Big Mac looked into the big blue eyes of the Hermit and realized that he was completely helpless. And possibly in very grave danger. He had never heard ill of the Hermit, aside from her strangeness and standoffishness; it seemed unlikely that a thirteen year old Pegasus filly meant to kill him. On the other hoof, right now he was mesmerized by her gaze, incapable of moving a single voluntary muscle, and facing not only a mind-witch but a probably-angry brown bear, though he could not tear his attention away from those terrifyingly-intense eyes to tell what the bear was doing. Right now, the Hermit's eyes were the center of his whole universe, whether he liked it or not.
He tried to speak, tried to give her a placating smile, and discovered that these muscles were also paralyzed. She or her familiar bear could kill him, and he wouldn't be able to fight back, or protest.
Or even answer her question.
She seemed to realize this too, because her expression softened slightly. "Oh!" she said, and her voice sounded more like the soft, dulcet tones he had imagined it would be when he had caught those distant glimpses of the hermit. "You can't talk. Oops -- sorry -- I'll give you back your voice."
She did ... something, Big Mac wasn't entirely sure what ... and the pressure on his mind let up slightly. He still couldn't move most of his body, but now he thought he could talk. He gasped and coughed by way of testing his renewed control over his throat muscles.
"Thankee kindly, Miss Hermit," Big Mac said. He still couldn't move his head, but he could now move his eyes, and he saw that the bear had moved closer, to a position behind and to the side of the Hermit, one from which if it wished it could step forward and in an instant strike him down. But it was not attacking, and he somehow knew that it would not do so unless he attacked the Hermit, or she ordered it to hurt him.
"You're welcome," said the Hermit, levelly. Her voice was no longer as hostile, but it was still far from friendly. There was a somewhat breathy tone to it, as if she found the effort of talking to a Pony strenuous. "Now -- why were you pointing a crossbow at my friend Harry?"
"Harry?" Big Mac asked, then answered his own question. "Oh. The bear."
"Yes," the Hermit replied. "The bear. He's my friend, and if you'd shot him with a big crossbow like that ..." she looked down for a moment, "... high-tension, steel-framed repeating arbalest ... you would have hurt him very badly. Or worse. Why would you do something that mean?" There was almost a sob in her voice, as if she found it difficult to grasp why any Pony would shoot a huge brown bear.
But then, she had called Harry her 'friend.' Ah guess Ah'd be pretty mad at someone who nearly shot mah friend, Big Mac mused.
"He took a piece outta me first," Big Mac pointed out. "Mah tail."
The Hermit moved around him, and though Mackie couldn't see exactly what she was doing, was clearly looking at his hindquarters. "Oh, my," she said. "Yes, he swiped your skirt. Did he hurt the dock much?" Her voice was becoming solicitious.
"Eenope," Big Mac replied. "Missed it."
The Hermit turned to the bear. "Harry," she said reproachfully, "why did you try to hurt this Pony? I told you not to hurt Ponies -- it's no wonder he was hunting you."
The bear bawled. It was a complex sound, but BIg Mac could make nothing out in it that he hadn't heard in any other bear's bawl. It seemed a bit indignant.
The Hermit looked at Big Mac. "Harry told me that you ran at him and yelled, and grabbed another Pony he'd made friends with. Why did you frighten him like that?"
"Frighten ...?" Mackie began, starting to get mad; then considered his position. He was still paralyzed by the Hermit's spell, and still in the presence of her pet bear. "Miss Hermit, yore friend Harry was loomin' right over mah little sister! Ah was afeered the bear might do her harm!"
"Oh!" said the Hermit, clearly seeing it from Mac's point of view for the first time. "Oh, dear, I see how you might have gotten that impression. Oh, Mr. Macintosh, I didn't realize what had happened." She relaxed a bit, and Big Mac suddenly had the ability to move his neck muscles, though still not most of his body. "Harry doesn't want to hurt Ponies. He wasn't going to harm your little sister. When you yelled at him and grabbed him, he thought you were going to harm her. He was trying to protect her from you."
"Protect ...?" Then Mackie thought it through. If one understood nothing about Pony ways, save perhaps what one eccentric teenaged filly had taught one, his previous encounter with Harry might have looked like that. From the bear's perspective. It actually made sense.
"So you see," said the Hermit hopefully, "this has all been a big misunderstanding. Harry, you're not going to hurt Mr. Macintosh here, or any of his family, or any other Ponies that aren't trying to hurt you, right?"
The bear made a noise which Big Mac had to assume was affirmative, by the Hermit's answering smile.
"And Mr. Macintosh, you promise not to hunt my friend Harry here any more, right? You give your word, as an Apple?" The big blue eyes looked into Big Mac's own, this time with much less hostility.
Big Mac thought a moment. He didn't think that the Hermit wanted to hurt him any more; the terrifying mind-witch seemed to be receding, leaving a rather refined-seeming teenaged Pegasus filly. There was something in her tone and her manners which made him think that she was some sort of Quality, what the Pegasi called High Born.
