Chapter 2 (Going for a ride)

Chapter 2

It was well into the early afternoon before Allen had managed to gather his scouting supplies. An old canvas rucksack from his father’s Boy Scout days, a water canteen, a days’ worth of food, which mostly consisted of granola bars and sandwiches, a change of clothes, a compass, binoculars and a Swiss army knife rounded out the collection.

After getting everything packed, Allen swung the rucksack onto his back and trotted towards the front door. As he passed by the basement door, he paused for a moment as an idle thought snuck its way into his mind.

Maybe I should bring something a little bigger than a pocket knife before I go gallivanting off into the unknown.

Chewing on his bottom lip for a moment, Allen changed direction, grabbing a flashlight from an old ice-cream bucket on top of the fridge as he passed, and carefully made his way downstairs into the basement.

Shining the light around the underground room, Allen made his way over to his father’s gun safe in a nearby corner. It wasn’t much, just a large, heavy metal box that contained his father’s weapons collection, and as Allen quickly discovered, a locked, heavy metal box that contained his father’s weapons collection.

Groaning to himself, Allen rested his forehead against the cool metal door of the safe as he mentally counted backwards from ten.

Of course it’s fucking locked, and I don’t know where the damn key is, thanks Dad.

After mentally grumbling about overprotective parents, and the sheer irony of locking up something meant to help you protect yourself, Allen took another deep breath, and shaking his head, trudged back upstairs.

Guess I’m going to be MacGyvering it until further notice.

Deciding to keep the flashlight for the time being, Allen slipped it into his rucksack and resumed his journey towards the front door. Stepping out onto the porch, he shut the door behind him, after making sure that it was both locked, and that he had his house key with him.

Adjusting his pack slightly, he quickly made his way towards the barn to saddle up his horse. Well it was technically his sister’s horse, seeing as how his father had originally gotten the horse for her, but because he was the one who cared for him the most, Allen considered Reuben as his.

Stepping through the service door, Allen paused for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the barn’s interior. Most of the animals were still quietly eating their late morning meal, though Allen was pleased to see that Reuben appeared to be finished with his.

Walking up to Reuben’s stall, Allen gave the horse an affectionate nose rub, Reuben whiffling a happy greeting.

“A good afternoon to you too Reuben, I see you’ve finished your meal,” said Allen as he continued to stroke Reuben’s muzzle. Giving a final parting pat, Allen said, “Alright boy, I don’t know why or how, but I don’t think we’re in Indiana anymore so I’m going to need your help to have a look around and see what we can see, alright?”

Reuben gave a happy snort in reply.

Allen smiled. “Yeah, I thought you’d be happy to get out for a nice trot. Come on, let’s get you saddled up.”

Taking his pack off and setting it down by the stall door, Allen went to go get a lead line from the nearby tack room. Stepping through the doorway, he grabbed a line and halter before then returning to Reuben’s stall.

Quickly slipping inside, he secured both the bridle and line to the horse, before then leading him out into the aisle way and threading the line through a nearby eyebolt and tying it off.

Once finished, Allen took a step back to admire Reuben for a moment, with his clean, chestnut colored coat, arched neck, and strong and compact looking physique, Reuben looked like your typical Morgan. This is to say that he looked very strong and fast, a perfect mount for a scouting mission.

Turning away, Allen returned to the tack room to grab Reuben’s saddle blanket, saddle and bridle before then proceeding to saddle him up. After a few minutes of fiddling with the saddle straps, Allen wiped the sweat from his brow, giving a satisfied nod at a job well done. Grabbing his rucksack and settling it comfortably on his back, he turned back to Reuben and quickly switched out his halter for the bridle and bit.

Giving Reuben an affectionate pat on the side of his neck for his good behavior, Allen carefully lead him outside though the open double barn doors. Once outside he set his left foot in the stirrup and swung his right over Reuben’s back, easily settling himself in the saddle with practiced ease.

Glancing around from his new vantage point, Allen felt Reuben shift beneath him as he adjusted to the new weight on his back. After giving him a moment to grow accustomed to his weight, Allen clicked his tongue and gave Reuben a tap with his heels to get him moving, Reuben obediently doing so.

As they trotted down the driveway towards the road, Allen found himself becoming more and more nervous at the thought of exploring a new and exotic location, after all, as far as Allen knew there weren’t any mountains or fairytale castles in Northeast Indiana the last time he had checked.

Speaking of said fairytale castle, a quick glance upwards, and to the north, confirmed that the castle and accompanying mountain were still there.

Yep, still there, letting go a sigh, Allen brought Reuben to a halt at the end of the driveway, just before it merged with the wagon trail. Looking around again, Allen sat there pondering which way they should go, Reuben meanwhile had contented himself with grabbing a roadside snack of grass while he waited.

To the left there’s nothing but grassland and some copses of trees here and there. So there’s little chance of running into anyone quickly if I went that way. But to my right, he swung his head around till he was staring at the distant castle.

Chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully, Allen continued to weigh his options. Finally, after several moments, he came to a decision. Giving the reins a slight upwards jerk, he said confidently, “Alright Reuben, enough grazing, I’ve made up my mind on which way we’re going to go, so let’s get going. I just hope it was the right choice,” He finished quietly to himself, before clucking his tongue, and lightly digging his boot heels into his mounts sides starting him forwards once more.

As rider and steed crossed the threshold from the comfortable familiarity of the farm and into the unknown lands beyond, Allen firmly turned Reuben to the right, his eyes steadfastly fixed upon the far distant castle.

However, unbeknownst to Allen, high above him on a fluffy white cloud, a pair of golden armored pegasi watched him ride away.

“What do you think it is Sergeant?” the younger looking pegasi asked.

His partner turned to him, and quietly said, “I don’t know, but chances are it’s probably something Discord cooked up that the Elements somehow missed when they defeated him.”

The junior guard bit his lower lip nervously. “B-but I thought that the Elements had set everything back to normal? I mean that’s what the lieutenant said before he sent us out on patrol!”

The sergeant rolled his eyes. “Son, I’ve been in the guard for going on twenty years now, and I have yet to meet a second lieutenant that can find their tail with both hooves and a map. So forget what the lieutenant said because it looks like he was wrong.”

“But how do we really know that, that...thing down there belongs to Discord?”

Glancing back down at Allen’s retreating form, the sergeant replied, “None of the maps that we have of this area list a farm being out this way, nor have I ever seen anything quite like that...being down below. On top of that we can’t be sure the Elements got everything when they hit Discord, so it stands to reason that this,” he waved a hoof in the direction Allen had gone, “could be something that Discord left behind when he lost.”

“You mean like a trap?”

The sergeant nodded. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Discord is the Lord of Chaos and Mischief after all; he could have easily set a spell that would trigger only in the event he was defeated.”

By this point, both Allen as his mount had disappeared from sight under the tree cover. Quickly glancing back to his younger partner, the grizzled old veteran barked, “Look, at this point it doesn’t matter what that thing is or what it can do, it’s heading for Ponyville and we’re the only two ponies around here who know that it’s coming.”

“But what if it isn’t heading for Ponyville? What if it heads for the Everfree instead and gets away?”

The sergeant chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek for a moment before finally saying, “Alright then, since one of us needs to stay close and keep an eye on it while the other one goes and reports, I’ll stay behind and keep over watch, and you,” he pointed a golden clad hoof at his junior, “can fly back to Ponyville with our report.”

The younger pegasi gave a single nod of acknowledgment.

“Good, now enough yapping, get flapping!” and with that he pushed his subordinate off the cloud, the young guard giving a yelp of surprise before he began frantically pumping his wings, the sergeant watching him go for a moment as he swiftly winged his way towards Ponyville.

~oOo~

The town of Ponyville swarmed like a disturbed anthill. The townsfolk rushing to and fro as they saw to their various tasks in the wake of Discord’s attack, while the Royal Guard swiftly carried out its own business.

In the middle of it all, a lavender unicorn and white colored pegasus guard were just finishing a rather long and involved conversation at the local cafe.

“And that’s it?” asked the guard.

The unicorn nodded her head in reply. “Correct, after that everything, more or less, went back to normal save for some minor clean up,” she said, waving a hoof at the current activity of the townsfolk in the background, for while the Elements had put the major stuff back to normal. They had been unable to fix those things that had been completely broken and or knocked over, which happened to be quite a few things. Moreover, most ponies were rather inclined to make sure with their own eyes that things had been set right before going back to their daily lives.

Satisfied with the mare’s reply, the guard nodded. “Very well then, Ms. Sparkle, if you have nothing further to say on the matter. Then I suppose I should go and begin filing my report on the matter,” he said, returning his helmet to its customary place on his head and packing his papers away in his saddlebags.

Standing up to leave, he gave the mare a polite bow, to which she replied, “Oh it’s no problem Lieutenant Palisade, I was happy to give my account, and please, call me Twilight.”

The lieutenant gave a grin, a final bow, and turned to leave, however, an out of breath pegasus suddenly landing in front of him brought him up short.

“S-sir, begging to report sir,” the exhausted stallion said, giving a quick and shaky salute as he did so.

Casually returning the salute, Lieutenant Palisade asked, “What seems to be the problem trooper?”

Taking several deep lungful’s of air, the Royal Guard replied, “Sir, Sergeant Wind and I were patrolling to the southwest of town, along Apple Road, and we encountered an anomaly sir.”

Her interest piped by the sudden turn of events, Twilight trotted up next to the lieutenant and politely asked, “What kind of an anomaly?”

The young guard looked to her then back to the lieutenant in confusion for a moment, as if unsure if he should respond or not to the mare’s question.

“It’s alright trooper, Ms. Sparkle here is a representative of Her Highness in this matter, whatever you have to tell me you can tell her also,” said Palisade.

Nodding in understanding, the trooper replied, “Very well sir. As I was saying, Sergeant Wind and I found an anomaly outside of town, and the sergeant thinks that whatever it is, that Discord had something to do with it being there.”

“Go on,” came the reply.

Nodding, the trooper continued, “While the sergeant and I were not fully sure of whether or not this anomaly is in fact something Discord cooked up, we do know that whatever it is, it is not Equestrian in origin, and the timing is too close to be a coincidence.”

“Can you describe what you saw sir?” asked Twilight, a quill and parchment now floating beside her in a magenta colored aura of magic.

Blinking slightly at the sudden appearance of quill and paper from thin air, the trooper quickly regained his footing by chalking the incident up to unicorns just being unicorns.

Giving another nod, he said, “We found a farm a little ways to the south of Sweet Apple Acres,” when Twilight opened her mouth to inquire as to why this would be unusual, the guard, perceiving her question, quickly hurried on, “normally this wouldn’t be a cause for alarm, but in this case the farm isn’t on any local map. In addition, it doesn’t fit any of the local styles of construction either. Moreover, it appears to have been around for a while, suggesting that its construction isn’t recent.”

While he was speaking, Twilight was furiously writing while the lieutenant calmly watched the exchange from the sidelines. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Ms. Sparkle, do you think that I could have a copy of your notes for my report later?”

Twilight gave a distracted nod as she continued to write, before pausing a moment and saying, “Did you happen to see who owned this farm?”

Licking his lips, the pegasus replied, “We think so ma’am, though I must say it was the strangest creature that I have ever seen in my life.”

“Describe it for me if you would please,” she asked politely.

“Sure thing,” he said, before taking a moment to close his eyes as he tried to recall the mental image of the farms denizen.

“It was quite tall, probably taller than even Princess Celestia herself, horn included,” both Twilight and Lieutenant Palisade shared a worried look. The trooper continued, “It looked like somepony had taken a Saddle Arabian and fused it with a hairless and deformed Minotaur, both the sergeant and I were too far away to really get a good look at its features, but I can say for certain that it wasn’t anything natural.”

Twilight rubbed her chin with a hoof as she re-read the last few lines of her notes. Humming thoughtfully to herself she absently replied, “It could be a centaur, but nopony has actually seen a centaur outside of a mythology book.”

The trooper shook his head in reply. “No ma’am, I doubt a centaur has two heads.”

Giving the trooper a mildly disturbed look, she asked, “Did you say two heads?”

He nodded. “Yes ma’am, one at the very top of the creature and the other jutting out from the barrel. Though like I mentioned before, both the sergeant and I were fairly far away from it and therefore didn’t get a good chance to inspect it before it ducked under the tree cover of the apple orchard. So really, it could have been something else entirely.”

Twilight hummed thoughtfully to herself as she continued to review her notes, the lieutenant meanwhile had turned to the trooper and, giving a salute, said, “Very good trooper, you did well, am I to assume that your sergeant stayed behind to follow the creature?”

“Yes sir, last I knew of it, the thing was heading for Ponyville via the south road.”

“Very good, if you have nothing further to report, you are dismissed to go get some chow and rest.”

“Thank you sir!” and with a quick salute, the young pegasus was gone in a flurry of feathers.

The lieutenant watched him go for a moment before turning to a nearby guard and saying, “Corporal, gather a platoon together, I want an even mix of pegasi and unicorns, along with a pair of Rangers. The rally point will be the local schoolhouse near the southern mill pond.”

The guard gave a quick salute and quickly took off to carry out his superior's orders. Lieutenant Palisade meanwhile had donned his helmet and made ready to leave when a lavender colored hoof on his withers stopped him.

“Yes Ms. Sparkle?” he asked a questioning look on his face.

“I would like to accompany you and your stallions, if that is alright,” she said, a determined look on her face. “If this is something that Discord is responsible for, then you might need help in subduing it.”

The lieutenant stood there for a moment, as he thought over Twilight’s offer. Finally, after a few tense moments he nodded and said, “Alright, while it might not be Discord himself, I won’t turn down the help of a Beta level unicorn should things get out of hoof, though I expect you to do as I tell you and to not argue, is that understood?”

She nodded.

“Good, gather what you need, we leave in ten minutes,” and with that he turned and left.

Ten minutes later saw Twilight rushing up to the local schoolhouse, sweat running down her face as she rushed towards the meeting point.

Noticing her arrival, Lieutenant Palisade gave an amused smile at the sight of the out of breath librarian.

“I’d recommend that you set up an exercise regimen for yourself Ms. Sparkle, having a healthy body is just as important as a healthy mind.”

Panting, she retorted, “I...*puff*...thought...*puff*...that I...*puff* told you...*puff*...to call me Twilight.”

“You did, but I feel that now is not really the place for informality Ms. Sparkle, I need everypony to be at their best, and informality breeds sloppiness. You understand I hope?”

Having finally managed to gain some measure of her breath back, Twilight replied, “I guess, so what happens now?”

“Now we wait for one of the scouts to report back on the creature’s locatio-”

“Sir, we found it!” shouted a pegasus as he came in for a quick landing. Giving a quick salute he continued, “Trooper Fairweather and I spotted the creature less than a mile south of Sweet Apple Acres sir!”

“Is it still using the road?”

The guard gave a nod in reply.

Giving a satisfied smile, Palisade said, “Excellent, then we can go ahead with plan Alpha,” Turning to address the rest of his troopers and shouted, “Alright you lot, time to earn your pay! Let’s move out!”

With the well-honed precision that only comes from practice, the platoon, plus one lavender unicorn, got moving south, intent on finding out whether the unknown creature making its way towards Ponyville was a threat or not, and that if it was, to stop it, no matter what.

Chapter 3 (Taking a Walk Outside)

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Chapter 3

Riding along under the shade of the overhanging trees, Allen could almost believe that he was back home, riding along an unused road out in the countryside. However, the occasional glimpse of the distant mountain castle would shatter that illusion like a brick through a glass window.

Sighing to himself, Allen let his shoulders slump as he stared down at Rueben’s mane, content to let his mount do some of the driving for the moment.

“What are we going to do Rueben? Even if we do find other humans, who’s to say that they will be able to understand us to begin with? I don’t know about you but I ain’t looking forward to miming my way through first contact!”

Reuben gave an ear flick in reply.

Giving a soft chuckle, Allen patted Reuben’s neck with a gloved hand and said, “Yeah, I hear ya, no use in worrying about what’s out of my hands. Still, I can’t help bu-”

The sudden snapping of a twig nearby cut Allen off as he whipped his head around, his body tensing in preparation to fight or flee as he jerked back on the reins to bring his mount to a halt.

Reuben, sensing Allen’s sudden anxiety, pawed at the ground nervously, snorting in confusion as to what could have his rider suddenly on edge, but sure that if his master thought it was dangerous, then it probably was.

Scanning the nearby woods, Allen felt a drop of sweat slowly crawl down the side of his face as the seconds ticked by with no sight of what had caused the disturbance.

After a few tense moments, a brown blob jumped out of nearby bush, nearly giving Allen a heart attack before he realized that it was just a harmless little squirrel.

Letting go a nervous, and slightly embarrassed laugh at his overreaction, Allen exclaimed, “Ha! It was just a damn squirrel! Nearly gave myself a heart attack over a damn squirrel! Haha!” Reaching down again, he gently stroked Reuben’s mane in an effort to reassure the horse that everything was alright with the world once more.

“It’s okay boy, just a harmless woodland critter.”

Reuben gave an annoyed huff and stomped a hoof in reply, obviously not entirely pleased over having been subjected to a false alarm like that.

“Well, in any case, I guess we better get moving again,” continued Allen as he gave his steed a tap with his heels to get him moving forward again. However, as he and Reuben continued onwards, he failed to spot a glint of armor sparkling in a nearby bush.

The pony that the armor belonged to, upon seeing Allen move on, let go an explosive sigh of relief at having gone undetected. Turning to his partner, he gave him a slap upside the back of his head and whispered harshly, “Watch where you’re stepping next time you clumsy oaf, you nearly got us caught!”

His partner gave a soft yelp of surprise and idly rubbing the back of his head, even though he still had his helmet on, which had protected him from his comrades slap, said, “Sorry corporal, it won’t happen again!”

Giving a nod the corporal growled back, “See that it doesn’t or I’ll have you on KP duty for the rest of your time in the guard, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes Corporal Waters!” replied the hapless guard.

Satisfied that the lesson had gotten through, the corporal turned his attention back to the now empty cart path, and motioning to the rest of his hidden squad, moved out, stealthily following in Allen’s wake.

Meanwhile, another two pairs of eyes calmly watched from within an apple tree’s branches as the local guards moved out.

“Lucky for that corporal down there that his armor’s got sound dampening enchantments on it, otherwise he’d have given his position away more effectively than his friend,” drawled a brown coated pegasus.

His grey colored partner nodded his head in silent agreement. Looking away from the less than stealthy movements of their compatriots below, he said, “Well, at least we know what this so called “monster” looks like.”

His brown companion gave a soft snort of amusement. “If that there is a monster,” he said, waving a hoof in the direction that Allen had ridden off in, “then I’m secretly Princess Celestia in disguise.

“Well luckily for everypony involved, you’re not, so I would assume that means we’re dealing with something that is less of a monster and more along the line of some kind of previously unknown creature or something.”

“Right, well enough jabbering, we should probably be off,” was his reply.

The grey pegasus gave a nod, and took to the sky, his companion following close behind, their passage silent save for the rustling of the leaves that were disturbed by their passage. Keeping close to the tree tops, the two quickly caught up to, and passed by the, in their opinion, hopelessly un-stealthy Royal Guards before then spotting their target up ahead.

Having once again reestablished contact, both rangers banked away from the road, intent on finding a place up ahead of their target to land and quietly observe its progress. They didn’t have to wait long, for mere moments after they had taken up positions, the strange creature came trotting by.

Watching it trot into view, the two rangers noticed that it was not one, as had been assumed previously, but two creatures, one riding atop the other. The first creature appeared to be equine, seeing as it had the definitive, mane, tail, ears, hooves and general build of a pony. However, other than that, one would be hard pressed to call it an actual pony.

The first, and most obvious difference would be the size of the creature, easily three times that of the average adult pony, in addition, its legs appeared spindly and weak looking, in comparison to that of a normal Equestrian’s. The other and by far most glaring difference would be that of the equines head. It was longer, and appeared more rigid in nature, as if it were incapable of creating expressions. Moreover, its eyes were both small and dull, lacking that spark of sapience that could be found in all Equestrians.

While it was somewhat disconcerting to see a fellow equine as little more than a simple non-sapient creature, the being that rode upon its back was another matter entirely.

The closest analogue that the two rangers could come up with was a hairless gorilla that had had its face and body slightly rearranged. Even though it was currently sitting, its body dimensions and posture indicated that it would walk in a more upright fashion than a gorilla would. In addition, its face was also different in that it didn’t look like somepony had smashed its nose in with a brick. Though that still meant its face was flatter than that of a pony’s.

Moreover, the strange creature appeared to be nearly devoid of fur save for a small patch atop its head, of which most of that was obscured by its hat, and what looked like some stubble growing on its face. Then there were its eyes, deep blue and alert, they, and by extension, its head were constantly moving around in random sweeps of the countryside, as if searching for threats.

Both rangers already knew the strange creature was intelligent, as they had been close enough to hear it speak, though they were not confident that the Canterlot Guard had heard it speak. As a general rule Equestrian Rangers never assumed anything and always prepared for a worst case scenario, especially when it came to joint operations with the guard.

It was a well-known thing amongst those in the military that the rangers held a sort of contempt towards their brethren in the guard, viewing them as little more than glorified police ponies that couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper sack. Of course this sort of opinion was somewhat unfair towards those in the guard.

While it was true that the guards fieldcraft was sorely lacking, in the cities they had a much easier time of it. Moreover, the guard was never meant to be an offensive tool to begin with, as such it tended to focus more on those areas that played to its strengths, such as fighting in urban environments, close quarters combat, as well as from prepared defensive positions.

However, that really only applied to those guard units who were from major cities, such as Manehatten or Canterlot. For smaller towns, the quality of those serving tended to be lower, and unfortunately, tended to stay low, as money was rather scarce in regards to training and equipping them. Thus many small town guards were little better than militia and could only be relied upon for minor matters such as repelling small scale attacks, whether it be from monsters or brigands.

In the case of Ponyville however, due to its relative closeness to Canterlot and its tendency to be relatively peaceful, at least up until recent months anyways, it was used by the Canterlot Guard as a sort of “soft duty” post for those guard members recovering from either wounds received in the line of duty or those suffering from exhaustion. This way, they could still remain on duty, but have a chance to recuperate in peace.

Unfortunately, the town was also used by the nobility on occasion as a way to punish those who had crossed them; this often meant a career ending assignment for the unfortunate guardspony that was sent here.

However, that policy was rapidly being revisited as thanks in large part to the increased activity of such little things as monster, and villain attacks in recent months. Many of the nobility in Canterlot were now searching for another nearby small town to dispose of unwanted guardsponies on.

Then there were the rangers. Considered the offensive arm of the Equestrian military, such as it was, even though their numbers were small, being only around a few hundred currently, they were both highly trained, well equipped and disciplined, and had possessed excellent leadership.

Often times they found themselves being used to take on those things that even the bigger city guards were unable to deal with, and many a guard commander thanked the heavens above when the rangers showed up to take matters off their hooves.

Of course sometimes the rangers found themselves called in for situations that didn’t require their talents to deal with. Such was the case that the two rangers now found themselves in at the present moment.

Glancing at his partner out of the corner of his eye, the brown colored ranger asked, “Well, you see anything that might be a weapon on it?”

His companion gave a shake of his head, “Nope, and it doesn’t look like it has any natural weapons either.”

“Don’t be so sure on that, I wouldn’t be surprised if it has something tucked away under all of that clothing.”

Grey nodded. “True, there is that.”

Brown glanced over at his partner and asked, “What about magic?”

Grey shook his head. “My thaum crystal isn’t picking up any magical radiation from it either.”

His partner cocked an eyebrow. “None?” he asked curiously.

“Not even a scrap, mules have more magic in them than that thing does, though I can’t be one hundred percent positive, the amount of residual magical energy from the Elements might be affecting my crystal. That or that thing has some very good magical shielding on it.”

Brown nodded again. “Right, how do you want to approach this then?”

Grey chewed his bottom lip for a moment before replying, “Probably should report back to the lieutenant and see what he has to say...or we could draw lots and the loser walks up to it and see what it does.”

His companion gave a soft chuckle. “Haha, funny guy.”

Grey gave a smirk. “I try,” however, his smirk faded as quickly as it arrived and he continued, “Though in all seriousness, that thing, whatever it is, looks about as dangerous as a bush.*”

“Agreed. So do you want to go back and report, or should I?”

“I did it the last time, it’s your turn to talk to the guard,” replied Grey.

Brown gave a sigh. “Fine, at least this lieutenant doesn’t have his head up his plot like the last one did.”

“True, but he’s still a guard.”

“Point.”

And with that, Brown crept away from his roadside hiding spot while Grey continued to watch the progress of their target as it made its way sedately up the path. Settling back into a watchful position, he glanced back towards where the guards would be, and mentally facehoofed at their antics as they failed miserably in attempting to stealthily follow the creature.

Sweet Maker preserve me, one of them just ran across the road behind it.

~oOo~

Meanwhile, the guard had set up a temporary command post at the local school, at which half of the platoons strength, roughly twenty ponies of various types, were stationed. The other half of the platoon had been sent out to locate, and then shadow the unknown entity as it made its way towards town. It was planned that if the entity turned out to be hostile, that the two sections would be able to swarm it from all angles in a classic encircling maneuver.

If however, the entity decided to flee then it would be surrounded on all sides by Lieutenant Palisade’s ponies, thus making it much more difficult to flee.

Currently most of the first half of Palisade’s platoon was hidden amongst the trees and bushes that surrounded the road leading to the school. However, the lieutenant, one of his sergeants and Twilight were currently standing near the school’s front door, inspecting a map that had been pinned to the ground with small stones at each corner.

“And you’re sure that the creature won’t be able to see the road heading for Sweet Apple Acres?” asked a slightly nervous Twilight.

The sergeant nodded. “Positive, we’ve got the road screened with an illusion enchantment so it looks just like the rest of the roadside. Plus I’ve left four unicorns behind to make sure the enchantment doesn’t fail as well.”

“Good work sergeant,” said Palisade, “did you leave instructions for them in case something goes wrong?”

The sergeant nodded again. “Yes sir, should the creature notice something amiss and attempt to pass through the enchantment field they are to fire a white flare into the air. If, for some reason the creature notices the enchantment, and them as well and attacks they are to fire a red one into the air.”

“What if it just notices them and doesn’t attack?”

“If that should happen ma’am then they’ll fire a green flare in the sky, either way, it won’t be good.”

“Quite, should something like that happen, we’ll have no choice but to move to their aid at once, regardless of the initial outcome. Unknown creatures are as one can expect, unpredictable,” remarked the lieutenant.

Twilight nodded in understanding and opened her mouth to reply when the light sound, and soft breeze of a pegasus landing next to her caused her to give a startled yelp, and jump to the side.

“Apologies miss, I did not mean to startle you like that,” said a brown coated pegasus sporting a pair of brown saddle bags and cloth coat, which covered his cutie mark, preventing Twilight from seeing what it was.

“Ah, Ranger Soft Wind, do you have something to report?”

Ranger Wind nodded, giving a quick salute. “I do sir, both myself and Ranger Ash Fall were able to get close to the being without it detecting us and were able to observe it for a time.”

Lieutenant Palisade smiled. “Excellent! Tell me, what did you learn?”

“We cannot say for certain at this time, but both Ranger Ash and myself do not think the creature is armed, either with magic or conventional weapons, nor did we see any sort of natural weapons upon its person. However, I should caution you sir, that this does not mean that the creature is necessarily harmless, just that we couldn’t see any obvious weapons,” replied Soft Wind.

Palisade nodded. “Agreed, we cannot be too careful when it comes to the unknown after al-”

“Sir! White flare off to the south!” yelled a nearby pegasus from his cloudy perch.

Whirling around in the indicated direction, just in time to see a green flare join its sister in the sky, burning brightly for all to see, Palisade cursed under his breath before turning to the sergeant, yelling, “Get the rest of the platoon on the move sergeant! I want you to take half on the east side of the road, and I’ll take the other half down the west side. Keep them in the trees as best you can, we don’t want this thing to see us coming if we can help it!”

Giving a quick salute, the sergeant tore off, barking out orders to the ponies around him. Watching him go for a moment, Palisade turned first to the ranger. “Return to your partner and assist if needed, I’ll leave it up to you when, and where to engage as this is something you’re far better at than I.”

“Understood sir,” replied Wind, giving a half salute before taking off as silently as he landed.

Barely waiting for the ranger to depart, Palisade was already addressing Twilight. “Miss Twilight, things might become dangerous,” seeing her opening her mouth to angrily object, he quickly cut her off, “I’m not going to send you back, I said I would allow you to help us and I meant it. Now, please do not try to interrupt me again like that,” he said, a stern look on his face.

Seeing that she wasn’t going to interrupt him again, he quickly continued, “What I was going to say was that I wanted you to stay close to me at all times. I know you can handle yourself in a fight, but you are undisciplined, and I need you to be able to follow any command that I may give you, no matter how strange or unpleasant it may sound. If you cannot do that, then I will have to ask you to remain behind, do you understand?”

Giving a shallow and somewhat shameful nod, Twilight replied quietly, “I do.”

Returning her nod, the lieutenant said, “Alright then, let’s be about it,” and with that he too took off for the nearby tree line, shouting out orders to his ponies.

Twilight, following close behind, felt a cold ball of uncertainty settling in her chest as she ran towards what could potentially turn into a fight, and praying that that wouldn’t be the case.

Chapter 4 (Best Laid Plans)

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Chapter 4

The shadows cast by the nearby trees were beginning to lengthen when Allen decided to take a short rest, and to stretch his legs after having been in the saddle for a while.

Hopping down from Reuben, he gave a happy groan as he stretched his arms wide, feeling several satisfying pops in his back.

Sighing in relief, Allen looked around at the seemingly endless rows of trees which stretched off for as far as the eye could see, with not a soul in sight as far as he could tell. However, unbeknownst to Allen, he was not alone.

Standing just a few yards away, concealed from Allen’s view by a magical illusionary barrier of apple trees, four royal guard unicorns tensely watched Allen as he rested.

One of them, a recent recruit, going by the name of Comet Tail, nervously shifted from hoof to hoof.

“Why doesn’t it move on?” he anxiously whispered.

“Quiet,” growled his companion, a stout and tough looking unicorn by the name of Flare Shot.

Comet just whimpered and wished with all his heart that the freaky looking biped and its pony-esque mount would move on already. Sadly for him, the creature didn’t appear to be in a hurry to move on at the moment.

“W-why can’t the rest of the platoon just hurry up and get here already?”

“Comet, I swear to Epona that if I hear one more peep out of your muzzle, I will personally launch your sorry flank into the sun!” replied Flare Shot harshly, his patience rapidly running out.

“B-but, s-sarge! L-look at it! It’s completely hideous! And look what it did to that poor pony!” continued Comet, oblivious in his rising panic, of the hole that he was quickly digging himself into.

Whirring around, Flare grabbed the gibbering Comet by the front of his cuirass with his magic, and yanking him till they were muzzle to muzzle, said quietly, “If you screw this up and give our position away, not even your father will be enough to save your sorry hide, do I make myself clear?”

Comet opened his mouth to reply, but a strained whisper cut him off.

“S-sarge, I-I’m h-having trouble keeping t-the spell g-going!”

Giving one last piercing glare into the terrified eyes of Comet, Flare Shot released him, letting him crumple to the ground in a sad looking pile of shivering pony flesh.

Turning his attention to the source of the voice, he found a worrying sight. The unicorn that had been tasked with crafting, and maintaining the illusionary spell was beginning to show signs of severe strain.

Quickly trotting up to him, Flare Shot could see the sweat pouring off the poor stallion as his horn burned bright with energy and his legs trembled slightly from the strain.

Placing a steadying hoof on the guards shoulder, Flare Shot said softly, “You’re doing good son, keep it up.”

“I-I d-don’t know if I c-can for...much...longer!” came his strained reply.

Biting his lower lip, Flare Shot quickly ran over his options, such as they were, as Lieutenant Palisade’s plan hadn’t allowed for the chance that the creature would stop right in front of the illusionary barrier that guarded the entrance to a nearby farm.

What had been intended was that the Equestrians were to use the road as a way to funnel the creature to a point where they could easily surround it, and contain it if needed. This should have been a fairly straight forward goal as the road that the creature was following didn’t connect to any other roads before it hit the outskirts of Ponyville.

Moreover, with apple trees on either side of the road, which would make any sort of quick escape difficult for the creature and its much larger mount. In addition, the trees would provide excellent concealment for Palisade’s ponies to work around its sides and rear, trapping it when it ran into Palisade’s blocking force near the schoolhouse.

All in all, a solid plan, in theory. However, the farm that they were guarding, Sweet Apple Acres, home of the Apple Clan, considered one of the largest apple orchards in Equestria, and makers of excellent apple made products. It, in addition to being the only orchard in the entirety of Equestria to possess Zap Apple trees, had to also be located on the very same road that the creature was currently traveling on.

Thus the guard had taken measures to conceal the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres by use of an illusion spell that would disguise the entrance as nothing more than another section of orchard.

Unfortunately, time had not been on their side and they had been forced to cut corners when constructing the illusionary spell. In addition, thanks in large part to Discord’s recent shenanigans across Equestria, not just in nearby Canterlot and Ponyville, the guard was stretched thin dealing with the aftermath.

Moreover, Discord had thought it would be funny to randomly teleport guards around for his amusement, making it rather difficult to get units organized on short notice.

Thus, the guard detachment currently in Ponyville found itself thoroughly mixed up, with guards from no less than four separate towns and cities, and with many of them either fresh out of training or still in training.

What’s worse, there was only one unicorn guard in the entire platoon who was rated for illusionary spell casting, and he was fresh out of basic training.

Leaning in close, Flare Shot whispered encouraging words in the struggling guard’s ear, hoping that that would be enough to keep him going. If he could have, he would’ve been adding his own mana to the spell as well, but that kind of thing was not something that could done in the middle of a spell as the different auras would cause the spell to shake itself apart.

What’s more, the fact that the illusion had to cover the entirety of the front entrance of the farm, as well as blend in seamlessly with the surrounding area, required a significant amount of mana. Mana that the guard powering the spell was quickly running out of, encouraging words or not, and since it did not appear as if the creature was planning on moving on anytime soon, it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.

Allen meanwhile, gave another large stretch, before then turning and giving Reuben an affectionate pat on the neck. “I bet that feels nice finally having me off your back for a little bit, huh boy?” said Allen with a small smile.

Reuben quietly nickered and gave Allen a gentle shove with his muzzle, an indication that he wanted Allen to continue petting him.

Chuckling to himself, Allen resumed petting Reuben’s neck. “Hehe, yeah okay, I get it, you want me to keep going. I swear, you are so needy some...times...” he said as he suddenly trailed off, eyes narrowing in confusion at a point a few feet further up the road.

Ceasing his petting, much to Reuben’s displeasure, Allen, the reins held loosely in his left hand, strode slowly forward to the aforementioned spot. Squatting down to get a closer look he studied the section of road intently.

Strange, he thought to himself as he glanced around, why would the cart trail suddenly turn into a dirt road in the middle of nowhere? Could we be getting close to a town? Looking up, he peered down the road for as far as he could, but all he saw were more trees to either side, and no signs of civilization.

Idly rubbing his chin with his right hand, Allen suddenly heard...something behind and to his right that sounded suspiciously like a muffled scream. Standing up quickly, he turned around in the general direction of the sound. Apparently, Reuben had heard it too as he gave a low, nervous nicker while shying away from the source of the noise.

“What the hell is going on around here?” muttered Allen to himself as he instinctively tightened his grip on the reins. Feeling that perhaps it was best to move on, Allen moved closer, and swung a leg into the saddle’s stirrups in preparation for resuming his journey.

Meanwhile, the situation had not improved for Flare Shot. His illusionist was rapidly running out of stamina and Comet had not calmed down in the least, in fact, he’d become even more scared in the meantime. To make matters worse, the creature had become suspicious after having noticed the road change in front of it. Moreover, something seemed to have spooked it as it had whirled around to face the direction that it had come, its mount also showing signs of nervousness.

Biting his bottom lip nearly hard enough to break the skin, Flare Shot tried to find a solution in order to salvage the rapidly deteriorating situation. Unfortunately, he didn’t find one in time.

Several things happened at once that brought the whole ordeal to its inevitable climax. The first being that Flare Shot’s illusionist finally ran out of juice, as panting and wheezing, and his horn glow waning, the poor stallion collapsed to the ground in a heap. His illusion wavered for a moment, as if it were a piece of cloth caught in a breeze before it disappeared into thin air, leaving the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres fully exposed.

The second thing that happened was that Comet, now finding that he and the rest of the squad were fully exposed, panicked, and fired a white flare into the sky before turning tail and running like Discord himself was after him.

The third thing that happened was that the source of the noise that had caught Allen’s attention earlier, finally showed itself in the form of a guardsmare bursting from a nearby bush screaming incoherently about giant spiders.

It would later turn out during an investigation, that the mare in question, a Private Daffodil, had an extreme phobia of spiders, and that just moments before the illusion failed, a rather large one from the nearby Everfree had decided that she would make a nice friend, and had proceeded to introduce itself by dropping down from above and landing on her face.

Daffodil took immediate exception to the spider’s presence and attempted to voice her displeasure in the form of a scream. Seeing that Daffodil about to give their position away, her partner, a pegasus, jumped on her and pinned her to the ground, before then shoving a hoof in her mouth in an attempt to silence her.

Unfortunately, the spider was still firmly attached to Daffodil’s face, and her terror proved to be more than a match for her compatriot’s strength, as she managed to break free and run away screaming. She would later be found almost catatonic, the spider, still on her face, near one of Sweet Apple Acres barns.

For their part, the rest of the platoon stayed in cover for a few extra seconds, as if trying to process what had happened. However, they quickly realized that, with their cover blown, and the plan compromised, that they needed to do something to prevent the creature from attempting escape.

This was why they all charged out of cover at nearly the same time, trying to take up a blocking position across the road behind Allen. Which would have worked better had they not been spread out along the roadside and had been closer together.

However, because of the need to keep down noise and their lack of experience working outside of the city, they had been forced to keep themselves dispersed lest they trip over each other and give their position away.

The end result was that, because their cover was blown before they arrived at the predetermined spot, they were struggling to get everyone close enough together to form a proper blockade, and this was leaving holes in their lines.

Allen meanwhile, unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing, sat with a dumbfounded expression in the saddle, his arms hanging limply at his sides, while his brain tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

They’re...ponies? In Roman legion armor? What. The. Fuck. Over?

While Allen was trying to reboot his brain, Reuben's was firing on all cylinders, and it was telling him was that it was well past time to, “get yo ass home son”.

So that is precisely what he did. As the ponies struggled to get into position, Reuben took off as if he were a racehorse at the Belmont.

Meanwhile, Flare Shot was cursing his luck as he watched the whole plan fall apart right before his eyes. As the larger equine and its rider, who now appeared to be screaming at the top of its lungs, tore off back the way they had come. He could only watch in helplessness as the beast bore down upon the still forming blocking force with no intention of stopping.

For Allen, the fact that he wasn’t prepared for Reuben to take off like a rocket, left him struggling to just stay in the saddle, let alone bring his obviously panicking animal back under control.

However, even if Allen wasn’t trying to just merely remain in the saddle and had the time to try and bring his mount under control, Reuben wouldn’t have let him, as he was determined to thread himself through the holes left in the Equestrians lines and get home.

Which is precisely what he did, though credit where credit is due, the guards did try and stop him, but when you have an animal that is nearly three times as big, barreling down on you at around twenty miles per hour, and you’re by yourself, you’d get out of the way too.

Flare Shot watched in disbelief as Reuben literally tore through the Equestrian lines like a knife through wet tissue paper. Any place that he met resistance, and he couldn’t find a big enough opening, he simply jumped over, clearing their heads by inches and scattering the ponies as they dove for cover. It was over in less than a minute, from the moment the illusion spell failed to the moment when the creature and its mount escaped.

Gritting his teeth in frustration at their failure, Flare Shot threw his head back and launched a green flare into the sky to alert his superior of the creature’s escape, before then turning to the nearest pony and barking out orders in an attempt to salvage the situation.

“You two,” he yelled, pointing at a pair of nearby pegasi, “get up there and follow it, and get as many of the others to go with you as you can while you’re at it!” The two gave him a shaky salute and took off.

Whirling around, he opened his mouth when the sound of approaching wing beats cut him off. Turning toward the direction, he spotted both rangers coming in for a landing.

“I thought you rangers were supposed to be quiet?” he said testily.

Ash gave a wing shrug. “We can be as loud or as quiet as the situation requires, in this case we were able to get your attention faster by being loud.”

Flare Shot gave an irritated grunt and snapped. “Well what are you standing around for then?! Get your flanks in the air and follow that creature with the others!”

The two glanced silently at each other for a moment, as if exchanging a mental conversation before Soft Wind took off, this time quietly, much to Flare Shots mounting irritation.

Opening his mouth to see why the other ranger hadn’t left yet, he was cut off by Ash’s raised wing. “I’m staying behind to leave a report with the Lieutenant about this debacle. By the way, I saw your wayward guard hightailing it back to Ponyville on the way over, might want to send somepony to fetch him,” finished Ash, a small smirk on his lips.

When I get my hooves on you Comet...

~oOo~

Reuben, blowing hard and with foam falling from his mouth, tiredly walked over the threshold between Allen’s farm and the surrounding countryside. Allen meanwhile was just as tired, as the boost of adrenaline from the mad dash that Reuben had made home had worn off, and left him feeling spent.

Glancing back the way they had come, Allen spotted a glint of metal in the fading afternoon light, as one of the winged ponies that had chased him and Reuben home ducked behind a cloud.

Allen felt a rush of nervousness course through his system as thoughts of being plucked from the saddle by one of those winged ponies, taken high into the sky, before then being dropped, and dashed to pieces on the ground filled his mind.

Shivering at the terrifying thought, Allen gave his tired mount a gentle kick with his heels, hurrying him along in an attempt to get undercover as quickly as possible.

Angling Reuben towards the barn, Allen guided him in before dismounting, taking his saddle and bridle off, and quickly, but thoroughly brushing him down before putting him back in his stall for the night.

Shutting and locking the stall door behind him, Allen quickly locked up the barn and fed the animals in record time, as he wanted to spend as little time outside as possible, and he just couldn’t bring himself to let his charges go hungry no matter how scared he currently felt.

Though that did not mean he went unarmed, a three foot piece of slightly rusty angle iron served as a makeshift sword in case any of those strange, alien ponies felt the need to show up and cause trouble; even though he doubted that it would do him much good in a straight up fight with them, it at least made him feel a little better.

After filling up the last of the animal’s water buckets, and silently patting himself on the back for having the foresight to fill up a couple of unused water troughs before he had left that morning. Allen cautiously poked his head out the service door, checking to see if the coast was clear.

Spotting nothing, he made a dash for the garage, his makeshift sword clutched tightly in his grip, head on a constant swivel for any signs of trouble.

Reaching the door, Allen all but burst through it, slamming and locking the door behind him. Carefully, so as to not trip and fall in the dim confines of the garage, he threaded his way through to the back door and eased it open before then slipping inside.

Shutting and locking that door as well, he proceeded to carefully rush through the house, shutting and locking doors and windows before then retreating to his room and locking himself inside.

Leaning his back up against the door, he slid down till his rear hit the floor, his hands still gripping the piece of angle iron tightly as he stared out the nearby window.

A sudden shadow flitting across the moonbeam on the floor in front of him caused him to tense up, and the sound of an owl hooting outside did nothing to help his fraying nerves.

It was at this point that Allen realized that he would not be getting any sleep that night.

Chapter 5 (The Prince Arrives)

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Chapter 5

The sun had set hours ago, casting the countryside into peaceful darkness. However, at Sweet Apple Acres, things were neither peaceful nor dark as the farm had been transformed into a makeshift command post, with ponies coming and going while magical lights were set out to help push back the night.

Of course the Apple family wasn’t particularly happy, what with all of the ruckus caused by the guard as they came and went from the farm. However it couldn’t really be helped as Sweet Apple Acres was deemed the logical place to set up a command post. As there were spare buildings readily available for both storage and sleeping arrangements, it was easy to find in the dark, and the fact that the farm had running water didn’t hurt either.

Of course from the way Granny Smith, the matron of the farm, made it out to be, one would think that the guard had let the creature get away on purpose just so that they could bother the farming family.

Naturally this was completely unfair to the guard as the rest of the platoon had arrived within minutes after the first flare had gone up. Unfortunately, they had been still been too late to do anything to stop the creature from getting away, thus forcing them to alter their plans accordingly.

Currently those plans included stomping ones hoof in mounting frustration, at least if you happened to be Lieutenant Palisade listening to the final bit of Sergeant Flare Shot’s report.

“...and then it was gone sir.”

“Did you send anypony after it?”

Flare Shot nodded. “Yes sir, I had the few pegasi that were here follow it along with one of the rangers, the other one’s over by the house waiting to give you his report...I think.”

Palisade rolled his eyes before saying, “Thank you Sergeant Shot, I’ll be sure to mention you in my dispatches back to headquarters, as well as your illusionist.”

“Don’t forget Comet Tail sir, the coward bolted at the first sign of trouble.”

Palisade nodded and waved a hoof dismissively. “Yes, yes, I’ll be sure to mention him in my report as well. I should also mention that we managed to apprehend him and he is currently in the Ponyville jailhouse right now, in case you were wondering sergeant.”

“Thank you sir, that’s a load off my mind at any rate. Was there anything else that I can help you with?” asked Flare Shot. When Palisade shook his head, Flare gave a quick salute and departed.

Watching him go for a moment, Palisade let out a tired sigh.

“Are you alright Lieutenant?”

Glancing over to his right he said tiredly, “No Miss Sparkle I am not ‘alright’. This whole situation has gone from bad to worse. Not only has the creature escaped, but now it knows that we are aware of its presence and may do something tonight while it is dark out and difficult for the guard to operate. That and your friends grandmother seems to have it in her head that all of my ponies are complete idiots.”

Twilight gave a sheepish smile. “You’ll have to forgive Granny Smith; she gets a little cranky when her afternoon nap is interrupted.”

Palisade rolled his eyes. “Be that as it may, the current situation is hardly ideal seeing as I have one pony in jail for attempted desertion and another one comatose in a first aid tent nearby...from a spider. All this, on top of having to contain a potentially dangerous creature on its own turf while being short hooved as it is.”

“Now let us not be too hasty in our judging of the current situation Lieutenant,” a posh voice said suddenly from behind Palisade.

Startled, the frazzled lieutenant whirled around, intent to chew out the idiot who had startled him, but upon seeing exactly who was behind him, the fiery words died on his lips.

“Prince Blueblood! I didn’t know that you were here, let alone aware of the situation yet, sir.”

“Both myself and the princesses have been aware of the...situation here in Ponyville since this morning, thanks to Ranger Feather Down sending us a message via the new telegraph line from Ponyville.”

“Wait, are you telling me there was another ranger here in Ponyville this whole time and I wasn’t made aware of that?!” replied the lieutenant hotly.

Blueblood gave him a rather cool look which quickly smothered Palisades’s temper.

“Yes, there was, and the reason you weren’t made aware of her presence was because she was here at the behest of Princess Celestia and myself on another assignment, and thus was not available for your use,” replied the prince calmly.

Turning to regard Twilight, he gave a polite nod of his head in greeting, as was customary amongst those of the nobility, of which Twilight’s family was a part of; though hers were from a minor noble house rather than one of the great houses, such as Blueblood’s family.

“Ms. Sparkle it is nice to...see you again,” said Blueblood politely.

Twilight returned a forced grin and replied, “The pleasure is all mine, Your Grace.”

Giving her a satisfied smile, he turned his attention back to the lieutenant.

“Now, as I was saying before you interrupted me,” at this, Palisade averted his gaze slightly in embarrassment, though if Blueblood noticed, he made no mention before continuing on saying, “both Princess’s Celestia, Luna, and myself have been made aware of a creature that may have ties to Discord. As such, Princess Celestia had me come down here to oversee things personally. I trust that this will not be a problem lieutenant?”

Glad to finally have somepony to shoulder the burden of leadership off on, Palisade replied quickly, “Not at all, Your Grace, I am more than happy to hoof this mess over to you, sir.”

“Good, then why don’t the both of you bring me up to speed on what has been happening since the initial letter we received this morning,” responded Blueblood simply as he sat himself down on a nearby camp stool.

Giving a tired nod, Palisade quickly brought the prince as up to speed as he could; given the information he currently had, with Twilight interjecting where needed. When Palisade finally wound down nearly an hour later, Blueblood gave a curt nod and turned to Twilight saying, “Anything else that you wish to add Ms. Sparkle?”

“No, that should be just about it,” she replied, though when she saw the cross look Blueblood gave her, she quickly added, “Your Grace.”

Giving a pleased nod that protocol had been maintained, he remarked while glancing through the notes supplied to him by Twilight, “It seems as if this creature is an odd one. You say that it was a...” he trailed off for a moment as he double checked one of the papers before continuing, “…hairless, stunted and deformed minotaur? Not really much to work with I’m afraid.”

Twilight shifted nervously from hoof to hoof before replying, “I wasn’t able to see it for myself, so I had to rely on what the guards told me.”

Blueblood gave a thoughtful hum as he leaned back from the table and tapped his chin, as if pondering something.

“Are you sure there was nopony else who got a better look at the creature, perhaps one of the rangers, mayhap?”

Palisade groaned to himself in annoyance at having forgotten in all the excitement that the rangers had in fact gotten close enough to view it. Turning to a nearby unicorn, he said, “Go and fetch which ever ranger is close by, tell them that I need to debrief them.”

The guard gave a quick salute and took off. With the guard gone, the three ponies had little to do until his return; as such an awkward silence quickly filled the room. Not a big fan of awkward silences, Twilight cleared her throat and asked, “So...anything new happen in Canterlot recently, Prince Blueblood?”

Blueblood, who had been examining another paper, glanced up at Twilight and replied curtly, “Yes, but now is really not the time to distract ourselves with small talk. Perhaps later,” he paused for a moment as he glanced away from the paper in his magical grip, and said, in an amused voice, “Though if the silence bothers you that much, you are welcome to step out for a moment until the guard returns.”

Suddenly feeling as if she were being tested, Twilight hastily replied, “Oh, thank you for the offer Your Grace, but I’m fine...really! I was just curious is all, and seeing as we had some time before...um...they got...back? I...” noticing the unimpressed look that Blueblood was sending her way, Twilight quickly wilted, her words trailing off into an even more uncomfortable silence.

Seeing that there would be no further interruptions, Blueblood returned his attention to the papers before him, the perfect picture of a noble, calm, collected and aloof.

Thankfully for Twilight, she didn’t have to suffer in silence for long as the sound of approaching hoofsteps signaled the return of the guard, and hopefully the ranger as well.

Looking up from his current paper, Blueblood allowed himself smile and rising from his stool, and much to Twilight’s surprise, he greeted the new arrival warmly, “Ah, Ranger Ash Fall, a pleasant surprise, I was not aware that you were back from your assignment to the southern border so soon. Tell me, how is your wife and son?”

Ash gave the prince a courteous bow and replied respectfully, “She is well, and so is my son, though she does wish I would be home more often than I am, Your Grace.”

Blueblood chuckled and replied cheerfully, “Well, I’ll just have to see about convincing old Colonel Hickory to let you have some time off after this is all over with.”

“Thank you, Your Grace, you are too kind,” replied the ranger, bowing once more in thanks.

Blueblood gave a casual wave of his hoof, as if to dispel the gratitude directed towards him as if it were smoke.

“Think nothing of it, I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I did not offer my assistance to my friends once in a while now would I?” was Blueblood’s cheerful reply.

Ash gave a shallow nod. “I suppose so, though I doubt that you are here to catch up on old times and conduct small talk, sir.”

Blueblood shook his head. “No unfortunately, I am not, perhaps some other time in the near future,” he said somewhat sadly; that sadness didn’t last long however as he quickly gave himself a shake and continued on saying, “Now, enough about that, down to business. What is this that I hear about some creature that Discord has managed to summon to our fair realm?”

Ash adopted a more relaxed posture as he replied, “To be honest, Your Grace, I doubt that the creature is directly affiliated with Discord. Though I should hasten to add that does not mean that it is inherently harmless, merely that it is non chaotic in origin.”

Blueblood gave a thoughtful hum as he considered what Ash had told him. After a few moments of quiet thought, Blueblood said, “Give me your reasons for why you think it may not be related to Discord.”

“Very well,” replied Ash as he began to list off the various points that would support his hypothesis. “Firstly, Ranger Soft Wind and I managed to get within less than ten hooves of the creature at one point. Naturally it did not notice our presence and we were able to get a rough reading of its magical signature...or I should say its lack of one.”

“What?! How is that possible, it is proven fact that all creatures have some sort of magical signature in them! To say that it had none whatsoever is impossible!” Twilight shouted incredulous, cutting off Blueblood’s own query in the process and earning the mare a rather frosty glare from the prince.

Twilight, noticing the prince’s unhappy gaze, visible shrunk away from the unhappy royal, her ears pinning flat against her scalp, squeaking out an apology as she did so.

After glaring at her a little longer to make sure he got his point across, Blueblood turned his attention back to Ash, and asked, “Right, well as Ms. Sparkle so eloquently put it, I would have to agree that this revelation seems quite unlikely. I assume that you used a standard issue thaum crystal?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” replied Ash.

“And you are sure that it was working properly at the time, fully charged, no obvious signs of damage or magical tampering?” queried Blueblood.

Ash shook his head. “Not possible sir, that crystal was brand new, and was certified to be in perfect condition when I picked it up this morning.”

“Mayhap you accidently damaged it during the day?”

When Ash gave Blueblood a look that screamed, “You do realize who you are talking to right?” Blueblood awkwardly cleared his throat and hastily added, “I’m just trying to rule out possibilities here Ash, I didn’t mean to imply that you were being less than professional in your duties.”

Accepting the unvoiced apology, Ash gave a grunt before saying, “As I mentioned earlier, Your Grace, the crystal was in perfect condition, and it did not pick up any chaotic magic, beyond the remnants of what were already floating around. Though to be fair, getting a reading on a weak magical signature right after an extreme magical event, such as the activation of the Element of Harmony, tends to be more difficult. However, I can say with at least ninety-five percent confidence that the creature had either no magical signature or that it was so weak as to be nearly non-existent, and thus little to no threat.”

Bringing a hoof to his chin, Blueblood hummed thoughtfully to himself. “If what you are saying is true,” he began, looking down at the straw covered wooden floor of the barn as he did so, “then we should have little to fear from the creature. At least in terms of magical ability, though that does not mean that it might not have some other ability that we are unaware of at this time.”

Ash gave a nod in agreement. “That was my thoughts as well. Though honestly, the creature didn’t look all that frightening when one got close to it.”

Blueblood cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, pray tell what did it look like. As of right now, all I know about it is that it’s some sort of strange hairless minotaur. Honestly, you would think that we’d have a clear understanding of just what this creature looks like by now, seeing as there were dozens of witnesses present when it ran away earlier.”

Lieutenant Palisade cleared his throat in an attempt to catch Blueblood’s attention. Turning to look at the officer, Blueblood gave a nod of his head, an invitation for the lieutenant to proceed.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” began Palisade, when Blueblood waved his thanks away and motioned for him to continue, he quickly did. “Well...none of my ponies here are really qualified in regards to sketch work, nor in giving the best of descriptions. Honestly sir, most of my ponies aren’t even from the same units or have any real experience in fieldwork. Hay, my illusionist only recently got out of basic training less than a week ago.”

“Is there some kind of point that you wish to make here Lieutenant Palisade, or are you just trying to cover your flank?” asked Blueblood, his face a mask of perceived indifference.

Feeling himself in the proverbial hot seat, Palisade quickly shook his head and replied, “No sir, what I mean to say is that the guard is...lacking in a lot of skills when it comes to these types of situations. As much as it pains me to admit it, especially when a ranger is present,” he muttered that part to himself, “but the guard really isn’t much better than a glorified police force currently. I’ve submitted several reports on the less than...adequate training available at present, but they’ve been ignored as far as I can see.”

Giving another thoughtful hum, Blueblood turned back to Ash and asked, “What do you think of the lieutenant’s thoughts Ash?”

Ash gave a solemn nod in response. “I would say that he is understating the problem sir. As you know sir, we in the rangers are called upon to be the offensive arm of Equestria. In the past this usually meant that we fought terrible monsters or took care of delicate political situations. However recently, I, and my superiors, have noticed that we are being called upon more and more for things that the guard used to take care of themselves. The end result being that we are stretched thin, as you probably know, I haven’t been home in over four months, and some of my fellows haven’t seen home in nearly a year.”

Blueblood frowned at Ash’s reply. “I did not realize that things were getting that bad, at least not until Discord showed up, though at the time I chalked up the guard’s poor performance as little more than sending foals to fight a giant. I shall look into the matter further upon my return to Canterlot.”

Turning suddenly to the lieutenant, Blueblood said, “Lieutenant Palisade, as of now, you and those ponies currently under your command are to remain in Ponyville.”

“Sir?”

Blueblood sighed. “If what you are saying is true, and that you submitted reports attempting to bring to light deficiencies within the guard, then I want you right where I can easily find you, in case I have further questions on the matter. Moreover, seeing as how there is an unknown creature near Ponyville, it would behoove us to increase Ponyville’s defenses at this time.”

“However,” continued Blueblood, “this can all be discussed later, and in a more...private setting than a country barn. Now,” Blueblood turned his attention back to Ash, “Ranger Ash, seeing as how you were able to get close to the creature, am I correct to assume that you were able to get a good look at its features?”

“Yes, Your Grace, in fact Ranger Soft Wind was also able to draw a rough sketch of the creature and its companion as well,” he replied, taking a moment to pull a piece of sketch paper from his cloak.

Waving the ranger closer, Blueblood said, “Well then let’s see what we are dealing with here then, bring it over here please.”

Trotting over to the temporary table and its magical lantern, Ash set the paper down next to it with a hoof and slid it across to Blueblood. Taking it in his magic, he gazed at the paper for several moments before turning to regard Twilight with a calculating gaze. As if he were a teacher trying to determine if she actually knew the answer to a question he wanted answered.

Twilight for her part was one part excited, one part nervous and another part impatient, she was dying to see what was sketched on that paper!

Finally, after several long moments, Blueblood lowered the paper to the table and slid it across to Twilight, who all but pounced on it, snatching it up in her telekinesis. Palisade, also curious, edged around Ash to stand next to Twilight before then peering over her shoulder to see what was on the paper.

What they saw could only be described as something out of fable, because that was what it was.

Slowing looking up at Blueblood and Ash, Twilight said, “This-this is impossible!”

“And why is that?” asked Blueblood tiredly, as he cocked his head to one side.

Licking her lips nervously, Twilight glanced back down at the paper and replied; “Because, if this is an accurate sketch, then we might be dealing with...” she trailed off, as if unable to bring herself to say what she was thinking of saying. As if the mere thought of a creature such as this actually existing was so far beyond the realm of possibility that it bordered on the impossible.

Blueblood, quickly growing irritated at the lavender unicorns antics that night snapped at her saying, “Well? Are you going to finish speaking or just stand there with your mouth hanging open like a fish out of water?!”

Startled by the prince’s outburst, Twilight stammered out, “I-I’m s-orry, but, if this sketch is true then we might just be dealing with a...hoomun.”

An awkward silence descended upon the room as the ponies stared at one another before Palisade cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, “Um...what’s a “hoomun?”

Author's Notes:

Well, that got done much faster than the last chapter I gotta say, though it helps when you've taken about seven hundred words or so from the previous chapter and manage to shoehorn them in to the next one.

Anyways, sorry if the quality isn't as good as the last chapter, (which honestly really surprised me, and thanks for all the positive comments about it too, really helps keep me going.) And sorry if you guys thought it was too dialogue heavy, but I thought it was nessecary to move the story along and if there is one thing that I am not it is being a professional author. So yeah.

Moving on.

This chapter actually had to get split in two I'm afraid, as it was getting too long, so that's why the ending might feel a little awkward. And as for what the deuce a "hoomun" is, it is the poorly translated word for "human." More on this next chapter when we meet the resident Mythology expert, bonus points if you can guess who that somepony is, I'll give you a hint, they were in the original story.

Chapter 6 (Going to the "Doctor")

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Chapter 6

“What’s a hoomun?”

The room was silent following Palisade’s question as everyone waited for Twilight to reply.

After several awkward moments, Twilight hesitantly said, “W-well, it’s not supposed to be anything other than a mythical creature, found in old mare’s tales and recently used as a quasi-antagonist in a popular fictional series...that...um...” noticing Blueblood’s unamused look, Twilight felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment as she trailed off.

“So what you are saying is, that we are dealing with a make believe creature?” asked Blueblood.

Feeling as if her cheeks would suddenly combust from how hot they felt, Twilight stammered, “W-well, t-the evidence that w-we currently have s-seems to indicate that it could be a hoomun...um...maybe?”

Blueblood rubbed his forehead with a hoof. “So you are not sure then?”

Twilight merely shook her head in reply, which elicited a sigh from the tired prince.

“Well then, seeing as how none of us here have a detailed knowledge of this ‘hoomun’, perhaps we should look for somepony who is familiar with mythical creatures,” letting his hoof drop from his face, he swept his gaze across the room, “I don’t suppose any of you know where we may obtain said pony?” he asked tiredly.

Clearing her throat, Twilight hesitantly raised a hoof and said, “I think I might know of somepony who can help, and if memory serves me right, which it usually does, she should be in town for the week visiting her friend.”

“And just who is this pony, Ms. Sparkle?”

“Oh, just an old acquaintance of mine from Canterlot, her name is Lyra Heartstrings, she’s really big into mythology, and mythological creatures, at least she was when I was living in Canterlot that is.”

“And why would that make a difference?” asked Blueblood.

“Weeeellll,” began Twilight, a sheepish look on her face, “Lyra’s prone to...oh, how to put this? Um, flights of fancy on occasion. She’ll find a topic that interests her, pursue it with a determination that sometimes borders on obsession for a time, grow bored with it, and promptly drop it in favor of something new. Though she did say that she was going for a doctorate in mythology while I was there, but knowing her, she probably didn’t finish it. Just like all the other times before that,” finished Twilight with an eyeroll, though by this point she was talking more to herself than the others in the room.

“I see, well, in anycase it is a lead worth pursuing. I trust that you know where we can find your friend?”

“I wouldn’t really call her a friend per se...” began Twilight, though at seeing Blueblood’s frown deepen, she quickly continued on saying, “But, yes, I do know where to find her!”

Giving a single nod, Blueblood quickly rose from his seat and trotted towards the exit.

“Excellent, then you will lead myself, and Ranger Ash Fall to your friend’s home and we'll see whether or not she can be persuaded to lend us her knowledge and talents. Lieutenant,” continued Blueblood, having turned his attention to Palisade, “I want you to remain here and make sure that the hoomun doesn’t escape,” when he saw the lieutenant open his mouth, he quickly cut him off saying, “I know you are not well versed in containment operations, nor that your guards are well versed in nighttime maneuvers, but I have faith that you will be fine. Moreover, I shall be leaving Ranger Soft Wind behind to assist you and your pony’s in your duties. Now, you are dismissed.”

Giving a salute, Palisade quickly re-donned his helmet and took off into the night to relay the Prince’s orders.

Meanwhile, Blueblood had already departed, trotting briskly towards town, and forcing Twilight and Ranger Ash Fall to play catch up. Luckily there was a full moon that night, and the sky was cloudless, giving decent illumination for the small party as they made their way back to Ponyville.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Blueblood called back and asked, “So tell me Twilight, where exactly does your friend live?”

Pausing for a moment to orient herself, Twilight replied, “She lives close to Sugar Cube Corner on Mane Street. It’s this way,” she said, quickly setting off in the direction of Sugar Cube Corner, with Blueblood and Ash Fall following close behind.

After a short time, they arrived at a modest two story home and shop about a block down the street from the bakery. A cheery looking sign hung above the door, the words, Bon Bon’s Confectionary and Coffee Shop emblazoned on it in flowing purple letters in front of a cream colored background. A steaming mug of coffee with a pair of bon bons framing either side of the mug further identifying it as a place to find tasty treats and a quick pick me up for those needing it.

In addition, the shop had a large display window that allowed ponies to see what tasty candies were being offered that day in an attempt to entice them inside and get them to part with their hard earned bits. Currently however, the inside of the shop was dark, and when Twilight looked up at the second floor windows, she found that they too were dark, which most likely meant that the inhabitants were asleep.

Drat, looks like they’re both asleep, guess we’ll just have to come back in the morni-

The sound of hooves knocking against wood derailed her train of thought as Twilight turned to stare incredulously at Blueblood, who was still knocking rather loudly on Bon Bon’s door.

“What are you doing?!” she cried, aghast at Bluebloods lack of thought for common decency.

Cocking an eyebrow at her, Blueblood deadpanned, “I’m knocking on the door, obviously.”

Sputtering, Twilight shot back, “I know that! What I meant is, why are you knocking on their door so late at night?! It’s rude you know!”

Blueblood opened his mouth to respond, however the sound of somepony crashing into something, and cursing, from the second floor cut him off. Moments later a window was thrown rather violently open and an angry, and rather tired looking, cream colored face glared down upon the group from above.

“What in the hay do you three want!? Do you have any idea of what time it is?!” screeched Bon Bon, a vein visibly throbbing on her forehead.

Stepping back from the door slightly, Blueblood called up, “I am Prince Blueblood, nephew to Princess Celestia and Luna, and Duke of Canterlot, I am here with Ms. Sparkle and Ranger Ash Fall to talk to a Ms. Lyra Heartstrings, I was told that she was here tonight.”

“She is, but whatever it is you want, you can come back when the sun is up, like decent ponies! It’s three in the morning for Epona’s sake!”

Unswayed by her outburst, Blueblood replied, “I am aware of the time, but we don’t have time to wait for morning. We must speak with Ms. Heartstrings now!”

Opening her mouth to give another angry retort, Bon Bon found herself cut short as a pair of mint green hooves sleepily snaked their way around her neck and gently pulled her back into the darkened interior of the room. After a moment, a muted conversation began that lasted for several minutes before a sleepy looking unicorn stuck her head out the window and said, “Sorry about Bon Bon there, she’s not much of a morning pony until she’s had her coffee, if you’ll give me a sec, I’ll come down and unlock the door for you.”

With her piece said, she pulled the window shut with her golden magic, leaving the three ponies to wait below.

As they waited, they watched as the golden glow of Lyra’s horn faded from the upstairs window, leaving it once more dark, it reappeared moments later as Lyra reached the lower floor of the shop. A soft golden light bathed the three through the window as Lyra turned on the lights within, before unlocking and opening the front door, a sleepy expression on her face as she gazed at the three late night visitors.

Letting loose a large yawn, Lyra motioned for them to come in, shutting the door behind them, as the last of them filed inside. Trotting sleepily towards a nearby table, she flopped down on one of the colorful cushions surrounding it.

Taking that as an invitation to do the same, Twilight, Blueblood, and Ash each took a cushion for themselves, once everyone had settled, Lyra gave another large yawn, before asking, “So, what’s up?”

Blueblood cleared his throat, and replied saying, “First of all, I would like to apologize for waking you at such a late hour, but I am afraid that it could not wait till morning. As you know, Discord was recently freed from his stone prison. This naturally caused a fair amount of chaos across the countryside due to his antics.”

Lyra nodded sleepily, her eyelid struggling to stay open due to the late hour.

Seeing that he was losing her to sleep, Blueblood decided to get straight to the point.

“Ms. Heartstrings,” he began, “what can you tell me about ‘hoomuns’?”

At first Lyra didn’t react, beyond her ear giving a twitch, and at first Blueblood was afraid that she had fallen asleep. However, after a moment, Lyra managed to pry her heavy head from off the table to give Blueblood a tired glare.

“It’s pronounced humans, not, hoomuns,” she said, before getting up from the table and trotting to the service counter behind her, muttering to herself as she went, “Stupid authors, can’t be bother to properly research things anymore,” her mutterings became indistinct as she ducked behind the counter, the sounds of her rummaging around quickly drowning out her voice.

Blueblood meanwhile shot Twilight a confused glance, to which she shrugged in response, equally as lost as he was as to Lyra’s behavior. After several moments, a triumphant, “Ah ha!” sounded from behind the counter as Lyra emerged with a small coffee container and measuring scoop.

Setting the container on the counter, she began the process of brewing herself a strong cup of coffee, as she figured she wouldn’t be getting back to bed anytime soon.

As she worked, she called out, “Did any of you want any coffee?”

Mute nods from both Twilight and Blueblood were the only response. Turning to look at Ash Fall, she asked, “And what about you?”

He shook his head. “No thank you, I never acquired a taste for coffee.”

Shrugging, she replied, “Suit yourself, more for me,” and with that she returned to her task, humming quietly to herself. After several minutes, the coffee was done, and a pair of mugs landed in front of both Twilight and Blueblood, the fresh smell of coffee tickling their noses with its alluring scent.

Thanking their hostess, both Twilight and Blueblood each took a sip, taking a moment to savor both its flavor, and its energizing effects, however brief they may be.

Letting loose a content sigh, Blueblood gently set his mug down on the table in front of him, before turning his attention to Lyra.

“Now, you were saying something about hoomuns, Ms. Heartstrings?” he asked, an inquisitive look adorning his face.

Letting go a happy sigh of her own as the caffeine took effect, Lyra nodded. “Yes, but as I said before, it’s pronounced human.”

“Human,” muttered Blueblood to himself, he repeated it quietly to himself several times, as if in an attempt to commit it to memory. After a few moments of this, he glanced back up at Lyra and said, “So, humans, what can you tell us about them?”

Lyra hummed thoughtfully to herself before replying, “What did you want to know?”

Blueblood’s answer was immediate. “Are they dangerous?”

Lyra blinked, nonplussed by the sudden turn of the conversation. After several silent moments, she scratched her chin with a hoof before saying, “Well, not really, at least if they are by themselves and you don’t give them any reason to fear for their lives that is.”

“Could you elaborate on that please?” asked Twilight, a quill and parchment piece appearing out of thin air in her magical aura.

Scratching her chin once more, Lyra hesitantly replied, “Well, currently I’m doing research for my doctorate’s thesis at Canterlot University. While I was looking through the archives, I came across several old manuscripts from the Classical Age, luckily I was able to have them translated into modern Equinish, and-”

“Wait,” interrupted Twilight, “are you saying that you’re still working on your doctorate right now?”

Lyra gave a happy nod. “Sure am! I’ve got about a year and a half left before I’m finished.”

Twilight stared dumbfounded at Lyra, as if unable to process the fact that Lyra of all ponies was about to graduate with a doctorate from one of the most prestigious universities in Equestria.

Lyra smiled at seeing Twilight’s shocked expression.

“Oh come on Twilight, is it really that difficult to believe that I’m actually about to graduate from Canterlot University?”

“Yes,” was Twilight’s deadpan reply.

Lyra snorted in amusement, and took a quiet sip of her coffee.

“Well anyways, Twilight,” began Lyra, setting her mug of coffee down in front of her, “yes, I am going to finish something for once, in this case, my degree. What I do with it afterwards is another question entirely, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out, worst case scenario, I just come work for Bon Bon and play my lyre in the park on the weekends.”

She flashed the other three ponies a tired smile, though a hint of sadness dimmed the smile slightly, Blueblood, not wishing to waste anymore time, nor wanting to be dragged into something emotional, abruptly cleared his throat.

“Yes, well, back to the subject at hoof. You were mentioning something about ancient manuscripts?”

Lyra’s expression immediately brightened in scholarly excitement, after all, it wasn’t every day that she got the chance to talk about mythology to somepony who was actually interested in the topic.

“Of course! Well, as I was saying before, I had these manuscripts translated by a friend of mine. Most of what they contained wasn’t really relevant to my research topic, however, there was one manuscript that was. We don’t know who wrote it, as it was fairly degraded, but what we did find was that it gave some rather extensive detail about the mythological creatures known as humans.”

By this point Twilight was furiously scratching away with her quill and ink, hanging on each of Lyra’s words. Blueblood meanwhile was quickly becoming impatient.

“Yes, yes, I am sure that it is very interesting, Ms. Heartstrings, but time is rather short right now. We must know more about these humans and what they are capable of, do they possess dangerous or unknown types of magic, are they hostile to ponies? I need to know these types of things, and I need to know now.”

Lyra merely took another sip of her coffee, effectively finishing it off in the process. Setting her mug down for the final time, she regarded Blueblood with a thoughtful expression, finally, after a few moments, she replied, saying, “So where is it?”

Blueblood blinked in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“The human, where is it? And don’t try and deny it, the only reason you would be knocking on my friend's door at three in the morning, agitated and demanding to know about humans is if there were a human nearby. So, I’ll ask again, where is it, and what have you done to it?” she said again, a hint of impatient annoyance coloring her voice.

Blueblood sat there, a stunned look on his face. Nopony had ever dared to speak to him in that manner since he’d taken his father’s place as Duke of Canterlot and Prince of Equestria.

The tense silence was shattered by Ranger Ash Falls amused chuckle.

“Looks like she’s got you figured out there Your Grace, though if I’m going to be honest, you didn’t make it all that difficult in the first place, lack of sleep and stress will do that to you I guess.”

Shooting Ash an annoyed look, Blueblood, took a deep breath to help compose himself before replying, “I suppose you are right, Ranger Fall, I do tend to get a little sloppy and...impatient when I’m not at my best.”

This time Ash let loose a hearty belly laugh.

“That’s understating it I would think, sir.”

Blueblood merely grunted, before turning his attention back to Lyra.

“Very well, Ms. Heartstrings, you caught me, and I will admit, I did not make it hard. However, the matter remains that a potentially dangerous creature and its domicile have appeared to the south of Sweet Apple Acres, and you are the only pony around who has any idea what that creature is capable of. Therefore, we need your help so as to prevent any further...difficulties.”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What did you do?” she asked in a tone that was usually reserved for when a mother was trying to determine how much trouble their young ones were to find themselves in.

“Now see here, Ms. Heartstrings-!” began Blueblood hotly, but a gray hoof on his shoulder stopped him.

Leaning in close enough so that only Blueblood could hear him, Ash quietly said, “Let me take it from here, sir, you’re tired, and with all due respect sir, everypony knows that you become a major pain in the flank when you’re like this.”

Giving an unhappy huff, Blueblood visibly relaxed, grabbed his hitherto untouched mug of coffee in his magic, and took a hearty pull from it.

Seeing that Blueblood wouldn’t be an issue now, Ranger Ash Fall turned to Lyra, and with an apologetic smile said, “Sorry about that Miss, His Grace has been under a great deal of stress these past few days, and I am afraid that has been affecting his mood a bit today.”

Lyra waved away his apology and replied, “I owe His Grace an apology as well, my own behavior wasn’t exactly the best either.”

When Blueblood failed to say anything in response, Ash gave him a nudge with his hoof.

“Your apology is accepted, Ms. Heartstrings,” was Blueblood’s reply, and when he made no move to apologize himself, Ash simply sighed before turning his attention fully to the mint green mare across from him.

“Anyways, in regards to your question, Ms. Heartstrings, while the human and its equine companion haven’t been physically harmed, as far as we can tell anyways, they both received a less than warm welcome this afternoon. As such, it stands to reason that both of them are at the least wary of us, and at the worst may feel physically threatened by our presence.”

“So that’s what all that fuss this afternoon on the south road was all about?” asked Lyra.

Ash nodded.

“We had hoped to trap the human and its companion just past Sweet Apple Acres and bring them both into custody in an attempt to determine whether they were a threat or not. Unfortunately, circumstances prevented this, and they were able to escape back to their domicile. We currently have the property under surveillance, in addition to being surrounded. We hope that this will dissuade the human from attempting to escape into the nearby Everfree, though with its current abilities unknown, whether we can actually prevent that is currently up for debate.”

“So that’s where I come in,” said Lyra, finishing the unspoken portion of Ash’s speech.

“And that’s where you come in,” he confirmed, “at least, that is the hope anyways.”

Lyra gave him a small smile. “I think I could be persuaded to help out, on two conditions.”

“And those would be?”

Leaning back slightly, Lyra replied, “One, I get full access, meaning I can go anywhere, and request anything that is relevant to the human, and that I have a major say in what happens to it. Second, I reserve the right to publish anything we learn from the human first.”

“What?!” Shouted Twilight as she jumped to her hooves in outrage.

Lyra gave a small sly smile. “Sorry Twilight, but research papers before friends. This is an opportunity of a lifetime here, and I’m not going to waste it.”

Twilight sat back down on her cushion with a heavy thump, her face contorted into an unhappy pout at the thought of being forced to wait to publish what could turn out to be a ground breaking scientific paper.

Seeing Twilight’s pouty face, Lyra gave a giggle and said, “Oh come on Twilight, do you think that I would leave you out to dry? You can be my co-author, on the condition that my name comes first.”

Mollified by Lyra’s slight concession, Twilight gave a grumbled “fine” as she took a sip from her now lukewarm coffee.

Ash meanwhile, just smiled, and said, “Well alright then, I’m sure His Grace and the crown wouldn’t have any issues with those two conditions,” he paused a moment to glance of at Blueblood, who in turn gave a nod in reply. Seeing that there would be no problems, Ash Fall continued, saying, “We are happy to have you aboard Ms. Heartstrings. Welcome to the team.”

Chapter 7 (Lecture Time)

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Chapter 7

It was still dark out when Blueblood, Twilight, Lyra, and Ash Fall trotted back into the pony’s base camp at Sweet Apple Acres. Both Twilight and Lyra were showing signs of tiredness, as evident by their drooping eyelids and shambling gait, and while Prince Blueblood and Ranger Ash Fall hid it better than the mares, they were also beginning to show signs of exhaustion.

Coming to a stop outside of one of the barns that had been commandeered as a temporary command post, much to the Apple family’s irritation, Blueblood took a deep breath, and using his magic, straightened his tie and mane before striding confidently inside, the others following close behind. Inside, it was controlled chaos, with ponies talking, giving, and receiving orders, and rushing around to complete tasks unknown. Through it all, Blueblood strode towards the center of it, a single table with a map spread out over it, and several ponies clustered around it talking.

“...And you are sure that this report is accurate?” asked Lieutenant Palisade.

The guard he was talking to nodded and replied crisply, saying, “Yes sir, as far as we can tell, the hoomun is still inside the house.”

“Has anypony looked inside any of the other buildings yet?”

The guard shook his head in reply. “No sir, it was felt by the NCO’s that it was too risky to perform a night recon.”

Palisade nodded absently, before dismissing the guard with a distracted wave of his hoof, as his attention was now solely focused on the map in front of him. In fact, so lost in thought was he that he didn’t notice the return of Prince Blueblood until said prince noisily cleared his throat behind him.

Blinking tired eyes, Palisade turned around to see who wanted his attention now, but when he saw Blueblood standing behind him, his eyes shot wide open and he came to attention.

“Forgive me, Your Grace, I didn’t realize that you had returned yet! Was your mission successful, sir?”

Blueblood absently nodded in reply, his eyes focused on the map in front of him. It was a local map of Ponyville and the surrounding area, and in particular, this map had been recently updated to include the human’s newly appeared homestead as well.

Turning away from the map, Blueblood motioned to Lyra with a hoof and said, “Lieutenant Palisade, may I introduce to you, Ms. Lyra Heartstrings, the pony who will be helping us resolve this little issue with, hopefully, minimal fuss.”

Palisade inclined his head respectfully, “Ma’am.”

Lyra giggled and gave a friendly wave of her hoof.

Blueblood had meanwhile found himself a chair and settled himself, before clearing his throat to regain everyone’s attention.

“Now that we are all here, I’d like to get started with our discussion on how to resolve this problem. So if you all could take a seat, we’ll get started.”

Several minutes later saw everypony seated around the map table. Blueblood, seeing everyone was as ready as they were going to be decided to get the ball rolling.

“Now that everyone is here and ready, let’s get started.” Turning to address Palisade, who was seated to his left, he asked, “Lieutenant, can you fill us in with the details of what has been happening since we left? We’ve already given Ms. Heartstrings a basic rundown of what occurred between the time the human showed up yesterday, and the time we left to acquire her services.”

Palisade gave Blueblood a confused look, “Human?”

“Yes, human,” replied Blueblood, “apparently the original word was mistranslated.”

A look of sudden comprehension blossomed on Palisade’s face, “Oh! Well, alright then, as far as we know the human is still inside its home.”

“Excellent,” replied Blueblood, a pleased smile on his face, “Were there any other new developments since we’ve been gone?”

Palisade shook his head, “No sir, there hasn’t.”

“I see.” Turning to Lyra, Blueblood continued, “Now, Ms. Heartstrings, we did not have much time earlier to go over what you know about humans, and seeing as we are all here, would you kindly inform us of what you know?”

Lyra gave a happy smile and nod, “Sure thing, Your Grace!” Standing up, she quickly trotted over to a nearby chalkboard, and, grabbing it with her magic, pulled it over in front of the table. Levitating up a piece of chalk, Lyra began to write, all previous signs of tiredness dissipating as she began.

“Now, I know that I went over a couple of things with Prince Blueblood, Twilight, and Ranger Fall on the way over, but for the sake of the new ponies, I’ll just go ahead and start at the beginning. Now, first of all, humans are very intelligent, easily as intelligent as ponies, and maybe even smarter in some areas.”

“I’m sensing a but in there,” commented Blueblood dryly.

Lyra gave a happy nod in return, much like a teacher would with a clever foal who quickly figured out a problem on the board.

“Very observant of you, Your Grace!” Turning back to the board, she continued writing and speaking, “Now, while humans are very intelligent, according to the records, they appeared to have difficulty making friends with other members of their own species, let alone other species entirely. The records characterized humans as seemingly distant, mistrustful, and aloof from those that they did not consider their friends, which were very few in general.”

“So what are you saying here?” asked Blueblood patiently.

Lyra paused for a moment to collect her thoughts before saying, “I guess what I’m saying is that, humans didn’t tend to have a very large circle of friends. In most cases, humans seemed to consider friendship as little more than a convenient, and temporary, condition. Often times, it was observed that humans would casually discard these relationships after they had served their purpose.”

“That’s terrible!” cried Twilight, horrified at the thought of someone so casually tossing aside their friendship like a used juice box, “Friendships shouldn’t be something that one just tosses away like that!”

Lyra gave a shrug, “Well, from a pony’s perspective I suppose that would be true, however, from a human perspective I suppose it was just what it was.”

“So what does this mean in regards to how we should approach this human?” inquired Blueblood.

Lyra rubbed the back of her neck, an unsure look on her face.

“I’m...not entirely sure. In our case, it probably means that it’s going to very hard to gain this human's full trust. That in human culture is something more valuable than gold or precious gems. Which I guess kind of explains how odd human friendships seem to be to us.”

“What do you mean?” asked Palisade curiously.

Lyra began pacing back and forth in front of the blackboard as she slipped fully into lecture mode.

“Well, simply put, we ponies are fairly trusting of others in general, or at least other ponies, thus we tend to make friends easily. However, with humans, it’s the opposite. Because they are mistrustful of those who they are not familiar with, building friendships is often times more difficult. Therefore, when a human finally does earn the full trust of another, that makes it all the more special, and thus something worth keeping, and fighting for.”

A stray thought suddenly struck her as she was pacing in front of the board, and turning to fully look at the other ponies, Lyra said, “You know, I’m suddenly reminded of a small saying in an old record that I read, about humans and friendship.”

“What did it say?” asked Palisade curiously.

Lyra scrunched up her face as she tried to remember the exact words, but in the end she couldn’t fully recall and said, “I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was something like, ‘The pony who secures a human's true friendship is very blessed indeed, but the pony who betrays that friendship shall be cursed, and pay a price so very steep.’ Or something to that effect anyways. I’m not one-hundred percent sure.”

“I think we get the general idea,” replied Blueblood dryly, “In any case, do you think that we will have to worry about anything this human can do, does it possess dangerous abilities?”

Lyra shrugged.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘dangerous abilities’. Humans, by their nature, are creatures that were capable of great acts of kindness, but also great acts of cruelty, especially against those who they felt wronged them in some way. Moreover, there were several records that indicated that humans fought with, and against ponies on several occasions, however, they’re incomplete, so I can’t really tell you what happened to cause these wars or how well the humans did in relation to ponies on the battlefield.”

“So what you are saying is that you have no idea what physical or magical abilities this human may have?” asked Palisade, a worried look quickly forming on his face at the thought of having to fight a human whose abilities he had no knowledge of.

Lyra shook her head.

“Not quite. While the records are incomplete, they do provide some indicators of what these ancient humans were capable of.”

“Such as?” asked Blueblood when Lyra failed to continue quickly enough for him.

Lyra gave another shrug, replying, “Like I said, the records were hopelessly incomplete, some went into great detail about certain aspects of humans, such as their intelligence, while others just provided vague generalities about their physical abilities. As of right now, I can only really give you three definitive traits that these humans possessed in these records. The first,” she paused for a moment to turn around and write her thoughts down on the board, “was that they had excellent stamina. Ancient pony scholars seemed to believe that they had better stamina than earth ponies. Though, I should make mention that these Earth Ponies were both smaller and weaker than modern day earth ponies, so this trait might be less evident today.”

“Fascinating,” mumbled Twilight as she furiously copied down Lyra’s words on parchment before looking back up and asking, “did the records say how much stamina these humans had and how far they could go before needing to stop and rest?”

Lyra shook her head sadly.

“No, unfortunately, they did not,” when she saw Twilight's disappointed look, she gave the other mare a sympathetic smile and continued saying, “yeah, I was real disappointed too when I found that there was no more information on it either, but I digress.”

Turning back to the board, she quickly wrote down the second trait.

“The second trait should be fairly obvious because of their well-developed hands, but humans are extremely adept at manipulating things in their environment and their craftsponyship was exceedingly fine. The ancient scholars indicated that a human’s hand was superior to a unicorn’s telekinesis when it came to fine manipulation and control."

Lyra paused once more in her lecture to organize her final thoughts. However, the silence was quickly filled in by the mumblings and quill scratchings of Twilight, who by this point was completely hidden from view behind her parchment, which had grown considerably longer in the few minutes that Lyra had been talking.

Blinking at the somewhat comical sight of seeing a floating piece of parchment obscuring her friend from view, with only the tip of a furiously wiggling quill jutting up from behind it, Lyra turned her attention back to the board.

“So that brings us to the final commonly attributed characteristic that I could find, and that was that humans possessed a rudimentary form of magic.”

Twilight’s quill came to a screeching halt, and she slowly lowered her parchment so that she could look at Lyra. Though, Lyra wished that she had kept the parchment up, as Twilight’s face had contorted into a creepy looking expression, with a smile that was just a little too wide, and too excited looking for her tastes, like she was high on sugar or something.

“Did you say that they had magic?” asked Twilight giddily.

Lyra gave a hesitant nod, wondering if Twilight was going to be okay, especially when she saw her friend begin to vibrate in place with excitement, much like a certain pink party pony that she knew.

Glancing over at Blueblood, and Palisade, Lyra could see that Palisade was equally...concerned by Twilight’s reaction, while Blueblood simply rolled his eyes and sighed, before motioning for Lyra to continue.

Swallowing, Lyra turned her attention back to the board and hesitantly continued.

"R-right, well as I was saying,” she flinched slightly when she heard Twilight resume writing, though it sounded as if Twilight had doubled her writing speed. Giving herself a mental shake, Lyra continued on, “humans possessed a rudimentary form of magic, and from what I’ve been able to glean, their magic was similar in nature to that of earth ponies and pegasi, in that, because they didn’t have a focal point, i.e. a horn, their magic was generally diffused through their whole bodies. Though, a unicorn researcher by the name of Sharp Wit, hypothesized that humans could focus their magic like a unicorn's to cast spells if they had a means to channel it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to verify if his assumptions were true or not.”

Twilight’s quill scratching has grown louder, as had her mumblings, which seemed to keep including the words, “fascinating”, and “this is so exciting” over and over again.

Blueblood cleared his throat to bring Lyra’s attention back to him as he asked, “So this human is able to cast magic?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” replied Lyra with yet another shrug, “As I said, most of these records are incomplete and only referred to humans that lived in our world at that time. With this human? Anything might be possible, in fact, for all we know, it might not even be a human in the first place.”

“Right,” said Blueblood tiredly as he massaged his temple with a hoof in an attempt to quell a rising headache. “Well, is there anything else that you can think of that can help us when we make formal contact with it, Ms. Heartstring?”

Lyra set her chalk piece down and quietly rubbed her chin in thought. Finally, after several moments she said, “Well after what happened yesterday, I doubt you’ll just be able to waltz right up to its front door and without issue.”

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Ms. Heartstrings,” replied Blueblood, an unamused look on his face.

Pretending not to notice his sarcastic response, Lyra continued on saying, “Probably the easiest way to defuse the situation would be to simply back off and to offer an apology in someway. Though if the human is hostile, it might not be a bad idea to have ponies who are capable of defending themselves along for protection.”

*“How do you think we should approach this then if we went with this option?” asked Blueblood.

“Well, first, we have to show that we mean it no harm,” replied Lyra simply.

“Yes, but how would we do that?”

Lyra opened her mouth to respond, but found that she didn’t actually know the best way to show the human that they didn’t want trouble. So, she pulled up a nearby stool with her magic and sat down, a thoughtful frown creasing her muzzle, as she tried to figure out a way to do exactly that. Everypony else, seeing that Lyra didn’t know what to do either, also adopted thoughtful looks to one degree or another as they too tried to figure something out. Finally, after several minutes, Twilight jumped up exclaiming, “I’ve got!”

Startled, Palisade fell out of his chair, while the others merely gave a start.

“Got what?” asked Lyra, equal parts curious and hopeful.

Striding from her seat to the chalkboard, Twilight gave an inquiring look at Lyra, who, upon realizing what she wanted to do, gave a ‘go ahead motion’ with her hoof. Seeing that she had permission, Twilight quickly wiped the board clean and began writing.

“Now, we know that approaching the human physically would be difficult at best, and dangerous at worst. Especially seeing as how we don’t know what it has inside its home or to what degree it feels threatened by us. So, what if we built a large sign saying that we’re sorry, and that yesterday was just a big misunderstanding, and that we just want to talk with it? That way we can show that we want to talk, without having to risk anypony getting too close initially!”

Blueblood stroked his chin thoughtfully, and said, “Well...I guess that’s one way. What do you think Ranger Fall?”

Ranger Fall twitched his wings in the pegasi equivalent of a shrug, and said, “Well it’s either this or we go in their after it, and I’d rather not risk pony lives doing that if I don’t have to, so I suppose we can try it out and see if it works; if not, then at least we tried.”

“But how will we know if the human even sees the sign?” asked Palisade.

“Simple, we put it out front, next to the road and we make it so that it can’t miss it; after that, I suppose we just wait and see what it does. Oh!” she said, a sudden thought hitting her, “I can go and grab my telescope from the library and we can use that to observe the house from a discreet distance for any signs that it’s moving around inside.”

“Fine, but what if it does miss it? Then what do we do, and furthermore, what if it can’t read Equestrian, what then?” asked Blueblood, a bit of impatience coloring his voice.

“Well, as for the first part of your question, if the human doesn’t respond to the sign, then I suppose we can get a couple of ponies to go up to the house and knock on the front door,” said Lyra simply. “As for the second part, we might try a pictograph in conjunction with the words just in case it can’t read our language.”

“That’s all well and good ladies, but I think you’re forgetting something,” interjected Palisade suddenly.

“What’s that?” asked Lyra confused.

Palisade sighed, and not liking what he was about to bring up hesitantly said, “That the human may, in fact, turn out to be hostile, and that we’ll have to find a way to deal with it.”

Both Blueblood and Ash nodded in grim agreement, their faces showing their unhappiness at the thought.

Twilight and Lyra each winced at the unpleasant turn the conversation had suddenly taken.

“A-are you sure we need to discuss this?” asked Lyra hesitantly, her discomfort obvious to all present.

“As much as I’d rather not, I’m afraid we must,” replied Blueblood somberly, “if our initial efforts fail we’ll need to at least have some kind of backup plan ready to go.”

“So then what would you suggest we do, if the peaceful approach doesn’t work?” asked Lyra, a scowl darkening her face.

“Well, I’d think we should attempt to subdue it through non-harmful means, a sleep spell, for instance, failing that, we’d naturally have to move on to more...violent methods.”

Lyra’s face darkened further, the hairs on her neck bristling at the casual way in which Blueblood discussed the potential harming of another being that had so far proven not a threat, even if it was just a hypothetical scenario.

Twilight, seeing her friend’s anger, quickly stepped over to her and laid a calming hoof across her withers, and said, “Please Lyra, calm down, I don’t like the idea any more than you do, but...His Grace has a point, if the human does turn out to be dangerous, we wouldn’t want ponies getting hurt because we didn’t think of a fall back plan ahead of time.”

Lyra took a deep breath, and held it for a moment, before letting it out in an explosive snort. Turning away from Blueblood and the others, she said, “I’m going to go and wait outside, let me know when you’re done,” and with that, she quickly trotted out of the room.

Blueblood feeling a headache coming on, massaged a temple with his hoof and said, “Well, that could have gone better, but in any case,” he paused, and turned his full attention to Twilight, “Ms. Sparkle, we’ll do the sign first and see what happens; since this is your idea, I’ll leave this in your capable hooves. While you are doing that, Lieutenant Palisade, Ranger Ash Fall, and myself will go ahead and formulate a contingency plan or two in case things go south, though I pray that they don’t.”

Twilight gave a squee in happiness, and feeling herself relax slightly, quickly ran out of the barn, a quill and parchment suddenly popping into being and floating along in her wake as she quickly began organizing her list, as she quickly set off to complete her mission, leaving the three stallions behind in the command post, both Palisade and Ash Fall looked confused, while Blueblood just looked tired.

~oOo~

“I must say Ms. Sparkle, I am somewhat impressed,” remarked Blueblood several hours later, upon seeing the hastily erected sign outside the human’s property. It was at least two stories tall, and large enough to write, ‘We’re sorry, can we talk?’ on it in large bold letters, with a pair of pictures underneath that showed several ponies offering gifts to the human, and another one showing the human and pony exchanging hoof bumps, that would, hopefully, be visible from the house.

“Why thank you, Your Grace! I’m glad it meets your approval! I must say though, that I couldn’t have done it without the help of Applejack and Big Macintosh; without them being willing to lend us the materials, and provide the necessary labor and building expertise, we wouldn’t have been able to get it done so quickly!” exclaimed Twilight happily.

“I see, well then, thank you very much then for your help Ms. Applejack, and Mr. Macintosh,” said Blueblood, giving a slight bow of his head in thanks to the two Apple siblings who were just now finishing putting away their tools.

Hitching himself up to the cart, Big Mac gave a silent nod in return and quietly headed home, Applejack also gave a nod, but as she passed by the Prince, she hoofed him a piece of paper.

Looking down at it in confusion, he asked, “What’s this?”

