“Excuse me sir,” I heard, a soft feminine voice just a few inches from my ear. “It is time for you to wake up.”
I snorted in reply, smacking my lips as I lifted my head from the desk that I had apparently fallen asleep on. I felt something attached to my face, and found it to be one of the papers I had been working on last night, a corner of it thoroughly drenched in saliva. I looked back to Feather Duster, who was visibly trying to hide her disgust at the display, but I was still pretty drowsy so I couldn’t really be bothered to care much at the moment. I pushed myself back from the desk, discovering that I had turned the chair at some point last night, and sending myself sprawling out onto the ground.
Grunting, I picked myself up and dusted myself off. “Okay, I think I’m awake now. What time is it anyways?” I asked.
“Twelve sir,” she replied, straightening the papers on my desk, “Dusty thought that you should wake up before lunch was served.”
“Stop!” I screamed, jumping up onto the chair and stealing the papers away from her. “These are important.” I looked at the papers, frowning as I went to put them back in their proper order.
I caught Feather’s grin out of the corner of my eye, probably amused that a child would consider a few scratch pieces of paper to be considered important, after all what could a child have made that would actual carry any import, Feather bowed her head and took a step back. “My apologies sir.”
I grumbled under my breath as I put everything back on my desk where it belonged. “Ponies touching my things...I’ll show you what you can touch...not my things that’s for sure.” I still may have been partially asleep, and I was now definitely in a foul mood.
“What time did you go to sleep last night?” she asked, looking at the small clock that sat on my desk.
“Uh, maybe five or six. Why?” I asked, hopping back off of the chair.
“I see,” she said knowingly.
I squinted at her, my sleep addled brain trying to decipher that expression, but I gave up after too long. “Whatever,” I said, grabbing the stack of papers on my desk and carrying them to the door.
Feather Duster followed me to the door, and shut it behind us as we left. The sound of the many ponies moving through the house greeted me as I stepped from my bedroom. I could faintly detect the aroma of some kind of cheese dish wafting up the stairs from what I could only assume to be the kitchen. Feather Duster stood on my right, waiting for me to proceed, and after making her stand there for two minutes I began to head towards the stairs, and down to the dining room that where I assumed we were supposed to head.
Reaching the bottom of the steps, and watching some service pony carry an extremely large vase of flowers through the hall before turning into a random room and out of sight, the smell of the approaching lunch pulled me straight towards the dining room. Feather opened the door for me so I didn’t even have to break my stride as I nearly dashed into the dining hall where Diamond and Steel were sitting at the table, the food in front of them no doubt sorely testing the patience of the two, as they waited for me to take my seat.
“It’s about time,” Steel commented as I quickly scurried over to my chair across the table from him and hopped up into it.
“Yeah, maybe I just had a rough time of it last night for some reason,” I replied, venom dripping from my words.
“Whatever,” Diamond interjected, halting our building argument. “Can we please eat now, I have places to be.” Dusty came from the door that led to the kitchen with a covered platter and levitated it over to the table in front of me.
“Yes, I believe that we should be able to eat now, young mistress Tiara.” He pulled away the cover from my lid, revealing what appeared to at first be a simple omelet, but as I bit into it the flavors exploded in my mouth. There were an assortment of cheeses, ranging from cheddar to swiss, and there was undoubtedly three different kinds of peppers. On top of that, there was some other kind of diced vegetable that I couldn’t identify, but worked to calm the heat from the peppers. In essence, best omelet ever.
“My compliments to the chef,” I managed to choke out as I snarfed down the meal. I realized just as I was licking the last remaining pieces of cheese from my fork that I had missed my last two meals. “Is there anymore?” I asked.
“Of course sir,” Dusty said as he levitated the empty plate in front of me, and carried it back the way he had entered. I looked back to the door that I had made my entrance through to see that Feather Duster had also left, leaving the three children alone in the room.
“Diamond Tiara,” I said, summoning the most disarming smile I could.
She sighed and looked over to me, her own omelet only half finished. “Yes?”
“Do you have any hang-ups about the use of foul or naughty language?” I asked, still trying to maintain my poise.
