//------------------------------//
// Chapter 29--Diamond Dogs 
// Story: What You Don't Know 
// by Flaming Pulsar 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 29--Diamond Dogs

The next day, back in Ponyville, I was going to go hunting but Twilight stopped me. “Where are you going, Síor?” she asked.
        “Hunting,” I replied.
        “Why? Your new body doesn’t require meat and it would probably reject any meat anyways. And besides, you can’t even use your crossbow.”
        “That may be so but I enjoy hunting and I enjoy the taste of meat even if it’s bad for me. And I’ll find some other way of killing things. I still have my knife and I know how to levitate things now.”
        “Well, that just brings up another issue. Princess Celestia said that if you get a cutie mark it would be impossible to turn you back.”
        “She didn’t say impossible, she said it would be harder.”
        “Regardless, cutie marks are typically gain by doing something you like to do. Therefore, it would be unwise to do anything you enjoy doing or risk getting a cutie mark and being an alicorn forever.”
        “So, you’re saying I should do something I hate doing?”
        “That would be best.”
        “Alright, I’ll see you later.”
        “Wait, where are you going?”
        “I’ll be at Rarity’s.” I left to do just that.
        When I got there, I passed a cream-colored mare with crazy blue hair and a rather flashy outfit. “Well well well, what have we here? A male alicorn?” she said with a voice that made me think she either was a pop star or was trying to hard to act like one. “You would be perfect for my next concert!” I guess she really was a pop star.
        “Yeah, no thanks. I don’t like this body much and I’m definitely not gonna be showing it off in front of a crowd,” I told her.
        “Did you just turn down me? Sapphire Shores, the Pony of Pop?”
        I decided to have a little fun with her so I put on my best impression of a fangirl. “Oh my god! Your Sapphire Shores?! I’m so sorry! I’ve heard absolutely nothing about you! Of course I don’t want to be in your concert!”
        “Well--wait, what? You haven’t heard of me?”
        “Don’t take it personally. I’m sure everyone else here has heard of you but I’ve only been in this time period for less than six month so I know next to nothing about who’s famous and who has power and who I should give a fuck about.”
        “Well, allow me to introduce myself. I am Sapphire Shores, world-renowned superstar. Who are you to have not heard of me and what do you mean this time period?”
        “I’m Síor. I’m a human who came from billions of years in the past. I’m not normally an alicorn and I gotta say I’m not too fond of it.”
        “Nonsense! You should be proud of your body even if it’s temporary!”
        “Yeah, whatever. Like I said, I’m not interested in being in a concert. I have a thing about singing in front of people.”
        “I can cure any stagefright you might have.”
        “And I also can’t dance worth shit as a pony so that’s out of the question.”
        “I have some of the best choreographers we can teach you to dance in no time flat.”
        “Look, what is it gonna take to get you to stop pestering me?”
        “A yes would work.”
        “I’ll think about it.”
        “That’s good enough for me. Here’s my card if you decide to join.” She gave me a card and left. 
As she walked past, I caught a whiff of what I assumed was her perfume. It smelled odd but it was strangely enticing. I decided it was nothing and continued into the boutique. “Rarity?” I called out. I went searching for her while calling out to her. I finally found her in her workroom passed out. I sighed and got a bucket of water with the only magic I knew. She woke up and looked around then set her eyes on me.
“Síor, was that you?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I just got here.” Well that’s half true.
“Well, give me a moment while I dry myself off and restyle my mane.” She went to what I assumed was her bedroom and re-primped herself. An hour of me making a fort out of fabric later, she finally came back out looking like her usual self. “Síor, are you still here?”
She came back into the workroom and saw my fort. I was wearing a bunch of fabric that I had made to look like armor and I had an empty fabric roll as a play sword. “Halt!” I said. “Who dares to approach the Fabric Fortress?”
“Síor, what are you doing?”
“I got bored waiting for you so I made a Fabric Fortress.”
“Yes, I can see that, but I was talking about your ‘armor.’ It does not look good.”
“It’s not supposed to look good, it’s just a representation. You gotta use your imagination.”
“Síor, I am an artist! You do not need to tell me to use my imagination. Now, is there anything I can help you with?”
“I was just wondering if you needed help with anything.” Never thought I’d say that to her.
“Well, now that you mention it, I could use some help with my next line of outfits.”
“I’m not exactly a fashion expert.”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. You see, darling, before you got here, I was visited by the one and only Sapphire Shores.”
“Oh, yeah. I passed her on the way here.”
