Dash Versus Craft: Part One
The window of Ponyville's general store was clean, free of streaks, and almost a perfect reflective surface. The massive, dripping bundle of feathers blinked owlishly at it, before glaring hard enough to crack the glass. Almost. Germane was almost certain that if he put a little more effort into it, the depths of his rage would have literally let him break things with his mind just by staring really, really hard.
"Curse you, Rainbow Dash! Curse you and your children unto the seventh generation! You will rue the day you crossed me!"
Lightning failed to flash in the background, and he could legitimately blame the weather mare for that, too.
The winged pony turned and stalked through the crowd of giggling, early morning shoppers and stopped just short of a cafe. He left behind a thin trail of honey speckled with canary feathers. The young mare serving the tables outside stared at him with apprehension, and shied away by a hair as he came up short.
"Pardon me. Do you have a moist towelette?"
Rainbow Dash smirked at the stallion across the table from her. She'd only been captain of the local weather team for a few months, now, but she'd immediately taken some of the increased pay with the aim of chatting up one of the town's cuter carpenter ponies over a few plates of spicy eastern cuisine. To her delight -and though she'd never admit it, pleasant surprise- the stallion had taken her up on it. He wasn't quite as built as Applejack's brother, or Snow Flash from the weather team was, but then he and she were off-limits for different reasons.
Big Macintosh, of course, had the insanely overprotective little sister, and Snow Flash was a coworker, which even to Rainbow's carefree personality just came across as being an iffy idea. Also, her previous captain had sat her down to a long, sorta terrifying lecture about 'dipping her quill in the company ink', and the rainbow-maned mare had a lot more respect for her position than most ponies suspected.
"I can't even guess why you didn't go to the Cloudsdale academy," she told him. "You've got solid wing work- at least as good as some of the gals we've got running cloud pushing." Rush shrugged and grinned.
"I got my mark early," he said, gesturing toward his flank with one wing. Rainbow allowed her gaze to linger for a few seconds, and not just over the crossed hammer and screw. "Dad wanted me in trade school pretty quick after that."
"Well I could totally show you a few tricks, you know?" the mare replied. "You know... you, me, a cloud out over some meadow? Could be fun." She didn't pay much attention to the next round of drinks the waiter brought over to them, just lowered her eyelids a fraction as she gave Rush a look, and took a slow sip from the glass.
Rainbow Dash swallowed. Then she swallowed again. Her eyes teared up and bulged out.
"Are you okay?" asked Rush. "You're looking kind of green..."
Germane didn't bother looking over from his spot seated near the wall. The horrified gasps and the sound of a zucchini noodle dish going completely to waste was a sign of his victory. Carefully, he nudged his saddlebag and its empty vial of ipecac syrup further under the table.
He wondered, for a moment, if he might not have been too harsh. Then he remembered walking his honey-and-feather-covered self past a bee hive on his way home, and the guilt went away like magic.
"Waiter? Another glass of wine? When you get the chance, of course."
Adapting
The diner was set into the side of a mountain. A number of other improbable businesses, tents, and homes -though nests may have been a more appropriate word- dotted the rocky scape, too. Germane stepped out of the flying carriage, to make way for the other three passengers and to pass a couple of five-bit pieces to the griffons who'd flown them there. They were friendly enough guys- if they'd found anything odd with a winged pony taking a sky carriage, they didn't mention it out loud, at least.
Asking where the 'House of Barbecue Vittles' was, though, did get him a couple odd glances. And one or two horrified gasps from the pony passengers still dealing with their luggage. He ignored them and pressed on.
He traveled fifteen minutes up the one-sided lane. The other side was nothing more than an open-air drop. Griffons might be comfortable on mountain tops, he mused, but nobody wants to risk their house crumbling over the side of a cliff. It was then that he became aware of a scent that he hadn't encountered in almost two years.
Cajun.
It was so absolutely out of place in the world he'd known since coming forward, but he found it to be a bit like coming home. Hell, he wasn't sure how well his body could even handle meats other than fish, but now he was struck by the strongest sense of curiosity.
'For science.'
He reached the building just like the carriage griffons had described and pushed his way in through the swinging door. In the primaries of one wing, he held an ink-scrawled piece of parchment. A waitress tried to catch his attention.
"Hey. Um, can I help you, sir?" the griffoness sounded very much like she didn't think she could. Germane grinned at her.
"Maybe. Do you know where I can find an Ash Ca-" A long banging caught his attention.
"No, no! This is rare! Unless it's stopped dripping blood, a good spice rub is mandatory." A pony surrounded by bemused griffons stood near half a dozen open-air grills, staring down an older male griffon that looked like it could tear him in half. The griffon was cringing.
