The mammoth walked down the great steps of Tarmok’s Hall while the pony flew next to him. The two naturally still had quite the audience and a number of mammoths around who clearly wished to speak with Rainbow Dash more but allowed her to just go with Larkon today out of politeness. Evening had approached and the streets were now illuminated by lanterns that must’ve been set up and lit while Rainbow Dash was inside the Hall.
“So where’s your home, big guy?” Rainbow Dash asked Larkon when they reached the open gate leading back out into the rest of the city.
“Not far, but still closer to the western side of the city. I’ll have you there in no time,” Larkon told her.
“Cool,” Dash nodded and thought about something. “So you have a family?”
Larkon nodded. “Yes, my wife and my two children. I’ll introduce you to them once we reach my home. By now my wife should have dinner ready so you can dine with us.”
“Great, I could use some grub,” Rainbow licked her lips.
“I’m sure you’ll love my wife’s cooking,” Larkon proudly said.
As they continued their walk to Larkon’s home they took a different route than the one Rainbow Dash had come on with Mallom. It was a side street with them in-between rows of homes, some with mammoths she could either see through the windows or out in their yards. Slowly the mammoths that had been following them from Tarmok’s Hall began to peter off, allowing Rainbow Dash some space and privacy. While flying side to side over Larkon’s head to check things out she looked into the front window of one home and saw a family of two mammoths and their rowdy kids just sitting down to eat dinner.
Rainbow Dash smiled. “You guys really have a nice city. Like honestly I’m impressed, I can probably count the places I’ve been to that have been this friendly and stuff on my hooves.”
Larkon also smiled although something about it was strangely forced. “I’m glad you have such a positive opinion about our city and people.”
She noticed that something was a little off with what he said and how he said it. Raising an eyebrow, Rainbow Dash flew down to eye-level with him and stared. “Uhhh… there something else you wanted to say? It kind of sounded like you didn’t agree with me.”
The big mammoth looked ahead and Rainbow Dash could hear him hum to himself. “Not quite. I love my people and this city dearly, and I do believe we’re quite a kind and friendly civilization nowadays.” His eye turned back to look at her. “But nowhere’s perfect. I have a duty to tell you that, and to warn you that you may not be so warmly received by everyone in this city.”
“Well I kind of figured that not everybody up here would be totally happy to suddenly see a creature they’ve maybe only ever heard about from a book in their home...” she rubbed the back of her neck.
“I don’t just mean like that,” Larkon shook his head. “It’s not about just mammoths being impolite to you, or unwelcoming, there are dangerous places here too.” He paused for a second to gather his thoughts. “When you were telling us your story you said you came down from the cliff and to the west side of the city where Mallom was stationed, correct?”
“Yeah? So what?”
“Then that means you came through the old abandoned area of town. We sometimes tear the old houses and buildings down from there to make newer ones, as you can tell wood is scarce up here, but that’s not important right now. Directly north from that area on the western side of the river is a slum, a dangerous and near lawless slum that most mammoths living in the city would like to pretend doesn’t exist. I must ask of you, please do not go there on your own, at the very least speak to me first about it.”
Now Dash was in a bit of a quandary. Cause that slum sounded like the place most likely to find adventure and excitement up here. But this guy and all the other mammoths had been so polite and hospitable… did she really want to just flat out refuse to listen to him?
In the end she just decided to be a good guest and shrugged. “Sure, whatever you say.”
“Thank you,” Larkon sighed in relief. “I’m sorry to sour our conversation like that but it had to be said.”
“It’s cool.”
“Do you have anything else you’d like to ask me about before we get home? As a historian I would be happy to answer, and capable as well.”
Rainbow Dash thought and realized she did have a question that somewhat related to “danger”. Something she had been wondering about ever since she was let into the city by Mallom. “Yeah actually, do you guys even have like guards or anything? I just thought it was weird that Mallom and his guys at the gate didn’t have weapons or armor or anything, and there weren’t even any guards at the Hall, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t see anyone like that anywhere else either.”
