Joe

by JMDARE

Chapter 46

Another evening routine, another peaceful night’s sleep, and another morning routine and Joe was feeling cautiously optimistic. It was just about two and a half weeks since things had started to change with the visit of the Cutie Mark Crusaders but he seemed to have found a new level. No more working for Zecora, but having to work harder at Sweet Apple Acres for a while and having found he was doing more than busywork there. His shock at the cosmology seemed to be wearing off and, despite being confident Twilight Sparkle would have managed without him, it was good to have helped reverse the reason why Discord had brought him here.

There was still the niggle though that he did still want to map and explore the Everfree and did want to remain in practice with shield and armour. Joe didn’t want to kill anything but he did want to keep the skills he’d tried to develop honed so he’d not be too helpless compared with Rainbow Dash. Even if it did seem she was the superheroine and he was the ‘normal’ sidekick and love interest. He smiled to himself as he realised that if that was his role then he definitely had to go exploring the Everfree again so he could get in trouble and have her swoop in to rescue him.

Whether he wrote a letter this evening or not he did know one thing. Today was one of his scheduled days at Sweet Apple Acres and he should get his tools together and his arse in gear unless he wanted to risk a Granny Smith lecture.

==

“Morning Dad,” Rainbow Dash said with a yawn.

“Morning sweetie,” her father replied. “I see you still nap a little late.”

“And I see you don’t,” Rainbow Dash replied, going to get her own bowl of cereal and nodding at the remains of her father’s breakfast.

“Habit,” he shrugged. “If you get there a little earlier than they expect then you get to see more.”

“Funny,” Rainbow Dash smiled, “when you came to inspect the Ponyville weather team you didn’t arrive until mid-morning.”

“Oh, imagine that. Who’d have thought I would get a wing cramp on my way here so my daughter had more time to prepare.”

“Thanks Dad,” Rainbow Dash said, putting her cereal on the table and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Both for the time and the temporary dye job in your Mane and Tail.”

Her father smiled to her. “The dye was for my benefit as well, let me say what I needed to say without worrying about embarrassing you personally. Not that I need to give you much advice…”

Rainbow Dash sat and started on her cereal, and watched her father’s face. She suspected she knew what was coming and would have wagered a few bits on knowing almost the exact words.

“Well,” her father continued, giving a little cough, “not much professional advice about weather or running your team…”

Rainbow Dash nodded. She had been pretty much spot on.

“But I do wonder about your, ahem, love life and what I have heard.”

“Alright Dad,” Rainbow Dash sighed, “what have you heard?”

“That there is a fellow called Joe who’s caught your eye, and not only is he not a Pegasus he’s not even a Pony.”

“And?” Rainbow Dash frowned.

“And don’t take that attitude, young lady,” her father frowned back. “You know I want you to be happy, but you also know as much as we’ve talked about things I’ve assumed you’d go for a Pegasus. Someone who could fly alongside you if you stay a weather pony, or fly with you from show to show if the Wonderbolts have the good sense to let you join them.”

“Sorry Dad, I didn’t mean to suggest…”

“Ah, don’t worry; I suppose it is good that you got so peeved with me when you thought I was saying something against this human. But that he is a human is an extra step for me. A Unicorn or an Earth Pony and I’d have been worried enough, seen some happy relationships where the differences mesh and seen some where they don’t and things go wrong.”

“You don’t need to be a different sort of Pony, or a different sort of person, for that to happen,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

“True, but flying is so important to you. So important I’d be concerned even if this Joe was a Pegasus but not a good flier.”

“There is more to me than flying.”

“I know,” her father smiled, “and as proud as I am of your speed and skill I am even more proud of the fine young Mare you have become.”

“Thanks Dad.”

“I’m not explaining this well,” sighed her father, “I’m… look, I was expecting you’d find a Pegasus stallion that might be able to almost keep up with you, I didn’t expect you’d find one that could completely. But I could picture you being happy with an Earth Pony or a Unicorn. I never imagined this, so I’m feeling the need to be reassured you know what you’re doing.”

“As I said,” Rainbow Dash smiled, “what have you heard?”

“I heard he, and you, beat up some idiots in Canterlot. So he seems a bit impulsive and violent, rather than someone who’d… er…”

“Calm me down?”

“I think you are perfect as you are, sweetie,” her father winked, “but I remember how much trouble I used to get into.”

“What else have you heard?”

“That he’s a carnivore…”

“Omnivore by nature, vegetarian since he was brought here.”

