Case 1: In which a Seventh arrives just in time for the aftersmash
There was a certain trick to finding Drayton on a map. You had to move up a bit, staying roughly to the north of Canterlot. After a while, you ventured slightly to the east, tracing along the outlines of river and rails. And then you looked for a tiny speck of fly dirt, tried to wipe it off a few times and when it wouldn't budge, irritably wondered what idiot of an apprentice cartographer had accidentally placed the name for a town in the middle of bucking nowhere.
At some point, generally after the bookstore refused to make an exchange for the third time, most ponies were forced to acknowledge that they'd found Drayton. Actually going there took either a special level of commitment, a pressing emergency, or Government Business. The locals typically frowned on all three. This was occasionally hard to distinguish from the rest of the frowning.
Drayton was the smallest settled zone. There was just enough of a population to have a Town Hall. An educational system was theoretically present: however, due to the quality of the Day and Night Court representatives which Drayton regularly dispatched to Canterlot, there were some questions as to whether it was being used. The other option was that anypony of intelligence in the area had decided the smart choice was in staying out of politics.
It was a region of rough land and rougher ponies. The locals didn't trust easily. Anypony whose family had been in the area for three generations or less was a Newcomer: after that, it took another six before you could safely stop Keeping An Eye On Them.
The settled zone recognized that it was part of Equestria, because the government money had to come from somewhere. However, there was an ongoing question as to whether it would be possible to declare independence and continue to get more out of the system than they'd ever paid in. Regretfully, the answer seemed to be 'no'. This was put down to big city ponies not having any understanding of rural folk and, after the drinking had gone on for a while, was occasionally touted as a cause for revolution. Not that Drayton's drunks felt they could win -- they were severely outnumbered and, until recently, had been somewhat low on alicorns -- but some of them had dim schoolhouse memories about losing parties in wars being given rep-ar-a-tions for rebuilding. As several now had houses which required repairs, this was seen as a fine thing.
Drayton regularly produced artists, writers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and scientists. It also happened to do so as an export business, because those of creativity and drive quickly realized that the worst thing they could do with their lives was to stay in Drayton.
It was a town filled with those who'd taken their biology lessons to mean that thoughts formed within the folds on their brains, and so tried to drink things which would smooth the lines. They didn't want any genius ideas to get stuck.
The small stallion sitting among the rougher specimens at the town's fourth bar hadn't meant to be in Drayton. His presence was due to Pressing Emergency: in this case, that meant the rails which passed through the settled zone had taken some recent -- impacts... and while the last train out had done well enough, the conductor for his had wanted to make sure it was safe to leave. Multiple passenger protests hadn't convinced the mare that it was safer to risk potentially-faulty rails than Drayton, and she'd just told them all that if they were so worried, they should stay on the train.
The stallion hadn't. He'd never been to Drayton, had never anticipated experiencing it as anything more than a brief blur of buildings outside of speeding windows. The chance to look around -- that had felt like it was once in a lifetime. And he'd been surprised to see that it was so... damaged.
Most of the streets had been replaced with divots. The majority of divots had been filled in with mud.
Numerous businesses sported huge dents in their sides, with the impact zones looking almost exactly as if a giant hoof had kicked into the walls.
Several apex portions of various structures had gnaw marks. These exactly matched the ones typically left by an infant pony's mouth, if that foal had been roughly three stories high.
The bars were more or less intact, and the small stallion had been surprised to see that there were four of them in a settled zone so small. He was wrong. There were six. A community so confined had to get its extra layers of internal rivalry from somewhere.
He went inside. And he found himself among patrons who were much larger than he, suspicious of outsiders, and who didn't seem as if they'd be willing to accept 'the train broke down' any more than they accepted the presence of the train itself. Collectively, Drayton didn't know how it felt about the train. Not only had it been present for a mere few years, but so many of their newly-adult residents kept boarding the thing and not coming back.
The patrons were giving him Looks.
Then one of them asked what he was doing there. Who he was. And the small stallion tried to think of somepony he could be. A pony whom large, distrustful locals would never, ever hurt.
He thought it was a really good lie.
"Bearer," said the roughest of the patrons. He was a unicorn. At least, the usual presumption would have been 'unicorn'. There was also the possibility of a cone-shaped buildup of scabs and scar tissue on the forehead, because that would have gone a long way towards explaining the overall look.
"Yes!" the small stallion chirped. "That's me! Wander Trot! The Seventh Element of Harmony!" Thinking rather quickly, "Now, for the connected virtue -- well, so much came back when Princess Luna did, and so nopony realized how much had been lost in her absence. Until I got my role, nopony ever expected that modesty was a virtue! Well, not one of the the virtues. I mean, obviously it's always been --"
"-- we had Bearers," declared a grimy earth pony. "A few days ago."