“Yer bill,”replied Applejack simply, as she walked away.

"Right,” sighed Blueblood, as he gave it a quick once over, before sending it away with a burst of magic, “I’ll see that it gets taken care of promptly then, even if it is a rather large sum for just building a sign,” he said tiredly, slightly irked at the amount, but at the same time, he didn’t feel like trying to haggle her down. After all, it wasn’t like it was his money being used to pay the bill after all. That’s what the taxpayers were for.

Applejack tipped her hat to the Prince and replied over her shoulder, “Oh, the majority of that bill is fer the use of our barns and property, and fer yer guardponies running around and keepin’ us up all night too.”

“Of course,” was his deadpan reply, “we are so sorry to have inconvenienced you and your family with all the noise last night.”

“Apology accepted, now,” she turned her attention to Twilight, “looks like I ain’t the only pony round here who’s had a long night. You doing alright there sugarcube?”

“Oh I’m fine Applejack,” replied Twilight with a tired smile as she set up her telescope, “hopefully this will all be over soon and I can get some rest.”

“Yeah, me too, speakin’ of which, what is going on ‘round here anyways?” she asked, pushing the brim of her hat back and looking at the strange looking buildings not far away.

“I’ll tell you and the rest of the girls about it later, but the short version is that Discord left us a little something to remember him by when we turned him back to stone again.”

Applejack gave an irritated huff, “Figures that varmint would leave us something nasty in case he lost.”

Twilight felt her ears pin themselves flat against her skull as an unsure look settled over her face, “I’m...not sure if I would call ‘nasty’, but it’s definitely...an issue, one that should hopefully be taken care of soon.”

Applejack gave a single nod, “With you on the case Twi, I reckon you’ll have this problem whipped lickity split! Anyways, I better git going, see ya around Twilight!”

Twilight gave a friendly wave good-bye in reply, though inside she felt a ball of nervousness settling in her gut, I sure hope you’re right Applejack, and that we can take care of this problem. I’d hate to see what would happen if we couldn’t.

With Applejack now gone, Blueblood trotted up next to Twilight and remarked casually, after noticing that there was little else to do but wait, “Well, I suppose all we have to do now is wait for daylight and hope our guest is willing to come and talk with us.”

“Guess so,” replied Twilight as she turned her attention back to her telescope. Fiddling with the knobs, she said, “You know, I really hope this works, I’d hate for things to turn violent.”

Blueblood merely grunted in reply, as he settled in next to Twilight to wait for the human to make its next move, whatever it may be.

Chapter 8 (Peek a Boo, I See You)

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Chapter 8

It was morning, and Allen had managed to fall asleep sometime during the night. As the sun’s rays peeked through his bedroom window and landed on his face, he slowly roused from his fitful slumber.

Blinking away the sleep induced crud from his eyes, Allen gave a mighty yawn and stretched his sore and tired muscles. As he stretched, his leg bumped into the piece of angle iron he’d brought in the previous night. Looking down at it, he stared at it dumbly for a moment as his mind slowly booted up.

Then suddenly, like an old truck slipping into gear, memories from yesterday tore through his mind. The strange horse creatures that had confronted then chased him and Reuben, him panicking and running home to lock himself inside and pray that whatever crazy dream he’d been dreaming would end already and that he would wake up back in the normal world.

Unfortunately, from where Allen was sitting, last night did not appear to be a dream, if the detailed memories, sore muscles and piece of scrap metal lying against his leg was any indication.

Grabbing the metal in his hand, Allen eased himself up, grunting in discomfort as his muscles protested from having been forced to lay against an uncomfortable surface all night.

Creeping cautiously up to his bedroom window, Allen risked a look outside, but he didn’t spot anything immediately threatening. So relaxing slightly, he decided to leave the safety of his room, and try and at least get something to eat while he appeared to be alone.

Allen made his way swiftly downstairs to the kitchen, his stomach urging him forwards by growling angrily at him to feed it. However, he took a moment to glance through each window that he passed on his way to the kitchen for signs of activity outside.

Reaching the kitchen, he crept up to the sliding glass doors, and their partially drawn blinds, that lead out onto the back patio, and glanced through them. What he saw outside made him pause. For there, on the edge of his property beyond the boundary fence, a large billboard had been erected. Standing at least two stories tall, and at least half as wide, and on it, plain as day were five words that made Allen’s heart skip a beat, We’re sorry, can we talk? And if that hadn’t been enough, underneath the words, the English words, was a caricature of a human and ponies, where the ponies were giving the human gifts and then both the human and the ponies were giving each other fist bumps, or would that be hoof bumps? Allen wasn’t sure, and at that point, he didn’t really care.

What he did know and care about was the fact that somehow these pony-like creatures could, at least, write English and were attempting to communicate with him. The sixty-four thousand dollar question though was, did they really want to talk to him or were they just trying to lull him into a false sense of security to make it easier to capture him?

Noticing movement near the sign, Allen cautiously pulled on of the blinds to the side slightly to get a better look. Unfortunately, he couldn’t really make out what was going on out there, as whatever was moving was too small to see clearly from this distance.

Pulling away from the window, Allen went over to a nearby shelf and grabbed a pair of binoculars from it. Walking back to the sliding door, he once more carefully pulled the blinds aside just enough so that he could see outside with them. Looking through the binoculars he saw several of the armor wearing, pony creatures milling about the sign.

However, what really drew his attention was a pair of ponies sitting off to one side of the sign, both of them appeared to be unicorns, judging by the spiral horns protruding from their foreheads. One of them, was large, and sported a white coat and blonde mane, Allen assumed from its large stature and physique that it was a male. He had one hoof raised above his brow and was looking intently in the direction of the house. The other one was about a third size smaller than the first one, and probably a female. She sported a lavender coat, with a dark purple mane with several pink highlights running through it.

And she was looking right at him through a fancy looking telescope.

~oOo~

The sun had been up for over an hour by this point and Twilight hadn’t moved from her spot behind her telescope since she’d taken it over two hours ago. Her back muscles ached from the strain of being bent over and stationary for the past two hours. In addition, the coffee she’d had earlier had worn off, and she found herself struggling to stay awake through sheer willpower. Unfortunately, willpower alone wasn’t going to be enough, and Twilight found it harder and harder to remain awake and alert.

She was just about to take a break at that point when she thought she saw something move in the house. Adjusting her telescope, she focused on a pair of what she assumed were glass doors that lead out onto a wooden deck behind the home.

Blueblood, noticing that something had caught Twilight’s attention, asked, “What do you see?”

Biting her lower lip, her aches and exhaustion momentarily forgotten, Twilight replied, “I’m not sure, I thought I saw something move the blinds behind the glass doors at the back of the house, the ones that lead out onto the deck.”

Blueblood brought a hoof up to his brow to help shield his eyes from the morning sun, and leaning forward slightly, tried to see what Twilight was talking about while cursing the fact that he didn’t think to have one of the guardsponies bring him a telescope too.

After a minute or so of not seeing anything, Blueblood was about to say something when he heard Twilight let loose a gasp of surprise and excitement. Dropping his hoof to his side, he turned to look at her, and asked, “What, what did you see?”

Leaning back from her telescope, Twilight replied in wide-eyed excitement, “I saw it! I saw the human through the blinds, it was looking back at us with a pair of binoculars!”

By this point a large smile had appeared on her face, Blueblood meanwhile felt a frown tugging at the corners of his. Keeping his face neutral, he calmly asked, “Well, was there anything else that you saw?”

Twilight’s smile waned slightly, and she replied, “Not really, I think the human saw me looking at it, and got scared, seeing as how it ducked back out of sight shortly after spotting me.”

Blueblood placed a hoof to his chin and tapped it thoughtfully for a moment. At least they knew that the human was still in the house. However, it didn’t seem to be interested in coming out anytime soon, so the question now was, how did they get it to come out or at least talk to them without them having to do something drastic? Sadly, Blueblood didn’t have an answer to that question.

Sighing, he turned to a nearby guard and said, “Report back to the command post that we have confirmation that the human is still inside the house.”

The guard gave a quick salute and galloped off.

“So, now what?” asked Twilight uncertainly.

“Now, we go back to waiting,” replied Blueblood.

Twilight just gave a nod and turned her attention back to her telescope, and by extension the house. They had made the human aware of their presence and intentions, now it was up to the human to make the next move, whatever it may be.

~oOo~

Back inside the house, Allen sat by the sliding glass doors, trying to figure out his next move. From the look of things, he felt reasonably certain that he’d been spotted. However, the ponies hadn’t really done anything other than that one armored one taking off into the distance. Allen figured that it was most likely a messenger, intent on relaying word of current events back to their higher ups or something. Regardless, Allen knew that he was running out of time, events were in motion and he needed to do something soon. The question however was, what should he do?

Fiddling with the binoculars in his hands nervously, Allen wracked his brain for an answer to his dilemma. Sadly, his brain didn’t really have any good options at the moment.

Can’t run, too much open ground. Can’t really stay here, too many ways to get in, and not enough people to defend the house. Plus I can’t get in the stupid gun safe since I don’t know where the key is, so defending myself is going to be much harder. Though...

His gaze wandered back to the sliding glass doors to his left, and moving carefully, he brought his binoculars up to his face again and took another peek outside through the blinds. The sight that greeted him hadn’t really changed, the sign was still there with its friendly-sounding words and pictures on it, and the two unicorns were still standing near the sign, the lavender colored one again looking through its telescope. And once again, it looked like it spotted him if its ears perking up and the sudden straightening of its body posture was any indication.

Feeling as though his mouth had turned into a desert, Allen forced himself to remain where he was, observing the ponies out beyond his property line. When the lavender unicorn saw that he wasn’t ducking out of view again, it raised one of its hooves and waved at him. Allen did not return the gesture, instead opting to remain still and continue watching. When the unicorn saw that he wasn’t waving back, it let its leg fall limply to its side, its ears turned down as if in disappointment.

Allen continued watching, his thoughts flowing through his mind as if they were part of a powerful river that threatened to breach its banks and flood the countryside. Finally, Allen couldn’t stand the scrutiny anymore and pulled back away from the blinds.

Leaning up against the wall, he let loose a shaky breath that he didn’t realize that he’d been holding and quietly said to himself, “Okay, let’s take stock of the situation here. I am alone in an alien world, surrounded by aliens, I have limited resources, and no way to get home or get help. I was chased home yesterday by the same creatures that are now saying that it was all a misunderstanding and that they just want to talk. They obviously outnumber me and could force their way inside whenever they want to, so the question is, why don’t they?”

It was a valid question, if the ponies outside had the ponypower to breach his flimsy defenses, which it looked like they did, then they question becomes, why hadn’t they done so already? Did they think he was some kind of powerful being that could decimate them with but a thought? He shook his head-it didn’t make sense, if that had been the case, they wouldn’t have chased him yesterday.

Therefore, the logical conclusion was that, maybe, just maybe, they were serious and that something else had been going on yesterday, and that he’d just had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because, as far as Allen could see, the ponies should have had no qualms about busting in his front door and taking him prisoner during the night or just simply bombarding his house with ranged weapons and killing him outright. At least, that is what Allen hoped was the logical conclusion; if he was wrong, then he was going to be in serious trouble.

However, seeing as how his options were limited, to say the least, trying to open up communications with the ponies was probably one of his best options at the present. The sixty-four thousand dollar question however was, how was he going to talk to them? Just walking outside seemed kind of dumb, as apparently some of them could fly, which meant they could grab and drop him from on high if things went south, and even though he wasn’t entirely certain that the unicorns could do magic, he wasn’t ruling that possibility out either. So no, going outside did not seem like the best choice of action.

“But if I can’t go outside, then how am I going to talk to them?” grumbled Allen to himself as he mulled over his options, “I probably can’t yell at them from the house as the road’s too far away for them to hear me well, and I am not going to just walk up to them after what happened yesterday, even if it might have been a misunderstanding. So the only real option that I can see is to get one of them to come to me. But, how would I do that?”

Allen felt his frustration mounting as the seconds ticked by, and his tired mind failed to provide him with any good solutions. Shaking his head angrily, he decided to take another look outside at the ponies to see if anything had changed since he’d last looked.

Bringing his binoculars up to his eyes again, he looked out towards the road to see that other than the either another guard showing up or the previous one returning, nothing had changed. The white coated unicorn was still standing, gazing at the house, and the lavender one was still bent over the telescope, and once again, the lavender pony seemed to become more alert, its ears perking forward and posture straightening up, when Allen reappeared. However, unlike last time, it did not try to wave at him again.

Looking from the lavender pony up to the sign again, Allen was suddenly struck with an idea. If the ponies used English, or at least their equivalent of it, to communicate, and they had used a sign to try to get his attention, then why couldn’t he too?

Of course he didn’t have access to a two story tall wooden billboard, but he shouldn’t need one as he already had their attention, and, if the lavender pony’s telescope was powerful enough, they should be able to read whatever message he wrote on a piece or two of paper.

Now to just find some paper, and something to write with.

Pulling away from the window, Allen set the binoculars down on the counter and quickly set off in search of paper and pen. Unfortunately, this proved much more difficult than he originally thought, as while he was able to easily find some note paper, each pen he found ended up not working. Leading to Allen becoming more and more frustrated as the search progressed and the minutes ticked by, finally after several minutes, Allen found a pen that seemed to work at first, but after writing the first few letters, it also ran out of ink.

His frustration boiling over, Allen threw the now useless pen across the room, his face a mask of frustration.

“Stupid, fucking pen!” he exclaimed angrily as he threw his hands up in the air, “Why is it that whenever I need something around here, I can either never find it or it doesn’t fucking work?!”

Letting loose a frustrated growl, Allen angrily scrubbed his face with a hand as he tried to figure out what to do next. Casting his eyes around the room for an alternative, they finally settled on a whiteboard hanging on the basement door.

Hope rising within him, Allen quickly crossed the room. Grabbing the black marker that went with the board, Allen wrote a couple of test words to check if the marker was still good, and seeing the letters appear in strong black marker ink, a smile blossomed on his face while he lifted the board from its mounting pegs on the door and brought over to the dining room table.

Setting it down, he quickly wiped away the current writings and messages and wrote a short simple sentence. Satisfied with his work, he recapped the marker, and grabbing the whiteboard, went back to the sliding glass doors. Pulling the blinds aside slightly, he held up the whiteboard so that the ponies could see it clearly. With that done, all he had to do now was wait for their response, he just hoped that it was a good one.

~oOo~

Twilight was beginning to get worried now. It had been nearly a half hour since she had first noticed the human, and in that time, she’d seen it come back to the glass doors again. This time, it had remained at the door watching her with its binoculars for several minutes instead of ducking back out of sight when it realized that it had been spotted.

Encouraged by this turn of events, Twilight had waved to it in the hopes that her friendly gesture would elicit a positive reaction. Sadly, that had not been the case, in fact, the human hadn’t even acknowledged her, electing to instead to just keep watching her and the others, leaving her feeling awkward for her efforts. Letting her hoof drop down, she felt her ears pin back in a mixture of disappointment and embarrassment.

Several moments later, the human ducked back out of sight, and for the past twenty minutes or so, there had been no new changes. What was going on inside that house? Was the human panicking, or was it formulating a response to what they had done? Was it going to be a friendly or unfriendly response? Twilight just didn’t have the answers to those questions, and it left her feeling very nervous and unprepared, such as when Princess Celestia had on one occasion popped a surprise quiz on her on a subject she hadn’t really studied before.

Her ensuing meltdown had been the talk of the castle staff and nobles for weeks, and even Princess Celestia, a mare who had had hundreds of students before Twilight, had been taken aback at Twilight’s volatile reaction to the simple pop quiz. Twilight herself didn’t really recall what had happened, and no one would tell her either; all she knew was that Princess Celestia had been required to sedate her with a sleep spell, and to make a note to both herself and all other teachers to never give Twilight a surprise test again.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of somepony clearing their throat loudly next to her. Giving a quick shake of her head, Twilight banished those old memories back to the dark corners of her mind where they had come from and refocused her attention on the present.

Turning to the source of the noise, she saw that Blueblood was trying to get her attention, and feeling her cheeks heat up in embarrassment, she said, “I’m sorry, what was that again?”

Blueblood waved her apology away with a hoof, “It’s alright, anyways, I think our human guest has decided to respond,” he said, pointing a hoof at the house where a white board had suddenly appeared in the window. Her heart beating faster, Twilight practically smashed her eye to the telescope lense and quickly made a couple of minute adjustments to bring the whiteboard into better focus.

When she saw the words written on it, she let out a gasp of both excitement and astonishment.

“What, what do you see?” asked Blueblood, a hint of excitement and impatience coloring his tone.

“It’s...it’s in Equestrian!” exclaimed Twilight, her excitement building ever higher, like steam pressure in a boiler, “The human can understand Equestrian!”

“But what does it say?!” exclaimed Blueblood in exasperation.

“It says, ‘Okay, let’s talk.’”

“That’s it?” asked Blueblood flatly.

Pulling her head away from the telescope, Twilight nodded her head, “That’s it.”

Blueblood sat down on his haunches and rubbing his chin thoughtfully said, “Alright, go get Ms. Heartstrings, let’s see if we can talk to our human guest finally.”

Giving a single nod, Twilight leapt from her sitting position and took off at a brisk canter, leaving Blueblood alone with his thoughts.

Let’s hope this goes better than last time.

Author's Notes:

Well there we go, another chapter eased out. Sorry it took so long again, but college has been taking up a lot of my time and energy, the good news is that this is my last semester. Which, unfortunately, means I need to start looking for a job, another nuisance.

I'm slowly working on next chapter, but it will be a while till its ready, the only reason this chapter got done was because I forced myself to sit down and write some every day during winter break.

Anyways, I would like to thank Jack Keller, Agent-G and badninja for their help in proofreading this chapter for me. Without their help, this chapter would be riddled with errors.

Speaking of errors, if you guys see something off while reading, let me know, Fimfiction doesn't like to properly import Gdocs anymore, so I have to manually edit stuff after importation.

So anyways, hope you all enjoy the chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 9 (Meet the Ponies)

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Chapter 9

It didn’t take long before Twilight returned with Lyra in tow. While she had been gone, Blueblood had taken the opportunity to take a peek through the telescope at the human’s home. As nothing had changed in the time it had taken for Twilight to return with Lyra, Blueblood calmly turned his attention to the two mares.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Ms. Heartstrings.”

Lyra waved a hoof and chuckled, “Like I would miss this once in a lifetime opportunity, Your Grace!”

Blueblood gave a return smile and said, “Be that as it may, I wasn’t sure if you were still readily available, seeing as how we all but dragged you out of bed so early in the morning.”

Lyra just smiled, and replied, “Like I said, Your Grace, I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

Blueblood simply smiled at the younger mare’s enthusiasm. “Right, well, now that we’re all here, I think it is time that we get the next phase of our plan rolling. Our guest,” he inclined his head towards the distant house, “has informed us that it is willing to talk, and before you ask, it can at least understand written Equish, so it is probably safe to assume that it can also speak it. Naturally this makes our jobs a little easier, but still, we are dealing with an unknown alien who is understandably confused and frightened, so we’ll need to be cautious as you know, but it never hurts to be reminded. Now, Ms. Heartstrings,” said Blueblood as he turned his full attention to her, “seeing as how you are our resident expert on all things human, how would you recommend we approach this first proper meeting?

Lyra quietly surveyed the human’s house as she thoughtfully rubbed her chin with a hoof. Different scenarios and outcomes raced through her mind as she pondered their next move. “I think we should calmly approach the place where the human was last spotted, stop a short distance from the home and attempt to talk to it. If we can show it that we mean no harm and calm it down, then everything else should fall into place more easily.”

Blueblood and Twilight nodded in reply, with Blueblood saying, “Simple, but sometimes the best plans usually are. Alright then, I’ll go inform Lieutenant Palisade of our plans and have him and his ponies get ready in case things go south; you two make whatever preparations you need to before I get back. I want this over and done with before noon if possible.”

With that, Blueblood turned and trotted off to find Palisade. Lyra and Twilight, meanwhile, simply waited for his return, both mares as ready as they felt they could be for the coming encounter.

~oOo~

Allen watched from his vantage point as the white unicorn spoke with its lavender counterpart for a few moments before the lavender one trotted off, returning a few minutes later with another unicorn, this one colored a mint green with white highlights in its mane. Raising his binoculars, Allen watched as the three had a short conversation.

Probably trying to figure out who gets to come and talk with me.

After a couple minutes, the big white unicorn trotted off to do who knew what, leaving the other two behind to stare at Allen’s home. It took a bit longer for the white one to return, but when it did, all three of them had one last short discussion before giving each other a nod, and as one, they turned and trotted down the driveway towards his house.

Allen could see, looking through his binoculars, that both the white and lavender ponies had determined and serious expressions on their faces, while the mint colored one, judging by her poor attempts to keep a spring in her step and a smile on her face, seemed more excited than anything else.

I’m not sure if I should feel relieved by that one’s expression, or worried.

In any case, it did not take long before the three ponies had crossed over into Allen’s side yard and were standing a few yards away from his deck. Licking his suddenly dry lips, Allen rose from his sitting position by the sliding glass door and slowly pulled the blinds to one side, at least enough so that the ponies could see him standing by the door. Reaching for the lock with a trembling hand, Allen unlocked the door and carefully pulled it ajar enough that he could both hear and speak to the three unicorns outside.

Well, here goes nothing, thought Allen as he took a deep breath, and offered up a silent prayer before calling out, “What do you want?” at the three. Their reactions were instantaneous, the mint colored unicorn’s face lit up with a million watt smile, while the lavender one seemed shocked, if her open mouth and wide eyes were any indication at least. However, it was the white one that had the most interesting reaction, in that apart from one of its eyebrows raising ever so slightly in response to Allen’s question, it barely reacted at all.

Aside from their reactions, nothing else happened for several awkward seconds. Allen saw the white unicorn look at its compatriots, and upon seeing that they were currently unable to form any kind of coherent response, uttered a tired sounding sigh before straightening up, looking Allen in the eye and saying, “I am Prince Blueblood, Grand Duke of Canterlot, direct descendant of Princess Platinum, ruler of Unicornia, and nephew of Princesses Celestia and Luna. I and my fellows here, come before you to hopefully resolve the current stand-off without any further issues. Would you be willing to speak with us at this time?” It–no, he-asked in an imperial and borderline haughty manner.

Allen blinked. His entire train of thought had suddenly derailed and exploded into a million fiery pieces and as a result, he just stood there like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. All he could say in reply was, “Uhh...”

~oOo~

“Uhh...” was the human’s only reply, and Blueblood fought with every fiber of his being to not facehoof at the current lack of progress. What with his supposed ‘human expert’ having a sudden nerdgasm at the sight of the human, the princess’ ‘prized pupil’ suddenly locking up next to him in shock at finally confronting the human face to face, and the human itself unable to give a proper reply to a simple introduction made, Blueblood felt very, very tired.

Nevertheless, Blueblood reined in the urge, and instead, he lifted his head high and said confidently, “I know that you are probably extremely overwhelmed at this point. You are tired, stressed, and concerned for your continued welfare. I realize that our actions over the last day have not helped matters, and I wish to apologize personally for them. We ourselves have been dealing with a national emergency for the past few days, and we had reason to believe that your sudden appearance was linked to the cause of said national emergency. However, regardless of our thoughts and assumptions, our handling of the situation could have been better than it was, and I both ask for your forgiveness and your cooperation in sorting this mess out in a quick and easy manner.”

For several tense moments, the human said nothing, simply staring at Blueblood as if the prince had suddenly grown another head and had burst out into song and dance. Finally, however, the human gave its head a shake, cleared its throat nervously and replied saying, “Uh, I...accept your apology...uh...Your Highness...um...and...” the human trailed off, unsure of how to proceed.

However, enough had been said for Blueblood to see an opening in the conversation, and he took it. Putting on an easy and comforting smile, he extended a hoof towards the human. “On behalf of the Equestrian government and people, I thank you for your generous willingness to forgive us, and it is our hope that we can put this misunderstanding behind us and move forward towards a friendlier relationship.”

The human glanced around nervously for a moment, before nodding once and, slowly and hesitantly, stepping out of the safety of the doorway and onto the edge of the porch to shake Blueblood’s hoof. Blueblood felt a sense of elation at seeing the human leave his home, and come out into the morning sunlight. Even though it took much longer than under normal circumstances for the human to shake his hoof, Blueblood never let his smile fade nor his relaxed posture change as the human’s hand clasped around the end of his hoof and gave it a single, firm shake before withdrawing.

With that out of the way, Blueblood cleared his throat. “Well, with that out of the way, I think introductions are in order. You already know my name, “he said, pointing at himself with a hoof. Then turning to his right, he pointed a hoof at the two mares besides him. “This mare here is Princess Celestia’s personal student, and the Element of Magic: Ms. Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight had finally managed to recover enough to give a small, forced-looking smile and wave with her hoof. Pointing to the other mare in the group, Blueblood said, “And this is Ms. Lyra Heartstrings. She’s currently a student at Canterlot University, where she is working on obtaining her doctorate in Mythology and Archaeology; her main area of expertise is the study of humans.”

Turning his attention back to the human, Blueblood extended his hoof as if in invitation and asked, “So, now that you know our names, may I ask for yours?”

The human shifted slightly, as if uncomfortable, and after a few moments of nervous indecision, he said, “My name is Allen Ross, it’s...uh...nice to meet you?”

A sudden *squee* from Blueblood’s right caused him to look over and see Lyra’s smile had somehow gotten larger, and for a moment he thought he could see little stars in her eyes from how happy and excited she was. In fact, she seemed so excited that Blueblood was suddenly worried that she might try and pounce the hum-Allen and ruin their chances of defusing the situation. Thinking quickly, Blueblood trotted over, and laying a hoof on her withers, he gave her a gentle shake to get her attention.

Luckily, that seemed to have done the trick of knocking Lyra out of her euphoric state. She looked around in confusion for a moment before her eyes met his and he gave her a “you need to calm down before you do something we all regret” look, that she returned with a sheepish smile.

Taking a deep breath, managed to compose herself enough that she didn’t look like she was going to try and jump Allen in an overly eager frenzy. Giving a sheepish chuckle, Lyra said, “Sorry, got a little excited there, Your Grace,” and turning her attention to Allen, she gave a little bow of her head. “Sorry about that, Mr. Ross, it’s just that I have always been fascinated by your species and now that I finally get to meet one of you face to face, well… I guess I got a little excited, hehe.”

“Uh, okay?” replied Allen, an unsure look on his face. He still hadn’t left the relative safety of the deck, nor had he made any move to invite the ponies to come up and join him, so they were forced to crane their necks back to look up at him. Needless to say, it was starting to get uncomfortable. However, Blueblood did not want to antagonize the human further by making a misstep at this point in the proceedings, and so he just dealt with the discomfort.

Twilight, by this time, had recovered from her shock at finally coming face to face with a creature that was only supposed to be considered a myth. Even though she had already ‘talked’ with the human before now, that was at a distance and impersonal. Now, however, she was standing a mere few strides away from him! The combination of stress caused by the events of the past few days, the lack of sleep and then finally actually coming face to face and hearing the human talk for the first time all combined to overwhelm her senses.

Plastering a hasty smile on her face, she thrust her hoof forward awkwardly and said, in as friendly a tone as possible, “Hello! I’m Twilight Sparkle, as His Grace, Prince Blueblood mentioned earlier. Welcome to Equestria!”

When Allen didn’t immediately shake her hoof, she began to wonder if she had somehow insulted him, and her mind quickly began imagining up terrible scenarios in which the human went on a rampage and she was blamed for the destruction and Celestia would be disappointed in her and send her back to Magic Kindergarten and-

“Uh, nice to meet you too, I guess,” said Allen, as he carefully took her hoof in his large hand and gave it a shake before letting go, like he did with Blueblood.

Twilight felt her brain screech to a halt at the sudden, soft feeling of Allen’s hand around her hoof, the terrible thoughts coursing through her mind quickly dissipating as fog before the morning sun. When he let go of her hoof, Twilight felt a little of the tension in her body leave her. Taking a deep breath to help calm herself further, she felt her smile assume a more natural and relaxed state.

Allen, noticing that the ponies appeared to be relaxing as time went on, also felt himself relaxing in response. However, he still did not invite them any closer to him than they already were. In fact, once he had shaken Twilight and Blueblood’s hooves, he quickly backed away from the edge of the deck and the ponies. The ponies took notice of this, but made no comment at Allen’s behavior; after all, progress was still progress, even if it was slow.

Nevertheless, they still had a job to finish, that being making proper first contact, calming tensions, and setting boundaries and rules for future contact. The first two steps had already been completed, now it was time for the third. Clearing his throat to get everyone’s attention, Blueblood said, “Mr. Ross, it is a relief to see that you do not appear to hold any ill will towards us for yesterday’s circus, and I want to make perfectly clear to you that we are civilized ponies and as such we have no intention of causing you harm.” He paused a moment to let Allen digest his words, and when he saw Allen nod in response, he continued, “As such, I think it best that we end our meeting here quickly, so that I can make the necessary arrangements to see to it that you are not overly bothered and to allow you some time to get your bearings. I am sure that you are under some considerable stress at the moment.”

Allen gave a soft snort, and for the first time since he arrived in Equestria, he felt a small, wry smile form of his face. “Understatement of the century, I think.”

Blueblood gave a humorous chuckle at Allen’s witty reply. “I can only imagine.” His smile, however, quickly disappeared, replaced with a more serious businesslike expression. “And we ponies haven’t helped matters either, I’m afraid. I hope that your friend wasn’t injured because of us? If they were we can offer medical aid, no charge.”

Allen blinked in confusion at what friend Blueblood would be referring to, before quickly realizing who he was talking about... and when he realized that, he also remembered that he hadn’t fed Reuben, or anyone else, since yesterday morning due to all the ‘excitement’. Wincing at the thought of his careless neglect – even if he did have an excuse, he still felt it was a weak one – Allen replied, “No, Reuben is alright, though he’ll probably be pretty skittish around you guys for a while till he realizes you're not going to hurt him. Speaking of Reuben, I’m afraid that because of yesterdays events, I wasn’t able to properly tend to my animals, so no offence but I hope we can wrap this up quickly so I can go take care of them. I’ve already messed up once before this week, any more and they’ll probably think I’m not feeding them on purpose!” he finished with a humourless chuckle.

Blueblood gave a small commiserating smile in return at the thought of circumstances making you look bad. However, he quickly pushed that thought from his mind and said, “No offence taken, Mr. Ross, we wouldn’t want to keep you from your responsibilities any longer than necessary. Though, if there is anything that we can help you with, to show our good intentions, please feel free to let us know. We’ll keep a couple of guards close by in case you need to relay a message to us.”

“Thanks, Your Highness, and I appreciate your willingness to help me out. If what you say is true, regarding your willingness to help me out, then I do have an urgent need that needs to be taken care of soon,” said Allen.

“And what is that?” asked Blueblood.

Allen answered Blueblood’s question with one of his own, “Do you guys have electricity by any chance?”

Blueblood gave a single nod in reply.

Allen felt a smile form on his face at the knowledge that he wasn’t stuck in the dark ages. “Oh man, that’s a huge relief to hear. Any chance you guys would be able to hook me up to the grid quickly?”

“I’m...not sure,” was Blueblood’s uncertain reply, “I’m not familiar with that portion of Equestria’s infrastructure well enough off the top of my head to say for certain without having to consult additional resources. Sorry.”

Allen felt a stab of disappointment, but a thoughtful hum from Twilight gave him a spark of sudden hope. “If I remember correctly, Ponyville was added to the national electrical grid a couple of years ago when they completed that hydro-electric dam just west of town. Though most of the town is not connected yet, though that’s mainly due to ponies not having a need for electricity in their homes yet. I know for a fact that the hospital, town hall, and many of the local businesses are all on the grid, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to run electricity out to you. In fact, depending on what priority it gets, you might have power in just a couple days!”

Allen blinked for a moment, stunned at Twilight’s announcement and pleased smile, and then turned to Blueblood. “Do you think you could do that for me?”

Blueblood closed his eyes in thought for a few moments. “Mr. Ross, I believe that we can make that happen, and I shall personally see to it that it gets done, you have my word on that. After all, I feel that it is the least we can do considering what you’ve been put through these past few days.”

Allen gave a thankful nod in reply. However, his expression quickly shifted to a more serious one as he asked, “That reminds me, do you guys happen to know how I got here?” he swept his right hand out to emphasize his point.

The ponies’ ears fell flat against their heads, all three suddenly uncomfortable, and Allen felt a cold weight form in the pit of his stomach at their reaction.

Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like what they have to say?

Blueblood looked as though he was going to say something, when Twilight suddenly took a step forward, a sorrowful expression darkening her face. “Mr. Ross,” she began, her voice soft, “several days ago, an old and powerful enemy of our nation managed to break loose from the prison that he had been trapped in for the past thousand years. His name was Discord. My friends and I fought against him to prevent him from destroying Equestria and turning it into a land of chaos and disharmony. We narrowly managed to defeat him and return him to his stone prison using the Elements of Harmony, however before we defeated him, I fear that he might have done something that caused you to end up here in Equestria. Why he did this I don’t know, and while I don’t know if we can send you home, I promise you that we will do everything we can to fix this!”

Her sudden and forceful declaration, punctuated with a hoofstomp, caused Allen to take a step back in surprise, just because of the sheer amount of determination and presence that had suddenly blossomed as her speech went. Inwardly, Allen felt touched by her words, though more questions had been raised than answers given. Who was this Discord? Why did he do what he did? Why was it him that got pulled here and not somebody else? And most importantly of all, was it even possible to send him back home?

Oh this is heavy.

“Do… do you think you guys will be able to send me home soon?” he asked, equal parts hesitant and hopeful.

Both Twilight and Lyra looked at each other. Their uncertain looks told Allen everything he needed to know, even before their words confirmed his worst fears. “I’m...not sure we can, Mr. Ross,” said Lyra, a sad look on her face, “this kind of magic isn’t something just anypony can do. We’re not even sure how Discord did what he did in the first place, so the odds are pretty low.” When she saw Allen’s shoulders slump and his head hang down in dejection, she hastened to add, “But that doesn’t mean we won’t do everything we can to get you home!”

Sadly, her attempt at buoying Allen’s spirits didn’t seem to help much. He gave a sad and tired sigh. “Thanks, Ms. Heartstrings, for trying to cheer me up, but if what you say is true, then the odds are pretty much impossible at this point... but I appreciate the thought all the same.”

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the group at that point, broken only by the quiet sounds of the wind and the distant calls of birds. Finally, after several moments, Blueblood broke the silence. “Mr. Ross, while things might seem...difficult now, it won’t last forever; eventually, they will get better.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” replied Allen despondently.

Seeing that his attempt at cheering up Allen hadn’t worked either, Blueblood decided that it was time for the three of them to depart and give Allen some time to digest this new information. Turning to regard the two mares with him for a moment, he gave a nod towards the distant property line to indicate that it was time to leave. Both Lyra and Twilight gave a wordless nod, and after saying their goodbyes to Allen, they turned to leave. When Blueblood didn’t immediately follow, Twilight turned and gave him a questioning look. Blueblood simply waved a hoof, indicating that he would be along shortly. Twilight gave a return nod and continued on.

When both mares had gotten out of hearing range, Blueblood turned back to Allen and said, “It is about time for me to go, Mr. Ross, but before I do, I’d like to clarify something with you.”

Allen gave him a curious and slightly concerned look.

“You’re not in trouble if that is what you are thinking,” replied Blueblood quickly, “I just wanted to help you avoid any future faux pas.”

Now Allen was really confused. What did he do wrong?

Blueblood chuckled softly at Allen’s expression. “Don’t worry, it’s a common mistake, even in our world. I noticed earlier that you referred to me as ‘Your Highness’.”

“Is that not right?” asked Allen.

Blueblood shook his head. “Not anymore it isn’t. For various historical and political reasons, only three ponies in Equestria can be called ‘Your Highness’. Those three are of course Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadence, and to call anyone else by that title is considered bad manners. It can lead to...issues, shall we say.”

“But, I thought you were a prince?”

Blueblood nodded. “Yes I am, but it is an honorary title that has been passed down in my family since before the founding of Equestria. Of course, back then, it carried more weight, but things change. In any case, the proper way to address me would be ‘Your Grace’, as I am the Duke of Canterlot officially, and therefore, I am addressed as such.”

Allen shook his head, still confused, even with the explanation. Seeing that Allen hadn’t quite grasped the concept, Blueblood simply said, “I know it is a bit confusing for somebody who isn’t from Equestria, but the ‘why’ of the matter isn’t what is important. All you need to remember is that only the three princesses are to be referred to as ‘Your Highness’, and no one else.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Allen replied, “Alright, if you say so, 'Your Grace’. I still don’t understand it, but whatever.”

Blueblood chuckled. “Yes, yes, I know. It is a strange concept that only Equestria seems to have adopted, but it is what it is, and as such I felt it necessary to educate you a little on this strange custom of ours, least you accidentally offend somepony and make things more difficult for yourself.”

“Are there really people out there who would get offended over something like that?” asked Allen skeptically.

“Oh yes, there are,” replied Blueblood gravely, his previously amused expression gone. “While I doubt any of the princesses would be overly offended by your actions – they tend to be very forgiving, at least Princess Celestia and Princess Cadence are. Princess Luna on the other hoof is a bit… out of touch, shall we say, with modern customs.” Seeing Allen’s questioning look, Blueblood quickly said, “ let’s just say it’s a long story and leave it at that.”

“Alright, if you say so.”

“Anyways, as I was saying before we got sidetracked there: while the princesses are very forgiving of unintentional faux pas, there are some nobles who are rather… enthusiastic about protecting the honor of our princesses, and will go to great lengths to see to it that those who they feel have insulted the princesses are punished, with or without the crown's permission,” finished Blueblood, his face taking on an unhappy look.

Allen felt a distinctly uneasy feeling in his gut at Blueblood’s explanation and asked hesitantly, “You wouldn’t happen to be one of those nobles, would you?”

Blueblood gave a vigorous shake of his head, a strand of his well-groomed mane escaping in the process. “Absolutely not! I can assure you Mr. Ross, that I am an honorable pony, and would never do such things as theydo.”

Allen let loose a sigh of relief at Blueblood’s declaration. “I’m glad to hear that. Sorry if you felt that I was lumping you in with them, whoever they are.”

“No offense taken, Mr. Ross,” replied Blueblood with a smile, however, his smile slipped slightly when he continued saying, “regardless, I do recommend that you acquaint yourself with Equestrian culture and history as quickly as possible, so as to lessen your chances of making powerful enemies while here.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Blueblood gave a single nod. “See that you do, and if you want, I can recommend several excellent books on both subjects that will be very helpful to you. In any case, unless there is anything else that you require at present, I believe I should be going now, reports to write and meetings to attend, you understand.”

“Right, I wouldn’t want to keep you,” came Allen’s reply.

“Well seeing as there is nothing else, I shall be off then,” said Blueblood as he turned to leave. However, as a thought suddenly struck him he stopped mid-turn and turned back to Allen. “Oh, I just remembered, I was meaning to ask you if it would be alright for Ms. Sparkle, and Ms. Heartstrings to come back at a later time to interview you and learn more about yourself and your people, and if so when would be a good time?”

Allen shrugged. “Not like I’ve got any place to be, so I guess tomorrow would be fine.”

“Excellent, I’ll let them know that you’re willing to have them back then. In any case, do take care Mr. Ross, and until next time,” said Blueblood as he finally turned to leave.

“Same to you too, Your Grace,” replied Allen as Blueblood trotted away.

Allen watched Blueblood as he trotted back up his driveway towards the road for a few minutes before shaking his head and turning to go back inside to get ready to start his morning chores for the day.

As he reached for the door handle, he noticed that his hand was shaking slightly. He clenched it into a fist and waited for the shaking to stop. When he felt that the tremors were gone, he took a deep breath and opened the door stepping inside. Turning around to shut the door, he managed to spot Blueblood speaking with several ponies in golden armor; he couldn’t see either Twilight or Lyra, and figured that they had already left.

Shutting the door, he stayed there for several minutes, letting his mind work over the information that he had gained from this meeting. On one hand, he felt confident that he didn’t have to worry about being attacked and carted off to some lab somewhere. On the other hand, he felt as though he’d found himself suddenly dropped into the middle of an ocean with nothing but a life jacket to keep his head above water. So many unknowns waited for him beyond that property line, and although he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, Allen found himself secretly terrified by the thought that he was truly and utterly alone in a world that he knew nothing about, with little chance of getting back to where he belonged.

Turning away from the door, Allen grabbed the dirty dishes that he’d left on the table and went to put them in the sink. As he laid them down, his eyes glanced over to a collection of empty beer bottles sitting on the counter, and a thought struck him. Looking at the clock on the wall nearby, Allen saw that it was a little after nine in the morning, and staring at the clock as it ticked the seconds away, he came to a decision. Squaring his shoulders, he walked over to the fridge, yanked the door open, grabbed the nearest beer bottle and popped the top open.

Fuck it. If there was ever anyone in the world who needed a beer, it’s this guy.

Author's Notes:

I'm back everybody! And you all don't need to worry about college taking me away again, as I have now officially graduated as of May 10th! On the other hand, now I have to find work, which is probably what will take up my precious free time and energy. However, I will make it my goal to work on future chapters every day when possible, regardless of how much I may get done in a sitting. So hopefully you can expect to see more than one chapter a month going forward, at least that is what I would like to do.

Anyways, as always, I would like to thank Jack Keller, Agent-G and badninja for their help in proofreading this chapter for me. Without their help, this chapter would be riddled with errors and typos. So thanks, guys!

And with that said, on to the next chapter!

Chapter 10 (Meet the Bureaucrat)

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Chapter 10

It had been three days since Allen and the ponies had made proper first contact with each other. In that time, Allen had often found himself on the receiving end of a barrage of questions from two, overly excited, and very inquisitive mares intent on wringing as much information out of him as possible. In addition to that, Allen had needed to keep on top of his chores, and with the electricity still being provided by his gas generator, that wasn’t as easy as before. Moreover, Allen was still dealing with the shock that came from the many bombshells that had been dropped on him in the past few days, and he found it becoming increasingly difficult to sleep at night, the end result of this was that he was constantly tired.

However, today promised to be a good day in that, he was finally going to get power back, or at least he hoped he was. He had received a message, delivered to him by a pegasus courier, from Blueblood. The letter had informed Allen that ponies from the power company were going to meet with him to get him hooked up to the electrical grid. Something that Allen was very much looking forward to. As such, Allen now found himself standing next to his mailbox at the end of the driveway waiting for these ponies to show up.

As he was waiting, he took a moment to glance around him, as a few things had changed in the last few days. The first obvious change was that the giant billboard that the ponies had used to contact him had been taken down. Additionally, there were fewer guard ponies trotting around beyond his property. Instead of hundreds, as there had been before, now there were only about ten or so, and they mainly kept to themselves, content with patrolling the wagon trail and keeping close to their campsite near the apple trees.

Of course, Allen had also been busy, when he hadn’t been answering questions from either Lyra or Twilight or taking care of his regular chores, he’d been busy taking stock of what he had on the farm. It wasn’t much, unfortunately. Allen’s family had been having a rough few years, and their farm wasn’t very big by modern farming standards, being only three hundred acres.

Most of the land that Allen’s father had farmed was rented, and rent prices had been going up, while corn and soybean prices had been going down. Couple that with large, unexpected expenses, and one had a recipe for hard times ahead. In fact, things had gotten so bad, that Allen had been forced to sell off some of their newer equipment, as well as some of their animals, as he couldn’t keep up with the loan payments anymore. This left the Ross farm with precious few farm animals such as cows and pigs to sell later on, and it became more difficult to plant more crops using older equipment. However, they had done the best they could, same as thousands of other farmers across the country, and they’d managed to get by, for the most part.

The problem that Allen faced right now, however, was that, while the ponies had electricity, he doubted that they had the thousand and one other things that he would need to keep his farm going. Parts for old rusting equipment, new tires, coolant, lubricant, and most worryingly of all, gasoline, to feed those machines hungry appetites. Even though, like many farmers, Allen had large storage tanks for fuel on his farm, and they were full, for which Allen thanked his lucky stars, these fuel reserves would not last forever, and when they ran out, that was it, unless he could find another source of fuel.

However, that was something for future Allen to worry about, as at that moment, Allen spotted a group of ponies, pulling a wagon behind them, heading his way. As they came closer, he could see that there were four ponies in the group. Two earth ponies, who were pulling the wagon, a unicorn trotting alongside them, and a pegasus gliding along above them on the late morning thermals.

It was about this time that the pegasus noticed Allen, saying something to its companions, it gave a powerful flap of its wings and quickly closed the distance between it and Allen.

“Hi there,” it...no, she greeted as she came in for a smooth landing in front of Allen, he still had some trouble telling the pony sexes apart sometimes. Holding out a hoof the pegasus mare introduced herself. “Names Lightning Catcher, my team and I,” she waved a hoof to indicate the ponies pulling the wagon, “were told that you needed to get hooked up to the grid, is that right?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

She gave a happy smile in return. “Well, alright! We’ll go ahead and get to work getting you hooked up and stuff, should have it all done either today or tomorrow at the latest, depending on how much wire laying and splicing we gotta do.”

“Sounds good,” replied Allen, a feeling of relief washing over him at the thought of having power back soon.

One less problem I have to worry about.

“Well, if you don’t need me for anything else, I suppose I’ll let you get to your jobs then,” said Allen, as he turned to go.

“Okay, Mr. Ross, though...” she trailed off suddenly, an unsure look on her face.

“What’s up?” asked Allen.

Lightning pawed at the ground uncertainly for a moment before saying, “We were given a short briefing about what to expect when we took this job, that includes what, and who you are, where you came from and why you’re here, but I gotta admit, it all sounds a bit fantastical to me.”

Allen chuckled. “Believe you and me, I feel the same way,” he paused and gazed off into the distance, as if looking at something only he could see, “I’ve been here for less than a week and sometimes I wonder if it’s all just a dream...or a nightmare and if I’m going to wake up.”

Lighting Catcher gave Allen a sad look as he stood there staring out into the distance, temporarily lost in his own thoughts. However, he soon gave himself a shake which brought him back to the real world. Turning his attention back to Lighting he gave her a sad smile.

“Well, don’t let me keep you from your job now, if you need anything or have any questions, I’ll be in the house. I turned off the generator, so there isn’t any power for you to worry about.”

Lighting gave a happy smile. “Thank you, I was actually going to ask you about that, but it seems you’ve already thought of that! Though before you go, could you tell me how you got your electricity where you were from?”

“Sure,” replied Allen with a shrug, pointing to a nearby power pole he said, “Our electricity came in through those power lines over there, and that grayish cylinder up top there stepped down the voltage so that it could be used by our house. You might just be able to hook straight up to that pole there without having to lay any new wire unless you guys use something different than what we did.”

Lightning's eyes lit up in both excitement and joy. “Oh no, Mr. Ross! We here in Equestria use wires to transport electricity too! Though we don’t string them up along the top of long poles like you guys do.”

Allen gave her a quizzical look. “You don’t?”

She shook her head. “Nope! All of our lines are buried underground in an insulated and spell treated pipe. Digger,” she pointed at the group's sole unicorn, “is our pipe layer. He’s naturally talented in geomancy and uses his magic to lay the wire underground without us needing to dig a trench.”

“Isn’t it hard to do inspections on the lines if they’re all buried underground, and what about somebody accidentally digging one up? Wouldn’t they run the risk of electrocuting themselves by accidentally cutting into the line?”

Lightning shook her head again. “To answer your first question, nope, all lines come with a special spell attached to them through a series of runes etched into the pipe. Anyone with the proper equipment or magical talent can find a line and determine if it needs to be repaired without having to dig it up. As for your second question, these pipes are also reinforced by the same runes to prevent most things from cutting into them. Besides, we bury the pipes at about three to four hooves deep, so there is very little chance of somepony accidentally digging into them unless they’re going to be doing some major construction work.”

“Huh, fancy that,” remarked Allen.

“Yep! It’s pretty neat stuff, the upfront costs can be a tad pricey, but the lines will pay for themselves over time as they require practically zero maintenance, and are expected to last for fifty years before they need to be replaced. They also have the added benefit of keeping the airspace clear of additional obstructions for us pegasi, and we don’t have to worry about lightning storms taking them out either!”

“Well alright then, guess I’ll let you guys get to it,” replied Allen with a nod.

“Sounds good! We’ll let you know when we’re finished,” said Lightning with a happy bob of her head, and with that said, both she and Allen gave each other a wave good-bye. As Allen watched Lightning trot back over to her crew, he felt his spirits lift a little.

Finally, something is going my way for a change. Now, let’s just hope my other appointment goes as well as this one did.

As the power crew set to work, Allen remained where he was because they weren’t the only ponies that he was expecting this morning. Blueblood’s letter had also mentioned that the prince himself, along with several other government officials were going to be visiting Allen’s farm today, in an effort to get Allen’s paperwork sorted out. Allen, naturally, was not looking forward to the meeting, but he didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter, seeing as how he was kind of stuck in Equestria for the time being, he would need to get his bureaucratic ducks in a row or face the consequences of being an undocumented person in Equestria.

So, even though he’d rather walk across a mile of broken glass barefoot than deal with the coming bureaucratic meeting, he didn’t have many choices to choose from, and so he figured it was best to just get it over with.

And speaking of getting it over with, it looks like His Grace has just arrived, thought Allen as he saw a fancy looking coach, pulled by a pair of sharply dressed earth ponies drove into view from the distant tree line. As the coach came closer and closer, Allen could see the little intricate details that festooned the coach. Painted a royal sky blue with gold trim, the carriage gave a person the impression that its occupant was loaded with cash, however, it wasn’t opulent to the point of being overbearing. However, it still made one feel humble, which Allen summarized was the intent of the coach’s designers.

As the coach came to a stop in front of Allen, he could see Blueblood looking at him from one of the windows. One of the earth pony pullers quickly unhitched himself as the coach came to a complete stop, and after setting a step stool down in front of the coaches door, he opened it with a bow, allowing the occupants inside to exit.

Stepping down from the coach, Blueblood greeted Allen with a polite smile. “Mr. Ross, it is good to see you again.”

“Likewise, Your Grace,” hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the nearby work crew, Allen remarked, “Those ponies from the power company got here just a few minutes before you did, and from what they told me, I should have power back either tonight or tomorrow morning. I really appreciate your help on getting my power problem fixed.”

Blueblood’s smile grew a bit warmer. “Think nothing of it, Mr. Ross. After what you’ve been through, it is the least that I can do to make your stay here as pleasant as possible. Unfortunately,” his smile suddenly lost some of its previous warmth as he noticed another pony exiting the coach, this one a unicorn, “I’m afraid this meeting will not be as pleasant as we would like.”

Looking past Blueblood to the other unicorn, Allen noticed that everything about this guy seemed to scream bureaucrat, from his average build and height to his precisely combed beige coat and brown mane. His simple gray suit was both neatly cleaned and pressed, and his gold, wire-rimmed glasses were so thoroughly polished that they reflected the early morning sunlight at his every move. In addition, Allen could see that the stallion was floating a rather large briefcase from inside, and when he turned around, Allen could see that his cutie mark was that of a sheaf of papers bound by several strands of red tape.

Well fuck.

Setting the briefcase down, the unicorn turned to regard Allen, and extending a hoof, asked in a clipped tone, “Are you the human that His Grace spoke of?”

Allen nodded hesitantly.

The unicorn gave a satisfied nod. “Excellent, then allow me to introduce myself. My name is Red Tape, and I am with the Royal Equestrian Department of Records.”

Allen fought hard against the temptation to facepalm at learning the bureaucrat’s name. Oh God, even his name is bureaucratic, I’m doomed. However, Allen did not let his inner despair color his outer facade and instead replied with a somewhat forced smile. “Nice to meet you Mr. Tape, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company today?”

“I am here at the behest of my superiors to make sure that you are compliant with Equestrian law. The Department of Records deals primarily with paperwork regarding a being’s ability to reside here in Equestria. Naturally, this includes, but is not limited to things such as residency, and or citizenship, the ability to obtain and retain employment legally, as well as the ability to own property within Equestria,” replied Red Tape simply.

Allen gave Blueblood a pleading look that screamed, “Please, save me!”

Sadly, Blueblood could only shake his head in reply as if silently saying, “Not even I can save you from the bureaucracy.”

Letting loose a defeated moan, Allen stepped slightly aside and dejectedly said, “Okay, if you follow me, we can head inside.”

Red Tape smiled for the first time since he arrived, his red colored magical aura quickly surrounding the briefcase as he trotted after a now more subdued Allen, with Blueblood bringing up the rear.

Even though Allen had expressed a reluctance at the thought of dealing with Red Tape, he had quickly led the group to the front entryway of his home and ushered them inside. Striding quickly, he beckoned them to follow him deeper into the house. Blueblood took a moment to glance around the foyer as he trotted after Allen and Red Tape. The hardwood floors had a layer of dust along the walls where hooves, or in this case, feet, seldom traveled, indicating that they hadn’t been swept in some time. Looking up at the walls, Blueblood could see several pictures hanging from them, no doubt their frames held photos of Allen and his family from days gone by.

Turning his attention back to the matter at hoof, Blueblood noticed that he’d been left behind and quickly got moving again. Trotting past a staircase that led upstairs, he soon found himself in what he assumed was a kitchen, and just beyond it, a dining room/living area. It was there that Blueblood saw Allen and Red Tape seating themselves at a table across from each other. Quickly walking over, his hooves clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor, Blueblood used his magic to pull out a chair next to Allen and sat down. Though he soon noted that these chairs had not been designed with pony posteriors in mind.

Shifting slightly in his chair in an effort to get more comfortable, Blueblood turned to Allen and said, “Mr. Ross, before we begin I would like to thank you for allowing us into your home. It is my understanding that we are the first ponies that you have allowed inside if what Ms. Heartstring and Ms. Sparkle reports about you times together are correct.”

“They are,” replied Allen simply.

Red Tape used his magic to adjust his glasses as he gave Allen a curious look. “Was there a reason for you to prevent these two mares from entering?”

Blueblood shot Red Tape an irritated scowl, though Red Tape either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Allen simply stared across the table at Red Tape, a neutral expression etched on his face.

“There wasn’t a major reason,” he began neutrally, “but I did not feel comfortable allowing them instant access to my home till I got to know them better.”

Red Tape gave Allen a searching look. “I see, but that then begs the question, what about us? You don’t know us very well, so why let us in immediately and not them?”

If looks could kill, then Red Tape would have been reduced to a pile of ash by now from how hard Blueblood was glaring at him. Allen’s expression however never changed as he said, “Several reasons,” he began as he raised a hand and began ticking each point off on his fingers, “the first is that I have had a chance to become better acquainted with your culture, not a lot but some, so that helps reduce my uncertainty around you guys. The second is that Prince Blueblood here,” he jerked his head at Blueblood, “was kind enough to arrange for power to be restored to my home quickly and at no upfront cost. Just for that, he’s earned the right to come into my home.”

“And what about me?” asked Red Tape searchingly.

Allen shrugged. “You’re just his plus one, as it were, plus I didn’t want to try and fill out all of these papers on the porch where the wind might get at them. Kind of hard to sign my soul away when the paper I need to sign it on is halfway into the next county.”

Both Red Tape and Blueblood sat there in stunned silence at Allen’s candid reply. However, the silence didn’t last for very long before Red Tape burst out laughing at Allen’s reply.

After several moments of deep, belly aching laughter, Red Tape managed to calm down enough to speak. “Hehe, oh that is a good one, hehe, ‘sign my soul away’, hah! I’m going to have to remember that one for when I get back to the office, the others will get a good chuckle out of it!” Wiping away a tear from his eyes, he continued saying, “My apologies Mr. Ross if I have caused any offense, I’m afraid that my social skills are somewhat lacking.”

“None taken,” was Allen simple reply.

Giving a nod in thanks, Red Tape took a moment to resettle his glasses before reaching into his bag and pulling out a thick sheaf of papers. Plopping on the table between him and Allen, he explained, “While I can appreciate your humor Mr. Ross, I do not believe you need fear having to, as you say, ‘sign your soul away’. Nor do you need to worry about papers blowing away in the wind, we have spells to keep that from happening, though the thought is appreciated all the same. In any case,” he said as he pulled an inkwell and quill from within his briefcase and set them next to the sheaf of papers, “we should probably get started.”

Allen let out a morose sigh at what was to come next. Red Tape simply chuckled good-naturedly at Allen’s antics, and giving a playful tut-tut, said, “Now, now, Mr. Ross, there is no need to get all melodramatic. We are just signing a few forms and going over some basic knowledge that you’ll need to know for future reference should you plan on staying in our fair country for the long term.”

“Yay,” was the unenthusiastic reply.

Red Tape frowned. “Look, Mr. Ross, I know that not all...beings are as happy as I am in regards to doing bureaucratic paperwork, but this is very important. If this paperwork isn’t properly filled out, then...well let’s just say that you don’t want to know what will happen, as I can assure you it will not be a pleasant experience. Besides, these,” he waved a hoof to indicate the stack of papers that stood about four inches tall in front of him, “are all the papers that you’ll have to sign for a while. Though, even I realize that this is a bit much at one time. However, I’m afraid it is necessary as these papers are all the ones critical to being a full Equestrian citizen.”

Long since resigned to his fate, Allen reached out with a hand and said, “Fine, let’s just get this over with, go ahead and hand me those papers, and I’ll get a pen to fill them out with.”

Red Tape gave him a confused look for a moment before letting loose with a humor-filled chuckle. “Hehe, I believe that you are under a false assumption in regards to how bureaucratic paperwork is handled here in Equestria, Mr. Ross.”

Now it was Allen’s turn to look confused.

Seeing his confused expression, Red Tape elaborated. “I’m not sure how your people do this sort of thing in your world, Mr. Ross, but here in Equestria, the bureaucracy does most of the work. Most ponies simply show up at their appointment with the needed information and a civil servant will fill in the paperwork, after that, the only thing the citizen needs to do is to review the documents for errors and then sign them.”

“Wait, are you saying that I don’t have to fill out all of these papers? That I just have to review and sign them?!” exclaimed Allen incredulously.

Red Tape gave a confident nod. “Of course, doing it this way prevents confusion, as all civil servants are properly trained and certified in the handling of civil documents. Moreover, it eases the burden on the system by lessening the chances of errors due to confusion when a citizen fills in information. Often times a pony is in and out in under twenty minutes or less, though in our case it’ll probably take a few hours to get through all of this.”

Allen looked to Blueblood, as if to double check that what Red Tape had said was true. Blueblood for his part simply nodded, a small smile tugging the corners of his muzzle upwards at the sudden look of relief that washed over Allen’s features. However, as Allen turned back to the small pile of papers, he felt a twinge in his hand at the thought of having to sign all of those papers.

As if sensing his renewed worry, Red Tape levitated the quill and inkwell over to Allen before saying, “Oh, I almost forgot to mention, you will only need to sign your name once, after that the quill will do the rest.”

Once again, Allen’s face betrayed his confusion. “Huh?”

“Oh, do you not have self-writing quills in your world?”

“Self-writing quills?” parroted Allen.

Red Tape nodded, a joyous smile on his face. “Oh yes! They are so convenient! A self-writing quill is...well a quill that has been enchanted to remember a set amount of words and write them down when you use a verbal command. They are commonly used for either short phrases or signatures, in our case, it will be the latter. All you will have to do, Mr. Ross is write your name once in the designated area and then say a simple phrase that you would generally not use in a normal conversation. The quill will ‘remember’ what you wrote down and will only write it after you say the special phrase.”

Allen slumped down in his seat, a flurry of emotions swirling through him, disbelief, shock, and hope being the strongest. Licking his lips, he leaned forward, and grabbing the quill gingerly in his grasp, dipped it into the open inkwell and then set quill to paper and with a quick flourish signed his name at the bottom of the top page in the stack.

He paused for a moment, trying to think of a word or phrase that he could use to activate the quill. After several moments, he finally said, “YOWO.”

“Yowo? What is a yowo?” asked Blueblood, a confused look on his face, Red Tape was also confused by Allen’s choice of activation word.

Allen, a smile on his face, nodded sagely and clarified, “It’s an acronym I just made up.”

Blueblood and Red Tape looked at each other, and then back to Allen. “But...what does it mean?” asked Blueblood again.

“It’s a modification on another acronym from my world called, YOLO, which stands for You Only Live Once, YOWO,” he paused as the quill sudden jumped from his relaxed grip and darted to the next paper in the stack and wrote out a perfect carbon copy of his signature, right down to the final flourish at the end. Seeing this, Allen let loose an impressed whistle. “Wow, and here I was thinking you guys were blowing smoke up my ass, but hot damn it works!”

Red Tape, leaned back in his chair, a smug smile on his face. “Of course, it is as I said, the quill is enchanted and will record what you write down before you utter the activation word or phrase. Believe me, these things are worth their weight in gold,” waving a hoof at it as it returned to its inkwell he continued, “this one is yours to keep if you so wish, consider it a gift for having to do all of this at once.”

Allen found himself struck dumb in amazement at Red Tape’s generosity. “Wow, Mr. Tape, I don’t know what to say, other than thank you, I mean, one of these things can’t be cheap to make.”

Red Tape waggled a hoof back and forth in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Depends on the brand, some are fairly inexpensive, but their enchantments run out fairly quickly or they are locked into whatever their first input was for the duration of their life. This particular set, however, is one of the more expensive sets and should last you a long time. Plus you can reset it later if you want to have it write something different.”

“And you’re just giving it to me? Just like that?” asked Allen incredulously.

“Just like that,” replied Red Tape with a friendly nod. “Though you still haven’t told us what YOWO means yet.”

“Oh right, well like I said, it’s a modification of YOLO and it means You Only Write Once. I figured it was appropriate for the situation,” was Allen’s sheepish reply.

Both Red Tape and Blueblood looked at one another for a moment before they burst out laughing, Allen quickly joining them in their merriment over his little joke. After their laughter subsided, Red Tape, while wiping an errant tear from the corner of his eye said, “Well, while that was enjoyable, I believe that we should probably get started in earnest, Mr. Ross.”

Allen let loose a sigh. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Oh don’t sound so glum. It won’t be as bad as you think it will be. After all, between myself, answering any questions you might have and filling out the forms for you, His Grace, for moral support, and your quill doing all of the signing, you won’t really have much to worry about or be fearful of.”

Allen gave a rueful chuckle. “I guess so. Sorry if I come across as being a bit petulant when it comes to filling out paperwork. Back in my world, we’re just kind of handed the paperwork and expected to fill it out, and nine times out of ten the people giving us the paperwork to fill out don’t care or are assholes. You’re actually the first bureaucrat I have ever met where I haven’t wanted to strangle.”

Red Tape gave a bit of a nervous laugh. “Hehe, well, I’m very glad to hear that, Mr. Ross. Though I am sorry to hear that your world doesn’t put as much care into making sure that the interactions between the civil service and the citizenry are positive ones.” He looked down at his hooves for a moment and fidgeted with the stack of papers in front of him, as if unsure of whether or not he should continue. However, after a few silent moments, he looked up, a determined look on his face. “Mr. Ross, while I can’t help you deal with your previous experiences dealing with bureaucracy, I can help you with this experience, and while I’m sure you won’t find it as enjoyable as I do, I think that you’ll at least be content with the experience,” he said, a hopeful smile on his face.

Allen returned Red Tape’s hopeful smile with one of his own. “I hope so too.”

Giving a satisfied nod, Red Tape grabbed the first piece of paper that Allen had signed and said, “Very well then! If you have no further concerns on the matter, let us begin!” and with that, he began.

Allen for his part felt himself relaxing a little more as they began.

Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

Author's Notes:

Hey, everyone! Sorry for the long delay again, but life got in the way. Job hunting took a bit more of my time than I would have liked. Though you should all be happy to know that I have since secured a job, as of June, and I've been tinkering with a writing schedule that allows me to write when I'm not tired and unmotivated. Thankfully my current schedule is showing signs of promise as I've managed to average about a page and a half per day, which I think is pretty good.

I would also like to thank Agent-G and badninja for their help in proofreading this chapter for me and making sure it wasn't too crazy or divergent, as I'm sure some of you guys who have been here since the start remember. Sadly, Jack Keller wasn't able to help with this chapter, so there might be more errors in there than in previous ones, as he is my go to guy for spelling and grammar corrections, though I did the best I could, but I'm sure some slipped through the cracks. Though I just noticed that indenting no longer works on the site, so that sucks, on the other hand, however, pony icons are back, yay!

Chapter 11 (Paperwork is Fun!)

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Chapter 11

The clock on the dining room wall read half past nine at night, and Allen was tired. Even with all the help from Red Tape, Blueblood, and the self-writing quill, it had taken them most of the day to get through the stack of paper that Red Tape had brought with him. Even though Red Tape had said that the Equestrian civil service did the best it could to minimize the pain of dealing with paperwork, that didn’t mean that there was no pain, just that there was not as much as there could be. In Allen’s case, it was still a lot, though he repressed a shiver of dread at the thought of having to deal with the amount of paperwork that he’d just gone through in the way he was used to dealing with paperwork back in the U.S.

I’d kill myself before the end of the first hour.

Casting aside those thoughts, he idly shuffled some of the pamphlets and booklets that Red Tape had left for him on the table. Each one provided greater detail on what was expected of Allen as a soon-to-be citizen of Equestria. Casually picking one up at random, he was greeted by the sight of a trio of smiling ponies, one of each tribe, their hooves held out wide in greeting. The title, a cheery pink and blue ribbon of color across the top asked, So you want to be an Equestrian? Allen gave a humorless snort. “Not really, but it’s not like I have much of a choice in the matter at present,” he said as he tossed it back onto the cluttered table.

Leaning back in his chair, he scrubbed his tired face with a hand before getting up and going to the sink for some water. As he let his cup fill up, he thought back on what he had learned in the process of getting his citizenship papers in order. He’d actually been surprised when Red Tape had asked him to provide his human world information, such as his birth certificate, social security number, educational background, criminal record, and on and on and on. By the time they’d finished, Allen had felt as though he’d run a marathon from the amount of running he’d done around his house looking for the needed paperwork, and his brain felt like a pool of melted goo from how hard he had been thinking that day, trying to recall to the best of his ability information he hadn’t had available at the house.

One of those pieces of information was in regards to how much money he’d had before being brought here. Taking a sip of water from his glass, he gazed out the window at the darkening skies and thought back to that moment.

~oOo~

“Why do you want to know about my finances?” asked Allen, confused at Red Tape’s sudden question. “Anything having to do with them is on Earth, and I have no way to access them here, so they’re useless to me.”

Red Tape took a sip of water, which Allen had helpfully provided earlier in their meeting. “There are several reasons, Mr. Ross. The first being, since you are applying for citizenship with us, we need to do a background check regarding your financial assets for tax purposes and such.” He held up a hoof to forestall Allen’s reply. “Now, I know that currently there is no way for you to access your financial assets right now, and you might not have complete records of them, but anything you can give us would be welcome.”

When Red Tape paused to take another drink of water, Allen interjected, “Okay, but what’s to prevent me from lying to you about, well… anything? I mean, I could have been making everything up as we’ve been going along.”

Red Tape set his glass back down and fixed Allen with a serious look. “Mr. Ross, if you had been lying to me, I would know. These,” he pointed to his glasses, “are not just for helping me see better, they are also enchanted to detect when someone is not being fully honest with me. Now granted, the enchantment isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough. Besides,” he gave Allen a confident smile, “I’ve been a civil servant for a long time, Mr. Ross. I can tell when somebody is trying to be sneaky, even if they are not a pony.”

Allen licked his suddenly dry lips. “I-I see, well, okay, I was just curious is all.”

Red Tape chuckled and waved a hoof in dismissal. “Hehe, of course, of course.” His smile faded and a more neutral look took its place. “In any case, let’s move on, shall we?”

Allen simply nodded.

“Very good. Now, while the first reason is not as applicable to you in this regard, we would still like to have as much information about you as we can get. This will help us when we move on the second reason we need this information.”

“And what reason is that?” asked Allen.

“So that we can reimburse you for those lost assets,” replied Blueblood.

“Reimburse me?” asked Allen, confused. “Why would you guys do that?”

Blueblood sighed. “Because you were negatively impacted by Discord’s escape and since the Equestrian government is partially responsible for said escape, then it behooves us to at least provide some form of compensation to ease your suffering. Hence why we need your financial information: if we have that, then it will be a simple matter of opening up a savings account for you at a bank of your choosing and transferring the funds to you.”

Allen felt himself slump down in his chair slightly from surprise at Blueblood’s explanation. When he looked over at Red Tape and saw the stallion nod in confirmation, he just didn’t know what to think. After all, what kind of government willingly gives out money to people it hurt, especially if it was indirectly, at the drop of a hat like this? Licking his dry lips, Allen asked, “So let me get this straight here: you guys are going to just give me money, just like that? No strings attached?”

Blueblood nodded, though he had an odd look on his face as if he was wondering why Allen was so disbelieving at the thought. “Of course, it is only proper. While the Equestrian government didn’t intentionally free Discord from his prison to go on a chaotic rampage, he still did, and because of his actions, you were, for all intents and purposes, turned into an interdimensional refugee. Therefore, it is only right that you receive some form of compensation in regards to your suffering. Besides, both princesses have ordered it so anyways, so even if the rest of the government was against the idea, you would still receive compensation, either because the princesses demanded it or they provided you the funds from their own pockets.”

“That’s... very generous of you guys… I’m not sure what to say honestly, other than thank you,” replied Allen gratefully.

Blueblood returned Allen’s thanks with a warm smile. “You are welcome, Mr. Ross, it is the least we can do.”

“Though I do believe that you are entitled to additional assistance beyond compensation for lost assets,” interjected Red Tape. When Allen gave him an inquiring look, he continued, “As His Grace said, you were harmed due to Discord’s actions and made a refugee. Therefore, you are currently classified as one. Though,” he waved a hoof to indicate the pile of papers in front of him, “after we get through this, you’ll be well on your way to citizenship here in Equestria. However, due to the nature of your arrival here, both Princess Celestia and Luna have decided to grant you tax exemption status for this tax year to give you time to both become acquainted with our tax laws and secure a steady income.”

Allen was so surprised that he nearly fell out of his seat.

Seeing Allen’s stunned look, Red Tape chuckled. “Yes, I know, it seems too good to be true. However, Princess Celestia, and to a lesser extent Princess Luna, are very concerned with maintaining a good public image, especially in the face of something like Discord getting free. That has created no small amount of work for us as we try to reassure both the citizenry and the international community. Moreover, since you were directly impacted by Discord’s… shenanigans, they felt that it was necessary to provide you with these benefits as a way to show both you and others that we do care and are willing to take responsibility to make things as right as possible.”

Allen sat there, blinking as his mind processed what Red Tape had told him. After a few moments, he cocked his head to a side. “So what you’re saying is that I’m some kind of PR stunt?”

Red Tape waggled a hoof side to side. “Sort of. Don’t get me wrong, the princesses do care about your situation and want to do everything they can to make your stay more comfortable while you are here.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

Red Tape shrugged. “But they also have to make sure that Equestria as a whole is safe, both from foreign powers who may take Discord’s release as a sign that we are weak or use it as a way to gain concessions out of us at the diplomatic table, as well as to protect us from the more… ambitious elements within.”

“What do you mean, ‘ambitious elements within’?”

Blueblood quickly interjected, “Nevermind about that, Mr. Ross, you don’t need to worry about that sort of thing.”

Glancing over at Blueblood with a searching eye for a moment, Allen decided to let it go. “If you say so.” Turning his attention back to Red Tape, he asked a final question, “So is there anything else, or was that it?”

“That was it, as far as financial matters are concerned. When the time comes we’ll send somepony to go over the finer details with you and get you set up with a bank account and such.”

Allen nodded. “Alright, sounds good.”

~oOo~

After that, Allen’s quill had signed the various papers that Red Tape had placed in front of him. It had been an interesting experience for Allen, with both Red Tape and Blueblood helping him to get his affairs in order, for which he was eternally grateful. As such, the majority of his time with the prince and bureaucrat passed without issue, though there had been a hiccup or two along the way.

Turning away from the kitchen sink, Allen walked back to the table, and setting his glass of water down, he scanned the table until he found what he was looking for. It was a colorful pamphlet with three ponies in armor lined up in profile on its front, the heading, in big bold letters proclaiming, Join your local guard today! Allen stared at it for several moments before reaching out and lifting it off the table; he’d already looked through it earlier, but for some reason, he felt compelled to do it again. Opening it up, he read through the information contained within again. It was all the standard info that could be found in a recruitment pamphlet, such as details about benefits, pay rates, how it would help you become a better person, how you could become a hero, etc. Allen shook his head as he set the pamphlet back down and thought about what he was going to do going forward.

The reason he had the pamphlet and was in this situation, was because Red Tape had asked him during their discussion if he possessed any weapons or armor in his home, which of course he did, - after all, what self-respecting farmer wouldn’t? –, though he was presently unable to get at: as his dad had hidden the gun safe’s key somewhere where he couldn’t find it. However, whether he could access the guns wasn’t the point, the point was that he had them in the first place, and as such, Allen had felt that honesty was the best policy, in this case, so he’d nodded his head.

The conversation that had followed had been… interesting.

~oOo~

Red Tape hummed thoughtfully to himself as he used his magic to sort through several papers that he had pulled from his seemingly bottomless briefcase. After a moment of this awkward silence, he gave a slight nod. “Very well.” Turning his attention back to the paper in front of him, he began to write. “I will need a list of all weapons in your possession, as well as any magical artifacts or armor, magical or otherwise, that you may also possess.”

Allen crossed his arms over his chest, an unhappy, almost combative, look on his face. “Why do you want to know that?” he asked flatly.

Red Tape glanced up from his papers for a moment before giving Blueblood a look that said would you take this, please? before then returning to his work.

Blueblood simply nodded, and turning to face Allen, he said, “I am not sure what your world’s laws are concerning the possession of armaments, Mr. Ross, but in Equestria, ownership of a weapon or magical artifact used for battle is generally restricted.”

“Restricted in what way?” asked Allen warily.

Blueblood sighed. “Broadly speaking, only those affiliated with the government such as police or military personnel are allowed ownership of weapons, though there are exceptions that are granted, such as settlers living in or near dangerous areas such as the Badlands to the south, or adventurers who travel to said areas, but those types of dispensations are uncommon, as few ponies have the need for a weapon in the first place.”

“So if you don’t let ponies own weapons generally, how do they defend themselves if they are attacked?” asked Allen.

Blueblood’s response was to light up his horn. “Well, unicorns can use their magic to help keep themselves safe, as there are many different types of defensive spells available for use by the general public that does not require a permit to use.” He let his magic fade from his horn as he continued speaking. “Pegasi are often able to fly away from danger, much like birds do, though there are some that will use their ability to fly as a means of attacking those that threaten them. In addition, pegasi can use the weather as a weapon in extreme circumstances. Finally, earth ponies can either run from danger thanks to their enhanced endurance or use their natural strength to pummel it into submission,” he finished with a shrug.

Allen meanwhile, sat chewing his lower lip as he digested this new information. Finally, he said softly, “But I don’t have any of those abilities. Is it really fair to place me at a disadvantage like this when I never asked to come here in the first place?”

Both Red Tape and Blueblood looked at each other for a moment, as if hoping the other would have an answer to Allen’s question. Finally, Red Tape sighed and replied, “No, Mr. Ross, it would not be fair to put you in that position. Even though – and of course I realize my own bias is showing a little here – Equestria is one of the safest places in the world in terms of things such as natural disasters, crime, and conflict, I do see your point. I take it that you come from a world that is less… friendly in nature?”

Allen laughed, and for some reason that neither pony could determine, a chill ran down their spines at the harsh sound of it. After a few moments, Allen’s laughter faded to mere chuckles, and as he wiped a stray tear from the corner of his eye, he replied, “That, Mr. Tape is the understatement of the century. If it wasn’t for the fact that humans breed like rabbits, our species would have probably died out by now. But I digress,” he finished, waving a hand as if to close the matter.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Red Tape fiddled with his glasses for a moment. “I… I see. In any case, Mr. Ross, seeing as how you do not seem to be willing to relinquish your weapons,” Allen’s amused snort gave him pause for a moment, “then we have two options available to us.”

“And those are?” asked Allen, as he leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table while steepling his fingers in front of his mouth, as if he were a corporate CEO waiting to hear a subordinate’s sales pitch for a pet project of theirs.

“Well, of course, the first solution would be to grant you a special dispensation, though that would require more paperwork, and a special hearing in front of one of the upper members of the nobility, and slash or the princesses. This usually depends on the size of the requesting group and their justification for wanting the weapons. In our case, His Grace’s presence should be sufficient in that regard, so we won’t need to travel to Canterlot and schedule a hearing.”

“Thank God for small favors then,” cut in Allen, a tinge of humor coloring his voice.

Clearing his throat, Red Tape resumed speaking, “Yes, well, the second option, and probably easiest, from our standpoint anyways,” he pointed a hoof at Blueblood and himself, “would be to have you join the local guard unit here in Ponyville. You would then be considered an employee of the Crown and as such, would be allowed to keep your weapons. This also has the added benefit of granting you a small stipend each month and gives you the opportunity to become better acquainted with your neighbors. There are also the educational opportunities – even if, considering the small size of Ponyville, they would not be as good as those found in larger cities, but still, I believe that this would be the best solution to our problem!” he finished, a happy smile on his face.

“Except it isn’t,” Allen shot back. When he saw Red Tape’s happy expression melt away to confused disappointment, he explained, “While on the surface joining the guard would seem like a good idea, and one where everybody wins, the way I see it, it’s only a win for you, not me.”

“I don’t understand,” said Red Tape, unhappy at the rejection.

Allen sighed. “Alright then, I guess I’ll just spell it out then. I do not want to be drafted into military service. It’s bad enough that I got pulled here to your country against my will, it’s another thing entirely for you to coerce me into joining your military!”

Red Tape opened his mouth to reply, but a raised hoof and look from Blueblood silenced him. Turning his attention to Allen, Blueblood asked softly, “Mr. Ross, in your world, did you have an equivalent of a local guard force?”

Allen shrugged. “Probably, if I assume we are talking about the same thing. My country had a National Guard that was split up by states rather than towns, and they would often times get sent overseas to fight, and I don’t want that.”

Blueblood nodded, understanding growing in his mind. “I think I see the problem, then.” Turning himself to fully face Allen, he said, “Mr. Ross, I feel as though there has been a miscommunication here, and for that I am sorry. Both Mr. Red Tape,” he glanced at the aforementioned stallion for a split second out of the corner of his eye, “and I only want to help you adjust to living in Equestria with as little trouble as possible. While it is certainly possible for us to grant you a special dispensation allowing you to keep and use your armaments as necessary for your defense without you having to join the local guard, it might cause tension between you and your neighbors should word get out. This is a relatively safe area, and ponies might wonder why you have weapons if you don’t intend to use them to help keep them safe by joining the guard force. Moreover, should word get back to Canterlot, it could also create trouble with some of the other nobles who are… less than friendly towards other species, shall we say.”

At hearing Blueblood’s reply, Allen sighed and rolled his eyes. “Of course magical rainbow and sunshine land has racists too, I mean, why the fuck not? Do they wear white robes and hoods that have a smiley face on their backs that say ‘Have a nice day’, and go around burning crosses, too?”

Blueblood grimaced, his ears pinning themselves flat against his scalp. “I… don’t know, to be honest, they have never contacted me. Most of what I know comes from rumors and the occasional guard or police report. Princess Celestia frowns upon that sort of activity, and so they tend to keep to the shadows. However, that is not important right now.”

“And what is?” shot back Allen, a hint of irritation coloring his voice.

“To make sure that you have good relations with your neighbors,” replied Blueblood flatly, his own patience also starting to run a little thin by this point.

Noticing Blueblood’s less than happy mood shift, Allen grimaced and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take my frustrations out on you, it’s just...” he trailed off.

Blueblood sighed. “I accept your apology, Mr. Ross, I can only imagine how you must be feeling right now. You’ve had a lot of things thrown at you in the past week, so much so that I think a lesser p-I mean being, would have probably broken down by now. We,” he pointed a hoof at Red Tape and himself, “want to help reduce the number of problems coming your way. That is why we wanted you to join up with the Ponyville Guard, as a way to justify your possession of weapons and to place you in a position where you can be seen in a positive light by the citizens of Ponyville.” Leaning forward, Blueblood gently placed a hoof on Allen’s shoulder. “I’m not sure how humans are in regards to new things, but it sometimes takes ponies a little bit to get comfortable with something that they are unfamiliar with, and until they do, they tend to act skittish around it, some even outright afraid; just ask Ponyville’s resident zebra about her first few months living here.”

“What, are you saying that ponies are going to run screaming for the hills at the first sight of me?” asked Allen tiredly.

Blueblood waved his hoof back and forth in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “It depends on the pony. Some will, others will be polite but distant, some will go out of their way to avoid you, along with a dozen different reactions from a dozen different ponies. However, they all have the same root and outcome: fear of the unknown, and unhappiness, respectively. We were hoping that if you joined the local guard it would be seen by the local populace as a sign that you want to be part of their community. That you want to help protect them and that you don’t want to just skulk around at the edges of their group like some nefarious entity.”

“So what you’re saying is that, if I join the local guard, the ponies of Ponyville will what, like me more or something?”

Blueblood nodded. “In a way, it’s more that they will get used to you and trust you more. Ponies like a person who is willing to lend a helping hoof, or hand, in this case. Moreover, the more they see you working with those that they know, trust and respect, the quicker they will subconsciously adopt you into their ‘herd’, so to speak.”

“Adopt me into the herd?”

Blueblood waved a hoof dismissively. “It’s a figure of speech. It means that they will come to see you as a friend, even if you’re not a pony, and that you are someone that they can trust to keep them safe, as well as someone for them to keep safe. In addition, it will give you the chance to make some more friends. Friendship is a very important concept here in Equestria, and having friends can help smooth tensions between you and others.”

Red Tape nodded, his happy smile back, and added his own two bits, “Yes, yes, and you won’t need to worry about being asked to ‘go overseas’ as you put it! Local guard units are only responsible for their immediate areas, though in extreme circumstances they may be drafted into the regulars, but if something like that happens, most citizens would also be drafted as well.”

“It still feels like you guys aren’t giving me much of a choice here,” said Allen as he rubbed the back of his neck tiredly.

The two ponies looked at each other for a moment, each holding the other’s gaze with his own until finally, they turned back to Allen. “Mr. Ross,” Blueblood said, “while we feel it would be best if you were to join the local guard… I feel that the circumstances surrounding your arrival would be sufficient to grant you a special dispensation at this time.”

“So I don’t have to join the guard if I don’t want to?” asked Allen hopefully.

Blueblood nodded his head with a sigh. “Yes, Mr. Ross, you will not be forced to join the guard, and I apologize if we came across as trying to force you to do so. That was not our intent. We just felt that it would be the best course of action and that it would give you the opportunity to be seen in a positive light by your new neighbors. Moreover, I figured that you would appreciate the benefits and pay attached to the position.Mr. Red Tape mentioned them, but I believe that on the second page,” he pointed at the enlistment papers, “is a more detailed list of all the responsibilities and benefits that you can expect from joining the guard.”

Allen flipped the page and glanced down the list. Fully covered health insurance, training, and equipment provided, a monthly stipend, and hazard duty pay? That’s...not bad, still, his eyes continued to scan down the list coming over to the responsibilities of the guard. As far as Allen could see, a guardsman, or guardspony in this case, seemed to just be a glorified first responder in that they were expected to help put out fires, rescue hurt or lost individuals, provide basic medical aid in emergencies and help keep the peace by supplementing the local police and military forces.

The benefits weren’t spectacular, but they seemed alright. Of course, he couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure on that fact, as he didn’t really know all that much about Equestria’s economy, but still, it was probably better than nothing.

Setting the pamphlet down again, Allen turned his attention back to the two ponies. “I think I’d rather not join up with the guard at the moment,” and when he saw Red Tape’s ears wilt in disappointment, he hastily added, “but that’s not to say I never want to join, just that I don’t want to right now.”

Blueblood gave a disappointed sigh but nodded in acquiescence to Allen’s wishes. “Very well, Mr. Ross, we will respect your wishes at the moment. However, I should point out that if word gets out about your situation, it could damage your reputation with your neighbors.”

“I’m aware of the risks,” he said flatly, though after a moment he allowed his gaze to fall slightly and his expression to soften. “I’ll think about it, and maybe after I get everything settled, I’ll do some research on the matter, maybe see if I can talk with someone who is a local member, and see what they do,” he finished with a shrug.

“Well, I suppose that is that, then,” replied Blueblood tiredly, turning to Red Tape. “I’ll let you take care of the paperwork. Just send whatever you need signing to me, and I’ll see that it’s taken care of.”

“Very well, Your Grace,” replied Red Tape softly. “Mr. Ross,” he said, turning to Allen, “I will still need to know what type of weapons, armor and magical artifacts you have for our records, as well as what they can do.”

Allen grimaced. “That might be a while, seeing as how they’re locked in a safe that I don’t have the key to at the moment.”

Red Tape gave an unhappy sigh of disappointment. “I see. Well, I suppose we’ll have to get a locksmith out here to have them open it, then.” Shuffling the papers in front of him, he continued, “In any case, I believe that we have plowed this particular field enough, so shall we move on?”

When neither Blueblood or Allen objected, Red Tape gave a nod and they continued.

~oOo~

Sighing at the memory, Allen set the pamphlet back down on the table and scrubbed his tired face with his hands for a moment before leaning back in his chair to stare at the ceiling. The overhead lights cast a warm glow that served to chase away the gathering darkness outside, and Allen felt grateful for the fact that he didn’t have to rely on his gas generator for power anymore. On the other hand, he did have a small moment of… concern earlier, when Lightning Catcher and her crew had finished hooking his house up to the grid.

For some reason, it had completely slipped his mind that Equestria’s power grid might be incompatible with his home electric grid, a possibility which, if true, would have meant that the moment he turned the power on, things would have either not worked right or blown up in his face. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, as, by happy coincidence, Equestria’s power grid parameters were identical to home’s. Allen had had a small ‘oh crap’ moment when Lightning had turned on the juice and flipped the hallway light switch on, as he had forgotten to ask what the ponies used as far as voltage and such for their electrical devices, but when nothing bad had happened he relaxed.

When he’d mentioned his concern to Lightning, she had given him a confident smile, and said, “You shouldn’t have worried, Mr. Ross, we’re professionals! We always check the compatibility of the location with the regular grid before we hook up to the main.”

Chuckling at the memory, Allen let his chair fall back to all fours as he stood up and took his glass back to the sink. Setting it aside, he began making his way to bed. By now the clock on the wall read half past ten, and he wanted to get an early start tomorrow, as he was expecting yet more company. This time it would be his new neighbors, the Apple family. Apparently his land was actually occupying their land currently, and unfortunately, Blueblood and Red Tape hadn’t had time today to get that sorted out, so as a consequence, they were returning tomorrow, bright and early, to iron out the details.

Turning the kitchen lights, off, Allen double-checked to make sure his front door was locked before he ascended the stairs. As he climbed, he thought about the other two ponies who were going to be showing up as well. The first was the mayor of the nearby town – ironically called Ponyville of all things, Allen shuddered in thought of the fact that pretty much everything in Equestria was a horse pun – and while the mayor was coming to represent the town, the other pony that was coming by represented an organization called the Department of Occupations, Talents, and Industries. Allen wasn’t sure what to expect from them, but from what he could see, Blueblood wasn’t exactly their biggest fan, which meant that Allen likely wouldn’t be their biggest fan either.

Only time would tell in the end.

Chapter 12 (Expecting Inspections)

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Chapter 12

Allen eased himself into bed after a long day with a tired sigh. Over the past several days he felt as though he’d been run ragged. Most of his exhaustion was mental in nature, dealing with what felt like mountains of paperwork could do that to a person. There was also the physical exhaustion of having to run around and do things. Things such as getting tested for unknown diseases, as well as getting vaccinated for diseases native to this world before they could cause him any harm.

Allen was just glad he hadn’t been anywhere near the hospital when the local medical establishment had been informed of his presence. From what he’d been able to glean from Red Tape, his conversation with the head nurse of the Ponyville General Hospital, a Nurse Redheart, hadn’t been pleasant. Red Tape had actually admitted to Allen that he’d been concerned that Redheart looked about ready to place the entire area under quarantine, at least till he’d admitted to having left Ponyville and traveling back to Canterlot with Blueblood the previous day. At that point, she’d just about blown her metaphorical stack and it was only the timely intervention of the head doctor, Dr. Stable that had managed to calm the irate nurse down.

Unfortunately, even with the calming influence of the doctor, Nurse Redheart had still been rather upset with being left out of the loop and the casual disregard for proper first contact medical procedures. That had translated into a rather uncomfortable and awkward first meeting for Allen with Equestrian medicine, his butt was still sore from all of the rather, energetic shots he’d been given. What was worse, he still had several more shots that he needed to go in for later on, but that was future Allen’s problem.

Luckily for everyone involved, Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart hadn’t found any diseases that could easily transfer over to ponies in the short space of time Allen had been in Equestria, and with culture samples from pretty much everything they could think to get from him, they were confident that any potentially dangerous diseases that had come through from Allen’s world would be swiftly countered before they could grow to plague sizes.

Though it wasn’t just samples from Allen that they’d taken. They’d done an extensive collection of samples from all corners of Allen’s farm as well, soil, water, manure, hay, and the list went on. It had taken them nearly a full day of tireless work to sample and catalog everything they could think of, and it would take them even longer to fully analyze the samples for potential problems. As such, until the farm had been given a clean bill of health, it had been placed under a semi-quarantine, meaning only a select few ponies could enter the premises. That also meant that Allen was not allowed to sell anything from the farm until told otherwise. Thankfully, he was told it wouldn’t take long, a few days, maybe a week at the most, as the hospital was currently in between crises at the moment, and thus the staff didn’t really have anything to do other than the occasional bout of sickness or injury.

As Allen finished making himself comfortable for the night, he felt his mind wander back to the day when the representative from the D.O.T.I. had arrived with the local mayor to begin negotiations. However, he’d noticed that the Apple’s hadn’t arrived with them and when he had inquired as to where they were, he was told that, ‘they had other pressing matters to attend to and would be unable to come. The D.O.T.I. rep, a young Earth Pony mare by the name of Checklist, had assured Allen that she had already met with them and taken care of their side of things and would be representing them in the coming meeting.

The mayor, an Earth pony mare named Ivory Scroll, didn’t really have many issues to discuss, she’d been there mainly to represent the town and its concerns, which as mentioned, had been few, thankfully. However, the same could not be said of the D.O.T.I. representative, as she had caused the most grief, at least for Blueblood that is, Allen had gotten off relatively lightly in that regard, though some of it had still splashed onto him.

The meeting had pretty much gone as follows, both the mayor and Checklist had arrived slightly before Blueblood and Red Tape, and had introduced themselves, after several minutes of small talk, the aforementioned stallions arrived. Allen had invited everyone into the dining room and they had all taken seats around the table, Allen at the head of the table while the two mares sat to his left, and the stallions to his right. Mayor Ivory Scroll, though she said that most ponies around here called her Mayor Mare, which Allen found odd, but decided not to question it, had started off the meeting by asking a couple of questions.

These were questions that had for the most part been addressed by both Red Tape and Blueblood when they had initially met with Allen, such as what he was planning to do with the farm, what his legal status would be, and so on. However, once those questions were out of the way, the harder ones started coming from Ms. Checklist.

Most of these difficult question were directed at Blueblood. “Tell me, Your Grace,” began Checklist, an inquiring look on her face, “who is going to pay for the various damages done to my client’s, the Apples?” She turned her fuchsia-colored eyes to Allen as if silently measuring his bank account and finding it wanting. “I highly doubt, Mr. Ross is capable of paying for these damages.”

“It was my impression that the D.O.T.I. had an insurance pool for things such as this,” replied Blueblood frostily.

Checklist smiled, it wasn’t a happy smile but was more like the smug smile of a predator who had successfully baited their prey into a trap and were merely savoring the moment before they moved in for the kill.

“We do, however, in this case, our lawyers feel that the government should pay the damages, seeing as this disaster was due primarily to the royal governments... mismanagement of Discord’s holding facilities. Thus, we feel as though the cost should be paid by the royal treasury instead of the D.O.T.I.”

Blueblood’s face scrunched up as if he’d bit into a particularly sour lemon. “I do not believe that we should be discussing this topic right now unless you intend for, Mr. Ross to pay a share of the damages as well.”

Checklist merely laughed, though there seemed to be little genuine amusement in her laugh. “Don’t be absurd, Your Grace, there is no way on Epona’s green Equus that the D.O.T.I. would ever expect someone who is in the situation that, Mr. Ross is in to actually pay for anything. Especially when they themselves are as much the victim as the injured party. However, if you don’t want to negotiate here, then I suppose we can put that off for a later date,” she said, before then reaching into her bag and extracting a manila folder about an inch thick. “Until then, I’ll just leave you with our preliminary damage estimate.”

Taking the thick folder in his magical grasp, Blueblood gingerly floated the papers over to Red Tape as if it were a disgusting piece of trash that he wanted to keep as far away from his pristine, white coat as possible. Red Tape for his part accepted the folder without complaint and transferred it to his saddlebags for later perusal.

Checklist meanwhile had turned her attention from Blueblood and Red Tape to Allen, and her demeanor changed from that of the preverbal cat who ate the canary, to a more motherly expression, whether it was genuine or not, Allen couldn’t really tell.

“So tell me, Mr. Ross,” began Checklist, her tone of voice having changed to reflect her outward expression of a mother like figure hoping to provide comfort, “what has His Grace told you about the D.O.T.I.?”

“Not much,” replied Allen, somewhat hesitantly.

Checklist gave a mirth-filled chuckle. “I’m not surprised, to be honest, the nobility and us haven’t really gotten along since our founding over five hundred years ago. Probably has something to do with the fact that we helped curtail their economic power over their fellow ponies, and won’t let them exploit the working class like they used to.”

Blueblood replied with an irritated huff. “Or it might have something to do with the fact that your organization has nearly caused ruin upon the economy several times over the past five hundred years, what with your attempts at central planning nonsense.”

Checklist waved away Blueblood’s words as if they were smoke from a bothersome fire. “And those programs would have worked if you nobles hadn’t sabotaged our efforts!” she replied with a scowl on her face.

“If we hadn’t intervened, thousands would have died from starvation and our economy would have collapsed under the weight of an inefficient system of bureaucratic meddlers, no offense, Red Tape,” he said quickly to the bureaucrat next to him.

“None taken,” replied the bureaucrat.

Checklist rolled her eyes. “Well, we’ll never know will we, seeing as how your ancestors stopped Director Steel Plow and the others from going through with his vision,” replied Checklist frostily.

