After another hour of cuddle torture the train finally arrived at Ponyville. Glarin decided to wake them up so he could move again.
“Oye! Time to wake up, we’re here!” The sleepy ponies were startled awake while every other patron on the train looked over to see what he was yelling about.
The sleeping ponies quickly got up and off Glarin, with the exception of Apple Bloom who only snuggled in closer to him. Glarin grunted in discomfort as Applejack walked over.
“Wake up sugercube, its time to get off the train, and Glarin!” Applejack nudged Apple Bloom until she begrudely ‘woke’ up.
“Come on Bloom, you can help set Glarin up in the Barn.” At that she perked up.
“Oh yeah! Ah forgot he was gonna stay in the barn fer awhile!” with that, Apple Bloom jumped out of Glarins lap and out the train door.
“Thanks for that Applejack, I don’t get whats wrong with her.” Glarin gave a quick stretch and cracked various joints.
“Aint nothing wrong with her, she’s just in heat is all, shes around that age now after all. She handles herself really well actually.” Glarin furrowed his brow
“Heat? It’s not that hot out is it?”
“Hot?” Applejack looked at Glarin for a bit. Then realized he was seriously talking about the air temperature.
“Glarin I meant...” Applejack just looked at Glarin who kept his look of slight confusion “...you know what, never mind. Forget I said anything bout Bloom, les go.” Glarin nodded his head and followed after Applejack.
The walk back to the Orchard was relatively normal, besides the fact Glarin was paranoid and kept looking all around him. He kept a decent distance between him and any of the ponies he didn’t recognize.
On the way back, a box dropped from the sky and landed right next to Glarin. Glarin yelped and grabbed Twilight as she was next to him and began yelling as he ran.
“Its gonna blow! Run for cover!” Mass panic overtook everyone as they all scrambled as fast as they could to find cover behind the nearest solid object. After about 10 seconds ponies began to all peak around and stare at the box that had fallen to the ground. Twilight rolled her eyes
“Glarin its just a normal package that fell. Why would the Princesses throw a bomb at you anyway?” Glarin sighed and looked to the grey blond pegasus that had taken cover next to him and Twilight.
“Golly Mr, I didn’t know the package I was delivering for Filthy Rich was a bomb!” Glarin sighed again.
“No, it seems I was mistaken Lass, tis just a normal package it would seem.”
“Oh! Well if every things ok, then I’ll just be on my way then!” the blond Pegasus flew back over to the box and picked it up, then she went on her merry way. At seeing this the crowed of ponies and griffins all came out from hiding and just looked at Glarin. Twilight sighed.
“Everything’s ok everyone, just a little bit of a misunderstanding.”
The rest of the run back was rather uneventful as everyone went their separate ways. Glarin had pushed the barn doors open and dove into the nearest empty barrel pulling the lid over it. From within the barrel Applejack heard a muffled yell.
“If anyone ask’s, I’m not here! Come get me when the heat dies down.” And then all was silent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No one saw Glarin for 3 days. Besides Apple Bloom who would bring him food, along with everyone else who happened to come along looking for him. Applejack had trouble telling everyone he wasn’t there. Her poker face was absolutely terrible.
It wasn’t until a slew of guards, both day and night types, came to Ponyville looking for Glarin did the Apple farmer start to worry.
“Bloom head on back to the barn an let Glarin know a heap a guards are lookin fer him. Guards from both princesses...” Apple Bloom rushed from the apple stand, that she and Applejack were working with that morning, and headed back to the barn. When she arrived she bucked the barn door’s wide open yelling
“Glarin Glarin! Theres a buncha guards lookin fer ya!” Glarin popped the top off of his barrel and peaked out.
“Guards you say? How many?”
“Ah didn’t stop to count! There's guards from both Celestia and Luna!”
“Both you say?” Glarin thought about this for a moment. Sending guards would mean he was to be arrested instead of killed outright by assassins. This at least gave him some breathing room in terms of explaining himself. As he tried to get out of the barrel it began to wobble until it fell over and rolled around the barn until it crashed into some barrels that had been stacked by Big Mac. Glarin crawled out from the wreckage and brushed himself off.
“Hmm...” Glarin looked at the massive mess he had just created “I’ll clean that up later...”
“What are ya gonna do Glarin?”