“Well, she saw my gem-encrusted new outfit and ordered it and five more like it.”
“I can’t exactly sew either.”
“That’s not what I need help with. You see, I had used up all the gems in my storage on that one outfit so I need to find some more.”
“And you want me to help with that?”
“Precisely. Now as I understand, with your recent transformation you are able to perform magic, correct?”
“I can only use a levitation spell.”
“Well, I have a spell that I use for finding gems. I should be able to teach it to you as I did Twilight.”
“I guess it’s worth a try. But I probably won’t be as quick a learner as Twilight.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be. Twilight is a magical prodigy, you’re--well, you.” Ouch.
“Whatever, just teach me the spell.” She went through the explanation of the spell and how it worked. I barely understood it enough to perform the spell so I won’t even try to explain the process. It basically made my horn into a metal detector for gems. Another hour later, we were out in the stone quarry that I didn’t know was nearby with Spike to help with the digging.
We set to work with me and Rarity finding gems and me and Spike digging them up. Spike kept finding interesting ways of doing this but I just did the only thing I could think of doing to dig and just scratched at the ground with my hooves. It was a slow process but it worked.
After a while of working, Rarity detected something strange. “What’s this?” she asked. “Another gem.” She followed her horn to where the gem was. “In a tree? What is a gem doing in a tree?” She rifled through the leaves and found the gem, along with the creature it was attached to. “Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise as three canine creatures came out of the tree.
“Hello,” one of them, probably the leader of the group, said. “We are the Diamond Dogs.”
“Sup,” I said. “So you’re dogs, huh? You’re the first dogs I’ve seen since arriving here in Equestria. So, what’s it like to be a dog?”
“It’s fine I guess,” he said, surprised by the question.
“Cool, cool. So what did you need?”
“We hunt for gems.”
“K. What of it?”
“You ponies find gems better. So now, we hunt for you.” The other two dogs jumped at me and Rarity. We tried to fight them off and Spike came to help when he saw what was happening but they were smart and I was a pony so we didn’t accomplish much. They knocked Spike out and dragged Rarity and me into a hole never to be seen again!

Except by the ones who had captured us. They dragged us down into the deep, dark, dank underground. Once we reach the cave floor, they turned to us and the leader said, “Good, we have the ponies now.”
        “What do you want with us?” Rarity asked.
        “You find gems with your magic.”
        “Find gems? Alright.” She did her magic gem finding thing and found a small pile of gems underground and used a nearby stick to mark it with an X. “There you are, sirs. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to return to the surface.”
        “Good. Now dig.”
        “Dig? You said you wanted us to find gems.”
        “Yes. Find and then dig.”
        “Sorry, but I don’t dig. Unless you have shovels of course.”
        “Shovels? What are shovels? Fine. Dogs, dig!” A group of dogs other than the main three started digging where Rarity had marked.
        “There, you have your gems. May we go now?”
        “No! You must find more gems!”
        “Rarity, I think it would be best if we did what they say,” I said. “They have weapons and most of them are bigger than us. On top of that, I don’t know any combat spells.”
        “I suppose you’re right. Fine, we’ll continue to find gems for you, but you must do the digging.”
        And so we went for what was surely a few hours. With our help, the Diamond Dogs had many carts overflowing with gems. “Enough!” The leader, whom I had discovered was named Spot, yelled. “Dogs, move the gems to the storage. We’re done for today.”
        “Does this mean we can go now?” Rarity asked.
        “Go? No, you will stay here with us forever.” The other two co-leaders, Rover and Fido, grabbed us and dragged us off to a dungeon-like cell as Spot followed. “You will stay here for the night. While you are here, you will make good of yourselves and not attempt to escape. Also, I smell that the female is in heat. More gems finders would be good.” They left with that and we were alone, behind bars, with no apparent escape route.
        “Is he implying what I think he’s implying?” I asked.
        “That depends on what it is that you think he’s implying,” Rarity replied.
        “I’m pretty sure he wants you and me to fuck.”
        “That’s what I thought, as well. But we certainly don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.”
        “What do you mean if I want to? Are you implying that you would want to?”
        “I’m sure you’ve heard this from the others but you really are a handsome stallion.”
        “Yeah, but you know I kinda have a thing with Fluttershy, right?”
        “I think you only got into that relationship to keep yourself out of any other relationship.”
        “How’d you know?”
        “It’s pretty obvious that you don’t really like Fluttershy that way. And we all know she wouldn’t make any advances on you so it was the obvious choice to pick her as your relationship shield, for lack of a better term.”
