Joy bounced free of the wagon with a whooping cry. "Maretime Bay! I missed you!" She kissed the ground and regretted it. "Do not do that... Love the place, doesn't mean the asphalt is waiting to be smooched."
David stepped off after her with a flick of his new tail. "Good to be back. Welcome to Maretime Bay." He offered a hand to the last stallion getting off.
It was accepted with a smile. "Good to be here; and nice to meet you both. Hay, where are you? I mean, where should I visit to run into you two?"
Joy pulled out a card and thrust it at the stallion. "Come on down and play some games."
"Ooo! I thought Maretime Bay didn't do as much of this." He wandered away with a smile, looking ready to pay them a visit later.
Joy started down the street. "Home home home! I know which streets are which." She led the way with a big smile. "And they're setting up for... No." She was mistaken and realized quickly that they were taking things down, not setting them up. "What'd I miss?" She pulled out her phone and checked the date. "Oh. Oh! Shoot...."
"What'd we miss?" David was at her side, tail wagging slowly. "Something important?"
"Maretime Bay Day," sighed out Joy. "I think? I am terrible with dates at times. Hey!" She waved another earth pony mare down. "When's Maretime Bay Day?"
The mare squinted at Joy like she had sprouted a second head. "A month from now, why?"
"I saw the decorations coming down?" Joy pointed to some being torn down. "Thought I missed it."
"Nah! They're doing a test run, make sure we're at our best. It'll be the first since the tribes unified, that's a big deal!" Her eyes slid towards David. "Oh, that's right. You have the human. Hello!" She waved at him, seeing nothing else wrong. "Have a nice day."
"You too!" Joy turned away. "And thanks. Alright, back to the shop. It's been closed way too long."
David kept up with her easily enough. "Not to argue, but why is nobody mentioning this?" He pointed at the horn on his head.
"Huh?" She peeked over her shoulder at his horn. "It isn't that unusual? Even a lot of the animals have one of those. Join the club! She isn't one of my regulars, so she hardly knows who, or what, you are, so she had no idea the horn was new."
"Woah!" A little colt was gazing at David with wide eyes. "What'd they do to you?!" Pipster sat and raised his hooves. "Welcome back!"
"Good to be back." David reached for the little colt and mussed his mane without resistance. "What a grand adventure I return from."
"Tell me! Every bit of it." He looked past David to Joy. "Hello Miss Pad!"
"Hello to you too." Joy was smiling gently, watching the interaction but not interfering. "Quite an adventure."
"We made it to Pegasoft." David gestured wildly, emphasizing how tall the building was. "Lost in its heights, we spoke to ponies who were always in a rush, with machinations on their tongues and wild schemes in their eyes."
"Oooo!" Pipster danced in place, imagining it. "How did you survive?!"
"With luck, and help." He waved towards Joy. "She kept me safe, even during the worst parts. We made new friends, and perhaps new enemies?" He winked dramatically. "But, in the end, we were able to return, with loot."
"Oooo." His favorite word of the day. "Show me!"
Joy slipped in ahead of David. "More of the promise of loot. Pegasoft wants him to show up in advertisement, so they'll call him and he'll be paid for his efforts."
"Super neat!" Pipster clapped with joy at the news. "Did you get any souvenirs?"
"Oh, sorry, I forgot," admitted Joy.
But David was pulling something out of his pocket. "For you." He pressed something to the hoof of the colt.
Pipster couldn't wait. He raised the hoof to his face to see what was stuck to it. It was a keyring, a Pegasoft keyring. "Wow." It was a cheap thing, but held his attention. "A medal of honor... Are you sure I can have it?"
"I got it just for you, my best little fan." He wasn't thinking about it, but his tail was wagging energetically. He liked the little eager colt. "Now, we need to get back to the store so we can get it open by tomorrow. You'll be there?"
"You bet I will!" He hurried off, his saying goodbye to NPCs routine still needing work.
Joy shook her head a little. "Pipster... Glad you thought of something. Did you actually get that for him or was that something you happened to get?"
"They gave it to me." The walk resumed back towards the shop. "Free little gift. It made him way happier than it ever would me, so that seemed an easy choice."
"Nice of you." She closed with the door, quickly opening it and closing it once David was past it, the two back in her beloved shop. "I missed you!" She got to turning on lights and dusting things off. "It's so good to be back, and Maretime Bay Day is coming up, so I'd better be ready for that. Not usually a huge videogaming day, but that doesn't stop me from trying to make it one."
"So what is this holiday?" Not like he had been on Earth long enough to hear about it. "Celebrating the city?"
"Nice try." She blew some dust off the counter, coughing a moment. "Ahem... It was originally to celebrate earth ponies being all... earth pony, but I heard some ponies talking about it being about ponies being pony, so, you know..." She worked her hooves without touching. "All of them? A bunch of poniness."