“Well Im gonna go meet with them of course! I should be able to explain things to a guard better than some assassin.” As Glarin walked out of the barn he saw the large group of guards talking to Applejack as they approached the barn.
“Oye!” All of the guards ceased speaking to Applejack to look over to Glarin. He was walking over with his hands held up into the air. When he was within speaking distance of everypony Applejack spoke 1st.
“Glarin these royal guards came to...” Applejack didn’t get to finish her sentence before Glarin interrupted her.
“Arrest me? I figured as much. Jail is better than being killed by some assassins.” Glarin held his hands out waiting for the cuffs, or rope, or bridle, or what ever it is ponies used to arrest criminals. Glarin briefly wondered if they would hog tie and drag him or something. Maybe put a saddle on his back and blind him.
“...I was gonna say be trained by you.” Glarin dropped his arms down to his sides in slight confusion as he gave Applejack and the guards a questioning gaze.
“Trained? By me? For what?” one of the guards procured a letter and handed it over to Glarin. He unrolled the letter, and looked through it for a moment. Than he began to spin the letter in a circular motion as he read it. The guards shuffled around for a bit before Glarin grunted handing the letter back.
“I can’t read that chicken scratch. It wasn’t written in any dwarven I’ve ever seen.” Applejack chuckled as a guard took the letter back and began to read it aloud.
“Well lemme see here... Dear Sir Glarin, it has come to my sister Luna’s attention as well as mine as well that you are her very special someDwarf. It has also come to our attention that our guards, while capable of handling issues with ponies and minor disputes, Griffins are an entirely different matter. The incident at the Canterlot bank is just one of many examples. However you have shown you alone are capable of handling a situation where 3 entire squads of guards were not. Therefore my sister and I have sent you 15 guards each that volunteered to be trained by you. Making them into berserkers’s like yourself may prove troublesome, but perhaps you could give them some help on becoming warriors? With love, Luna and your soon to be sister in law, Celestia.”
Applejack was watching Glarins face as the guard read the letter, first his mouth dropped, then it went into a smile of pride. Then it turned into utter shock, with the last line causing his jaw to drop again and make his left eye twitch as he looked off into the sky mumbling something to himself. After a bit he looked back to all the guards
“Who da, buh... noo guh...” Glarin shook his head and took the letter from the guard. He fumbled with it again as he studied the writing upon it. “It must be a lie, it can’t possibly say that!” he looked at the official royal seal at the bottom of the letter and yelled in frustration ripping the letter in half. “Why can’t I read it!” he then preceded to eat the two halves of paper and sit down on the dirt as he chewed. After he swallowed both halves of the letter he stood back up looking at all of the guards.
“So ignoring the obvious lies in that letter, you all volunteered yourselves to be trained by me then?” All 30 of the guards clicked their hooves together and saluted.
“Well shale, my easy going life just flew down the goblin infested bottomless pit...” Glarin began to inspect the different ponies, he had a little of all 3 types in the day guards while the night guards all seemed to be bat pony things. “... I don’t know how to train ponies, but I know how to mold a young dwarf into a warrior. So from now on, you’re all dwarves to me...” Glarin paused for a moment as he looked between them all.
“Horribly mutated and ugly dwarves, but dwarves no less.” Applejack laughed as he said that. Glarin was unfazed by Applejacks laughter and continued.
“I’m gonna tell you the same thing my old teacher told me.” Glarin began to pace back and forth in front of them as he cleared his throat.
“Your bones will break, your skulls will be cracked, and your bodies will be broken. But those aren’t important. The only thing that is important, is that your pride must never break!” Glarin stopped walking to face them again.
“If the prospect of getting hurt frighten’s you, I suggest you go home. If not, Follow me into town, and we can get started.” Glarin walked for a bit then stopped.
“Which way was the town again Applejack?” Applejack chuckled again and pointed her hoof in the direction of the town. Glarin nodded his head in thanks and walked off.
The guards all gave each other looks before following Glarin into town.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glarin was pounding on the door of the library to the point the guards behind him thought it would come off its hinges.
“Spike! Get your purple butt out here!” After what sounded like someone falling down the stairs, the door opened.
“What can I...” Spike looked around at all of the guards. “... It wasn’t my idea I swear! It was all Twilights fault!” Glarin gave spike a bit of a confused look.
“I’m just here so you can show us where to go for those gem’s.”
“Oh... Oh! Yeah sure no problem. Well we have to go get Rarity as well.” Glarin raised an eyebrow
"What do we need her for?”
