Chapter 3: How I Met Your Mothers
The Death of Amadeus' Favorite Tie
Among all the races that the human expansion of the twenty-first century has brought into contact, Equestria’s ponies are famous for their beauty. Even the much-lauded Twi’lek do not draw admirers from as many races, although it’s been suggested with good reason that this may have less to do with pony visual appeal and more to do with pony habits. In distinct contrast to the Occidental civilization of Earth, which places a premium upon a strict set of sexual guidelines, pony culture can be traced to its deepest roots without running aground of inhibitions against cross-species romance. The Royal Pony Sisters, a compilation of the writings of Princess Celestia, even contains gentle encouragement of the practice, with the result that Equestria is experiencing none of the soul-searching which rages in the United States today over couples of mixed species. Conflicts over a pony’s relationships tend to pit alien families, holding more restrictive ideologies, against equine parents with a long history of knowing how to deal with such objections—with, in the popularly derogatory image, the pony’s herd offering outraged alien parents a wink and a chance for a date on Thursday night.
One of the greatest generals of the old griffon empire, one Kawrim Harptalon, famously decried ponies as ‘the harlot race’ after his defining military campaign was brought to a halt by the unexpectedly warm reception his soldiers received in the besieged city of Stalliongrad. The most comprehensive history of this war was written by a rather cheeky scribe who depicted the Siege of Stalliongrad under the assumption that her audience already had a basic knowledge of the event, which was, at the time, universally notorious.
As a result, there is still a community college in Massachusetts whose Equestrian Studies course teaches verbatim from a book which recounts the conquest of Harptalon as having been stopped in Stalliongrad ‘by the power of friendship’. They have not yet been corrected.
To be honest, a hundred years later, ponies are still rather smug about the whole thing.
Day was almost entirely unaware of these things, despite the degree to which they determined his present circumstances. He was more occupied with trying not to look conspicuous on the deck of the Golden Hills train depot.
Only a few miles north of Whitetail Wood, Golden Hills was about as far from a Dimension Gate as it was possible to get in modern Equestria. Day had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that many of the stallions here, staring across the street from their rocking chairs perched like thrones, had never seen a human before.
To make matters worse, he’d dressed up again for the first time since Moving Day. It had seemed appropriate for a bi-annual event. At least, it had when he was taking the suit out of mothballs. Now, sweating profusely under the suit coat and tugging at his favorite tie, Day reflected that the Carrot family mightn’t have known the difference between a man in an Armani and one in khakis and flip-flops.
He told himself to suck it up. He’d wanted to explore strange new worlds? Well, here he was. And they came with sticky heat and grumpy old stallions. Live the dream.
All the same, he was grateful when Carrot Top came back. Day gravitated towards the familiar clip-clop sounding across the wood of the station floorboards—and pulled himself up short when the mare herself came into view.
“Something the matter, Day?” Carrot Top spun in a slow circle.
He shook his head quickly. “N-no. Let’s get going.”
Barely-transparent folds of green were draped all about her orange frame, the colors popping against each other to accentuate her vivid mane. A loose V in front of the garment left most of her neck and chest exposed, coming together in a pearl clip attached generously far down. Her underbelly was covered up—technically—but instead of clinging, the dress hung loose, leaving several tantalizing inches of space between the fabric and the mare.
On the bright side, he wasn’t the only one dressed up anymore.
“I’ve never seen you wear a dress before.” Day stumbled down the stairs, trying to keep up without looking away from Carrot Top.
“I can be pretty if I want.”
He pursed his lips. “You know the answer is no, right?” He’d taken time on the train to make that clear again, but sometimes he wasn’t sure anyone listened to him. “I can’t date you.”
“I know.” Her tail flicked impudently, causing him to try and look away at the last second and crash in a heap at the bottom of the steps. Carrot Top didn’t seem to notice Day had fallen over, though he was pretty sure nopony else missed it.
As she led the way, Day had all-too-ample opportunity to observe how her new dress split at the tail and flowed in cavalier fashion over either flank. The curvaceous thing hardly covered up anything behind Carrot’s cutie marks. He hoped dearly that she didn’t notice how often it was drawing his vision in that direction.
He hoped even more that she hadn’t thought of that before she bought the dress.
And all of this without the least bit of hard evidence Day could use to accuse her of being intentionally salacious. After all, she went out every day in the nude. Nopony else on the street gave her a second glance.
There could be no doubt about it. Ponies cheated.
Day kept up a trickle of questions, just to keep the silence from becoming awkward. In the early afternoon, Carrot’s hometown had a kind of quiet that was at once eerie and serene, broken only by the squawk of an odd seagull wheeling overhead. Day had thought Ponyville was a rustic town, but Golden Hills was spread out over miles of unpaved ground, broken only by splintery whitewashed homes, and the phrase ‘middle of nowhere’ came to mind.
The rolling countryside was dressed more modestly than the ponies themselves, cloaked in sheets of goldenrod which shimmered orange whenever the sun flickered against a cloud. Eventually, Day found himself staring out at the fields more often than at Carrot Top’s tail. That was a great relief off his conscience.
Carrot had already signed forms which he could give to the office. He was getting out of an orientation for this ‘cultural credit’, ditching five hours in an office where the carpet was slate and the air was still. When he looked at it that way, this really wasn’t a bad deal.
Carrot turned deftly off the homestead-dotted landscape and down a series of narrow wooded hollows, leading Day across log bridges where she mocked him mercilessly for trying to save his dress shoes. When the trail opened again, it speared a grand expanse of saffron-tinged fields, and ended at a spacious barn crowning the rise. Half a mile away from its walls Day could make out the sounds of a fiddle and of shouted Equus.
The barn. Of course it would take place in the barn.
A pair of ponies appeared in the doorway when they were still a long ways down the path. Carrot took off without warning, bolting over the final stretch and leaving Day in the dust as he refused to embarrass himself by trying to keep up. After a lot of jumping about at the entrance, Carrot seemed to remember that she had brought a guest and galloped back. She was breathing hard by then, and the trails of her dress were beginning to show stains, but she made no notice of them. “Go faster!” she whinnied. “I’m missing family time!”
And so saying, she ducked her head and ran right between Day’s legs.
Day could only emit an undignified squawk as he felt himself lifted off the ground. This was so far outside the acceptable range of behavior that he had no response at all prepared.
Suddenly he was looking back at the treeline, and it was speeding away from him. The heels of his shoes scraped against the ground with every bounce, and he had to try with all his might to stay atop the pony as he lifted them to save his faux-leather. He’d never even ridden a Terran horse before, and now an Equestrian pony was carrying him bareback and backwards at full gallop. Every second rushed with the terror of wind and the thought that he would fall off and be trampled before Carrot even knew what had happened.
