It was Sunny who moved first against the lumbering troll. She tackled one of his long, grey legs.
“Run you guys!” she shouted.
However, her attack failed to even make the troll twitch. He just stared at her with his faraway eyes, vacant and bored, as if she were an annoying ant taking a tiny piece of his picnic. Hitch leapt forward as well – Izzy was frozen to the ground.
“Geronimo!” Hitch roared as he too tackled the troll, targeting the other leg. When his body crashed into the troll’s, the troll actually stumbled backward. He balanced himself with a wave of both arms and caught himself before he fell. His deep voice responded slowly and with exactness.
“Hey, that wasn’t very nice. What was that for?”
Hitch and Sunny exchanged a surprised glance. Izzy’s frozen state became a shaky one. The troll patted himself with a few slow smacks of his spotty grey fur coat. The act caused a cloud of dust to float down. The ponies coughed and covered their faces. The troll cocked his head.
“Did I scare you? I’m sorry if I did. I was bored, so I came to say hello. I’m not going to eat you.”
When the dust literally settled, Sunny looked up and the troll had sat crosslegged a few feet away, so that even though he was very tall, she didn’t have to crane her neck so much to see his face. It was troll-y, meaning he had a big bulbous nose of silverish gray flesh, and his eyes were wide and big pupiled. No ounce of trickery rested on his features, which were on full display as his hair stuck up in tufts and was not a full mane of grey fur, but a sporadic patching of it. He wore spectacles with a wooden frame – it was somewhat silly to Sunny, who only knew of trolls from scary stories. The troll in front of her looked like he was ready to crack open a book and recite factoids. The naked patches of his coat revealed his more silver flesh below.
Hitch stepped forward.
“Why didn’t you say that before we hit you!”
Sunny looked at Hitch, then back at the troll, who smiled in a way that trolls must have thought looked nice, but it made the ponies shiver. The troll’s sharp, long canine teeth were on full display. The troll scratched the back of his neck.
“Should I have said something? I’m only used to being around other trolls. Trolls don’t scare so easily.”
Izzy walked forward as well, standing beside Hitch. Sunny held out a hoof from behind but couldn’t produce any words from her mouth. She looked at the troll again, unable to believe what was happening.
“Umm, Mr. Troll? Y-you sure you a-aren’t going to eat us… sir?”
The troll produced a heavy sigh.
“I don’t think ponies would taste any good. I would not want you to eat me, so I won’t eat you.”
Izzy looked nervously at Hitch, who was guarded, but his face relaxed. Then Izzy turned to Sunny, whose mouth was still agape. The troll smiled.
“Earlier I ate a bear for my lunch. I’m not hungry now.”
Izzy gasped. The troll laughed, and the sound made Sunny jump back. It was like the deepest stallion laugh she had ever heard, lowered a few octaves. It pounded the walls of the mountain pass. By virtue of the sheer volume of the laugh, the ponies shook.
“I made a joke. That one goes over well with trolls. My name’s Robert.”
Hitch held up his hoof.
“Uhh Robert? Your name’s Robert?”
“Were you expecting something else?”
Hitch looked unsure.
“Yeeeessss? If you had said Bonegrinder or something, that would make more sense for a troll.”
Robert placed a long, bony finger on his chin and hummed.
“Do you think so? I would prefer Leslie. Maybe even Gerald. But not Bonegrinder. I don’t know any Bonegrinders. I do know a Paul, though.”
Hitch looked at Izzy and shook his head. The Unicorn giggled. Sunny finally joined her friends closer to Robert.
“Okay okay this is officially the weirdest thing that has happened to me so far. I would have thought a troll would smash us into butter and put us on toast.”
Robert cringed.
“That sounds disgusting. I don’t like butter.”
He stuck out his tongue – it was a pale red and layered with scars.
“But most of the other trolls do. They also like to eat ponies. I’m a weird troll – I prefer berries.”
Hitch walked closer.
“You’d be pretty normal for a pony, then. I prefer berries to ponies too!”
Izzy chimed in.
“Yes me as well!”
She turned to Sunny.
“How about you Sunny?”