“And thank Epona for that, of course, that didn’t stop you ponies from trying to ruin my family financially twenty years ago, now did it?”

Checklist sighed, and placed a hoof against her temple in an attempt to stop a headache from forming, she was partially successful. “For the last time Your Grace, what happened back then was not some sort of revenge plot against your family, but an honest mistake, that need I remind you, was not only rectified, but that the Director apologized for.”

Blueblood huffed and leaned back in his chair, an unconvinced look on his face as he folded his forelegs across his barrel. Allen for his part just sat there, quietly hoping that he wouldn’t be noticed as the tension in the room ratcheted ever higher.

Finally, when it felt like the silence couldn’t get any more oppressive, Mayor Mare decided to step in. “Yes well, as fun as it is listening to the nobility and working class go back and forth, as usual, I think our energy would be better spent helping, Mr. Ross adjust to his new situation, wouldn’t you both agree?”

For their parts, both Checklist and Blueblood suddenly seemed very interested in Allen’s dining room table, if their blushes and embarrassed expressions were anything to go by.

Clearing his throat, in an effort to save some face, Blueblood replied, “Yes... that would probably be for the best,” turning his attention from the table top to Allen, he continued, “In any case, you shouldn’t have to worry about the details regarding the compensation of the Apple’s for damages to their land, Mr. Ross, isn’t that right, Ms. Checklist?”

Checklist gave a vigorous nod of her head in reply. “Of course, I was hoping to simply have Blueblood over there sign off on the damage values, but since he’s going to try and weasel out of paying,” she shot him an annoyed look, before turning back to Allen with a kind smile, “we’ll just have to take care of that at later date, so you needn’t worry about that.”

Allen simply nodded. “I see, and so long as I won’t need to worry about paying anything in regards to that, I guess that’s that?”

Checklist’s ears folded back against her scalp, and her smile became a bit more strained. “Well, I wish that was it, but there are a few more things that we’re going to need to do before the D.O.T.I. can fully sign off on your farm, Mr. Ross.”

Allen had a sudden sinking feeling form in the pit of his stomach.

And here comes the other shoe.

“Such as?” he asked with a tired sigh.

Checklist once again reached into her bag and withdrew a small stack of paperwork, and sheepishly pushed it towards Allen.

“Well, for starters we’ll need to get your farm registered with the Ministry of Agriculture, which shouldn’t take very long with our help. After that, we’ll need to inspect the buildings, land, animals and your equipment. This part is mostly to make sure that both safety and health standards are met.”

“Of course, and how long will that take?” asked Allen.

“Well, it really just depends,” replied Checklist.

“Depends on what, exactly?”

Checklist twirled a hoof, which to Allen was something amazing to see an equine do, and replied, “How many buildings you have, acreage, the state of your equipment, and most importantly, what you intend to do with your farm.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” queried Allen.

She gave a slight shrug. “As I said, it depends. If you intend to supply domestic markets, then you’ll have to adhere to strict quality standards, whereas if you decide to supply the export market, you’ll have a little more wiggle room as it were.”

“I would think that the export market would just as strict on standards as the domestic one,” replied Allen, a confused look on his face.

Checklist shrugged again. “You would think, and we have tried in the past to get that changed, but certain ponies keep blocking us,” she shot Blueblood a dirty look. Who for his part returned her look with an air of unconcerned disinterest.

Turning to regard Allen, he clarified, “The export standards are set by the receiving country at the time of trade negotiation, it is not our fault if that country’s safety standards are not to the same level as that of Equestria. Furthermore, I might add that while we don’t use our countries high, and some might say, burdensome standards, we do make sure that our exports meet a minimum level of acceptable safety. If for no other reason than to protect our reputation. Besides, Checklist, you are making a mountain out of a molehill, most exporters use Equestrian standards for their goods anyways, as to do anything else would prevent them from selling on the domestic market.”

“Ah yes, most of them do, so you say, but what of the ones that don’t, Your Grace,” she replied, her words dripping with venom as she all but spat out Blueblood’s title.

Blueblood for his part simply rolled his eyes. “They are of course dealt with according to the law if they have broken it. However, I have yet to hear of a major incident regarding our exports in terms of safety. I would think that anypony worth their cutie mark would do their best to make sure that their reputation would remain untarnished. Therefore, it is a moot point at this time, as Mr. Ross is currently unable to sell anything until his farm is given a clean bill of health by the local authorities.”

“Which should hopefully be done within a week or two, or so I am told,” interjected Red Tape.

Checklist gave a curt smile to Red Tape and replied, “Thank you, Mr. Tape, I assume, that you’ll forward us the reports when they are finished?”

Red Tape gave a shallow nod in reply, “Of course, I’ll have them sent over as soon as we receive them.”

“Thank you,” replied Checklist with a curt nod of her head, turning her attention back to Allen she asked, “Was there anything else that you wished to discuss at this time, Mr. Ross?”

Allen shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so, unless you have more paperwork for me to sign or something else that needs to be brought to my attention, I can’t think of anything at this time, other than the obvious matter of my limited funds, but between the funds from the government, and loans from a bank, I’ll probably get by.”

“Mr. Ross, I would just like to mention that the D.O.T.I. does have financial assistance programs available for those who are financially stressed. I’m sure that the government’s assistance will help somewhat, but I doubt it would be enough to help you secure a strong future by itself.”

Allen nodded. “Probably,” nodding his head towards Blueblood and Red Tape he continued, “Both His Grace, and Mr. Tape have already gone over some of that with me the other day, though we have yet to finalize any amount yet. Besides,” he gave a humorless smirk, “it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to make do with a shoestring budget before, I’m sure I’ll manage just fine.”

Checklist fought the urge to let her ears fold back against her scalp. Instead, she pricked them forward and said, “Mr. Ross, while I am sure that, His Grace and Mr. Tape have in fact told you that you are owed compensation by the government, as I mentioned before, I doubt it would be enough to allow you to get a strong start. I’ve got some literature here on several programs that we offer, along with low-interest loan options,” she said as she again reached into her bags and slid several pamphlets towards Allen from across the table.

Taking the pamphlets in hand, Allen glanced through them and said, “Thank you, I’ll take a look at them later, and think about it.”

“Of course,” replied Checklist, a happy smile forming on her face. “Well, if you have no more questions or concerns at this time, let’s go ahead and get started on this paperwork, and then we can begin the preliminary inspection, sound good?”

“I guess,” replied Allen, and with that, the group got to work.

The paperwork, while tedious, wasn’t painful, of course when you have four individuals whose job it was to deal with paperwork on a regular basis, you tend to have a lot of support that cuts down on the uncertainties. That being said, it still took nearly four hours to sort through and sign everything that the D.O.T.I. would need for their purposes, and Red Tape had not been idle either, he’d brought fresh paperwork for Allen to look through and sign as well.

Most of it had been simple things that pertained to his finances before he was brought to Equestria. Luckily, with the power now restored to his home, he had been able to fire up his father's office computer and sift through whatever financial information had been on it, which was a lot more than Allen thought. The ponies for their part had been amazed by his dad’s computer, Red Tape, in particular, had been practically gushing over the Microsoft Office programs, and it had taken a concerted effort to get him back to the dining room once they had gotten the needed information from the computer.

The rest of Red Tape’s paperwork involved Allen’s citizenship status. Due to his sudden, and unconventional arrival. Allen was being fast-tracked through the application process, and as a consequence, he’d inadvertently ruffled some feathers.

Obviously, someone was going to take exception to being delayed in getting their citizenship, but due to circumstances, it really couldn’t be helped, and this was the lesser of two evils in regards to public relations. Both the princesses and Blueblood were keenly aware of how the papers were covering this story and they didn’t want public opinion to go against them.

Therefore, they had been determined to sort this mess out as quickly as possible, with as little fuss as possible. Currently, Allen’s property had been quietly ‘seized’ by the crown and was being held temporarily by the government, in which they were the ‘official’ owners of the land as far as the law was concerned, and that Allen was just a ‘resident caretaker’ for the time being. However, as soon as the necessary paperwork had been completed, it would be officially, though quietly, returned to him. Allen for his part was unaware of this particular development, as nopony had thought it would be necessary to tell him, seeing as how it would all be sorted out in a timely manner, or so they hoped. In the meantime, everyone just tried to push through the legal briar patch they had inadvertently stumbled into, without breaking too much in the process.

“And done,” said Red Tape, as Allen signed the last page of his citizenship related papers.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Allen set the pen down and stretched. “Finally, I thought this would never end,” he complained.

Red Tape and the others chuckled. “Oh trust me, this isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Seeing as you are from a country that we don’t have any diplomatic relations with, it could have been a lot worse, luckily for you, Princess Celestia felt that you had suffered enough, and so we just went with the standard citizenship packet instead.”

“How generous of you guys,” replied Allen sarcastically, before turning to regard Blueblood and Checklist and asking, “So now what?”

Both Blueblood and Checklist looked at each other and after a moment replied, “I believe that should be everything, save for the inspection, which we can do now if you want,” said Checklist, while Blueblood simply nodded in agreement.

“As she said, that should be all that is left to do at the present time.”

Sighing, Allen replied, “Yeah, might as get it over with, where would you like to start?”

“Well, I suppose the nearest barn would be fine,” she replied, pulling out a clipboard and pencil.

“Alright then, if you’ll follow me, we can get started.”

Giving a nod, Checklist and the other three ponies, followed him outside. Walking across the farmyard, Allen suddenly felt self-conscious over the condition of his farm. Every building was in some state of disrepair, paint flaking off of wood, rust on metal, weeds growing in the old flower beds, grass poking up through the sidewalks and cracked concrete pads, rusting machinery sitting around unused. Not too mention his dad’s ‘resource pile’ a massive collection of various junk that his dad had thrown thereto, as he claimed, ‘store for later use,’ when in reality it was just going to sit there and rust and or rot away. All in all, Allen’s farm was in poor shape.

Walking into the main barn, an old wooden gambrel style barn, Allen flipped on the light switch, which bathed the inside of the barn with a warm glow. Checklist immediately began her inspection, poking around and looking over various things, occasionally she would ask Allen a question, but for the most part, she was content to silently judge the dilapidated surroundings.

After several minutes, she turned to Allen and asked, “I see that you have some animals here, Mr. Ross,” she pointed to several cows in a nearby stall, calmly chewing their cud, their tails lazily swinging back and forth.

“Yes, I do,” replied Allen, unsure of what she was going to say next.

“Tell me, are these animals from your world?”

“They are,” he replied simply.

“Are they sapient?” she inquired.

Allen blinked, his brows suddenly knitting together in confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“It’s a simple yes or no question, Mr. Ross,” replied Checklist with a huff, “they are either sapient or they are not, now please answer the question.”

“Uh, not that I’m aware of if you’re asking if they can talk, then no, none of my animals can.”

Checklist’s face relaxed, and she smiled. “Good, I’m sorry if I caused any confusion, but there are many species that are sapient here in Equestria, and we don’t want to see anyone held against their will. Not only that, but I assume you keep some of these animals for food purposes?”

“Well, I like a good steak as much as the next guy, yeah.”

“I see, well, in that case, you’ll need to be aware that bovines are sapient here in Equestria, though there are other breeds outside our country that are not. Therefore it is very important to us to make sure no sapient bovine ends up as someone's dinner by mistake. I trust that you understand what I am getting at?” she replied, a less than warm smile adorning her face.

Allen gulped. “Yep, I fully understand, no eating things that talk back.”

The cold smile quickly disappeared and was replaced with a warm one. “Super! Let’s keep going, shall we?”

“Y-yeah, after you,” said Allen, motioning to the stairs leading down into the old milking parlor.

As Checklist descended the stairs, Allen whirled on Blueblood and angrily whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me that you guys have cows that can fucking talk?!”

Blueblood felt his ears pin back and a nervous smile overtake his muzzle. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Ross, but in all the excitement, I’m afraid it didn’t come up. I apologize for how Ms. Checklist reacted to you there. I had thought she was informed of your animal's sapience, or I should say, their lack of it. I can assure you that this won’t happen again.”

“Good, see that it doesn’t, I don’t like being accused of slavery or that I eat people in my spare time.” And with that, he stomped off after Checklist.

Blueblood for his part turned to Red Tape and asked, “I thought you said that you included the Guard’s sapience report with Ms. Checklist?”

“I did!” countered Red Tape. “I made sure that it was one of the first things that they saw!”

Blueblood’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he watched Checklist’s backside disappear into the lower floors of the barn. Either she didn’t see the report, or she did and wants to make sure that Allen knows we don’t tolerate that kind of behavior. Either way, it made me look like an idiot in front of Allen. Which is probably what she wanted in the first place, the irritating nag. Thought Blueblood bitterly. Shaking his head, he dispelled those thoughts from the forefront of his mind and hurried off after Checklist and Allen, while Red Tape and Mayor Mare brought up the rear.

Down below, Allen watched as Checklist picked her way through the cramped and dingy milking parlor. The parlor hadn’t been used in several years, as his family hadn’t been able to compete with the bigger dairy operations in the area, and so had been forced to sell off their cows when feed prices got too high. Though for whatever reason, his dad had kept the equipment. Of course, that equipment was now covered in dust and cobwebs, and Allen wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the non-stainless steel pieces had started to rust.

Guess that’s why Checklist is here, don’t want to take the risk of selling contaminated milk, though, seeing as I don’t have any cows, it’s a bit of a moot point.

“And what was down here?” asked Checklist, as she continued her inspection, occasionally stopping and jotting something down on her clipboard.

“Milking parlor,” he pointed to a large door at the back of the room, “cows would come in there, and we would tie them up in these stalls here and use a milking machine to collect their milk every day. The milk would end up in a giant metal tank in the next room over for collection. Course I don’t have any milk cows anymore, the family had to sell them, seeing as how we couldn’t compete with the bigger dairy farms in our area at the time.”

“And how do you keep it all clean?” she asked.

Allen shrugged. “How else, hot water, soap, disinfectants, and a good scrubbing. Our machine has ports at several points that allowed us to inject high-pressure water and cleaning solutions through the various parts. It worked pretty well too, as we never failed an inspection nor did we ever receive a complaint about contaminated milk.”

“Hmm, I see, well judging by the current state of your ‘milking parlor’ you won’t be selling any milk or milk products anytime soon.” Tearing a piece of paper from her clipboard, she handed it to Allen and said, “This part of your farm doesn’t pass inspection I’m afraid. This room is too small and constricted, not to mention that it’s dirty down here, and there isn’t enough ventilation or proper escape routes in case of an emergency. So I’m afraid until you modernize your milking operations, you will not be allowed to partner with any dairy co-ops, sorry.”

“Dairy co-ops?”

Checklist nodded. “Yes, it’s how most cows in Equestria make their money. They will sign up with a co-op, usually, the one their mothers were part of, and sell their milk to various companies and farms in Equestria. The co-op negotiates the terms and conditions of the milking contract, and how much the co-op will receive in compensation. Then they will distribute the money to each member within the group, this gives the cows a stronger collective bargaining influence when compared to a single cow on her own trying to negotiate a contract.”

“What about the bulls? What do they do?” asked Allen, now genuinely curious.

Checklist shrugged. “They’re also part of the co-op and are usually contracted out for hauling and other agricultural work. While cows aren’t as strong as an earth pony pound for pound, they come pretty close, so they often do a lot of the same jobs as a traditional earth pony would do. They make up about fifteen to twenty percent of the agricultural labor force, so they have a pretty strong presence.”

“And how do they determine who gets paid what in the co-op?”

“It depends, some have a more egalitarian model where everyone gets an equal share, while others are based on how much each individual member brought in, meaning the more you made, the more you keep. The co-op obviously takes a cut of the pay, but they use it for various services, such as schooling, healthcare, and pensions for older members.”

“I see, so if I want to milk cows again, I’d have to deal with one of these co-ops?”

Checklist shook her head, “Not necessarily. While most cows elect to join a co-op, there are those that don’t want to deal with the politics of being in one, so they elect to go solo. Of course, these cows tend to have a lower standard of living as they don’t have the same protections as those in a co-op. The D.O.T.I. has been working over the years to put stronger protections in place for these individuals, but...”

“Special interests get in the way,” replied Allen with a knowing look.

Checklist soberly nodded. “Yes, ‘special interests’ get in the way.”

A contemplative silence fell upon the two as each stood there with their own inner thoughts. This silence, however, was broken by the clunking of hooves on wood as the other three members of their party carefully made their way down the narrow stairs. Giving herself a shake, Checklist turned back to Allen and said, “Well, as I mentioned before, your milking parlor did not meet minimum standards, and as such until you fix the issues that are outlined on that sheet I gave you, you will not be allowed to partner with any dairy co-op or individual cows.”

Allen glanced down at the sheet in his hand, giving it a cursory look. Well, judging by the list of ‘recommended’ fixes, I won’t be having any milk cows anytime soon. I mean seriously, she wants me to put a freaking door that leads outside at each milking station? I’d have to knock the entire north wall down to accommodate just this requirement. Scratch that, I’d have to build a new barn as there’s no way I can fit a milking parlor that conforms to the minimum floor space they require in this barn. Sigh, and here I was hoping for some easy money.

Stuffing the paper in his back pocket, Allen turned his attention back to Checklist and asked, “Anything else that you wanted to look at while we’re here?”

Checklist flipped through her clipboard and after a few seconds asked, “Where do you keep your hay and grain products?”

Allen motioned to the stairs they had just come down. “I keep hay in numerous locations around the farm. The hay for my animals is kept in this barn, any hay we intend to sell is kept in another barn. We have a couple of silos for grain, but we haven’t used them in a few years, so I don’t think they’d pass your inspection.”

Checklist hummed to herself. “Well, I’ll still need to inspect them, whether they’ll pass inspection or not, would you lead the way please?”

“Sure, this way,” replied Allen, as he headed back upstairs, Checklist hot on his heels, while Blueblood and the rest groaned to themselves as they turned around and headed back the way they had just come.

The rest of the day had gone about as well as Allen had expected. Checklist had pretty much failed every aspect of his farm in regards to his ability to sell on the Equestrian market. She’d found that his main hayloft had been full of old dusty hay, some of it moldy and that various animals had left droppings behind. Not too mention that his roof had a few leaks in it and that several sections of hay had been ruined by moisture leaking through the roof.

That had just been the main barn. The silos had also failed inspection, leftover moldy grain, rat and bird droppings everywhere, not to mention that there were leaks in the roof of the silos as well. Needless to say, Checklist had not been impressed. The only bright spot in the whole affair had been that the secondary hay storage barns, being newer pole type barns with concrete foundations, had passed muster, if barely. Though Checklist strongly recommended that Allen make some improvements to them before the next hay season to ensure that there wouldn’t be any future issues.

Allen had promised that he would see what he could do.

The final stop on their tour had been Allen’s equipment sheds. These were the buildings that stored what was left of his family’s farm equipment. It wasn’t much. Years of financial troubles made it hard to keep equipment running, and in some cases, they’d had to sell some of their better equipment to help make ends meet, so most of what was left were the tired, worn out machines that weren’t worth selling save for scrap.

As he opened the door and flipped on the light inside, he heard a gasp behind him. Turning, he saw Checklist staring opened mouthed at the various farm implements scattered throughout the shed. Carefully trotting through the maze of equipment and junk, she came to a stop next to an old looking machine that said ‘Super M’ on the side in faded white letters, and gazing up at it asked, “What is this?”

“Just an old tractor, we use these instead of horses or oxen to pull our farm equipment these days,” replied Allen, an almost bored expression on his face.

“How does it work?” asked Checklist.

Allen shrugged. “It runs using a liquid fuel called gasoline. The gas, goes into the engine,” he pointed to a big block of metal at the front of the machine, with wires and tubes coming out of it, “and using air and a spark, it creates small explosions inside the engine, which force pistons inside to turn a crankshaft, that then creates mechanical power to the gearbox which in turn allows the tractor to move. More or less.”

“Can you show us?” she asked.

Allen shook his head. “Naw, that tractor hasn’t run in a couple of years, and I’d rather not waste fuel getting the other one to start just to show you that it can. I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word for it. Unless you need to see it run as part of the inspection.”

Checklist’s ears fell in disappointment. “Ah, no, not really. I was just very curious is all. My father was a tinkerer when I was a little filly, and I guess a little of his love of things mechanical rubbed off on me over the years.”

“Well, if you want, when I’m ready to do first cutting, I’ll let you know and you can come out and see the whole process from start to finish. How’s that sound?”

Checklist’s face lit up with a huge smile. “That would be wonderful, thank you!”

Allen gave a sheepish smile in return. “Though I do have to ask, are there any rules regarding the use of mechanical power to harvest food for you guys?”

“There are, but so long as the minimum standards of contamination are met, there shouldn’t be any issues. Ponies have been using muscle, and steam-powered machines for years, and oil and grease does tend to get into and onto the food from time to time. So long as you don’t try to sell anypony any oil/grease-soaked food products, there shouldn’t be any issues.”

Allen let out a sigh of relief. Thank god, I was afraid she’d tell me that I couldn’t use my equipment because it was too dirty or something.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” replied Allen aloud. “Was there anything else that you needed to look at today?”

Checklist took a look around the large shed and replied, “Well, not at the present. I do want to come back later and see how your equipment works. As well as make sure it is in line with safety and health codes, but as of right now, I think we’re pretty much done. You need anything else from him, Your Grace?”

Blueblood shook his head. “No, I believe that we have everything that we need from Mr. Ross at the present,” he paused and looked to Mayor Mare, “anything else you can think of madam mayor?”

Mayor Mare brought a hoof to her chin and tapped it thoughtfully a few times before hesitantly replying, “I can’t think of anything that I need from him. Both you and Ms. Checklist seem to have gotten all the legal stuff squared away.”

Blueblood nodded. “Very well then, was there anything else that you wanted to ask us while we are here, Mr. Ross?”

Allen feeling tired and overwhelmed shook his head. “I’m sure there’s something I’m forgetting, but I can’t think of anything right now.”

The ponies all nodded in agreement. “I understand that this is overwhelming, Mr. Ross, just remember that if you need anything from us, we have a small branch office that recently opened here in Ponyville. You can use them to get in contact with me at any time. I’ll be sure to leave them my contact information when I head back to Manehattan today,” said Checklist helpfully.

Blueblood, not wanting to be outdone, quickly replied, “And if you need anything from either myself or the crown, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Here,” he floated over a small card to Allen who gingerly took it in hand, “is my card, just send me a letter if you need anything at all, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Allen as he carefully stuck the card in his pocket.

“And don’t feel shy if there is something that I can do for you,” chimed in Mayor Mare, a wide smile on her face, “after all, as the Mayor of Ponyville, it is my duty to see to the needs of all our local residents, no matter how big or small those needs are.”

Yep, I bet it is, and that this isn’t your attempt to butter me up before the next election in any way. Thought Allen skeptically to himself.

“And what about you?” he asked Red Tape.

Red Tape gave a small smile and a shallow bow of his head. “If you require anything from Her Highness’s Bureaucracy, then I shall do my best to aid you. However, it would probably be best if you went through either His Grace, the D.O.T.I. or your local government first. We, bureaucrats, are difficult to get a hold of at the best of times.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured, bureaucracy seems to stay the same no matter which world you happen to find it in, big and always expanding,” replied Allen humorously.

Everyone laughed at Allen’s witty reply. However, after a moment the laughter died off, but their smiles remained.

“Ha, so very true,” remarked Red Tape, as he wiped a tear from his eyes, “however, as I said before, your best bet is going to them for help before coming to me. In any case, the hour grows late and the prince and I have to get back to the capital.”

“And I need to get back to Manehattan,” remarked Checklist, “I’ll send you a full list of recommendations in the next few days on what you can do right now to get your hoo-er, feet under you. Additionally, it’ll also have a complete and detailed list of everything that needs to be fixed, and what we recommend that you do to fix them. If you have any questions, our office here in Ponyville should be more than willing to help you.”

“I...appreciate that, Ms. Checklist. I won’t say that I’m happy with the knowledge that my farm isn’t up to snuff, but I can’t say I’m surprised. But I suppose that’s life.”

Checklist quietly nodded. “I understand that no one wants to hear that their business isn’t the best. But they would probably like it even less if they found out that their products made others sick because their business wasn’t up to code either.”

Allen shook his head. “No, probably not.”

“Well, until next time, Mr. Ross, have a good night,” said Checklist as she turned to leave.

“Indeed, have a pleasant evening, and remember if you need anything, I’m only a letter away,” said Blueblood as he and Red Tape also bade their farewell, leaving just Allen and Mayor Mare behind.

As Allen watched the three ponies trot off into the waning evening sunlight. He couldn’t help but feel as though he was being used. Especially considering the open hostility between Checklist and Blueblood throughout the day. Even now, as they left, both of them were trotting as far apart from each other as they could manage without making it super obvious and making a point of keeping Red Tape between them as a buffer. Turning to regard the mayor, he asked, “So, think they’re far enough away now that they can’t overhear us yet?”

The mayor gave him a quizzical look. “And why would you want to know that?”

“Because I wasn’t born yesterday, and I can tell when someone is buttering me up,” replied Allen flatly.

Mayor Mare’s ears fell flat, and she shifted back and forth on her hooves slightly. “Well...” she began, uneasily, “I won’t lie and say that I know all the details, but...” she paused, and gave a quick look around as if worried someone would overhear them. After a second or two to reassure herself, it was safe, she continued, “The D.O.T.I. and the nobles have never gotten along.”

“I kind of figured as much, seeing as how Checklist and Prince Blueblood got along about as well as cats and dogs do.”

She gave a humorless chuckle. “Yes, it is rather obvious isn’t it,” she sighed, “needless to say, you are probably right that they are trying to win you over to their side, one way or the other.”

Allen felt a chill wind blow past, and he shivered for a moment. Motioning for the mayor to follow him, he started back for his house. The sun had since set, and the first few stars were twinkling into life in the night sky above.

As they walked, Allen said, “But I thought Checklist said that they had curtailed the nobility’s economic influence?”

“Curtailed yes, eliminated, no,” replied the mayor, “ever since the D.O.T.I. was founded as a way to help the common-born ponies improve their lives, and have a common, united voice against the excesses of the nobility, they and the nobles have been fighting each other for control of Equestria’s economy. Right now, they share it equally, and the system more or less works. But as you told Red Tape, bureaucracy likes to grow, and the D.O.T.I.-”

“-is like any other bureaucracy. It too wants to grow,” cut in Allen.

“Precisely,” replied Mayor Mare with a sharp nod of agreement.

“So where do I fit in?” asked Allen confused.

Mayor Mare shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m just a small town mayor, but if I had to guess, I’d say Blueblood is trying to maneuver his way into your good graces in case more of your kind shows up. I mean, only a blind fool could see that if you could be brought here along with your farm, who or what else could as well? I believe he thinks that if he can keep you happy, you’ll be willing to tell any newcomers that the crown, and by extension Blueblood, and by extension the nobility are good for them too.”

“And that they should throw their lot in with the status quo as it were,” replied Allen.

“At the minimum, yes, that and make them more money through investments,” said Mayor Mare with a nod, “at best, it’ll give them more influence and power than the D.O.T.I. and allow the nobles to roll back some of their changes. Same goes for the other party I would imagine. You represent an unknown potential in the world of high stakes politics, and while I can’t speak for every noble out there, I know for sure that Blueblood would do anything to keep his aunt’s on the throne.”

“Why, are they in danger of being ousted?”

“Oh, good heavens no!” replied Mayor Mare with a hearty chuckle. “I highly doubt that any sane pony would want the two guiding lights of our nation thrown out of office. I mean, Princess Celestia has been ruling for over a thousand years, and has been responsible for raising the sun, and until recently, the moon.”

Allen felt an eyebrow reaching for the heavens.

“It might sound strange to you, but it is the truth, both Princess Celestia, and her recently returned sister, Princess Luna, have control over the heavenly bodies and are considered immortal and ageless. Without them, Equestria, and the rest of the world would be forever locked in perpetual day or night, along with all the consequences that go along with that.”

Allen held up his hands in defeat. “Okay, I ain’t gonna argue about who does what around here, for all I know, you’re right, but that’s beside the point. What should I do?”

Mayor Mare shrugged. “Do what you think is best. I highly doubt you’ll be able to single hoofedly swing the balance of power one way or the other. Right now, the D.O.T.I. have a large membership and have gained a lot of good favor with the common folk. The nobility on the other hoof really hasn’t done much, until recently, to fix their image so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, there are good nobles, and for all his... eccentricities, Blueblood is a good duke. He takes care of those under him, and doesn’t do anything outrageous... usually, and there are other nobles out there that are good ponies at heart, just as there are those who aren’t. The same could be said of Ms. Checklist’s organization. I guess, what I’m trying to say is that not everything is black and white like we would like it to be. Blueblood has worked very hard over the past few years to rebuild his family’s shattered financial fortunes, and he might see you as an opportunity to help him reclaim lost glory. Checklist might just see you as an individual who just needs someone to help them navigate through the complexities of a new world. Or they could each have ulterior motives that neither of us can see.”

“And what about you?”

Mayor Mare turned to look up at the night sky and didn’t respond immediately. Finally, she said, “I’m just trying to keep my town from burning down what seems like every week now. So long as you follow the law and pay your taxes on time and don’t cause trouble for people, I don’t really care what you do, Mr. Ross,” turning back to regard Allen with a small smile she said, “I just want everypony to get along, that and re-elect me come fall!” she finished with a laugh.

Allen gave a snort of amusement. “Heh, and there’s the hidden motive.”

“What can I say, I’m a politician, campaigning and schmoozing the voters is what I do!” replied Mayor Mare with a sly grin.

“I guess that’s fair,” said Allen, with a simple grin. Though after a moment, his grin faded. “That still doesn’t leave me with a lot of options though. I don’t like being someone’s pawn in a game that I can’t even see.”

Mayor Mare’s grin softened and she placed a comforting hoof on Allen’s leg. “I didn’t mean to make you think that you’re some sort of helpless pawn in a game of power. For all I know, both His Grace and Checklist are being sincere in their efforts to help you, and there isn’t any hidden motive behind their actions. Don’t feel that you have to pick a side because you think one group will turn on you if you do. If they offer you help, take them up on it, if that help comes with strings attached, then figure out how to keep from getting caught in them or avoid them entirely. Remember, at the end of the day, you should be playing for your welfare, not somepony else's.”

Allen gave a thankful nod. “Thanks, anyone tell you that you give good speeches?”

Mayor Mare’s sly grin came back in full force. “Only every other day,” taking her hoof from his leg, she turned to leave and shooting him a sympathetic smile said, “if you feel you need somepony to talk to, my door is always open. Unless the towns on fire or a monster is attacking, then it might not as open as normal.”

Allen gave a chuckle in response. “Understood, thanks, I’ll keep the offer in mind. Have a goodnight mayor.”

She gave him a cheery wave good-bye. “The same to you, Mr. Ross,” and with that she turned and trotted off, leaving Allen alone.

He watched her go for a moment before turning and going inside. Shutting the door behind him, he turned the lock and proceeded to get ready for bed. Twenty minutes later, with all the lights turned off, doors locked and nightly rituals concluded, Allen felt himself drifting off to sleep as the day's events slowly faded from his tired mind. Though one thought that kept playing over and over in his tired mind was.

Where do I go from here?

Author's Notes:

Hello everyone, if there is anyone still left. (Personally, I wouldn't blame you guys if you left, it's been almost two years since the last update,) and for that, I am very sorry. I'm not really going to go into a lot of detail of why it took so long to get this chapter out. The short version is that I had to can about 30% of the story as a plot element that I wanted to do wasn't going to work, and would take the story in a direction that would have probably left many readers feeling cold. So I took it out, the problem was that I had already laid some of the foundation for that plot element in previous chapters. Ergo, I suddenly was faced with another re-write, which would have pretty much killed this story. As it is, it's on life support right now. This chapter was probably the most brutal chapter that I have ever written, I probably re-wrote this thing almost twenty times, either by chucking the whole thing and starting over again or by deleting a large section of it and starting that part over again. Work, my health, and massive writer's block also contributed to the slowdown in getting this chapter out. Needless to say, I had no motivation for long stretches of time to write. I'm not sure if I've managed to find the motivation again, but I'm going to do my best to stick to a better writing schedule, and hopefully, things will go quicker. Though I know I've said that before and we all know how that turned out. In any case, I'm sorry if this chapter isn't very good or has plot issues or flow problems, but it was really the best I can do. Please feel free to point out any grammatical errors that you find in the comments and I'll happily fix them. I hope you enjoy this chapter and here's hoping that I can do a better job of keeping the chapters flowing.

Chapter 13 (Keep It Pointed Down Range)

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Chapter 13

The morning sun was barely up and already Allen was up and working. He was still confined to the farm and would be for another few days. As such, he decided that since he couldn’t go anywhere, he’d best take this opportunity to get as much prep work for getting his farm repaired as he could while things were still relatively calm.

The first step was making a list. Having finished his daily morning chores a few minutes ago, Allen found himself sitting at the kitchen island with a notebook, pen and coffee mug full of his limited supply of instant coffee.

God, I hope they have coffee here or things are gonna suck when I run out.

The sound of a hoof knocking on Allen’s front door caused him to pause in his ruminations and list making. Leaning back in his chair at the kitchen’s island, he looked down the hallway towards the front door. Unfortunately, whoever was at the door wasn’t visible. So, sighing to himself, he pushed himself out of his seat and headed for the door.

Another round of loud knocks rang out before he made it even a few steps. “I’m coming, I’m coming, geez!” called out Allen irritably. Closing the last few steps, he opened the door and looked down to see who this mornings visitor would be.

“Good morning, Mr. Ross!” said a peppy sounding Red Tape.

“I thought you were done here,” said Allen, confused as to the beige unicorns sudden return.

Red Tape gave a sheepish smile. “I thought so too, but my boss informed me last night when I got back that we never got around to cataloging your weapons and armor.”

“Oh,” replied Allen sullenly.

“I understand that you are not happy with this, Mr. Ross,” said Red Tape, a sympathetic look on his face, “but I’m afraid the law is very clear about this, all weapons, armor and magical artifacts are to be cataloged and if considered dangerous to the public, to be confiscated. Of course, that is unless the individual is a public servant of the crown or a private individual with a compelling need and is in good standing with the law.”

“I thought that you guys were going to give me a special dispensation?” replied Allen testily, his arms crossed belligerently over his chest.

Red Tape pulled a small envelope from his saddlebags and floated it to Allen. Grabbing the envelope, he glanced at it. It had a red wax seal, with what appeared to be some kind of coat of arms on it, though Allen couldn’t really make it out very well. Other than that, it was blank on the outside. Looking at Red Tape, he asked, “What’s this?”

“That is your dispensation from His Grace,” was his curt response.

Nodding, Allen opened it and glanced through it. Sure enough, it was the special dispensation granted to him by Prince Blueblood and co-signed by both Princess Celestia and Luna which allowed him to keep his weapons.

Folding the letter up, he slipped it back inside and said, “Okay, well, thanks for getting this to me, makes me feel a bit better.”

“You’re welcome,” replied Red Tape, a happy smile on his face.

“But,” said Allen, a serious look on his face, “I still don’t want to join your Royal Guard or whatever it is called.”

Red Tape couldn’t quite hide the look of disappointment on his face. “I was afraid you would say that.”

“And can you blame me? I mean, it wasn’t like I was just kidnapped and brought to this world against my will or anything, losing everything and everyone I’d ever known, and being told that I have an almost zero chance of being able to go back. So I don’t really think you should be all that shocked that I’m not super gung-ho about this whole guard thing.”

“Well, first of all, I wasn’t shocked or surprised that you said no, just that I was disappointed. Secondly, we never mentioned about you joining the Royal Guard, just the local Ponyville guard,” replied Red Tape.

“Say what?” said Allen, a confused look on his face. “But the pamphlet that you guys gave me was about-”

“Was about the Royal Guard yes, I know,” cut in Red Tape, “But if you had read the entire thing, you would have found a section talking about enlistment opportunities for your local guard forces. As well as for the navy, the Wonderbolts, the civil air patrol, weather patrol, rangers, and all of the various military/civil defense groups in our nation. We combined all of their literature together into a single pamphlet to make it cheaper and easier to distribute, as well as giving all groups an equal chance of being looked at by ponies wanting information. You would probably have known this if you had read the entire thing, but judging by the way you are going on about the Royal Guard, you didn’t, did you?” asked Red Tape with an eyebrow arched upwards in judgment.

Allen rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and looked around at anything other than Red Tape for a moment. “Well, no, I didn’t.”

Red Tape, his mouth a thin line of understanding, gave a single nod, and said, “Well, I suppose I can’t really blame you, we did throw a lot of information and pamphlets at you. In addition, I don’t think that either myself or His Grace did an adequate job of describing what responsibilities and benefits that the local guard units have.”

“Ah, not really, no, but I guess I never really asked for clarification either,” replied Allen as he continued to rub the back of his neck sheepishly.

“True, but at the same time, I suppose I never really thought to put myself in your metaphorical shoes as it were. Here you are, a single individual, torn from everything he knows and loves, and surrounded by a people that you don’t know anything about. For all you know, they are out to take whatever you have left from you, and might just be toying with you for their entertainment. So I can understand your reluctance to part with anything that you could use to protect yourself with, especially when you find out that magic is real and that these people can use it.”

“I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that you guys can use magic and fly. Back home, unicorns and pegasi are just myths, same with griffons, and dragons.”

Red Tape gave a soft chuckle. “And we thought that humans were a myth too,” a thoughtful look suddenly came over Red Tape. “You know, now that I think about it, you said that we were myths in your world and you are a myth in ours, I wonder if...”

“It could be related somehow?” finished Allen, when Red Tape trailed off.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding, “it’s an interesting theory at any rate. The idea that our peoples at one time or another interacted with each other isn’t outside the realm of possibility. I mean, you are a prime example, a human in Equestria, for the first time in who knows how many years. If you could be brought here, who is to say that others haven’t been here as well?”

Allen shrugged. “Who knows, all I know is that I’m here now, and I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”

“As are the rest of us I suppose,” replied Red Tape, a thoughtful and distant look coming over him. However, he gave his head a quick shake and continued, “Sorry, but we got off topic there. We were talking about the local guard weren’t we.”

“I guess,” shrugged Allen, “still not all that thrilled with being pressured to sign up for them when I don’t really see the need to. I mean, hell, I’m not even an official citizen of this country yet, so I don’t really have any strong ties to bind me to you guys yet.”

“That is true, being a loyal public servant to a country you are not really attached to is sort of difficult. Especially when that country hasn’t really given you a strong reason to be loyal to it, at least in the long term.”

“Yeah, just cause you signed some papers that say you're allowed to be a citizen and live in a country, doesn’t automatically make you a patriot who is willing to put their life on the line to defend it,” agreed Allen.

Red Tape sighed and gave Allen a tired looking smile. “You are right, Mr. Ross. Looking back, I believe that it was inappropriate of His Grace and I to pressure you into joining up, even if it was just with the local guard force. In addition, it was also inappropriate of us to make you feel as though you had to join the guard in order to be fully accepted into the community. I’m afraid we were not at our best at that time,” he paused, and squaring his shoulders, he looked Allen in the eyes and asked, “Mr. Ross, would you accept my humble apology for the way we treated you that day? In our effort to save ourselves a little extra work, we didn’t think how this request was unfair to you and how selfish we were being, asking you to do something you were not comfortable with.” He finished by bending one knee and bowing his head in contrition to Allen.

Allen stood there, stunned by the sudden apology and the fact that someone was bowing to him. No one had ever done something like that before.

Feeling uncomfortable at the sudden turn of events, Allen kneeled down and lifted Red Tape’s head back up so that they were eye to eye. “Red Tape,” he began, a serious look on his face, “I accept your apology, and thank you for it. But, you don’t need to bow to me when you apologize, it makes me uncomfortable.”

Red Tape straightened up, and sporting a relieved smile, replied, “Thank you for accepting my apology, I’m sure if His Grace were here, he’d be offering you one as well.”

“I’ll take your word for it, though it would mean just a bit more if he actually did come out here and apologize in person, even a letter would be nice,” said Allen.

“I’ll be sure to pass that bit along, but he is pretty busy at the moment, so don’t be surprised if he doesn’t respond quickly,” cautioned Red Tape.

Allen shrugged. “I’m used to political figures not really caring about those they are supposed to serve, and I’m really used to them either giving a half-hearted apology or none at all, so if he doesn’t, he doesn’t, and I’m not going to worry about it.”

Glancing up from Red Tape, Allen looked down his driveway and saw three ponies headed their way. “Who’s that?” he asked, pointing.

Turning around, Red Tape replied, “Ah, that would be Lt. Palisade and two of the local townsponies. I believe one of them is a certified locksmith, and the other is a member of the local guard. They’re here to help me inspect your weapons and armor, and certify that it is safe for you to keep it under the special dispensation rules.”

“I see,” was Allen’s reply, his face an unreadable mask.

As the trio of ponies trotted closer, Allen took a moment to look them over. Both Lt. Palisade and the local guard member were pegasi, and judging by their builds, Allen guessed that the local guard was a female. The lieutenant seemed to share the standard palette of all the other guards that Allen had seen so far, white coat, blue mane, and light blue colored eyes. Allen still hadn’t figured out why they all looked that way or how they managed it. Probably either a lot of dyes, or magic. He thought to himself. He wore gold colored armor, styled to look like that of a Roman legionary, which incidentally also covered his cutie mark, and his helmet came complete with a blue colored crest of hair on top.

The female pegasus, on the other hand, wasn’t wearing anything at all, save for a pair of saddlebags, though these didn’t hide her cutie mark, which looked like a sun peeking out from behind a white cloud. She was a pale, purplish indigo, and her mane was a light amber with bright yellow streaks running through it, and her eyes were a light fuchsia. She was talking with Lt. Palisade and judging by the way the guy was blushing, and how she was constantly bumping his side and flicking him with her tail, it was probably safe to say she was a shameless flirt.

The final member of their group was a middle-aged unicorn stallion, he carried a pair of saddlebags bulging with tools, and his gray coat was matted in a few places as if he’d just gotten up and hadn’t been given time to brush himself. His light blue mane carried several streaks of gray in it and was also a mess, and he sported dark bags under his cobalt blue eyes.

Geez, that guy looks like he’s about to fall asleep on his hooves.

When the group had drawn closer, Red Tape lifted a hoof and waved. “Good morning, Lt. Palisade! Thank you for coming so early, who are your companions may I ask?” called Red Tape cheerfully to the group.

Palisade, seeing an opportunity to escape the flirtatious mare next to him, quickly trotted ahead. Coming to stop at the foot of the steps, he snapped off a quick salute and replied, “Mr. Red Tape, it is good to see you again,” turning to Allen he inclined his head in greeting, “and to you as well, Mr. Ross.”

Allen waved back in response.

Turning his attention back to Red Tape, Palisade said, “I’d like to introduce my... companions, this,” he said, turning to the tired unicorn, “is Mr. Lock Box, he’s the towns resident locksmith, and this is the 2nd Lt. Cloud Kicker, second in command of the local Ponville guard. I’m afraid 1st Lt. Willow is in Canterlot visiting family and so she couldn’t be here today, thus Lt. Kicker's presence.”

Cloud Kicker came forward and shook Red Tape’s outstretched hoof, though she leaned in close to him and whispered something in his ear that caused him to suddenly go ridged and blush. Pulling away from the flustered stallion, a sly, flirtatious smirk on her face, she looked up at Allen and with a seductive wink said in a playful tone, “And good morning to you too, big guy.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the town flirt. Thought Allen dryly to himself.

Rolling his eyes, he gave a small wave. “Good morning, Lt. Kicker.”

Allen’s lack of a flustered response threw the mare for a moment, a surprised look flashing across her features. However, it was gone as quickly as it came and she eased back into a more seductive and relaxed pose, a look of determination settling on her face as she opened her mouth to say something more. However, the third member of the group cut her off as he came forward and grumpily said, “I didn’t come all the way out here to listen to you make passes at anything with a pulse, miss. So if we could kindly move this along, I’d like to go back to my bed sometime this morning, please.”

Shooting the unicorn an unhappy pout at having her fun ruined, Cloud Kicker stepped back and proceeded to sulk. Everyone else meanwhile released a silent sigh of relief. Palisade, sensing an opportunity to move things along, said, “Well, now that introductions are out of the way, would you be willing to let, Mr. Lock Box have a look at your safe, Mr. Ross?”

“Sure, it’s downstairs, follow me,” he said, waving the group inside.

A few minutes later found everyone standing in Allen’s basement. His parents had never finished it, so the floor was just bare concrete and the walls and ceiling had exposed insulation, wires, and pipes running everywhere. The basement also suffered from the same fate as the garage, namely that it was full of his dad’s junk. Boxes were everywhere, and Allen could only guess as to what was inside any of them, but the one box they were interested in wasn’t made of cardboard, but steel and this one came equipped with a lock.

It was an old safe, one that his dad had found at an estate sale years ago. There wasn’t any branding on it, and it had plenty of dings and dents, but it did the job of keeping him and his little sister from getting inside, which was what his dad had bought it for all those years ago. Pointing to it, Allen said, “Well, here it is, knock yourself out.”

Lock Box set his saddlebags down, gave his neck a crack, and set to work. The first thing he did was try to open it with his magic by turning the large wheel on the front of the safe. When it didn’t budge, he began his inspection. The safe had both a key and combination lock and required either one or the other to open the safe. Since Allen didn’t know the combination and couldn’t find the key, he had, of course, been unable to open it earlier.

Giving the dial a few spins, Lock Box carefully listened and apparently, not hearing what he wanted, stepped away and began digging through his saddlebags for some tools. After a few moments of rummaging around, he pulled out a small L shaped piece of metal, and a lock pick and set to work. He carefully inserted his tools into the key slot and applying pressure in a clockwise motion, began caressing the pins inside the lock. After several minutes, the lock suddenly gave, and giving the large wheel a spin, he opened the safe, a satisfied smile on his face.

Turning to the others he said, “Normally, this is the point where I would be giving you your bill, but your costs have been covered by Mr. Red Tape there,” he indicated the aforementioned stallion with a nod of his head, “as such, I’ll just go ahead and take my leave.”

“Alright, and thanks for your help, Mr. Lock Box,” replied Allen gratefully.

Lock Box returned Allen’s thanks with a smile. “Piece of cake. Though, word of advice, I’d invest in a better safe if I were you. I had that sucker open in only a couple of minutes, not a single damn ward on that hunk of junk and no anti-pick spells to be found either. A foal could get into that thing. Here,” he reached into his saddlebags and pulled out a slightly crinkled business card, “give me a holler when you want to get a real safe. I’m quite proud to say that my safes come with the very best security spells on the market, and for the right price, I can put a few on that aren’t widely available on the market.”

Allen took the card. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“As I said, just give me a holler, I’d hate to see you get robbed because your house wasn’t properly warded against a home invasion. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back home, today is supposed to be my day off, and I have a bed that is calling my name.”

And with that, he left. Looking down the card he was given, Allen read the simple text. Lock Box’s Safes and Warding Inc. We keep you and your goods safe!

Interesting, might have to look into this at a later date. I would guess that magic can make it easier to get into places your not supposed to get into. Damn, that’s probably gonna be expensive as hell to get my locks upgraded. Thought Allen unhappily to himself. Giving himself a shake, he tucked the business card into his pocket and turned back to the remaining ponies, all of whom had gathered around the now open safe and were carefully looking at the contents inside.

Striding forward, Allen looked inside, and promptly facepalmed. Figures that dad would leave the damn keys in the safe by accident. Sighing to himself he turned to Red Tape and asked aloud, “Alright, what’s next?”

“Well, now that we can get to them, we need to catalog them. Though I don’t really recognize any of them, do you Lt. Palisade, Lt. Cloud Kicker?” he asked.

The two pegasi leaned in to get a better look inside the safe. Allen noticed that Cloud Kicker had dropped her previous flirtatious attitude and adopted a more serious expression. Palisade, on the other hand, looked openly curious. Reaching a hoof out, he made to grab one of the strange looking weapons when Allen said, “Hold it!” His hoof froze just inches from one of the weapons. It was made of wood and steel and had a long, thick tube coming out of one end.

Looking back over his withers, he gave Allen a confused, and slightly concerned look. Returning his look with an apologetic one, Allen strode forward and after letting the two pegasi step aside for him, reached in and grabbed the weapon, making sure to keep the end of the tube pointed upwards as he did so.

Turning around, he turned it so that it’s left side was facing downward, he pulled his left hand back towards him. This caused the weapon to make a loud *ka-chick* sound, which made the ponies flinch. Ignoring them, Allen looked inside a hole that had just opened up on the right side of the weapon, and then after looking down the tube from the rear of the weapon, gave a satisfied nod that the weapon was safe.

Turning his attention back to the ponies, he let tube of the weapon rest in the crook of his left elbow and made sure to keep it pointed up and away from anyone. Giving the group an apologetic smile, he said, “Sorry about that, didn’t mean to scare you but, I had to make sure the gun was unloaded and safe to handle. Wouldn’t want it going off by accident and hurting somebody because they didn’t know it was loaded.”

Adjusting his glasses, Red Tape replied somewhat hesitantly, “R-right, of course, no one would want that, uh what did you call it?”

“A gun, or more specifically, a shotgun, 12 gauge to be specific.”

“Ah, yes, a uh, shotgun, yes we wouldn’t want it to go off accidentally and hurt someone. Uh, does that happen often with these types of weapons?” he asked nervously as if the slightest movement would set it off.

Allen grinned and replied, “Naw, not if you’re careful and treat it with respect. We, humans, have developed a few rules on safe firearm handling procedures. First,” he held up his thumb, “always treat the weapon as if it is loaded, two,” his pointer went up, “never point the gun at something you don’t intend to destroy or kill, three,” middle finger now, “finger off the trigger until ready to fire, and fourth,” ring finger this time, “always be aware of what is behind your target. There are more rules, but those are the basics. Follow those and you’ll greatly reduce the likelihood that you’ll hurt yourself or someone else that you didn’t mean to.”

“I see, thank you for clarifying that for us,” replied Red Tape. Though he still seemed a bit nervous.

Cloud Kicker, on the other hand, had a very interested look on her face and came closer to get a better look at the shotgun in Allen’s arms. Glancing up at Allen, she asked, “So how does it work?”

Reaching behind him into the safe, Allen pulled out a small plastic tube, with a brass cap on one end. Holding it down closer so that the ponies could see better, Allen explained, “This is a shotgun shell, inside are a bunch of little lead balls. This,” he flipped the cartridge around till its brass section was pointing at Cloud Kicker. She noticed that there appeared to be a small button in the center of the cartridge, “that” said Allen, pointing to the button with a finger, “is what’s called the primer. Inside the gun is a small metal rod that is under tension when the gun is cocked. When released, it strikes this button here, which has a sensitive chemical compound inside that when hit, creates a spark. That spark ignites the gunpowder inside, which is highly flammable, and as it burns it creates gases that create pressure that has only one way to go, down the barrel here,” he tapped the end of the shotgun’s barrel with the cartridge, “and as a consequence, the gas pushes whatever is in front of it down the barrel very quickly, which in this case is the lead balls, and sends it downrange to its target. That’s the dumbed down version,” he said, giving a shrug as he did so.

“So it’s kind of like how a firework launcher works?” she asked.

Allen shrugged. “Sort of, with a firework launcher you load everything from the muzzle, here I can load it from the breach,” he tapped the open port at the other end of the gun, “but the principle is the same. I’m not sure what kind of powder you use for your fireworks, but this powder is designed to burn slower so as to create less smoke and residue when fired.”

“Interesting,” she replied, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Do you think you could demonstrate this for us?”

“Sure,” replied Allen easily. “I’ve got several different types of weapons here, did you want me to show you all of them or just a few?”

“They all look the same to me,” interjected Red Tape.

“To someone who’s never seen a firearm before that might seem true, but each of these weapons is different from the other. Some, like this shotgun, can shoot multiple projectiles at the same time, but they don’t have good accuracy over a long distance and are only really effective at closer ranges. Others can only shoot one projectile at a time, but they are able to send it farther and more accurately. You have different caliber sizes and powder loads, different types of projectiles, as well as reload speed of the weapon and so on. The basic premises is the same, but they all have different things they are good at doing. Take, for example, you wouldn’t use a longsword in a tight space, nor would you want to use a dagger against a heavily armed opponent out in the open.”

“I... suppose so, weapons have never really been something that I was interested in learning, so I wouldn’t really know. I’m only here to record what you have and relay the information to the proper ponies. Anything technical would be taken care of by Lt. Palisade, and Lt. Kicker. I just record what they tell me to in regards to the technical side of things.”

Allen shrugged. “That’s fair, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to navigate my way through government bureaucracy. I would just stumble along and do what other people tell me. So, to each their own I suppose.”

“Quite,” replied Red Tape simply. Turning to the two pegasi he asked, “How many of Mr. Ross’s weapons do you feel you need to see in order to get a good understanding?”

Lt. Palisade thoughtfully chewed the inside of one of his cheeks while looking into Allen’s gun safe. After several moments of silent contemplation, he replied, “Obviously we’ll need to see the one you just pulled out, that uh, shotgun, I believe you called it,” Allen nodded in understanding and leaned the gun against a nearby wall, in preparation for retrieving more guns from the safe.

Pointing at a few random guns, Palisade said, “Those three, I think we should have a decent idea what these weapons can do after you show them to us in action.”

Pulling the three weapons out of the gun safe, he made sure that they were unloaded and safe to handle. Setting them aside, he pulled out the necessary ammo for each gun. Better take only a few rounds, I doubt I’m gonna be able to get any more for a long time, if ever.

With the ammunition collected, Allen grabbed the four guns and carefully cradled them in his arms, though thankfully, Palisade had also selected a pistol, so Allen simply stuck that one in his waistband... after double checking to make sure it was unloaded. With guns and ammunition selected, he, and the ponies headed upstairs and outside. Looking around for a moment, Allen tried to figure out where would be the best place to shoot at. Now that he was in Equestria, all of the previously safe places that he used to shoot were now unknown in regards to what was beyond the range, and the last thing that he wanted was for a stray bullet to go flying off into a populated area.

Turning to look at Cloud Kicker he asked, “Any place around here that doesn’t have anyone close by. Maybe a large hill that I can shoot into perhaps?”

Cloud Kicker thoughtfully tapped her chin and replied, “Well, the Everfree Forest is just to the south of us, in fact, if I remember right from the flight over, your property borders it, we could head over that way for the demonstration. There is a small river that runs along the edge of the forest in this area and the only things that live out there are monsters and wild animals. Well, Zecora lives in the Everfree too, but I think her hut is further east, on the other side of Ponyville, and it’s pretty deep in the forest, so there shouldn’t be any issues there.”

Allen nodded. “Alright, and did you guys have anything that you planned to use to test my weapons on?”

“Test?” she asked.

“Well, I just figured you guys would like to see what effect my weapons have on various targets, you know, maybe shoot a watermelon or a piece of thick timber, that sort of thing. Be kind of pointless for me to just shoot the bullets off at nothing in particular,” replied Allen.

“You do have a point there,” said Palisade with a nod. Turning to Cloud Kicker he said, “Lt. Kicker, why don’t you go and collect some watermelons and I’ll go and see what I can find back at camp. We’ll meet back here in twenty minutes.”

Snapping off a quick salute, Cloud Kicker took off, followed shortly by Palisade. This left both Red Tape and Allen alone. Looking down at the unicorn, Allen said, “Well, I guess we should go find a good range spot then. Oh, almost forgot, we’re gonna need a blanket or tarp to lay down when we get there. I know where one is, come on.”

Allen quickly set off for the nearby barn, with Red Tape in hot pursuit. As they walked, Red Tape asked, “What is the blanket for?”

“Just something that’ll let me put the guns down without getting any dirt or debris on them. That and it’ll help catch the spent shell casings, waste not, want not as they say.”

Red Tape nodded in understanding. “I see, uh would you like for me to carry it for you? You seem a little burdened at present.”

Reaching the barn, Allen stepped inside and motioned at a nearby pile of tarps. “Sure, thanks. Go ahead and grab that light blue one, should be relatively clean and hole free.”

Lighting up his horn, Red Tape grabbed the aforementioned tarp in his magic and with it trailing behind him in his aura, followed Allen back outside. From there they set off towards the southern part of Allen’s farm. After a few minutes of walking, Allen saw a dense wall of trees appear on the horizon.

“That it?” he asked, pointing at the tree line with his chin.

Red Tape squinted and placed a hoof above his brow to help shield his eyes from the sun so as to get a better look. “I believe so. I’ve never personally seen the Everfree myself, but I would hazard a guess and say that is it.”

“Alright, well, I guess here will be fine. At least Discord was kind enough to keep my farm aligned with the four cardinal directions. So at least my south fields are still on the southern side of the farm!” he said with a passing chuckle.

Red Tape grinned as he set the tarp down on the ground and smoothed it out so that it lay as flat as it could in the grass. “That’s the spirit, Mr. Ross, always try and look for the positive in life. No matter how dire the situation is, I believe that if we look for the positives, we’ll always be able to work through the bad with a smile on our face!”

Allen’s smile faded slightly, and he gazed south into the forest, an unreadable expression settling on his face. “Yeah, but some days it’s hard to find the good in all the crap.”

Red Tape nodded solemnly, his previous smile also having faded. “Agreed, some days it can be quite difficult.”

They both fell into a contemplative silence as they set up for the return of the two pegasi members of their party. Red Tape, using his magic, unrolled and spread out the tarp on the ground, while Allen set the four weapons of choice down on the tarp, and laid out the ammunition next to each firearm. A few minutes later, the sound of wing beats signaled the return of Cloud Kicker and Palisade.

Cloud Kicker had several watermelons wrapped in a sling beneath her. As she slowly touched down, she kind of reminded Allen of one of those heavy cargo helicopters dropping off a load, except there was less dust flying around, and it was quieter.

Palisade, by contrast, was pulling a small, covered sled behind him with a pair of short wings sticking out of either side. As such, he had to glide in and landed running so as not to trip and crash, rather than hovering, much like a fixed wing aircraft did. After coming to a stop, and panting slightly, with a light sheen a sweat coating his fur, he said, “I managed to find an old seat of armor that’s due to be retired, and the armorer was kind enough to lend it to me. I also brought a couple of poles to hold the armor up, and a hammer to pound them in.”

Allen nodded as he strode forward. “Sounds good, let’s get it set up, and we can get started,” glancing over at the three watermelons that Cloud Kicker had brought, he smiled and said, “Those look perfect, thanks, Lt. Kicker.”

She grinned back and replied, “No problem, Mr. Rind was gonna throw them out anyways, apparently they had some worms in them, so he couldn’t sell them, so I didn’t have to pay for em.”

“That’s good, I’d hate to have you pay for this on my account,” replied Allen.

“Don’t sweat it, I’d just get a reimbursement from the Guard is all,” replied Cloud Kicker nonchalantly.

With a final nod, Allen and the group got to work. A few minutes later, the watermelons and armor were set up and they were ready to begin. Turning to the group, Allen cautioned, “I forgot to mention earlier, but firearms tend to be pretty loud, so I’d recommend covering your ears when I shoot.”

“Thank you for the warning, Mr. Ross, I’ve got a spell that I can cast that’ll deaden the sound, so it shouldn’t be an issue,” replied Red Tape.

Giving an understanding nod, Allen fished out a pair of foam earplugs and inserted them in his ears. Following that, he proceeded to load the first firearm, his father's 12 gauge shotgun. Racking the shell home, he called back over his shoulder, “Alright, the range is live, cover your ears!”

Red Tape promptly cast his spell on the three of them and waved that they were ready. Allen gave a nod of understanding and took aim at the first watermelon. They had decided to keep the distance close for two of the watermelon targets, being no farther than thirty feet, while the other two were further away. The third watermelon was set up at the fifty-foot mark, and the old armor set was one hundred feet away.

When they had been setting it up, Allen had noticed that this set of armor was different looking than the ones currently worn by the Royal Guard, it being a dull silver color, rather than gold, and a few of the design elements were different as well. He had asked Palisade about it, and Palisade had just said, “It’s an older design that was intended for field use rather than garrison duty. However, nowadays our armor is able to be fitted with specially enchanted gems on the breastplate that can alter the color of the armor so it doesn’t stand out as much. Though we’ve been having some problems getting enough enchanted gems for the new armor, so some ponies don’t have the ability to change their armor’s color right now, but that’s life I suppose. Anyways, this armor has similar protection capabilities but lacks the ability to accept the new enchanted gems, so it’s being retired. There were still a few ponies wearing these older armor sets when Discord got out, but since then they’ve been issued the new ones.”

“Ah, makes sense I guess,” replied Allen simply.

Now, in the present, Allen got ready to put that armor’s protection capabilities to the test, right after he got done murdering the helpless watermelons in front of it of course.

Bringing the shotgun to his shoulder he released the safety, took aim, and fired. The shotgun boomed and sent eight, double aught pellets downrange, which decimated the poor defenseless watermelon, sending fruity pieces flying in all directions, and causing what remained of the watermelon to fall to the ground. It brought a smile of satisfaction to Allen’s face upon seeing the carnage.

Ejecting the spent shell from the gun, Allen thumbed the safety on, double checked to make sure it was unloaded and carefully set the shotgun down on the tarp. Turning to the stunned/horrified trio of ponies, he said with a smile, “Well, what did you think? Pretty neat, huh?”

Both Red Tape and Palisade stared at the blasted remains of the recently demised fruit, not saying anything. Cloud Kicker meanwhile trotted forward for a better look at the melon, after asking if it was safe to do so, and carefully studied it.

Sweet, merciful Celestia, that thing tore it apart. She nudged the largest piece with her hoof and it rolled over, exposing the red, seed-filled insides. She felt her ears fall flat against her head at the thought of what that gun would do to a pony should they be unfortunate enough to be shot by it. Turning to glance back at Allen, she saw that he was giving them all a strange look, as if unsure why they were suddenly so subdued.

Giving her head a shake, she turned and trotted back over to him. “Well, you certainly taught that melon a lesson,” she quipped dryly.

The smile returned to Allen’s face, and for some reason that made Cloud Kicker shiver as if she had suddenly found herself standing next to a friendly manticore. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Yeah, it did alright,” replied Allen, “though, the farther away you are from the target, the less likely you are to hit them or if you do, you won’t do as much damage, these,” he reached down and picked up a shell, “are just full of small pellets that by themselves won’t do a lot of damage, unless you get unlucky of course. But up close, they’re nasty,” his smile suddenly morphed into a grimace, “real nasty.”

An awkward silence fell over the group for a moment, before Allen gave himself a shake, and plastering another friendly smile on his face asked, “Well, shall we continue?”

When the rest of the group voiced no objections, they continued. The next two guns Allen used were what he had called a ‘pistol’, and a ‘varmint gun’. The pistol was an old .38 caliber revolver that had belonged to his grandfather and had been his duty pistol when he was a deputy for their local county back on earth, as Allen had explained when asked. While the varmint gun was just a .22 caliber rifle used to hunt small game, such as rabbits and the like, that his father had given him when he was twelve.

Unlike the shotgun, the pistol simply fractured the melon into large pieces that were barely held together in some spots, while the .22 made a few small holes that didn’t seem to do a lot of outward damage. When Palisade commented on this, Allen replied, “Just because there isn’t a lot out external damage, doesn’t mean anything. .22s have been used to kill large animals, such as deer, though it is much more difficult and shot placement is critical. The advantage to a .22 is that it rarely over pens what you shoot, which means that it has a high chance of ricocheting around inside the target and causing more internal damage. Though it’s pure stopping power isn’t anything to write home about, it still pays to respect it.”

When Palisade nodded in understanding, Allen set the .22 back down and picked up the next, and final rifle.

“What kind of rifle is that?” asked Palisade.

Looking at him as he loaded the rifle, Allen replied, “It’s a bolt action rifle, unlike the .22, which is called a semi-auto, and uses the excess gas created by the gunpowder to cycle the next round, this one requires me to do it manually.” He proceeded to demonstrate by opening the bolt and loading several cartridges in the magazine well. He held up one the rifle’s rounds and showed it to the ponies. Unlike the smaller .22, this one was much bigger, almost as big as Allen’s pointer finger, and just as thick.

“This is an old military surplus rifle called a Mosin-Nagant, they’re not the best rifles in the world, and definitely not the prettiest, but they get the job done, plus the ammo is stupid cheap, so it’s a fun gun to take to the range and shoot targets with.”

Palisade blinked slowly as he digested this new information. A military surplus rifle? What does that even mean? What kind of military would let just anyone have their old equipment? Aren’t they concerned about it being used against them? These humans are so confusing. He shook his head and felt a headache coming on.

Motioning to Allen with a hoof he said aloud, “Alright, I’m not going to pretend I fully understand what you mean by this being a ‘military surplus’ weapon, but go ahead and show us what it can do. That,” he pointed to the old armor sitting downrange, “has a fully charged shield gem inserted inside the breastplate. We use them to help turn aside arrows and low-level spells in combat. Even though it’s an older gem, and not as powerful as the newer ones, it should still give us a basic idea what your rifle is capable of at this range.”

Allen nodded in understanding. “Alright, well go ahead and cover your ears, cause the range is going live,” and with that, he brought the rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. A sharp *crack* rang out across the field, and Allen saw sparks fly from the light blue shield that had suddenly appeared just in front of the armor as his bullet bounced off. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Palisade with a satisfied smirk on his face, confident in the old armors abilities. Chambering a new round, he felt a sudden determination to wipe that smirk off Palisade’s face, and so he didn’t even hesitate before the next round was sent downrange. Again the bullet bounced off in a cascade of sparks, but this time, the shield didn’t seem as colorful as before.

Working the bolt, not even bothering to look back this time, Allen again sent a third bullet downrange. This time the bullet didn’t bounce off. Instead, it caused the shield to disappear in a shower of blue motes of light as the shield failed. Though it still didn’t hit the armor, whether the shield had caused it to ricochet or simply drop to the ground its energy spent, Allen didn’t know. Working the bolt a fourth time, he sent one more bullet down range, and this time, it struck the breast plate just to the right of where a real ponies heart would be, and knocked the armor from its makeshift stand, as if an invisible pony inside it had been actually killed.

Opening the bolt and extracting the last live round, Allen made sure the rifle was safe and without glancing back, strode down range. Palisade for his part was left speechless, his mouth hanging open.

I can’t believe it! He took down that shield in only three shots! Those shields were rated to take up to fifty arrows before they failed! Looking down at the rifle on the tarp, Palisade felt a cold shiver run down his spine. I better report this immediately. I don’t think even the new gems would stand up to much more than this one did. I’m just glad that Allen isn’t interested in causing trouble, because if he was, he’d probably be able to take a lot of ponies with him before we took him out.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Palisade noticed that the rest of the group had trotted off after Allen while he had been lost in thought. Shaking his head, he quickly caught up with them at the downed armor, and the sight that greeted him left a icy ball of worry in the pit of his stomach.

The final round that Allen had fired at left a small entrance hole in the front of the chest plate, but there was a much larger one at the back of the armor, and the metal had been punched outwards by the terrific force of the rounds passage so that it looked like the petals of a flower. He suppressed a shiver at the thought of what that round would have done to the pony in between those two points.

Picking up the chest plate, Allen stuck a finger in the hole and carefully inspected it. He wore a curious, and unconcerned look on his face as if this were an academic curiosity and nothing more. Leaning down, he showed the results to the others. “Punched right through the front, and then out the back. I bet it kept going for a little more before tumbling to the earth.” Turning to look at them he asked, “So, that answer your questions then?”

Palisade licked his suddenly dry lips, and carefully replied, “I believe so, yes. Granted I didn’t think that your weapons would be this... destructive.”

Allen shrugged as he let go of the armor in his hand, letting it fall back to the earth with a rattling clang. “What can I say? Humans are good at making tools, and a lot of our tools are good at killing and maiming living beings. I might as well comment about how the sky is blue or the ocean is wet, it is what it is. I can see that you’re upset by this, I hope you’re not planning on reneging on our deal?”

Palisade quickly shook his head, as did Cloud Kicker and Red Tape. “Good heavens no! His Grace said that you could keep your weapons, and keep your weapons you shall be allowed to do, unless you bring cause to have them taken away through a criminal or negligent act.”

Allen held Palisade’s gaze for several moments, as if gauging the truth of his words. After several tense moments passed, Allen quietly nodded. “Alright, guess we’ve got an understanding then. For what it’s worth, I just want you to know I have zero intention of causing anyone any harm, intentional or otherwise. These guns will remain locked up, unless needed. Besides, I’ve only got so many rounds for them, and once those are gone, these guns just become hunks of wood and metal, no more dangerous than a spear or club.”

For some reason, Palisade felt a sense of relief wash over him at Allen’s reply. Maybe it was the conviction in Allen’s voice or the solemn way in which he made his promise, but, Palisade felt that he could trust this human to keep his word. He just hoped that somepony wouldn’t come along and force him to break it.

Author's Notes:

Well, a little over two weeks later, and another chapter suddenly appears. I feel like I'm spoiling you guys at this point. (J/K) But in all seriousness, we're coming to the end of the setup arc, I know it's been a slow and boring burn, and some of you will probably dislike this chapter, but I felt it was necessary. Now we can start getting into time skips and pushing the plot forward. I'm planning on making the next chapter a sort of interlude chapter, so don't expect much plot progression. But after that, we'll start to see new stuff.

I'm sorry if I've bored anyone with these last few chapters, but as I mentioned before in the previous chapter, I was transitioning the story from where it was going two years ago, to a new direction, and I needed to more or less tie that old arc into the new one. So it got a little messy and boring. But now we should be fully into the new arc and hopefully, that'll mean a more entertaining story for everyone.

Chapter 14 Interlude: Meeting at a Café

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Chapter 14

It was late afternoon, and Cloud Kicker, Palisade, and Red Tape sat at a corner table in Sugar Cube Corner. Red Tape, was busily going over several papers, while the other two sat quietly and nibbled on their pastries thinking about the days events.

“So, what do you think, Lt. Kicker?” asked Palisade.

She glanced up from the table and gave the Royal Guard a thoughtful frown. “About what?” she asked.

He groaned. “You know what I mean.”

Her frown deepened before it gave way to a tired sigh, and she went back to staring at the table, her ears folded flat against her head. “I don’t know. I think we can trust him, but a part of me is worried that it’s all just a ruse and that he’s secretly working for Discord. Hay, he might be doing Discord’s dirty work for him and not even be aware of it himself. But, something tells me that what we saw, was what we got.”

Palisade nibbled on his pastry. “You think he’s on the level then?”

Cloud Kicker nodded. “I do, everything I saw and heard seemed like he’s just from a different world and culture than we are. What are big, red warning flags to us, as far as his behavior go, don’t seem to be an issue for him or are even considered to be good things. Conversely, the same could be said of us from his perspective.”

Palisade nodded and sighed. “I would agree with your assessment. He kind of reminds me of a griffon, proud, independent, and unwilling to fully trust somepony lest they take advantage of him. And in this case, he doesn’t have very many beings that he can trust.”

“I believe you are correct in your assessment, lieutenant,” replied Red Tape softly, though he kept his gaze focused on the papers in front of him.

“So that just leaves what?” asked Cloud Kicker. She herself had also met griffons before. Being part of the Kicker Clan, and having done a stint in the Royal Guard before being discharged and moving to Ponyville, had given her ample opportunity to meet other species, and Palisade’s assessment of Allen’s temperament seemed fairly accurate.

Not many ponies really thought about it, but there were other countries out there that had griffons in them, not just the fabled country of Griffonstone. Even though it was the most well known, thanks to the Daring Doo books, there were many others, just as there were many other countries out there besides Equestria where ponies lived. New Mareland came to mind, she’d even done a six-month deployment over there as part of the guard detachment assigned to protect the Equestrian Consulate.

It had been rather nice, being further south, and next to the ocean, tended to give New Mareland a rather temperate climate throughout the year, and she had enjoyed her time there. But she was glad she lived here in Equestria, rather than on the griffon continent. That place tended to get a little too politically exciting for her tastes. Of course, now that Discord had done whatever it was he had done, it looked like Equestria might get a little bit more exciting in the near future too.

“I believe it means that we take him at his word and go from there,” replied Red Tape, quill busily scratching away as he worked to finish his report. “Personally, I think he’s rather nice, and he hasn’t tried to hide anything from me that I’ve asked of him. My glasses would have told me if he had,” he emphasized his point by gently removing them and cleaning them with a summoned cloth.

“Right, I forgot that you wore enchanted glasses,” said Palisade, “they must have cost a pretty bit.”

Red Tape chuckled. “Oh trust me, they did. However, it was well worth the investment. Just the ability to know when somepony is fibbing has saved me countless hours of headaches and reprimands from my superiors. So all in all, I’ve never regretted getting them.”

“Do you even need them to see?” asked Cloud Kicker, a hint of teasing in her voice.

Red Tape simply smiled and went back to his work. Rolling her eyes at the obvious dodge, Cloud turned her attention back to Palisade and asked, “Okay, so we’re all in agreement that while his guns are dangerous, they don’t warrant seizure, correct?”

Palisade nodded. “Yes, I was very concerned during the demonstration, the power that his weapons have against unarmored targets is quite frankly, terrifying to me. Not only that but what his...uh, what did he call it again, the last one?”

Red Tape flipped back through his papers for a moment before saying, “A ‘Mosin-Nagant’, he called it a ‘bolt action rifle’.”

“Yes, that one, thank you,” Red Tape inclined his head in response. “That rifle,” continued Palisade, “Worries me the most or I should say what it fires worries me.”

“How so?” asked Cloud Kicker idly as she drained the last of her milkshake noisily, much to the other two ponies annoyance.

Clearing his throat, Palisade shot her an annoyed look before saying, “Allen said that the shotgun was only really dangerous at close range and that his pistol and .22 weren’t very powerful, at least not when compared to his rifle. However, it only took three shots before he destroyed the shield, and only one to go through that armor like a hot knife through butter. Now, imagine if he paired the rapid rate of fire of his .22, with the power of his rifle’s cartridge, and you have a recipe for a bad time. Those shields were designed to withstand up to fifty arrows before they failed, or ten minutes of low-level spellfire. Moreover, that armor was rated to resist long-range arrow fire to a degree and be able to take a couple more spell hits before it failed. I saw how fast he was able to shoot his .22, hay, he even told us that his bolt action rifle was obsolete, and even showed us what replaced it! What was it called again, Red Tape?”

Again Red Tape flipped through his notes. “He called it an ‘SKS’. According to him it can hold ten rounds and fires a slightly smaller cartridge than his Mosin, though according to him it was still ‘pretty powerful’.”

“And did he not say that there were weapons out there that could fire even faster?”

Red Tape nodded again. “He did, though he also stressed that he didn’t have any of those as they were more heavily regulated by his government and that they were expensive to maintain.”

Pushing her empty milkshake glass away, Cloud propped her face on her hoof and with an unconcerned look on her face asked, “Okay, so what’s the big deal here then? We’ve already established that he is being honest with us and that we don’t think he’s a bad guy. Plus, he doesn’t have any of those guns that you are so worried about, and of the ones that could pose a danger to a guard ponies armor, he only has a very limited supply of ammunition for them,” turning to Red Tape she asked, “how many did he say he had anyways?”

Red Tape readjusted his glasses and flipped through his book, coming to a stop near the back. Quickly reading the numbers he said, “Less than eight hundred rounds of 7.62x54r, and only four hundred rounds of 7.62x39, which are the calibers for his Mosin and SKS respectively.”

“Okay,” began Cloud as she casually leaned back in her chair and began doing mental math, “so let’s assume that the new guard armor’s shields perform exactly the same as the old one; which we know they won’t because their spell matrices are much more efficient, and while I’m not in the Royal Guard anymore, my parents are and we talk occasionally. My dad said that the new shields were able to withstand nearly one hundred arrows before they failed, which is double the amount the old one could. But let’s just say for argument's sake, that the new shields only stop three shots before failing. That means that he would only be able to break a bit more than one hundred shields with his SKS, and less than three hundred with his Mosin. Which means, that less than four hundred ponies would be potential casualties if it came to fighting him and he only used those two weapons. With the new shields, I’d say less than two hundred would be at risk, and even then, I doubt he’d be able to get more than a few shots off before we closed to melee range, that’s, of course, assuming we only had earth ponies and pegasi. With unicorn back up, he’d be hosed, and he probably knows it. So I don’t really understand why you’ve got your feathers all ruffled, Palisade.”

Palisade sighed. “It’s not so much that I’m worried about, Allen, it’s that I’m worried about what else might show up. If Discord could bring him here, then who is to say that someone or something else might also show up? We have no idea if whatever Discord did to bring Allen, to our world didn’t also bring other things or beings here as well. Not too mention that using that kind of magic might have unknown consequences. The truth is that we just don’t know what kind of damage Discord did to our world to bring Allen here, nor do we know if the Elements fixed it or not,” he paused and rubbed the back of his head nervously, “maybe I’m just being paranoid here, but I’d rather not take the risk that Discord did more damage than we think he did, and have something that isn’t nice show up and bite us in the flanks.”

Both Cloud Kicker and Red Tape glanced at each other and then silently nodded in understanding. “So what you are saying is that you think there might be a hidden threat, and that because Allen was able to beat an older set of guard armor more easily than you thought he should, you’re worried about whether or not the guard will be able to take on the next potential threat?” asked Red Tape seriously.

Palisade nodded. “I am, I don’t want anypony to think that Allen is a threat, personally, I think he’s fairly harmless, even with his weapons. Honestly, I think that all he really needs is a couple of good friends to help ground him in his new world, and to teach him how things are done around here so that he doesn’t get hurt or hurt somepony else by accident.”

“A fair point,” replied Red Tape thoughtfully, “I know that Ms. Sparkle and Ms. Heartstrings have been speaking with him on a regular basis about his world, but I’m not sure if they’ve been teaching him about ours. The poor soul probably hasn’t the faintest idea about what is and is not socially acceptable behavior to regular ponies. I’d hate to see him get in trouble because he said or did the wrong thing.”

Cloud Kicker nodded. “Yeah, I can say from personal experience, not knowing the local customs can get you into big trouble.”

“I feel as though there is an interesting story there,” said Palisade, a smirk on his face.

“There is,” replied Cloud Kicker coyly, “but I’m afraid you’ll just have to keep wondering what it is.”

Palisade chuckled. “Fair enough, maybe when things settle down we could swap ‘war stories’. I’ve got a few embarrassing stories of my own to tell.”

“Then it’s a date then,” replied Cloud Kicker, a flirtatious look in her eyes.

Palisade turned beet red and sputtered, “I-I wasn’t... I mean, I-I!”

Cloud Kicker snickered, and then began laughing uproariously as Palisade turned into a blushing, sputtering mess. Seeing her laughing, and knowing he’d been had, the pegasus stallion quickly tried to compose himself and shot the now giggling mare an annoyed glare. Red Tape for his part simply sat on the sidelines, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips at his companion’s antics.

However, his smile slowly faded, and rapping a hoof on the table to get their attention, he said, “Well, as funny as it is to watch Lt. Palisade change coat colors,” Palisade promptly stuck his tongue out in reply. Rolling his eyes at the foalish response, Red Tape continued, “I’m afraid the day is getting late, and I’ve got a train to catch. So in the interest of time, do either of you have any further recommendations for me to give upon my return to Canterlot?”

“Other than to work on finding ways to improve the strength of the new shields, and to develop better tactics for dealing with something that fires as quickly, accurately and powerfully as Allen’s guns, no, I don’t think so,” supplied Palisade.

“And you Lt. Kicker?”

She shrugged. “More of what he said, but I’d add in the fact that we should remain at a higher state of alert for things outside the norm and to not engage them till we can properly determine their threat level unless civilians are threatened of course. As for Allen, I would add that our current assessment of him is that he is a non-threat and that we should focus on repairing the damaged relations between him and us as soon as possible.”

Red Tape nodded. “Of course, I thank you both for your help in this matter. I’ll be sure to stress your recommendations to His Grace when I return. If there was anypony in Canterlot besides the princesses who can influence public and court opinion, it’s him,” he said as he finished his writing. Casting a quick drying on the fresh ink, he closed his binder and slipped it into his saddlebags. Standing up from the table, he inclined his head in farewell, “Now, I bid you both good night, and I will be sure to send you both the results of our joint report as soon as I have it. If you have anything further to add at a later date, you know where to send it. I’ll be sure to pass it along to the proper ponies.”

“Thank you, we’ll keep that in mind. Have a safe journey home,” said Palisade.

“Yeah, take care, and don’t be afraid to come and visit again sometime,” added Cloud Kicker, a friendly smile on her face.

Red Tape returned the smile with one of his own. “I’ll keep that in mind, until next time, farewell,” and with that, he turned and left.

Turning back to her pegasus partner, Cloud Kicker asked, “So, Palisade, what’re you planning on doing for the rest of the night?”

Palisade paused as he was getting up to leave as well, and placing a hoof to his chin thoughtfully said, “Well, I’ve got a mountain of reports to fill out before tomorrow afternoon, and I need to oversee the construction of our new barracks. Oh, and there’s that leadership meeting tomorrow at 0800 I need to be at, plus-”

“I get it, I get it, you’re busy, sheesh,” cut in Cloud Kicker, as she rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I was just asking if you were free to chat or hang out for a bit, not get read your entire schedule for the next day.”

Palisade offered an apologetic grin. “Sorry, got a bit carried away there.”

“Ya think?” replied Cloud Kicker with a raised eyebrow.

Shrugging Palisade replied sheepishly, “Sorry, it’s just...”

“This your first time in solo command?” she asked, a knowing look on her face.

He hung his head, a tired sigh escaping his lips. “Yeah, it is. If I’d know being an officer was going to be this stressful, then I’d have just stayed a sergeant.”

Cloud Kicker gave him a sympathetic smile. “Been there done that. I felt the same way after I got my first command after completing West Hoof. If you need any advice, I’d been happy to share.”

He gave a grateful smile. “Thanks, uh, would you happen to be free around 1700 tomorrow by chance?”

She gave him sudden, sultry smile, as she leaned in close, she whispered in a husky voice, “For you, I can free anytime.”

Turning bright as a tomato, Palisade beat a hasty retreat sputtering as he went, “T-that w-would be lovely... I-I mean... I-I’llseeyoutomorrowat1700thengottagobye!” and with that, he tore out of the bakery as if his tail were on fire leaving a smirking Cloud Kicker behind.

Stallions are so fun to tease. She thought, a mischievous grin on her face.

Just then Mrs. Cake, the bakery’s plump matron trotted up and asked, “Chased off another one eh?”

Cloud Kicker just chuckled. “You know I just do it for fun. It’s so funny to get them wound up so much that they can’t even talk straight, let alone think!”

Mrs. Cake giggled. “Oh, I know. Back when I was your age, I used to do that all the time to my Carrot Cake! He’d turn into a sputtering mess and try and stammer his way through a conversation. In fact, there were a few times he took off just like your friend there, course I always made sure to tease him, after we’d paid the bill,” she said, a knowing smile on her face as she dropped said bill in front of a suddenly not so smug Cloud Kicker, “just bring that to the register when you’re ready to settle your bill!” and with that she trotted back into the kitchen. Leaving Cloud Kicker to stare at her bill in the sudden realization that she'd just made a huge mistake.

Ah, ponyfeathers, I left my bit bag at home.

Author's Notes:

Well, here is another chapter. This time I got it done in less than a week! Woot!

I know that there wasn't much going on in this chapter, but I felt that I needed to wrap up the transition from the old story's direction to the new one, and I hope that this did an adequate job. If not, I apologize.

Chapter 11 was the last chapter of the old story's direction and chapter 12 was my attempt to change it to a new one without leaving huge unresolved plot threads behind, (and without having to go back and re-write the story for the third time from the beginning.) Add on top of that the three major rewrites of chapter 12, along with the twenty or so minor ones over two years, and you end up with a janky mess of a chapter. As a result, chapters 12-14 here have been a bit messy, and I hope to be done with this combination of the old plotline and new one.

So, as I said, hopefully, the story will be less screwy and be a bit more smooth in terms of flow and character development/characterization going forward.

Anyways, on to the next chapter!

Chapter 15 (Medical Complications)

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Chapter 15

“And that’s the last one.”

Allen breathed a sigh of relief and pulled his pants back up when the nurse finished removing the last needle from his buttcheek.

“How many shots was that today?” he asked sarcastically, “felt like you stuck me about a million times back there, and was it really necessary to stick me so hard too? I felt like you were trying to run me through a few times.”

The nurse, a white coated, pink maned, earth pony mare named Nurse Redheart, finished capping the dirty needle and dropped it in the biohazard waste bin before sarcastically retorting, “Actually it was only around half a million or so, and don’t be such a foal, I didn’t stick you any harder than I did the last time you were here.”

Allen rolled his eyes at the nurse’s sass. “Oh, well then, don’t I feel lucky?”

“You should, considering that we determined that you were susceptible to several diseases that we couldn’t vaccinate you for in our first round of testing because you hadn’t had the preparatory vaccines and medicines given to you yet. Diseases that would have had very unpleasant effects on your biology if we hadn’t vaccinated you in time.”

Still a little miffed by her lack of bedside manners, Allen shot back, “And what kind of ‘unpleasant effects’ are we talking about here?”

“Death most likely,” she shot back evenly, not even bothering to look up from her clipboard as she finished her report.

Allen blinked, and like a balloon who’d been punctured, he felt the remaining irritation drain from his body. “Oh, right.”

Letting go a sigh, Redheart turned to regard Allen and said, “I am sorry for the inconvenience that you endured here, Mr. Ross, and I’m sorry that you felt more pain than you should have. Getting stuck with a lot of needles and pumped full of medicine all at once isn’t anypony’s idea of a good time. However, we had to get you back in here quicker than we initially thought due to one of the tests coming back saying that you were critically vulnerable to several rather common diseases here in Equestria. One of them being pony pox.”

“Pony pox? What does that do?” asked Allen.

“It usually manifests itself in young foals, common symptoms are fever, headaches, loss of appetite, tiredness and red bumps and blisters on the skin that will usually break after a day and then scab over. It is highly contagious and in severe cases can result in blisters in the mouth, throat, eyes, and anus. Adults that get it tend to fare worse than foals, and it can lead to pneumonia and meningitis or encephalitis, which is an infection of the brain. If left untreated in an adult or if they’re immune system isn’t strong enough, it can also result in death.”

“That sounds an awful lot like chicken pox, which I had as a kid.”

Nurse Redheart shook her head. “Not quite, pony pox, while similar to chicken pox, is more dangerous to non-ponies. Even though you had chicken pox, that won’t be enough to keep you from getting the pony pox. If you had contracted it, inflammation of the brain would have likely occurred, followed by massive organ failure, in addition to the aforementioned symptoms. We’re not sure why pony pox is so deadly to other species, but it is, so you getting the vaccine was critical. Luckily you haven’t been exposed to any so far, so you should be fine now.”

Allen gave a mental sigh of relief. Glad that he had dodged that particular bullet. “Well, that’s a relief, guess I shouldn’t have given you so much grief then, sorry.”

Redheart gave him a curt nod as she finished putting things away. “Apology accepted. And I apologize if I’ve been less than gentle, your skin isn’t as difficult to get through as a pony’s is, so I apologize for any excessive force.”

“It’s alright, I know I didn’t make it easy. I’ve always hated needles, and being around them tends to make me squeamish and irritable.”

Redheart smiled. “I completely understand, trust me when I say that you’ve been the most cooperate patient I’ve had today when it comes to giving them their shots. Trust me, nothing is more frustrating than a unicorn foal going through their magical surge phase who doesn’t want to get their shots.”

Allen gave her a curious look. “Magical surge phase?”

Redheart twirled a hoof nonchalantly and replied, “Oh it’s just that when the magic in a young foal is still developing, it’ll sometimes ‘surge’ and allow the foal to do extraordinary things. Unicorn foals are the worst, I can’t tell you how many times one of the little rascals has teleported on me or cast a shield spell on themselves to keep from getting stuck. Pegasi come a close second as they tend to just zip around the room like a little rubber ball that’s been thrown too hard,” she sighs, “before I worked here in Ponyville, I did my residency at Canterlot General, and some of the stories I heard from the staff about their encounters with a surging foal left me fairly anxious the first time I had to work with one. It’s why they finally invested in a null room a couple of years ago, helps keep the young one's magic from surging when they’re working with them.”

“What did the foals do to the staff?” asked Allen as he and Redheart walked back to the checkout desk.

“You name it, teleportation, shield spells, fireballs, ice shards, transformation, phasing through solid objects, strong levitation spells, pretty much any kind of spell you could think of, they somehow managed to cast. Nopony is really sure how they can do it when they surge, but then are unable to later, but such is the mysteries of life I suppose.”

“Wait, you said transformation spells? As in, turning something into something else? That’s a thing here?” asked Allen, a hint of nervousness coloring his voice.

Redheart nodded. “Yeah, rumor has it that Twilight accidentally turned her parents into house plants when she surged during an entrance exam at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I’ve never asked her if it’s true or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I remember when I was still in Canterlot, one of the doctors said that he and a nurse had their genders reversed by a young filly when she was in to get her shots. Luckily, those spells either don’t last for very long or are easy to reverse.”

“Twilight turned her parents into house plants?” said Allen, a shiver running down his spine at the thought of being turned into a ficus.

Redheart placed a calming hoof on his thigh and said with a soothing tone, “Like I said it’s a rumor, and trust me, we ponies have ways to figure out if somepony has been transformed into something else. That kind of magic leaves large traces behind, and it’s a simple matter of reversing the spell. Besides, there are very few ponies out there who have that kind of magical power, so you’ll be fine.”

“Somehow that doesn’t reassure me very much,” replied Allen, a concerned look on his face.

Seeing that he hadn’t calmed down, Redheart tried again. Standing on her hind hooves and resting her forehooves on his chest, she looked him square in the eye and said in as calming a voice as she could, “Mr. Ross, I can assure you that the one pony capable of potentially casting transformation magic in this town is Ms. Sparkle, and she would never do something like that without a pony’s permission. Additionally, every unicorn is rated on their power level when they are in school, and they are given a designation as a result, and as that pony grows, they are re-evaluated on a regular basis. For instance, Twilight is an upper beta level unicorn, and before you ask, yes, that designation is supposed to be public knowledge. The reason is that each of these designations allows others to know roughly how powerful that unicorn is, which means they’ll have a decent idea of what kind of spells they are able to wield. Furthermore, there are strict laws in regards to the misuse of magic, and very few unicorns would risk the kind of punishments those laws entail should they break them.”

“But what about those foals you were talking about? They can do that too, right?” Allen had calmed down a little, but for some reason, his heart was still beating hard in his chest. The idea of being transformed into something against his will terrified him like nothing else.

Seeing that her words weren’t having a strong impact on him, Redheart softened her gaze and spoke even softer. Luckily they were in a wing of the hospital that was currently not being used, and as such, there wasn’t anypony to see Allen have his little panic attack. “Allen,” she began, using his first name for the first time since meeting him, “I told you, foal magic doesn’t work the same as adult magic. The effects can be easily reversed by any competent adult because a foals magic is unstable. That is what gives spells their power. If a spell is cast in an unstable manner, it will either not work, be weak, and thus easy to counter, or will simply explode in the casters face. With transformation magic, it takes a great deal of power to permanently change something or someone into something or someone else. That is because the spell has to spend so much of its energy converting one type of matter into a different type that it can’t sustain itself unless the caster is able to pour enough energy into the spell to overcome the power drain. Not only that, but every living creature has a magic resonance inside them, so in order to change something permanently, you have to overcome the magical resonance of whatever it is you are transforming, and that is extremely difficult. So, I will say this again, you are in no danger from some random unicorn coming along and zapping you with a spell and turning you into a begonia on the side of the road for the rest of your life.”

Allen slowly felt his heart rate returning to normal, but then he felt it skip a beat or two, his legs suddenly felt weak, and he lost his balance. Throwing a hand out, he caught the nearby wall, and using that, tried to lower himself to the floor. Redheart, having been using her forehooves on Allen’s chest to keep herself upright, suddenly found herself falling forward when Allen fell backwards, the end result being that Allen suddenly found the nurse sprawled across his lap in a very awkward manner. Checks flaming red, Nurse Redheart quickly extricated herself from the somewhat compromising position of having her rear stuck up in the air, while her face was buried in Allen’s lap.

Thank Epona that nopony saw that or I’d never hear the end of it. Thought Redheart thankfully to herself as she readjusted her nurse's cap, which had gone askew in the tumble.

Having finished adjusting her cap, Nurse Redheart took a moment to awkwardly clear her throat and said, “Sorry about that, are you alright? You lost your balance so suddenly, I didn’t have time to catch myself.”

Still feeling weird, and breathing slightly hard, as if he’d just climbed several flights of stairs at a run, Allen shakily nodded, “I-I think so. I don’t know why, but I feel a little funny.”

Upon hearing Allen’s reply, Redheart’s nurse mode instantly kicked in, and she moved forwards to examine him.

Drat, I don’t have a flashlight to check his pupil dilation. Leaning her head against his chest, she listened to his heartbeat. Heartbeat seems a little fast, better check his pulse. Grabbing his wrist with a hoof, she placed her frog against it and felt his pulse. Hmmm, I don’t like it, it feels off slightly, not as strong as it was when he came in this morning. I’d better have Dr. Stable check on him, he might be having a reaction to one of the vaccines.

Glancing up at Allen, she asked calmly, “Do you think you’re able to walk? I’d like to have Dr. Stable take a look at you, I think you might be having a reaction to one of the vaccines.”

Allen blinked several times as he tried to focus, and giving his head a shake he said, “I don’t know, what’s going on?”

Crap, I was afraid this might happen, too many medications in too short a time. His body isn’t handling it well. Biting her lower lip, she quickly made a decision. Turning around, so that her rear was to him, she said, “Climb on, I’ll carry you to the ER, and don’t give me any excuses, I might be smaller than you, but I’m an earth pony, and we are stronger than we look.”

Giving a shaky nod, Allen shakily climbed onto her, his chest flat against her back. Grunting under the sudden weight, Redheart shifted Allen slightly with her shoulders and feeling that he was as settled as he was going to get, carefully trotted down the hall towards the ER. She was sure under different circumstances, this would be a comical sight. Allen had his arms wrapped around her neck in an attempt to keep from sliding off her back, while his legs, being so long, dragged along behind her, occasionally leaving a scuff mark behind.

Dusty is gonna have a fit when he sees those scuff marks. She thought quietly to herself as she half carried, half dragged Allen down the hall.

A few minutes later, and they arrived at the ER. Pushing open the door with a foreleg, Redheart stumbled inside. Luckily, Dr. Stable was already there, and upon seeing them, he immediately made a beeline for the pair.

Lighting up his horn, he quickly removed Allen from Nurse Redheart’s back, to which she was grateful as, while he wasn’t heavy per se, he was big and awkward to carry around. Thankfully, she hadn’t had to carry him very far. However, there were more pressing matters at the moment than complaining about carrying big and awkward objects, namely that they had a sick human on their hooves.

