The Faith of Carrot Top

by Dawn Stripes

Chapter 4: The New New Lunar Republic

How Not to Train your Humans

Ironically enough, Carrot Top was wearing clothes again when she next met Lyra. Her old Winter Wrap-up vest was dusted off for the first time in three moons so she could help to sweep up after the hailstorm on Thursday. Pegasi couldn’t do all the storm work, after all, and when there were opportunities for earth ponies to participate in Ponyville weather they were expected to haul their share.

Carrot Top volunteered for more jobs than most of her neighbors. Day was forever remarking on the ‘almost frightening’ sense of community in Ponyville, just because everypony knew everypony else’s name. But Carrot Top was used to a kind of community where the entire town came together every week there was a barn to be raised, and sometimes she felt a little isolated in Ponyville. She wondered every now and then if ponies here remembered that they were called to higher standards than most of these exotic beings from beyond the stars.

“So did you bag him?” Lyra asked, as she held open a crinkling trash bag so Carrot could sweep a pile of hailstones inside.

Carrot Top started. After a second of meeting glazed eyes with the concerned expression of her friend, she tightly shook her head and shoveled the lot of ice inside the bag.

Lyra darted anxiously around her, trotting to keep up as Carrot moved mechanically to the next portion of the street. “It’s just that when you didn’t come back with Day, I assumed you’d stay with the family for a few days. Did everything go okay up there?”

Carrot Top inspected a crack in the cobbles filled with hailstones, and began plucking them out.

“Carrot?” Lyra circumnavigated her friend, dipping her head almost to the ground so that she could look her in the eyes. “Were they…not okay with the whole human thing?”

Carrot Top nearly dropped her rake as she looked up. “Hm? Of course not.” She closed her eyes and recited.

Just as every pony is different, so is every pony’s heart. You will discover different things inside: some

of you, love for another pony, and some love for the wild griffons, and some for the stately buffalo. And

some…

She was cut off by a hoof drumming on her barrel. Lyra was staring at her with dry suspicion. “This sounds like one of those long verses. Does she go through everyone?”

“Oh. Carrot’s face colored. “Y-yes. I’ll just skip to the end.”

“Whatever you want, filly.”

Carrot closed her eyes again.

But be proud of what makes you unique, and spread your love, which is my love, to the corners of the

world and beyond. (Celestia 39:8-15)

Lyra gave a noncommittal hum around the bag in her mouth. Carrot, in return, glared at the hailstones on Crankey Doodle’s lawn. “I was this close,” she nickered. “Three inches from a first kiss, I swear it. But I scared him. I went too fast, the oldest mistake in the book.” She sighed tightly once again, and looked up at Lyra as if daring her to challenge the assertion. “That’s all I did wrong.”

“Well, then…” Lyra patted her uncertainly. “I’m sure he won’t hold that against you.”

“No.” Carrot Top tossed her mane defiantly, though her curls wouldn’t wave, only bounce awkwardly atop her head. “Celestia won’t let true love fail. She’ll watch over me.”

“Right.” Lyra smirked and withdrew her hoof. “I’d forgotten. You don’t need me. You’ve got an answer for everything.”

“Of course not, silly.” Carrot was soft-spoken but steadfast as she picked up a hailstone and dropped it in the nearest trashcan. “I trust that I’ll always have what I need to figure it out.”

The two mares had more free time for their mouths while they pushed the laden bags of hailstones onto the bed of a bulky chariot. Once full, it would be flown by a pegasus up to the recycling centers of the Cloudsdale weather sector. And, since it was a strenuous flight task, ‘pegasus’ meant ‘Rainbow Dash’, barring the coming of the Third Age of Chaos or some similar upset in the world order.

Or the Second-and-a-Half Age of Chaos, depending on one’s preferences. Some ponies said that whole business last spring with the cotton candy clouds shouldn’t rightly qualify as an Age. Carrot would have agreed, but Third Age just sounded so much more dignified.

“Maybe you’re coming at him the wrong way.”

“How do you say that?” Carrot asked, helping Lyra with the heavier bags by bucking them until they stayed packed in tight.

“Maybe you do need to sweep him of his feet. But you’re not going to do that by just fighting with him all the time. Do something he wants to do. Take him somewhere fun!”

Carrot pawed at the ground. “I thought the reunion was fun…”

“Did he get to mud wrestle?”

“Well, no.” Carrot looked askance at her unicorn friend. “How come I get the feeling I’m about to have more advice from ‘Auntie Lyra’?”

She grinned. “I know a place where both humans and ponies can enjoy themselves. Princess Luna herself set it up in Canterlot.”

“The Night Princess?”

Carrot Top hadn’t actually met Avatar of the Moon in the flesh since the end of her banishment. A chance to speak a Goddess…

What Carrot Top had really always dreamed of was an audience with Princess Celestia, so she could thank her for bringing Sunflower home. The Dawnbringer had interrupted her flight to find Carrot’s little sister when she’d wandered past the fields before a dawn five years ago. But they said Princess Luna was like a pony from straight out of the First Age of Harmony. Maybe she would let Carrot Top do her homage in the old chants. That would turn half the clan green with envy!

