So the Running of the Leaves is an event that happens, where in most towns, or anything that isn’t a cloud city or Canterlot, most ponies run through a forest, or a tree-dense part of town, to help the leaves fall from the trees or whatever. I doubt that a dozen ponies, all of which are smaller and less heavy than horses, can make enough strong vibrations to make leaves fall from a tree, but I do have an idea of how this works. Ponies, even if they do not realize it, all have magic. However, ponies have different ways of using said magic, and how they do it is usually based heavily on the tribe, or subspecies of pony.
Unicorns are really obvious, we can impose our will on the environment around us through our horns and our horns are almost exclusively how we use our magic. Granted, we do have some minor ability to use magic to grab stuff with our hooves, though I’ve noticed that hoof grip changes from tribe to tribe after some testing with the help of my guard friends…
Well, Solar’s guard friends who agreed to help the princess’s consort test something.
This all boils down to earth ponies being the strongest with hoof grip, pegasi in third, and unicorns in last. If you took alicorns into account, Cadance, an alicorn more suited for testing due to her not being a thousand years old, ties with earth ponies when it comes to hoof grip. An untrained alicorn is onyl a little weaker than an earth pony. Granted, Celly and Lulu have stronger hoof grips than most earth ponies because they're trained alicorns.
Pegasi and earth pony magic is less blatant to the naked eye, but pegasi seem to use magic for flying, since not having wings is the least of a pony’s worry when trying to fly. Again, horse-shaped bodies are not aerodynamic. They also use magic to be able to stand on clouds, manipulate them, and control the weather. Enough pegasi can channel their magic together in order to make tornadoes and hurricanes should there be a need. Earth ponies… are broken as fuck dude.
Earth ponies, inherently will always be better farmers and gardeners than their avian and horned counterparts, as their magic actively helps plants grow. Apple Jack is a good example of how an earth pony’s magic works with plants. Her kick, as strong as it is, isn’t what makes apples fall from her trees, it’s her earth pony magic. Earth ponies are also usually better cooks, with rare exceptions like Chef Beet, than the other tribes. As in… they are able to more easily discern ripe ingredients, the exact time it takes to cook something perfectly and some other things. So in day-to-day life, earth ponies are also even if they don’t have a horn to levitate shit with.
Some colt, a long, long time ago discovered that earth ponies have significantly stronger hoof strength, as in they can literally use their hoof grip on the ground and casually pull up to four times their own body weight. Earth ponies, per kilo, are stronger than the other tribes. It doesn’t help that earth ponies are usually bigger than unicorns, which are then usually bigger than pegasi. With the exception of Rainbow, who is about Apple Jack’s height and build, even if it’s a sleeker build because of her being a pegasus, most pegasi are half a head shorter than a unicorn. An earth pony is usually two or three heads taller than a unicorn. Like side by side, Shining Armor’s huge for a unicorn, and then Big Mac's a small…
Three hooves, or just a meter, taller than Shining.
Though Big Mac and Shining are on the extremes of height.
By the way, I am vertically challenged, since I’m actually shorter than even Fluttershy, who’s what you can expect from a regular pegasus. Stature-wise at least.
Oh yeah, earth ponies. So earth ponies, if they are strong enough, which usually they are, can overpower most unicorns, even with magic, without a problem. Like I think the only unicorn that can hold down Apple Jack is Twilight, and Twilight wouldn’t be able to do it forever. If Apple Jack were a murderer, thank god she isn’t, she could wait for days, when Twilight would be exhausted, and Apple Jack would still be as energetic as ever…
It wouldn’t end well for Twilight in this hypothetical scenario, lemme tell you.
Also earth ponies, mostly because of their usually longer legs and unintentional hoof grip, can run about thrice as fast as other tribes. Though Rainbow Dash, again is an exception. That mare is genuinely just really quick, a fast flier, fast runner, and just fast. Like she can keep up with Apple Jack in a lot of aspects, including strength, which is scary when you consider that Apple Jack is probably one of the most fit earth ponies I know.
Also, Rainbow Dash can fly faster than I can even perceive, so I’m doing my best to not piss her off.
Where was I again? Oh yeah! The running of the leaves.
