Sitting on the cloud above the pasture was a sheep.
That's what most would have assumed at first glance, anyway, and after the first few times griffons and pegasi alike had slammed into obstacles mid-air during the resulting double-takes, the "sheep" in question had learned to keep the resulting sigh internal. Lamb Chop was a pegasus--a third generation immigrant to Griffonstone, at least up until the day she'd become a first generation one to Equestria--but she was one for whom it was easy to spot the wooly-looking mane and tail long before noticing the wings tucked at her sides.
Her legs were a bit longer than average, her body having decided that her adult height had needed a final adolescent growth spurt that went directly to her cannon bones, and her ears had a natural droop that had run in her family for generations and had a side effect of making her seem perpetually melancholy or meek. Her coat and feathers were so deep a blue as to look black in most lighting, and the mess of curls that spilled from her head and her hindquarters were white as snow. It all made it easy to mistake her, at a distance, for a lost lamb who'd somehow gained the ability to cloudwalk.
Below her were the true sheep, and those were her charges. Sheepfolk of black, white, and occasional black-and-white milled about below, pausing here and there in their grazing to chatter amongst themselves. A few would look up, meet her gaze, and smile before returning to what they were doing, reminded that they were safe.
Sheep were a bit of a paradox. They didn't like being inside shelters, and usually wouldn't go into a house, or even a barn, unless cold or other extreme weather demanded it. Given the option, they would rather be out under the open sky. However, they were also incredibly vulnerable, and so that open space required constant supervision. Some species had developed breeds of dog to act as guardians, but while a large dog could keep wolves at bay, it couldn't always deter monsters, especially the flying ones who sought to swoop down and carry off a wooly snack.
A common mistake made, in the current age, was assuming that things were safe now. In cities, that could be true... most of the time. Rural communities still had alarms for things like voracious rocs descending from the sky, and the drills were not for show.
Lamb Chop was a flock guardian, and while the flock below technically wasn't hers--she didn't have the bits together yet to buy her own patch of land, and her license to host would need to come after both that, and when she finished all of her citizenship classes--it didn't make her any less diligent. The owners of the land would wander out here multiple times a day--it was often the stallion, sometimes the mare, and rarely the elder or the small filly--to bring her food to eat, and at sunset her charges would be rounded up for the night.
It had taken only one reluctant, restless night in a guest room of the farmhouse for her to request to bed down with the flock in their pen instead, and she had fallen asleep the second night with the smallest of the lambs tucked under one of her wings.
Summer was shifting into the autumn, and an on-schedule chill breeze made Lamb Chop fluff out her wings and tuck her tail around herself. She would never get used to managed weather, despite being a pegasus herself. She knew the basics, and because she was a guardian, the basics included some enviable lightning control, but Griffonstone didn't have enough pegasi to have everything scheduled to the hour, nor would they want to.
One of the ewes split off from the flock, and their eyes met. One ear twitched, then the other, followed by two stomps of the right front hoof. Not an emergency, but she wanted to talk. Lamb Chop nodded, got to her hooves, then glided down to meet her, giving a small shiver as she landed in the cool grass. She smiled, tilting her head slightly. "What's up, Fleeca?"
The solid black ewe was particularly fluffy, making her look a lot like a stormcloud, and Lamb noted that she may need to nudge the farm owners about shearing her soon. Fleeca's wool apparently grew faster than usual, and so needed the frequent shearing to keep her comfortable, even when the weather grew cooler. She rocked from side to side on her hooves, awkwardly glancing around, and Lamb tried not to let herself tense up too much. It may not be an emergency, but it was clearly troubling her, and something bothering one of her sheep had alarm bells going off.
The third time that Fleeca looked behind her, Lamb Chop followed her gaze, and frowned a bit as she saw Dolly, the snowy-white ewe in conversation with her older sister Roslin. She and Fleeca were nearly always together when they were grazing, and so Lamb found herself asking, trying to maintain a tone of gentle concern rather than reveal the extent of her worry, "Is there something going on with Dolly?"
Fleeca immediately cringed at the question, looking from Lamb's eyes to the grass and pawing at the earth with an uneasy hoof. "Well..."
Finally, with a few more hems, haws, and baas, Fleeca told her.
An emergency would have been easier.