        “You ponies are smarter than I give you credit for. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think we really have much of a choice whether we want to fuck or not.”
        “What do you mean?”
        I gestured towards the four shimmering lights in each corner of the ceiling. “Scrying sensors. I don’t know how they got them but they allow them to spy on us.”
        “How do you know that?”
        “Let’s just say that in my time, there was a game that had scrying sensors that would look something like those. Point is, they can see us and everything we do, or don’t do. So, as much as I don’t want to, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to fuck.”
        “At the very least could you call it by a gentler name, such as making love?”
        “I could but it wouldn’t be truthful since I don’t love you. I could say have sex, if you prefer.”
        “I suppose that’s a little better. But one thing the dogs said comes to memory. I am in heat as they said so if we do...have sex...it could likely result in me becoming pregnant.”
        “What, you don’t have some sort of magic birth control spell?”
        “Not that I know.”
        “Well, it shouldn’t be a problem. I’m not naturally a pony so I don’t think we can actually be sexually compatible.”
        “Are you willing to take that risk?”
        “What choice do we have? And if I do get you pregnant, then I’ll just have to find some way to get out of Equestria so I don’t have to deal with that fatherhood bullshit.”
        “So, you’re saying you would leave me to care for a foal on my own?”
        “You wouldn’t be alone. You got friends.”
        “True, but that’s still rather inconsiderate of you.”
        “And who said I was a nice person?”
        “I’m quite certain you did at one point.”
        “Did I? I don’t recall doing that. In any case, I’m not ready to be a father and I probably won’t be any time soon. If you get pregnant, then I’m sure we can find some sort of abortion clinic that can take care of that.”
        “But what if I want to keep the foal?”
        “Then keep it. All I’m saying is I don’t think I’m responsible enough to help care for it. But I do think that we should start having sex before they create a stronger sensor that can hear us as well.”
        “How do you know these one’s can’t already hear us?”
        “They aren’t bright enough. Point is, we should get to the sexing before they can hear us.”
        “So, um, how shall we go about this?”
        “How should I know? You’re the one who’s been a pony their whole life.”
        “Be that as it may, I’m not exactly an expert at this.”
        “Don’t tell me you’re a virgin.” She nodded. “How can you still be a virgin at your age?” She started shying away. “I’m sorry. It’s just a little hard to believe that someone with your eloquence could still be a virgin.”
        “I was saving myself until I was married.”
        “I can respect that, even if I think it’s a bad idea.”
        “Why is that a bad idea?”
        “Because, there’s no way to know if you like the sex that your husband gives you. You shouldn’t get married if the sex is bad because most marriage vows include something about remaining loyal to your partner. Once you’re married, you’re stuck with that guy until death, or divorce.”
        “I suppose that makes sense. But it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
        “Hey, no offense but you're not exactly my first choice to lose my virginity to either.”
        “Wait, you’re--”
        “Yeah. Being in a field of mostly males will kinda make it hard to have sex unless you’re willing to swing both ways.”
        “Well, this isn’t the worst way to lose one’s virginity, I suppose.”
        “I guess rape would be worse.”
        “Gee, thanks.”
        “What? I’m saying I would rather have sex with you than be raped. It’s a compliment.”
        “If you say so. Let us just get this over with.”
        We did our best to figure out how ponies had sex. This resulted in us being in a rather compromising position when Twilight showed up with the rest of the group. She quickly covered Spike’s eyes and asked, “Do I want to know?”
        “We were forced,” I explained as I pushed Rarity off of me.
        “Yeah, I can see that,” she said sarcastically.
        “Oh, just shut up and get us out of here before the dogs discover what’s up.”
        “Oh, they shouldn’t be a problem, we took them out on our way here.”
        “All of them? How?”
        “I do know a little bit of combat magic. It also helps to know how to disable the scrying sensors that they have in the halls.”
        “Well, since the dogs are taken care of,” Rarity said, “do you mind if we raid their gem storage?” We all looked rather shocked at her saying that. “What? Síor and I found those gems fair and square. And besides, I need a lot of gems to finish my outfits for Sapphire Shores.”
        “If you know where the storage is then we can stop by there on the way out.”
        “I know where it is,” I said. “In my spare time since becoming a pony, I learned how to do a tracking spell. I casted it on one of the gem carts before they were taken to the storage. It’s not to far from here. Follow me.” I led them to where my tracker said the gems were and they all started strapping themselves onto the carts.
        “When did you learn a tracking spell?’ Twilight asked me as I strapped a cart to my own back and started walking out.