Then wooden beams flicked overhead, and he was surrounded by a ring of ponies. He took a quick look around the celebration, noting the lack of formalwear with a mote of irritation, before the prevalence of orangeish hues reminded him that he was still sitting on one of the Carrot family members. Whereupon he contributed with a flush to the overall color scheme himself.
He also looked down and realized where his hands had wound up while he was trying to keep his balance.
That’s all wrong, he thought while his brain quietly went into shock to save him the bother. My hands are on Carrot’s bottom. Not the top.
Then, due to the speed with which he yanked his arms away, he wound up a pile on the ground for the second time in the last hour.
A pair of dusty-colored stallions loomed over Day with about half as much embarrassed disappointment as he felt. He latched on eagerly when somepony stuck out a foreleg to help him up.
“Carrot Top!” the other exclaimed while still scanning Day with unabashed interest. “Two years? Two years since you bothered coming home to your old geezer of a dad, and you only show your face around the farm to bring someone home? When’s the next time I’m going to have a look at you? When you’re introducing the foals?”
Day jumped to his feet in order to forestall anything Carrot Top might say. “It’s not like that! I mean to say—she did ask me out once, but instead I offended her, and now she’s forgiving me but only as an acquaintance, and I’m here to meet her family, but not to meet them, just so I can see them you underst–err–” He crossed surly arms over his chest and retreated into a mumble. “I’m…just a guest, sir.”
The quieter stallion tossed his mane in an agreeable nod. The other, on whom Day could see a cutie mark of a plow, looked between Carrot and the human with a mix of skepticism and admiration. “And I thought your mother knew how to keep a stallion in hoof,” he said in low tones. His accent was a bit thicker than Carrot Top’s.
Carrot chuckled deviously and allowed Day to retreat by taking his spot between the two stallions. “Hi, Dad.” She gave the left stallion a firm kiss on the mouth. “Hi, Pa.” She exchanged similar affection with the other, adding a nuzzle by rubbing her head vigorously into the taller stallion’s neck.
“Wait.” Day pointed to each stallion in turn. “That’s your dad—and that’s your dad?”
Carrot Top made a point of getting him to bump fists and hooves with both ponies. “Yep,” she corrected him, introducing the pair as Frosty Furrow and Plowshare. “Herding family, remember?”
“I wouldn’t dare forget.” Day remained glancing between the two tan ponies, however, as if with enough consideration they might fuse together into a single stallion. He hardly trusted himself to speak anything more on the matter without offending sompony. “It’s…a little new to me.”
Carrot Top brushed up against his leg. “Think of it this way. You love your pa, right?”
Day shrugged. “My father was a little too fond of the cigarette, but—I’ll accept the argument. Yes, I love my dad.”
She gave a little hop for emphasis. “Then having two stupendous dads would be just twice as grand, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m—not entirely sure it works that way…”
Mercifully, Carrot didn’t try to wrap his mind any further around it yet. She seemed determined to say hello to each of the several hundred ponies crammed within this barn, and quickly vanished into the masses. Day was left stranded with the two dusty stallions who dutifully kept him company.
“So,” said Plowshare. “You from Ponyville too?”
Day nodded.
“Growing weather still fair down there? My daughter making her sales?”
Day cleared his throat. “She’s doing well.”
“That’s grand. And how about you? Work bring you to Ponyville, or did ye’ find something to do after you came?”
“I came for an engineering job. We’re working at an office park a few miles closer to Cloudsdale, adapting human machines so that ponies can use them.”
“That sounds interesting.”
Plowshare was steadily chipping away at Day’s social ice. He tried to regenerate it by keeping his hands in his pockets and his head down, but he was too tall for that to be of any use. He suffering through the suspicion that this was exactly the kind of polite hospitality he would be shown if these ponies thought of him as Carrot’s date to the reunion, regardless of his protests.
Fortunately, they were quick to move on when Day’s stomach betrayed him. It had been a long train ride from Ponyville, and here, lunch and dinner both looked to be in full swing. Neither showed any signs of stopping, despite impromptu bouts of what Day could only label as a quadruped form of square dancing in between the tables.
Most of the furniture, including the table Day was ushered to, was constructed from bales of straw—there were ancient wooden stools scattered throughout the barn, but not nearly enough to accommodate the entire clan. Steaming plates of stew and sandwiches on thick rolls were passing Day by at all speeds, and at this point in his hunger, he thought nothing of the novelty of sitting on straw to eat. He was about to work his way into a sitting position when a bark from Plowshare startled him solid.
“Carrot Top!”
On command, a contrite orange mare popped out from the throng.
“Get over here and treat this lad with some Carrot Family decency! Did I raise ye’ to go running off every five minutes?”
“Sorry, Dad!” Carrot Top hurriedly pulled out a bale by biting the cord around it, and pushed it back in with her hind legs after Day had taken a seat. “I was catching up with the cousins.”
“They’ll be here all night,” he admonished without force. “I’d rather see you haven’t forgotten everything you learned at home.”
Carrot vanished again, but only for a minute. She returned balancing one full plate on her head and another halfway down her back. “Here we go!” She slid the dishes effortlessly onto the straw in front of him. “Wild leek and raspberry soup, a nice big tomato and gouda sandwich on pretzel bread, and Carrot Cranky’s cabbage rolls to top it off.” She smiled neatly. “What can I get you to drink? Water, punch, carrot juice? I’d offer you cider, but we can’t break that out until later. Tradition.”
“You don’t need to be my waiter,” Day said apologetically. The food was gathered on central tables in clear sight, and most of the ponies that looked like Carrots were happily serving themselves. “Go ahead and catch up with your cousins, I–”
“Ah-ah-ah.” Carrot top waved a forestalling hoof in his face. “Dad’s right. If I want you to be my colt, I’d best start treating you like it. The rule is that only family members serve themselves, so unless you want to marry into the Carrot family real quick, just tell me what you want, sit back and enjoy.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Day surrendered and allowed Carrot Top to fetch him a glass of punch. He distinctly felt he’d been tricked into this whole escapade, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t muster up any spleen about it. He kept thinking that he ought to—well, to mind. But he never did.
He tried to sort out his feelings over the cabbage rolls. It wasn’t as though there was any point to the courtesy. She wasn’t saving him much effort by pulling out a bale of hay for him to sit on. But the way Carrot doted over his meal was unexpectedly…nice. No wonder, he thought, that Allie enjoyed it so much whenever he held a door for her, or cooked surprise dinners, even though he was a terrible chef. There was something infinitely warming about the thoughtfulness involved.