Sunny’s eyes widened. She looked at Izzy for a second, wondering if the Unicorn was being serious. She appeared to be waiting with genuine apprehension. Hitch raised one eyebrow. Sunny replied with exasperation.
“I think it’s obvious!”
Robert frowned.
“It is. You like to eat other ponies, right? That’s even weirder than me, but I guess the world is full of weird creatures.”
Hitch and Izzy laughed. Sunny went deadpan. A few seconds later, Hitch flashed Robert his signature smile.
“So Rob, if you love berries so much, I take it you know a good spot around here where we can get some?”
Robert smiled.
“Yes I do! Can I take you there?”
Hitch shrugged.
“Only if you want to” — he winked — “friend.”
Robert lit up. He clapped his hands together.
“Friend! We are friends! Okay!”
He jumped up, causing the ground to shake. The ponies braced themselves. Robert danced around a bit, causing a mini avalanche of pebbles and rocks nearby. Hitch looked up and all around. When Robert noticed what he was doing, he stopped and stood up straight.
“Sorry ponies! I got too excited! I’ve never had a friend before!”
Sunny giggled at that.
“You can join the club. I just had my first a few days ago.”
Robert nodded.
“That makes sense. You do eat ponies, after all.”
Sunny whinnied grumpily as her friends started to laugh again.
The ponies grabbed their supplies and then Robert the troll led them down the mountain path. He watched the mountain wall as the ponies struggled to keep up with his long strides. Eventually, he stopped and started to climb the wall. Sunny and the others exchanged worried looks. Robert looked back down at the ponies when he realized he was alone.
“You don’t climb?”
Hitch shouted in reply.
“No, we are lacking in the opposable thumbs department! And sadly we don’t have that whole mountain goat thing going on that lets them just zip right up.” He turned to Izzy and Sunny. “Seriously, I have no idea how they can do that. You ever hear about mountain goats?”
Izzy smiled.
“Oh yes, mountain goats are impressive. There is a species that lives on our side of the Unicorn Range.”
Sunny shrugged.
“A goat’s a goat to me, I’m more concerned with ponies.”
Robert jumped down onto the path, knocking the ponies over in a cloud of dirt. They shouted as the troll scooped them up in his hand. When they realized what was happening, they hung on tight as Robert scaled the mountain wall with one hand.
“Now you can climb, ponies.”
Before long Sunny and her friends adjusted to being ponyhandled. It was nice to not have to walk, Sunny thought with a smile. The wind, unfettered by any obstacles, was a step above a breeze and slipped through the pony manes, gently tossing them about depending on the wind’s mood. Robert the troll was a very good one-handed climber and swung around a lot when he got to a part of the mountain wall that was difficult to traverse. He placed his open palm next to a ledge on the mountain, close to one of the peaks, and the ponies saw they could walk forward. A mess of berry vines, carrying little white fruits, covered most of the ledge.
“Jackpot!” Hitch proclaimed. He ran forward and started to chow on the berries. Sunny followed after, almost as excited. Izzy hummed.
“Are they safe for ponies to eat?”
The question hung in the air. Hitch’s jaw hung as well, clear berry juices dripping from his chin, as he pondered the ominous question. Sunny was mid-bite and stopped as well. Robert’s response seemed even louder in the small crevice.
“Sometimes ponies will take the berries that grow closer to the ground. I have not seen the berries make them sick.”
That seemed to sit well with Hitch, who nodded with a pleasant grunt. He continued his berry feast. Sunny tried a few, also acknowledging her approval with a happy noise, then tried a few more as she scooped some off of a vine into her bag. Izzy trotted over to another part of the vine and filled her saddlebag. She tried one.
“Tangy! They’re very good!”
Robert was all smiles.
“I am a good friend! See? I showed you the best place for berries! Are you on a long journey, ponies?”
Sunny stopped chewing to reply. She explained the entire situation of Equestria and the pony races, as she understood it, and Izzy filled in from the Unicorn perspective. Then they talked about what had happened at Castle Rockhoof. Hitch just stuffed his face. After some time, Robert nodded.