“What happened,” asked Dr. Stable, a light amber colored unicorn, with an electrocardiographic monitor as his cutie mark.

Redheart shook her head. “I don’t know, we were talking on the way to the checkout desk and he suddenly became upset when I brought up that transformation magic was possible. I tried to calm him down, and it partially worked, but then he lost his balance and collapsed against a wall, and I had to carry him here as he said he felt funny and was unable to walk. I think he may be having a reaction to one of the vaccines we gave him today.”

Wasting no time, Dr. Stable quickly used his magic to remove Allen’s shirt and placed several EKG pads on his chest with his magic, it's cyan glow quickly moving from the pads to the nearby heart monitor and flipping several switches, bringing the machine to life with a rhythmic beeping sound. Turning to look at the heart monitor, he watched as the lines went up and down for several seconds before turning back to Allen and beginning his examination.

After several tests, he turned to Redheart and said, “Get him started on a saline drip, and give him a mild relaxant, five milligrams should be enough. He’s having a mild panic attack and that’s causing his body to dump adrenaline into his bloodstream. Did you happen to give him the pony pox vaccine today by chance?”

She nodded. “Yes, it was the last one I gave him.”

He nodded in sudden understanding. “I thought so, then it’s no wonder he’s reacting this way. That was a new one that we just got, and it has to be administered separately at least twenty-four hours before or after another vaccine or medicine. Additionally, the patient can’t do any activities that would elevate their heart rate for at least two hours, preferably three. They changed one of the ingredients in it, don’t know why, the old one was just fine, but they did. Anyways, as I said, get some saline in him along with a mild relaxant and he should be fine.”

“Wha-why didn’t anypony tell me about the vaccine change?! I thought it was the usual one!” replied Redheart angrily.

Dr. Stable held up a calming hoof. “I know, I’m sorry, I had thought everypony had been told this morning. We used up the last of the old vaccine yesterday afternoon, and I had Nurse Tenderheart bring up the new ones from storage. I’ll be sure to double check and make sure everypony knows about the new procedures with this vaccine. We don’t want another repeat of this,” turning to regard Allen with a contrite look, he said, “Mr. Ross, I am so very, very sorry about this, but don’t worry, you are in good hooves and we will correct this, Nurse Redheart, if you please?” he asked as he turned to leave, presumably to make sure everyone else was up to speed on the new changes.

“Of course Dr. Stable, I’ll get right on it,” she replied before quickly getting to work. A few minutes later, and the drip was going, and Allen could already feel the relaxant kicking in. Giving a contented sigh, he relaxed further into the surprisingly comfortable bed. Nurse Redheart, upon noticing that he was shivering slightly, had gone and fetched a pre-warmed blanket from one of the warming cabinets and gently placed it over him.

Giving her his thanks, Allen felt his eyelids grow heavy and he found himself dozing off. However, all too soon he felt a hoof shaking him awake. Glancing over at the pony the hoof was attached to, he found himself looking at Nurse Redheart. Blinking blearily at her, he glanced around the room in confusion before asking in a slurred voice, “Wha time iz it?”

“You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours, Mr. Ross,” she replied softly, “I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to examine you to see if your condition has improved.”

He blearily nodded for her to go ahead. Quickly setting to work, Redheart asked as she took his pulse, “How are you feeling? Any tightness in your chest, labored breathing, is your heart beating strangely?”

He shook his head. “No, I just feel a little tired is all.”

She nodded, a pleased smile on her face. “That will be the relaxants, which is good, we don’t want your heart beating too fast or it could trigger a reaction.”

“Why?”

She continued working as she replied, “All vaccines and medicines have magic in them. These spells are classified as ‘ingredients’ by the Ministry of Health, and most of them are just meant to keep the medicine from degrading or to boost its potency. However, like all things, if you change an ingredient, even slightly, it can cause... complications. In your case, the pony pox vaccine had one of the potency spells changed, apparently the company that makes it thought that we were due for a more virile strain this year and wanted to get ahead of it, so they made it stronger. Problem is, by doing that they made it so that the vaccine won’t play nice with the other ones we gave you. So now we have to wait for them to work themselves through your system so that it doesn’t get overloaded. Unfortunately, in your case, nopony told me that we had run out of the old one and that they had brought the new vaccine out of storage, and the bottle looked like the usual one. So, I assumed we still had some of the older ones left, which we could inject with other medicines at the same time without issue. Moreover, since you hadn’t had any reactions to the previous round of vacancies and boosters, your body is obviously able to properly absorb and metabolize the magical ingredients without issue, so I figured that this round wouldn’t be any different.”

“But it was,” cut in Allen.

Redheart nodded as she finished her exam. “Yes, it was. By increasing the potency of the vaccine, your bodies immune system became overloaded. However, it seems as though that by itself wouldn’t have caused any issues or at least that is what Dr. Stable thinks. So, if you had gone home and taken it easy for the rest of the day, you would have probably been fine, maybe you would have felt a little off, but not to the degree you do right now.”

“So what happened then?” asked Allen as Redheart removed the blood pressure cuff from his arm.

She shrugged. “Near as we can tell, you became upset when you and I discussed the effects of a foal’s magical surges. As a consequence, your body entered into a ‘flight or fight’ mode and began dumping adrenaline into your system, elevating your heart rate among other bodily functions. This, in turn, caused a negative reaction with the recently injected vaccines, which then caused your body to become ill from the effects. Which in turn, made the body dump even more adrenaline into your system, and made the problem worse.”

“So it created a positive feedback loop?”

“Precisely,” replied Redheart with a nod, “as your body tried to counter the negative reaction to the medicine, it just made the situation worse. The only way that we could hope to reverse it was to get you to relax, hence the use of the mild relaxants, coupled with the saline drip. Which, if your vitals are anything to go by, seems to be working. Heart rate is back down to normal levels and your heart's rhythm is working properly again, breathing levels are normal and so is eye pupil dilation. I’m very glad we got a good baseline for you during your initial check-up,” finished Redheart, half to herself and half to Allen.

Turning to leave, she called back over her shoulder, “I’ll go and get Dr. Stable, and we’ll see if he thinks you are good to go home or if we should keep you overnight.”

“But I’ve got animals to feed,” protested Allen.

Nurse Redheart gave him a stern glare. “If you think I’m going to let you go home and work yourself back into a hospital bed after I just got you out of it, you’ve got another think coming mister! No strenuous work for the rest of the day, do I make myself clear?” she asked in a tone that brooked no argument.

Allen meekly nodded his head and seeing that he was going to behave himself, she gave a satisfied nod of her head and trotted out the room to fetch, Dr. Stable. A few minutes later, and Redheart returned with the doctor. Taking a look at the clipboard at the end of Allen’s bed, Dr. Stable looked it over before nodding to himself and putting it back. Glancing up at Allen he gave the human a happy smile. “Good news, Mr. Ross, it looks like you are going to be just fine.”

Allen returned the doctor’s smile with a grateful one of his own. “That’s good to hear doc. I was afraid you were going to be forced to keep me overnight.”

Dr. Stable’s smile quickly turned upside down. “Well, actually I was planning on keeping you overnight. Even though your vitals have normalized for the moment, I’d still feel better if we kept you close by in case anything else cropped up. Not only that, but I know how you farmers like to ignore my advice when I tell you to take it easy. So, I’m not going to give you the chance to ignore it.”

“But-!”

“No buts,” cut in Dr. Stable, giving Allen a stern glare, though a second later it softened, “I’m sorry, Mr. Ross, but what with your alien physiology, and your recent complication, I’d rather play it safe than have you be at home without somepony keeping an eye on you in case you have a relapse.”

Allen felt himself deflate in defeat, and he hung his head. “So who is gonna take care of my animals?” he asked unhappily.

“Well, is there anypony who you think would be willing to help you out? We could send somepony to go and get them real quick. I’m sure they would be happy to help you.”

Allen let his head fall back onto his pillow as he stared up at the ceiling and he thought carefully for a few moments before saying, “Well, the only ponies who’ve really been to my farm who live close by are Lyra and Twilight, they might be willing to help, though I don’t know where they live.”

Redheart gave a gentle smile and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Ross, I know where both of them live. They’ve been patients here several times and we have their addresses on file,” turning to Dr. Stable she asked, “if you’re alright with it, I can go get them right now.”

He nodded. “I don’t see why not, I’ll keep an eye on our patient while you’re out, see you when you get back.”

Turning to leave, she gave the two a wave goodbye and trotted out. Dr. Stable, watched her go for a moment before turning back to Allen and continuing his examination.

~oOo~

Nurse Redheart quickly trotted through the sun-drenched streets of Ponyville as she headed in search of Twilight and Lyra. She first decided to see if Twilight was home, as even though she hadn’t had many opportunities to get to know the mare, Redeheart had heard that Twilight would often be found with her muzzle firmly planted in the middle of a book. So to that end, she figured her best chance of finding the mare was to head to the one place in town that had plenty of books for a pony to plant their muzzle in, the Golden Oaks Library.

Nopony was quite sure who had built the library or even how. The tree housing the library had been there for decades, and as such, it’s origins had been lost to the foggy mists of time. However, regardless of who had built it, one thing was for sure, it was one of the unique landmarks of Ponyville, and locating it was not very difficult, all one had to do was search the rooftop skyline for a giant tree and head towards it, they’d eventually find themselves in front of it in no time. Such was the case with Redheart as after a few minutes walking, she found herself at the front door, a stylized candle holder with a lit candle carved into it greeted her as she knocked.

After a few minutes, the sound of approaching hooves, and indistinct mumbling, reached her ears and a moment later the door opened to reveal one of the mares she was looking for.

“Oh, Nurse Redheart! What brings you here at this time of day? I would have thought you’d still be at the hospital,” greeted Twilight, a confused look on her face.

Nurse Redheart returned Twilights greeting with a nod. “I actually just came from there. Do you happen to know where Ms. Heartstrings is? This concerns her too.”

Twilight, having picked up on the serious look on the nurse’s face, nodded. “Yes, she’s actually here with me right now. We were working on our research paper together and working up another list of questions to ask Allen, why, what’s wrong?”

Redheart grimaced and said, “Allen had a bad reaction to one of the vaccines we gave him,” she quickly held up a hoof upon seeing the growing look of alarm on Twilight’s face, “he is stable right now, but Dr. Stable wants to keep him overnight just to be on the safe side. So he asked me to come and see if you would be willing to take care of his animals for him tonight, as he’s confined to the hospital till tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my gosh! Of course, we will. Lyra!” she shouted back over her shoulder, causing the mint green mare to come trotting over, a concerned look on her face upon seeing Twilight’s distressed look.

“What is it, Twilight?” she asked.

“Allen’s in the hospital, and needs our help,” she quickly explained, before turning and rushing back into the depths of the library, calling for Spike to come help her pack various things before she left.

Lyra, having been too far away and fully engrossed in her work to hear the full story turned to Redheart and cautiously asked, “What happened to him, is he going to be okay?”

Redheart quickly waved away her concerns with a hoof and gently replied, “We think Allen had a bad reaction to one of the vaccines we gave him. Thankfully it happened at the hospital while he was walking to the checkout desk, so I was able to quickly get him to the ER. Dr. Stable has him on a saline drip and mild relaxant right now, and we intend to keep him overnight as a precaution. However, that means he can’t go home to tend to his animals and seeing as you and Twilight are the only two he really knows that well, he asked us if we could come and ask you for your help.”

A determined look flashed across Lyra’s face and she replied without a second of hesitation, “Of course! Let me go grab my saddlebag and we can head there right now.”

Lyra hadn’t even had a chance to turn around before a pair of saddlebags, matching her coat color, and with her cutie mark printed on the side, were all but slammed onto her back and she was quickly pushed out the door by Twilight’s magic. “Okay, we’re ready to go now!” exclaimed a suddenly frazzled looking Twilight. Her usually neatly combed mane had a few stray hairs poking out at odd angles and her slightly off-center smile made her look a little unhinged.

“Are you alright, Ms. Sparkle?” asked Nurse Redheart, a sudden concerned look on her face at the sudden change in demeanor of Twilight.

“I’m fine! Fine, just fine, yep, nopony is more fine than me, I’m not worried about anything, cause obviously there is nothing to worry about right now, not one little thing!” she replied, her smile having become steadily creepier as she prattled on, leaving Nurse Redheart feeling less and less sure that the mare was in fact, ‘fine’.

Lyra, having been a friendly acquaintance with Twilight for several years, could see that her friend was quickly winding herself into a full-blown panic attack or mental breakdown, probably due to finding out that Allen was in the hospital so suddenly. Twilight had never been very good at handling stressful situations reliably. Thankfully, Lyra had experienced a few ‘Twilight Freakouts’ and knew some ways to mitigate them before they got too big, so she decided to try and soothe her by distracting her using one of the most reliable ways she knew how.

“Hey Twilight,” she said, in an almost conversational tone, a sly glint in her eye.

Twilight, a few more hairs having popped free of her mane, while one of her eyes started twitching, turned slowly to regard her friend and asked in a strained tone of someone trying to keep it together and failing, “Yes?”

“What’s your opinion on Haycarts Treatise on Ponies? I always thought he and his work were a little over-hyped myself.”

You could almost hear the needle scratch, as Twilight’s brain crashed, then rebooted, at Lyra’s remark. Giving her friend a look that practically screamed, ‘are you crazy’? She took a deep breath and proceeded to launch into a long lecture about how Haycart’s research and philosophy were a critical departure from the old ways of thinking and had helped usher in a scientific renaissance across ponydom.

And there we go, lecture mode engaged, and she’s already forgotten whatever it was that was bothering her, score one point for Lyra Heartstrings!

Giving Nurse Redheart a covert wink, Lyra inclined her head towards the hospital to signal that they should get going. Redheart, gave her a grateful smile, as she had heard about Twilight’s... eccentricities when she became stressed. Most of this was second hoof as she hadn’t been in town the day that Twilight had tried to figure out how Pinkie Pie worked, but from what she had gathered, it hadn’t ended well.

Shaking her head to get her mind back on task, she quickly set off, with Lyra pulling Twilight along behind as the bibliophile unicorn continued her one-sided argument concerning the merits of Haycart’s treatises.

By the time they reached the hospital, Twilight had entered full-on lecture mode, lecture aids included. Lyra, being the friend she was, was politely listening as Twilight talked. Redheart had stopped listening after the first few minutes, as nearly everything the book-loving unicorn said went right over her head.

“And that’s why Haycart is not over-hyped,” said Twilight, a satisfied look on her face as she poofed away her lecture aids. “Hey, when did we get here?” asked Twilight upon noticing they were standing outside the hospital now.

Lyra just smiled and rolled her eyes. “We just got here, you know, by walking.”

Twilight, realizing that she’d been completely engrossed in her lecture and had zoned out, blushed and awkwardly clearing her throat, sought to change the topic. “Well alright! Since we’re here, we should probably go see how Allen is doing,” and with that, she quickly rushed inside. Redheart and Lyra just looked at each other and giggled at the flustered unicorn’s antics before following her inside.

Inside, they quickly made their way to the ER and found Allen lightly dozing in his bed, though he was awakened fully when Twilight and Lyra approached him and they began talking. Dr. Stable meanwhile, having nothing better to do, had elected to remain in the ER and monitor Allen’s vitals, though as Redheart approached him, she could see that he had a puzzled look on his face, and he was idly chewing on his pencil again. He always did that when he came across a problem that didn’t seem like a problem at first, but that his gut said was a problem and that he just couldn’t see it.

Clearing her throat to get his attention, she gave him a smile and asked, “Found them, they were at the library working on research apparently. Though I’m a little worried about Twilight, she suddenly became upset rather quickly for some reason just before we left.”

Dr. Stable hummed in reply, “She’s a high-level beta unicorn, almost alpha level if we’re going, to be honest, it comes with the territory. Plus she’s an adolescent, hormones and magic never did mix very well.”

“Still, I’m worried about her mental well being, to go from calm, if concerned about Allen, to the early stages of a mental breakdown, to back to calm and focused again when Lyra distracted her, I think she should be evaluated again. If her power levels are increasing, it could be serious.”

Dr. Stable nodded. “I’ll broach the subject with her at her next physical evaluation next month. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

Redheart gave him a grateful smile. “And thank you for taking me seriously. It’s very nice to have a doctor who will listen to their nurses about this sort of thing, especially in regards to mental health.”

“I wouldn’t be worthy of my cutie mark if I didn't. A proper doctor has to look at all the information given to them about the health of their patients, regardless of where it comes from. Which is why I’m starting to question if my initial diagnosis of Mr. Ross’s condition was correct in its entirety.”

Suddenly feeling worried, Redheart moved closer to him and in a lower voice asked, “What’s wrong, I thought we determined that his system was just overloaded?”

Dr. Stable nodded. “That’s the thing, even if his system was overloaded like a pony’s would be after all those shots we gave him, he shouldn’t have exhibited the severity of symptoms that he did. After you left, I decided to take a second look at the new pony pox vaccine instruction booklet that they sent us, and according to them, Allen’s symptoms should have just been mild nausea, flushed face, and mild dizziness, not what he had.”

“But those symptoms are in regards to ponies, are they not?” asked Redheart quietly.

Stable shook his head. “No, they did a rigorous battery of testing before sending this on the market. The results were uniform across all demographics, with little variations. Granted there were outliers, but my gut tells me that there is something more going on here, and I’m just not seeing all the pieces.”

“Is he having any additional issues?” she asked.

Dr. Stable shook his head. “None so far, but I’m still worried. His physiology seems similar in many respects to our own, but there is just enough difference that I’m worried he could be experiencing an issue and we just can’t identify what it is based on his symptoms. Plus, we only did the bare minimum tests needed to establish normal baseline conditions and took the usual fluid, stool and tissue samples needed to test for diseases and such. While we did a full x-ray of him, we never did a Magical Resonance Imaging scan, but now I’m thinking we should, just to be on the safe side.”

“Have you discussed this with him?”

Again, he shook his head. “Not yet, I wanted to wait till after he had a chance to talk with Twilight and Lyra first. Because I plan to run him through the full battery of tests until I’m sure there is nothing wrong with him, and I don’t need him anymore stressed than he’ll already be.”

“Alright,” said Redheart with a nod, “that seems prudent.”

Turning to give her a wry grin he joked, “Glad you agree, nurse, wouldn’t want to overstep my authority or anything.”

She swatted his rump with her tail, though it didn’t hurt as much as it should have, as his white doctor's coat took the brunt of the mock attack, and stuck her tongue out at him. “Jerk,” she replied half-jokingly, as he chuckled in response.

However, his expression turned serious again, and turning to face her, he lowered his voice further, causing Redheart to lean in closer to hear what he said, “All kidding aside though, as soon as Twilight and Lyra leave, I want to get him to the MRI room and take a look inside. I’m wondering if his body is having trouble metabolizing the magic inside the medicine.”

“But wouldn’t these symptoms have shown up the first time we gave him shots?”

Stable shook his head. “Not necessarily, remember what he told us the first time we saw him, his world either didn’t have any magic or there was so little as to be unnoticeable. I looked over the first round of shots we gave him, and those contained fairly low doses of magical ingredients. However, this round was much heavier as we needed to shield him against the more dangerous diseases that we couldn’t do last time because he didn’t have the preparatory meds in him yet.”

Redheart felt the gears grinding away in her head as she slowly nodded, a thoughtful look on her face as she brought a hoof to her chin and idly rubbed it with her frog. “I think I see what you’re getting at. During the first round his body only needed to metabolize a small dose of magic, and so it didn’t affect him or the effects weren’t noticeable, but now...”

“Now the dose was too big for his body to keep up and coupled with his mild panic attack, he had a reaction. To be honest, I’ve never seen a reaction like this before to magical medicine. I’m worried we might need to have some none-magical medicine on hoof in case something happens to him.”

“It might not be a bad idea, but we should probably do the tests first and see what comes up before we go and blow the hospitals budget on chemically treated medicine, I know for a fact that the prices for those are much higher than our own.”

Stable nodded. “Indeed,” he said before sighing, “hopefully I’m just worrying over nothing and this is just a result of him being an outlier rather than something more serious. Stress might have also played a role in the matter. I can only imagine what kind of pressure and stress he is under right now.”

Turning to regard Allen and the two ponies across the room, Redheart nodded in agreement. “Agreed, might be a good idea to see if he’d be willing to have a psychiatrist talk with him, being ripped from everyone and everything you know and love isn’t something one can just brush off and walk away from unscathed.”

“I’ll see if he’ll talk with Dr. Sunny Skies, she has a way of getting ponies to open up and work through their issues,” he said before noticing that Twilight and Lyra seemed to have finished their conversation with Allen and were preparing to leave.

I wonder what they were talking about, it looks like Twilight made one of her lists again. I guess Allen wanted to make sure they knew exactly what he wanted them to do while he’s here. Thought Redheart as she and Dr. Stable slowly trotted over to Allen’s bed.

Giving the three a smile, Dr. Stable asked, “So, got everything squared away?”

Allen gave a tired nod. “I think so. It should be pretty straight forward, and Twilight made a...list if you could call it that.”

Redheart and Dr. Stable chuckled, while Twilight gave a sheepish smile as she tucked the thick, rolled up list away in her saddlebag.

Clearing her throat to cover up her embarrassment, Twilight replied, “I just wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss or forget anything, after all, what kind of good friend would I be if I didn’t listen and follow my friend’s instruction properly?” she said, a slightly strained smile forming on her muzzle, while a couple of previously straight hairs popped out of formation.

There she goes again, thought Redheart to herself, though she didn’t let her concern show. Shooting a glance at Dr. Stable, she slightly inclined her head at Twilight as if to say, ‘You see what I was talking about earlier?’ Stable just gave a shallow nod in reply while keeping his expression friendly.

Allen didn’t seem to notice Twilight’s sudden shift in demeanor, instead, he said sleepily, “I really appreciate this, girls, thank you.”

Twilight shot him a million-bit smile and replied, “What are friends for?” glancing up at the nearby clock on the wall, she suddenly gasped and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, it’s nearly four o’clock, Lyra, we gotta go! Don’t worry Allen, just leave everything to us, no need to worry! Okaygottagonowbye!” she said quickly, as she all but dragged poor Lyra out of the ER with her magic.

Lyra was naturally not amused. “Twilight, let go of me, I can walk just fine you know, ow! Stop pulling! You’re gonna mess up my mane and tail!” any further words were muted as the doors to the ER shut behind them leaving two ponies and a recovering human behind.

Glancing at the two, Allen quirked an eyebrow and thumbing his thumb at the doors, he asked, “Either of you two know what all that was about?”

“I wouldn’t worry about, Mr. Ross,” replied Dr. Stable easily, “it’s probably just Twilight being all excited at the chance to help you and gather more data for her and Lyra’s paper.”

Shrugging, Allen just said, “Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone that enthusiastic about helping someone out, but that’s just me. So,” he said suddenly changing gears, “I noticed you and Nurse Redheart quietly chatting across the room, and I’ve been in enough hospitals and seen enough doctors and nurses trying to hide the fact that they’re talking about how they want to break the bad news to a patient. So out with it, what’s wrong now?”

Dr. Stable’s ears fell flat and he bit his lower lip as he tried to think of a way to tell Allen about his suspicions without upsetting him further. However, with being on the spot so suddenly, he couldn’t find an easy way to say it, so he just told Allen the un-sugarcoated truth.

Nearly twenty minutes later and Allen didn’t really know how to feel about what both Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart had told him.

Just great, something else is going wrong. He sighed as he massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Finally, after a few moments of silence, he asked, “Do you think you can subject me to even more magic without there being more problems. I mean, you just said that you think my body is having trouble with magic, so wouldn’t adding more magic make things worse?”

“This magic is different, you’re body isn’t going to ingest it, and while it’s true that some of it may be absorbed as it passes through during the scan, it wouldn’t really be any different than the radiation from the sun hitting your body. The mana will have a shorter life span than that found in medicine so it shouldn’t cause any additional issues.”

“But there’s no guarantee,” said Allen, finishing what the doctor hadn’t said.

Dr. Stable just shrugged. “Is anything in life?”

Allen sighed. “No, I guess not.”

“Look at it this way Allen, yes there is a risk, but there is also a risk of not doing the procedure, and in my opinion, the risk of not doing anything outweighs the risk of doing the scan. Short of opening you up and looking inside, we don’t have any equipment that can look inside you with the level of detail that we need to see what may be wrong. Besides, if something does happen, both myself and Nurse Redheart will be there to counter whatever it is that happens.”

Allen just lay quietly in his bed for several minutes as he weighed his options, finally, he said, “Alright, let’s do this then and get it over with.”

Nurse Redheart nodded and said, “I’ll get the machine prepped and get Nurse Love to help power it.”

“Alright, I’ll get Allen prepped, and we’ll be along shortly.”

Nurse Redheart nodded, and with that, she took off to get the MRI room ready, while Dr. Stable got Allen prepped for transport. Allen meanwhile didn’t have anything to do other than hope they were worrying over nothing.

Chapter 16 (404 Lesson Zero Not Found)

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Chapter 16

As Twilight and Lyra trotted down the dirt road leading past Sweet Apple Acres, Lyra shot Twilight an unhappy look and asked, “Was it really necessary to pull me out of the hospital by my tail?”

Twilight gave Lyra a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I just...well, um, wanted to get started as soon as possible?” she finished lamely.

Lyra wasn’t convinced, as she continued her withering stare. “Something tells me that you’re not being entirely truthful with me here,” she replied.

Now Twilight began to sweat. “No! I-I mean, n-no of course not, don’t be silly! Why would I lie to you about something? I mean, we’re friends after all right?”

Lyra came to an abrupt halt and said, “Okay, several things, first,” she tapped the ground her hoof for emphasis, “if we really are friends, then I feel that you shouldn’t be keeping whatever it is that is bothering you from me, and that you should be able to trust that I will listen to and help you. Second, you’re terrible at lying, and I would recommend not trying your hoof at poker.”

Twilight bit her bottom lip, the tension ratcheting ever higher until finally she couldn’t take it anymore and exclaimed, “Okay fine! I admit it! This past week has been really busy, what with Allen showing up and dealing with Discord, and I got distracted and forgot to write Princess Celestia a reportaboutwhatIlearnedaboutfriendshipandI don’thavealotoftimelefttowriteonetoherbeforetheendofthedayandifIdon’t, I’ll be tardy!” she finished in a big rush, her sudden rant leaving her breathless as she fought to draw air into her lungs.

Lyra just stood there staring at Twilight, a confused expression on her face. “What?” she finally said after several seconds of silence, interposed by the sound of Twilight’s labored breathing.

Finally having caught her breath, Twilight looked up at Lyra, an incredulous look on her face. “What do you mean ‘what’? I just told you! Weren’t you paying attention?!”

Lyra slowly nodded. “Yeeees, but you kinda started freaking out and sped up at the end there, and it’s kind of hard to follow what you’re saying when you do that.”

Twilight felt her cheeks flush red in embarrassment. Seeing her friend’s distress, Lyra moved to the side of the road and patted a spot next to her and said, “Alright, get your flank over here and tell me what’s bothering you...slowly this time please.”

“But!”

“No buts! Either you tell me what’s going on or I’m going to go get Nurse Redheart to sedate you. You’re kind of starting to scare me right now Twilight, and I don’t want to see you get hurt, so the sooner you tell me what’s going on, the sooner we can get things done, okay?”

Twilight nervously trotted in place, unsure of what to do. Her head jerking back and forth as she watched the sun slowly moving closer to the western horizon. Finally, she realized that Lyra wasn’t going to budge, and it was best to just try and get this out of the way as quickly as possible, lest she fail in her mission.

Heaving a sigh, she quickly trotted over and told Lyra everything.

~oOo~

“Spike!” yelled Twilight as she tore through the lower level of the library in her quest for her saddlebags and supplies.

“What is it Twi?” asked the purple-scaled drake from his corner of the library distractedly, where he was currently engaged in reading the latest Power Ponies comic.

“Allen’s in the hospital and I need your help to pack my bags so that Lyra and I can go see him!” replied Twilight as she frantically tore through the various piles of papers and research material that she and Lyra had collected over the course of their current study session.

Spike lazily pointed to a nearby pair of hooks on the wall next to the door that lead down to Twilight’s underground laboratory. “Your bags are on the hook where you girls left them, and your extra set of quills and ink are in the top left drawer of your writing desk, extra parchment is in the center one.”

“Thank you, Spike!” exclaimed Twilight gratefully as she quickly gathered the necessary supplies, “do you kno-” she began, but Spike cut her off with another pointed claw towards a stack of books, already anticipating what she wanted.

“Mythology of Humans is in the first pile next to the end table, the third book from the top.”

Twilight quickly collected the tome, and carefully slipped it into her saddlebags. Shoot Spike, a happy smile she quickly trotted over and levitating him up in her magic gave him and hug and said, “What would I ever do without you, Spike?”

“Probably forgot to take care of yourself, and stay a shut-in for the rest of your life,” he replied sarcastically.

Twilight gave him an unamused look. “Haha, very funny, Spike. I’ll have you know that I’m doing a lot better about taking care of myself since I came to Ponyville,” she said, a faux haughty look on her face.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Yeah, real improvements being made Twilight, I only had to carry you to bed three times this week instead of every night.”

Twilight rolled her eyes in response and made to head out, having decided to leave Spike and his snark to themselves. However, as she was trotting away, Spike suddenly asked, “Oh, I almost forgot! Did you get a chance to write a friendship report for me to send to Princess Celestia for this week? Cause you haven’t given it to me yet, and it’s been a week since your last one. I know you’ve been really busy lately, so it wouldn’t surprise me if you forgot to give it to me.”

Twilight froze. Turning slowly, she fixed Spike with a blank look on her face and calmly asked, “What did you say, Spike?”

Spike, having gone back to his comic didn’t see Twilight’s expression at first. “I just asked if you had a friendship report for me to send to Princess Celestia is all. I know how you get when you’re busy, so I just wanted to see if you had one for me to send is all, if you don’t, that’s fine too, I’m just making sure.”

Twilight blinked once, twice, three times, before her brain finally caught up. Snatching Spike up again she brought him up so that they were snout to snout and she asked in a tone of voice that said, ‘I’m just seconds away from snapping, so please tell me what I want to hear,’ “What do you mean that it’s been a week since my last friendship report?!”

“Just what I said, you haven’t sent Princess Celestia a report in a week. If you want, I can send her a letter telling her you’ve been too busy with Allen and the fallout over Discord to write one this week. I’m sure she’ll understand,” he said with a shrug.

Twilight was suddenly hyperventilating now. “No, nononononono, that won’t work, Spike! Princess Celestia expects a friendship report every single week! Not every ten days, not every other week. Every. Single. Week. If I don’t find a friendship problem to fix and write about in the next,” she jerked her gaze away from Spike to the nearby wall clock, it’s hands read just after one in the afternoon, “eight hours, then I’ll be tardy!” she finished, her voice having taken on a whine.

Spike pushed himself away from Twilight and brushing himself off began, “Twilight, I’m sure-”

“And if I’m tardy, then Princess Celestia will not think I’m taking my studies seriously, and then she’ll give me a surprise test, and since I haven’t been studying, I’ll fail and she’ll send me back to...Magic Kindergarten!” exclaimed Twilight, now in full-blown panic mode.

Seeing his adoptive sister breaking down in front of him, Spike did the only thing he could think of, he slapped her.

*Smack!*

“Twilight, snap out of it! Princess Celestia isn’t gonna send you back to Magic Kindergarten, you’re overreacting, again!”

Twilight brought a hoof gingerly to her suddenly smarting check and quietly said to herself, having tuned Spike out, “You’re right, she won’t send me back to Magic Kindergarten if I can find and fix a friendship problem before sundown today! I know what to do, thanks, Spike!” she exclaimed as she grabbed Lyra’s saddlebags from the hook where they were hanging and rushed to the front door, leaving Spike alone with a foreboding feeling in his gut.

“This won’t end well.”

~oOo~

“And that’s it,” finished Twilight a slightly less distressed look on her face.

Lyra just sat there and stared at her companion. Oh boy, she’s on the edge of a breakdown, I can feel it. Okay, Lyra, you can do this, all you have to do is keep her calm and figure out some kind of simple friendship problem that you guys can quickly fix. That way she can get her report done before sundown, which is in, she glanced up at the sun and grimaced, six hours give or take. No pressure.

Outwardly she sighed and giving Twilight a confident smile said, “Alright, well I’m not sure what kind of friendship reports you have done so far Twilight, but maybe we can use our experience of helping Allen as one?”

Lyra’s suggestion seemed to perk Twilight up a bit. “Y-yeah, that's what I was thinking when we left the hospital earlier too.”

“I’m sensing a but somewhere,” replied Lyra.

“Well, I think I already learned that lesson when the girls and I helped Applejack during apple bucking season last year, and then there was also Winter-Wrap up, and maybe-”

“Okay, okay, I get it, you’ve learned the value of helping friends in need. Maybe we can find something else out of this to write to Princess Celestia between now and then.”

“But what if we don’t? What if we can’t find anything meaningful to write to the princess?” she asked, a shudder running down her spine at the thought of failing Princess Celestia.

Lyra placed a comforting hoof on her friend's withers and said, “Then we don’t find anything, and that’s it.”

Twilight whipped her head around to face Lyra, a panicked look in her eyes. “What do you mean that’s it? If we don't find something, we’ll have failed!”

Lyra nodded. “Yep, you’ll have missed a deadline and failed. But you want to know something Twilight?”

“What?” she asked, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

“Sometimes ponies fail, that’s life, and that’s alright.”

“No, it’s not! Failure is, is a terrible thing! If I fail-”

“Then you learn from it,” cut in Lyra when she saw Twilight getting ready to wind herself up again. “Twilight, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve failed at things over the years. I mean just the other day I got a test back from one of my classes and the professor gave me a D- for it. But I’m still here, and Equestria is still standing, does it hurt to fail, yes, but sometimes we learn more from failing than we do from succeeding. It’s like one of my professors said, ‘If you fail at something, then it was just your First Attempt In Learning’,” she said, having dropped the pitch of her voice to make it sound deeper in an attempt to mimic her professor's speech pattern.

She saw Twilight’s lips twitch in an attempt at a smile, but the smile died stillborn on her lips as she went back to worrying. Sighing, Lyra said softly, “Look, do you think that Princess Celestia hasn’t failed at something herself before in her long life?”

“No, of course, no-” began Twilight hotly.

“Nightmare Moon,” cut in Lyra, a serious expression on her face.

Twilight gaped at Lyra, her mental cogs having jammed at the mention of Princess Luna’s alter ego.

Seeing that she had the advantage, Lyra pressed on. “Think about it Twilight, how did Nightmare Moon come about? Princess Luna became jealous of her sister and Princess Celestia either didn’t notice or didn’t care enough to help her sister before it was too late and so Princess Luna was consumed by her jealousy and anger and became Nightmare Moon. As such, Princess Celestia had to banish her to the moon for a thousand years. Now I don’t know about you, but if I had to do that to my sister, and there are some days where Strumming really makes me wish I could,” replied Lyra, an annoyed look on her face at remembering the times when her sister could be quite trying on her patience. However, she shook her head and got back on track, “but in all seriousness, if I had to do that, I’d feel like the biggest failure in Equestria. You don’t think that hasn’t weighed on Princess Celestia’s mind for over a thousand years? And that’s not counting the day to day stuff that comes with ruling a nation. Equestria has gone to war on a couple of occasions, and I’m sure Princess Celestia has felt like those times were failures too.”

By this point, Twilight had brought her tail around to her front and was holding and stroking it like a young foal would their blanket when they were upset.

“So with all of that being said, do you really think Princess Celestia is that petty that she would send one of her best students back to Magic Kindergarten over a missed ‘friendship report’? Especially considering the circumstances that have happened over the past week or two, I mean really?”

“Well...when you put it that way,” said Twilight quietly as she continued to idly pet her tail.

Lyra sighed and moved forward to give her friend a hug. “Listen Twilight, I’m sure that you could easily send Princess Celestia a letter asking her for an extension on turning in your report, and she would probably be fine with it. Besides,” she said, letting go of Twilight and placing her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders and looking her in the eyes, “if Princess Celestia is really that petty and sends you back to Magic Kindergarten, you won’t be alone.”

“What?”

“I mean, that I’d come with you,” replied Lyra.

“Really, you’d come with me?” asked Twilight, flabbergasted that Lyra would be willing to sacrifice her entire scholarly career for her.

Lyra gave a firm nod. “Yep, in a heartbeat. You’re my friend, and that is what friends do for each other when times get hard. They are there, ready to help support you, and they stay with you, no matter what.”

Twilight felt more tears welling up at the corners of her eyes, and she all but flung herself at Lyra, wrapping the mint green unicorn in the mother of all bear hugs. “Thank you,” she said, as she buried her face in Lyra’s shoulder.

Lyra smiled. “Hey, it’s what a good friend would do.”

“Indeed it is,” came a sudden and unexpected voice from behind.

The two unicorns, startled at the sudden intrusion into their friendship moment, collectively yelped and spun around on the spot to see none other than Princess Celestia herself standing before them. Both of them sat there on the side of the road, gobsmacked at the sudden appearance of the princess of all ponies. However, after a moment they promptly prostrated themselves in front of her.

“Princess Celestia!” exclaimed Twilight, “What are you doing here?!”

Celestia chuckled and calmly said, “Rise my little ponies, there is no need to bow. This is a personal visit. Twilight,” she said as she strode forward and lowered her head so as to not look down on her student, “Spike sent me a letter telling me about your...concerns regarding your delayed friendship report today.”

“Princess I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t realize that it was due today an-” began Twilight, however, a gold-clad hoof gently placed to her lips silenced the panicking mare.

Giving Twilight a motherly smile, Celestia said, “My most faithful student, you have nothing to worry about. I am not angry or disappointed in you for not sending me a friendship report, even though,” she glanced up at the sky to gauge the position of her sun before saying, “you still have some time to do one if you want, as we have around five and a half hours till it’s time for me to put the sun to bed.”

Placing a wing across Twilight’s back, much like a mother hen would her chicks, and continued with a gentle smile, “However, if you do not have a new lesson about friendship that you learned to share with me, that is alright too. When I sent you to Ponyville to learn about friendship, I did not do so because I expected you to report to me every week as you do with your other subjects. Unlike them, friendship isn’t something that has easy to recognize lesson plans or examples. Often times we find ourselves learning something new by accident in our day to day lives. I wanted you to come to Ponyville and study the magic of friendship because I saw you isolating yourself from others using books and your studies as an excuse. Studying and learning are wonderful things to do, but many of life’s greatest lessons cannot be found within the pages of some dusty old book.”

Twilight stared down at her hooves, tears beginning to fall, and quietly said in a voice that nearly broke the older mares heart. “I just wanted to be a good student.”

Feeling a tear forming, Celestia hastily leaned down and wrapped her student in a proper hug and huskily said as she fought back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, “You are a good student, Twilight,” pulling back and giving her student a sad smile, she continued, “it’s just that sometimes I worry that you become so focused on one thing that you shut out everything else around you, and that is not healthy. Ponies are not meant to spend their days alone reading books. I have seen what can happen when a pony isolates themselves like that, and it is never good. So, please do not think that I am disappointed in you, I am not, I am happy that you have been able to make a friend who is willing to stand by your side and comfort you in your hour of trial. Hold on to those kinds of friends Twilight, for they are more precious than all the wealth of the world.”

Twilight fixed Celestia with a determined look and nodded, her tears having stopped. “I will princess, I promise!”

Celestia returned Twilight’s look with a happy smile, glad to see that her student was doing better. “I am glad to hear that,” glancing over at Lyra, she said, a mischievous look on her face, “Especially when they are willing to go back to Magic Kindergarten with you, in case their friend's teacher is ‘that petty’.”

Both Lyra and Twilight blushed at her quip. Chuckling at their embarrassment, Celestia let go of Twilight and said in a thoughtful tone, “You know Twilight, I think that this would make a wonderful friendship lesson to write about.”

Twilight’s face lit up with a smile and she immediately grabbed a quill and a piece of parchment and began muttering to herself as she wrote. Letting her student write her letter in peace for a moment, Celestia turned her attention to Lyra and said, “Thank you Ms. Heartstrings for being there for Twilight, I know that she has a propensity to let little things get to her, I’m glad to see that she has a friend who is willing to help her through those moments as you did.”

Feeling embarrassed at the princess’s praise, Lyra kicked a loose pebble with her hoof and replied, “I just did what anypony would do.”

Glancing over her shoulder and seeing her student was fully engrossed in her essay, Celestia leaned down so that she was next to Lyra, she quietly said, “Not everypony, I’m afraid. When Twilight first became my student she had difficulty interacting with the other students at the school. It is a sad fact of life that foals can be quite cruel to each other, and she had trouble making friends. As such, she quickly turned to reading books as a way to cope with the stress, of course, that created its own set of problems.”

Lyra gave Celestia an incredulous look. “Seriously? She didn’t have any friends besides the girls and me?”

“Are you referring to her Ponyville friends? I thought she didn’t meet them until she came here last year,” asked Celestia.

Lyra shook her head. “No, back in Canterlot. Twilight would sometimes hang out with myself and four other mares, Lemon Hearts, Minuette, Twinkle Shine and Moon Dancer. In fact, we were going to have a party for Moon Dancer the day Twilight left Canterlot,” her ears fell at the memory, “Moon Dancer didn’t take it well.”

Both mares glanced back to see Twilight was still writing, oblivious to the world around her. Celestia suppressed a grimace at the thought that she had inadvertently caused Twilight to miss her friend’s party. Though from the sounds of it, Twilight at the time hadn’t thought of them as friends, acquaintances, maybe, but not friends, at least not like her and her Ponyville friends were now.

Turning to look at Lyra, she said, “Perhaps it is not too late to amend that particular broken fence?”

Lyra gave the princess an unsure look, and replied hesitantly, “I don’t know, after Twilight missed her party, Moon Dancer turned into a complete recluse. Every time the girls and I would try and cheer her up, she’d just ignore us or push us away. I’m not sure if she’d be interested in talking with Twilight either.”

Celestia sighed, disappointed that she had inadvertently caused a potential friendship to wither away before it could properly take root. It was possible that her student could patch things up with this Moon Dancer, but it would be difficult for Twilight.

Twilight has overcome difficult challenges before, she freed my sister from her madness when I could not, and she and her friends sealed Discord in stone again. Shooting a covert glance at the mint green mare beside her, she felt a flitter of hope in her heart. And with her newly kindled friendship with Lyra and support from her friends here in Ponyville, I have faith that she could do the same with this Moon Dancer.

Giving a subtle nod, Celestia turned her attention back to Lyra and quietly said, “Ms. Heartstrings-”

“You can call me Lyra, Your Highness, when you or somepony else calls me that, I think they’re talking to my mother,” she said, a cheeky grin on her face.

Returning the grin with one of her own, Celestia responded, “Very well then, Lyra, I was about to ask you if you would help Twilight with repairing her relationship with Moon Dancer when things are not quite so...busy, as they are now. I know that if Twilight realized that she had caused your friend to become so withdrawn because she thought Twilight did not care about her, that it would cause her great distress.”

Glancing between Twilight and Celestia, Lyra gave the elder princess a confident smile and said, “Don’t worry, princess, Lyra Heartstrings is on the case!” she finished with a mock salute, and Celestia chuckled at her antics.

Opening her mouth to respond she was cut off by the sudden appearance of a rolled scroll held aloft in a field of magic in front of her face and Twilight all but shouting, “Done!”

Looking down at her student, Celestia saw that Twilight had a look of giddy anticipation plastered on her face, though Celestia could see that there was a hint of nervousness lurking beneath the surface. No doubt due to Twilight hoping to please her mentor by showing off her abilities in learning about friendship.

Taking the scroll with her magic, Celestia quickly opened it and read through it. When she was finished, she rolled it back up and sent it away in a burst of magic to her office back in Canterlot. Turning to regard Twilight, she gave her student a bright smile and said, “Well done my faithful student, you did a wonderful job, and I am very proud of you.” If Twilight’s smile had gotten any brighter, she could have used it in place of a lighthouse to guide ships at night. “However,” her smile dimmed a bit, “please do not feel as though I expect a report every week from now on, Twilight. Your letters have been a wonderful way for me to see you grow into a bright, caring, young mare and as such, I want you to only send me a letter when you have learned something new about friendship.”

Nodding her head vigorously, Twilight replied, “Of course, Princess Celestia!”

Celestia smiled. “Thank you, Twilight, I look forward to your next letter. To be honest, when I received Spike’s letter earlier I thought that you might try and create a friendship problem to solve!” she said as she chuckled at the thought.

Twilight joined her mentor in laughter, though hers was a bit more forced. “Yeah, create a friendship problem. As if I’d ever do something like that! Ehehe...”

Bringing her laughter under control, Celestia turned to regard the two ponies with a curious expression. “Well, now that we have that particular issue out of the way, I must confess, I am curious as to why you two are all the way out here if you were trying to find a friendship problem to fix.”

Twilight, glad for the change in topic latched onto it like a drowning sailor would a life preserver. “We came out here because Allen is sick and he needed help taking care of his animals while he’s in the hospital.”

Celestia’s expression morphed from curiosity to worry, and she asked, “What happened? Is he going to be alright?”

Lyra stepped forward and replied, “We’re not sure, Nurse Redheart said that he had a bad reaction to one of the vaccines that she gave him earlier. Thankfully he had his reaction while he was still at the hospital and they were able to get him treatment quickly, and when we were there, he seemed to be doing better, but, Dr. Stable wanted to keep him overnight in case there were any further complications.”

Celestia nodded, a serious look on her face. “I see, I am glad that he is doing better, and even though I have limited medical knowledge, I believe that keeping him overnight was the right call,” glancing up from the conversation, she looked back towards Ponyville and said, “I think I might pay him a visit before I return to Canterlot for the evening. However, I am quite curious to see this fabled farm of his. I’ve read Blueblood’s reports, however reading about something and seeing it for oneself are two completely different things. Would it be alright if I came along with you two?” she asked politely.

Twilight immediately replied with excitement at being able to spend more time with her mentor, “Of course princess, we’d be happy to have you come with us!”

“Is that alright with you, Lyra?”

Lyra smiled up at her princess and replied happily, “I’d be honored, Your Highness.”

Giving a happy nod, Celestia replied, “Then it’s settled, off we go!” and with that she, Lyra and Twilight set off for Allen’s farm.

It didn’t take long for the apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres to turn to rolling grassland on one side and fenced in pasture on the other. As the group trotted along, Celestia could just begin to make out the roofs of buildings on the horizon up ahead of them. As they got closer, she could see a gravel roadway connect with the dirt trail up ahead along with a beat-up mailbox to one side. As they passed it, Celestia took a moment to casually look it and the nearby fence over.

Hmm, they seem a bit worn. The fence looks like it hasn’t been painted in years, and this poor mailbox looks like somepony hit it with a bat at some point. I wonder if the rest of his farm looks as run down? Looking forward, she could now see both the barns and the house come into view, and her suspicions were confirmed when she saw their state.

Like the fence and mailbox, the various buildings on Allen’s property were all in need of some TLC, with paint peeling from the walls, rust forming on the metal roofs, weeds growing in the sidewalks and the flowerbeds and the yard poorly trimmed, it gave the farm a depressed looking atmosphere. As if the farm realized that it wasn’t long for this world, and had simply given up on taking care of itself.

Following both Lyra and Twilight, who were busily discussing various things related to Allen and his culture, Celestia contented herself with quietly observing as she trotted along. She quickly noticed that they were headed for the nearest barn. Looking it over, she saw that it had probably been the pride of the farm, with its high gambrel roof and stout wooden walls. However, those days were long gone, she noticed that the roof was sagging slightly in several spots, and the previously white metal roof was rusting in places, giving it a look of having open sores. It’s formally bright red paint and white trim having faded and flaked off in many areas, leaving the dull weathered wood exposed to the elements. Some of the wooden planks had even fallen off, leaving gaping holes in the side walls, looking like a pony with a missing tooth in their smile.

It pained her heart to see Allen’s farm like this. His family must have been going through some difficult times for his farm to become this rundown.

Seeing that they had arrived at a small side door, Celestia gave her head a shake to clear her thoughts and bring her back to the real world. Ducking her head slightly, so as not to bump her horn, she carefully stepped through the doorway into the gloomy interior. Lyra, having already been inside before, quickly located the nearby light switch and flipped it on, bathing the interior in a warm glow as the incandescent lights blazed to life.

Immediately, every animal inside began bellowing for food, thinking that Allen was finally there to feed them. However, the barn soon fell relatively silent as the animals realized that Allen wasn’t there, but the strange looking horse like creatures from before.

“Okay, that’s freaky,” said Lyra as Allen’s animals just continued to stare at them, blank expressions on their faces.

“Ehehe, yeah, we...should probably get started, the sooner we start the sooner we’re done,” agreed Twilight as she quickly brought out the list and glanced at the first item. “Okay, the first thing is to make sure everyone has water.”

Lyra nodded and began checking each stall for a water bucket. Celestia meanwhile contented herself with watching Lyra and Twilight work. However, her curiosity quickly overcame her and she decided to poke around while they were otherwise occupied.

Trotting away from the two unicorns, who were currently busy working on filling up a large water trough from the barns hydrant. Celestia poked her head into a nearby room and took a look around. The various saddles and tack strewn around the room at first glance, made her think that she had mistakenly walked into an adult toy shop in the seedier part of Canterlot. Either that or a farm supply shop in a small rural town, she sometimes found herself confused by her little ponies and their...interests. Shaking her head of the thought, she backed out of the room and continued looking around.

As she walked along she heard a soft nicker to her left. Glancing that way she felt herself pause as she spotted a large equine in a nearby stall. It reminded her of a Saddle Arabian in its physical build, though it’s facial movements were less flexible, and overall it seemed less graceful then they were.

Trotting closer, she carefully extended a gold-clad hoof towards the large equine, and it responded by leaning forward and sniffing her hoof.

This must be that equine that Allen was riding the day he ran into Lt. Palisade’s attempted ambush. Glancing down to her right, Celestia noticed a metal plaque with writing on it. Leaning down to get a better look she read what was written on it.

Reuben. Hmm, that must be their name. Turning her attention back to Reuben, Celestia continued studying them. Reminds me of those old fossils of our ancestors in the Canterlot Natural History Museum. To think that this is what ponies could have looked like if things had been different in our world. Though, it’s not every day that I run across someone who is taller than me. She thought to herself with a giggle.

Stepping closer, Celestia let Reuben lean in closer and sniff her again, the short hairs on their muzzle tickling her slightly. However, after a couple of sniffs, Reuben seemed to lose interest and turned to regard the other two visitors further away.

Seeing that she would get no further interaction from him, Celestia left Reuben behind, electing to trot further into the interior of the barn. Normally she wouldn’t be this adventurous, but after reading about the many adventures that her student had gotten up to over the past year, Celestia found herself wanting to explore more and sit less.

Oh it feels so good to get out of that stuffy castle and just wander a bit. She thought pleasantly to herself as she poked her head into various nooks and crannies, the thrill of discovering new things slowly building up within her as she continued. However, a sound quickly put a damper on her sudden adventurous spirit, one that she hadn’t heard in years, and had hoped to never hear again.

The clucking of chickens.

As soon as she heard that first cluck, Princess Celestia, raiser of the sun, ruler of Equestria and a thousand and one other titles, stopped where she was, turned on her hooves and without a backward glance quickly noped out of there.

On second thought, being in a stuffy castle doesn’t sound so bad right now. She thought to herself as she beat a hasty, but not too hasty, retreat, appearances had to be maintained after all.

Quickly, but not too quickly, she passed her two unicorn companions as she headed for the exit.

“Princess,” called Twilight when she saw her teacher was about to leave, “where are you going?”

Coming to a halt, Celestia turned around, and with what she hoped was a calm smile replied, “Oh, I’m afraid that I need to leave, Twilight, something has...come up, yes, something has come up back in Canterlot, and I’m afraid I must go. I hope you understand.”

“Of course, princess!” replied Twilight, as she quickly trotted over to give her mentor a goodbye hug. Celestia, with a warm smile, bent down to return it, however, she froze when she spotted the first chicken come around the corner. An almost pained look came over her face, and she felt her muscles tense as her body went into fight or flight mode. Twilight, having let go of her end of the hug, either didn’t or pretended not to notice her mentor's sudden anxious expression as the flock of chickens came steadily closer.

“Well, I suppose I should be going now,” said Celestia quickly as she backed carefully away from the flock of slowly approaching chickens.

Both Twilight and Lyra gave Celestia a courteous bow of the heads in goodbye. “Goodbye, Princess Celestia, thank you for coming with us, we were happy to have you with-” the sudden flash and sound of teleportation magic cut Twilight off as Celestia vanished in a shower of golden sparks.

“Huh, that was kinda weird,” remarked Lyra.

Turning to her friend, Twilight cocked her head and asked, “What do you mean?”

Pointing a hoof at the spot where the princess had stood just seconds ago, Lyra replied, “Well, didn’t she seem kind of nervous at the end there? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Princess Celestia nervous before.”

Twilight pursed her lips together in a thoughtful expression as she replayed that last minute of conversation with Celestia in her mind. “Yeah, she did seem kind of upset by something, probably something to do with having to return to Canterlot so quickly. I hope everything is going to be fine.”

“I’m sure it’ll all work out, it usually does,” replied Lyra, unconcerned as the sound of clucking grew noticeable and she looked down to see a rather large group of chickens milling about their hooves, pecking at the ground in their eternal search for seeds.

~oOo~

Meanwhile in Canterlot.

“Seriously, Tia, We’ve been gone for a thousand years, and you are still terrified of chickens?” asked Luna, an irritated and tired expression on her face as she found herself suddenly sharing her bed with her older sister after said sister teleported into her room, and woke her from her sleep.

Celestia replied from under the covers where she cowered shaking like a leaf in the wind, “Well excuse me for being afraid of something that was responsible for a very traumatic incident during my foalhood!”

Rolling her eyes, Luna sighed to herself and laying a gentle hoof on the lump that was her sister she said, “Forgive Us, sister we shouldn’t have snapped at thee, We are simply stressed from Our re-adjustment to modern life.”

“Apology accepted,” sniffled Celestia as ancient memories came unbidden to her mind, memories full of sharp beaks, talons, and that infernal clucking.

As she continued to comfort her sister, Luna felt her own memories turn to the distant past as well. Well, at least the foals who put you in that situation all those years ago dear sister are naught but dust on the wind, and thou remainest, and so long as thou continueth to fear, We shall stand firm in our duty to chase those fears away. Whether they be in the waking world or the realm of dreams.

And so the Princess of the Night stayed up into the early hours of the evening in an effort to comfort her troubled sister.

~oOo~

Back near Ponyville, nearly an hour later after Celestia left, two tired and slightly dirty unicorns could be seen trotting back into town.

Turning to Lyra, Twilight said, “Thanks Lyra, for everything today, I’m not sure what would have happened if you hadn’t been there for me.”

Lyra simply smiled. “You’d probably have had a major freakout and used a spell to brainwash the entire town into liking an old doll of yours, thus starting a riot.”

“Oh hardy har har,” replied Twilight, an unamused expression on her face.

Lyra just chuckled. “But in all seriousness, you’re welcome, Twilight, that’s what friends are for.”

Twilight returned Lyra’s chuckle with one of her own before suddenly grabbing her friend in a surprise hug. Returning the hug, the two mares sat there on the side of the road for a few moments as they basked in the happy glow of their increased friendship. However, like all good things, the hug ended and the two continued on their way.

As they walked, Lyra turned to Twilight and asked, “I wonder how Allen’s tests went?”

Twilight bit her lip and replied, “I don’t know, but I hope they didn’t find anything wrong, and that it was just a case of a bad reaction to the medicine, I mean, it does happen from time to time, and Allen isn’t a pony, so there is a higher chance that he could be more sensitive to certain things.”

“True, and I’m sure he’s fine, I mean, if they did find anything massively wrong with him, they’d have probably sent somepony to find us about now.”

Twilight smiled and opened her mouth to respond when the sound of somepony calling their names cut her off. Turning to look down the road, they both saw one of the hospital staff running towards them, a concerned look on their face.

Shooting Lyra an ‘are you serious’ look, Twilight sighed as Lyra simply facehoofed and said, “Me and my big mouth.”

~oOo~

Meanwhile, at the hospital, two ponies stood around a bed with one human laying in said bed a look of disbelief on his face as he tried to process what they had just told him was wrong.

Finally, his brain caught up and he blurted out, “My what is too small?!”

Author's Notes:

Well, that's done. Sorry about the wait, but June was a very busy month at work, plus my dad and I are in the middle of hay season. And let me tell you, nothing takes the energy out of you like slinging fifty-pound hay bays in 90+ degree weather. So yeah.

Anyways, hope you guys like the chapter, and for those of you curious about the events that caused Celestia's phobia of chickens, (which I thought was an interesting choice in the show and didn't really have a problem with to be honest.) The short version of my headcanon is that when Luna and Celestia were foals, Celestia got picked on by some bullies, and one day they took things too far by dunking her in a barrel of molasses and then pouring chicken feed over her, before then tossing her in a coop full of hungry chickens. Thus requiring Luna to rescue her. And as a person who as been pecked and attacked by chickens, (mostly roosters) those beaks and talons can hurt. (I actually nearly lost an eye when I was about four because a rooster went for my face.)

Chapter 17 (Medical Explanations)

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Chapter 17

“From what we can see, both your thaumic pathways and appendix are too small and underdeveloped to cope with the amount of mana your body is being required to metabolize,” said Dr. Stable matter of factly.

As Allen laid back on his bed, not sure what to think about Dr. Stable’s pronouncement, he thought back to earlier in the day when he went to get his MRI.

When he’d been wheeled in on the gurney, he hadn’t been sure what to make of the MRI machine. Unlike the ones back on Earth, this one was more open, with a pair of glass ovals the size of watermelons attached to a silvery colored metal ring that was maybe a foot wide and circled under a wooden table. The circle appeared to be attached to some sort of mechanism under said table that would allow it to rotate the two glass ovals as it scanned the patient.

As Nurse Redheart and Dr. Stable prepped Allen, Nurse Love, a unicorn with a light golden coat, purple mane, orange-colored eyes, and a heart-shaped lollipop for a cutie mark stepped into the room and began charging the machine with her magic.

Allen watched as her magic was absorbed by the two glass ovals, which up to this point had been a dull gray color, now they suddenly began glowing a soft orange as well as emitting a low hum. Tearing his gaze away from the nurse back to Dr. Stable, Allen asked, “So how is this gonna work?”

Carefully levitating Allen from the gurney to the table and gently setting him down, Dr. Stable explained, “All you need to do is remain still while the MRI scans you, you’re a little bigger than most patients we have, but I believe so long as you keep your arms and legs inside there should be no issues. These,” he pointed at one of the glowing glass orbs, “will scan you and send the images over to a screen at that work station over there,” he pointed to a nearby window that held a small desk and chair, with a flat plate of what looked like refined quartz sitting on top of the desk. “The procedure should only take about twenty to thirty minutes after which we’ll transfer you back to your room while we go over the results, and then we’ll let you know what we found.”

Allen nodded, a little wary of the fact that he was going to have a solid ring of metal spinning around him with nothing between him and it. “And you’re sure this is safe?”

Dr. Stable nodded. “Of course, the scanning ring spins very slowly as that gives us the best resolution of your insides, and as I mentioned before, this magic won’t be absorbed by your body, so there should be no side effects from the procedure.” Looking up, he noticed that the nurse charging the machine was finished, and giving Allen a reassuring smile said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Ross, you’re in good hooves, just lay back and relax, we’ll be in the workstation monitoring everything.”

Giving a final nod, Allen replied, “Alright, let’s get this over with then.”

Shooting Allen one final smile, Dr. Stable turned and trotted out of the room, shutting the workstation door behind him. Once inside, he leaned forward and hit a button on the desk, his voice suddenly emitting from a pair of nearby speakers, “Alright, Mr. Ross, we’re starting the procedure, please relax and we’ll let you know when we’re done.” With that said, he turned off the mic and started up the MRI machine.

With a low hum, the machine came to life as the two softly glowing orbs began rotating around Allen in a slow circle, starting at his head before then slowly working their way towards his feet. In total, the machine performed two passes, each one taking about fifteen minutes for a total of thirty, when the hum finally died down, Allen heard Dr. Stable say over the intercom, “Alright, we’re finished, Nurse Redheart will take you to your room for the night and I’ll be along later with the test results.”

Allen cautiously sat up and nodded at the doctor on the other side of the glass divider. Meanwhile, Nurse Redheart came out and helped him back onto his gurney. She then wheeled him out of the examination room to where he would be staying for the night.

A few minutes later and Allen found himself in your typical hospital room. Cream-colored walls, a white-tiled ceiling, and floor along with a pair of beds, with a green curtain separating them, made up the room. Settling back into his bed, Allen made himself as comfortable as he could while Nurse Redheart fussed over his IV and various monitors. After several minutes, she gave a satisfied nod and said, “Alright, I’ll be back with Dr. Stable and your results in a bit, but if there is anything you need, just push this little button on the side of the bed and one of the on-duty nurses will assist you.”

“Thanks,” replied Allen with a nod.

Redheart smiled in reply before turning and leaving.

When both Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart returned later, Allen could tell that they didn’t have great news. Of course, nothing could have prepared him for what Dr. Stable had just told him.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, Allen replied tiredly, “Okay, doc, walk me through what it is you found, why it’s bad, and what can be done to fix it, in the simplest way possible.”

Dr. Stable replied with a sigh and rubbed the side of his head as he thought. Finally, he said, “Alright, I’ll start with your appendix then, as that is where the process starts. Now, as you can see here,” he said, as he held up a large image of what Allen assumed was his lower abdomen. Pointing at a small worm-like appendage that was attached to the bottom of his large intestine with the tip of his hoof, Dr. Stable continued, “this is your appendix. At first, we weren’t sure if you even had an appendix, seeing at how small the little bugger is,” he jokingly grumbled to himself, “however, we managed to find it, so that alleviated some of our worries.”

“So that’s good then? That I have an appendix?” asked Allen, not sure if he should be happy or worried.

Thankfully Dr. Stable put any worries to rest with a nod of his head. “Yep, the simplest way is to think of the appendix as a second stomach if you will. Except in this case, instead of digesting food, it ‘digests’ mana into magical energy that your body can use.”

“Mana? You mean magic right?” asked Allen, a confused look on his face.

Dr. Stable shook his head, an amused smile on his face. “No, Mr. Ross, well, not entirely wrong, but not correct either. You see, mana is basically a form of raw energy that is the building block that we use to create spells. As such, nearly everything in the world contains mana to one degree of concentration or another.”

“Okay, not sure I’m really following here,” replied Allen tiredly, “I thought you guys just pulled magic or mana, whatever, out of the air or from ley lines or something.”

Dr. Stable gave a soft chuckle. “No no, mana doesn't really work like that in our world. It might work like that in some other world, but not here. So while it is true that mana exists around us in an ambient form, and that there are such things as ley lines. We ponies can’t just pull it out of the air or directly from the ley lines and use it whenever we want. Instead, we need to consume it, usually through food and water intake. Though there are potions that can be used to increase a pony’s mana reserves. However, using them too much puts a strain on the digestive system and isn’t healthy. It would be like if you were to drink several gallons of coffee at once. Your system would be overloaded with caffeine, and that isn’t good for you.”

Allen felt his ears metaphorically perk up at the mention of coffee, and turning to the doctor he asked, a hopeful expression on his face, “You guys have coffee here?”

Giving a happy nod, Dr. Stable replied, a wistful smile on his face, “Of course! That stuff helped me through many study nights. It’s widely available so you shouldn’t have too much difficulty obtaining some when your supplies run low.”

“Thank God,” said Allen softly to himself, as he’d been dreading the day he brewed his last cup of joe, but upon hearing that coffee was freely available in this world, that was one less worry he had to deal with, of course, that still left plenty more on his plate.

Shaking his head to bring his thoughts back on topic, he said, “Alright, getting back to the matter at hand.”

Clearing his throat, Dr. Stable continued, “Right, the matter at hoof. As I was saying, while ley lines and ambient mana do exist, we as ponies cannot directly use them to power our magic. Instead what happens is the mana from these sources is soaked up by various things in the world around us. Such as plants, water, minerals, etc. We as animals consume those things and turn the mana into usable magical energy that allows us to power our spells and abilities. Such as pegasi being able to fly, earth ponies being able to use their talents to grow food and the like or unicorns to cast spells. I suppose another way to think of it is that mana is just another nutrient that our bodies need to function properly. The appendix, therefore, is a critical part of the digestive system that allows the mana to be properly absorbed by the body and used without issue.”

“So what went wrong with me then?”

Dr. Stable sighed. “Well...I’ve never personally run into anything like your condition, before Mr. Ross. However,” he held up a hoof to forestall any outburst from Allen when he opened his mouth to speak. When Dr. Stable saw Allen wasn’t going to interrupt him he continued, saying, “I have run across cases where a pony, usually because of a compilation during pregnancy, was born with an underdeveloped appendix, and by extension, a weak thaumic network, it’s a rare issue, and thankfully treatable.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” said Allen warily.

Dr. Stable nodded. “But, all of these cases are in young foals whose bodies are still growing. Additionally, there is also the consideration that your gut bacteria isn’t properly suited to breaking down the mana into usable energy that your body can absorb properly. This is primarily due to your underdeveloped appendix, as that is where the bacteria and enzymes that your body uses to break down mana into energy are created and stored, and since your appendix isn’t properly developed, it can’t produce the needed bacteria and enzymes necessary for your body to function.”

“So, what your saying is that I have magical diabetes?” asked Allen, a quiet look on his face.

Dr. Stable waggled a hoof back and forth in an unsure motion. “I suppose that is one way to put it. However, it’s a bit more complex than that, and we don’t have all the information that we need to make a proper diagnosis. When you first came in we didn’t think to do a gut floral test on you or any other tests beyond what was needed to identify potentially deadly diseases, as we were more concerned with keeping you from getting sick or getting us sick with a new disease. However, now that we have that particular issue sorted out, I’d like to do a full battery of tests on you to see what we can find.”

“Okay, and what all does that entail?”

“Needles, lots of needles...and samples can’t forget those,” replied Dr. Stable absently on the last part.

“Joy,” sighed Allen.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Ross, we’ll be sure to use a local numbing spell, that should hopefully take care of the majority of the discomfort.”

“Okay, so what happens after that?”

“That’ll depend on what your test results give back to us, the worst-case scenario is that you’ll need months worth of intensive treatments to bring yourself to a level approaching that of a healthy adult pony. At best, you’ll just need a couple of weeks to a month or two to get to a level where you don’t need to worry about mana overload. Though in your case, I’m leaning more towards the latter than the former.”

“Why’s that?” asked Allen.

In reply, Dr. Stable grabbed another blown-up image and, using the tip of his hoof again, pointed at Allen’s liver. “Sitting just below and behind your liver is your gallbladder, and right next to it, is your pancreas. These two organs also help process mana, just in different ways. Now, in general, we ponies do not have gallbladders. However, alicorns, on the other hoof, do have one as well as the appendix and pancreas.”

“What’s an alicorn?”

“They are a pony that possesses the magic of all three tribes, unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony, as well as their physiology. Meaning, they can cast magic with a horn, fly using their wings, and possess enhanced endurance and strength. Now, the only alicorns that are currently known in the world right now are Princess Celestia, her sister Luna, and their niece Princess Cadenza. However, I’m getting off-topic, now,” he said, clearing his throat as he tapped the image again, “as I said, ponies generally don’t have a gallbladder, we just have an appendix, also called a cecum and a pancreas. These two organs allow us to digest and use mana in our daily lives. However, the fact that you have all three organs, means that your body is better able to process and absorb mana for later use.”

“Alright, so if I have all three then, shouldn’t there be enough redundancy to keep me from having these kinds of problems?” asked Allen.

“If it was just due to your underdeveloped appendix, then yes, you would be mostly correct. However, your body’s thaumic pathways are just too weak to handle the strain imposed on them. Think of them like blood vessels, except that they carry mana instead of blood. The main problem with yours is that they are so small and weak, that if you were to try and push any normal amount of mana through them they wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure and would burst. Like trying to hook a garden hose up to a fire hydrant and turning it on full blast, the hose would rupture from the pressure after a time. Thankfully, the fact that you even have any pathways, to begin with, is a good sign. It means that your species at one point had access to mana and maybe used it in some fashion.”

“So does that mean I’ll be able to do magic spells and such?” asked Allen, hoping that something good would come of this uncomfortable mess that he’d found himself in.

Dr. Stable’s ears fell flat and an unsure look crossed his face. “I...do not know, to be honest. We know so little about your species that anything could happen. In fact...” he trailed off as if unsure he should finish the thought.

Sensing that the doctor was holding out on him, Allen gave him a firm look and said, “Spill it doc, if there is one thing I hate, it’s when people try to sugarcoat something, just give it to me straight.”

Sighing, Dr. Stable relented. “Very well, I was about to say that considering your world doesn’t either have mana anymore or that the mana is so weak that you might not even be able to properly process, let alone use it anymore.”

“Which means?”

Dr. Stable shrugged. “As this situation has never happened before that I can recall, where a pony was unable to process mana. All I can say is that if your body can’t properly process and use the mana that you consume, that you’ll likely...well, die.”

Allen sat there blinking, feeling as though someone had just punched him in the gut. “What?” he croaked out, “what do you mean, die?”

Dr. Stable gave Allen a sad look, “Think of it as a steam boiler if you keep shoveling fuel into the firebox and don’t use any of the steam created by the fire, eventually the boiler will explode. It’s the same thing with mana. If your body can’t process, absorb, and use the mana, it will just build up in your system until your internal organs become overloaded and shut down. I mean, look what happened today, we just gave you a very small amount of magical based medicine and you reacted poorly to it. What happens when you eat our food, drink our water , and consume other things that have mana in them on a regular basis? If your body can’t handle it, then...well, you’ll die.”

“Well...I did say not to sugarcoat it didn’t I?” replied Allen humorlessly, a dry smile on his lips.

Dr. Stable wasn’t smiling however, his lips were pressed together in a thin line, and his brain was shifting into overdrive. However, he quickly placed a comforting hoof on Allen’s arm and said, “Mr. Ross, I promise you that I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening to you. We have time, you still have food from your world that shouldn’t have any mana in it. Moreover, judging from our previous experience, your body can to some degree consume magically laced food and medicines, though only in extremely low doses. So you are not one-hundred percent intolerant to mana, so there is some hope there. Additionally, once we have some of your blood and stool samples, and analyze them properly, we should have a good idea of what we’re dealing with here. I have a feeling that you will, at a minimum, be able to absorb and process mana like anypony else. Whether that leads to you being able to do magic,” he shrugged helplessly, “only time will tell.”

“Still gonna suck,” replied Allen petulantly, crossing his arms in annoyance.

Dr. Stable gave him a wan smile. “Nopony said it wouldn’t, but I think you’ll pull through this.”

“So what did they look like?” asked Allen curiously.

“What did what look like?”

“My thaumic pathways,” replied Allen.

Dr. Stable grimaced in reply. “Nearly translucent, which is a bad sign. I almost didn’t see them. But thankfully the pathways around your heart showed up better than those further away. So there is that.”

“So how come nobody back in my word has seen these ‘thaumic pathways’?”

Dr. Stable shrugged. “Most likely they didn’t realize what they were looking at or they didn’t have the ability to see them. Thaumic pathways are generally easy enough to see in our world, as they are usually well developed and have mana flowing through them, which makes them stand out when we are taking scans or are operating. In your case, the pathways are small and thin, and there isn’t much mana flowing through them, so they are hard to see unless you are using a special piece of equipment, such as an MRI machine. Even then, we almost missed them entirely.”

“Well, at least you were able to see them,” said Allen with a resigned sigh.

“Quite. Now,” said Dr. Stable, as he and Nurse Redheart began trotting out of the room and he used his magic to flick the light switch off, “I believe that it is time for you to get some rest, and in the morning we’ll get those samples from you, and then go over what we found.”

Allen nodded. “Alright sounds like a plan doc, thanks for your help, and have a good night.”

“You as well, good night, Mr. Ross,” and with that, he shut the door, plunging the room into darkness. Allen let himself relax into his pillow and found himself drifting off to sleep.

Hopefully they’ll have good news for me in the morning. Was his last thought as he drifted off to sleep.

~oOo~

The following morning found Allen eating a simple bowl of oatmeal as Dr. Stable came in.

“Good morning, Mr. Ross, did you sleep well?” he asked, a cheerful expression on his face.

Allen nodded between spoonfuls of oatmeal. “Yeah, your hospital beds are more comfortable than the ones back home, it feels like I’m sleeping on a cloud or something.”

“Well, technically, you are,” replied Dr. Stable.

“Wait...what?”

“All of our beds have special clouds inside them, the mattress cover is specially enchanted to prevent the cloud from dissipating as well as to provide support for non-winged beings.”

Allen shot his mattress a dubious look but decided not to press the matter further, instead electing to focus on the doctor's apparent good mood. “So, is that smile a professional one, or do you have some good news for me?” asked Allen hopefully.

Dr. Stable floated a small folder in front of him and replied happily, “I indeed have good news, we just finished your tests this morning and the initial results look very promising.”

“How so?” asked Allen, hope welling up in his chest.

“Well,” began Dr. Stable, “we’ve found traces of the microbes in your stool sample that are necessary to the processing of mana. There aren’t very many of them and they are very weak, in fact, we nearly missed them because of that, but one of the lab techs is very good at his job and managed to spot a few. As such, that somewhat answers our question regarding why you didn’t have an initial reaction when we first had you here last time.”

“And why is that?” asked Allen curiously as he polished off the last of his oatmeal, and it was his oatmeal, as Dr. Stable had asked if they could retrieve some food supplies from Allen’s home the previous night so that he could have something to eat that wouldn’t upset his condition.

“I don’t have a fully fleshed-out theory yet, I would have to go to your world and take measurements of the various plants, animals, and minerals there to see if there is any mana present in the environment. But, what I can say is that from what we have found in those samples we took from you, that your world at one point had more magic in it. Now as to whether that was enough to allow for spells or just a healthier and longer life span, I don’t know. However, the fact that you have an appendix, even if it is underdeveloped, along with the microbes needed to process mana, and that you possess a thaumic network are strong indications that your world still has magic in it. It’s just that it’s so weak that no one can detect it.”

“So what does that mean for me?”

Dr. Stable set the folder down on the bedside table and stood next to Allen’s bed. “Well, it means that your treatment won’t be nearly as long or as difficult as we initially thought. Moreover, it will mean that your animals should be fine as long as we give them the needed probiotics, same as you, to get your, and their, gut flora in balance with their new environment.”

Allen nodded. “That’s good to hear.”

Dr. Stable smiled. “Indeed it is. Now, did you have any concerns or questions for me? We’re still working on getting the needed medicines and specialists in to get you up to snuff.”

“Yeah, I had a few,” replied Allen.

“Alright, lay them on me,” replied Dr. Stable as he magically levitated a clipboard and pencil in front of him, in case he needed to write down a request from Allen.

“Okay, well the obvious first question is, who’s going to pay for all of this? I know that Blueblood and Red Tape had mentioned the Crown would pay for my vaccines and stuff, but they didn’t say anything about this, and I don’t have any insurance here.”

Dr. Stable nodded as he made a note on his clipboard. “A fair question. I’m afraid I don’t know, I would assume that the Crown would be willing to pick up the tab considering everything, but then again, they might not, it’s hard to say. We won’t know until we hear back from His Grace, as we only got around to sending out a message late yesterday, so it might be a day or two before we have any official response. However, even if the Crown says no, which I highly doubt they will, the hospital will be more than happy to work with you to manage your bill.”

“And how much is this bill going to come out to?” asked Allen as he braced himself for the inevitable wallet shock.

“At least a few thousand, but probably no more than ten, maybe fifteen thousand depending on if we need to do further treatments.”

“That’s it? For all of that, it’s only gonna cost me at most fifteen thousand bits in total for everything?” asked Allen incredulously.

Dr. Stable gave Allen an odd look. “Of course, why wouldn’t it? It’s not like you’re having a major operation such as heart bypass surgery, and even then it’d only be around forty or so at most. Why, how much is it back in your world?”

“Uh, a lot more than that,” replied Allen, still shocked at how little they were going to potentially charge him.

Now curious, Dr. Stable set his clipboard down and pressed Allen for further details. “Well, how much more?”

“Well, I’m not sure what the exchange rate is between our currencies, but,” Leaning back in his bed, Allen screwed up his face as he tried to recall how much medical care cost back home, finally, he said, “if I remember correctly a heart bypass alone would cost nearly two hundred thousand dollars on average. Of course, that’s not taking into account things like room cost, lab work, transportation, etc. A lot of people report having medical bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, some even millions.”

Dr. Stable felt as though his jaw was about to hit the floor. “M-Millions?!”

Allen nodded.

Dr. Stable spluttered in shock at the price. “How in Equestria do they justify that price?!”

Allen shrugged helplessly. “A lot of reasons I guess,” holding up a hand he began ticking off reasons with his fingers, “an overweight, aging, and unhealthy population coupled with government regulations, doctor and nursing shortages, and expensive medicines all make it more difficult to get quality and affordable care.”

“My word,” exclaimed Dr. Stable, astounded that medical care could be so expensive.

“Yeah, it sucks, but it is what it is, and there isn’t much that can be done to fix it, or at least, there aren’t many people who can fix it that are willing to do so. Of course, since you guys have magic, that probably makes things a lot easier for you. I bet you guys have spells to fix all kinds of problems near instantly.”

Dr. Stable chuckled. “While it’s true that magic is pretty good at taking care of minor issues and helping to speed the healing process along, it’s not perfect. Some things can’t be healed by simply waving a horn at them and casting a spell.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, if that were the case, I wouldn’t be stuck here in this condition.”

“Agreed, now, what was your other question?” he asked.

“Well, what all is involved here? I mean, is my appendix going to get bigger or what?”

Dr. Stable nodded. “Yes, it’ll need to be a bit bigger in order to properly work, I’m not entirely sure yet, as we’re still working on fully figuring out your physiology in comparison to ours. So that adds some additional complexity to the issue. Additionally, we’ll need to get your gut bacteria up to snuff so that they can properly handle the influx of mana and be able to turn them into energy that the body can use. Moreover, since your body has been starved of mana for so long it will need time to adjust. Too much mana at once will send it into shock, much like it would if you gave a starving pony a cake after only having lived on dried straw for months. Their system wouldn’t be able to handle it and would go into shock.”

“Yeah, let’s not do that,” replied Allen.

Dr. Stable nodded. “So in your case, we will have to carefully monitor your mana intake and make sure you’re not getting too much at once.”

“Makes sense, so how long do you think it will take then?”

Dr. Stable waggled a hoof back and forth in an unsure manner, “I’m not one-hundred percent sure, but the treatment itself should only be a few weeks, after that, we will slowly give you more and more mana rich food until your body is used to it.”

“So different foods have different levels of mana in them?”

Dr. Stable nodded happily. “Oh, of course! While everything in the world has mana in them, some have more than others. For instance, grass has a very low amount of concentrated mana in it. That means if you eat grass, you’d get very little in the way of magical energy from it. However, milk from a cow that has eaten grass is chock full of mana!”

“So basically mana gets absorbed and passed along up the food chain?” asked Allen.

Dr. Stable nodded, a pleased smile on his face. “Naturally whatever doesn’t get consumed by the organism for its daily needs is stored in its cells and other areas, in our example of the cow, her milk. For plants, seeds are often chock full of mana as the future generation will need the energy to get started and grow.”

Allen gave a thoughtful nod. “Makes sense, back home it’s well known that nutrients work their way up the food chain, often becoming more and more concentrated the further up they go. I guess the same principle applies here as well.”

“Exactly the same,” nodded Dr. Stable, a pleased grin on his face. Looking up at the clock on the wall, Dr. Stable then said, “While I wish I could stay, Mr. Ross, it’s getting late, and I have other patients to see and paperwork to do. If you have any questions, concerns, or need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Allen gave the pony doctor a return smile and said, “Alright, thanks doc.”

With that, Dr. Stable bid Allen goodbye and shut the door behind him. As he walked along the quiet hallway, he mentally began compiling a list of everything he needed to do, along with everypony he needed to talk to before the day was over. All in all, it was shaping up to be a long day, and an even longer night.

But it’s all worth it when I see a happy and healthy patient leave my care. He thought to himself with a happy smile as he continued down the hallway to his office.

Of course, coffee helps too.

Chapter 18 (Equestrian History Lesson)

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Chapter 18

The next few days saw Allen’s condition begin to slowly improve as the hospital ponies started him on his treatments. Both Prince Blueblood and the Equestrian Princesses had been quickly informed of Allen’s situation, and had greenlit the funds needed to pay for his treatment. However, there had been a catch.

“What do you mean that I’m not going to get any more financial help from you guys?” asked Allen incredulously.

Prince Blueblood shifted uncomfortably in his chair, having just arrived from Canterlot that morning.

“Mr. Ross, please try to understand, the Equestrian treasury has been hemorrhaging bits at an alarming rate over the past few months. Now, while the treasury isn’t in immediate danger of going negative. At the current rate of spending, the Equestrian government will be forced to start borrowing money to cover our costs within a few months. To prevent that from happening, the Parliament can enforce certain laws to curtail spending and bring the budget back into balance.”

“What are you talking about? I thought you guys were hell bent on bending over backward to make my transition as easy as possible?” asked Allen, irritated and confused by these new developments.

Blueblood sighed, rubbing his temple with a hoof in an attempt to soothe a forming headache before it got rolling. “Between the damage caused by Discord, the need to compensate various interests for said damages, and the regular expenses that come from running a nation. The large reserve of bits that has been accumulating over the decades has been drastically reduced, by as much as thirty percent in just a month. As such, both the Stable of Lords and the Stable of Commons decided that we couldn’t afford to keep shoveling bits to everyone forever without some sort of return at a later date or understanding that they wouldn’t be getting any further assistance. As such, they have invoked several laws that effectively bind the Princess’s hooves, and by extension, mine. These laws were designed to help keep the Crown solvent in times of crises by taking away the purse strings temporarily from the Crown and placing them in the hooves of the Parliament.”

“And why would they do that?”

“Having the power of the purse in the hooves of Princess Celestia, and since her return, Princess Luna, is a practice that predates the founding of Equestria back when the three tribes were their own separate nations. Unicornia kept the power of the purse in the hooves of its leader, Princess Platinum, while the pegasi and earth ponies kept it in the hooves of their Senate and Representative Council. As such when the three united there was a fight as to who would control the nations treasury. Eventually it was decided that the Crown, i.e. Princess Celestia and Luna, would be the ones to have final say on budget matters, while also being able to add or remove budgetary items as needed. While the Parliament would be allowed to propose budgets and present them to Their Majesties for their consideration. Ultimately, however, the Crown has final say in all matters financially. However, in certain extreme cases, the Parliament can temporarily take away this power from the Crown for a time in order to prevent abuse or mismanagement. Once the crisis or issue has passed, the Parliament would then return the power of the purse back to the Crown.”

Allen sat quietly in his bed as Blueblood spoke, finally he asked, “So what prevents your Parliament from just taking it away permanently?”

“Tradition mostly, that and most ponies view Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna by extension now that she has returned, as impartial when it comes to budgetary matters. It also helps that under Princess Celestia’s solo rein, Equestria has had relative peace and prosperity. So ponies trust the Crown to make the right call when it comes to the allocation of funds. The Parliament on the other hoof... is not looked upon as favorably,” replied Blueblood, a peeved look on his face.

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” said Allen in reply.

“Ponies tend to be very civically minded. It’s not uncommon for newspapers to print special editions of budgetary votes listing what is in them for everypony to see.”

Allen let loose a hearty laugh. “Either you guys have very small budget reports or your newspaper printers use big papers and the smallest type that they can find!”

Blueblood chuckled at Allen’s remark. “Well, thankfully that is not the case. Crown Law requires that budgetary language be both concise and easy for the lay pony to understand. In addition, budget reports can not exceed a certain amount of pages either. I imagine Princess Celestia did not wish to spend the rest of her life reading mountains of budgetary papers and reports. As such, she had laws passed that would keep things nice and simple. Of course there are clauses that allow the rules to be suspended in emergencies. However, those instances are rare...or at least they used to be,” he grumbled that last part to himself. “However, getting back onto the topic of why ponies do not generally trust the Parliament to look after their taxes. There have been instances in the past where certain members of the Parliament tried to use the treasury as their own personal piggy bank.”

“And they got caught,” remarked Allen with a knowing smile.

One which Blueblood returned full force. “And they got caught,” he repeated, “the scandal from my understanding was rather...large, and ruined many political careers in the process. In addition, it also made it rather plain to the common pony that having so many hooves in the proverbial cookie jar invited trouble. As such, the Crown’s authority over the budget increased still further as a result.”

“So does your Parliament have any say on financial matters at all?”

Blueblood waggled a hoof back and forth in a ‘so-so’ motion. “In a manner of speaking. As I mentioned before, members of Parliament may put forth a request for something before the Crown. The process is fairly straightforward, either a Lord or a Member of Parliament may put forth a motion to add or remove something from the budget. Such as the increase or lowering of taxes and tariffs, the increase or decrease in funding for various institutions, and so on. The motion is then voted on by both the Stable of Lords and Commons, if it passes it is then presented to Their Majesties for consideration, if it does not pass, it is then debated upon and changed accordingly and then voted upon again. Should it fail a second time, it is usually dismissed and no further debate is brought up on the topic again for at least another twelve months. This helps prevent ponies from bogging down the process with junk proposals. Are you with me so far?” asked Blueblood when he saw Allen’s slightly confused look.

“I think so,” replied Allen uncertainty, “so, anyone can propose a change to the budget,” when he saw Blueblood nod in agreement he continued, “it is then voted on as is by both groups, and if it passes it goes directly to the Princesses to sign. If it does not pass, then it goes up for debate and amendments and is then voted on again, and if it fails for a second time it’s not brought up again for another year. That sound about right?”

Blueblood replied with a wide smile and happy nod of his head. “That is correct, Mr. Ross.”

“So what happens when a bill goes to the Princess?”

“Well one of four things happens, it’s either signed into law as is, sent back with changes, where the Parliament votes on it again, while the third option is it is sent back with a letter of denial.”

“A letter of denial?” interrupted Allen, an intrigued look on his face.

Blueblood nodded. “A letter of denial basically means that the Princesses refuse to adopt any of the changes put forth by the Parliament at that time, and that they should drop the matter entirely. This usually means that the bill in question isn’t brought forward again until after at least a few years have passed.”

“So in effect it’s their way of saying, ‘no we’re not doing this right now, try again later’?”

Chuckling, Blueblood nodded in reply. “Effectively yes, it is.”

“Okay, so what’s the fourth outcome then?”

“The worst possible outcome from the viewpoint of Parliament. The bill is simply ignored.”

“Why would that be the worst thing possible? Other than the sting to one's pride of course.”

Giving Allen a positively devilish smile, Blueblood replied, “Discounting the bruised ego that being ignored entails, it also signals the extreme displeasure with which the Crown regards that particular bill. I’m not sure how things are in your world, but here, most of Equestria views Princess Celestia in very high regard. Some even worship her as a deity of sorts.” Upon seeing Allen’s slightly uncomfortable look, Blueblood hastily added, “Don’t worry, neither Princess Celestia or her sister view themselves as demi-gods, and thankfully the number of Solar-Worshippers and Lunar-Worshippers are relatively few.”

“That must get awkward at times,” remarked Allen at the thought of some random person prostrating themselves on the ground before you in worship.

Blueblood flicked his tail in annoyance, as if he were using it to chase away an especially irritating fly. “You have no idea,” he remarked irritatedly. However, he quickly composed himself and continued saying, “Anyways, as I was saying, most ponies view Princess Celestia with a great deal of respect and admiration, as such, imagine how it would feel if you submitted what you thought was a good idea only to have it completely ignored by the one you hold in such high regard. Even a letter of denial is an easier pill to swallow, as it usually comes with an explanation of why it was denied in the first place. In the case of an ignored bill you have no idea why she ignored it. Furthermore, when the Princesses ignore a bill, it means that it can never be brought up again until after they make a decision on it.”

“So it just stays in limbo forever?” asked Allen.

Blueblood shook his head. “Not always, but it’s extremely rare for an ignored bill to be sent back to Parliament after the fact.”

“Must be pretty hard on the pony that proposed that particular bill then,” remarked Allen dryly.

“It can absolutely ruin a pony’s life. As such, Princess Celestia herself has only ignored a few bills over the centuries.”

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you something regarding your Princesses that’s been bothering me since I got here,” remarked Allen suddenly.

Shifting in his chair to get more comfortable, Blueblood made a ‘go on’ gesture with his hoof. Taking a deep breath, Allen continued, “It’s just that, you’ve made mention that Princess Celestia has been around for a few centuries, and that her sister has just ‘returned to the throne’ recently. Is that a euphemism for something or are you being literal?”

“The latter,” replied Blueblood simply, “Princess Celestia has reigned over Equestria for more than a thousand years, first alongside her sister. Then alone after Princess Luna succumbed to a demon that fed off her jealousy for the adoration that their subjects gave her sister and turned her into Nightmare Moon. The Nightmare then tried to bring about eternal night and was subsequently banished to the moon for a thousand years by Princess Celestia with the help of the Elements of Harmony. Naturally, she returned and tried again, however, this time the Nightmare was purged from Princess Luna by Twilight Sparkle and five other mares who used magical artifacts called The Elements of Harmony to free my aunt from that demon. Now that Princess Luna has been freed, she is working tirelessly to bring herself up to speed on modern society. Hopefully she’ll be able to resume some of her duties before this year’s Nightmare Night. Though, if the recent toaster incident is anything to go by, that hope might be a bit premature.”

As Blueblood spoke, Allen felt his jaw sinking lower and lower in incredulous disbelief. Finally, he held up his hands in front of him and exclaimed, “Wait, wait you mean to tell me that your rulers have been alive for a thousand years?!”

“Well, actually it’s longer than that, but we’re not sure anymore, Auntie sort of ‘forgot’ how old she was several hundred years ago, whether on accident or purpose she won’t say, but I digress.”

Allen felt himself fall backwards into his pillow in stunned amazement. The mere thought of a ruler being able to outlive entire generations of people was on one hand an interesting idea. However, on the other, it was also a terrifying one. Interesting in that the thought that a single person could impose their vision upon a country and then stay around long enough to make it stick, moving the various pieces around in such a way as to allow that vision to naturally mature and flourish rather than force it through in just a few years, and alienate the population. However, at the same time, that same idea was just as terrifying to him. Images of an immortal Hitler or Stalin came to mind, and all the damage that those two individuals could have done if they had more than a thousand years to inflict their vision of ‘utopia’ on the world. However, here it seemed that the ponies had lucked out, and got a benevolent ruler instead, one who sought to nurture and support them as they progressed through the ages. Rather than trying to forcibly mold them into what they thought a ‘perfect’ society should look like.

In any event, it was a lot to take in. However, something that Blueblood had said, had started bugging Allen again, and looking at the pony prince he asked, “Earlier you said that Nightmare Moon tried to bring about ‘eternal night’. Was that some kind of metaphor for the suppression of knowledge or something?”

Again, Blueblood shook his head. “No, it is exactly what I meant. Both Princess Celestia and Luna are responsible for bringing forth the sun and moon and helping guide them across the sky. Nightmare Moon literally wanted to keep the land shrouded in night forever.”

Allen felt like his brain was going to melt. “So when you said she was ‘banished to the moon’...”

“She was literally banished to the moon, yes,” replied Blueblood patientally.

“Every single scientist and astronomer is rolling over in their graves, past, present and future,” said Allen with a heavy groan and he draped an arm over his eyes in a melodramatic fashion.

Blueblood chuckled. “It’s really not that bad.”

“What do you mean it’s ‘not that bad’?” Shot back Allen, as he sprung forward and pointed an accusing finger at Blueblood, “You guys just literally smashed every single known law of physics from my world to pieces!” He then fell backwards in bed again, his pillows absorbing his full weight with a hefty sounding poomf!

Chuckling to himself, Blueblood leaned forward and cheerfully replied, “If you think that is bad, you should have seen what Discord was doing to the laws of reality.”

Allen shook his head. “Please,” he groaned weakly, “let’s just move on already.”

Still chuckling Blueblood leaned back in his seat and steepling his hooves together said, “Alright, I’ve had my fun, but if you want to know more, there are several books I can recommend that go into detail on how the princesses keep the day and night cycle going.”

“I think I’ll pass for now,” moaned Allen, as he silently wept over the death of physics as he knew it.

“In any case,” began Blueblood, “back to the original topic.”

“Right, the part where you’re basically saying that I’m S.O.L.”

“S.O.L.?”

“Shit Out of Luck,” was Allen’s terse reply.

Blueblood grimaced at Allen’s choice of words and tone. However, he gamely replied saying, “Mr. Ross, it’s not all doom and gloom for you. Yes, the Crown will no longer be able to pay for any expenses that you may incur. However, there are other sources of capital that are available to you. Of course, these sources do have some strings attached to them I’m afraid.”

Allen let his arm drop to his side and turned his attention to Blueblood. “What kind of strings?” he asked with a suspicious look on his face.

“Well, as of right now, you have three real choices when it comes to securing a line of credit. The DOTI, a banking house, or a private investor/investors.”

Allen gave a thoughtful hum. “I’m pretty sure I know what strings are attached to the banking house option.”

“Yes, I would say the need to make many timely payments with interest,or risk losing your farm to foreclosure, about sums that train of thought up nicely. Of course that option will be difficult as you, as for all intents and purposes, didn’t exist in our world until about a month or so ago. This means you have no credit history, nor any real way to build any up in a short period of time. You could see about having somepony vouch for you. However, that again runs into the problem that you don’t really know anypony well enough that they would be able to effectively convince a bank to lend you bits on such short notice.”

Allen sighed in disappointed understanding. “Yeah, that’s about what I figured you would say. Okay, so what about the DOTI then?”

Blueblood’s face suddenly looked like he had bitten into a particularly sour lemon. “Truthfully speaking, I am afraid I would not be the best source when it comes to discussing the merits of the DOTI. As you have probably guessed, they and I do not get along very well.”

“You know, I’ve been wondering about that to be honest. You mentioned something about them almost financially ruining your family years ago when we had the discussion with my neighbors about land compensation. What’s the deal with that?”

Blueblood ran a hoof over his mane in frustration. “It happened shortly after I was born, so I was still too young to really understand what was happening. At the time all I knew was that my family had to let most of our servants go and sell much of our family estates and businesses to pay back our sudden and crippling debts. It also shattered my parents emotionally and nearly destroyed our family. If it hadn’t been for Princess Celestia stepping in when she did...I shudder to think what would have become of us.”

“Okay...so what happened?” asked Allen hesitantly.