“You didn’t,” Larkon said. “No, we don’t have any sort of guards or soldiers in this city. We are pacifists. We have no weapons, in fact it’s completely illegal to carry or possess any sort of weapon. It’s even why for ages now we have filed down our tusks to make them no longer sharp—although that’s not mandatory, it’s just expected.”
“Well that answers two questions,” Rainbow Dash stared at his tusks. “I guess though considering how big you guys are that slum is dangerous even without the mammoths there having any weapons.”
Larkon nodded. “Indeed. We are officially pacifists, but like I said nowhere is perfect and not everyone agrees with the current state of things.”
Rainbow Dash almost couldn’t believe at all that these guys were the same ones William warned her about. Even by their own admission that they hadn’t always been like this they were just too different. After walking around their city, meeting their leaders, and now this it was just impossible for Rainbow Dash to imagine the mammoths as some conquering war-like race.
Of course if anyone had only met Princess Luna it was probably impossible to imagine her as once being Nightmare Moon. Appearances could be deceiving…
Rainbow Dash wouldn’t lie to herself that it was a little disappointing too. She wanted adventure and pacifism was basically the opposite of that. If these mammoths were more like their old selves she bet things would be way more fun and exciting up here. Pacifism was kind of boring. That’s like, at best what she would want to leave behind her after defeating some evil tyrant king or monster. Larkon probably wouldn’t appreciate her saying that so she kept her mouth shut for now. He was obviously very happy with how the mammoths were now compared to the past. Dash was just being selfish, she really wanted that danger and epic adventure. But despite what William had warned her about it honestly didn’t look like she’d find it here.
The two continued their way down the road with Larkon pointing out anything he thought was noteworthy along the way, including a bakery, a clothing store, and a flower shop. He was clearly interested in getting her to see what “normal” was like for most mammoths of the city. Rainbow Dash for her part nodded along, floating by his head.
“Hey so-” she suddenly asked. “How come you offered to take me in in the first place? Just because?”
“Hm? I suppose it’s because of how interesting I found you. I’ll admit you really piqued my curiosity. And I thought I could serve you better than anyone else there,” Larkon shrugged. “I had been looking for something intriguing today and I found you, just like you found our city.”
“Nice, I can appreciate that,” Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof up to get a hoof bump from the mammoth… and then realized he would have no idea what she was doing. “Hold on, lift up your trunk.”
Larkon raised an eyebrow but did as she asked. Bringing his trunk right up to her hoof.
“There we go,” Dash grinned and bumped it. “That’s called a hoof bump.”
“I see, a little different from just a shake,” Larkon chuckled in good nature.
In a minute they turned left down a wide street and were now heading directly east. Judging from the size of the street it was probably one of the major ones of the city. Trees lined it along the sidewalks and numerous other alleys branched from it at even intervals. It was funny to look at the trees though, cause the mammoths were sometimes taller than they were. Back in Ponyville you would use a tree for shade but these mammoths just had to walk on by them. Maybe they had some bigger ones somewhere, although Larkon said wood was scarce.
At the sound of a different noise coming from below her, Rainbow Dash looked down to see this street had gone from brick to pavement. That’s why Larkon’s feet were making a different sound now. And a few of the side streets she looked down were cobblestone or just dirt. It was still getting to her just how big everything was, she was having trouble adjusting, it was almost hurting her eyes to look at everything because it all just seemed a little off to her. Like she was looking at something wrong or from some awkward forced perspective.
“So where’s your house?” She asked Larkon to take her mind off it.
“Just down the street a little. And just so you know, this street leads directly to the eastern gate of the city. I’ll go over the city’s layout in more detail with you tomorrow if you’d like.”
“Sure, cool.”