“I see. Ponies are like trolls. Trolls fight with other trolls a lot, over silly things. But that is how trolls are.” He patted his chest near his heart and shook his head. “I do not think ponies are that way. You are all so nice. Ponies should all be friends, not enemies.”
Sunny’s head bobbed up and down.
“Right? I totally agree!”
Sunny ate a few more berries before deciding to check out the view provided by their position on the mountain. Robert say patiently off to one side as Hitch filled his own bags. Izzy sat beside Robert.
“Wow!” Sunny exclaimed, looking out, the wind entering the crevice pushing her mane around in strands.
The Heart of the Realm far away and below was brightly lit by the sun, which had turned into its usual yellow color from its early morning orange. Sunny could see the two parts of Castle Rockhoof standing on its two cliffs, Rockhoof’s River running under it, the walled outline of Castletown just beyond. A dirt road stretched into the distance as well, both away from the mountain and seeming to go towards and beyond it as well. The rest of what Sunny could see was a vast sea of light green grass and the darker evergreen trees that dotted the valley reminded Sunny of the very real blue sea she grew up near. Though, she missed the smell of salt, and had to make do with the mountain-y scent of dew and dandelions.
Sunny spotted a small ship on Rockhoof’s River.
“Hey, Hitch, is that ship going toward Tall Tale or the River Crossroads?”
Hitch wiped his wet mouth and moaned in pleasure.
“Oh man thems are good eats… uhh, what’s that – oh wow! Check out the view!”
“Hitch, the ship?”
Hitch pointed toward Castle Rockhoof. “See that? From where we are, Castle Rockhoof is in front of Castletown. Ergo, that ship is going the same direction that we are – north. That means Tall Tale. If it goes further, it will wind up in Vanhoover. After that, it can keep going north until the river ends, which is right before the Frozen North. Noearthpony wants a river that freezes, after all.”
Izzy mock shivered.
“Brr! I heard there’s a constant snowstorm up north and it blows like an angry Windigo!”
Sunny’s brow furrowed.
“Wait Hitch, you said the river ends right before the Frozen North?”
Hitch nodded. Sunny pressed on.
“That’s weird. If it doesn’t go all the way to the sea, then it starts at the Old Forest River?”
Hitch frowned.
“Since when have you been a geography expert? Anyway, none of that stuff matters because Rockhoof’s River is pony-made.”
Sunny’s eyes widened. Izzy “ooo’d”.
“EARTH PONIES made that whole river? How the hay did they do that!”
Hitch shrugged.
“We are EARTH Ponies, after all. I don’t know, it must have been Rockhoof or his sons, based on the name. It’s been around forever. Halter told me about it, he said that long ago, before Rockhoof’s River, Equestria had these things called tray-ains, and they ran on these pieces of metal that went all across the country.”
Sunny sat on her rump and listened intently, as did Izzy. Hitch continued and motioned out toward the landscape.
“Yeah, I guess it would have been pretty cool. A tray-ain is like a big ship or something, it can take a bunch of ponies and things from one place to another, but it only travels on the metal pieces. Halter travelled on one once, up north.”
Izzy waved her hoof around. Robert the troll just stared and listened.
“Oo oo! Those are train tracks! You’re talking about a train! We still have those!”
Sunny grabbed her friend, smiling all the while.
“What’s the tray-ain like?! Does it go really fast?”
Izzy nodded, smiling as well.
“They go so fast that if you blink, you’ll miss it! I get to ride them sometimes, but they never go to the Earth Realm. When we have to pass through the Earth Realm, we need to go on hoof.”
Hitch nodded.
“Right, because Earth Ponies like Bastion decided long ago that if we used the tray-ains, it would connect us to the ‘others’. So, they tore most of the track thingies down. But if you do enough exploring like I do, you can still see some of them under the grass.”
Sunny bounced in place.
“It’s settled then, guys: we are 100% riding a tray-ain when we go to Unicornia!”
Izzy frowned.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Sunny. Wearing hats won’t work as a disguise - my brother’s soldiers are always looking for spies. We should travel cross country.”
Sunny closed her eyes and put her hoof to her chest.
“Then we’ll ride the train after we convince your brother to help us unite Equestria – that’s a promise, hoof to heart!”
