"Oh, more times than you could count, for as long as I can remember," Star said. For a moment she was back on the plains, swishing through long grass up to her belly as she trailed behind a nomad herd. "Long enough to learn the 'grassy natta' anyway"
"Grassy natta!" Zecora's jaw flexed and a grin spread across her face at the familiar sound of the plains creole. She leaned toward Star a little more as she replied, waving a hoof at Twilight and kicking up her chin. "Your filly didn't tell me you spoke that. She didn't say much else either come to think of it. Have you been to the Marengeti? Did you go out to Impalawi before she was born?"
"Before all those wildcats!" Star bobbed her head toward Twilight and then pointed over her back at the invisible horizon. "I had him after visiting the Mangwa, made a bit of a fool of myself in the back of an Ass's cart in the middle of going somewhere important, so we came home before I ended up having him in the middle of Borundi. Kept throwing up everywhere, I wasn't happy."
Zecora laughed and pounded the table with her hoof. "You're the spitting Celestian monster! I thought it was just dumb donkey stories!"
"I was throwing up all over the place. Anyway, when I had her I also had a bit of a scrap with my herd. I went off to Impalawi right after she was born to a dig recovering some ancient donkey artefacts. Scrolls. It brought me a little fame."
The zebra glanced at Twilight and nodded her head slowly. "Sounds like your sisters and you had a really big fight"
"Like you would not believe," Star replied. She tapped her hooves against the table while she thought of a way off the topic. "So did you follow the donkey migrants over here or what?"
"No I came a different way. I came to Equestria after my work dried up over there also my mother died too." Zecora rolled her glass between her hooves and stared into it. Her expression was unreadable, but that wasn't surprising. Zebra were very good at hiding their emotions when they wanted to. "I wasn't thinking too well and I kind of got myself stuck living in the Everfree after I ran out of money."
"You look like you're making plenty now, did you find some other work?"
"Oh I'm making a fortune! Enough to fix up my old place after next winter wrapup for sure. I've made so many bits selling cheap rubbish. These Celestians..." Zecora tapped the front of her head with her hoof and blew a raspberry. "They're crazy!"
Star burst out laughing. "You say that, but you're the one sat in a mud pit!"
"Better to sit in mud and share friendship than live in finery and let it slip," Zecora replied. Again Star laughed, this time at the solemn tone of Zecora's voice as it delivered so many horseapples. The Zebra's mouth twisted into a smirk as she tugged a bottle from her saddlebag under the table and set it on the table. "Please tell me more of your journeys about my lands, Star Sparkle of Canterlot. Perhaps I know of things and places yet that you do not?"
* * *
"That girl is pretty angry," Zecora said as the door closed behind the pair. "Your daughter is sitting right on the edge of madness." (literally "sitting with the family of madness")
"She gets it from her father."