        “Last night when I couldn’t sleep. I figured I might as well make use of my time and learn a useful spell.”
        “I must say, you have quite the aptitude for magic to be able to learn a tracking spell in only a night.”
        “I guess it just comes naturally to me. It might have something to do with the fact that I’ve wanted to be able to do magic since I was only 14. And now I’m 6,283,183,310 years old.”
        “How do you know that?”
        “I have a friend who knows things. By my physical aging, though, I’m only 21.”
        “How can you be only 21? You would still be a foal.”
        “You’re forgetting that humans have a much shorter lifespan than ponies. We’re only babies for a couple years. Then we’re children until age 13. After that we’re teenagers until age 20. Then we’re young adults until about age 30. Next, we go through mid-adulthood until we’re about 60. At that point we’re considered elderly until we die which can be as long as age 122.”
        “So, you’ll only live to be 122?”
        “That’s if I make healthy choices and all that bullshit. And I don’t particularly want to rub olive oil on my skin.”
        “What?”
        “The oldest person ever documented was 122 and it was said that she would rub olive oil on herself to keep healthy and alive.”
        “Hm, weird.”
        “Yep.”
        “So, what did you mean when you said you were forced to have sex with Rarity?”
        “They said they wanted us to make more gem finders.”
        “That doesn’t mean you had to listen to them.”
        “Didn’t you see the scrying sensors in the cell? If we didn’t do what they said then they would know and punishment would ensue.”
        “Um, there weren’t any scrying sensors in the cell.”
        “Then what were those shimmering lights in the corners of the ceiling?”
        “That was just shined metal. Probably to make you think that they did have scrying sensors in there.”
        “So, you mean--? Goddammit!”
        She chuckled. “Well, did you enjoy it?”
        “Why are you asking? Do you wanna fuck Rarity too?”
        “No, you just said that you would, and I quote, ‘never become a horsefucker.’”
        “Have you been listening to my muses as I write my journal?”
        “That doesn’t matter. Answer the question.”
        “It was...alright. I’ll admit it was better than I was expecting but I think I would still prefer a human woman.”
        “Most races do prefer their own but given time, interracial relationships do occur.”
        “But interspecial relationships could never flourish because the partners aren’t sexually compatible.”
        “Actually, according to Zecora, there is a fruit in the Everfree Forest that allows any sexual partners to produce offspring.”
        “Of course there is. Why wouldn’t there be?” We got to Rarity’s house and dropped the gems off before heading home.
        “Enough with the sarcasm. Let’s just get home so we can get you ready to go to Canterlot.”
        “Why are we going to Canterlot again?”
        “Due to recent events, Princess Celestia decided to move the Knighting Ceremony up to next Monday, the 20th, because apparently you can’t keep yourself out of danger. So, she thinks that if you’re knighted and given armor, you might be safer.”
        “I guess that makes sense. But why do we need to go to Canterlot now? Can’t we wait until next week when it’s closer to the date of the Ceremony?”
        “We need to go now because you have to have your armor fitted. It usually takes a week to make the armor and a few extra days to fix any mistakes.”
        “So, if they’re having my armor fit to me now, does that mean that they’re nowhere near finding a solution to my ponyness?”
        “That would be correct. Sorry.”
        “Whatever. If I’m gonna be knighted as a pony then I think I have a solution to swearing my allegiance.”
        “Please don’t tell me you’re going to try doing what I think you’re going to try doing.”
        “If what I think you’re thinking I’m thinking of trying to do is right then you have a sick mind.”
        “I don’t think you think I’m thinking you’re thinking of trying to do what I think you’re thinking of trying to do.”
        “I think you think I think you think I’m thinking of trying to have sex with Celestia.”
        “I think you think...I think...you...wait...I’m confused.”
        “Yay, I win!”
        “Whatever. If what I think you’re going to try is correct then you shouldn’t do that. Or have sex with Princess Celestia, either.”
        “Ruin all my fun, why don’t you.”
        “Yeah yeah. Hurry and get ready, we’re wanting to catch the 8-o’clock train.”
        “What do I need to bring other than myself?”
        “I suggest bringing something to do since we’ll be in Canterlot for more than a week.”
        “I thought I was gonna be busy getting fitted for my armor.”
        “Yes but that will only take up about 2 hours each day. So, I suggest you bring some other things to keep yourself out of trouble.”
        “Fine.” I packed Clover’s Journal, my own journaling supplies, and my whittling stuff. When we were all set, we went to catch the train to Canterlot where I would dread being for an entire week.