Larkon wasn’t kidding when he said “a little”, it was only a few more buildings down the street before he came to a stop and gestured to the fairly large house sitting right by the street. A tree sat on each end of the house and the sidewalk in front of it was swept clean. The front door was up a few steps on a porch with a welcome mat placed in front of it. It was painted a more standard white without any drawings on it like she had seen on a lot of other buildings, while the roof was a deep forest green. In total the home was two stories tall, but because it was mammoth sized that made it far bigger than a two-story home for ponies would be. Rainbow Dash could see what looked like some flower gardens along the sides of the house too.
Larkon walked up the steps towards the front door while Rainbow Dash flew with him. Pressing down on the handle he opened up the door and the two of them went into the entryway.
“I’m home!” Larkon said as he closed the door behind him.
Rainbow Dash could hear some movement elsewhere in the house but nobody responded back to his announcement. Larkon then took off his hat and placed it on one of the hook’s of the hat rack, Rainbow Dash raised her eyebrow at some of the other hats on it. One was a straw hat with a polkadot ribbon around around the crown, another was a checkered top hat that was very tall, a second top hat made of red velvet, and a black fedora that looked a size or two too small for Larkon.
That explains the hat I guess. Rainbow Dash smirked.
“Come, I’ll take you to the dining room,” Larkon said and led the way into his house. It was fairly modern looking to Rainbow’s surprise, with carpet and a number of paintings and portraits hung up on the wall. The entry way led into a hallway that spanned the front of the house while another hallway went back from it down the middle. They walked down the middle towards a sliding door at the end that had a fern sitting next to it. The hallway opened up again to the left and right, from above the halls on the first floor of Larkon’s home would look like a big H.
Rainbow Dash heard the creak of wood and looked over Larkon’s head to see a young mammoth walking down the stairs that emerged from the end of the hallway to the right.
“Hey dad,” he said with a frown on his face and a fairly petulant attitude. He then flinched and stepped back when he saw Rainbow Dash flying around, his face twisting up like he had just smelled something bad. “What’s that?”
Larkon blinked and sighed. “Samarkon, don’t be rude. This is Rainbow Dash, a pony from a far off land called Equestria. And you would have known she’s a pony if you paid attention to your lessons.”
“Whatever,” Samarkon rolled his eyes and walked right past the two of them, opening up the sliding door and stepping into the dining room. Rainbow Dash watched him go take a seat with a huff while two other mammoths were busy putting food on the table.
“Is that what you meant by me not being well received by everyone?” Rainbow Dash asked Larkon.
“I apologize for my son’s rudeness,” Larkon shook his head. “But please, come in and meet my wife and daughter.” The two walked into the dining room and Larkon cleared his throat. “Shibu? Alykon? I have a very special guest to introduce to the two of you.”
“Is it one of your friends from the Hall? Because-” the older female mammoth began to say but her words caught in her throat when she looked up from the table and saw the flying pegasus in her dining room. “Oh my...”
“What is it?” Larkon’s daughter asked as she walked around her mother, gasping in surprise when she saw Rainbow Dash too.
Larkon chuckled at their reactions and gestured to the two with his trunk. “Rainbow Dash, meet my wife Shibu and my daughter Alykon. Shibu and Alykon, meet Rainbow Dash.”
“You’re a… pony aren’t you?” Shibu said as she regained her wits.
“That’s right,” Dash grinned and flew towards her so she could shake her and her daughter’s trunks. Shibu was polite while Alykon seemed to be completely mesmerized by Rainbow Dash’s appearance and had to be shaken by her mom to remember to put her trunk forward in greeting.
Shibu, even for a mammoth, could generously be described as portly. But she had wide and bright eyes that spoke volumes about her friendliness already, and her tusks were decorated with yellow and orange paint that went up like the stripes of a candy-cane on her ivory appendages. From the smell of the food in the dining room she seemed like quite the cook too.
Alykon meanwhile looked up at Rainbow Dash like the pony was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. And opposed to her mother she looked strong and athletic, even more so than her brother. If Rainbow Dash had to guess she would’ve said Alykon was the younger sister too. Unlike her mother she had no adjustments to her tusks but she wore what looked like black sweatbands right above her feet and another on her forehead. For sports? Did the mammoths have sports? Rainbow Dash would definitely need to ask about that at some point.