He vowed immediately to do these things more often. Hmm. How ironic was it that this mare with a crush was teaching him how he ought to treat the woman he meant to love for the rest of his life?
Ponies may have been cheaters, but perhaps they knew a thing or two.
There were no utensils anywhere in sight, but Day managed to get by with his hands, imitating Plowshare who sat across from him. He didn’t have the facial shape to tuck into a meal mouth-first without making an awful mess. He was also hungry past caring.
All around him was a grand confusion. Dances broke out left and right with songs that, half the time, seemed to be beyond the control of the very ponies singing. The family structure was even less clear. Day got the idea that all of the ponies here were in some way related, but past that he was incapable of following. An endless parade of warm greetings took place on all sides of him, but the terms of address implied less a family tree as he understood it and more of a wibbly-wobbly ball of yarn that tangled over itself in all directions. He slowly learned a whole new vocabulary’s worth of Equus, which he deciphered as terms of address for relationships that had never existed back home. There were words for the same-gender herdmate of a cousin’s parent, or the grandparent on the side of a certain parent out of six. And dozens of others; sometimes, even the ponies who flung the words around the barn seemed to become confused. While Day was slurping up his soup, which proved to be delicious, he unintentionally eavesdropped on a pair of colts who were trying, without success, to figure out exactly how to address each other as they were related through the Carrot clan. They got about as far as agreeing that the green colt’s only female herdmate was a sister once-removed to a cousin of the brown colt through a herd that hailed from Appleoosa, before giving up on the math of it and settling the filial ties with a cordial session of midriff-nuzzling.
The Carrot family reunion wasn’t the exclusive province of ponies, though. A pair of old donkeys and a zebra also navigated the dinner, and from what glimpses Day got of them, they were venerable members of the family. His old net-scouring memories resurfaced, in fact, as he also spotted more non-native Equestrians than he’d ever seen since his last visit to a Gate Nexus. Amidst a flurry of glowing congratulations on a recent marriage, a latecoming stallion arrived with a Turian girl Day recognized from the project headquarters. In similar fashion, several high-browed elves arrived in the company of some unicorns. Day even spotted aliens beyond his ability to identify, which hadn’t happened to him in months.
Plowshare had probably eaten already, because he didn’t touch much food. While Day was busy gorging, he poked at a few biscuits, and Day had almost forgotten about him until he was down to sipping contentedly at his punch.
“So,” said the stallion, “are ye’ seeing anypony else?”
Day adroitly avoiding making a spit-take of himself. “I am not Miss Carrot Top’s date,” he enunciated slowly.
Plowshare nodded and waved a hoof. “Right. Apologies. So are ye’ seeing anypony?”
Day nibbled on the tomatoes he’d picked out of his sandwich. “My fiancée and I are engaged to be married this July. She’s a human.”
“That’s lovely.” Plowshare passed him the pepper shaker for his tomatoes. “You two are getting along well, then?”
“Daddy!” said a whiff of orange which spun out of a square dance and resolved into a mare. “Be nice.”
“I’m allowed a few questions,” her father responded. “By the way, now that you’ve slowed down enough to talk to: Carrot Smoothie’s been calling on the lads down the row. You remember Sunflower and Cinnamon Stick?”
A gasp. “That’s wonderful!” She clapped her hooves on the ground. “I was worried she’d never find anypony.”
“Go easy on your sister, now. You know she’s timid.”
“Och.” Carrot nodded. “She’d never start her own herd. But Sunflower should make it easier for her. They’ve got a good thing going already.”
As if remembering something, she turned her attention on Day. “And I daresay she’ll be good for those colts. That herd could use a third pony. Whenever they get in a fight, they can go to her now, and she can help them make up, instead of sulking all over Golden Hills.”
“I suppose you mean to tell me that’s an advantage?” Day said with a careful nibble on his tomatoes.
“Oy! You bet it is.” With a swish of her tail she was leaning up on the table, waiting on no further urging. “It’s a lot harder to hold a grudge when you’ve got somepony who knows just how to remind you how much you love each other. Even waiting to make up isn’t so bad.”
Day took a thoughtful quaff of punch. “But that could just as easily go the other way,” he retorted. “What if they gang up on you? Besides, don’t you think a pony might wonder if you like one of them better than the other?”
Carrot reeled momentarily. “You sound like a foal accusing his mother of loving his brother better.” Her eyebrows snaked into an S. “You don’t fuss over that on Earth, too, do you? Here in Equestria a mother loves all of her children.”
“Carrot Top!” The mare hopped off the hay bales when Plowshare snapped at her. “This colt has his own way of doing things where he grew up. I don’t want to hear you insultin’ his mam!”
“Yes, Dad.”
“It’s alright,” Day interjected. “Nothing wrong with a little debate.” He polished off his last crumbs and murmured dismissively. “That’s not the important part anyhow.”
“Than what is?” Carrot insisted.
“Top!”
“Sorry, Dad.”
Day mulled quietly.
He was still mulling when Carrot Top had wandered off again, presumably to find Sunflower. When he looked up and noticed that Plowshare was still keeping a careful watch on him, he sat up straight to make it clear that he was doing fine.
He ought to make some conversation.
“So, Carrot Top. She’s yours then?”
“Well, of course.”
“Naturally.” Day gestured with one palm. “I just—couldn’t tell if she was yours or Mr. Furrow’s.”
“Oy! You mean like that.” Plowshare tapped his chin. “Aye, even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. She’s daughter to both of us. You understand?”
“Maybe.”
Day was saved from having to provide a more thorough answer by the arrival of a towering cake through the west doors of the barn. It took up several tables shoved together in the center of the room, and the frilly white frosting on every layer, to say nothing of the enormous ornamentation on top, must have taken some talented pony days of effort.
Day dropped his napkin in his lap. Plowshare was looking on approvingly. “Quite a sight, isn’t it?”
Day nodded. “Carrot said I’d get that flower on the top.”
Plowshare burst out laughing. Day frowned bemusedly until the stallion quit guffawing enough to speak again. “Big words for a little filly! Some of her brothers are home today. There’s draft ponies in the Carrot clan, you know.” Rubbing his chin, he looked on towards the emptying area in the middle of the barn. “Och, I’m going to enjoy this. You ready for your kiss?”
“What?” Day jumped half out of his seat.
“What, that’s the tradition of it. She didn’t tell you? The winner gives the flower to somepony else, and they give her a kiss in return.”
Day threw down his plate and cast about for an absent orange mare. “Carrot Top…”
Plowshare seemed to think it was funny. He continued chuckling into a mug of punch. “Och, kids. Think mating makes the whole world go ’round. I remember being that age.”