So, there are two sides to the event, the foals and the adults. Usually there’s a competitive and casual version of each, but most of the ponies in Ponyville are very competitive, so there’s only a competitive version. There isn’t much of a reason for it, since next to nopony is going to be running in the casual side of the Running of the Leaves in Ponyville. Foals get their own, shorter track so if a foal falls, they aren’t getting trampled by at least forty other ponies. A foal running over a foal won’t leave the foal that got run over, very hurt. Maybe a bruise here or there… an earth pony slamming into a foal could easily crush a ribcage, or the foal’s…
Ok, no. I am not imagining that, because all I imagine is Button falling during the adult event. I do not like that visual. In fact, I don’t like thinking about it. Luckily, Button is nearby, so I can snuggle with him and keep that horrible sight out of my head. Anyways, since the Running of the Leaves happens just a little after Nightmare Night, or the last day of Button’s Fall Break, I figured we both should stay in town and partake. Button wanted to, I wanted to just walk through the woods, it was a win-win.
Celestia and Luna will be coming back tomorrow to spectate the race, thanks to an Eye Spy spell a unicorn, from out of town, was paid to use in order for non-runners to partake in the event. Twilight and her friends were competing, save… Okay, nevermind. Just Rainbow, Apple Jack, and Twilight were competing. Rarity doesn’t like the idea of running, or being sweaty. Pinkie is acting as a commentator, and Fluttershy doesn’t wanna run.
Button, along with my other students, would be running in the foal event simply because the winner of that event got a coupon for a free chocolate bar, a princess sized chocolate bar, from Sugarcube Corner that was honored once a week, for the next year. In other words, show up to Sugarcube Corner, get a huge chocolate bar for free. Come back next week, and get the same size bar. The other times, you would get a free chocolate bar, just not a princess sized one. For you non-ponies, princess size is essentially those inconceivably big bars of candy you’d get on Halloween from the super rich person’s home.
The top ten winners of the adult event got medals, with first place also just getting forty bits. That was enough to feed yourself and your foal for a week, by the way. So it was a good amount, but not life changing.
I don’t plan on winning, I wanna just… walk through the woods.
That sounded like a fun, peaceful time.
Button and I had split up, with my kid being picked up by his little friends, and me heading on down to where the Running of the Leaves was taking place. Twilight and Spike left way before me and Button, because Twilight likes to Twilight and be super early, or exactly on schedule in her imaginary schedule. Overhead, I could hear a chariot being pulled through the air. Yeah, Celly and Lulu are in town to watch the event now. I was wondering when they’d show up.
Luna jumped out of the god damn chariot again! Luna! You fucking dork!
Well, I at least knew where Luna’s interest lied; she was flying towards where the foals’ Running of the Leaves was happening.
After a few minutes, I made it over to the starting line, or where everypony was meeting before we all had to be put at the starting line.
“There he is!’ Oh god. Rainbow and Apple Jack were on me the moment I walked into the general vicinity of where they were, which was probably somewhere with Twilight if I’m not too mistaken. I looked around, looking dumb, wondering if I should just wander into the forest that has a bunch of what many from my world would call Ohio’s state flower, or a bunch of traffic cones, because that’s not where you’re supposed to run. Whitetail Woods and the Everfree Forest were actually one and the same, just one is serene, peaceful and actually a really lovely place to be.
The other will fuck you in every hole possible while Poison Joke laughs at you, a manticore is trying to eat you while a cockatrice is turning you into stone.
“Yeah, Ah was wondering if he’d show up after chickening out of the Iron Pony Competition!” AJ said. Now I was surrounded by two rather pretty mares, and I would be perfectly okay with that if it weren’t for three reasons. Okay, maybe two. Reason number one is Celly. I think Celly literally tried putting a collar on me to wear while I was in Ponyville without her, and asked really nicely if she could put it on me. My response was that it was for bedroom purposes only. The second reason… Well, we’re going to have a gander at my journal for that one lads.
So since I was staying in town, since it was just after Nightmare Night and the Running of the Leaves happened the day after, I thought it didn’t make sense for me and Button to go back to Canterlot just to get on a train and go back to Ponyville after not even a full two days back in town. So, because Twilight literally wouldn’t let me sleep in a hotel room if it killed her, I stayed with her and Spike at the library. During that day, Button spent most of the day crusading with the crusaders…
And ended up burning up a train set somehow while they were just playing around.
