Fulfilling the mandate of the expedition

by Cackling Moron

#3

Author's Note:

It's the shortest piece!

Probably.

Next morning, and time to get up and go to work.

In a rare role-reversal Corin was up, awake and fully-dressed and prepared before Arthur was, which meant when he came stumbling into the mess to try and find tea midway through getting dressed she was sat there, sipping and waiting.

“Morning,” she said brightly.

“Hmph,” Arthur grunted, nodding, shuffling around and getting himself a tiny cup of passable tea before sitting down and getting started on putting his boots on. This all happened without any further conversation.

“How was it?” Corin asked out of nowhere, thoroughly catching Arthur off-guard in the process of re-lacing one of his more stubborn boots.

“How was what?” He asked in turn.

“The cake! Cupcake, rather. It was missing a slice. You had some, didn’t you?”

Somehow he’d managed to make the thing fit into the crawler’s fridge, just about, and when Corin had looked in there - more out of force of habit than out of any hope of finding anything interesting - she’d seen it there, sans single slice.

“Oh, right. Yeah, yeah I did,” Arthur said, getting it now.

Corin waited for more, but no more came.

“And?” She prodded. Arthur shrugged.

“It was good,” he said.

This was apparently all that she was going to get.

“That’s it?”

“I really don’t know what you want from me, Corin,” Arthur said.

It had actually, probably, been among the better things Arthur could remember having ever eaten, but he lacked the capacity to express this and didn’t really know enough to even think it worth expressing.

“Mouth feel at least!” Corin said.

Arthur paused midway fumbling with his laces to look up at her, utterly baffled.

“...what?” He asked.

“Urgh, you. Honestly.”

She gave up here, clearly seeing that progress would be uphill at best and difficult even then. Instead she just idly and a fair level of detached interest watched him finish up with his boots before standing and moving onto his belt from which dangled his tools and, she idly noticed, his sidearm.

“Hey Arthur, can I ask you something?” She asked.

“Sure,” he said, having a touch more trouble with the buckle on his belt than he typically did, much to his chagrin. Clearly not his morning.

“Why do you always take your weapon with you? Do you think something’s going to happen? Here?”

“It’s regulation,” Arthur said.

“No, it’s guidelines. Ask ATC.”

“She’s not wrong,” said ATC, a voice from above, then adding: “Oh, wait. Were you supposed to ask me first? Whoops, sorry. Ask me, then I’ll answer.”

Arthur, who’d stopped in the middle of failing to buckle his belt when ATC had spoken, glanced upward, then to Corin, and then back up again.

There was no real reason to do this, but a habit a lot of humans had picked up was looking for the nearest visible visual receptor whenever talking to a Governing Intelligence. Eye-contact was always polite.

“...I was under the impression that we were all supposed to carry our weapons whenever we left the vehicle,” said Arthur.

“Nope, that’s just guidelines. It’d be regulation if we were somewhere deemed sufficiently dangerous but since we’re not it’s up to individual discretion. You did see that in the briefing package, didn’t you? This place got rated Safe, so it’s discretion. Those are the actual guidelines,” said ATC.

They actually were, too.

Arthur wasn’t sure where he could go from here.

“...no-one told me,” he said.

“You never asked,” ATC pointed out.

“That is the worst defence, just - “ Arthur started, but stopped, losing all energy for it, knowing he’d get nowhere. He sighed, gritted his teeth, took a breath and summed more calmly. Or, at least, more flatly:

“Well fine I don’t need to but I want to it’s individual discretion and I’d prefer to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Anyway the briefing package said this place wasn’t entirely safe. It got rated Safe (Conditional). They have stuff that happens.”

Safe (Conditional) was the formal designation. Informally, ‘That one with the magic horses’ was known to be ‘Safer than most’. Functionally the same thing as far as anyone on the expedition was concerned.

And this was not wholly inaccurate. There’d been a list of incidents requested and provided during opening diplomatic overtures, just to see what (if anything) there was to be expected from setting up a base here. No (known) fatalities, sure, but still. No-one ever dies until they do, and it paid to be careful.

Living back home had taught Arthur that pretty well. Had taught them all that.

“Yeah. And you’ll need a gun for any of that, I’m sure that’ll go down real well. You know most problems here get resolved through teamwork, friendship and sincerity, right? Sometimes magic too, and sometimes the magic of teamwork, friendship and sincerity. It’s pretty great,” Corin said.

“Wouldn’t want to intimidate your ladyfriend, would you Arthur?” ATC added.

Arthur frowned, entirely unclear on who it was talking about.

“My ladyf-” Then it clicked. “Nope, no, that’s it. Had enough. I’m putting this on and I’m going. I’m already late, I have work to do we all have work to do.”

He would put his belt on properly along the way, he decided, shuffling out while holding up his trousers with one hand, tea forgotten.

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Poor guy, having people run at him with all this when he's only just woken up.

[SIGAWESOME]

Arthur you dense motherer!

[GCU Poke It With A Stick]

“Mouth feel at least!” Corin said.

[Noobly60]

Nice lad, but very oblivious. But I do love shenanigans

[Alicorn Capony]

Sassy computer best computer.

[Vaalintine]

They're aren't going to forcibly ship him with the only pony who he interacted with, are they?