“That isn’t so bad,” nodded her father, “though I note only vegetarian since he was brought here.”

“And he didn’t have to be,” Rainbow Dash defended him, “he could have tried hunting, but he respected local custom and ate kibble instead.”

“Kibble?”

“They based the extra protein he needed on what they feed dogs.”

“Hmm,” mused her father, “I’ll think well of him for ‘respecting local custom’ but I’m not sure I think much of taking that as a choice. Are you sure he would have been able to hunt?”

“Very sure,” Rainbow Dash smiled.

Knowing her father needed the reassurance she started from the beginning where a rather dazed and strange creature moved into Ponyville and although he was polite he seemed of little interest. Ignoring her father’s snort at this lack of assertiveness Rainbow Dash moved on through the first month and how, in retrospect, there seemed to have been a subtle change about the time Joe was walking around with an arm in a sling. That he had seemed more alert and spent more time in Ponyville, and met Ponies eyes more, though he was still cautious.

“So why was this ‘arm’ in a sling?” her father asked.

“He got attacked by a Manticore.”

“Idiot, need to keep your eyes open. Surprised he survived such a stupid mistake.”

“Dad!”

“Ah, go on,” her father said, not impressed by anyone that unaware of danger.

Rainbow Dash looked at him before she continued. She skimmed through the weeks between sling and when they’d gone into the Everfree and then talked in more detail about how they had found him fighting the same Manticore again, but this time in armour and with a spear.

“So he killed it?”

“He was trying to drive it away…”

“What? If something is trying to eat you then you kick it in the neck and snap its head off, don’t play nicey-nicey with it.”

This Rainbow Dash silently agreed with, but she just continued the explanation of how Joe had been blackmailed. Her father snorted at that, and when his daughter said how Joe had bluffed rather than fought the Diamond Dogs, and especially when she talked about the fight in Canterlot and how Joe had held back again. His little girl was the most important thing in his life so anyone who’d not be willing to kill to protect her seemed unworthy of her. This human might be an omnivore and be embarrassed, from what his daughter was saying, about how violent his people’s history was compared with Equestria’s but he sounded like a wimp and one that needed testing.

Finally as Rainbow Dash talked about how she had got Joe to promise to not go into the Everfree alone her father’s opinion firmed. He could not object to someone being unable to deny his little girl whatever she wanted, but he’d hoped for someone strong enough to argue more about it. That he did seem boring and reliable, like the Earth Pony he’d sometimes thought his sweetie might find, and had been a comfort to her earned Joe some credit but not enough.

“He sounds… calm and like good company,” Rainbow Dash’s father said, trying to be complimentary.

“He has a good sense of humour, can be brave when he doesn’t let his self doubt in the way, and is patient and helpful with fillies” replied Rainbow Dash. She waited for her father to begin to nod before she added, “and his kisses make my hooves tingle.”

“Well… that is important, the last part especially,” her father managed to smile, “but are you sure this is enough?”

“It is enough for now and to continue and see if there is anything more.”

“Okay sweetie,” her father nodded.

==

The first member of the Apple family that Joe had found at Sweet Apple Acres had been Granny Smith and she’d dispatched him to repaint a section of fence on the basis that it was better for him to get paint on his clothes than for a Pony to get paint on their fur. He and the old Mare had been able to agree though that it would be better still to be a Unicorn and be able to avoid getting paint on anything by floating the brush about from out of splash and drip range. So far Joe had managed to avoid much damage, but not enough that he would wear this shirt and trousers anywhere that Rarity might see what had happened to her work.

“How’s it going there?” Applejack asked.

“Going well,” nodded Joe. “A few more rails and posts and I might get the hang of it.”

“More like a few dozen,” Applejack winced, looking at the results.

“Fortunate then that you have so much fencing.”

“Yeah, not so neat but will protect the wood… what?”

“Sorry, was an advertising campaign for a sort of wood stain and the tagline for that got taken into general use as a way of saying you were being honest.”

“Come again?” Applejack frowned.

Joe explained about how the normal adverts went for praise of how easy their product was or how attractive the results were. But that campaign didn’t try to make it exciting. “So… this is fence paint, it’s paint for fences, it dries in thirty minutes, so in thirty minutes it’s dry… it does exactly what it says on the tin.”

“Eee’yup,” said Applejack, wondering what else something would do.

“Oh well, I’m boring enough to find it funny,” Joe shrugged, moving from post to rail. “Which leaves me less problem than you. Yesterday you were taking part in a Coronation and then saving Equestria again, today you are back on the farm and doing chores, bit of a difference to be going between.”