“Do many ponies…” Carrot gestured in circles. “Who read the holy book come to this place often?”

Lyra thought for a moment, tied the latch on the back of the chariot, and came up with an outrageous giggle. “I think humans are Luna’s real followers these days.” She grinned, waggling her eyebrows.

Carrot sat on her haunches and tapped her skull. “I don’t get it.”

Canterlot did much for Day’s understanding of ponies. Until now, he had always associated ponies with the sleepy atmosphere of Ponyville, but here the crowds bustled like crowds were supposed to, lights were properly bright and buildings were properly tall. The Dimension Gates in and out of Canterlot were some of the busiest in the Terran Alliance of Worlds, so there were plenty of humans for company if Day felt like keeping up his English.

Best of all, no pesky polygamists to twist his chest into knots. Coupled relationships were coming into fashion among the urban classes of ponykind, a shift accelerated by First Contact and Equestria’s subsequent ties to the US and Australia.

From where Day stood now, the Equestrian world didn’t seem quite so disconnected from the project lab. Here neon signs adorned the flashier locales of the tourist trap, and in the more congested low-sky lanes, electric streetlights controlled the flow of chariots which hovered impossibly on the harnesses of foam-white pegasi. The results of progress at headquarters could actually have an impact here.

In fact, that was what brought Day to Canterlot in the first place. Carrot Top had been honorable enough—or ‘a gentlemare’ as she kept calling it—to repay the favor incurred by borrowing his unsalvageable tie. Her gifts had been more than satisfactory: train tickets and a door pass to a place where computers were making their first appearance in the civilian pony world. Day suspected she was apologizing for some other things as well, but he’d decided to take a turn being a gentleman and not force them into the open.

Only his present looked suspiciously like a nightclub.

Day had expected something prominent. Maybe a stallion in one of those straw boater hats, shouting over a gawking crowd about the wonders of the digital age. Instead, he’d missed the last turn on Allie’s handwritten directions because they pointed him down a dark alley. The block letters glowing over the door read ‘The New Lunar Republic’, and someone had used spray-paint to squeeze a second ‘New’ in just before the first one.

It wasn’t much lighter inside. An amoeba-shaped bar lurked at the center of thin carpeting and low ceilings. Day’s nerves were allayed, however, when he saw projector screens lining the walls. The lights had been dimmed so that screens were more easily visible to the circle after circle of humans and ponies who sat together, playing videogames.

Day hadn’t seen some of these games since his childhood. Well, he hadn’t seen a single videogame at all since moving to Ponyville two months ago, but not all of the consoles here were as new as the sleek boxes which ran Halo in the center of the beanbag-chair rings. There were older systems present, all the way down to what Day wracked his brain to identify as a Sega Genesis. An earth colt in a propeller beanie was sticking out his tongue as he tried to maneuver Sonic the Hedgehog past an army of evil robots.

The pony was mashing the buttons by placing the controller on the floor in front of him and sitting low to slap at the controller with angled forehooves. The pony must have been coming here for a while, because he’d gotten surprisingly good at the slapdash technique. Day only heard him whine in frustration twice when his large digits depressed the wrong buttons and sent Sonic spinning off a cliff.

Day found a variety of imaginative techniques by looking over the shoulders of gaming equines. Several pegasi were cradling the controllers in their wings, and one earth stallion was even battling a human in a strategy game by holding the remote in both hooves and tapping the buttons with his nose. It needled a thread of pining through Day’s heart to see that most of the ponies were unicorns—for he didn’t think that it was because other races wanted to play the games any less. Not that unicorns had it effortless; even the better telekinetic spellcasters were sweating after long rounds of Street Fighter.

And Day’s pangs of pathos were eased by the fact that there was one game ponies happily excelled at interfacing with. Humans didn’t even bother getting into the line for the DDR machines unless they were suckers for punishment.

Day’s chest swelled with a new rush of passion for his work. The job had become a little abstract lately; the threats of vast cosmic annihilation were all too vague with secrecy, too remote. Too big to properly conceive of anyway. But here, leaning up against the bar, Day marveled over two different species having fun side by side. It reminded him why he’d moved to another world in the first place, leaving behind so much of what he knew.

Maybe the tricks here could even help him contribute towards the long-elusive solution. “I should start with a pad of larger buttons,” he mused quietly. The fact that he was talking to himself was disguised by the electronic noises in every direction. “If hooves are going to have anything to do with it, that’s still obvious.”

“I’d want some way to hold it, though,” said a voice over his shoulder. “How am I doing that if my hooves are pressing those little circles?”

“That’s true.” Day nodded carefully. “But for a game controller like these, I could whip up a halter so you could just wear it. The real challenge is a full keyboard. Equus has too many letters…wait, what are you doing here?”