“Rarity has a gem finding spell, We’ll be able to find a bunch of gems quickly with her.” Glarin began to drool, he started to see the fancy acting pony in a new light.
“Magic sure is useful...”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glarin, Spike, Rarity, and the 30 guards were all traveling back from the spot in the mountains where they gathered the gems. Each of them was carrying a rather large sack with them. With the exception of Glarin, who was carrying 2 while Rarity had none.
“Sure was awful generous of you to offer help in getting gems with me in exchange for some of your own.”
“Not a problem Rarity, I’m glad to be of help, Spike was right about that gem locating spell. The only thing that puzzles me is that all of the gems were already cut.”
“Well what do you mean darling? Gems have always been found like that.” Glarin raised an eyebrow at that statement and shrugged it off as another strange thing this plane of existence did. Pre cut gems that had to be mined, miners must have it easy here.
“So is a gem finding spell common? Or is it like some special talent or something.”
“Well I’ve had it since I was a filly actually. It's part of my special talent, the other part is adding gems to clothing and other such fashionable creations of mine.” Glarin stroked his beard as she spoke.
“Interesting...” Glarin wondered if he could get himself a young pony with a gold finding spell. And another with a metal finding spell. Mining would be done so much faster if you knew where to look. But then again, these ponies acted like dwarves, well, probably more like cowardly humans. Its not like he could just go someplace filled with young ponies and take a few home to help him mine like they were pets or something...
Or could he?
Thoughts for a later time perhaps. For now he has 30 young dwarves, ugly dwarves, that he will have to hammer into fine warriors...
1st order of business is to stop any and all beard shaving. Then he should consult Princess Twilight about what ponies eat so they can gain muscle mass. Then he’ll have to find a source of calcium carbonate or see about buying some.
Then he remembered the mess he made in the barn... and hoped his thinking barrel full of bad thoughts wasn’t knocked over in the madness from this morning.
He suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He suddenly didn’t want to head back to the farm.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Applejack was bringing her apple cart back from the market. She had to shut down for awhile when all of those guards showed up, but she made plenty of sales for the day anyway. As she got closer to the barn to return the cart to its proper resting space she could smell something funny.
“What in tarnation? Where’s that smell coming from?” As she got closer to the barn, she opened the door and was assaulted by the same smell but far more powerful.
“Oh sweet mother of Celestia, did some varment get trapped in here and die?” As Applejack covered her nose with a hoof she went inside and saw the massive pile of destroyed barrels.
“Con sarnet. Dang varment musta made a mess before it up and died...” As she got closer to the pile of barrels she could see an intact barrel that seemed to have its contents spilled out on the floor.
“I don’t remember having anything in these...” Applejack stopped dead in her tracks as she looked closer at the stuff falling out of the barrel. She then realized where that horrible smell was coming from.
And also why she never saw Glarin come inside the house to use the bathroom.
Glarin had been using one of their storage barrels as a bathroom! By the looks of it, you could mold a full grown pony. No wonder he clogged the toilet every time he used it. Applejack ran out of the barn in a fuming rage.
“I’ll Bucking kill him!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Are you sure darling? I only need one bag.”
“Nonsense, without your help in finding all of these gems, it would have taken us weeks. I insist you take these 4 other bags as well. The other 27 bags of gems should be plenty. Where do I go to exchange them for coin again?”
“The ponyville jeweler Darling, but most gems can be used as currency so exchanging them for bits really isn’t necessary.”
“Is that so?” Glarin raised an eyebrow as she spoke some more. Glarin wondered if he could just take her horn and use it to find gems without the pony attached to it.
“Indeed it is darling, its just a little hard to make change for jewels when one isn’t a professional appraiser.”
“I see, It seems having some coin would be helpful in getting my moneys worth I suppose.”
“Yes having bits on hand it always helpful, now if you’ll excuse me I have some work to attend to before the night closes in.” Glarin grunted and waved Rarity off as they headed out.
“The market is still open right Spike?”
“Should be, most of the smaller stalls will be closing up for the day though.”
“Thats fine, we need to hit up the Jewelers and a shop that might sell Calcium carbonate.” Spike furrowed his scaly brow in thought for a moment.
“You mean chalk?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I said, Calcium carbonate.” Glarin turned around to look at the 30 guards that were following him around.