"Sorry, sir." The pony sighed.
"No apologizing. I told you you're expected to make mistakes. You're not expected to lie about them! Land sakes, how else am I gonna teach you?" The earth pony stallion brought a hunk of pork to his muzzle and tore off a long strip. "Good texture, at least. No problems there."
Germane watched with no small amount of shock before he remembered that he'd been talking to somebody just a few seconds ago. He sighed and turned back to the waitress.
"That's the one I'm looking for. A plate of mild chicken wings, please?"
Twilight stared. Germane cleared his throat. Twilight continued to stare.
"Look, I told you some of them adapt better than others. Ash dealt with it by becoming a famous chef. In the griffon empire."
Twilight stared.
"Stop that!"
Germane's Dream
The dreamscape was a fluid, tenuous thing. It stretched across Equestria and beyond, but had no real points of reference within it. There was 'near' and 'far', but those directions were only as important as 'many dreamers', 'few dreamers', and so on. Luna navigated it with legs that were, metaphorically, pretty shaky.
She had resumed her dream duties only bare months after her return to her home and then her sanity. There were so many more dreamers in this modern age that she was at first floored at the sight. Insofar as the sight of the dreamscape could be described in normal language, anyway.
The princess of the night threaded through and around the many dreaming minds. Contrary to popular belief, she couldn't simply 'barge in' on somepony's subconscious. The thoughts in each bubble of dreams were that pony's own, and her intrusions were only really shaping a small part of the dreamstuff to act as she would, for a short while. A virtual Luna, so to speak, that would terminate at the dream's end.
Rarely did that little Luna send back any memory of the dream to the true, living diarch. But sometimes...
Simultaneously in her bed, and also above the provinces south of Canterlot, Luna felt one of her little dreaming selves take the initiative to part from a dreamer after the dream's end. No image of her could do this if the pony in question subconsciously disallowed it, but for whatever reason, this wasn't an issue. She closed her mind's eye and opened it upon a scene that had, just a short while ago, existed in a dreamer's mind.
Luna was standing in the Everfree Forest. Not an uncommon setting for nightmares, but Luna was more than a little concerned at the level of detail. Usually such scenarios supplied details from the dreamer's imagination, but this mind seemingly knew enough that it didn't have to imagine. Her moon was bright upon the scene, illuminating the deep wood. The dream's source and focus wavered before her.
It was a pony, but the details of... his? Yes, a pegasus stallion, she saw. But the details were somewhat vague. It was similar to what Luna had experienced in the dreams of the blind- more suggestions of shapes and textures than anything else.
The shape noticed her, but did not startle. Usually her appearance caused more startlement or reverence, or even fear when a pony saw her. She double checked and confirmed that she had manifested as herself, in her own body.
"I can't go back." The voice was unexpected, but clearly came from the dreamer.
"Oh?" she tried. "Whyever not?" Getting details from a dream was most often a study in subtlety. Asking leading questions was a much more successful tactic than demanding details. The figure motioned.
"I'll burn. I can taste the smoke, still."
So could Luna- she glanced toward where the young stallion had gestured. A strangely-appointed bedroom sat in the middle of the forest. It was bereft of walls, and a strange, long figure was lying under the covers. She made to take a closer look, but the pony shouted.
"Don't! I'm already dead! You can't go in there anymore. Nobody can." Respectfully, even though it pained the mare's more curious side, Luna retreated back toward the figure. As she did, she could make out the noises of the forest. Howls and screeches echoed out from between the trees, but there were no clear indicators of what was making those noises.
"There is danger out there," she cautioned. Perhaps his fears dwelt out in the brush, having taken living form? Instead of retreating or advancing at the mention, the stallion huddled and covered his head with his forelegs.
"I can't. This is all I can do. I'm sorry." The noises got louder. Luna exerted a small portion of her influence- just enough to stop the dream from following exactly the kind of track that ended in the two of them being swarmed by timber wolves, whatever those wolves may in fact symbolize. The trauma would wake him too soon, and nothing would be resolved.
"Why are you sorry?" The stallion shook his covered head.
"Dunno. It wasn't supposed to be like this. They're going to die again. Dying hurts." Smoke began pouring out from behind her, from the open bedroom.
"Not always. Please look at me? You are safe." A flat, bare face jerked around to look up at her, still attached to a blank pony's body.
"No we're not."
Miles away, in one of the tallest towers of the royal castle, Luna cracked one eye open and stared into the darkness of her room. The dream had ended abruptly. Perhaps the stallion had woken, suddenly.
