Teamwork

by NoMoreNormalcy

2. Making Friends

Once through the portal, Breezefeather could tell this was certainly not the same planet Equestria was on. The air seemed to be a bit thicker with pollution, making her cough a bit upon entering. She looked around and the place she was in appeared to be similar to that of rural areas. Why is there still so much pollution over here? She asked herself. It wasn’t like there were dozens of factories, were there? Still, she examined that she was near a farm. “Oh, maybe I can make friends with the farmer!” Breezefeather clapped her hooves together, excited. As she descended, she noticed familiar four-legged shapes down below her. “Horses! There are horses here?! And I thought that Saddle Arabia was the only place for them?” She dove down and landed near one of the horses. He was massive, a bit taller than any Saddle Arabian she’s ever heard of. If anything, he was about as tall as that Troubleshoes stallion over in Appleoosa she’s heard about from the Cutie Mark Crusaders, three little fillies that had at the time gone over to the town to get their cutie marks. Though he lacked the bulk. He also had a brown coat with dark mane and tail with a white marking on the bridge of his nose going over his mouth and nose. He stared at Breezefeather for a few seconds before going back to the grass at his hooves.

“Hi, there!” Breezefeather cheerfully greeted. The horse simply brought it’s head up in a snap and flicked its tail in worry. “Don’t worry, I want to be friends! My name’s Breezefeather, what’s yours?”

The wary horse only snorted and trotted backward a few steady paces before resuming his meal, keeping a cautious eye on the pegasus. “Right,” Breezefeather lamented, “Only humans can talk around here. That horse probably thinks I’m crazy!” She turned to the stallion, “Sorry about that!” She turned to look around. From what she could tell, the entire region was for raising horses. I have no idea what humans raise equines for, though. There were a couple of foals that were probably Saddle Arabian horse height, but their bodies were about as big as hers. They all had similar brown coats, but the white patterns always varied.

And none of them had a cutie mark.

“Okay, that’s weird. Why don’t equines here have cutie marks?” She looked at her mark on her flank as though for clarification. The image sat there, unmoving as usual. She then took to the air, dissatisfied with her questions. “Maybe the farmer here can help me out,” she said to herself solidifying her resolve. She flew over the farm a few times and saw a little farmhouse. “Bingo!” She winged over and landed gently in front of the door and knocked a few polite knocks.

Confused voices sprang up from within, “What in the-? Why did that sound like a hoof on wood?”

“I don’t know, you can’t think a horse got out, do you?”

“If anythin’, it’s that colt, Angel. I keep tellin’ ya that we misnamed him! Crafty li’l devil.” Then there was the scooting of furniture and what sounded like booted feet -a single pair of them- walked over to the door. The door unlocked, then swung open and Breezefeather was face to chest with a human. Looking up from their flannel shirt and blue overalls, she saw the look of confusion and amazement as the human looked over her. She noted his nose was proportionally a bit larger than the average human she got a mental image from Desiree. His hair was as brown as the stallion she met outside. His skin was tanned to medium shade with how often he had to be outside. Suddenly, her mouth went dry and she forgot what she was going to say. The human, however, found his much more quickly, “Hun! You gotta take a look at this!” he called over his shoulder into the home, his masculine voice matching his frame.

“What, what?” A feminine voice and body, almost matching her mate’s, found their way over to the door and stopped and stared at her. Her hair was shoulder length and her tanned skin wasn’t quite to the same tan as her husband’s but quite close. She wore a simple flower-patterned dress and was busy drying a plate, but that was soon forgotten, held simply in her grip. “Are those wings real or-?” She let the question hang in the air.

Breezefeather brought her right pastern up to her mouth and coughed. Their brown eyes widened at the action. “Um, hi? I’m new to the region and was wondering where I was?” She smiled bashfully.

The man’s mouth dropped open. The woman dropped her dish. Thankfully, it was plastic and simply bounced a few times on the hardwood floor. Two sets of feet slapped on the hardwood floor out of sync of each other and two small humans whose faces were level with hers and matched their parents parted said paternal and maternal figures and looked at wonder and amazement. “Woah!” Exclaimed a small boy, “A talking pony! With wings! Can you fly with those? How do you fly with those? What’s that mark on your flank, did it hurt when you got it?”

“James, let me see! I want to see the pony!” A small girl’s voice spoke up from behind her presumable brother, her pigtails bouncing up and down with her jumps. After practically tearing him away, the small girl squeals with delight and looks to her parents, “Can we keep them, please, please, please?!”