“You three, give me the bags your carrying...” Glarin took thier bags and slung em over his back ”... Now all of you head back to Applejack’s farm. Write letters to your friends and family that you’re going to be gone for months, probably years. They are welcome to visit and what not. I actually encourage it. We can do little test phases N’ stuff when they show up.” With that Glarin spun back around leaving the guards behind without even waiting for them to respond. Spike looked between both of em and shrugged as he followed behind Glarin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glarin threw the 4 sacks of gems up onto the counter of the local ponyville jewlers to the shock and dismay of the owner.
“I’d like to exchange these here gems for bits.” The jeweler cleared his throat and levitated the sacks over with some of his magic. After a bit he open one of them and began to bring all of the gems out and organize them on the counter. He repeated the process with each sack until all of the gems were organized in separate piles based on color, size, and type.
He levitated the 4 now empty sacks back over to Glarin who took them from the air.
“So how much you reckon I can get for all of this chief?”
“Hmm, well judging by the size of most of these gems and the flaws in a decent amount of them, I’d say about tree fiddy.” Glarin furrowed his brow at that.
“I’m sorry what?”
“I said about 350 bits.”
“What?! Only 350 bits?!” Glarin turned to Spike for confirmation.
“Well that seems about right Glarin, these are just common gems and most of em do have flaws.” Glarin growled under his breath.
“Alright, gimme the 350 bits and we’ll be on our way.” The jewler levitated the 350 bits into one of Glarins sacks and they left.
“Are gems really that worthless around here?”
“Well flawed gem's yeah. But you can get up 2000 bits for a single perfect gem, depending upon its rarity of course.” Glarin just grumbled as they trudged along to their next destination. The only general store in ponyville, Rich’s Barnyard Bargains.
As they walked in, one of the employees approached them.
“Hello and welcome to Barnyard Bargins! How can I help you?”
“Just looking for some Calcium carbonate, Do you know where I can find some around here?” The employee just looked at him confused while Spike rolled his eyes.
“He means chalk.”
“Oh yes! We have that in isle 12.” Glarin grunted and walked past the pony with Spike. After a bit he walked down a seeminly random isle.
“Glarin this isnt isle 12, it farther down that way.”
“What do you mean this isnt isle 12? I counted and this is number 12!”
“This ones actualy marked 11, 12 is one more over.” Glarin grumbled again
“I really will have to learn this silly chicken scratch language of yer’s won’t I?”
“Well, it might help yes.” Spike said with a light chuckle. Spike Led Glarin down isle 12 and they stopped. They found the chalk alright, just not quite what Glarin expected.
“Why is it a bunch of diffrent colors. Do you ponies flavor your calcium carbonite?” Spike raised an eyebrow at Glarin in confusion.
“Flavor? Why would we flavor it? Its colored so that when fillies and colts draw with them it can be colorful.”
“What?! Draw? Where in blue blazes do you get your calcium then?!”
“Oh, from drinks like milk. Spinach has a high calcium content as well as a few other foods like cheese.”
“Lad, I don’t know what milk or spinach is, but I’ve heard of cheese before. I hear its really smelly and made from mold. Not that eating mold is bad or anything, I just don’t trust anything those humans seem to eat on a regular.” With that Glarin grabbed an armful of the boxes labeled as chalk, with a random assortment of plain and colored types.
“Now we just need some rope, and lots of it.”
“Rope? What do we need rope for?” Spike just watched Glarin as he waddled down the isle with his arms full.
“You remember those rocks I had those sorry excuses for guards gather along with the gems?”
“Yeah I remember, 5 of those bags have nothing but rocks and small boulders in them.”
“Yeah, we need the rope and rocks for training.” Glarin and Spike wandered down the halls looking for rope, lots of rope.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The 30 guards were all arriving at the Apple farm when they saw an angry orange mare wearing a Stetson hat running at them with a look that could kill on her face.
“Where is he?! Where is that disgustin varment Glarin?!” The guards suddenly became scard of Applejack as they all looked between themselves.
“H-h-he said that he had some things to take care of!” Applejack stomped her hooves into the dirt as she snorted steam from her nostrils.
“Then yall are gonna clean up that mess he made in the barn right this instant ya hear?!”
“M-mess?”
“Tha’s right his mess! He’s a been living in the barn the pass 3 days, and I go in there today to find... GUH! Just go clean it up right now! I’ll give his hide a good tanning when he gets back!” The guards set down the bags they had been carrying and rushed down to the barn.