“Ah manage, though ah can’t disagree.”

“You manage well,” Joe nodded, “shows something about you or Ponies in general; humans can have trouble if they keep going from safety to danger. Found that with pilots flying from safe bases, contrast between life on the ground and the intense danger in the air began to wear on them in a different way than if they were in constant danger.”

Applejack nodded. “Ah do sometimes feel like there is me here on th’ farm and me when ah’m having to do things like go ta Royal Weddings and Coronations or deal with snoring Dragons or escaped Chaos Gods. But ah know that hard work and calm perseverance works for both ‘me’s and that helps them both stay the same me… if that makes sense?”

“Healthier than I was being,” Joe admitted, “having the ‘me’ that I let Ponies see and the ‘me’ that went traipsing through the Everfree.”

“And th’ ‘you’ that you let us see here.”

“Pardon?” Joe asked, brush pausing in surprise.

“You didn’t want th’ ponyfolk in town to realise you’d changed, but you didn’t give us here anything but your best and didn’t hide how that was improving.”

“I don’t think that ever occurred to me,” Joe admitted. “Occurred that if Apple Bloom hadn’t noticed then the last eighteen days would have been as boring as the weeks before, and that the weeks before were boring, but had been thinking your little sister was observant. Not that I should have tried to act weak.”

“And ah’m glad of it, that you were happy enough to relax here and let us see how able you were.”

Joe shrugged. “Don’t make too much of it,” he smiled as he went back to painting, “even I can’t be paranoid all the time about everything.”

==

In the sky above Ponyville a pair of rainbow streaks crisscrossed and wove intricate patterns as one tried to outdo the other, and the other tried to outdo them in their turn. One seemed faster, the other stronger, and both to be able to use their advantage to counter the other. The day’s weather had been nice but as this competition continued it approached perfection.

Rainbow Dash’s father had been surprised when his daughter had asked for help and had wondered if she had seen something in his eyes. He was very happy to be spending time with her, but he had expected her to excuse herself for this task and to have the free time to act on his impulse. Rainbow Dash had given the reason that yesterday she and most of the weather team had been in Canterlot, so together they could clear up any lingering problems a lot faster and then spend more time together not working.

As good though as it had been to get some hooves-on work done, rather than inspections and planning, this had also reinforced some of his doubts. The sheer joy on his daughter’s face as she tested herself against him, one of the few Pegasi in Equestria that was any challenge to her, had made him wish even more that she could find a special somepony she could share this joy with as well. Denying herself this happiness for any land bound creature seemed more unacceptable the longer they flew and the harder the contest had become.

==

Joe wandered back towards the barn and farmhouse. He’d run out of fence posts and rails before he ran out of paint and hoped that showed he hadn’t been using too much paint despite how thick a layer it seemed he’d ended up with sometimes. Or it could just have been a big can. It also seemed that whether Princess Celestia was playing a prank on him or just not preserving him against the general warmth that he should check with Rarity about a hat. Joe doubted she’d have made one with the need for the last-minute coronation dresses but it was worth a visit, once he’d put on clothes without paint on.

“Joe!” called Apple Bloom.

“Hello there,” Joe replied, changing course towards her as she waved from the barn door. “How is whatever you are doing going?”

“What makes you think we’re doing anything?” asked Scootaloo, also appearing at the barn door.

“I was sitting the other side of that wagon greasing the axle the day before yesterday,” Joe said, nodding towards it, “so seemed a fair assumption when I saw you two and Sweetie Belle go in there, and after you’d been keen to ask me if I knew why I’d cleared it.”

The two fillies exchanged looks and Sweetie Belle joined them. “Do you want to know what we are doing?”

“Only if you want to share,” Joe smiled. “I could have peeked.”

“Ah, come on in Joe,” said Apple Bloom, “might have left it a day or two, but ah think we’ve done enough to share.”

Joe shrugged and followed the Cutie Mark Crusaders into the barn. Then he stopped dead. One of the strange things about the cartoon that had inspired him to shout ‘Hawk-kaaaaaaa!’ at the supposed Changelings was that the timeline had not been restored. Normally that was a major plot point but at the end of it one superheroine had met again the special agent she’d met as a younger man. Which could have been ignored as it was part of the same two-part episode but then there was a second episode where the feisty girl with wings had been called by the last surviving member of the squadron she’d flown alongside.