Day couldn’t tell what the presence of draft ponies had to do with frosting or kisses, but the next time he saw Carrot, she was licking a donut-shaped block of salt which hung from a string around her neck. Many other ponies could be seen with salt blocks of their own soon, as more tables were cleared out of the space around the enormous cake.
Day understood that ponies took their dessert food seriously. But there was something about Carrot Top’s demeanor as she swaggered up to the dessert, and something about the chorus of calls which egged her on from all sides. She wasn’t being the quiet mare from the Ponyville market, that much was certain.
That suspicion was confirmed when she jumped onto a table and bellowed. “May I have your attention please?”
Most ponies didn’t quiet down upon her declaration, but someone did bang a few pans for her. Carrot pointed to the top of the cake when there was a least semblance of quiet. “Everypony! I hereby claim the Carrot Cake Rosette!”
“Who for?” came the shout from the crowd.
Day saw it coming too late to hide; Carrot pointed him out halfway across the barn, and the eyes followed her. “For the best darn two-legged whatchamacallit to ever grace Ponyville,” she shouted. “For Amadeus!”
He was saved from the spotlight by another mare, who leapt up onto a wooden table just as fast. “Well, I claim the rosette for Pixie Pie, handsomest colt in Dredgemane!”
Six other ponies had jumped up to lay their own claims by the time Day had found the second colt for whom the flower was being staked. Carrot Top didn’t seem unduly surprised by the competing claims; she stalked a circle around the cake table, looking each pony in the eye as they came forward—it seemed to Day that the younger half of the extended Carrot clan were all set to vie for the swirl of pink sugar.
“Well then,” she nickered quietly. “We’d best get started.”
To a chorus of hollers–to Day’s simultaneous fascination and mortification–she bit down on the pin of her dress and slid it off in one clean yank. The salt block followed, wriggled off her head a moment later. The other young ponies, none of them dressed, lead a regular stampede out of the barn.
Day followed the crowd, half from curiosity and half from worry. He could have dealt with sitting alone by himself in the cavernous barn, but he wasn’t sure he could bear not knowing what Carrot Top was doing in his name.
The sun was just beginning to wink into the tree line outside. Day remembered the bales piled up on either side of the clearing before the barn, but he hadn’t noticed their resemblance to bleachers until the older ponies and younger foals split to either side began hopping to their seats. He didn’t remember the water puddled on the ground in between them, water which cast a great deal of suspicion on the now-empty buckets set to one side of the barn.
Carrot Top was the first to gallop into the puddle. She spun adroitly as she skidded straight through the wet, instantly churning her wake into thick mud.
But almost before she had turned around, the second mare who had stood up to claim part of the cake barreled into her with a flying tackle, plowing Carrot into the mud face-first.
Day charged forward with a yelp, shouting for help to pull Carrot Top’s attacker off of her. But a chortling Plowshare blindsided him when he wasn’t looking down, and after Day folded, winded neatly across the stallion’s back, he carried the human to the bleachers.
His alarm faded before his breathlessness did. A pair of stallions were wrestling in the far half of the puddle and garnering numerous cheers in the process. Carrot Top, far from being in danger, was holding her own. Before the mare who had jumped on her knew what was happening, Carrot Top slid out from underneath and belly-flopped on top of her opponent, pinning three of her hooves to the ground. The mauve pony squirmed underneath her for several seconds, but apparently Carrot’s grip was iron firm. After a brief struggle some signal passed between them, and, to a round of cheering heartily joined in by Plowshare, Carrot let the other mare up and cantered a victory lap around the mud pool while her opponent sulked into a circle of consoling peers.
Carrot Top bested her next challenger with similar ease, and the one after that. Day managed to relax enough to drift back out of the foreground. Judging by the number of challengers, this wrestling contest would go on for quite some time. But nopony seemed to mind, and Day had to admit to himself that it was kind of fun. He barely even noticed the passing of time as Carrot flipped her way through two more mares.
It all seemed okay until he realized why he was paying such rapt attention. He was sitting here—he would be sitting for another good half hour yet—watching Carrot Top wrestling with other mares and getting covered from tip to tail in mud.
Day had to wipe away the sweat with the end of his sleeve, because he had nothing else. By the end of the third round, Carrot and whoever she was wrestling became nothing but slick brown piles of limbs tangling over and over each other. Surreptitious glances to either side failed to confirm whether any of the equines present were experiencing a similar reaction to the competition. Hopefully not. They were supposed to be related.
But Carrot Top—she had certainly known. Ponies were dirty, dirty cheaters.
Next to Carrot Top’s father was the last place to lose control of himself. Day weathered much of the competition by closing his eyes, keeping tabs on the action by the way Plowshare cheered every time Carrot wrestled and won.
When the stallion nudged him urgently in the shoulder, he opened his eyes again on the arena. There were only two brown blobs left around the mud muddle, and they were circling each other at the edges. Day stared hard. The smaller of the two blobs was Carrot Top.
She shook a little of the wet off her muzzle and flashed a white, toothy smile. “Hiya, big brother! You look a little dirty. Some mean colt didn’t trip you, did they? You need to run to sis?”
It would have been jaunty if it hadn’t been absurd. The stallion across from Carrot Top was a towering pillar of a pony whose head would have nearly come up to Day’s. “You sent all four of your sisters running home to Momma’, Top. Don’t play sweet with me. Only one of us can take the cake topper.”
“Gee.” Carrot advanced, testing her footing in the mud. “I hate to headlock a guy.”
“That’s a shame,” countered the brother, “because I hate to pin a filly. But if you insist…”
The stands whooped. Both contestants paused abruptly in their self-conscious banter and broke off the advance to soak in whistles from either side. Instead of turning back to the wrestling match after a moment, Carrot Top’s older brother turned and ran away from the puddle.
Shouting, “I will fight with a token from my fair maiden!” he galloped into the crowd, where Day lost sight of him. He returned to the center a moment later with a torn green cloth tied around his neck.
“Oy!” Carrot belted out. “No fair!”
“No one said you couldn’t wrestle with style,” said her brother, making a ridiculous show of sporting the already-soiled scarf. “You brought a lad. Go get your own!”
Day saw Carrot’s reaction coming before anypony else; she promptly tried to ignore the scarf she’d just shouted over. But the stands were chanting now for her to wrestle with her own token, and she skulked to the stands under hollering echoes, jumping on the straw below Day’s seat.
Day scrabbled away from the mud puddle which followed her. “No way am I giving you a hanky,” he said before she had even opened her mouth. “I didn’t bring anything like that.”
“Please!” Carrot hissed. She frantically scanned his suit, no doubt to confirm whether he really did have nothing to give away. Day sat tall under her scrutiny until her eyes her eyes stopped cold on the navy blue tie around his neck.