That voice was no stranger’s. He turned around, and Carrot Top waved at him from atop a barstool.

In response to his death frown, she chuckled sheepishly and twirled the chair in a circle. “Uh…fancy meeting you here!”

“Yes,” Day growled. “Fancy.”

Carrot Top followed the human’s frown to the bar behind her. “Before you say another word,” he added, “if you offer to buy me a drink I will throw it in your face. Luna help me, I will.”

Carrot kept her most inoffensive grin and tilted her head. “Och. Well, you know that the Princess is there to help you. I think we’re making progress.”

“Hah hah. I’m serious, Miss Carrot, don’t try it. I don’t care if you’re pony, woman or the inventor of quantum computing.”

“But I’m a gentlemare.” She waved forcefully. “And a gentlemare will treat you better than that.”

But she didn’t get the chance to demonstrate. The lights, which had been too dark before, vanished entirely without warning. Carrot spun blind, trying to control the swiveling of the stool under her so she could search for a source of light. “Did…the electricity break?”

Day mumbled a wordless shrug. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but from the sound, none of the other patrons sounded particularly concerned.

Some amount of a gleam finally relit the room when a glittering silver ball descended from the ceiling. The next thing visible was the stage, where a unicorn in giant purple glasses sat at a table full of buttons. Colored spotlights started to spin around the hall without settling anywhere, and everything filled up with a low thudding noise that reminded Carrot of the time a really bad flu had passed around the cows in Golden Hills.

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Soundtrack: “Bass is Kicking” by DJ Splash

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She clung at the slippery bar, trying to keep her head from swimming. So long as she couldn’t even see the floor, and every source of illumination was…spinning so much…she barely trusted herself to stay balanced on this human-sized chair, let alone get down. She was stuck.

Just as Carrot Top managed to identify the noise as music, it accelerated in pace and volume. A few humans shrieked. Some of the ponies broke glow sticks and wrapped them around their fetlocks.

Perhaps the only sound that could have cut through that din to her, bringing her swimming sense of balance to a still despite the volume required to be heard, was the sound she heard next. It echoed impossibly, as if off of a vast and ghostly plain.

“Your princess has arrived!” decreed the booming voice. Carrot Top gasped and tried to curtsey, or at least dip her head, but failed from her awkward perch. It was just as well that it was dark. The Pony of the Midnight Eye, accompanied by a tremendously irreverent chorus of whoops from below the stage, came out wearing a suit that glittered brighter as the ball on the ceiling.

“Polyester disco,” muttered Day. “Didn’t think I’d live to see that come back in style.”

When the Night appeared, the music grew again, as if to prove that it was just now really getting serious. A vibrating energy filled the entire building, an energy which Carrot Top could feel building in her veins like a sneeze determined to get out.

She attempted to smash her ears against her skull and block out the sound. From what Lyra had told her of this place, it was certain that no fewer than a quarter of the foreigners here were virgins to Dimension Gates, tourist yuppies from Earth who had never before been swept away in the raw magic of an Equestrian musical number. They were having the time of their lives just feeling the first tantalizing call, and their excitement was increasing the threat of an outright musical number with every passing second.

Carrot, on the other hoof, had gone through quite enough musicals in her life, and she wanted nothing to do with this one.

Watching Princess Luna was enough of a shock to keep her distracted from the music for now. The Goddess of the Night boogied across the stage in her spangly attire, conspicuously bumping flanks with the DJ and even singing along to the spotty, scattered lyrics of the song. Was this the same regal Princess which Carrot had barely been able to glimpse this morning when she’d arrived in Canterlot early to catch the changing of the guard? The same Avatar of the Moon which had paraded in formal sequence to the royal court with a guard of twelve black pegasi? This was her Goddess? Prancing across a club in the lower levels of Canterlot with magic-buzzed strangers?

It was an illuminating glimpse of her diarch. But Carrot Top was resourceful enough to reason her way out of shock. Even alicorns must need to let off some steam once in a while.

Dancers were taking over the open floor space. It was a far distant thing from the fiddle-powered square dances back on the farm, but Carrot Top had experienced turntables and their ilk on one or two occasions in Ponyville. This kind of dancing, it suddenly occurred to her, was the kind of dance she’d very much enjoy doing with Day. She poked in the direction he’d been standing before the lights went out.

“Day?” She found his chest and prodded him several times. “Day, do you want to dance?”

Some green lights chanced to flash across his face. Day was staring towards the stage with a trancelike intensity, mouth hanging open, and only turned a sterile stare downwards after Carrot Top had nearly pushed him over three times. “Oh! Hi, Carrot.”

Carrot snorted. What was so distracting to him anyway? She tried to follow his line of sight again, and all she could make out was Princess Luna coming down from the stage. That couldn’t be it. Day didn’t revere the Princesses. Despite the fact that he could rattle off every fact of the Equestrian political system, he barely even knew their names.

