It was around 12:30 PM when I was out the door of Provolone Slim's plantation house. I had asked him if there was anything I could do to repay him for his hospitality, to which he of course protested, but he eventually did tell me something. Apparently he had a bit of a diamond dog problem.
Now, I ain't never met a diamond dog, so I don't know what it is they'd want with Slim's farmland, but apparently there was a couple of 'em rompin' around on his fields, diggin' up the earth and making a mess of things. I've heard a couple stories of how folks'll sometimes pick a fight with these things, and almost always the dogs'll just dig into the earth, disappearin' from where anypony can find 'em. That'd be real fine and all, if'n they stayed down there, but I gotta make sure that they don't come back up. At least, not in Slim's fields.
Flyin' overhead of Slim's plantation now, I began scannin' for the dogs. It wasn't too hard to spot where they'd been, as a couple crops of wheat a ways north were trampled, the stalks all bowed over and unhealthy lookin' like somethin' had trudged over it. A little ways further north and I saw 'em; two white coated dogs, about twice the size of a pony, with these weird lookin' jackets and boots. One of 'em saw me and pointed me out to the other. Tryin' the diplomatic approach, I waved at 'em and dove in slow to see if I could converse with the fellas.
Thankfully, they didn't dig away, disappearin' into the ground. They stood side by side as I came down, watchin' me. One of them had blue eyes, the other had brown. Other than that, they were identical. I trotted on up to 'em both and put on a real friendly smile. "Howdy there fellas. Might I ask what it is y'all're doin' out here?"
They both looked at me for a moment, then to each other, then back to me. Eventually, one of 'em spoke up, speakin' in a real weird sounding dialect with an accent I couldn't quite place. "We are diamond dogs. There are gems here. We want them."
Gems, huh? Well I mean, it made sense, them bein' diamond dogs and all. But regardless of the credibility of their claims, this was Provolone Slim's land, and his crops were sufferin' for them dog's meddlin'. "Well, that's real nice an' all, but I'm afraid y'all can't dig here. This ain't your land."
The blue eyed one stared at me for a second before laughing aloud. "Why? Does little pony want land all to himself? We are diamond dogs. You are pony. Your words mean nothing to us." The brown eyed one nodded to that.
Well, that wasn't very pleasant. "See here," I began as I dug a piece of parchment from my saddlebags, unrolling it to show 'em a property map. "This land belongs to Provolone Slim. Those crops y'all have been tearin' up is his. That ain't good for nopony, hear. There's plenty of land that don't belong to nopony, why don't you dig somewhere that isn't gonna hurt somepony else?"
"Are you Provolone Slim?" The brown eyed dog bent down to put his face in front of mine. I didn't budge an inch.
"No sir I am not, but I represent his intentions-"
"If you are not Provolone Slim then your words mean nothing. Provolone Slim does not exist and you lie to us. This land is ours." The brown eyed one said with a grin, before laughing great big. I was jus' about confused by now.
"Jambone is a joker," the blue eyed dog said. "He is right though, if you are not Provolone Slim then we do not believe you."
I think I got what they meant. I placed the map back into my bags, before alightin' on my wings to bring myself a little higher than them. "Now y'all can't fool me. I know y'all have met Slim. He's told me he tried to speak with youns' on several occasions, but every time y'all just dug back into the earth."
The brown eyed one - Jambone apparently - piped up again, talkin' through the last notions of laughter. "Pony does not matter to us! We are diamond dogs! Pony should fear and loathe us!" He did get a slightly disgruntled look from the other dog for that, to which he just laughed even more.
I let out a sigh. "Now, you listen here. This here is Equestria, sovern' land of Princess Celestia, and y'all are performin' a crime by messin' up Slim's fields. I don't mind y'all diggin' around in open land, but don't come invading on pony property if you don't want to get the police on you." Admittedly, there wasn't actually much of a police force at all out here, but they'd surely still respond to the call.
