Tales From Riversdale: Life Without Harmony

by Rare80

Chapter Five

The ship had now finally reached the docks at Romero's hometown of Riversdale. The tightly compacted skyscrapers, made of brick, stone, and steel, welcomed him home; and gave his city the look of prominence. The tall structures clearly mark downtown. The whole city was a densely populated urban area, and the city definitely looked that way from afar. It was almost nighttime. You couldn’t really tell however, the sun is tucked away behind thick dense clouds. When Romero poked his head out of his carriage, he’s greeted by a menacing looking thunderstorm. The rain poured from up above like water from a faucet. His fluffy afro squishes and flattens on his head as the rain beats down on it. He breathes a heavy sigh and begins strapping his carriage to his shoulders. By the time he reaches the port, he’s in the tail end of a long line at the customs office. He waits outside as he long-suffers the time it takes to get back into his home country. The Riversdale Port Authority were sometimes way too thorough for their own good. He pokes his head around the corner to see a white unicorn mare with loads upon loads of luggage holding up the line.

“What am I to trust you ponies with such sensitive information as my birth certificate? Do you not realize that this document contains my Equestrian Citizenship number?” She scoffs, “The nerve of you ponies!” There was a small team of customs officers surrounding the mare as she was questioned. Sure, the bedside manner of these officers leaves much to be desired, but they had a tough job, and dealing with uptight Equestrians was never easy. One lonely customs officer was left checking her baggage as the rest try (aggressively) to calm her down. “This is an outrage!" she continues. "I wish to speak to your manager, or dean, or whoever it is that's in charge of this operation!”

“Found it!” the lone officer checking her baggage pulls out an old, worn and stained document held thinly together with scotch tape, waving it victoriously above his head. He then hoofs it over to another officer and he quickly scans over it.

“Miss Rarity…” he says as he reads the document out loud, “Female, 23 years of age, never married, natural born Equestrian national citizen, looks like it’s her first time out of the country.” He nonchalantly stamps her passport and tosses it along with her birth certificate; back to her, or back at her, depending on how you look at it. After picking it up off the floor, she struggles to contain her anger.

“What a vile cesspool of loutish, bureaucratic disregard this is. Such an atrocity!” The unicorn then punctuated her statement with a loud ‘harrumph’ and moves on. To be fair to the unicorn; ‘loutish, bureaucratic disregard’ could be a harsh, but accurate way to describe this country, that is if you want to be pessimistic about it. Rarity, after collecting her massive amounts of luggage with her magic, stomps off amid the puddles of rain water on the ground to rejoin her oddball group of Equestrian... shall we call them... “tourists”. Unsurprisingly, the line into the customs office begins to move a whole lot quicker now that they were out of the way.

“Equestrians, am I right?” the stallion gives Romero a playful nudge, as he delivers his comment. Usually Romero is not the fellow to judge. He’s met a few good Equestrians that have treated him more or less fairly during his travels. The pink mare from this morning, What’s-Her-Name, seemed nice enough. However, he couldn’t help but think as he looked at them, just how bad they looked. They wrinkled their noses, and looked at the beloved city he calls home through squinted eyes. If they were going to prejudge, then he was going to as well. It was only fair.

“Wait, Romero. You’re better than that,” he muttered that statement to himself accidentally, and he looked around hoping that no one had heard him. His sudden insecurities, woke him out of his hateful thoughts like ice water to the face. The pony in line in front of him that had nudged him earlier, was now staring at Romero with a confused eyebrow raised. “Uh… what I said was, it must be their first time out… of the country, I mean.” A pretty natural statement by him. It probably would’ve sounded better if he hadn’t stumbled all over it.

“Yeah, clearly” the stallion answered flatly. After that, that stallion was already next in line. Romero moves up in line as the other stallion gets his baggage checked. He waits and watches him as he turns over his paperwork and trots through the metal detector. His luggage is quickly checked, and in no time, Romero is already being waved on through. The stallion ahead of him in line goes directly up to the six Equestrian mares as soon as he’s done. He begins talking at them in a loud, obnoxious tone. “Look at who’s mackin’ out like they own the place! Six slick foxes down by the boatin' docks! Sunshine, sunshine!”

He continues the ‘sunshine’ chant for a few moments, and Romero starts to get a tad uncomfortable. The Equestrians had no idea what was going on, and that was probably for the best. Even though some of those girls had wronged him before, Romero couldn’t help but feel some contact shame as the stallion harassed them. He hoofs over his paperwork as he continues to watch from afar. He wasn’t sure if this other stallion even noticed one of the girls was an alicorn, but it might not have mattered anyway. When the stallion finally had his fill, he trots off leaving the girls utterly bewildered. Romero steps through the metal detector, and retrieves his luggage. He had other things to worry about now, and the girls weren't his problem. He had a carriage to sell off to the pawn shop, with the five-year banishment Celestia had given him, he won’t be needing it any time soon.

