"Come on, get moving!" shouted Crumble Pie. "And quit yawning."
"I'm nahh—oohht yawning," Hailstone yawned. She picked at the corners of her crusty eyes.
The gray mare shook her head and gave a grumpy snort.
"Well you've certainly sold me on that all of a sudden."
Hailstone blinked again and again, trying to wink away the last blurs of sleepiness, and in good humor she complained, "You're a real whiplashing pony, Crumble Pie. First you keep us up late partying, then you demand we get up for work at the crack of dawn?"
"Crack of nothing!" Crumble Pie said. "The sun rose two hours ago!"
Both ponies were walking down the main drag of Stony Nook. Crumble Pie hadn't been exaggerating: the sun was already racing up the eastern sky, bright blue with no remaining hint of groggy orange, and the wide street was already flooded by the usual everyday commotion of a town morning.
In front of the general store a pony meticulously checked over their wagon: counting up their folded quilts and heavy jugs, inspecting the axles for any sign of weakness, and otherwise ensuring that they were ready for the trip out to Mule's Head. Elsewhere, two pegasi with satchels sagging from heavy tools floated about the town's ailing water tower, much overdue for repairs as it was, laying fresh boards like band-aids over every cracking piece of the listing structure so that it wouldn't come crashing down on anypony. And if there was anypony in town who wasn't taking care of their chores right there in the street then they were out ambling, trotting, or galloping their way along to their business elsewhere.
"My point is," Hailstone said as she tailed her boss down the road, "we just got back from the quarry yesterday evening. Three days from now we head out again and stay there for another four days, busting our butts." Vainly she hoped, "Our days in town are supposed to be our days off!"
"Since when?" Crumble Pie glared with a smile. "Besides, the quarry's almost ready now, so that means we've got to make sure Stony Nook's ready for it! Changes gotta be made around here if we're going to accommodate all the new ponies who'll come looking for work!"
"Right, right," the pegasus forfeited her hopes, and she indulged in one last yawn.
"Uh-huh. Now pay attention!" the gray mare went on. "First place to start, I figure, is new boarding houses. Definitely a thing better done sooner than later anyway."
"Sure," Hailstone agreed blindly, but after a moment more of thought she asked, "Wait, are any of the old ones good anymore?"
"No, not many," answered Crumble Pie. Those busier yesterdays still brought back some sentimental remorse whenever she thought about how they had ended. "Old quarry shut down, ponies fled for greener pastures, and most of the houses got converted into more useful buildings, if they weren't torn down for materials."
"Ah, right. Doc Remedy's office used to be one."
Hailstone cracked her neck and stretched her wings.
"Alright, I'm ready. Whatcha need, boss?"
Crumble Pie smirked, but then slid smoothly into command.
"Today is going to be all preparation. While you were taking your sweet time to get up I already set the others to taking stock, getting the construction ponies up to speed, scoping out spots to lay foundations, and so forth. What I want from you and Scrolldozer is to organize, assess, and recount what stone we already got here in town. Tabulate it all, you hear? We've been hauling back a lot these past few weeks, but if we're going to build then we need to get all our rocks in a row."
She stopped walking and turned to face her crewmember.
"Got that?"
"Yeah, no problem," Hailstone said confidently. But then she put on a sly grin, poking just the very tip of her tongue out. "Except, of course... where is old Dozer?"
"Right here! Right here!" the father called.
Scrolldozer dashed up to them. Given all the morning bustle on the street, he had practically emerged from the broad daylight itself. He almost groveled before his coworkers, sorry for his tardiness.
But his friends had every reason to be forgiving: his daughter Bookworm was in tow, carrying a small knapsack loaded with her school supplies.
Scrolldozer greeted, "Morning, Hailstone! Morning, Crumble Pie!"
"Morning, Scrolldozer," Crumble Pie warmly returned. "How'd you sleep?"
"Like a rock, of course."
The gray mare smiled at him and then bent herself nearer to his daughter, sugaring her voice.
"Morning, wiggler! And how'd you sleep?"
Bookworm wasn't hampered by any big yawns, or tired swaying, or red eyes which needed a good rub to wipe away a glassy look. Yet even so, she wasn't her lively self. The others merely blamed it on her unusually late bedtime the night before.
The filly gave a closed smile and answered flatly, "I slept alright, Ms. Crumble Pie."
Scrolldozer still apologized for himself, "I'm really sorry I'm so late, but between that late night, and trying to get Bookworm ready for school, and-"
"It's fine, it's fine!" the gray mare laughed away her friend's worries.
The father gave up a relieved sigh, but putting down one worry only left him free to take up another.
He suddenly turned on his daughter, throwing his magic over her for some last minute school preparations. Not that he hadn't already spent an hour at home feverishly readying her, but they had blown out the door so quickly that he had left all the memories of preparation behind! Glitters of his magic attacked her from every side: tightening the bow on the end of her braid, straightening her tail, nudging her knapsack left and right until it finally hung in perfect presentation; he even opened it twice to be sure that she had her feather pen, inkwell, homework, lunch, and schoolbooks.
Naturally his filly squirmed under the obsessive attention. On those many days without him around she had always gotten herself ready for school just fine, and usually in a fraction of the time.
"Oh, suurre," a dubiously hostile Hailstone needled her boss in a fast aside, "Dozer's the last pony to show up but of course he doesn't get a lecture."
"Put a rock in it," Crumble Pie snickered back before stepping closer to the frantically fumbling father. She got him to ease up by resting a comfortable hoof on his shoulder. "Come on now, it's no big deal. I figured this morning might wind up a little slower. All that matters is that – once you got the wiggler taken care of – you give it all you got. And you can do that, can't you?"
Scrolldozer used one big breath to try and throw away all of his anxious baggage.
"Right. Yeah. Anything you need, Crumble Pie," he promised.
"Good," the gray mare gave him a faithful pat. "Hailstone can fill you in on the details. You'll be working with her."
"You and me again, pal," Hailstone grinned. "You ready?"
"Yeah, I-... J-Just a minute!"
The father raced to apply the finishing touches to his daughter, returning everything to her knapsack and adjusting her bow a final time. Bookworm still grumbled, moaning audibly.
"Alright," Scrolldozer mumbled, trying to get his bearings, "you're all set, so... let's just get you over to the schoolhouse before your morning session starts."
"It's too soon!" complained Bookworm.
"What?"
The world ground to a halt.
For the life of him Scrolldozer couldn't recall the exact starting time of his daughter's class. His eyes darted over to the unremarkable town hall. Next to the door hung a large, brass-made windup clock – the officially-kept time of Stony Nook – but its hands might as well have been spinning like a tornado. The brass face couldn't jog his memory at all, and there wasn't any hour, minute, or second he could pick which he felt confident in.
It left him horrified and ashamed. He could hoist and fling humongous stones a hundred times his own weight in his sleep, but something as simple as seeing his daughter off to school, when he had raised her all his life in Stony Nook? That was such a frightening weight.
"... Um... I-It starts-... It starts in... f-five...?"
"Twenty-five minutes, Dad," his own little filly solved the riddle for him with an annoyed sigh.