Jambone looked over to his companion, whom seemed to be comprehending what I was gettin' at pretty well. "Do we care about pony princess?" The way he said 'princess' made me want to buck him right good. Pacifist or not, I ain't okay with foul words fer the princess.
The blue eyed fellow - whom I still didn't know the name of - spoke in a more business-like tone, as he said, "We are diamond dogs. We do not understand, entirely, the pony laws. Ground is ground to us. If you will bring us your pony princess, we will speak to him about where we can and cannot dig."
Trying very hard to fight back a twitch, I 'calmly' corrected them. "Well, our princess is a mare, and she's admittedly far too busy to come all the way out here to settle a property dispute. How about I bring you the fellow who owns the land, Provolone Slim?"
Blue eyed fella nodded to that. "Yes, we will speak to Slim pony."
Well all right then.
...
Back at the plantation house, I was getting a little worried for time, but all this would mean is maybe a faster flight back to Canterlot. I'd be fine.
I still knocked at the door, and Butters still opened the door for me. She invited me in without hesitation this time, which I found to be a might more pleasant. "Where's your father, young'n?"
Again Butters hollered out into the vast expanse of their house, calling for her father. "Daaaad! Cowpony here needs you!"
Cowpony? I didn't think I was a cowpony. Well, I guess I sort of talk the part...
Soon enough Provolone Slim came to greet me again. "So what did the dogs say?"
"Well, uh," I started, which probably could have been done better. "They don't seem to comprehend our laws. They don't seem to comprehend maps, or property lines... Or gender. I'm fairly certain they don't even know about Princess Celestia. Or the Sun."
Slim laughed. "You serious? They live in Equestria! How can they not know about Celestia? Or the Sun? And what was that about genders-"
"They wanted to speak to you directly." I narrowly avoided having to explain their failure to comprehend the definition of princess.
Slim took on a much more serious tone now, saying, "I already tried speaking with them. They just dug a hole and disappeared. Why should I speak to them at all after what they done? It'll take a good couple of years to recover from the deficit in our production they've caused. I've half a mind to flat out have them arrested. Or handle things myself."
Whoa nelly! "Now hold up there, Slim! What do you mean, handle things yourself-"
He quickly exited the foyer and headed off. I don't never handle violence well, and it sounded an awful lot like things were going to turn violent. I looked down to Butters, whom seemed to have the same concern I did. Varmints and pests were one thing, but these creatures were wholly conscious! A far stretch of the concept of civilized, but close enough! I didn't never feel like violence solved nothin'. I had to prevent Slim from hurtin' those dogs.
Even if one of 'em called our princess a him.
...
Things were not lookin' good. Slim came back through the foyer just as I went to look for him. He had a gun. Guns don't never mean nothin' good. It was time to put a hoof down.
"Provolone Slim! Now, I appreciate your hospitality, an' all, but I cannot stand for this. I don't agree one bit with violence, as it ain't never the right way about things. The diamond dogs said they'd be willing to speak to you! Don't that mean-"
"Now listen here, friend." Slim cut me off, turnin' to face me as he loaded his gun. I didn't rightly know what kind it was, but it had six shots. The bullets looked big. "You've told me all I need to know. These diamond dogs are obviously not intelligent enough to be dealt with in a peaceful manner. And guns have been my specialty since as long as I could trot. You feel free to stay here with my daughter, but I'm going to fix this problem, the way I know best." He turned to exit out the door.
No way that's happening, pal. I quickly flew in front of him to block him from going out the door. "I can't let you do that," I said calmly, as I placed a hoof gently on his shoulder. "These creatures, these diamond dogs, are indeed a heck of a lot less intelligent than us ponies, but they're still civil. The fact they can hold a darn conversation with yours truly proves that! Listen, all I'm askin' is that you give 'em a chance to speak with you. They're fine folks, Slim. They're just a bit confused."
