//------------------------------//
// 3 - Mare in the Lake 
// Story: Evergreen Falls 
// by Meep the Changeling 
//------------------------------//

Junebug - 18th of Lunar Dawn, 4 EoH
The Deep Woods - Hackamore Valley

June sank halfway to the lakebed. Her wings feebly thrashed, ancient instincts attempting to bring her to the surface. It didn’t help. The dull burning heat of her shattered leg and molten glass radiance in her lungs prevented her from making any movements that mattered.
The world was black. Her thoughts were dim, but still there. Drifting in the watery void.

You know… Dying is weirdly the least traumatic thing to happen to me this month. Being impaled was so much worse on its own. June thought idly, wondering if everypony was this relative calm when they met their end. That would be nice.

“Hold on,” an unknown mare shouted from the lakeshore. “I’ve got you.”

June felt herself being lifted from the water by the unmistakable uniform pressure of a unicorn’s telekinesis. The magical force squeezed her chest, forcing her to cough up water.

June bit her lip, unable to open her eyes against the fire in her hind leg. “Did... It… Break?” She managed to whimper through the fire.

“Yeah,” the mare said with audible empathy. “Let me get that for you.”

June nearly vomited as her leg twisted and clicked back into place. A cool sensation washed over the fire, and then… Nothing. Everything felt normal. Even her joints.

“There we go,” the mare said, setting June down on a fully healed leg. “Calcium foam. Garbage tier material. If it were up to me bones would be a hematite alloy. You know, like some beetle shells.”

June opened her eyes and looked back at herself first. Everything looked straight. She lifted her leg, stretched it out, and moved it in a small circle. No pain. From her leg at least, her joints and other potion related discomforts were still there under the shock of the break being gone.

“Huh… Thanks!” She said, turning towards the mystery mare and lowering her leg back down. “What’s a unicorn doctor doing all the way out here?”

The mare was one of the rare monochromes June had always felt a little sorry for. Her fur and mane were snow white, with her only other colors being jet stone black eyes and the blue-grays of her hourglass cutiemark.

How did I miss her? Nothing around here is white. I guess I am pretty upset. Maybe it’s for the best. I can’t fly— Wait, she fixed my leg! I can fly! I have an escape!

“I’m not a doctor,” the mare said with an apologetic smile. “I’m just good at fixing things. Call me Dusk.”

Dusk held out a hoof for June to shake.

June instinctively bumped her hoof instead of shaking it. “Junebug.”

Dusk smiled. “Rough day?” She asked as she sat down on a rock next to the lakeshore.

June sighed and flopped her ears down irritably. “Rough month. Come on, even if you’re, like, a hermit or whatever, you have to know about Tirek.”

“Yep. I know. I meant today specifically,” Dusk said as she produced a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter seemingly from thin air.

“Smoke?” she offered.

June shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Uh, no. You know those will kill you, right?”

“Meh! That is not dead which can eternal lie,” she said with a wry smile.

Dusk lit a cigarette, banished the pack to the shadow realm, and levitated the lit one to her lips.

June scooted to the side to avoid the smell. “So uh… What are you doing out here? You never answered.”

“Visiting an old friend’s kid,” Dusk answered after a long drag. “Their life partner passed a while back, and they just died, leaving their daughter alone. Just seeing what I could do for the poor girl while here on business.”

June frowned and sat down. “Oh. I’m sorry… What happened?”

“Age. Just, plain old age. No complications, other than stubbornness.” The older mare said the word with a hint of novelty, as if dying from age alone was somehow strange.

June winced and shivered. “Owch… If I have kids, I’m going to make sure I’m young enough to see them grow up… Uh, I can fly now that you fixed my leg. Do you need a wing somewhere? I don’t want a foal to be alone in the woods.”

Dusk shook her head. “Oh, no. Sorry. Kid’s about your age. Technically.”

“Technically?” June repeated, arching one eyebrow.

“Lets just say that some temporal mechanics abuse occurred and that we should probably measure age by behavior and physical development,” Dusk said after a moment’s hesitation.

June winced again, this time shivering a little for good measure as she imagined being made immortal at a young age. “I guess it makes sense for wizards to be living way out here. Less chance of bucking up a town when you mess up a new spell.”

“Mhm,” Dusk nodded. “As for my friend’s kid, she can easily take care of herself. It’s just, you know. Isolation’s no good for anyone. Especially not for potentially powerful people.”