Blueblood sighed as he gazed forlornly at his hooves. “Honestly, even I am not entirely sure what really happened or why it did. All I know is what Aunt Celestia told me when I was much older, as well as what I could glean from the history books on the subject. Remember how I told you that many years ago there was a big scandal that involved Members of Parliament dipping their hooves in the proverbial cookie jar?”

“Yeah,” replied Allen with a nod.

“Well, the DOTI had its own version of that same scandal. It nearly destroyed the economy and it absolutely ruined many a pony’s life and livelihood, and it all centered around sugar.”

“Sugar?”

Blueblood nodded. Getting up, he began pacing as he explained. “Yes, sugar is a very valuable commodity here in Equestria. As you are aware, our magic is fueled by mana, which is found in various things such as food and water. Well, as it so happens, sugar possesses a lot of mana in it. As such, it is an excellent ingredient in boosting the mana concentration in our foods. So as you can imagine, the sugar must flow.”

Allen had to quickly suppress a snort of amusement. Shooting him a quizzical look, Allen waved him off saying, “Nothing, you just reminded me of something from my world just now.”

Shrugging, Blueblood resumed his pacing. “In any event, as the Equestrian population continues to grow. New sources of sugar are constantly being developed. This is where the DOTI comes in, as they were the ones, back then at least, who primarily oversaw the development of various industries and resources.”

“Okay, and what does that have to do with your family?” asked Allen.

“I’m getting to that,” replied Blueblood, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “Back then, there was little Crown oversight into how these ventures were funded and managed by the DOTI, as Princess Celestia generally has a hooves off approach when it comes to managing governmental affairs, both then and now. Thus, since there hadn’t been any major problems in the DOTI since its founding that couldn’t be ironed out by Parliament and citizen groups, she hadn’t seen fit to really dive into their financial and managerial practices up until that point. Now, at the time, Equestria was facing a sugar shortage. Most of Equestria’s sugar production at the time came from our southern states around Baltimare, Mareida and Stableside, as they have favorable growing conditions. However, lack of investment in the local infrastructure at the time had hindered further development of additional sugar plantations. Therefore, it became necessary to find alternative sources of sugar to quickly meet the spiking demand.”

“Let me guess, somebody came up with a scheme that sounded good on paper, but turned out to be an absolute disaster in practice?” supplied Allen, having already guessed where the story was going to end up.

Blueblood nodded his head sadly. “I believe you have hit the nail on the head in your assessment, Mr. Ross. An employee at the DOTI, an earth pony named Hollow Sword, had come up with what sounded like an easy, quick and cheap alternative to funding additional infrastructure improvements in the southern states. His idea was to form a company using DOTI funds and name it the South Equestrian Sea Sugar Company. In addition, he would place himself as its president and staff it with DOTI members, which would basically make the company fall fully under the control of the DOTI in all but name. Their goal was to build sugar plantations on a chain of islands between Equestria and the continent of Zebrica. In practice, this shouldn’t have been an issue. The company should have received its initial funding from the DOTI that it would later pay back, with interest, by issuing stock in the company to the general public once it got its operation going and began turning a profit. Moreover, since the DOTI would effectively control the South Equestrian Sea Sugar Company, they would be able to siphon off some of the profits for their benefit.”

“But I’m assuming that didn’t happen,” said Allen quietly, a knowing look on his face.

Blueblood shook his head sadly in reply. “It did not, Hollow Sword attempted to negotiate the purchase of several promising islands from one of the various Zebrican Kingdoms. He was successful in gaining possession of these islands along with negotiating for the use of nearby Zebrican ports to ferry in resources and labor to get the island's infrastructure set up quickly. However, the zebra’s had asked the SESSC to pay a hefty price for these islands, far more than had been initially expected, and due to his lack of negotiating skills and foresight, he foolishly agreed to their terms. As a consequence, they didn’t have enough capital to move forward with their plans, and the DOTI didn’t have the bits needed on hoof to fully bring the islands online.”

“So where does your family come in then? Because to me it sounds like it’s the DOTI that’s the one that got screwed here,” asked Allen casually.

“I’m getting to that,” replied Blueblood testily. Allen simply threw up his hands in a placating gesture, and let Blueblood continue. “As I was saying, Hollow Sword quickly found his company on the verge of bankruptcy, and without the additional backing of the DOTI that he now sorely needed, he was forced to turn to other sources of credit. In this case, private investors, such as nobles and wealthy merchants.”

“And your family was one of those he contacted?”

Blueblood nodded in confirmation. “He actually came to us first and spun a very convincing tale to my father, who had several sugar plantations near Stableside, and knew how profitable they could be. He also happened to be familiar with the islands that Hollow Sword was promoting, and felt that they would be a good place to set up some plantations easily. However, everything that he told me father was either a half-truth or a bald faced lie. He claimed that everything was nearly finished and that some unexpected cost overruns and delays had caused them to run out of money before they could get their operation going. As such, he was offering my father a twenty percent stake in the company if he was willing to loan him the bits. Naturally, my father, sensing a good opportunity to make some extra bits, agreed and loaned him a substantial amount of money.”

“Don’t tell me your dad went into debt to finance this gamble?” asked Allen incredulously.

Blueblood grimaced and let his ears drop in shame. “I’m afraid he did, as Hollow Sword made the claim that others were also interested in this venture and that my father needed to hurry if he wanted in on the action, so to speak. Thus he tricked my father into paying much more for the shares of the company than they were actually worth. I am not sure if he did it with malicious intent or if he was hoping to artificially drive up the share price right out of the gate. Either way, my father agreed and the bits changed hooves.”

“So what happened next?”

Blueblood tossed his head in irritation. “The son of a nag went from investor to investor making the same pitch he did to my father. However, he was now able to use the previous investors' names as a way to further pump up the price of the shares that he was selling to the newer investors.”

Allen let loose a humorouless chuckle. “Yeah, I’ve seen my fair share of schemes like that. Guy comes along and says that there is an amazing opportunity to invest in this company before the stock takes off, and that everyone who is smart is getting in on the action. As a result, the price of said stock goes up, and when it gets high enough, the dude sells his shares and skips town, leaving everyone to scramble to get rid of their shares before they become worthless. Classic pump and dump.”

Blueblood nodded in agreement. “Yes, it would eventually turn into something like that. However, at the beginning, Hollow Sword truly did want to make the company a success, or at least, that is what he claimed. The problem was that he really wasn’t very good at managing the company’s money. Oh he could raise money like the best of them, but when it came time to use that money, he spent it like a foal splashes water around in a lake, carelessly and in great amounts.”

“How do you mean?”

“Where to begin?” said Blueblood as he resumed his pacing. Lighting up his horn, he made several small, royal blue colored balls of light appear as he began listing off instances of mismanagement. “The use of low quality, over-priced materials, overpaying workers, paying bribes to local authorities in the Zebrican ports for various reasons, straight up theft and embezzlement by company officers, and the list goes on.”

“Didn’t anyone realize that the company wasn’t making any money after a while?”

Blueblood shook his head again as he came to a stop at the window. Gazing out over Ponyville, he idle watched the citizens go about their happy lives. A bitter frown marred his face as he continued to dredge up painful memories. “No, they didn’t. For two years, ponies poured money into this venture. At first it was just the rich, nobles, merchants, and even a celebrity or two. However, when there wasn’t any noticeable return on their investments, they began to close their bit purses one by one. Thus Hollow Sword was forced to look elsewhere for cash. By this point, the company had some production going, but it was slow, inefficient, and the quality was poor. However, Hollow Sword was nothing if not good at promotion. Thus he hatched a new idea. Sell shares of the company to the general public and then use that money to pay back the original investors. A ponezi scheme, in essence.”

“Really?” asked Allen with a deadpan expression.

Turning away from the window, Blueblood saw Allen’s unamused look. “What?” he asked, slightly confused.

Looking around the room confused, as if trying to find the answer on the sterile walls, Blueblood regarded Allen with concern. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

Facepalming, Allen replied tiredly. “Is everything in this world a fucking horse pun, or am I just lucky?”

Blinking, Blueblood cautiously approached Allen’s bed and asked, “Is something bothering you, Mr. Ross?”

Shaking his head, Allen, head still in his hands muffledly replied, “Sorry, it’s nothing important, just...keep going.”

“Are you sur-”

“Yes, please just...go on, I’ll be fine eventually, just need to get over some cultural differences is all,” interrupted Allen brusquely.

Slowly nodding his head, though still unsure about Allen’s sudden outburst, Blueblood stepped back and after clearing his throat, continued, “Well, in the interest of time I’ll just try to summarize what happened then, if that’s okay with you?”

When Allen nodded and made a ‘go on’ gesture, Blueblood continued. “In anycase, Hollow Sword suddenly found himself in a trap of his own making. With the company unable to turn a profit, and his investors clamouring to be paid, he decided to try and lie his way out of his mess. So, with some ‘creative’ book management, he made the company seem profitable, thus causing the now public stock price to start going up. The money made from this was then used to try and pay back the earlier investors. In addition, he used some of these funds to try and make the company actually profitable, and for a while, it seemed that he might be able to pull it off. The price of South Equestrian Sea Sugar Company stocks was continually climbing, and so long as nopony took a hard look at the company's finances, he felt he might be able to make it work. However, because the price of SESSC stocks kept climbing, more and more ponies kept buying, oftentimes with bits that they didn’t have. This included my father, who got carried away in the supposed success of the company and took out more loans in an effort to buy more stock, confident that the price would just keep going up and that he’d be able to eventually sell it for a handsome profit.”

“But that didn’t happen,” said Allen quietly.

“But it didn’t happen, no,” was Blueblood’s melancholy reply. “Before he could sell, rumors started to spread that the price of the stock was overinflated, and that caused some ponies to begin dumping their stock in the company. This then caused a chain reaction, where suddenly everypony was dumping their stock at the same time, and the price quickly went into free fall. In less than a day, the company had lost nearly ninety percent of its value. The following day was even worse, as now it wasn’t just the South Equestrian Sea Sugar Company that was in trouble, but the entire market went into a dive as ponies were forced to sell stocks in other companies in an effort to cover their losses in SESSC stock. In the span of a week, hundreds of companies went out of business, ponies lost their jobs, their homes...their lives, banks went under, it was pure chaos. Princess Celestia was forced to take drastic action and use treasury funds to help shore up critical sectors of the economy. Somehow, she managed to keep the economy from nose diving off a cliff. But, she couldn’t save everyone.”

The room grew quiet, as Blueblood’s story wound down. Taking a handkerchief from his vest pocket, he dabbed at the corners of his eyes as harsh memories replayed themselves in his mind. Putting it back, he resumed his seat beside Allen’s bed. Taking a deep breath, he recomposed himself. “There was an inquiry into the matter, and it didn’t take long for the truth to come out. Hollow Sword got the largest share of the blame, and he was sentenced to life in prison for what he did. However, it was quickly determined that other officials high up in the DOTI had helped, nay, encouraged him to keep the scheme going for years. They also tricked DOTI members into investing in the scheme, and squashing any attempts by outside parties to audit the company’s finances. In the end, due to Hollow Sword and his accomplices, my family nearly lost everything.”

“So, what happened to your parents?” asked Allen gently.

“They moved to a small vineyard my aunt gave them near Baltimare. My father was devastated by what had happened, and fell into a deep depression. My mother feared he would take his own life at times, though thankfully with counseling, he seems to be doing better, but he’ll never be the same. My aunt took over what remained of the family estate and managed it for me until I came of age. She even managed to restore part of our estates to us, specifically the Grand Duchy of Canterlot, though it’s not nearly the bit maker it used to be. Ever since I came of age, I’ve been striving to restore my family's fortune and prestige, but it’s been difficult.”

Allen was quiet for a minute, unsure what to say next. It was strange to him, he barely knew anything about Blueblood up until now, and the same could be said of Blueblood’s knowledge of him. Yet here they were, Blueblood telling him of his family’s difficult past and how it had affected him. It just didn’t seem real for some reason, yet it was. Leaning back, he wiggled a bit to get more comfortable and asked, “So, if the DOTI was responsible for all of that, how come they weren’t punished?”

Blueblood gave a humorless chuckle and replied, “Oh they were, just not to the extent that they should have been, at least in my opinion. Everypony that was involved in the scheme was punished, they were sent to jail and had their wealth confiscated and distributed among the injured parties. However, there were simply too many ponies affected by the crash and there just wasn’t enough wealth to go around, so not everyone got compensation. The DOTI itself was completely overhauled from top to bottom with the Crown placing a heavy emphasis on transparency and integrity within the group. Moreover, various financial reform laws were passed as a consequence of the crash, and so far they have prevented a repeat of the so-called ‘Sugar Bubble’ from happening again.”

“So do all the nobles hate the DOTI then?”

Blueblood shook his head. “No, there are some, such as Baroness Everfree, who you met earlier, that are staunch supporters of the DOTI, and then there are others who do not really have an opinion of the organization.”

Allen shot Blueblood a quizzical look. “Who’s Baroness Everfree? I don’t recall meeting another noble like you.”

Chuckling to himself, Blueblood replied, an amused smile on his face, “Sorry, I tend to forget that not everyone has been taught the in’s and out’s of noble families and their members. Baroness Everfree rarely goes by her title, and instead just prefers to be called Granny Smith.”

Allen blinked in surprise, before then blurting out incredulously. “Wait, you mean that my neighbors are nobility?!”

“In a manner of speaking,” was Blueblood’s amused reply, “Granny Smith’s family was granted land by Princess Celestia about a hundred years ago. This land included the Everfree Forest, hence the name, along with the land that Ponyville now rests upon. Princess Celestia has the power to ennoble ponies and she will oftentimes do it to inject ‘new blood’ into the upper crust of society from time to time. She says it ‘helps keep the nobility somewhat attached to the common pony’.”

“Okay, I guess that makes a bit of sense. Though, I’m still a little shocked that Checklist would have anything to do with a noble. She seemed pretty antagonistic towards you during the negotiations.”

Blueblood rolled his eyes. “She comes from a working class background, and the noble she and her family lived under was an absolute twat. Driving up rents needlessly, not using that rent money to fix roads and infrastructure, and wasting hundreds of thousands of bits on frivolous vanity projects that did nothing but enrich him, his friends and their egos. Therefore, she regards many noble families with suspicion and hostility. In the case of Granny Smith, she turns a blind eye to the fact that Granny is a noble, mostly because Granny Smith doesn't fit the stereotypical definition of a ‘noble’. She doesn’t rub her title in other pony’s muzzles, and doesn’t live the noble lifestyle, instead preferring to keep to herself and sort of blend in with the common pony. Also being staunch members of the DOTI doesn’t hurt either.”

Allen rubbed his head with a hand in an attempt to push back a headache that was forming. “There is so much stuff to remember here, it’s making my brain hurt,” he complained.

Blueblood chuckled and patted Allen’s arm gently with a sympathetic hoof. “I am sure it is a lot to take in, perhaps we should move on from the history and political lessons and back to your original question?”

Allen groaned. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Alright then, now if I remember correctly, you were wanting to know what the pro’s and con’s were of joining the DOTI?”

“Yeah, something like that,” nodded Allen.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Blueblood replied, “Well, as I mentioned before, I’m rather biased against them, but I’ll do my best to give you what you want to know,” pausing a moment to collect and organize his thoughts, he continued, “Well, the obvious advantage to joining the DOTI is that you’ll be granted access to a literal treasure trove of resources. Aid programs, insurance, training, information on new equipment, seed varieties, magical matrixes, and so on. Not to mention the large network of ponies that you can call upon to improve your business. That right there is the biggest advantage of being a DOTI member, and for many it is worth putting up with the downsides of membership.”

Allen nodded in agreement. “Yeah, back home we have a saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”

Blueblood gave a thoughtful hum. “Interesting saying, yet very true. I will need to remember that for later,” he said quietly to himself at the end. Giving his head a shake to break himself out of his thoughts, he collected himself and continued, saying, “In any case, yes, that large network of contacts is most useful, sometimes too useful.”

“What do you mean?”

Making a sour face, Blueblood let loose a huff of irritation. “It’s what makes the DOTI so powerful and difficult to work outside of as a non-member,” he paused, weighing his next words carefully before continuing, “there have been many cases where ponies use this network to pressure non-members into joining the DOTI against their will. The Crown has passed laws that are supposed to prevent this from happening, as being a member of the DOTI should be voluntary, but ponies will be ponies, and if you’re not part of ‘the herd’ then you are a potential danger. There have been many promising businesses ruined over the years because of this subtle pressure, and it can be very difficult to bring the guilty parties to justice as it’s difficult to prove any wrongdoing happened.”

“I think I see where this is going,” replied Allen knowingly, “there are probably a lot of rules and regulations that DOTI members have to follow, along with various fees that they have to pay. As such, they have to charge more for their goods and services as a result. However, a pony who isn’t a member can charge less, and thereby undercut their competition. Therefore, they become a threat, and the easiest way to deal with that is to pressure them into joining by convincing everyone not to do business with them until they join.”

Blueblood nodded sadly. “You are correct. Being a member of the DOTI has benefits, but those benefits come with a price. You need to pay membership fees, get certifications that are approved by DOTI regulations. Have DOTI regulation approved equipment, and so on and so forth. Failure to comply can lead to fines and even expulsion from the DOTI, at which point you are pretty much blacklisted and nopony will do business with you. Therefore, you are in essences ruined as a businesspony.”

“Harsh,” said Allen simply.

Blueblood nodded in agreement. “Yes, it can be. It’s one of the reasons I dislike them. Most of their rules and regulations have already been adopted by the Crown as common law. However, the DOTI regulations are more strict and specific on what you can and cannot do. Therefore, it places a higher financial burden on the average businesspony, which then gets passed along to the consumer in higher priced goods and services. Now obviously the DOTI would argue that they are simply looking out for the wellbeing of everypony, but I feel as though there comes a time when the costs outweigh the benefits. However, in the eyes of many ponies, the DOTI is still the gold standard when it comes to products and services, and having that seal next to your business license is worth its weight in gold.”

“Yep, sounds about right,” remarked Allen, “so what’s the third option then?”

“Oh well, that would be to find a private investor to partner with. You would still have a large degree of control over your farm and what goes on on it, and just so long as the investor is getting a profitable return on their investment, they should be fairly hooves off in the day to day operations. Not to mention that you wouldn’t have to go through massive amounts of forms and red tape to make any changes or deal with multiple different ponies asking for multiple different things at the same time. Of course, you run a higher risk of failure due to the potential lack of support and resources. Not even the Crown can match the awesome amount of talent and resources that the DOTI has at their hooftips.”

Allen hummed thoughtfully to himself as he stared at the ceiling. “So I’d basically be trading a strong support base for less overhead and greater freedom of action, while also having a potentially smaller market share.”

“More or less,” was Blueblood’s reply.

Shooting Blueblood a look out of the corner of his eye, Allen smirked and said, “And I suppose that you might know a pony or two that might be interested in investing in an old rundown farm from another dimension?”

Returning Allen’s smirk with one of his own, Blueblood casually remarked, “I might know of a pony or two. If you would be willing to meet with them, I am sure that we could come to an arrangement that would be beneficial to both parties.”

“Then let’s talk business then,” was Allen’s reply, a determined smile on his face as he gave Blueblood’s extended hoof a firm shake.

Author's Notes:

Well here ya go, another chapter to chew on. This one took a little bit longer than I would have liked. I was kind of busy this June, what with my regular job and this being the middle of hay season, I tended to be too tired to write anything worth while. However, I'm in the lull between first and second cutting, so I have a bit more energy to write.

Apologies if this chapter comes across as more of an info-dump than some people might like, but I felt that this is what I wanted to write, and so here it is.

Bonus points if you guys can name the historical event that the Sugar Bubble was based on. Along with some of the little historical Easter eggs related to it. (There's a few other Easter Eggs in this chapter, but I won't tell you what they are, some should be obvious, others not so much. :D)

In any event, I'll see ya'll in the next chapter!

Chapter 19 (It's Not Lupus)

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Chapter 19

God, if you can still hear me, please, get me out of here. I’m not sure how much longer I can stand being stuck in this hospital for. Begged Allen silently as he stared up at the white tiled ceiling of his hospital room.

It had been three weeks since he was admitted to Ponyville General, and in that time, he’d been forced to remain in his room, with only a few instances per day where he was allowed outside, as he underwent treatment. At first, it hadn’t been so bad, the hospital staff were pleasant and took time out of their day to sit and visit with him. Twilight and Lyra also came by regularly to visit with him, and he found that he had actually come to enjoy their company for the most part. Though, Twilight’s incessant questions did get a little irritating at times. It also didn’t hurt that he’d been allowed to return home a couple of times, under close supervision, of course, to retrieve some entertainment.

Thank God their electrical grid is basically the same as ours back home, otherwise, I’d be crawling up a wall from boredom right now...well, more than I already am anyways. There are only so many times you can read the same books, play the same games, and watch the same movies over and over again before you get bored. He let loose an explosive sigh of glumness as he continued to stare up at the ceiling.

Sighing again, he turned over on his side so that he was facing the nearby window. He’d requested that the hospital staff move his bed as close as they could to it so that he could look outside and watch Ponyville go about its business. Even though the hospital was on the outskirts of town, there was still a bit of activity outside his window from time to time. That activity usually spiked when a trio of fillies would either gallop or zip by on a red wagon and blue scooter. For some reason, the hospital would also tend to have more patients come in shortly after those three went by. Even though Allen wasn’t a betting man, he couldn’t help but feel that there was at least some sort of connection between the two events. In any case, he’d decided that it would probably be to his benefit to keep an eye out for those three when he was finally discharged after his treatment was finished.

Speaking of his treatment, he felt his eyes wander upwards towards the nearby IV stand and its softly glowing contents that were steadily dripping into his veins.

Even after being in this world for over a month, there are times when I still can’t believe that magic actually exists. He let loose a snort of amusement, Even more so that I, of all people, am being pumped full of the stuff!

Shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, he turned his attention back to the window and the world beyond. I wonder what Dad and Sis are up to right now? They’ve probably realized that the farm and I aren’t where they left us anymore. I wonder how they’re taking it. Probably not well, he felt a couple of tears well up at the corners of his eyes and spill down his cheeks. He’d found himself doing that more and more these days, especially when he didn’t have anything to take his mind off the fact that he was effectively alone on an alien planet, with little chance of returning home.

Oh sure, the locals were nice enough, but they just weren’t the same. They didn’t feel the same. Allen wasn’t sure what to make of it at times. Everything just felt...off, like a painting that is slightly out of proportion, enough that subconsciously you know something isn’t right, but can’t really tell at a glance.

It’s enough to drive a man insane.

A sharp series of knocks on his door broke Allen out of his musings. Turning over and sitting up, he called out, “Come in.”

A grayish cyan aura surrounded the door handle and with a twist, the door opened revealing a smiling Dr. Stable.

“Good morning, Mr. Ross! How are you feeling this morning?” he asked cheerfully.

Allen returned the unicorn’s smile with a smaller one of his own. “‘Bout the same as yesterday, I guess. To be honest, doc, I feel like I’m about to go stir crazy here in this room. How much longer are you guys going to keep me here?”

Dr. Stable trotted around Allen’s bed and glanced over his vitals monitor, along with the various readouts on his medical clipboard at the foot of his bed. Glancing up at Allen, he replied, “I would say not long now. Everything we’ve been seeing these last couple of days is very promising. Your appendix has responded well to our treatment regimen, and if our calculations are correct, should be of adequate size for your body mass. Moreover, your gut flora seems to be doing well, and your thaumic network is getting stronger every day. Honestly, at this point, I feel that there is little reason to keep you any longer.”

Hope blooming within his chest, Allen expectantly asked, “So does that mean I can leave today?”

Dr. Stable shook his head, crushing Allen’s hopeful smile. “I’m sorry Mr. Ross, but no. While you seem to be doing better, there is one final test that we need to do before we can fully release you.”

Allen groaned. “Another test? Come on doc, you guys have been poking and prodding me for weeks now! I’ve passed all the other tests with flying colors according to you guys! So why do I need to do one more then?” he asked, a petulant look on his face.

Peering over the top of his glasses, Dr. Stable shot Allen the look a parent would give a misbehaving child that should know better by now. “Mr. Ross,” he began, seriously, “I understand that you don’t want to be here any longer. Trust me, I’ve dealt with many patients who, upon feeling better, want to get out as soon as they can too. However, your case is unique, we’ve never encountered a situation like this before, and I pray we never have to again. It was touch and go for a little while and there were times we weren’t sure if your body would actually respond to our treatments. Thankfully, it did, and now you’re about to the level of a young foal in terms of mana management capabilities. However, much like a young foal, your thamic network is still fragile and hasn’t had time to properly develop. If we let you go, and you oversaturate your network by accident, it could cause untold damage. That’s what this last test hopes to look at.”

Feeling sufficiently chastised, Allen slumped low in his bed, muttering quietly he said, “Sorry doc, I’m just feeling cooped up right now. For some reason, I feel like I’ve got enough energy that I could run a hundred miles and not feel tired right now. Plus, a lot of the aches and pains that I’ve accumulated over the years are just gone. Hell, my skin feels like I just got back from some kind of all-day spa visit or something. I looked in the mirror this morning, and there’s not a pimple or blemish to be seen!”

Dr. Stable nodded, a smile on his face. “That would be your thamic network moving the mana through your body properly, Mr. Ross. Just like any nutrient, our bodies need mana to repair themselves and keep our energy levels up. Now that your body actually has the ability to absorb and use the mana that you give it, it’s using that mana to repair damage to your body. It’s a well-established fact that ponies who can handle more mana than others tend to live longer, more productive lives.”

“What, so I’m going to live longer then?” asked Allen incredulously.

Dr. Stable nodded. “Oh most definitely. I know that we’ve spoken a little about your species biology in the past and that I’ve shared a little bit about ours with you. But I’m very confident that your lifespan has probably been lengthened by at least another ten or twenty years, if not more.”

Looking down at his hands, Allen simply went. “Huh, so I could easily live to be a hundred years old then.”

“It’s certainly possible, barring an accident or unforeseen incident, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to have a longer and healthier life than those back in your homeworld. However, I believe that we’ve gotten a little off track here.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, you were saying something about that test?”

“Yes, this test,” replied Dr. Stable with a nod, “is designed to see how much mana your body can take in at once before it begins to struggle. Now, we’ve gotten a decent baseline to start at, seeing as how we’ve been giving you some of our food and water over the past week or so, and you haven’t had a negative reaction to it yet. However, the amount of mana you’ve been getting is still very small, and has been spaced out over a certain time in between doses. Though that gap has been steadily shrinking, we’re still not up to the levels that a normal Equestrian consumes on a daily basis.”

“So this test will see what my current upper limit is then?” asked Allen carefully.

Dr. Stable nodded in reply, a pleased smile on his face. “Correct! If we can have a rough estimate of where your upper limit lies, then we can create a diet plan that will allow you to consume Equestrian food and drink with little risk to your wellbeing.”

Allen thoughtfully rubbed his chin and said, “Alright, I guess that makes sense. So when is this test then?”

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Dr. Stable replied, “Not much longer. I have Nurse Redheart setting everything up downstairs for us. Once this test is done, then we can see just how far along your treatment has truly progressed, and whether we can safely discharge you. Though truth be told, if what I’ve been seeing is true, I would hazard a guess and say that you’ll be out sometime this week.”

“Here’s hoping,” replied Allen.

“Quite,” said Dr. Stable as he began readying Allen for transport. A few minutes later and a knock on the door prompted Dr. Stable to call out, “Come in.”

Pushing the door open, Nurse Redheart stepped through, and giving Allen and Dr. Stable a smile, she cheerfully reported, “The testing room is ready now, Dr. Stable, we can begin whenever you’re ready.”

Returning her smile with one of his own, Dr. Stable replied, “Excellent! I’ve just about got Allen ready to move here. Would you come and lend me a hoof, Redheart?”

“Certainly doctor,” she said readily, quickly jumping in and getting Allen prepped for transport. A few minutes later saw Allen’s bed being wheeled out of the hospital room to parts unknown. Laying back in his bed, Allen closed his eyes and relaxed, content to let the hospital ponies move him as needed.

Pushing his bed into an elevator, Dr. Stable pushed a button and they began to descend to one of the lower floors. After a few moments, the elevator chirped and the doors slid open revealing that they were in the basement of the hospital. Quickly wheeling him down the hall, they soon arrived at their destination, a nondescript examination room, bare save for a motivational poster on the far wall with a pony pulling a heavy load up a steep incline, and a caption that read, Determination, is about never giving up when the going gets tough!

Allen gave a mental snort of amusement at the cheesy poster and its message. However, he was quickly distracted from it by Nurse Redheart turning his bed around so that he was facing the way he came in and locking the bed's wheels.

Walking around to the other side, Dr. Stable began lifting various wires up from various machines and placing them on different parts of Allen’s body. As he was doing this, Redheart was busy with another machine that looked like a large square box with dials and gauges on it. It also had several glass cylinders attached to the top of it. One cylinder appeared to have a glowing clear liquid inside, while the middle one had some sort of sponge-like material, and the last held nothing. In addition, the machine had a pair of IV tubes tipped with needles coming from opposite ends. Turning to Allen, she quickly and efficiently cleaned and prepped his arms to insert the needles, and after some stinging pain on Allen’s part, had both IV tubes hooked up to him, one in each arm.

Turning away from Allen, she began turning dials and hitting oversized buttons on the machine, which quickly whirred to life. Shooting it a dubious look, Allen asked, “So, what is that thing?”

“Hm? Oh, this?” she asked, pointing at the machine. Upon seeing Allen’s silent nod, she explained, “This machine is going to help us measure your mana saturation levels in your blood by extracting blood from your system, and passing it through these analysis chambers here,” she pointed to the glass cylinders on top, “before then returning your blood back to your body.”

“Okay, and what about all this wiring?” he asked, using a hand to pick up a random wire slightly in emphasis.

“That,” interjected Dr. Stable, “is to measure your vitals. Such as your temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, etc.”

Redheart nodded. “The purpose of this test is to inject you with small doses of mana to see how well your body reacts to it. This, Mana Analysis Machine” she pointed again at it, “will let us measure the level of free-flowing mana in your system and help us determine if your body is properly absorbing, processing, and storing it. Moreover, this machine helps us regulate the mana in your body if there is too much for it to handle. This allows us to safely measure your mana metabolic rate without placing you in danger.”

Allen nodded in understanding. “Okay, so it measures my blood’s mana levels while also filtering out excess mana, good to know.”

“Precisely,” remarked Dr. Stable, “once we reach a point where the machine is having to pull mana from your blood to keep you stable, we’ll know where your upper limit is, and can then recommend a proper diet for you. Eventually, you won’t have to worry about sticking to this diet long term, as eventually your body will become fully acclimated to your new magical environment.”

“And how long will that take?” asked Allen curiously.

Dr. Stable shrugged as he finished hooking up the last wire. “I don’t know, it will depend on what we learn today. However, if I had to guess, I would say at most two to three months of proper diet and exercise would see you properly acclimated to our world. Now, I need you to lay back for me and breathe steadily, we’re ready to begin the test, and remember, if you feel strange or uncomfortable, please let us know immediately. I do not want a repeat of what brought this issue to our attention in the first place, okay?”

Giving a nod, Allen did as he was told and laid back in his bed and willed his body to relax. Looking from Allen to Redheart, Dr. Stable nodded once and said, “Alright, let’s begin.”

Giving a nod in return, Redheart wordlessly hit a button, and the test began. Allen watched as his blood snaked its way up the IV tube and into the machine, at the same time, he saw Dr. Stable inject a very small amount of mana from a syringe into his right IV catheter, having used the catheter’s second, unused port. He then watched as his blood continued to flow through the mana analysis machine for several minutes with nothing really happening. Finally, after a while, the machine beeped and both Nurse Redheart and Dr. Stable crowded around the machine’s printout and began going over the data. After a minute without them saying anything, Allen gave an awkward cough and asked, “So, what’s going on?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, Mr. Ross,” apologized Dr. Stable, “we were just looking over the initial results. It seems that the small amount of mana we injected has finally shown up on the machine's print out.”

“And?” asked Allen when Dr. Stable wasn’t forthcoming on additional details.

“And it seems your body is handling that amount well. We’ll wait a few more minutes and then give you a bigger dose.”

“Okay, so how long is this test going to take then?” asked Allen curiously.

“A few hours at least,” replied Dr. Stable as he readied another dose of mana, “either we reach your body's current upper mana metabolic rate or we find that your body is able to handle an adult pony’s daily dose of mana. If we see that, then we’ll most likely put you on either a less restrictive diet or no diet at all. If we find that, then we’ll unhook you, take you back to your room, keep you overnight and then release you in the morning. With a follow-up appointment to be determined later.”

Nodding, Allen replied, “Alright, I guess I’ll just take a nap then while we wait.”

Dr. Stable shook his head, “I’m sorry, Mr. Ross, but you need to stay awake for this procedure, in case you have an adverse reaction. Plus sleeping changes your mana metabolic rate, and that could skew our results. If you’re worried about being bored, I could have Nurse Redheart go back to your room and get you something to keep you preoccupied while we work.”

“Okay, I guess that’ll be fine,” replied Allen, a slightly disappointed look on his face.

Shooting Allen an apologetic look Nurse Redheart quickly trotted out of the room in search of something for Allen to do while he waited. In the meantime, Dr. Stable remained vigilant at his post, carefully watching the machine’s readout as it analyzed Allen’s blood. A few minutes later, and the approaching sound of hooves on tile announced Nurse Redheart’s return. Pushing through the double doors, she trotted over to Allen’s bed and laid several books next to him. They were from his personal collection that had been brought over from his home, and as such, he’d already read them several times, but at this point, it was something to do, so he grabbed one and started reading. Nurse Redheart meanwhile resumed her post beside Dr. Stable.

Time slowly passed as the test continued. Every so often, either Redheart or Stable would inject Allen with a little more mana and then go back to watching the readouts. Finally, after several hours, the machine made a whirring sound which immediately caught the attention of everyone in the room. Setting his book down, Allen turned his curious gaze to the two medical ponies, who were now hunched over the machine’s current readout, whispering quietly to themselves. After a minute or so, Dr. Stable turned around, while Nurse Redheart continued monitoring the machine’s gauges, and said, “Well Mr. Ross, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that your body still isn’t strong enough to handle an adult pony’s level of mana in their system. However, the good news is, it’s getting pretty close,” he said, a happy smile on his face.

“In fact, if my calculations are correct, you won’t need to stick to your new diet for very long, maybe a month, month and a half at most. In addition, it also looks like we won’t need to limit your diet as much, so that is good. However,” he held up a cautioning hoof, “you’re still going to need to take it easy for a bit, especially when it comes to physical exertion. Your body is not used to burning mana yet, and if you’re not careful, you could suffer mana exhaustion, which is not a pleasant experience. However, if you follow the regimen that we prescribe you, you should make a full recovery in no time.”

Shooting the doctor a relieved smile, Allen happily replied, “That sounds good doc, thank you guys, for everything.”

Placing a hoof on Allen’s arm, Dr. Stable softly said, “No Mr. Ross, thank you. I know that this experience hasn’t been pleasant in the slightest, but thanks to your cooperation, we know so much more about you and your species biology. I’m not sure how useful this will be in the future. But it will definitely allow us to better treat you at least should something happen. Plus,” he continued, a giddy smile on his face, “I get to be the first pony to publish my finding on human biology in the Royal Equestrian Medical Societies Journal of Medicine! Oh this is so exciting, I can’t wait to rub this in my colleague's muzzles back up in Canterlot! They thought me being posted here to Ponyville was the end of my career. Well the jokes on them, ha!”

Shooting Nurse Redheart, a worried look, she simply rolled her eyes good-naturedly and said, “Alright, Dr. Stable, there will be plenty of time for gloating later. Right now we need to get Mr. Ross unhooked from the MAM and get him back to his room so that he can get some rest before we release him tomorrow.”

“Huh? Oh, uh right, I was just about to do that,” replied a slightly embarrassed Dr. Stable.

Giggling at his reaction, Nurse Redheart shook her head in amusement and quickly set about unhooking Allen from the medical machines. In no time at all, Allen was back in his room, clean, fed, and ready for bed.

Dr. Stable had already begged his leave as soon as they had gotten Allen back in his room, mumbling about getting started on compiling the data that had collected over the past few weeks. Nurse Redheart for her part was used to this and simply shooed him out, quickly and effectively caring for Allen as she readied him for bed while humming a happy tune.

Having just finished her duties, and said her good night’s, Nurse Redheart turned to go and was almost out the door, a hoof on the light switch, poised to plunge the room into darkness, when Allen called out.

“Hey.”

Pausing, she turned and gave Allen a quizzical look.

“Thanks again, for everything,” he said, a tired, but content look on his face, “I know I haven’t been the easiest patient you’ve probably ever had, and I’m sure there was a time or two I probably tried your patience more than I should have. But, I just wanted you to know that I’ve really appreciated everything you’ve done for me while I’ve been here.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Ross,” she said, a warm smile on her face, “and you’re right, you weren’t the easiest patient I’ve ever had,” she giggled when she saw Allen’s face tinge red in embarrassment, “but that’s what being a good nurse is all about. Seeing to the needs of the patient, and understanding that when they are difficult it’s best to not take it personally. In that moment, they’re often going through a difficult time in their life, and sometimes, all they really need is somepony to vent their frustrations to. Though there has been a time or two when even my patience has been pushed to the limit. When that happens I take a deep breath and realize that they’re probably just scared and that they feel so helpless. Getting sick or injured enough to warrant a hospital stay can be very stressful on a person, and as a nurse, it’s my job to make them as comfortable as I possibly can.”

She paused, glancing back at her cutie mark, a bittersweet smile forming on her lips. “After all, that’s how I got my mark,” she said softly. As she looked up at Allen, he could see that bittersweet smile was still adorning her lips, though now, Allen could see a pair of tears falling down her cheeks. “You know, I got my cutie mark when I was nine years old by caring for my sister after she nearly died when a tree branch fell and hit her on the head, putting her into a coma. My parents thought she wasn’t going to make it, even the doctors weren’t sure. But I was stubborn, and I didn’t want to believe them when they told us that there was nothing more they could do and that the best thing was to just wait it out and hope for the best. So, I spent every waking moment that I could, caring for my sister. I would help clean her, brush her coat and tail, her mane had been shaved and her head was wrapped in bandages, so I couldn’t brush it for her. But I would also read and talk to her when we were together, I did anything and everything that I could think of to help her. And after nearly a month of her lying in a coma unresponsive to the world around her, she suddenly woke up one morning while I was brushing her tail.”

Redheart glanced over, staring out the window as the memories came back, and this time the tears flowed freely. “She turned to me and said, ‘I finally found you, big sis.’ After I finished hugging the stuffing out of her, and I’d managed to get my emotions back under control, I asked her what she meant. She told that she’d been lost in a dark wilderness and that at first, she was scared and alone, not sure which way to go. She said that ‘it felt like no matter which way I went, the forest just got darker and colder. But then suddenly, I heard your voice, at first, it was quiet, so quiet that I could barely hear it, but I heard it and I started following it. The longer I followed it, the warmer and brighter everything became until finally, I stepped out into a meadow of sunshine and flowers, and that’s when I woke up and found you.’ Both my parents and the doctors were amazed and happy that my sister had pulled through. In all the excitement, I hadn’t noticed until one of the nurses pointed it out, but I had earned my cutie mark. It was the happiest moment of my life, and at that point, I knew that I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up. I wanted to help other ponies find their way through the dark wilderness of sickness and pain, to the bright, happy fields of health and wellness.”

Allen wasn’t sure when he left his bed or how he managed to maneuver his monitoring equipment around said bed without getting anything tangled. But somehow he had, and in the process, he found himself kneeling next to Redheart as tears continued to roll down her cheeks. Laying a comforting hand on her withers, he gently stroked along her upper back as she took deep, calming breaths. Finally, after several minutes, she looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you,” using a hoof, she wiped some of her tears away, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get all emotional there, and make you feel like you needed to get out of bed.”

Allen looked down at Nurse Redheart, a soft, slightly tear-filled smile on his face, and said, “It’s the least I could do, you seemed like you could use a shoulder to cry on for a little bit there.”

Sniffing, and wiping her eyes again, Redheart gently pushed away from Allen, before gently chivvying him back to his bed. Getting him situated again, she said, “Alright, enough of this, it’s time you got some sleep, and it’s time for me to go off shift. I will see you in the morning Mr. Ross, have a good night.”

“Same to you, Nurse Redheart,” replied Allen sleepily, a yawn quickly escaping from his mouth.

Smiling to herself, Redheart turned and began trotting out of the room, with happy memories of patients that she had helped get better flowing through her mind like a movie reel at a cinema.

Allen watched her turn out the light and shut the door behind her as she left. However, as Allen watched her go, he could have sworn that, for just a moment, he saw Redheart’s cutie mark faintly glow and sparkle, before the door fully closed, plunging his room into darkness before he could say anything.

Did her mark just glow right then or was it a trick of the light? Another yawn ripped itself from his mouth, prompting Allen to make himself more comfortable. Feeling his eyelids grow heavy as sleep slowly overtook his tired mind, he gave his mind a mental shake.

Must’ve just been my mind playing tricks on me. Then again, this is Magical Pony Land, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re marks could do something like that. Bah, I’m too tired to give a shit right now, I’ll worry about it later.

And with that final thought coursing through his tired mind, Allen finally let sleep take him away to the land of dreams.

Chapter 20 (Goodbye Nurse)

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Chapter 20

“Sign here, please.”

Scritch-scritch-scritch, clink.

“And here.”

Scritch-scritch-scritch, clink.

“And lastly, here.”

Scritch-scritch-scritch, clink.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Allen set the nib pen back in its ink well on the receptionist’s desk and waited for her to finish filing his discharge paperwork. Turning, he cast his gaze around the deserted hospital waiting room. By now, it was mid-morning, the sun having risen several hours ago and Allen was itching to get out.

Bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet, he felt like a child again, being forced to wait for a treat while his parents took their sweet time. In this case however, he was just waiting for his part of the release forms, and then he would be able to finally leave.

“And there you go!” chirped the nurse happily as she hoofed over his portion of the paperwork. Her sunny disposition was infectious, as Allen found himself returning her smile with one of his own.

“Much appreciated,” he replied, stuffing the papers in his backpack, which also happened to be filled to bursting with the things that he’d had Twilight and the others bring over from his house during his stay in the hospital.

“Have a nice day,” he called back over his shoulder as he strode out the door.

“You too!” replied the nurse happily, before she turned her attention to something else.

Stepping out through the front doors, he was greeted by a small group of ponies. On his right stood Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart, both ponies gave Allen a big smile, pleased at his recovery. On the left, stood Twilight and Lyra, each sported a pair of saddlebags that matched their coat colors and sported latches done up as their cutie marks. They had offered to help Allen bring some of his stuff back with him, along with keeping him company on his walk home. Allen, not too prideful to refuse help, had accepted their offer graciously, glad that he wouldn’t have to try and lug everything home by himself. The company was also a nice bonus, as over the past few weeks he had come to enjoy his time with the two studious mares. Giving them a quick nod in greeting, he quickly shifted his attention to the two ponies most responsible for his successful recovery.

“Dr. Stable, Nurse Redheart,” he greeted.

“Mr. Ross,” they replied in unintended stereo.

Chuckling at their response, Allen kneeled down so that he was at eye level with them and said, “I can’t thank you guys enough for what you did for me, but here goes,” Taking a deep breath, he gave them his most winning smile and said, “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything you both did.”

Returning his smile with their own, both Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart accepted Allen’s thanks by extending a hoof for him to shake. “You are most welcome Mr. Ross,” said Dr. Stable as Allen shook his hoof. “I know that this experience wasn’t easy or pleasant, but I am glad that everything turned out fine in the end.”

Letting loose a laugh, Allen replied, “Yeah, me too doc, me too.”

Turning to shake Nurse Redheart’s hoof, Allen was a little caught off guard when the sturdy nurse pulled him into a sudden hug. “And thank you Mr. Ross,” she whispered in his ear.

Pulling back slightly he asked, “For what?”

Giving a soft smile she replied, “For listening last night. It felt...good to tell someone about my cutie mark story, I-I don’t often tell ponies, at least not the whole story, just the condensed and sanitized version. I guess I’ve been bottling up my thoughts and emotions a bit too much lately, and I needed to get it out of my system a little bit. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Allen simply, a content smile on his face.

As he stood up from the embrace, Allen found himself being given a stern look from Dr. Stable. “Now remember, if you want to keep getting better, you need to follow the instructions that I have given you to the letter, understand?” He said as he pointed an admonishing hoof at Allen.

Holding his hand’s up in mock surrender, Allen complied saying, “Don’t worry doc, you can count on me keeping up with my regimen. No need to worry about that.”

Giving a satisfied nod, Dr. Stable simply said, “Good, see that you do or else.”

Shooting off a salute in reply, Allen turned his attention to his two traveling companions and said, “Well, I think that about does it. Ready to get going?”

Nodding in reply, both Lyra and Twilight turned and after saying their final farewells to Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart, the trio set out. The three of them forming into a line with Allen in the middle and Lyra and Twilight to his left and right respectively.

“So Allen, how are you feeling right now?” asked Twilight, a slight hint of concern coloring her voice.

Giving a mighty stretch, Allen shot her a winning smile and happily replied, “Like a million bucks.”

“What do male deer have to do with how you’re feeling?” asked Lyra, a very confused look on her face.

Shooting her a sheepish smile, Allen replied, “Sorry, it’s an idiom from back home. It means that I feel great.”

“But what does that have to do with deer?” said Twilight, from Allen’s right side.

Chuckling Allen replied, “It doesn’t, while buck does mean male deer back home, it’s also slang for a dollar.”

Comprehension dawned on Twilight’s face as she quickly whipped out a scroll and quill from her saddlebag and began furiously taking notes. “And a dollar is your currency back home right?” she inquired.

Allen nodded. “Correct.”

Her quill continued scratching across her parchment as she mumbled to herself, “Fascinating.”

Seeing that the nerdy purple unicorn was nearly lost to the world, Allen turned his attention to his other traveling companion and asked, “So how have things been with you lately, Lyra?”

Glancing up at Allen, Lyra shot him a content smile and said, “Pretty good. My doctorate is coming along nicely and thanks to you, ponies are starting to take my thesis and research theories seriously now. I’ll have you know,” she said, placing a hoof to her chest, and sticking her muzzle up in the air in mock haughtiness, “that I am currently the leading scientist on human mythology right now.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the only scientist, Lyra,” replied Allen dryly.

Letting her forehoof fall back to the ground, she stuck out her tongue jokingly at him in reply. To which Allen simply rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Real mature there, doc.”

Giggling in response, Lyra bumped against Allen’s hip and said, “All joking aside, things have been going very well for me. If everything goes the way I expect it to, I’ll have my doctorate finished by the end of the year, maybe even sooner.”

“Really? I thought you still had a ways to go?”

Lyra shook her head. “I’ve basically finished all the class work needed for it. I’ve got maybe two semester’s worth of work to go at this point. Really, the only thing holding me back was my thesis, and thanks to you, that’s nearly done. All that’s left to do is edit it, and submit it for review. And considering how your presence here is shaking up the scientist community, well...I figure it’ll be accepted no problem.”

“Nice, glad to hear that. So what happens after?”

Lyra shrugged. “It’ll probably be more of the same, studying you, asking you questions, looking through your collection of books, music, art, etc. with your permission of course,” said Lyra quickly, as if afraid Allen would think she was taking advantage of him for her own gain without considering his feelings on the matter.

“Of course,” replied Allen simply.

“And putting my findings to paper to be published,” she finished, a yearning sigh at the end. “There is just so much to learn about you and your culture Allen! It boggles the mind when I think about it. About how our worlds could have at one point been in regular contact with each other and that for some reason thousands of years ago they were disconnected somehow.”

Allen nodded in agreement. “I agree, there seems to be a lot of evidence pointing to our worlds having at least limited contact at one point in history. I mean hell, my people are learning about things that happened just a few decades ago that either went unreported or were misremembered. A thousand years is a long time to forget stuff, never mind five or even ten thousand.”

“Exactly, who knows what knowledge could have been lost to the sands of time!” exclaimed Lyra excitedly.

“In any case, while history does interest me, I’m afraid I won’t have a lot of time to dwell on it going forward.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Well, the fact that I need to find a way to earn some income is a bit of a pressing concern at the moment,” remarked Allen dryly.

Lyra felt her ears fold back against her mane. “Are you going to be okay? I’d hate for you to lose even more because you couldn’t pay your bills.”

Allen waved her concerns away. “I’ve got a couple ideas that should help buy me some breathing space at least.”

Her ears perking up at hearing that, Lyra said, “Oh, like what?”

Allen shot her an unsure look as he scratched the back of his head. “Well, I’d rather not get into too much detail right now, but there is a pony who is willing to help me out by entering into a business partnership with me as it were.”

“Can you say who?” asked Lyra curiously.

Looking down, Allen had to stifle a laugh when he saw her expression.

She looks just like a dog when it’s confused, it’s kind of adorable.

Some of his inner thoughts must have leaked onto his face, as Lyra’s expression quickly morphed into one of annoyance. “What is that look for?”

Quickly glancing away, Allen innocently asked, “What look?”

“Never mind,” she said, shaking her head, “you were saying?”

Allen shrugged. “I’d rather not get into the specifics of it at the moment, as we’re still in the process of hashing out the finer details. But the gist of it is that they would front me a sizable portion of bits along with access to some unused farmland. In exchange, I would plant and harvest the products that they would then sell on the market for me using their various commercial connections.”

“Well, it sounds like things will work out for you then,” replied Lyra with a smile.

Allen shrugged again. “Maybe, if there is one thing I know about farming, is that it’s the only form of gambling that is legal everywhere in the world. All it takes is one bad season, and you're done.”

“It sounds like you have some experience with that,” remarked Lyra softly.

Letting loose a humorless chuckle, Allen pointed in the direction of his farm. “You’ve seen first hand just how run down my place is, Lyra. Back home, in my world, we were barely scraping by. My dad did his best, but the economics of modern farming don’t leave a lot of room for the little guy. You basically buy retail and sell wholesale, and the rule is generally that you owe your soul to some corporate banker in New York rather than owning your farm.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“Could be worse,” said Allen, simply, “I learned that lesson the hard way. So long as I had a roof over my head, food in my belly, and clothes on my back, I figured the rest was just details. Still...”

“You wish things were just a little bit easier,” finished Lyra, a sympathetic smile on her face.

“Yep, pretty much,” replied Allen as he turned his attention back to the road in front of him. By this point, the group had passed the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres, and apples trees now lined the road to either side. In the distance, Allen could just barely make out the open grasslands that marked the end of the Apple family’s land, and the beginning of his. “However, as the old saying back home goes, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

“I take it the meaning was that if wishes could come true, then everyone would have everything they ever wanted?”

Looking back down at Lyra, Allen nodded. “Got it in one.”

“Fascinating,” came a mumbled response from his right side.

Looking that way, Allen could see that Twilight’s scroll had grown considerably longer, and that she now had another two hovering in the air next to the first. It was honestly both amusing and slightly concerning for the displaced human. “Is she going to be okay?” he asked, not taking his eyes off of the distracted unicorn.

Lyra peered around Allen and with a laugh replied, “She’ll be fine. By this point, Twilight has mastered the art of trotting with her muzzle stuck in a paper or book. Just let her be, though if we need to make a sharp turn, we’ll need to gently nudge her onto the new course, otherwise we risk losing her.”

“I can hear you talking you know,” replied Twilight from behind her scroll, an annoyed tone prevalent in her voice, and most likely upon her face. Though Allen couldn’t be sure due to said face being blocked by levitating parchment.

“Oh, I know,” replied Lyra cheekily, “I just like poking fun at you every now and again, you know, to make sure you’re actually paying attention.” Motioning for Allen to bend down closer to her, Lyra loudly whispered in his ear saying, “Of course, there was that one time back in Junior year that she got separated from us during a field trip and accidentally ended up on the wrong train.”

Jerking her notes out of her face, Twilight shot Lyra a glare and retorted, “It could have happened to anypony! Both the train for Van Hoover and the one for Manehatten were on the same platform! I just happened to turn left, while the rest of the class turned right!”

“Of course, if you hadn’t had your head muzzle deep in that book you were reading, you probably wouldn’t have gotten on the wrong train because you would have seen the class get on the train that was on the right side of the platform,” shot back Lyra, in what Allen assumed by this point was a well rehearsed argument between the two friends over an embarrassing incident.

Twilight opened her mouth in preparation for another retort when Allen cut in saying, “Maybe we should change the topic?”

Realizing that they had been in the process of working themselves into a full blown fight, Lyra and Twilight, both blushing heavily in embarrassment, quickly agreed with Allen and apologized to the other before moving onto a less touchy subject.

“So,” began Lyra hesitantly, “what were you planning on doing when you got home today?”

“Well that depends on what needs to be done when I get there,” replied Allen simply.

“You know you’re supposed to take things easy for a bit longer,” said Twilight, a note of warning in her voice.

Allen rolled his eyes. “I’m a farmer, Twilight. It doesn’t matter if I’m half dead from some disease, if the animals need feeding, they get fed. If the harvest needs to be brought in, it’s brought in and I worry about my health second.”

Twilight quickly trotted around and stopped in front of Allen, pointing a hoof at him, she spoke in a very serious tone. “Now you stop that right now, mister! I don’t care what you are. If you are not feeling well, then you should ask for help! Just ask my friend Applejack. She tried to harvest the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres by herself, while also helping other ponies in town at the same time. In the end, she nearly worked herself sick before she finally admitted she needed help.”

“And in the process she helped poison half the town,” grumbled Lyra.

“Wait, what?” asked Allen incredulously, “how did she manage that?”

Rolling her eyes, Lyra replied, “She was so tired, she used the wrong ingredients to make muffins with. As a result, anypony who ate them got sick. A few ponies had to be hospitalized for over a week because of it.”

Twilight nodded. “And when Applejack found out about that, she was extremely sorry and upset that she had let her pride get in the way of not just her safety and well being, but others as well. So please,” she said, looking up at Allen, a concerned look on her face, “don’t make the same mistake that my friend made. If the doctors told you to go easy, then you need to go easy until they say otherwise. If you need somepony to come help you, then we’ll help, and if we can’t, then I’m sure we can find somepony who can. I mean, who do you think has been taking care of your farm for the past few weeks?” finished Twilight with a smug smile on her face.

Throwing up his hands in capitulation, Allen replied exasperatedly, “Alright, fine. I’ll take it easy, geez.”

Trading her smug smile for a soft one, Twilight gently placed a hoof on Allen’s chest and said, “Thank you, I’d hate to hear that you hurt yourself because you didn’t want to be a burden for anypony, but that is what friends are for, Allen. They are there to help you when you need it, and right now buster, you need our help.”

Returning her smile with one of his own, Allen nodded and said, “Thanks, the both of you. I really appreciate it.”

“Your welcome,” replied Twilight happily. Lyra just nodded her head in agreement. “Now, let’s get going, we don’t want to be late for your party after all!” and with that, both Lyra and Twilight shot each other a grin and turned quickly trotting off.

Allen meanwhile stood there staring ahead, a far away look on his face and mumbled to himself, “What party?”

Chapter 21 (It's Party Time!)

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Chapter 21

“I don’t remember asking anyone to throw me a ‘Welcome to Equestria, glad you’re feeling better, sorry that you were kidnapped by a crazy god’ party,” remarked Allen dryly as he, Twilight and Lyra walked under the rather large banner hanging over the entrance to his farm. Looking down his driveway, Allen could see a large group of ponies milling about enjoying various activities and food in his front and side yards.

“Well, that’s Pinkie Pie for you,” replied Twilight easily, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

“Pinkie Pie?” asked Allen, a baffled expression on his face. “What kind of name is that?”

“Why it’s my name silly!” exclaimed a loud and excited voice from behind Allen.

“Bwah!” shouted Allen as he spun around to discover the pinkest pony that ever lived. Her coat was a light pink, while her mane was a darker shade of the same color and reminded Allen of cotton candy. Her eyes meanwhile were a sparkling light blue and seemed to be filled with nothing but joy and happiness. Finally, plastered proudly on her flanks were a trio of party balloons, one yellow and the other two blue.

Clutching his chest with one hand, Allen willed his heart to slow down. Meanwhile, the pink party pony was practically bombarding him with words so fast that he couldn’t tell when one ended and the other started.

“And so I said, oatmeal, are you crazy? Then I-” a sudden hoof inserting itself into her mouth caused the unending stream of words to, while not completely stop, at least become muffled, and allow normal people to think.

“Pinkie, please, Allen just got out of the hospital, so could you slow down a little? He’s not used to your... Pinkieness yet.” asked Twilight, the owner of said hoof that was now getting a little damp from Pinkie’s spittle as she continued to try and talk around her hoof.

That can not be sanitary. Thought Allen disgustingly to himself. Pinkie meanwhile seemed completely unfazed by the hoof lodged squarely in her mouth, as if this was something that happened on a regular basis, and from what Allen could see, he wouldn’t be surprised in the least bit if it was a regular occurrence.

Spitting Twilight's hoof out of her mouth, Pinkie took a deep breath, and Allen braced himself for another onrush of words. However, the pink party pony instead stuck out her hoof, and wrapping it slightly around Allen’s hand, proceeded to vigorously shake it saying, “Sorry about that! I have a tendency to forget that not everypony can keep up with me all the time!”

After enduring the pink earth pony’s jackhammer like hoof shaking, Allen firmly retrieved his hand from her grip and replied, “That’s alright, just, try to do better to keep that in mind next time?”

Shooting him a perky salute, she happily replied, “Okie doki loki!”

Taking a moment to smooth out his shirt, Allen casually looked around and commented. “So, you set this little shindig up then?”

Nodding vigorously, Pinkie happily replied, “Sure did! When Twilight told me that you were going to be getting out of the hospital, I knew that this was the perfect chance for me to finally throw you a ‘Welcome to Equestria’ party! Normally, I would have done this when you first showed up, but there were a bunch of Royal Guard’s who said that I had to wait because of reasons. Which made me sad,” her expression suddenly took on a sad forlorn look and her mane almost seemed like it had deflated slightly as a result. Allen for his part convinced himself that it was a trick of the light, as not even a second later, it was back to its springy self and the pony it was attached to was happily bouncing and smiling again.

“But now, I don’t have to wait anymore, and let me tell you, I was about to go crazy~ if I had to wait just one more day!”

Leaning back slightly from the pink ball of pure happiness, Allen replied, “Well, that’s... good to hear, that you didn’t have to go crazy from waiting any longer.”

“Tell me about it! Even the Cake's were getting a little worried about me, and I’ve lived with them since I moved to Ponyville!” replied the hyperactive mare.

“And how long ago was that?”

Pinkie paused for a second as she put a hoof to her chin and screwed her face up in an expression of intense thought. “Hmmm, I think it was about ten years ago? It was just after this giant rainbow explosion that happened in the sky and I suddenly got my cutie mark.”

“And are you always this... perky?” asked Allen hesitantly.

Pinkie nodded happily. “Yepperoni! Well, except on days when I’m not, but those aren’t very often.”

Good lord, those poor people. Thought Allen to himself as he tried not to imagine what living with this pony everyday for ten years would be like. If it had been him, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stay sane.

Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to her and asked, “You guys didn’t go in my house, did you? I don’t want to sound like a jerk but, I’d rather not have a bunch of random people stomping around my house without my permission.”

“Of course not! What kind of party planner would I be if I just randomly invaded pony’s houses without either their or their family’s permission? That wouldn’t be very nice of me if I did! Not everypony wants to have a surprise party, you know? I mean, I can understand why someponies might think I do that, but I’ve learned that the fastest way to ruin a fun party is to do something that somepony didn’t even want!” Pointing a hoof at the decently sized party behind Allen, Pinkie said, “My Pinkie Sense told me you probably didn’t want a party inside your house or that you’d like one of the surprising variety, so I just invited a few ponies that you knew, along with their friends and family so that you could make some new friends!”

“That was... rather considerate of you, thanks.”

Allen wasn’t sure how, but it looked like Pinkie’s smile only got bigger when he said that. “You’re welcome!” suddenly her ears perked up and her expression morphed into a look of surprise, “Oh! Itchy left ear, and twingy left rear hock? Gasp! The punch bowl is almost out of punch! I gotta go! Enjoy your party!” And with that, the pink mare took off like a racehorse at the Kentucky Derby, leaving Allen standing there with a perplexed look on his face.

Turning to Twilight he opened his mouth to ask what that was all about when she quickly replied, “Don’t ask, I mean it. I nearly killed myself trying to figure her out. So just do what everypony else does around here, and try not to think about it, alright?”

“Ooookay,” replied Allen, an unsure look on his face. However, after a moment, he decided to follow the local custom of just shrugging and moving on when it came to Pinkie Pie’s antics.

“So,” he asked as the three of them began walking towards Allen’s home again, “I guess we should get this stuff inside and see what kind of party Pinkie Pie set up for me.”

Looking up at Allen, both Twilight and Lyra smiled. “You’ll like it,” replied Twilight, a happy expression on her face, “Pinkie has a knack for making parties that others really enjoy.”

“It is her special talent after all,” quipped Lyra with a giggle.

“True, very true,” Twilight agreed, nodding as they walked up the brick sidewalk to Allen’s front porch.

Stepping up to the door, Allen pulled the screen door open, slipped his house key out of his pocket, and into the front door lock and twisted it, unlocking it and stepping through. Standing aside, he held the door open for the two unicorns to enter behind him. Letting the screen door bang shut behind him, the group ventured deeper into the house. Entering the kitchen, Allen set his bag and things on the kitchen island, and motioning with a hand, took his things from the two unicorns as they floated them out of their saddlebags, and placed them on the island alongside his backpack.

“Well, that should be everything, I’ll put it all back later, let’s just head outside and see what kind of shindig we got going on out there,” said Allen as he turned and ushered Twilight and Lyra out of the kitchen and towards the front door.

Stepping back outside, Allen took in the sight before him. A group of maybe about twenty to thirty ponies of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages were gathered around his house laughing, drinking punch, eating cake and playing party games, and just generally having a good time. From where he stood, Allen could see a couple of familiar faces out in the group, there was Pinkie Pie running around in a party fueled frenzy, trying to make sure that everyone was having fun. Looking away from the pink pony, Allen spotted, to his slight surprise, Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart over by the punch bowl, laughing and talking with a gray coated pegasus mare with a straw yellow mane, and bubbles for a cutie mark who had her back to him.

As Allen was looking their way, Nurse Redheart took that moment to look in his direction, and seeing him, shot him a bright smile and a happy wave. Dr. Stable, seeing Nurse Redheart waving, looked up from his conversation and, also spotting Allen, gave his own wave in greeting, which Allen returned.

Having made their greeting, both Redheart and Stable turned their attention back to their friend and Allen shifted his elsewhere. By this point, a couple of ponies had noticed the trio standing on Allen’s porch and had made their way over. One of them, a cream-colored earth pony with a two-toned cobalt blue and light fuchsia-colored mane that curled up at the ends, was Lyra’s marefriend, Sweetie Drops, though most ponies, including Lyra, called her Bon Bon. Allen had only met her once when Lyra had stopped by to drop some things off for him at the hospital, but she seemed nice enough at the time.

Lyra, upon seeing her marefriend coming her way, quickly trotted over and gave her a hug and a peck on the lips. Bon Bon playfully pushed her marefriend away with a heavy blush on her face. “Lyra,” she mock complained, “not in front of everypony!”

Waggling her eyebrows in a suggestive manner simply said, “You know you like it when I show everypony you’re mine~”

Chuckling at the mare’s antics, Allen strode down off the porch and extended his hand saying, “Hey Bon Bon, haven’t seen you in a while, how’ve you been?”

Taking his hand with her hoof, she gave it a firm shake and replied, “Can’t really complain, business has been good lately, and it’s nice having Lyra in Ponyville more often these days now that her Ph.D. is nearly finished. It was such a pain only getting to see her on the weekends when she commuted to Canterlot for school.”

Allen nodded in commiseration. “I feel you, I had a friend who did the same thing, he’d only be back home either during the holidays, spring break, or summer break. It was a real pain trying to stay connected at times, especially during exam week.”

“Oh I know, I know, Lyra would do the same thing when finals would come around. She’d be so busy studying for them that she wouldn’t have time to come back to Ponyville for the weekend until it was all over,” lamented Bon Bon.

Lyra, for her part, simply rolled her eyes. “Oh come on Bonny, it’s not like it was for that long or that I did it that often. Sheesh, you forgot about one anniversary because you’re cramming for an important test, and you’ll never live it down,” she grumbled softly to herself.

Bon Bon for her part gave her marefriend a nudge with her shoulder and a soft smile, and said, “I’m only teasing Lyra, I know how much this means to you, and I knew going in that you’d have a lot on your plate. So don’t think I’m upset or anything about missed anniversaries... though now that your workload has lessened, you don’t have as much of an excuse now, so... try not to forget our next one, okay?” she finished, smiling sweetly at Lyra.

Lyra just nodded, a pouty expression on her face.

Chuckling at his friend's antics, Allen looked over at the second pony to come trotting up. She was a well-groomed unicorn mare, with a pearl white coat, indigo-colored mane and tail, and a trio of what looked like diamonds on her flank. Sticking out a hoof in a dainty fashion, she introduced herself, “Hello there, my name is Rarity Belle, but you may call me Rarity. I’m Ponyville’s resident fashionista, boutique owner, and friend of Twilight’s,” she said as she batted her azure eyes coyly at Allen as he gently shook her hoof.

“Allen Ross, nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” she said, “I’ve been dying to talk with you since I learned of your presence in our fair town.”

“You have?”

“But of course!” exclaimed Rarity melodramatically, “As you might have guessed by my introduction, I am a mare of fashion! Clothing is my passion and when Twilight told me a little about how people in your world wear clothes all the time, I just had to meet you and learn more. For in there,” she pointed to Allen’s home, and then to him, “and up there” she said, pointing at his head, “are an entire world’s worth of fashion ideas just waiting to be discovered! I simply could not pass up the opportunity to come and see you as soon as I could. Once I learned that you had been officially released from the hospital and that Pinkie Pie was going to throw you a welcome party, I knew I just had to come, and here I am!” she said with a giggle.

Scratching the back of his head, Allen gave the fashion-minded mare an uncertain look. “I’m not sure that I’m the best person to be talking to when it comes to... well, fashion. I’m not really one of those people that really cares too much about how I look, other than making sure I don’t look like a bum, especially on Sunday.”

Rarity giggled in reply. “Oh, you needn't worry about your fashion knowledge being an issue darling. As I said, I only wanted to ask you about what you know and maybe borrow some books from your world. My inspiration will take care of the rest, I can assure you. I’m sure that wouldn’t be too much trouble, would it?” she asked, a demure smile on her face.

Allen looked back and forth between Rarity and an increasingly uneasy looking Twilight, before fixing the fashion-minded mare with his most charming smile and said, “Well as nice as that sounds, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer.”

Rarity’s smile quickly dissipated like a morning dew before the might of the noonday sun. In its place was a frown of confusion. “Huh? B-but why?” she asked, a slight whine in her voice. Like a child denied something sweet.

Maintaining his charming smile, Allen easily replied, “I’m afraid I just won’t have the time really,” sweeping his arm out in an encompassing gesture of his farm, he continued, “I’ve got a lot of work to do if I want to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach, and I’m afraid that ‘talking fashion’ with you won’t do it. So I’m afraid we’ll just have to put a raincheck on that idea, and maybe when things calm down we can discuss it some other time.”

Shooting Allen, a disappointed pout, Rarity sadly, but gracefully replied, “Oh well, when you put it that way, I suppose that makes more sense for you to do. Sorry, I got so wrapped up in the excitement of seeing what a completely different world does for clothing that I didn’t think about anything else.”

Allen gave Rarity a comforting smile. “Hey, no harm done. If it makes you feel any better, there wasn’t much to talk about anyways. As I said, my family doesn’t really have the time to be fashionable, so most of our clothes are for practicable purposes, you know, being farmers and all, so I doubt there was much I could have helped you with in the first place.”

Sighing at the lost opportunity, Rarity returned Allen’s smile with a smaller one of her own and replied, “Oh, I think you might be underestimating yourself, Mr. Ross. While you might not wear the finest clothes, others do. Things such as books, magazines, moving pictures, and paintings, have all provided me with inspiration for new fashion ideas. However, I won’t press the matter, it would be very rude of me to do so, especially when I would be distracting you from your work. Goodness knows, I can’t stand it when ponies distract me from my own work, especially when I’m trying to meet a deadline.”

“I appreciate the thoughtfulness, and who knows,” said Allen with a shrug, “that raincheck might come sooner rather than later. I know Twilight and Lyra have been pestering me about my world for weeks now, and I’m sure they’ve seen plenty of human clothing styles during their research, perhaps you might ask them about some of it in the meantime.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Rarity, a sudden gleam in her eye as she turned and regarded her fellow unicorns with a hungry look, “thank you very much for bringing that little tidbit of information to my attention, darling. Come along Lyra, we’ve got fashion to discuss~” purred Rarity as she grabbed Lyra with a friendly, but firm grip and began dragging the hapless unicorn away into the crowd. Calling out over her shoulder, Rarity bade a cheerful farewell as she departed with her new friend in tow. “Tata, Mr. Ross, it was nice meeting you~!”

Lyra shot Allen a pleading look as she was dragged away, but Allen, being the smart man that he was, simply smiled and waved, confident that she would survive Rarity's proclivities for fashion mostly intact.

Letting loose a breath of relief at having dodged that particular bullet, Allen turned to Twilight and said, “Well, that was something.”

Giving Allen a sheepish grin, Twilight replied, “Ehehe, sorry about that, Rarity really likes to talk about fashion when she gets the chance.”

“So I noticed,” remarked Allen dryly.

“I should probably go and make sure Lyra doesn’t end up as one of Rarity’s ponnequins,” said Bon Bon, “it was nice meeting you, Mr. Ross,” she said as she turned to leave.

“Same here, and you can just call me Allen, whenever someone calls me Mr. Ross, I think they’re talking about my dad,” joked Allen.

Giggling at Allen’s reply, Bon Bon nodded. “Alright then, see you later Allen, I hope you enjoy the party.”

“Thanks, same to you,” replied Allen with a wave as Bon Bon trotted off in pursuit of her marefriend and her captor.

“So, anyone else you want me to meet right now?” asked Allen as he and Twilight began heading for the refreshment table.

Twilight placed a hoof to her chin in thoughtful contemplation as she tried to remember who was at the party and who had elected to skip it, as contrary to popular belief, not everypony could just drop what they were doing to attend a Pinkie Pie party. Especially one that was as far outside of town as Allen’s.

“Well,” she began, “as far as I’m aware, Pinkie Pie and Rarity were the only ones out of my close circle of friends that came to your party.”

“I thought Lyra was a close friend of yours?” asked Allen as he selected a cupcake from a plate that said ‘sugar-free’ on it. He assumed that plate was meant for him as it didn’t look like too many ponies had elected to try one of them. Biting into the cupcake, his taste buds were pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t as bland as he was afraid it would be. “Hmm, that’s pretty good, normally sugar-free food doesn’t taste this good,” he remarked.

“Well of course it doesn’t silly,” replied Pinkie Pie happily from the other side of the table. Where she had come from, Allen didn’t know, as she hadn’t been there a second ago. He tried not to think about it.

“That’s why I used a little bit of honey instead! It’s not as good as one of my regular sugar cupcakes, but Dr. Stable told me to make sure that there were some foods here for you to eat!”

Chewing the rest of the cupcake, Allen swallowed and said, “Well thanks Pinkie, this tastes pretty good, I wouldn’t mind having more of these later, so if you don’t mind, could you save the recipe for me?”

Giving him a salute, Pinkie cheerfully replied, “Okie dokie loki, I’ll be sure to write down the recipe as soon as I get back to Sugar Cube Corner tonight! I just kind of threw this together to see if it would turn out alright, and luckily, it did! Though,” her face suddenly became serious as she lifted a hoof to rub her chin in exaggerated thought, “I think it could do with a few tweaks still.”

“Well, I’ll be happy to test it out for you when you make the next batch,” replied Allen as he reached for yet another honey cupcake.

A million-watt smile lit up Pinkie’s face as she happily exclaimed, “You got it! How’s next Tuesday sound?”

Surprised by her sudden offer, Allen replied, “Uh, as far as I know, I should be able to come by for that, I guess?”

“Perfect!” exclaimed Pinkie happily as she pulled a blue notepad out of her mane and quickly scribbled something inside it before then shoving it back inside her poofy mess of a mane. “I’ve got you scheduled for two o’clock, see you then!” and with that, she pronked off again to parts unknown.

Shaking his head at the pink pony’s antics, Allen turned his attention back to Twilight and asked, “Sorry about that, what was I talking about again?”

“You were asking me if Lyra was a close friend of mine,” replied Twilight, as she floated a honey cupcake over and took a bite, letting loose an appreciative hum at the taste. “You’re right, these are pretty good.”

“Oh right, thanks. So yeah, what is the deal with that?” asked Allen.

Grabbing a pair of cups from the punch bowl, Twilight kept one for herself and floated the other to Allen, who took it with a quiet, ‘thanks’. Taking a sip of her punch, Twilight thought of the best way to explain her relationship with Lyra, finally, she just shrugged and said, “It’s complicated. While I have known Lyra longer than my Ponyville friends, she and I weren’t very close, I would say we were friendly acquaintances at best, the same goes for the rest of my Canterlot social circle. Well, save for Moondancer, she and I were study buddies during school, and while we hung out with Lyra and some of our other classmates, we tended to spend a lot of time together.”

“Okay, so is she still up in Canterlot then?” asked Allen as he polished off another cupcake.

Twilight nodded in reply. “As far as I know. I... kind of fell out of touch with my Canterlot social group when Princess Celestia sent me to Ponyville to make some friends to help defeat Nightmare Moon and free her sister, Princess Luna.”

“Oh yeah, you guys are some kind of national hero’s right?” interjected Allen as his memory suddenly drudged up an earlier conversation where Twilight told him about how she and her friends had saved Equestria a couple of times using something called the ‘Elements of Harmony’.

Twilight blushed. “Well...” she said as she kicked the ground with a hoof in embarrassment, “I guess you could say that but the girls and I don’t really like being thought of that way... or at least most of us don’t,” she said the last part under her breath as she remembered some of Rainbow’s bragging episodes.

Allen simply nodded in understanding. “Ah yeah, that’s right thanks,” he shook his head in self-deprecating amusement, “I swear, the more I learn, the more I forget. Half the time I feel like I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t attached to my shoulders.”

Twilight giggled in agreement. “I feel the same way sometimes. Especially when I find a really good book, if it wasn’t for Spike, I’d probably be little more than a trotting skeleton right now from the lack of eating.”

Allen shared Twilight’s amusement for a moment before he brought the conversation back on track. “So you were talking about your friends in Canterlot?”

“Oh!” exclaimed Twilight as she suddenly remembered where the conversation had been going before it took a sudden detour, “right, my... friends.” Her expression took on a somber appearance and Allen suddenly felt a twinge of concern for the little purple pony.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked gently.

Twilight sniffed. “I’m just now realizing what a horrible friend I am,” she said, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes.

“Huh?”

“I was in such a hurry to show Princess Celestia that I was a good student and to prove that I was right about Nightmare Moon’s return, that I left Canterlot without saying goodbye to Moondancer or the others. What’s even worse is that Moondancer was having a birthday party the day that I left, and I didn’t show up or even send her a card. In fact, I just left everything behind when I moved to Ponyville, including the few friendships I had back home. I was so focused on being the best student that I could be, that I thought of everything else around me as irrelevant.”

Sensing that she was winding herself up for a mental breakdown, Allen quickly herded her away from the middle of the party to a more secluded area by the barn. Sitting down on a conveniently placed hay bale, Allen placed a finger under her chin and brought it up so that he could look her in the eye and say, “Hey, you’re not a bad friend, Twilight-”

“But I am! Moondancer didn’t have a lot of friends and she tended to shy away from social interaction. So for me to not only miss her party but not even talk to her since I left a year ago... she must hate me.”

Ah geez, here come the tears. Come on Allen think, use that noggin of yours for something other than running into low-hanging obstacles.

Scratching his head, Allen looked around trying to figure out what to say to prevent the situation from spiraling further downward. Finding nothing, he gave a frustrated sigh and said, “Twilight, you are not a horrible friend. An inconsiderate one, maybe, but not a bad one.”

Sniffing, Twilight used a hoof to wipe some of her tears away and asked in a squeaky voice, “Really?”

“Really. If you were a horrible friend, then you wouldn’t be getting worked up over this right now. Look,” he said, spreading his hands in front of him, “you had a lot on your mind back then, and it’s easy to forget things if they aren’t in front of you all the time. You know how the old saying goes, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’ The same thing applies with relationships, if you don’t see and talk with those people for a while, then it gets harder to remember that they exist and stuff, and... well, ugh,” he frustratedly groaned and rubbed his face with a hand as he tried to figure out what to say next. “Look, I’m not the best at this kind of thing. Living on a farm in the country, you don’t get a chance to make a lot of friends, and the few that you do either seem to stick with you forever or they end up moving on at some point and they leave you behind. Eventually, you just forget about them and move on.”

“That’s so sad,” said Twilight softly, as she looked up at Allen.

Allen just shrugged. “It’s just the way it is sometimes. Some friendships weren’t meant to last,” looking up, he gazed out at the happy party-goers and softly said, “or maybe they never existed in the first place.” Shaking his head, he turned his thoughts back to the present. “Look, if you actually care about this pony, and the others back in Canterlot, then it shouldn’t be that hard to make up your mind about what you’re going to do.”

“But what if they are mad at me and don’t want to be friends with me anymore?” asked Twilight, an uncertain and worried expression on her face.

“Then they are, and you can hold your head up high knowing that you did your best to reconnect with them. In the end, while it sucks, it’s not really the end of the world if you lose a couple of friends over something like this. If they really were your friends in the first place, then they should be willing to give you a chance to explain yourself, apologize and make it up to them.”

“You really think so?” she asked with a hopeful look blossoming in her eyes.

Allen shrugged again helplessly. “If Lyra is anything to go by, then I’d say you have a decent chance. If I were you, I’d suggest asking Lyra about what happened to your social circle back in Canterlot when you left and see if they’re still in touch with each other. After that, you’ll just have to do your best and trust your instincts.”

Twilight adopted a thoughtful look as she turned her gaze to the happy party-goers and quietly digested Allen’s suggestion. After a couple of minutes of thinking, she nodded her head and gave Allen a grateful smile saying, “Thank you, Allen. I think I’ll go do that first thing in the morning.”

“Why not right now?” asked Allen, a puzzled look on his face, “I mean, I figured you’d want to talk to Lyra as soon as possible.”

Twilight nodded. “Normally I would, but given the fact that Rarity is probably going on a fashion bender right now with her, I’d rather not become collateral damage, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that little detail, good call,” replied Allen simply.

Twilight giggled in reply.

“So, staying on the topic of friends, how many other friends do you have here in Ponyville? You said that only Rarity and Pinkie Pie were here out of the rest of your friend group.”

“Well, while I know a lot of ponies here in Ponyville, and I consider them to be my friends, they’re not as close as the other three Bearers of the Elements of Harmony,” replied Twilight as she took another bite of her cupcake.

“And who are these other three members? Have I met any of them?” asked Allen curiously.

Twilight shook her head. “No, well... at least not directly, you met Applejack’s grandmother, Granny Smith when Prince Blueblood was negotiating with the DOTI over land recompense. That’s probably the reason why Applejack decided to skip the party. She’s... taken the loss of part of her farm pretty hard, and I think she might be partly blaming you for its loss.”

“Me? What did I do?” asked Allen, an irritated look on his face at the idea of somebody blaming him for a wrong he didn’t even commit let alone have control over. After all, it wasn’t his fault that some crazy chaos god ripped him and his home from his world and dumped it here.

Twilight, sensing Allen’s growing irritation, quickly moved to placate him. “I know, I know, but... well, Applejack is one of those ponies that can hold a grudge for a really long time, and nothing makes her madder than hurting her family or her farm. Now, I’m sure intellectually she knows that you’re not to blame, but...”

“But I’m a reminder of what that asshole did to her, and since he’s not here, I’m her only outlet,” finished Allen tiredly.

Twilight sadly nodded. “I’ve only known Applejack for a short period of time, but I know that this section of farmland was very special to her and her family, and it’s just... gone now, with no known way of getting it back.”

Allen sat there for a minute, digesting Twilight’s reply, finally, he said, “Well, so long as she doesn’t cause trouble for me, I’ll do my best to tread softly around her. Though that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let her walk all over me neither, and I expect her to eventually get over it. No matter how many memories were buried amongst those trees, in the end, they’re just trees, and I’ve found that getting stuck in the past makes seeing the future that much more difficult.”

Twilight nodded. “I’m sure she’ll come around, she usually does in the end. Though, she can be really stubborn when she wants to be.”

Allen snorted in amusement. “Sounds like my little sister.”

“You have a sister?”

“Sure, she just turned sixteen this year, and while I love her to pieces, some days I really want to strangle her.”

Twilight giggled in response. “My brother Shining Armor probably felt the same way with me some days, especially when I’d found a good book and wouldn’t come out of my room till I had finished it. He got pretty good at breaking my magical locks by the time he left for Royal Guard training.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Twilight, a look of shocked embarrassment on her face.

Giving her a sly smile, Allen simply shook his head and replied, “Nothing, don’t worry about it, I’m just having a little poke at you.”

Shooting Allen a grumpy look, Twilight crossed her forehooves and said, “Yeah well, you’d put up magical locks on your door too if your brother had a habit of sneaking in and hiding your precious books while you were using the bathroom as a form of leverage to make you do things.”

“And would those ‘things’ happen to be basic bodily needs such as eating and bathing from time to time?” asked Allen smugly.

“No comment,” said Twilight, her pout having increased in intensity.

Letting loose a laugh, Allen simply shook his head and gently nudged Twilight with a hand saying, “Alright, I’ll back off, but you gotta admit, he did have a good reason to do that if you were that bad at looking after yourself back then.”

Letting loose a sigh, Twilight felt her pout lessen and eventually turn into an embarrassed smile. “I guess I was acting a little silly back then.”

“Just a little?” prodded Allen.

Rolling her eyes, Twilight shot back with a huff, “Okay fine, it was really silly, are you happy now?”

“As a matter of fact, I am,” replied Allen cheekily. Still smiling, he continued, “So, that’s one of your friend’s absences explained, what about the other two?”

“Well,” began Twilight, “Fluttershy doesn’t really like being in large groups for very long, and she’s still quite shy, though her anxiety isn’t as bad as it used to be, but she’d rather spend time around animals than ponies.”

“Ah, the joys of being an introvert with crippling social anxiety," remarked Allen simply. “I had a friend like that, she’d rather die than get up in front of people and speak, and you could forget inviting her to a birthday party if there were more than a half dozen people there that she didn’t know. Even if she did know everyone, it was still a chore to get her to come.”

Twilight nodded. “Yeah, that sounds a lot like Fluttershy. As I said, she’s very self-conscious around other ponies, and though she is getting better, it can still be really difficult for her at times.”

Allen nodded in understanding. “That’s alright, if she has that much trouble being around others, then I wouldn’t want to force her outside of her comfort zone. I’m not hurting for social interaction at this party,” he said as he swept an arm over the gathered herd of ponies milling around and enjoying themselves.

Shooting him a grateful smile, Twilight replied, “I’ll be sure to tell her you weren’t upset about her missing your party, and that you were very understanding about it.”

“Sounds good,” replied Allen as he popped the rest of his current honey cupcake in his mouth. Chewing thoughtfully he then asked, “And your last friend that’s not here?”

Twilight’s happy expression morphed into a frustrated scowl. “Rainbow’s being... Rainbow, I guess is the best way to put it?”

“Oookay?” said Allen, an uncertain look on his face.

Letting loose a frustrated sigh, she explained, “Rainbow Dash, like Applejack, seems to be avoiding your party on purpose.”

“Why? I mean, I can understand your friend Applejack needing some time to come to terms with things, but what did I do to this Rainbow Dash character?”

“Remember when I told you my friends and I are considered national heroes, and that we are Bearers of the Elements of Harmony?”

“Vaguely,” replied Allen.

“Well, each of us embodies a trait of Harmony, Pinkie Pie is the Element of Laughter,” said Twilight as she pointed in the direction that the party pony disappeared to.

“Yeah, I can see that,” remarked Allen simply.

“Rarity represents the Element of Generosity, Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness, Applejack the Element of Honesty, and Rainbow is the Element of Loyalty.”

Allen nodded his head, a flicker of understanding forming on his face. “So because she’s this Element of Loyalty, and I’m assuming that she and Applejack are good friends, then she boycotted my party because she thought that coming would be like betraying her friend?”

Twilight nodded. “In a manner of speaking, yes. Though she didn’t put it quite like that when I asked her why she wasn’t coming earlier.”

“And what did she actually say?” asked Allen, a curious expression on his face.

“I... really shouldn’t say, there are impressionable ears nearby, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about her, she can be rough around the edges at first, but once she gets to know you, she’s really sweet... if annoying at times,” said Twilight, a hint of uncertainty, and unwillingness to give Allen a bad first impression of one of her friends.

Giving Twilight a look, Allen simply said, “Twilight, it won’t do anyone any good if this crap is allowed to fester. Now that you’ve given me a hint that I’m not well-liked by someone here, I’d like to know just how disliked I really am. That way I can take an appropriate stance when the time comes to sort this crap out. And if you’re worried about young ears, just lean in and whisper it to me.”

Glancing around, Twilight motioned for Allen to lean in closer and repeated Rainbow’s words quietly in his ear. Allen for his part felt his eyebrow rise up, and leaning back slightly to look at Twilight fully, he asked, “Does she kiss her mother with that mouth?”

“Oooh, and this is why I didn’t want to tell you, now you’ll hate her, and it’ll be all my fault and she just said those things because AJ’s upset, and that made her upset and she tends to get ahead of herself and-”

Allen, seeing that Twilight was winding herself up, quickly put a finger to her lips and shushed her. Holding his hand there for several seconds, he waited for Twilight to calm herself down before saying, “Twilight, I could give two shits about what your friends think of me. I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now, and so long as they don’t mess with me or my farm, then I’m willing to live and let live, alright?”

“But-”

“Alright?” interjected Allen, his tone brooking no argument.

Her ears drooping a little, Twilight despondently replied, “Alright.”

Satisfied, Allen nodded and giving her a calm smile said, “Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t try to get them to bury the hatchet with me at some point, and hopefully not in my back-”

“They would never do something like that!” exclaimed Twilight in horror.

“Easy, easy, it was just a little bit of humor,” said Allen as he made calming motions with his hands.

“How could you joke about something like that? That’s a horrible thing to say!”

“Sorry, I kind of get my humor from my mother, her family didn’t have the easiest or happiest life before she met my dad, and it kind of warped her sense of humor, and I guess a little bit of that rubbed off on me,” replied Allen, an apologetic look on his face.

Now it was Twilight’s turn to look apologetic. “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that without knowing more about you and your life. I guess... I’m a little bit sheltered when it comes to the realities of the world. Not everywhere is as nice and safe as Canterlot or Ponyville.”

“Your apology is accepted, and as I said, I’m sorry too, I know not everyone appreciates my sense of humor, so I’ll do a better job of keeping it light, sound good?”

Shooting Allen a smile, Twilight nodded and seeing that she was okay, Allen decided to finish his thought. “So, as I was saying, I’ll try and make peace with them when they’ve had a chance to calm down. Considering everything that has happened lately, I can’t even imagine how they’re feeling right now. If half of what I’ve heard is true about this Discord fellow, he’s one sick dude, and it sounds like you girls went through the wringer when you went up against him. Stuff like that can change a person, and not always for the better, if I were you, I’d see about finding somebody to talk to about it.”

“I... I never really thought about it like that,” murmured Twilight quietly, partly to herself and partly to Allen. But the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She and her friends had gone through a seriously traumatic event when Discord had used his magic on them in an attempt to prevent them from using the Elements of Harmony. She shuddered at the memory of how Discord had warped them into the opposite of their normal selves, and how it had nearly torn them apart. If it hadn’t been for Princess Celestia sending her all of her previous friendship reports, thus allowing her to break through her Discord induced despair, Discord might have succeeded in his goal.

Maybe, Allen has a point. I should definitely talk to Princess Celestia about this, she’d know what to do, right?

Deciding to file that thought away for later. She turned her attention back to Allen and said, “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you. With everything that has happened lately, with defeating Discord, then helping you. I guess I haven’t really had time to think about what the girls and I went through, and I have a feeling they’re the same way.”

Allen nodded. “Life has a habit of doing that, a traumatic event happens and then life just keeps going, not giving you a chance to stop and process everything properly. So you just shove it into the back of your mind and race onwards, hoping your mental scars can heal well enough on their own that you can cope with the pain. Take my advice,” he said, a serious expression on his face, “don’t ever think that. Even if you just talk with a family member or a friend, it will help to get it out in the open, even if they don’t fully understand what you went through, that’s not the point. The point is that you work your way through your experiences and figure out how you want to proceed going forward. Understand?”

Twilight felt a pair of tears well up in the corners of her eyes as she looked up at Allen. Wiping them away with a fetlock, she sniffed and gave him a strained smile. “I-I’ll do that, I-I’m planning on going home to Canterlot this weekend, I-I’ll see if Shiny would be willing to talk with me, he might be able to help and if not, he might know somepony who can.”

“Atta girl,” said Allen softly as he lightly punched Twilight on the withers in a show of camaraderie. “Now,” Allen said suddenly, as he levered himself up off the hay bale, taking a moment to brush the hay chaff from his pants, “how about we quit hiding way over here and go and enjoy this party that Pinkie threw for me, what do you say?”

“I’d say that sounds like a great idea,” replied Twilight, her mood beginning to improve.

“Well then, let’s go,” replied Allen happily as he began walking back to the main part of the party, Twilight quickly falling in alongside him as she hurried to keep pace with his longer strides. The two quickly became the center of attention as the other ponies took notice of their return, and for the next few hours, Allen felt himself forget about his troubles as he enjoyed himself. Talking with the townsponies, eating good party food, and even participating in some party games, though he found that the ponies hadn’t yet discovered the joys of Cornhole. Thankfully, Allen, as a good Hoosier, had his own cornhole set and quickly dug it out of the attic before setting up outside and teaching a couple of curious ponies how to play. Needless to say, it became pretty popular pretty quickly, to the point that they were able to hold Equestria’s first-ever Cornhole Tournament. He didn’t win, sadly, that honor went to Pinkie Pie, but he did place second, so that was nice, while Nurse Redheart managed to get third. Twilight didn’t even make it to the semi-finals. Apparently using magic for everything in life tended to impair one’s hoof to eye coordination, and seeing as they had decided to forbid the use of magic in any way during the game, that left Twilight with a distinct handicap. However, she took the loss in stride and simply said that she would ‘have to practice more for next time’.

However, like all good things, eventually, the party wound down as the sky quickly turned to early evening, and soon it was just Allen, Pinkie, and Twilight left to do clean up.

Tossing the last full bag of trash into a cart, Allen wiped his brow, and let out a sigh of relief at having finally finished.

“You know, you didn’t have to help me clean up, I was going to take care of it,” said Pinkie as she packed away the last of her party games.

“I know, but I’d feel like a jerk if I did, so I decided to help, plus it helps get you home before it gets dark out,” replied Allen with a shrug.

“Aw, that’s really nice of you! Thanks!” said Pinkie happily.

“You’re welcome, consider it my way of saying ‘thank you’ for the nice party. It was an unexpected welcome.”

“Yes, thank you, Pinkie,” said Twilight as she trotted over with her saddlebags resting comfortably on her back, “I know it was hard to wait until Allen was feeling better to throw him this party, but I think you did a really good job.”

“Well, I did have plenty of time to plan it so that it was just right!” replied Pinkie Pie happily as she strapped herself into her party cart.

Giggling, Twilight replied, “That you did,” turning to Allen, Twilight gave him a happy smile, “and thank you, Allen.”

Shooting her a confused look, Allen said, “For what?”

“For your advice earlier, it really helped me organize my thoughts on how I want to do things.”

A look of comprehension flashed across his face and he said, “Oh right, yeah sure, no problem. I figured it was the least I could do considering everything you’ve done for me.”

Walking up to Allen, Twilight reared up on her hind hooves and wrapped her forelegs around Allen’s shoulders in a hug. Caught slightly off guard, Allen nevertheless returned the hug with one of his own. Though, after a few moments, he awkwardly broke the hug, and coughing into his hand said, “Well, I guess you two should get going before it gets dark and all.”

Smiling gently, Twilight dropped back down to all fours and said, “Alright Allen, we’ll see you later, have a goodnight.”

“See ya later, and don’t forget to be there Tuesday! Those cupcakes aren’t going to eat themselves!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie excitedly. Though, as far as Allen could tell, that seemed to be her default setting.

“I’ll remember, and you two have a safe trip home,” said Allen with a smile and a wave as he watched the two ponies turn and start trotting away. He watched them go until they reached the end of his driveway and turned right onto the dirt track that served as a road between Ponyville and... whatever the other town it went to was called.

Hmm, wonder if I can borrow a map from Twilight, might be useful to know what other towns are nearby. Thought, Allen to himself as he made his way inside.

Letting the screen door slam behind him, he decided to leave the front door open to let some fresh air in before bed and made his way into the kitchen. Filling a glass of water, he sat down at the dining room table and took a sip, his mind awhirl with thoughts and feelings as he tried to figure out what he wanted to do next. However, the sound of heavy wingbeats out front followed by a loud crunch of ironshod wheels rolling quickly over his gravel drive pulled him out of his thoughts.

Furrowing his brow, he stood up and started towards the front door to see what the commotion out front was. The sound of shod hooves thumping up his front porch, followed by a pair of knocks on the door frame caused him to pick up the pace a bit. Coming down the hallway, he quickly saw who his unexpected guest happened to be.

“Prince Blueblood? I didn’t expect to see you here tonight, everything alright?” asked Allen as he opened the screen door. Though he didn’t move to invite the pony prince in just yet.

Clearing his throat, Prince Blueblood replied, a serious look on his face. “I am sorry to come calling this late, but something has come up and I needed to speak with you as soon as possible.”

“Nothing too bad I hope?” asked Allen, concern coloring his voice.

“More annoying than bad, but it will still occupy my time, and time is something that we don’t have a lot of at present if we want to make this deal work,” replied Blueblood levelly.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another, thought Allen as he heaved a weary sigh, before standing to one side and motioned for Blueblood to enter. “Well, come on in, and tell me what’s going on then.”

Chapter 22 (Contracts)

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Chapter 22

Accepting Allen’s invitation to come in, Blueblood stepped across the threshold, “I’m sorry, I would have come earlier, but duties back in Canterlot kept me busy far longer than I anticipated,” he apologized.