"I'm down with that." He grabbed a duster and joined her in the efforts of cleaning up. "So how do we celebrate?"
"That's the question!" She flicked the power on at her console, which caused the others to start up in a chorus of beeps. "Oh! Maybe a bunch of multiplayer games, or at least games you can show off to a crowd. Nothing but party games!" She began to clap, excitement growing. "That'll draw the ponies right in!"
"Sounds like fun."
"Not your fun."
David came up short. "I didn't say that."
"Your tail said that." She was watching his new little limb. "You're not used to having it, which means you're not good at hiding it, and, please, don't fix that. If not for its hints, I'd have no idea what you're thinking." Joy clopped. "Well, we're not participating, so how do you feel about helping me run the thing?"
David went quiet. Focused on his tail, it gave a swish to the left, and a swish to the right. It lifted and lowered and went through all the calibration steps one could think of on the spot, but then began to wander on its own, his thoughts going elsewhere as he resumed cleaning.
"You seem happy."
He looked over, tail going stiff. "Is my tail saying that?"
"A little." Joy smiled gently at him. "And I like it... What's making you happy?"
"It's a stupid thing."
"Most of life's greatest things are pretty stupid," she reasoned. "So lay it on me, so we can both enjoy the stupid together."
"I love that." He turned to face her entirely. "For much of my life, I could only smile when I forced it, or if I just heard a really good joke I guess. Displaying my emotions? Not a specialty of mine. If this little guy--" He hiked a thumb back at his wagging tail. "If it can do the job the rest of me can't... Um, good, in the end. I want to be... What, seen?"
"I see you."
It was in that moment that David understood the term of 'feeling seen'. "I am seen... Thank you. Now, I'm going to clean up so we can open tomorrow."
"I'm behind that idea!" And the two quieted in their hurry to get the shop all ready for the next day and the customers that would come to ask a million questions about what happened to their human while they were away.
"Hey." Joy looked up from where she had been scrubbing. "Sudden idea."
"Yeah?" David was half-bent over a terminal, cleaning the top of it. "What?"
"Your legs." She lowered her eyes to his altered limbs. "Hiding it is silly. Why not rip that bandaid off and get some shorts? Then everypony can see and get used to it. Not like they're ugly or anything." She could see David being unsure. "Not comfortable with them?"
"It's not that, funny enough." He crouched down to hike up his pants legs. "I'm just used to pants? I've worn pants for as long as I can remember. The last time I put on some shorts, I was a kid."
"Time to embrace your inner foal then! I'll grab some shorts, if it's alright?" She dropped a rag with a huff. "I think we're as clean as we're going to get."
"You're being too damn nice." David crashed into a chair. "I'm not complaining about the lack of back pains though. That's good..."
"Can't say I know that feeling..." She was young enough to never experience it. "But I heard a lack of a no there. I'm getting shorts, and you'll pay back when you do your first commercial job. Seems fair to me." She moved for the exit at a spirited trot. "You'll be alright along a moment?"
"I'll be fine." He waved her away, and soon was alone in the closed shop. "Hm." He pulled out his phone and got to tapping at it. "Has service." He had a few bars of power, so that was on. "Now let's see if the food apps work locally." He pressed app and it loaded up quickly, asking what he wanted from large categories like burgers or pizza or 'neighponese'? Chinese? Or Japanese? Maybe a fusion of the two in a uniquely pony fashion.
Smoothies? "They have smoothies?" He clicked it curiously. "And they have delivery?" He normally avoided smoothies. Drinking calories? Who even does that. Still, he'd been plenty active, and was good with his diet, so one smoothie wouldn't make him suddenly fat.
"Sunny Starscout's Smoothie Cart," read the first entry. It had a picture of the cart and Sunny's smiling face.
"Oh damn." He had found a canon character. That wasn't... like... illegal or anything. He had been low key avoiding that, having only interacted with Hitch. "What do you have?"
He pressed her icon and up came a menu with all kinds of smoothies listed. "And how do you deliver it?" From what he could remember, she owned a cart, and sold from the cart. Did someone else deliver for her? Curiosity was growing far too quickly to say no to. He tapped in an order for a berry smoothie, medium, and trusted the phone's GPS to figure out their address.
It was only after he hit send that it hit him. There was mail sitting right there. They had the address. "Oops." He grabbed one and checked. It had used the right address. "Coulda been worse."
A clop clop came from the locked door. "We're closed," he shouted at it, pretty sure he shouldn't open the door for random folks.
"Smoothie delivery," called a female voice. "Someone ordered it, didn't they?"
Wow. Fast... He moved for the window and peeked out the blinds to see Sunny's cart sitting there in the street. It was Sunny herself at the door, holding a smoothie in one hoof with a quizzical expression. She moved her cart, the whole thing, when an order came in for a delivery. What service! "Uh... Coming!" David hurried for the door, blushing a bit at keeping the poor mare waiting as long as he had.