"O-Oh. That long?" Scrolldozer responded. Drops of sweat crawled down him like ants. "W-Well... you can wait there for twenty-five minutes for your classes to start, can't you, baby? That way I could get right to work-"
"Daaad!" Bookworm whined, "You promised we'd go to the post office first thing so we could mail Mom's library book back, or else how am I going to get a new book?"
The angry, pouting filly jiggled her sagging knapsack, and it rocked with a heft heavier than that of any ordinary schoolfilly's. She always took the loaned library books with her to school; they were her extracurricular activity.
"Oh, right," more cold sweat poured down the father. He had actually seen and moved the library book about during his harassment of his daughter, but yet he hadn't remembered his promise to her at all. He rushed out a well-intentioned, boilerplate apology, "I'm sorry for forgetting, honey. We'll go do that right now, and then you can go to the schoolhouse and-"
"Daaaad! I'm not going to have any new book to read! I can't sit there waiting if I don't have a book!"
"Baby, please," Scrolldozer bargained and pleaded so earnestly and desperately, perhaps even mixing a few tears in with his sweat, "it's just a few minutes. I have to get to work and-"
"But Daaaaad!"
The scene was upsetting for Scrolldozer, but cute for Crumble Pie. She was all smiles, but understood also that it was time for her to step in.
"Alright, alright!" she chuckled as she came between father and daughter.
Bookworm immediately smiled; Scrolldozer sighed in relief. Yet again the peacemaker was going to save the day.
Crumble Pie encouraged her good friend, "Why don't you let the wiggler stay with you while you work? At least until her classes start. It's not like she'll be late. Thank goodness for little Stony Nook, right?" Then she gave the filly a knowing wink. "I think it'll be good practice for when we take her to the quarry a few days from now. Don't you, Scrolldozer?"
Bookworm blared, "Yeah, come on Dad!"
The father ‘surrendered.’
"Okay," he said to his filly. "The post office first, a few minutes out here with me, and then you gallop right over to school, alright?"
"Yeah, sure!"
His daughter bounced, celebrating her perceived triumph over her overbearing father.
To the gray mare Scrolldozer slipped a confidential whisper, "Thanks again, Crumble Pie."
"Don't mention it," she replied quietly, all cheer. Then, through a laughing grin, "Just get to work!"
Scrolldozer nodded and began to herd his daughter away.
Hailstone, still smirking in amusement, gave a waving salute to Crumble Pie and then took off in a flying trot after the pair. She shouted to her coworker, "Warm that horn up, buddy! We're gonna need it!"
Crumble Pie, aglow in the morning sunshine, started off eastwards down the road, opposite the way the others had gone.
She had been many things over the years: a frontierspony, a planner, a builder, a forepony, and all sorts of other roles besides. The list was a very good size for how relatively young she was, and every last one of those experiences had been quite fulfilling too. For the longest time there hadn't been any regrets over all she had accomplished.
But one role she had never, ever envisioned herself in was that of a parent. It wasn't until she had met and built a dear friendship with the simple, hardworking, goodhearted, but overtired Scrolldozer that she had really gained an appreciation for that path in life which she hadn't taken. Starting from the very day he had first walked into Stony Nook carrying his newborn baby wiggler in a basket on his back, she had again and again witnessed those little everyday moments between father and daughter; between parent and child. And sometimes it had made her wonder.
She had wondered about washing muddy faces to reveal the adorable foals underneath, and every time it had made her glow.
She had wondered about sitting bedside with a thermometer, a sack of ice, and a teaspoon of foul-smelling syrup, trying to nurse the fever out of a filly one tiny cough at a time, and every time it had warmed her heart.
She had wondered about what it would be like to watch a gaggle of little Pies shove rocks around a farm, and every time she had woken up from her short daydream with some happy mist rising from behind her eyes.
But while all of those momentary yearnings were beautiful like the sturdy roundness of a rough-hewn stone, none of them quite cut to the sparkling core of the geode.
What had truly touched her – what had inspired her the most – had been how such an uncomplicated fellow like Scrolldozer had gone relentlessly at that task of parenthood no matter how much it had overwhelmed him. As a pony his heart was always in the right place (bless him!) but he was a small fellow. There wasn't much he was good for except floating boulders about. His daughter, on the other hoof, was an enormous little pony. Yet no matter how much he had always struggled to raise such a world-thirsty filly ten times his own size, he had never given up for even one doubtful moment.
No matter how dead tired he was whenever he walked in through the door after a hard few days at the quarry, he stayed up for as long as it took to read Bookworm to sleep with a bedtime story.
That a child was worth that much dedication from so underequipped a pony had always given her a lot to think about.
However... all just dreams. The clock on those dreams would be running down sooner rather than later, but nevertheless they were dreams for tomorrow. Today, she had too many obligations to Stony Nook.
Now that Scrolldozer and Hailstone had been set to task, all of Crumble Pie's crew had their assignments. Only she herself was left, and she knew where she was going to start.
But she also knew that, as per usual, the assignment was probably going to come to her first.
"Crumble Pie! Oh, Crumble Pie, there you are!"
Constant as a cornerstone.
"Mayor!" the gray mare stopped and greeted the pony who was racing towards her.
Mayor Desk Job approached, slowing to a wheezy trot.
She carried a saddlebag jammed pack with paperwork, some neatly rolled and sorted, but the rest hastily crumpled and stuffed inside. Above her floated a scramble of items glittering with her celadon magic. It was an unending chase: a dry quill fruitlessly wrote nothing across a paper, an inkwell rushed after to refresh the quill, a stamp pursued the inkwell to claim its own share, and the paper flocked after the stamp to get itself officially sealed.
The fraught unicorn stumbled up to Crumble Pie and gasped, "Oh, Crumble Pie! Fantastic! Good! Glad I caught up with you!"
The gray mare casually glanced at the pointless parade whirling above the mayor's head – a familiar sight – and, ignoring it, she mentioned politely, "I was just on my way to see you."
"Ah... you... were...?" panted the mayor.
"Yup. I know how you like progress updates on the quarry. I'm sure we would've scheduled a meeting"—Crumble Pie peeked once more at the flying circus—"if there had been the time to pencil it in."
"Huh? Oh!"
Desk Job at last noticed the infinite chase. She caught her breath and brought everything back to slow order, floating the paper down before her eyes.
It wasn't even the right form!
She groaned and then pounded the page back into her saddlebag with invisible fists of magic. More light came from her horn and began to shuffle through the paperwork there; the rolled papers danced in annoyance.
Crumble Pie, pleasant and patient, said, "Well, no need for an office. Let's just get down to business right here."
"Excellent. Yes," the mayor agreed. She remained consumed with rifling through her papers, now and again lifting a document out only for her floating tools to sniff and reject each one. "What's the progress on the quarry?"
"Quarry's on schedule," the gray mare proudly reported. "I expect two weeks until we can call out for new workers."
"‘Two weeks?’ Are we ready for-"
"Oh, the ponies'll trickle in over a few months once the call goes out, just like when we opened the last quarry. Ramp up is going to be pretty gradual. Got my crew working on accommodations already."
"‘Already?’"