He looked a bit mad at that, but he holstered his gun at his hip - a show of genuine flexibility considerin' he had to hold it in his mouth - and nodded his agreement. "You come with me then, and serve as translator. Butters, dear, hold down the fort 'til I get back, okay?" The way he spoke with his daughter was like she was genuinely one of his own. Considerin' he was a retired soldier of fortune, I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
...
On our way out to the pastures and fields, Provolone told me a story about a similar job he had done back in Saddle Arabia. Apparently there's a snake-like race out there that do a similar thing to what the diamond dogs do here in Equestria.
"Well, we'd tried asking nicely, begging, even tried complaining, but nothing seemed to be convincing them to leave. Tunnel Snakes is deaf, I tell you. Even tried fire, but their scales was made of gems and rocks, anyhow, so that didn't do anything but make our job harder."
I snickered at that. "Fire? You tried fire in a tunnel? Y'all know wind only travels one way in a tunnel, right?"
"Should of told that to Beans. He could of killed us."
Wait. Beans...? "Are you makin' a joke?" I was afraid of whether or not to laugh.
Slim did laugh, though I still wasn't sure. "I see what you're getting at, but no he didn't gas us out or anything. Beans was just called beans because he had spots on him. Rare breed, that fellow. No, he was the one that suggested pyrotechnics. At least we didn't go with Pots' idea of flooding it with bees. That guy was always a little nuttier than the rest of us."
Pots? "Did all of y'all have code names like Pots and Beans?"
"No no, see his name was Honey Pots. He was brought up on a bee farm. Never have trusted bee farmers. That's just crazy. They're bees!"
We both laughed then. "What about Beans then?" I asked.
"Well, he never did tell us his first name, which was fine enough for us, as we never did bother calling each other by first names anyway. He had this real interesting way of speaking. He'd call anybody boss. He'd go 'ayy boss, look ova here' or 'ayy boss, I found yer princess'," he said in a very comical city accent. "I swear he was from Manehattan." Slim scratched his chin a bit as we paused beside one of the fences by the pasture. "We did find a document on him one time when we were doing a bank job though. I still don't believe it, but it was a birth certificate that said his name was Cool Beans."
"Cool Beans... That is hard to believe," I agreed with him.
"Well, anyway, let me tell you how we figured out how to get them out," Slim began as we started towards the fields again. "The Tunnel Snakes lived underground, see, so they were blind. Entirely blind, didn't even have eyes. It was pretty cool looking actually. The way they traveled was echo-location. They'd use the rattlers on their tails to hear where the gems were, apparently. I don't see how though considering all the noise we made didn't phase them at all. Until I ended up so fired up and mad that I just started pounding my hooves all over, and sure enough they came right up out of those holes. From then on I had the fantastic title of Ground Poundin' Slim. The boys even put it on a birthday cake once."
"So you beat your hooves so hard it scared the Tunnel Snakes out? That's kind of scary, actually. I'd hate to see how hard you can kick."
"How do you figure we got all the lumber to build the plantation house?" Slim nodded towards his house. "This whole area used to have nothing but trees."
"Well then. That answers that, I suppose."
Soon enough we were back to where I had spoke with the diamond dogs, only there weren't any dogs. "This is where we spoke, but..."
"The darn rascals. They dug away again!" Slim an' I proceeded to looked around for holes in the dirt, but neither of us found any.
"Well where are they then?" I asked to nopony in particular, perhaps to the earth itself.
For a second I thought the earth was going to answer me, 'cause it started to grumble as a patch of dirt next to a tree started to give a little. Then a familiar blue-eyed dog's head poked out and scanned around a bit before spotting us and hopped out of the hole completely. Behind him came his companion Jambone, hoistin' a sack over his shoulder, which appeared to be full up of somethin' heavy.
"Slim, this is Jambone annnnd..." I started, before remembering I'd never been given the other one's name.
Apparently the blue-eyed one picked up on that and filled it in for me. "Sam. You may call me Sam."
Odd name, but okay. "Sam, then. Jambone and Sam, this is Provolone Slim, the owner of this here piece of land."
