The New Routine
Sleep was difficult that night. So much had happened, a party, new town, freaking royalty, and Magic (yes, with a capital M).
Tomorrow is the first day I’ll be spending in town. I’ll have to plan out my stops and make a schedule based on that for when I’ll be learning to fly, use magic if at all possible, and manners. Note to self; hit the Apple place first, early to bed early to rise and all that jazz, they’ll be the first ones up.
With a plan for the day ahead my mind finally began to calm down enough for sleep to reach me.
***
I woke covered in dew that morning just as the sun was breaking the horizon. The smell of grass and earth filled my senses as I took a deep breath to get ready for the day. I pushed myself up and grabbed my coat, throwing it over my back like saddle bags. Looking around to get my bearings again I could see the Apple’s orchards not far from me and a small cottage off to my side.
I made my way around the orchard and eventually reached a cleared out area with a barn and a two story house just behind it on a hill. The sun was about halfway above horizon by now and as I approached the barn I could hear the sound of people–err Ponies hard at work. The barn doors were wide open so I looked inside. There were two ponies, the one I had come to know as Applejack and a large red pony with a cross section of a green apple on his flank. This red pony looked as powerfully built as Applejack and a good bit taller than myself.
“Applejack, I can see that you’re busy, but do you have a moment?”
She glanced at me, said something to the large red pony then trotted over to me.
“What’cha need?”
“Do you need another farm hand? I don’t know how long I’ll be here for and I need both a job and a place to get back on my hooves.” This pony lingo is starting to stick.
“I think we could use another bucker, it’s getting close to bucking season anyway. Big Mac! You think you could show Bastion here how to buck apples and land them in a bucket?”
Big Mac, the large red pony, replied with a loud deep, “Ayup”.
He grabbed a large stack of baskets before sliding them over to me and grabbing a bigger one for himself. Dragging his large stack of baskets he headed into the orchard to an area with large very ripe apples.
“Find where the ripest apples are, put the basket there, and then buck.”
He moved the basket under a large group of almost over ripe apples before heading over to a tree and kicking it with is back legs. The tree shuddered from the force of the blow which echoed throughout the orchard as dozens of apples fell into the basket. One or two fell around the basket but they seemed to be over ripe and fell with a splat.
“We leave these as compost for the trees, now you.”
I put a basket under where I thought the ripest ones were and hoped for the best before kicking as hard as I could against the tree. The shock running up my legs from the impact was like hitting a metal pole with metal baseball bat. Painful to say the least however, the apples hit their mark… mostly, I got about two thirds of them. The rest fell next to the basket. Big Mac picked the cleanest ripe ones up and put them in the basket, he put the rest in another basket.
“We’ll clean them later. You’ll get it sooner or later.”
He grunted in what seemed to be approval and then went to work on his own trees. I went to work on some in the area doing what I was shown till about what I assumed to be nine o’clock.
A triangle (you know; the instrument) starting ringing up at the barn. Upon hearing this Big Mac started dragging his baskets to the barn. He had about twice what I had because I had to stop to grab missed apples, and to let my legs feel better after each blow. I followed his example and when we had finished Applejack, who had been ringing the triangle, asked me to eat with them.
“You put in as much work as could be needed fer a meal so eat up and relax for the rest of today. I recon that you’ll be hurtin’ tomorrow since I doubt your used ta this kinda thing.”
I ate and thanked them for the meal and the job. I was told that I could sleep in the bar from here on out, there was enough room in the house but I didn’t want to impose.
I figured that Rarity’s place would be next since I would be too tired to argue or get upset when things didn’t work out quite right, which they probably would. I took a shower before leaving; I didn’t think Rarity would be particularly happy if I came in smelling like hard work and dirt.
***
The Carousel Boutique wasn’t too hard to find. It actually looked a bit like a carousel and was one of the pinkest buildings in town. I opened the door since it was a shop rather than just a house and heard a bell chime.
“I’ll be with you in just a minute.” Rarity’s voice chimed from further in the building.
The entrance room appeared to be somewhat of a show room. There were clothes dummies here and there with extravagant dresses, some with tuxes, and some with more conservative styles that could almost be called clothes, but I’m a marine and a guy. I know nothing about fashion.
When Rarity came around the corner she looked slightly shocked that I was the one who was there. I take it I wasn’t exactly expected.
“I was wondering if you could help me with learning how society works around here and… basic etiquette… since it seems I have none here.”
Her shocked expression became slightly more shocked after what I had said. Is that a no?
“Darling, I knew there was a reason I thought I would like you. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one.”
Oh god, what have I gotten myself into.
***
Just after lunch, I also needed to learn how to eat correctly. By the end of it all, Rarity’s hair was slightly frazzled and she looked exhausted. I’d broken a few of her cups and a plate on top of only getting a quarter of what were the rules to a ‘proper’ conversation correct. We both needed something to work off our stress. Exercise worked best for me so I escaped by saying I needed to meet Rainbow Dash soon, and asked where I MIGHT find her at this time of day. The Cutie Mark Crusaders tree house at Sweet Apple Acres was not what I was hoping to hear. She said she was going to meet Fluttershy at the spa.