Breezefeather’s face turns a might sour after that “keep” remark, before she can speak, the parents recover, “Now sugar, this pony can talk so it would be rude to keep her as a pet.” The father looked to Breezefeather, “Now, hopefully, this ain’t no ghost tryin’ to cause trouble here.”

Breezefeather was surprised, “Ghosts cause trouble here? I thought they only caused trouble in that world of theirs?”

The man straightened up, “Well, of course, they cause trouble here. It’s only really after them Fentons opened that portal of their to that ‘Ghost Zone’ or whatever it’s called.”

Breezefeather spoke up, “Well, I’m not a ghost pony or anything. I can fly, but that’s only because I have wings. Anything else is impossible.” The couple looked at her dubiously. “Honestly, I don’t have a clue on how to prove that I can’t go through walls.”

The children suddenly ran in front of Breezefeather and clasped their hands in front of them and begged, “Please?!”

The mother looked ready to relent and glanced at her husband. The gentleman looked to both the children and his wife and sighed. “Alright, alright. We were about to have dinner, would you like tah join us, Miss?”

Breezefeather smiled, “That would be wonderful. I am a bit hungry from all the flying and work I did earlier today.” She noticed the welcome mat and wiped her hooves a fair amount, scarcely a trace of dirt made its way to the mat. “My name’s Breezefeather. What are yours?”

The gentleman ruffled his hair, “Well, mah name’s Jedediah, but you can call me Jed. This here’s mah wife, Loraine. Mah kids are James, which ya probably know now because of li’l Crystal here.” Jed looked to his children. “Scamper now, kiddies, get yer hands washed good now.”

“We already washed them,” James complained, “twice.” Crystal nodded in agreement.

“Well then, Miss Breezefeather, I reckon you might need to use the facilities. Well, ah, ya got them where ya’ll are from, right?”

Breezefeather chuckles, “Yes, we do. And I could certainly use your bathroom. Where is it?”

Loraine smiled and picked up the dish she dropped, “It’ll be down that hall and to your left.”

“Thank you very much!” Breezefeather then trotted in and followed the directions to the restroom.

---

At the table, everyone sat down. Breezefeather tested the chairs and found that they naturally creaked as much as when she sat on it as when Jed did, so she figured it would be safe for her to sit on it. A fifth spot was made at the small table and everyone sat comfortably, though Crystal and James crowded around Breezefeather and asked her a multitude of questions.

“How do you keep your feathers straight and clean?”

“How do you fly?”

“Can you make stuff with your hooves?”

“Can you hold things like a person with your hooves using magic or is that just fantasy talk?”

“If you eat, do you have to eat like a doggie because you can’t hold the silverware?”

“What’s that mark on your flank?”

“Did it hurt when you got it or did it magically appear?”

“Do you have magic powers?”

“What’s your job?”

“How’d you get here?”

“Okay, okay, one at a time, everycreature!” The children giggled at her colloquialism whereas the parents just raised a brow. “I’ll tell you all about myself if you stop asking questions for a bit, okay?” Everyone nodded. Breezefeather grabbed a fork in her tactile telekinetic grip that flowed along her hooves and waved it around a bit, “We ponies have magic in our hooves that let us hold things almost like humans. I say almost because hooves will never be as nimble as your hands.” She served herself some potatoes, carrots, celery, and broccoli. “So, we can certainly make things with our hooves, but unicorn ponies have it easier with their magic and telekinesis.”

Crystal and James gasped whereas Jed and Loraine looked at each other. The children asked at the same time, “There’s other kinds of ponies!?”

“I was getting to that!” Breezefeather chuckled. “There are all sorts of equines. There’s us pegasi, there are unicorn ponies, there are earth ponies which are ponies without horns or wings but are really good with the earth and have great strength. There’s more, but that will take all dinner to talk about and explain.” She ate some of the vegetables before resuming, “Anyways, each pony gets their mark called a cutie mark when they find their special talent. Mine is with the weather, and no, it didn’t hurt, it just appeared in a flash when I helped with maintaining a light breeze one day and I decided I needed to help with the weather around town.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but you ponies control the weather?” Jed asks.

“Yeah, don’t you guys?”

“Uh, no, it’s pretty wild ‘round these parts. Or any parts, for that matter.”

Breezefeather put her fork down for a moment. That’s weird, she thought, I’m not sure if I can wrap my head around that. She shook her head. “Well, anyway, I could help with the breeze then and I help with the weather back home now. Pegasi can manipulate the weather easily because they’re one of the only common species that specialize in it because we can manipulate clouds. We make them, shape them, and place them where they need to be. Some are rain clouds others are filled with snow. Sometimes we store powerful winds in them in case we need a powerful storm and it would be too dangerous for pegasi to be out and about what with all that lightning we make.” Everyone looked at her confused. “What, we have a weather factory in Cloudsdale, they make all sorts of things there.” She shoveled more food into her mouth. Everyone else shook their heads this time.

