KNOCK KNOCK.
“Whur?” said Joe, trying to cling to sleep.
KNOCK KNOCK!
Giving up Joe dragged himself out from under his bedding and lurched to the door. He’d woken up enough to do this and to very vaguely wonder why he had not woken up more. The simple latch on the door seemed more complex as he fiddled with it and managed, with an effort, to clear his mind a little. Taking a breath and trying to not slump as much Joe opened the door and peered out.
“Surprise!”
“Yaaa!” Joe said, feeling more awake from the shock of having something jump up at him. Then he looked at the giggling Pink Mare. “Pinkie…”
“Sorry Joe,” said Pinkie Pie, continuing to giggle. A look of slight concern came to her face as her giggles faded. “Sorry,” she repeated, “are you okay?”
“Rough night,” Joe said, glancing at the sky, “and judging from the sun part of the morning.” For a moment he was silent as he rubbed at his forehead. “Strange dreams,” he added before giving Pinkie Pie a weak but welcoming smile, “so, what brings you here?”
“I brought you more buns!” replied Pinkie Pie, twisting her head round to her pannier to flip a box out of it into a high arc. She turned her head back towards Joe as she looked up, and then neatly caught the box to balance it on top of her head.
“Thank you Pinkie,” Joe said, stepping forward to take the box and only as he took it remembering he was wearing just the shorts he’d slept in. “Ah, I can offer tea or juice or something, if you have time?”
“Tea would be nice,” agreed Pinkie Pie before putting on an appealing expression, “and those buns looked awful yummy when I was putting them in the box.”
“Well you can’t have any,” Joe said, pausing just long enough for Pinkie Pie to begin to pout, “but you can help finish off the older ones.”
“Deal!” grinned Pinkie Pie.
Joe retreated and freshened up as the kettle heated. He still felt unsettled by the dreams and the scattered images he could recall. Armies marching, with sword and spear and guns and tanks. Fleets sailing the seas, sail and steam and oars, ships being boarded or destroying each other with guns. In the air squadrons of warplanes, fighting each other or raining destruction on the ground below. Wars of fantasy or science fiction, starships and wizards crackling with energy, powered armour and giants with vast strength, alien monsters from the stars or from beneath the ground or sea.
It was a welcome distraction when he had put on socks and a clean pair of shorts and had to decide what else to wear. The shirt and trousers Rarity had made yesterday might be clean enough, if not completely clean. He’d only done a little walking, had barely broken a sweat in his weapon drills while wearing them, and had taken them off before he did his main and sweatier exercise. So he’d intended to wear them today and get one more day’s use. But that had been when he was not expecting company.
Joe shook his head at his own foolishness and the proof that Rarity had been right to suggest that if he didn’t have all his clothes altered then he’d start having to think about it. Baggy and completely clean seemed better than flattering and very slightly sweaty, it was not like Pinkie Pie cared what he looked like but she might care about the smell, so Joe donned some of his older clothes. Boots laced on and teapot, milk, sugar, and older buns arranged on a tray he returned outside to find his guest had taken off her panniers and was happily settled.
“You look a little better.”
“I am feeling a little better,” Joe replied, putting the tray down and sinking down to sit cross-legged beside her.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Thank you, but…” Joe began, starting to automatically decline before he realised he didn’t want to, “actually yes?”
“Really?” said Pinkie Pie in surprise.
Joe smiled to her. “I’m sure I’ll return to not saying much, but… all in confidence?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“I’ll not ask you to go that far, would make it hard to eat buns.”
“All right,” Pinkie Pie giggled.
“Still, things had been seeming normal, like I’d got used to them but, maybe it’s just the effect of the last couple of days, but I had dreams filled with images of human history.”
“Bad dreams?”
“Not so bad,” Joe admitted, “nothing too dreadful or filled with despair, but just so random. No sooner did I recognise what was going on then everything shifted, and not in a way that made sense. So I was feeling rather confused and then I felt like I was still dreaming as I opened the door to a talking pink Pony.”
“Because I woke you so suddenly.”
“You were not to know. Besides, even if waking more gradually had made me feel better I doubt it would have worked as well as your company.”
“Thanks,” Pinkie Pie said, resting her chin on Joe’s knee as he relaxed back to lean against the wall of his hut. “What are you going to do today?”
“I’m not sure,” Joe admitted, noticing the chin but not paying it much heed. “Gradually feeling like I am not still dreaming, even if this is surreal by the standards of more than a few months ago. With how I have overslept it’s fortunate I don’t need to visit Sweet Apple Acres today and I don’t need to go anywhere else but… still in confidence?”