“Hey, I’m going to go dance,” Day shouted over the speakers. “See you in a bit.”

Carrot Top seethed, but the noise was utterly squashed under the DJ. She was alone now. And still stranded on this stupid chair.

The first song blended smoothly into another, and another after that, all of them in the same key and mostly identical in every other way. So the Celestia-forsaken musical trying to escape through her limbs just wouldn’t die. She invariably caught herself swaying, or even trotting in time by standing on the barstool, whenever let herself move a muscle. The thudding pulse was so thoroughly entangled with the ambient magic now that it was impossible to resist tapping at least one hoof at any given time. Most of the ponies in the room were happily banging away with all four. Magic was playing loose with the physics in the room.

The strain of resisting the primal urge to join them was doing nothing to put Carrot Top in a better mood. She’d always been unfond of musicals. She claimed it was annoying to be pulled away from her work, but the truth was that, subconsciously, ever since that one little number her first-grade classroom had belted into about shoving glue sticks up one’s nostrils, she lived in dread of getting a singing part.

Eventually a colt appeared—of what color, she couldn’t tell under the lights—and offered to help her down from the bar. When he started making little tugs towards the dance floor, Carrot Top allowed it, deciding she had to do something to entertain herself, and possibly hoping that Day might see her and flare up a bit of that pesky human jealousy he was always so on guard about.

But when the young stallion shimmied closer and closer, clearly baiting for a kiss, she turned her head aside. After a lot of ineffectual shouting and impossible gesturing, they pulled each other around until finding a corner that was mercifully—ever so mercifully—sheltered from the sound. There Carrot Top explained as patiently as she could that she was an ‘old-fashioned filly’ who didn’t smooch on a pony she had no intention of courting, family excepted.

The colt’s ears drooped. “No intention?” he repeated dolefully. “That’s all it takes, one look at me? I don’t even have a chance?”

Carrot had to pull herself up short. Her heart suddenly constricted. She touched the colt’s shoulder before stopping her half-open mouth from plowing into the first comforting thing she could think of to say.

She evaded the question by explaining that she was trying to get into another herd, and in no position to be fooling around with other ponies at the moment. But the truth was that he’d been right the first time; she really did have no intention of courting him after just one look. How judgmental was that? Carrot Top’s mothers hadn’t raised her to be so cold. Of that she was certain.

She found it more than a little frightening to look inside herself. Was she even attracted to her own kind anymore? What had all this time spent gazing after humans done to her?

“I’m sorry,” she said as softly as she dared, and took her hoof off of the colt.

They sat for a moment awkwardly avoiding each other’s eyes. Carrot Top sought a change of subject. “You look like you’ve been here before. About the Princess. Is this…?”

He nodded. “Her joint. The Night Princess took to a lot of human things. There’s even a rumor going around that she has a human consort hidden away in the Everfree Forest.”

Carrot guffawed helplessly. “I’m from Ponyville,” she scoffed. “I think somepony would notice if Princess Luna kept making mysterious trips into the forest.”

“I don’t know. It sounds like a crazy conspiracy, but some ponies have pretty detailed theories. There’s even a name for the guy. Everyone refers to him as ‘Chester’.”

Carrot Top cradled her head in one hoof. “Ridiculous. The Princess couldn’t do that, even if she–och, you know–could. It’s not as though she could ever marry.”

“Yeah.” The colt leaned back–hopefully distracted from his recent rejection–and stared at the press of the crowd. “It’s almost sad to see her like this, when you put it that way. One prefers to think their Princesses are made of stronger stuff.”

Carrot felt her soul twitch. “They are made of stronger stuff,” she insisted with a little stamp.

The colt jumped. “Er—I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just that everypony thinks the burden they carry doesn’t bother them. And Celestia might be that sturdy, I guess—or else she’s a master of putting on the strong face—but the younger…”

He gestured towards the stage once more. Carrot lay her muzzle down on the floor, inexplicably miserable.

It didn’t get much better as the evening progressed. Ponies drifted back and forth between the games and the dance floor, dragging humans with them. When Day wasn’t out shaking his legs he was sitting around one of those human machines, hitting at buttons with the Night. Carrot didn’t know what was so fascinating about them.

She tried sitting atop the back of the couch where he slouched and letting her tail dangle to his shoulder, but he barely noticed. He hardly even moved so long as his attention was locked on that screen. The only time he budged was to jump whenever an explosive noise came out of the speakers, and toss his controller so that it nearly flew into Carrot’s face.

“Never thought a pony would beat me at 007,” he declared.

The Night set down her controller with an elegant show of fine telekinesis, and sipped at a drink before lifting a regal hoof in the human’s direction. “You may continue your adulation, my worthy adversary!”

Day laughed from belly to nose and kissed Princess Luna’s hoof guard.

Only four could play the game at once, so ponies and people were rotating out. Even Carrot, since she’d been hanging out on the couch for so long, was invited to take a turn. She tried to demure, but Day chose that moment to pay attention to her and insist that she not be left out.