"Don't get involved."
It was Lamb's second time in the farmhouse, and it was no less uncomfortable than the first time.
She had had very little experience with other ponies before leaving Griffonstone. Most who had immigrated there over the ages had been pegasi like herself, and while pony bloodlines were finicky things, so as generations passed, they didn't always stay pegasi, the winged equines remained a majority among Equestrian diaspora communities. Before crossing the border, she had met a grand total of one unicorn in person, and could count the earth ponies she'd seen on her hooves. It had made her first encounter with her current employers incredibly awkward, because she felt that they'd picked up on the fact that she kept glancing at their sides in the expectation of reading the body language in wings that they didn't have.
Her inexperience with earth ponies aside, however, she'd come to respect Applejack. She was a reliable, diligent worker, and was fiercely protective of her land and all who lived on it. It was the kind of strength of character that Lamb Chop couldn't help but respect.
However, Equestrian ponies were still alien, and the three words had Lamb tilting her head slowly, something she'd realized only after coming here that her family had picked up from living among griffons. "Come again?"
Applejack snorted and gave a shake of her head. "You heard me. I had a feelin' that those two were gettin' close, an' speakin' from the voice o' experience, you want no part o' the resultin' courtin'."
The head tilted further, reaching the limits of an equine neck. As she stared at Applejack, she was also distantly reminded of the fact that she'd been told, during her first few conversations with Equestrians, that she didn't blink as often as they believed a pony should. "...Why?"
Luckily, Applejack didn't seem perturbed by any birdlike qualities in her gaze, instead looking right back into her eyes. "Now, I ain't been one t' pry int' your past, Lamb," she started, her voice steady as her returned stare. "Why you left Griffonstone is your own business an' nopony else's. I sent a letter t' the farm you said you worked at, an' they sent back a reply praisin' you t' high heaven. They told me 'bout the wild storm an' you stayin' with the sheep for days, maintainin' a safe zone, 'til help arrived, an' far as was I'm concerned, that was reason enough t' give you a chance."
Lamb Chop could feel the metaphorical shoe hanging in the air, waiting for its moment to drop, and so she gave it the slightest nudge to get it over with. "But?"
"But I have t' ask, 'cause I did do some diggin'." Ponies without wings remained hard to read, but she noticed Applejack's eyes slide and knew exactly where they were going. Lamb Chop's mark tended to be mistaken for a cloud, a roundish fluffy shape that was white against her near-black pelt, but she preferred to see it as an image of her charges' wool. "I didn't know anythin' 'bout griffon farmin' before you showed up, an' I was curious what they tended t' farm."
Lamb could see the shape of the shoe now, and her head righted itself as she braced.
"The sheep there, they ain't so chatty, are they?" The words weren't harsh, and the gaze wasn't accusing so much as studying. "Not like the ones we've got here."
Lamb Chop gave a small, tight nod. "They're called mouflon. Animals. Nonsapient." Her wings opened involuntarily, hind hooves shuffling in the urge to flee. "I didn't know that you didn't--"
"I ain't mad." The reassuring words relaxed wings, though they didn't quite fold again as Applejack went on. "I could tell you weren't hidin' it, you jus' didn't reckon you needed t' mention it, 'cause t' you, it goes without sayin'." She frowned a little. "But that does mean that you're used t' dealin' with sheep as critters an' not as people, have I got that right?"
"That... would be right," Lamb admitted slowly. "This is my first flock of sheepfolk."
She had had many reasons to come to her ancestors' homeland, but that had been one of the chief ones. Her mark, her soul, drove her to protect sheep, but the animals that griffons kept as livestock didn't feel like they were her true calling. True sheepfolk were nigh-unheard of in Griffonstone, and so the chance to have charges who she could speak with had required that she leave all she had ever known behind.
Can't mess this up. Can't fail them. Can't.
So vulnerable...
One wrong call... one mistake...
"An' that's why I'm tellin' you t' take your snout out o' it." Applejack gave a deep sigh. "They ain't like ponies. Or like griffons, far as I know 'bout those." There was a bit of bite in the last few words, but Lamb sensed that it wasn't aimed at her; there had apparently been a griffon visitor in the town once, and the fact that it was once had implied plenty about the impression left. "All you're goin' t' earn yourself is a headache tryin' t' get in the middle o' their problems."