“I don’t care, but if you don’t like the taste of soap then you won’t want to swear around Dusty,” she replied simply, turning back to her meal as she did so.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” My smile vanished as I stared back over at Steel trying to fry him with my glare. “You son of a bitch, you really were just going to abandon me in the middle of nowhere.”
“Hey,” he said defensively, “it wasn’t the middle of nowhere, and you managed to get out alright.”
“I was strung up in a tree you dick. Left to die.” Just recalling it had me seething.
“Okay now you are exaggerating,” he replied, rolling his eyes.
“I’m going to rip your feathers out you scrawny bastard!” I slammed my hooves on the table as I stood in my chair.
“Woah, woah, woah.” Steel leaned back in his own chair, getting as far away from me as possible while remaining seated. “Alright dude, you need to calm the fuck down.”
I was shaking, the tablecloth bunching under my unsteady hooves. My eyes started to water, and I turned my head to the side to blink back the tears that were inexplicably gathering. Steel may have been right, even if he was a total douche, I felt myself losing control. I just wanted to leap across the table at the red bastard and slam him into the ground repeatedly, and I knew that I could. At least until somepony came back and interrupted me, which no doubt wouldn’t have been very long.
“That thing was more trouble than it was worth anyways. I nearly died myself just trying to hide it. Stupid birds...” Steel commented, bringing my glare back to him.
The sound of approaching hoofsteps made me bite back whatever remark I was going to reply with and sit back into my chair just as Dusty opened the door once more and entered with another steaming omelet. Having the gooey pile of goodness set in front of me did wonders for my outlook, and I picked up my fork to start eating once more, before stopping and catching the unicorn before he left the room once more.
“Dusty,” I called, making him stop and turn back to me.
“Yes?” he asked.
I grabbed the stack of papers that I had set on the table next to my meal and held them in front of me. “Can you make sure that Mr. Rich gets these please, it is pretty important.”
“Of course sir,” he replied, levitating the papers from my grasp and bringing them over to himself. I was glad that he had spared me the condescending smile Feather Duster had given me earlier. If that was even what it was...man I really was in a bad mood.
“Thank you,” I replied, ever the shining example of a perfect gentlecolt.
With a nod the aged unicorn left the room once again, and my glare immediately shot back to Steel. Diamond had finished her meal and was just finishing delicately wiping any remnants of it from her mouth with a napkin. Steel looked to be staring off into space, contemplating god knows what, and before I could ask what was so interesting, Diamond Tiara cleared her voice rather loudly.
“So,” she began, lazily gazing over to me, “what did you want to give to, daddy?”
I picked up my fork and knife and began to cut my omelet into little slices. “Just something that I managed to draw up last night.” I took a bite and was once again brought to the eggy nirvana that the omelet had no doubt spawned from.
“What exactly would that be?” she asked again more pointedly.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.” She frowned at that. “Oh fine, I had an idea for something that he could sell in his store or whatever he does, and I wanted to give it over to him as a gift for helping us out.”
Now it was Steel’s turn to frown at me. “And what was that?” they both asked simultaneously, causing them to share an annoyed look.
“Doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it,” I replied, taking another bite of my omelet and trying to force my mood to lighten. Something that was increasingly difficult as the two kept pestering me; Steel out of worry that I was going to do something to screw up whatever plan we had, and Diamond probably out of simple curiosity. Eventually by the time that I had finished my meal and set my utensils aside, they caught on that I wasn’t going to answer them and dropped the subject.
An uneasy silence settled over the room as we had all finished our meals. I busied myself lining up my plate and utensils to be perfectly parallel and square. Diamond was admiring her hooves, looking like she terribly longed for a nail file. Steel, was staring down at his plate, contemplating something that I couldn’t really care less about at the time.
“Sorry,” he said, breaking the silence.
“What was that?” I asked, looking up from my plate.
“I said sorry,” he fiddled with the end of his ponytail as he looked off to anywhere that wasn’t me. “It was kind of my idea to set that trap, so you shouldn’t blame any of the Cutie Mark Crusaders…”
“I don’t,” I said flatly.
“Oh,” he paused, looking downcast. “Well, still I’m sorry for leaving you there without like a knife or something. We were actually going to come back to cut you down, but after the whole fiasco that went on with hiding the torch it completely slipped my mind.”
