Under pressure
To say that the night was long was an understatement. In fact, trying to describe the night at all seemed far too difficult a task at this early morning hour. It was a night, one quite unlike any other, and now, in the hours just after dawn, Sundance was trying to sort everything out. In his current sleep deprived state, his thoughts were sluggish, his mind slow, but he did not feel sleepy, not in the slightest.
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever sleep again.
During the impossibly long night, Amber Dawn had been stitched back together. Dozens of stitches in dozens of places, the most notable of which were her lower lip, her ear, just below her swollen eye, several places along her left side, and one particularly nasty laceration on her croup. Somehow, Corduroy worked without tiring, without fatigue. She displayed no signs of exhaustion until well after her task was finished. Corduroy had turned back into the stoic nurse that he’d seen in the cellar, the solid, reliable stone. Even after she allowed the exhaustion to show on her face, Corduroy remained awake until she was satisfied that her patient would be fine.
Corduroy’s infirmary was a bit chilly, as it had no source of heat just yet. The cold stone floor was warmed by the rays of sun that peeked through the now-opened shutters. Hollyhock, her newborn, Amber Dawn, and Lemongrass were all piled together on a thin, insulated sleeping mat laid across the wooden bedframe. Of course, the newborn had cried all night, and had only quieted just recently.
Yawning, Corduroy wiped her eyes with the back of her forearm and then licked her lips while she cast her sleepy stare upon Sundance. “Get over here. Let me have a look at your back. It’s healing up pretty fast. Some fresh body spackle might be needed.”
Hearing the words ‘body spackle’ caused Sundance to wicker. That stuff stung. Poor Amber had the awful stuff smeared all over her, from hoof to ear, and she had howled piteously the whole time. He eyeballed the door for a moment, and then thought better of it. If he ran, Corduroy would give chase, for such was her nature. She seemed to know what he was thinking, too, because he saw her scowl.
“Get over here,” Corduroy grumbled beneath her breath. “You spent all of last night telling Amber how brave she was, and now you’re a fraidy-horsie—”
“Hey, that’s hurtful.” He dared to give his nurse a wounded, reproachful stare.
“Keep your voice down, ponies are trying to sleep.”
Desperate, he tried a different approach, the noble one. “You should get some sleep. I’ll keep watch. You can look after me, later, when you’ve had a bit more sleep.”
This did not have the desired effect, not at all. The big dog scowled, her jowls quivered, and her perky, triangular ears angled forwards in a universal display of aggression. Again, he eyeballed the door, and this time, when he returned his attention to his nurse, he saw her shaking her head from side to side—not as a ‘no’ but as a warning.
Then, at that moment, the devious daredevil that existed within the depths of Sundance’s mind suggested that he make a break for it. Just go! Make a run for it! But Sundance, to his credit, was quick to dismiss this foolish notion, and he obediently trudged over to the spot where Corduroy stood so that she could examine him.
“Parts of you are already almost healed—”
“How?” asked an incredulous Sundance.
“Body spackle. Stitch magic.” Corduroy did not continue to elaborate. “Just a few spots that need more time. The really bad rends that went right down to the bone. No more bandages except for in a spot or two. The wounds could stand to be aired out.”
Turning his head completely around to look at his nurse, he asked the question that weighed the heaviest upon his mind: “Can I fly yet?” Before the words were even finished, he saw her scowl and his heart sank.
“I’d say no. Give it a few more days. Maybe another week.” The scowl softened and became more of a grumpy frown. “You’re worried about getting fresh supplies in.” This wasn’t a question, there was no hint, no sign of the required punctuation lingering in the air, just a hard stop. “Truth be told, I’m worried about it too. I’m running low on a few things myself. We’ll manage.”
Too tired to argue, Sundance turned his head to a more natural position and looked out the window. The ponies of the barony were busy making a foundation so that Grandmother Oak would have a comfortable place to lay. Rocky Ridge was pounding out a cellar from the solid granite and producing a steady stream of fine gravel with each crushing, smashing blow.
She was old now, Rocky Ridge, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine what she could do when she was young. Old as she was, she still worked at a blinding pace, with her pistoning forelegs blurred from movement. As he watched, he felt something of a mood swing coming on, and he turned away as he braced himself. He was tired, but far too awake, far too worried, and his many concerns weighed heavily on his mind.
“Paradox is well-loved,” Corduroy remarked. “I think that’ll be good for her. Everypony is eager to do as Paradox says and I think that’s good for her. Boosts her confidence. You and I, we need to find a way to help her.”
“Can she be helped?”