Slowly Desk Job's harried search wound down.
"Yup," Crumble Pie affirmed. "They're split up right now; taking inventory, surveying build sites. A few of'em are bringing those new construction ponies up to speed."
The last flaps of magically moving paperwork ceased, and the mayor's wits flocked away from her.
"... ‘Construction ponies...?’" her jaw dangled.
Crumble Pie pointed a hoof down the road, highlighting the pegasi hammering new stability into the water tower.
"There's two," she said. "Another two are up on one of these roofs somewhere. And then I think another one's patching up some cracks in one of the storehouses."
Desk Job squinted; at the water tower, the roofs; everywhere. Or rather, nowhere.
Her confusion read plainly to Crumble Pie; it was probably the mayor's most familiar face.
The gray mare gently stirred the other pony's memories, "Remember a few weeks back, when I asked you to put out that too-good-to-be-true work offer? You know, where you balked at how many bits I was proposing for a few fast weeks of repair work? Well, bait lured a few fish in. Now we got five builders of high professional quality thanks to those extra bits."
It took a moment but at last heavy recollection thwacked the mayor on the back of her head.
"...! The short-term residency paperwork that came through!" she exclaimed.
"That's right!" Crumble Pie said. "But they'll be filing to extend their stays, I promise! As long as they're here anyway they'll be happy to stick around longer for some extra work. Work like, say, putting up new buildings? Hey, with their help we could throw up a fortress lickety-split if we had to."
The floating inkwell capped itself and drifted gently back into a fat pocket on the front of the mayor's saddlebag, followed by the quill and the stamp. Desk Job secured the pocket shut, and then she sighed.
"This town would really fall apart without you, Crumble Pie."
"Aw, you're just saying that, Mayor," the honored pony accepted with a shallow blush. She nonetheless insisted, "We all hold this town together."
"Oh, I don't know," the mayor sighed again, this time burdened by disappointment. Her magic pulled and unrolled a few of the organized papers from her bag, showing them off as examples. "I've been working my way through all the old ledgers, budgets, lists, inventories, itemized summaries, and so on, trying to update them. A little accounting isn't any trouble and I think I'll crunch those numbers in time. But..."
She neatly put away the good paperwork and then flung around some of her wrinkled, messier pages in a hapless display.
Ill-tempered grunts punctuated her words, "... All these permits, and approvals, and licenses, and property records, and stone quality assessment authorization forms, and-! Ugh! My head spins trying to get them straight! In all my life I've never successfully managed more than the books of midlevel business firms. I think a whole town is a little too much for me."
Crumble Pie, in sparkling honesty, complimented, "Nonsense, Mayor. You've done some fair work during your short time here. Be proud of it."
"Hm," Desk Job lightly laughed to herself just once. "If you say so, Crumble Pie. But I would never be able to keep this place rolling without you." Her eyes crept over her shoulder and she offered a hoof towards the meager town hall. "In fact, anytime you want to sit behind my desk..."
"Oh, heh! No thank you, Mayor! Plenty happy where I'm at!"
"I figured as much," said the mayor, not displeased in the slightest. "Just please promise not to leave me all alone here! Celestia only knows what sort of trouble we'd get into without you."
Crumble Pie smiled appreciatively...
... but the words reminded her about Mrs. Totaler's grim tale.
"Hey, speaking of trouble," the gray mare introduced the subject warily, "I came back into town just last evening and already I've heard about more trouble on the west road."
The fast change of subject surprised the mayor, though she didn't take much interest.
"Yes, Mrs. Totaler cajoled me into tossing some tax money at the problem pony so that he would go away," she mentioned. "Why do you bring it up?"
"Well," suggested Crumble Pie, "maybe we should be a little more concerned now that it's happened three times?" Though she wasn't fearful, something about the bartender's dark words had lingered uncomfortably with her. She diligently advised, "I think it might be a good idea to start warning off traveling ponies from that road, at least for a little while."
"Crumble Pie!" the shocking proposition threw the mayor off balance. "We want to lure ponies to Stony Nook in order to work the new quarry! Not scare them away with nasty rumors of ponies getting waylaid by Celestia knows what!"
"It's just a safety precaution, Mayor," the gray mare flatly stressed. "I don't suppose it's much either, but why take any chance? Bad stories spreading are one thing; bad news spreading is a whole 'nother bundle of rocks."
"Whatever is happening on the west road doesn't worry me nearly as much as getting the town in order for the new quarry."
"I'm sympathetic to that, Mayor. I really am," Crumble Pie said. "But I don't want to take any chances that somepony gets hurt. The last thing we need is for somepony to get snuck up on by some sort of-"
"Crumble Pie! Found you!"
The fiery shout came from a third mare who trotted towards them with a terrible, angry purpose. Every pound of her hooves blasted up dust. Her lips were tightly curled, tense and sour. All the pebbles in her way leapt aside in fright to avoid her.
It wasn't a very reassuring sight coming from a doctor. Doubly so for Dr. Home Remedy since her fur was red as boiling blood, though thankfully most of it was covered over by an immaculately white physician's coat. Even more, the coat rang with a happy jangle because of her pockets full of medical knickknacks, all stuffed in haste during her rush out of her office. Only her ever-present stethoscope clung to her securely, glued around her neck such that it hardly thrashed to her heavy clops.
"Doctor!" Crumble Pie greeted, showing all the cheerfulness she could in the face of the fast approaching scowl. "Good morning! How can I help you?"
"I'm not surprised to find you standing out here chatting like you have nowhere to be," the irate Home Remedy grumbled. She came to a stop only once she was threateningly close to Crumble Pie. "I hardly waited five minutes before racing out here to look for you!"
"Why would you-?"
Well throw her off a cliff and bury her in an avalanche.
"Riiight," the gray mare remembered and gave a pensive sigh. "Every three months."
"That's right, ‘every three months!’" the doctor scolded. "And this is the fourth time in a row that you've forgotten about your regular checkup! The fourth time I've had to hunt you down!"
Sparing not a moment more, Home Remedy swooped in and began an impromptu checkup of the gray mare, forgoing office, waiting room, check-in, courtesy, and certainly most of all privacy.
Crumble Pie endured the doctor's aggressive, gentle, though utterly uninvited touch, but it was a struggle for her to be cooperative. She politely fought back with her mouth.
"I'm—ah!—I'm sorry for forgetting, Doctor! But maybe—egh!—we could just—ng!—reschedule this?"
The suggestion slid off of Home Remedy's unresponsive gaze, fixed as it was upon every searching pat she delivered to the gray mare's body. The strikes rained down like a storm.
Crumble Pie continued to protest, "Do we—ag!—do we have to do this right here in the street?"
"Well..."
For the briefest moment the doctor let up on her torment...
... only to swiftly dive back in with almost bitter enjoyment, handling the other mare twice as hard.
"Maybe if you had shown up for your appointment at my office," she said with compassionate heartlessness, "then you wouldn't be out here right now, hm?"
"Doctor," Crumble Pie pleaded.
Smoothly Home Remedy flicked the buds of her stethoscope into her ears and pushed the flat side of the chest piece onto her patient.
"Breathe deeply," she commanded.