I continued to glare at him, he just sitting there and seeming to wither under my gaze as he avoided making eye contact. Eventually I had to relent though, and sighing, I leaned back in my seat. “Whatever dude, I can get over it I guess. Just tell me one thing, how did you know where I was going to be?”
“I have my ways,” he said smirking.
“No you don’t get to simply say that, and play this off as you being cool. Tell me for real,” I demanded.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he replied.
I slammed my hoof on the table, now getting a bit irked again. “Tell me the truth Steel.”
“You couldn’t handle the truth!” he yelled, standing in his chair and pointing out of me. We stared intently at each other for a few moments, I could see out of the corner of my eye that Diamond was looking back and forth between us, but eventually I cracked and started laughing.
“Dammit dude, don’t make me laugh when I’m trying to be serious.” He sat back down in his chair and we shared a quick laugh before relaxing again.
“You two are insane,” Diamond said flatly, taking her glass of water and swirling it a little before taking a sip.
“You got that right,” I replied to her, before looking back over to my pegasus friend. “Seriously though, how did you know.”
Steel wing-shrugged in his seat. I hadn’t really been paying attention to his wings, but today they looked...stronger? I couldn’t really put my hoof on what it was, but they didn’t seem to be simple useless appendages anymore. The same could be said for his lanky legs, even though they were pretty scrawny in comparison to even Diamond Tiara, let alone myself, he had definitely put some muscle on.
“It’s weird, and I know you don’t believe me, but over the last few days whenever I think about somepony I can just picture where they are or like where they are going,” he said simply.
“Huh, that’s weird,” I replied, taking a sip from my own glass.
Steel did a double-take. “Wait you believe me?” he asked.
I shrugged, proving that even without wings I could still play things off easily...I really wished I had wings. “Crazy magic bullshit, not hard to believe.” Honestly it sounded like a lazy plot point to me. I smirked, it had been a while since I had thought about fanfictions and HiE and whatnot. I guess when you were actually living it, that stuff kind of slips your mind in lieu of important things.
He stared at me open mouthed, making strange grunting noises as his brain tried to play catch-up. “Yes, very insane,” Diamond Tiara mused to herself.
“Hope I get super powers,” I said, imitating Diamond’s pose and swirling my own glass of water. Of course he was crazy, or lying, though I was certain that he wasn’t since I would have known. I wasn’t exactly sure how I would have known, but I could tell that my friend was telling his version of the honest truth. He got to have wings, and maybe some weird pony gps thing, damn. This was exactly the kind of thing that made me wish to be anything but an earth pony, hell I would have taken a unicorn with little to no magic just for the horn alone. I shivered as the gory image of myself cackling like mad with a stapled horn attached to my head.
Dusty chose that moment to enter the room with a pitcher of water levitating next to him. He walked about the table, heading towards Diamond first since she was the nearest to the door he had come from, and began to refill her glass.
“I believe that I forgot to mention to you young master Steel, but we managed to find you a flight instructor. You are to meet them at three o'clock this afternoon at the bridge just outside of town. I am sure that we can have Feather Duster show you the way if you need help,” he said as he moved on to my glass.
“Nah that’s cool I can find it,” Steel said, waving off the offer.
“Yeah, I think I saw where that is yesterday,” I lied. Honestly I wanted to just meet up with Rainbow Dash again and hang out, so inviting myself along made a lot of sense. Plus I needed to go back into town to pick up those books I had dropped off yesterday.
“Alright, sounds like a plan,” Steel said, jumping down from his chair.
“Yup,” I agreed as I also hopped out of mine, and the two of us started to head towards the door.
“If the two young masters would wait for the carriage to pull around to the front, I am sure that we can get them to their destination faster than on hoof,” Dusty said behind the two of us, making me stop and look back.
I looked over to Steel who just shrugged back to me. “That’s not necessary, plus I think Diamond was wanting to use it today,” I said, trying to deflect. In all honesty I really wanted to stretch my hooves, sure riding around in that litter was a good deal faster and less tiring, but I would still rather walk it all the same.
“You do know we have more than one carriage,” Dusty replied, arching an eyebrow.
