“So how long have we been walking?”
“About an hour.”
“Okay stop. Show me the map. Where are we?”
“Here.” She points with her hoof.
“And where is my home?” I ask causing her to point again back an inch from where he pointed before.
“And where is the edge of my property?”
She drags her hoof to the top of the paper. I turn around and start walking.
“Hey wait! Where are you going?”
“Home.”
"But I thought you wanted to see how much land you had.”
"I did, One hour of walking worth is one inch on paper, times that by twelve hours squared I think I got how big it is….
Thanks.” I say as I walk away.
“Oh…… Wait no. That’s not all of it!” I stop in my stride and turn back to Twilight.
“What do you mean? NOT all of it?
She smiles “Well… When I filled out the papers for the Neutrality act of 353 I filled out all the sections 444-56-C though 777-56-F.”
I look at Twilight with a slightly raised eyebrow and wave my hand for her to go on. Thankfully she did. “444-56-C helps ownership of the base land, which is what you see here.” I nod. “ Well 444-56-D allows for subterranean land ownership and 444-56-E allows for aerial space…..” I cut her off there.
“Twilight. Hold up just one second. Are you telling me I own the sky?”
“Um... Yes.”
I stare at her for a long moment, before waving my arms around. “And what pray tell, am I going to put in the sky Twilight?”
Twilight just looks at me quizzically before replying in an even more questioning tone. “A playground?”
still staring at her with the most un-amused and neutral face in the world before replying to that sarcastic remark with one of my own. “Sure! Why didn't I think of that!? Tell you what Twilight, why don't you take, oh say...” I point at a random dot on the paper. “ That dot right there, to its deepest depths to its highest sky.” I gesture wildly from the ground up into the sky blue above us. “And make a playground there, and when you're done tell me.” I huff and march away.
“Okay….” She says looking down at the parchment being held in her magic. “Wait how much should we spend on this?!” She asks loudly, but I keep walking and she shrugs. “Guess we'll talk about price later.”
An hour later we were finally made it back to my house while Twilight still rambled on about all the land. “And any excavation or mining operations that turn up valuables you will take an eighty….” This is when a little purple dragon showed up yelling “Twilight! TWILIGHT! Come quick! You have got to see this!” hearing that made me die a little on the inside, if anything because he came from the direction of my house.
We picked up the pace, moving quickly until we stopped at the edge of my, well the edge of what was my original property line. There was a bunch of Pegasi flying around, Unicorns staring and a bunch of Earth Ponies trailing what looked like stone mining carts across my backyard and flower garden to my house where it was lifted by the Unicorns' green magic before a tide of rainbow colored objects were tossed into the back door of my home.
“What is GOING ON HERE?!” I yelled looking at one of my flower patches that were completely destroyed; I felt my eye twitch. “My… Petunias!” I forced out between gritted teeth.
There is a slight cough causing me to turn and look down a Unicorn pony. “Yes well, our Queen managed to get through the paperwork we procured when neutrality act went, though. She found it quite acceptable and has gathered up the riches owed to you over the last night cycle. We decided to bring half of what we owe to your residents and keep the rest in a vault created when digging out a gem enriched chamber.” At this moment, Twilight said something about not having to worry about paying for a playground but I didn't hear. The little unicorn blinked up at me, but I just stared at him before turning to look at my home apparently now just a massive bank vault. The unicorn coughs once more as I watched another three earth ponies walk out from behind the stone statue in the corner of the yard before looking back at the unicorn. “Anyway, our queen has asked if she might procure rights to another fifty acres of suburban land to the east and south of here?”
That snaps me out of my thoughts. “Wait, Queen? Queen, OH! You are one of those fellows that… I was wondering about that.”
“We’re Changelings, sir.” This got a jump out of Twilight
“C-Changelings?” Twilight stared at the disguised Unicorn.
“B-but you're convicted felons!!!” she all but screamed at the poor creature who lowered its ears.
“Maybe in Equestria, but here we have asked for asylum that was granted to us by the Shepherd.”
“Shepherd?” Twilight and I ask in unison. To which the unicorn pointed at me with a hoof.
Sure, Shepherd, why not; I do kinda have a bunch of ponies running around on vast amounts of land…. Makes since…. “Yeah alright…” My brain had shut down at this point and was slowly rebooting it took it a few seconds. “ALRIGHT! Twilight deal with the land thing for me you have a better grasp on it than I do.”
Twilight looked a little nervous but nodded her head before looking over the paperwork.
An hour or so later, I had to get the Changelings to stop bringing me money, since I literally, could no longer get into my home at this point. The person that says you can never have too much money hasn't been locked out of their house because it was full of money. I was sitting on the back porch looking out at the multitude of ponies, mostly Earth Ponies, fixing the flower beds that was wrecked and a little drooling baby dragon just standing next to the porch and staring at a large pile of gemstones that was dumped out on said porch because there was no longer any more space in my house for them.
But I had bigger concerns like. “Where am I going to sleep tonight?" I’m not even sure anymore honestly. I let out a groan.
“Hey, um, c-can I have some of them?”
I look up from behind my hands as they were firmly attached to my face to look at the little dragon known as Spike who was now looking up at me with the biggest doe eyes I’ve ever seen in my life and I’ve had a stare down with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I lost that battle, but won the next when they tried again! I didn't need that fence anyway.
“Sure, take whatever you want off the porch.” I said to him and he got the happiest little face I’ve ever seen, it made my heart swells slightly at the sight of it; right up until the point where he took the biggest gemstone from the pile and chomped into as if it was little more than rock candy, this act alone threatened to break what little I had left of my sanity.
As the sun was starting to lower in the sky and with the bath having more Pegasi in it then it probably should have at any one time, Twilight decided to return and explain the details of the subterranean Changeling domicile.
“Well, it would appear you have permanent residence living under your house now. Also, I’ve granted them the land they wanted; well not all of it, they wanted the land to the east but the we-” Crunch! Snap! Creak! “to the wes…” More breaking and sounds of general enjoyment. “I’ve also decided it would be a good idea to plant a small woode….” Creeek, snap, CRASH!
All was silent for a moment as I let out a heavy sigh. That last crash was not from a baby dragon. That was from the support beams holding my upstairs floor up snapping, causing the entire second floor to give way to under the thousands of pounds of pressure upon them causing gemstones to rain down into the lower levels of my house.
I’m beginning to think being locked in a dungeon might have been the better alternative here.