I decided to hangout with Apple Jack for the day, who happened to be hanging out with Rainbow Dash. The two of them were having a fun little competition thingy, or it wasn’t supposed to. We were just playing horseshoe toss… Man, I don’t think I’d see something I played as a lad with my siblings in a pony world, but I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, I wish I had my siblings to play with, but I think the Apples got my adoption forms finalized without me signing anything, since Apple Bloom just straight up called me uncle, and I also saw a ‘list of unofficial apples’.
I, along with most of Apple Jack’s friends, were on that list.
Rainbow Dash was the first one to have a go, throwing the thing just shy of the stake. The usual smacktalk between the two of them occurred, only for Apple Jack to come up short. I was just sitting on my butt, quietly waiting for my turn. I have a feeling that both the mares I’m with aren’t completely straight, but mare on mare relationships are common, and it is really common for there to be a third, or fourth mare in a relationship along with a stallion so that they can have sexy times or whatever.
Eitherway, I think this is how these two flirt with each other, by beating each other in physical competition.
“Dang, AJ,” I said as her shot landed shy of Rainbow’s throw. “That’s a darn shame, eh?”
“Shut up Source, like you could do better than either me, or, Rainbow. It would be fair, you’re a bit scrawny looking, and a fancy-smancy Canterlot-'' while Apple Jack was going on about something possibly racist, even if she didn’t mean to be racist, it’s all in good fun and everypony is probably just a little racist. I picked up a horse shoe with a hoof, since I couldn’t do the fancy ‘stomp on it and catch it with your teeth’ thing Apple Jack and Dash can do. I hummed, before tossing it, and nailing the stake with it. There was a clean ‘ding’ as it hit, and slid down the thing. I stared at it for a moment, before shrugging and sitting back down.
“Source,” AJ said slowly. “What?”
“Wuh?” I asked. AJ just snorted, before both Rainbow missed another throw, and AJ nailed it. I nailed my shot as well after throwing my horseshoe over my back for the fun of it.
“Damn. That was pretty cool, way cleaner than my first throw was,” I said with a smile.
“Source, are you secretly an athlete?” Rainbow asked. “You beat me and Apple Jack in this!”
“...I do some guard training every now and then. Sometimes Celestia kicks my ass, same with Luna. Most of the time I just…”
“Didn’t you beat a lot of unicorns by going physical during that der’ fancy tournament that you almost won?” Apple Jack asked.
“No, I did that to one pony that threatened to do some illegal stuff to Twilight. Plus I don’t think any of the ponies I fought, besides Shining Armor, actually had combat experience, or whatever is floating around in my brain.” I am clinically stupid, and will run into a fight without thinking if pissed.
“Ah think we should test that out with an Iron Pony Competition,” Apple Jack said. “You say yer in the guard or something, so you’ve gotta have some muscle, city boy.” I blinked a few times. Dude, all I did was play a game I played a lot as a lad, what the heck is an Iron Pony competition? I stared blankly as it was set up. Oh, it’s a strength competition… You know, I think I may go into the Everfree Forest and do some more testing with dark magic. I hummed, before engulfing myself in DragonFire and flying off, as fast as I could, into the aforementioned forest, and landed at Celly’s old castle.
That’s where I spent the rest of the day until I remembered I had to pick up Button from Rarity’s place after he was done playing with his friends.
“Hi?” I said. I might be tempted to go back into the Everfree Forest.
“You chickened out of that Iron Pony contest, Source,” Rainbow said plainly. “It was mostly to see who was better between me and Apple Jack, and it would’ve been interesting to see how you would do!”
“Sorry, I don’t speak Equish.” I said in my most English accent I could muster. Since I was Irish, it didn’t work very well.
“...What?”
“I do not know what you are saying.” I paused, before doing my best to actually speak in Irish, which really confused the shit out of both mares. I knew like five words, so halfway through I wasn’t even speaking in a language, it was just a bunch of noise, mixed in with the occasional Spanish or French word to make it seem like a different language.
“...Source, what the heck was that?”
“I dunno. So why does it matter if you guys know how athletic I am? I just left because I didn’t wanna partake in the yellow pony thing, or whatever. And also I don’t like performing in front of crowds unless I have something like whisky to put hair on my chest and make me forget what the heck is going on. That, which isn’t legal to do in actual competitions, or I just tune out the crowd and hope for the best.” I hummed before shrugging. “Either way, I’m not a competitive pony, I don’t care about athletic stuff. What was meant to be a day where I hung out with two of my favorite ponies, ended up being what looked like a shit show, so I decided to just leave.”
