//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Learning 
// Story: Necessary Love 
// by Zurock 
//------------------------------//

	The day grew obnoxiously long for the three original crusaders.  Their sagging hooves dragged along the ground everywhere they went.  Like the condemned marching before the executioner towards the gallows they were forced to lead the way to the many sites of their own humiliation.  Place after place, activity after activity; they reluctantly directed their two guests towards new experiences in suffering.  For themselves, anyway.

After their failed flirting with glassblowing they went to a large grocery store that sat on a busy corner like a fat frog on a lily pad watching a lively pond.  Inside they met with a rushed and apron-wearing mare who tried to instruct them in stocking shelves, building product displays, and all the grocer basics: stacking up pyramids of cans, laying out trays of samplers, setting up wall-to-wall offerings; high margin items go front and center like so, larger and more cumbersome items go down here, balance out uneven shelves this way, product labels forward please, and so on.
But as usual the little fillies were lacking in that department.  Reaching the high shelves was troublesome, and Scootaloo's efforts to float herself up resulted in more items being knocked down to the floor than anything else.  Apple Bloom somehow created a perplexing maze of product labels on the shelves; rare were the labels that actually listed an item's price, and only the keenest minds could decipher the clues left behind on the rest of the labels, often little more than arrows pointing arbitrary places.  The foundations of Sweetie Belle's display pyramids never had the strength to hold up their top halves; her can structures always went from standing, to wobbling, to rolling on the ground in pieces.
Their clumsiness came on harder than usual, only making their problems worse.  They just couldn't lift the weights off their increasingly heavy spirits.
Poppy, in detectable contrast, didn't do nearly as poorly as the rest of them.  While the mentor mare certainly had to frequently correct the little Drypony's errors, redemonstrate some procedures for her multiple times, and be ever-present to provide a guiding hoof, the final results of Poppy's endless efforts were about as best as could have been expected from such a fledgling grocer.  The vicious and self-defeating cycle which had consumed the others proved unable to puncture the Drypony's unflappable optimism.
Of course, the other crusaders noticed her relative success and, feeling that they were further falling behind, only had the life sapped from their hearts even more.
It was also no surprise to them that James was again able to work the job efficiently.  When the mentor mare showed him a shelf plan he would duplicate it on an actual shelf with apparent ease.  Under her direction he assembled stacks of canned goods in any shape as thick or as tall as he was told to.  He climbed up to the highest shelves without a spill, he knelt down for the lowest shelves without a trip, and every last area that he crossed he left behind more ordered than he had found it.  And if the apron-wearing pony ever told him that something hadn't been set up properly then he always went back and corrected it.
Again he had made it look so easy.  Never once had he struggled.

He wasn't a screwup.

He wasn't talentless.

When the crusaders' progress became precariously thin and their messes preposterously thick the mentor mare had the magnanimity to allow them a second chance.  She proposed that they attempt something slightly different: customer service.  In the hopes that a small amount of teamwork would see them through the simple task of collecting payments and making change, she set all of them together behind one register.  And by working together the crusaders did indeed at least manage to achieve a store record.  Unfortunately it was the record for most customer complaints in a half-hour period.
The mentor mare pulled them aside so that she could run damage control.  Of course that meant that the three crusaders had a few good, long minutes to sit there and watch James try his own hand at the task on a different register, and he checked out a dozen customers one after the other smooth and orderly.
After their second miserable failure to perform they were clumsily thanked and escorted out.  Leaving them no space to digest their defeat, the man immediately pressed the crusaders for their next destination and the downhearted trio, having no means or strength with which to resist, led the way.

They guided their guests down a maze of streets to a broad thoroughfare that stretched its way out of town.  On the edges of Ponyville, right on that very road, they met up with a group of sturdy-looking ponies who wore hardhats and were busy working away.  The construction crew was tearing up the already worn and broken cobble roadway in order to lay down a refreshed path; the last segments of road to be repaired before the winter.
The encounter turned out no differently than all the others.  The welcoming workponies started upbeat and encouraging.  They courteously equipped their temporary apprentices with hardhats and tools, listed out some clear instructions, and set aside a small strip of road for the lesson.  Then they were slowly overtaken by horror as the threat to their lives increased with each passing second that the fillies had their hooves on any given tool-turned-lethal-weapon.  And none of them seemed to be particularly observant enough (or more realistically, not otherwise preoccupied with saving themselves from a workplace accident) to have noticed the dull-eyed enthusiasm behind the crusaders' efforts.
Even mastery of a task mostly rooted in chaotic destruction seemed to elude the three fillies.  Stones were cracked and shattered, but often not where they should have been.  Sand was spilled and spread, but mostly over the dry and open road which certainly did not need it.  And at the end of their short shift they had probably managed to accomplish so little that it had left the workponies with a good amount of overtime in cleanup duties.
Or not.  James assisted some of the workponies in correcting the crusader-created mishaps and mistakes, thereby keeping them on schedule.  And that was after he had successfully finished re-laying his own portion of roadway to the exact letter of the workponies' instructions.
Of course.
Naturally.
Big surprise.
Poppy had the nimbleness to work with the tools but not particularly the strength, and she wound up performing only slightly above the level of the other crusaders.  Most critically, unlike them, she was undeterred by her failure and she even excitedly gushed over the man's efforts.
Eventually they were ushered away again from another horrible disaster of a performance.

The rest of the day continued in much the same way for the luckless crusaders.