“I didn’t actually.” I searched for another excuse to get out of the free ride, but came up with nothing. “I would just rather walk is all. You want to catch a ride Steel?” I asked, turning back to him.
He shrugged again. “Don’t really care,” he said simply.
“Welp,” I said, turning back to Dusty, “we’ll be off then.” Without another word I turned back to the exit and started making my way out of the mansion, Steel right on my heels as I did so. Getting out of the dining hall was all well and good, but it still took a little bit of elbow grease to shoulder open the main entrance doors. After waving Steel off who tried to help me open them, and a few grunts of effort, the door swung open to let the light of the noon sun shine into the hall.
I took a big whiff of the air outside and sighed happily. “Ah, the great outdoors.”
Steel stepped out into the sun next to me, “You hate the outdoors.”
“We have had more time to get acquainted over the past couple of days,” I said as I started to walk down the front steps to the driveway. “She’s not all that bad once you get to know her. Plus, it looks like I don’t get allergies anymore.”
“Thumbs for no more allergies, seems like a good trade to me,” Steel said as he also descended the stairs next to me.
“No, nothing will ever replace thumbs. Except maybe magic, which would actually completely replace them,” I looked over to the foliage we were passing in thought for a moment. All kinds of aesthetically pleasing plants were grown around the estate, Mr. Rich probably had a ton of different gardeners on staff just to keep them.
“I was just making a joke dude,” Steel sighed.
“Never joke about thumbs,” I replied with a smirk. I looked down the long driveway we were traversing, but I couldn’t make out the end of it. The thing had to be at least a mile long, though my ability to accurately measure distance had never been great, and it had only gotten worse recently.
“Burnt Steel,” I began, trying to do the best impression of Aragorn that I could, “what do your pegasus eyes see?” He just turned my way and looked at me with an incredibly confused expression. “How far is it to the main road,” I clarified.
“Oh.” He looked out in front of us and squinted. “.673 miles,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Bullshit,” I said with a slight laugh.
“Not shitting you dude, that is exactly how far it is until the road. Well, less now since we are still walking,” he defended.
“So you expect me to believe that not only are you a pegasus, you are also clairvoyant, and have some super sight ability that gives you exact distances,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Riiight.”
Steel stopped and glared at me, forcing me to stop also and look back at him. “Are you kidding me?” he asked.
“What?”
“Can you not see how damn lucky you are,” he accused, pointing a hoof at me in scorn. “Have we come across any pony our own age that could possibly beat you in a hoof wrestling contest? Yea you can’t fly, but you basically got to be the perfect specimen of an earth pony: strong, super athletic, and incredibly good looking. On top of that, everything has come so easy to you, you can fucking write cursive after a couple of hours of using a pencil for the first time. Honestly, I don’t think I have seen you struggle with anything so far. I have been getting this vibe from you for a while, and honestly I am fed up with it, you don’t have it nearly as bad as you like to think you do.”
With his little monologue coming to an end, he started walking along the path once again, leaving me standing there stuck as my mind tried to wrap around what he had said. I guess it was true to an extent, I did have a bit more meat on my bones than I had seen in others, but with such a small sample size it wasn’t entirely an incredibly rare thing. I had been picking up things pretty quick, but that had to be due to some earth pony thing, and being able to learn to write cursive quickly wasn’t exactly an amazing thing; even if I did think I might be able to rival Cheerilee in penmanship. Something else about what he had said struck me and I sprinted after him, catching up in no time at all.
“Incredibly good looking,” I said as I fell into step next to him.
“What?” he asked, not bothering to turn and look at me.
“You said that I was incredibly good looking. Wherever did you get that idea from?” I smiled at my friend but, he flat out refused to meet my gaze.
“Doesn’t matter, just forget it.” He picked up his pace, but it was all too easy to keep up.
“Do you want my bod, Steel? I can’t really blame you since I am a beast that just exudes sexual energy, but don’t you think that would complicate our whole brothers story,” I started walking backwards in front of him so that he had to look straight at me.
“Seriously, drop it,” he said frowning.
“I mean, I know you are a Fire and Ice fan, but we aren’t exactly riding dragons around are we. Plus I can’t really see you like that, we’re besties, and I don’t want to ruin what we have.” Oh man, this was just way too much fun.