She was ready to put the controls down in disinterest after one round. It was too much work to hit the right buttons with a hoof, even when she’d had hers trimmed just a few days ago. But then again, the Night herself—the Dream-Weaver, the Maiden of the Stars–was seated on a beanbag not one foot away. So she hung in there. Forget about Day! There were much greater things for her here.

She found a dark corner in the game to hide in, under a staircase, and turned towards the Night, who was levitating two controllers at once. “Princess Luna,” she said, “it’s a great honor…”

A burst of simulated gunfire made her jump. Carrot looked back to the screen in time to see her corner of it turning obscenely red.

“Grr!” Day leaned even closer to the screen on Carrot Top’s other side. “No noob farming! Fight me like a mare!”

“You wish to face me, do you?” boomed the Princess. “Then come hither!”

“Don’t mind if I do!”

More gunfire.

“My family,” Carrot Top started again, “is one of the twelve clans of the Earthsong Compact. You might recall the Carrots from the First Age, your majesty? We burnt twelve logs’ worth of juniper incense to celebrate your return…”

“Take that!” shouted the Night. The crowd of spectators exploded into cries of amazement, and Day threw his arms up in mock despair.

Carrot Top quietly got up and walked away.

She tried finding Day again every half hour or so, but his attention was never available. It was even more impossible to attract his notice when he was on the dance floor. The Sentinel of Darkness was a whirl of white and blue there, rubbing various lengths of herself against almost anyone who danced close too close. When Carrot Top even dared to seek Day out near the stage, she found him pressed up against Princess Luna, and the hips of both grinding up and down in time to the music.

Carrot Top’s cheeks caught on fire. Oh no. It couldn’t be like that. That was more than she could handle learning about her Princess in one night.

She marched through the hot logjam of bodies, step by step. Day finally noticed Carrot Top when she stood glowering directly in front of him. Only at that point did he seem to realize what he was doing and come to a stock still stop.

“Oh! H-hi, Carrot,” he said weakly. “Did—you want to dance?”

Princess Luna moved on behind him. When the support he’d been leaning against disappeared, Day pratfalled into the mosh.

“Thank you for the offer,” Carrot seethed, “but I’d better go.” She spun curtly. “I am having the most unholy thoughts about my own princess.”

Three long days passed without sign of Day. Carrot Top had ample time to cool down all the various parts of herself, but that should have been ample time for Day to calm as well. She tried not to get discouraged, but Day had never avoided her before, no matter how hard he protested her. If was following her gut, she would have fixed everything by tracking him down and kissing him hard enough to wipe all his problems away. But in this one instance, she looked away from her oil-painting of Princess Celestia and refrained from doing what her heart instructed; Ma’s instructions on behavior befitting a gentlemare had been very firmly impressed. Maybe in a week she could try to knock on his door again.

Oh, but it was so long to wait! Not even to talk to him!

So she was back in her garden, applying tender love and care to marshal the vegetable beds which had been losing their battle against wilderness while she was gone. The Ponyville produce market didn’t have much tolerance for less-than-stellar goods; if Carrot Top wanted to keep her customers, she couldn’t let the weeds in the rutabaga patch regroup their forces and live to fight another day.

Where had these turns of phrase about fighting come from? Carrot paused with a crabgrass shoot hanging out of her mouth, a frown pooling around it. Honestly. Ma would have been more than a little disturbed if she heard her daughter talk about weeding as though it involved slicing up other creatures. Maybe she was spending too much time around humans; maybe it was affecting her.

Which was only more encouragement to get back into the swing of agriculture. The hard work of raising plants was the perfect thing to keep her occupied; while Carrot was out under Celestia’s sun, soaking up her birthright of sweat and dirt, her thoughts only occasionally drifted to Day.

At least, she managed until Allie appeared along the road. Carrot dropped her watering can then and galloped across the garden, jumping up against her fence with her ears perked and her foreleg waving like a flag.

Allie couldn’t have failed to hear her call out, but she kept walking in a straight line as if she didn’t realize that she was being hailed. She was no more than two ponylengths from Carrot’s fence; when Carrot found herself looking at the girl’s back instead of her face, her ears fell down with a nearly audible squeak of sorrow.

But just at that instant the girl froze, mid-stride, one leg straight in the air. Carrot held her breath until the girl pivoted, playfully skipping towards Carrot’s fence and having a good laugh at the mare’s exuberant relief from being teased.

Carrot nickered happily. “You look marvelous today!”

“Aw.” Allie smiled into the ground. “You’re always so nice to me. Why don’t you come see Day and me tonight? It’s been a while.”

Carrot Top turned aside in the undertow of a barely-vocal breath. “Er, no…I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, why not?” Allie leaned further, and the fence sighed in lovelorn way beneath her weight. “You still like him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do!”