And Joe wasn’t sure if he’d have been any more surprised had the Cutie Mark Crusaders shown him an F-4 Phantom II in this barn, as that old pilot had had in his, rather than the skeleton of a full sized Microlight.

He moved across and touched it with one hand to reassure himself it was real. Then he walked from the nose of fuselage pod and along beside the booms to the framework of the tail. Returning to the fuselage pod he crouched and saw it looked as if they had decided on having the smaller lower wing, though those spars had not been added yet. Turning he saw what looked like an almost complete set of ribs and spars for the main wing. This was all a shock and Joe decided it would not be beneath his dignity to sit down on a handy bale of straw.

“Ah you okay Joe?” asked Apple Bloom in concern. Some human expressions were strange but those had been right strange.

Joe paused and gathered his thoughts. He’d not thought they’d be able to build this much in that short a time, tales of the parade float notwithstanding, but he’d especially not thought he’d have become redundant to their efforts this soon. There had seemed a lot they still had to work out together, more calculations, some experiments with the existing model or making new ones, and discussions rather than them being able to just go ahead with the actual aeroplane.

“I just hadn’t thought you’d got to this stage,” Joe said, managing a smile. “But as you have you can explain it to me, best way to learn something can be to teach it as means you have to know the subject thoroughly. Know everything that works rather than just one method.”

“Erm, okay,” nodded Scootaloo. “As you probably saw when you bent your legs to go down lower we’re having the small wing so we can make sure things are nice and strong…”

Joe nodded and stood and looked as they went through the decisions they had made. A lot of the design was still as they had worked out together but the Cutie Mark Crusaders had anticipated and solved problems that Joe hadn’t. He’d joked that he’d told them as much as he knew that was useful but it was still a surprise to have already been surpassed. And it was a little downheartening that they seemed to think some of the questions he asked were intended to test them on obvious things rather than him genuinely not knowing the answer.

“So this all went fine and dandy,” Apple Bloom continued, “though now things get a mite tougher as we are more used to working in wood rather than metal or fabric, though ah’m sure we’ll manage.”

“I am sure you will,” smiled Joe, remembering something, and that Apple Bloom had said she could probably carve the wood to the fuselage. That he’d partially dismissed at the time as he’d not realised their skills, but now it seemed there was another option. “Though you might not have to as much, since I do have another little snippet of the history of human flight.”

“I thought you had gone through all you could remember?” Scootaloo protested.

“Aside from all the ways they used them to fight,” nodded Apple Bloom, “since he thought that not fit for the ears of fillies and colts.”

“Was it that obvious?” Joe asked.

“It was still a nice talk,” said Sweetie Belle reassuringly.

“Thank you, well… it was mostly wooden frame with fabric going to metal frame with fabric going to metal frame and skin,” Joe said, “but there were some variations, and I’m thinking of one in particular.” He stopped and winked. “And, yes, this was due to one of the wars I’d not mentioned.”

“We’ll keep that part quiet,” said Apple Bloom, echoed by nods from the other two.

“Metal for aircraft production was running low and all the aircraft factories were at full production. At the same time though the war had disrupted everyday life enough that nobody was buying fine furniture, so there were skilled craftsmen with nothing to do and the stockpiles of wood…”

“Are you going where ah think you are going with this?” Apple Bloom asked.

“If you think I am going to say that an aircraft company designed a twin-engine plane that used that wood and those craftsmen, then yes,” winked Joe, getting a nod from Apple Bloom. “A beautiful plane, laminated layers of wood, light and strong and very fast… faster than the smaller single engine planes that were meant to stop planes like that… and aside from the engines very little metal in it.”

“Ah can do that!” Apple Bloom declared.

With that the Cutie Mark Crusaders began discussing woods and glues and how to layer wood together for minimum weight and maximum strength. Two thin layers of the same sort of wood with the grains crossing at right angles could be harder to split than a single thicker layer and if you used different sorts of wood with different degrees of flexibility then the composite could be stronger still. It did seem that it was more Apple Bloom doing the talking while the other two nodded but this was all well past Joe’s knowledge. It felt like he had been right to think he didn’t know much, but had also been right to be careful as they could take as little as he knew and be making so much from it.

The talk seemed to be slowing so Joe cleared his throat. When the fillies looked at him he spoke. “Have you considered instruments?”

“Instruments?” asked Apple Bloom. “For music?”

“I think he meant like Twilight Sparkle’s,” Sweetie Belle corrected. “For measuring things.”

“That would make more sense,” nodded Scootaloo. Then she frowned at Joe. “But why? We’ve measured all the parts.”