“Of course, betraying a secret is the best way to lose a friend, forever.”
Joe nodded. “As pleasant as this is,” he smiled to her, “because you are letting me wake up before I get full Pinkie bounce, I think I’ll take myself off somewhere and try to avoid other company today.”
“I know when a friend needs some quiet, but why do you want to avoid everypony?”
Joe tipped his head back a little as he looked at the mountains in the distance and thought and sighed, his hand absent-mindedly beginning to scritch Pinkie Pie between the ears as he considered his answer. “It seems Twilight has decided I am her latest research project…”
“Has she tried hooking you up to the machines that go ‘ping’ yet?”
“Not yet, so thanks for the warning. Then there’s Fluttershy, she apologised for not asking me a lot of questions, and Rainbow Dash who, as you saw, seems to have taken it as a challenge whether humans or Pegasi have more warrior tradition. So not just Twilight that might be asking me questions.”
Joe paused as he remembered Princess Celestia’s warning to continue to be cautious and as some more of the images from his dream came back. Talking anthropology with Fluttershy would likely not annoy the Sun Goddess but it had been embarrassing enough yesterday with Rarity. Trading tales of military history with Rainbow Dash would be less embarrassing but seemed far more likely to annoy the ruler of Equestria.
“Applejack and Rarity?” Pinkie Pie prompted, sounding content.
For a moment the tone of Pinkie Pie’s voice didn’t register and then Joe realised what his hand had been doing. He whipped it away from Pinkie Pie’s head as if her mane had suddenly become red hot and made of razor sharp steel wool. “Crap! Sorry.”
“What for?” asked Pinkie Pie, fully opening her eyes and looking confused at the apology.
“I know up here,” Joe said, tapping his head with the errant hand, “that you are a person. So I shouldn’t let my habits lead me into stroking you as if you were a dog or a cat or something.”
“I didn’t mind,” smiled Pinkie Pie, a wicked gleam coming into her eyes. “Want to tickle my tummy?”
“Gah!” Joe exclaimed as she rolled and waved her hooves in the air.
For several seconds all Pinkie Pie could do was giggle and roll about. Then she regained enough control to gesture at Joe with a forehoof. “The expression on your face,” she managed to choke out before another fit of giggles took her at Joe’s reaction to her words. Finally she turned back onto her front and returned her chin to Joe’s knee. “So, Applejack and Rarity?”
“With Applejack,” Joe said, noticing the chin more now than he had before, “familiarity breeds contempt.”
“I’d think it would breed familiarity…”
“True,” Joe admitted, making the old and obvious joke, “when a daddy familiarity and a mummy familiarity love each other very much…” Pinkie Pie rewarded this meagre effort with another giggle. “And contempt is not the right word, but she is so used to seeing me around Sweet Apple Acres it would take a lot to make her decide she needs to quiz me.”
“Rarity?”
“I think I satisfied her questions yesterday, and she has my measurements now. Though she was insisting I needed at least one suit for special occasions so she might be planning something, and I’m not sure if I’d be disappointed or relieved if she isn’t.”
They sat for a few moments in silence before Pinkie Pie broke that. “So, where were you thinking of going?”
“I could reach the mountains, though been better to have left at daybreak rather than mid-morning and could just be dreams prompting the idea. Some of them were similar to games where you, the ‘brave adventurer’, would dare to explore them… unlike the townsfolk who remained huddled in their homes.”
Pinkie Pie giggled at the over-dramatic tone of the reply. “Might be better to not dare.”
“True, mountains are dangerous and my attitude to danger is a little different when it is not a game. Something to hope to avoid rather than consider it boring if there wasn’t some to investigate.”
“So where to then?”
“Maybe some hill walking, or see if I can find a lake I’ve noticed on a map…”
“Ooh, that is a nice lake, good for swimming. Can humans swim?”
Joe considered mentioning the ‘Aquatic Ape’ hypothesis that suggested humans were such good swimmers they might have had an ancestor that spent a lot of time in the water, and that might have been why they’d lost so much fur. But he’d never thought much of the suggestion and before he could say anything about humans and swimming a different voice interrupted those thoughts.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all Spike!” said Pinkie Pie, bounding to her feet and across to greet the small Dragon. “And you wouldn’t have been even if Joe hadn’t refused to tickle my tummy.”
“That seemed too much a liberty,” Joe nodded as Pinkie Pie gave him a cheery pout and he looked at his hand. “Though my instincts played me false again and this did go back to ear and mane scritching. So apologies again, even if you don’t mind.”
“He gives good ear scritches,” Pinkie Pie stage whispered.