“What are you all gawking at her for? She’s just some dumb creature,” Samarkon said from his seat, practically glaring at Rainbow Dash.
“Samarkon!” Shibu snapped at him.
The young mammoth snorted and rolled his eyes, taking a great big heap of salad from one of the bowls on the table and shoveling it into his mouth. Dash frowned at him too but she wasn’t going to start a fight with one of the family members of the mammoth who had offered his home to her. Although she really wanted to fix that kid’s rotten attitude. Larkon was glaring at him too but said nothing for now.
“Please, let us all sit down and we can speak while we dine,” Larkon said.
That was easier said than done. The table was so high and the chairs so big that Rainbow Dash was forced to just sit on top of the table itself. She could literally hear Rarity screaming in her ear. The food looked good though, a mess of salads and pastas and a pie of some sort with a basket of bread in the middle of at all. They must’ve had decent farms up here. One salad bowl was full of some kind of stringy green vegetable that Dash didn’t recognize and it smelled kind of weird too. She’d steer clear of that for now.
“Where do you come from, Miss Rainbow Dash?” Shibu asked her.
Rainbow Dash looked up with a string of pasta hanging from her mouth, she slurped it in and swallowed. “Just Rainbow Dash is fine, and I’m from Equestria. It’s a country like way far to the south where ponies live.”
“And what are you doing all the way up here?”
“Now there’s a long story. Uh, since we’re all eating and it’s late and I already told the whole senate everything earlier today I’m just gonna keep it short for now. You probably don’t want to hear just everything anyways.” Dash rubbed the back of her neck. “So really I’m just up here on an adventure, I was just flying north after leaving home looking for any sort of excitement and eventually I made it here. If you really want to know about Equestria and some of the stuff I’ve done I’ll be totally up for it later. I kind of have a thing for talking about myself.”
“The paper tomorrow morning will also have quite the article on Rainbow Dash,” Larkon said.
“Good! I can’t wait to read it,” Shibu said. “So, Rainbow Dash, it sounds like you’ve spoken enough today so why not just relax and eat and I’ll tell you all about my family?”
Rainbow Dash grinned. “Hey, sure.”
“Well you know our names and I’m sure you’ve heard that my husband if the historian of our city?” She asked and upon Rainbow’s nod continued. “Hm, well the two of us met years ago at the local library. I was searching for cook books and he had gotten lost in the aisles. We bumped into each other and that was that.” She made doe eyes to her husband, a small smile tugging up her lips.
“I did not get lost...” Larkon shifted about in chair, averting his eyes.
Rainbow Dash snorted and giggled a bit. “Nice.”
“And now we have two beautiful children too,” Shibu said and extended her trunk across the table to pat the sulking Samarkon on the head. Probably because she knew it would annoy him. “I spend my time at home while Larkon mostly works at Tarmok’s Hall or other places that need him. Samarkon here is studying to take his father’s place one day-”
The young son opened his mouth as if to retort to that but instead clammed up, just staring at his food in disgruntlement.
“-and our daughter is quite the amateur athlete. Why don’t you tell Rainbow Dash about the sports you play, Alykon?” Shibu asked her daughter.
Of course though Alykon was just staring in wide-eyed amazement at Rainbow Dash and was at quite the loss for words.
Shibu sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Please excuse her too. Obviously she’s a little surprised to see a pony.”
“Well I can’t really blame her. In fact I’m kind of surprised that you all aren’t reacting the same way. I mean I’m the first pony—the first creature—besides a mammoth any of you have ever seen,” Dash said, shrugging.
“That’s true, but we have our history books. We’ve always known others are out there, even relatively close by. And thanks to my husband I think I’m better equipped to deal with a situation like this than most mammoths. I can’t imagine how many stares you got on your way here, or through the rest of the city,” Shibu said.
“Yeahhh, it would kind of take a while to count.”