Despite the icy chest piece pressing against her uncomfortably, the gray mare followed through and inhaled a large, calm breath. But at the very end of her slow exhale she pleaded once more, this time urgent in her annoyance.
"Doctor."
"Again," Home Remedy ordered paid no heed and shifted the stethoscope an inch.
The gray mare reluctantly complied, and for another time she followed up with a protest.
"Doctor, I'm sorry! But can't we just push this off until later?"
Home Remedy froze stiff. Her eyes peeled themselves away from her inspection and met those of her frustrated patient. Never for a moment afterwards did her acrid stare break away from Crumble Pie's shrinking, sinking eyes.
As creeping as moss gathering on a sleeping rock; as solid as a tree limb in winter; the doctor raised a hoof and unplugged her stethoscope from her ears. From inside her coat she produced a wooden tongue depressor and, wielding it like a robber's dagger, she aimed it level at the dissenting mare's mouth.
"Stick your tongue out," she ordered.
Groaning with displeasure, Crumble Pie obeyed. Her poor tongue got depressed stern and fast, choking out the last of her objections underneath a guttural gag.
It was hard to believe that this villainous physician was the same pony whom everypony in town pleasantly called a "fine country doctor." That iron scowl seemed forever branded on her face!
Mayor Desk Job had not fled from the grisly scene and, seeing as how the gray mare had been muzzled, she broke her silence and delicately interceded on behalf of her town's most valuable workpony.
"Dr. Remedy," she addressed formally, officially, and honorably, "I greatly respect your... rambunctious dedication... to serving our community, but Crumble Pie has some very important business she should be attending to. If you could please perhaps give her a rain check-"
The doctor's stare stayed three hooves deep in the gray mare's throat, but she did halt every last motion of her body to give the mayor a very intent reply, directing her words with unbelievably coarse precision.
"Crumble Pie isn't a physician and hasn't thoroughly studied the nuances of maintaining the health of the pony body. Crumble Pie makes regular trips through the countryside to a quarry where she does repetitive, strenuous labor for several days straight. Crumble Pie should listen to her doctor and have a routine physical every three months if she wants to catch the early signs of any developing injuries or conditions which could be exacerbated by such continuous heavy labor and, if left untreated, would thereafter put her out of commission for a few months at least."
"Now Crumble Pie, she is your doctor," the mayor immediately switched teams. "Let her do her job."
A garbled, begrudged groan warbled out the gray mare's open mouth.
After Home Remedy had drunk her fill of revenge, she at last withdrew the depressor.
Crumble Pie spat deliriously, "Alright, alright! I'm sorry that I forgot about my checkup again, and I submit to getting it over with right now. Just, please, can we take it to your office, Doc?"
Dallying, the doctor opened her coat and deposited the spent depressor in an empty pocket for later disposal. Her stare stayed dangerous, but for just a moment she betrayed herself with a fast, tiny show of a grin.
"Hmph. Yes, might as well," she snorted.
Home Remedy turned and began to lead the way back to her office. She didn't peek behind herself once to check if her patient was following, confident that she had instilled obedience.
And indeed Crumble Pie followed, hanging back only to give a short and apologetic farewell to the mayor. As she went she flicked and wagged her tongue to toss off the splinters caught on it.
Desk Job called after her anxiously, holding out a chasing hoof, "Oh! Crumble Pie! Very quickly! While you're indisposed: your crew!—Whom should I be checking up with?"
"Start with Scrolldozer and Hailstone!" the gray mare shouted in reply, pointing westward to the opposite end of town.
Home Remedy worked fast to make up for lost time. She spared Crumble Pie another physical assault, but even while they were walking down the open street she continued her exam with stern verbal questioning.
"Since your last checkup have you had any injuries that you didn't bother to inform me about?"
"No, I'm all in one piece," Crumble Pie bluntly replied, and immediately she segued into a separate remark, "You're a vicious predator, Doc; dragging a poor pony out of the street for their own good. Though, again, I'm sorry for the trouble."
"It's not just you, Crumble Pie. I have to hunt down almost every one of your crew! Don't they give two pebbles about their own health?—Any unusual aching, weakness, or soreness?"
"No. Been fine—I'm sure they do care, Doc. We just get busy."
"You know, Scrolldozer is the only one of you lot who never misses a checkup, but that's not his doing! He brings in his sweet little girl whenever she so much as sneezes, so I catch him all the time—do you ever feel dizzy or lightheaded while working?"
"Again, no—he cares a lot about his little wiggler. Don't knock him for it."
"Not my point. I wouldn't see him at all if he didn't have a daughter. He's just like the rest of you—any recent shortness of breath? Unusual loss of appetite?"
"No. I'm seriously fine, Doc—and come on! We try."
"Not hard enough. You know, Crumble Pie, for such an organized, respectable pony... have you ever even heard of a calendar?—Any concerns; anything bothering you that didn't used to?"
"Nope—and I don't know; never needed a calendar. I roll with the boulders as they come."
"And so successfully, as we've seen."
"I really like to sort them by size and shape," Scrolldozer explained to the mayor. He was puffed with the tiniest, most fragile sense of pride. "That's what makes the most sense to me, anyway. Nopony's ever complained."
In contrast to his delicate demeanor, his horn had effortless control of four heavy stones. Without losing one drop of sweat he was darting them around through the air, swarming them with precision despite his divided attention. The oblong stones were much longer than they were wide or thick, and each was a little bit larger than the size of a pony. It would have taken a whole crew to have lifted any single one of them without magic.
But Scrolldozer's brawny magic did the trick with ease. He lined them up midair, holding them tall like the pillars of an invisible courthouse, and then he set them down that way amidst a group of very similarly shaped stones. His placement was fast yet meticulous, quickly twisting their bottoms into the earth with just enough strength so that they stood upright in perfect balance. The entire crowd of large, tall stones, all together not much more than two dozen or so, stood aligned like the rigid ranks of game pieces on a chessboard.
"It looks a little odd and it takes up more space," Scrolldozer continued to explain, "but I think they're easier to count like this."
"Whatever works for you, works for me," Desk Job replied. Her own magic was busy handling a quill and a page, writing notes as she watched the stallion work.
Her, him, Hailstone, and Bookworm were just at the outskirts of town, only a few short paces past the very final buildings on the edge of Stony Nook, where the wide street quickly tapered into a thin road shooting west towards the mountainous horizon. Meager fields of brown grass sat on either side of the road, and nearer the river was piled a broad smattering of rocks in every shape and size; a dumping ground of sorts for the stones which for months had been brought back from the new quarry by Crumble Pie's crew. They were to be the starting stock for new development, until a larger workforce could migrate into town and harvest more.
It was a menagerie; a mini-quarry unto itself. Boulders to bricks; cornerstones to curbstones; everything useful had been brought back over the last several months. Together there might have been enough to build several small buildings, but ten different ponies would have brought with them ten different estimates, so an official inventory was needed. Scrolldozer had only just begun sorting the stones, and his little military parade was the first set he had pulled out and arranged.