Wander blinked. As outwardly-visible expressions of hard-surging panic went, he felt blinking was nicely understated.
"Because of the monster attacks," added the pegasus bartender.
Monsters? It explained some of the damage to the town, but... there was a galloping joke about Drayton, one which was based in a touch of truth. The settled zone was -- 'famed' -- for many things, and one of them was never having had any real problems with monsters. The theory was that there wasn't a monster alive who could be bothered with finding it.
"And we didn't see you here," the unicorn announced. "Would have stood out, wouldn't it? One stallion and six mares."
Wander thought fast.
"The palace doesn't always dispatch us as a full unit," he quickly said. "Especially when an individual virtue wouldn't be much good for a given crisis!" Hastily, "Not that I'm saying your problems didn't warrant intervention! Not when the others were told to come! But I was already busy in Baltimare." Which he could say with the full confidence of a stallion who knew that nopony in the bar had recently been to Baltimare. Based on the chalkboard price list for drinks, there were some doubts about the bartender's ability to spell it. "And it all got solved without Modesty having to step in, right?"
As silences went, it was a very loud one. It was the sort of silence which let Wander hear the little things. Like hooves grinding against the floor.
"And the others had to move on," he added. "Obviously. In fact, I'm on my way to join them for the next mission which-I-can't-talk-about-because-it's-classified. They're expecting me --"
"-- and you're stopping here," the bartender considered, "because the rails need to be checked."
"Well, yes." The most important thing was to keep the core of the story consistent. "But also because... well, I've hardly had a chance to speak with my friends yet! And the palace..." He could feel the sweat rising in his coat. "...they said... as long as I was passing through... you know, the palace really cares about citizens, in every settled zone, and they... wanted me to ask... what you all... thought?"
An entire bar tried to assemble a collective brain cell.
"Thought," the nearest earth pony contemplated.
"It's like a post-action report!" Wander desperately gushed. "Or a service review! Just tell me how you think my friends did!"
"Did," said the bartender and, in terms of accent, vocally misspelled it.
"Are you pleased with their service?" Wander tried. "Would you be happy to be saved again? I'll pass it all along!"
The part-time residents of a fume-soaked room took a moment.
"Never had monsters up here," the unicorn said. "Never that anypony could remember."
"And they came out of nowhere, didn't they?" the earth pony relayed. "These huge things..."
"Huge," the bartender grimly said, "but not solid."
"Not..." Wander valiantly attempted.
"Solid when they wanted to be," the unicorn clarified. "Solid enough to kick our homes. To bite. But if we tried to kick back, get spells and lightning and charge-downs going -- went through, all of it. Like we were fighting fog. Can't fight fog. We tried for weeks."
"Then the mayor sent for your friends," the bartender added.
"Weeks?" Wander tried to verify. "Why did you let it go for weeks --"
"-- mayor ain't getting reelected any time ever," the earth pony decided. "We would have figured out something if she'd just given us some more time."
"But the Bearers solved it, didn't they?" Wander checked. "They always --"
"-- they came in," the bartender bitterly announced. "Said they were going to deal with everything for us. For us. Like we hadn't done nothing the whole time."
"And the little purple one, the alicorn..." fumed the earth pony, "she decided she was in charge. Of us. Barely been here five minutes, wasn't she? Not even! Five minutes and she could just shove us around!"
"She didn't shove," the unicorn noted.
"Picking up all the ponies who wanted them to leave and dropping them on the other side of town counts!"
"She could have at least done two bubbles," somepony called out from the back. "For proper segregation! What kind of city pony does that, lifting stallions and mares together? It's just about a sin!"
Wander's eyes began to take a slow count of all available exits.
"Um," he said. It felt like a good way to buy time.
"We told them they could try," the bartender stated.
"Once we figured out that she was just going to keep moving ponies out of the way," another chimed in.
"Sinfully!" added a now-familiar voice.
"But they had to bring us the monsters when they were done," said the pegasus. "Show us how they beat mist."
"I kept birds," said a mare from somewhere behind them. "I liked keeping birds. They had a nice song. I gave them a good feed when I remembered. I had birds, and then I had this yellow pegasus with the crazy big city tail hovering outside the cage wire. Making bird noises. And on the day they left, I looked outside my house and I didn't have birds any more. How do you think that happened?"
He was now trying to remember if there was a yellow pegasus among the Bearers and, if so, what her name was.
"Better than the other one," announced an unseen stallion.
"The -- other..." Wander began, because it was something which needed narrowing down.
"I found her in my barn," somepony said.
"Sleeping in the rafters?" asked another.
"How did you know?"
"'cause she was in my rafters."