The open fields of the park was their next destination, and when they got there they found that the area was abuzz with an active group of ponies and pooches; an obedience training class for the dog-loving citizens of Ponyville.  Lead by a stallion with a stubby goatee and a penchant for whispering, the class was just getting underway.  It was no tightly regimented setup either; everything felt loose and fun.  Proud ponies stood next to their lovable canine companions, the pooches all ready to learn their way through an afternoon of organized games and carefree conduct.
It didn't take long for the crusaders to undo all of that.  Madness descended upon the park.  Even the tiniest, most polite and playful puppies turned into terrors.  They slobbered, they barked, and they snapped at any pony within reach.  Poppy had to make a quick leap into a tree for safety, and incredibly enough several other ponies found their way up there as well, tearing off bark as they scrambled up the trunk with their hooves.
The whispering stallion brought things back under control eventually.  The most practiced of his pony students assisted him and, in no surprise to any of the crusaders, James did as well.  Picking up some quick tips from the stallion teacher (who had managed to turn the unexpected experience into a lesson anyway), the man had several of the friendlier dogs heeling, sitting, and playing dead in no time.

A trip to a florist had the crusaders inevitably creating plant-corpse bouquets and hostile flower arrangements as savage as a jungle; the most beautiful of plantlife turned into the most heinous of decorations.  A few unfortunately-present patrons fled the shop in a panic.  And for every reserved word that their hostess pony gave to them in restrained distress she delivered three more in praise of James.  He had crafted a few simple, elegant setups that exactly matched some of the basic ones available in the store.

At some point later the sullen crusaders led their guests to one the larger structures in town: a big, rectangular office building whose faces were made entirely of windows.  It was a formal business run by ponies properly dressed in stuffy suits who acted in every way like exceptional professionals.  The fools didn't see the harm in letting the outside group have a go at processing some insurance claims.  Afterwards the company would forever remember that day as the day they skirted bankruptcy and came out intact.

After that everypony took short lessons in playing different musical instruments, all taught by a single mare who was phenomenally skilled in whatever instrument she picked up.  Under her talented direction the crusaders weaved a discordant spell of ear-bleeding magic while James created a soft, basic melody that could have coaxed a baby foal into slumber.

And so for YET ANOTHER time the crusaders, honorary member, and man found themselves moving through Ponyville on their way towards another destination destined to humiliate the three tormented fillies.  By that point they had long stopped leading the way themselves; as soon the man had learned where their next activity was (provided to him at his insistent request) then he had led the charge himself.  The downtrodden fillies only crawled along at the back of the group like slugs.

James strode through the streets in excitement, a good distance ahead of the slower crusaders, and he constantly encouraged them all to hurry along.  His exhortations to Poppy were more tender, and she unlike the others she easily kept up with him.
Bounding high with each step, James asked the little Drypony beside him, "So that was certainly a lot of fun, right?  It looked like you were having a blast on those drums."
"I didn't know what I was doing really but yeah it was a lot of fun to whack those things!"
She beamed pleasantly, springing up and down while vocalizing a loud thump or deep gong for each landing.
"Haha!  I'll bet!  I think if you got more practice then you could learn to keep time better!"
"Aw, maybe I guess!" Poppy accepted.  "I don't think I'd learn it as fast as you.  You were really good with that flute!"
"Oh, no no," the man laughed, waving a hand and turning away with some embarrassment.  "I only did alright; true, a lot better than I thought I would."

Actually the music lessons had been the first activity where a real bout of nervousness had slid into him.  Earlier tasks had either been like training for a part-time job or doing a beginner's exercise in arts and crafts; things which were wet with preparation or that carried echoes of past from childhood playtime to adolescent experience; all hardly things to have been nervous about.  But an honest-to-goodness performance involving a REAL skill?  He had felt every expectation to fail, especially since his singular prior attempt at such a skill on Earth had ended that way.

He mentioned offhandedly to Poppy, "You know, many many years ago when I was about your age, maybe a little older, I tried learning a different instrument.  I couldn't do it well at all."
The news caught the filly by surprise.
"You couldn't?"
"Yeah.  Gave it up.  I just didn't have the legs for it."
James shrugged.
But the filly's surprise and skepticism only deepened.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"But you did REALLY good just now," she stated, struggling to reconcile his contention with her own observation.
"No," he denied again, "I only did alright.  And remember that the last time I tried was a long, long time ago; I was much younger.  What's more, Miss Sinponia back there was a very attentive and dedicated teacher.  The last music teacher I had was a real—"  There was a beat as he hot-swapped words to block an unneeded profanity.  "—witch."
"A witch?!" Poppy's eyes snapped open with literal amazement.
"No," the man laughed and shook his head, "I mean that I didn't like her all that much."  A more thoughtful pause held him before he cast his voice out in reviewed memory, "I suppose looking back on it, to be fair to her, she had to deal with a lot of rowdy and mostly uninterested students all at once and maybe she didn't have the time to really give her full attention to each one of them.  Not like the focused attention Miss Sinponia was giving us back there.  That helped a lot."
"Huh," Poppy let out plainly.  Her mind felt teased, like she knew she had the answers to the questions which tickled her brain but they was too shy to reveal themselves.