“Sweetie Belle and Applebloom have a massive crush on you,” he said, bringing me to a halt and stopping my brain from working. He shouldered me out of the way as he passed, almost knocking me over with the motion. A massive shiver ran down my spine at the mere thought, and I almost collapsed on the ground with all the shaking of my head I did just to stop any mental images from popping into my head. I turned once more and sprinted after Steel to fall back into step again.
“Good one,” I said, laughing half-heartedly, “you really had me going there.”
“Not joking dude, they were having a stupid debate, and I just had to sit there listening.” I shivered again at his words.
“Alright, that is all I need to hear,” I replied, trying to drop the subject so that I could pretend it never happened. I just...no, the crusaders were supposed to be cute little distractions, they weren’t meant to have feelings like that for others. It was just wrong, especially when it was me.
“Oh, so you aren’t so comfortable anymore huh?” He smirked at me.
“So what is being a pegasus like?” I asked, completely ignoring him.
He started to follow up his last statement before deciding that dropping it might be for the best. “Well I still can’t fly,” he said as he stretch out his wings, forcing me to take a few steps away. “At least I can move these things a little bit better now though.”
“Well that’s good, I can only imagine what RD would have thought if you weren’t even able to do that,” I poked one of the extended wings, making him instantly retract them.
“Rainbow Dash? You think she is going to be my instructor?” he asked.
“Um, duh,” I replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Damn, I wish you hadn’t said that.” I saw him actually wilt, his wings drooping ever so slightly.
“Huh, why not?” I asked.
“Because now it is like certain that she won’t be. Dammit, Rainbow Dash is so cool.” Yes, he also liked Rainbow Dash a lot, not nearly as much as I did, but he still gave the element of awesome a high rank on his list.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I walked ahead of him a bit so that I could look at him full on.
“Tell me, when have you ever been right about anything that is going to happen since we came here?” he asked. I screwed my face up as I tried to think back to the past couple of days. True, it had seemed like the universe was going out of its way just to make me look like a jackass, but I had to be right eventually.
“I...was right about getting you into the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” I replied as we neared the main road. It wasn’t too far away now, the walk having not been a little more than a half mile.
“You were right about a club that invites anyone without a cutie mark into it, invited me in because I don’t have a cutie mark. Way to go there Ash,” he said sarcastically.
“Shut up,” I said, pushing him a little. Unfortunately, it seemed that he had learned to use his hooves a lot better and didn’t actually fall over at the shove.
“Seriously though, nothing you have predicted has come true so by the mere fact that you said RD would be my flight instructor makes it impossible for her to be,” he stated as he took the initiative and turned onto the road before me.
“That’s not fair,” I said, keeping up with him. “Just because I say something doesn’t mean the opposite will happen.”
“Basically that is how everything has worked out so far.” He smiled as we walked down the long dirt road that would eventually lead us to town.
“Fuck you,” I replied, using the best comeback that came to mind.
“Nice one,” he replied as he looked down the road before us. “Oh look, there’s Applejack. I need to thank her for those pies she made the four of us yesterday.”
I looked down the road in front of us in terror, and sure enough I spotted what looked like a cart with a little orange speck leading it. I almost fell on my face as my hoof slid out from in front of me, but managed to catch myself. Steel was still smiling dumbly like this wasn’t the worst thing in the world, while I was mentally focusing on stopping myself from shaking.
“Christ, we have to get off the road,” I said.
“What? Why?” Steel turned and looked at me slightly confused.
“She is the element of god damn honesty. She will figure us out before you can even bat an eye.”
“Um, I talked to her for like an hour yesterday dude. She is pretty cool actually, way better than how they show her off in the show.” He kept up his pace towards our approaching doom, forcing me to do the same.
“Are you crazy!” I yelled at him. “The worst thing for anyone trying to keep a cover is to come up against a living lie detector. Come on, let’s just run off into the field or something.”
“Heh, too late now,” he said with a smile. “Hey Applejack.” He waved to the mare in front of us, who was a lot closer than I remembered her having been. She stopped and waved back at us, both of us, dammit it was too late. We all approached each other, me being extremely hesitant to do so, but eventually there I was, having a stare down with the element of honesty. She may have been smiling pleasantly at the two of us, but I could see in those green happy eyes that she was a predator just trying to break down my mental defenses, but I wouldn’t allow it.
