For the Future

by celticwolf72

Chapter 3: Incoming!

Setting up the tent took no time at all. Laying out the canvas was as simple as nudging the roll, then unfolding each seam. Propping up the ends with the tent poles came next, followed by laying out the guy-lines. Finally Coaldust stamped each of the tent spikes into place to hold the guy-lines taut. He had to grin as his first thought on stamping a spike into the ground was of the wooden shaft turning into a miniature version of Twilight’s assistant. “Huh, I’ll never be able to look at these things the same way again.”

Chortling to himself, Coaldust then dragged his cart into the cave to protect it from the elements. Grabbing a few items, he made his way back to the tent so that he could rest comfortably at night. Once that was done, he started looking for a good place to scrape a fire pit. Due to his concentration, it took a few moments for him to hear the odd whistling sound that was slowly getting louder.

“…oah. Whoa. WHoa! Dang it, will you stabil…. Gah! LOOK OUT BELOW!”

Coaldust looked up quickly to see a predominately blue, but also multi-hued pony dropping straight out of the sky towards his camp. Seeing as they appeared quite out of control, he considered his options rapidly. Seeing no other choice, Coaldust reared onto his hind legs balancing carefully. Crow hopping twice to fix the angle, he gathered himself and watched the plummeting pony.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!”

At the very last moment, Coaldust leapt at the falling pony to collide with them… his chest to their shoulder. Wrapping his good hoof around them, he banked his body around so that he struck the ground and they struck him in turn. The impact wound up sliding them several pony lengths across the clearing, and thoroughly knocked the wind from the stallion.

As he gathered his breath, the other pony rolled off of his chest to sit beside him. The blue pony shook its… no, her, multi-colored mane as if clearing her head. “Eh-heh. Wow. I’m going to feel that in the morning.” Rose colored eyes turned to look at Coaldust. “Thanks, whoever you are. I appreciate the help, but I totally had that under control.” Blue wings flared as the pegasus pony posed with an assumed air of nonchalance.

“Sure you did,” coughed Coaldust. “All the pegasus ponies I know land nose first.”

“Pfft. Whatever. You just happened to be in my flight path as I was practicing.”

“Practicing, right. Looked more like falling to me.” Coaldust grinned, recognizing a tomcolt when he met one. “Then again, maybe you were practicing. Sure seems you need it.”

The rose pink eyes narrowed as the mare turned to face him. “Oh, you did not just say that.” She advanced on him, poking her hoof in his chest. “I’m the best flier in Equestria. The only reason I’m not on the Wonderbolts is because I haven’t had a chance to show them what I can do in the open air.”

“I can understand that.” Coaldust gave her a sly grin, “After all, you need to be in the open air for you to do that.”

The pegasus’ jaw dropped, and she sputtered for a few moments with incoherent rage. Her obvious lack of words caused Coaldust to roll onto his side, laughing hard. “What’s so darn funny?” the pegasus demanded.

“Y… you should see… your face!”

That took the mare aback for a moment. “Wait, you weren’t serious?”

Coaldust shook his head as he gathered his breath again. “You are too easy, miss. Woo! I haven’t had a target that easy since my little sister.”

“You were teasing me?” Her indignation only lasted a few moments, before she too started laughing. “Okay, you got me. I’m mare enough to admit it. Ya know? For a big lunk you’re pretty cool.”

“Heh, thanks. Name’s Coaldust, and as you can probably tell, I’m new to these parts.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed.”

The stallion rolled his eyes and groaned. Rolling to his good side he started to stand up. “Well, you know who I am now. Ya goin’ to introduce yourself, or am I just goin’ to have to call you ‘hey you’?”

“I guess I can tell you, though you should know me. After all, I did win the Best Young Flyer’s competition last time around.” Turning to pose side on to Coaldust, the mare flicked her mane to one side. “I just happen to be….”

“RAINBOW DASH!” Another mare came bursting into the clearing, this one an orange earth pony with a cowpony hat over a blonde mane. “There ya are, sugarcube. Ah been tryin’ to figger out where ya came down. I was worried ya’d bust a wing….”