The shoe had dropped, and Lamb hadn't been dismissed for keeping an accidental secret. That fact gave her the boldness to give a stomp of her hoof in protest. "I didn't barge into the situation. Fleeca asked me for help."
"Eeyup, they do that. S'easier than dealin' with the problem 'emselves t' push it off on whoever's watchin' over 'em. Trus' me, all you're doin' is findin' a rock t' bash your head against." She gave her own hoof-stomp. "When it comes t' the dynamics o' the flock, you step in iff'n it's one o' two cases: either somepony went an' put a dangerous idea in their heads an' they're goin' t' hurt 'emselves followin' it like it's princess-decreed law, or it's somethin' where they're fixin' t' fight each other an' you need t' get between 'em before it gets violent. Otherwise, don't get involved."
"They're your charges, Applejack." Lamb had grown to respect her employer. That's why, when she moved to trot past her to the door, she kept the myriad of curse words she knew, across two languages, to herself. "And mine. I'm not going to ignore a cry for help."
The door opened as she was headed for it, and a large red body carefully moved out of her way. "Good evenin', Miss Chop."
She nodded at Big Macintosh's greeting, but anything she could have said in response was drowned out by Applejack calling after her. "Jus' don't say I didn't warn you. Sheep romance don't end well for ponies involved!"
If there was more, Lamb didn't hear it. Because she still had to get used to earth ponies, but one advantage to being around them was that the easiest way to end a conversation was to go up. And so the moment she was through the door, her wings spread, and she was soaring through the chill night air.
Normally, she'd be off to the pen to sleep, but instead, she angled herself toward town. If the supposed caretaker would not be of help with this dilemma, then Lamb would just have to acquire her knowledge another way. It was time to see if the town librarian was still awake.
Sheep were sometimes thought of as completely mindless.
Most ponies didn't really get to meet sheep, and it was that way with a lot of species that fell under the umbrella of protectorates. Sapience came in a lot of forms, and all of them were just slightly askew from one another. A pony wasn't a griffon wasn't a zebra wasn't a yak, and the misunderstandings between them had ended up the kind of things that made up entire history books. Yet, they all existed on a similar playing field. Species that had founded nations, built societies, and come together to form the Menagerie in ages past and start establishing international law.
Other species had not done this. For some, this was simple lack of social instinct. Perfectly capable of friendship or affection, but no drive to form the herds, packs, colonies, or hives that eventually became settlements and turned into kingdoms. There was no land of the yeti, no nation of the chimera, no cities built by bugbears. A rare individual may immigrate into a country, join a society originally founded by other species--Equestria had a sea serpent, but it would be a long while before Lamb Chop met him personally--but they tended to live and die as singular exceptions who never met another. Outside of these exceptions, members of those species were simply known as civis orbis terrarum, with the basic international rights granted to any creature that could think.
Those were the species who were content to be left to their own devices, and could thrive in the wild spaces unclaimed by others. Protectorates were ones who, without other sapient species to look after them, would be doomed to extinction. They were wards of whatever nation housed them, and their rights were also enshrined in international law, with their entire host society being held responsible for any attempt at exploitation. Just being able to host any of them on one's land required a rigorous process. It had to be that way.
Sheep were people, but they were people easily swayed. Flocks had no leader, instead gathering together and talking amongst themselves until they had a consensus, which usually resulted in a lot of hemming and hawing until one voice popped up with an idea or opinion and it rapidly spread through the rest of the crowd. They didn't lie--omitting truths, however, talking around what they didn't want to share, they did that as easily as any other sapient--and so couldn't quite grasp the idea that other creatures may lie to them. Fear of exploitation was very much founded, because speak to them with enough conviction and they would believe. That was why Applejack had talked about them acting on dangerous ideas, because if they'd all been swayed in a bad direction, sometimes their pony caretaker needed to become the voice that nudged them back to safety.
