Like he always did back on Runeterra, Pantheon rose before the dawn to go through his daily training regimen. The man quietly snuck out of the library, being careful not to wake the sleeping forms of Twilight and Spike. Once outside Pantheon quickly located a suitable open area he could practice in without breaking anything.
A couple hours into the brutal regimen Pantheon heard a sound that could best be described as "quietly urgent." It took him several seconds to realize the sound was Fluttershy trying to get his attention. "Greetings, Fluttershy," he said, a tad bit impressed that the mare who hid from him under a table the day before was able to muster up the courage to approach him while he was busy.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Fluttershy hid behind her mane. "Did I interrupting something?" And just like that, the moment of bravery had passed.
"Nothing that cannot be continued later," Pantheon assured her. "What brings you here at such an early hour? Were you looking for Twilight Sparkle, perhaps?"
Fluttershy gently shook her head. "Oh, no. I was actually here to talk to you, if you don't mind." Pantheon raised an eyebrow. Fluttershy didn't strike him as the type of person who approached someone she hardly knew to make small talk.
"Is there something in particular you wish to speak with me about?" Pantheon asked, laying down his weapons to show Fluttershy she had his full attention.
"Yes, there is," she said. "Pinkie Pie mentioned yesterday that you needed a place to stay while she taught you how to bake. You seemed so busy talking with Twilight that I thought you wouldn't be able to look for one, so Rarity and I stopped by town hall after we left the library. We realized that, since you were brand new to Equestria, you didn't have any bits so the two of us pitched in to get you a little place to call your own."
Pantheon was touched. He hardly even knew the two ponies, and his interactions with them could hardly be called favorable, and here the two of then went and got him a house. "I..." he didn't know what to say. After a few seconds of stammering he managed to get out, "Thank you, Fluttershy. You didn't have to do this for me."
"Oh, but we wanted to do this for you," Fluttershy said earnestly. "Everypony should have a home, and you just lost yours. We hope you can make just as good of a life here in Ponyville as you had back where you came from."
Mount Targon, the Rakkor tribe, Pantheon's home and people. Had he given up on returning to them? No one but Ryze knew how to bridge the gap between the two worlds, not even Twilight could identify the spell from Pantheon's description and she was a self-proclaimed expert on Equestrian magic.
"That is very kind of you," Pantheon said to Fluttershy. "And if it truly means so much then I will gladly accept this most generous gift."
"I'm sure you'll love it," Fluttershy beamed.
~~~
When Fluttershy said that she and Rarity had gotten Pantheon a "little" place to call his own, she meant it quite literally. The small building on the outskirts of Ponyville was small enough that it could fit inside the main room of Twilight's library with plenty of room to spare.
The best part of the house, in Pantheon's eyes at least, was the oven dominating the tiny kitchen area. With it, he could complete Pinkie's assignment of baking something every day without having to resort to going to Sugarcube Corner to do so.
"Thank you again, Fluttershy," Pantheon said with a smile on his face. "This is better than I could have hoped for." He couldn't remember the last time he had received such a gift. The only thing he could think of was when he received his spear and shield after his first kill when he was just a boy.
"I'm glad you like it, and I'm sure Rarity would love to hear that too."
"I"ll be sure to tell her how much I appreciate her gift the next time I see her," Pantheon said. He then pulled out his map of Ponyville, intending to ask Fluttershy to mark his new home and where he could find Rarity on it. Instead, he was surprised to see that the circles around the library and town hall had vanished since he'd last viewed the paper and in their place was a pair of arrows pointing to two different buildings. One was near the edge of the map was labeled "you are here", while the other, which pointed to a tall and intricate building near the heart of the town, declared "Rarity lives here."
"Is that one of Pinkie's maps?" Fluttershy asked, looking at the paper from the side.
Pantheon nodded and folded the obviously magical piece of paper back up. "Yes it is. Do you know how she makes them?" It would be handy to be able to create a map which gave you directions on its own.
Fluttershy shook her head. "Nopony knows how Pinkie Pie makes her maps. Twilight even said she couldn't detect any trace of enchantments on one, so it's not magic. It's just Pinkie being Pinkie."
"Just Pinkie being Pinkie..." Pantheon repeated the phrase slowly. "Is that the explanation you have for how she's able to spit in the face of physics and seemingly teleport around at random?"
The door to Pantheon's new oven popped open violently and Pinkie Pie's head sprung out of its interior. "Like this?" the pink mare asked, before retreating back into the oven.
"Yes, like tha--" Pantheon did a double take. He walked over to the oven and opened the door, revealing a surprising absence of Pinkie Pie in a space far too small for her to fit in. "You saw that too, correct?" Pantheon asked. "Or did I just imagine Pinkie Pie sticking her head out of my oven?"
"You didn't imagine it," Fluttershy assured him. "You get used to Pinkie's antics once you've lived around her for a while."
Pantheon stared at his oven, as if Pinkie might pop out of it again. "I see," he said. He opened the oven's door one more time to make sure the pink mare was gone, and found a cupcake sitting inside.
"I'll leave you to get settled in," Fluttershy said as Pantheon retrieved the baked treat. "If you need me for anything, I live just down the road, on the edge of the Everfree Forest."
Setting the cupcake down for later, Pantheon moved to open the door for Fluttershy. "Thank you again, Fluttershy, you've been an enormous help. I don't know how long it would have taken me to get back on my feet on my own."
"You're very welcome." Fluttershy beamed. "After all, that's what friends are for."