Ponosuba!

by 2SuriYourself

Chapter 2- Reed Trip

Getting to the corkboard, Celestia and I looked over it. 

“So what kind of quest do you think we should start with, Twilight?”

“Well, you may have an advanced class, but it’s probably still best for us to grab a very easy quest anyways. Not to mention, I don’t even have a weapon! You have fairly powerful magic at your disposal, but I don’t even have a stick! We should probably stick to… this one!” 

I grabbed a rather small sheet from the corkboard from underneath a larger sheet that read, 

A quest to just get a basket of reeds? For a whopping fifty bits? It seemed so easy!

…

TOO easy. I don't even know anything about these woods, and here I am about to run in? I should be at least a little prepared.

Even though Celestia is an advanced class, and already has quite a few spells at her disposal, I would like to have something to defend myself in the forest. 

The obvious choice is to get some sort of sword. We returned to Maud to ask about getting a rental, and luckily their shortsword had a small rental fee of only 20 bits paid upon its return in a week, and we also grabbed a small basket for one bit that Maud paid for. We registered the ‘gather’ quest, and turned to leave the building.

Upon leaving, I checked the clock tower for the time. It read 2:12, which meant we had plenty of time to poke around the forest before night falls. 

Following the signposts, we soon found our way out of town and on the path back into the forest.

Not long after we had gotten out of earshot of anypony else, I decided to get some information Celestia wasn’t going to tell me in town. “What exactly did Maud mean by ‘the goddesses’? Your sister’s name is Luna, and the other receptionist was as well, and Maud only even brought it up after she learned your name. I feel like you aren’t giving me the full story, Celestia!”

Celestia sighed. “It is true, I introduced myself to you as an afterlife guide. However, many centuries ago, I walked the lands of Equestria as any other pony would. Through my sister and my own efforts, the Chaos Lord was sealed in a tomb of enchanted stone. However, about a century later, the seal broke, and as my sister and I still were known to everypony as the ones who sealed them away, we had been the first target upon his resurgence. To get rid of us, he sent us to purgatory.”

A shudder ran through my spine. Although I don’t know enough about this Chaos Lord to know what had been done to send them to purgatory, a few dozen brutal ideas quickly swirled through my head as we headed deeper into the woods.

“After our departure from Equestria, the legends of us eventually mixed with the churches of the Sun and Moon, with ponies convinced our return was as sure to come as a sunrise or dusk and revering us as goddesses prepared to vanquish the Chaos Lord. This is likely why we have already met a pony named after my sister. Due to our immense deeds, we were given status as afterlife guides, but we were still trapped and powerless to do much except send a few exceptionally friendly warriors to aid in the world’s deliverance from him with the help of their ‘cheat items’. These heroes would often make valiant attempts to get rid of the Chaos Lord, but ultimately, the sheer chaos of his controlled areas was enough to drive most of them senseless, cause them to retreat, or even to perish.”

We came upon a small, colorfully-painted bridge over a small, clay-streaked stream, a small signpost was posted on the bridge that read–

Stepping off the path to follow the creek, I decided to press further. “But Celestia, if you were powerful enough to defeat him earlier, why couldn’t you defeat him again?”

Celestia stared wistfully at the river. “It’s not a story I like to remind myself about the details of.” Perking up somewhat, Celestia said, “Now, let’s get down to some reed-picking!” 

Not far down the stream, a small clump of cattails a similar shade to my coat were waving in the cool forest breeze as the slow moving stream bubbled past them. If this wasn’t a ‘lavenderpole reed’, I don’t know what would be! Although, it may be a good idea to see if there is a book on Equestrian flora somewhere in town to check this sort of thing.

Reaching a hoof down, I realized that the reeds had a fairly prickly stalk. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to bite the base first! Now how could I get it out of the ground? I didn’t even have any gardening gloves! For that matter, can ponies use gardening gloves? I don’t even know how I’ve been lifting things with my hoo–

I feel a nudge on my shoulder as Celestia pokes it with her hoof. “Twilight, you do remember you’re a unicorn, right? You can pick the reed with telekinesis. Just focus on picking the reed up with your horn and it should work.”

After a somewhat lengthy trial and error, and a remark from Celestia about her missing her horn already, I managed to get a hang of it, and get most of the reeds into the basket without ruining them. With the basket about half full, we went in search of another reed clump. We continued this for a while, and eventually, we had gathered a full basket.

If every quest is this easy, maybe things aren’t so bad after all!

Getting back into town, the sun was barely peeking over the city’s walls as it set, the sky glowing a warm orange. If we were going to get some money to eat tonight, we would need to find the address on the quest delivery quickly. When we had registered the quest, Maud had passed me a sheet with the delivery address written on it. I just hoped that we were early enough to get the money tonight!