James clapped his hands together while skipping once instead of taking a step.
"Anyway," he cheerfully announced, "I already forget where we're heading to next."  Without batting an eye he twisted his torso around and asked behind himself, "Hey girls!  Where are we going again?"
The defeated crusaders hardly picked up their faces as they plodded along.  Their burdened voices were so cursed that they all were of the same desolate mold; it wasn't clear who was speaking as they lifelessly replied in sequence.
"... The pottery place..."
"... It's not that far from where the florist was..."
"... Two more streets down, left, then straight for awhile..."
"Ah, right!  Let's go!" the man pointed on ahead and picked up his pace.
But Poppy's gaze didn't follow his finger and her own strides slowed.  With her head turned backwards her stare lingered long on her new friends and their slack, broken steps.  They were falling further and further behind.
She faced forwards again and lifted her saddened eyes back towards James.
"Maybe-... maybe we should stop for now," she quietly suggested.
He nearly stumbled.
"W-What?  Why?"
"I don't think-... I don't think that...," the Drypony said, putting so much strength into her effort.
But she couldn't seem to lift her thought off the ground.  How exactly could she have even explained it?  The words needed simply weren't there in her head.  She couldn't understand why the man was so impervious to the crusaders' obvious feelings when she herself so potently felt them.  Worse, her trust in him was so enormous that it made her feel like she was somehow wrong to have even sensed the hurt coming from them.  But her instincts were so sure!; so sure that something terrible was happening.
She started over, "I don't think... all this... is doing what we want."
"What?" James repeated.  A hidden thread of anxiety dangled from him, and she was tugging hard at it.  "What do you mean?"
Poppy whined, frustrated and unhappy that she again did not have any words.  On the inside she felt tight, like her many fast and short breaths weren't coming back out after breathing in.
"This is wrong...," she finally managed to tell him in a quiet, cagey tone.
Rapidly the man started to fray, everything about him coming undone at once; his stride, his composure, his tone.  He fell into an inconsistent volume and staggered as he spoke.
"T-That's silly.  We're-... we're having fun, right?  I-, I mean I am... really enjoying this time with you.  And..."
Somehow he had to keep this day going.  He HAD to.
Suddenly he straightened up and said to her with buried desperation, "And your job as an ambassador!  Getting around and seeing all of Ponyville!  Don't you need to keep doing all that?"
"I want to do that!" Poppy pleaded painfully.  Her head came down and she peeked back at the crusaders once.  "But... I think... this isn't the way to do it anymore..."
"H-How else are you supposed to do it?" James replied almost sternly.
"We can go exploring on our own," she offered immediately.  She became full of promise.  "It will be fine.  I think we can have lots of fun!"
He yielded no response at first.  Then slowly and subtly he closed up.  An insincere authority swirled into his voice, as if he were trying to push himself past his fright not with any courage but with raw emotional force.
And even then all could he answer with was, "N-No... no, Poppy.  No.  I-... I couldn't.  I couldn't lead you around on my own."
"You can," she encouraged, sidling closer to him, "because you're you."
"No...," he resisted again.
One side of himself held his mind back from the unthinkable places he didn't want to go, but the other side tore about in search of an honest response to give to the dear filly.  He scraped so achingly close to the truth.
"I want you to see all this stuff... and I want to be there to show it all to you, and... I'm so glad that you're here with me right now... because... without you... I couldn't-...  I just wouldn't want to-...  I wouldn't have the reason to-..."
His bones shook.  He breathed just once, heavy and hard.
"Poppy, I can't do these things on my own."
The Drypony brought herself closer to him still.
"You've... done so great at everything so far," she reminded him quizzically.  "What do you mean you can't do 'these things?'"
James spat out a choked, stifled sound; words stumbling over each other too quickly to be coherent.  After he cleared his throat he changed his mind about answering and quickly dismissed, "W-What does it matter anyway?  I mean, the Crusaders had this all set up and are making their rounds anyhow so it only makes sense for us to tag along."
Then, to deny her even the smallest space for interruption, he pushed frantic, "We're wasting time now.  Is this the left turn here?  Let's go!"
She bounced a step away in surprise.
'Tag along?'
Behind them the lagging crusaders had dropped so far back that they had all but disappeared.
"But-," Poppy weakly tried to object.
"Please...," he begged her quietly.
Again she whined, much more silently than before.  She donated one last half-glance back to her distant friends, whispered yet another whine, and then she surrendered.  The glorious shine her mane had gained from the spa had vanished.
The man said nothing but gave a happy, sorry smile.  Then together they continued on, turning left and carrying ahead.

But far back, the three glum fillies still made no effort to catch up.  They followed only at the fastest pace their tortured wills could carry them.
They were all mirrors to each others' misery.  If one head dropped then they all dropped.  If one sighed then they all sighed.  If one kicked a stone, either out of stifling frustration or just accidentally because of their hooves barely scraping above the dirt, then they all found a stone to kick.
Their greatest wish in life had always been to have found the one special talent that each of them were exceptionally good at, but now they were at a dark and dreary place where the only thing that they wished for was the sun to set and the day to end.  And maybe, if they were lucky, tomorrow everypony would forget that they even existed and they would never have to parade their shame ever again.
The endless cycle of dismal dirt and cold cobblestone passed before their ground-locked eyes.  If only to break the monotony, and maybe to safely relieve a tiny bit of the painful pressure bottled up inside, Sweetie Belle began to sing.  Her voice floated low and private; a soft song only for her commiserating comrades, and they joined in when they found the miserable strength to:

Crusading isn't what it used to be
It's not the same quest it was yesterday
If you knew our story then you'd agree
That things should never have gone this way

(We're always last place,)
Everypony is somehow special
(In a dead-end race!)
There's hidden magic that's deep inside
(It's the worst case,)
But if that's true and we've searched it all
(Of pony disgrace!)
Why have our cutie marks been denied?

Now we keep on trying like a young filly should
But maybe our mission we misunderstood
And there's somepony here who does more than we could
Do we keep on trying or are we just—no—good?


One day I thought I'd be somepony great
With a super talent that I could show
But everyday more that day has to wait
Makes me think I have no talent to know

(We're always last place,)
He makes everything look so simple
(In a dead-end race!)
We fail no matter how hard we try
(It's the worst case,)
On easy things we always stumble
(Of pony disgrace!)
Won't somepony please just tell us why?

Do we keep on trying when we've done all we could?
Will we never rise up to the place that we should?
We have no more fight to hold the ground where we've stood
Do we give up trying because we're just—no—good?