"And mine!"
"Those cradletree branches over by the other bar? Twice! What's wrong with our cradletree, I ask you?"
"Sleeping on the job!"
"It was an improvement, though," the first pony said. "She didn't talk when she was sleeping..."
Every set of eyes in the bar now seemed to be focused on Wander.
"You're Modesty, you said?" the bartender checked.
He managed a nod.
"She wasn't."
"Maybe do a better job keeping her in check," a mare muttered. "And roped. A rope which doesn't reach my house. Or the pasture."
"What -- what did she --" Wander began to ask.
"Said I'd never had a Wonderbolt practicing over my pasture."
She's a --
"Mare ain't good with Equestrian," the landowner lightly rumbled. "Should have said 'in'. Because once she lost it during that last loop, it was 'in' all the way to the grain silo."
"Um..." still wasn't helping.
"Can't forget the unicorn, can we?" the earth pony said.
"Pretty mare, I thought," the bartender offered. "Pretty right up until she opened her mouth."
"I'll decide when I take a bath, thank you!" declared the unicorn. "A healthy coating of dust and mud keeps the flies off, everypony knows that! And going around with that cloth all the time..."
"She does that," Wander frantically said. "Cloth. Known for it. Famed, really --"
"-- she's famed for levitating a loop of cloth over and around her body on the vertical, then stepping on that instead of healthy mud?"
"...yes?"
"So she also 'borrows' fresh cloth from everypony around her when hers gets too dirty," a mare asked.
"Constantly?" emerged as a squeak.
"She said the palace would compensate me for the curtains. Ain't seen no voucher for curtains."
"It's only been a few days," the most sober patron pointed out.
"You saw the dragon teleport paper?"
"No... I did see him get a sneezing fit over by the old Museum Of Dust, though. Where it used to be."
Dragon?
"He can teleport paper," the curtain-deprived said. "I saw it. So he can teleport me a voucher."
"You have -- a Museum Of Dust --" Wander belatedly considered.
"Somepony collected stuff from Drayton's history," the bartender told him. "The stuff collects dust. More ponies look at the dust. It was right colorful."
"And the alicorn! Wanted to do research!" a random pegasus protested. "In our museum! To see if there was anything there about where the monsters might be coming from! So she took it all out, and she started to -- what did she say she was doing!"
"Catalog," an earth pony supplied.
"Moving it is what got the dust going, of course," muttered a mare. "Stupid alicorn."
"The stuff was fine."
"Lost the dust, though."
"Still waiting on a voucher for the building."
"What I want to know," an angry senior half-hissed, "is when I can get all of the 'cataloged' stuff out of my living room!"
Wander's tail was now trying to subtly back up towards the door. He didn't really mind that part. He just wanted his tail to take him with it.
"I didn't mind the earth pony so much," the youngest drinker decided.
"Which?"
"The pink one. I mean, at least she knew she was a Newcomer, right? So that's why she tried to kick out a party. Get the town together with the Bearers."
"But nopony went."
"Of course not," the youngest pony said. "Who wants to go to a party with a Newcomer?"
"Heard the orange one muttering to herself when I went by," the bartender darkly commented. "Said if we'd all kicked up a loud enough fuss, it might have at least lured a few monsters in."
"Oh, don't even start on her," a distant earth pony moaned. "I didn't even know I had that cousin. Since going to the reunions means leaving here. And when she saw how I was running my, and I can't repeat this enough, my farm..."
"How you doing there?"
"It's been a few days since she took her 'work schedule' with her," the farmer observed. "I figure five more and my legs might stop trying to move without me."
"But at least the party looked nice. From a distance."
There was a long silence.
"Did they have that many party supplies when they got here?"
"I saw some saddlebags..."
"Where did she get the streamers?"
"Maybe she stole them."
"From where?"
"The party supply store!"
"Drayton," somepony confidently observed, "ain't got a party supply store."
"Then she stole that too! Same way they stole our Museum!"
"You've never been to the Museum."
"Ain't the point! I could've gone if I'd wanted! I just didn't want to! Now it's not there and I can't go if I want! Don't you see the difference?"
A tail was not capable of carrying a pony to safety, even if it was a crazy city one. However, it turned out that for a pony who was sitting normally, buttocks could sort of creep backwards.
"But the monsters!" Wander tried. "Surely once they beat --"
The room went silent again.
"Told them to bring the monsters back when they were done," the original unicorn said. "I remember that. I was there."
"They brought back," added a pile of growing rage in the rough shape of a pony, "some pieces of metal."
"Brass, mostly. Silver wire. Thought I saw platinum."
"They said..." the bartender slowly observed, "...that there was this old enchantment mentioned in the Museum. Lost device, which got stored about a quarter-gallop out. Something got it activated. And it made things from -- our fears."