June nodded in agreement and let out a long breath. “That’s good. I’d have helped, but, uh… Got my own problems. Kind of just needed to be alone for a bit.”

“I can go if you want,” Dusk said, looking sidelong at June as she took another drag from her cigarette. “But, you look like you needed someone to talk to, and the alternative is I let you just languish and haunt the place till I get back.”

June bit her lip in thought, not thinking to examine Dusk’s choice of words more closely. I guess I can open up to strangers now? I’m an adult. I went to college. Stranger Danger time is over. Unless they have serial killer vibes. Which…

June squinted at Dusk for a moment. Mmm… Nah, she just seems weird, not murdery. Also kinda cute. Definitely straight though. Shame, I’ve always liked older mares.

Dusk rolled her lips semi irritably as June thought about answering for an uncomfortably long moment. The older mare cleared her throat and rolled her hoof to give June the universal “come on, I don’t have all day” gesture.

Annoyed at the prompt and still quite angry at her own predicament, June took a deep breath and, against every ounce of her typical restraint, began to rant.

“Alright, bitch… I just ran away from my stepdad after a super inappropriate fight about my gender identity. He’s been extremely supportive… But I don’t want any bottom surgery. I’ve had marefriends before and we both liked what nature gave me back there. Besides, I wear a skirt when I’m not tramping about the woods so it’s not like anyone sees anything off about me. Even if they did, I don’t care? Most ponies don’t either. I’ve only ever had a problem with the rest of my body, and now that’s solved. Dad doesn’t think that’s an okay way for somepony to be, I guess? Which is horseapples because lots of transmares don’t change all the way. Some natural mares get a potion, so they have different equipment because they want it. There’s more to being a mare than how I want to have sex! It’s like he ignores the entire social makeup of gender on purpose! I know he doesn’t hate trans ponies because mom’s one! Except she went all the way so she could be a mom. It’s like he has no clue how Equestrian culture works despite being able to tell you everything about like, a hundred ancient kingdoms!”

Dusk nodded in response to June’s venting and sat down next to her to give her a gentle side-hug. “Some older people are like that. I’m sorry you have to deal with it. Also, personally, I’m more of a cunt.”

June sighed and lay down, despair coming back despite getting to vent a bit. Dusk gently rested one of her hooves on the mare’s shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll help you through this,” Dusk promised.

An odd feeling came over June, a sort of peace and rest which she couldn’t quite source.

“Eh, you don’t need to. It’s not like you made me like this or anything.” She said to Dusk, sounding much less distraught. “But, thanks though.”

Dusk sighed regretfully.

“Yeah… I didn’t. Life is a bastard, though,” she said before shifting to a mocking impression of a stallion’s voice. “Hey, sis! You know what would be funny? What if a birth defect made one in a hundred and sixty-seven people have their brain develop the opposite gender identity to their body? I already made mortals have an innate sense of their biological sex so the mismatch will cause lifelong torment!”

June couldn’t help but giggle at Dusk’s joke. “Heh. Thanks. Between that and tapeworms, I can totally picture life as an asshole jock.”

“He’s more of an asshole-coated asshole with asshole filling,” Dusk said quite seriously. “Also he sucks at sports… Anyways, want some advice for dealing with your dad?”

“Stepdad,” June corrected automatically despite saying dad herself earlier.

“Sorry, stepdad,” Dusk corrected, nodding slightly. “There’s a good chance you two had the mother of all miscommunications… But usually, the people who do shit like that do it because they’ve repressed their own desires for whatever reason. Shame. Peer pressure. Cultural norms from their childhood. They see you being you. Maybe you’re exactly what they wanted to be. Maybe you’re just adjacent to that. Or they see something in you. Whatever it is, they get angry and take things out on you because of what life denied them. They may not even consciously know that’s why they feel what they feel. Mortal brains are bad at storing and processing information.”

June nodded and flicked her tail across the grass. “I guess? But he could also really mean those things because he just, you know. Believes them.”

Dusk nodded again. “Yep. And if the first is true, you can talk it out with them once they start to listen. Usually, telling them something like ‘I’m sorry you’re bitter about your life.’ will start that trip.”

June thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I could try that. I don’t hate him. But I’d rather not right now. He used to hang out with me. Do dad stuff. But he stopped when I came out. I don’t know why… I miss that.” She lay quiet for a moment. “What if your idea doesn’t work?”