“Well hey there Burnt Steel, where’re you headin’ off to?” she asked.
“I have to meet my flight instructor in town,” Steel replied warmly. “So we were just going to go and mess around until it was time.” The farm pony smirked at that, but then looked at me and it seemed like her smile died a little on her lips.
“Yer Ashen Stroke right? I think that’s wat you said yer name was anyways,” she asked as she turned to me, she was still being pleasant, and it seemed Steel wasn’t able to see the true danger in front of us.
“Yes that’s what I said.” Not a lie, that is what I had said. “And uh, we are going into town just like Burnt said.” I tried to crack an innocent looking smile, but it only seemed to peak the farmpony’s curiosity.
“So Ash, how do ya know Steel here?” she asked.
I took me a second to come up with something. “Why, I can’t remember a day in Equestria that I didn’t know Steel. You might even say we’re brothers.” I tried to laugh disarmingly, but I think that I screwed that up too.
“Ya don’t say,” she adjusted the harness that she was wearing to be more comfortable, “well I gotta keep on movin’ so ah’ll probably see ya later there Steel if ya want to come around the farm again.” Without another probing word she just passed us by, pulling a big empty cart behind her as she did so.
I stood there frozen in the road, as Steel waved goodbye to the mare. I wanted to throttle him for making me go through that terrifying moment, but it seemed that we had come out the other side of it by exchanging a few pleasantries. When Steel started to press on once again I let out a sigh of relief, and followed along next to him.
“Man, that was close,” I said after I knew that we were out of earshot.
“You’re just being paranoid dude,” he replied, shrugging off my concern.
I looked back at the cart that was slowly heading away from us. “Maybe, but I don’t think so.”
Ponyville was more alive than I had ever seen it before, of course I hadn’t taken the opportunity to stroll through the small town on the weekend yet. As we passed through the small farmer’s market I couldn’t help but admire the wares of all the stalls. There definitely had to be some kind of magic at work to get all of these fruits and vegetables to look so incredibly appetizing, especially with my dietary habits. I caught sight of Applebloom and Big Mac selling apples from their stall, and expertly guided Steel in the opposite direction before we could be spotted. I was still digesting what he had told me about the filly earlier, not quite sure if I believed him or not, but it would still be best to avoid contact until I had completely wrapped my mind around it.
I nodded towards Sugarcube Corner, the large confectionary sticking out over the rooftops a few blocks over, and we proceeded to head that way. It had kind of slipped my mind at the time that I was supposed to be showing him towards this bridge that he was to meet his flight instructor at, I just wanted to retrieve the books that I had left there last night when I had to run from a pack of angry unicorns. We turned out of the little market and started making our way back towards the main thoroughfare that ran through the center of town.
I caught sight of Carousel Boutique, and found myself admiring the building. Rarity was no doubt in there, stitching together some kind of masterpiece, probably ordered by a duchess in Canterlot for a party or something. She would work herself to the bone, and in the end come up with something far beyond what her customer had expected. I wondered when our own outfits would be completed.
A simple jacket had been what the each of us had wanted, though admittedly I had put much more thought into than Steel had. I was a little surprised that we hadn’t received the orders yet since she was supposed to be so incredibly adept at tailoring, in fact I couldn’t really recall a time in the show that it had taken her longer than a day to make a particular piece. Perhaps she was having difficulty making things that were so out of her usual work, I couldn’t really imagine too many colts concerned with their clothing around Ponyville. Maybe…
I was quite literally knocked out of my ruminations as my face collided with the leg of a mare. I prided myself on not just falling over from the collision, but it did take some work for me to keep my hooves under me. My nose had taken the brunt of the damage, as was probably the case for most head on impacts, and I rubbed it thoroughly with a hoof in order to sooth the oncoming ache.
“Oh my,” I heard a feminine voice say, probably the one that was attached to the leg I had smacked into. “Are you okay?”