Allie’s grin returned with Carrot’s urgent affirmation. “Aw, you’re totally hooked, aren’t you? I get it. He has such wonderful eyes.” She was whispering now, as if sharing a special secret. “Especially when he’s doing something romantic. He can be so sweet.”

Carrot came up with a cursory response and they chatted that way for a bit—she didn’t remember anything about Day’s eyes. She liked him for other reasons. Allie, who had never spent much time around a real herd, was engaging in the romantic fantasy that there was a special connection between two mares in love with the same pony, and Carrot, who had grown up around large herds, was playing along, a technique she knew to be tried and tested for firming up the cohesiveness of a herd about to expand.

Things seemed to be going well on the Alexandra front. Carrot tried to push herself a little higher on the fence, closer to Allie’s face. “Give me a kiss.”

Allie pushed her away by the nose. “No!” she laughed. “Like, we haven’t even been on a first date yet.”

Carrot was beginning to worry there might never be a first date, but she backed down right away and crossed her chest. “Very well. I can respect that.” She nodded firmly at Allie. “In fact, I think it’s awfully gentlemarely of you to keep your hands off me for your herdmate. He’s a lucky man.”

Allie nodded—then laughed again. “Gee, you know how to make a girl feel special. I didn’t think I was doing anything special.”

In some respects, Carrot reflected, it was a lot easier to court Allie then Day. Whenever she tried to do something sweet, things went more as planned. Allie went along with things.

Allie pointed farther down the road which led into Poynville. “You can walk me home if you want.”

“Okay!” The rutabagas could hold the line for another couple hours. Carrot ran for her gate. Allie walked home every day now from the Ponyville Bank, where she was interviewing for a position. Apparently she’d spent quite a few years in school, which was the norm where she grew up, and she wanted a job where she’d get to apply the skills she spent so long training. Something called actuarial science, though Carrot Top decided that she’d have to live without taking a big interest in her herdmate’s careers after the third failed attempt on Allie’s part to explain it to her. Allie didn’t seem to mind.

It was joyous to skip through Ponyville at a human’s side. “You have no idea how happy I was when we hit it off.” Carrot smiled. “After everything Day said, I was terrified you wouldn’t like me and that would be the end of it.”

“Not at all!” Allie grinned down. “You’re cute as a button, my little pony!”

They reached Crayonberry Lane still talking about nothing and scheming about the future. Carrot Top’s heart skipped a beat, despite her better instincts, when Allie casually invited her inside.

She hung around in the living room while Allie went into the bedroom to change her clothes. Carrot Top told herself not to get excited; she’d been in this house plenty of times. Allie probably hadn’t even been thinking when she held the door open for her. But, unable to resist noticing that she had a human alone in their house, was acutely aware of Allie’s movements: her gaze flitting over Carrot Top, and towards the door. Was she worried Carrot might find a reason to leave?

“Allie,” she asked carefully. “Is there anything you…wanted to do while I’m here?”

“Oh, um…” The human bit her lip. She was staring at Carrot’s hooves in that shy way again, and Carrot felt her tail twitch. Allie was clearly working up to ask something.

“Hey. Hey, now, it’s okay.” She allowed herself to dare nuzzling Allie’s leg. “You can tell me anything, darling.”

“Could…”

Carrot held still, swallowing with her cheek still against Allie’s thigh. “Yeah?”

“Could I brush your mane?”

Carrot pulled away and blinked.

“It’s sort of a childhood dream,” Allie said with a look of apology about her.

“Well—hay.” Carrot spun around to present her mane. “If someone else wants to do the work to make me look good, go crazy.”

She sat at the foot of the couch to give Allie easy reach for teasing out the snarls. True to her word, she seemed to enjoy the monotonous chore of brushing out Carrot Top’s mane. Carrot spent the bulk of the time staring at the nascent daffodils sprouting from a windowsill planter, considering the thoughts that had flashed through her mind just before Allie made the request.

And less than half an hour after she’d promised to respect Allie’s wishes about keeping her hooves off until Day got over his issues! She dragged a hoof over her face. Lyra must be right. She really did turn into a different pony when left around these humans. At first it had just been Day, but now either one of them was enough to make her lose all her reserve.

“You know what?” she suggested. “Even though it’s early, we should set up some ground rules for everyone.”

“Rules?”

“Och, yes. You always have to have ground rules when a herd gets bigger’n two.” It might also, Carrot hoped, help to keep her accountable. She’d never forgive herself if she jeopardized her own chances with these two—not when she felt in her heart they were the ones.

“What kind of rules?” Allie said tepidly. “Like, how much should we spend on dates? Day pays for most of them, but I haven’t gotten back to work since we moved. When we were in college we always split the bill.”

“Okay. That’s grand to think about.” Carrot closed one eye as bits of her mane fell over it. “I have to say I wouldn’t mind splitting three ways. Up here, a mare normally pays for the whole herd if she wants to take them out on a first date–it can be expensive to get into a large one.” She looked over her shoulder. “At least, that’s how I was brought up. I suppose even the Apples don’t think that way anymore.” She sighed. “I guess I’m old-fashioned.”