Dusk paused for a moment, biting her lip as she debated exactly what advice she should give a younger pony who was speaking to her on the clock, as it were. It was never easy giving someone June’s age their final peace, especially not when Dusk would rather they live than move on.

“Well… Sometimes, time is the only way to change people’s opinions on some things. Find yourself a special somepony, and settle down. Stay in his life, just not all that closely. Make friends that treat you as you. The more he sees you being a normal girl, the more he’ll see you as normal. And if that doesn’t change his opinion in a few years…” Dusk flashed June a mischievous smile. “I know a diamond dog with a nice hardware store who keeps extra heavy crowbars in stock for just such an occasion.”

June thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Yeah… You’re right. Going back and talking it out would be the best thing to do… If he hadn’t abandoned everything and drug us all out into the middle of nowhere to go full prepper.”

Dusk blinked, processed that for a moment, arched an eyebrow, then slowly stood up. “Wait, you’re not out here camping?”

June shook her head back and forth firmly.

“Nope. Moved. Probably owns this lake. He bought, like, a thousand hectares. You could put a town in that,” June grumbled, wiggling a little to shift her weight.

“Yeah. They did.” Dusk said, jaw somewhat slack from what she was hearing.

June raised an eyebrow, then her head bolted upwards, ears perked in alarm as she fully processed Dusk’s sentence. “What do you mean? It’s just woods out here.”

Dusk shook her head. “No. It’s not. You’re maybe a half hour’s walk from a small town.”

June’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?!”

“It’s that way,” Dusk pointed to the northeast. “It’s called Evergreen Falls. Been here since… Well, a long, long time. Grown and shrank. That kind of thing. Doesn’t show up on every map, but it has a road, and a bus comes by once a month. It’s a proper township so… Your dad would have had to buy the land from the town. Or a resident.”

June blinked repeatedly.

“We walked… for FIVE days!” Her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched. “That bastard! He doesn’t want us to know we could have driven… What’s his plan?! We don’t have all the building supplies. Is he going to get them there? That’s where I’d—”

June facehooved and groaned as the much more likely option occurred to her. “Or his deed is horseapples, and he got scammed out of—”

She paused and looked around at the meadow and forest beyond it. “Wait, if we’re close to a town, why are the woods untouched?”

“Superstition,” Dusk snorted and quickly lit another cigarette as her first burnt out. “Locals think this part of the forest is cursed. It’s not, though. I checked. The cave west of here super is though.”

June sighed and thunked her face into the flower-covered earth. “Kill me, please…”

Dusk bit her lip to stop herself from laughing at the irony of June’s statement. “Heh... So, Tirek breaks out, has his hissy fit that got wrapped up in like, one point six episodes of Ducktective, and your dad is so spooked he falls for a major scam, rounds up the kids, and runs for the hills?”

June sighed and straightened her head back up to talk to Dusk properly.

“He claims it’s also because of Nightmare Moon and everything else, too. And because Celestia just sends the Elements in because child soldiers blah blah blah,” June grumbled, waving her hoof dismissively. “Like it’s the Princess’s fault that Apple Bloom is attuned to an Element. She didn’t pick the new bearers. Fate did… Ugh, I think it’s just because he’s having a psychotic episode, but since all the therapists are booked solid, I couldn’t get CPS to have him tested before he forced my little brother out here with everyone else.”

June caught a glint of light from the corner of her eye and turned just in time to see Dusk produce a whisky bottle and tumbler from slightly behind herself and pour herself a glass. June squinted at the levitating bottle, trying to spot the mare’s aura.

Weird, normally it matches your eye color. Is hers white? Like a really transparent white the sun can wash out? I’ll bet her magic looks really cool in the dark.

Dusk drained her glass in one long gulp and poured herself another before tucking the bottle back wherever it had come from.

“Do you have a dimensional pocket woven into your mane? I was thinking about buying a small pouch and doing that with it, but I was never sure how well it would stay in my hair,” June commented, sincerely hoping she could turn the conversation to something fun like accessories for a bit.

Dusk held up her hoof for June to wait as she slugged down the second glass. “Sorry. I needed an antidote for your dad’s stupid. What did you say?”

June pointed to Dusk’s mane. “You’ve got a dimensional pouch tucked in your mane, right? How do you keep it in there?”

Dusk giggled and shook her head. “No. I don’t have a hair bag. You keep them in with hairpins, by the way.”