'Quit while you're ahead' is some nice advice
But a life with blank flanks will be our doom
So is 'quit while you're behind' just as nice?
At least I'm still better than Apple Bloom (Hey!)

(We're always last place,)
It's like everything he does better
(In a dead-end race!)
While we beat our heads against a wall
(It's the worst case,)
At drowning I bet he'd drown wetter
(Of pony disgrace!)
Why even bother trying at all?

Are we STILL trying as though we even should
Let's move away and hide our faces with a hood
I'm amazed our rhymes even sound any- um- good
Do we stop trying since we know we're just—no—good?


When somepony shows you how easy it can be
And you still don't get there when you've done all you could
You know our locked talents will never be set free
There's no point in trying like a young filly should
A pony promise for the cutie marks we need
But just a promise that we never understood
So now it's the time to give up on our creed
There's no point in trying when we're just—no—good!

Dropping their heads in unison, all three fillies unleashed hefty sighs and turned down the street on their left to follow James and Poppy to the next round of humiliation.





After one final farewell from the pottery master the rickety door of the ceramics studio rattled shut.  Ejected after another predictably sour turn of events, the crowd of four glum fillies and one bright man were left standing on the low porch that served as a display for the workshop.  Large pieces of pottery sat here and there on the creaky wooden boards while smaller specimens were spaced erratically atop the thick half-wall that lined much of the porch.
James whipped his hands about in front of himself, shaking off the leftover wetness they held from washing away the remains of clay.  The soppy hooves of the crusaders stayed stuck to the ground, motionless and still, letting the stained water dribble off.  Inside they had hardly done anything more than lifelessly soak their hooves in a sink for a few dull moments while washing up, leaving behind many flecks of caked-on clay.
For once even Poppy seemed fully connected to their conquered spirits.  There had been none of her usual zeal in this latest activity.  Her springy energy normally would have had her prancing about casting cheers and praises (and incidentally drying her hooves as water was flung everywhere), but instead a sunken gloominess anchored her to the ground.  Like the other crusaders her hooves too had spatters of earthen clay carelessly left behind, the blots blurring with her already brown body color.
If there was any part of his awareness which had noticed her evaporated spirit James didn't show it.  Blind, singleminded ignorance shielded him.

"Well that was fun!" he pushed eagerly, manufacturing a smile and an exhausted breath.  "Where to next?"
His question passed over the numb crusaders.
He turned towards them and the already abrasive edge came out in his voice.
"Where next?"
They all picked up their heads nervously and shrank back, awoken by the harsh cracking in his words.
"Oh, uh...," Scootaloo squirmed.
"I'm not... really sure I remember," Sweetie Belle trepidatiously stated; a half-lie.  She had vain hope for escape but also was so foggy-minded from despair.
Once more a mean sharpness rose up in the man.  The assumed authority came right back into his tone, harsh and hard but shy of being outright callous.
"Well think about it for a minute.  You owe it to those ponies to show up and not waste their time."
"B-Building buggies," Apple Bloom's recall was crisp enough to know the next destination.  In covering for her friends she was slightly jumpy.  "At-... at one of those ranches just on the edge of town.  B-But... I don't think the ponies there would miss the unremarkable likes of us all that much..."
James' hands came down and sternly gripped his hips.  He assaulted the little filly with a disciplining stare.  There was the slightest lean forward of his body; a subtle move whose minuscule size somehow enabled it to carry such a massive aura of threatening power.
Partially cowering and beginning to blanch a little, Apple Bloom tried to pacify him while still sparing herself and her friends, "W-Why don't you and Poppy go on yourselves?  T-Then-... then their time isn't wasted and-... a-and I'm sure them ponies would be plenty glad to teach somepony actually talented, like YOU, all about sticking together a buggy."
All her subtleties missed the man by a wide margin.
"But then how would we know where to go after that?  How many more activities are there?" he practically demanded.
"Oh, w-well," the skittish filly tried to reply, "m-maybe we could-"
"Look, I get it," James cut her off abruptly.  He was concise and hard.
All three broken crusaders looked up in surprise, curious about what the man supposedly now understood.  They were maybe, in some distant way, hopeful that it was their plight which he had at last grasped.

But their hopes were swiftly dashed.

"You've done all these things and no cutie marks yet!" he spat out bitter and complaining, and noticeably NOT on their behalf.
He continued on, delving into what would have been a rallying speech if it weren't for his brutal air; striking, blaming, unfaithful, unforgiving.  Any truth his words held were crushed to insignificance under his ignorance, making them no more than the spittle of a selfish child attempting mature wisdom.
"But oh well!  You're going to have to suck it up and carry on.  That's the way it goes sometimes!  Some things you really have to work hard for.  So you're NEVER going to get there if a few measly defeats knock you so far back that you give up just like that-"

"STOP!!"

Poppy leapt in front of him as if her body could block his acidic words.  She was trembling, with small crystals of tears in the corners of her eyes.
"Why are you yelling at them?!"

Her move stunned him.
It wasn't just the suddenness of her fierce opposition, or her defensive stance which had her slightly crouched with her stubby wings spread and flat, or the deep and upsetting pain which visibly enveloped her.  There was a singular moment where the entirety of her, the depth of her soul as seen through her eyes, had projected utter severance; she was separate from him.  That intimate connection, so treasured to him since her return, felt suddenly and instantly torn away like the frightening loss of a limb in an unexpected accident; the mind almost resolutely insisting that the separated body part was still there even as the wound gushing blood filled the eyes and screaming pain filled the senses.
He didn't know what to do.

"I'm not yelling!!" he reacted loudly.  But his own great volume immediately struck his ears and, embarrassed, he greatly softened his voice, "I'm not."
"Yes you are!" the filly was injured but not aggressive, and she panted from how completely she exerted her emotions.  "Please stop!  They're so upset!"
"They're-?!"
He had to bring his volume under control again.