Hailstone knew the task of getting everything sorted was going to be a cake walk thanks to the stallion's powerful horn, and she assured the mayor in conceited confidence, "It looks a mess right now, but we'll be done before you know it!"
Desk Job scratched the side of her head with her quill, leaving a little blot.
"How long exactly, do you think?" she asked.
Hailstone passed the question to her coworker with a shrug.
Scrolldozer twisted his neck to quickly scan the dumping ground. He mumbled a few fast estimations before he finally looked back at his pegasus partner and guessed, "We could probably do it in... four—five hours?"
The mayor did a double take, popping her eyes agog at the small demolished castle which littered the riverside.
"If you say so...," she hesitantly accepted.
"You've never really seen Dozer here in action," Hailstone draped a leg over her partner and boasted. "He could rip out one of the Pearl Peaks if he wanted! We'll get the job done in four hours, including the lunch break!"
The oversized praise turned Scrolldozer bashful. His red face all but melted onto the ground.
Mayor Desk Job said, "Well, if you're really that fast then I suppose I should just leave you to it. On you go; work away. Don't mind me, I need to jot down a few more things."
While the mayor scribbled away, the two workers acknowledged her – Hailstone much more confidently than her partner – and then they began to get back to task.
Yet Scrolldozer stopped before he even started.
Bookworm had stood through the whole conversation eyes down and ears closed, sometimes having taken aimless steps nowhere and other times having lifelessly kicked about tiny pebbles. She had won the earlier argument to avoid going to school too soon, but already she regretted the victory prize. Every moment more of it she greeted with a grumpy huff.
The worst part was that she had given up her wonderful storybook to the post office. True, it meant that her mother would mail her a new storybook soon, but it also meant that the only company she now had was her father.
"Hey, honey...," Scrolldozer bent down near her. He pressed all his nervousness into a ball in his stomach. No doubt her dismal mood now was only a prelude to what it was going to be like when they took her out to the quarry for real.
His daughter didn't give anything back more than a single, sharp moan.
"Come on," the father couldn't put any reassuring notes in his voice as he reached in desperation for a solution, "let's go grab the next set of stones. I'll show you how I quickly judge the shapes to determine isomorphism. Won't that be interesting?"
Bookworm hummed bleakly. She didn't give him a glance as she picked up her little hooves and shambled along towards the dumping ground.
The nerve-knackered Scrolldozer followed behind her.
Mayor Desk Job paid no heed to the father and daughter, or to the not-so-subtle fractures between them. There was too much paperwork to do! But at least unlike those blasted legal documents, some accounting work was well within her wheelhouse. Whether counting coins or stones, doing some quaint math reminded her of her days before moving way out west and getting tangled up in government (even one so small that it was only herself!).
But even besides that, there wasn't anything in Equestria she found quite as soothing and heavenly as dashing an ink-wet quill across a crisp sheet of paper! She could keep her nose to the grindstone writing numbers all day!
Such a wonderful sound!
The blunt bop of the pen landing!
The satisfying whir of its slide!
The pleasing pats of crossing t's and dotting i's!
Some penstrokes she purposely took slower, simply to enjoy the way the floating paper hummed in reply.
That was why, as she leisurely scratched one particularly long stroke across the page, she was startled from her meditation when the pen growled instead.
She jerked the quill away from the paper, turning and spinning it about in the air to study it. There was no usual dryness. No dulling of the tip. Nothing that would have invited such a hard sound. The lack of any obvious answer had her squinting at the troublesome feather.
Then another growl came despite the quill levitating idly, and this time she felt the sound press into her with a rumbling heat. Sweltering air flowed across her nose, and it came not from the floating quill but from somewhere directly ahead of her.
Tenderly she peeked up over the paper hovering in front of her face.
Emerging from between the rows of standing stones before her was a set of threatening eyes which smoldered like coals, themselves mounted over bared teeth which ran wet with boiling slobber.
Another growl.
Louder.
Fiercer.
"Mayor!!"
Hailstone tackled Desk Job in the nick of time, shoving her out of the way of the snarling monster's sudden lunge. Both ponies tumbled over the street, struggling to recover from the shock. The monster, though surprised by the unexpected evasion, was fast to turn towards them and growl ferociously once more.
The vicious rumble came from deep within the creature's immense bulk, slightly bigger and huskier than even the largest of ponies. His massive forelegs ran down to paws tipped by bone-slicing razors. His shoulders were beastly – the thickest part of him – and they held together a chest and back that were enormous and muscular, far more so than the rest of him. He was front-loaded with power, built like a furious bull.
But he wasn't any kind of cattle monster. Rather, his face was incredibly dog-like: sharp ears, a short snout capped by a crispy-skinned nose, and lips like hammocks for slobber. Within his eyes there was no friendly canine charm but instead an aggressive glow like a whipping inferno. Wisps of black smoke puffed from his nostrils with each of his angry snorts, and the hot drool that dribbled out from between his cage of fangs landed on the dry road with a sizzle.
Most his fur was a fiery red, though there were many black streaks that ran wildly down his body. The hairs stuck out ragged and sloppy, curling every which way, especially so at the top of his high withers where the scruff spread upwards like the licks of a roaring blaze. Down at the end of his unexpectedly thin hindquarters, his tiny tail almost looked like a tuft of flame.
The unmerciful hostility he leered with terrified the two ponies. Then, all his muscles snapped with tension as he lowered and readied another pounce.
Hailstone tightened her hold on the mayor and then frantically beat her wings, bouncing them both into the air. They just narrowly jumped above the fire dog's chomping jaws.
The monster made a nimble landing, not off balance by even the thinnest measure. His eyes chased his airborne prey as they flocked away, and streams of angry steam blasted from his snout.
Other townsponies who had heard the commotion turned to investigate, and quickly their frightened shrieks started to flood the village street. Their cries only drew in more curious ponies who likewise started to scream. Ponies began to recoil in fear, stumbling backwards down the street or streaking crazily into the air, spilling over unnoticed obstacles or even their fellow townsponies. Doors slammed. Windows crashed shut.
The frightful ruckus of so many ponies screaming at once reached every corner of the town, and certainly it woke up anypony who had still been asleep, no matter how tired and exhausted they were.
Crumble Pie and Home Remedy darted out of the doctor's office, drawn by the noisy panic.
"Well throw me down a mineshaft!" the gray mare gasped.
"What is that thing, Crumble Pie?"
"I have no idea, Doc!"
The fire dog stalked along the target-rich street, weighing which of the many tasty-looking ponies he should mangle first. There were several to choose from, as some of the townsponies were too paralyzed by terror to escape. He moved side-to-side, drifting closer to some townsponies just to sniff their fear as they cringed, and then turning away to threaten others on the opposite side. Each neck seemed meatier than the last!
Thinking on her hooves, Crumble Pie spotted Scrolldozer on the far side of the prowling monster, back near the set of standing stones. The stallion's jaw was hanging aghast, just as frozen as the rest of the frightened townsponies.
The gray mare threw her voice high over the beast, "Scrolldozer! Get something to trap him with!"
The instruction blew by the dumbfounded stallion. What did snap him out of his stupor was his young daughter's excited bouncing and shouting.