Hitch rolled his eyes.
“Ahh jeez THAT again…”
Robert laughed, and it rumbled out from the crevice, echoing down the side of the mountain.
“You ponies are weird. Your homes have weird names. We call our old home ‘Home’. We call our new home ‘Home 2’.”
Hitch feigned interest.
“How cool! Listen Robert, do you mind if we head back down the mountain now? We should get a move on. Remember what my friends said about those soldiers that are after us?”
Robert nodded and picked up the ponies. He clawed his way around the mountain wall to the other side of the mountain peak. A question lingered in Sunny’s mind until she brought it up to Robert.
“Hey, why did you move from your old home – err, Home?”
Robert made a worried noise.
“The yetis have come down from the place where it is colder. They chased us out of Home. Yetis are good at using things that have sharp, pointy ends. Trolls don’t use things like that, we just use our hands. Yetis are good at chasing us away. The trolls I was with left Home and found Home 2 here. The other trolls that were already here.”
When Robert reached the other side of the peak, Sunny could see north toward Tall Tale. As they were so high, she could even see the tiny buildings of the city far in the distance. In between was a long forest that seemed to go on forever. Even further beyond, grey peaks even higher than the Smokey Mountains could be seen, but only just so, as the air seemed to be filtered a bluish-grey color. Rockhoof’s River ran alongside the forest and partially through it, as did the dirt road. To the far left – which must have been the west, Sunny reasoned – was the coastline of the sea, beyond another ocean of greens on the land.
Hitch chimed in.
“That would explain all the trolls coming down lately. You think you could tell your pals to stop taking our things? Especially the mares!”
Robert replied bluntly.
“I don’t have pals. And I can’t tell the other trolls that. They wouldn’t listen to me. Trolls get hungry, trolls find things to eat. Trolls can eat a lot of different things, including ponies.”
Hitch swallowed.
“Y-yeah, so you’ve mentioned.”
Izzy looked downtrodden.
“That’s terrible about the yetis! Did you try to talk to them? Maybe something is making them migrate as well! A common foe!”
Sunny agreed.
“Yeah! I can help you talk to them, if you think the other trolls would go for it!”
Robert started climbing down the other side of the peak. Whenever his hand gripped at a part of the rock that was stable enough for a big, furry troll hand to grasp, pebbles would roll down and create echoing taps against the mountain wall. Sometimes, the ponies saw a mountain goat, who would stare and chew on his mountain grass. Robert eventually huffed a reply.
“Trolls don’t talk a lot. I talk more than most trolls. We can’t talk to the yetis. They are a lot like trolls, so they don’t talk a lot either. Trolls don’t listen to other trolls very well. But yetis are good at listening to other yetis, and now there is a yeti called the Yeti Prince, and he tells them to come to our lands. We can only run. We can’t fight back. The trolls that fight back don’t win. Those trolls die. Trolls don’t like to die.”
Hitch frowned.
“I don’t like to die either, so I can relate.”
Izzy whimpered.
“M-me too…”
Sunny jumped up.
“Then we have to go talk to the Yeti Prince and get him to stop forcing the trolls away from their homes and let you back in your old home. I mean ‘Home’. It’s causing problems for Earth Ponies too, and I bet a lot of other creatures!” She turned to her friends, her dangerous resolve causing Hitch to groan. “Hitch, Izzy, the trolls can’t do it for themselves – we need to go!”
Izzy nodded and smiled. Hitch was more hesitant. Robert and his mitt full of ponies slowly climbed closer and closer to the base of the mountain as Hitch replied.
“Before we do the whole hero thing, I think it’s a good idea to get into Tall Tale and talk to your grandmother first. We can decide what to do and where to go then. We still don’t even know what to expect once we get to the city, let alone the troll home!”
Sunny nodded.
“Maybe the ponies at Tall Tale will know more. We’ll go to the yetis afterward.” She looked up at Robert. “Umm, where are the yetis, Robert?”
Robert stopped climbing for a moment and held his hand carrying the ponies out toward Tall Tale. He pointed with one of his fingers.