Unlike with the crusaders, he consciously worked to sweep all of his coarser parts under the rug for Poppy.  His unexplored love for the little Drypony had turned the entire day into a fantasy of wishes the likes of which he had not known for so long.  All the risks of losing that magic had left him frightened enough to do such cruel things as unleash such coldness upon the poor crusaders.  He would have paid cost he had to keep the special day going.
Any cost except Poppy herself.
Now he was suddenly confronted with a reality his delusion hadn't prepared him for: all his efforts at staying the course had been for naught.  The warmth of his little pony had suddenly started racing away from him despite his actions to cling to it.
The change in him from understated, subtle hostility to immensely soft pleading was fast and obvious.

"Poppy," he tried to explain, gentle and desperate all at once, "they need to learn to not be so discouraged when they don't succeed right away-"
Her head shook, left and right, up and down, and in all sorts of erratic ways.
"No!  I mean, yes!  I mean, it's not that!"  Her own inability to be articulate about her lucid feelings frustrated her so badly.  "That's not why they're upset!"
A real honesty fell into him.
"Then... why?"
"I don't know!" the filly painfully admitted.
She threw her sad eyes again towards the crusaders.  The crestfallen trio didn't seem to know how to take this new conflict between the man and the Drypony, or perhaps they were already beaten beyond the point of being able to care.  Held up scarcely by the last gasps of their dying strength, and held down under storm-battered confusion, they returned only shambly stares.  They were too weak to voice their own concerns.
"I don't know why...," Poppy recited, turning back to James, "... but they really, really are!  And... it's not helping that-... that you're being so-... so-...!"
The words crashed together in her throat, piling up as she threw herself into holding them back.  She feared that calling the man something awful might have made it become more real.  Again the flashbacks pounded at her: the heartbreaking sight of noble Broken Oak being dominated by his own fury, turning him into something nasty which she knew beyond reproach that he truly wasn't; the way her hero stallion had nearly thrown aside all of the good things about himself just to sate some incomprehensible battle thirst.  She didn't want to see something like that ever again.
She took a sudden step forward.
"Please don't be like this!  You're-... you're better than that!"

Sharp, poignant; the knife of her words slipped straight into his heart.  It was a heavy slap to the face of his hysteria, sobering him up; the tidal wave at last violent enough to awaken the man who had denied the hurricane.
Only he had gotten himself so far from shore already that he could no longer fully understand where he was, what was going on, or how to get back.

"Poppy...," he reached out to her, looking for refuge in her.  "I-... I want you to be able to see everything in Ponyville... and... I want to show it all to you... and I want to SHARE it all with you.  But... I CAN'T take you around on my own...  I'm not-...  I can't... find everything...  All these months here and... I've never even felt like looking-...  I mean, before you were here I wasn't even-"
What word was he even looking for?

'Happy'?

No...

'ALIVE'?

"... I wouldn't enjoy discovering these things without you here."

Her face scrunched with befuddlement.
She didn't understand.  And of course she didn't understand, since he barely understood what he had fumblingly expressed also.
But even if her mind wasn't as dexterous as her hooves there was a special place in her heart which much more astute.  Deep in there, she felt his change.  The sympathetic light in her shined out again, brilliantly.
The man meanwhile was still trying to unwind his tangled feelings.
"I'm so happy that... you're here.  That you CAME to see ME.  And that I've had the chance to spend this time with you.  But I don't... have what it takes to... do what you need to complete all this."
The little filly swung her head in great disagreement, snapping her springy hair bundles back and forth like whips.
"You can!"
She was beyond doubt.  And she pointed towards the dismal crusaders.
"And you don't have to make them upset to do it!"
James' head dipped down.  He was beginning to see his own logic unravel; see how mostly it was stitched together only by his pride.
Yet he still defended it, though now tired with sorrow and confusion.
"The crusaders... they set all these things up anyway... and-, and it would be terrible for them to just forsake the ponies who are offering some of their own time.  That was a PROMISE the crusaders made.  So-... so they need to keep their promise, and-, and as long as they are..."
He shrugged weakly.
"And!  And-, and your job as an ambassador," he added.  "You need to experience Ponyville-"
Poppy crammed her eyes shut, again wildly shaking her head while she gave a distraught moan.  Her tiny forehooves beat the wooden floorboards mercilessly.  Then without warning she dashed slightly towards the man and bounced into the air, landing on the lengthy shelf which lined the porch.  The row of display pottery was nearly knocked over like dominoes as she touched down and whirled around to face James again.  The disturbed ceramics rolled wide as they settled back into place, and with her determined face held high the filly was now at a height to look the man straight in his eyes.
Boldly she declared, "As an ambassador of Heartwood I'm ALSO supposed to show everypony here what it means to be a Drypony!  And being a Drypony means doing your best!  It means honoring Prideheart's virtues!  Like sacrificing for your friends and allies, and always standing by your commitments!  They let me be an honorary Cutie Mark Crusader and now I have to stand by that!  And since a crusader helps ponies earn their cutie marks, that's what I've got to do!  But all this stuff that we've done today hasn't been helping them at all!  It's been HURTING them!"
Finally, FINALLY, it penetrated the man.
He turned to look at the worn, beaten down crusaders and it was as if they had completely changed before his very eyes.  Last he had looked they had been obstacles; whining youths who were throwing a fit because things hadn't gone in their favor.  But the lie muddied and dissolved away, revealing underneath a trio of disheartened shadows, in pain and swallowed by despair.  The upbeat fillies he had known – who had always been playful, happy, and so eager to grow – were gone; slaughtered by darkness.

A darkness which had originated FROM HIM.