“Well,” Allie declared, “I like you just fine old-fashioned.”

She went quiet for a moment as she worked her comb into the hardest part, right at the nexus of tangles in the middle of Carrot Top’s mane.

“We should talk more about money later,” said Carrot when the tugs on her head were no longer painful, “and gab on some rules about bringing new ponies into the herd. Actually, maybe we should lock that down for a while, just to keep Day comfy. But anyway, what about affection?”

“Mm—affection?” Allie murmured. Her arms tucked in closer to her sides at the elbows, and she hunched over as if trying to hide behind the cloudy frizzes of Carrot’s hairs.

“Better to just talk about it early,” said Carrot. “No good putting it off. That’s what Ma always taught me, and I’m sticking to it.”

She felt the human hesitate. Allie came close to saying something, but hovered back on the edge and fell backwards into awkward silence.

The mare rolled her eyes. She sighed in mock exasperation. But, if she was to admit the truth to herself, she was rather enjoying Allie’s naiveté. She turned about and planted her hooves on either side of the human’s shoulders. “Out with it, lass,” she said quietly but forcefully. “If I start kissing on Day, do you want to be around or not?”

Allie bit her lip. “Um…I’m not sure,” she admitted in a whisper. “I guess I thought about it some—that it would happen—but I didn’t know how I’d feel…”

“It’s alright.” Carrot Top dropped to the floor. “That’s not odd. Try thinking about what it would be like if I was around while you and Day were getting it on. Would you be okay with me watching?”

Her tail twitched. “Och…I would really love it if you let me watch.” For a moment, she was swept off her senses into imagining herself sitting by a beside while Day did all sorts of fantastically interesting things to Allie.

“Ah—ooh–or…” She shook herself back to reality hoping that she hadn’t moaned out loud. “Or if Day was watching while you and I kissed.” She paused. “If, you know,” she added quickly, “you want to do that kind of stuff.”

Allie remained hrming, just sort of responding with actual words. She was still embarrassed to talk about it, Carrot thought. It would have been an annoying facet in a pony she expected maturity out of, but in Allie, a delicate giant with the excuse of having never learned about real relationships, it was ridiculously adorable.

Still, they’d be here all day like this. She needed to nudge her along. “One of my sisters had some pretty safe herd rules,” Carrot suggested. “How about we use that as a place to start? The first time anything happens—a kiss, anything at all—we agree everyone should be around. And whenever we’re about to take another step with someone after that first time, we have to get in touch with the others and make sure that they’re alright with it. We don’t have to set any rules in stone, so don’t worry about that. We can change them later as much as we want.”

“That sounds cool!” Allie picked up her comb, looking relieved. “Let’s do that.”

Carrot top chuckled. “Och…don’t worry, Allie. I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure everything works out okay.”

She glanced at a clock on the wall and frowned. “I also need to take care of my carrots. Thank you for this, Allie, uh—my mane is really groomed—but I should probably go…”

Allie glanced back towards the door. “Oh, do you have to? Just a few more minutes.”

Carrot thought about it, found insufficient will to resist, and plopped back onto her haunches. She was starting to enjoy this little activity, not to mention that it dangled the possibility of getting free mane care out of her future relationship. “Just a minute though.”

She tensed suddenly when she felt bristles on an unexpected part of her body. At first she held still, so that she could pay rapt attention to the feeling of the brush sinking into the first few inches of her tail. It was tempting to let it continue, onwards and downwards…but she decided to whirl away, flirtatiously flicking it to the side. “Ah-ah-ah! Naughty girl.” She smiled as she backed away. “If I don’t get a kiss, you don’t get any of my tail.”

Allie’s mouth formed an O which then clamped shut as she crossed her arms. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she pouted. “I wanted a pony as a pet when I was a little girl. Now you’re making it sound dirty. ”

“Gee, sounds pretty kinky to me. Do I going to have to wear a collar and call you ‘master’?”

Allie bit her lip against laughter and made a show of throwing the hairbrush. “See if I brush your hair anymore,” she said.

Carrot gasped and ran to pick it up, lowering her ears in a conciliatory gesture. “I won’t do it again!” she swore around the handle. “Don’t say something like that!”

They dissolved into giggles.

But Carrot Top froze again when she heard the front door open. A moment later Day was standing in the entryway, lines forming in his face as he gazed around the living room. “Allie…what’s going on here?”

“Yeah, what’s going on?” Carrot Top backed towards the kitchen. “He shouldn’t be back–” she pointed at Day, “you shouldn’t be back for three hours!”

“Did I forget to mention he got off early today?” Allie got up, smoothly flowing around the pair of them. “Oops.”

Day tried to back out the way he had come, but already found his girlfriend behind him, pushing him firmly forward. The man stared at Carrot Top but set his mouth resolutely shut.