Though she hadn't fully lifted her spell. He still couldn't move most of his body, still couldn't fight. And she still had Harry on her side. So he was still far from safe, if she changed her mind.
But if he gave his word -- at all -- he would feel honor bound. That would be enough for him, though the Hermit had been clever enough to ask him to give his word as an Apple, which meant that he would be bound by his family's honor as well. He wondered, briefly, if somepony had told her about himself, about the Apples, enough for her to realize just how seriously he took his own honor, and that of his family.
He really didn't have much of a choice, unless he intended to fight both the bear and the mind-witch, which would be difficult seeing as that he couldn't really move. And she didn't seem unfriendly.
And she'd made the bear promise first not to hurt him or his family, though he wasn't sure how far he could trust the word of a bear. Though he wasn't about to call the bear a liar, especially not right to its face while he was paralyzed.
"Eeyup," Big Mac said slowly. "Ah give mah word, on mah honor and mah family's hohor." Though he could now look slightly away from the Hermit's eyes, he instead chose to meet them completely, letting her see his sincerity. As a mind-witch, she could probably see that sort of thing directly, and he wanted her to know that he too wanted to bury the hatchet.
Something seemed to pass between their eyes, and it must have been close to what Mackie intended, because the Hermit gave a sort of little gasp, and then abruptly Mackie was free. His first act was to point the arbalest away from both the Hermit and Harry, then refasten the safety, making sure it was secure before he restored Ol' Bessie to her carrying case.
The Hermit and Harry both relaxed, which was good, because each of them was frightening in their own ways. The tension in that little clearing dissipated, along with the smell of fear from all three of them.
Big Mac breathed easier. Then he nodded at the Hermit.
"Thankee, Miss Hermit." A thought occurred to him, and he met her gaze again. "Ah cain't keep calling you just 'Hermit.' That's no way to talk to a young lady. Ah'm Macintosh Apple, but everpony calls me 'Big Mac.' How should Ah call you?"
The transformation in the Hermit's manner was immediate and obvious. Now that she was no longer in a life-or-death situation, defending her bear from his bow, she made a little squeak, sounding somewhat like "Eep," and suddenly shook her long pink mane so that it almost covered her face. One blue eye peeped out at him shyly.
"Um ..." she said very softly, sitting down and planting her forelegs directly before her abdomen -- a good position for protecting herself from a Peeper, though Big Mac had shown absolutely no inclinations toward such behavior. "Um ..." she said again, blushing furiously. "Um, I'm Fluttershy." The last came out as little more than a breath; had Big Mac not been leaning forward, ears up to catch whatever she might say, he might have missed it, and as it was he wasn't entirely sure that he'd heard her right.
Mackie had no idea why the powerful mind-witch was now acting afraid of him. He looked at the bear questioningly, but Harry just sat down and whuffed, finding immense interest in the contemplation of some ants crawling along a trail. He began licking up the ants.
"Alright, Miss ... Fluttershy, was it?" he asked.
The Hermit nodded furiously and then hid her face completely.
"Nice meetin' yeh," Big Mac began. "Good thing nopony ... um, or bear ..."
Harry looked at him with a kindly expression.
"... got hurt," Mackie finished. "Ah'll be goin' now, if it's all right with you, Miss Fluttershy." He was starting to feel nervous himself. This is a social situation now, Big Mac thought. Ah don't rightly know what to say to a mindwitch who ain't much more than a filly. T'aint normal.
She nodded again.
"Bye, Miss Fluttershy," Mackie said, and began walking down back down the way he'd come. Then he turned. "Um, yew prolly don't want Harry going too far in that direction," he pointed toward the Carrot Garden. "That's a farm family that way, and he might skeer them."
She nodded, peeped out at him for a moment. "Bye ... Big Mac," she said, and hid again immediately after speaking his hame.
"Bye," Mac repeatedly, awkwardly, and gratefully departed.
Strange filly, he thought. Guess she ain't so bad. Plumb powerful, though. Ah see why she ain't much skeered o'critters -- they're prolly putty to her mind-witchery.
Wonder why she lives all alone like she does, though? He mused on it briefly, then decided, T'aint none of mah business, Ah reckon.
Another problem had occurred to him.
Aw, shoot, Ah went out there all sure Ah was gonna shoot that bear, Mackie realized. Gramps and Granny are counting on me to succed for us all to be safe.
How am Ah gonna explain to them what actually happened?
He supposed he'd just tell them the truth. That always works best, he decided. So that's what Ah'll do.
With a slightly lighter heart, but some trepidations, Big Mac headed back for home.
I do like your insight into Angel Bunny in the previous chapter's author's note. Of course, he doesn't seem like the kind who'd announce "Be not afraid" when he appeared, largely because his appearance signals that you may want to be afraid.
It's good to see that they were able to resolve this peacefully... but the story's still incomplete. Grannie and Blackie may not take kindly to the psychic filly who put the whammy on their grandson. This could get a lot worse before it gets...
