Snaffleton wasn’t much larger than its neighbor across the Everfree, one Ponyville, but it didn’t see nearly the traffic since it wasn’t on the direct road to Canterlot. What it did see was a lot of traffic into and out of the Everfree, traffic that kept Aegis in his armor and food in his belly. The Everfree Forest was absolutely full of things demanded all across Equestria, be it medicinal herbs, exotic foodstuffs, and even truly wild animals to stock its zoos. All of which required ponies willing to go in after them.
Aegis had found his niche in retrieving the retrievers, but for everyday life he was much more of a jack-of-all-trades, mostly performing farm labor (which he liked) and sometimes handy-pony work (which he didn’t). He made sure to always have a clause when he started that emergency work came first. Unprepared ponies left to the mercies of the Everfree weren’t often heard from again.
Aegis trotted down Snaffleton’s main thoroughfare, heading to the local inn where he was to meet his current employer, Catalogue Zoologica, who had also been Flora and Wildlife’s employer. He strode into the Bit and Bridle and right to the front desk, the red-yellow light of the sunset illuminating the front lobby in a odd, but not altogether unpleasant glow.
“Pardon, but is Catalouge Zoologica in? I’ve finished her task.” Leapfrog yawned widely as the tan earth mare behind the desk looked up Catalogue’s room number.
“She is. Or at least I haven’t seen her come out lately. Room 201.” She smiled at Aegis. Aegis returned it with a nod, then made tracks for the stairs.
Aegis clinked upstairs in his heavy plate armor, balancing the harvest-moon colored bundle of hooves on his back carefully with the increased angle. She looked to be growing sleepy and, considering she had wiped out the food remaining in his saddlebags, he could easily figure out why. Luckily, room 201 was the first room on the second floor. Aegis knocked quietly and waited for an answer. The door creaked open and Catalogue stood there, a light green unicorn mare with a solid, dark grey mane styled into a bun. She wore a pair of square-lensed spectacles and was hovering a large tome to her right. Aegis had apparently interrupted her reading.
“May I help you..? Oh, Mr. Aegis. I assume you’ve found my wayward employees?”
“Yes, Ms. Zoologica, I did.”
Catalogue looked around out the door, leaning around Aegis to look up and down the short hallway. “Oh, my, then where are they?”
“Right where I found them.” Aegis looked to her, a slightly haunted look in his eyes telling her all she needed to know. Her team wouldn’t be filing their reports themselves.
“I..I see...and did you...” Catalogue managed to steel herself. “And did you manage to recover anything?”
Aegis shot her a look, then turned and grasped the recovered saddlebags, dropping them to the floor in front of Catalogue. “Just those,” Aegis turned, revealing the now sleeping bundle on his back, “and her.”
Catalogue blanched. “I-is that a...? Did they...? Oh, my Celestia, they had a foal? And they took her with them into the F-forest?” Catalogue shook her head furiously. “No..no no no. They had a foal and I sent them into the Everfree forest.”
“Ms. Zoologica-”
“No, no, call me Catazoo, please.”
“Ms. Zoologica, calm yourself. You’re going to wake her up.” Aegis shot ‘Catazoo’ a stern look, then let himself into her room. He gently slid Leapfrog from his back to Catazoo’s bed, then rejoined Catazoo at the door.
“Ms. Zoologica-”
“Catazoo.” It was funny what some ponies would latch on to when they were emotionally destabilized.
Aegis sighed, compromising. “Ms. Catazoo, you may have given them the assignment, or asked them to do the assignment, or even begged them to take the assignment off your hooves-” Catazoo looked away from Aegis in guilt on that count “-but it was always their choice to take each and every step into that Celestia-forsaken wood. They chose...” Aegis sighed, “they chose poorly.” Aegis looked to the happily sleeping lump of cute on the bed. “And it’s neither you nor I who have to pay for that mistake. It’s her.” Aegis pointed to Leapfrog with his right hoof.
Catazoo, for the most part, had calmed down. “What are we to do with her? Flora and Wildlife had both told me in the past they’d no relatives to speak of. I can’t keep her here.”
“Where else do orphans go? An orphanage. Snaffleton doesn’t have one, though. She has no idea the change her life is about to take. I pity her, but it’s out of my hooves now. For now, though, I’ll be taking my payment, if you don’t mind. Their notes and other belongings are in their saddlebags.” Aegis motioned to the four bags still laying by the door.
“Then you’ll be wanting your fee,” replied Catazoo in a flat, weak tone.
“I would. That’s why I brought it up, after all. Starting to get a might hungry, and the little one there wiped me out. I suggest you don’t delay taking care of her. She’s got an appetite, that one.” Catazoo was beginning to get on Aegis’s nerves.
“W-wait, what, me? I told you, I can’t keep her here!” Catazoo looked between Aegis and Leapfrog several times, her pupils constricting in a minor state of panic. “I’ll pay!”
Aegis raised an eyebrow. “Yes, you will. I retrieved the reports successfully. Our contract is fulfilled.”
“No, no, I’ll pay you to take care of Leapfrog. A new contract. I...I owe her parents for their work, as well. It’s hers now. Maybe you can use it to get her to the nearest orphanage?” Catazoo pleaded with Aegis, desperately unwilling to take any sort of responsibility for the poor foal. She looked like she was about to break into tears. “At least take her for the time being while I make the arrangements.”
Foalsitting? This job had gone south since he’d entered that clearing, but Aegis hadn’t been working without reason. He needed bits to live on, and so he took the new contract. It was basically an escort, after all, and what could go wrong if the escort was just to his own home for a couple days?