Applejack could hear the guards shout and gag, she even heard one of them give a shrill cry of fear. Then yell “I didn’t sign up for this!”
Applejack began to look at the bags the guards had left at her hooves. The 1st one she opened up had nothing but rocks in it. The second one however had gems in it,
“Hmmm, well lookie here...”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glarin stopped walking as he shuddered, but not from the chill in the air. Something was telling him to turn around. He shook it off and kept pace with Spike.
“Hmm, Spike, You think I could sleep at the Library for a few days?” Spike furrowed his brows as they walked along the path toward the orchard.
“Why would you wanna stay at the Library? I thought you liked it at the Apple farm?”
“Oh don’t get me wrong the food of magnificent, its just... I feel like something bad is gonna happen when I get back is all.”
“Psh, its all in your head Glarin, Applejacks a nice mare, I don’t think she’d do anything too rash against you. Even if you did make a bit of a mess in her barn earlier today.”
“Hrmm, I hope yer right Laddie.”
"But did you really fail to get out of the barrel and crash into the pile of stacked barrels?"
"It's not my fault the barrels are so tall yet narrow!"
As they got closer the Apple family home came into view and so did an orange pony wearing a stetson hat. She was surrounded by large sacks that Glarin and Spike recognized as the ones they had brought back from the gem mining trip. She also bore a face that was extremely unhappy.
As Applejack approched them, Glarin looked around to see all of the guards also looking at him. Many of them had looks of displeasure on their faces.
“Glarin...”
“Uh, hey Applejack.”
“I’ve had some time to cool off and think a bit, so as it turns out I’m only gonna buck you a couple times for what you did. And I’ll also be taking one those gem sacks over there to make up for the costs of buying new barrels before the big harvest in 2 weeks.”
“Buck me for what? All I did was break a few barrels!”
“Oh the bucks aint for the broken barrels, the bucks are for what you used one of mah water barrels for!” Sudden realization crossed Glarins face.
His thinking barrel had been discovered before he could rid of it himself in the nearby forest.
“I already had your little posse over there clean up your mess, only thing left is yer punishment.”
Glarin sighed in defeat. He might as well get it over with. Not like he could persuade her out of it anyway. He already hated the idea of giving her one the gem bags. But he remembered they were probably mostly worthless like the 4 gem bags he had just exchanged today anyway. He handed the bags of stuff over to Spike as he stood his ground in front of Applejack.
“Alright lass, I agree to yer terms. A few bucks and a bag of gems as an apology for what I did?” Applejack just nodded her head and spun around giving Glarin a swift buck to the chest.
Glarin slide back with his feet still firmly planted on the ground as he exhaled. Falling back into his dwarven ways, when he would basically do pissing contests with other dwarves, he just provoked her.
“What was that?! My grandmother can hit harder then that!” Applejack didn’t take kindly to that. She reared up her back hooves again and snorted steam as she bucked him again with 3 times as much force as before directly into his rib cage. Glarin just grunted as he slide back on his feet again. This time he spoke softer as he was slightly out of breath.
“My baby sister hits hard...” was all Glarin could finish saying before another buck to the chest hit him again, this time knocking him over. Glarin turned his head to the side and began coughing. Afterwards he gave a slight chuckle and stood back up again.
“Was that the best you had?”
“Why I oughta...!” Glarin waved a hand in front of him to signal her to stop as he coughed again, this time covering his hand in blood.
“I think you pushed my broken rib into my lung, its hard to breath now.” Glarin continued to cough up blood as he spoke. And Applejack suddenly felt bad for bucking him so hard repeatedly.
“We need ta get you to the hospital!” Some of the guards came over to help in anyway they could.
“I suppose that’s a good idea yeah.” Glarin coughed again with more force.
“And why didn’t you tell me you had broken ribs!?”
“Cause they weren’t broken to begin with, but that second kick cracked em, I felt it. The 3rd just finished it.”
“Come on! Get on one of the back of a guard or two and let us run you down to the Ponyville hospital!”
“Bah, I can walk! My legs ain’t broken. I can...” Glarin squinted an eye as he bent over and puked up a large puddle of blood.
“Alright, now that’s bad.” Said Glarin as his vision blacked out.
The Ponyville Hospital was buzzing with activity that night.