The kirin’s eyes slowly slid over to McReedy with cold intent, and as if in response to some mental command her living mane constricted around the bolt it had caught and snapped it in half, dropping the two pieces to the ground.
“What the...?” McReedy breathed, and his magic flared, stumbling around trying to get out another bolt to load into his crossbow. Before he could do more than fumble the bolt up, the kirin snorted and her tail now lashed out. It extended impossibly long, flowing like a forest of black kelp to snake around McReedy and lift him off the floor. In a mere instant the kirin flicked her unnaturally writhing tail and slammed McReedy across the back of his bar, smashing mugs and glasses in a torrent until she flipped the old pony into one of the vacated tables.
Fear gripped Rudder, who had no earthly idea what this kirin was, but she’d always found anger a ready and easy counter to fear so she roared in challenge and galloped headlong towards the monstrous kirin mare. She tried to bull rush into the kirin, only to find the mare moving aside with the ease of mist and lashed out a forearm to clothesline Rudder across the chest, the force of the blow hard enough to spin the big mare around and slam hard into the ground.
Coughing, but adrenaline, fear, and rage pouring power into her hooves Rudder surged upwards and threw a hard and fast punch straight for the kirin’s face. To her surprise she managed to connect, feeling a meaty smack as she knocked the kirin’s head back for a second. Only to her equal surprise the kirin looked back at her with barely a hair of her mane out of place. Rudder was stunned. She knew she was a strong mare, probably the strongest of the captains sailing around these parts. She’d beaten minotaurs in arm wrestling contests.
Yet this kirin had taken one of her best punches with barely a batted eyelash.
The kirin’s return punch was fast as jade lightning and made Rudder’s vision darken. She felt her body numb and spin to the floor, and this time when she tried to stand she felt something strong and hard as thick boat ropes wrap around her limbs and torso, holding her fast to the floor on her back. Blinking she saw it was the kirin’s freakish mane again, the black strands of it thickly coiling around Rudder and holding her as strongly as any chains.
Looming over her, the kirin stared down at Rudder with eyes that held not a trace of warmth or concern as she raised a hoof and almost too gently placed it on Rudder’s chest.
“Now... Tack, was it?” the kirin said. “I’m going to ask again; where did the beast you saw go?”
“Y-you can’t get away with this!” Tack shouted, “Help will be here any second! The constables, t-they’ll deal with you!”
“I’m certain local authorities will arrive eventually. Do you think they will fare better than you and your crew did?” the kirin’s voice was level and cold as a frozen lake as Rudder felt that hoof press down with unnatural strength. Rudder tried to hold it in, but she grunted in pain as she felt her ribs start to crack.
“Once more I’ll ask; where did the beast go? Consider carefully. Your captain only has so many bones in her body.”
Rudder tried to speak, but that hoof pressed harder, forcing the air out of Rudder’s lungs and the pain in her chest to double. Tack stammered, eyes wild with fear.
“I-I-I-I d-don’t know! I s-swear I don’t!”
The thick strands of black mane around Rudder’s left forearm started to constrict, bending the elbow back further and further until she could feel the muscles start to tear. Against her will a cry of pain ripped itself from Rudder’s throat. The kirin’s voice stayed calm, level, and remorseless.
“Think harder, Tack. Surely you must remember some detail? Such a beast leaves an impression on the mind. You must know something of where it may have gone.”
Gulping and sucking in lungfuls of terrified air, Tack managed ot steady his voice and say, “I...I think maybe... maybe I heard it keep howling, as I ran. It sounded like it was going inland. Uh, uh, w-west! West I think! That’s all I remember, I swear it!”
“Ah...” the kirin sighed, and Rudder felt the pressure leave her chest and limbs as the kirin stepped back, her mane releasing Rudder and her golden magic dropping Tack. “There. So much trouble for something so small. Do consider just being cooperative next time? It would have spared you so much discomfort.”
With that the kirin turned and trotted from the tavern with all the casual air of a mare who’d simply finished her drink, and not one who’d just demolished half the bar and tortured some sailors. In the silence that followed all Rudder could hear was her own ragged, pained breathing.
And nopony took notice of the strange black unicorn who’d watched the whole affair as she silently glided out of the tavern and followed the kirin.