June slowly frowned and then shivered. “Then… I really don’t want to know where you were keeping that bottle…” She said before eeping and putting a hoof over her mouth. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Dusk snickered and flashed the other mare a huge grin. “Cut me some slack! I’m not Cadence. I keep things in another dimension and pick them up when I want. No pouch needed. Here, watch this.”

June looked up just in time to see Dusk hold one hoof towards her. A small ball of amber liquid formed above her hoof, sliding into existence as if somepony had expertly blended a jumpcut with an iris wipe. Only the effect was three-dimensional. And continued outwards until a glass bottle manifested around the liquid, the label written in a language June hadn’t seen before.

June’s ears perked. “Woah! How did you do that? I should have felt that and I’m not even a unicorn. Wait, I didn’t even see your aura…” She stood up slowly. “Are… Are you a master wizard or something?”

Dusk laughed and vanished the bottle faster than she’d conjured it. “No. If you had enough time, you could learn to do this too. I know ponies are used to unicorns being the spellcasters but there are many kinds of magic, not just unicorn spells. Anyone can learn some magic. Unicorns are just the nerds who shift the bell curve so far everyone else winds up getting a C at best.”

June frowned but nodded slowly. “Right… I learned about a few other species’ magic systems in college. But, you’re a unicorn. Why not use the magic nature gave you? Why work hard when you have a car to take you down easy street?”

Dusk swished her tail, visibly amused by June’s question. “I’m not a unicorn,” she replied honestly.

June blinked then eeped. “You’re not with your queen then, are you?”

Dusk laughed at the idea of being a changeling. “Chrysalis? Hell no! You wouldn’t see me with that loser, ever… Okay well, maybe the version of her from the parallel reality where everyone’s alignments are inverted. She’s cool. But the last time she and I tangled there were a lot of explosions and she didn’t come out of it in one piece.”

June bit her lip nervously, nodding slowly in agreement as she wondered which way she could fly away from—

WAIT! If they fought and she won then Dusk is a different changeling hive’s queen, June wrongfully but reasonably concluded. And if she was hostile she could have just love drained me while my leg was broken. This is a friendly buggo. Cool!

“In that case,” June said, clearing her throat to hide how scared she’d just been. “You can like, take your normal form. I’m not racist or anything.”

Dusk smiled and without any notable magical effect her form warped to that of an earth pony. “Thanks! A lot of people are uncomfortable seeing magic come from non-unicorns if you’re wearing a pony shape.”

June blinked once. Not what I meant… But I guess if you’re a shapeshifter the phrase “normal form” could also mean “one you like best”.  June’s eyes suddenly widened in realization. Wait a minute, is a changeling queen telling me that I could learn spells? Did she say that? She so said that!

June turned her full attention to Dusk. “Hey, did you say you could cast spells without unicorn magic? And that anyone could learn how? Could you show me?”

“Sure thing,” Dusk stretched out her right hoof towards June. “Take my hoof. We’ll be able to fly.”

June blinked and spread her wings with a snappy flourish. “Pegasus,” she reminded.

Dusk’s ears drooped. She lowered her gaze to the ground but kept her hoof outstretched. “I miss David. He got my references.”

June blushed shyly and swished her tail across the ground. “Oh… S— Sorry. I hate when I make somepony feel old,” she paused to clear her throat. “It’s cool you can fly without having wings, though! Isn’t that a rare spell?”

Dusk levitated into the air without so much as a twitch of her tail. It was as if the same video editor from before had selected her element and moved it upwards by the simplest means possible in protest for having to do the 3d tesseract unfolding object effect earlier.

“You see this?” Dusk asked, gesturing to herself. “I’m flying, but there is no wind, no aura, no detectable mana flow, no thaumic turbulence. This is almost entirely imperceptible if nopony looks up. A unicorn cannot fly this way using unicorn magic, but I’m sure you can see the advantages. The criminal ones are obvious, but if you think for a moment you can find a few legal ones.”

June didn’t need to think at all. “You could fly around industrial machinery without any interference. If you were an archeologist, you could fly with relics without much risk of activating or damaging them… Okay, I get your point. Sometimes the hard way is just better.”

Dusk landed, grinning ear to ear. “That’s right! Archeology… Interesting example. Did you go to college?”