“...Oh. Wait, two of your favorites… ponies?” Apple Jack asked.
“Yeah, you have Rainbow beat by just a hair for me. Both of y’all, despite not being stallions, are proper bros. I was having a dandy-ol’ time ‘til the Iron Pony thing became a thing…” I shrugged. “Feck it, just go race each other and prove you’re the best, or whatever, I’m gonna be taking my time to stop and smell the roses during this race. Life goes by way too quickly to not enjoy just a walk through the forest, after all.” They both blinked at that.
Rainbow was the first to speak. “You just said the cheesiest thing ever. Didn’t you start dating Princess Celestia after… like four months of knowing her?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I take things quick, other times close my eyes, breathe in slowly, and let my troubles go for a bit. This seems like a good time for that.”
The airhorn, dunno how they got one of those, but Pinkie is confusing. Everypony but Twilight started making a mad dash, and Twilight started just trotting along. I waited until Twilight was long, long out of sight before I started walking too. I started humming the Humours of Whisky while I happily started trotting through Whitetail woods. The forest floor was nicely covered in the shade of every tree, with the occasional, orange or yellow leaf on the floor. As I looked around, a leaf or three would slowly fall to the ground.
I literally did stop and smell a few roses… Celly said roses did taste good, so I even took a bite.
It was… weird. Tasted like a very, very light velvet cake. Yeah, that’s good. The leaves ahead of me were trampled, likely by the dozens of other runners in the competition. The sound of leaves crunching under hoof satisfied the stupid child in me that liked stepping on leaves during autumn, because I was a stupid little kid that really liked stepping on leaves. Eitherway, I was enjoying myself. Along the way, I would occasionally find Rainbow Dash or Apple Jack doing something that could be considered cheating, or a pony who had tired themselves out and was panting, laying flat on their side under a tree. Other than that I never saw another pony. I once caught a very short glimpse of Twilight’s tail, before I stopped to admire a small little stream. It wasn’t a big, raging river, it was just a small, serene little stream.
The sound of water slightly bouncing off the occasional stone in the river, the occasional, very small fish that would jump out of the water… It was beautiful. It wasn’t meant to be the loudest kid in the room, or the prettiest thing in the world, but just… something about a small stream that is nice to watch. After a minute of staring, I kept on walking, before noting that something… landed on my back. It was a small little bluejay that was happily chirping. It pecked the back of my ear, which almost made me mad…
Then it turned out it just grabbed a tick off my mane. The bluejay flew away right after, so I guess he decided ‘screw this guy’.
I closed my eyes and allowed the noise of the forest flow through me as I began to ponder my place in the world. Once some Irish kid that had to grow up too quickly, now I’m a prince consort, even if I’m not married to Celly yet, I’ve got a kid, which is just shocking… I’m friends with a bunch of wonderful people… But it just feels wrong. I hate being a horse. I hate not being able to tell me Mum not being able to compliment me on my cooking, or my siblings screaming. I miss being human. With my eyes closed, I can almost, almost pretend that I was the wee lil’ lad walking to school on a nice, peaceful day in Ireland after it stopped raining… okay, that’s a lie.
It never stops raining in Ireland.
Aside from that though, this whole experience is- Something bumped into me and sent me sprawling towards the ground.
“Feck,” I grunted. My opened to the tails of Rainbow and Apple Jack, a small dust crowd trailing them, and them yelling at each other… They sound like a married couple. I got up, brushed myself off and kept on trotting until I ended up catching up to Twilight, who had just passed a fairly worn out Rainbow and Apple Jack, who were resting, and totally not cuddling, under a cherry tree. I trotted up to Twilight’s side after catching up and waved.
“Howdy Twi, how’s the Running of the Leaves, eh?”
“It’s going great! I’ve been able to note at least fourteen different subspecies of birds, four different types of leaves, along with four different trees to go with it. This is really nice! How’s the race going for you?”
“Takin’ things slow. I will admit, I did wait until everypony else was far ahead of me before I got started to have some time to myself and think,” I eyed the Eye Spy windows. “Think about things I won’t be saying, and… yeah. This takes me back to my days as a lad, walking to school with a jug of poitin. That’s alcohol for you, Twi.” Twilight’s eyes widened. “I’m Irish, lass, eh?” I let my accent loosen up. “I can out drink an alicorn. Been drinkin’ since I was a wee little lad.” I made my point by teleporting a shot of whisky and downing it. “Not even close to getting drunk.” I looked dead at the Eye Spy. “Luna, you still owe me fourteen bits for outdrinking you.”