“You can feel the wind in your feathers and fur,” Joe replied, “and see and hear and use your own senses. But an aeroplane doesn’t have those and although the pilot should be able to feel how the plane is moving some extra help can be useful.”

“Okay Joe,” smiled Sweetie Belle, pad and pencil making an appearance, “talk.”

“Magical engine, so no fuel gauge, engine temperature, or engine revolutions… or actually, no… would need the last one as it doesn’t seem like the magic makes much sound so wouldn’t be able to listen to the engine tone. You can tell which way you are flying by looking at the Sun, but a compass would be simpler to use. Can tell how high up you are by looking down, but an altimeter would be more precise…”

“Right,” said Sweetie Belle, pencil skipping across pad and both in a delicate glow of magic.

“I don’t know if you’d get disorientated like human pilots, but an artificial horizon in case it gets dark or you fly into fog or cloud and can’t see the real horizon could help…”

“We could tell which way up we were!” protested Scootaloo.

“Probably,” nodded Joe, “but humans can depend a lot on visual cues, we tend to walk in circles when blindfolded, so been a problem for us. And one other thing I’d include would be an airspeed indicator so you can tell exactly how fast you are flying. Would help with takeoff and landing and with being able to tell if there’s a problem in flight so you’re going slower than you should be for as hard as the engine is working.”

“Right,” Sweetie Belle said again. “How?”

“Ah,” said Joe.

He felt like he was foundering again but he did his best. Compass was simple. Altitude could be told by air pressure. And it was a relief when they mentioned the gauge Twilight Sparkle had used to measure wing power as that sort of rotations to a reading on a dial might be useful for the ‘engine’. Or that and the airspeed, depending on whether that was measured by how much pressure the air inside the piton tube was exerting or by letting that rotate a small fan and seeing how fast that rotation was.

This and using the bale of hay to demonstrate how human pilots normally sat and how some designs did have them lying prone instead, which might suit a Pony shape more, took some time and almost an hour had passed before Joe could escape back to his normal chores. The Cutie Mark Crusaders happily discussed where to put rudder pedals and if to use a stick that moved side to side or have a wheel on a stick that only moved front and back. Joe meanwhile ran the gauntlet of a Granny Smith glare as he approached her to ask what to do now he’d dealt with the fence.

==

Two Pegasi with matching rainbow manes and tails walked into Sugarcube Corner and Pinkie Pie gasped. Almost instantly she was over the counter, past Mr and Mrs Cake who had long since got used to that, and was bouncing around Rainbow Dash and a slightly bemused looking stallion. After a few circuits she stopped and looked at her friend.

“Dashie!” Pinkie Pie accused. “The weather team inspector was your Dad?”

“And still is,” smiled Rainbow Dash’s father, extending a forehoof. “I’m…”

“Pleased to meet you, pleased to meet you,” Pinkie Pie squealed, grabbing and shaking vigorously. “Come on, sit down!”

With a shrug he followed his daughter to the table they were being inexorably ushered to. Rainbow Dash gave her father an apologetic smile as Pinkie Pie sat them and hurried away to get cupcakes and coffee and hurried back to stare at him.

“Why have we not seen more of you? Why did you dye your mane and tail? Why are you here…” Pinkie Pie barraged.

“Pinkie,” interrupted Rainbow Dash, “let him answer one question first.”

“I can answer those three,” her father smiled. “My job keeps me busy, inspecting and coordinating weather teams across Equestria, so normally I can only visit for a few hours and it makes more sense for my daughter to fly to meet me. Even half an hour’s flying time each gives us an hour more together. I dyed my mane and tail because I didn’t want anypony here to think I was inventing or ignoring problems because the team here was run by my daughter…”

“And why are you here?” Pinkie Pie asked again, suspicious of the timing of a day short of a week since the ‘Joe has a marefriend’ banner was unrolled.

“I was given the day of the coronation and the next couple of days as holiday time, though I’ll have to leave before mid-afternoon tomorrow to get to my next inspection. Not that my daughter is impressed.” He reached across to ruffle her Mane. “Bigger dreams than being a weather pony.”

“Aw, Dad!” Rainbow Dash blushed, at both the words and the Mane ruffle. “You are hardly ‘a weather pony’…”

“What is he then?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“You know who the Mayor would report to, and has the authority to reprimand her, if we wrapped up winter late? Because wrapping it up late in one place throws off things in another and means every other weather team has to compensate?”

“Yes?”

Rainbow Dash nodded to her father. “Now you have met him.”