Dusk’s tone of voice hinted she already knew the answer. In less odd circumstances than meeting a changeling queen randomly in the woods, June would have caught that. But…

June nodded and perked up slightly, happy to talk about her field. “Yes! Without someone to help me get into the field, my degree is kind of useless… Which sucks. I was looking forward to working in xenoarchaeology. You know, the study of lost, anomalous, and or extraequuisian cultures. I’ve got a master’s in it. I specialize in the study of Harmony Magic. At least, the martial side of it. Spiritual refinement to channel natural magic to enhance the physical— You know… Because it’s possibly the origin of pony magic.”

It was Dusk’s turn to stare, mouth agape in shock.

June blinked and tilted her head. “W— What?”

“And you don’t recognise me?” Dusk said with an indignant huff and angry tail swish. “Where did you get that degree? Canterlot!?”

June sighed and slumped her shoulders, unsure what she was missing and feeling like an idiot. Is she some specific queen or something? Should I know her? She’s all white, is she from the Diamond hive? No, can’t be. She hasn’t complained about Stalliongrad yet.

“I mean, I do, but I haven’t got a job yet…” June said as she looked around suspiciously. “Is there something about you that you think I should know from my degree? I only did Modern Cultures up through 302.”

Dusk closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then let it out. “Okay… Okay. Here, tell you what.”

Dusk reared up and struck a very ominous pose, making herself appear as if she were both quite distant, yet drawing near, and looming over Jade, all the while moving ever forwards, yet standing still.

“Who am I?” She asked.

June looked at the paradoxical pose for a moment, then gasped in recognition. “Oh! That’s a really good mimic… Mime? Uh, pose! The statue at the Necropolis at New Aramen. Right?”

Dusk lost her balance and tilted slightly forwards. “Are you… uh. Real?”

June kicked the ground awkwardly and huffed. “Look, I don’t get hints. That’s a girl thing locked in the super-fem vault all the away across the fire swamp from my ass over in tomcolt land!”

Dusk arched an eyebrow then winced. “How bad is ‘don’t’ in the context of this getting? Lots of ponies say that but mean different things.”

June groaned and squirmed awkwardly. “Do I have to tell you?”

Dusk hesitated for a moment, remembering how much the gesture pissed Juen off earlier… But gave her the go on hoff roll again anyways.

June rolled her eyes, irritated, but understanding of the gesture in this case. “My first marefriend tried to get me to notice her for two years. In the end, she only succeeded because she pulled me out of the sky with telekinesis and yelled into my face ‘I think you're hot and want to buck after dinner and a movie.’ and I thought she was joking… Until she levitated me along through dinner and a movie and got started with, well… You know.”

June tapped her forehooves together shyly as she finished recounting the tale of perhaps the most oblivious she’d ever been.

Dusk winced and set her hoof on June’s shoulder for a second time. “That’s rough, buddy. I hope you can read those signals better now.”

June coughed and shook her head. “Nope,” she murmured, planting her face into the ground.

“Well,” Dusk said, electing to change the topic before June was entirely mortified. “In that case, you seem nice, are in a rough spot, and have a degree appropriate to a job I have a lead on… I have an offer you’re probably going to be interested in, but it’s only fair you know what that offer is and who I am before I make it.”

June’s ears perked up immediately. “Wait, you’re a recruiter? I don’t care what it is! I super don’t want to live in a hole in the ground in the woods. I’ll take it! Unless it's illegal… Okay, even if it’s illegal so long as it’s not hurting anypony, doing widows, or prostituting for stallions.”

Dusk’s face slowly took on a blank expression. “You’re that desperate?”

“Dude, do you know how long it takes to build a bunker? I’m so not wiping my plot with leaves for three years. I’ll do whatever you’ll pay me to do,” June said, hoping Dusk would understand almost anything was preferable to what her dad had planned. “Especially since you said it’s in my field. Like, with the gig economy, what pony my age would turn down a job they’re interested in over, let’s be honest, probably get eaten by Timberwolves after a few weeks of shivering in a muddy hole in the ground.”

Dusk sighed again and looked wistfully off into the distance. “I get that… But for all you know, I’m the actual motherbucking grim reaper and I want you to murder a few dozen ponies in exchange for bringing you back to life after you slipped into the lake and died.”

June giggled and smiled at what was obviously a joke. “Okay, fair point… But I’d be down.”

Dusk smiled coyly. “Well, then… I don’t recruit people to handle my shit list… anymore. That got way too messy.”

June rolled her eyes at the repeated “joke”. Seriously, older ponies, those are funny once…

“Okay, so… Dusk…” June paused momentarily to ensure she had the other mare’s full attention. “I’m not trying to be rude, and I enjoy chatting, but if you have a job offer, I’d like to hear it. We can go back to jokes and swapping stories after, but I want you to know I am very serious about any job offer you have.”