Sighing, she reached for a piece of reading material that most of Equestria's citizens would not have expected to be a princess's normal reading material.
'Mythes Of Prediscordia. It was the latest true compendium of stories from her own foalhood, the first edition of which was over three centuries before. Why, then, were so many ponies of the modern era troubled by them?
She read, for not the first time that week, of rainbow bridges and ancient tyrants brought low by strange, wandering creatures from beyond paradise.
New Frontiers
Olive Branch, once Xavier Desanto of Madrid, Spain, walked past Ponyville's new general store. He winced, slightly, but the last meeting of the burgeoning village's hundred-plus residents had put it to a vote and supported his beloved Grenadine's suggestion. Not entirely surprising, since the Smith family was second only to the Apple clan in terms of local influence, and the first to suggest incorporating the swath of farmland and trading posts into a single town.
And perhaps, thought Olive with a smile, also the craziest, for how close they were to the Everfree forest.
Then again, I live here too, no? Though many would ask why I pay so much attention to such a wild place. And yet he'd head into it again tonight, as he had often throughout the last several decades.
Just in case.
But that was tonight, which was later, and he had things that needed doing in the present. Several feet down the packed dirt road, he watched in bemusement as Surety Belle chided her daughter and levitated along her day's shopping. He wondered, not that magic was taking place before his eyes, but that he hardly even noticed it these days.
"Starin' at other mares, Olive? Fer shame!" came a wry whisper. A smile pulled at his face in sheer reflex before he could stifle the urge and fight it down. He was almost composed when he turned to address the very center of his earlier thoughts.
"Hello, Grenadine. Just wondering how one might move things with one's brain." The mare rolled her eyes and tossed her lovely, braided mane.
"Messily, I reckon." She twitched, as if just restraining herself from coming close enough to physically touching him. Not so long ago, she would have kissed him shamelessly in front of Ponyville and the princess herself. Now...
"How are you getting on at the Acres?" he asked.
"Gettin' on just fine. The move was easy. Mah brother was askin' after you... Ah said ya couldn't make it," she added uneasily. Olive's ears flickered back uneasily, and he cursed his anatomy for having such an easy tell. He'd been a better liar as a human.
"He's a good stallion. I hope he and your family are all well." Grenadine gave him a look, one that expressed more than she might possibly say out loud, and shrugged.
"Furrow's been getting on alright, too," she added.
"That's good," said Olive, and meant it. For as rare as he got to see Grenadine, it was even rarer that he got to see Furrow. Those meetings didn't amount to much other than stony, traded glances across roads and crowded rooms. "That's... really good. I'm happy the two of you-"
"Consarn it, Olive!" Her words came out just a hair short of angry shouting. "What d'you expect when you natter on and don't say a single damn word t'either of us?!" She took a step closer. "Ya... ya could come home, Olive. T'both of us."
"I've never lied to either of you," he said, and quickly raised a hoof to cut off any further words she might have added. "Everything else I do I keep secret for the sake of more than you can imagine, Grena-"
"Can't imagine what you don't never even hint at, sugar. Can't trust no secrets, can't be love where there ain't no trust. You make a big name fer yerself, the original 'Iron Rail' pony, and y'just, y'just don't act right." And for the country mare, it was as simple as that. If he couldn't give all of himself, then neither could she. And when Olive already gave so very much of himself to so many others...
"Good-bye, Grenadine."
He turned away and prayed, as he gained distance, that he'd imagined the stifled sob of one of the only two ponies he'd truly loved. Olive knew that she and Furrow Apple would treat each other well and he... well, he would manage on his own.
There was still work to do, today, anyway. Their newest arrival needed paperwork and schooling in her new talents, which he couldn't provide as an earth pony. Maybe she would like his suggested name of 'Redheart'....
Dash Versus Craft: Part Two
The situation was desperate. Every corner held an enemy, and there were no safe havens. Madness had come to Ponyville, and there it roosted, laying eggs of discontent and forcing Germane to make senseless extended metaphors about madness.
He glanced up. Every stray cloud held an enemy that could destroy him 'in ten seconds flat'.
But knowing that life had to go on, even in times of stress and danger, the stallion had gone to market. His paranoia wasn't helped by the weight of many, many stares. Not bad ones, this time, but expectant ones. Every pony in the square, even as they made their way about their business, was keeping the occasional eye on him and what they anticipated as the next step in the ongoing prank wars.
Sometimes hostilities calmed, and it might be weeks or even months before he was menaced by that panchromatic daredevil, but sometimes those hostilities boiled over. It had not been a calm week for Germane.