==

“That seems to be it,” Joe said, stretching and looking at Big Macintosh.

“Eee’yup.”

“I’d like to freshen up and stop by the Carousel Boutique today…”

“Oh?”

“See about a hat.”

“Eee’yup. Don’t want you going as red as me.”

“See you tomorrow then?” Joe asked.

“Seems fair. Even if you did spend some of th’ chores time today helping mah baby sister instead.”

“Hey!” protested Apple Bloom, family instincts drawing her into range to hear the ‘insult’.

“Farewell until then, then.” Joe nodded, walking off to collect his tools.

“Good luck with the hat,” nodded Big Macintosh back.

==

Fluttershy frowned, as much as she ever could, and with a slight shiver at their dead eyes staring at her she counted the fish again. And got the same result of their being a few less than she’d expected. She’d not forgotten what Joe had said about humans eating fish and some humans regarding eating them as being less wrong than eating other animals. So she did wonder if Joe had eaten those himself or had simply fed more to her little friends.

==

“Joe! Daring.”

“Hello Rarity, how has today been?”

“Oh busy, busy, busy,” Rarity smiled, looking Joe up and down and making him glad he’d changed his clothes. “A shame all the trouble yesterday means I’ll need to fix up the dresses again a little, or I could have had quite the exhibition and even more customers.”

“Another triumph of design for you then?”

“Of course, what else would you expect?” Rarity said, giving a mock frown.

“An outstanding triumph?”

“Naturally,” Rarity nodded. “But as welcome as this praise is I feel I should enquire why you are here. You still don’t have a bag, so still are resisting the idea you will need formal clothing again.”

“And my skin is still resisting the sunshine, but I thought I’d check about a hat…”

“Hat… Oh my!”

“No worries,” Joe reassured her, “you had all the dresses to make lickety-split, and those were the priority…”

“No, I mean yes, but…” said Rarity. “I have been busy, but I… erm.”

Rarity moved across to a side table and her horn glowed. A khaki slouch hat with olive green decor floated up in the middle of her magic as she turned to look at Joe. She gave him a surprisingly apologetic smile.

“Well that looks…” Joe began, then Rarity settled the hat on her own head. The contrast between the style of it and of her was ‘interesting’ but Joe tried to be polite. “Looks like what I sketched, and even it can’t detract from your looks.”

“Yes, darling, but it fits.”

“Fits… wait a minute.”

“I made you it, and then Sweetie Belle commented about when she’d tried on your helmet and how it didn’t fit her.”

“Because I’ve got a funny shaped head,” Joe nodded.

“Well, one that isn’t pony shaped at least,” smiled Rarity, floating the hat away before she could risk seeing herself in a mirror. “So if you could sit down then I can make a cardboard template for my next attempt.”

Joe found himself a spot and sat. “I do appreciate that you got the hat done, even with all else going on.”

“I know you do, dear, and I might be able to sell it to somepony,” Rarity replied, setting to work, “or regard it as practice, you’ll need a few of these in different shades to match your different shirts and trousers…”

“It’s just to keep some sun off,” frowned Joe, “so I only wanted the one.”

“Don’t pout darling, it’s unbecoming.”

After a few minutes of adjusting, cutting, and gluing cardboard strips Rarity had produced a circlet with two bands coming up from it to cross at right angles. She floated this from Joe’s head and muttered that it looked like the hat she’d needed to make from a few pieces of straw at the craft booth at the Crystal Fair. Before Joe could ask she’d trotted away so he stood and waited.

“It will be a couple of days,” Rarity said as she returned.

“Thanks,” nodded Joe. “Good luck with things.”

“And you, dear.”

Joe gave her another nod and retreated. Mention of his helmet had reminded him of the other niggle and so he turned towards the Golden Oaks Library, feeling mildly curious whether the scorch mark was still there. As he approached he was glad there were no Royal Guards outside the door for him to have to try to talk his way past. Though it was also a surprise as he thought Twilight Sparkle deserved them as a Princess. He pushed the door open and entered.

“Hwhoo,” said Owlowiscious.

“Hello,” Joe replied politely.

“Joe,” nodded Spike.

“You seem a bit glum, my friend,” Joe frowned, “and you were so cheery when I saw you last.”

“Not been a good day,” sighed Spike. “Almost every pony in Ponyville has taken some excuse to visit the library and stare at Twilight. They’ve all been as friendly and polite as usual, but after the first few dozen it began to upset her.”

“Ouch,” Joe winced, “lots of little rocks add up to a landslide.”