"Woah!" Bookworm lit up. "Dad, look! Look! Do you see that?! That's an honest-to-goodness, real-life—!"
Magical light suddenly surged from Scrolldozer's horn, spraying in all directions until it frayed into a dozen arms of magic. Most of the glittering streams seized some of the large stones behind him, but one of them grabbed Bookworm and frantically hoisted her into the air. The filly and the stones swirled in a storm of light until the tiny pony was swiftly but carefully set back down on the street, and then immediately the tall stones fired themselves into the ground in a circle around her. They were packed perfectly tight, leaving her unscratched but with no way to climb out or slip through her new cage.
The father kicked his hooves against his construction in a quick test of sturdiness before he planted an eye against the closest crack he could find, and he called inside, "Bookworm! You stay right there, okay?!"
Already the filly was reared up and pressing against her confinement, searching for any gap she could possibly squeeze through, or at least catch sight of the action through.
She bitterly complained, "Dad, come on! I wanna see!"
"No!"
His heart was seized by suffocating dread, and it very much came out in his broken, shaky voice. It was only his singleminded focus on his daughter's safety that kept him functioning at all.
Even in the middle of that dangerous moment, Crumble Pie heaved a puff of exasperation. She truly did sympathize with Scrolldozer's desperation to protect his daughter, but his delay only served to put the peril onto the rest of Stony Nook.
There was the crackling reverberation of a nasty growl.
Crumble Pie noticed that the fire dog was tucked low, building power in his legs, and his hostile glare was fixed on her. Her loud shout down the street must have seized his attention, and he was readying a charge.
"You might want to step away from me, Doc," the gray mare said calmly but seriously. She dug her hooves down, locking them into the dirt.
Obediently Home Remedy sidled towards the nearest open doorway, nervously watching the monster.
But the beast had only Crumble Pie in his sights. He licked his chops, he snorted smoke, and with one paw he threw up a splash of dust.
Then he charged.
The gray mare held still. So long as she had the monster's attention, it wasn't elsewhere. Even so, the sight of those nostrils billowing like a chugging coal engine, and the sound of his paws slamming like thunder into the ground, roaring closer like a speeding train, made her tail twist into a knot. She kept a silent prayer for herself.
All she could think to do was try and dive out of the way at the very last moment.
The fire dog raced ever closer in large leaps, and as he neared he opened his jaws wide, angling for the mare's neck.
Crumble Pie choked on the lump in her throat while she counted down the agonizing seconds, watching the beast grow larger every time she blinked. She held her breath, readied her legs to leap, and waited.
She waited as long as she could stand the painful tension.
She waited through the freezing ice falling down the back of her neck.
She waited for the very latest moment she could; for the end of all breath just before the needle pierced deep.
And then she jumped.
Not aside, though. But up in surprise.
A hooded and cloaked pony smashed into the rushing beast from the side, intercepting him a bare few strides before Crumble Pie.
The stranger had bolted out from a nearby alley, head down and spine straight like a shooting arrow, and with perfect timing he had collided with the fire dog's shoulder. The beast spun up into the air, twisting and crying a shrill whine, but the heavy blow also ruined the stranger's balance. He staggered badly, barely staying on his hooves as he stumbled to a stop. (He hadn't helped himself by taking the time to yank his hood down tight, ensuring that his face stayed covered.) The fire dog crashed on his side and, from his momentum, skid to a stop at Crumble Pie's hooves.
Fortunately the hit left the beast momentarily disoriented; the gray mare was able to safely step around him in a hurry, casting aside her own shock at what had just happened. She took fast stock of Stony Nook, and thankfully everypony else was using the distraction to run for safety. The last ponies in the street with the dazed monster seemed to be her and the stranger.
"Are you alright?" Crumble Pie asked the cloaked pony.
He responded only with a foul grunt, and it sounded more from frustration than from fury. When he tried to lift his neck he winced from a new grinding pain which loudly crunched at the base of his skull, but nonetheless he forced himself through it and stood up straight.
"Sir?" the gray mare asked again.
Suddenly the stranger moved in front of her and, still shaky on his hooves, pushed his body backwards into her.
"Aside! Stand away!" he ordered.
"Hey! But-!"
Yet Crumble Pie stopped protesting the instant she saw that the fire dog was already standing and shaking off his fog. She started to backpedal carefully.
But the now-even-more-rancorous beast had turned his fervid glower entirely onto the new cloaked troublemaker. Burning hotter than before, he reignited his harsh growls and began to stalk forward carefully.
The stranger took calculated steps backwards, deliberately adding a small twist to each so that he slowly bent the pursuit away from Crumble Pie. Eventually though, he found himself backing towards a building face. Before long his tail was going to bump against an abandoned wagon left by one of the fleeing townsponies, and then there would be no more retreat from the monster.
For every two or three steps the stranger took, the fire dog more than covered the same ground with but one of his massive steps. The closer he hunted, the more he ramped up his spiteful growls until they became a rumbling quake, and when the distance between him and his pitiful prey shrank enough, he soared forward in a deadly lunge, claws front to pin the pony and pry meat from bone.
It was the exact kind of attack the stranger had hoped for.
The cloaked pony reared himself up, standing high with his forelegs pulled in defensively as a blunt shield, and he allowed the sailing fire dog to slam into him. He was knocked off his hooves and fell back but, rather than being pinned to the ground, he rolled with the hit, exploiting his attacker's powerful momentum. His top wheeled smoothly down while his bottom whipped up with a mighty buck delivered right to the stomach of the airborne beast.
The counterattack bounced the fire dog right over the stallion. The monster flipped through a perfect arc and landed upside down in the back of the wagon, into a cargo of pots, jugs, blankets, and quilts. The wagon bed was hammered so hard by the crash that an axle beneath snapped and the whole wagon collapsed. There were shrieks of splitting wood and the ceramic screams of shattered pots.
Meanwhile, the stranger couldn't quite come out of his maneuver with sufficient polish. His great upwards buck pulled him through his roll enough to leave him standing tall on his forehooves, but then an elderly shake rocked his burdened legs and, instead of dropping into a clean landing, he cringed through an awkward twist and simply flumped down onto his side, splashing up a cloud of dust about him.
Crumble Pie scampered up beside the downed pony.
"Hey! Come on now!" she immediately attempted to pull him to his hooves.
It took her only a single strong pull to yank the stranger up once she had a good leg around him, despite his attempts to refuse her help. Once standing however, he wrenched himself away from her only to nearly tumble all over again from his unhealed stability. Crumble Pie caught him and, this time not shy about turning her frustration into force, sternly anchored him to herself. The stallion berated himself quietly and angrily, but this time he didn't resist.
The fire dog writhed wildly atop the broken wagon. His whole body thrashed, kicking and slashing and snapping indiscriminately. But for all the fury, there was something else buried underneath. He was irate with discomfort, yipping and howling with a sort of boiling, damp panic.
Shallow water was pooling in the broken bed of the wagon. The hard crash had burst several jugs, spilling their liquid load, and many of the quilts had begun to soak up a share.