Poppy, with a soft plea, gave him a final nudge over the threshold.
"Please help them..."
"Oh my God...," James whispered to himself.  He shivered, overcome by his own disappointing, abominable failure.

Gently the man approached the crusaders, and he was greatly distressed to see them pull back slightly as he came; to see them automatically withdraw in the fear of him.
Just how terrible had he been?
Slowing even more he got as close to them as they seemed comfortable with and carefully brought himself all the way down to ground, folding his legs under his body and resting his knees on the wooden flooring.
"Girls," he opened up to them, leaning forwards with upturned palms, "I'm so sorry.  I-... I was being so stupid.  I'm ready to listen now.  I am.  What's wrong?"
The fearful fillies, crowded close together, exchanged reluctant looks as they hesitated to respond.
"Please.  It's alright.  What's wrong?" he showed his remorse as he encouraged them.
Sweetie Belle spoke up, throwing her sad voice down at the floor, "WE'RE wrong.  We're no good."
James scuttled on his knees, scooching a little closer to them.
"No, no, no.  That's not true at all," he said.
"But we've just been big failures at everything so far!  We're ALWAYS failures!" squeaked Apple Bloom.
"And," Scootaloo pitched in, very wary of how much her frustrated envy was showing, "whenever YOU try something, you do great.  This stuff can't be that hard if-... if-..."
The three put out a powerful moan together.
The man moved closer still.  More he tilted towards them, and when he reached out they didn't recoil.
"Oh, girls, no," he told them kindly.  "That's not how it is.  There's a lot more to it.  There's a lot of important differences between you and me."
Unsatisfied with his explanation, at least in a fashion, Sweetie Belle lamented with lifeless sarcasm, "So you're just so super great at everything?"
"No.  Not at all," he securely responded.  A thin smile stretched across his face, his voice turned up in comfort, and he tried to get them to see, "Think back on it.  Have I really been doing AMAZINGLY?  I got everything done, yes, but was I doing 'super great'?  The ponies who were mentoring us were MASTERS at their crafts; was I doing as well as them?"
"W-Well, no, but-" whimpered Scootaloo.
"The birdhouse!" James interjected.  Out of the air he molded it from memory with his hands.  "The birdhouse I built for Miss Nestingwing; the very first thing we did together.  She showed us how to make a very simple, very basic birdhouse, and I got one done.  But it wasn't ANYTHING like the incredible birdhouses she herself has made and had hanging in her garden!  The tall and twirly ones!  The wide ones with curvy shapes!  They were astounding, and decorative, and beautiful!"
At last he leaned as far forward as his weight could hold, setting his face close to theirs.  His hands reached around and patting their sides in comfort, which they didn't resist.
"I didn't do so much at all," he concluded.  "I made a very average, beginner birdhouse.  And only because I had some good instructions from a wise mentor who answered every question I had.  It was the same the whole way through the day."
"But WE'RE still no good!" Apple Bloom cried.  "Even with ponies to show us what to do we still couldn't get any right!"
"Sh.  There's more," he consoled her.  He straightened himself out and picked up his chest a little, showing off his size.  "For one, I am so much OLDER than you.  Than all three of you combined probably, right?  And while age isn't everything, it does mean that I have that much more experience compared to you."
Sweetie Belle twisted her head, squinted an eye, and recalled, "But you kept saying that you had never tried so much of this stuff before."
"Well, there's more to having experience than just having tried lots of things," the man responded sagely.  "I mean, I went to school for... twelve years?  Or more, actually!  I don't really remember exactly!  But still, I've sat in classrooms longer than you've been alive.  And also there were a few jobs, and then training, and-... well, you get the picture."
Gazing upon the still weepy fillies in front of him, themselves watching him closely with their wet eyes and occasional sniffling, he had a sudden sense of old familiarity.  In the air he felt his parents' presence.  In a certain way he felt them and their faith WITHIN him; a brief moment where he had somehow become them.
Lovingly he lectured them, "You see... I can do these good first efforts NOW because I have a lot of experience with learning.  That's what my age gives me that you don't have.  I have LEARNED a lot about HOW TO LEARN.  And it doesn't make me great at everything... but... maybe I grab new things a little faster than you might."
And, in just the same way his father had always used to do, he tenderly gave each of them a soft rub behind the head.
"Trust me, when I was your age I fumbled my way through completely failing at A LOT of things."
Slowly his words came down over the huddled crusaders and settle within them.  They eased up from their cowering; their heads rose, in little pieces.  Again they were able to glance between themselves and out at the world.  Small things began to sprout up inside: happiness; hope.
Apple Bloom, dabbing some of the water from her eyes, asked earnestly, "So... we're not really super bad?"
"Nope.  Not at all," James smiled.  "You're just young.  And still searching.  And still LEARNING.  And still GROWING.  And you need to hold on to doing all that, just like the great crusaders you are.  Cause you'll get there some day."
Their steady recovery brought ever more light back into them, and their spirits rebounded with strength.  At the sight of it the man discovered a fresh feeling arising in himself; a great uplifting of heart.  His earlier discomfort and fear, sinister agents within that had been feeding him dark whispers, were banished into silence.
Behind him he heard upbeat, skipping clops, and then he felt Poppy snuggle up against him, sharing in the joy.  A wholeness washed over him.  He was readily connected to the dear filly once more.

But just because everything for himself felt fixed, that was no reason to pull back from this new course now.