It had all started with a poorly-chosen visit to play with Simba. The manticore, big dumb sweetheart that he was, had startled a small pack of timberwolves into Twilight Sparkle's group of friends. He found out later that she was trying to safely grab a sample of Poison Joke. The wood golems had actually been too frightened to try attacking them, but the six mares had been spooked or thrown into a large patch of the blue flowers. He, being a friendly(ish) and a (sorta) responsible citizen, went to see that nobody had gotten hurt.
Then Rainbow Dash had bucked him into a patch of the flowers and sent him tumbling off into the forest.
There was no way in hell that he was going to anybody for help after that, so he endured the effects of Poison Joke for the three days it took for them to wear off naturally in the privacy of his own workshop.
Having his mane turn the same color and consistency as it had been when he was human? Bearable.
Losing the rest of his fur and hairs off his tail to give him human skin on an otherwise equine body? Had made him look like one of those freaky, hairless cats.
Rainbow Dash had taken it more personally than the others, ending in the renewal of hostilities between them.
Back in the present, Germane bucked up and went to hit the last item on his shopping list. This would surely not be fun.
"Good afternoon, Miss Applejack," he said, walking up to the Apple family produce stand. Mostly apples, yes, obviously, but their clan was huge and tended to informally trade around produce between homesteads. He eyes some oranges, and wondered if he still remembered how to make candied citrus peels.
Then he remembered a kitchen in a tiny house in Albany, and wondered if homesickness ever stopped being a thing.
"Germane Craft!" The pegacorn snapped his head up.
"What, yes, may I help you?" The orange mare manning... ponying? Standing, at any rate, at the stall was looking at him weirdly.
"Ah assume you showed up to buy somethin', unless you were too busy planning your next camping trip?" she asked wryly. Germane had actually apologized about the fiasco in the forest.
"I did apologize for that," he reminded her out loud. The blond glared.
"After 'bout three days, yeah."
"It takes a while for Poison Joke to wear off." She frowned at that.
"We had the antidote ready, Craft. Took us six hours, and before anythin' actually set in." Germane blinked at her claim.
"There's an antidote?"
Applejack pieced together what he meant, then, and began laughing.
"Oh, ah ha, you meant you-"
"Not talking about it," he growled.
"No, no, tell me! What did th' stuff do to ya?"
"Six apples, six oranges, please." The mare rolled her eyes. Germane felt horribly grateful that the fur loss had been magical and hadn't had to grow back the hard way, or else he's still be inside.
"Fine, you grump. Ah can give that to you fer seven bits, but only 'cause I ain't had a good laugh all day." The stallion grumbled and hoofed over a fiver and two single bit pieces. She bagged up the fruit and slid it over the stand.
"Thank you," he said, politely but curtly, and turned away. He wasn't sure what made him glance in the bag, but curiosity had him reach in and pull out an oddly waxy-looking fruit from the top.
"Er, I think you gave me one too many," he said. The mare squinted.
"Ah don't think I did."
Germane shifted the fruit and it rattled.
'Apples aren't hollow,' he thought, just before it exploded.
The pegacorn squinted out from a layer of instant apple sauce a second later. Applejack and a good fraction of the market stared in horrified fascination. Far above, a cackling giggle echoed out across the sky.
He was dimly aware of a farm mare shouting up and threatening a certain pegasus about fiddling with her apples. Germane just knew that he had to prepare for the inevitable next round.
Rainbow Dash sneaked under cover of darkness, wearing an absolutely awesome stealth suit. There, just ahead of her, was Mister Slo-mo's creepy house. It was covered in metal struts and funny shutters, but she clearly saw what had to be the bedroom window. The sucker had even left it open!
She readjusted her saddlebag -full as it was with ceram-wrap which was going to cover ever surface of the grumpy pegasus's house- and swooped through the window. Rainbow Dash would finally have her payback for the giant cart-mounted flyswatter.
Weirdly enough, the bed was empty. There was clearly nopony in the room, so she settled down on it to orient herself.
The mare heard a click. Then things turned purple, and then she went airborne. Except, for once, she wasn't actually flying at the same time.
Germane trotted into the room and wiped down the grape jelly cannon. From off in the distance, he heard the sound of a rainbow-colored pegasus landing in the Apple family's cow pond.
Next, he reset the trigger trap that turned his bed into a catapult and set the safety pin. You only had to wake in a cow pond once to never forget to do that again. Cheerfully humming 'You Shook Me All Night Long', he locked the shutters and settled in to bed.
Then he noticed his catapult/bed had sacrificed a pillow to the cow pond, again.
An almost perfect victory, then.