Slim took that as his cue to step up to the plate and swing, metaphorically speaking (I hope). "You two have caused me a lot of grief, you know. I'm short quite a few bits because you lot have gone and ruined half my crop. How are you going to explain yourselves?" He was stood in such a way as to make it abundantly clear he was armed. I don't know if the message got across.
"We need gems. We are diamond dogs. Gems are here, so we dig for them here." Jambone eloquently explained.
"We have no family or tribe to go to. Me and Jambone are alone together." Sam explained in a much more clearer fashion, although it didn't quite help explain things. "We find gems and sell them to merchants. It is how we survive."
Slim seemed to relax a bit, although he still kept a ready stance, which did not sit well with me. "Well, I can understand needing to trade to survive, but that doesn't excuse using someone else's land to get those trading resources. Now I've tried several times to speak to you two, but every time you just hid in the ground. What did you expect me to think when I saw the two of you romping around in my fields, only to have you dig away when I came over to speak? That just looks like y'all are a bunch of vandals, to me."
"Vandals!" Jambone barked. "Diamond dogs are not vandals! Our worth is much more than your little pony farm! You don't have any gems! These gems are ours!" He howled, pointing at the whole of Slim's farm with his free paw. Not good, things are going downhill.
Provolone Slim got a real grim look on his face, but much to my gratitude he didn't move from where he stood.
I had to try and keep things tame! "Hey hey, there's plenty of room for negotiation here. Equestrian Law clearly dictates that all races can live together equally. We can come to a real easy understandin' here. Ponies are meant to-"
"I do not care about ponies!" Jambone barked at me. His breath smelled like something rotten. "Your plants are not worth our time! Your farm will be ours!"
That was it for slim. Lightning fast, he whipped his gun out of the holster at his hip, and had it trained right between Jambone's eyes. Time fer words was over, it was time for action. Trying my darnedest to match Slim's speed, without thinking I jumped to get between him and Jambone, just as Sam did the same. We slammed right into each other.
"You tricked us!" Sam yowled as he recovered from bumping into me so hard. I had put about as much energy into getting between those two as I could. "You want to kill us!"
"That ain't it at all!" I bellowed out as loud as I could, tryin' to draw as much attention as possible. I moved again to get between Slim and Jambone, taking care to move a little more carefully. I got in front of Slim's gun and he hesitated, pulling it away a bit. This was way too heated for a courier! "Look here. This mess ain't doin' nothin' but makin' a bigger mess. Y'all need to see things as they are, here! Both of y'all need this land for your own livelihoods. Both of y'all can use this land, too. Together!" I motioned towards the dogs. "They only need what's under the ground. They don't have to be above ground at all for what they do. Slim, you need the top soil for your crops. Their digging can go on completely beneath your farm, without causing any harm to it. Does that sound like good enough of a deal?"
"What makes you think I wanted to strike a deal with them?" Slim growled at me through gritted teeth around his gun. "They've said it! They're going to take my land! I won't stand for that!"
"Then sit down!" I retorted back at him. "It don't matter what y'all want, because there's a third party here too. The ground don't need either of you fightin' over it like this. This here is good land, real good. It's got what both of y'all need, and it's just offering it to you openly. Now there's two ways this can go. Either both parties agree on some kind of settlement deal, or somepony-some... body gets hurt, and a bunch of trouble is started when it don't need to be. If'n y'all will sit down and just talk things out rather than callin' names and pointin', I figure we can come to an agreement."
The next few seconds seemed to go by slow enough to count 'em ten times over. Finally, though, Slim holstered his gun and backed down, and Jambone relaxed back to his haunches. "Let's hear it." Slim offered.
"You have come close to battle, pony." Sam said to me. "Be careful you do not make an offer you cannot keep."
"We want the gems." Jambone growled to Provolone Slim, thrusting his claw into the dirt.