Shibu laughed. “Hm, hm, it doesn’t seem like our children are going to be very talkative tonight so please, dig in, and tell me exactly what you think of my cooking.” The wife got a special glint in her eye when she said that.
Rainbow Dash distinctly remembered the first time she met Applejack and got force fed a bunch of Apple family specials…
But she was still more than happy to try absolutely everything… it’s just that everything was in gigantic mammoth sized portions and she wasn’t sure if there was enough room in her stomach to sample it all. The pie alone was as big as she was! Pinkie Pie would be in heaven right now but Rainbow Dash, as big an eater as she could be, still couldn’t fathom inhaling all this food. The pasta she had started on tasted good though, and whatever dressing was on the nearest salad also smelled really good.
“How do you like the pasta?” Shibu asked, an expectant look on her face.
Rainbow Dash wiped a hoof across her mouth. “Uh, it’s actually great. All of this stuff smells and looks really good.” Aside from the pie and that bowl of green stuff she didn’t recognize.
“Really? You’re certainly making me proud of my cooking if it even transcends other creatures and cultures. Here, try this,” Shibu beamed and pushed the bowl of green stuff right in front of Rainbow Dash.
“What is it?” Rainbow Dash lifted an eyebrow and looked at Shibu. “Sorry, but that’s the only thing on this table I don’t recognize.”
“It’s kelp,” Larkon said. “We have huge kelp farms out in the lake.”
“It’s a staple,” Shibu said and spooned a large amount of it onto Rainbow Dash’s plate. “Have some!”
“Okay...” Rainbow Dash was hesitant but impaled some of the kelp on a fork anyways and shoved it into her mouth. It was stringy, rubbery, and tough, but the taste wasn’t bad. Just unusual and not like vegetables she had had. It was more like a cooked plant, like eating grass and flowers.
“How is it?” Shibu eagerly asked.
“It’s pretty good… I’m not used to eating something like this. It’s kind of different,” Rainbow Dash said in-between trying to chew the pieces of kelp down.
“I can guarantee you that’s some of the best prepared kelp in the whole city,” Larkon said, smiling at his wife.
“Oh stop,” Shibu giggled and patted him with her trunk.
The sickeningly sweet display was almost too much for Rainbow Dash’s tastes and for the first time tonight she found herself agreeing more with Samarkon when she saw the young mammoth discreetly gagging at his parents. After that Rainbow Dash had more and more food piled onto her plate, Shibu probably not realizing just yet that as a pony she couldn’t eat nearly as much as them. It was nice to just have dinner with them like this though and relax after her long day. They could get to know each other a lot more tomorrow or in the future. It’s not like Dash planned to leave anytime soon.
She really wanted to talk more with Alykon about the sports she played, Samarkon… maybe try to figure out why he was such a grump. Twilight would want her to do that.
After a little while longer they had all finished eating, Larkon ending the meal by swallowing a slice of pie bigger than Dash’s head. She herself sat back on the table and patted her stomach (another action that made the psychic projection of Rarity scream) looking around while Alykon and Shibu started to take away plates over to the counter on the side of the room. A door that probably went back into the kitchen was next to it and another door on the opposite side of the dining room went off somewhere else in the house.
“Sooo...” Rainbow Dash said. “Where exactly am I staying here anyways?”
Larkon covered his mouth with his foot to stifle a burp. “Let me show you, we have plenty of rooms here for you.” He grinned. “Be prepared to sleep in the largest bed of your life.”
He scooted away from the table and walked back to the sliding door they had entered from, Rainbow Dash following him. Only slightly being weighed down by the food in her stomach.
“Goodnight, Rainbow Dash! We’ll talk more later. And so will the children!” Shibu said to her and waved with her trunk.
“Night!” Rainbow Dash waved back and grinned, her eyes glancing to Alykon first, who finally managed a small wave of her own, and then to Samarkon, who merely glared at her before jumping off his chair and walking out the other door. She frowned but now wasn’t the time for him. Finally after all this eating and the huge tale she had told at the Hall she was exhausted and that huge bed Larkon promised was sounding really good right now.