"So," he entreated the crusaders, "you understand now that I'm not incredibly talented at everything?  In fact, I'd say it's obvious that I'm super UNTALENTED at something very, very important: noticing when the ponies close to me are having an awful problem with me.  For all the little failures you girls had today, I had one REALLY BIG failure.  Bigger than all of yours put together."
He bowed, ashamed.
"I'm so, so sorry.  Can you forgive me?"
There were no retreats.  There were no deliberate hesistation filled with uncertain thoughts.  They all came forward to hug any part of him they could grab, happily reciting their pardons.  Certainly they had all long ago learned good lessons about the value of forgiveness.  And maybe—just maybe—there was somewhere inside them a tiny, tiny thought that they should have forgiven him anyway in case it would have earned them cutie marks in mercy.

Time passed; long or short, nopony there cared.  It was calm and affectionately warm, like an evening's rest before a crackling hearth.  Everything stayed that way until they finally let go of him.
"So...," Sweetie Bell cautiously spoke up, "does anypony really want to go learn about building buggies or...?"
By the careful way she looked up at the man it was obvious that she was checking her suggestion with James, though this time it wasn't out of fear for some potentially harsh response from him.
She tried to more cleanly express herself, "I mean, I feel a lot better now but... I don't know if I'm really ready to do more crusading yet..."
She and her fellow crusaders shared a mildly downcast look.  They all felt emotionally exhausted.
"Well...," the man said to them, both perfectly serious yet intentionally crafty with his tone, "... I meant what I said before about respecting those other ponies' time (even if I said it in a very terrible way).  They set aside time on their weekend JUST FOR YOU, because YOU asked them to.  It really is very unfair to them for you to suddenly decide not to show up.  You need to understand that."
Dismal but undaunted, they lightly nodded their heads in acceptance while looking down.
"But!" he loudly broke their stillness, to the head-raising surprise of the crusaders.  "But!  Given these special circumstances I guess it's worthwhile to remember that we can't always be perfect.  Sometimes we have to settle for only doing our best.  So... I think this time it'll be alright to call it quits if-..."
He gazed upon them with critical trust.
"... IF... you can promise me that later, or maybe tomorrow, you'll hunt down each and every pony whose activity you missed and sincerely apologize to them for it?"
Relief swept over them and the bright crusaders altogether swore up and down to the task.  Even tired from their whole ordeal they still snapped back into their old enthusiasm.

"You bet we will!  That's a promise, sure as sunrise!"
"Yeah!  We'll apologize to every last pony!"
"And maybe we'll get our cutie marks in offering apologies!"
"Ah, I don't know if I want THAT..."
"Hehe, well then maybe we'll just get them for finding ponies on their days off."
"I don't know if I want that either!"
"We could be Cutie Mark Crusader Bounty Hunters!"
"Okay, now THAT makes it sound cool."

Their powerful exuberance played so perfectly off of each other that it predictably pulled in Poppy, and the flow didn't break at all when she spiritedly asked, "So if we're not going to do anymore crusading, what are we going to do now?"

But James had an answer already prepared.
He didn't suddenly believe he had the ability to lead Poppy around Ponyville on his own, without the crusaders, thought he now had the faith to try.  And he did have one idea for a place to start.  More importantly though, he felt that he owed the crusaders after having selfishly abused their trust.
So, to kill two birds with one stone...

"I think, to celebrate a hard day's work of crusading, we should all go and get some ice cream.  What do you say?  I have enough bits in my pocket to get everypony a treat."
It wasn't all that different from ringing a dinner bell at a dog kennel.
Though Apple Bloom did make the observation, "'Celebrate'?  But... we didn't get anything done!"
"Even if things didn't turn out successfully, I think a good effort is worth rewarding," he replied, playfully wagging his finger.  "And besides, are you REALLY going to say no to free ice cream?"
No, they weren't.
Their restraint came undone in an instant and they bubbled up like fizzing soda before exploding with a unified cry of: "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER ICE CREAM EATERS!"
Away they went, soaring off the low porch and tearing down the street, trailing jubilant shouts and laughter, hardly cognizant of the fact that getting to the ice cream parlor faster only meant that they would have to wait longer for James and Poppy to catch up.

As he watched them go the man sighed out a large breath; contented relief saturated with slow exhaustion.
In a way everything had turned around and he was back at square one: now he was again the so-much-older man who barely had the energy to remain standing while being pulled around town by the unstoppable enthusiasm of a group of rambunctious children.  Briefly he had truly joined them – had truly transformed into one of them; a child with so much ardor for life and the world of infinite possibilities found everywhere – and it was nice to have been that young again.
But the simple wisdom of a loving little filly had shown him an important truth: to stay that rejuvenated required him to have stood on the backs of the crusaders and held them down under the water.  Maybe he had made enough mistakes to have proven that he still had some growing of his own to get done, but stealing a vicarious childhood wasn't the way to do it.  Today was the time for the crusaders to live THEIR youth.  For him, it was the time to be the adult for them.
And, all his fear drained away, he felt like he could live satisfied with that outcome.

His little cloud of airy thoughts burst when Poppy suddenly sprung against his chest, casting her forelegs around his neck in an adoring embrace.  Still on his knees and somewhat unsteady, he scarcely managed to catch her in his arms without tumbling over.  But once he leveled himself and had her secure he gave her back all he had with a hug of his own.

"Thank you James!"
"Thank you.  ...  I'm so glad you're here."
"Haha, you keep saying that!"
"It keeps being true."