Breezefeather resumed, “And yes, I do have to keep my feathers clean and straight and the best way to do that is preening, and yes, just like birds do. Otherwise, my flying would be all over the place!” Everyone chuckled at that. “Also, tied with my cloud walking, I also use magic to fly. Pegasi have flight magic that we use to keep airborne even if we’re only using a few feathers to keep to the skies and make a gentle breeze. Which makes preening pretty important.”

Jed spoke up finally, “That’s quite a bit to process, and there’s a whole world full of you?”

“Yeah, there is, but since I accidentally got her thanks to that metal Skulker ghost and a portal that took most of our clouds, I’m not too sure on how to get back. If they randomly open, does that mean they randomly close, too?”

Jed was lost in thought, “Well, I ain’t no ectobiologist like them Fentons, but I’m sure they’d have the answer.” Breezefeather smiled, “Though I wouldn’t entertain the idea of flying up to them. They’d probably think you’d be a ghost of some sort, no matter what ya would say and try tah dissect ya’ll.”

Breezefeather gulped, “Well, that sounds unpleasant.”

James spoke up, slamming his hands on the table, “They think that ghosts can’t feel no pain! Phantom helped us out tons and he always seemed in pain when other ghosts hit him!”

Crystal scoffed, “Not to mention they say that he’s an ‘it’ and won’t call him Phantom. Almost as bad as the town calling him ‘Inviso-Bill’. That’s a terrible name!”

Breezefeather snorted, “Inviso-Bill? That’s a terrible pun.”

Loraine stood up and cleared the cleaned plates, “Well, it’s time for evening chores.” The children groaned. “Now, now, I don’t want to hear no complainin’ and for you to be doin’ them.” The kids glumly looked at each other and shrugged on their jackets after collecting them from the main hallway and headed out the door.

“Where are they going, Loraine?”

“Oh, they’ve just got to bring the horses into the stables at the barn. Now that I think about it, do you have a place to say? It’s supposed to rain, what with those clouds looking like they do.” Breezefeather looked outside and they appeared to be right. The clouds were huge and fat with water, ready to douse the land in rain.

“Oh my. I’m afraid I don’t. You don’t happen to have a spare room, do you?”

“Sadly, we don’t,” Jed answered. “Well, technically, we do, but it’s so cluttered the kids can’t properly squeeze in thar.”

“Oh, well, do you have room in the stables, then? A pile of hay and a blanket would be just fine. I wouldn’t want to try to sleep in any clouds that tend to more on their own or generate their own lightning.” Breezefeather shudders at the last remark.

Loraine looks to Jed then back to Breezefeather, “Last I checked we had space, but are you sure you want to spend the night in that old barn, darling?”

Breezefeather nods, “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Why don’t I help the kids get the horses to the barn? I could help out!”

Husband and wife looked to each other and said, “I don’t see the problem-,” though before they looked back, Breezefeather had already gone over to help.

---

It took a few hours of herding -I will never again say it looks easy-, we managed to get all the horses into the barn. A quick exploration and I noticed that there were plaid blankets that were tailored to fit around a horse so they could wear them all the time. The looked like they would make my town’s fashionista toss her lunch as soon as look at them, but I knew that they were alright. I shifted through them and found one that was made for a foal. It was a little on the long side, but once I put it on, it fit perfectly over my wings, keeping me warm.

“So, you’re going to be staying in the barn then?” Asked James.

“Yup! I’m going to sleep here for the night. Hopefully, I’ll figure something out by tomorrow.”

“I hope you stay nearby,” Crystal said, “I like having you around. Your fun!”

“Aw, thanks you guys, it’s fun hanging around you, too!” Breezefeather reached up with her forelegs and hugged the two children. “Why don’t you head back to the house? I’ll bed down here. You two must be exhausted, and school must be tomorrow! I know it’s a weekday back home.”

“Oh, crud, school is tomorrow!” James exclaimed and grabbed Crystal’s arm, “Come on, Crystal! We’ve got to get ready for bed or Mom and Dad will smack us good!”

As she was practically dragged out, both Crystal and James called, “Goodnight!” to Breezefeather who waved them off. She then closed the barn doors and entered an empty and clean stall, filled with fresh hay. Breezefeather yawned, “I hope I’m not too much trouble for Desiee, tomorrow.”