I looked up at the mare in front of me, her very gentle voice making me half suspect that it had been Fluttershy that I had run into. Thankful that I hadn’t hit the shy pegasus, and relieved I wouldn’t have to commit suicide tonight, I studied beige unicorn in front of me. She was short, or at least shorter than most of the fully grown mares I had seen were, and her blue mane was tied into a braid that fell over the right side of her neck. Her blue eyes looked intently at me, as if expecting me to say something...oh wait.
“Yeah,” I said, putting my hoof back to the ground, “just fine, ma’am.” I could see Steel out of the corner of my eye suppressing a laugh.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going. This town is just so enchanting that I much have fallen into daydreaming,” She looked around us, smiling happily at the joy that was Ponyville.
“I know what you mean, I was too busy looking over at that clothing place to watch where I was going,” I replied.
“Sure you were,” Steel said.
“Nopony asked you,” I shot back.
“Oh now, there is no reason to strike up an argument boys,” the mare said, cutting off our little back and forth. “My name is South Wind, I would love to hear what each of your’s are.”
I arched a brow at the mare in front of us. “Isn’t South Wind a pegasus name?” I asked.
“What?” she asked, apparently completely caught off guard by the question.
“I mean, the cardinal direction thing could be either pegasus or unicorn, but Wind is definitely a pegasus name. What do you think Steel?” I turned to the orange pegasus on my right.
“Yeah, sounds like a pegasus name to me,” he agreed.
“Heh, well,” she sidestepped and looked off as if she were embarrassed that we had called her out on it. “Both my parent’s were pegasi so they kind of named me along those lines.”
“Well that makes sense,” I admitted. “Hope you didn’t grow up in the clouds, that would have been tough on a young filly that couldn’t fly.”
“It wasn’t exactly...wait a minute.” She stopped and looked back at me, scrutinizing me and Steel. “You are very good at changing subjects young stallion.”
I gave a little bow at that. “Thank you ma’am I try. My name is Ashen Stroke and this is my brother Burnt Steel, and it is a pleasure to meet you Mrs. Wind.”
“Ashen Stroke and Burnt Steel…” she mumbled, almost as if she already knew the names.
“Yes,” Burnt said, stepping forwards. “You can ignore Ash, he just likes to mess with other ponies. I personally think it is out of jealousy that I got all of the awesomeness in the family.”
“Then awesomely fly an inch off the ground,” I replied, turning to the pegasus that thought he was hot shit.
“I don’t even have to dignify that with a response,” he said, huffing and turning away from me.
“You couldn’t dignify it with anything,” I added before turning back to South Wind who was still studying the both of us like we were ants under a magnifying glass.
“Anyways it had been a pleasure miss but…” I was cut off by the loud chiming off a clock tower off somewhere in the distance. It stopped after three chimes, giving me the time, and making me wonder how three hours could have possibly passed since I got out of bed this afternoon. “Well it looks like we have to go.”
Steel looked up at the sky, as if searching for something that my puny mortal eyes couldn’t possibly see. “Yeah, so Ash where is that bridge?” he asked.
I was about to respond when the kindly mare that was still standing there did for me. “Oh a bridge? I passed over one as I entered the town, I believe that you just need to continue down this road and you will reach it quite soon.”
Without waiting for me Steel took off racing, no doubt excited about the prospect of learning to fly. I had to force myself not to immediately take off after him, and give a word of thanks to the mare before I dashed down the road after him. I thought a moment about how it was kind of miraculous how many unicorns I was meeting in this town when it was supposed to be mostly earth ponies, but the thought vanished from my mind as I caught up to the lanky pegasus that was huffing as he continued running.
“Having difficulty?” I asked smugly.
No,” he said between large gulps of air. “I’m just...doing breathing...exercises.”
I laughed at that, we weren’t really even going that fast. I did feel a little bad for him though, seeing how much trouble he was having, but in the end I discarded that emotion, knowing that if he was ever going to have much of a chance at flight he was definitely going to need to be in better shape. We ran, and like South Wind had said it didn’t take us all that long to reach the bridge that was just at the edge of town. I quickly ran over the wooden planks until I got to the center, before turning back and watching Steel come to a halt just a few paces away, still breathing heavily.
“Oh come on,” I chided. “It wasn’t that far.”