"Where are the gems? If you lot are digging too close to the surface, you could damage my crops." Slim stated. Already I was feeling more relaxed, as things started to calm down into a more diplomatic exchange.
Sam spoke up next, which I was happy for, as he definitely seemed the more articulate of the pair. "We dig tunnels through the rock and earth to find gems. We found gems under your farm, but the rock is too hard. We cannot get in."
"So that's why you have been digging up my land? To find somewhere soft enough down below that you can get to the gems?" Slim was thankfully sitting back now as well.
"We may have also maybe made the ground angry, a little bit..." Jambone said sheepishly, apparently embarrassed by whatever it was he'd done.
"Made the ground..." I tried. It didn't make sense, which seemed a common theme with the poor mutt.
Slim chuckled, saying, "Son, you don't ever make much sense do you?" It was clear now he was making a jest, which I was a might thankful for, because that meant we were on better terms than threats and guns.
"We dug into a hole," Sam tried to help glean some knowledge out of what Jambone was saying. Jambone was just lookin' away, apparently very disgruntled about the whole thing. "A big open part, where there were rocks that moved, and they didn't like us."
"Who didn't like you?" I asked him.
"The rocks."
... Yup, lost me again. "Okay, so the rocks moved, and they don't like you. What does that mean? Did they kick y'all out or somethin'?"
Jambone nodded to that. Apparently rock beats dog. Go figure.
Slim chuckled again. "Y'all came across some sprites, didn't you?" He motioned towards the hills to the north. "They come from a patch of unsettled crust. They're manifestations of the earth; essentially the earth is grumpy because it's got too many cracks."
I was lost again. Can you do that? Can you be lost twice?
"Yes, the little floating rocks with the mean gems in them? They hurt my backside with their lightning!" Jambone whimpered, holding his tail and indeed showing a decently burned patch of fur.
"So you encountered some beneath my land? That must be why the soil is so rich... Well this is a real revelation." Slim scratched his chin again, a thing he did when he was about to go on a tangent, I noticed. "You know, a friend of mine once managed to befriend one of those sprites. Apparently it was trapped in a gorge when a rockfall happened. Being a pegasus, he flew in when he saw the flashing lights coming from the sprite, and after a bit of soft speaking, he flew the thing right out. I don't know if he's still going at it, but he used to be an archaeologist. Digging up old pony artifacts and relics and selling them to universities and museums. The big dragon skeleton at Canterlot Museum? He helped dig that up."
"D-dragon?" Sam and Jambone both whimpered. "No more dragons! They are scary!"
"What are y'all on about?" I asked. I'd never met a dragon, but still, they looked absolutely petrified of 'em.
Slim offered an explanation. "That news you heard about a so-called dragon attack? It was an old drake migrating from southern Equestria to the northern ice fields to visit a newborn grandchild. I spoke with him when he got chained down by the guards. Apparently he flew over a diamond dog camp and the dogs attacked him. Knocked him right out of the sky with their rocks and javelins, somehow. Poor fellow just became a grandfather and he was getting imprisoned for nothing. Pisses me right off, you know..."
I understand it now. Typical media, lying for revenue. Pissed me off, too.
"Anyway! Back on topic." Slim said to the dogs. "The sprites, how many are there?"
Sam pondered it for a minute, his ear doin' a little twitch ever so often. "The cave was big, and it looked like it went down far. We saw a lot of the rock sprites, but we did not see all of the cave. There were many gems in it, though..."
"Well, I suppose you found yourselves a ravine. They're all over round here, and usually they'll be full up with the sprites. How far beneath the surface do you figure the ravine is?"
Jambone stood up suddenly, and pointed to the fields where they'd dug up the ground. "The hole was big, and we never got to it from the top, so it is very far down. But so are our gems!"
"Mister Slim pony, do you think you can help us get rid of the rock sprites?" Sam asked politely. Diamond dogs weren't so bad after all! Just misunderstood like most things in Equestria.