“Sure.” Corduroy, who kept her voice low, let heave a sigh. “But that would mean a trip to the Crystal Empire, or finding a good therapist in Canterlot. Let’s face it, that’s not going to happen, she was sent here for a reason, so it falls on us to do whatever is necessary.”
“So… what is necessary?” he asked, fearing whatever answer might come.
“No idea.”
Corduroy’s brutal honesty forced Sundance’s eyes open and he looked at his nurse, who was now staring out the window. Something about the fact that Corduroy didn’t know something unnerved him. He spent a moment studying her, an attempt to learn how to read her face and her strange canine expressions.
“I’m a country nurse, trained by a navy doctor. Everything I know is about homespun solutions, practical applications of common sense, and doing whatever is necessary. My skill set is an excellent match for most of the ponies here. With the exception of Paradox. There’s wounds there that I don’t know how to patch up. You and I have something in common, Sundance. We both have to adapt and face the unknown.”
Everything about Corduroy’s words were reassuring for some unknown reason. She was right, of course. He had to learn to be a baron, and she had to learn how to fix strange new wounds. It was a dangerous matter of trial and error for the both of them, with high stakes. Failure meant real consequences. Looking out the window with Corduroy beside him, Sundance could almost feel the warm flame of kinship between them, and was comforted by their shared troubles.
“You’re my most trusted advisor, Corduroy,” he said to her, whispering.
“I know,” she replied.
“That’s like, your job title. I thought you should know. Most Trusted Advisor. I’m glad we met, Corduroy. I can’t believe how stupid I was… how foolish. I almost let prejudice ruin something I didn’t know I needed.”
Reaching out one broad paw, Corduroy tousled Sundance’s mane, and then stroked his ears. He leaned in a little closer, glad for her touch, and wondered what Princess Twilight Sparkle would have to say about their friendship. He yawned; this surprised him and caught him off guard.
“I think I need a cup of tea,” he muttered. “I can feel the hooliganism coming on…”
All that time spent in his room, or in a library, or in the bowels of some imposing stone monument to bureaucracy had left him ill-prepared for what he faced now. Long stretches of solitude with brief moments of interactions, with those exchanges being face to face conversations with dry, stuffy bureaucrats, recordkeepers, and the like. Looking back on it all, Sundance could see that there was an issue, and that was that he lacked the coping mechanisms to deal with all of this stress.
Even his delivery work was mostly solitary in nature, going from place to place, always on the move. It wasn’t a social job, though it had some social elements. But now, at this time, at this moment, as he sat with his head hunched low over his steaming cup of tea, all he could do was think about all of the relationships he juggled, and how each of them affected him in some way.
But, he wasn’t completely unhappy… and something about this puzzled him.
“Yer Grace,” Earwig said to him to get his attention. “You look troubled.”
“Yer Grace?” As he lifted his head, everything around him came into sharp focus and the sudden assault on his senses was almost too much to bear. He blinked a few times, drew in a deep breath, and recovered himself.
“Why’d you do it?” asked Earwig.
“Do what?”
“Go a-gallivantin’ off to save our precious chatterbox.” Then, after a moment, she asked, “Does the big fancy word sound like I’m putting on airs? I’ve been listening in at story time. So, why’d you do it?”
Sundance wasn’t sure he liked this line of questioning, at least not at the moment. One eyebrow arched and he felt his stomach muscles go tense. “After I rescued your sister, you’re asking me why I did this?”
“Fair question, Yer Grace.” Earwig folded one foreleg atop the other and leaned against the edge of the table. “You saved my sister because yer not an asshole. But with Amber, you could have sent your underlings to look for her. You have underlings now. There was no good reason to go yerself. You’ve already proven yerself to us. So it’s got me a-wondering… why save the little gabber? A fella goes off and saves a mare’s foal, and common sense says that he doesn’t have to work too hard to get a bit closer to that mare, if you know what I mean, and I think you do, Yer Grace.”
After a good snort, Sundance’s ears folded back against his head and got lost in his unruly, unbrushed mane.
“Just saying, you wouldn’t have to try very hard. I mean, this is the nice way to go about it. No unpleasantness, no force, no nastiness. It’s nice to see. I think they called it… chivalry?” Earwig’s eyes darted about, going from left to right, before returning to Sundance. “Hollyhock is the only mare about your age for miles and miles around. She’d be happy to help you ease yer tensions, unless of course yer not picky and didn’t mind sharing a bed with an older mare—”
“No!”
“Aye, no offense, Milord. There’s no shame in lusting after youth and beauty.”