“So what brings you here Spike, other than your feet? Pinkie was delivering some buns, and lingered to eat some of the old ones.”
“And for the ear scritches.”
“That too.”
“I want to get Rarity some gems,” Spike answered.
“So wanting some help with mining and digging and carrying?”
“Er…”
“I can spare the time,” Joe reassured him.
“Thanks, and that help would be welcome, but…” said Spike before his next words dissolved into a murmur. Joe blinked and wondered if that inaudibility showed Spike’s embarrassment or that human hearing wasn’t as good as Spike assumed.
“Pardon?”
“I said,” Spike took a breath and forced himself to speak clearly, “the only place I know is near the Diamond Dogs.”
“Wait,” said Joe, regaining the feeling that he was still dreaming, “the Diamond Dogs. The… people… who tried to enslave Rarity to use her talents…”
“And the rest of us!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing about and starting to do cartwheels and her unique interpretation of martial arts moves. “They jumped us in their tunnels, but ‘wham’, ‘pow’…”
“I’m not sure what you have heard Spike, but why are you talking to me about those gems?”
“You fought a Manticore…”
“As Fluttershy pointed out it was not a full grown one, and being willing to defend the Cutie Mark Crusaders is not the same as wanting to kill.”
“I’m not asking you to kill,” Spike protested.
“Then what are you asking? You think if the Diamond Dogs attack us I could afford to hold back?”
“Are these like anything on your world?” Pinkie Pie asked, finishing her gymnastics.
“Only in mythology, some creatures with wolf or hyena heads or there are Werewolves…”
“Werewolves?” Spike asked.
“Men who can turn into Wolves, or a hybrid form that might look similar to the Diamond Dogs. But I think I am judging them by what I have heard of them rather than misjudging them by creatures of myth.”
“I know it is asking a lot, but I need to do this,” Spike said, trying to emulate the sort of expression he knew had worked on Joe when the Cutie Mark Crusaders had used it.
“And I need to get back to being boring and disappointing Discord,” replied Joe, not mentioning this would also be welcomed by Princess Celestia, “and going to near the Diamond Dogs would not be boring. I’d help you dig elsewhere, but…”
“I’ll help!” Pinkie Pie interrupted.
“You will?” said Spike.
“Sure,” Pinkie Pie grinned, “lead on Spikey!”
“Ooooohh-kay.”
“I wonder if Diamond Dogs like parties?”
“I can’t persuade you to not go, can I Pinkie?” Joe asked in a resigned tone.
“Nope.”
“Even though I listened to you when you said the mountains were too dangerous.”
“Yep.”
“So my choice is not whether to go or not, it’s whether to let you go without me or not.”
“Yep!”
Joe sighed and shook his head. “I’ll get my armour on.”
“Thanks!” Spike said.
“Normally when I say ‘don’t mention it’ I’d mean ‘it’s little trouble, so one thanks is enough’,” commented Joe as he stood. “This time though I do mean don’t mention it. To anyone. Please.”
“Okie-dokie-loki!” agreed Pinkie Pie.
Already regretting his decision Joe returned inside his hut and laid out his armour. A moment’s thought and he took off the baggy trousers as well as the baggy shirt. That had the disadvantage that he’d needed to remove his boots but meant he could keep those trousers as clean as having only worn them for a short conversation had left them. The tighter trousers from yesterday donned, his boots returned to his feet and laced again, and a vest put on to absorb sweat and protect the harder to launder quilted vest he considered what to take.
Spear and shield and knife were indispensible, as was a water flask. It seemed unlikely they’d need rope but that was fairly light. His helmet could be annoying to have bumping against him as it dangled on its chinstrap from his belt, but better to bring it and put it on once they got closer to danger. The main question was whether to take bow and quiver. Joe nodded to himself in decision, not likely to have time to string the bow and loose any arrows if they were ambushed and leaving those behind would let him take his backpack and strap his mattock and shovel to either side of it.
Segmented plates over chainmail over quilted shirt. Tools strapped to backpack and its carrying straps loosened to fit over his armour. Knife and water flask and helmet and rope dangling from belt. Metal armguard and shield strapped over canvas armguards. It seemed he had no more excuse to avoid returning outside so Joe picked up his spear and did. There he found Pinkie Pie and Spike had finished off the buns and tea and the former had her panniers back on. She grinned to Joe and Spike had the good grace to look a little embarrassed about the situation.
“Ready Joe?” Pinkie Pie bounced.
“Let’s get this done,” Joe sighed, locking his door and somehow managing to retain his bad mood despite her antics.