When I found the tree house I heard the groan of a blue and rainbow colored pony. Rainbow was there indeed, and was groaning over the fact that the cutie mark crusaders weren’t there to talk about how cool she was.
“Rainbow Dash! You were going to teach me how to fly?”
Dash flew towards me looked me in the eyes.
“You sure you’re up for it. It’s going to be hard; I’m going to train you ruthlessly till you’re as good as I am. I’m going to work you till you can’t move a wing muscle. Do you think you can handle my training?”
I looked at her snorted. Then openly laughed, it reminded me of boot camp. There was a small Drill Instructor who had to get a stool every time she wanted to chew someone out, and while Rainbow Dash wasn’t much shorter than me, her coloration just set the memory off.
“Looks like I’m back in boot camp.”
Rainbow Dash looked at me like I was nuts for a second before deciding I was just pumped and ready to go. She lead us to hill that over looked a lake.
“You need to learn to glide before you can fly. Spread your wings, lock the muscles, run and jump off the cliff. Once you do that just keep your rump up to prevent your wings from tilting up to high or you’ll start going backwards. Also, try not to look down yet, you don’t want to go into a dive when you don’t mean to.”
I followed her directions, took a deep breath, jumped, and looked down… why did I look down? I was in the water in seconds. As I dragged my soaked self out of the water I could hear Rainbow gasping for breath.
“You jumped, and started to glide, then fall SPLASH!” *gasp* “Hilarious. I mean… you’ll do better this time.”
My wings felt five pounds heavier when coated with water, after a few minutes of trying they lightened up. I tried again and managed not to look down but failed to keep my rear up and level like I was told. I started to tilt back and over corrected going ‘top over teakettle’ into the drink. On the third time I finally got it right. After that Rainbow had me do it countless times, said I needed to work on my wing strength by gliding before I could fly and I had to do it with my wings drenched… my back was killing me after just three attempts. By the end of ten attempts I was allowed to rest for the day. You try counting ten exercises when your body is beat and see just how hard it is.
“You didn’t do to bad for a first try. I’ll see you here tomorrow at the same time.”
With that she left and I headed for Twilight’s place. It was around evening now.
***
It was easy enough to get back to Twilight’s place, it was the only one built out of a giant tree. I knocked on the door and heard a voice from the inside that sounded like Spike from what I could remember.
“Were closed because Twilight is out on business today, come back tomorrow.”
“So where can I find Twilight?”
The door burst open and Spike looked at me with a slightly stunned look.
“Where were you? Twilight has been looking everywhere for you! First at Sugar Cube Corner asking Pinkie, then Applejack’s place, after that was Rarity’s, and now she’s out checking Fluttershy’s cottage.”
“Will she be back soon?”
“Yeah, but she’s in ‘official duty’ mode so she might be a little cross with you. Well, come in and wait for her, it will be worse for you and me if you don’t.”
I followed the little dragon into the library and found couch to sit on. The library looked like everything had been put back in order since the events of the day before. It was lit by a few electric lights and some candles scattered around the place. Odd how there were some modern day things and some medieval era things all in the same area. They couldn’t possible have the technology of my world to work those things. Magic…
Twilight got back after a few minutes wait, Spike had grumbled something about making extra just before and now I knew why.
“Spike! I couldn’t find him today. Maybe he does know magic and was hiding. I hope dinner is ready I’m… WHEN DID YOU GET HERE?”
I flinched a bit; it seems she was rather bothered by the fact that I wasn’t where she expected me to be when she searched. I can’t imagine why.
“Never mind. Where were you, what did you do, did you cause trouble, why weren’t you here, I have to write this down and report it to Princess Celestia.”
I looked at Spike who was just setting plates on a nearby table.
“Is she always like this when her schedule doesn’t work out?”
“Every time. You get used to it. You two eat and talk; I’ll go get a quill and paper so we can write that report when we are done eating.”
It took a while to actually get to eating because of Twilight’s questions, eventually I reminded her that Spike made food for us all and it was getting cold. A letter was sent off to the Princesses shortly after eating. About this time, which was rather late, I decided to bring up a question I had for her.
“So this world has magic. You can use magic. Can you teach me how to use magic?”
Twilight spluttered for a second.
“I can teach you the theory, formulae, history, and how it works; but you’re not a unicorn. I can’t you how to ‘use’ magic, but I can teach you how you ‘would’ use magic if you were a unicorn. Just let me grab a few reference materials.”
There was a loud groan from Spike before he proclaimed he was going to bed. Three stacks of books later.
“Alright, these are the rudimentary guides on the theories of magic; these are ones by Starswirl the Bearded and his contributions to magical advancements. Over here we have the ‘Compendium of Magic Types’ and ‘How to Tell Something is Magic’…”
I grabbed one in the ‘Rudimentary guides’ pile and began reading… she droned on for a while. I fell asleep on her couch after the first chapter entitled, ‘Where does magic come from?”.