“That way. That is where I came from. Home is beyond that pony city and the other pony city. Home is where the snow comes down.”
Hitch filled in the gaps.
“It’s north of Vanhoover then. That’s what it sounds like.” He sighed. “Lucky you have all those bits, Izzy. Sounds like we will need to stop in Vanhoover and get warmer clothes.”
Sunny vibrated and Izzy looked just as happy, but not as unreserved. Sunny smushed her cheek against her Unicorn friend’s.
“Izzy this is going to be AWESOME! Oh.” — Sunny backed up, blushing, and crossed her hooves in front of her — “Don’t worry – Hitch and I will pay you back: promise. Hoo-” Hitch reached out and stopped Sunny from doing her usual gesture.
“She gets it, Sunny. Please. Don’t do the hoof and heart thing.”
Izzy giggled.
“It’s okay you guys. My family has a lot of bits, and I don’t need them. I’m just glad I brought so many that it can help us out.”
Sunny looked north. The tops of the buildings in Tall Tale were disappearing as the group descended the mountain. A large house – more like a mansion, really – by itself, closer to the mountain than Tall Tale, caught Sunny’s eyes. She squinted.
“What’s that Hitch? That one over there.” She pointed at it. Hitch moved closer on Robert’s hand. He secured himself with one hoof against the troll’s finger and hovered his other hoof over his brow.
“Not sure Sunny. A few of the Earth Pony families have estates and family homes out in the countryside. It must be one of them.”
“It’s humongous!”
Izzy yelped.
“G-guys?!”
Hitch and Sunny looked over to her – Izzy was on her stomach, peering over the side of Robert’s hand. When the others joined her and looked down, they made similar worried noises. Hitch complained quietly.
“Crud! Soldiers!”
Four soldiers from the Castle, dressed in the rock armor normal of their type, were a dozen or so feet away, as Robert had climbed almost down to one of the mountain paths. Robert blinked.
“They are small. I can swat them away.”
The soldiers looked up. Sunny and her friends scooted back, shushing Robert. He blinked again.
“What is wrong?”
One of the soldiers shouted from below.
“A troll! Run!”
And so the soldiers did, with their tails literally between their running legs, their cries bouncing all about the walls of the mountain path. Robert chuckled.
“Like I said, you ponies are weird.”
Sunny shot back.
“Robert please be quiet! We need to be sneaky!”
Izzy added.
“Yeah! Like pony ninjas! Pinjas! Ponjas? Nonies?”
Hitch raised a hoof.
“I’m partial to ponjas, myself.”
“Ponjas it is!”
Robert shook his head.
“This must be why the other trolls eat ponies.”
* * *
Some time later, with the sun reaching its apex in the sky, the ponies and Robert reached the edge of the forest at the base of the mountain. The three ponies stood and looked up at their newest, largest friend.
“Did you want to come with us Robert?” Sunny asked happily. Hitch coughed and bumped her.
“Sunny, uhh…”
But Robert shook his head.
“I will stay with the other trolls. This is Home 2. You have to enjoy your home in case something happens to it. I am sure we can find a Home 3, but I like Home 2.”
Sunny turned more serious.
“Okay. But I promise we’ll stop the yetis – hoof to heart!”
Hitch groaned.
“You said it. You HAD to say it.”
Robert smiled so wide he closed his eyes.
“You are really nice. I am glad I do not eat ponies.”
Izzy nodded.
“So are we!”
After their goodbyes, Robert turned to leave but stopped. He turned back around.
“Why do you ponies all have green hair?”
The three ponies had forgotten. Hitch groaned, while Sunny and Izzy looked at one another’s manes, then their coats. Sunny looked at Robert.
“We, uhh, need to have baths.”
Robert nodded thoughtfully.
“Okay. There is a pond in that forest that you can have a bath in. Just go forward and you will find it.” With that, Robert turned and waved as he left, and the ponies waved back.
Hitch chuckled.
“What a weird fellow, that Rob.”
Sunny scoffed.
“You’re one to talk!”
"W-who, me?!"
Izzy giggled. Sunny turned toward the inner part of the forest, her breast swelling with excitement.
“Okay! Onward to Tall Tale!”