Carrot mirrored him for a minute. But when the silence stiffened, she broke. “Oh, buck it,” she said. “I ought to be the bigger pony. You were getting the chance to spend time with Princess Luna and I got in the way.”

“Wait. What?” Day stutter-stepped closer. “You’re not mad at me?”

“Mad at you? You’re mad at me, lad! What did you do?” Carrot sighed. “Okay, okay. I was mad at you. But be fair. You were grinding up on my duly appointed deity!”

Day’s eyes flew wide. “Oh, crap! I hadn’t even thought of that! But…that’s not a problem anymore?”

Carrot Top shook her head solemnly. She had stormed out of the New New Lunar Republic to get rid of her blasphemously impure thoughts, blaming Day all the while for giving them birth in the first place. But among the many undesired images that had flashed through Carrot Top’s mind while she watched the Night dance had been a few sensations that brought a chill instead of a flush to her chest—brief glimpses, or so it felt, of a cold which was beyond her, a night-time chill without end.

With or without lunar banishment, being a goddess was a very lonely thing. And how was it Carrot’s place to decide whether or not the Night’s dignity needed defending? No—she had been wrong. When she thought about it, it was her pride that had really been stung, not the Avatar of the Moon’s.

She had ridden home sick to the stomach with herself for questioning her own Princess. Luna wouldn’t have allowed Day to do anything she hadn’t wanted him to. And so Carrot, if she wanted to be holy, should only hope that Day had brought a minute of warmth to that unfathomable cold.

But then what had so paralyzed Day that he avoided her for three days? Carrot Top took a moment to review what she knew about the human’s culture. It seemed unlikely, but… “Horseapples! You thought you were rubbing it in my face?”

Day nodded a shamed face. “After all the times I turned you down, I thought…”

She tightened her brows. “Well, you weren’t, were you?”

“Of course not! A gentleman would never do that!”

She dared to try and force a grin through the mulch of the awkwardness. “So what are we caterwauling on about, then?”

On Carrot’s way out, she found Allie and stopped to kiss the back of the girl’s hand. Maybe that human knew more about being in a herd than she let on.

And she actually broke into song on her way back—a prancing, private little ditty about love letting Celestia’s sun shine through on even the cloudiest days. Dad couldn’t even be angry if she proved that Day was madly in love with her. Everything in life was coming together. Perfection was within reach, anyway. The only thing left to do was take care of those niggling little uncertainties Day had stuck in his head, keeping him from reaching out and taking the same happiness.

Comments

[warpd]

A night club, not the best way to introduce a farm pony to their local deity. It's interesting to see all the excuses that Carrot makes to justify Luna's actions. Like a culture shock almost.
A little something outside what this story will show. The humans are bringing technology to the ponies, so what are the ponies bringing to the humans? Outside of furry sweaty snu-snu.

[ArthurHucksake]

furry sweaty snu-snu

I'm ok with this...

[Dawn Stripes]

4422322

Magic research, foremost. Enchantment is a crucial component of the Dimension Gates.

Also, does this mean you got a notification when the story updated this time?

[Permanent Temporary]

She wondered every now and then if ponies here remembered that they were called to higher standards than most of these exotic beings from beyond the stars.

Wow, that doesn't sound the least bit bigoted at all, Carrot!

“I should start with a pad of larger buttons,” he mused quietly.

picturesnew.com/media/images/genius.jpeg

It would have been an annoying facet in a pony she expected maturity out of, but in Allie, a delicate giant with the excuse of having never learned about real relationships, it was ridiculously adorable.

Wow, I didn't realize your way of doing things was the only acceptable correct way of doing them, Carrot!

I sense an even greater clash of cultures in the future, thanks to Carrot's "traditional values". I'm looking forward to the ensuing drama it will no doubt cause.

Although I really like this story, one thing I'll profess to not liking is the fact that there are more than one world connected by the dimensional gates. It's not the idea of a multi-reality setting that I don't like, it's the fact that doesn't seem to be even the least bit important to this story's setting, so the inclusion of other worlds feels completely extraneous and unnecessary at the fundamental level.

4422322
An admittedly unintended (at least in Carrot's case) attitude of superiority, if Carrot's comments (which are, admittedly, supposed to be conservative) are to be taken as not being radical or extremist and thus could at least be considered not uncommon among ponies.

[warpd]

4425451
Yes! I actually got an update.
Given that they have access to other worlds what makes pony magic stand out? Is it just because the two races formed a partnership?

[Permanent Temporary]

4427633
Exactly. This is along the lines of what I was mentioning in my post. The inclusion of other realities besides Earth and Equestria seems extraneous to me, and just raises all kinds of questions that really don't help the story. He could have just left that information out and it wouldn't have had any impact on the story itself, since they aren't even remotely important.

[Alaborn]

Silly Carrot Top. Actuarial science is easy to understand.

[Blue Shadow]

I'm really liking this story so far.