Well, given the nature of the timeline, it's definitely going to get worse before it ever gets better in the long term, but even in the short term, this misunderstanding may yet worsen.
6991210
I actually got the idea from your My Little Balladeer. Though this is of course a different worldline in many ways, one of which being that Applejack doesn't witness her grandfather's decline firsthand.
I did not consciously remember while I was writing this that your dad was a steelworker, but of course you told me about it -- in detail. I did want to show the way in which the old blacksmithing techniques and the later steelworking techniques were a continuum of change, which is of course what really happened -- first you had old-style blacksmiths, then ironmasters, and eventually what we now think of as the steel industry, after the invention of things like the Bessemer Process and electrically-heated and electrolysis-based systems. You probably know far more about this than I do, growing up where you did with the relatives you had!
My Little Balladeer was what got me thinking about Granny Smith's husband in the first place. Obviously she had one, and obviously he must have been somepony fairly special. Eventually I came up with my current concept of Black Smith Apple (he took "Apple," she took "Smith" in an act of deliberate social non-conformity to express their love) as a master blacksmith, metallurgist and former Night Watch agent -- a classic Old Master Mentor type, unfortunately Doomed by Canon to suffer the usual Mentor Occupational Hazard.
In this worldline, of course, he's even more Big Mac's role model than he was in the main worldline, because he had more of Big Mac's attention.
6991245
Inspired in part by the White Lotus Society from Avatar: The Last Airbender, I rather like the idea of a lot of the really old characters having at one point been allied adventurers serving the Realm in the Night Watch. My proposed group so far includes Black Smith Apple, Greenie Smith Apple, Apfel Strudel, Ink Well and Goldie Pie -- I'm sure I'll think of others if I ever write stories focused on them.
I'm assuming a (magically-enhanced) regenerative mechanical system storing enough energy for three shots, with some sort of winding required after that. Ol' Bessie is a heavy Pony-portable weapon, intended for shooting at really serious threats; somepony expecting to encounter a horde of smaller threats would probably use something else, or one of the bolts that has an area effect (like the explosive ones). I don't think that the wielder, even Big Mac or Blackie in his prime, could take the recoil if all three bolts were fired simultaneously, but one at a time with a second or so rechambering (re-laying?), sure. No way would Bessie have a ROF as good as a smaller crossbow of comparably good design and materials.
Apfel Strudel has an even more powerful one-shot arbalest, which he calls "Armored Fist" -- in his native Lippanzer Germane, of course, that's "Panzerfaust." Yes, I know about the WWII German precursor to the LAW Apfel, of course, is the Pony more commonly referred to as "Apple Strudel" -- after many decades in Equestria, he of course speaks fluent Equestrian, and he's married to Rose Apple (Granny's favorite first cousin from "Family Appreciation Day" and the Apple Family Reunion), so he thinks of himself as an "Apple" anyway. He and Rose are two more of the Apples who demonstrate the incredible longevity of a fortunate Earth Pony.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to use Ol 'Bessie and Panzerfaust in something else I write, eventually.
6991242 I actually got the idea from your My Little Balladeer. Though this is of course a different worldline in many ways, one of which being that Applejack doesn't witness her grandfather's decline firsthand.
Thank you. I am genuinely flattered by the idea that I influenced your work like this.
I did not consciously remember while I was writing this that your dad was a steelworker, but of course you told me about it -- in detail. I did want to show the way in which the old blacksmithing techniques and the later steelworking techniques were a continuum of change, which is of course what really happened -- first you had old-style blacksmiths, then ironmasters, and eventually what we now think of as the steel industry, after the invention of things like the Bessemer Process and electrically-heated and electrolysis-based systems. You probably know far more about this than I do, growing up where you did with the relatives you had!
Well, yeah, for kids of a certain age in and around the Coal and Iron region of Pennsylvania, you learned about stuff like this if only by overhearing the adults. Of course it's pretty much all gone now. Hopefully Equestria doesn't end up with that problem too -- though given what will happen in this world, that may be one of the better things that could happen. At least there would be a world left afterwards.
Did Fluttershy notice Big Mac was clothed in dead animal skin (leather) or is leather common enough that it's not as grotesque as it seems in a world with talking cows?
I always thought that the Stare simply made a pony realize what he did wrong, not that it physically paralyzed him. But I'll go along with it for this story.
And like Catalysts Cradle said, did Fluttershy notice that Big Mac was wearing leather? I can accept that they'd use the skin of animals that died of natural causes, but I don't think leather is common in Equestria.
Anyway, it would be a good idea for Mac to warn the other ponies of Ponyville that there is a semi-tame bear living at the outskirts of town, to prevent an unfortunate misunderstanding in the future.
Oh, and I forgot to comment on this line in the previous chapter:
I've seen Applejack in action – and Rainbow Dash, and even Granny Smith in her heyday. I don't think they need a stallion to protect them.