The happiness flowed back and forth between them, and once it finally found equilibrium she hopped out of him arms, sticking a perfect landing as she always did.
"Now let's go get some ice cream!"
Standing up at last the man rubbed out the soreness in his knees and the aches in his thighs.  The discomfort came into him consciously now that the unlimited youthful energy he had pilfered wasn't around anymore to power him.
He remarked, "That's right.  They do have ice cream at Hamestown, don't they?"
The two set off together down the road after the already vanished crusaders, though they kept a much easier pace.
"Yep!" Poppy answered.  "All three flavors!  Vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate!"
"Three...?" the question leaked out of him.  Then he laughed, "Ohhhh, dear Poppy, you are in for a tough choice ahead."
Delicately her neck turned to look up at him, and her eyes went wide.
"... How many flavors are there...?"
"How high can you count?" the man intentionally teased her.
If she was a rubber ball then he had just thrown her.  Her amble became acrobatic, eagerly bounding up and down and all around.  Her hurricane of happy words were as enjoyable to listen to as they were hard to follow.
But after only a few moments her energy suddenly wound down, and she even came to a stop.  A long thought wrote itself across her face, and then she looked at him with a hint of doubt.
"Do you really think you're not very good at knowing when you're making other ponies upset?" she asked.
James wasn't caught completely off guard by the sober question, though he was gently surprised that she had latched on to that particular comment of his.
"Maybe I could use a little more practice, I guess," he replied, and then he pointed down at her.  "But, like before, it helps to have a good mentor to teach me."
A gracious and proud smile beamed out of her.
Her usual felicity returned and they went on, but barely four more steps down the road she avidly inquired, "So what are we going to go do AFTER the ice cream?"
"After?" he quipped and chuckled.  Being an adult again already felt like it was rapidly catching up to him.  "I think afterwards I'm taking a nap."
"A nap?  No way!"  Rich giggling filled her, very aware of his humor.  She taunted, "I'm not going to let you take a nap!"
"Well then you're just going to have to try and stop me."
The man suddenly seized the gleeful Drypony, gripping and carrying her under his arm like a small barrel.  Squealing with laughter she kicked her dangling legs in frisky fits and wriggled her small body about, unable to break free but enjoying every second of her attempts.  Together they romped their way down the road, shining bright with unreserved bliss, perfect in each others' company.

Certainly that was the impression had by most everypony they passed by as they went along, though the two were so absorbed in their own silliness that they took no notice of any other ponies on the street.
They didn't catch a single glimpse of a particularly pink pony with sad blue eyes who, because of what she saw, was too timid to approach and too dismayed to speak.  She couldn't do anything but stay far enough back to be out of immediate sight and hang her head in shame.





The library door shut with a very soft creak.  Such gentleness wasn't from exhaustion; being about town hadn't been unusually tiring.  Twilight was simply in no great rush.  With her reply to the special letter off her shoulders it felt like ALL of her tasks were complete (even if they weren't).
But as soon as she was back inside her home her interest in what had become of James and Poppy was immediate.  Down on the ground she noticed that Poppy's travel pack had been disturbed.  Since Spike wasn't due back until a little later it meant that the man and filly must have returned!  She peeked here and there about the main chamber but nopony seemed to be around.
Naturally she headed upstairs next, but she held herself back from calling out a name in search.  She didn't quite know why.  Either they would have answered her OR they had already left again and then she would have only looked like an awkward fool speaking aloud to themselves.  In any case, once she reached the bedchamber she was glad she had been so quiet.

Laid out on his bed, slightly sprawled and on top of the covers, the man softly slept.  He was well-settled into a late day nap.  It was the easy rhythm of his breaths that gave it away, with their slow pulls inward falling short of harsh snoring and their dull outbound wisps being shy of whistles.
The unicorn hadn't really known him to be somepony who indulged in such lethargic behavior, but he obviously did from time to time (again, her discovery of him and Rainbow Dash in the park).  Today she decided she wouldn't blame him; keeping up with a young pony would have taken a lot out of anypony, but a frenetic filly like Poppy must have been especially draining!
After all, the little Drypony herself was tuckered out too!
She was snoozing on the mattress right there besides him, laid on her side in a slight curl.  Even in sleep she was very energetic.  Her breathing had a rapid pulse to it and her legs jittered with tiny, constant twitches like she hadn't even have meant to have gone to sleep but had fallen into a perfectly cushy trap laid by her big friend.  Or maybe some slumber spell had been cast upon her by the man's arm; it rested over her protectively.  Whatever was going on inside her dreams, she smiled.

It was hard for Twilight to do anything but silently appreciate the sight.  At least for a short while.  The day those two had shared together must have been quite special!  Good for them!  She was awfully glad she had abandoned her own day with the man.
Content to let sleeping ponies rest she turned to depart, but her attentive eyes spotted a slight disturbance: on the stand where James typically kept his pile of unread mail (for an arbitrary number of days before disposal without inspection) two of the letters had been separated out and subsequently opened.
One of them she recognized as the letter from Princess Celestia.  Seeing the envelope sitting there open and defenseless with its letter stuffed back inside reignited her desire to sneak a peek at it.  Just a nibble would have sated her curiosity!  She was able to hold herself back though, by reminding herself that if he had already read it then she could therefore have always asked him about it later.
However, the presence of another open letter greatly intrigued her.  What else had he received that wasn't a mass-mailed advertisement?  Battling her itchy inquisitiveness was doubly-difficult task for this new letter.  The absolute unknowns of it pumped irresistible mystery into the air.
Eventually she decided that it wouldn't have been SO BAD to have taken a look at ONLY the envelope.  She could steal a clue from the name of the sender since, after all, it was on the outside and so was kinda-sorta-maybe public information anyway.
Tiny tugs of her magic wobbled the envelope out from under the Princess's and drew it over to her.  Her stealthy plan was almost foiled when she read the sender's name and forced herself to suppress a strong laugh.
The letter was from Poppy, but the post mark was many days before she had arrived.  No doubt it had been mailed to have given the man advance warning of her arrival.  A warning unheeded due to a poor habit of his that she had chastised him over more than once already.
Carefully she deposited the envelope back on the stand and tiptoed away, hauling only her sly smile.  That was ammo to tease him with later.  Maybe she could have used it to lighten the mood before talking to him about Pinkie Pie.