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// Chapter 3 - Devil in the Details 
// Story: Cold Hooves - Warm Heart 
// by RandomGreymane 
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Cold Hooves - Warm Heart  by RandomGreymane (Mike Hebel)





Chapter 3 - Devil in the Details



        Dear Princess Celestia,

        I’m beginning to understand why your task of raising the sun in the morning is so important.  It’s not just keeping things to a cycle, it’s getting things started.  The morning is when everything begins!  Without you raising the sun that just wouldn’t happen.

        I studied magick and not a little philosophy but some things you just don’t think of until you change your perspective.

        Today was a good example of that in fact.  Miss Jubilee and I went into town to get some supplies.  I offered to just carry them for her but she said the amount she needed was too large for me to do that.  (Farming implements for the rest of the ponies that would be arriving this week.)

        In a corner of the barn she uncovered what looked for all of Equestria exactly like the collar Big Mac uses to plow the fields with.  It was easy enough to put on.  (Even if I did leave a slight cloud of dust doing so.)  

        Once the collar was on we went outside and she hitched me to a beam on a brand new wagon.  With that, she and I set off into town.

        We didn’t talk much on the way in.  Both of us lost in thought.  Last night she had told me some of what had happened here before I arrived.  She said that she’s still planning what to do next.

        As for myself it was an odd introspection.  Was there a particular way I was supposed to pull the cart?  Would I ever have to plow a field?  I wondered what it was like for Big Mac.  What did he think about?  I mean a pony of so few words has to think about something right?

        By the time we arrived at the store I’d developed a fairly complex theory about the thoughts of ponies doing manual labor...then discarded it.  Truly it was, even with my strength, hard not to think of just the task at hand.  Every creak of the cart and bump in the road brought me back to the here and now.

        Maybe that’s why Applejack is so focused most of the time.  I suspect her being tied to the land as she is helps that.

        It took a while for the shopkeeper to get us all loaded up.  During that time I took in the town.  I could see repairs made from the recent mine explosion as well as the trolls.  All in all though the town looked as if it was standing tall.  It had that kind of feeling you get when you take shelter from a storm and emerge afterwards to find everything the same as before you hid.

        Loaded to the brim we set off back to the orchard.

        The cart was heavy.  HEAVY.  I’m a strong pony and all now but this felt like when I threw Tom out of the library in Ponyville.  It wasn’t until we got back that Miss Jubilee explained she usually has to make a couple of trips or have a team of four ponies pull the load!

        By the time we got back and started unloading, the other ponies had arrived.  Miss Jubilee introduced them in a whirlwind of names.  Wood Ward is the one I remember.  He had a tree in a circle as his cutie mark.  The rest laughed as I got their names wrong.  I’m sure we’ll get to know each other in time.  (My  memory is still a bit...fuzzy.)

        After the unloading was finished, Miss Jubilee said that we would start tomorrow and that the rest of the day was ours to do with what we pleased.  I chose to wander the orchard and eventually found myself along the furthest edge which backed up to a portion of the desert.

        I noticed that this portion of the desert was filled with hole after hole after hole.  In a flash I recognized that they were the same kind of holes I saw the diamond dogs use near Ponyville!

        I tried to get an accurate count but by the time I’d gotten near the end you were starting to set the sun and I had to get back to the ranch.  I know it was more than a couple hundred at least.

        Back at the house, Miss Jubilee had set up a large pot in a tripod over a fire pit.  Inside was some of the most delicious smelling vegetable soup ever.  (It had, like most things at the ranch, a faint smell of cherries to it.)

        One of the other ponies offered me some and I felt bad seeing his expression when I had to once again explain that I didn’t eat.

        Not being a social butterfly, I talked to the one pony I could recall the name of - Wood Ward.  In talking to him I noticed that he, as well as the other farm ponies, weren’t the least bit afraid of me.  I asked him why.  

        He shrugged and said “You’re the muscle.”.

        “Pardon?” I asked.

        “Most ranches and farms have a few general ponies then a coupl‘a specialized ‘uns.  Dere’s tha handpony, tha animal whisperer, and usually...” he said as he pointed to me “tha muscle.  The pony that is da strongest. Dats you.”

        I am almost positive that this body doesn’t possess capillaries but Wood Ward swears I was blushing.

        After everpony finished with their meal we all sat around the fire pit.  Everypony insisted I tell my story and I was more than happy to indulge them.  I saw bits change hooves when I told them I’d been a princess before this.  I asked them how they knew.  They said it came down to one thing - bearing.  I carried myself like a princess.

        Oh that’s rich.  I spent all that time doubting myself and being nervous in my past life only to have it all settle in now.  

        Late into the evening we all headed to our respective bunks to get some sleep.  I am writing this letter by lamplight before I settle in.

        Miss Jubilee saw me writing the last letter and who I was writing to.  Much to my embarrassment she has arranged to have daily postal service to the ranch so I don’t have to run into town all the time.  Not sure how often I’ll write but...yay?

        Yours in Calcite,

        Alabaster