“Screw...you…” he managed as he sat there trying to catch his breath.
I was about to reply with a particularly annoying quip, but stopped as a shadow passed overhead. I looked up just in time to see a large pegasus descend onto the bridge, and land with some unworldly grace. It was a grey stallion, not nearly as dark as my coat was though, and his spiky white mane stood straight up from his neck. His tail was cut short, and I could see several rugged patches in his fur where he had some scarring just beneath the coat. His cutie mark was of two iron rings interlocked, there was some sort of writing on the rings in what I could only guess to be latin, I had no idea what it said however.
He looked down at Steel who had managed to catch his breath and was staring back at this hulk of a stallion. The guy wasn’t overly muscle bound to where it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to fly, but he was supremely built. His wings were huge as well, they had to be at least a foot or two longer than Rainbow Dash’s had been, and they caught the sun in the most interesting and vibrant way. It registered in my mind that I had of course been wrong once again, and this was undoubtedly the pony that was going to be teaching Steel how to fly.
“You must be Burnt Steel,” he said as he looked the small pegasus over.
“Yeah,” Steel replied as he climbed back to his hooves.
“Hmm,” the stallion said as he tapped his chin. “It looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us.”
I couldn’t help but snicker at that, which earned me a glare from my orange friend. The large pegasus turned his attention to me, and looked me over as well. I had the sinking suspicion that he was judging my physical stature for some reason, and quickly moved to leave. “Well since it seems that Rainbow Dash isn’t going to be here, I will take my leave,” I said as I began to walk off.
“Ash!” Steel called after me, no doubt feeling uneasy at being left alone with this guy.
“I’ll catch you later baby brother!” I called back as I stepped from the bridge and hurriedly made my way back to town. That guy seemed more than capable of teaching anypony how to use their wings properly, after he had made them do a thousand push-ups of course. I smirked as I got back onto the main road in town and started heading towards Sugarcube Corner.
It wasn’t that long before I caught sight of the bakery ahead, and picked up my pace. I entered through the front door this time, finding that the window hadn’t been particularly to my liking the last time, and heard the bell chime above me as I pushed the door open. I was just about to walk up to the counter, where I could see Pinkie Pie working with a customer that was ordering some incredibly oversized cake, when I caught a familiar voice echoing from the parlor not too far off.
“I know Silver Spoon, I’m just going to miss you is all,” the unmistakable voice of Diamond Tiara said as I stealthily entered the parlor. I could see her and Silver Spoon sitting in a booth talking with each other over a couple of milkshakes, and despite my better judgement I snuck over to an adjoining booth without drawing attention and sat down so I could eavesdrop.
“I know,” I heard Silver Spoon reply.
“Prance will be fun though won’t it,” Diamond said, probably trying to cheer her friend up, or at least that is what it sounded like since I couldn’t actually see the two.
“Yes, dad says that there is so much to do there.”
“And you will only be gone for a little while, so there is nothing to worry about.”
“Seven months Diamond, that isn’t a little while.”
“A seven month vacation in Prance, you are so lucky.”
I heard a sigh echo from the booth behind me. “You are my only friend, and you can’t come with me.”
“Don’t worry, you are the most likable pony I know, you will make friends there no problem.”
“Maybe…”
“No maybe, I’m sure.”
“Thanks Diamond. I think...I think it’s time for me to go. Dad said we were supposed to have left like an hour ago already.” I heard a few sniffs coming from the booth behind me.
“Okay.” The sound of two sets of hooves hopping out of the booth caused me to frantically reach for a menu and hold it in front of my face so that they wouldn’t see me. They two of them walked towards the door, sharing a hug at the entrance before Silver Spoon quickly took off into the main room of Sugarcube Corner, leaving Diamond Tiara standing there by herself. I glanced over the top of my menu at her standing there all alone, she sniffed and wiped her face with a hoof before she also headed out the door, walking much slower than her departing friend had.
I put my menu down once I was sure that the coast was clear, and watched the door for a while longer. Today, or at least the couple of hours that I had been conscious, had turned out to be rather interesting. As I also jumped out of my own booth and walked back to the main room so that I could pick up my books from Pinkie, I couldn’t help but wonder what other events the rest of the day might have in store for me.