“Ugh. Did you have to come running in right then?”

“Well ah was worried, and… whoa!” The orange mare suddenly realized the two of them were not alone.

“From your cutie mark, you must be one of the Apple family. Ms. Applejack, if’n I could hazard a guess?”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed, “An’ jest how do ya know my name?”

“Well, a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle mentioned it when I met her upon coming to town.” Still feeling a bit playful from the teasing he had given Rainbow Dash, he gave Applejack a grin of her own. “’Course, if Apple Spice had mentioned she had a cute family member in Ponyville, I might’a come here sooner.”

The blush that started to form on the orange mare’s cheeks faded as soon as the name he had dropped registered. “Ya know Auntie Spice? Well, why didn’t ya say so sooner? That almost makes ya family.” She closed the distance rapidly and started pumping his hoof like the lever for a water pump. “Ya jest gotta come over ta Sweet Apple Acres and meet the rest of the family. I’m right sure they’d love ta meet ya, an’ we are always looking for news from the rest o’ the family.”

Gently disengaging himself from the shaking, Coaldust smiled. “I just might take ya up on that later. Though ya might want to know my name first, Coaldust. Can’t be having some pony over whose name ya don’t know.”

“Y’all are the one that’s Twilight’s coltfriend, right?”

Rainbow’s eyes got big as her head snapped around to look at the stallion. “You’re kidding, right? You just got into town and you’ve made a move on Twilight? Dang, you move almost as fast as I fly!”

Coaldust sighed and shook his head, “Ya must have spoken with that pink ball of energy. No, I’m not Twilight’s coltfriend. That Pinkie Pie made an assumption on seeing Twilight walking me out to my claim here.”

“Eeyup, that sounds lahk Pinkie all right.”

“He just knew he could try to get a better piece,” Rainbow said playfully. “Bet he’d like a piece of this.”

“Nope, not interested.” The stallion winked to Applejack before moving in to whisper to an insulted looking Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow looked even more shocked at the whisper, then caught the gleam in his eye. “Dang,” she giggled, “got me again.”

“Ahm not even gonna ask. Ah jest don’t wanna know.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m not telling, AJ.”

The orange mare rolled her eyes then turned to smile at Coaldust. “So, ya gonna come over tonight? I jest wanna know so I can tell m’brother an’ Granny how many ta cook fer.”

“Nah. I got to finish setting up the mine tonight, but I’ll be headed into town tomorrow. Would that work for ya?”

“Yup. Hey, y’all could come by for lunch.” Applejack’s grin got wider as she thought, “Yeah… that’d work out real good. We could get our friends together an’ make sure ya knew ‘em all. I know Pinkie’s workin’ on a party, but this’d be more intimate like.”

Coaldust nodded, “Sounds like a plan ta me. I’ll not be keepin’ ya both any longer. I still have ta finish up after all.”

“Raht. C’mon, Rainbow, let’s git back towards town. Nice ta meet ya, Coaldust. See ya tomorrow.” Applejack smiled and started prancing out of the clearing.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, took to the air in a lazy spiral upwards. “Yeah, see you tomorrow Dusty.” She started to fly in the same direction as her orange friend, before looping around to zoom back, hovering just in front of her new friend. “Oh, and just so you know… if you change your mind, I never leave my friends… hanging.” With a wink and a laugh at Coaldust’s dumbfounded expression, she took off like a shot to follow Applejack.

---

Author's Note: For those who are wondering, I am aware his usage of 'you' and 'ya' shifts around quite a bit. That's intentional. He's sort of an 'educated redneck', and his accent does slip around a bit.

Comments

[llama66613]

Very nice! I enjoyed reading it, looks like it could go in a lot of directions. Great job coming up with a cool original character.

The only comment I have is that, just so you know, colt refers to a young (3 years and under) pony. So Coaldust would probably be called a stallion. (But I do like the term coltfriend!)

[celticwolf72]

29311

Thanks for pointing that out. I was actually aware (being as I live in Wyoming, I'd better know that), but I was operating in what I perceived was the majority convention in the fandom. I hope I didn't offend... definitely not my intent.