Still, they had their own temperaments, their own interests, and their own preferences. Tell them clover was a super food that would increase their strength, health, and lifespan, and the one sheep in a flock who found clover repulsive wouldn't suddenly have a change in taste buds, they'd just resent every moment as they ate it. Convince the flock that learning to sing would bring them wealth and fame and you'd hear them practicing, but it wouldn't dampen an individual's enthusiasm for painting in between rehearsals. Tell them that their porcine neighbours were plotting against them, and you'd see them all reacting to the sudden appearance of a pig in their pasture very differently, from the ones whose first instinct was to run, to the ones who would freeze in place, to the ones who would storm over to accuse, to the ones who would skip verbal accusation entirely in favour of lowering their heads and charging.
They also had interpersonal relationships that were more complex than just a single-minded flock. They could get irritated with one another, even aggressive, but they also formed lasting friendships, deep family bonds, and fell in love. Autumn was the time for new romance for them, and spring the time for new family to be born. And as the days were getting shorter and the air was getting cooler, it was no wonder that Fleeca was having those thoughts right now.
Sheep discussed most issues as a group, but when things were personal and private, too delicate to send out into the flock to be discussed by every other ewe, ram, and lamb, they looked outside the group to their caretaker, or in a pinch, to anyone who wandered close to the fence and was willing to tell them something that they were guaranteed to take to heart and act on.
Fleeca had chosen Lamb Chop as her confidant. She wanted to be worthy of it.
Can't fail them.
One mistake...
It was nearly a full day since the chat in the pasture, and after a restless night of trying to sleep, Lamb was reading.
She'd had brief contact with most of Applejack's friends, mostly because being on the Acres made it inevitable. The loud, pink one had insisted on baking her a cake, and the one with fake eyelashes had tried to talk Lamb into letting her do something with her mane, but mostly it'd been an introduction, polite acknowledgement afterward, and that was it. Twilight Sparkle had been a little more extensive, if only because, on that first meeting, she'd made the classic new-pony-in-town mistake of bowing.
She'd then been hastily told to please not to do that, had it explained to her that Twilight was only related to the royal family in the sense of being sister-in-law to the Crystal Princess, had gained her wings during a magical mishap that she claimed was a long story, and the association between alicornhood and princessdom was a bit exaggerated thanks to Celestia's long reign. Lamb, as a newcomer in an alien land, had taken her word for all of it. After all, it made sense; stripped of their finery, no one could tell a griffon king from a commoner, so why couldn't an alicorn be a librarian?
Twilight was hard to read, in a different way from the earth ponies. Her wings were new, oversized, and didn't quite move right, as if the muscles were firing off at random without any input from the brain. But she'd come across as a nice enough mare, and the previous night, despite Lamb arriving past the posted closing time, she'd still let her into the library to look over the books. The problem was that the library hadn't had much to work with, as the books on dating and romance, few as there were in the first place, had all been about ponies.
She'd ended up taking out a book she'd read once already, meant for individuals starting jobs that involved working with sheep. She'd skimmed the section on mating season at the time, because she'd arrived shortly after lambing that year and there'd been plenty of time, and also because the topic had had her... uncomfortable.
Lamb, as a foal, had questioned the point of romantic relationships, and been told she would understand when she grew up. Years into marehood, every adult who'd said that had been proven a liar, and the gap in her understanding had steadily come with a profound sense of repulsion to the whole concept. But she'd accepted that there were creatures for whom it meant something, for whom it was important, and so she took their emotions seriously no matter how baffling they seemed.
The book really didn't offer much on a closer reread, because it largely glossed over the topic. The deeper into the autumn the year went, the more of them would fall into amorous moods, and they would start to pair off. Ewes would be particularly affectionate and would likely follow the object of their attention around, rams could grow shorter-tempered and lead to scuffles that a guardian would need to break up, and in five or so moons there would be new lambs to coo over. Simple.
Sheep were people, and each one was different. Some stayed together with their first sweetheart, year after year, others had wandering hearts, but for each of them, yes was yes, and no was no. Fleeca and Dolly were nearly always together, and had been even before the seasons had turned, and Lamb was certain that if Fleeca were to ask, Dolly would say yes.
But ewes didn't directly ask. They signaled. They dropped hints. And Fleeca didn't know how. Not ones that another ewe would pick up on.
The book wasn't any help. It treated the whole affair as something observed at a distance, not something to give tips to navigate. A book about sheep, written by ponies, for ponies.
It felt like everything in Equestria was for ponies.