“Something like that,” nodded Spike, “so she’s in the basement, do you want to go down or me to get her?”

“I’m actually here to see you.”

“Oh?”

“You remember my armour vanished?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, and from what the others have said it wasn’t back at your hut.”

“So I want to send Princess Celestia a letter, a very polite letter, to ask if I can have it or a replacement back or have permission to have a new set made.”

“Sounds a challenge,” said Spike, managing a smile.

“Not as much of a challenge as persuading Dash to let me go back to exploring the Everfree,” Joe smiled back, “but one step at a time.”

==

Twilight Sparkle crept up the stairs and listened at the basement door. She was used enough to her new wings that she could just jump off these and glide back to the floor at a moment’s notice, so she felt the risk of finding out who the voices belonged to was worthwhile. They seemed to be having a conversation rather than one complaining to Spike and asking where she was and if she would be up soon. Some of the Ponies had been quite persistent or had loitered for a long time in the hope she would be stupid enough to emerge.

Soon it would be time for the library to close and she did feel she had seen enough Ponies today. But she’d had enough of a break that she felt she could handle this last half-hour or hour, and felt guilty enough about having left Spike to guard her privacy that she felt she should. As she listened she recognised the second voice and smiled slightly as she realised that even if she’d seen enough Ponies today she could talk to this person. Quietly she opened the door and moved out into the main floor of the Golden Oaks library.

“Okay,” Joe said, standing with his back to her looking at a notepad, “how does this sound…”

Submitted for the gracious attention of Her Majesty, Princess Celestia

Your Highness,

I respectfully request information on the armour which you removed from my person to facilitate hugging of myself by your subject Rainbow Dash, Holder of the Element of Loyalty. My initial assumption was that this armour might be found again at my hut and my hope, when this was not the case, was that it might soon be returned or a suitable replacement supplied. If neither of these is your plan then I humbly ask permission to engage the services of a smith to forge a new suit so I may, once more, be adequately prepared should opportunity to explore the Everfree arise…

“You think Rainbow is going to let such an opportunity arise?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

Joe turned, knelt, and bowed his head. “I think, Your Majesty, that I have more chance of Dash giving permission than of getting armour from your mentor if I put the letter the way I feel like.”

“Gah, don’t do that,” Twilight Sparkle sighed. “Just sit down and tell me what you mean by the way you feel like.”

“Sure,” nodded Joe, shifting from knee to arse and his voice becoming a little more bellicose. “Dear Sunny, give me back my armour, or give me some new armour, or at least tell me I can get some new stuff without you nicking that as well.”

Twilight Sparkle snorted. “Yes, I think your other letter would work better.”

“I respect her, I even like her, or at least see why others do,” Joe shrugged, “but remembering my armour when she’s had the joy of you fulfilling her faith in you and becoming a Princess might be difficult. Though I might wait a few days or a week and keep hoping something will appear.”

“What sort of something?” asked Spike.

“Well, you remember I said my armour was a little light,” Joe nodded, “and I still don’t know if Royal Guard armour is steel or Kevlar or titanium or something else entirely… I don’t think the pair outside the Carousel Boutique the day before yesterday would have appreciated me asking. And definitely not if I’d drawn my knife and started scratching at it to see if I could tell.”

“And there was what you said about magical enchantments on armour,” smiled Twilight Sparkle, getting into the spirit of it. Joe was not a close friend but, after the day she’d had, he was close enough. “Though I had to tell you things didn’t work that way here, unlike in your games.”

“Yep,” Joe nodded, again, “so a suit of heavier gleaming armour, magic cracking around me to enhance my abilities and protect me, and be as invincible as you warned me against being arrogant enough to think I was. Or as powerful as Discord offered… hmm.”

“Hmm?” asked Twilight Sparkle.

“Hmm, I wonder if the magic inside me would have been tainted by chaos if I’d accepted his offer of great power. Hmm, I wonder if the magic inside me would have become like any other Pony if I had accepted his offer to turn me into one. Hmm, I wonder if in either case I would have been able to mess things up by trying to help our friends, but without being able to act as a power source for the cure you had to resort to.”

“Hmm,” nodded and echoed Twilight Sparkle. “He did say that he’d improved what Zecora and myself had done, but he was only freed and reformed after you’d been attacked and you’d had the extra treatments.”

“So if he did tweak things,” Joe nodded back, “then it might have been before he was freed. Or it wasn’t the effect of the extra treatments and I’d just not noticed until recently… though it didn’t seem like keeping up with Applejack and Big Macintosh got easier suddenly then and hasn’t felt suddenly more difficult now.”