In his furious flailing, the fire dog had managed to tangle himself in wet quilts, and that desperately enraged him all the more. He exploded out of the wagon wreckage, throwing frenzied kicks to cast off the soggy quilts. Even after he was free, all of the quilts torn or thrown off, he continued to violently dance about in a tantrum. He didn't stop until every last drop of loathsome moisture was finally off of him.
Like a campfire splashed by a small spill, little trails of steam rose off of him. He heaved in anger as he turned his burning glare back onto the ponies.
"Stand aside!" the stranger cried again. Vainly he tried to separate himself from Crumble Pie and stand in front of her as a shield.
"What, again?" the gray mare complained incredulously, refusing to let him go. "That stunt back there hurt you more than it hurt him! Besides..."
She shot a glance at the ruined, wet wagon and the vanishing steam coming off the fire dog's back.
"... I have an idea..."
An infuriated roar came from the monster. He had reached the limits of his patience and in his frothing rage didn't bother with another careful hunt. He hurtled himself at the ponies, sparing no vengeance.
There was a sharp yelp.
An abrupt shriek of pain from the fire dog.
A high shout which popped out of him when the wall of flying boulders plowed into him from the side and sent him sailing to the ground.
The wide array of tall stones were enveloped in a magical light which was tethered back to Scrolldozer! He came chasing after his crude construct.
"Will this do, Crumble Pie?" he gasped, earnestly concerned. Even knee-knocking terror wasn't enough to dilute his desire to do a good job.
Though surprised by his sudden appearance, the gray mare was more than thankful for it, and she swiftly inspected what he had brought.
It looked like he had grabbed maybe about a dozen of the tall stones he had earlier sorted. Crumble Pie doubted that they could imprison the monster the same way that Bookworm had been imprisoned; the fire dog had already shown himself capable of some tremendous leaps. But perhaps it was still enough. She only needed the monster restrained until she could enact her new plan.
"Should do fine!" she answered her friend.
Then she pointed at the fire dog and ordered, "Pin him!"
Scrolldozer took a look at the large beast, already recovering from the last blow, and the pony gulped. But, ordered to the task by his boss and best friend, he went for it.
He arranged the stones tightly together in the air, stacking them two rows high. In each row they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and right in the middle, where the heads of the bottom row touched the feet of the top row, he applied a slight concave bend. It was an impromptu tool he had created and used many times in the past, mainly to push around piles of rubble or plow mounds of soil; a magically animated earthmover.
Taking his great stone-blade, he quickly whirled it about and lined it up such that the fire dog was between it and the sturdy facade of the nearest building.
The unprepared monster looked up just in time to see the blade barreling towards him, and he was caught in its maw before he could dodge. It carried him backwards until the whole setup crashed against the building, trapping him in the thin hollow formed by the curved blade and the building face.
"Yes!" Crumble Pie shouted. "Hold him there!"
"I'm trying!" Scrolldozer responded.
It wasn't easy. The fire dog resisted his imprisonment with unrelenting ferocity. He pushed back against the stone-blade with every last bit of his sizable might, and all the while he tried to scratch his way towards escape out the thin gap on the side of his makeshift cage.
Scrolldozer focused intensely to hold the stones together with his magic, but nevertheless the beast made slow and dangerous progress with every burst of resistance.
"Hold him!" reemphasized Crumble Pie. She let go of the stranger and started to dash westward down the street. "I'll let you know when to let him go, then lure him this way!"
"H-How?!" pleaded Scrolldozer.
But the gray mare was already too far gone to respond.
The stallion whined in fright, and he flinched each time his rebellious prisoner smashed against the stones; Scrolldozer felt the furious blows even through his magic. The struggle eroded his strength in a vicious cycle: he would doubt himself, then see and feel another formidable push from the fire dog, and hear the terrifying snarls erupt from under the stones, and it sank his hopes further. His failing willpower made each of the monster's succeeding strike seem that much more powerful than the last.
After an exceptionally potent thrust – it felt like a bolt of lightning to the stallion's horn – one of the fire dog's mammoth forelegs managed to pop out from the gap between the blade and the building, and it seized a strong hold on the nearby building face.
Scrolldozer whimpered.
Another heavy crash against the stones, and this time the monster's muzzle poked out, baring fangs and oozing foamy saliva.
The stones shook on their own as the magic tethers binding them began to fray.
Every bone in Scrolldozer's body found a way to drum against each other in terror, rattling him corner-to-corner and joint-to-joint, and what little tattered threads of confidence remained blew away in the wind. The sight of the sharp, glistening teeth was too much. His normally languid imagination found unexpected new life in vivid visions of death, rapidly torturing him with thoughts of all the ways he was about to be torn apart.
But amidst the fast nightmares there was another image that blinked in his head:
His daughter Bookworm.
A second wind suddenly hit the father. The magic lashed tight around the stones again, and there was a loud yip as the stone-blade thrust against the fire dog with renewed force.
Though the monster's grisly barking continued, and his violent pounding went on and on, the blade held.
Scrolldozer concentrated so hard on his magic that the mental pushback was like slamming his head to and fro inside a bronze-cast bell. All the different fluids inside his body began to leak out of whatever cracks, pores, and holes they could find.
He only just barely, through the flood of sweat and mucus jamming his squinted eyes, noticed the stranger abruptly walk past him, striding casually towards the trapped fire dog as if nothing were wrong!
"S-Sir!" Scrolldozer called, though in his state even speaking was an enormous strain, "You-, you should pr-probably stay back!"
The father was surprised when he thought he heard a disdainful snort come from under the stranger's hood. The cloaked pony did also briefly turn his face Scrolldozer's way, but because of the shadowy hood the father saw nothing of the harsh glare underneath. He saw none of the spite being aimed at his glowing horn.
The stranger kept on, brazen and unheeding, walking up near to the fire dog's exposed muzzle and leg.
The sight of the cloaked pony fed the monster's rage all the more. He snapped his jaws and swung his paw at the pony, though the stranger was just safely out of reach. All the same, the ignited fury gave the beast a surge of strength and he thrashed against the stone-blade suddenly enough to bounce it back a step.
Scrolldozer was quick to desperately realign and thrust the blade back against the wall, keeping the fire dog pinned, but the small delay was enough for the monster to better position himself. The next pushes the beast made were fierce and potent, each one earning an inch more of freedom.
Meanwhile, the stranger simply stood there and drew a twisted pleasure out of watching the monster overpower such worthless magic; such abominable power; such false strength. As the fire dog squirmed closer and closer to escape, the stranger spaced his hooves out and tensed himself, ready for another skirmish.
He would show them all where real strength came from!
Scrolldozer's second wind rapidly flew out of him under the fresh assault. The stones wobbled, threatening to pry loose, and likewise the father felt himself coming apart, body and spirit.
Despairing, he cried out, "Crumble Pie! Help!"
Whatever the gray mare shouted back, he didn't hear; he was too demolished, and she was too distant.
Flail after angry flail, thrash after fearsome thrash, the fire dog edged closer to victory.
The ready stranger waited eagerly.
The magic light shimmered weaker, fading, and the stones trembled from gravity's growing touch.
And just as the monster got his second foreleg up to the gap, a hair from squeezing it free, he stopped struggling.
No more slobbering barks.