“Oh, no.” He crossed his arms over it. “No.”
“You’ll embarrass me in front of everypony!” She crawled up further onto the bales, putting those luminous eyes to work on him even though mud was still dripping from her lashes.
Day tried looking away. “No, you’re embarrassing yourself. I didn’t have any part in it. You knew what you were doing when you dragged me here.”
Carrot Top’s ears drooped. “I…guess you’re right,” she sighed. “I’m sorry.” Her tail fell limp, snagging on straws as she turned away with her eyes cast into the ground.
Day mentally streamed a string of curses against all of ponykind. Then he reached up to undo his tie.
The beloved article was easy to loosen from his neck—it always had been easy to work with. Though Carrot Top was nearly out of reach, Day gave it a kiss before gingerly reaching out to knot it around the retreating pony’s neck.
Carrot stopped short. The tie pulled her back by the throat until Day had slid the knot closed against her neck, whereupon she perked up immediately by leaping with a fantastic spin to hug Day, and ruin the rest of his suit to show her gratitude. The crowd cooed with adoration when she pranced back to the mud with her bright blue token and her head held high.
Her brother didn’t waste any more time. Day looked away before the first collision, after which the last speck of color disappeared.
Both wrestlers had fought their way through half a dozen ponies each in the previous hour. They were snorting for air in moments, the gusts of their flaring nostrils audible from where Day sat. But they were also the best of the Carrot clan.
At first, it was an even match. Day hadn’t imagined that Carrot Top, even with the miraculous strength earth ponies seemed to pack in their bodies, could overcome her mountain of a brother. But she was inevitably slipperier, taking advantage of the mud to wriggle out of any hold he could contrive to put her in. She made a couple halfhearted attempts at jumping on his back or locking his head, but her forelegs could barely wrap around him. The stallion bucked, jumped, and sent her on fantastic sprawling tumbles which made Day’s heart leap just as high into his throat.
They wore each other down to bare panting in no time, coming at each other with slow swipes and dreading any waste of energy. A couple enterprising ponies filled some extra buckets at the creek and threw them on the puddle to freshen up the mud. Soon it was flying like never before. Day hid behind Plowed Shares to save what was left of his clothing, much to the earth pony’s amusement.
Carrot Top became even slicker now, and it seemed that nopony would ever get a hold on her when, just then, the griffon stood.
The first keening syllable sent all the ponies seated near her scrambling, curling their ears against their heads. Day ducked even from across the yard as the mountain of feathers rose up, flaring like a fan full of knives. He had to remind himself that griffons were at a long-standing peace with Equestria, which made them allies of the human coalition, in a loose sense. Even if they did have talons the size of steak knives, and even if there was something vicious about the carnivore’s eyes…
None of the ponies, at any rate, raised a hoof to chastise the griffon for interrupting the family gathering. She screeched and swung her wings, standing at full height on the bleachers which began to shred underneath her talons. Day couldn’t make out whether the griffon’s deafening pitches were in Equus or in another language, but the stallion within Carrot Top’s headlock, quivering attentively at the creature who wore the other half of the scarf around his neck, seemed to understand.
At the time of his fair maiden’s exhortation, he was buried up to his nostrils in the mud, with Carrot Top trying to find the room to pin something even though she wasn’t physically long enough to reach two of his hooves at once. When the griffon’s speech ended as starkly as it began, he reared up as if on cue, swinging the mare around like a necklace until she was hanging underneath his trunk-wide neck, and then crashing back down on top of her with a mighty splash.
She writhed, but less this time. The struggling grew less fervent over two seconds, then three. All Day could see was a tip of her snout from under the stallion’s chest. He held her firmly in place, staring down intently for so long that Day almost jumped to his feet, terrified that she would drown until her head reappeared out of the sludge with a valiant effort.
He wasn’t sure if he really saw her lift her muzzle to her brothers ear, or if he saw it moving, forming words for several desperate seconds. He wasn’t quite sure if he saw the stallion on top of her look in Day’s direction out of the corner of his eye.
But he did see that, at the last impossible moment, when she had surely lost, Carrot Top gave a heave, and, almost without resistance, the larger pony tumbled onto his back.
Carrot sat triumphantly on top her brother, splaying her hooves to pin down his legs. He hardly looked trapped, because she still couldn’t reach very well; but maybe Day was no judge of wrestling. After several seconds, the unseen signal passed again, and Carrot trotted out of the mud to a thundering cheer. Her brother was left to gather himself back up.
The stampede back into the barn carried Day around on its shoulders. Carrot Top led the second charge, skidding short of the pastry itself when a mare wielding a great cake knife barred her way with a vicious snarl. “Don’t ye’ take another step, young lady! Not with those soiled hooves!”
She climbed a ladder and gingerly sliced the top layer off the cake herself. After she put it on a paper plate, Carrot Top carried it to Day in her mouth; he tried to slide the frosting rosette, which covered most of the paper, away from the brown flecks left behind by her nose.
The Carrot family looked on from all sides. He had no choice but to go on with it. The flower was too big to lift without falling apart, so Day broke it with as much delicacy as he could and filled his cheeks with half.
Carrot glowed. The family watched the two of them intensely.
“Top.” Plowshare’s voice cut in from one side just as the moment was beginning to warm. “If that lad doesn’t want to smooch…”
“Relax, Dad.” She showed off the space between them. “I wasn’t going to do anything. I know how to be a gentlemare.”
“Good lass.”
Day was the most who most relaxed. He savored the taste of the rosette now, while the Carrot family still looked on; then he shrugged and looked up. “Tastes like frosting.”
The rafters shook with merriment.
One by one, the ponies who’d participated in the wrestling contest sprinted across the property to a pair of rope swings over the river, whooping and splashing until most of the frigid way seemed to be out of its bed and on the ponies gathered at the banks. Shouts of “it’s cold!’ and “I’ll never be warm again!” met with more laughter, carried distorted through the warm air rippling between the glens and the barnyard. There was more ribbing, and more cheers; as the sunlight blew its last lingering kiss to Golden Hills, torches were lit across the front fields, and ponies began spreading out into smaller groups. Barrels of cider appeared, courtesy of the Apple family, and flagons were broken out. The dimmed fields soon smelled of smoky flames and alcohol. Day caught one whiff of the scent and decided he wouldn’t be averse to a round himself; he didn’t drink, but then again, he didn’t often have a shot at free Sweet Apple Acres cider. Clearly it didn’t count.
Plowshare kept him company the entire time. Relatives kept coming around to exchange greetings and pleasantries with the stallion, but he dutifully made sure that Day wouldn’t be left floating alone while Carrot Top cleaned off.
