Word had come to the Sheriff's Office that there was a dispute on the outskirts of Appleloosa, a quarrel between some settler ponies and buffalo. There'd been squabbles like this in the past; Little Strongheart and Braeburn headed out as fast as they could. Yet when they reached the supposed scene, they found no raised hackles or angry words among the handful of ponies and buffalo. Nobody was even looking at one another, all too busy staring skyward.
"Now what in the name of Celestia's rays is goin' on here?" Braeburn began, but was interrupted as his companion tapped his shoulder, pointing into the sky as a shadow fell over them.
The ponies of Appleloosa and the neighboring buffalo tribes squinted up as the huge shape flew overhead, slow and smooth. In sillhouette, it looked mostly like an enlarged battleship but for the massive discs set into its bottom surface. The largest was more or less in the center, with the smaller two at the bow and stern; all three glowed with strange geometric designs. The whole design of the thing was clean-cut, sleek but for its angles, almost alien in comparison even to Equestrian and neighboring airship designs.
One of the town's few griffons flew up to investigate the airship, eying its gunports warily. When he could tell they'd seen him and the gunports stayed firmly closed, he chanced to fly up into the view of what looked to be the main observation deck. He was surprised by the size of the windows; most airships wouldn't have such great expanses of glass, tending toward smaller windows or even portholes. Hovering in sight of the ponies inside the airship's observation deck, he waved his claws in a semaphore sequence and hoped they knew the universal signalling code. If not, he could be sending them gibberish---or worse, a hostile message.
Luckily, they seemed to understand, giving him permission to land on the outer deck. As he touched down, he was alarmed to see a group of ponies approach... looking nearly all the same. Most of them were unicorns, all the same slate-blue color with dull navy manes. Behind them, a few dark grey pegasi and brownish-grey Earth ponies. Their eyes were all pupil-less, their movements too alike to each other.
Scariest of all, each group shared the exact same Cutie Mark.
Suddenly, meeting these ponies wasn't seeming so good any more.
---
Twilight had asked Fluttershy and Rarity to come over the day after their previous meeting to talk over the meetup with the golem pony. After having discovered that the noble in question was in fact Rarity's friend Fancy Pants and getting the message to him, Twilight wanted to ask a little more. "Fluttershy, you said you've heard about golem ponies a little before... is there anything you know about how they act?"
"Oh, um. Well, I hear they're... nice." Fluttershy glanced away.
"Nice?"
"Yes, nice."
Twilight's smile was a little strained. "... And that's all, just that they're... 'nice'?"
"Well, um... I also hear they're a little... different?" An expectant pause dragged out a little more. "... Something about them being very... placid, not very reactive. Um, just what I heard, I don't really know..."
Twilight turned to Rarity, not sure if she should be hopeful. "What about you, Rarity? I know you hadn't heard of golems by name until I brought them up, but..."
"Well, darling, I do seem to remember the odd Canterlot customer or two mentioning someone as having an uncommonly docile maid with odd eyes, teeth that seemed perhaps a little too uniform and white... I'm not really sure what to gather from it, though, dear, I'm sorry."
"No, girls, what you've told me is a good start." Twilight shook her head, smiling more genuinely now. "I at least understand what to expect in some form... "
But did she really? How accurate were these accounts anyway? If golems were so rare, how sure could she be that this pony they'd heard of was really a golem and not just a pony who acted and looked a little strange?
---
A small blue unicorn filly stood by the sliding doors of the observation deck, looking out the window to the exposed outer deck from which their visitor had made a hasty (perhaps frightened) retreat.
"Template, why'd Mister Griffon go away?" The filly looked up at the other with pupil-less emerald eyes. With the same lack of blackness, a pair of jade eyes met them; the cyan-grey Earth pony mare leaning down to nuzzle the younger softly, her teal mane bobbing slightly.
"I don't know, Beta. The welcoming squad didn't get to do any welcoming... perhaps he had an urgent reason to head back down to Appleloosa." Her cutie mark was similar to her sister's: three horizontal lines near the color of her eyes---but in her case, it was the bottom line that was broken (☴). "Or perhaps the welcoming squad was a bit much... maybe we should come out right away next time with only a couple guards. I'm sure we'll get to talk to someone soon..." The strange Earth mare smiled at her equally-strange sister. "Let's go find Big Brother and Sister, maybe have a nice game of Go."
Turning away from the windows, they trotted off toward the doorways that'd take them to their quarters. Guardponies opened the doors for them at each entrance, pupil-less eyes blank as their expressions.