“Earwig, I…” his words trailed off into a gasp.
“Sire, it’s a practical matter,” Earwig began, and then, after a deep breath and a smile, she continued: “We’re all old and settled in our ways. For us, it’s no real trouble. We look after our needs and we don’t leave anypony out in the cold, ‘cause that’s heartless. But you… near as I can tell, you don’t take to nopony, and you don’t crawl into their bed… though I did think that you and that Turmeric fellow might’ve fooled around—”
“Earwig, I,” he said again, but as before his words failed him.
The straightforward mare unfolded her front legs and leaned over the table so that she might look Sundance right in the eye. “It does work, right? I mean, yer peasant prod goes hard, don’t it?”
“Well, of course it does,” he snapped, and then he was immediately sorry. Face on fire, his cheeks hot and far too dry, he turned away.
“Sire, we’re worried about you. ‘Tain’t natural. Having a go is like breathing. And yer not breathing. You seem bored and out of sorts, like yer in need of a good sorting out, and since you’ve been so good to us, we worry about you. See, there’s a difference between what is freely given and what is forcibly taken. You have but to ask—”
“Thank you, Earwig.” Sundance suffered a mighty, mighty cringe. “I’ll keep that in mind. Now, could we talk about something else? Anything else? Please?”
“Can we talk about Hitut the elephant?” The middle-aged mare seemed eager. “It’s a great story. The little ones love that book, and I do too. I look forward to storytime, it’s great!”
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In the words of Pulp:
"They dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do."
Lol
Honestly that is quite accurate. It's why I have 4 Aunt's surviving and 3 Uncle's 1 passed before I was born, all from my Maternal Grandparents. Grandpa said it was the best way to keep active during the winter. He was supriswd my mom stopped at 4 kids when he had 9 kids, I miss that old pervert.
A.P.O.N.I. has the right of and its not like they have to spend alot of time dressing and undressing. Still remember the show "Assume The Position With Mr. Wuhl" they talked about all the layers the rich would have to remove compared to the poor along with a number of other fun things
The typical activities of such a village can be described thus: eatin', sleepin', workin' and fuckin'.
I hear earth ponies go at it like rabbits. Someone needs to ask Angel bunny. But Sundance is a pegasus so maybe he has more self control, lol.
Hey, not like there's much else to do around the Barony.
Except, you know. Each other.
Ah yes, the good old “sorting out” makes an appearance
The Hall could use some new rugs. Maybe Turmeric could get Sundance a nice shag?
9553328
Don’t you believe it. The bird in Pegasi is a randy thing. You ever gone for a walk in the countryside on a spring morning and heard all the birdsong? 90% of that is variations on “have sex with me, I can puff out my chest and arrange my feathers in interesting ways”. Being woken up by the dawn chorus is very similar to being woken up by your neighbours having a quick one before going to work.
9553496
Welp, Earwig's been listening to Peaches again.
Hmm with all the screwing going on it’s quite peculiar that the average age is so high...
9553684
Not really, no.
It only seems this way if you apply western values, western medicine, and western quality of life to a situation where it has no business being.
Once you clear out all of that garbage, and think about how people used to live, where sterility was commonplace due to things like high fevers, infections, sickness, and disease, it all makes sense. Back when things like mumps, small pox, other poxes, measles, etc, caused sterility. We only ever fixed that problem because of vaccines, aspirin, and better healthcare.
Sure, sterility is considered rare now, but this wasn't always the case. We have ways and means to combat the inflammation and the fevers caused by high infections and disease. I just dealt with a necrotic infection, and I was running a fever of 105 and higher. Thanks to things like aspirin, and ibuprofen, and modern drugs, not only did I live, but i did so without the severe consequences of survival.
9553943
Uh... wasn’t in the other stories the problem exactly that earth pony fertility would just middle finger everything and get pregnancies everywhere?
9554051
Healthy ones, yes.
Aw Sundance they mean well.
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/473/721/ba6.jpg
9553684
I thought the problem was that all the kids left and only the older generation wanted to stay on as peasants. And they're old.
9554711
That is, in a nutshell, the problem.
Learning and growing up is hard. We do it our whole lives. Some lessons don't stick, however. But I think Sundance and Corduroy are doing pretty well.
I think he needs to get a book about the local flora. I bet there are some good tisanes (aka herbal teas) that could be made up so he doesn't have to haul in tea as frequently.
The birds and the birds lesson with a decided peasant twist. Awkward.
She'd be proud.
I love that there is story time and that at least some of the adults are loving it too <3