Pastelburg, luckily, has one main street running down the middle, where a canal separates the north and south halves of the city with bridges crossing the canal at every side street. The address we needed was on a side street right off the main road not too far from the gate.

“Okay, so we found Lemon Lane, now we just have to find building 107.”

A quick look to the north showed stores beginning with two-hundreds, so we continued our search by crossing the canal to the south side. A quick look around and we found our delivery spot- an unassuming storefront with a small sign that read “Shop of Assorted Slightly Fascinating Items”. I poke my head in first.

“Hello? I’ve got a delivery here.”

In a flash, somepony behind the counter rocketed into the rafters with a loud crash. A moment later, she gently flapped down on her wings and started bowing. At least, I think it was bowing? Still new to the whole pony-body-language thing. 

“I’m so sorry if that scared you! I just got startled, and it probably startled you!”

“Whoa, it’s okay! You don’t need to bow so quickly!” The yellow mare stopped bowing. “I’m just here to bring you your lavenderpole reeds.”

The yellow mare clapped her hooves together. “Oh, really? I only posted that yesterday! It feels like half the time I post a quest, some adventurer takes it and doesn’t even bother doing it. The other half, I can come by a few days later and it’s still there…”

“Are you kidding? Fifty bits for a walk in the woods seems like a good quest to me!”

“It was only supposed to be twenty, but nopony was ever doing it, and I have the shop to run… I’m just glad somepony finally got them for me!” 

The mare fluttered over the counter and grabbed the basket off my back with her mouth, then sat it down next to the cash register. Now that she was in front of the counter, I noticed her purple cloak. She trotted back around the counter and began counting out the bits and putting them into a bag for us before passing it to me.

“Here you go, miss…?”

“Twilight Sparkle! What’s your name?”

“Oh, um, it’s Fluttershy. I’m going to close up soon, but if you find something you want to buy before then, I can ring it up for you!”

“Well, we kind of only have these bits to our name,” I say, jangling the pouch of bits. “We don’t even have anywhere we can stay tonight, and we still need to get something to eat tonight. I’m sure once we get more bits we can come back and get your…” I trotted up to one of the display shelves, “...necklace of minor reinforcement? Does this give you a magic defense buff?”

“Oh, no. It gives you a little positive reinforcement if you’re feeling a bit unsure of yourself. But I can’t just let you leave without having anywhere to stay! The inn charges about twenty bits just for a night, and if you only have those fifty, I can’t just let you spend it all for a few small beds! I actually have a spare bedroom upstairs, it wouldn’t be any trouble at all if you used it! Just, um, keep the noise down. My bedroom shares a wall with it.”

Behind me, Celestia speaks up. “Are you sure? We can pay you something for it. Even though we may not have much to spend, it’s not really fair to you to give us a free room.”

Fluttershy pawed a hoof at the ground. “No! It’s really no trouble! Just think of it as payment for the reeds!”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “The reeds that were supposed to only cost you twenty bits? We really shouldn’t burden you with this.”

I decided to speak up. “Celestia, unless you have a better idea on a place we can stay today without losing all our bits, we can at least spend the night here.”

Fluttershy waved a hoof around. “It’s really no trouble! I promise! I’m not expecting a guest for at least a few more weeks! Now, um, you should probably go out and get some food. The door will be unlocked when you get back.”

And so Celestia and I left for the guild hall. On the way, I couldn’t help but ask Celestia, “Why exactly were you so reluctant to take her offer for a room? Unless you have some secret back-up plan, I can’t imagine any reason to pass it up.”

“Twilight, I can’t really explain how, but something just felt… off.”

“That pony was scared stiff by us getting there, you probably just got a bad first impression of her!”

“...Perhaps,” she said warily.

As we arrived at the guild hall, I glanced up at the clock. 8:44. I have no idea what time I had arrived in this world, but I knew by now I was hungry. 

Walking into the door, the guild somehow was even more packed than it was earlier, as adventurers who quested through the day settled in for the evening.  

We sat ourselves at an empty section of bench and looked over the menu. Pretty much the entire menu was a whole slough of things I couldn’t even imagine what they were supposed to be. While I understood a fair amount of it, including an entire page apparently full of apple-based baked goods, the idea of a ‘hayburger’ made me slightly wary. I decided to just order a salad and an apple pie. Soon, the waiter arrived.

“What will you both be having?”

“Just a super-leafy salad and an apple pie, please. With a glass of water.”

Celestia turned to the waiter. “I’ll have a fried carrot plate with a side of mashed potatoes,  a large fruit salad, 2 whole chocolate cakes, and some milk tea.”

As the waiter canters off with the order paper, I can’t help but find myself upset with Celestia. “Two whole cakes?! We only have fifty bits!” 