"Look out!" The shout reached Lamb Chop's ears a second after a blur of rainbow colour hurtled through her cloud. Her wings flared, the cool air twisting itself into just what she needed slow her tumble and go into a hover.
Deep instinct took over. Vapor condensed around her hooves as they moved. Static crackled in her feathers. She was moments away from having a new cloud, a storm cloud, to blast away the threat to her charges--
Until she remembered that she was in the east orchard, not the pasture, and she recognized the colourful wrecking ball as being the source of the warning shout. "Rainbow Dash?" The beginnings of the weapon were allowed to dissipate as she swooped toward the tangle of tree branches and limbs. "Grover's gizzard, you scared me half to death. Are you okay?"
"Fine! I meant to do that!" Rainbow insisted as she pulled herself out of the tree's grasp, shaking away leaves that were still in the process of turning from green to red. "Except for the part that there was another pony in my practice zone. That was an accident. Though..." She started to laugh a little. "...You do look pretty spooked. You should see your--wait, no, your mane always looks like that."
Lamb huffed. "Yeah, yeah, I know..." Confident that the only thing bruised was the other pegasus's ego, she swooped down toward the book laying in the grass. "Little lamb with the wooly mane, heard it all through flight school."
"Hey, I didn't mean anything by it." Rainbow followed her down, though her hooves never quite touched the ground. "What are you doing in this part of the orchard, anyhow? I thought you were out in the sheep pasture twenty-four seven."
"I take breaks," Lamb said, quickly, as she landed and brushed the bits of grass off of the book's cover. "Apple Bloom and her friends are watching them right now."
She glanced over to see Rainbow looking at her with an unreadable expression. "...They didn't shout 'Cutie Mark Crusaders Sheep Guardians' before you left, did they?"
"No, there was just a lot of grumbling." The book was tucked beneath her wing again, and she went about creating another cloud, this one much less sparky, so she could float back up into the sky on it. "Apparently Apple Bloom's grounded and that's part of the punishment. The others are with her out of solidarity."
"So there's only about a twenty percent chance any sheep explode, gotcha." As soon as the cloud was solid and Lamb stepped onto it, she found the much more colourful pegasus perching there with her in a blatant rejection of the concept of personal space. "So what're you reading? I didn't take you for an egghead."
To an extent, Lamb Chop liked Rainbow Dash. During the initial introduction, when she'd recognized Lamb's accent, she'd even spoken a few words in rusty Griffish to her before being assured that Equestrian was fine. She hadn't questioned the name or gotten weird about it, either, and made a point to say hi whenever she came by to visit Applejack. Even if Rainbow seemed to live life at a twelve on a scale of ten, she came across as a trustworthy sort of pony.
And so, low on sleep and full of frustration from her attempt at studying, Lamb told her everything.
Rainbow's attention never wavered, and she seemed to take every word in. Lamb just didn't know what her mind was doing with it until she grinned and said, "Well why didn't you come to me?" Her wings flared wide open, making the space on the cloud even more cramped. "I can get those two ewes together in a flash!"
Lamb's head tilted. "You know about sheep courtship...?"
"Courship shmourtship. All you need to do around here to get a special somepony, or a special uh..."
"Somebaady," Lamb provided, her voice dipping into ovine tones with ease.
"Right, that. All you need is to be so awesome that they fall over themselves to ask you out." A hoof proudly pressed to her own chest. "Just like me!"
Lamb Chop liked Rainbow Dash. But she didn't know much about her, when it came down to it. She didn't know about the unbroken streak of singlehood for every Hearts and Hooves Day stretching back to puberty. Nor did she know about the fact that there were ponies in town who had gotten through just enough dates with her to know that "date" usually meant "along for the ride for whatever aerial stunt I'm planning today, and no I don't care if you have wings of your own or not" and tended to respond to the sight of her afterward with diving into the nearest bushes to hide.
Had she been so informed, she likely would have tried to politely steer the conversation somewhere else, and gone back to Twilight to see if she could check to see if any libraries in Canterlot had books on sheep dating. Instead, she found herself wearing a hopeful smile as she saw the boisterous mare as a life raft in a storm. "So you'll help me help Fleeca out?"
"Of course! Just leave it to me!"
Afterward, Lamb Chop would become familiar with the Equestrian term known as "famous last words."