"Like mine of losing my temper," said a very large, extremely angry pony. "And kicking out. I'm not scared of that!"
"I've never thought my newborn was going to just chew up my whole life!"
"And who had any fears about the streets?"
"I didn't want to look at the same streets my whole life..."
"What's that?"
"...nothing."
And then nopony was talking. Just breathing. Wander could hear them all breathing, and it was so loud as to drown out his own lungs. Not that it mattered, because he was fairly certain that the bar patrons had just claimed all of the oxygen for themselves.
"Our fears," the bartender spat. "It's big city ponies who get fear. If they weren't afraid, they'd live here. I don't know what they did to make the monsters go away. I just know they lied about how the things showed up in the first place. Maybe there was a deal. One of your friends said she was Honesty and she lied right to our faces. No monsters? No reason for that, neither."
"No pasture," said that one mare. "Not in one piece."
"No birds!"
"No sleep! And that's your Honesty at work! Work which never ends!"
"Ain't never gonna reject the Museum of my own free will again!"
"NO PARTY SUPPLY STORE!"
"We don't have --"
"I WANTED ONE!"
"Sin!"
"I've been looking for flames to explode in front of my face for days," the last mare calmly said. "And give me money. Where's my flame money?"
Every pair of bleary, angry, and mug-lensed eyes in the bar focused on Wander.
"So," the bartender slowly said as hooves began to lift all over the room, with wings flaring to full span and horns starting to ignite, "if you really want to pass on our feelings about their service, Modesty... I think we can give you something to take b --"
By the next morning, the rails were certified as safe for travel, and the train moved on.
It didn't catch up to Wander for another two days.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- Estee · 7.5k words · 112 2 · 1.1k views
- Estee · 13k words · 82 4 · 965 views
- Estee · 42k words · 113 3 · 1.1k views
- Estee · 11k words · 133 2 · 1.4k views
- Estee · 7.8k words · 165 3 · 1.4k views
- Estee · 9k words · 109 3 · 1.2k views
- Estee · 16k words · 61 4 · 495 views
- Estee · 9.1k words · 137 5 · 1.5k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.106 seconds
Total duration
1,031 users online
1,580,180 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
There actually is a Seventh Virtue. It just doesn't have a bearer, because the crushing burden of Putting Up With Your Friend's Shit is shared between the other six Virtues.
Added to
Triptych Continuum Rebooted (group)
Unassigned (folder)
Him
11787188
That one is Spike's.
Liking the thumbnail. 1st Armored Division but slightly different.
I just finished reading this and couldn't help but chuckle from beginning to end. For me in particular the behavior of the ponies of Drayton reminded me oh so close in spirit to certain people I know outside of the pages of fiction. Which made it all the funnier.
I shall be watching this with great interest as the premise alone practically invites fun and interesting stories.
Kek
"They ain't from here..." #Maine
11787307
Damn right. And I don't get paid enough to deal with their shit.
I ain't country 'nuff for half o' this hogwash.
11787470
The element of
snarkpatience.Hey!
I know My element is weird and all but faust had it and The tree gave it to me after i replanted it!
11787188
That and also empathy/forgiveness is sunset's and the tree didn't give her one
For the repeat offenders, I wonder if the DV7 has pointed out that claiming to be a "seventh bearer" can attract attention form the Bearers enemies ... like Chrysalis, and from their "friends" ... like Discord?
Oh, this is going to be glorious. Looking forward to further disasterpieces from this world's most unfortunate OCs.
(And after seeing Drayton, I wonder how they would react if they ever learned that Fleur claimed to be from there.)
"We must declare war on Equestria."
"But we can never win such a war!"
"Of course not, but we could win the peace. I've given this a lot of thought gentlestallions and I'm perfectly positive that I am right. You must remember, Equestrians are very strange ponies. Whereas other countries rarely forgive anything, Equestrians forgive anything. There isn't a more profitable undertaking for any country than to declare war on Equestria and to be defeated."
Oh my, if Carmina's not scared straight by this, well, she'd have to believe it first, and she might.
Dang, the irony, or something. Wander just wanted to not be hurt, but then his lie got him very, very hurt.
11788219 The Duchy of Grand Fenwhinny?
This is such an enjoyable read so far! Looking forward to future chapters :)
Someone has a GRUDGE against small towns, and I feel it's for entirely good reasons.
11788219 "But what if we win anyway?"
"Oh, that could never happen."
There actually is a Seventh Element. It's Humility. Nopony has ever been able to find her (or him) because if asked, the ones who say no obviously aren't it, and the ones that say yes are obviously not it. Which is perfectly fine with Humility.