Celestia shrugged. “I don’t really see a problem with what I ordered. If you check the menu prices, I’ve barely made a dent in it.”

I dove my face back into my menu after such an audacious claim. Sure enough, many of the menu items barely exceeded three bits. I guess food is just especially cheap. Celestia’s order only came to a total of twelve bits.

“Still, isn’t that a lot of food?”

“Didn’t your world have the expression, ‘hungry like a horse?’”

I winced. “That’s not… um… yep, that’s right!” I say nervously. It’s not exactly the first hunger and horse related phrase that comes to my mind.

Not long after, we received our food. At first, I tried to eat the salad using telekinesis to grab the fork, but after a bit of trouble, I realized maybe sticking a four-pronged object into my mouth using a skill I barely understood on the first day might be a bit more than what I should try, unless I wanted to make up a cool-sounding backstory to explain why I ended up with an eyepatch. I’ll stick with using hooves and having both eyes, thank you very much!

Celestia, by contrast, seemed to have some trouble with her hooves as she lifted forkful after forkful of food. As the meal went on, she seemed to get better with it, though.

After I finished my food, I realized that I was still hungry. Celestia was kind enough to give me some of her potatoes and a slice of one of the cakes, though. It was honestly really good food for what I was expecting from a literal guild hall!

Celestia finished her main plate and side not long after, and upon taking a bite of the cake, her face melted in pleasure. “Thah hash to be the besht cake I’ve eaten in shenturies!” she said, through a mouthful of cake. She swallowed, and continued, “the last time I actually tasted something that wasn’t ethereal was so long ago, and trust me, it’s not the tastiest. But THIS!” Celestia lifted the cake plate into the air with both hooves, “This is wonderful!” 

As Celestia proceeded to ignore her silverware and munch haphazard bites of cake, I couldn’t help but smile. Even if she may not be turning out to be the most powerful of choices so far, seeing Celestia enjoying walking the mortal world after all these years was enough to make my choice to bring her worthwhile.

I still wish I’d written some currency onto the sheet, though.

After we finished our meal, we paid our bill and stopped by the front counter to repay Maud. “Here you go! Twenty-one bits, the same amount you gave us!”

Maud looked down at the money. “Yep. That's twenty-one bits. I didn’t say you had to pay me back for the basket, but I’ll take it. Usually, everypony forgets to pay me back. I really appreciate it.” As we turned to head out, she waved us goodbye, and we stepped out into the cool night.

“Should we do anything else before we go back to Fluttershy’s shop? It’s still a bit early for me to be tired,” I asked Celestia.

“Well, we could go and take a bath before we go to bed.”

“That sounds like a good idea! Should we try to use her tub now though? She might have already gone to bed.”

Celestia looked at me with confusion. “Her tub? Ah, right. It’s actually somewhat uncommon for ponies to have their own tubs, usually we use public bathhouses. They only cost a few bits to use.”

I was struck with a tiny bit of fear. “A public bathhouse? But everypony will see me naked!”

Celestia rolled her eyes. 

I looked around at the generally clothingless townsfolk. Okay, I can see why that wouldn’t exactly be a problem now.

After a short bath and a long wait for Celestia to finish hers, we returned to the store.

Although the main lights in the store were off, we found the door unlocked, just as Fluttershy had said. I made sure to lock it.

Walking behind the curtain to the storeroom, we found Fluttershy asleep at a desk. I hesitantly poked a hoof at her.

Fluttershy recoiled “Eep!” She turned around. “Oh. Hello. I must have drifted off counting up the sales from today.”

I looked at the sheet in front of her. She had only made two.

“I was so sleepy, I must have dozed off! Thank you for the wakeup, my neck always gets sore if I end up like this all night.” Standing up, she trotted up the stairs. “Your room is the second one on your right, and the bathroom is right across from it. But um, don’t mix it up with the first one on your right. You don’t need to go in that room.”

As soon as Fluttershy had went down the hall and into the third door, Celestia turned to look at me. “Can we open the door?” she asked, a mischievous grin on her face.

“Aren’t you a goddess? Paragon of virtue, and all that? Shouldn’t you have enough sense not to poke around somepony’s house?”

“Awww, come on! Just a peek!”

Before I could say anything else, Celestia opened the door with a deafening creak, revealing… 

A coat closet. 

Fluttershy’s head poked out of her door. “That door is really squeaky, please don’t do that.” She then quietly shut her door and went back to bed.

Opening the right door this time, we entered the bedroom. The room was plainly decorated, with a window facing out to the street. A small desk with a bookshelf was near the window, and an enormous bed sat in the middle of the room adorned with a butterfly pattern. I’m surprised the guest bed would be so large, but seeing as how Celestia and I will be sharing it, I can’t complain!

Not too long after my head hits the pillow, I drift off to sleep.