Joe

by JMDARE

Chapter 1

“Ahm sorry Apple Bloom, you know ah need to deal with this today.”

“Oh, but Applejaaaack,” the smaller Pony whined, her eyes going even larger and more appealing as she tried to quiver her lower lip.

Applejack looked down at her sister and at the other Cutie Mark Crusaders as they took the cue to also adopt the pleading expression. She’d told Apple Bloom at breakfast that she was going to be busy, and been assured that was okay as Apple Bloom was meeting up with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. So even three sets of filly eyes were not enough to make her change her mind. She frowned at them to emphasise her words.

“Apple Bloom, you and your friends will just have to do something different,” Applejack told them firmly.

“But…”

“No buts,” Applejack interrupted. “Unless you can find a responsible adult to take care of you I want you to stay on the farm or go straight back to Ponyville.”

Apple Bloom looked at her big sister for a few moments before reluctantly nodding. “Okay.”

“Good,” Applejack nodded back, “now ah shouldn’t be more than a few hours, and if you do go back to Ponyville leave a note so ah don’t get worried.”

“Okay,” repeated Apple Bloom.

Giving the three Fillies, who had switched from pleading looks to those of absolute desolation, another look Applejack turned and trotted off. The Cutie Mark Crusaders watched the Orange Mare go until they thought she was out of hearing range. Then the Pegasus of the trio turned to her friends.

“What now?” Scootaloo asked. “We’ve tried most things on Sweet Apple Acres and none of them gave us our Cutie Marks.”

“Our clubhouse is still on the farm,” said Sweetie Belle, “so we could go there?”

“Boring,” Scootaloo grumbled.

“Ah do have an idea,” admitted Apple Bloom.

“Aha!” Scootaloo grinned. “I thought you gave in too easy.” A silence lengthened until Scootaloo gave up and asked. “What idea?”

“Joe.”

“Joe?” Sweetie Belle repeated, the light reflecting off her horn as her head came back in surprise.

“Well… I suppose he’s an adult,” said Scootaloo, giving Apple Bloom a strange look, “but I don’t want to be stopping every five minutes for a rest.”

“Ah’ve seen him doing chores,” Apple Bloom replied, “and you both might be surprised.”

“Okay, fine,” nodded Scootaloo, mounting her scooter, “Cutie Mark Crusader Joe-getters.”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle hopped into the small wagon attached to the scooter and, once helmets had been donned, there was a sound like a swarm of bees as Scootaloo’s wings blurred to propel the scooter and wagon and trio at impressive speed. In less than five minutes they had crossed the fifteen minute walk between the farmyard and a hut just outside the orchards, but still technically on the farm as it was on land leased from the Apple family. As Scootaloo got off her scooter and they all took their helmets off again she decided to give it another try.

“Are you sure about this?” Scootaloo asked again.

“You’ll see,” said Apple Bloom with some smugness.

“Let’s hope so,” Scootaloo replied.

Ignoring the byplay Sweetie Belle trotted over to the strangely tall door and tapped her horn on it. There was no reply for a moment but then a voice called out to hold on and the door opened to reveal a very strange figure. His black mane seemed to be his only fur, though most of his body was concealed by clothes, and that his mane also came down around his jaw did not compensate for the unhealthy looking baldness of his skin. Though at least that was not as pallid looking as it had been. He was standing on two legs and without being sensible enough, like Spike, to have a tail to help his balance. Rather than hooves he had what looked more like Spike’s handpaws on his upper limbs and possibly the same on his lower limbs, though they couldn’t be sure as he was wearing boots despite the lack of rain or snow.

Sweetie Belle frowned a little as her sister’s lessons let her notice the clothes looked rather ill fitting and loose. When Joe had arrived in Ponyville from Canterlot her sister had been away arranging an important fashion show or she’d have joined the general helpfulness. Pinkie Pie had given the usual welcome, Twilight Sparkle had helped with the paperwork for leasing a freehold on this land from the Apples, and Applejack and Big Macintosh had done most of the work in building the hut for a fair amount of extra bits. Then offered to let Joe do chores to earn some of those bits back. Other Ponies had also helped and Sweetie Bell was sure Rarity would have been willing to make new clothes for a reasonable payment and the challenge of the different body shape.