If you’re looking for a good deal at the pawn shop, then you’re looking in all the wrong places. Romero walks out of there with 40 bucks, and he’s lucky to get that much. Downhearted, he leaves the shop with three big plastic trash bags filled to the brim with his coffee beans. The rain had now died down to nothing more than a light drizzle. When he turns the corner, he’s shocked to see the six mares from Equestria standing around on the sidewalk seemingly waiting for him. He looks up from his money, drops it into his apron, and stares them down. He’s completely confused. The shy stallion chooses to say nothing. He takes his coffee with him, one bag now in his mouth, the other two tied onto his back. He goes halfway down the city block, and he notices that the mares are following him, he stops and turns around.

“Uh, can I help you?” he asks a tad annoyed after spitting this bag of coffee down onto the pavement.

“Ah dunno, can ya?” AppleJack responds sarcastically, keeping a deadpan face as she does so. Romero responds by sucking his teeth and throwing up his hooves in protest.

“Hey, I’m just trying to go home. You mares ruined my side job by dragging me to court over some dumb apples. Haven’t you done enough damage to my life?”

“We were told to follow you,” Twilight states bluntly as she steps forward. “Celestia’s orders.” She presents Romero with a document with the Official Equestrian Royal Insignia stamped on the bottom along with the Princess' signature. Romero quickly scans the document reading some of the important parts. He mutters to himself as he reads.

“So, pretty much Celestia ordered me to babysit you all for the next two months, is that it? You're not foals. You’re all grown ladies that can take care of yourselves. Why can’t you just rent a couple of hotel rooms and leave me out of this?” The soft spoken Romero is beginning to raise his voice, less out of anger and more out of frustration. His usually calm and melodic voice was how loud and powerful enough to echo throughout the streets and alleyways that were still damp from the storm. “How am I supposed to make room for seven of us in my tiny, one bedroom apartment? Where you gonna sleep? What about rent? What about bills? What about groceries? Did you ever think of that, huh?”

“CELESTIA’S. ORDERS.” Twilight's harsh voice pierces through Romero's anger like a bullet. Twilight floats the document right up to Romero’s face to where it begins to brush up against his muzzle. He sees no way in which he’s going to win this fight. A few hateful things flood his mind. A string of four letter words repeated themselves over and over again in his head. However, he manages to bite his tongue. He simply keeps his mouth shut, turns right back around, and breathes out a heavy sigh.

‘Well, the least one of you could do, is help me with all of this coffee,” Romero snapped.

“I’m not helping you with anything!” Romero stops after hearing a raspy voice answer him from behind. It was the blue mare, the pegasus, she suddenly swoops down in front of him and hovers above the sidewalk at near eye level. She stares him down. She's clearly livid, and she glares at him with a rather intimidating look on her face.

Romero spits out his bag again. “Hey, I recognize you." He points a hoof towards her. "You’re one of the mares from the trial, aren’t you? What’s your name? Rainbow Spring, or something-or-other?"

“Rainbow Dash,” she corrects him. “I’m not busting my tail for you. You’re the criminal here.” Romero certainly wasn’t liking her tone. There were a few quiet minutes that went by, filled with the soft, ambient noises of the busting city, as he glared dismissively at her. She was talking down to him in a manner that seemed worse than AppleJack’s. At least AppleJack had a reason to be mad. He didn’t know what this pegasi’s problem was, he’d done nothing to her.

“Fine.” Romero’s voice now seemingly lacks purpose. He was tired of all of this arguing. He just wants to go home now before the rain starts to pick up again, Equestrians or no Equestrians. All of this fussing and fighting was only going to make him cold and wet if it continued. He picks up his bag of coffee with his mouth. He slowly and nonchalantly walks around her, with the bags of coffee on his back weighing him down. He keeps head down, trotting off in the general direction of home. Rainbow Dash, along with four of the other Equestrian six quickly pass him. That leaves only Pinkie Pie behind him. Without saying a word, she takes a bag of coffee away from him, specifically the one was holding in his mouth. She purposefully avoided eye contact with him, however, and quickly trots off ahead to join the others. Maybe she will soon turn on him too.

Comments

[Sir Budginton]

At least one bearer of the elements of 'harmony' is being nice. Good job pinkie, the same cannot be said for the rest of you (except maybe fluttershy). I am ashamed

[EverfreePony]

8488725
I see, you are welcome I know from experience that both the tenses work really well, so just roll with the one you feel comfortable writing.

[EverfreePony]

Interesting, I'm curious what adventures await them in this city. Also, glad to see at least somepony cares

[Rare80]

8497446
Fluttershy will get a full introduction into the story soon enough. It won't be for a few chapters though, you know how timid around new ponies she is.