“That’s alright, though you did miss a nice party,” replied Allen with a small smile.

“Yes, I know. A, Ms. Pie sent me an invitation.” Lighting up his horn, he pulled a pink-colored envelope from the breast-pocket of his suit jacket, and remarked dryly, “How it got past my secretary, neither I nor she knows, and I must say she is rather put out by this situation.”

“From what I’ve seen so far, I think that’s just how Pinkie Pie works. I’d just tell your secretary to not take it personally, and try not to think about it,” replied Allen easily.

Blueblood nodded. “I’ll be sure to pass that along to her when I return. Though, I suppose it might have been for the best that I missed the party. My presence can cause the citizens to... act strangely at times.”

“Let me guess, they all try to suck up to you at the same time?”

“That is, one way to put it I suppose,” remarked Blueblood, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “In any case,” he continued, the bitterness gone, as if it had never been there in the first place, “that is not why I am here tonight.”

“And why are you here?”

“I’m afraid that I’ll be out of the country for the next few weeks and as such, I felt it necessary to review and finalize our initial contract. I’ve brought one of my associates with me so that you may have a point of contact that can speak for me should I not be available, and so that she may help answer any questions that you may have that I can not.”

Poking his head back across the threshold, Allen looked around but didn’t see anyone else besides a pair of pegasi strapped into an open chariot out in the driveway. Looking back to Blueblood, Allen asked, “Uh, are you sure you remembered to bring her? Cause I don’t see anyone but you and those guys,” he said, pointing to the two pullers.

Just then, the sound of someone throwing up could be heard from around the corner of the house.

Letting go a weary sigh, Blueblood stepped back out onto the porch. “Would you excuse me for a moment, please? It seems my associate failed to take her anti-airsickness potion before we left Canterlot. I’ll be right back.”

“Uh, sure, take your time, uh... do you guys want anything? Water, juice? I can get that ready for you while I wait if you want,” asked Allen, a little off-put by the sounds of continued retching coming from the side yard.

Guess I’ll need to bury that sickness in the morning, yuck.

“Some peppermint tea, if you would, it helps settle upset stomachs,” replied Blueblood as he trotted towards the sounds of dry heaving.

“Sure... I’ll go see if I have any. When you’ve got her squared away, just come on in,” replied Allen as he retreated back into the house, his own stomach now a little upset itself.

Nodding absently, Blueblood waved a hoof in dismissal and trotted around the corner out of sight.

Allen for his part quickly returned to the kitchen and pulled out a bag of herbal peppermint tea and set a pot of water to boil on the stove while he waited. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long as a few minutes later he heard the front screen door open, then shut, and a pair of hoof steps come down the hallway. Though one sounded a bit unsteady at the moment.

Pulling the now boiling pot of water off the stove, he quickly set the tea bag in it to steep, as first Blueblood, then his assistant entered the kitchen. Turning from the stove, Allen regarded the miserable-looking mare with a sympathetic eye. Her auburn colored mane looked a mess as some of it had escaped from its formerly tight bun, while her bangs hung down limply in front of her face. Her teal eyes were slightly bloodshot and puffy, probably because she had just thrown up a minute ago. Her navy blue suit jacket was also slightly rumpled, and her white collared shirt didn’t look any better, as Allen could see several prominent wrinkles in the fabric and a possible stain near the collar. Finally, he noticed that her light gray fur was slightly damp from sweating and that she was breathing somewhat unsteadily. Overall, she was the perfect picture of someone having a sucky day.

Handing her a steaming cup of tea, he asked, “You feeling any better?”

Taking the mug from his hand in her unsteady azure-colored aura, she nodded shakily. “Yes, thank you, I’ll feel better in a few minutes. I-I always tend to get nauseous when I have to fly, even if I take an anti-nausea potion before hoof,” she replied unsteadily.

“Do you want any honey with your tea?” asked Allen as he reached into the pantry to pull out a jar of golden honey.

Nodding the mare replied, “Yes, that would be lovely, thank you.”

Giving a nod in reply, Allen grabbed a couple of spoons from the nearby draw and set them along with the honey jar on the table. Handing Blueblood his own mug of tea, he poured one for himself before settling down in his chair. Both Blueblood and his assistant quickly took their own spots and set about adding their preferred amounts of honey to their drinks.

Taking a sip, the mare let loose an appreciative hum as she felt the soothing liquid flow down her throat and settle quietly in her belly, helping ease the tension still present. Setting her mug down, she flashed Allen with a thankful smile and said, “Thank you, that tea was just what I needed.”

“You’re welcome, my dad’s side of the family has always had stomach problems, so we tend to drink a lot of peppermint tea to help with digestion,” replied Allen, a sympathetic smile on his face. However, that smile was quickly replaced by a small frown as he regarded his evening guests.

“So,” he began, “what’s going on? I had thought we had more or less ironed out our initial agreement.”

Blueblood, seeing that his associate wasn’t quite ready to speak yet, went first. “We did, however, we still need to review and sign the contract, and if we want to move forward, we need to get them taken care of before I leave tomorrow morning for Olenia.”

“Okay, so what’s first then?” asked Allen as he leaned back in his chair in an attempt to get more comfortable.

Turning his attention to his associate, Blueblood motioned for her to speak. Nodding, she lit up her horn and pulled out a pair of half-rimmed rectangular glasses from her front jacket pocket and settled them on her muzzle. Reaching under the table, she lifted a faux leather suitcase up and gently set it down on the tabletop. Popping it open she pulled out several sheets of paper and set it in front of her before returning the briefcase to the floor.

Taking a moment, she organized everything to her satisfaction and then looked up at Allen with a business-like expression on her face as she laid her hooves together in front of her on the table. “Before we go any farther, Mr. Ross, I would just like to properly introduce myself to you, and tell you what I do for His Grace.”

“Alright,” said Allen.

“My name is Penny Farthing,” she began simply, “I work as both a lawyer and accountant for His Grace, and have done so for a little over two years. Normally, I work with one of the more experienced members of His Grace’s accounting or legal staff on projects. However, His Grace has decided to give me this opportunity to show that I can handle a full-time account in his name.”

“An accountant and a lawyer? That’s pretty impressive,” whistled Allen.

Penny felt a slight blush creep up her face, and stuttered out, “W-well, my mother is a lawyer and my father is an accountant and they would take me to work with them a lot, and I found I liked learning about both their professions. So when I went to Manehattan University, I couldn’t decide which career I wanted to do, so... I did both.”

“I... see. That must have been a lot of work for you to do,” replied Allen, impressed at her accomplishments, “I didn’t even finish college, only did two years before I dropped out. Though I have taken a few technical classes over the years to learn things like welding and repair.”

“I will admit, even with everything that I knew before I went, and the fact that I had my parents to help me, it was still difficult at times,” replied Penny, as she recalled many sleepless nights cramming for tests.

“Alright, so what have you done since you graduated?”

Clearing her throat and adjusting her glasses, she said, “As I mentioned earlier, I have been working with His Grace’s more experienced staff members helping return his family’s fortune back to its previous heights. We’ve managed to accomplish a lot over the time I’ve been here, but there is still a ways to go.”

“Right, I heard about what happened,” said Allen as he took another sip of tea.

Nodding, Penny gestured to the small batch of papers in front of her. “His Grace feels that there is a lot of untapped potential in this area. I am not sure how much you know about how the nobility makes money here in Equestria.”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” replied Allen honestly.

Giving another nod, Penny said, “Well, put simply, many nobles own land that other ponies live on, these ponies pay taxes to the local noble, who in turn is supposed to use part of that money to provide basic services to those on their lands. In addition, they are to send a portion of the money to The Crown to be put in the general treasury. Whatever is leftover they keep as a sort of stipend. Now, not all land is owned by nobles, much of it is owned directly by The Crown, which means that the taxes from those lands goes to the Princesses to do with as they see fit.”

“Okay, so do towns and cities collect local taxes then?”

“Some do, others do not,” replied Penny with a waggle of a hoof, “for instance, Ponyville will collect taxes from the surrounding area to help upkeep the local services. However, the town of Dodge Junction does not collect any taxes from its residents, and instead relies on The Crown to provide the needed funds to function.”

“That sounds kind of confusing to me,” said Allen as he scratched his head.

“It can be for someone not used to the system,” replied Penny easily, “the main thing to remember is the population size and whether or not a noble is involved. The larger the population density, the more services are required, therefore, the more money is needed. As such, the local municipality will generally levy a local tax to help ease the burden on The Crown’s coffers. This also helps reduce wastage as suddenly it's the local pony’s bits that are now being used instead of the entire country’s. Therefore they have an incentive to keep spending low. In the case of someplace such as Dodge Junction where the population is low, there is no local tax applied which helps ease the burden on local businesses. This in turn incentives ponies to move there and develop the land further. If a noble is involved they usually hold large tracts of land and therefore require bits to properly administer it. The Crown allows the noble to collect taxes in The Crown’s name with the understanding that the noble will use the bits wisely to keep the local services working properly, and that they will pass along some of the money to The Crown. The same also applies to sufficiently sized municipalities as well.”

Leaning back in his chair, Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he digested this last info. Finally, he looked at Penny and said, “Alright, let me see if I have this right. So, everyone gets taxed by The Crown, no matter where you live right? It’s the default way to pay taxes.”

“Correct, if you live on land that is owned by only The Crown and there are no local taxes, then you only pay a tax to The Crown,” replied Penny with a nod.

“Okay,” said Allen, “but if you live in an area that is controlled by a noble, you only pay a tax to the noble, who then passes some of it along to The Crown, right?”

“Essentially, yes,” she said as she readjusted her glasses, “though there are some exceptions to this rule. However, for simplicity's sake, we won’t go into them as they do not apply to you.”

“Okay, so does that mean taxes in those areas are higher?”

“They can be,” replied Penny, with a nod of confirmation, “but The Crown tends to keep a very close eye on taxation rates. Every noble and municipality is required by law to submit a yearly budget and tax report to The Crown for approval, and is also required to submit a formal request should they need to raise taxes in the middle of the year for any reason.”

“Princess Celestia has learned the hard way what damage a tyrannical noble can cause to the nation when they are not kept in check,” cut in Blueblood. “As such, she has placed hard caps on what rates a noble can tax for a given population density and wealth index. Moreover, she has instituted severe consequences for any noble caught breaking these laws,” he finished, a dark look on his face.

“What kind of penalties?” asked Allen curiously.

“Usually they are stripped of their titles and wealth, and unceremoniously kicked onto the streets penniless, and I do mean kicked in the literal sense of the word,” clarified Blueblood.

Allen tried to suppress a snort of amusement as the image of a puffed-up noble getting unceremoniously bucked out of the royal castle onto his flank, flashed through his mind. “I can imagine that doesn’t happen very often,” remarked Allen, a slight smile on his lips.

Blueblood shook his head. “No, but it does occasionally happen from time to time, and when it does, the nobility is given a painful reminder of why Princess Celestia has been able to rule Equestria by herself for a thousand years.”

“Okay, so in my case, how am I affected by taxes, after my tax break expires next year?” asked Allen as he took another sip of his tea.

Penny adjusted her glasses slightly and glanced at one of her sheets of paper. “Well, this area is part of the Grand Duchy of Canterlot, which His Grace,” she nodded her head at Blueblood, “controls. As I mentioned before, municipalities and nobles can collect taxes in the name of The Crown. However, it is usually either one or the other, not both, as that would be considered double taxation, and most pony’s dislike being taxed twice for living in a certain area. Instead what happens is that the municipality will tax those that live within its boundaries and take a cut of the revenue to meet their budgetary needs. They will then pass what is left onto the local noble, who, in turn, sends The Crown its share of the revenue first. Whatever is left over afterwards is then used to maintain services within the noble’s lands that are not covered by the municipality, anything that is left is theirs to do with as they see fit.”

“So, that means that when I pay my taxes, I only have to send them to Ponyville? No where else?”

Penny nodded. “Essentially yes, as you would be relying on Ponyville for most of your services. Such as power, fire protection, police, healthcare, etc. However, if Discord had dropped you near a smaller town, such as Pine Top, which is further west of here, then you would only pay taxes to His Grace, which would be cheaper, but you would receive fewer services in exchange.”

“Okay, so instead of having to pay taxes to local, regional, and imperial levels, you guys just mail your taxes to whoever runs the local area and they divvy it up as needed,” said Allen, a slightly confused look on his face as he tried to wrestle with the concept.

“For the most part yes,” interjected Blueblood, “this system is something of a holdover from the more feudal days of Equestria when nobles were more powerful, and it was harder for The Crown to oversee all of their lands effectively. Nowadays, that is no longer the case, but the system persists relatively unchanged, as since nothing major has occurred to warrant said change, most ponies don’t see the point in upsetting tradition.”

“Sort of a, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mentality?” said Allen.

“I suppose that is one way to put it,” replied Blueblood simply, “however it is more than that. If the tax laws were to be changed, it could upset some very influential ponies, as they could lose out on a substantial revenue stream. As such, Princess Celestia has decided to just let sleeping dragons lie until they have to be woken.”

“Yeah, people generally don’t like it when you take their money-earning potential away from them,” remarked Allen dryly.

“Quite,” agreed Blueblood, “though if us nobles were to lose access to our cut of tax revenue, for most of us it would be a minor inconvenience at worst.”

“I’m assuming that would be because you have a diverse portfolio of revenue-generating options?” asked Allen as he finished off the last of his tea.

Blueblood nodded in confirmation. “Indeed, in many cases, nobles will use their portion of the tax money to invest in local businesses and other ventures as a way to both increase the tax revenue of their holdings, and to earn bits from their investments.”

“And so that’s why you’ve taken an interest in my farm,” remarked Allen simply.

“Essentially yes, and another reason the DOTI and the nobility do not get along, as we often view them as competition in regards to investing in the Equestrian economy.”

“Which brings us back to the original point,” cut in Penny as she shuffled her papers around, “His Grace has asked me to oversee this joint venture in his stead, as he will be out of the country for extended periods of time. Naturally, I will be sending him regular reports on our progress in developing the economic potential of the Ponyville area.”

Taking a moment, she paused to slide several pieces of paper across the table to Allen, who in turn picked them up and began reading through them as Penny continued speaking, “As you can see, that is our initial contract draft. In exchange for an initial investment of one hundred thousand bits, with the option of additional future cash infusions as needed, and access to His Grace’s many contacts within and without Equestria. You will be responsible for managing this farm and the surrounding lands that His Grace shall allow you to use rent-free. This initial investment will grant His Grace a forty percent stake in your farm. Which entitles him to twenty percent of the total net profits that you produce every quarter for the next five years. This of course is assuming that you are unable to return to your homeworld within that time frame. Should it be discovered that you are able to return before the five years are up, His Grace will simply ask that all bits that you currently possess at the time of departure are turned over to him as well as any materials that have been harvested from his lands. Any that you have harvested from your original acreage will go with you. At which point, you will be released from your contract. Finally, His Grace has made it very clear that you are to have as much freedom as possible when it comes to the day to day operations of your farm, as well as any future expansions. However, His Grace would prefer that if you decide to make any expansions, that you would notify him beforehoof as a courtesy, otherwise, you are free to use your own discretion. Do you have any questions?”

Allen finished reading the contract and set it down in front of him. Looking up at his two guests, he asked, “Yeah, I do. What do you mean that I will be ‘responsible for managing this farm and the surrounding lands that His Grace shall allow you to use rent-free’?”

“As I mentioned before, the lands surrounding Ponyville are part of the Grand Duchy of Canterlot. While Ponyville and the lands around it were originally given to the Apple family, they have for the most part ceded control to Prince Blueblood’s family over the years for economic concessions and money. The town itself and the Everfree are still under their control, they tend not to do much with it, instead electing to allow the local government to see to the day to day affairs of the town. While the Everfree they ignore entirely for some reason,” explained Penny, with a hint of exasperation to her tone, as if she were irritated that someone would deliberately ignore a potentially valuable source of revenue.

“I’ve spoken with Baroness Everfree on the matter before, and she’s of the opinion that nothing good comes from messing with the forest. Her son was the last pony in her family to try and develop it, and he went missing with his wife many years ago. It’s assumed they were killed by wild animals while surveying it for resources as the only things that were found were a blood-stained hat, and a turquoise mane tie with some bits of mane hairs in it,” cut in Blueblood somberly.

Allen saw Penny’s ears wilt and her exasperated look vanish like a puff of smoke in a strong breeze. “Oh,” was all she said in response as an awkward silence fell over the dining room table.

After a few moments, Blueblood decided to break the awkward silence with a polite cough, this, in turn, shook Penny out of her funk, and after shaking herself, she straightened up in her chair and continued, “Yes, well, as I was saying, the lands around Ponyville are for the most part under the control of His Grace. As such, he has decided to allow you to use them rent-free, his reasoning is that since nopony is currently using them, save for the occasional traveling hay cutter, their economic potential is being wasted. Therefore, in order to help kick start further development in the area, you will be the initial catalyst that will oversee their use.”

“Meaning, what exactly?” asked Allen.

Blueblood leaned forward and laying a hoof on the table replied, “That is up to you. If you want, you can let the land lie fallow, use it for hay and grazing or you may till it under and plant crops to sell. The choice is up to you. If you find that you can’t manage the land effectively by yourself, then you may acquire additional workers to help you. In essence, so long as we are partners, you will have unfettered access to my lands to do with as you please, within reason of course. Moreover, I do reserve the right to deny your use of the land for a certain activity if I deem it necessary. However, I do not think that I shall have to exercise that authority much if at all.”

“So, how much land are we talking about here?” asked Allen curiously.

Blueblood rubbed his chin in thought for a moment before replying, “I am not entirely sure as to the size of my Grand Duchy’s holdings, as I have only recently been given full control over them by my aunt, and have elected to allow others to manage them as I have other duties at present. However, if memory serves me correctly, it should be between three to four hundred square miles of land in total. Though that is total land area, the actual arable land will be smaller than that by a sizable margin.”

“That... is a lot of land,” said Allen, dumbstruck that Blueblood would be willing to let him use even some of the land for basically nothing, “and you’re sure that you don’t want to charge me rent or something?”

“Why would I?” asked Blueblood, “all that would do is limit the amount of land that you could ultimately develop for me. I would already receive twenty percent of the total net profits that you produce from your labor, once the contract is signed. Tacking on land rent on top of that would only slow down overall growth, and would thus eat into said profits, meaning I would make less money overall. No, in the long run, both you and I will make far more money if I simply wave the land rental fee and allow you unfettered access. This area has so much untapped potential, and I aim to use that untapped potential to restore my family’s fortune and honor.”

Glancing from Blueblood to Penny, who merely readjusted her glasses, Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he considered his options.

I really can’t see where this could go wrong. There is nothing in the contract that says I have to meet any sort of minimum quota, nor any clauses that would force me to turn control of my farm over to anyone for any reason. All I would be losing out on is twenty percent of my net profits, which, in the long run, isn’t really that bad of a deal when you consider what Blueblood is bringing to the table here. After all, it’s not what you know, but who you know, that gets you results.

Taking a deep breath, Allen came to a decision, reaching across the table, he held out his hand and said, “Your Grace, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

A pleased smile spread across Blueblood’s muzzle as he took Allen’s hand in hoof and sealed the deal with a hoofshake. “I am pleased to hear that, Mr. Ross. I look forward to working with you going forward. As I mentioned earlier, Ms. Farthing will be your contact when it comes to business dealings, so if you have any questions, please direct them to her, and if she can’t answer them, then she’ll pass them along to me.”

“Sounds good,” replied Allen as he sat back down, having released Blueblood’s hoof from his grip.

“So, where do I sign?”

Chapter 23 (Equipment Inspections)

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Chapter 23

The following morning found Allen standing in front of his kitchen stove preparing a breakfast of waffles and scrambled eggs. He’d already been up for a couple of hours already as he needed to get the morning chores done earlier than usual as today was promising to become rather busy.

Flipping the last of the waffles onto a waiting plate, Allen set it down on the kitchen table and then yelled, “Penny! Breakfast is ready!”

Seeing as how she was going to need to return to Ponyville the following morning anyway to help him set up a bank account and to properly inspect things. It had been decided that the best course of action was to allow her to stay the night at Allen’s place. This was done to spare her the indignity of air sickness and to facilitate a quick start the following morning.

Of course, that supposed ‘quick start’ didn’t seem to be happening as quickly as he thought it would. Waiting for several seconds to see if his words would have any effect, he was sadly disappointed as the house remained quiet. Rolling his eyes in mild frustration, he made the decision to go rouse her himself. Quickly ascending the stairs two at a time he turned left at the top and strode down the hall past his room. Coming to a stop at the guest bedroom door, he loudly rapped on it three times with his knuckles.

Knock, knock, knock! “Hey Penny! It’s time to get up! We’re burning daylight here!” he yelled through the door.

A muffled moan from the other side was his only reply. Trying the doorknob, he found it unlocked, and so decided to barge in to rouse his guest from their sleep. After all, it was after seven in the morning, and in farmer time, that was way past time to get up.

Opening the door he called out as he stepped through.“I hope you're decent, cause I’m coming in anyways.”

His announcement caused a pony-sized lump on the bed to groan as it shuffled groggily around under the warm comforters as it fought to stay asleep for a few more minutes. However, Allen’s entrance canceled those plans entirely.

Gently shaking the pony-sized lump, Allen said, “It’s time to rise and shine, Penny, we’ve got a lot of stuff to get done today.”

Groggily extracting herself from the comforting embrace of the guest bed and blearily rubbing her eyes with the back of her fetlocks, Penny smacked her lips together as her brain booted up for the morning.

“Oh, well, good morning there. Hurry up and get squared away, I just finished cooking waffles and scrambled eggs. Would you prefer tea or coffee to drink?” asked Allen.

“Coofe?” she half coherently mumbled.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes you want coffee,’ grunt,” replied Allen with a chuckle as he turned and walked back through the doorway, leaving it open as he left.

Even though she still wasn’t fully awake, Penny’s body decided that it had waited long enough, and sent several messages to her still sleepy brain. The first was that she was hungry, and the second was that she needed to pee.

She decided to take care of the second need first.

Stumbling her way into the adjoining bathroom, she stared at the toilet and tried to figure out how best to use it. It’s white porcelain walls were too high for her to squat over it, like with a normal Equestrian toilet, and the seat wasn’t shaped properly for her to sit on without the risk of falling off of it. After staring at the weirdly shaped toilet for several moments, her tired brain, at the insistence of her full bladder, finally just gave up and told her to just use the shower behind her instead.

Exiting the bathroom a couple of minutes later, her brain having finally booted up sufficiently enough for it to have coherent thoughts, Penny felt her cheeks burn in embarrassment.

Oh, that was so embarrassing, relieving myself in the shower? Ugh, hopefully, Mr. Ross didn’t hear the shower running when I ‘flushed’. She thought to herself as she trudged downstairs, the scent of waffles and brewing coffee helping to further perk her up.

Entering the kitchen, Penny saw Allen setting a steaming cup of coffee at the dining room table alongside a large stack of syrup-soaked waffles, and golden colored scrambled eggs. Hearing her coming, Allen turned and smiled. “Bout time you wandered your way down here,” he said with a good-natured grin, “was worried I’d have to give you a shot of coffee to get you started. I heard the shower running for a moment upstairs, you didn’t have any problems with the sink, did you? I could have sworn I turned the water on to it last night.”

Feeling her cheeks flush hotly in embarrassment, Penny shook her head. “N-no, I didn’t have any trouble with the sink, I was able to wash my hooves with little issue.”

“Then how come I heard the shower running, if you didn’t need to wash up?” asked Allen, a confused look on his face.

Penny felt that if she blushed any harder, then she might spontaneously combust. “W-well,” she stammered, “I... had a little trouble with the toilet, it wasn’t really... built for a creature of my... proportions...” she said, her voice trailing off as her blush continued to rise.

Allen stared blankly at the blushing pony in front of him for a couple of heartbeats before realization dawned on him, and he facepalmed.

“Oh, yeah... that would make sense, your... bathroom fixtures are probably different than mine aren’t they?”

Penny just nodded.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable there. Just for the record, I’d rather you peed in my shower than try to use a toilet that wasn’t designed for you and hurt yourself. So, try not to feel embarrassed about it too much okay? We’ll just keep that little detail between ourselves, alright?”

Still feeling embarrassed, Penny simply nodded, thankful that Allen wasn’t upset at the situation. If anything, he seemed upset that he’d made his guest uncomfortable, even if the discomfort was unintentional. So taking the out that she was given, Penny quickly jumped up on a seat and said, “Thank you, Mr. Ross, I don’t know what I would do if word got around about... that.”

“Please, just call me Allen, and don’t sweat it, we all have done embarrassing things at one point or another,” replied Allen with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Deciding to take the opportunity, Penny moved the conversation forward. “So... Allen, what are this morning's plans?”

Swallowing a mouthful of waffles, Allen replied, “Well, if memory serves me right, I believe that Prince Blueblood said he was going to have some of your things delivered here from your apartment this morning.”

Penny nodded. “That’s right.”

“Then we’ll just hang around the farm till the delivery people show up then. I need to show you around anyways so that way you can get an initial feel of the place and what we should focus on putting those bits towards first.”

Penny hummed thoughtfully as she bit into a waffle, it’s delicious flavors flowing over her tongue as she chewed. After a moment of savoring the delicious golden brown pastry, she swallowed and said, “Alright then, as soon as I finish breakfast and get cleaned up and dressed, we can get started. I am assuming that after that you would like to head into town to set up an account at the local bank?”

Allen nodded as he cut into another waffle. “I think that would be a good idea, the sooner that account is set up, the better, plus I can receive the money that The Crown was planning on giving me as well.”

“Ah yes, I’d forgotten about that, His Grace did mention that The Crown would be compensating you for lost assets when you were foalnapped by Discord.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, and I won’t be able to receive it till after my bank account is set up, so the sooner we get that done the better.”

“Agreed,” replied Penny with a nod. Having finished her breakfast, she hopped off of her chair and made her way towards the stairs. As she reached the stairs, she called back over her shoulder, and said, “I’m going to head upstairs and finish getting ready for the day. Thanks again for letting me stay the night, I know it was on very short notice and a major imposition.”

Allen waved her thanks away. “You’re welcome, it’s the least I can do considering what you and Prince Blueblood are doing for me. I’ll be outside in the main barn, so just head there when you’re ready to look around.”

“Sounds good, see you then,” replied Penny with a happy nod as she turned and headed upstairs.

Turning his attention back to the dishes in front of him, Allen decided to load them into the dishwasher before he headed outside, and a few minutes later, the dishwasher was happily burbling away in its never-ending duty of keeping the dishes spotless.

Satisfied, Allen turned and grabbed his gloves off the counter before heading outside. Blinking against the bright morning sun, he strode across the yard towards the main animal barn, intent on getting started on cleaning up some of the worst of the mess in there.

Stepping inside, he was greeted by the smell of a lived-in barn, musty hay, and manure, many people would turn their noses up in disgust and shy away, but to Allen, it was, while not a pleasant smell, at least comforting. Looking around, he surveyed the state of the barn. It was not pretty, old hay littered the floor, along with the feces of various small animals, as was to be expected, while the rafters were chock full of old dusty cobwebs and the bodies of dead bugs. The windows were caked in grime and there was dust everywhere, along with trash and discard items that either hadn’t been put back or thrown away. Sighing at the task ahead, Allen rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

By the time Penny had gotten cleaned and dressed, Allen had managed to rake most of the old hay into a large pile in the middle of the barn. While it wasn’t good for feed anymore, it would be fine as additional bedding for the livestock.

Waste not, want not, thought Allen to himself as he wiped some sweat from his forehead. The sound of hooves on wood caught his attention and turning, he spotted Penny carefully stepping over and around the dirtier sections of the floor.

Smirking, he said, “Honestly, you should have just skipped getting dressed if that suit was all you had.”

Flipping some of her mane out of her eye, she replied, “Yes well, I wanted to look professional while we took stock of things here, and I’ve got a few cleaning and dirt repelling spells that I can use if things get messy.”

Shrugging, he set his rake against a wall and said, “Alright, suit yourself then. So, where do you want to get started then?”

Levitating a clipboard out of her saddlebag, she replied, “I think we should start with what is in your inventory at the moment.”

“Okay, so what do you want an inventory of first then?” he asked simply.

“Uh... perhaps we could start with the buildings and what kind of shape they are in, and then work our way down?” suggested Penny, an unsure look on her face.

Nodding, Allen replied, “Alright, well as you know I’ve got a house,” he pointed with his chin at said house.

Giving Allen an unamused look, Penny made an exaggerated checkmark on her clipboard. “Okay, one house, got it,” she deadpanned.

Snickering at her reaction, Allen continued, “Heh, alright, I’ll get serious now,” he cleared his throat and motioned with a hand to the barn they were standing in, “this here is the main animal barn. It’s got a milking parlor down those stairs over there,” he pointed to his left, “though according to the DOTI, it doesn’t meet regulations, so we can’t use it. Though the equipment down there should still be good, even though my family hasn’t had any dairy cows for a few years. My dad kept the system in working order on the off chance we got back into the dairy business, but so far that hasn’t happened.”

Penny’s pencil was busy dancing across the page as she took notes. “How many cows did you have before you shut down?” she asked.

Allen rubbed his chin as he tried to remember. “I think we had about fifty or sixty cows at the height of our operation. Then the milk market crashed and we started selling them off to make ends meet.”

“I see, and what is up there?” she said, pointing up at the ceiling with her pencil.

Looking up, Allen replied, “That’s where we keep the hay and straw for our animals, we can usually store a couple of thousand bales of hay and or straw up there with minimal issue. My dad, when he took over the farm from his dad, had the barn renovated and the floors and walls reinforced as we had switched from loose hay to small square bales, which increased the amount of hay we could store up there, so we needed to make sure we wouldn’t exceed the weight capacity of the barn.”

“I see, so how long ago was that?”

“It was about ten years ago or so, though my grandpa kept working here until he died about five years ago,” replied Allen, “looking around, you can see that we’ve been pretty slack on building maintenance, comes from not having enough money I guess. So if we want to store hay here to sell later, then we’ll have to work on fixing the barn up.”

“Is this the only barn for hay storage?” inquired Penny as she looked around, taking down notes the whole time.

Allen shook his head, pointing out across the farmyard, at another, metal-sided barn, he replied, “Nope, we’ve got another barn over there that we use to store our bigger round bales in, along with whatever other miscellaneous equipment or stuff that we have that won’t fit elsewhere.”

“I see,” said Penny, as she scribbled something else on her clipboard, “and is that one in better condition?”

Allen waggled a hand back and forth in a ‘so-so’ motion. “It’s better than this one, seeing as it’s newer, by about twenty years and is clad in metal instead of wood, but the roof is starting to leak in places, and the paint is fading, exposing the metal to the elements. I actually think there are rust spots on the roof in some places too, so we’ll need to fix that. The concrete slab is still solid though. However, I’ve noticed a few cracks are forming, but if we get a handle on them soon, they shouldn’t be too hard to fix.”

Jotting more words down, Penny trotted out of the animal barn to get a closer look at the storage barn across the way with Allen falling in beside her. It was in better-looking condition than the wooden animal barn, just like Allen had said, but as she trotted closer, she could see the rust streaks and faded paint more easily. Trotting up to a service door, she tried the doorknob with her magic and found it unlocked, stepping through into the gloomy interior within. Looking around, she nearly jumped in surprise when the lights suddenly flicked on.

Whirling around, she spotted Allen giving her an apologetic grin, his finger just above a light switch by the door. “Sorry,” he said, “didn’t mean to spook ya there.”

Composing herself, Penny replied, “It’s alright, no harm done,” she paused and looked around at the now lighter interior. There wasn’t much to see, just a few old looking stacks of hay in the far corner, some tarp-covered objects, and miscellaneous junk scattered about with a thick covering of dust over everything. Trotting over to one of the tarp-covered objects, Penny cocked her head and asked, “So what is under these tarps?”

Allen strode over and peeked underneath. “One of our old Farmall tractors, she hasn’t run in about ten years, can’t remember why. My dad keeps meaning to get her running again, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Oh, and what is a ‘Farmall’ exactly?” asked Penny as she carefully lifted the tarp up higher, exposing the rubber wheels and dirty underside of the tractor to the light.

“It’s a brand name of farm equipment that doesn’t exist anymore, International Harvester, the company that built this tractor, dropped the Farmall name badge in the early 70s, before they, in turn, dropped the International Harvester name and sold their agricultural division to another company called Case.”

“I... see,” replied Penny, even though she was left with more questions than answers, she decided to move on for now and instead asked, “So what does a ‘tractor’ do?”

Allen shrugged. “Pretty much whatever you want, so long as you have the horsepower and the right attachments. You can plow, spray, weed, cultivate, plant, harvest, pull, drill, cut, rake, bale, the list goes on and on.”

“What does the term ‘horsepower’ mean?” inquired Penny, her head tilted to one side in question.

“It’s a unit of power that we use to determine how powerful an engine is. I don’t remember the specifics, but the gist of it was that before humans discovered the steam engine, a lot of things were powered by muscles, either human or animal, and horses were the preferred work animal back home. So when the steam engine was invented, it’s inventor needed a way to convince people to buy it, so he came up with a new unit of power as a marketing idea to compare how much work his steam engine could do in comparison to a horse in a certain time frame. The marketing gimmick worked, and the rest is history as they say,” explained Allen.

“Interesting,” replied Penny as she jotted down some more notes on her clipboard, “and would you happen to know more about it?”

“What, you mean like the formula and stuff?” asked Allen.

Penny nodded in reply.

“Not really no, and even if I did, it might not translate properly as our units of measurement might not be exactly the same,” replied Allen as he looked around the barn before then asking, “Was there anything else that you wanted to look at in here before we move on?”

Jotting another note down on her clipboard, Penny looked around for a moment and said, “No, I think I am good for now, I just want to get a basic idea about what you have for right now, we can go into the details later.”

Giving a nod, Allen turned and headed for the door, while Penny followed along behind him. Stepping aside, he let her walk through the doorway first before he followed after turning off the lights and shutting the door behind him. Standing outside in the bright morning sun, Allen squinted his eyes as he let them adjust to the different light level.

“So, what are your units of measurement?” asked Penny suddenly.

Looking down at her, Allen blinked and said, “Huh, sorry what did you say? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I asked what the units of measurement that you use are,” repeated Penny, a tad annoyed that she had to repeat herself.

“Oh, uh, let’s see,” said Allen as he started walking towards a pair of large metal-clad sheds, “well there are two systems of measurement back home, one’s called the imperial system and the other is called metric. Pretty much everyone has switched over to metric these days as it is easier and more accurate to use than imperial, but some countries still use the old imperial system.”

Penny cocked her head to one side and asked, “Is your metric system based on units of ten by chance?”

Allen paused and turned to regard Penny with an unreadable look. “Let me guess, you call it the ‘maretic system’ here don’t you?”

Penny blinked in surprise. “Yes... how did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” was his reply.

“Right, well yes, that is what that system is called, the Prench came up with the idea about four hundred years ago, and it has since spread throughout the world. Equestria uses both it and the old ponish system of measurement, but it is slowly being phased out in favor of maretric,” explained Penny as she and Allen resumed walking.

“Yeah, that’s kind of happening back home as well, most things in the store have metric and imperial units of weight on them, and more things are being made using metric pattern parts. Though more often than not, they have a mix of both imperial and metric parts on a vehicle, so you need metric and imperial pattern tools to work on it.”

“I’m sure that can be quite frustrating,” said Penny, a hint of sympathy in her voice.

“You have no idea,” grumbled Allen in reply.

Coming to a stop in front of the service door, Allen stepped inside and flicked the switches on the wall causing the interior to be bathed in the bright white light of fluorescent bulbs. Stepping aside, he motioned for Penny to enter, and after stepping through, they continued their tour.

“You still haven’t told me what other measurement units you have,” said Penny as they stopped at a nearby workbench.

Allen reached into a drawer and pulled out a tape measure. Pulling the tab out about a foot, he pointed and said, “This,” he pointed at the yellow tape, “is an imperial pattern tape measure, and this number one right here represents one imperial inch,” he said as he pointed to a vertical line with a number one next to it. “Twelve inches make a foot, three feet make a yard, one thousand seven hundred and sixty yards make up a mile, conversely you could use feet instead. In which case it will be five thousand two hundred and eighty.”

“Odd,” replied Penny absently as she examined the tape measure, “Our old ponish system is exactly the same as your imperial, save for we use hoof instead of feet, though the Griffons use the term paw instead, they’re stubborn like that.”

Allen looked down at Penny’s hooves and said, “But that doesn’t make sense, a foot comes from literally using a person's foot as a means of measurement, your hooves aren’t twelve inches long.”

“That is correct,” replied Penny as she set the tape measure back on the table, “however, according to historians, the hoof as a unit of measurement has been in use for a little over two thousand years. There are some that believe the measurement came from a long-gone ancient civilization, and that we just co-opted it. Others believe that because ponies were much shorter back then, they used the leg as a form of measurement, instead of the actual hoof, and the word just became corrupted over time. In the end, nopony is really sure where or how it came to be, especially because most of our earlier history was lost during the reign of Discord, which occurred around the same time, so in theory, the ponish system could have been around even longer, we just don’t know.”

“Weird, I wonder if Lyra might have been on to something,” wondered Allen.

“Who?”

“Oh, Lyra Heartstrings, she’s a local who is apparently the local expert on humans and is working with Twilight Sparkle on a theory that my world and your world were linked together and that we’d been split apart at some point in the distant past. Not sure if I fully believe that, but it would explain a few things about back home,” replied Allen as he put the tape measure back in its little drawer.

“Stranger things have happened, and with Discord, anything is possible, I mean, he brought you here somehow,” Penny pointed out.

Allen nodded. “Fair point, but I’m just a farmer, thinking about stuff like that is way above my pay grade.”

Penny giggled and replied, “I agree, it’s probably best to leave that kind of thing up to the eggheads.”

“Agreed, so with that out of the way, how about we continue the tour, eh?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Penny with a firm nod as she looked around the interior of the building, “so what is in here?” she asked.

“This is the main heated shop,” replied Allen as he began walking towards the back, “ we do most of our heavy maintenance work in here as we’ve got a hydraulic lift and floor pit for easier access to the underside of the machines,” he pointed over to a clear area on the other side of the shed.

Trotting over, Penny could see the pit that Allen was talking about, though there appeared to be a metal grate over it at the moment. “We keep the pit covered when we’re not using it, as it helps reduce the risk of an accident, “explained Allen as he walked past. Pointing to a pair of metal poles sunk into the concrete, he continued, “This is our machine lift, we use it for our lighter equipment mostly, as it’s not strong enough for the more heavier tractors and such.”

Stepping closer, Penny could see that a pair of arms, each with a circular looking shallow bowl on the ends, were attached to the upright poles and that there appeared to be a control box attached to the right side pole. Turning to Allen she asked, “Do you use this often?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, it’s more than paid for itself over the years as we’ve been able to fix our own equipment rather than have a mechanic do it for us, saves a lot of money on the labor side of things.”

Jotting some more notes down, she said, “Very well, what about the rest of the things in here? What are they?”

“Well, we keep our combine and our tractors in this shed, and the other vehicles and implements are either kept in the shed next door or are scattered around the farm either outside or under whatever cover is available,” replied Allen with a shrug.

Penny nodded absently as she jotted down another note. “Will you be able to show them to me today?”

“I can show you some of them, but to be honest, even I don’t know exactly what I have lying around. It’s not uncommon for old, unused equipment to get parked somewhere and forgotten. I know that there are a few old wooden sheds out on the eastern side of the property, near that forest, uh what was it called again?”

“That would be the Everfree,” remarked Penny absently as she trotted around several tool cabinets pencil dancing over the paper as she continued writing.

“Yeah, that place,” replied Allen as he followed along, “anyways, I’m pretty sure that there is stuff in those sheds, but I haven’t been out there in a long time, so no telling what kind of condition it is in. Basically, if it isn’t in one of these sheds up here or parked nearby, then it’s probably junk by this point.”

“Even if it’s junk, it might still have some sort of use, worst-case scenario we could have somepony look at it and see if it could be repaired or even copied if it is simple enough,” said Penny as she looked up at the massive machine in front of her. Pointing at it with a hoof she asked, “What is this?”

“That’s our combine, we use it to harvest crops like wheat or corn,” replied Allen as he paused next to her. Laying a hand gently on the side of the combine he said, “I managed to get this thing pretty cheaply a few years ago, and it’s been a real blessing for us. My grandpa was the brains of the operation and when he died, my dad had to take up the slack. Unfortunately, he isn’t a very good manager and made a lot of mistakes that cost the farm a lot of money. So several years ago, I sat down with a buddy of mine who is really good with numbers, and we came up with a plan to try and turn the farm around.”

“What did you do?”

Allen shrugged. “Sold off some land and got rid of all of the new equipment that my dad had foolishly bought after grandpa died. Took out some loans, used the money to buy older, less expensive equipment, made and stuck to a budget, rented land instead, streamlined the farm as best we could, and started looking for any side hustle that we could find.”

“Side hustle?” inquired Penny with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh yeah, I guess another way you could say it is that I started doing other jobs in addition to working on the farm,” replied Allen simply.

“Can you give me an example?”

“Sure,” replied Allen easily, “one of the things I did was get into the grave digging business. I had most of the stuff I needed already, such as a backhoe, skid loader, and flatbed trailer to haul it all with. I just needed to apply for a few permits and certifications, and I was good to go. It didn’t take long before I was providing grave-digging services for several graveyards in my area. The pay was pretty good too for the amount of work that I had to do, plus I made a lot of contacts. It wasn’t long before I was doing other things, like custom hay cutting and local hauling for people, all of these went to getting the farm back on its feet.”

“And what about your father?”

“Let’s just say that he and I had a... long conversation about me taking over the management of the farm, and leave it at that,” replied Allen hesitantly.

“Must have been quite the conversation,” remarked Penny dryly.

“Oooh yeah,” nodded Allen, “it was, and one I am not eager to repeat anytime soon. Thankfully, mostly with help from my grandma, I managed to convince him that his management style wasn’t working out and that we needed to change some things if we were going to keep the farm.”

Looking around, Penny remarked, “Well it looks like you succeeded.”

“For the most part,” replied Allen with a ‘so-so’ gesture, “as I said, my grandpa did the books for the farm right up until the day he died. My dad was more the manual labor element than anything else, and grandpa never really showed him how to run things right. Add in other things that distracted my dad at the time, and you have a recipe for a poorly run farm. Thankfully, I managed to stabilize the situation and if it wasn’t for the fact that I got sucked into this world with part of my farm, then I could have fully turned it around in a couple more years.”

Penny’s ears perked up for a moment and she said, “You said ‘part of your farm’, was there more to it than just three hundred acres then?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, well... sort of. You see, we own three hundred acres, and rent the rest of it, either from family, friends, or neighbors too old to farm anymore. The average age of farmers back home is getting pretty high, and not very many young people are getting in these days, so when a farmer gets too old and he can’t do the work anymore, he either rents out the land or sells it. In my case, I had a couple of neighbors decide to get out of the farming business because they got too old. However, they didn’t want the land to get bought up by developers, so they approached me and asked if I wanted to rent their cropland. I said I was interested and we came to an agreement. This year I was going to be renting eleven hundred acres, with the option to rent another five hundred next year if I wanted to. The best part was that one of the farmers that I rent fields from lets me use some of his equipment, which is bigger than mine. All I have to do is just pay for upkeep and keep them running and in good condition.”

“That’s very generous of him,” remarked Penny as she trotted around the large red combine.

Allen nodded in agreement. “If it wasn’t for Mr. Wood’s generosity, I wouldn’t be nearly as far ahead as I was before I got pulled here. In fact, he was the one who sold me this Case 2388 combine here, along with the accompanying attachments, for a very good price. Which was great, because all we had left at the time was an old International 1440 that hadn’t run in a while and I wasn’t sure if I could resurrect it or not.”

“So if you didn’t have a working combine, how did you harvest your fields before you got this one?” asked Penny confused.

“Well, we did have a combine, the problem was, I had to get rid of it because it was too expensive for us to run. My dad got suckered at a farm show by a slick sales guy and ‘bought’ a brand new combine that he shouldn’t have bought to replace the old 1440 we had been using before. And when I mean bought, I mean he bought the thing on credit and we ended up spending thousands of dollars a month on payments. So when I took over, I got rid of the damn thing, and got this one instead,” said Allen as he affectionately patted the combine with a hand.

“I see, and did you have to get rid of other things that your father had purchased?” inquired Penny as she trotted around the backside of the harvester and took a closer look at it.

Allen nodded as he leaned an arm against the safety bar above the straw spreader rotors. “Yep, my dad bought into the idea that you had to have the best equipment with the fanciest gadgets on it, otherwise you’d be losing yield in the field, and therefore losing money. Problem was, he didn’t think about the size of our operation and how many acres he’d need to pay for all this equipment. Now, in the beginning, it was fine, cause grain prices were high, so he got away with it for a while, but then the agricultural market fell out beneath us, and well... so did the rest of the economy, add on other expenses and you get what you see here, a run down farm struggling to get back on top.”

Sticking her pencil in her mane bun, Penny turned to Allen and said, “Well, hopefully, we can get your farm back on top sooner than even you expected.”

Allen shrugged. “So long as my fuel holds out for these beasts, I’ll be able to out plow, plant, spray, or harvest anybody here, and that’s a fact.”

“What kind of fuel do these machines use? It doesn’t look like they have a firebox inside,” asked Penny curiously as she moved on to look at another piece of equipment just behind the combine.

“Naw, none of my machines run on coal or wood. These machines run mostly on a flammable liquid called diesel. Though I do have a couple that run on gasoline. I can stretch the diesel fuel a bit if I mix in stuff like cooking oil, but that has its own set of problems that need to be overcome. With gas-powered engines though? When the gasoline runs out, that’s it, those machines will either need to be converted to something else or they’ll just sit and rust. Honestly, that’s the thing I’m worried most about.”

“Running out of fuel?”

Allen shook his head. “Not just fuel, but lubricants, grease, filters, nuts and bolts, antifreeze, belts, tires, everything really. I’m not sure how much of this stuff you guys can provide. I mean, do you even have a crude oil industry?”

“I... don’t know,” replied Penny, an unsure look on her face, “though that doesn’t mean we don’t have some kind of substitute that you could use. After all, we need grease and lubricants for all of our machines, and science has been coming up with all kinds of new ideas over the past few years. Somepony might have made a breakthrough or might be close to one, that could help you,” she finished with a hopeful look on her face.

“Maybe,” replied Allen, though he didn’t feel very confident in that idea, “but if they haven’t, they better hurry up then, cause I won’t have enough to get through a full growing season. My combine has at least ten grease points that have to be greased every ten hours of operation. That basically means I’m greasing it every day, plus there are other grease points that have to be serviced at other intervals, and what happens if a part goes bad? Can it be replaced with something made locally? I’d bet the answer is probably no.”

“Allen,” said Penny gently as she placed a hoof on his leg, “let’s not go borrowing future trouble right now. The main thing we need to focus on is getting an idea of what you can produce quickly and cheaply, and worry about those other things when we need to. I’m assuming that you have an adequate supply of lubricants, fuel, and grease to get started?”

Allen gave a soft nod. “Yeah, I had a little extra money floating around this spring and the local parts store was having a sale, so I bought extra. If I just focus on hay production, rather than row crops, then I should have enough fuel, grease, and lubricant oils to get me through a hay season. It’s probably too late to plant anything around here anyways, not that I have any seed to plant with in the first place.”

“Actually, if I remember correctly, it’s still early enough that you could plant something still without having to worry about winter setting in before you are able to harvest,” replied Penny as she finished her preliminary tour of the machine shed.

“Really? Kind of feels like late spring or early summer out there right now,” said Allen as he and Penny stepped through the service door and he shut the lights off behind them.

“Oh no, it’s only the first week of May right now, there should be plenty of time to get a crop in. I mean, Winter Wrap Up was finished weeks ago.”

“Winter Wrap Up? Is that like some sort of holiday or something?” asked Allen, a confused look on his face.

Penny shook her head with a smile. “Not really, I mean someponies treat it like one, but it’s actually more of a transition time between winter and spring. I’m not sure if anypony has told you, but here in Equestria we have a bit more control over the seasons and local weather than in other parts of the world.”

Allen stopped and gave Penny an incredulous look. “Wait, hold up here. Are you telling me that you guys can control your own weather?”

“Yep!” replied Penny with a happy smile. “Well, sort of,” she added on seeing Allen’s skeptical look, “Cloudsdale is the primary producer of weather-related products here in Equestria. Though non-pegasi-created weather still happens, the pegasi tend to keep it under control for the most part. It’s one of the reasons why Equestria has never had to import food for most of its existence. Things like late or early frosts, flash floods, droughts, hurricanes, blizzards, and tornadoes to name a few things, don’t really happen that often here, and when they do, they are generally very mild compared to other parts of the world,” explained Penny as they entered the second machine shed.

Flipping the lights on, Allen tried to wrap his head around the idea of how a country could manage its own weather all the time. “Just... how? How do guys do it? I mean, a country is a big place, let alone a planet. You expect me to believe that you can shift entire global weather patterns, just like that?” he finished with a snap of his fingers.

Penny shook her head. “I’m not entirely sure of the process, you would need to speak to a weather pony for that. But, what I do know is that pegasi have an innate ability to shift weather patterns to suit the needs of a region, while at a local level they can exert more control over things like whether it rains or not.”

“So they don’t control every aspect of the weather then?”

“Well... no, not exactly. I suppose I should have been a bit more clear in my explanation earlier. I guess being an Equestrian I just take for granted the fact that our weather is fairly well controlled most of the time. Weather is often scheduled months in advance, especially in farming areas, and weather schedules are freely available at all local weather stations. Plus newspapers will print weekly weather schedules as well, just in case something changes,” explained Penny patiently.

Allen rubbed his forehead as his brain tried to wrap itself around the idea of controlled weather. “So what happens if weather causes damage or people get killed because of it? Does that mean people can sue these weather ponies?”

“Sort of,” replied Penny as she trotted around a folded up cultivator, “it depends on if there was gross negligence or malicious intent. But generally, if the weather ponies did everything correctly, and it was just an unfortunate accident, then there really isn’t anything that anypony can do. At the end of the day, weather can and does get out of control and can cause problems. Though most ponies understand that without weather pegasi, the weather would be a lot harsher than it is. So when things go wrong, they tend to be pretty patient and forgiving, so long as the weather teams did everything properly, and didn’t cut corners.”

Shaking his head, Allen decided to change the subject, lest he develop a migraine. “Alright, I’ll just take your word for it,” he said, a little dazedly.

Noticing that Allen was struggling, Penny paused in her inspection of what looked like some kind of mower and said, “Do you want to take a break? You look a little... overwhelmed.”

Allen shook his head and replied, “No, I’ll be fine, let’s just concentrate on getting this stuff done first.”

“Alright then, why don’t you tell me what this thing is here, it looks like something you could cut grass with, but I’m not sure,” replied Penny as she refocused the conversation.

“Yeah, that’s our discbine mower. It comes with a pair of heavy rollers that help squeeze out some of the excess moisture to make the hay dry down faster,” said Allen as he lifted one of the side skirts higher so that Penny could see underneath more easily.

“This thing is easily twice as fast as a sickle bar mower and won’t plug as easily,” explained Allen as Penny nodded along.

“I assume it’s because these,” she pointed a hoof at one of the two-bladed discs, “are more efficient at cutting thick grass? I must admit my knowledge of farming implements is limited.”

Allen nodded with a smile. “Yep, we call these turtle discs. It’s probably because they look like turtle shells.”

Cocking her head to one side, Penny gave the discs a closer look and then said with a smile, “Yes, they do look a lot like a turtle shell.”

“And they can turn real fast too,” said Allen as he dropped the side skirt when Penny had pulled her head back, “this thing can do easily two to three times the amount of field that a sickle bar mower design can. I’ve only had it a year, but I love it. The best part is that, even though this machine is used, all the important bits are brand new, so I don’t have to worry about them wearing out anytime soon.”

“Well, that is good to know,” replied Penny as she moved on to the next bit of equipment, “and what about this one-” and so it went for the next few hours. As both Penny and Allen walked around the farm, she would make an inquiry about something, and Allen would explain what it was, and what it did to the best of his ability.

By the time they had finished, the sun was moving towards late morning, and they had decided that they had covered enough for one day. Opening the front door, Allen stepped aside and allowed Penny to go first. By this point, her clipboard was full of papers that were covered in notes, but she was pleased by what she had seen so far. Yes, the buildings needed some repairs, along with a good coat of paint, and some spellwork to keep out pests, and some of his equipment wasn’t in the best of shape, but the important bits were, and that was what mattered.

Turning to Allen, she set her clipboard on the kitchen island and said, “Alright, it might take me a few days to lay out an initial development plan for your farm, but right now I believe I know how we can get some quick cash flow started.”

Pulling a pair of plastic glasses from the cupboard, Allen filled them up with water and handed one to Penny. Taking a sip from his, he asked, “And how would that be?”

“Well, you said that doing hay would be the least fuel-intensive option right now, and since His Grace has given you access to his lands, I believe we have a good place to start. A lot of the land surrounding Ponyville is either farmland or grassland, and on this side of town, it is a majority of grassland, meaning it’s perfect for what we have in mind.”

Allen took another sip of his water as he pondered Penny’s response. “True, I had been thinking about that, the question is, what kind of competition would I be facing in the hay market?”

“Little to none,” replied Penny, “hay is used in a lot of products domestically, and is eaten just by itself. Plus there is the overseas market to consider. The griffons import large amounts of hay from us to feed their livestock operations In fact, they import so much that the government has had to place limits on how much can be sold at a given time so as to make sure Equestrian needs are met first.”

Nodding, Allen rested an arm on the counter and asked, “So what kind of margins could I be seeing then?”

Opening her mouth to reply Penny was cut off by a sudden knock at the front door. Glancing down the hallway, Allen muttered, “Wonder who that could be.”

Getting up he strode down the hall and opened the door. Looking down, he saw a gray coated pegasus stallion standing there, several bags and boxes gathered around him.

“Can I help you?” asked Allen.

The stallion looked down at a clipboard that he had cradled in a wing and asked, “Is there a Ms. Penny Farthing here?”

“Yes, that’s me,” replied Penny, startling Allen as he hadn’t heard her come up behind him. Shooting Allen an apologetic look, she turned her attention back to the stallion and asked, “How may I help you?”

“Sign here please,” replied the stallion as he held out the clipboard to Penny, along with a pencil, “you want me to help bring these boxes inside, or would you rather I leave them on the porch?”

“Oh, you must be the movers!” exclaimed Penny when she saw the manifest.

“Yep, Speedy Delivery Service, at your service ma’am. We move it fast and intact,” replied the stallion as he took off his delivery cap and gave a small bow.

Giggling, Penny quickly signed the manifest and looking up at Allen asked, “Where would it be best to put these?”

Looking around at the boxes and bags on the porch, and then out to the ones still left in the cart, which were being unloaded by another pegasus delivery stallion, Allen rubbed his chin and asked, “What all did you have brought?”

Looking down at the clipboard, Penny replied, “Mostly clothing and personal effects, along with the basic essentials, towels, toiletries, some cookery, office supplies, that sort of stuff.”

Giving her a confused look, Allen asked, “You need all of this for a day or two to help me set up a bank account?”

Handing the signed clipboard back to the stallion, Penny replied, “Huh? Oh, I knew I was forgetting something! My apologies, Allen, I guess we didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?” asked Allen as he crossed his arms over his chest, and leveled a ‘come on, out with it’, look at Penny.

“Well, seeing as how this venture is going to require a lot of work to get started properly, His Grace asked me if I would be willing to open up a small office here in Ponyville to better oversee and represent His Grace’s interests in the area.”

Allen was even more confused now. “Office? What office?”

Seeing his confusion, Penny couldn’t help but giggle. “Sorry Allen, but you look so funny when you’re confused, it’s kind of cute in a way.”

Rolling his eyes, Allen simply motioned with a hand for Penny to get to the point. “Alright,” she said with a smile, “I’ll explain it in a minute, but first, we should probably let these fine gentlecolts unload their cart.”

Turning his gaze back to the pegasi delivery ponies, Allen could see that the gray coated stallion was giving him an impatient look. Letting go a sigh, Allen said, “Just go ahead and stick it in the foyer, anything that doesn’t fit there just shove it in the room to the left of the stairs, we’ll sort it out later.”

Giving a single nod, the lead delivery pony motioned for his partner to begin moving boxes inside. Stepping to one side so that they were out of the way, Penny began, “Before we left Canterlot last night, His Grace told me that he wants to better develop the economic potential of his holdings and to do that, he needs local representatives who can judge local economic conditions more accurately and in real-time. As such, he asked me if I would be willing to move to Ponyville to set up a small branch office and be that representative. Moreover, he wanted to have somepony he could trust close by in case you needed help with anything.”

Leaning his back against one of the house walls, Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I see, and I take it that Ponyville won’t be the only town getting one of these branch offices?”

“You would be correct,” replied Penny with a happy nod, “His Grace is moving to set up a proper company with himself at the head, so as to not repeat his father's mistakes. From my understanding, up until now, everything had been tied directly to his family’s personal assets, which was the main reason they lost so much when the Sugar Bubble popped.”

“So does this company have a name yet?”

“Not to my knowledge, His Grace is still in the preliminary stages, but when the company is fully set up, then he’ll move to have things, such as your contract, transferred over to it, rather than under his personal estate.”

“Which means I’ll probably need to sign more paperwork,” sighed Allen.

Giggling, Penny replied with a sympathetic smile, “It shouldn’t be that difficult, all you should need to do is sign some transfer papers stating that you are willing to have your contract moved from Prince Blueblood’s personal estate to his corporation.”

“Well, could be worse I guess,” sighed Allen as he pushed himself away from the wall. “Guess, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, in the meantime, it looks like the movers are just about done.”

Turning to look behind her, Penny saw that the two movers had just grabbed the last of the boxes and were trotting up the walkway now. Giving them a happy smile she said, “Thank you both so much.”

Setting his last box down in the entryway, the gray coated stallion doffed his hat once more and gave a little bow saying, “Our pleasure ma’am, and no need to worry about paying us anything, both the bill and tip were taken care of by your employer beforehoof. Hope you have a pleasant day, please feel free to let us know when you want the rest of your things moved from your apartment to Ponyville, and we’ll have them delivered the following morning.”

“I will, and thank you!” replied Penny happily.

Giving one last shallow bow, the stallion turned and trotted back to his coworker and quickly hitched himself to their cart before they then set off down the driveway. Watching them go for a moment, Allen asked, “So do you want to have something to eat first or head into town?”

A loud growl from Penny’s stomach answered the question for him. Chuckling at Penny’s blush, Allen simply turned and headed back inside saying, “Lunch it is then.”

Chapter 24 (Going To Town)

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Chapter 24

“Sure is a nice day today,” commented Allen as he and Penny walked towards town. Flowering apple trees lined the dirt road, their sweet fragrance tickling the pair's noses as a gentle breeze played through the leaves. Allen had always loved spring, the renewal of nature as it woke from its winter slumber always cheered him up, and the warm rays of the sun were a blessed change from the cold clouds of winter.

Penny hummed in agreement, a content smile on her face as she trotted along beside Allen, her saddlebags, bulging with papers, draped over her back.

Glancing around at the tree-lined road, Allen asked, “So, what am I going to need to do when we get to the bank?”

“Not much really,” replied Penny, her gaze fixed forward as they walked and talked, “I’ve got everything that they’ll need in terms of your identification, and residency proof. His Grace gave them to me last night before we came. When we are finished, remind me and I’ll give them to you,” she explained, “All you’ll need to do is sign a few papers and that should be it.”

“Alright, and what happens after that?” asked Allen.

Penny shrugged. “After that, I suppose it is up to you. I know I need to go to the town hall and speak with the mayor about some things, such as finding a house to buy and getting the company’s branch office set up. Perhaps you could wander around? See what all the town has to offer and meet some other ponies? I can’t imagine you’ve had many opportunities to look around since you got here.”

Allen nodded in reply. “Yeah, I’ve been pretty isolated since I got here about what, one, two months ago? Jeez, has it already been that long?”

Opening a flap on her saddlebags, Penny pulled out a sheaf of papers and looked through them in search of something, after a minute, she found it and said, “According to this, you arrived on March thirtieth, a Monday. Today is May the eighth a Friday, so if my numbers are right, you’ve been here for thirty-nine days, so a little over a month.”

Allen came to a halt so suddenly, that Penny continued on for a few lengths before she realized that Allen wasn’t beside her. Stopping, she turned around and saw him staring off into the distance, an unreadable expression on his face. Concerned, she carefully approached him and gently asked, “Allen, are you alright?” When she didn’t get a response, she gently nudged his leg and asked again, “Allen, what’s wrong?”

Blinking, he looked down at her and replied quietly, “Nearly a month and a half. I’ve been stuck here for almost a month and a half,” he shook his head. “Nobody knows what happened to me or the farm. They have no idea if I’m alive or dead.”

Seeing him in distress, Penny quickly reared up and placed her hooves around him in a hug. Surprised at first by the sudden contact, Allen quickly returned the hug. No words were spoken for a time as Penny did her best to comfort Allen. Finally, after a bit, Allen withdrew front the hug and wiping a couple of tears away, said with a chuckle, “You guys sure are a huggy bunch.”

Giving a soft smile in return, Penny replied playfully, “It’s just part of our culture, so you’d better get used to it.”

Nodding as he finished drying his eyes, though if anyone ever called him out on it, he’d just say it was his allergies kicking in, he sniffed and started walking again. Penny once again fell in alongside, as the two of them continued onwards in companionable silence. However, that silence was suddenly interrupted by the sound of hooves slamming against wood nearby.

Cocking his head to one side, Allen asked, “What’s that noise?”

Swiveling an ear to hear the sound better, Penny replied, “Sounds like somepony is bucking trees over there.”

“Bucking trees?” asked Allen, hoping that that was what she had really said and that he hadn’t misheard her.

Penny nodded and explained as she swept a hoof around at the surrounding apple trees. “Yep, that’s how a lot of earth ponies harvest produce from their fruit trees, along with removing dead and dying tree branches. A powerful buck from an experienced worker is usually enough to dislodge either ripened fruit or dead and decaying branches from the trees without hurting them.”

“Huh, does magic have anything to do with it? I can’t imagine that a singular kick would be enough to shake everything down in one go. Usually, back home it takes a special piece of equipment to vibrate the fruit loose for collection,” replied Allen as he stared out into the dense orchard, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was working out there. Unfortunately, it seemed that they were too far away for him to see, so after a moment he gave up and returned his attention to Penny.

Penny smiled and said, “Yep, earth ponies channel a lot of their magic through their hooves, hence why they make excellent farmers, miners, craftsponies, and generally anything that requires a lot of hoofwork. Pegasi and unicorns can do that stuff too, but not as well as an earth pony can.”

Allen hummed in reply as Penny and him resumed walking, the sound of hooves hitting wood fading the further they traveled, leaving the two in the relative peace and quiet of a scenic country road. As they walked along, Allen thought back over the past month and a half and what a wild ride it had been so far.

Getting sucked into another world certainly livens up one’s life. He thought to himself as the pair of them passed by the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres. Nopony appeared to be out front, but Allen figured that his neighbors were probably puttering around somewhere on their farm doing chores.

As the farm entrance fell further behind them, he thought back to his first day in Equestria. How he remembered that this was the spot where the Royal Guard had tried to ambush him and Reuben to take them into custody.

He shook his head at the memory of it and its aftermath, how he’d been scared out of his mind. To this day he still couldn’t figure out how he’d managed to stay in the saddle, let alone keep control of his panicking horse. It hadn’t occurred to him until after Lyra and Twilight had offered to look after his farm, while he was recovering in the hospital, that Reuben might not be too keen on being around Equestrian ponies.

However, from what Twilight and Lyra had said, that didn’t appear to be the case. In fact, Allen had been surprised to learn that Reuben hadn’t been scared of the unicorns at all, merely curious and somewhat cautious. He would have thought that his horse, having had a bad experience with the ponies, would have been more skittish around them. However, that had not happened, and though he’d been a bit nervous when they first used magic around him. He quickly got used to it after a few calming words and some time to adjust to random objects floating through the air by themselves.

This was some welcome news for Allen, as he knew that with his limited fuel supplies, he would need to carefully ration it, and thus, his transportation options became restricted.

As such, he had found himself with three viable long term options for getting around. These had been walking, riding a bike, or using Reuben to get around, either by riding or having him pull a wagon. Of the three options, walking was the least appealing choice to him. Sure, it was the easiest to use, after all, he had a pair of perfectly usable legs attached to him, so why not use them?

The problem with that option was mainly the fact that his farm was located several miles outside of town. This meant that anytime he needed to go into town he could kiss at least a couple of hours of his day goodbye. Then there was the problem of carrying capacity. A person can only carry so much, after all, even if they were in top physical shape, which Allen currently was not in, and while he could rig up something like a handcart, he didn’t relish the idea of pulling one. Finally, he really didn’t look forward to the idea of trudging several miles to town in deep snow with freezing winds tearing around him either.

That brought him to his second option, riding his bike. Obviously, it was better, he could travel farther faster and with less effort, but again the idea still had problems. The first being that, like walking, he was limited in what he could carry and pull with the bike, sure it could probably carry more if he rigged up some saddlebags and a little cart to pull behind him. However, he still ran into the problem of weather making his life difficult, as riding a bike through deep snow or mud would be even worse than walking through it. In addition, if something broke, he would need to be able to replace those parts, and while a bicycle was much simpler than a car, it still had things such as rubber tires, and brake pads and lines, that might not be available here in Equestria. So if something did break, he’d have to hope the ponies could find him suitable replacement parts if they were needed. Finally, there was the issue of fitness again, he knew that his body wasn’t in the proper shape to be riding long distances on a bike at the moment. Oh sure, he’d eventually get back into shape, but in the between period he’d be paying for it in spades, which would lower his overall productivity.

That left him with his third option, his horse, Reuben. Riding Reuben would be faster than walking and biking, over short distances anyways. Plus Reuben didn’t require mechanical parts that might not exist in this world to function, just hay, water, and some love. Moreover, he wouldn’t be as limited by inclement weather such as a bike would be, though again, Allen would still be exposed to the elements. However, that was true of the other two options as well, and Reuben would have an easier time moving through deep snow, while Allen would not. Finally, Reuben could carry and pull more weight than Allen ever could by himself, which would make him invaluable in helping Allen around the farm.

Even though he’s not trained to drive, I’m sure somebody around here could help me get Reuben trained properly. Of course, I could probably do it myself. I mean if ancient man could do it, then so can I.

Nodding to himself, Allen felt that his third option would, overall, be his best bet going forward.

Though, thought Allen, I’ll need to be cautious the first few times I bring Reuben into town. Sure he gets along well with Lyra and Twilight. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be comfortable around other ponies. I can only imagine what he’d do if a pegasus just dropped out of the sky and landed right in front of him with no warning.

He let loose a tired sigh, So many things to think about, it’s making my head hurt.

Noticing Allen’s pained look, Penny asked, “Are you okay?”

Looking down at her, Allen gave her a weak smile and replied, “Just... thinking.”

“About what?” she asked, her head tilted to one side in a questioning manner.

“About how I’m going to get around without using my fuel needlessly. I keep thinking I’ve got a plan all figured out, and then I find I’ve just got more problems to sort out. It’s giving me a headache,” he replied tiredly.

Penny nodded in sympathetic understanding. “I can sympathize completely. During my last year in university, I took a business class where we had to do a group project about starting our own business and growing it for the first five years.”

Allen groaned. “I hated doing group projects. There was always that one guy who never seemed to do anything, and would never show up to meetings or get back with you. So you just ended up doing his stuff in addition to your own, and the worst part was that he’d get the same grade as you at the end of it. I hated those people.”

Penny giggled and nodded. “Oh I know, but thankfully our group didn’t have any of those kinds of ponies.”

“Must have been nice,” grumbled Allen.

Penny waggled her head back and forth in a ‘kind of sort of’ motion. “It was, but that was mostly because the class was so hard in the first place that the only ponies in there were the ones who had the discipline to do their assigned parts, and do them well. As it was, my group barely got by with a B+. Everypony else either got a B- or lower, at least half the class didn’t pass or dropped out by the end of it. Professor Slate was very exacting in what he wanted to see. He would not accept, ‘I don’t know’, as an answer, and would take points off if you didn’t go into extreme detail about your plans, spreadsheets, and formulas for the exercise. In fact, I remember one of the things that he wanted was a detailed list of all our theoretical inventory, how much it would cost to source everything, how much we expected to sell in our first quarter, how we planned to market our products, and what our contingency plans were if we didn’t sell it all or sold out too soon, and so on.”

“Wow,” whistled Allen, “he sounds like a real taskmaster.”

“He could be, but he did it because he cared. He always told us that, ‘if you can succeed here, you can succeed in the real world, because you’ll know how to handle difficult problems and the stress that comes with them,’” she replied with a nod.

“I guess that’s a good point,” replied Allen with a small nod, “but it still must have been rough.”

Penny giggled. “That would be an understatement. I think I spent more time working on homework for that one class in a week than I did for my other four classes combined. So yes, I would say that it was quite, ‘rough’. However, I believe that in the end, it was worth it.”

“How so?” asked Allen.

“Well, I got to be here,” she replied simply, “if I hadn’t taken that class, I wouldn’t have been able to finish my degree, and I wouldn’t have been selected when I applied to work for His Grace. Thus, I wouldn’t be here working with you and starting up an exciting business venture. I mean, if you told me two years ago that I would not only be working for His Grace, Prince Blueblood but also with a being from another world on a joint business venture, I would have thought you were crazy. Yet here we are.”

“Well,” said Allen with a nod, “when you put it like that, then yeah I guess you could say it was worth it. Even if this whole thing goes south, you’d have one hell of a story to tell by the end of it.”

“That I would,” giggled Penny, “but I’d much rather walk away a success than with just an interesting story.”

“Amen to that,” agreed Allen, as he turned his attention back to the road in front of them. Even though he’d only been to town a few times, he could tell they were getting closer, because up ahead he could see a small red schoolhouse coming into view.

“Looks like school’s out for recess right now,” he remarked as they walked by the schoolyard that was currently full of laughing and playing foals. A mulberry colored earth pony, who Allen assumed was their teacher, could be seen carefully watching from the doorway of the schoolhouse to make sure the foals behaved themselves.

Nodding, Penny replied, “Looks that way,” turning her attention back to Allen she asked, “I don’t think I asked, but do you have any siblings?”

Allen nodded. “My younger sister Laura, she and my dad weren’t home when I was... taken, so they’re still back on my Earth. Not sure how things are going for them, but I doubt it’s been easy,” he finished, a melancholy look on his face.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset,” said Penny when she saw his expression change.

Allen shook his head and gave her a sad smile. “It’s alright, I know you didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just a topic that's still a bit... sore right now.”

Unsure how to respond, Penny, bit her lower lip as she wracked her brain in an effort to keep the conversation going. Fortunately for her, the foals all seemed to have spotted Allen and her walking by at the same time and had come running over to the white picket fence in an effort to get a closer look at them.

“Wow, it looks so weird,” said a little unicorn filly to one of her friends.

“My daddy said that it can’t do magic and that it gets really sick really easily,” chimed in a pegasus colt.

“Pfft, can’t do magic? That’s so lame,” commented a pink coated earth pony filly with a diamond tiara perched on her head, a nasty looking smirk on her face.

Allen paused and regarded the group of gawking foals with a raised eyebrow. “Well, at least one thing is constant across the multiverse,” he grumbled.

“What’s that?” asked Penny, confused.

“That kids will be rude little shits,” replied Allen irritatedly, before turning and continuing on his way leaving the gaggle of foals behind.

Penny, shocked at the venom in Allen’s voice, stood there for a moment, mouth agape before shaking her head and yelling, “Wait up!” and taking off after the retreating human.

Meanwhile, the mulberry coated earth pony mare had quickly strode up behind the group of foals, and after clearing her throat to catch their attention, she gave them a stern look and said, “It seems as though I will need to amend today's schedule to include a brief lesson on civility, and to speak with some of your parents about your behaviors. As such, the rest of recess is canceled, everypony back inside, chop-chop!” she said as she stomped her hoof against the ground to hurry her students back inside over the sound of their disappointed groans and complaints.

“Now, now,” she said, her stern look unwavering in the face of the puppy dog eyes the little foals were sending her way, “no complaining. You all should know better than to make fun of somepony because of their looks or their abilities. Though apparently, that lesson did not stick as well as I would have hoped. Therefore, we will obviously need to review it, which means that we’ll have to cut into recess time in order to fit it into our schedule. Diamond Tiara, Dinky Doo, Life Flight, I expect to see you three after class,” said Cheerilee as she fixed the three foals with a critical gaze.

“What?! But why, Ms. Cheerilee?” they all whined as one, hurt looks on their faces.

“Because you three were the ones to say those hurtful and insensitive things, and as such, I’m giving you three detention, starting today.”

“But-” started Diamond Tiara, her cheeks puffed up in indignation at being punished.

“No buts, Diamond Tiara,” cut in Ms. Cheerliee,” you three will stay for detention, and I will send you home with a note for your parents, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Ms. Cheerilee,” they chorused, dejected looks on their faces as their heads hung low.

Giving a satisfied nod, Cheerilee ushered them back inside and shut the door behind her, but not before glancing in the direction that Allen and Penny had gone.

Sighing, she shook her head and thought, I’ll have to apologize to them when I see them next. Ugh, somedays I wonder if anything I actually teach these foals sticks or if it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Giving her head a final shake, she turned and closed the door behind her, a determined look on her face to make sure that at least this lesson would actually stick this time.

Allen meanwhile was stomping his way over the western stone bridge into Ponyville, an angry look on his face. The sudden sound of running hoofbeats on stone behind him caused him to look back over his shoulder to see Penny cantering up, a light sheen of sweat on her coat.

Coming to a stop beside him, she took a moment to catch her breath and gently asked, “Allen, are you alright?”

Taking a deep breath, Allen tried to will himself to relax, and after a couple of tense moments, felt some of the tension in his body flow out of it. “I’ll be fine, just kids being kids,” he said, though even he could tell that it was a lame response. Giving himself a shake, he turned to look at Penny and said, “Just reminded me of when I was young is all.”

“I take it you weren’t very popular in school?” she hesitantly asked.

Allen nodded, an unhappy look on his face. “Yeah, you could say that,” he said before continuing on, saying nothing more on the topic.

Sensing that pushing him on the subject wouldn’t be the best idea, Penny instead elected to change the topic to something safer. “Alright,” she began, “if His Grace’s instructions are correct, then the bank should be near the market square. Which means that if this map of Ponyville is accurate,” she said as she looked over a folding map of the town that she had pulled from her bag, “then the bank should be just up ahead and to the left.”

Giving a nod, Allen started forward once more, the buildings of Ponyville now surrounding Penny and him as they entered the town proper. The town itself consisted mostly of half timber-framed houses, and shops complete with golden-colored thatched roofs. Though, Allen could see a few buildings that were a lot more... colorful in appearance than the rest. Such as the giant gingerbread themed building sitting just across the square from him.

“I think I just got diabetes,” deadpanned Allen as he stared at the bakery themed building.

Looking up at the icing covered building, Penny said, “If I’m reading this map correctly, that building would be Sugar Cube Corner, which means the bank should be to our left near a fountain.”

Tearing his eyes away from the house of diabetes, Allen looked in the direction that Penny was pointing. Sure enough, there was a statue of an earth pony mare rearing up on her two hind legs and smiling playfully, as if preparing to take off at a run and daring the onlooker to chase after her. Looking past the statue, Allen could see a large two-story building with a large sign out front that read Royal Bank of Equestria and had a stylized unicorn head in profile with a pair of olive branches framing it on either side and a small stack of gold coins below the head.

“Found it,” said Allen, as he made his way along the edge of the market, his height giving him an advantage as he was able to more easily look over the various vendor’s stands, with Penny quickly falling in alongside him.

As the two wound their way through the busy market square, Allen looked around. Up until now, he’d never actually come into Ponyville proper, as the hospital had been located just northwest of the railroad tracks, putting it firmly outside of town. Therefore, he’d been unable to really see what the town and its citizens had to offer, now, however, he was right in the thick of it. Everywhere he looked ponies were going about their day, shopping, chatting with friends, or just trotting from one place to another.

So far nopony had really reacted to Allen’s appearance, and Allen was hoping to keep it that way. Lengthening his stride, he quickly crossed the distance between him and the front entrance of the bank. Coming to a stop out front, Allen gave the front entrance a quick look over. From the outside, it didn’t really seem all that different from the other nearby buildings, a half timber-framed building with off white stucco painted on the outside. The main difference between it and it’s neighbors seemed to be that its roof was made out of gray slate tiles instead of yellow thatch and that it had a pair of iron reinforced, solid oak, double doors, instead of the Dutch style half doors that the rest of the nearby buildings had.

Walking up the short set of steps out front, Allen pushed his way through the double doors of the bank. Stepping inside, he was greeted by the sight of a rustic, yet tastefully furnished lobby. Electric lamps hung from wrought iron chandeliers that were firmly bolted into the dark oaken beams of the bank's vaulted lobby ceiling. Glancing up, he could see a large mural had been painted on the ceiling, and it seemed to depict the history of the town from its founding to today. Pulling his gaze away from above, Allen could see that the floor was constructed from the same dark oak that the rest of the building's frame had been built with. The electric lights from above, reflecting off its highly polished surface made it look like there were golden orbs of light floating just beneath the surface, tantalizing out of reach.

Tearing his gaze away from the floor, Allen slowly strode forward towards an open teller's window, taking in the rest of the lobby as he did so. The lobby was split into three sections, and had a very welcoming feeling to it oddly enough as if the designer had wanted you to stay and enjoy yourself while you were here. The section to Allen’s left was separated by a low wall from the rest of the lobby and had a large fireplace that was surrounded by comfortable looking armchairs and couches, with a large rug tying the whole area together. Looking to his right, Allen could see that this section of the lobby seemed to be reserved for staff members to assist customers, as he could see several desks and chairs scattered around behind another low wall with a small swinging gate separating it from the main lobby.

The final section was, of course, the central lobby area that he and Penny were currently standing in. It consisted of an open area that was empty of furniture save for several standing tables for ponies to fill out last-minute transaction slips for the bank tellers to process. Though, oddly enough, there seemed to be at least one table that was high enough for Allen to comfortably stand at without having to awkwardly hunch over, same with several of the teller windows, which seemed to indicate that there were people around who were of similar height to Allen.

Though, looking back, I shouldn’t be surprised considering that every door I’ve walked through has been tall enough for me to go through without having to duck first. Thought Allen to himself as he came to a stop in front of an open teller’s window.

A smiling unicorn mare greeted him from behind the polished brass bars of her window with a cheerful greeting, “Good afternoon! Welcome to the Royal Bank of Equestria, how may I help you?”

“I uh, need to open an account,” replied Allen as he shuffled aside to allow Penny easier access to the teller’s window.

The teller turned her attention from Allen to Penny and asked, “I take it you are with him?”

Penny nodded as she reared up on her hind hooves and slid several papers through the gap between the counter and brass dividing bars.

Grabbing the papers in her aura, the unicorn teller carefully looked them over. “Hmm, alright, let me go get the branch manager, she’s usually the one to take care of new business accounts.”

Penny simply nodded and let herself fall back to all fours. Allen meanwhile contented himself with looking over the beautifully built teller's cage. He remembered seeing old photos from the early part of the twentieth century showing the inside of old banks and what they had looked like, and this teller’s cage could have been ripped right from one of those photos. The dark oak wood was polished to a high gloss and had nary a hint of dust anywhere, and was richly detailed with elaborate carvings, and scrollwork of everything from ponies playing and dancing, to blooming flowers and various animals. The marble counter and brass work were likewise well polished and the brass, in particular, seemed to shine like gold, giving one the impression that this was a well to do bank that you could have confidence in keeping your wealth safe. Which was probably the point in the first place.

Looking down at Penny, Allen remarked, “This place sure is fancy looking.”

“Hmm? What do you mean?” she asked, a curious look on her face.

Waving an encompassing arm at the bank's interior, Allen replied, “I mean, look at this place, it looks like something I would have seen in an old photograph from the turn of the last century in my world. I’ve never seen a bank with this fancy of an interior before. The only real difference is that the floor is made of wood rather than marble.”

“Well, that is because marble becomes very slippery when wet, and the designer felt that an oak wood floor would give the bank a more warm and welcoming look. As we at the Royal Bank of Equestria do our best to meet the expectations of our customers of being a welcoming and safe place to bank,” replied a friendly voice from the other side of the teller window.

Turning to look, Allen was greeted by the sight of a smiling, dark cyan coated unicorn mare. “Hello, my name is Balance Sheet and I am the branch manager. I was told that you were planning on opening a business account with us.”

“That is correct,” replied Penny as she reared up again so as to see who she was speaking with, “we need a business account for Mr. Ross’s farm to be set up, along with a personal account for him. In addition, I will also need to have a local account set up for myself, and have funds transferred from my Canterlot account to this one.”

Balance Sheet nodded a pleasant smile on her face. Readjusting her silver-framed spectacles, as she jotted down several notes on the paperwork Penny had given the teller earlier. “How wonderful, well I believe that we can take care of that without issue right now. If you’ll just wait a moment, I’ll be right out.”

Penny returned the manager’s smile with one of her own and gave a nod of thanks before she let herself fall back to all fours.

A few moments later and Balance Sheet returned, this time on the lobby side of the teller window. She motioned for them to follow her as she passed by on her way to the office side of the lobby. Holding open the dividing gate with her emerald-colored aura, she said, “My desk is just over there, please make yourself comfortable.”

Navigating between the low desks and assortment of chairs and large cushions, Allen and Penny were soon seated in front of Balance Sheet’s desk. Thankfully for Allen, it appeared that she had gotten someone to find him something to sit on that wouldn’t be too small for him. In this case, it was a large, semi-rigid cushion with armrests and a backrest, that let him sit low to the floor, with minimal leg crossing, so that he wouldn’t be towering over the ponies, while at the same time keeping him from being in too awkward a sitting position.

Seating herself behind her desk on her own cushion, Balance Sheet placed the papers she had been given in front of her and turning her sea-green eyes from the papers to Allen and Penny said, “I must say, it is quite nice to be able to meet you in person, Mr. Ross.”

“It is?” he asked, a confused expression on his face.

Balance Sheet giggled and explained, “Oh don’t act so surprised Mr. Ross, Ponyville is a small town, and news tends to travel fairly quickly around here. It also doesn’t hurt that Mayor Mare made an announcement a couple of weeks ago regarding your appearance here, and what we could expect to change going forward. She even had a small broadsheet printed and distributed amongst the townsfolk about you. Just general stuff about you and your world as we currently know it, nothing personal I can assure you.”

“I... see,” replied Allen hesitantly, unsure of how to respond.

Seeing his discomfort, Balance gave Allen a comforting smile. “I can see you aren’t quite sure what to make of my little revelation, but as I said, most ponies in town already are aware of your presence, how you were brought here against your will by Discord, along with some basic information about you, such as your name, what species you are, and that you aren’t here to cause trouble. At least that is what Mayor Mare claims. I trust her judgment isn’t in error?” she finished, a questioning look in her eyes.

Allen quickly shook his head. “Nope, her judgment is just fine, I’d rather not go borrowing any more trouble than what I’ve already got, thank you very much.”

“Wonderful, chaos makers are always bad for business,” she replied happily, “so I’m glad to hear you’d rather avoid that sort of mess. Now, on to business,” she said, as she pulled out a quill and pot of ink from her desk drawer along with a small sheaf of forms.

Floating a pair of clipboards with a pair of forms on each to Allen and Penny respectively, she continued, “We’ll go ahead and start with setting up your personal bank accounts and then finish up with your business account, Mr. Ross. Now, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me as we go along, alright?”

Looking down at the first page, Allen quickly skimmed over its contents and could see that it was just asking for general background information about him, such as his date of birth, age, sex, personal identification numbers, address, what kind of accounts he wanted to open, and so on.

Looking over at Penny, he asked, “Should I fill this out, or were you going to do that?”

Penny, her own paperwork in hoof, replied, “Just fill out what you can and I’ll take care of whatever is left over.”

Giving a nod of understanding, Allen set to work. After several quiet minutes, he’d filled out what he could and had passed it to Penny for her to finish. Taking his clipboard with a quiet, ‘thank you,’ Penny continued filling out her paperwork. This left Allen with little to do in the meantime, so he elected to look out the nearby window and watch the locals go about their day while he waited for Penny to finish up. Finally, with a final flourish of her quill, Penny slid both clipboards back to Balance Sheet for her to review.

“Finished?” she asked as she took the clipboards in her magical grasp while at the same time tucking a bit of her forest green mane back into her mane bun, her golden colored highlights shimmering under the electric lights as she moved, making Allen almost think she had real gold woven into her mane for a moment.

However, he quickly dismissed the idea, figuring it was just a trick of the light, and that her stylist was just really good at their job. So instead he asked, “Alright, now what?”

Glancing over their paperwork, Balance hummed quietly to herself as she double-checked to make sure everything was in order. “Looks like everything here is correct, so I’ll just go ahead and have one of my associates get your vaults set up, and then we can begin the process of opening your business vault.”

“How long will that take?” asked Allen as he watched Balance give his and Penny’s paperwork to a pegasus clerk who slipped the folders under her wing and quickly trotted away.

“It shouldn’t take very long at all,” replied Balance as she pulled a few more sheafs of paper out of her desk drawer. Laying them in front of Allen she continued, “Since you are opening a personal account at the same time as your business account, we’ll be able to use most of the information you’ve already given us to open this new one. However, the government requires that we fill out a few additional forms for tax purposes. Moreover, business accounts have different fees attached to them than personal accounts do, as such, we need to be able to properly bill said account, hence this additional paperwork.”

Allen blinked. “Wait, what ‘fees’? You’re charging me to keep my money?”

Now it was Balance Sheet’s turn to blink in confusion. “Of course, how else would we be able to stay in business if we didn’t charge you for vault space? Do they do things differently in your world then?”

“Uh, well, my credit union never charged me any fees for my savings account, so I just kind of assumed that would be the same across other banks as well,” replied Allen.

Balance shook her head in response. “I’m afraid that is not the case Mr. Ross. Perhaps this ‘credit union’ could afford to not charge you a monthly fee, but we unfortunately do. In fact,” she continued as she pulled out a sheet of paper and passed it to Allen, “here is a list of our services and how much they cost. You can keep that for your records if you wish.”

“I... see,” said Allen as he began reading down the list.

“A simple savings account will run you a minimum of five bits per month starting out,” she explained, “with the fee increasing for every ten thousand bits worth of money you keep in your vault. Your business account will have a higher monthly fee, it being twenty bits per month, however, that fee won’t go up until you reach one-hundred thousand bits in your account, at which point it will increase by every fifty thousand bits.”

“And how much will I be charged for every increase?” asked Allen as he read down the list of services the bank provided, along with their associated costs.

Balance waggled a hoof back and forth. “It depends on the total amount of bits in your vault. The more you store, the more we will have to charge you due to the space and liability concerns of storing the bits locally in our vaults. However, if you expect to have large amounts of bits that need to be stored for long periods of time, might I suggest opening a Central Depository account? You’ll be charged a minimum fee of five hundred bits per month, and that fee won’t increase until you reach five hundred thousand bits in that account, after which it will increase per one hundred thousand bits stored. If you wish to store valuables, such as paintings, jewelry, antiques, etc. we can also store those as well for a fee based on the appraised value of the items being stored and their size.”

“So why will the storage fees increase as my money increases?” asked Allen, a frown tugging at his lips.

“It is primarily due to space and liability concerns. The more money and valuables we as a branch are asked to protect, the more space, security, and personnel we will need to keep it secure from theft. Thus, large accounts are going to be charged a higher fee due to having a larger amount of liability sitting in them. Does that make sense?” she explained.

“I guess, but that kind of feels like you’re punishing people for saving their money,” replied Allen as he set the price list down on her desk.

Balance nodded. “I can see how you would think that Mr. Ross, and to a degree you are correct. We are de-incentivizing ponies from hoarding too many bits in their accounts, as we want those bits circulating in the wider economy. Though, in truth, most ponies will never accumulate enough bits in their vaults for it to become a concern. However, in the few cases where a pony needs to save their bits up for a large purchase, such as a new home or business venture, they can make arrangements with the bank to either waive these fees or have the bits stored in a Central Depository account when their local account fees become too large to make it worthwhile to keep using as a primary storage location.”

“So what is a ‘Central Depository account’ then?”

“Every bank has a secure location where large amounts of bits and valuables can be stored that are more secure than a standard bank vault. The Royal Bank of Equestria’s is located under Mt. Canterhorn, and we pride ourselves on the fact that Their Highnesses government has allowed our bank to store the nation’s bit reserve there for over five hundred years. As such, it is the most heavily defended repository in the world,” replied Balance, a hint of pride coloring her expression and voice.

“Okay, could you go into a bit more detail for me?” asked Allen.

“In essence, it is just a larger and more secure location to store your money and assets. Bank vault space is limited at the local level, and many large businesses like to keep a large cash reserve in case they need it for a large purchase or to help get them through difficult times. As I mentioned earlier, storing large amounts of bits in your local bank branch can lead to large storage fees that, economically speaking, don’t make a lot of sense. Thus, if somepony needs to save up a large sum of bits, they can open a CD account and put their bits there until they need to withdraw them.”

“Okay, so how does all this work then?”

“What do you mean?” asked Balance.

“I mean, what happens when I deposit money or a check with you guys, can I just withdraw the money immediately or cash the check on the spot?” asked Allen.

“That depends,” replied Balance simply, “if you have the necessary funds in your individual account, then yes, a check can be cashed on the spot. However, if you do not, then you will have to wait until the money is transferred from the account of the pony that wrote you the check to yours. Though, if you need that money immediately, then the bank can give it to you from our own vault, however, there is a fee associated with doing that, and that fee will depend on the amount of money you are withdrawing at that time.”

“But, why? Back home, so long as the bank had money in their drawers, they would cash a check on the spot for me with no issues,” pressed Allen, a hint of frustration in his voice at the thought of having to deal with the inconvenience of not having ready access to his money whenever he wanted.

“Because our system does not work that way, Mr. Ross. Equestrian banking is based on trust that what you put in your vault stays in your vault, and that we as a banking institution, do not create money out of thin air and hope we have enough in our vault to deal with our customers' daily needs.” Seeing that he wasn’t getting it, Balance stood up from her desk and motioned for Allen and Penny to follow her.

Levering himself up from his chair, Allen followed along behind. Turning to look over her shoulder, Balance said, “We do not normally do this, Mr. Ross, but I feel that you are used to a much different banking system than what we use and that the best way to clarify what I am telling you, is to simply show you the process. Please do not touch anything you see when we get behind the teller windows, alright?”

“Uh, sure,” replied Allen, unsure of what was going on, but deciding to go along with Balance in the meantime.

Giving a satisfied nod, Balance Sheet walked up to a nearby door and placed a small metal disk that was attached to a mane clip, and had been hidden in her mane, to a small brass circle next to the door. After a moment, a musical chime sounded and the door slowly opened. Motioning for Penny and him to enter, Allen stepped through and watched as Balance followed past them. Now that they were inside the teller’s cage, Allen could see that there were several rows of tables that were covered in papers and loose bits of money. At each table sat a pony with an open ledger in front of them, and they appeared to be in the process of counting and recording their results in their ledgers.

Nodding in their direction, Balance said, “This is where it all starts and ends. When you bring bits or checks in to be deposited or cashed, they are recorded in two separate ways. The first way is when you pass them through the teller window here,” she said as she pointed to a spot on the counter underneath the cage window.

Stepping closer, Allen could see a small quartz strip inlaid with what looked like metal runes of silver and gold. This quartz strip continued up the side of the teller window till it reached the bottom-most horizontal brass bar of the teller cage divider. Craning his neck so that he could see the underside of the bar, he noticed that the quartz strip continued along the underside of the bar forming a perfect circuit.

“This,” explained Balance, “is the first part of the system. When money or checks are placed through here, magical runes read and count the amount coming through. That amount is recorded over here by this machine,” she said, pointing to a large mechanical typewriter with a large roll of paper affixed to the top of it and fed through a slot into the machine. “This device records the transaction on a piece of paper. It will include the name and account number of the pony who submitted the money or check, along with the amount submitted. In addition, it will record who the teller was that accepted the order and the date and time it was accepted along with whether the order was deposited, transferred or withdrawn, and so on. There will be two copies printed, one will be given to the customer for their records and the other will be kept by the branch for ours.”

Stepping away from the printer, Balance motioned to the counting tables. “When the money or check is received, it, along with the printed receipt is brought here, where it is counted again and checked against the printed receipt, if it is found that there was an error, that error will be corrected before the money is moved to the vault. This is usually done before the customer leaves the bank. If there is no error, then the money is either moved to the vault that it is to be deposited in or if it is a check or money transfer order, it will be placed over here in one of these cubby boxes,” she said as she pointed to a wall of small boxes with brass number plates on them. “These boxes represent the individual accounts here at the bank, and when money is to be put in or taken out of an account, the corresponding receipt is placed in there with a color-coded tag attached to it, which will indicate what is to be done and when.”

“Sounds really complex,” said Allen as he looked the cubby boxes over.

Balance Sheet nodded. “It can be, especially at the bigger branches. That is why we have a master ledger that we can keep track of everything in. I can’t show it to you, as it contains sensitive financial information, but every transaction that passes through the teller window is magically recorded in it and we use that to compare with the individual teller, and counting table ledgers to make sure there were no mistakes made or fraud committed.”

“Alright,” said Allen as he turned his attention back to Balance, “so let’s say I give you guys a check, what happens?”

“Well, the first thing is that it is recorded by the teller, who prints out a receipt for you, then it moves to the counting tables for verification. Once there, the counters will record in their individual ledger the amount of money the check is good for and what they are to do with the check. If it is a simple transfer from one account to another, then they will mark it as so and will place it in the appropriate cubby box. At the end of the day, if the bits are being transferred from one local account to another, then the staff will simply move the bits from one vault to another and record the move as appropriate.”

“What if the person who wrote the check doesn’t have an account at this bank?” asked Allen.

“Then one of several things could happen. If the check writer is from another city, such as Canterlot, then we would send the Canterlot branch an inquiry via telegraph,” she pointed to another section of the teller cage where what looked like an old stock ticker machine from the early twentieth century sat. It had a roll of thin paper that was fed through the machine on one side and came out the other side with dots and dashes imprinted on it. However, it also had a couple of additional features, specifically a pair of glowing yellow gems seated in a pair of brass tubes with wire mesh doors on the left side of the machine, while on the right side sat an old fashioned, straight telegraph key for sending messages. Taking a closer look at it, Allen could see a pair of thin insulated wire lines running up the wall behind it, and terminating at a small open-faced box perched just above. Inside were two more gems, a red one on the left and a green one on the right, and as he watched, Allen swore he faintly saw the red one brighten and dim in time with the clicking of the telegraph machine as a message suddenly came in.