“Joe!” Apple Bloom called, walking up to join Sweetie Belle.

“Hello Apple Bloom,” nodded Joe, looking down at them, his accent a little like the one Rarity had assumed. “What can I do for you?”

“Mah sister said we needed a responsible adult. So ah thought of you.”

Joe chuckled. “Or,” he smiled, keeping it close-mouthed rather than show off the difference in his teeth. Not that they were as different as he’d thought they’d be as these Ponies seemed to have more than just cropping teeth like the horses and ponies of his world. “You couldn’t think of anyone else. How was I described, eh? An apple with four toothpicks sticking out of it?”

“That wasn’t the one I heard,” said Scootaloo undiplomatically.

“Cut it out Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom glared, before turning the glare from her friend to the tall, if narrow, figure of Joe. “And you cut it out as well. Ah’ve seen you splitting logs and ah know you don’t need to take a break no more, unlike when you first got given that errand a few months back.”

“True enough,” admitted Joe, turning and going back into his hut, leaving the door open so the Cutie Mark Crusaders could follow. He sat down on his bed, his lower limbs bending in a way that looked even stranger than when Lyra did it. “I’ve been getting more exercise, and Twilight Sparkle and Zecora were helpful with this.”

“Helpful how?” Sweetie Belle asked, as Scootaloo began looking around.

“Humans don’t have inherent magic,” replied Joe, gesturing to them each in turn, “not like your horn, or Scootaloo’s wings and cloudwalking, or Apple Bloom’s extra strength and stamina…”

“So they helped you with that?” Apple Bloom guessed.

“Sometimes a colt or filly is born with their magic not properly working,” nodded Joe, “and they need a little push to get it going. So they combined that spell with the potions some Zebras take to enhance their magic to see if that would get me closer to being as strong as I should be, by Equestria standards. ”

“And did it?” Scootaloo asked, nosing at the short bar with weights either end she’d found in a corner next to another and a longer bar with weights.

“I’m not sure,” shrugged Joe. “I’m suspicious of how fast the exercise has worked, but I have been keeping to a routine and it would be nice to think it was more my hard work rather than someone else’s magic.”

“Either way,” Scootaloo grunted, managing to get the bar balanced on her muzzle. “This…” With a struggle she lifted it. “Isn’t. That. Heavy.”

“True,” smiled Joe, looking at the quiver in the filly’s neck and forelegs as she took the strain. “Though if you pass it here, please.”

Scootaloo took one step, and then gave up and let the bar and weights down. She nudged it with her muzzle and it rolled across, with a rumble on the floorboards, to rest against Joe’s boot. He leaned down, gripped it with one hand, and straightened without visible effort. Resting his elbow on his knee he began to let his forearm drop slowly to parallel to the floor and then back up through ninety degrees.

“It gets heavier as you keep doing this,” Joe said, continuing to do it and winking to Scootaloo as he did.

“Point taken.”

“So,” Joe said, putting the bar and weights beside him on the bed. “What was it you needed a ‘responsible adult’ for?”

“We wanted to explore part of the Everfree Forest,” Apple Bloom replied.

“And map it,” added Sweetie Belle, as she saw Joe’s look of disbelief.

“Cutie Mark Crusader Map Makers!” Scootaloo declared.

“More like Cutie Mark Crusader Cartographers,” said Joe, rubbing his beard. He looked at them intently. “What part of the Everfree?”

Apple Bloom twisted her head around to the bag slung across her back and pulled out a scroll. Joe reached out a hand and took it from her mouth, and then used both hands to unroll it. Encouraged by being asked the question rather than being denied instantly Apple Bloom hopped up onto the bed to point at the scroll with one hoof. “About there,” she said.