No more crazed writhing.
Almost no movement or sound of any sort.
He still growled viciously at the cloaked pony, but he kept it very low and in the far back reaches of his throat.
The stranger stood up straight in confusion and actual disappointment. Frustrated, he took a cautious step closer to try and provoke the beast.
Although there was a nasty crackle which entered the fire dog's growling, he otherwise didn't respond.
Again the stranger took a distrustful step nearer, close enough that the monster might have reached him with the swipe of a paw.
And again the fire dog wasn't incited, though once more his growl changed, adding a strange hiss; a sizzle. It grew louder.
The stranger didn't hesitate to nudge even closer.
And unfortunately for the careless pony, the crisp popping in the monster's growls was the only warning before the fire dog suddenly belched a searing ball of flame.
The blazing fireball flew right at the stranger's face. Luckily his reflexes were sharp enough to swiftly turn his head away in response, and the fireball only glanced against the side of his hood before it sailed on and ultimately dissipated. The weary cloak was thankfully not so given to being easily set alight, so the stranger was spared any serious burn. However, the blast was still quite a hard blow, and it staggered him backwards like he had been struck by a heavy chunk of stone.
The unexpected flash of fire also made Scrolldozer jump in fright, and it severed his concentration completely. His horn blinked off, the remaining glitters of magic scattered like wind stealing sand, and the tall stones came apart and toppled to the ground.
The fire dog was freed, and he quickly reignited the fury he had so slyly and patiently suppressed.
Inside the stranger's one good eye, a blinding spark of light lingered. The image of bright fire wouldn't clear from his vision without time, but fortunately his ears heard plainly the loud tumbling of the stones and the monster's triumphant howl.
Very quickly the stranger tried to get back into a fighting stance despite his temporary blindness. He threw his legs wide.
But where he expected to feel his hooves solidly gripping the ground, he instead had the most bizarre sensation of the earth giving way below him. Jarred, he squinted painfully to diminish the swirl of colors interfering with his sight, and he was very much surprised to make out the shrinking shapes below.
The ground actually was receding.
The clues came together quickly: the falling street, a strange lightness to his body, a tugging against his waist...
"Set me down you wretched, winged cretin!" the stranger ordered the pegasus who was carrying him away from the monster, and he spat his curse with quite an unsavory amount of viciousness given the circumstances.
"Oh, hey, you're very welcome!" Hailstone grumbled, bitterly sarcastic.
She bore him through the air, not prepared for how seriously he struggled to free himself from her hold despite the height. Fortunately she kept her grip and he didn't plummet, but his thanklessness truly soured her rescue.
Down below, the fire dog snorted contemptuously as the flying pegasus again flew off with one of his morsels.
"Scrolldozer!" yelled Crumble Pie. "This way, come on!"
The monster whipped towards the noise.
The gray mare was far down the street, standing besides the water tower on the town's edge. Her stallion friend was already making a jumpy, reckless retreat towards her, wheezing and panting as he ran. Yet he didn't need more than one peek behind him to see the terrible fire dog in pursuit, hissing and dropping burning slobber, to spur him into the fastest gallop of his life.
"Come on!" Crumble Pie shouted again. But though she cheered her friend, her eyes were intently fixed upon the rushing beast. She measured precisely every beat of the monster's paws, and in her head she was counting down. "... Come on..."
As fast as Scrolldozer ran, the fire dog was faster. The distance between them dwindled sharply. The stallion felt the roaring heat coming up behind him much more quickly than he saw himself reaching the waiting Crumble Pie.
He begged in distress, "Help!!"
But Crumble Pie merely stood still.
Waiting.
And waiting.
And paying close attention.
And when the moment was right—when the fire dog was close enough to snap at Scrolldozer's tail, but more importantly, when the monster was at the perfect distance from the gray mare...
... she let fly a stone-shattering buck against one of the water tower's flimsy, unrepaired legs.
Effortlessly her kick ripped through the wooden beam, rot-weakened as it was. The three other legs groaned as they valiantly tried to take on a greater share of weight, but the huge barrel on top – full to the very brim with water – bent towards the broken leg regardless. Then, in an instant, the three remaining legs splintered horribly in unison, sounding a wooden rip of thunder.
Scrolldozer was so frightened by the monster behind him that he almost didn't catch sight of the collapsing tower ahead of him. One last warning shout from Crumble Pie saved him; he made a panicky leap out from under the fast growing shadow.
The whole tower smashed into the street. Chunks of wooden boards and mangled supports were hurled into the air, casting a shower of splinters. The large barrel flew apart the moment it rammed into the ground. The heavy iron bands holding it together were nowhere near strong enough to contain the bomb of falling water inside. The unbound torrent exploded out, most of it flowing in a stampede eastward.
And it gushed right over the bewildered fire dog.
The monster vanished under the massive tide, but the flood quickly spread thin across the wide street. The waters washed away down the alleys on either side, and the stone bodies of the many buildings shrugged off the waves as easily as rain. When the splashing subsided and flattened away, all that remained in the middle of the dark and muddy street was the soaked dog.
Amazingly the beast had shrunk to almost half of his former size. What was once big and burly had become all bony and scrawny, like he had been starved for ages. His fur was left in matted, wet clumps, and the blast of water had somehow washed away all of the monster's burning reds and oranges, leaving him entirely a dull, extinguished black. Even his eyes had lost all of their ferocious, crackling shine; there was only an ashen, cowardly light left in them.
The wet dog sat up, but clearly something was very wrong. He shivered as if he were out in the dead of an icy winter being frozen stiff by dry winds, and he labored to breathe. He wheezed and coughed, expelling a soggy smog from his belly.
Crumble Pie had hoped that dousing the monster would have been disorienting; at least, that had been her guess given how aggressively he had reacted to the small splashing he had taken when thrown onto the wagon. But even she was astonished by how thoroughly defeated the creature had now become, from fire to fear, all with a slap of cold water.
Wary that there might still be danger, but emboldened by the wimpy sight of the wet dog, she took one solid step forward.
The sloshing clap of her hoof on the soppy mud made the drenched dog suddenly jump and cower like a puppy startled by a fire cracker. Submissively he hugged the ground.
The gray mare took another step, this time deliberately slamming her hoof with all the force she could, almost growling herself.
There was a shrill, wheezy, terrified yelp as the wet dog jumped up and bolted. Streams of water were shed from his soaked fur as he scrambled westward down the street, making a wide berth around Crumble Pie and putting the wreckage of the water tower between him and her. He didn't even stop when he hit the edge of Stony Nook. Panting harmless smoke, nearly tumbling over himself from tremors of fear, he scurried away down the long road towards the Pearl Peaks.
The gray mare watched the wet dog flee, skirting around the broken beams of the crashed water tower to get a look. Once she was certain that the troublesome pup wasn't coming back, she turned around to check on Stony Nook.
Scrolldozer was unharmed. He was on the ground with his hooves over his head, only just beginning to peek at the scene and catch his breath. Everywhere else, eyes and faces were already beginning to appear from around corners and within windows, cautiously stealing looks.
Crumble Pie raised her voice.
"Is anypony hurt?"