Dusk dipped her head in a respectful nod.

“Fair enough,” she said as she trotted over to stand in front of Jade for a more formal interview. “I’m a businessmare. I deal in exchanges mostly. You could call me a favor broker, a fixer, and more things along those lines.”

June nodded, growing somewhat anxious. “So I know I said I’d be down for illegal things, but that was partially hyperbole.”

Dusk smirked. “The job I have right now is all above board and legal. You’ll even get the proper security clearance for it. I’ve got everything worked out with Evergreen Fall’s mayor.”

“Err. I get a clearance?”

“It’s a special archeological operation. You’d be working with a few objects owned by the Crown, all of which are classified. Nothing world shakingly dangerous or of interest to other nations. Just some of the stuff that gets classified so it can be watched over and studied in peace,” Dusk explained.

June’s ears perked. “As in, things with unknown arcane properties we’d rather reverse engineer than put on a display stand?”

Dusk nodded once. “That’s basically right. Long story short, a quarter of the town’s revenue comes from government contracts to study exactly those kinds of oddities.”

June’s ears perked. “That’s my field!”

Dusk nodded and started to reach for yet another smoke but stopped as she remembered the pink mare wanted to be formal. “You’d get a salary, basic benefits, room, and board. There’s an apartment in the old observatory which would be yours to share with anyone else working on the job. The specific job you’d be on is investigating a specific object uncovered last year… In a dig that led to the entire previous team of five vanishing mysteriously, leading to the organization having something of a personnel, hiring, and financial crisis… So you working would help net the town a lot with grant money flowing in.”

June flinched and hissed through her teeth. “Oh… I heard ponies often forget safety training in the field. How’d that happen? The vanishing, I mean.”

Dusk scrunched her muzzle then shrugged. “Head scientist was found dead at the dig site with serious burns. Two of them just plain old ran away and were never found, the rest are down in the dig site. Dead, according to the head’s hasty scribbled notes. No one knows if they can be trusted, he went into mad ramblings towards the end.”

Dusk sat down and put a hoof to her chin for a long moment, clearly trying to remember. “I… think they tripped a boobytrap. Don’t quote me on that, though.”

“Well, it sounds like they recovered an artifact, extracted it, and now it’s time for it to be studied. That’s what I’d want ponies to do if I’d died to get something out of the dirt,” June said with the most adorable little analytic-minded eagerness. “Working on something already extracted is pretty safe, I suppose. What’s the salary?”

Dusk hummed, bit her lip, then shrugged. “I don’t recall the exact number. It was in the thirty thousand range. Which goes a lot further than you’d think with room and board included.”

June nodded again. “Medical covered?”

Dusk nodded.

“Dental?”

The white mare nodded a second time.

“Travel expenses covered for work-related trips?”

Dusk shrugged, wincing slightly as if that hit on a personal issue. “It’s supposed to be. But one of my other recruits slash foster daughter is having a major pain with reimbursements right now… It’s probably just the fault of one asshole though. Everyone’s pissed off about it except the guy doing it.”

June hummed, then nodded. “I’ll absolutely take that job. Where do I sign?”

Dusk smiled faintly and held up a hoof for June to wait. “Hold it… While I can, absolutely, positively, one hundred percent, guarantee you get this job, even having you start tomorrow if you wanted, I have a few rules I don’t get to break.”

June arched her eyebrow, sighed, then slowly stood up. “Alright… What kind of corruption do I need to participate in to get the job?”

Dusk rolled her eyes, her ears flicking back as she huffed. “It’s hardly that.”

June arched her eyebrow more. “Sure looks like this is an ‘I scratch your back only if you scratch mine’ type of thing.”

“It’s just business,” Dusk corrected, while standing up. “You’ll work for the mayor, if you’re hired. Any others on the team will work for you. You’ll have the authority to hire a small number of people. Remember my old friend’s abandoned kid? She’ll need a job so she has a place to fit into society. Somewhere she can start to make friends, learn how the world works, all that general touch grass stuff.”

“Ohhhh!” June said slowly, her outrage quickly fading. “That is different. Of course, I can hire her. I’ll need an assistant. At least someone who can get me coffee and file paperwork.”

Dusk nodded, a smile returning to her lips. “Great! Just one question first… I know you’re a transmare, and this isn’t about that at all.”