“Not a part of the Everfree I’ve ever been in,” Joe muttered.

“Are you saying you’ve been in other parts?” asked Apple Bloom.

Joe hesitated and then nodded. “Yes.”

“Then will you take us there?” said Apple Bloom, trying the pleading eyes and hoping it would work better than it had on her sister.

“Please?” echoed Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.

Joe looked at them and then stood, again squicking them out a little as legs bending like that looked so weird. He reached across and pushed his loose left sleeve up with his right hand. The three Fillies saw that he was not completely furless, though it was only thin and they could see the skin of his forearm through the hairs. They could also see some thick scars snaking across the skin and making parts of it completely hairless.

“Eww,” Sweetie Belle commented kindly.

“Indeed,” said Joe, letting the sleeve drop back down. “It was most unpleasant.”

“Is that why you had that leg in a sling for a while?” Apple Bloom asked sympathetically.

“Arm, but yes,” replied Joe. He sighed before continuing. “Thanks to the smith in Ponyville I am better equipped, and thanks to the experience I am more alert and have been practicing. But that doesn’t mean I want to risk your lives rather than just my own.”

“We’ll be careful,” Scootaloo assured him.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders gazed up at the human and he felt a dreadful inevitability. He raised his hands to press the heels of them into his eyes as he groaned to himself before he could speak. “Fine,” he said, uncovering his eyes. “But you need to make two promises.”

After exchanging glances with her two friends from where she was still sitting on the bed Apple Bloom looked to Joe. “Name them,” she said.

“The first, and most important, is to do what I say,” replied Joe, “so if I say to run then you run, and all in the same direction away from the danger. If I say to stop then you stop so I can try to figure out if it’s safe to go on. Understand?”

“Got ya,” Scootaloo reassured him, echoed by the others.

“Good,” said Joe, not sure he believed them. “Second, I said thanks to the smith I am better equipped, but I don’t want you girls telling anyone what I’ll be wearing or carrying.”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at each other, even Sweetie Belle with all her exposure to fashion and clothing was puzzled why it would be important what Joe was wearing. But as it didn’t seem like it could be important the promise seemed easy to make.

“We promise,” Sweetie Belle assured him, echoed by the others again.

Joe nodded and crouched to slide a flat wide chest from under the bed. Apple Bloom peered around the lid as he raised it and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo craned their necks to also look. Then Sweetie Belle breathed “oooh, shiny” as Joe drew out a glittering mass. He glanced at her before he continued to sort the contents of the chest and then to change his shirt.

Author's Note:

I had the idea that a human is not that interesting a creature, just a hairless Minotaur with no horns and funny legs, and that when you already have talking Cows, Sheep, Diamond Dogs, Zebras, Dragons, River Serpents, Buffalo, and Minotaurs that one more talking thing is rather unimpressive. And if they think he is boring then why not just keep your head down and try to fit in as best you can and be glad you’re not an object of curiosity?

But the story drifted. Initial concessions of allowing him to have some skills he’d practised the rust off of during those months and to have been given some magic to, at least, narrow the gap between him and the Ponies’ magically enhanced strength and stamina made him a little less boring. Allowing the boringness to be partially a counter-ploy and partially sheer shock as well as any conscious decision to keep his head down helped it drift further.

However what I’d written was too much to waste and even if it was drifting towards him being semi-heroic and having some problems it seemed to be drifting in a fun way. So I decided to finish, and found that filling in the days to the planned ending rather than skipping them made this ‘quick for fun’ story into the second longest story I have ever written. Especially with having suffered a touch of the Herman Mellville’s in the amount of lecturing.

Hope you enjoy it.

Comments

[totallynotabrony]

Probably one of the most impressive first stories I've ever seen.

[Godiswithus3]

This is interesting.

[Shadow Faith]

Wait...no story how he appeared in equestria? I feel like im in part 2.

[Gambling_Sam]

Hmm...I like this beginning. I can't wait to see where this goes.

[kykkoman4]

“Joe?”

Joe mama