“That is reassuring, that there was no sudden change either time, and it didn’t seem like the magic inside you was chaotic,” agreed Twilight Sparkle, “so he could have been lying.” She paused and thought. “Or maybe compared with a pony it was chaotic, there wasn’t the underlying destiny and order…”

“Seemed to work,” Joe shrugged, “and you’d not be a Princess, and I’d be a statue or exiled, if it hadn’t gone well.”

“Maybe.”

“Still, how are you feeling?” Joe asked. “Spike said things had worn on you today.”

“Sometimes I find the change hard,” sighed Twilight Sparkle, shooting a look at Spike as he appeared about to comment, “and I don’t mean knocking something down when a wing suddenly twitches.”

“Not sure I can even imagine,” Joe nodded, “but it is well deserved.”

“Maybe,” said Twilight Sparkle, pondering for a moment and realising an implication of something Joe had said. He’d mentioned the armour of the Royal Guard and that reminded her that he’d wondered if it was ceremonial, and why. “Joe, your country is a monarchy?”

“Constitutional Monarchy, powers of the Crown are mostly ceremonial.”

“Right,” nodded Twilight Sparkle, “but you still have a monarch, and that monarch is a human…”

“Yes,” Joe nodded back.

“How long do humans live?”

“Get to a hundred and doing very well, die before seventy and regarded as premature.”

“Right, so you get a new monarch fairly regularly?”

Joe smiled. “The present Queen lost her father when she was quite young, so she’s celebrated sixty years. And she got to send her mother, the Queen Mum, the usual message of congratulation for reaching a hundred so she might be around for a good while yet.”

“But she does have children, who are prepared for the throne as she was?”

“She’s a great grandmother, but she does have a son to succeed her, he does have a son to succeed him, and that grandson does have something on the way to make her a great grandmother again…” Joe paused and wondered if he was being accurate. Then he decided not enough time had passed since he was brought here for the ‘something’ to have made its appearance to show if changing the rules of succession had been needed. “Well, actually she has three sons and a daughter and her oldest son who is the next in line has two sons, works on primogeniture.”

Twilight Sparkle nodded. “So when they are born they are raised as Princes and Princesses and the oldest know they will succeed to the throne?”

“Most of the time,” Joe shrugged, “the Queen’s father was a younger son so he wasn’t expecting to become King. But his brother abdicated after some months and so he did, actually took over his brother’s coronation as we take months to organise things.”

“How are your Royals prepared to inherit? For the duties?”

“Well… oh!” Joe stopped. “Now I get why you are asking about this! And the answer is the same way you have been, except maybe less so.”

“What?” asked Twilight Sparkle, that had not been the answer she’d expected.

“Get well educated, go to the best schools and universities, and then do a spell in the Armed Forces to learn about discipline and service,” Joe smiled. “While you got well educated, at the best school and as personal student of a Goddess, then became Holder of the Element of Magic and have learned your lessons through your service as that and alongside your friends. As proud as I am of my country, and its Armed Forces, I would say you’ve faced far greater risks and challenges than we generally allow the heir to go through.”

“What about the ones that aren’t the heir?” asked Spike.

Joe shrugged. He’d been trying more to be reassuring, as much as he thought Twilight Sparkle was a genuine heroine and she had faced more danger he wasn’t sure how much he felt he was being truthful that she was better prepared. Pride in centuries of tradition of military and academic excellence was not easily put aside by mere logic. He decided to answer Spike’s question though.

“Put it this way, the second in line to the throne flies search and rescue helicopters, his younger brother flies attack helicopters on active service. So the younger one has seen as much danger as Twilight, the older one not as much. Like I said, she’s had to face death and lead in life-or-death situations, with the fate of her country in her hooves, as well as being well educated and trained.”

“She is pretty awesome,” Spike agreed.

Twilight Sparkle had developed a faint blush. “Thanks, you two.”

“Is just the truth,” Joe nodded, “when Princess Celestia listed your attributes and we all bowed she was being accurate.”

“So Applejack said,” commented Spike.

“Well, she was being accurate as well then.”

Author's Note:

Strange sometimes. I make up a personality and make up a job for somepony, but not a name. And as I wrote he went from “weather team inspector” to “Chief Inspector and Head” and I suggested the idea that the actions of all the weather teams need to be coordinated and to be planned in general in advance. Which does fit with central manufacturing of rainbows and clouds in Cloudsdale.