June hummed and tilted her head, not quite sure how to take that statement.

“You don’t have any issues with ponies who are very clearly different from normal, do you?” Dusk asked. “I know the town won’t mind Violet one bit. It’s a…”

Dusk trailed off, looking distant for a moment, then smirked. “It’s a weirdness magnet. A bit like Ponyville,” she said before returning her gaze to June. “But you’re not one of them. If you saw somepony who was strange, perhaps even enough to think ‘That’s not a pony’, but they were also clearly a pony on the inside, would it be a problem for you?”

June blinked twice. “Is she a changeling or something? I obviously don’t have a problem with buggos… Long as they are not part of Chrysalis’s hive anyways.”

Dusk smiled faintly. “She’s an or something.”

June raised an eyebrow and stretched her wings slightly.

“What should I expect there?” She asked carefully. “Like, is she some kind of backwoods inbreeding victim? Got burned really bad? Half donkey, half mole rat?”

Dusk hummed, tapping a hoof to her chin, unsure of how much she should say.

“She doesn’t have fur,” she said at last.

June’s ears drooped faster than her heart fell. “Oh my gosh! The poor dear!” She said, stepping forwards on instinct. “Where’s she live? I used to be a seamstress for the drama club in high school. I could make her a fake fur jumpsuit. I mean, if she wants. She’s got to be so cold!”

Dusk shook her head. “Quite warm, actually… Well, since you’re not horrified by the idea of a furless mare, do we have a deal?”

June nodded firmly and held her hoof out to shake. “Deal!”

Dusk took her hoof with a firm grip and shook once. “Then we have a contract,” she said, adding a little sparkle to her eyes with a thought.

June’s face scrunched slightly. “Did you have to do that? It’s so cheesy.”

“I did. It would have deeply disappointed anyone watching us from beyond the fifth dimension if I didn’t,” Dusk giggled. “No, but we have fun here.”

Dusk cleared her throat and pointed upwards. “Head up with me? I’ll show you where Evergreen Falls is.”

June nodded and flapped her wings hard to launch herself into the sky. She soared above the treetops in just a few seconds with Dusk right on her tail. Once aloft, the white mare pointed towards a small town, densely lining the sides of a river that fed the lake below June and running up the river to where it emerged from six waterfalls that cascaded down the side of a large butte. The town was surrounded by a thick grove of cedar and pine trees that bordered the oak forest June had spent the day walking through, the transition between the two being just beyond the lake’s opposite shore.

As much of a city pony as June was, she could tell Evergreen Falls was a proper town. She could see a building that had to be city hall, a fire station, a police department, plenty of little shops lining mainstreet, what looked to be one larger department store, and at least a hundred ponies out and about doing their thing.

Pegasus vision was built for spotting things from the air.

“There she is,” Dusk announced. “See the big building that looks like it used to be a noble’s manor?”

“The town hall?” June asked as she turned her attention back to it.

“That’s right,” Dusk said. “Meet me there tomorrow at noon. It will take me a bit to get Violet ready to leave. I can take you to see her, and then the three of us will talk to the Mayor and get you sorted.”

June sighed and let herself sink slightly in the air. “Alright… I guess I should tell my folks about the town. And that I’m not going to live with them, and then tell the town’s school about my brother so he doesn’t wind up homeschooled. It’s not a long walk, he can make that.”

Dusk nodded twice, then frowned. “Hey, June?”

June looked up. “Mm?”

“You don’t happen to have a fear of robots, do you?” Dusk asked, seemingly out of the blue.

“No. Why? Does the observatory have one?”

“Just a passing thought. You know how I like to chat,” Dusk said with a dismissive hoof wave. “See you tomorrow!”

Dusk rolled to her left and banked away before shooting off at high-speed, forgetting in her haste that she’d forgotten a step in her usual “recruitment” process.

June frowned, watching Dusk retreat into the distance. I swear she’s just a bit too fast for somepony without natural flight magic. 

“Later,” June called after her before turning to look for her family’s camp through the treetops.

This conversation is going to suck, but I so don’t care.

Except she did care. Quite a lot.

June turned to fly to Evergreen Falls instead. On second thought, I think I’ll check out the only bit of civilization I’ve seen in days. Use a bathroom. Take a shower. Eat something that doesn't give me the runs. Find some painkillers for my joints. See if their library can help me understand why some ponies think nature is a good place to be…