It wasn’t that bright in the shadow of the barn. Only the nearest ponies, within the glow of the same torch, could make each other out. By the time Day and Plowshare had drained their first flagons, they were alone with each other’s company.
Day had already tried to dodge his host a couple times today. After Carrot Top’s fiasco at the wrestling contest, having to eat that mound of sugar in front of everyone, ponies looked and no doubt saw what they thought was Carrot Top’s intended getting to know a future father-in-law. Day would have worn two suits at once to avoid that.
But as the night air settled in, after looking around to make sure that nopony was approaching, Day tapped the stallion and spoke without being spoken to for the first time.
“You know, the real reason Carrot brought me here was to introduce me to…the herding lifestyle. She knew I had…reservations about it, and, well, you saw. She was hoping to change my mind.”
Plowshare nodded and swiveled his ears intently onto Day.
When he didn’t reply with any words of his own, Day was left forging on. “I don’t know if I wanted to have my mind changed, but—I think perhaps I owe it to her to at least give it an open mind.” He looked away. “But things are very different in my country. I don’t want you to think I’m criticizing you!” he added hurriedly.
Plowshare wrapped a foreleg around Day’s waist, because the human’s shoulders were too high. “I don’t know much about where you come from, lad. Why don’t you tell me what’s eatin’ your mind and I’ll see if I can set you at ease?”
Day shrugged. “I feel like I’m confused about everything. Err—there is one specific question I could ask. But I don’t know that I should.”
Plowshare gave Day a squeeze. “You need somepony to talk to about these things. Am I right? You got to have someone for a little stallion-to-stallion sort of talk. And the way I see it, if you’re so charming that my little Carrot Top saw fit to bring you round the barn, you must mean well.”
“Well, I saw you and Frosty Furrow talking earlier. And you don’t exactly act…married.” He stuttered over himself several times in quick succession. “…Maybe like an old married couple, but that’s different. This feels like prying, but…” Almost reduced to a sheepish mound unfit to talk, he raised his hands in an infinitely vague gesture. “What is it…like?”
Plowed Shares nodded sagely. After a long moment of considering the look in Day’s eyes, he threw his head back and broke into raucous laughter. Day jumped, but he covered the motion. Plowshare was trying to set him at ease, and Day appreciated the thought.
“Tell you the truth,” he said, “I was never one for the other stallions.”
“So it isn’t between you two like…um…”
“Naw.” Plowshare tossed his mane. “Frosty’s more like a brother to me than anything.”
“So that’s what it’s like.” Day stroked his chin. In spite of himself, he was beginning to daydream of an explorer’s journal with his name on it, detailing aspects of pony culture hidden in out-of-the-way towns like this. Whether it was because humans were drawn to Canterlot like flies or because no human had ever gathered the bald-faced gall to ask about these things, Day had never found herding practices thoroughly documented on the Earth-side net.
“Allie thinks all ponies are…” Day coughed. “Well, never mind what she thinks.”
Plowshare shook his head. “Hold onto your bridle there, lad.” He pointed through the dusky lights to a row of three red-headed mares passing by on their way to the cider barrels. “See yonder? The lasses with petunias in their cutie marks? That’s a full herd there, and, by the good Princess Celestia, they’re all over each other.”
“How do you know?” Day murmured, staring out of the corner of his eye.
“Carrot Poppy’s my own girl.” Plowshare scrunched up his square snout. The effect was much less impressive than when a mare like Carrot Top wrinkled hers. “And we had them stay over at the house once in the same room. That was a mistake.”
He pointed out more links in the Carrot family tree as they cycled around the gathering. One tremendous herd had twelve ponies, and others numbered only two, though Plowshare didn’t seem to make any distinction between couples and larger herds.
Day kept respectfully quiet and listened to Plowshare’s whispers, because the stallion used herds joined by his sons and daughters as examples. It quickly became clear that the variety was bewildering. Every herd seemed to work just a little differently. There was one herd which supposedly never got intimate except in pairs, and was shy even of dating as one big group. There was another herd with a set rule to just the opposite effect, although that particular family had one exception—a shy dandelion-colored colt which, Plowshare explained, wasn’t comfortable being with more than one pony at a time. “They have to go off without him on Saturday nights, but they care about him just as much. Purple Carrot, anyway, loves that little old colt to death. Know that for sure.”
He talked about less touchy aspects, too—work schedules and the disciplining of foals, house building and breadwinning. Day was sure that he did, and that the techniques involved were all very fascinating and domestic, but they happened to slip by his mind.
Day was, of course, sitting on the ground before too long, bringing himself to pony height as he’d learned to do since living long in Equestria. Plowshare nuzzled the top of his head in a filial manner. “To put it simply for you, lad, everypony works out what’s good for them. If you have a herd that loves you—as I’m blessed by Celestia to have—I can’t think of a single good reason why anypony would force you into doing something you don’t want.”
Day didn’t say anything–about the advice or about the gesture, which he accepted without resistance. The stallion was at perfect ease with his place in the world, and Day didn’t know what he would say without disrupting that.
“If you ever need to talk again, don’t be shy of coming around. I got no trouble treating you like family, even if my little Top is just being hopeful.”
Day suspended the weight of his thoughts over another round of cider. He remembered the flat-out rejection which had knotted in his gut on that first night in Ponyville, when Carrot Top had only been asking him to a walk in the meadows. There had been reasons for that, he remembered. Good reasons why anything but clinging to the one girl he loved had been definitely, unquestionably wrong. What were they? He clutched at them, but they retreated through his memory like the straws under a griffon’s talons.
Why couldn’t he remember what was wrong with this family whose laughter trickled through the night? Day cradled his head in his hands, trying to make the world feel clear again. Had he spent too much time around ponies? Maybe that was it.
He reasoned in the quiet space of his mind, the same place circuits appeared to him, a place where he could shut out the din of the party. Living among non-humans for so long had to be affecting him if he was having trouble even looking away from Carrot Top. In odd moments, he was able to convince himself that he wasn’t attracted to her at all. If he squinted a little, the people resolved into unidentifiable horses. That was all they were. Little, friendly horses. It was like a joke he’d taken too seriously by accident.
But he couldn’t tell whether these times were the lucid moments or the mad ones.
Plowshare let him go once Carrot Top arrived, back in her dress after toweling off from the river. Day looked down from his burdened thoughts to find her nuzzling her way under his hand, looking like her normal orange self again, though the tie still on her neck was blotchy and irreparable. Leading him aimlessly around the gathering, she kept up a constant stream of chatter about family news, the growing of carrots, and the wonderful nature of a foalhood spent under a big herd.