“This telegraph is hooked up to a central node in Canterlot that allows us to wirelessly communicate with any bank branch in Equestria,” explained Balance as she calmly read the ticker tape that was currently printing out the one side of the machine. When it finished, she tore it off and passed it to a nearby employee who grabbed it and trotted away, presumably to carry out whatever the ticker tape’s instructions were. “This node isn’t controlled by anyone bank, but is funded by all of them and is overseen by the government. This prevents one bank from gaining an unfair market advantage over the other banks and allows for transparency between financial institutions. Now,” she continued, “if the check writer is a member from another one of our branches, then we will ask that branch if the customer has enough money in their account to cover the check.”

“Wouldn’t you do that before you take the check from the customer and they leave?” asked Allen, a confused look on his face.

“Ideally, yes,” replied Balance with a nod, “however, it can take several hours for the information to be exchanged, and nopony wants to wait around waiting to hear a reply. Therefore, any check that isn’t local is given a ‘pending’ status until we have determined if the money can be moved. If there are no problems, then the next step would be to send a money transfer request to that bank branch. The other branch would then acknowledge the request, remove the physical money from their customer's account, and then they would send it, along with other money orders for that day, to the Central Depository to be combined with other orders being sent to Ponyville specifically. Once the money has arrived in Ponyville, it will be counted and sorted into the various vaults by the date it was to be received. After which, the check’s status will be changed from pending to filled and the customer will be notified that the check cleared.”

“So what happens if the other customer doesn’t have enough money?”

“It depends. If the customer doesn’t have enough money at the time the request arrives, then their branch will contact them and inform them of the situation. If they can’t resolve the funding situation within five business days, then we will receive notification that the funds are not available and will notify our customer of the issue. In addition, we will cancel the transfer order and impose a bounced check fee on the check writer's account. Anything that happens after that is between those two individuals.”

“So what if they are from another bank entirely?”

“It’ll pretty much be the same process, except it might take a day or two to hear back from them, as those kinds of transactions tend to receive lower priority than ones between branches of the same bank. In addition, there may be a fee attached to the transfer which will be borne by the one who wrote the check.”

“Alright, so let me see if I have this correct. If I give you a check for say, one hundred bits, and I want to deposit it. I have to wait until those one hundred physical bits arrive from someone else’s account before I can withdraw them?”

Balance nodded with a happy smile. “That is correct, Mr. Ross! I know that this system might seem slow and inconvenient. But, it has worked well enough for us for hundreds of years. Plus you can be confident that if you need your money, you can get it when the time comes.”

Looking around at the busy tellers and clerks, Allen let go a tired sigh and said, “Well, if this is the only game in town, then I suppose there isn’t much choice now is there?”

Balance gave him a sympathetic look and replied, “I’m afraid not, Mr. Ross, technology constrains us in what we can do. Maybe in the future things will be different, but for now, this is the best that we can do. Now, are there any further questions that you had?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, what happens if I’m out of town and I run out of money? How would I get cash fast?”

“An excellent question,” replied Balance, as she ushered Penny and Allen out of the teller cage, “there are several options to a traveling pony who has found themselves short on bits. The first option is that if you find yourself spending time in several locations regularly, such as say Ponyville and Canterlot. You can open a physical account in each city and have the branches maintain a set balance in each location. So as an example, let's say you live in Ponyville but commute to Canterlot for work, you can have a savings account open in the Canterlot branch where you tell them that you want them to keep a certain amount of bits available for you, just in case you need them. The branch will make sure that the vault amount does not fall below a certain level, and if it does, they will put in a request to have funds transferred from your Ponyville account to make up the difference. This way you will have ready access to your funds in both locations.”

“Okay, so what happens if you travel to a city where you don’t have an account?” asked Allen as he sat back down in the cushioned chair in front of Balance Sheet’s desk.

Settling herself behind her desk, Balance replied, “Then you have several options. If your bank has a local branch, you can go in and request that they give you money from the branch’s own vault. This will naturally come with a fee that is dependent on the amount of money being requested. If you agree to the fee, the branch will give you the bits after which they will send a transfer request to your local branch, who will then remove the requested amount from your account and send it to the requesting branch’s account along with the fee.”

“So what happens if there isn’t a branch of your bank in that town or city?”

“Then you can go to either a competitor's bank or a money lender. Both will operate the same way, you will be required to fill out a money request form and provide the necessary information to them so that they can contact your local bank branch to initiate a transfer request. Then once they have confirmed that you can afford the transfer, they will give you your requested money out of their vault and you can go. Naturally, there will be a high fee involved, as you are having to go outside of your bank, but if you’re out of money and options, then what can you do?”

“How high can the fee be?” asked Allen.

Balance shrugged. “I’ve seen it go as high as fifty percent of the requested amount. It really just depends on the location and who you ask. Moneylenders will charge you more than if you went to a bank, but if that is all that is available then well...”

“That’s all you got,” finished Allen for her.

Balance nodded, a humorless smile tugging at her lips. “Precisely, so it pays to keep an eye on your bit bag while you are elsewhere.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind if I leave town,” replied Allen.

“Good, now,” she said as she looked over some additional paperwork, “was there anything else that you had a question on or are you ready to get your business account set up?”

Allen shook his head. “No, I think that should be it for now. If I think of anything else, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Smiling, Balance happily replied, “Wonderful! Now, if I can have you look this over, we can get started,” she said as she passed him a small stack of papers and they set to work.

~oOo~

Several hours later, Allen and Penny left the bank, their business concluded. Turning to Penny, Allen remarked, “Glad that’s over.”

Penny giggled. “I admit, it can get pretty tedious at times, but it’s, unfortunately, necessary if you want to do business.”

“Yeah,” replied Allen as he looked down at his newly minted members' identification disk. It was made out of brass and had a number stamped into it along with the Royal Bank of Equestria’s seal on one side, while on the other side were a complex pattern of runes and markings that glowed very faintly with what Allen assumed was some kind of magical spell.

What confused him though was the hair clip that was attached to it. Showing it to Penny he asked, “Why does this have a hair clip on it?”

Penny chuckled, and using a hoof pulled some of her mane aside, revealing a pair of mane clips firmly attached to the base of her mane near her left ear. “It’s so that we can clip them to our manes. The clip attachment has a spell on it that makes it so that it can’t easily fall off or be taken by someone if you don’t want them to. A lot of ponies carry things in their manes using these special mane clips. Even though you can’t really carry anything overly bulky or heavy like a large money bag with them, for something like this, they work pretty well.”

“But what if you don’t have a long enough mane for it?” asked Allen curiously as he continued to turn it over and inspect it.

“There are other ways. I’ve seen ponies wear them as necklaces, bracelets, earrings, clip them to their wings or wear them like a horn ring. Some just wear a vest or harness all the time and affix them there. It really just depends on the pony, but for most, wearing them in our manes works just fine.”

Allen gave a nod of understanding. “I see, well for a people that don’t wear a lot of clothing with pockets, I guess that works just about as well as anything else. You say there’s a spell on it to make it harder for people to steal?” he asked as he put it away in his pocket.

“Sure is. The standard charm is usually good enough for most ponies, but I know a few that go and have stronger ones put on.”

“Huh, interesting,” he replied as he looked through a couple of the papers in a folder that Balance had given to him after they had finished setting up his accounts. “So if someone stole this disk from me, would they be able to take all my money out of my account?”

Penny shook her head. “No, not really. Most banks and money lenders are very careful about withdrawing money out of a ponies account if the pony making the request isn’t the same as the one on their records. That’s not to say there aren’t unscrupulous ponies out there that won’t, but generally, it doesn’t happen, and if it does the bank will compensate you for the lost bits.”

“So then why steal them in the first place?”

“For a variety of reasons. Usually, it’s for the materials that the disk is made of, as there are several rare elements that are required to make them. Plus, rich ponies like to have theirs look fancy, and so they have them made from more precious materials than your standard identification disk. That tends to make them more of a target. Others might steal it from you and try to demand a ransom in exchange for its return, and of course, you might have a thief that thinks they can use it to rob your bank account. Whether they succeed or not is another matter, and in any case, those kinds of criminals tend to get caught pretty quickly.”

“Interesting, back in my world, it's a lot easier for someone to steal your identity and make your life difficult,” replied Allen.

“Well, I doubt you’ll have to worry about that here. A lot of our means of identification tend to revolve around our magical signatures, and faking that is nearly impossible. It also helps that most ponies tend to stay close to home and that means most people know each other fairly well so that if somepony did try and impersonate another, they would be found out eventually.”

“Well, I guess that explains why they made me hold my hand to that weird crystal plate like that when they made this thing,” remarked Allen as he thought back to earlier.

“Yep, that would be a magical signature scanner. They used that to imprint your magical signature to your account disk. It’s a new feature that they started doing a couple of years ago. From my understanding, it’s made it all but impossible for a pony to use a stolen disk that has that feature on it.”

“Well, that’s good to know, hopefully, I won’t have any problems with it,” he replied.

Cocking her head to one side, Penny asked, “And why would you have any trouble with it?”

Allen shrugged. “I am still getting used to magic. My world doesn’t have a lot of magic in it. At least that’s what the medical ponies over at the hospital think. So I’m wondering if my magical signature will change over time. Right now I need to be careful as my thaumic pathways are still really weak.”

“I don’t think you’ll have any issues. Once your magical signature develops, then it doesn’t change. Even if you’ve been in a low magical environment for a long time. So, as long as you have some magic coursing through you, your signature shouldn’t change. All that will happen is that it will just get easier to read as time goes on.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” replied Allen as he and Penny stopped next to the fountain in front of the bank. Looking around, Allen asked, “Alright, so you’ve got your bank account set up, and I’ve got both of mine done, plus you’ve deposited the money that Prince Blueblood gave you for my personal account, along with that check for my business account, which should clear in the next couple of days. So, what’s next?”

Turning to look at Allen, Penny replied, “Well, I’m heading to the town hall to get my living arrangements taken care of, as well as seeing about finding a place to set up my new office. In the meantime, why don’t you have a look around town? Maybe meet some new ponies or check out the shops? You did get some bits for yourself didn’t you?”

Allen nodded as he pulled out his wallet, shaking it slightly causing the coins inside to jingle happily. Thankfully, the standard one-bit Equestrian coin was only slightly larger and thicker than a U.S. quarter, so he’d been able to withdraw a comfortable amount. Though he was going to look into seeing if they could give him some paper currency going forward in addition to the metal coins or perhaps find a coin bag to put them in, as his wallet could only hold about thirty coins, and that was if he really stuffed them in there. In this case, he’d only withdrawn twenty as he didn’t want to risk rupturing his wallet by overstuffing it.

Carrying that around all the time isn’t going to be good for my back, Though Allen to himself, Maybe I should see if I can find my old bookbag and use that to carry that stuff around in, he mentally shrugged to himself, couldn’t hurt.

Outwardly he replied, “Yeah, managed to fit about twenty in my wallet here, but I think I’m going to need to find something a bit bigger if I want to carry more coins with me.”

Penny nodded in agreement at seeing the stuffed wallet. “Maybe you could go and look around while you’re in town and see if anypony is selling bit bags?”

Looking around at the crowded market place, Allen slowly nodded. “Couldn’t hurt to have a quick look around while I’m here,” looking back at Penny he asked, “You gonna be able to find your way back to my place without me? I’m not planning on staying in town for much longer.”

“I should be alright,” she replied, “shouldn’t take me more than a few hours, so I should be back before it gets dark out, and don’t worry about making me anything for dinner. I’ll get something to eat before I return tonight, as I don’t want you waiting for me in case things take longer than I expect,” she said with a smile.

“Alright, suit yourself,” replied Allen, a small smile on his face, “see you later then.”

“Take care,” she replied with a wave of her hoof before then turning and trotting off in the direction of the town hall, leaving Allen alone.

Looking around, he took a deep breath and set off in search of a bigger wallet. Alright, let’s see what this town has to offer.

Author's Notes:

Well, this chapter is both longer and took me longer to write than I wanted it to. The first part is that I just can't help myself and go on world-building tangents. As for the second part, well let's just say that 2020 decided to make December the month that it used to catch up on all the crap that it missed giving me for the year.

I work in logistics, and with the holidays, we tend to get really busy around that time of the year. Plus my manager was out of the office for three weeks helping keep another office afloat due to mismanagement. And while he was out, one of my co-workers quit, right before Christmas, so we were short-staffed, which meant we had to work about an extra ten hours more than we usually do that week to make up for him being gone.

Then when my boss came back, he inadvertently gave me covid, which was the cherry on top of my craptasic sunday of a month, so I've been dealing with that since just after Christmas, so that's been fun. I had hoped I could get this chapter out before the end of the year, but sadly, I didn't have the energy to really work on it like I wanted to, so it had to wait.

Thankfully, my covid was very mild, and other than some chest congestion and a cough, I'm fever free and ready to go back to work. So that's nice.

In any case, I hope everyone is staying safe and that you have a good week. See you guys in the next chapter.

Chapter 25 (Let's Go Shopping)

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Chapter 25

Wow, there’s a lot more to buy here than I imagined, thought Allen to himself as he strode casually through the market square after having separated from Penny in front of the bank. His eyes wandered from stall to stall and their contents, while his ears picked up the shouts of the local merchants hawking their wares to the general public in an attempt to catch their attention.

Looking around, Allen tried to see if he could spot any stalls that might be selling what he was searching for, a bigger wallet. Not seeing anything, he picked a random direction and continued on.

“Geez, this place has got just about everything,” he muttered to himself as he walked down another row of stalls. Passing a stall full of pots and pans, he turned and spotted another one selling fresh produce, while next to it, a pony was selling rugs and throw pillows. The sights, sounds, and smells were nearly overpowering to him as he wove his way through the large crowds of ponies. Coming to a stop at the end of the row, he looked left, then right, then left again trying to decide which way to go. Giving a shrug, he turned left and ventured deeper into the market.

He was just passing another produce stand when he heard someone calling out his name behind him. Turning, he spotted a familiar pale indigo pegasus trotting up behind him, a happy smile on her face.

“Hey, Allen!” called Cloud Kicker as she came to a stop, “How’s it going?”

Allen shrugged. “Getting by,” he replied simply.

Cloud Kicker laughed. “Yeah, I know the feeling, heard you were in the hospital for a while.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, turns out my thaumic pathways and appendix were too small and weak to handle the amount of mana that was being pumped into my system from the vaccines they were giving me, and I had a bad reaction. Thankfully, it was fixable, and the doctors said I should be fine in a few weeks, but I need to watch what I eat and not overexert myself.”

“Oh wow, I heard that you weren’t feeling good, but I didn't realize that it was that bad. I’m glad to see you’re doing better though,” she replied.

“Yeah, me too,” replied Allen whole heartily. “Say,” he said, suddenly remembering what he was here to do, “you wouldn’t happen to know where a fella can get a bigger bit bag around here would you? My wallet isn’t really designed to hold a lot of coins,” he said as he pulled his wallet out for emphasis.

Cloud Kicker rubbed her chin thoughtfully for a moment before replying with a nod, “Yeah, I think Coin Purse has a stall nearby. She should be in the market today, if you want I can take you there.”

“That’d be great, thanks,” replied Allen, happy that he wouldn’t be stuck wandering the market aimlessly for hours in search of a bigger coin bag.

Giving Allen a happy nod in return, Cloud Kicker quickly set off at a light trot, with Allen falling in alongside, his long legs making it easier for him to keep pace with her.

Looking around the market, Allen commented, “You know, since I’ve been here, I’ve noticed that there are a lot more mares walking around then stallions in this town.”

Cloud nodded. “Ponyville isn’t very far from Canterlot, and the train can make the journey in about forty minutes, though, if you’re a strong flyer, you can cut that time in half. A lot of ponies live here in Ponyville, but commute to work in Canterlot because the cost of living is so much cheaper here. That’s why you’ll see more mares running around during the day than stallions.”

“Ah, cause their husbands are at work, or they themselves are off work for the day,” said Allen, understanding dawning on his face. “That makes sense. So what do they do?”

Cloud gave a shrug with her wings. “I know a large portion of them are in the Royal Guard and will work three or four days a week depending on the month. Though there are a lot of ponies who work for nobles and the princesses as serving staff and bureaucrats.”

“Must get pretty hectic at the station in the morning and evening when everyone comes home,” commented Allen.

“It can, but Ponyville has a special commuter train that gets priority for morning traffic up to Canterlot, so it’s not too bad,” replied Cloud casually. Spreading her wings slightly, she continued, “Though I usually just fly there myself, unless the weather is bad of course.”

Looking down at her wings, Allen said, “Must be nice being able to just skip all the traffic whenever you want. Me? I’m stuck walking.”

Cloud smiled. “Yeah, they have their pluses, but let me tell you something, they have their downsides, molting is not fun,” she ruffled her wings as a phantom itch raced up her wings.

Allen hummed in response. “Guess I never really thought about that. Do you guys have hollow bones like birds do?”

Cloud shook her head. “Naw, they’re just as solid as anypony else’s. Though earth ponies do have stronger bones and muscles than pegasi or unicorns, it comes from the way the magic in our bodies works. In pegasi, it makes us lighter and gives our wings more lift so that way we can fly. In earth ponies, and to a lesser extent unicorns, it gives them increased durability. Though we pegasi are pretty tough too, I mean, if you’d seen some of Rainbow’s crashes, you would wonder how that mare hasn’t killed herself yet.”

“You know Rainbow Dash?”

Cloud Kicker nodded. “Yeah, I’ve known her since flight school. How do you know about her?”

Allen shrugged. “Twilight mentioned her at my ‘Welcome to Equestria, glad you’re feeling better, sorry that you were kidnapped by a crazy god’ party that Pinkie Pie threw for me the other day.”

“Ah, okay, yeah that makes sense, but yeah, Rainbow and I go way back. She helped me train for when I went to West Hoof and became a Royal Guard.”

“Right, you’re a lieutenant aren’t you? I’d forgotten about that,” replied Allen with a look of recognition on his face.

“Well, I’m a reservist now, and the assistant manager of the weather team-”

“Weather team? What’s that?” cut in Allen suddenly.

Cloud Kicker came to a stop and gave Allen a quizzical look. “What do you mean? It’s a team of pegasi that manage the local weather.”

Now it was Allen’s turn to look confused. “What?” was all he could say.

“Wait,” replied Cloud Kicker, a sudden look of understanding on her face, “do you mean to tell me that in your world, you don’t manage the weather?”

Allen slowly shook his head. “Not really no, well I mean unless you believe in the conspiracy theories about the government secretly manipulating the weather with chemical trails in the sky, satellites, and whatnot. But other than that, not to the best of my knowledge have humans been able to manipulate the weather on any kind of scale that would be meaningful. Are you saying that you guys can?”

Cloud Kicker gave a smug nod. “Sure do, and I help make it happen!”

Allen shook his head in amazement. “You’ll have to forgive me, but that just seems a little out there for me to wrap my head around. I mean, how can you control the entire world’s weather systems in a way that doesn’t cause more harm than good?”

Cloud Kicker waggled a hoof back and forth in a ‘so-so’ gesture and said, “Well, we don’t control the world's weather systems, more like, guide them to do what we want on the macro scale of things. Though at the local level we can most definitely manage it to a highly precise degree.”

“So you can make it rain whenever you want?” pressed Allen.

Cloud gave a wing shrug. “Not exactly. Cloudsdale provides the majority of the manufactured weather in this part of the country, and they can only produce so much at any given time. So it’s up to each local weather team to collect data on local conditions and figure out how much moisture they will need for a given time period. Once they’ve got a good idea, then they can build a weather schedule and send it to Cloudsdale for approval, after which, if it’s accepted, they’ll receive scheduled shipments of weather for their needs. Now that’s not to say that wild weather doesn’t happen from time to time, I mean, we do live right next to the Everfree Forest, and that weather can get prettywild when it wants to, but on the whole, we have to send in a request for weather from Cloudsdale weeks in advance. So there’s a lot of pressure on the local weather manager to make sure they get the numbers right, because if they don’t then they might have either too much or too little rain for a given period of time, and neither one is a good thing to have on your record.”

“Wow,” said Allen, an incredulous expression on his face at the idea that the ponies could micromanage their weather that precisely. “That’s... I don’t even have a word to describe it.”

Cloud Kicker buffed a hoof against her chest fluff and smugly replied, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Equestrian weather management is the best in the world, it’s one of the reasons that our agricultural sector does as well as it does.”

“I’ll say, being able to basically have rain on demand is something I wish we could have had back home,” lamented Allen.

“Well, it’s a lot of work, and when something does go wrong, somepony catches tartarus for it, but when it works, it works really well.”

“So do I have to sign up for that or what?” asked Allen curiously.

Cloud Kicker shook her head. “Naw, you should already be covered thanks to your farm being located right next to the Apple’s. Shouldn’t be too difficult to stretch the cloud cover to give your fields some water, and if not, then I’m sure Rainbow can call in some favors and get you the water you need, and if that doesn’t work, then we can wrangle some wild clouds and compress them together to get them to rain. It’s not as effective as using manufactured rainclouds, but in a pinch it gets the job done.”

Cocking his head to one side, Allen asked, “Why would Rainbow be requisitioning weather? Is she part of the weather team too? Wouldn’t your manager be the one to do that?”

Cloud giggled. “Rainbow is the weather manager for Ponyville. I doubt you could find a better cloudbuster this side of Cloudsdale. Sure Rainbow has a hard time with doing paperwork and stuff, but that’s why I’m here, to make sure she gets her weather requests done on time and correctly. Though usually, I’m the one filling them out, but I guess that’ll just make it easier for me to take her place when she joins the Wonderbolts... if she ever does, but that’s another story for another ti-, are you okay?” she asked suddenly, as Allen looked like he’d bitten into a sour lemon.

“Rainbow’s the weather manager?” he asked weakly.

“Yeah, is that a problem?” asked Cloud Kicker quizzically.

Biting his bottom lip, Allen looked around and bent down so that his face was level with Cloud’s and quietly explained, “Well, it might turn into a problem.”

“And why is that? Did you do something to tick Rainbow off?”

“Not directly no, but according to Twilight, when that Discord guy brought me here, he plopped part of my farm on top of Applejack’s, and apparently, she’s not too happy about that.”

“Okay, so Applejack is mad, how does that affect you and Rainbow?” she asked.

“Well, I’m guessing that the part of Applejack’s farm that my farm sits on was really special to her family and since she can’t take her anger out on the asshat who is ultimately responsible, she’s turned that anger on me.”

“Still not seeing the Rainbow connection,” said Cloud, a frustrated look on her face.

“I’m getting to that,” snapped Allen, “so anyways, when Twilight told me about how Applejack was upset with me, she mentioned that Rainbow and Applejack are really close friends and that if somebody messed with her friend, Rainbow would take it personally, are you getting it now?”

Cloud’s expression quickly shifted from frustration to understanding and she slowly nodded. “Yeah, I can see why you would be a little concerned. I’m assuming you haven’t met Rainbow in person yet?”

Allen shook his head. “No, and to be honest, I’d rather avoid that little confrontation for as long as possible. The last thing I want is to wake up one morning and find my crops flooded out or a tornado ripping through my yard.”

“Okay, first of all, that would be both illegal and unethical, and Rainbow knows that if she did that she’d lose her weather license, and quite possibly her shot at getting into the Wonderbolts. Secondly, while it’s true that Rainbow can be brash at times and run her mouth when she shouldn’t when she’s on the clock and it matters, she’s all professional... well most of the time anyway,” she said quietly, though not quietly enough as Allen heard her.

“Most of the time? Somehow that doesn’t reassure me,” commented Allen skeptically.

Sighing Cloud replied, “Everypony has their quirks, and Rainbow’s is that so long as something gets done on time and done right, then that’s all that matters. She’s been known to take naps on the job every once in a while, but she knows that ponies depend on the weather team doing things right to keep their lives running smoothly. She knows that if she purposely screwed something up to hurt someone's livelihood, then not only would her reputation be ruined, but the weather teams as well, and Rainbow would never do that to her team.”

“But she still sleeps on the job? Doesn’t sound like she cares that much about professionalism if she’s doing that all the time.”

Cloud let loose a grumble. “She’s not as bad as she used to be, but old habits die hard I guess,” Cloud took a deep breath and let it out as a long-suffering sigh, “From what I heard, when she first started in Ponyville as a rookie cloud pusher, she nearly got fired because she took a nap and didn’t get some rain clouds moved to where they needed to be on time. Consequently, they let loose their moisture over the mayor’s inauguration and it was rained out. Needless to say, the mayor wasn’t happy about it, and complained to the weather manager at the time.”

“Still not really helping your friend's case there, Cloud,” remarked Allen dryly.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t done dumb things or overestimated your abilites at one time or another. Back then, she was a cocky rookie straight out of the Cloudsdale Weather Academy, and thought she could do what she pleased, when she pleased, because she thought that she was a, and I quote, ‘Super awesome, and unbeatable weather pony’. The old weather manager, Hazy Days, after getting chewed out by the mayor, quickly set her straight. She’s been getting better, though some of her bad habits show up from time to time.”

“So how long have you known Rainbow then?” asked Allen as he and Cloud resumed their walk.

“A long time, like I said, I met her back in flight school just after she started, and even though I was five years older than her, we became good friends, and we kept in touch through letters when I went off to West Hoof after I graduated flight school.”

“Kinda strange that you’d want to hang around what sounds like a freshman when it sounds like you were a senior at the time,” commented Allen.

“I was actually a junior that year, I graduated the following year, and at first I didn’t want to be around her, she was loud, obnoxious and a brat, and I couldn’t stand being around her. However, she was having problems flying, and my teacher asked me if I would mentor her after school and help her with her homework assignments. I reluctantly agreed, mainly because he offered to give me extra credit in exchange for me mentoring Rainbow. I knew I needed to get good grades to be accepted into West Hoof, so I figured I could tolerate the inconvenience. Looking back, doing that for Rainbow really helped me out when I went into the guard, as unlike other recruits, I already had plenty of practice dealing with stubborn ponies who acted like foals when they didn’t get their way.”

Allen chuckled. “Yeah, kids can really try your patience at times, I remember that pretty well myself with my sister when she was younger.”

Cloud Kicker’s ears perked up and she said with a smile, “Heh, yeah, thankfully my little sister and brother weren’t that bad when we were growing up, but that’s probably because my parents wouldn’t tolerate any kind of misbehavior in our house. Guess that comes from having parents who are in the military.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, I know that feeling, my dad was in the army for a couple years before he met my mom, and both of my grandfathers were in the military. So there was plenty of discipline to go around if you misbehaved. Plus, mom was old school when it came to discipline, you misbehave, and you risked getting swatted on the back of the head or rear.”

Cloud snickered. “Oh I know that all too well. Thankfully, my younger self was a quick learner, so my parents didn’t really need to knock much sense into me.”

“Hehe, I wish I could say the same, but eventually they managed to knock some sense into me,” chuckled Allen in reply. Looking around, he asked, “So where is this friend of yours?”

Cloud suddenly spread her wings and leaped into the air, pumping them hard to quickly gain some altitude, and coming to a hover about twenty feet off the ground. Spinning in place, she looked out over the sea of ponies and merchant stalls before then pointing in one direction, “I think I see her stall over there, come on,” she said as she touched down next to Allen and trotted off, while Allen quickly fell in alongside her.

After several twists and turns in the maze of vendor stalls, they arrived in front of their destination. Various accessories from purses, to coin bags and even a few vests and harnesses hung from pegs and were laid out on the table. A small, one pony cart sat behind the stand and was piled high with materials, boxes, and tools. Finally, Allen turned his attention to the earth pony mare sitting behind the counter. She was a light tan, with a chocolate-colored mane and tail and her mahogany eyes twinkled in anticipation of a potential sale as she looked up at Allen from her stall.

Putting on her best friendly smile, she threw her hooves open wide and proudly declared, “Welcome to Coin Purse’s Accessory Emporium! We’ve got everything you need to keep your bits and valuables safe while you travel! What can I help you with today? Oh! Hi, Cloud Kicker! How are you doing?” she said suddenly, having just spotted Cloud Kicker at Allen’s side.

Cloud chuckled. “Hey Coin, I’m doing alright, but my friend here could use a bigger bit bag, his wallet wasn’t really made to hold Equestrian coins.”

Allen pulled out said wallet and presented it to Coin. “Yeah, back home we don’t really use coins for big purchases anymore, so I can’t really fit a lot of bits in here without the risk of it bursting. Besides, it’s probably time to retire the old girl anyways, her seams are starting to split and fray from age.”

Taking his wallet in her hooves, Coin Purse looked it over with a critical eye, and nodded, “Yeah, it looks like it’s about done for,” she cocked her head to one side and asked, “is this made out of actual leather?”

Allen, a little worried about how she would react to his answer, hesitantly replied, “Yeah, it’s cow leather, I think.”

Coin turned it over a couple more times in her hooves, being sure to inspect it from every angle before saying, “Hmm, and would I be correct in assuming that this came from a cow in your world?”

Allen nodded, not surprised that she knew he wasn’t from Equestria by this point.

“Hmm, well then whoever made this did a really crappy job of putting it together, if you want, I can try to repair and reinforce it for you. The rest of the wallet’s in good shape, save for some wear along the corners and edges, but that shouldn’t be too hard for me to fix. Honestly, it would just be wasteful to throw this much good leather away when so much of it is in decent condition, especially when an animal gave its life to make it,” she remarked as she set it down and looked up at Allen.

“Well... unless you can make it so that I can carry more bits with it, I’m not sure it would be worth fixing up just for the sake of fixing,” replied Allen, an unsure look on his face as he shifted uneasily back and forth in place.

Coin hummed and nodded, a slightly distracted look on her face as she thought about something. “I suppose that’s true, still...”

“Maybe you could buy it off Allen and use the material for something else?” suggested Cloud Kicker.

Coin hummed again, her distracted look having morphed into one of thoughtful concentration. Finally, she nodded her head and said, “Sure, why not? I’m always looking to buy materials, and I haven’t really had a chance to work with genuine cow leather in a while, so sure, I can give you a say... ten-bit discount towards your next purchase?”

Allen glanced at the price tags on display and thought about it. Finally, he nodded, “I think that’s fair,” he said as he held out his hand to seal the deal.

Taking his proffered hand with a hoof, they shook on it. Emptying the contents of Allen’s wallet into a small lockbox for temporary storage, Coin asked Allen what he was looking to buy.

“So what are you looking for then?” she asked.

Glancing over everything that she had, Allen shook his head and replied, “I don’t know, I like being able to keep things like my ID card in the little slots that my wallet has, but I still need to be able to carry around enough coins for my daily needs without them weighing on my belt or being easily stolen.”

Coin nodded and pulled out a couple of different bags from under her counter for Allen to look over.

“Well, I’ve got these satchel bags here, they’re pretty popular among my non-pony customers, as they can be easily customized for each individual customer's needs,” she explained as she held one out for Allen to look over.

Taking it in hand, he turned it over inspecting it closely. It looked to be made of some sort of heavy-duty canvas-like material that was dyed a light earthy green, with a silver-colored latch keeping the bag's flap closed. Undoing the latch, Allen peered inside and found a smaller rectangular pouch sewn onto the backside of the bag with its own smaller silver latch. Undoing that one as well, he could see that there were slots for a person to store cards of varying sizes and shapes, along with a silver money clip for paper currency.

Closing the small card pouch, he turned his attention back to the main pouch, sticking his hand inside, he felt around and along the seams and found that the stitching was quite strong, looking up at Coin, he saw that she had a satisfied looking smirk on her face.

“Looks pretty well made here,” he commented.

“Naturally,” she replied confidently, “all of my bags are made by hoof and I challenge you to find a better one anywhere in Ponyville or for that matter Canterlot.”

Motioning for him to give her the bag, she explained, “This bag is made from only the best steelhemp on the market, guaranteed not to rip, tear or wear out or your money back!”

Allen blinked. “Steelhemp, what kind of plant is that?”

“It’s only the strongest plant fiber on the market today!” declared Coin Purse happily.

Seeing Allen give her a skeptical look, she explained, “It a subspecies of regular hemp that is grown in the hoofhills of the Macintosh Mountains. There’s a lot of iron and tungsten in the soil down there, and the local farmers, with help from some unicorns at the University of Baltimare, managed to breed this strain of hemp to soak up the minerals in the soil to make the fibers really strong. Unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to grow it, and it will only grow in certain spots, so there isn’t a lot to go around, which makes it kinda pricey. However, once the fibers have dried, only diamond and mithril tools can cut it. Plus its fire-resistant up to around eight hundred degrees marenheit!”

“Eight hundred degrees?” asked Allen with a raised eyebrow.

Coin replied, a defensive look on her face. “Well at the end of the day it is a plant, can’t expect it to take the kind of temperatures that regular steel and tungsten metals can take.”

Still giving her a skeptical look, Allen asked, “So anything else about this bag here that’s special?”

Coin nodded, happy to be back to giving Allen her sales pitch. “You bet! The latches can be engraved with security runes that will make it very difficult for somepony to get into, plus, since the straps are made out of steelhemp, you won’t have to worry about somepony cutting the strap and taking the whole bag! Additionally, the bag has a featherweight charm built into it, so you won’t get fatigued from having it on you all day, and for an extra fifty bits, I can have an internal expansion charm placed on it, which will effectively double the number of things you can put in it!”

“So how much would this all cost?” asked Allen, an unconvinced look on his face as he thought about the final price tag.

Feeling as though she were about to make a sale, Coin proudly stated, “If we included the extra spellwork and engraving, the final price would be eleven hundred and forty bits, and that includes the store credit I gave you,” she added at the end.

“Eleven hundred and forty bits, huh?” replied Allen, as he rubbed his chin, an unsure expression on his face.

“Yep!” replied Coin happily.

Sucking on one of his teeth, Allen looked over the other bags that were on display and asked, “I don’t know, what do you think Cloud Kicker?”

Giving Coin an unamused look, she reached up and grabbed a similar-looking canvas satchel, this one colored dark khaki, and said, “Here, this should be all that you need right now.”

Taking the bag in his hands, Allen noted that it was similarly designed to the first satchel, except that it wasn’t made of steelhemp fiber and didn’t have a silver latch, but a brass one, and that there were already runes carved into it. Peering inside, he found the same was true with the internal pouch’s latch as well. Giving the bag and shoulder strap a couple of test yanks, he slipped it over his head so that the strap lay diagonally across his chest, and adjusted it slightly until it rode how he liked it. After walking around for a minute he gave a satisfied nod and said, “I’ll take this one, how much?”

Shooting a pouty look at Cloud Kicker for ruining her sales pitch, Coin Purse unenthusiastically replied, “With the discount, your total comes to twenty bits.”

Placing the bits on the counter, and putting his things in his new bag, Allen said, “If it’s any consolation, you gave a good sales pitch back there.”

Sighing in defeat, Coin replied, “Thanks, and sorry for trying to upsell you like that. I’ve been trying to get rid of that bag for months now, but unless I go to Canterlot or Manehatten, I doubt I’ll find anypony around here that needs a bag with that kind of security on it.”

Nodding in agreement, Cloud Kicker chimed in. “Well, you should have thought of that before you spent all those bits on the materials and tools to make it.”

“Well how was I supposed to know that getting a market stall to sell in Canterlot would be so damn expensive! I mean, they’re charging ten times the amount for a stall space up there in comparison to down here, and that's for one of the bad spots!” she whined, her ears pinned back against her mane and a frustrated look on her face.

Cloud shrugged indifferently. “Should have thought of that first there Coin, not my fault you put the cart before the pony.”

Hanging her head in defeat, she moaned out, “I know, but I took out a loan to pay for several bolts of that steelhemp, and now I can’t move it!”

Watching the two go back and forth for a minute, Allen interjected, “Then why not sell it to someone else then? Sure you might not be able to get all your bits back, but you should be able to recoup the majority of it.”

“I already tried that, the DOTI wouldn’t let me,” she replied with a pout.

“Why?” asked Allen puzzled.

Rolling her eyes and letting loose an irritated huff, Coin replied, “Because I don’t have a wholesalers permit that’s why, and the cost to get one would be too expensive for it to be worth doing. The best I can do right now is just hold onto it until I can save up enough money to rent a stall in one of the big cities and hope that I can drum up enough interest in it.”

Picking up the steelhemp bag in his hands, Allen ran his hands over the material and thought for a bit, after a few seconds, he felt an idea form in his head.

“Have you ever thought about marketing this stuff to businesses directly?” he asked.

Coin shot him a quizzical look. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, you say that this stuff is pretty much impervious to being cut by anything save diamond and mythril, and is pretty well fireproof, so why not look around and see if any of the local businesses that might be interested in using it. I mean, you could pitch it as a way to reduce burns and cuts in the kitchen or market it to a blacksmith as a lighter, more breathable material for their protective equipment, than say leather or whatever they’re currently using. I don’t know, I’m just throwing ideas out there,” replied Allen with a wave of his arms.

Coin Purse stared at Allen, her mouth hanging open slightly. “I...” she began, “can’t believe I didn’t think of that. That’s... genius!” she happily exclaimed as her eyes lit up in excitement. “This opens up so many possibilities now! Thank you, thank you!” she cried as she quickly began packing up her stall and haphazardly throwing her things into her cart. “I’ll need to do some research, but I have a good idea on where to start, and who knows? Maybe I can finally afford my own shop after this!” she squealed in excitement and did a cute little dance of happiness.

Allen simply chuckled at her reaction and shook his head as he and Cloud watched Coin pack her things up. Slipping between the shafts of her cart, she quickly got herself hitched up. Fasting the last strap in place, she glanced up at Allen and said, “I know I’ve already said it, but I’ll say it again, thank you so much.”

Allen waved her thanks away. “No biggie, you’d probably have come up with the idea yourself at some point,” he replied modestly.

Coin Purse shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not, regardless you’ve given me a great lead to follow and if it pans out, then I might just be able to open my own shop! In anycase, I better get going, I’ve got a lot of ground to cover and research to do, you two take care!” she said as she quickly trotted away.

“Good luck,” replied Allen with a wave as he and Cloud watched Coin disappear amongst the other market-goers.

Turning to Cloud, Allen said, “Welp, looks like I got what I needed, thanks for your help by the way.”

Cloud smiled up at him. “No problem, Coin means well, but she has a bad habit of upselling things that most ponies don’t want or need.”

Allen pursed his lips. “So like every other salesperson out there?”

Cloud chuckled. “Yep, pretty much. So what are you planning on doing now?” she asked.

“Probably go home, I got what I needed, and I’m out of money, so no point hanging around town when there’s work to be done at home,” he replied with a shrug.

“You don’t want to go and speak with Rainbow or Applejack and try and clear the air first?”

Allen looked like he’d bitten into a sour lemon. “I think I’ll pass for now. Might be better if they had a little more time to cool off before I go and make it worse.”

“You can’t avoid them forever,” replied Cloud Kicker, a serious expression on her face.

Allen nodded, a frustrated look on his face. “Yeah, I know, I know. I just don’t want to deal with their potential crap right now.”

Cloud Kicker suddenly got a thoughtful look on her face. “Would you be willing to talk with them if you had somepony there to back you up?”

“That’d probably help,” replied Allen with a nod, “are you offering to be my wingma... er wingmare for this meet?”

Shooting him a sly grin she replied, “I think I might be free.”

Taking a deep breath, Allen licked his lips nervously.

Sensing he wasn’t totally convinced, Cloud upped the ante. “Tell you what, I’ll go ahead of you and talk to them first, see if I can figure out how they’re feeling right now. Then I’ll come and get you, sound good?”

Sighing Allen reluctantly nodded. “Alright, but I’m not gonna talk to them tonight.”

“Alright then, I’ll talk to them tonight, and get their side of things, maybe even smooth out some of their ruffled feathers in the process, and set up some ground rules for when you three meet. Then you can speak with them tomorrow, sound like a plan?” she asked, a hopeful look on her face that Allen would go along with the idea. As, in Cloud Kicker’s mind, letting this potential feud between Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Allen continue, without clearing the air quickly, would only make things worse in the long run.

Heaving another long-suffering sigh, Allen hesitantly nodded. “Alright, we’ll do it your way. You know where I live, so you can swing by and let me know how things went along with when and where this meeting will take place.”

Cloud gave a firm nod. “Okay then, shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll let you know how it went, and where we’ll meet.”

Adjusting his satchel slightly, Allen gave a shallow nod and waving goodbye said, “Alright, guess I’ll see you later this evening, good luck.”

Returning his wave with one of her own, Cloud Kicker quickly launched herself into the air with a powerful flap of her wings. Catching a weak thermal, she circled higher over Ponyville in search of her quarry.

Hopefully those two won’t kick up a fuss and we can all put this mess behind us. Spotting her first target, she angled her wings and made a beeline for Applejack’s stall. Though who am I kidding? Those two dunderheads will make me drag them kicking and screaming all the way. Shaking her head, she quickly came in for a landing in front of Applejack’s stall.

Touching down with a perfect four-point landing, and hardly a whiff of dust kicked up from her wings, she gave a friendly greeting. “Hello Applejack.”

“Hey, Cloud Kicker, what brings you by?” replied the farm mare, a happy smile on her face.

Taking a deep breath and bracing herself for the confrontation to come, Cloud Kicker fixed her friend with a serious look and said, “Applejack, we need to talk.”

Chapter 26 (Think Before You Act)

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Chapter 26

“Applejack, we need to talk.”

Applejack’s smile slowly faded as Cloud Kicker’s words hung heavy in the air between them. Licking her lips, she slowly nodded, a serious expression on her face as she asked, “Alright, whatcha need to talk ta me about?”

Taking a deep breath, Cloud stepped up to Applejack’s fruit stall and said, “I wanted to speak with you and see how you were doing since the... Discord incident. I’ve heard that you’ve been taking it pretty hard, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

Applejack blinked, surprised by the sudden turn the conversation had taken, as she had been fearing that she’d done something to upset Cloud. Letting go a relieved sigh, she chuckled and gave Cloud Kicker a happy smile. “Ah shoot, Cloud, ya had me worried there fer a moment, thought I’d done something to offend ya. What with you coming up ta me all serious looking like that.” Leaning a foreleg on her countertop, she breezily replied, “But guess I just read ya wrong there fer a moment. Sorry bout that,” when Cloud gave a nod of acceptance, Applejack continued, “but naw, I’m doing alright, all things considered.”

Now it was Cloud’s turn to blink in confusion. Though after a moment, she narrowed her eyes at Applejack and replied seriously, “That’s not what I’ve heard lately.”

Her smile vanishing like a droplet of water on a hot skillet, Applejack quickly straightened up and brusquely said, “Well then maybe ya aught ta tell me what it is ya heard about me rather than beating around the bushes like ya are.”

Nodding, the pegasus replied, “I heard that you were upset with our newest resident human, because of what Discord did to your farm, and that Rainbow might cause problems for him on your behalf. Now, you and I know how she can get when she feels one of her friends has been hurt, and I don’t want this getting out of hoof, so I’m here on behalf of Allen to try and figure out what’s going on and to head off this potential trainwreck before it leaves the station.”

Applejack stood there jaw agape in shock. “Y-ya think that I’m sore at him, and that I’m gonna set Rainbow on him like some kind of attack dog?! I ain’t even met the feller yet, and yer saying he’s already accusing me and Rainbow of making trouble for him?! Why I oughta buck him inta next week!” she said, her expression livid and face red with anger.

Sensing that she hadn’t chosen her words with as much care as she could have, Cloud hastily waved her hooves in front of her and quickly said, “No! That’s not what happened at all! Allen heard from Twilight at his party that you and Rainbow might be upset with him because of Discord, and that made him concerned about retaliation from you two. So when we were talking earlier today, he told me about what Twilight told him, and I offered to talk to you and get your side of things! He doesn’t want any trouble, he just wants to make sure you and Rainbow aren’t gonna hurt him, that’s all!”

The anger in Applejack’s face had subsided by now and she let loose an irritated huff. “Figures Twilight would go sticking her snout into this. Landsakes, don’t git me wrong, Cloud, I adore that mare, but sometimes she lets her imagination run away thinking about how things can go wrong and ends up making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Seeing that she’d managed to salvage the conversation, Cloud nodded in agreement and replied, “Oh I know, I still remember how she nearly went crazy trying to figure out how Pinkie Pie’s, Pinkie Sense works.” Both mares shuddered at the memory of what poor Twilight went through in her quest to solve the mystery that was Pinkie Pie.

Deciding to quickly move on, Applejack replied, “Right, well in any case, you can go and tell yer friend that he’s got nothing to worry about from me. While I’m beyond angry at what that... varmint Discord did ta mah farm, I know better than to take it out on Allen. Though, he might be right ta be worried bout Rainbow. Bless her heart, but sometimes that mare doesn’t think before she acts.”

“You said it,” replied Cloud Kicker with a long-suffering sigh as she thought back on Rainbow’s... colorful past of shenanigans. “Speaking of her, you wouldn’t happen to know where I could find her, do you?”

“If she ain’t at home, you might try looking in one of my apple trees, fer some reason she’s decided that they make great places to sleep,” replied Applejack after she thought for a moment.

Giving a nod of thanks, Cloud readied herself for takeoff, however before she leapt into the air, she looked back over her withers and asked, “I know that you said that you didn’t have a personal grudge against Allen, but would you be willing to swing by and talk with him tomorrow, with me? It would go a long way, I think, of putting him at ease if you spoke with him directly.”

Sighing, the farm mare nodded and said, “I reckon I can spare a few minutes in the morning. Probably fer the best that I help put the record straight after what Twilight told him. Then I reckon I better go and have a word or two with her about spreading unfounded rumors around town. It’s already bad enough that Rarity does it, I don’t need more ponies gossiping bout things they don’t know anything about as well.”

Giggling, Cloud nodded. “I’ll be sure to let him know to expect you first thing tomorrow morning then. Say, a bit after sunrise?”

“I reckon that’ll be fine,” replied Applejack easily as she tipped her hat back slightly. “Might be a bit late depending on Applebloom, I swear that filly could sleep through a tornado.”

Laughing at the thought, Cloud Kicker said, “Well alright then, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning then,” and with a final wave, she took off into the afternoon sky.

Winging her way over Ponyville, she decided to stop by Rainbow’s cloudominium first. Spotting it in the distance, she adjusted her wings and set course for the floating cloud mansion. Touching down on the front cloud steps, she felt her hooves sink slightly in the cushy cloud material. Glancing around, she noted that Rainbow had been busy adding to her cloudominium since she had last been here.

Looks like she’s added another floor, and some more rainbow pools since I was here last, looks nice, she thought as she admired the romane architecture and flowing rainbow waterfalls. Giving her head a shake, she refocused herself on why she was here and quickly rapped a hoof three times against Rainbow’s front door. She waited for a minute and when Rainbow didn’t respond, she knocked again louder this time. Again, Rainbow failed to appear.

Deciding that she wasn’t home, Cloud took off and made for Sweet Apple Acres, intent on finding her friend before she did something that everyone would regret. Flying just above treetop height, she began looking around for any sign of the rainbow maned mare. Thankfully, due to Rainbow’s colorful coat and mane, she was relatively easy to spot, and today was no exception as, within a few minutes of starting her search over the apple orchard, she spotted Rainbow.

She was perched in a tree on the border with Allen’s property and had a pair of binoculars pressed up against her face as she observed Allen’s farm from a distance.

Guess I was right to worry about that featherbrain doing something dumb, grumbled Cloud to herself as she circled around Rainbow’s tree a few times. Deciding to just get this over with, Cloud came in for a landing next to her friend.

One of Rainbow’s ears swiveled to track Cloud as she approached the branch that she was sitting on, and without taking her eyes away from her binoculars, she said in a somewhat distracted voice, “Hey Cloud, can’t talk right now, kinda busy with a little project of mine.”

“If that project involves causing trouble for Allen, then I’m afraid you’ll have to put that on hold,” replied Cloud, a no-nonsense look on her face.

“And why should I?” replied Rainbow as she finally tore her gaze away from Allen’s farm to glare at Cloud Kicker with a defiant expression.

Cloud returned Rainbow’s defiant glare with a raised eyebrow that said, ‘seriously?’

Letting the binoculars fall from her hooves to rest around her neck, Rainbow crossed her forelegs and pouted. “I wasn’t gonna do anything illegal, just... kinda in the gray area.”

Cloud facehooved. “Rainbow, can you just for once in your life actually think before you do something?”

“Hey!” exclaimed Rainbow, a look of outrage prevalent on her face as she threw her forehooves wide, “I do think about things, alright! He’s got it coming to him! I mean look what he did to AJ’s farm!”

Grabbing Rainbow and pulling her so that they were practically muzzle to muzzle, Cloud ground out. “Allen didn’t do anything to AJ’s farm Rainbow, you and I both know it was Discord that is responsible for this mess!”

Pushing Cloud away, Rainbow fluffed her wings in agitation and shot back, though she didn’t sound as confident this time, “Okay, but how do we know he isn’t working for that monster or something? Doesn’t it seem weird that right after we beat Discord, that this weird alien shows up and just so happens to destroy part of Applejack’s farm, a very important and meaningful part of it, I might add? The one where her parents planted that special tree all those years ago?”

Taking a deep breath to calm and re-center herself, Cloud replied, “Yes, Rainbow, I know what it looks like. However, unlike you, I’ve actually gotten to know Allen a little bit by, you know, talking to him, and he hasn’t said or done one thing to make me feel he’s in league with Discord. If anything, he’s just as angry at Discord for what he did to him as the rest of us, maybe even more so, and before you say that he could be lying to me, I have it on good authority that neither he nor anything on his farm is actively radiating chaos magic. That’s not to say that Discord didn’t bring him here for no reason, but until we have solid evidence otherwise, we need to treat Allen as though he is nothing more than a victim of Discord and his magic, the same as anypony else.”

Rainbow sat sullenly on her part of the tree branch and lashed her tail angrily behind her. Opening her mouth, she made to argue, but Cloud wasn’t having it, putting a hoof up and cutting her off saying, “And before you say that maybe Discord is controlling him or has put a hidden spell on Allen directly, need I remind you what happened during Discord’s short reign when he used his magic on you and your friends? Should we assume that you girls are dangerous now because you might have some sort of hidden spell on you that’ll just randomly activate sometime in the future?”

Rainbow’s head hung low in shame, and she squeaked a quiet, “No.”

Seeing that her words were having an effect on the hot-headed mare, Cloud quickly changed tactics and softened her expression. Opening up her forehooves, she quickly pulled her friend into a hug, even going the extra mile of wrapping her wings around Rainbow. She’d heard what Discord’s spell had done to the bearers, and how it had twisted their elements to be the opposite of what they were supposed to be. Honesty, to dishonesty, kindness, to meanness, generosity to greed, laughter to anger, friendship to estrangement, and in Dash’s case, it had turned her into a traitor to her friends and caused her to abandon them in favor of keeping ‘Cloudsdale’ safe from Discord’s magic. Cloud knew that Rainbow liked to make ponies think that she wasn’t affected by the event, but she knew that it was tearing the prismatic mare up inside to think that she had betrayed her friends and left them hanging when things got tough like she did.

Rubbing a hoof down Rainbow’s back, she quietly waited as Rainbow let some of her frustration and fear out in the form of quiet sobbing. Though if anypony were to ask, Rainbow would just say she was suffering from allergies, and Cloud wouldn’t contradict her.

Giving a final sniff, Rainbow signaled that she was good and Cloud released her from the impromptu hug. Rubbing a hoof over her face to wipe some of the tear tracks away, she gazed morosely out across Allen’s fields and quietly said, “It’s been over a month, and I still have nightmares about it. He came so close to driving all of us apart, if it wasn’t for Princess Celestia sending Twilight all those old friendship reports, then...” she trailed off, though Cloud knew where she was going and internally shuddered at the thought of Discord being permanently in charge.

“But she did, and you and the rest of the bearers beat him,” replied Cloud gently, a soft, encouraging smile on her face, “I know it’s not easy moving on from something like that, Rainbow, but there are ponies out there that are willing to listen and help you work through it.”

Rainbow didn’t reply as she continued to stare at Allen’s farmhouse in the distance, a faraway look on her face.

“Rainbow, look at me please,” asked Cloud gently, like a mother trying to comfort a distressed child.

Turning to face her friend, Cloud could see Rainbow’s eyes had become puffy and red from the crying and it broke her heart to see her normally confident friend being reduced to this. I swear, if I ever get my hooves on that creature, I’ll make him regret ever being born. Cloud angrily thought to herself, however, she didn’t let her inner thoughts show and instead said softly, “You might not think there is nopony out there who will understand what you went through, but you’re wrong. There are at least five others who know exactly what you went through because they went through it too.”

Rainbow’s eyes slowly widened in the realization of what Cloud was saying. Seeing that she was getting through, Cloud pressed her advantage. “I have a friend in the Royal Guard who specializes in helping ponies who have experienced traumatic events while on deployment, she’s very good at what she does and is very discreet. I think you and your friends should go and meet with her, either individually or as a group.”

“I’m not crazy Cloud, I don’t need to see a shrink,” replied Rainbow, an almost angry expression on her face.

Cloud quickly shook her head. “I never said you were, Rainbow, and Clear Mind isn’t a shrink, she’s a counselor. I’ve gone to her myself, and she helped me.”

Rainbow blinked in confusion. “Why would you go and see her?”

Cloud’s expression darkened as memories she’d rather forget resurfaced, and she debated about telling Rainbow about her final deployment to the New Mareland frontier with the Kingdom of Wingbardy. Finally, she decided to give the short version, taking a deep breath, she explained, “It was on my last deployment to New Mareland, before I became a reservist. We had received reports that there had been a large increase in bandit activity along the border with Wingbardy. Command decided to increase the frequency and size of our patrols in an effort to counter the bandits and to help out the local authorities. There was a small village called Pleasant Point that my company was assigned to protect, it was a busy crossing point between New Mareland and Wingbardy and was fairly well off, which made it a prime target for bandits. The local police force was insufficient to cover that section of the river and we were tasked with patrolling it instead. When we first arrived, everything went smoothly, the local ponies and griffons were out and about and very friendly, and they were glad to see us, as it meant that they could sleep easier at night with us there to protect them,” she paused as she gazed up at a passing cloud overhead, more memories flashing through her mind.

“We were there for a couple of weeks, and hadn’t seen any large bandit groups, and the few we did see were quickly taken care of. It was then that somepony in command decided to extend our area of responsibility, probably as a way to cut costs and look good on their next evaluation report, I don’t know. But it meant that we became over-extended as we were only a company, and they wanted us to guard an area that would have required a brigade to properly protect. But, what command wants, command gets, and so we followed our orders and extended our area. Too bad that was what the bandits were waiting for. I wasn’t in Pleasant Point when they attacked, if I had been, I doubt I would be here today, as, by the time we heard that the village was under attack, it was already too late. Every single pony and griffon in that village was killed, along with the ten guardsponies who were assigned to watch the village,” a couple of tears started trickling down her cheeks, “when the main group got back... it was... terrible. Dead bodies everywhere, burned or burning buildings, and the stench, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that stench for as long as I’m alive.”

She sighed, wiping her tears away with a hoof, while Rainbow looked on horrified. “When word got out, a lot of ponies lost their jobs, it was a big scandal, I think a few ponies even ended up being court-martialed over it. In the end, it was decided to increase the number of troops along the border and to change some of the rules of engagement to allow our troops to chase bandits into Wingbardian territory if they were engaged on the New Mareland side of the river first. Wingbardy complained of course, at least until Princess Celestia told them that they could either help us stop the bandit problem or she would assume that they were secretly supporting the bandits and that we would go to war to secure the border. They wisely chose the first option and from what I’ve heard, things are improving over there.”

She sighed, a sad look on her face as she continued to watch the cloud drift further away. “I lost several very good friends that day, ponies that I had been with since basic, and seeing what those bandits did to their bodies and the bodies of the villagers... well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty and leave it at that. When I got back from deployment I was a mess, and if it hadn’t been for Clear Mind, I don’t know where I would have ended up.”

Turning to look at Rainbow, she said with a sad smile, “So that’s why I went to see her.”

“Do... do you still have nightmares about...” asked Rainbow hesitantly.

Cloud nodded sadly. “I’ll probably have nightmares for the rest of my life, but they are not as bad as they used to be, and I don’t have as many. I still visit Clear Mind every so often, especially if I have a bad one, so don’t feel as though you’re ‘too cool’ to go and get help Rainbow.”

Rainbow chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about Cloud’s words. Finally, she gave a small nod and said, “I’ll... talk to the girls about it, and I promise, I’ll really think about it.”

Cloud nodded in return. “That’s all I can ask, if you want to go, just let me know and I’ll help you get in touch with her. If you don’t want to go to Canterlot to see her, I’m sure she’d be willing to come to Ponyville instead.”

Rainbow just nodded, unsure what to say in response, so she just elected to sit quietly and look out across the green fields at nothing in particular.

Cloud Kicker was in much the same boat, as she couldn’t quite figure out what to say next, and so the two ponies simply sat quietly in their chosen tree and watched the world slowly go by in silence. After a time, however, Rainbow finally asked, “So... were you just passing by when you saw me, or were you actually looking for me?”

“I was looking for you. Didn’t want you to do anything dumb on account of Applejack’s situation, so I flew out looking for you to nip that in the bud,” replied Cloud simply.

Letting loose a huff of minor irritation, Rainbow grumbled, “Wasn’t like I was gonna do anything bad, maybe just a little downpour on his head when he isn’t expecting it. So who tipped you off that I was up to something? Was it Pinkie?”

“It was Allen actually,” seeing Rainbow’s alarmed expression, she snickered and explained, “Twilight mentioned to him at his ‘Welcome to Equestria’ party that she was concerned that AJ was going to hold a grudge against him and that you would do something dumb to him as a way to ‘help’ Applejack get even with him.”

“Ugh, that egghead really needs to learn to keep her muzzle shut,” groaned Dash as she rubbed her face with her hooves in aggravation. “She can be such a goodie four hooves sometimes.”

Cloud just laughed. “Well, that ‘goodie four hooves’ just saved you and Applejack, to a lesser extent from looking like bullies, so maybe you should be thanking her instead.”

Dash just folded her forehooves across her chest and pouted.

Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Cloud continued, “In any case, I’ve already spoken with Applejack on the matter, and she and Allen are going to meet tomorrow morning to talk things over in a reasonable and mature manner. I want you to be there as well so that you and Allen can work things out between yourselves, alright?”

“Eh, how early are we talking about here?” asked Rainbow.

“Applejack and I decided that just after sunrise would probably be best, I was planning on letting Allen know tonight about the meet-up after I finished talking with you,” replied Cloud Kicker.

“Ugh, no thanks, that’s waaaay too early,” complained Rainbow, “can’t we have it around lunch or something? You know, when normal ponies get up?”

Shooting her friend a deadpan look, Cloud replied, “Rainbow, normal ponies are already up by lunch. You’re the one who likes to sleep late.”

Rolling her eyes, Rainbow was about to fire back a retort, when she spotted a lone bipedal figure strolling up the road. Pointing a hoof, she said, “Well, looks like we can just go and talk with him right now, and I won’t have to get up at an insane hour tomorrow, race ya over there!”

“What, wait, Rainbo-!” said Cloud as she tried to stop Rainbow, but she was too slow and Rainbow was already speeding off towards the distant figure of Allen. Growling under her breath, Cloud quickly spread her wings and took off in pursuit.

Rainbow, I swear I’m going to wring your neck one of these days!

~oOo~

Walking along, Allen lazily kicked a rock and watched as it bounced into the grass at the edge of the dirt road. Taking a deep breath, he enjoyed the clean air and felt a small smile tug at his lips as he looked up at the nearly cloudless sky, and watched as a solitary white puff of a cloud drifted lazily across it.

Continuing forward, he thought quietly to himself. I should probably figure out what I’m gonna have for dinner tonight. I’m thinking a nice medium-rare steak, mashed potatoes, and sweet corn, yeah, that’ll do. He felt saliva pooling in his mouth at the thought of that delicious meal in his near future and quickened his pace.

He had just passed the final row of apple trees that signaled the border of Sweet Apple Acres and his land when he heard a distant shout and the rapid beating of wings. Looking to his left, his eyes grew wide and he threw himself to the ground as a rainbow blur sped over him. Angling his head up from his prone position, he watched the rainbow blur turn into a pale cerulean-colored pegasus that was currently in a hard left turn to come around for another pass at him.

Panicking, he quickly looked around for any kind of cover, but other than the wooden post and rail fence next to him, there wasn’t anything that he could shelter in. Levering himself up, he sprinted for the fence line, hoping that it would be enough to dissuade this crazy pony from dive-bombing him while he made a break for the tree line behind him. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it, as in his haste to move, his feet got tangled together and he face-planted several feet from his goal. Hearing her wing beats get closer, he did the only thing he could think to do and curled up into a protective ball with his hands covering the back of his neck and his elbows over his face in preparation for the rain of hoof blows to soon follow.

However, the expected hoof blows never came, and instead, he just heard the steady beat of wings hovering for a moment, followed by four hooves touching down next to him.

“Uh, are you okay? Sorry if I startled you back there. I guess I was going a little faster than I thought,” said a raspy voice sheepishly.

Cracking an eye open, Allen cautiously glanced up at his supposed attacker and saw that she was giving him an apologetic look and sheepishly rubbing the back of her head with a hoof.

“Uh, do you need a hoof getting up?” she asked as she offered him her hoof.

Uncurling from his position on the ground, Allen shook his head mutely as he stood up and dusted himself off. Fixing this mystery mare with an unhappy look, he opened his mouth to berate her when somepony else beat him to the proverbial punch.

“Rainbow Dash!” exclaimed an unhappy-looking Cloud Kicker as she came in for a quick landing next to Allen, having finally caught up with the rainbow speedster. “I know you have a hard time using your head for anything other than softening your crash landings, but seriously? What in Equestria made you think that dive bombing the person who already thinks you’re out to get him is a good idea?”

Turning to Allen, she quickly started fussing over him, checking for injuries and wiping the dirt that he’d missed off as best she could. “Are you alright, Allen? I’m so sorry, I tried to stop her, but she took off before I could do anything.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m alright Cloud,” he replied, giving a sideways glance at the other pegasus pony whose attention was now firmly fixed on the ground and sheepishly kicking it with a hoof like a scolded child, “I’m assuming that this is the pony Twilight was warning me about yesterday?”

Flicking a blade of grass from his jeans, Cloud nodded. “Yes it is,” she replied with an exasperated sigh, pointing a hoof at Rainbow she said, “Allen, this is Rainbow Dash, weather manager of Ponyville, and the Bearer of the Element of Loyalty.” Looking at Rainbow, she said, “Rainbow this is Allen Ross, the person we were just talking about.”

Rainbow gave Allen an embarrassed smile and a nervous wave in response.

“I know you wanted to wait to talk to her tomorrow,” explained Cloud, “but unfortunately, Rainbow here isn’t much of a morning pony and has the patience of a three-year-old. So when she saw you walking by she decided to move up our timetable, without warning my beforehoof, I might add.”

“Well considering the fact that she isn’t pounding my face into the dirt right now, I assume that you’ve had a chance to talk her down then?” asked Allen, his arms folded across his chest.

Cloud nodded in confirmation. “I have, and she understands that this situation has been... shall we say, misunderstood by several parties involved?”

Cloud shot Rainbow a warning look, and Rainbow quickly nodded saying, “Yep, completely misunderstood, heh, so uh, sorry I... uh, don’t want you to think I’m gonna do anything to you in revenge for something that isn’t actually your fault, so... yeah,” she finished lamely.

Glancing down at Cloud, he gave her an unsure look and Cloud replied, “You don’t need to worry about Rainbow here doing something dumb, Allen. She gets that you had nothing to do with AJ losing part of her farm and are just as much a victim of the current situation as she is.”

Taking a deep breath, Allen gave a single nod and said, “Alright, so long as we’re cool, then I guess we can just put this misunderstanding behind us and move on.”

Hearing that, Rainbow’s ears perked up and she quickly jumped into the air to hover in front of Allen and quickly said, “Well that’s great, guess I can go no-herk!” Her attempt at escaping was foiled when Cloud grabbed her by the tail and yanked her back to earth.

“Not so fast Rainbow, there’s one last thing you need to take care of,” said Cloud, a stern expression on her face.

Picking herself up and dusting herself off, Rainbow looked at Cloud Kicker and whined, “But I already apologized to him, what more do you want me to say?”

Rolling her eyes, Cloud replied, “First of all, that apology was pretty weak Rainbow, and second off, you need to go over the new resident orientation weather briefing with him and don’t try and weasel out of it this time. I did it for the last three ponies to move in, and it’s supposed to be part of your job in the first place.”

“But you’re so much better at it than me!” shot back Rainbow.

“I know! Because you make me do it all the time! That’s not the point, you’re the one who is supposed to go over orientation with a new move-in and fill out the paperwork!”

“But paperwork is boring, and I hate doing it!” whined Rainbow.

“And you think I do!?” screeched Cloud Kicker, her face bright red, and for a moment Allen thought he saw steam shooting out of her nostrils.

Stepping between the two arguing ponies, Allen held up his hands and said, “Ladies, ladies, please! Let’s all calm down here,” turning to Cloud Kicker, he calmly asked, “Now, what’s this about a ‘weather orientation’?”

Taking a deep breath and smoothing out her mane with a hoof, Cloud Kicker explained, “When a pony moves into a new area, the weather manager or someone officially delegated by the weather manager, is required to meet with, and go over any weather anomalies that are unique to that area. In addition, they need to get the new arrival up to speed on the local weather schedule and what they need to do to be compliant with local weather ordinances and regulations. That is in addition to filling out needed paperwork for a new resident.”

Allen groaned at the thought of yet more paperwork. “Do I have to fill it out?”

“Unfortunately,” groaned Rainbow in commiseration. “Without we won’t know how much and what kind of weather to order from Cloudsdale, and we won’t know who we have to provide weather services for either.”

Cloud nodded, happy to see that Rainbow was finally being somewhat professional now. “That’s right,” she said, “this paperwork, while tedious and boring though it may be, is critical in making sure that we are able to provide accurate weather for various needs throughout the community. For instance, since you’re a farmer, you’ll need more rain than a pony living in the middle of town will. If we didn’t have you on file, then we run the risk of you slipping through the cracks and being forgotten, and if that happened then your farm would suffer.”

Allen nodded as Cloud explained. “I guess that makes sense. So what about warning me of ‘anomalous weather’?”

Rainbow piped up. “Some regions in Equestria are very difficult or impossible for weather ponies to manage. The Everfree Forest is one of those areas, the wild magic creates conditions that allow for chaotic weather patterns, these weather patterns will often spill over into the surrounding area. That’s why we have to talk to new ponies about it, so they can be prepared in case bad weather hits. I mean we’ve had times when freak weather spilled over and caused problems. We’ve had times when the temperature would be so cold in the morning that there would be frost on the ground in late spring, before then getting hot enough to feel like summer in the afternoon. Then there was the time we had a rogue rainstorm that turned into a blizzard and then back to a rainstorm, with ice!”

Sounds like home, thought Allen to himself, but from the way Rainbow was getting worked up, he figured that it was best to keep that thought to himself.

“Alright, so... anything else I should be worried about?” he asked, an unperturbed look on his face.

“Other than some major windstorms that threatened to turn into tornados, rogue rainstorms and or blizzards, along with the odd temperature fluctuation, that should about cover the hazardous weather aspect,” replied Cloud simply.

“So... do I need to sign anything right now?” asked Allen hesitantly.

“I didn’t think to bring any paperwork with me, as I was more concerned with finding Rainbow at the time. I’ll be sure to bring the paperwork tomorrow for you to look over and sign. Don’t worry, it won’t take but a few minutes at worst,” she replied reassuringly.

“Alright, well if that’s it, I’ve gotta fly so see y-herk!”

“Not so fast Rainbow,” said Cloud as she stood on Rainbow’s tail to keep her from taking off.

“Will you stop doing that!” exclaimed Rainbow, annoyed at having her tail be yanked on a second time that day.

“Not until you properly apologize to Allen,” shot back Cloud Kicker.

Rainbow opened her mouth to argue, but a stern look from Cloud made her close her mouth with an audible clop. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Allen fully and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry that I was up to no good or that I was going to make trouble for you on account of my friend Applejack, and I promise you won’t have to worry about that in the future. So... we cool?” she asked as she held out a hoof.

Taking her hoof in his hand, Allen gently shook it and said, “Yeah, we’re cool, I forgive you... so long as you didn’t do anything yet.”

Rainbow quickly shook her head. “I didn’t even get past the planning stage before Cloud caught me!”

Allen chuckled. “Well then no harm done, and hopefully we can put this nonsense behind us, I’ll even forgive you for making me eat dirt earlier with that dive-bombing stunt you pulled.”

Rainbow had the good graces to blush in embarrassment and mumble out another apology. Turning to regard Cloud with an unamused look, Rainbow asked, “Am I finally free to go?”

Lifting her hoof off her friend's tail, Cloud nodded. “I guess so, but I expect to see you at the office when I get done talking to Allen here in a minute, if not, I will find you and drag your flank there and sit on you till you get that paperwork filled out.”

Rolling her eyes she let loose an annoyed sigh and said, “Fine, I’ll go and fill out the stupid paperwork already,” giving a wave to Allen she said, “see ya later,” and with that, she took off into the gathering twilight.

Watching her go for a moment, Allen said, “Well, that went better than I thought it would, thanks for being here.”

“Don’t mention it, as I said earlier, when she puts her mind to it, she’s a damn good weather manager, but she’s still got some bad habits to iron out.”

“Makes you wonder how she got the job in the first place,” replied Allen quietly.

Cloud rolled her eyes. “She got it because nopony else wanted the position, and Hazy Days was retiring the following year, replacement or no replacement. All things considered, I feel it’s worked out well enough. Doesn’t hurt that I’m able to ride herd on her when she starts misbehaving like that,” she sighed, “the perks of being an old mentor and the assistant weather manager I guess.”

Chuckling, Allen nodded and asked, “You wanna walk and talk for a bit more? It's getting late, and I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

Cloud nodded, a happy smile on her face. “Sure, I can keep you company for a bit longer, what’d you want to talk about?” she asked as she fell in alongside Allen as he started back towards his house.

“Well, how did you get to be the assistant weather manager?” he replied, asking the obvious question first.

Cloud shrugged. “I needed to get away from Canterlot after I came home from my final deployment. When I saw the advertisement for the position in the paper, I figured I’d give it a shot. Didn’t know I would be working with Rainbow at the time. When I applied, Hazy Days was still in charge, and it wasn’t until after I’d already signed the contract that she told me Rainbow would eventually end up being my boss.”

Allen laughed. “Bet that was a shocker.”

“You have no idea,” replied Cloud dryly. “Though, looking back on it now, it was probably a good thing I was there for her. The first few months after Hazy retired were... difficult for everypony. Rainbow wasn’t and still isn’t, to a certain degree, the best when it comes to dealing with employee relations and the problems that come with it. She’s gotten a lot better, but her impatience can get the better of her sometimes, that or her ego,” she muttered quietly at the end, though not quietly enough, as Allen still caught it, however, he decided not to comment on it.

Instead, he asked the next obvious question on his mind, “So you’re still in the Royal Guard then?”

“Reservist actually,” she corrected, “I’m currently assigned to the local Ponyville guard, but if need be I can be reactivated. My mother is the captain of the Canterlot garrison and my father is in military intelligence. Most of my extended family is either in or works with the guard in some way or another. I guess we Kickers just get a kick out of serving our country,” she said with a wide shit-eating grin.

Allen groaned at the horrible pun. “That pun was terrible, and you should feel terrible.”

Cloud stuck her tongue out and merrily replied, “But I don’t, so nah.”

Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, Allen simply kept walking. “You know, Blueblood and Red Tape tried to get me to join the local guard force.”

Raising an eyebrow, Cloud looked at him. “Oh, and how did that work out?” she asked.

Allen’s mouth turned down in a frown. “I haven’t decided yet, the only reason they pressured me in the first place was because I didn’t want to give up my guns. In the end, they decided to give me a special dispensation for them, instead of trying to force me into doing something I didn’t want to do.”

“That was smart of them,” replied Cloud Kicker, though she too had a slight frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’ve found ponies that don’t want to be in the guard are generally a hazard to both themselves and others and are better sent home before they hurt somepony.”

“Yeah, funny how that works, isn’t it?” replied Allen dryly.

Cloud gave a wordless nod and turned her attention away from Allen, instead choosing to focus on the darkening countryside around them. After several quiet moments, she said, “If you don’t want to join, you shouldn’t feel obligated to. What those two tried to do was wrong, pressuring you like that, and if you want, I can see that word reaches the right ears about what they did.”

Allen shook his head. “Naw, that’s alright, though I do appreciate it. While it was annoying at the time, they felt they had good reasons. That doesn’t mean I like what they tried to do, but they came around to my way of thinking in the end. Besides, I don’t want to close that particular door of opportunity just yet. The pay and benefits might come in handy in the future.”

“Fair enough,” replied Cloud, “but you shouldn’t feel bad just because you said no, Allen. You didn’t choose to come here, and it wouldn’t be right to make you feel that you have an obligation to defend this land just because you are here.”

Allen paused next to his weathered mailbox, and out of habit, opened it up to see if there was any mail inside. Seeing that there wasn't, he closed the door carefully and quietly replied, “Sometimes, we have to do things that we don’t want to do, not because we have some sort of obligation to duty or because it is expected of us. But because if we did not do it, we would cause undue suffering on the part of innocent people by our inaction. I might not want to join the local guard, but I won’t run and hide if there are people in danger. Evil only triumphs when good people do nothing, and I’ve seen too many evil people win because good people were too afraid to step up and face them,” turning to face Cloud fully, he continued, “if there is a time when Ponyville or even Equestria is in danger, I’ll do what I need to do to defend it. I might not have come here willingly, but I’m here now, and I won’t stand idly by if I see an injustice being committed. To do otherwise would, in my opinion, make me an ungrateful coward. Besides, if this place gets overrun by evil forces, I’d suffer along with everyone else, so I might as well do my part if push comes to shove.”

Cloud stood there and regarded Allen with an unreadable expression, finally, after several quiet moments, she relaxed and let a small smile shine through. “Nice speech, I couldn’t have said it any better myself I think. Are you sure you wouldn’t want to join? I might be able to pull some strings and get you a commission,” she said half teasingly, half-seriously.

Allen laughed, shaking his head at the same time. “No thanks, I might be able to give a good speech, but I’d probably end up taking two steps and falling flat on my face if you put me in charge of anything. But thanks for the offer though,” he said with a smile. Glancing around at the darkening countryside, he gave a wave of his arm and said, “You should probably get going unless you want to stay for dinner?”

Cloud Kicker shook her head at his offer. “Thanks, but I better get going and make sure Rainbow isn’t goofing off,” turning she made ready to take off when she suddenly remembered, “Oh! I almost forgot, I spoke with Applejack earlier and she’s willing to clear this whole thing up with you tomorrow morning, just after sunrise.”

“She is? I find that kind of hard to believe after what Twilight said,” replied Allen, as he scratched his head in disbelief.

“Turns out Twilight might have been slightly over exaggerating Applejack’s reaction at the time. Turns out, while AJ is upset, it's not directed at you, though don’t be surprised if she’s a bit curt with you at first. That part of her orchard had a very special tree that was planted by her parents, and it was really special to her and her family, so its loss really hurt.”

Allen nodded, a distant look in his eyes. “Yeah, I know exactly what she’s going through right now, except I lost my whole world, not just a few acres and a special tree,” he gave himself a shake and giving Cloud a wave said, “Well anyway, I’ll be sure to be ready to meet her tomorrow, you just bring her around when you’re ready. If I’m not in the house, then you can probably find me in one of the barns.”

Giving Allen a concerned look, Cloud thought about asking him if he was alright, but at the last moment, decided to let it go for now. It would be a silly question anyway, of course he’s not alright. He just said he lost everything, I doubt even the princesses would be able to brush something like that off and be unaffected.

Giving her head a shake, she instead fixed him with a smile. “Well, you take care then Allen, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning then,” she said as she spread her wings and took off into the gathering night sky.

Waving goodbye, Allen called out, “Sounds good, have a good night!”

“You too!” she called back over her withers as she winged her way back towards Ponyville. The beautiful night sky unblemished save for that single solitary cloud that she and Allen had seen earlier.

Probably blew over from the Everfree, she thought idly to herself, I wonder if I should bust it up or leave it alone? She debated for a few minutes, but in the end decided against it, Meh, it’ll be fine, it’s only one cloud, so it won’t cause any harm, besides, it looks like it’s about to dissipate soon anyways, and with that she turned her attention away from it and back to her flying, paying the random cloud no further thought.

Though if she had watched it for just a minute or two longer, she would have seen something impossible happen. A cloud, vanishing in mid-air in an instant, nopony around, and barely a breeze to disturb it. Just one moment it was there, and in the next, it was gone, as if it had never been there.

Author's Notes:

Alright, Allen's managed to meet four out of the six elements, and in the next chapter, he'll finally meet AJ and bury the hatchet, just hopefully not in each other backs. Then we can start getting to the bits that I've been wanting to do for a loooong time, I can hardly wait!

I would have probably had this chapter out either Friday or yesterday, but I ended up cutting part of it out as I didn't like the way I was taking it. I've actually been saving a lot of those 'deleted scenes' and I might release some of them soon.

Though, that's only if you guys are interested, if you are, I'll post them and make sure to label them as such so that you all known they are cut bits, and I'll only upload them when I post an actual chapter because I don't think it feels right to put up a non-canonical chapter without having an actual chapter released alongside it.

But anyway, I'll leave that decision up to you guys, let me know in the comments down below if you want me to do that going forward.

Chapter 27 (Of Apples and Myths)

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Chapter 27

The sun was just barely over the horizon when there was a firm knock on Allen’s front door. He had already been up for half an hour by this point and was just getting ready to make breakfast. Setting the pancake mix aside, he started for the door.

Opening it, he found a pair of ponies standing in the early morning light. “Morning Cloud Kicker,” he greeted, “when you said first light, you really meant it.”

“I told you,” she giggled, “Applejack wanted to meet at first light, and if she says she’s gonna do something, then she does it, right AJ?” she asked as she turned to the second mare on Allens’ front porch.

She was a well-muscled earth pony, with the kind of form you could only get from hard, physical work, as every time she moved, Allen could see her muscles ripple underneath her orange-colored coat as if teasing at what kind of power they were capable of unleashing if given the chance. Brushing a loose piece of straw blonde mane out of her emerald green eyes, she regarded Allen with a piercing look, as if she were looking into his very soul and judging its worth. It made Allen give an involuntary shiver at its intensity.

Clearing his throat, Allen quickly stuck out his hand in a friendly manner and said, “So you’re Applejack, huh. I’ve heard a lot about you around town. My name is Allen Ross, though you probably already knew that by now,” he finished lamely.

Extending her hoof, she grasped his hand firmly and gave it a strong shake. “Ah do,” she drawled, her southern accent reminding Allen of one of his neighbors that had moved in from the southwestern part of Missouri.

Mrs. Johnson sure made a mean apple pie, he thought as he shook her hoof, the memory randomly flitting through the front of his mind before disappearing into the ether of his subconscious.

Letting go of his hand, she swept her brown stetson off her head and held it with a hoof in front of her, and giving him a serious look, she declared, “Ah just want to set the record straight now. Ah know that you’ve heard from certain ponies that Ah’m madder than a wet hen at ya, but that jus’ ain’t the truth. As far as Ah’m concerned, you and me ain’t got any reason ta be fighting, and mah anger is reserved for the varmint that done this ta the both of us,” she practically spat, her fur bristling at the memory of Discord and what he had done.

“So far as Ah can tell,” she continued, “you and Ah don’t have any reason to start up a fuss right now. Of course, if ya do want ta start something, Ah’ll be more than happy ta oblige ya. Just be warned, whenever Ah start something, Ah finish it.”

She cocked one of her back hooves in emphasis, and flicked her tail behind her in warning, allowing Allen to catch sight of the red ribbon tied around the end of her tail. Grimacing, he quickly put his hands up in a placating gesture, and said, “I have no intention of getting into trouble with you, ma’am. So you don’t need to worry about that, rest assured, and if I cause any offense, I just want to say that it is unintentional in nature.”

Giving a single satisfied nod, she turned to leave, thus allowing Allen to get a glimpse of her cutie mark, a trio of red apples.

Apple cutie mark for an apple farmer, go figure, thought Allen dryly to himself.

Sticking her hat back on her head, she looked back over her withers and said, “Welp, Ah think Ah’ve seen enough, Cloud Kicker, so Ah reckon Ah’ll mosey on home now,” looking to Allen one last time, she gave he a parting nod and said, “y'all take care now, Mr. Ross, and have a nice day,” and with that, she turned around and trotted away.

When she was far enough away, Allen let loose a sigh of relief. Giving him a quizzical look, Cloud Kicker asked, “What was that for?”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Allen looked down and replied, “Just glad that things didn’t escalate is all. I was a bit worried about how this meeting was going to go, both with Applejack and Rainbow Dash, but it seems I didn’t need to worry so much.”

Shooting him a cocky grin, Cloud bumped his leg with her flank and remarked smugly, “Well naturally, with a wingmare like me, it had to go smoothly! I’m the princess of smoothness, you know.”

Rolling his eyes, Allen shook his head and replied with a mock bow, “Well I thank you for your help in this matter, ‘Your Highness’.”

Adopting a faux haughty look, she shot back. “It was my pleasure peasant, now begone,” she said, waving a hoof in a daintily dismissive fashion. “Your princess must rest now and thou art bothering me, shoo shoo.”

Allen burst out laughing, and after holding her haughty look for a split second longer, Cloud Kicker joined in. Their merriment being loud enough to draw the attention of Penny, who had just stumbled downstairs, her mane a literal mess and dark bags under her eyes as she looked to see what all the fuss was about.

Noticing her arrival, Allen gave her a beaming smile and said, “Good morning, Penny, I take it you would like some coffee?”

Giving a monosyllabic grunt in reply, she turned and stumbled her way to the kitchen. Giving a shake of his head, Allen looked at Cloud and asked, “Since you’re here, would you like to stay for breakfast? I’m about to make some pancakes, and the coffee should be done soon.”

“If there is one thing I have learned from my time in the guard is that you should never turn down free food, especially if it is still warm, lead the way,” she replied with a shallow bow, one leg extended in a grand sweeping motion.

Laughing, Allen shook his head one last time and retreated back inside, Cloud Kicker hot on his heels as the smell of fresh coffee tickled their noses with its promise of eye-opening caffeine.

Grabbing an extra plate and coffee mug, he set them on the dining room table and set about preparing the morning meal while Penny busied herself with acquiring her morning allotment of caffeine. Cloud Kicker was left waiting her turn at the coffee maker, so she snatched up her mug from the table, and took her spot behind Penny. Knowing better than to try and strike up a conversation with the caffeine-deprived unicorn in front of her, she instead turned her attention to Allen.

“So Allen,” she began casually, “now that you’ve cleared the air between you, AJ and Dash, what’s next on your list of things to do?”

Setting the cast iron griddle on the stovetop and turning it on to heat up, Allen grabbed the nearby mixing bowl of pancake mix and water and began mixing. “Well,” he began, “I figured that my next step would be to get some repairs done to my hay barn so I can get the first cutting out of the way. So I guess I need to figure out what all I need done to it to bring it up to code and then go from there.”

Grabbing the coffee pot with a wing, Cloud expertly balanced her mug on her frog and poured herself a cup of coffee while Allen looked on in amazement. Looking up and seeing his look of astonishment, Cloud asked, “What? You’ve never seen a pegasus use their wing to manipulate stuff before?”

Allen slowly shook his head. “No... can’t say that I have.”

Transferring her cup from her hoof to her wing, she used her primary feathers as fingers and slipping them into the cup's handle, ‘gripping’ the cup with them. Taking a sip, she let loose a content sigh and explained, “A pegasi’s wing is pretty flexible and strong, it has to be in order to carry our weight. However, our feathers are also very flexible and we have a very fine degree of control over them, to the point where the larger ones can effectively mimic fingers in their ability to manipulate stuff. Though unlike fingers, they aren’t as physically strong or durable, and if we break one, then it loses its ability to hold and move things until a new one grows in.”

Having recovered sufficiently from his initial surprise, Allen slowly resumed mixing. “I take it that your magic has something to do with it?”

Cloud took another smug sip from her mug. “Good guess,” she replied. Flaring out her left-wing, she pointed the tip of her hoof at her largest primary feather and said, “As I mentioned before, the magic that allows pegasi and other winged creatures to fly, also gives us a heightened sense of control over each feather. The mana in our bodies travels up the shaft of the feather and is distributed through the vanes of each feather. This helps increase each feather's total lift potential far beyond what they should normally be capable of. In addition, it gives extra strength, flexibility, and sensory feedback to the feathers, thus making it possible, for a pegasus or griffon to use their feathers as manipulative appendages.”

“That’s... pretty wild,” remarked Allen. Looking between Penny and Cloud, he said, “So unicorns can levitate and manipulate stuff with their magic, and you pegasi can use your wings to a certain degree for the same thing, what about earth ponies? Doesn’t really seem fair to them being just stuck with nothing but hooves for fine manipulation.”

Glancing at each other, Cloud and Penny traded a knowing smirk. “Well Allen,” replied a more alert Penny, “remember how I told you that earth ponies are really good with their hooves?”

“Yeah, kinda,” replied Allen as he poured a dollop of batter on the hot griddle, the batter instantly sizzling and spitting as it hit the hot metal.

Taking another sip of her coffee she said, “Well, earth pony magic makes it so that their hooves are more... clingy, I guess is the best way to put it. I’ve seen earth ponies hold and manipulate very tiny things with nothing but their hooves, and mouth. So it’s not like they can’t do the same kind of things that we can, they just do it differently. Though generally speaking, earth pony goods tend to be... sturdier than those made by other tribes.”

Cloud nodded. “Yep, not only that, but I’ve seen plenty of earth ponies grip things with their tails too.”

Flipping the pancakes over, Allen shot Cloud an unconvinced look. “Seriously? They have prehensile tails too?”

Cloud made a ‘kinda sort of’ gesture with her hoof. “Sorta, I’ve only seen a couple do it, one of them being Applejack. She’s really good with using her tail to twirl a lasso around, but most earth ponies don’t really practice using their tails like that. Same as most unicorns only know a few basic spells, and how most pegasi only use their wings to get from point A to point B, rather than do tricks and fancy acrobatics like Rainbow Dash does. I’m sure you humans are the same like that,” she said, gesturing at Allen’s hands with a hoof.

Looking down at his hand, Allen thoughtfully nodded. “Yeah, I suppose that’s true, I mean, I can play guitar, but I’ll probably never be able to play like B.B. King or Jerry Reed could, I just don’t have the time or innate talent to do it.”

Even though Cloud didn’t know who those people were, she understood what Allen was getting at well enough. “That’s right, most ponies don’t have the time or the reason to improve their inherent skills enough to be like Twilight Sparkle for magic, Rainbow Dash for flying, or Applejack for physical feats.”

“That doesn’t mean that they are at an inherent disadvantage though,” cut in Penny,” just that they have to approach problems differently than another pony from a different tribe would.”

Removing the pancakes from the griddle, Allen buttered them up and drizzled syrup on them before placing them on the table between the two mares. Lighting up her horn, Penny quickly divided the small stack between her and Cloud and set about enjoying her morning meal. Pouring the rest of the pancake batter onto the griddle, Allen commented, “Well, in any case, I guess that’s what I’m gonna do today, what about you two?”

Taking a large bite of her pancakes, Cloud quickly chewed and swallowed her mouthful before replying, “I’ve gotta get to work and make sure Rainbow filled out your weather paperwork properly, after that, I’ll bring it by and you can sign it,” seeing Allen’s look of exaggerated pain, she rolled her eyes and said, “don’t be such a foal, you’ll only need to sign a couple of lines and initial half a dozen at most.”

“Well, considering that I’ve been doing nothing but signing paperwork for the past month, a few more lines might just kill me,” he jokingly complained.

Carefully dabbing the syrup from her muzzle with a paper towel that Allen had set out earlier, Penny replied jokingly, “Don’t worry, if that should happen I’ll be sure that they give you a proper funeral.”

“Har har, funny girl,” retorted Allen as he finished cooking his own stack of pancakes, and turning the heat off, quickly transferred them to his plate and slathered them in butter and syrup before sitting down at the table and digging in.

“And what about you, Penny?” asked Allen as he cut into his stack.

“I’ll be in town most of the day I’m afraid,” she replied as she used the last of her pancakes to scoop up the remaining syrup on her plate. “I was able to find a few promising properties last night and I would like to look at them today. If things go well, I should be able to close on one by the middle of next week, and be moved in by next Saturday, if all goes well.”

“That soon? Damn, you move fast,” replied Allen with eyebrows raised in surprise. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you were eager to get away from me, it's the snoring isn't it?” he half-joked, a playful grin on his face.

Turning sharply in surprise and sudden worry, Penny quickly threw her hooves up in front of her and waved them back forth in a distressed fashion. “No, that’s not it! I didn’t mean to make you think that I have a problem with staying here, it’s just that I didn’t want to impose for too long on your hospitality!”

“Easy there, I was only kidding ya,” replied Allen with a calming motion of his hands, “I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was upset or anything, I just was just yanking your chain a little bit.”

Composing herself, Penny replied with a huff, “Yes, well... please try to be careful in the future, it’s sometimes hard to tell when you are kidding and when you are not.”

“Duly noted, sorry about that,” apologized Allen.

“Your apology is accepted,” she replied before an awkward silence fell over the group, with Cloud quietly eating her pancakes and Penny just staring silently at her now empty plate.

Allen took another bite of his pancakes and chewed thoughtfully before then swallowing and gently asking in the hopes of killing the awkward silence, “So was there anything else you were going to do today?”

Sighing, Penny shook her head. “Not really no, just look at those properties I mentioned and try and figure out which one will work best for me. After that, I’ll probably take care of some miscellaneous paperwork at the town hall and be back later this afternoon. What about you? You said you were going to do something with your hay barn today?”

Finishing the last of his breakfast, Allen, upon seeing that Cloud had also finished hers, collected everyone's dishes and placed them in the dishwasher along with the other dirty dishes that he’d left in the sink overnight. “Yeah, Checklist sent me a... well a checklist from the DOTI on what I need to do to bring my barns up to code. So I figured that I’d do that today and then see if I can find someone to come out and do a full inspection later. After that, I’m not sure, to be honest, what about you Cloud? When did you figure you’ll be back today with that paperwork?”

Rubbing her chin thoughtfully, Cloud replied, “Probably this afternoon, knowing Rainbow she’s probably done most of it last night, but I’ll need to double-check it for errors. After that, I’ll be busy for a few hours busting clouds, so it’ll probably be around three or four o’clock when I can swing by, does that sound good?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’ll do,” he said as he shut the dishwasher door and hit the button to start it. The machine whirring to life before settling into a steady rhythm. Both Cloud Kicker and Penny gazed at the appliance with curious looks.

Looking at Allen, Cloud asked, “What’s that do?”

“It’s a mechanical dishwasher, Cloud, it washes and dries dishes,” replied Allen, as if it were obvious.

Both Penny and Cloud looked at each other before then turning to Allen and asking together, “You wouldn’t happen to have another one laying around by chance?”

“No, and before you ask, you can’t come over and use my dishwasher to wash your dirty dishes either. I’ve only got a limited amount of powdered dish soap, and I intend to stretch that for as long as I can,” replied Allen, a stern look on his face as he wagged his pointer finger at them like one would a misbehaving dog when he saw them open their mouths again.

Shutting their mouths, both Penny and Cloud looked at each other, as if having a conversation that only they could hear, before then turning around and simultaneously hitting Allen with the biggest pair of puppy dog eyes that they could in the hopes of changing his mind. Allen simply crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow unmoved by their display of cuteness. Seeing that their tactics weren’t working, the two mares upped the ante and stuck out their bottom lips, along with an increase in the intensity of their pleading looks. Allen’s eyebrow rose higher in reply. In response, their bottom lips started quivering, and teardrops formed at the corners of their eyes as their ears folded back.

“Ladies, I’ve been ignoring begging dogs and cats of all ages at the dinner table for thirty years, you’re gonna have to up your puppy dog eye game if you want to crack this stone-cold heart,” remarked Allen dryly.

Seeing that he wasn’t gonna budge, both Penny and Cloud dropped their pleading looks and scrunched up their muzzles in annoyance at being denied instead.

Chuckling, Allen shook his head. “Better luck next time,” he replied, an amused smile on his face.

Pouting, both mares sullenly pushed themselves away from the table and trotted out of the dining room. Walking Cloud to the front door, Allen watched as Penny trotted up the stairs to the guestroom to make herself presentable for the day. Cloud meanwhile stood in the doorway and said, “Well it was worth a shot I guess,” she craned her neck around to see past Allen into the kitchen and gave a look of longing at the dishwasher happily cleaning away.

Sighing, she thought to herself, I’ll have to swing by Time Turner’s place, maybe he can come up with something like that. However, outwardly she simply regarded Allen with a small smile and said, “Anyways, thanks for the free food and coffee, like I said, I’ll be back later this afternoon with the paperwork you’ll need to sign for, and if Rainbow has finished it, the monthly weather schedule.”

Nodding, Allen replied, “Alright, sounds like a plan, so I guess I’ll see you then.”

“See ya,” said Cloud Kicker with a wave goodbye, and with that, she turned, spread her wings, and with a running leap took off into the morning sky.

Waving goodbye, Allen watched her go until she was out of sight. Turning around, he shut the door behind him and returned to the kitchen, the sound of the upstairs shower running alerting him to the fact that Penny would be preoccupied for some time. Standing in the empty kitchen, he placed his hands on his hips as he tried to figure out what he wanted to do first. Glancing up at the clock on the wall, he noticed that it was a quarter past seven. Nodding his head, he made his decision, Alright, morning chores first, then we can take a look at that list and get to work on cleaning things up around here. With his priorities set, Allen set to work.

Several hours later found Allen sitting on an overturned bucket in his hayloft as he glared down at the small booklet in front of him. This is ridiculous, just how the hell do they expect me to keep birds and mice out of my barns, at all times?! He glanced up from the book and looked around in frustration at the mess that surrounded him. Old straw and hay littered the floor of the hayloft along with fecal stains from birds, mice, and other small creatures. Even as he watched, a pair of barn swallows swooped low over his head and left behind several stray feathers and fresh poop stains on his floor before flying out through a hole in the wall where a missing board used to be.

Looking around the barn, he could see holes everywhere. Some were in the walls, others in the roof where shingles had rotted away or come loose in one of the many windstorms that would blow through every year. What was worse was that even if there weren’t any holes, there was simply no way to prevent birds and other small creatures from finding ways inside whenever they wished as he would have to leave various doors open for fresh air to circulate for his animals and to allow them to come in and out as they desired.