“Ok. Fine, you have a deal. Escort, or rather, foalsitting, I suppose, is ten bits a day. I wouldn’t tarry, Ms. Catazoo. That can add up fast.”
The relief so evident in Catazoo’s eyes almost embarrassed Aegis, and it should have embarrassed her. Aegis’s opinion had soured on Ms. Catazoo quite a bit in the past ten minutes, but she had paid what was owed him and now had given Aegis what she owed Flora and Wildlife to keep on Leapfrog’s behalf. Whatever personal issues he had with her, her word was good. He hadn’t been paid to like her, after all. Aegis packed away the twin bags of bits -his own significantly lighter than Leapfrog’s - placing each in their own side. After securing the buckles holding each side closed, he trod over to the sleeping Leapfrog, nudging her with his snout.
“Wake up, sleepyhead. Looks like you’re spending the night with me.” Leapfrog mumbled something unintelligible and didn’t stir. Aegis looked around the room, then trod back to Catazoo.
“S’cuse me.” He reached down and grabbed Wildlife’s saddlebag -or Flora’s, he wasn’t sure - and unceremoniously dumped it at Catazoo’s hooves. She was too stunned to protest. Taking note of a small knitted doll, he reached down and pushed it back into the saddlebag, leaving the now very unsorted paperwork and the like where it lay. He slung the saddlebag over his own back, once more taking its place beside his own, and then very gently, picked up Leapfrog and slid her into the bag opposite the doll. She snuggled in, getting comfortable. She’d probably rode like that before.
Aegis spared a glance at the still shocked Catazoo. “What? The bag’s hers, too.” Aegis then strode out, calling back “You know where to find us.”
* * *
Celestia’s Sun and Luna’s Moon had exchanged places in their daily cycle while Aegis had been discussing matters with Catazoo. Tiny pinpricks of light almost danced across the deepening night sky, not a single cloud daring to blot Luna’s perfect night. It had almost seemed that the day’s tragic events couldn’t have possibly occurred, save for the orphan snoring lightly in the saddlebag Aegis now wore.
Aegis actually lived on the outskirts of Snaffleton, on the edge facing the Everfree. He had passed his own home on the way back in, a three-room building of small-to-middling size, more than enough for himself. He was to have a houseguest in the form of Leapfrog for a while, but he could manage watching a foal for no longer than he’d have her. Couldn’t be as bad as that snotty dark purple unicorn he’d escorted to Canterlot once, but he probably shouldn’t talk about his sister Aria that way. It wasn’t like he’d charged her.
He nosed his front door open and and walked inside, scanning the room as had become habit for any sign of unauthorized entry. Surprisingly, he found a small basket of fruit, fairly fresh, with a note:
“Hope you’re back in time this time to enjoy this.”
-Fireball
Aegis had to grin. Fireball had thought of him again, and this time he’d not come back to a basket of rotten fruit. Despite her name, she was one patient, caring pegasus. He grabbed an apple and gobbled it down in a mere moment. He was hungrier than he thought. As for the Foal in the saddlebag...
He unslung the saddlebag and set it ever-so-gently on the floor. “Okay, Leapfrog, up and at ‘em,” he started, “It’s time to go to bed.” Ok, he admitted to himself, that doesn’t make much sense. Another tactic.
“Leapfrog, want a snack before bedtime?”
That got her attention, as she popped right up. “Poppa?” She blinked the sleep out of her eyes. Aegis’s heart broke a little more. “Oh, Mr. Aegis. Did you say snack?”
“Yes, a small one, then to bed with you. It’s been a very long day for both of us.” Aegis motioned to his bedroom. He wouldn’t let a foal sleep on his sofa, in the most undefended part of the house. He handed her an apple and a pear from the basket Fireball had left, a suitable bedtime snack for a foal her age.
“Ooooh, thank you Mr. Aegis, I like those.” She grinned up at him, then tore into the apple with a terrifying juice-scattering attack of appetite. The pear fell next to her assault, also winding up just a core. Aegis fetched a wash-cloth, then lifted her chin up with a hoof and wiped her excesses away with the other.
“Well...that was was interesting. No need to eat so quickly, I didn’t plan on taking it from you. Now, come on, little one, bedtime.” Aegis led the way to the bed, turned back the blanket, then stood aside as she leaped up. A massive yawn belayed any attempt at claiming she wasn’t sleepy before she had even tried.
“Can I have a story?” Uh oh.
“Uhh...Once upon a time there was a little filly who needed to go to bed, and she did. the...end?”
“Mr. Aegis! That’s not a good story!” Rats.
“How about a song? My Mother, Celestia rest her soul, always sang to us. My sister earned her cutie mark that way...” Aegis smiled softly. Aria had earned her cutie mark singing one of her bedtime songs to Aegis and Alamode the night after the three’s mother had passed. He would never forget that song:
“When your little heart
needs to rest at night;
Don’t worry dears,
Your mother’s near;
Your father’s just in sight;
They’ll keep watch over you
After the day is through;
And they shall be
Always with ye
Forever now, in truth”
Aegis wiped a small tear from his eye. The song in his rough baritone managed to do its job, however, and he silently slipped out of the room, closing the door and leaving only the smallest crack to act as a night light for the now sleeping filly.
Aegis trotted back outside, careful not to make much noise, and stepped into the shop at the side of his abode. Once again quietly as he could, he shrugged out of his armor, hanging it piece-by-piece on the racks on the wall. A place for everything, everything in its place. Aegis stepped back out, locked the shop, then went back inside.
He helped himself to the fruit basket again, leaving only an orange and two bananas. The two kiwi he’d taken would do for now. He gently lay on the couch, choosing to leave the lights on, ate his kiwis, then closed his eyes for a nice evenings slumber.