Day was happy to kill time like this. Letting Carrot talk, letting it drift in one ear and out the other like a balmy breeze. Enjoying the very real breeze toying with the torches, never heavy enough to strike the fields with a chill. Topping off his cider every now and then. Slotting a few new words of Equus into his memory. And resting his hand on Carrot Top without becoming a tight-fisted ice sculpture over it.
He wasn’t worried what anypony would think about it, and not just because Carrot Top seemed determined to convince them that he was hers. Affection was easy to give and receive out here—not free, Day decided—no, that wasn’t it. It still meant something, otherwise it would have lost its value. But he didn’t have to feel bad about just letting his hand sit there, right below Carrot Top’s shoulders, in a friendly way, feeling her soft curls and idly kneading her withers with his thumb.
But then, when had he put his hand there? Day looked down without interrupting the pony’s monologue. He didn’t remember doing that—only Carrot Top sticking her snout underneath his hand at one point.
And was that the last torch they were passing now? Day looked up—where were they? Carrot appeared to be walking along without any attention paid to where she was going, but if that was the case, then how had they drifted this far from the rest of the party?
A branch passed overhead, tapping him with a sudden shadow. They were far from the torches now, and they would be invisible at this distance from everpony else. The river gurgled off to one side, and nearer, the wind whorled around a downy circle of heather and gorse bushes. That was the loudest sound. As a chill under the trees first touched him, Day became aware of his own heartbeat.
Day tried to quiet the hammering in his chest before noticing that Carrot Top had stopped speaking. She was just standing, patient and still next to him, and every couple of seconds flicking her tail gently against his leg. It felt like the spots she touched alit on fire.
She waited until he looked down at her, and then, with a pretense of stretching, walked her forelegs up a tree trunk. With a click, her dress slid to the ground behind the legs that were stretched out to keep her balanced. He couldn’t see her expression, only a silhouette, the curves of her barrel fully exposed.
How long had she even put it on again for? Had it just been so she could take it off again?
No, that wasn’t what was stupid about it. What was stupid about it was that it worked.
“Hey, Day,” she whispered. “Down here.” Day hesitated half a step closer. Her facial features loomed out of the moonlight, beckoning him closer. When he was within reach she looped a hoof around the back of his neck, ever-so-slowly pulling his face down towards hers.
Day’s breath caught. He suddenly wanted to pull out, but any resistance he gave was countered by an insistent pressure on the small of his back. Was he strong enough to pull out? Was he even giving any resistance, or just imagining it, anyway? He felt a bit light-headed. Maybe he could wriggle and duck out from under her grip, but maybe his forehead would smash into her nose if he did that. He couldn’t smash her nose, could he? Would that be bad?
If he didn’t do something, she was going to kiss him. Day got out by dropping straight onto his bottoms, scooting backwards through a pile of leaves as Carrot matched him step for step. “Th-the music sounds nice,” he blurt out with a longing glance towards the torchlights.
Carrot Top didn’t follow his gaze. She backed him up until he was up against a tree himself and she could loom comfortably over him. With every step her flanks swayed, hypnotically left then right. “Where are you going to run now?” she whispered with a smirk.
Day didn’t answer, but a staccato rush of hoofbeats saved him from having to.
“Carrot Top!” The words made even Day jump, as awkwardly as he was positioned. Carrot herself just about crawled out of her coat, and was out of the human’s personal space in no time flat.
Plowshare took in Day’s posture, Carrot’s, the dress lying on the ground near her fetlocks, all in a second. “Get in the house,” he whinnied at his daughter. “And don’t go anywhere.”
Carrot Top couldn’t keep all her hooves on the ground at once. It was as though she was standing on unbearably hot sand. “Daddy, it’s not like that.”
“That’s fine,” he bellowed without any indication that it was in fact fine. “You can explain it to Ma and Mum when I come inside. I’m not gonna’ ask you again, Top. Do I have to count to three?”
From the outrage with which green eyes seared the night, Day was left no doubt that Carrot hadn’t endured the indignity of a father counting to three for some number of years. Her cheeks burned at the presence of other ponies—Day couldn’t make them out—lurking in the lightless ground behind Plowshare. How old was Carrot Top, anyway? It was so hard to tell with ponies. They didn’t age quite the same way humans did.
“But I love him!” she shouted, bearing herself down on forehooves as if digging in against a storm wind.
Plowshare reared back. He stared at his daughter for a good solid moment, and then turned abruptly away as if she had become of no consequence. “Ye’ won’t mind asking him, then, if he wants to go back to what you were doing.”
Loudly sniffing back tears, Carrot bolted, disappearing in the direction of a farmhouse across the fields.
Day picked himself up, keeping to one side, shying from the moonlight as he dusted himself off. But he felt it was important enough to say something that he came into the light for a moment, dipping his head rather awkwardly towards Plowshare. “Sir, if there’s anything which I might do to–”
The pony spun on him, nostrils flaring. Day had to tense up in order to avoid staggering back.
Plowshare stared for a moment before speaking; he was, by the sound of it, carefully measuring words out in order to keep the floodgates closed. “It looks like you’ve satisfied your curiosity. Glad you won’t be needing any more advice.”
Day frowned, drawing himself up. “Now, sir!” he retorted. “If I’ve caused any offense, then I’m–”
“Frosty Furrow will hitch up a wagon and take you back to the station. Good night.” Plowshare was already trotting away. The mares and stallions who had clustered around him were following, diverting only to cast backward glances at the curious human and make Day burn like Carrot Top had several moments ago.
“And you were all set to call me family,” he muttered to himself.
He hadn’t thought Plowshare, or anypony, could have possibly heard him speak at that volume. He certainly hadn’t meant for it to be overheard, but he’d neglected to bear in mind the sensitivity of equine ears. Plowshare turned stiff, but he did not turn around. “Save it for the Princesses,” he eventually muttered with a shake of his mane. He didn’t canter away, didn’t even trot, though the stretch of ground between here and the farmhouse was long. He walked.
Day thought better of following. Indeed, he welcomed the rickshaw which pulled up on the main path, getting in with flowing gratitude that the taciturn pony on the harness needed no second urging to break into a brisk retreat.
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Hmm. Interesting... in an extremely open culture like that, completely unambiguous consent seems to have an importance that outstrips even human conventions. What interests me however is the strong hints of backlash and censure against Day for it. Is that just a father trying to defuse the situation and protect his child? Is there some kind of reverse blame going on there? Or is it something purely Equestrian... does he think Day is leading her on?
I'm not entirely sure, here... and it's made even more ambiguous by the fact that Day WAS in fact, leading her on. Not intentionally of course, because even DAY isn't sure what he wants at this point.
It'll be interesting to see where this leads.