"Hmm..." Slim paused to think for a moment, looking over to his fields. "Idea!" I suddenly shouted aloud in a strangely excited manner. "Here's my proposal. Y'all have caused a fair bit of damage to my fields, and that's not going to be easy to make up, without help. So, if you'll tend to the fields you damaged, I'll see about getting to that ravine. I'll even try getting ahold of Pyrite to see if he's still in the archaeology business. Might be something down there. If we manage to get to the ravine, I'll let y'all go down there. But, we'll have to do something about the sprites. Pyrite might be able to help with that, as well."
"Does Slim pony promise to let us keep the gems we find?" Jambone asked cautiously.
"The gems are yours, boys. I can't turn gems into bits as easy as I can with my crops."
Sam reached for the sack they had with them. "We do have an offering, Slim pony." He opened it up, revealing that it was full of gems! Red, green, blue, yellow. A whole rainbow of brilliant colors!
"Why, I can't... I mean..." Slim stuttered a bit as he stared at the obvious fortune. "That'd be enough to bail out that dragon! And then some!"
Bail for a dragon? Wow, that must be a lot if it'd take that many gems.
"So do we have a deal, pony?" Jambone asked, offering his paw.
Slim thought for a moment, but quickly took the dog's paw in both hooves and shook. "It's a deal. I'll teach y'all how to tend to the fields, and I'll get ahold of Pyrite and see about sorting out this ravine."
Well that went better than expected. I should start a side business of a law firm or something.
...
Back at the plantation house, me and Provolone Slim were sat in his lounge. It was about 1:30 PM, which meant I'd be gettin' to Ponyville by dusk most likely. Butters was sat on the floor playing with some toy figures of a knight and a princess. She was makin' 'em fight, which I found comical.
"Well I do believe I've made a couple of friends today, Skyes." Slim said after a sip of dark tea, which he'd brewed after we got back. Apparently the brew was an old Saddle Arabian brew, meant to 'steep the mind and soothe the soul' whatever that meant. "You've shown me something I've never seen before. I've always been the type to try and settle things on my own, but you taught me today that it takes more than one to fix a problem."
"Aw, shucks," I said. "It's part of bein' a courier. I see all sorts of faces every day, and I learn about so many ponies, it helps t' take the diplomatic approach. But really, I didn't do much. You resolved the dispute between yourselves!"
Slim shook his head at that. "No, you did a whole lot. If it weren't for you I'd of killed two perfectly fine gentlemen today. Instead, I ended up getting two new fieldhands, and a fortune's worth of gems!"
Butters piped up now. "What're you gonna do with the gems, daddy?"
"I was about to mention that, actually. What you done for me is more than I could ever ask for from a guest. You've done right by me beyond any reasonable measure, and a knight always pays his debts. I'm going to give you these gems, Barron Skyes, and there isn't any way you're going to say no. Now it's up to you what you do with 'em, but I genuinely can't let you leave here without them."
This was too much. Literally I could retire with those gems! Like, ten times! "I can't say I ain't happy, but I'm a whole lot more just plain terrified. That's a lot of money, Slim! I don't know any bank that'd take all of that sum!"
"Well, as I said, you do with 'em as you please. Give them back to the dogs for all I care. I just can't do anything with them, personally. I figure you'll find somepony that can use them, though."
Hm... Idea. "You know, I think I do know what I can do with those gems."
"Well that's grand. Say, do you know the old Hearth's Warming Eve tale?" Slim moved on pretty quickly to a new topic.
"With the windigos? I believe so. Why do you ask?"
"Well," he began, scratching his chin again. "You've done something pretty magical today. The story says the three tribes fended off the dark spirits by being jolly and friendly. Apparently, through friendship, they resolved the conflicts causing the nigh end of times. I believe you've woven some similar magic today, friend."
The magic of friendship, huh... "Well I never much considered myself a magician anyhow. Think of it as just part of the job."
"Well your job gives you a mighty good opportunity to weave some friendship magic, Skyes. Be sure you never take that for granted."