And so I slept in with my family that morning, as the chill frost howled outside and that Equestrian stranger dutifully persisted in her pointless self-imposed labor. It was my wife Gwendolyn—habitually a night-owl who operated on a different schedule than the rest of us—who eventually roused me from my hours of extra slumber.
“Who is that mare out there in our frostcarrot patch?” she asked, with a haunted expression.
“Oh, don’t worry, dear,” I reassured her groggily. “It’s actually a funny story.”
But even as I got out of bed, went downstairs, and prepared us both a warm glass of goat’s milk, all the while explaining the crazy con pony’s tale and how I planned to manipulate her for the manual labor she was worth, my wife’s expression remained deadly serious.
“So,” she said, after my account had concluded, “you really don’t recognize the face of the despicable creature who put our town in this miserable state?”
“...should I?”
“The purple coat! The pink mane! The broken horn and the scar over her eye! That’s Tempest Shadow, the Storm King’s highest-ranking commander!”
Former, her voice echoed in my head. “Ahh all those pony folk look the same to me. Are you sure?”
“I never forget a face,” she said with an insulted spit. She wasn’t wrong, I had to admit. “And when those airships clouded out the sky four years ago, I saw that face with my very own eyes.”
“Oh,” I said dumbly. “Well, what do you want me to do with her?”
“I want her away from our home, away from our cub! I want her out of our frostcarrot patch, and out of our town!”
Aw, geez. And I thought I’d found a means of escaping at least a day or two of midwinter chores.
~~
As I trudged out to the frostcarrot plot—my beak buried in a thick winter coat and scarf as I mulled over my choice of words for the mare—I began to reprocess the situation as I knew it. All right, I thought, there was a possibility that this pony was telling the truth. About who she was, anyway. But I still didn’t even really believe that much. Provided that was the case, however, what was she doing here? A lowlife con job didn’t really make sense for somepony like her, but even less did her story of repentance; no creature ever changes, not so drastically as that.
The pony was nowhere to be seen. A faint glow of a lantern, however, emanated from the confines of the shed—lazybones must’ve taken a break. So much for that atonement, eh? Yet when I crossed the plot and surveyed the frostcarrots, I couldn’t help but be impressed by her work. Ordinarily, me and Gamila would still be an hour’s time from finishing up with the frostcarrots, yet this pony had already tended to the entire patch by herself. And, after I gave the plants themselves a once-over and found nary a weed in sight, I had to admit she did quite a thorough job.
Heavens, this situation was bizarre.
I stepped into the shed and found her huddled over the mild warmth of the lantern, sipping cold coffee from a thermos. She promptly stood up and addressed me: “Sir, I just finished up with the frostcarrots. I presume, to your satisfaction? If so, I’m ready for whatever else you would like me to do, sir.”
I huffed slightly at her use of ‘sir.’ “Please, pony, just call me Gelfand.” My own remark threw off my train of thought, but once recovered, I continued: “And all right, you did a pretty good job with them. But I didn’t come out here to pat you on the back: Simply put, my wife wants you out.”
Tempest gave what I suspect was a forced grin. “Does that mean you yourself are not entirely opposed to my staying here?”
“Hmph. If it were up to me, I would have no qualms accepting free labor from anyone, anypony, even a villain like yourself.”
“Villain?” Tempest’s grin widened. “So, you’ve finally accepted that I am who I say I am?”
“Whoever you are,” I growled. “But that’s the problem. My wife, she doesn’t want some war criminal within spitting distance of our home or our daughter.”
“I see.” At last that seemed to give her some pause. “Gelfand, might I ask you, if you would for a moment pretend to trust fully my identity and my intentions: What would you do in my place?”
Hm, if I had her claws? Er, were in her horseshoes, would the expression be? “Hard to say; I’ve not much experience apologizing, or needing to apologize, for that matter. But if I did, I suppose I would have to… have to find some way to... ” I realized too late the obvious answer of “make reparations” accurately described Tempest’s current behavior, and to say it would only prove her point. Tempest surely knew this, yet she spared me the embarrassment of saying it herself. “Look, maybe the hardest part I have trouble believing is, why us? Why some old birdbrains, in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of winter? You and the Storm King managed to conquer at one point a good chunk of Griffonstone, Yakyakistan, Equestria, who knows where else—even if reformed, surely you have greater ambitions than our old homestead.”
“You’re entirely right, Gelfand. But, I'm afraid that it was my ambitions, my unfettered emotions that enabled me to become a villain in the first place. After a, shall we say, traumatic foalhood experience…" Her gaze drifted upward and inward onto her jagged horn stump. "… I felt so justified in everything I did, right up until I joined the Storm King’s army. And then I became utterly infatuated with the authority I was given, the incredible influence I had over so many creatures’ lives. I guess to put it simply, I just… don’t trust myself with any sort of power anymore. At least, I need a good long break from it.”
“Well, when you put it that way, maybe you make a lick of sense. Maybe.” I looked at the ground, and noticed the onset of frostbite on Tempest’s hooves. “Bah, I hate this winter cold. And I hate doing chores in the cold most of all. If you’re really willing to do them for me, and you ain’t tricking me, well, I guess I can stand between you and my wife. For now.”
Never had I seen one so delighted to be accepted for slave labor. “You don’t know how grateful I am that you accept my amends. I promise I will make her warm up to me.”
“Yeah… Speaking of, I don’t want the cold claiming your thin little hide. Take my coat. And this ain’t a gift, this is strictly a loan, you hear!?”