On a sidenote, I'm quite interested in the gate network this setting appears to have. Having mentioned Turians, AND Twi'lek, that would imply that the setting has connections to both the Mass Effect and Star Wars universes, and has had such for long enough that interspecies dating is common. Which is cool, bad ass, in fact, but it does raise the question.... those are some extremely advanced technological settings, and here we have a human culture which doesn't appear to be that much more advanced than our own.
So obviously I'm misunderstanding here. Is this a case of, Equestria has limits on what kind of technology is allowed to proliferate? Or is it simply that this isn't a setting which connects Mass Effect and Star Wars, but rather just connects the Turians and the Twi'leks specifically, and at a vastly less advanced state than in there canon universes?
Also, on another note, I'm not getting any indication when this story updates, even though it's on my favorites list. That is... troubling.
Why does this story not tell you when it update? This is so strange.
So why didn't they invite the fiancee? Would have made things easier probably.
4372541
'Completely Unambiguous Consent.' I like that.
D'aww! Well, since you're interested, there are a couple things going on. Earth x Equestria have been tied tightly together since First Contact was between those two races--they're allies and closely tied to each other, since they like each other so much. But to some degree it's them against the multiverse, because humanity doesn't have that kind of relationship with any other state or race yet.
And though some 'proliferation' of technology would occur anyway, it's not quite that easy. At least in the case of the groups you mentioned, their societies are stupidly far ahead of Earth's (especially the SW universe). Imagine giving a Stone Age society access to ours. Would they quickly assimilate our technology? In fact, you can see this happening in real life. And they don't. They don't, for instance, have the infrastructure to make computers, so seeing them does nothing for them. Furthermore, many times they don't even have the mental 'infrastructure' to USE a computer, even if you give one to them. And interactions tend to be quirky and non-extensive, so the one society doesn't necessarily advance quickly. Though humans are scrambling to bump things off the Turians, who are less than super-keen on it.
And then I go 'wait a minute, what is this guy doing in my favorites list?' You're the author of Quantum Castaways! Dude! When are YOU going to update?
I mean, you influence my fannon! That whole beginning of chapter 3 just now? Who do you think planted the seeds for that?
So YOU were the super-duper-awesome party pony who inspired ME to become a super-duper-awesome party pony! Swear on Cammon Bear!
And this whole sub-genre of fanfiction is becoming one big literary circlejerk!
Am messaging the moderators about the notification issue guys BTW.
4373049 That's very sweet of you to say. It's very gratifying to think that my contribution to this fandom has inspired such a talent author. If there is one thing I've learned in my time with this fandom, it is that we fan writers are never as creative a force as individuals as we are collectively. In the interests of continuing the free exchange ideas and creative help, I will be sending you a PM with my Skype contact information. Feel free to contact me at your leisure if you want to bullshit, or you need some help. The group I write with is very talented, and includes such individuals as RandomEncounter, Invictus, Nugar, and several others.
Quantum Castaways would not be anywhere near as entertaining a fic if it weren't for those guys and their tireless help. I believe you may be acquainted with Invictus, as he started reading this story on my recc. In any case, if a circlejerk we be, we may as well do it RIGHT.
On the subject of technology proliferation, I imagine it would be a case of how much time we're talking about since the gate nexus has been in operation. The Mass Effect universe has Eezo as a limiting factor in its technology, that and the fact that there is a unified government of sorts would make restricting technology to Earth feasible. This assumes that the Council exists and that there is a version of Earth in that universe that either doesn't have access to the Gate, or for reasons I'm not entirely sure of have decided not to give their human cousins a tech boost. At the very LEAST, if Cerberus exists, you better believe a Black Market for tech would exist. Cerberus would LOVE to have a pet human empire, if they could swing it.
As for the Star Wars universe, the problem is that it is very much a loosely governed group of polities that no one group has absolute control over. Unless the gates are FIRMLY in someone powerful's neighborhood, free traders wanting to make a cred, and those ruthless or unscrupulous individuals willing to exploit a backwater system for profit would be on it like mynocks on a power cable. Hell, while you're bullshitting, the Twi'Leks are pretty mercenary where trade is concerned.
To say nothing of how integral slavery is to their culture, but my understanding of the race could be a bit flawed.
4379139
And you could expand upon the magical side of things as well. Give the ponies something to play with and find a world that has a higher magical progression. Probably not in this story as it is mostly focused on romance.
4383116
And that's why all this stuff isn't in the story already with me being spoiler-tight-lipped about it.
4383308
It's better being focused as it is right now. Just alluding to the possibilities makes the world you are building here entertaining.
...and a little scary for our two worlds.
4384022
4383308
Agree. The story doesn't NEED outside speculations right now, it's very well focused on the primary narrative, but I think we can all agree that it is fun to speculate.
4385070
Well, yeah. Otherwise we wouldn't be on FimFiction.net
how tall have you make the ponies? i hadn´t thought, that he could ride on them, i mean she lifted day and that means they he ride on her did he?
Well i try to understand all the thing you written down here, and it is really a big chapter. The first moment the stallion helped him with his problems and then he is angry with him because he somehow don´t was able to interrupt Carrot Top ? I just don´t see what he does wrong there?
I have a little Problem with the sory but i tried to stay open mindet.
I somehow don´t like it if i get the feeling they trick him or force him to love her or touch her or anything like that. I really don´t like the idea of him being forced to do things, whatever the reason is. I really like Carrot Top, but i don´t know what i should think of the idea here, i mean that let say 12 ponys like each other at the same time. A parent conference day should be difficult that way.
PS: To be true i don´t know if i translated it correctly into my language, but i think this is kind of what the story tried to tell me here.
Can't tell anymore if he means adultery, or "Why is it so easy for thses ponies to get me flustered?"
i love this story but gotta say herding is an odd concept for me, interesting but kinda weird. kinda mad though at how one sided equestrian relations with humanity seem. also wtf with the elves and stuff XD. i think that was going a bit overboard with it but w/e.
really intrigued but the end of this chapter though.
That chapter was excellent. Though I am a little confused on plow shares turnabout attitude. I was really expecting him to imply to top that if she had let him be that she might have had her way, bt she rushed it and messed up.
Could I please get an explanation on that last part please.I am completely confused as to why Plowshares was angry with Day.The next part of the story fails to explain why and this part doesn't either.Maybe I'm just ignorant here,but I seriously cannot see where the hostility comes from,seems kinda random.
Maybe he was taking his anger out on day,I know that happens,but the story didn't explain it at all,so I can only guess at the reason.To tell the truth trying to figure out such injustice as misplaced rage is making it hard for me to continue on to the next chapter as it just continues like nothings wrong.I love the story though,I like romance stories and is good so far,I hope to read more.
Plowshare Thug Life
Uhh, what just happened?