I am going to get thwacked over the head for that later.
“Oh… right. Can you tell me about Ireland?”
“It was a rainy, shitty island in the middle of nowhere. What else is there to say?”
“...Do you hate home?”
“Nah. Wish I could go home, but I don’t wanna leave anypony in Equestria. Real dilemma, aye?”
“Yeah… I miss being in Canterlot, and at least that’s only a short trip in the hot air balloon, or a train ride away.”
“Meh, enough about the depressing topics, aight?” I cleared my throat. “How many ponies have you passed? I’ve counted a good ten, at least, that were tuckered out under a bush somewhere… I think. You’re a better observationalist than I am.”
“I think currently, we are tied for fourth. If you’d like, I can give you the win. I’ve already ‘put you to shame’ in a majority of the magic competitions during the convention.”
“I’m not competitive. Fifth place still gets a ribbing. I say we tie, we bisect our ribbons, and then combine them with magic and roll with that.”
“Works for me.”
We ended up tying and doing just that. Button, having finished in third, behind Scootaloo, Apple Bloom won first. Speaking of, I was just laying in the grass, having five tired foals panting, tongues hanging out the side of their muzzles, resting on my side. Dinky, god bless her soul, came dead last, since like her mother, she isn’t the most coordinated filly in the room. None of the foals besides Scootaloo, and even she didn’t really care, cared about what place they came in. Apple Bloom agreed to split the prize with the rest of her friends anyways, since the princess-sized candy bars were almost as big as her whole hoof.
It was unanimously agreed that, even if Apple Bloom wanted to eat that much chocolate, she couldn’t, so she’d probably end up giving the rest of the bar to Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, or Dinky, so they just ended up deciding to split the big-ass bar four, or five ways if Button was in town, each week. Or use the chocolate to try and get a baking cutie mark in various different baked, chocolate goods.
Thwack.
“I do not owe thee fourteen bits, Source. Do you understand how much my head ached until I healed myself?” Luna asked. I was snuggled up into her side, since Celly agreed to being the ‘stand and wave’ princess today. I was fine with cuddling either even if cuddling with Celly was a treat, Luna was still a good cuddle buddy. Leave it to the oldest ponies in existence to know how to snuggle, I suppose. “I drank liters of whisky.”
“And I drank four times as you did.”
“...Buck you, Source.”
“Dad, why didn’t you let me try any whisky? You sang a whole song about how good it was.”
“Because you aren’t fully Irish, just by law you are if you can sing the Rocky Road to Dublin while drunk. Unfortunately, I ain’t letting you drink until you’re fourteen at the earliest, and that’s assuming Celly will let you. She definitely won’t. When you get old enough, yes, you and your old man will sit on a roof somewhere and sip on some whisky.”
“I still do not understand what the buck is in your system to let you drink so much,” Luna grumbled.
“Potatoes, whisky, and rain water. And pure joy. That makes an Irish Man.” I leaned back. “I’m going to make some mash when we get home. Dunno how the buck I’ll make gravy, but I’ll try my best…” Or not. Mash isn’t complete without some good gravy, and you can’t really make gravy without meat… shrooms. I am going to make mushroom gravy. We watched as AJ and Dash finally crossed the finish line after a solid hour of waiting. They came in dead last; third to last showed up a solid thirty minutes before them. To their credit, they didn’t look worse for wear even if they were covered in scratches and dirt.
I tuned out the cheesy friendship lesson that they learnt, and continued to just lie in the grass to continue enjoying the nice, cool autumn breeze as it ruffled through my fur. Soon, it ended up with just me, Button, Celly and Lulu laying in the grass in a little pony pile. It wasn’t fit for two princesses to lay in the grass, but I think my two favorite alicorns were starting to open up to the idea of acting less like a symbol of perfection since I’ve come around.
Occasionally some asshole would come by with a camera, snap a photo and run while whispering about their latest story. None of us cared. Well, I did, but like… Celly started licking the inside of my ears. Luna quickly caught on, and swiped my kid to lick the inside of his ears. Within minutes, Celly was humming in delight while I was grooming her.
This was a good day. I’m having fun.