Sighing, he picked up the booklet and tramped downstairs, his inspection over before it even really began as he realized that his old wooden barn would never be able to meet the strict cleanliness standards of the DOTI.

Walking out into the bright afternoon sunlight, he squinted and held his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. Looking around, he couldn’t help but feel despondent as he took in the overall disrepair that was his farm.

Overgrown flower beds, grass that hasn’t been cut in weeks, if not months, not to mention all the junk piles littered all over the place. He shook his head in disgust at his dad’s insistence of keeping every little bit of scrap iron that crossed his path. “You never know when we might need it, son,” he said to himself in a mock imitation of his dad's voice. Sighing, he hung his head and realized that this was going to be a lot harder than he thought it would be.

Opening the booklet again, he turned to the page that he had been reading in regards to proper hay storage and read it again.

All storage facilities intended for the storage of hay for pony consumption must be kept to a high standard of cleanliness. This includes the regular removal of old or moldy hay or straw, spider webs, dust, dirt, mud, or any other form of contamination that may cause a pony to become ill. In addition, great care must be taken to prevent the ingress of animals into the storage facility as their presence will result in fecal matter contaminating the stored hay, thus making it unsuitable for consumption.

Shaking his head, he tried to figure out just how he was supposed to do that. “This is impossible,” he muttered to himself as he continued to glare at the offending booklet. So engrossed was he in trying to figure out how to comply with the rules, that he didn’t hear the approaching clip-clop of hooves on gravel until someone called his name.

Tearing his gaze away from the frustrating book, he saw that Lyra was standing next to him, a look of friendly concern on her face.

“Did we come at a bad time?” she asked.

“We?” asked Allen dumbly.

“Yeah, Bon Bon wanted to come and see you again, and since I was planning on coming by to check up on you, I figured it was the perfect excuse for her and me to spend some time together, while also seeing how you were doing!” replied Lyra with a happy smile.

“I see,” replied Allen as he turned to Bon Bon, his hand extended in greeting, “well glad you could come out then. So Bon Bon, how are things going for you then?” greeted Allen with a smile as he extended his hand in greeting.

“Hello,” murmured Bon Bon as she took his hand and gave it a firm shake with her hoof, “and it’s been going alright, lots of things going on over the past couple of days, so I’ve been busy.”

Nodding his head slowly, he let go of her hoof and turning to Lyra asked, “So what brings you both by?”

“Well, it’s been a couple of days since I last talked to you, and I wanted to see how you were doing,” replied Lyra, “plus Bon Bon was curious about you, seeing as we didn’t get a chance to really talk with you at the party before I got dragged away, so I figured that since her shop was closed for the day, we could come by and have a chat, that is if you’re not too busy.”

Allen shook his head. “No, I was just looking this over,” he waved the DOTI booklet in his hand for emphasis, “and seeing what I needed to work on to bring everything up to standard.”

Seeing the booklet, Bon Bon nodded, her mane curls bouncing as she did so. “I know that booklet well,” she remarked, an irritated frown on her face, “I run a candy shop in town, and the spell runes need to be inspected every year, otherwise I run the risk of getting shut down. It can be such a pain in the flank,” she sighed, “that’s the reason why my shop is closed today, the rune inspector is looking them over and it’s easier if there aren’t any customers getting in their way and distracting them while they work.”

“Spell runes?” asked Allen, a puzzled look on his face as he looked down at the booklet again.

Bon Bon nodded, and motioning for the booklet, she flipped to the back section after Allen had given it to her and pointing to a page replied, “Yep, right here is a list of all the runes and spells wards that you’ll need to meet the DOTI’s minimum standards for health and safety. Each page is for a different industry. Seeing as how you live on a farm, I’m assuming that this page is what you were looking for?” she said as she flipped to the section that pertained to agricultural requirements.

Taking the booklet from her, Allen glanced down the list. Animal and insect repellent runes, anti-dirt and mold charms, fire suppression spells... this has everything I need. Though why is it in the back of the book?

Shooting a look of gratitude Bon Bon’s way, Allen gratefully replied, “Thanks for pointing this out to me, I probably would have banged my head against the wall for hours trying to figure out how I was going to meet these seemingly impossible standards. Would have been nice to know that there was a list here telling me what I needed.”

Bon Bon waved a hoof in reply. “You’re welcome. I will admit the first time I opened my sweet shop it took me longer than I would like to admit to check the back of the booklet for this information. You would think that they would put the relevant information in the section it was pertaining to, but apparently, they thought this was a better idea. On the last page, you’ll find a list of approved companies that can do the rune and spell work for you. I recommend Chisel and Son’s, they did the work for my sweet shop and I’ve never had an issue with it. Plus they’re out of Canterlot so they’re close by in case anything goes wrong.”

“What are their prices like? I’ve got a lot of buildings to fix up, and not a lot of bits,” asked Allen as he turned to the final page and found the company Bon Bon told him about, along with its address.

“Pretty expensive, but you get what you pay for, and Rune Chisel is one of the best in the business. His runes and spell work is backed up by a fifty-year warranty, and he charges less for inspections than other ponies do, so I think it all evens out in the end. It cost me about twenty thousand bits to have my shop done, of course, I needed more spellwork and runes than you will. Rune does free appraisals, so you won’t be out anything other than some time if the price is too much for you.”

“Twenty thousand bits? Damn, that’s expensive,” replied Allen with a grimace.

Bon Bon nodded. “Oh trust me, I know, but as I said, he’s one of the best in the business, and his craftsponyship speaks for itself. His fire suppression runes have saved my business at least four times since I’ve opened, plus his cleaning spells keep my workload lighter than what it would normally be. Though that last one was optional, and one of the reasons it cost me so much. Your bill will probably be much lower.”

“Cleaning spells? What, like for dishes or something?”

“Ha! I wish,” replied Bon Bon with a laugh. “No, I’m talking about the ones that keep dirt and dust in check, along with things like crumbs and spilled powders. Basically, if it can be swept up, then the spell will take care of it. Stuff that is stuck on or liquid however requires good old muscle power to remove, the spells won’t touch it,” she sighed, “what I wouldn’t give for something to automatically clean my pots and pans. Washing stuff by hoof is always a pain, and if you leave your hooves soaking in the water too long they get all soft and you run the risk of damaging them if you're not careful. I usually have to wait until the end of the day to do my dishes, that way my hooves can dry out while I sleep and I don't run the risk of cracking them walking around.”

Allen wisely chose not to mention his dishwasher and hoped that Cloud Kicker and Penny would keep their mouths shut on the topic as well. “I see, well maybe one day someone can find a solution to that problem,” he said instead.

Bon Bon sighed wistfully. “One day...”

Deciding to shift the topic to something else, Allen turned his attention back to Lyra. “So, how have things been? I haven’t seen you since the party.”

“Well, after I escaped from Rarity, thanks for that by the way,” she remarked, sending him a mock glare. To which Allen replied with a sheepish smile. “I’ve been busy working on my doctorate. Thanks to you I’ve got so much primary source material to sift through and cross-reference with other sources. It’s all so exciting!” she gushed happily.

Allen smirked. “So after you get done with your doctorate, you going to go work in some dusty university department and teach or something?”

“Oh heavens no,” giggled Lyra, “That would be a waste of my time and talents! As of right now, I am the expert on human mythology and anthropology in all the world! I’ve got so many papers and books to write, I mean I’ve already got various scientific journals lining up to publish my works, and I’ve barely even started! Not to mention all the funding that I’ve been offered!” she excitedly replied.

“So I take it that this means you’re gonna be hanging around here a lot more and asking me questions?” asked Allen hesitantly.

Lyra nodded happily. “Naturally, I mean, you are the only human in Equestria right now, and also the only one with a literal treasure trove of human information in your home,” seeing Allen’s uncomfortable look, Lyra quickly calmed herself and after clearing her throat continued, “of course, I’ll be sure to compensate you for your time, along with any materials that I use for my research, as well as respecting your privacy and time. I mean, you have a life too, and it would be extremely rude of me to take up all of your time with questions.”

“Right,” said Allen, an unconvinced look on his face.

Seeing his doubtfulness, Lyra softened her expression and said, “Allen, I promise, I would never purposely make you uncomfortable or inconvenience you. While I am excited by all the information that you have stored in your head and in your home, I don’t want you to think that that is all I care about. I’d like to think that you and I are friends and that I’m not hanging around you just for the fact that you are a human that can help advance my career. If you don’t want to talk to me about your world, then I will understand and respect your wishes, but I’m really hoping that you’ll be willing to share your experiences with me and help me to understand your culture and history better.”

“Well, I appreciate that, I really do,” replied Allen sincerely, glad in the fact that he wasn’t going to deal with nosey ponies taking up his time and getting underfoot all the time.

“I figured you would, though I’m really hoping that you could answer some questions that I have regarding your world today. Your answers might help me figure out a few mysteries that have been bothering me for a long time, and might even help you get back to your world.”

“Help me get home? How?” asked Allen confused as to how answering some questions about his world could help him return home.

Lyra turned around and lighting up her horn, extracted several scrolls from her saddlebags. Turning back to Allen, she unrolled them and floated them close so that Allen could see them. Squinting, he saw that they appeared to be copies of what looked like several badly faded and water-damaged series of images of stylized humans and ponies doing various things, from dancing together to fighting monsters. Looking from the scroll back to Lyra he asked, “What are these?”

“These,” declared Lyra, “are copies of a group of scrolls that were recently recovered from an ancient temple deep in the southern jungles that date back to well before the fall of Princess Luna. I’ve only been able to look at a few of them so far, but thanks to your arrival, and my involvement with you, I have been granted access to them and allowed to make copies for research purposes. Tell me, does anything in these scrolls look familiar to you? The art style or maybe the clothes and armor that the humans are wearing?” she asked, a hopeful look on her face as Allen went back to studying the pictures.

Scrunching up his face, he stared at the images for several quiet minutes before motioning for the pair to follow him. Rolling the scrolls back up, both Lyra and Bon Bon quickly fell in behind Allen as he strode purposefully across the yard and up to his front door. Opening it up, he ushered the mares inside and pointing to the kitchen said, “Go ahead and take a seat in the kitchen, I’ll be back in a second.”

Thanking him, the two mares quickly grabbed a pair of seats at the dining room table and waited for Allen to return. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long, as, after a few minutes of hearing thumping and bumping from upstairs as Allen searched for whatever he was looking for, he returned with a pair of books in hand. Setting them down on the dining room table, he pulled out a chair for himself and sat down. Grabbing one of the books, he opened it and flipped through its pages until he found what he was looking for. Turning it around, he slid it across the table and said, “I thought that art style looked familiar, it reminded me of Roman and Greek artwork from the classical era back on earth, especially around the time of Christ.”

Grabbing the book in her magic, Lyra pulled it closer and compared the images on the page with those on her copied scrolls. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, and her mouth slowly dropped open in amazement. Gingerly, she turned the page with a hoof and looked at the next page, more artwork greeted her, and stylistically it looked exactly like the artwork in her scrolls!

Tearing her eyes away from the book, she looked at Allen and asked, “Allen, do you know what this means?”

Allen shrugged his shoulders. “Not a clue,” he replied.

“It means that quite possibly at one point our worlds were linked together, just as I suspected!” exclaimed Lyra excitedly.

Furrowing his brow, and shooting Lyra a doubtful look, Allen replied, “I think you might be grasping at straws here Lyra. I mean sure, the artwork styles look the same, and in my world, we have myths about unicorns, pegasi, dragons, and whatnot, and you guys have myths about us or at least something like us. But what makes you think that our worlds could have ever been linked together at one point? I mean surely, there should be more evidence and records in both our worlds hinting at that fact. Could this just be a coincidence? People come up with strange things all the time, it’s possible that at some point in the past some pony came up with the idea of humans and made a bunch of stories about it that spread and became popular. The same thing has happened in my world where people came up with fantastical stories to entertain others or as a way to try and explain things that they didn’t understand.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Allen,” she patiently explained, “time is a cruel thing. Facts and truths become myths and legends as time marches forward. Concrete evidence, over time, can be manipulated, destroyed, or outright lost to the ravages of the ages. I mean, look at these scrolls! They had some of the best preservation magic available placed on them over a thousand years ago, and now look at them. They’re so brittle that I had to use a special spell to copy the images on them to new paper so that I could bring them here to show you, and look at how damaged the images are! There are some scrolls that are so delicate that they can’t even be unrolled for fear of them disintegrating. Imagine all of the other evidence out there that didn’t have those same protections. You said your world doesn’t have any perceptible magic in it right?”

Allen gave a nod, though his expression remained unconvinced.

“Alright, so that means your people couldn’t use magic to preserve important records like we can. That means your history would be much easier to lose to things like natural disasters and war. How much history have your people lost just due to negligence or outright maliciousness?”

Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully and nodded, now seeing where Lyra was going with her argument. It was true, precious history was constantly being lost every day due to various factors all around the world, and that was with the amazing advances in preservation technology that had been created over the last hundred years. War, natural disasters, human carelessness, malicious censoring of information by petty tyrants, among many other factors had all contributed to a lot of history being either corrupted or outright lost to the sands of time. But even so, he just couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that at some point in history, his and Lyra’s worlds might have been connected in some way. Surely if that was the case, something would have survived? Some scrap of evidence beyond folklore, some buildings, or paintings, maybe a skeleton or two?

Sighing, he pulled one of the scrolls across to him and looked at it. It depicted a scene of ponies fighting a great horde of monsters with a giant blue goat at the back controlling the monsters with a collar made of bells that glowed yellow and black. Looking to the next scene, he could see humans marching forward, dressed in Roman-style armor, to help the ponies fight against the encroaching horde in the foreground.

However, most of the left side of the image was missing or badly damaged, so Allen couldn’t make out much more than the first few rows of humans. From what little he could see, it looked like there was more to the image, but alas time had taken its toll and the rest of the image would forever be a mystery.

Putting the scroll down, Allen shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, it’s an interesting idea, Lyra, and I suppose it might be possible that there could have been interactions between our worlds. Whether those interactions were physical or not, I don’t know, I’m just a simple farmer from Indiana, but I’m pretty sure somebody would have said something if they had found evidence that our world had been in contact with another one sometime in the past.”

Lyra snorted in annoyance at Allen’s stubborn blindness. “Allen,” she began patiently, having taken a deep breath to better center herself, “you yourself said that there are myths and legends about unicorns, pegasi, and dragons in your world, just as there are myths and legends of humans in ours. Doesn’t that strike you as odd that both of our worlds have mythologies of each other's species, and that these scrolls contain images that closely resemble people from civilizations in your world?”

Again Allen shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, Lyra, just that I’m not fully convinced, you’re gonna need more than just a few images from some ancient scrolls and shared myths and legends that may or may not just be down to cosmic coincidence. I mean, stranger things have happened, and no one said that real life had to make sense.”

Letting out a groan, Lyra shot back. “Alright, so what about Discord?”

“What about him?”

“How was he able to bring you and your farm here so easily unless he knew about your world and had a way to tear open the fabric of reality between our two worlds long enough to bring you here!” she finished with a stamp of her hoof on the table in emphasis.

Allen rolled his eyes. “From what I’ve heard he’s a powerful god of chaos who can literally turn reality into a fucking pretzel with a snap of his fingers. I’d say that he used his freaky chaos magic to randomly bring me here, and that was the end of it.”

“Yeah well-” began Lyra hotly, but a beige hoof on her withers cut her off, and turning to look at her marefriend, she shut her mouth and felt her ears droop when she saw the look Bon Bon was giving her. It was the look of ‘I know you are upset, but you need to stop before you say something dumb’.

Plopping back into her seat, she mumbled an apology. “I’m sorry Allen, I got carried away there for a second. It’s just that... ever since I was a little filly, Equestrian mythology has fascinated me, and humans, in particular, I can't explain why, it just has. When I was young, I felt that humans could be real and that they had actually been here in Equestria at one point in the distant past. Of course, other ponies my age thought I was crazy for believing that humans existed, and made fun of me for it. But I never gave up and I kept looking for hard evidence that would eventually prove me right, and now, here is the evidence pointing to the fact that my theories could actually be correct. You are proof that humans aren’t just a myth, and with these scrolls that have just been found, it points to the real possibility that humans and ponies were in contact with one another in the past. I... I just want to feel like I was right, and that all those ponies who doubted and belittled me for my beliefs could finally be proven wrong and that I would be vindicated in the end,” she said, her voice quiet at the end as she stared down at the open scroll before her.

Allen simply sat in his chair, chewing quietly on his bottom lip as he thought about what to say in response. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Lyra, I’m sorry if I made you feel upset by dredging up unpleasant memories due to my skepticism. I’m still coming to terms with the idea that my species is considered a myth by a lot of people here, while everything that I always thought of as fiction is in fact real in this world. This is a lot to take in for me, and I just don’t know what to believe anymore. My whole world has been turned upside down and I can’t tell which way is up anymore,” he shook his head and ran a hand frustratedly through his hair. “Look, I’m not saying that your theory is wrong or anything, I’m just saying that we’re gonna need more evidence before we can make a declaration one way or the other on this matter.”

He gave an exaggerated shrug and said, “I mean if your theory is true, then there’s a chance that other worlds exist out there and that it might be possible to visit them, and if that’s the case, who is to say that I’ll be able to even return to my own world? If there really is a multiverse out there, it might be impossible to find my original world to send me back to, I don’t know, and that kind of scares me,” taking a deep breath, he shook his head again and slid the pair of books across the table to Lyra. “Here, you can borrow these for a bit, we’ll iron out the details regarding payment later. In the meantime, I think I need to be alone for a bit to process all of this,” he said as he waved an arm at the mess of scrolls on the table.

Giving a shallow nod of understanding, Lyra quickly gathered the scrolls and books up in her magical aura and deposited them in her bags. Settling her saddlebags on her back, she turned and gently laid a hoof on Allen’s leg and said, “Thank you, Allen, these books will be a big help to me in my search for answers. There are still a lot of unopened scrolls back in Canterlot and it’ll take a while for us to go through them all. If I find anything interesting, I’ll be sure to let you know, alright?”

Allen silently nodded before then getting up and escorting his guests to the front door. Giving them a final, somber wave goodbye, he watched the pair of them trot away until they reached the end of his driveway. Closing the door, he returned to the kitchen. Taking a deep breath, he looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was a little after eleven in the morning. Frowning, he looked at his fridge and licked his lips, the thought of grabbing a drink of beer to calm his nerves crossing his mind.

Looking back at the clock, he finally gave a shake of his head and as he opened the fridge, he said, “Fuck it, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

(Non-canon) Chapter 7

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Author's Notes:

So this is the promised first chapter of cut content, and this is a different idea I had in regards to the ponies and Allen making first contact. Originally, I was going to have Allen end up in pony custody, but both myself and the readers at the time decided that it didn't really flow well, so it was cut and rewritten, as such it should be obvious that this is not canon to the story anymore. (And as you can see, this chapter has been posted out of order, and some of these cut chapters may not even correspond with the canon chapters that they are numbered after anymore either, so yeah, you have been warned.)

However, I decided that since this story has been getting a lot of attention, that I could start showing you guys some of what might have been. (I might even post the original chapters from when I started this story, I still have them even though I removed them from fimfiction back in 2013 when I rewrote the story for the first time. Damn, I just realized that I've been working on this thing for nearly a decade.)

In any case, it should be obvious that I have NOT edited these chapters for various grammar and spelling errors, and so you'll just have to live with any you find. Again, this is stuff that was cut for one reason or another, so it might not make sense as plot points and characters obviously didn't make it into the canon story. That is not to say that certain characters that are in these cut chapters won't show up in future chapters, but these plot points were removed due to issues with how they impacted the flow of the story.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this first one, and the following ones as I post them randomly going forward.

Chapter 7

Cut Content

“A group of no more than three ponies, two would probably be better, but three is the max that should go. We’ll first have to make it look like we’re pulling back, or at the least make the guardsponies look less threatening, I can’t imagine seeing hundreds of guardsponies trotting around its home is very reassuring at the moment.”

“No, I doubt that it is,” replied Blueblood absently, the majority of his concentration currently being occupied by the piece of parchment in front of him as he wrote down his thoughts, along with Lyra’s recommendations. Glancing up at Lyra, he gave a nod to continue.

Seeing his nod, Lyra said, “Well anyways, once we’ve reduced the perceived threat by the guardsponies, we send two or three hoof picked ponies in with visible and non-threatening gifts, such as food or some flowers maybe.”

“Anything else?”

“Well obviously the ponies going in have to be friendly looking, so it might be a good idea to have someone who is non-threatening in appearance, and mannerisms, be the first to approach. But at the same time we need somepony who is familiar with humans, and can take care of themselves in case things get out of hoof.”

“And I suppose you have the perfect candidate in mind?” asked Blueblood dryly.

“I might know a pony or two who could be convinced to help out,” replied Lyra, an innocent expression on her face.

Blueblood wasn’t fooled in the least, and said as much, “Ms. Heartstrings, while I’m sure you are...excited at the idea of making proper first contact, I must protest that the situation as it currently stands, poses too much of a risk to allow you to go.”

Lyra’s innocent expression immediately morphed into a sad pout, and cranking up the doe eyes to eleven, she replied in a tone of voice that was just short of a whine, “But, Your Grace! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and plus, I’m the only pony here who has any kind of experience regarding humans! ”

“Yes, book experience, but no practical experience when it comes to interacting with humans. Besides the situation is unstable enough as it is without sending in untrained ponies to deal with a potentially dangerous being.”

“But-”

Blueblood’s hoof slammed into the table, cutting off Lyra’s reply, and in a calm voice that brooked no argument, Blueblood finished, “No, means no, Ms. Heartstrings, I refuse to risk you or any other civilian pony’s safety, especially when we don’t know what this human is fully capable of, and what we do know is second hoof information that is potentially thousands of years out of date. So as it stands, I cannot condone making first contact with a human who is already presumed us to be hostile because of the massive cock-up that was yesterday. “

“But, you promised that I would have unlimited access, and that I would have a major say in what happens to it!” yelled Lyra, as she slammed her forehooves down on the table in front of her angrily.

As if to match her, Blueblood likewise jumped up from his seat, knocking it over in the process, and slammed his hooves down on the table, and leaning forward so that he was nearly muzzle to muzzle with the angry mare and yelled back, “Yes, you will be granted those things, but only after we’ve established that the human isn’t a threat! Moreover, you are our only source of information on humans, and as such, I refuse to take the risk of potentially losing you, and the knowledge that you possess, trying to talk to the human, when it would be better to have somepony else do it!”

Breathing heavily from his outburst, Blueblood, gave himself a small, but visible shake, as he recollected himself and slowly sat back down, his every moment overly controlled. Taking a deep breath, and running a hoof through his mane, he quietly said, “My apologies for my outburst Ms. Heartstrings, it was uncalled for. I’m afraid that the past few days have taken their toll on me.”

Lyra, still standing with her forehooves on the table, and a hurt look on her face, shakily sat back down, her ears pressed flat against her head. After several awkward and tense moments, she gave a single sniff, and said, “Apology accepted,” and looking up continued, “and I’d like to apologize too, I guess I got carried away there for a little bit.”

Blueblood felt his ears fall flat and winced slightly, “Regardless, Ms. Heartstrings, my actions were not justified, and I could have handled that...confrontation much better than I did. In any case, it’s no use crying over spilt milk at this point. Princess Celestia will be raising the sun soon, and now is our best chance to figure out what we’re going to do while we still have some options.”

Lyra blinked in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“While I would love nothing more than to have you go and talk to the human, I doubt that we can, given the situation, safely do so. Therefore, it might be necessary to conduct a more...straightforward method.”

“You mean attack it,” was Lyra’s blunt response.

Ranger Ash Fall decided to come to his friends aid at that point, and interjected saying, “Not necessarily, it might be best to subdue the human now in a non-violent way, perhaps the use of a sleep spell, after which we remove it from the house and transport it to a more favorable location from our perspective.”

“Of course, that’s implying a sleep spell would in fact work on it,” pointed out Palisade, “I mean, for all we know, it could be immune to magic or that it would be less effective.”

Ranger Ash Fall rubbed his chin thoughtfully, after several moments, he nodded and looking up, said, “You raise a valid point lieutenant, however, if the human can be affected by magic, then it might work, though at this point, our options are rather poor to begin with. What do you think, Ms. Heartstrings?”

Lyra frowned thoughtfully before saying, “It should work, according to the old records, humans were just as susceptible to spells as ponies were, though, we can’t know that for sure in the case of this one.”

Ranger Ash Fall gave a hum in agreement.

“You’re right, we’ll need a backup means to put it to sleep in case the magical spell fails.”

The sound of Palisade suddenly clearing his throat caught the rest of the group's attention, and giving a big smile, he said, “I think the Royal Guard can help you out there, Ranger Fall, if you all would follow me please,” and with that, he turned and trotted out of the barn, a happy look on his face.

The other four ponies looked at each other in confusion for a moment before quickly following the lieutenant, so as not to lose sight of him in the controlled chaos within the Apple Family’s farmyard.

After several minutes, the group found themselves standing in front of a wagon that had the words, “Caution! Handle with care!” emblazoned on the sides in big, red letters.

Coming to a stop beside the lieutenant, Ranger Ash Fall asked, “What’s this all about Lieutenant Palisade?”

Turning to regard the ranger with a gleeful grin, Lieutenant Palisade happily replied, “Oh, this is just a little something that we recently got from the ponies in R&D last month, and we’ve been sort of itching to try it out in the field.”

“But, what is it?” asked Twilight, a confused look on her face.

Whirling around and extending a hoof to point at the wagon behind him in a dramatic fashion, Palisade declared, “This, Ms. Sparkle! Is the Royal Guards new Crisis Response, and Emergency Wagon! It’s designed to be used in emergency situations and comes packed with things such as medical supplies, as well as crowd control devices! With these, the Royal Guard, and police departments, all across Equestria can quickly arrive on the scene and have everything we need to bring it quickly under control! In our case, Canterlot was given the opportunity to be selected as the pilot program for these wagons, hence why one is here!”

“That’s...great,” replied Twilight, a slightly uncomfortable look on face at seeing Palisade gushing over the wagon, “but that doesn’t really explain how this will help us deal with the human.”

“I was getting to that,” he replied, “like I mentioned before, these wagons come equipped with crowd control devices, such as easily erectable barricades, and traffic cones. However, they also come equipped with some new stuff that will help the Royal Guard and police ponies break up any potential riots without doing any major damage to civilians or property. Plus, the stuff in here can be used by anypony, so if we don’t have enough unicorns trained in sleep spells, it’s not a problem as we have, these!” he finished, having opened one of the many compartments on the side of the wagon, while he had been talking, and pulling out a small cylinder with the outline of a sleeping pony on it, and a white band around both ends.

Hoofing it over to Ranger Ash Fall for him to inspect, Palisade continued, saying, “These cylinders contain a special gas inside, that when released, creates a large cloud that can, when inhaled, put a pony to sleep in seconds, turning even the most unruly crowds into an easy clean up job! The best part is, these can be used indoors as well, and the gas dissipates pretty quick too!”

“Hmm,” hummed Ranger Ash Fall as he hefted the cylinder in his hoof for a moment before then looking up at Palisade and asking, “Has this been thoroughly tested on both ponies and non-ponies?”

Palisade nodded happily.

“Yep! Will put a full grown Minator down in a couple of seconds no problem!”

“No adverse effects?”

“None that have been noticed.”

“Ms. Heartstrings,” said Ash Fall as he turned to her, “I believe that we might want to consider using the gas in place of magic, seeing as how we’re unsure of whether or not it will be effective on this human.”

Lyra bit her lip nervously. Looking over to Palisade she asked, “Are you sure it’s safe?”

Palisade nodded, “Yep! Everypony in my detachment had to go through training on how to use these. Plus, as part of our training, we were also exposed to the gas as well, you feel a little sleepy and then the next thing you know you’re out like a light.”

Giving a tired sigh, Lyra said, “Then...I...guess I have no objections to it, what about you Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head.

“I see no real issue either, beyond the fact that we’re, for all intents and purposes, about to commit ponynapping, plus breaking and entering.”

Ranger Ash Fall gave a soft chuckle at Twilight’s reply.

“Yeah, when you put it that way, it does make ya feel a little dirty doesn’t it?” But his smile quickly morphed into a frown and he continued more seriously, “However, in this case I would say it’s justified. If we can successfully subdue this human and bring them into a more secure location, it’ll make things easier, and safer, for everypony involved. Besides, when everything's all said and done, we can always apologize and make amends with the human if it turns out to be harmless.”

“Yeah, I suppose so, but still...” she said, an uncertain look on her face.

‘This is the hoof we’ve been dealt Ms. Sparkle, and frankly, it’s not the best. The way I see it, no matter what we do, it’s gonna stink, so might as well pick the best that we can pick and move forward from that. Now,” Ash turned back to Palisade, “Lieutenant Palisade, what is the effective range on these gas cylinders?”

Palisade replied, “One should be enough to flood the house, especially if we put it in on the second floor, though we might have to break a window to do it.”

Ranger Ash Fall’s ears fell flat against his head in distaste at the idea.

“I’d rather not add property damage to our list of sins if I can help it.”

Palisade nodded in agreement.

“Understandable sir, but, the gas is somewhat heavy, and if we put it on the second floor we’re almost guaranteed to have full saturation of the home.”

“So you can’t guarantee full coverage unless it is on the second floor?”

Palisade shook his head.

“No, our training emphasized that when used in multi-story buildings the higher up the cylinder is used, the better the results, though if there are more than two or three floors, multiple cylinders will have to be used, but in our case one should suffice.”

Ranger Ash Fall gave a nod, and hummed thoughtfully to himself as he tapped his chin.

“Then we’ll have to find a window that is either unlocked or already open, which is doubtful, or we break one of the windows and toss the cylinder inside, either way we’re going to nee-,”

“Excuse me, Ranger Fall?” interrupted Twilight, an apologetic smile on her face.

Ranger Ash Fall turned to regard Twilight with a calm expression and raising an eyebrow asked, “Yes, Ms. Sparkle, did you have something you wanted to share with us?”

“I was just wondering if it would be possible to use a unicorn to teleport the cylinder inside the house, thus negating the need to find an open window or break one.”

Both Palisade and Ash blinked in surprise, and turning to each other said in perfect sync, “Now why didn’t I think of that?” before then noticing their synchronization and bursting out into laughter.

Quickly bringing his laughter back under control, Ash Fall gave a grateful nod to Twilight and happily replied, “Thank you Ms. Sparkle, that’s a wonderful idea, and while I’m thinking about it, we can have one of the unicorn guards cast a life detection spell to see where in the house the human is currently at. Lieutenant Palisade, do you know if any of your unicorns are qualified to use those two spells?”

Palisade gave an affirmative nod, “I do, and they are both close by, so it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to locate them.”

Ranger Ash Fall nodded, and turning to Blueblood asked, “What do you think, Your Grace, will you approve this mission?”

Blueblood gave a nod, “It seems you have the situation well in hoof, and the plan seems sound,” he paused for a moment, before shaking his head as if discarding a random thought, “I don’t see any reason why this plan shouldn’t go forward. You may proceed,” he finished.

“Then give me a minute and I’ll go and retrieve them,” said Palisade in response, and with that he gave a quick salute and took off into the early morning darkness.

Seeing that the plan was coming together, Ash turned back to the other members of the group and asked, “If you have any further concerns or additions to the plan that you want to put forward, now is the time.”

Lyra sighed softly to herself and said, with a hint of melancholy in her voice, “Other than I’d rather not see us do this, I have no further concerns or additions.”

Twilight began to shake her head as well to indicate that she had nothing to add either, and several minutes later, Palisade returned with the aforementioned guardsponies.

“We’re back, sir!” he said, coming to a stop, and all three of them saluting.

Returning the salute, Ranger Ash Fall replied, “Welcome back, lieutenant, now that you’re here, we can finalize, and go over the plan before we execute it, though I would prefer to do this before the princess raises the morning sun, so time is necessarily short.”

“Of course sir,” replied Palisade, before motioning for the other two guards to follow him.

Turning to regard both Lyra and Twilight, Ranger Ash Fall said, “I would like to thank you kind ladies for your help and patience in this matter. Unfortunately, there isn’t much left for you to do until we have the human in custody so for everypony's safety, I’m afraid that you’ll have to remain here in the command post until the operation is over.”

“Of course Ranger Fall, we wish you all the best of luck and will await your return here,” replied Twilight, with an understanding bow of her head, with Lyra following suit.

Glad to see that neither mare was going to raise a fuss over being left out, Ash said, “Thank you for your understanding, Ms. Sparkle, Ms. Heartstring, I know that you both are somewhat used to dealing with monsters and what not, but I’d rather not take the risk of anything bad happening to either of you. In any case, we’ll send a runner to fetch you when we’ve got the human in our custody,” and with that, he gave a final nod to them both, and a quick salute to Blueblood, and trotted out to catch up with the three Royal Guards.

“I hope everything goes okay, and no one gets hurt,” said Lyra, a worried expression on her face, Twilight nodding in agreement, as the three of them watched the guards disappear into the early morning darkness.

Turning to regard the two mares, Blueblood said, “Well, all we can do is wait, though I have the utmost confidence in Ranger Fall and Lieutenant Palisade and his ponies. I’m sure everything will turn out alright. Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I need to send a report back to Canterlot with an update on the current situation,” and giving a nod to each of them, he departed, leaving the two alone by the wagon, and hoping that everything would in fact turn out alright.

Chapter 28 (Day Trip to Canterlot)

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Author's Notes:

Okay, to clear up some confusion. I originally posted this chapter a few days ago, however, I took it down to do a light rework. This was because I've been feeling a bit depressive/irritated with the world lately, and I'm afraid that some of that leaked through into the story. This created a situation where the chapter fell into one of those annoying tropes of the MC bashing humans and singing the praises of the ponies.

So, in an effort to remedy that, I've gone back through and removed some of Allen's dialogue, while adding additional lines that should hopefully better balance this chapter out, while at the same time adding in a dash of world-building/minor character development.

Finally, as a way of apology, and because we've surpassed 800 likes, (we are currently at 814 as of this writing) I've decided to include another non-canon bonus chapter for you all to sink your teeth into. I've attached a long author's note, (for me anyway) over there explaining what I did for this chapter for everyone who is already read it, as well as that one.

So in any case, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 28

The sharp blast of a whistle drew both Allen and Twilight’s attention as a passenger train slowed to a stop in front of the Ponyville station platform. Steam swirled around the engine as it came to a halt. Ponies milled about on the platform as they gathered their things to either board the train or made their way to the baggage car to collect their luggage as they disembarked. Turning to Twilight, Allen remarked, “I haven’t ridden on a train in probably fourteen years.”

Cocking her head, Twilight replied, “Really? Then how did you get around back home?”

“I drove mostly,” he replied, “most people back home either fly or drive to their destinations, a lot of people in the US don’t find traveling by rail to be very practical, so it’s not a very popular mode of travel anymore.”

“Interesting,” she said as she pulled out a quill and paper to jot more notes down. By this point Allen wasn’t even phased as anytime he spoke with the nerdy unicorn, she would inevitably teleport a quill and piece of paper to her and begin taking notes for later perusal. It was kind of adorable, in a dorky sort of way.

Turning his attention back to the engine, he could see that it was in a 4-4-0 configuration and had a small tender following along behind it that was loaded up with coal. Twilight had explained that this train was just a local commuter and unlike its more colorful cousin, the Friendship Express was painted in a black and silver livery. Allen, having seen color pictures of the famous Friendship Express with its pink, purple and yellow livery, decided that he preferred the local color scheme as it didn’t hurt his eyes with its basic black theme.

Seeing that the majority of ponies who wanted to get off had already done so, Allen carefully nudged Twilight forward. Head still glued to her scroll, Twilight somehow managed to navigate her way onto the train and even managed to present her ticket to the conductor on the way in. Flashing his own ticket at the open-mouthed, mustachioed pony, Allen waited as the stallion reflexively punched his ticket and giving a nod of thanks, boarded the train.

Thank god they built their train coaches with minotaurs in mind, thought Allen to himself as he easily boarded the train without having to duck through the doorway. Twilight had explained to him earlier that Equestrian railway cars were required to be able to accommodate as many species as possible, this included the tall minotaurs and the wide yaks, even if the two species were still a rare sight in Equestria proper. Of course, if what Twilight said is true, they probably also did it so that their princesses wouldn’t have to duck through low doorways for the rest of eternity either. He smirked at the thought quietly to himself.

Nudging Twilight into an empty booth, he took his own seat across from her next to the window and waited for the train to depart. After a few minutes, a distant shout of “All aboard! ” rang out, and with two blasts of the whistle and a sudden jerk, they were on their way to Canterlot.

Contenting himself with watching the scenery pass by, Allen felt his mind wander back to last Saturday and the last couple of days following Lyra’s visit. After he’d downed an entire bottle of beer, he’d sat and moped around the house for a few hours while he let his mind digest the information that Lyra had given him. Penny had already left by the time Lyra and Bon Bon had shown up, so he didn’t need to explain why he was in a mopey mood all of a sudden, for which he was thankful. Sometimes one just needed to sit and mope for a bit. However, that moping made him feel guilty because he had things he needed to do, and so he’d forced himself to get back to work.

His first order of business had been to try and figure out how to get in contact with Chisel and Son’s. Seeing as how phones didn’t exist in Equestria, he had a couple of options. The first was to send them a letter asking them to come and take a look at his buildings, but he figured that would take longer than he wanted as it would probably require several back and forth letters as they tried to schedule an appointment. The second option was to just take a train to Canterlot and visit their office in person, and after thinking about it, and how he didn’t feel like hassling with the mail service, he settled on taking a day trip on Monday up to the mountainside city instead.

Naturally, when Cloud Kicker had come by that afternoon with the, hopefully, last bit of his paperwork, he mentioned his plans to her, and seeing as how he’d never been there, wondered if she would be interested in tagging along with him so that he didn’t get lost. Unfortunately, Cloud had told him that she would be busy that day and thus wouldn’t be able to accompany him. However, she did suggest going and asking Twilight if she might be free as she was also from Canterlot as well. Liking the idea, Allen decided to do just that the following morning.

“Of course, I would be happy to come with you,” she had replied, when Allen had shown up at her door, asking her if she was free the following day, having rode into town on his freshly cleaned and aired up bicycle.

Man, I’m glad that these tires are still in good shape, even though I haven’t ridden this thing in years, he’d thought to himself as he cruised along that morning. It had been kind of funny when he’d ridden into town, watching various ponies gaping at him as he pedaled past, as apparently bicycles also didn’t exist in this world. Probably because ponies didn’t have a need for them when they could just gallop or fly if they needed to get somewhere quickly. Though by the time Allen had reached Twilight’s treebrary, he’d been pretty winded and his legs felt like they were on fire from all the pedaling he did.

“Super, hopefully, it won’t take too long to get this sorted out,” he had said, though he then changed topics by asking Twilight about her current home, as he’d been curious about it since seeing it from a distance. “So Twilight,” he asked, pointing up at the tree, “is this a real living tree?”

“Sure is!” she replied happily, before then proceeding to spend the next hour on the history of treebraries in Equestria and how they were formed. Thankfully, Spike, Twilight’s dragon assistant, had inadvertently come to his rescue with a letter from Princess Celestia that had distracted Twilight long enough that Allen could escape.

He’d heard about Spike while he was in the hospital from Nurse Redheart, but seeing the little dragon up close was an interesting experience.

“So you’re a dragon, huh?” he casually asked Spike after they had left the treebrary far behind, as Spike was already on his way out to do some shopping of his own in town, and because Allen didn’t want to get trapped by Twilight in another hour-long lecture.

“Sure am!” proclaimed Spike proudly, as he puffed out his chest and lifted his chin in the air.

“Do you breathe fire?”

Shooting Allen a knowing, smug look, Spike took a deep breath and blew out a gout of flame nearly three feet long, startling Allen and a couple of nearby ponies in the process.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed Allen in surprise.

“I know,” replied Spike smugly as he buffed his claws on his chest, “I’m pretty awesome, and Twilight says that my flame will only get bigger as I get older.”

Allen made a mental note to do his best to keep on the little dragon’s good side from now on, as he didn’t fancy being turned into a human flambé anytime soon.

“That’s great kid, but how about warning a guy next time you’re gonna do an imitation of a flamethrower right next to his legs, eh?” replied Allen as he willed his heart to slow down.

Spike had the good graces to give a sheepish smile. “Sorry,” he replied, “I sometimes forget that not everyone is used to me randomly burping flames all the time.”

“You randomly burp flames?”

Spike nodded. “Yeah, but it’s usually only when Princess Celestia sends Twilight a letter or I get indigestion.”

“Why would Princess Celestia sending Twilight a letter make you burp flames?” asked Allen confused.

“Princess Celestia placed a spell on me that allows her to send a letter to Twilight instantly through my dragon fire, and if we want to send her one, all I have to do is just burn a specially enchanted scroll and it’ll get sent straight to her.”

Allen blinked owlishly while his brain processed what he’d just heard. Finally, he decided to just accept it at face value and move on. “Alright,” he said as the pair resumed their journey through Ponyville.

“So how did you and Twilight meet?” asked Allen as a way to keep the conversation going.

“She hatched me during her entrance exam to Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. My egg was being used as the final test for fillies and colts, Princess Celestia told me later that it was supposed to be impossible for anypony to hatch that egg because it takes very specific conditions for a dragon egg to hatch, and in any case, they didn’t think the egg was even capable of hatching in the first place. They were just using it as a way to test how a foal handled failure. However, when Twilight surged, her magic apparently made me hatch, then grow to full adult size before Princess Celestia could calm her surge and return me back to baby size.”

“Wow, that’s... crazy to think that Twilight could have done that as a foal,” suddenly looking around to see if anyone was nearby, Allen leaned down and whispered in Spike’s earfin, “I heard from Nurse Redheart that Twilight allegedly turned her parents into house plants. Is that true?”

Spike nodded. “Yep, it’s true, though Princess Celestia turned them back after Twilight’s surge ended. From what they told me, they don't remember being turned into plants, one second they saw Twilight surging, and the next it was all over.”

Allen shivered. “I’d be freaked out if that happened to me.”

Spike gave an understanding nod. “Yeah, I could see that, Twilight tells me that you come from a place that doesn’t have a lot of magic, right?”

“Yeah,” replied Allen with a nod, “apparently there is some magic in my world, but there’s so little that it’s all but unnoticeable for the general population. To us, magic is something found in fantasy books and movies.”

“Wow, that’s so weird to think that there’s a place out there that functions without using magic for everything.”

Shrugging, Allen said, “I feel the same way about Equestria,” pointing to Spike, he said, “I mean if you had told me two months ago that I would be walking beside and talking to an honest to god dragon I would have thought you were off your rocker. Yet here we are.”

“Life sure is weird sometimes, isn’t it?” asked Spike as he glanced up at Allen.

“You have no idea kid,” replied Allen, with a shake of his head.

“So... what do you think of Equestria so far? I mean besides it being different with magic and stuff,” asked Spike hesitantly.

Allen shrugged his shoulders and replied, “It’s... different. Don’t get me wrong, everyone has been pretty nice to me since I got here, and the land looks beautiful. But I miss home, even with all its problems. I’m hoping that Twilight and the others can find a way to send me and my farm back soon.”

“Well with Twilight on the job, you’ll be home in no time!” exclaimed Spike confidently.

Chuckling at the young drake’s enthusiasm, Allen just shook his head in amusement and replied, “Here’s hoping kid.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘kid’? I’m a dragon, not a goat,” said Spike, a weird and confused look on his face.

“Oh, sorry,” replied Allen, an apologetic look on his face, “back home kid is a shortened way of saying child, but it can also refer to a young goat as well. One of the idiosyncrasies of English I suppose. If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”

Spike shook his head. “No, that’s okay, I don’t mind really. I just wanted to know why you kept calling me that.”

“Fair enough I suppose,” remarked Allen as they continued their trek through town. Entering the main market square, Allen noticed that there was quite a bit of activity going on for a Sunday, even the bank was open.

“Huh, that’s weird,” he said half to himself.

“What’s weird,” queried Spike.

“Oh, just noticing that there’s a lot of ponies out and about for the weekend and that the bank is open as well,” he said as he pointed to said building with an outstretched arm.

“And why wouldn’t they be open? Ponies need to shop and stuff, how else would they get their money?” responded Spike, his head tilted to one side in confusion.

“I just figured that since it was Sunday, they would be closed, seeing as how it’s the weekend and all,” replied Allen with a nonchalant shrug. In truth, he was glad to see the bank open as that meant he could withdraw his bits today instead of first thing in the morning on Monday and hope that he didn’t miss his train.

“Well, yeah it’s the weekend, but ponies still need money, and there isn’t any other way to get it other than by going to the bank,” explained Spike patiently, “aren’t your banks open on Sundays back home?”

Allen shook his head. “Some are open half a day on Saturday, but I’ve never encountered a bank that was open on a Sunday.”

“Well why not?” asked Spike with a child-like curiosity in his eyes.

Again, Allen shrugged. “A lot of reasons,” he began, “many people believe that Sunday is a holy day and is meant for rest, meaning that they don’t do business on that day. Others just don’t want to work on Sunday because it’s become the cultural norm in their country due to religious observances in the past on that day. Plus a lot of governments have put laws into place limiting the amount of work employers can ask of their employees without having to pay over time, so people generally have two days off per week, and they’re traditionally Saturday and Sunday. Besides, most people in my world don’t need to go to a physical bank in order to get money out to pay for things anyways.”

“How does that work? Don’t you need physical money to pay for stuff?”

Allen laughed. “Not really, a lot of people pay for things on credit and then pay their balance at the end of the month. It’s faster and more convenient for them that way, though if they miss a payment, they’ll owe more money due to interest on the credit and late fees. A lot of people in my world are heavily in debt and struggle to get by.”

Spike crossed his arms and confidently replied, “Well then maybe they should do a better job of keeping track of how much money they spend then. Besides, buying on credit is a bad idea anyway, if you can’t afford something, you shouldn’t buy it. That’s what Twilight has always told me.”

Allen smirked down at Spike and ruffled his head crest playfully, while Spike tried to wave his hand away. “Truer words have never been spoken, kid,” his smile faded though, “of course that’s not always possible. Things are always more complicated than they appear at first glance. It’s true,” he continued as he looked out over the bustling marketplace, “that there are a lot of people back home who aren’t very good at managing their finances, but then there are a lot of people who are good at it. The problem though is that in some places, it’s just too expensive for most people to live, and it isn’t getting any better.”

“Well, then why don’t they just move?” asked Spike, as if it were the most obvious solution in the world.

“They can’t or won’t,” shrugged Allen indifferently, “there are a lot of reasons people struggle with life in my world. Some of them are because they made poor choices, and others are because of factors outside of their control,” glancing down at Spike, Allen could see that he was going to ask another question that would require an unpleasant answer. Deciding that he didn’t feel like answering those kinds of questions, Allen headed him off by saying, “Look, Spike, I get that you’re curious about my world and all, but I’d rather not talk about the less pleasant aspects of it right now,” looking around, he waved an arm around the market and said, “it’s a beautiful day, so why don’t we talk about something else, alright?”

Frowning at being denied further knowledge, Spike grudgingly nodded. “Alright, but I’d still like to hear more about what your world is like.”

Allen shrugged and said, “Alright, what else did you want to know?”

Rubbing his chin in idle thought, Spike tried to come up with a question that Allen wouldn’t object to, after a few quiet moments he finally asked, “Did you travel a lot back home?”

Allen nodded, a nostalgic smile blooming, as he recalled childhood memories of his mother and him traveling across the country. “Sure did,” he said wistfully, “my mother loved to travel, though my dad preferred staying home as according to him, he had had his fill of traveling when he was in the army, plus he could never get comfortable on long car rides.”

“Where did you guys go?”

“All over the place, my country is huge, and you can travel for days or even weeks before you reach another one,” replied Allen as he spread his arms wide for emphasis.

“So what did you see?” asked Spike with a mix of curiosity and excitement about hearing something new.

“It would probably be easier to tell you what I didn’t see,” chuckled Allen. “I saw tall snow-capped mountains, large flowing rivers, lush green plains, sparkling sandy beaches and deep blue oceans, majestic forests, and, ah man, I could go on for hours. As much as my government mystifies and irritates me at times, there’s probably one government department that I am fully happy to fund with my tax money, and that is the National Park Service.”

“National Park Service? What do they do?”

Smiling, Allen said, “They’re responsible for maintaining a lot of the parks and heritage sites across my country, and for the most part, they do an amazing job. The parks are well maintained and a lot of them have cool things to see in them.”

“Like what?” asked Spike.

“Well,” began Allen, “one of my favorite parks to visit is Yellowstone National Park. If my memory is correct, it’s one of the oldest if not the oldest park back home, and covers thousands of square miles of land. You can see all kinds of wild animals running around, and it’s got some beautiful landscapes and features, like Old Faithful.”

“Old Faithful?” asked Spike as he tilted his head in curiosity wondering what this ‘Old Faithful’ might be.

Allen nodded and explained. “It’s what’s called a ‘cone geyser’ and it shoots scalding hot water, and steam high into the air in a spectacular display. Yellowstone sits on top of an ancient supervolcano and as a result, there are a lot of hot springs and geysers in the park. Old Faithful has regular eruptions every day, hence the name.”

“Wow, that sounds cool! How hot is the water?” exclaimed Spike in excitement as his eyes grew wide.

“Pretty hot, like a couple of hundred degrees at least, and the steam is even hotter. I heard when they found it, the early explorers would use it to clean their clothes, with varying levels of success,” explained Allen patiently.

Spike giggled and replied, puffing out his chest in pride, “Well, that is pretty hot, but we dragons can swim in lava! Which is way hotter than that!”

Chuckling at the little drake’s antics, Allen ruffled his head crest and said, “I bet,” pausing, he noticed that both he and Spike had been walking for a bit and had ended up in front of Sugarcube Corner. Feeling a bit peckish, Allen hooked a thumb in the direction of the bakery and asked, “say, I’m feeling a bit hungry, how about getting something to nom on? My treat.”

“Really?” asked Spike, his eyes widening and a touch of drool forming at the corner of his mouth as the thought of getting a free treat from Sugarcube Corner.

“Really,” replied Allen with a knowing nod, “though I need to stop by the bank real quick to get some bits first, think you can wait here and guard my bike for me while I do that?”

Snapping to attention, Spike snapped off a crisp salute and said, “Sir, yes sir!”

Chuckling at the dragon’s enthusiasm, Allen gave his head crest one last ruffle and said, “Alright, I’ll be back in a minute,” before heading inside to make the necessary withdrawals.

Back in the present, Allen smiled at the memory as he watched the scenery go by. Both he and Spike had had a good time together that day. The cupcakes were delicious, and Spike had enjoyed his immensely. After that, Allen had decided to tag along with Spike and help him with his shopping, as he found himself enjoying spending time with the little guy. It was probably for the best that he had, as by the time Spike had bought everything on his list, he had a stack of items as tall as him nestled in his arms that wobbled dangerously back and forth as he walked. Allen’s stack hadn’t been much better either, but somehow they had managed to make it back to the library without incident, and after confirming when he would meet Twilight at the station the following morning, Allen had gone home for the evening.

The sharp blast of a whistle broke Allen out of his memories and he realized that they would soon be beginning their ascent up the mountain to Canterlot. Turning away from the window, Allen noticed that Twilight had her snout buried deep in a book and seemed to be lost in her own little world. Giving her a gentle nudge, he smiled when she let loose a surprised, yip! and shot him an unamused look.

Giving her an apologetic look, Allen pointed out the window and said, “It looks like we're almost there now, just thought I’d let you know.”

Looking past Allen to look out the window, Twilight gave a thoughtful hum and nodding said, “Good call, we should be arriving at the station in about ten minutes or so. Thanks for the heads up, it’ll give me a chance to wrap up my current train of thought.”

“Sure, no problem,” replied Allen as he watched Twilight rebury her face in her book.

Seeing as she was going to be busy for a bit longer, Allen turned his attention back to the window. Currently, they were seated on the left side of the train which gave him an unobstructed view of the valley below. It was a scene that would take one’s breath away, a beautiful patchwork carpet of various shades of green with other colors mixed in from flowering trees and plants. Several small rivers all joining together to form a much larger sapphire-colored ribbon of water that flowed ever onward towards the sea, and in the far distance, Allen could see the famous City of Cloudsdale, that Cloud Kicker had mentioned before, with its colorful rainbow falls and Greek and Roman-themed architecture. All in all, it was a magnificent sight to behold and Allen wished that he’d brought his phone with him so that he could take pictures with it. Alas, he hadn’t thought of it when he was leaving his home that morning, and so he’d just have to content himself with committing it to memory instead.

However, the scene quickly disappeared as the train chugged up the side of Mount Canterhorn, the spiraling pattern of the tracks quickly rotating Allen’s view to another section of the landscape below. Though he did see the floating city come back into view a few more times as they wound their way up the mountain. However, they soon entered a tunnel that blocked the scenic view completely as the train entered the final leg of its journey.

Huffing and puffing, the train emerged from the tunnel a few minutes later in a cloud of steam and smoke, its whistle blowing a long, loud warning to anyone foolish enough to be in its way that it was coming through. As the darkness of the tunnel changed to bright sunlight, Allen blinked as his eyes adjusted and he beheld his first glimpse of Canterlot up close.

Crossing the train car to the opposite side, he craned his neck so that he could get a better look at the towering spires that stood tall against the deep blue sky. They were painted a variety of colors, from pale blue’s that matched the sky to gentle purples and ivory whites, some even had gold-capped roofs, while others were adorned with painted tiles that matched their tower's paint scheme. Everything was clean and spotless, with well-tended plants and hedges lining the various walkways and roads that Allen could see before the train entered the station proper. Everything about this city said, I am the center of wealth and power, bow before my splendor all ye who enter here.

However, the train soon entered the station before coming to a stop in a cloud of steam and noise as the engine let loose a pair of sharp blasts of its whistle signaling that it had arrived and that it was time for everyone on board to leave. Looking out through the window at the sight of the bustling crowd on the platform, Allen could see what had to be hundreds of ponies, all running hither and thither in their quest to be somewhere else. It was quite a chaotic change of pace from the more sedate Ponyville.

Feeling someone nudge his leg, Allen looked down and saw that Twilight had donned her saddlebags and was poking him with his satchel bag, a knowing smirk on her face as she watched Allen stare out the window at the chaos beyond.

“It’s pretty chaotic out there isn’t it?” she asked as Allen slung his satchel over his shoulder.

Nodding he replied, “Yeah, quite a bit busier than Ponyville that’s for sure.”

Twilight giggled. “Once we get out and away from the station, it should be a little less crazy. The lower levels of Canterlot are the busiest as that’s where all the cargo and passenger terminals for the trains and airships are.”

“Airships? You mean like, blimps or dirigibles?” asked Allen in amazement as he and Twilight slowly pushed their way through the crowd of passengers to the car’s exit.

“Dirigibles?” she asked, a confused look on her face, before shaking her head, and saying, “No, I mean airships, you’ll see them as we exit the station.”

Shrugging, Allen fell in alongside Twilight as they exited the train car and carefully crossed the platform. The crowd of ponies flowing around them like water. It actually kind of amazed Allen as he didn’t see too many ponies looking his way. He figured that he’d attract at least a little bit of attention, but apparently, ponies in Canterlot were a bit more cosmopolitan in their outlook.

Looking around the station, Allen let out an impressed whistle and said, “Man, this place sure looks fancy.” As he took in the sight of the polished marble columns and vaulted ceiling of the main lobby area just off the platform.

Twilight puffed up her chest slightly in a show of hometown pride. “Well, of course, Canterlot Station was designed to wow foreign dignitaries and visitors from far away lands. I mean, would you expect anything less for the nation’s capital?”

Allen gave a nonchalant shrug. “Fair enough I suppose, it’s still impressive though,” he said as he and Twilight passed by a wall mural showing some of Equestria’s great historical events, the royal blue carpet muffling their steps as they walked.

Must have cost a fortune to build and maintain this place, thought Allen idly to himself as he and Twilight exited into the late morning sunlight.

Pointing a hoof to the left, Twilight said, “Over there, you can see some of the airship docks, and... oh! It looks like the Wind Spirit is in dock today, how exciting!”

Following her hoof, Allen felt his jaw slowly drop as he saw the ship she was pointing at. It was a strange sight to behold, it looked as if someone had taken a wooden-hulled sailing ship, suspended it underneath a gigantic oval-shaped gasbag, and tied the two together with several hundred ropes. The vessel looked to be perhaps three to four hundred feet in length, with its keel clad in copper sheets that were still bright and shiny like a brand new penny, while its wooden hull was painted a brilliant bright white with a royal blue line painted halfway up its side. The gasbag meanwhile was painted a beautiful sky blue with a large yellow sun motif at the front of the gasbag and small white clouds trailing along the side of its envelope towards the stern.

Shaking his head in amazement, he watched as distant pegasi flew around the large airship like a swarm of busy bees would a fragrant flower bush, as they cleaned, checked, and loaded the airship for its next voyage.

Well, I’ll be damned, he thought in amazement as he took a couple of hesitant steps forward out of reflex as he stared up at the beautiful airship before him. The damn things got to be at least three hundred feet long. How do they manage to keep that thing from breaking apart in mid-air like that? Never mind getting it to float like that, it’s got to weigh several thousand tons!

Seeing Allen’s look of stunned amazement, Twilight gently nudged him and said, “Told you it was an actual airship and not a dirigible.”

“H-how is that possible?” he asked incredulously. “There’s no way that gas bag is strong enough to hold up that much weight!”

Smiling smugly up at Allen, Twilight casually buffed a hoof on her chest and explained, “A combination of special lightweight building materials, excellent engineering, floatstone generators, and magic. Wind Spirit is just the latest airship to be built at the Royal Canterlot Airship Yard and is meant to quickly and safely transport passengers and cargo all across the world for the Equestrian government.”

Tearing his gaze away from the majestic sight, Allen remarked, “How come I’ve never seen one of these from Ponyville? The damn thing is certainly big enough to be seen from miles away!”

“Most airships tend to avoid the Ponyville area due to the unpredictable nature of the Everfree Forest’s weather system. As such they tend to come in from the north side of Canterlot, which puts them behind the mountain and out of sight from Ponyville as the docks are on the northern side of the city anyways,” explained Twilight happily.

Nodding his head absently, Allen muttered, “I guess that makes sense,” pointing at the ship, he said, “Well, one thing is for sure, they didn’t spare any expense when they built that thing.”

Twilight giggled. “I would think not! The Wind Spirit was built to ferry important ponies around the world. So it would make sense that they would make it as comfortable and beautiful as possible. I know that Princess Celestia has used it a couple of times for state visits to other nations, but usually, it is used to transport diplomats or important cargo quickly.”

“So how does it float like that? Surely that gasbag isn’t the only thing holding it up there?”

Shaking her head, Twilight replied, “The gas bag is mostly there for fine-tuning the ship’s altitude and to act as a sort of parachute should the floatstone generators fail.”

“Floatstone? Let me guess, it’s exactly what it sounds like?” asked Allen with a roll of his eyes.

“You got it in one!” replied Twilight happily. “Floatstone is a magically charged rock from the northern mountains, between here and Yakyakistan. When you run a weak electrical current through it, the magic in the rocks creates a localized area of lift and causes them to float. The more current you use, the greater the lift. There are several floatstone rooms on all airships that are strategically placed throughout the ship to give it the lift it needs to be able to fly,” pointing a hoof to the stern, Allen could see that there were several bulbous protrusions sticking out of the hull to either side of the rudder, “those,” she explained, “are the propellers that give the ship the thrust it needs to move through the air and can be turned slightly in either direction to help with steering in tight airspaces.”

“I see that you guys gave her a copper bottom,” remarked Allen as the sunlight reflected off the ship's shiny copper sheathing.

Twilight nodded. “It helps with drag and rigidity. Plus, if the ship needs to touch down in the water, it will help keep the ocean life from damaging the wooden hull as much.”

“So it can also act like a normal ship and sail on water?”

Twilight made a ‘sort of’ gesture with her hoof. “Only in an emergency, and not for very long either. Airships are not designed to sail in the oceans, as even though their hulls are strong, they aren’t as reinforced as one that is dedicated to sailing on the water. If an airship were to spend too much time in the water, it would run the risk of developing leaks due to the weight of the water working the timbers loose, and possibly sinking. However, in a pinch, it can float for a time without issue.”

“Wow, just when I think I can’t be surprised anymore, you guys go and surprise me again,” remarked Allen dryly as he and Twilight resumed their journey.

Giggling, Twilight replied in a teasing tone of voice, “I would think that you have realized that by now, Allen. After all, you’ve barely seen all of Ponyville yet, let alone the rest of the country or world. Even Princess Celestia hasn’t seen everything that the world has to offer yet, and she’s been around for thousands of years!”

Allen just gave an affirmative grunt but didn’t comment. In truth, he wasn’t one-hundred percent convinced that what Twilight and the other ponies had told him was true regarding their leaders' long lifespans or the fact that they held sway over the heavenly bodies in the sky. So instead he kept his mouth shut and just went along with it. At the end of the day, he figured there wasn’t any point in arguing with someone on something he couldn’t easily prove one way or the other. Of course, he thought quietly to himself, there is always the chance that she is right, and the princesses do raise the sun and the moon.

He glanced up at the sky above, and shading his eyes against the glare of the sun, frowned. Considering the fact that my farm and I were brought here through space and time by some sort of being of chaos, it’s always possible that the rest of what I’ve been told is true. Sighing, he turned his attention away from the big floating gas ball in the sky and shook his head. Best just not think about it, he thought silently to himself as he and Twilight wound their way through the well-kept streets of Canterlot.

Noticing that Allen had fallen silent, Twilight cleared her throat and asked, “Everything alright, Allen?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah,” he said with a shallow nod, “just thinking about some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” asked Twilight in her usual inquisitive fashion.

Allen merely shrugged. “Just how things are different here is all. It’s sometimes hard to wrap my head around it, ya know?”

Twilight tilted her head to one side and replied hesitantly, “I... guess?” she paused, thinking about what might have caused Allen to fall into such a contemplative mood all of a sudden. However, nothing really came to mind, and so she decided to change the subject. “So, you mentioned that you needed to find Chisel and Son’s?”

Allen nodded and pulled out a piece of paper with the address of the shop written on it. “Address is 129 Trotter Street, you know where that is?”

Twilight nodded happily. “Sure do! Trotter Street runs along the edge of the commercial and industrial districts, if we take a left at the next street, we should run right into it in no time.”

“Well alright then, sounds like a plan,” replied Allen easily as he stuffed the piece of paper back in his bag and continued walking. As the two of them moved along, Twilight would rattle off some interesting fact about Canterlot, and Allen would listen attentively. Twilight was a well of interesting and helpful information regarding the history of the city and its citizens, and it helped pass the time as they walked along the well-maintained sidewalks of the lower industrial and transportation sections of Canterlot.

It was interesting to Allen, just how clean and orderly the pony city was. Looking around, he could see freight wagons moving to and fro being pulled by teams of muscled earth ponies, while pegasi flitted about through the air lanes, either solo or as a team pulling an air cart laden with cargo or passengers. Even here in the bowels of the industrial district, everything was kept to a high standard of cleanliness and aesthetics.

If this had been a city on earth, the area they were in would probably have looked rough and unwelcoming, with pothole-filled roads, crumbling sidewalks, rusted chain-link fences, overflowing garbage cans, and the ever present graffiti. Here, however, it was the opposite. The streets were well maintained, with nary a pothole to be seen, and the few that he did see were in the process of being repaired. The sidewalks were free of trash and were well maintained with not a single blade of grass poking up through the few cracks that he could see. Sure there was some garbage that littered the gutter, but even as he saw it, a cleaning pony was sweeping it up into a garbage bin to be taken away, and most impressive of all, not a single sign of spray-painted graffiti anywhere. That’s not to say there wasn’t any color, there were plenty of painted murals and all the buildings had a well-maintained coat of paint. All in all, Allen could barely believe he was walking in an industrial district.

Doesn’t even smell, he thought as he took a deep breath filling his lungs with crisp mountain air. Glancing up at a pair of nearby smokestacks, he could see great white puffs of steam escaping into the air, but not a single speck of soot.

“Damn this place is clean,” he remarked, interrupting one of Twilight’s factoid monologues.

Looking up at him, she tilted her head and asked, “Well why wouldn’t it be clean? This is the capital after all, and Princess Celestia, along with everypony that lives here, likes to keep a clean city.”

Allen chuckled. “Wish I could say the same thing for back home,” sweeping an encompassing arm around them, Allen said, “if this were my world, this place wouldn’t look nearly this clean, nor be this safe to walk around in.”

“Why not?” inquired Twilight with a curious tilt of her head as she absently brought out her quill and paper and began jotting down notes again.

Allen rubbed his thumb and pointer finger together in the universal symbol for money. “It all comes down to money, Twilight. A lot of industrial areas back home are dirty, smelly, unsightly, and dangerous. Trying to pretty them up would be like putting lipstick on a pig, a waste of time and resources. The only reason you would live near them is because you have to, not because you want to.”

Twilight’s lips puckered into a thoughtful pout. “I see, that sounds... sad. But I suppose in a way, it's understandable.”

Giving her a weird look, Allen cocked an eyebrow and said, “And why’s that?”

“Well, because of magic naturally,” replied Twilight as she blew an errant lock of mane out of her face, as she continued writing. “Every factory and workshop here in Equestria is required by law to have runes, enchantments, and spells built into them that remove toxic gases, and pollutants. It’s probably the only reason why Canterlot isn’t covered in soot all the time or why Fillydelphia’s river isn’t always on fire. They also make the working conditions safer for the workers as well. Honestly, without those things, I’m pretty sure a lot of our cities wouldn’t be very nice to live in either. So in a world without the magic levels that we have, it would stand to reason that you would need to expend more resources to get the same effect that a simple rune or spell can achieve here.”

Allen stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded. “Yeah, I guess having magic would make it easier to keep pollution levels down, and improve workers' safety,” he snickered suddenly as an errant thought crossed his mind.

“What’s so funny?” inquired Twilight, a curious look on her face as the two of them finally reached Trotter Street.

“So which way should we go?” asked Allen suddenly as they had found themselves at a crossroad, a nearby sign proclaiming it to be the street they were looking for.

Looking both left and right, Twilight looked at the addresses on each of the buildings and quickly pointed right, deeper into the city. “If I’m reading the signs correctly, then 129 should be that way.”

“Alright then, right it is,” said Allen as he and Twilight continued on their way.

After a minute of silence, Twilight cleared her throat and asked again, “So, what was so funny?”

“I was just picturing a pegasus flying through a random soot cloud and coming out the other side covered in the stuff, like one of those cartoon characters, you only see a dirty outline of them and the whites of their eyes.”

Twilight chuckled a little at the image. “That is kind of funny, but any pegasus that did that would have a pretty bad time.”

“Yeah, it’s funny in a cartoon, but in real life, they’d probably get sick if they did that,” agreed Allen.

The two of them continued on for a bit before Twilight asked Allen another question. “So you mentioned that industrial areas in your world are dangerous?”

“Yeah, industrial accidents happen all the time, the government has several agencies that work to prevent accidents, but they still end up happening. Sometimes it's nobody’s fault, other times it is. Plus industrial areas tend to attract crime if the local law enforcement doesn’t stay on top of it.”

“Is crime a problem in your country?”

Again, Allen shrugged. “Depends on what part of the country you’re in. Some places are pretty good, others... not so much,” he finished, a grim look on his face.

Twilight nodded as she felt her ears fall flat against her mane and a sad look came over her face. “I’ve lived my entire life in either Canterlot or Ponyville, and while Ponyville has very little in the way of crime, the same can’t be said elsewhere. My brother, Shining Armor, he’s in the Royal Guard, and he’s had to help break up criminal elements both here in the capital and around the country.”

“Really? I figured that you ponies were generally less inclined towards committing crimes against each other,” remarked Allen, a surprised look on his face.

“Well, as you said, some places are pretty nice and others... not so much. Manehatten has several slums, and from what little Shining has been willing to tell me, they tend to attract some pretty rough characters. Just because Canterlot and Ponyville look really nice, doesn’t mean that every place else in Equestria does as well. Not only that, but not every country is stable or possesses a benevolent government as we do, so there are always dark places for bad characters to hang out as it were.”

Allen nodded somberly. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right, guess I just thought that the rest of Equestria here was like Ponyville and Canterlot, seeing as how these are the only two places I’ve seen so far,” he said quietly.

Twilight nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I can understand how you could think that, seeing as you’re not from our world and have only been here for a couple of months. I was the same way when I was younger before my brother joined the Royal Guard and I was accepted as Princess Celestia’s student. For my whole life up to that point I’d lived here in Canterlot, and as Princess Celestia’s personal student, I tended to keep to the really nice parts of the city. So when Shining went into the Royal Guard and started telling me some of his experiences chasing down bad guys, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that there were bad ponies and places here in Equestria.”

“Yeah, the world has a way of peeling the innocence away from you as you grow up, and once you’ve lost that, you can never get it back,” agreed Allen with a nod of understanding. However, after that, he didn’t say anymore and the conversation soon petered out after that, leaving the two of them to walk in silence. However, Allen soon spotted their destination and pointing at it said, “I think that’s the place over there.”

‘There’ turned out to be a nondescript building with a small sign out front that read Chisel and Son’s Spell Runes. Looking both ways first, Allen and Twilight quickly crossed the street and stood before an oak wood door. Lifting the door latch, they stepped inside.

There wasn’t much to see inside, a wooden counter with an open ledger book, quill, and inkpot resting on it took up the majority of the front office. A small planter stood in a corner with an unidentifiable plant happily soaking up the sun's rays through the front window, while a clock ticked mindlessly away above it. Looking past the counter, Allen spotted a couple of workbenches along the back wall, and another door that had a sign saying, Employee’s Only on it.

Stepping up to the counter, Allen leaned over it to see if there was anypony crouching down looking for something on a lower shelf, but he saw nopony. Seeing that the front part of the store was empty, he looked to see if there was a bell to ring for service, again, he saw none. So, taking a deep breath, he loudly called out, “Hey, is there anyone here?”

A sudden racket of stuff falling on the floor and cursing emanated from behind the closed door and after a few moments of continued cursing and crashing, the door was flung open and a surly and tired-looking unicorn trotted out. He was bigger than most unicorns that Allen had seen, with well-defined muscles that rippled beneath his dark blue coat as he moved. His mane was black save for a few streaks of white and his gray eyes gave Allen a tired and irritated look as he took his spot behind the counter.

“What do you want, you weird looking ape?” he spat as he gingerly rubbed the back of his head with a hoof, a surly look on his face, clearly displeased that someone had interrupted whatever he was doing, and quite likely caused him to drop something on his head.

Allen cocked an eyebrow and leaning on the unicorn’s counter fixed him with a steady gaze, and replied, “Well... I was planning on asking if you guys could give me an estimate for how much it would cost to have some runes installed on my farm, but if you’re gonna be an ass to me, I suppose I could always go somewhere else.”

The unicorn snorted and planted his front hooves on the counter and retorted, “You can try sonny, but I’m the best there is around here, nopony can do as good a job as I can whipping up runes, and my warranty is second to none.”

“Perhaps,” replied Allen easily, not intimidated by the ornery old codger in the least bit, “but I bet they won’t greet a potential customer as rudely as you just did to me.”

The old stallion opened his mouth to give a hot retort when a different voice cut him off. “Father? Are you insulting another customer again? What have I told you about scaring off new clientele? Things are hard enough as it is without you pissing off everypony that comes in... here...” the voice suddenly trailed off as its owner exited the back room and saw Allen for the first time.

Turning to regard the newcomer, Allen saw that he was a cream-colored unicorn, with a brown mane and tail, and his cutie mark was a collection of six points of light that were connected by thin purple lines that formed the shape of a six-pointed star.

“I’m so sorry about my father,” he said, having recovered from his moment of hesitation. Trotting closer, he gently nudged his father out of the way as he took his position behind the counter. Extending a hoof, he gave Allen a friendly-looking smile and said, “My name is Spell Matrix, and this grumpy old nag,” he nodded at the grouchy-looking stallion next to him, “is my father, Rune Chisel. I hope you can forgive him, times have been... difficult lately and he’s been under a lot of stress.”

Deciding not to make a big fuss, Allen took Spell Matrix’s hoof and gave it a firm shake and replied, “I’m Allen Ross, and this,” he said indicating his companion with a nod of his head in her direction, “is Twilight Sparkle.”

“Wait... are you the Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, personal protege of Princess Celestia and Savior of Equestria?” asked Spell Matrix excitedly as a wide grin nearly split his face in half as he quickly thrust his hoof in Twilight’s direction and gushed, “Oh this is so wonderful! To think, a national hero in our store! Oh, I can’t wait to tell Silver and Brass about this! Oh, this is so exciting!” he was practically vibrating in place by this point from his excitement.

“Oh, you’ve... heard of me?” replied Twilight hesitantly as Spell energetically shook her hoof.

“Heard of you?! Who hasn’t heard of you here in Canterlot, nay, throughout all of Equestria, Ms. Sparkle?! You’re a national hero who saved Princess Celestia’s long-lost sister from an evil parasite bent on destroying the world!”

Rolling his eyes, Rune Chisel pushed his son back out of the way and levered himself up so that he had his front hooves on the counter again. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he said, “Look, I’m sorry for calling you a weird-looking ape, Mr. Ross. I’m not exactly the most cheerful of ponies on the best of days, and... lately, I’ve been grouchier than I should be, so please don’t take it personally. In any case,” he continued on, quickly changing the subject to one that was less touchy, “you can rest assured that my work is the best you’ll find anywhere around here, probably even in all of Equestria.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, an acquaintance of mine in Ponyville recommended your services. She said you did a really good job getting her candy shop up to code.”

“I see, well glad to see she’s happy with my services then,” he replied simply before continuing, “so anyways, what did you need done?”

“I’ve got a couple of barns that need renovating to bring them up to DOTI standards, and I need runework done on them in order to meet those standards,” explained Allen.

“I see, and where are you coming from again?”

“Just outside of Ponyville to the southwest of Sweet Apple Acres,” replied Allen easily.

Rune Chisel rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he pulled up a mental map of the surrounding area. “I see, I take it you’ve just moved in? I’ve never seen anyone quite like you before, and I can’t recall there being any farms in that direction the last time I was in Ponyville.”

“You could say that the local lord of chaos decided it would be funny to relocate me from my world to this one, by the way, I’m what’s called a human, in case you were wondering,” replied Allen in a somewhat sarcastic voice.

Rune simply grunted and gave a single nod. “I see, I think I remember reading something in the papers about that the other day. Didn’t realize that was you, my apologies. It must be difficult adjusting to a strange new world like ours.”

“You have no idea,” replied Allen with a tired sigh. “So, when do you think you can come out and take a look at my barns then?” asked Allen as a way to change the topic before the conversation took any more of an awkward turn.

Humming thoughtfully to himself, Rune grabbed a book from under the counter and began leafing through it. After a minute of searching, he said, “I can come down this Wednesday and take a look, say around noon?”

“Noon will work,” replied Allen quickly, glad to hear that they had an opening that soon.

Grabbing a quill with his magic, Rune made a notation in his book along with Allen’s address after having asked for it, and said, “Alright, my sons and I will be there to take a look. Don’t do anything to the structures until then, I like to see them at their worst so that way I can get an honest look at them.”

Shutting the book, he looked up at Allen and asked, “Was there anything else I can help you with?”

Allen shook his head and replied, “No, that should just about do it I think.”

Giving a single, nod, Rune Chisel said, “Very well then, have a good day sir,” and with that, he turned and stiffly trotted past his son, who had been excitedly conversing with Twilight about various topics on magic while Rune and Allen had been busy, and through the door into the back of the shop.

Watching his father go, Spell Matrix waited till Rune was gone and then turned back to Allen and bowing his head low said, “Again, I am very sorry about my father, Mr. Ross, and I would like to thank you for sticking with us, even with his rudeness. Things haven’t been very good this year, and my father has been under a lot of stress because of it. Usually, I’m the one working the front of the store, but he needed me to help him move some things around in the back, and when you came in, he was a bit faster than me getting to the front.”

Allen shrugged and replied, “Apology accepted, though if you don’t mind me asking, was he always that... belligerent, I can’t imagine that kind of attitude is good for business.”

Spell shook his head and sighed. “No, it isn’t, and no he wasn’t always like that. My... mother is very ill right now, and that combined with local political issues have him on edge.”

Allen gave a sympathetic nod. “I’m sorry to hear that, I’ve been in that boat myself, may I ask what’s wrong with her?”

Spell gave a grateful if small smile. “Thank you, and not at all. My mother was recently diagnosed with cancer, thankfully we caught it early, but the doctors say it still won’t be easy to get rid of, and with the local taxes and fees set to go up, it’s putting a lot of strain on my father. It doesn’t help that he tries to shoulder most of the burden of responsibility for the business himself, in addition to taking care of our mom.”

“Oh my, that’s horrible,” gasped Twilight, while Allen just grimaced as painful memories drifted to the surface. “I hope your mother will get better soon.”

“Thank you, Ms. Sparkle, we do too, and if what the doctors recently told us is true, she should be alright in the long run, but in the short term, it's going to be difficult. Even with insurance, we might be forced to downsize or sell our business.”

Leaning an arm on the counter again, Allen curiously asked, “How come? If insurance is covering her treatments, why would you be at risk of losing your shop?”

Biting his lip nervously, Spell looked back over his withers uneasily and seeing that the door was still closed, leaned in and whispered, “Ever since Princess Luna came back last year, Canterlot has been pretty shaken up. We’ve had a population boom as ponies from across the country move here for jobs in the lunar half of the government. As a result, property values have gone up, along with local taxes and rent.” Shaking his head sadly, he lamented, “Canterlot isn’t as friendly for small businesses as it was a year or two ago, and even though my father is a skilled rune crafter, he just can’t compete with the bigger companies that have moved in recently to take advantage of the population boom. They do it faster and cheaper than he ever could, even though their services and work isn’t as good as his, ponies only think about the short term costs, and when some company can do the work in half the time for half the cost, there is no contest, they’ll win the contract every time. He doesn’t talk about it to my brothers or I, but we know he’s been getting fewer and fewer contracts lately, and it’s hurting our bottom line. Eventually, we’ll run out of money and be forced to close up our shop forever.”

“Then why don’t you move out of Canterlot to a more business-friendly environment?” asked Allen.

Spell rolled his eyes in frustration and hissed. “Because my father is more stubborn than a surly mule! He won’t entertain the idea of leaving because his father and his father and his father before him all had a shop here in Canterlot, so to leave would be to admit defeat and in his eyes let our forebears down or something equally silly.”

“Perhaps you could petition The Crown for assistance? I’m sure Princess Celestia would be willing to help out,” offered Twilight helpfully.

Spell gave an amused snort. “My father would sooner cut off his own horn than accept charity from The Crown.” Twilight winced at the mental image.

Leaning closer, Allen conspiratorially whispered, “Then maybe you should do something yourself then if your father is gonna be a stubborn idiot like that.”

Spell blinked in confusion, before a look of panic spread across his face. “W-what?! You want me to go behind my father's back and ask The Crown for help? Are you out of your mind?! He’d throw me off Mount Canterhorn if I did that!”

Rolling his eyes, Allen shook his head and said, “Quit being so dramatic, Crown assistance isn’t your only option right now. You could just pack up shop and instead move to an area with a lower cost of living, like Ponyville. It wouldn’t be hard even, just slip away for a bit while your father is working on my farm and ask around Ponyville for any opportunities, if nothing pans out, then oh well, try somewhere else. But if you care about your dad and this business, then you’ll man up and grab the bull by the tonsils and figure something out with or without your dad before it's too late.”

Spell shifted uneasily from hoof to hoof. “I-I suppose I could talk to my brothers about this, we’re all worried about our father and how he’s been acting lately.”

“Don’t forget your mom, I know it’s kind of underhanded, but a united front might just be enough to pull him around to the idea of saving this business,” suggested Allen.

Nodding glumly, Spell replied, “We might have to do that,” he sighed, “I would hate it if we were forced to involve her though, she’s got enough to worry about without this added on top.”

Allen simply shrugged and straightened up. “Just some ideas. Trust me, when a family member is sick like your mother is, it can cloud even the best of judgments. Sometimes you just need to put your foot down and drag the other person kicking and screaming in the right direction, whether they want you to or not.”

“Spell! Get back here! We’ve still got work to do, you know!” yelled Rune Chisel from the back suddenly, his voice somewhat muffled by the closed door between them.

“I’ll be there in a moment, father, we’re just about finished up here!” he called back before turning to regard Allen and Twilight, a thankful look on his face.“You’ve given me a lot to think about, Mr. Ross, thank you” replied Spell gratefully, “hopefully I can put your suggestions into action before it is too late. Now, I’m afraid I must go, see you on Wednesday!” he finished with a quick wave before disappearing through the door into the back of the shop.

Now alone in the front of the quiet shop, Allen turned to Twilight and said, “Well... that was an interesting turn of events.”

Twilight nodded in reply as they both exited into the bright afternoon sunlight. “Agreed, so what do you want to do now? We’ve still got a couple of hours before the last train for Ponyville leaves. It would be a shame to come all the way to Canterlot just to turn around and head back after only an hour.”

Walking side by side back the way they came, Allen nodded in a thoughtful manner. “Yeah, I suppose it would,” shrugging he said, “Ah what the hell? Let’s go take in some of the sights, I’m sure you know a couple of cool places around town?”

Twilight gave a happy nod and replied excitedly, “I sure do! You haven’t lived until you’ve tried one of Donut Joe’s donuts! They’re the best donuts you’ll ever eat! And then after that, I can show you the Canterlot Royal Library, and then we can go to the Canterlot Museum of Natural History and then-”

Laughing at Twilight’s excitement, Allen made a calming motion with his hands before replying, “Alright, how about we go get some donuts first and figure out the rest of our itinerary from there, eh?”

Feeling a blush creep up her cheeks, Twilight sheepishly smiled and nodded. “A-alright, that sounds like a good idea.”

Giving her a thumbs up, Allen replied easily, “Then it’s settled, food first, then the grand tour,” and with their first destination in mind, the two set off at a brisk pace in an attempt to see as much of the royal city as they could before it was time to leave.

(Non-canon) Chapter 12

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Author's Notes:

Okay, so first I would like to apologize for taking down Chapter 28 before everyone has had a chance to read it, I've been feeling a bit depressive/irritated with the world lately, and I'm afraid that some of that leaked through into the story.

For those of you who have already read the previous chapter, you don't have to re-read it if you don't want to, as I've only added or removed a few paragraphs here and there that should make Allen sound less angsty about humanity's faults, and correct some of his preconceived notions about Equestria at large. Though it might not be a bad idea to skim through the chapter for those parts that I've added, as there is a little bit of world and character development/building that takes place. But if you don't care about that, then rest assured that nothing major has been changed plot-wise.

I would like to thank those of you who kindly pointed out that I may have fallen into the common HiE troupe of the MC bashing humanity and their various faults while making pony society look utopian in comparison, that wasn't my intention, and I hope that the edits in the previous chapter will have toned that perception down a few notches. Hopefully, in the future, we can avoid that little issue.

Now, on to an explanation on this chapter. This is a combination of various renditions of Chapter 12 that I wrote before discarding because I didn't like where I was taking it or it just wasn't sitting right with me. (Honestly, chapter 12 was probably my least favorite chapter to work on for this story, and you can probably see why as you read through the various ideas that I had for it, and how they evolved over time. In the beginning, I had planned to make the DOTI (or as they were known at the time as 'The Guild') a sort of 'villain' for Allen and company to fight, with Blueblood and Red Tape playing a larger role in the story, but in the end, I decided to nix that idea and change it to something else. To be honest, I almost ended up just canceling the story because of this chapter and how much it irritated me.) However, I didn't cancel it and somehow managed to cobble a decent enough chapter together that I was happy enough that I could post it and move on.

In any case, I hope you enjoy this trainwreck of a chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 12

It was another beautiful morning in Equestria, with the sun slowly peeking up over the eastern horizon, while the birds sang their morning greetings to each other. If you were a morning person, it was a wonderful and joyous sight to behold, one that would fill your soul with a happiness and warmth that would put a smile on your face that would make you want to share it with everyone you met to brighten their lives.

Unfortunately for everyone else's day, Blueblood was not a morning pony, if it wasn’t for the fact that his beloved aunt was the one in charge of raising the sun each morning, he’d have cursed the sun and its mistress with every fiber of his being. As it was, he usually just had to settle for mere grumbling as he stumbled about waiting for one of his servants to bring him his morning cup of coffee, his large morning cup of coffee.

Taking a sip of the aforementioned coffee from his traveling thermos, Blueblood blearily watched the countryside roll by as the train that was taking him back to Ponyville happily chugged along. A happy humming caught his attention, and he turned away from the window to regard his morning companion, who was way to happy to be up at this time of the day, as he happily shuffled through some papers.

“Red Tape,” said Blueblood scratchily, “must you hum that irritating song, this early in the morning?”

Red Tape paused his humming and paper shuffling to look at his Prince. He gave a grimace at the sight. Blueblood’s eyes were bloodshot, and he had dark bags under them; his normally well groomed mane was left uncombed this morning, and the Prince’s normally regal mask was conspicuously absent as well, it being replaced with a tired, irritated look instead. Putting on his best, patient smile, Red Tape replied, “My apologies, Your Grace, I did not mean to cause you any discomfort with my humming. I am afraid it is a habit of mine that manifests itself when I am ‘in the zone’ as the younger ponies say these days.” He gave an amused chuckle at his witticism.

Blueblood on the other hoof, remained unimpressed, and continued to fix the bureaucrat with an irritated look. Red Tape’s chuckles awkwardly died off when he realized that Blueblood wasn’t joining in with him in merriment. Giving an awkward cough, he readjusted his glasses and muttered to himself in what he thought was a quiet enough voice, “Sounds like somepony woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and Blueblood’s irritated scowl deepened. “One has to go to bed first before they can wake up on the wrong side of it.”

Red Tape’s ears fell flat against his scalp at the chastisement and he quickly busied himself again with his papers. With any chance at future conversation from the bureaucratic pony effectively gone for the time being, Blueblood turned his attention back to the window as an uncomfortable silence fell upon the two of them.

After several minutes, he couldn’t take it anymore, and giving an exasperated sigh said, “Red Tape,” the other ponies ears twitched, but he didn’t cease his work. Seeing this, Blueblood gave another, very tired sigh and continued, “I’m sorry for being a pain in the flank this morning, it isn’t your fault that I didn’t get any sleep last night, or much sleep to speak of for the past week. And it also isn’t your fault for all of this crap that I’m having to deal with either. It’s just...” he trailed off as he stared down into his coffee cup, his disheveled reflection looking back up at him from the muddy brown liquid.

“You feel overwhelmed, I understand,” said Red Tape as he finished Blueblood’s thought for him. Looking up at the other unicorn, Blueblood saw Red Tape’s emphatic expression and felt a bit ashamed. After all, it wasn’t like he was the only pony feeling the pressure lately. Not by a long shot, and he shuddered at the thought of what his aunts were having to go through right now.

Not for all the money and riches in the world. He thought to himself, as the thought of all the grief and suffering his two aunts went through on a daily basis at the hooves of the rest of the government and international community sent a shiver down his spine. Giving himself a shake, he discarded that train of thought and took another sip of his coffee. He let the bitter taste wash over his tongue for a moment before allowing himself to swallow it. He was one of those rare ponies that enjoyed his coffee black.

Turning his attention back to Red Tape, Blueblood gave a somber nod. “You could say that. I am not sure what your workload looks like right now, but I feel as though everypony in Equestria is demanding my attention at the same time, and I just don’t have enough time to deal with all of them. It gets... tiring.”

Red Tape gave a sympathetic smile in reply. “I know the feeling, especially around tax time,” he let loose a hearty chuckle, though his expression quickly turned serious, “but yes, it does get tiring after a while. Especially when...certain parties start getting interested.”

Blueblood’s already sour mood worsened, and his face screwed up as if he’d just bitten into the world’s most sour lemon. “I’d rather not think about them at the moment, if it is all the same to you.”

Red Tape took off his glasses and began idly polishing them as he gazed out the window at the passing scenery. “Be that as it may, you’re still going to have to deal with the Guild’s representative when they get to Ponyville, regardless of whether you want to or not. Then there is also the mess in the Stable of Lords to deal with.”

“I know, I know!” exclaimed Blueblood angrily, his frustration reaching a boiling point.

Red Tape turned his attention away from the window, and still polishing his glasses made a placating gesture with his hooves. “Please Your Grace, there is no need to shout, I understand your frustrations, believe me I do.”

“I’m sensing that there is a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” remarked Blueblood dryly.

Red Tape nodded. “But, and forgive me if I’m being blunt here, you are still the crown’s official representative in this matter, which means that even though you and the Guild might not be on the... best of terms currently,” Blueblood gave a harsh snort at Red Tape’s diplomatic response, “you will still need to be there so that the interests of the crown are represented.”

And your interests as well, he thought silently to himself. Though outwardly he made no sign of his inner thoughts.

Blueblood’s face took on a thoughtful look as Red Tape’s words sunk in. Turning his attention away from his traveling companion, he gazed out the window for several moments in quiet contemplation. After several quiet minutes, he softly replied, “You’re right, I do need to be there,” Turning his gaze back to Red Tape, he continued, this time a bit louder, “and while I might not relish the idea of meeting with whomever the Guild sends as their representative, I doubt that they can be any worse than him.”

His expression morphed into one of disgust, and Red Tape gave a sympathetic grimace in return. “Yes, well the less said about him the better I suppose, though I can’t help but be amazed that he’s managed to retain his position as long as he has, especially with him being right under the Princess’s muzzles like that.”

Blueblood’s expression furthered soured. “Believe me, I am all too aware of his ability to get away with his shenanigans like he does without drawing my aunt’s ire,” he sighed tiredly, “unfortunately he can and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”

“Nothing? Surely there must be something you can do to rein him in?” asked Red Tape incredulously.

Blueblood shook his head sadly. “He’s too well connected with other... like-minded ponies, and he’s been in charge of the Guild office in Canterlot long enough that it’s stuffed full of his sycophants and tools. What’s worse is that he’s been working diligently to put his own ponies in other Guild offices across the country. It’s been everything I can do to block him when I can, but the problem is that he’s just getting too powerful for me to effectively fight by myself anymore.” For a moment, Red Tape saw an expression flash across the Prince’s face that he’d never thought he’d see, worry, and in the pit of his stomach a small ball of ice formed at the thought of what that could mean for the future.

“Surely you’ve shared your concerns with Princess Celestia and Luna?” asked Red Tape, an edge of hope in his voice.

Blueblood gave a harsh snort in reply. “Of course I have, but the problem is that, my aunt, much as I love her, and wish that she was some all knowing, perfect being, the truth is that she isn’t. As you know, she’s been the sole ruling monarch for the past thousand years, and as such she is somewhat... stuck in her ways I’m afraid.”

“Stuck in her ways?” inquired Red Tape curiously, “what do you mean by that?”

Blueblood gave a small nod in reply. “What I mean is that I believe she has lost the ability to see the tree’s through the forest as it were.” Seeing that Red Tape’s curious expression had become confused, Blueblood continued, “Put another way, she can’t seem to see trouble brewing if it’s a small enough issue. I suppose it might even be a sort of foible of hers where she either ignores or doesn’t see little issues arising until they become giant ones.”

“And you think that she can’t see that Guild Master Mercantile isn’t twisting the Guild into something it was never intended to become?”

Blueblood nodded gravely. “I’m afraid that is exactly what I am thinking. As I mentioned before, I have brought my concerns about the direction that Mercantile is taking the Guild. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been receptive to my warnings, some days I think she still sees me as a silly little colt, jumping at shadows in the dark,” Blueblood’s expression darkened with frustration and anger as memories of his aunt dismissing his concerns with that patronizing smile and motherly tone of hers.

Red Tape, seeing Blueblood’s unhappy mood, decided to try and steer the conversation away from that particular iceberg. “What about Princess Luna? Surely she can see that all is not well in the Guild?”

Blueblood made a ‘so-so’ gesture with his hoof. “Yes and no, yes in that Princess Luna, can tell that something is up with the Guild, but no in that she can’t tell what is wrong. Ever since her return last summer, she has been sequestering herself in semi-seclusion in an attempt to get up to speed on what has been happening in Equestria since her banishment. As such, she has practically zero influence in Canterlot right now, not to mention the Guild was founded after her banishment to the moon. Therefore, she doesn’t know how it’s supposed to work normally, and as a result isn’t willing to risk a political faux pas in an attempt to change anything. Besides,” and this time, Blueblood’s expression turned melancholy, “everypony knows that I have a grudge against the Guild Master because of that business venture my father embarked on, which went south ten years ago and nearly ruined my family. So most ponies think that I’m just trying to get even with him, and he knows that they think that, and so uses it against me.”

Red Tape used his magic to remove his glasses and idly began cleaning them again, a thoughtful expression on his face. After a moment of this thoughtful silence, Red Tape quietly asked, “So, is that it? Are you just going to give up?”

Blueblood was taken aback for a moment by Red Tape’s blunt question. But after a moment, he rallied his mental faculties and retorted, “Of course not! Why do you think I’ve taken such an interest in our new friend? If there is anyone who might hold the key to taking Guild Master Mercantile down, or at least slowly his plans down, it’ll be Allen, and what he represents.”

Red Tape glanced up from his glasses and fixed Blueblood with a searching gaze. “Do you really believe that he can do something to upset the balance of power in your favor? I mean, he’s alone, probably still scared witless and with no friends or family to lean on in case things go bad for him, do you honestly think that he’ll join you in your crusade to bring down Mercantile?”

Blueblood gave a single nod. “I believe he will. Allen strikes me as the kind of person who if you do a good deed for them, they’ll do one for you. Besides, if I can get to him before the Guild representative does, then I can tell him my side of the story before that representative can fill his head with false promises and lies. That’s why you and I are on the first train out of Canterlot this morning, even if it means having to be up at this Tartarus damned hour.”

Red Tape, now finished polishing his glasses, placed them on the bridge of his muzzle and gave a thoughtful hum as he idly rubbed his hooves together in front of him. “Your Grace, I feel as though you might be letting your... dislike of Mercantile cloud your judgement.”

Blueblood groaned as he slumped back in his seat. “And here I thought that you might be on my side.”

“I am on your side!” snapped Red Tape, an exasperated look on his face, “Believe me, I am well aware of what Mercantile is doing behind everypony’s backs. In fact, I was one of the ponies who worked on helping sort out that financial, and legal fiasco that happened between the Guild, your family and the other nobles ten years ago! If it wasn’t for me and my fellow bureaucrats, you, and they, would have lost everything!”

By this point, Red Tape had managed to work himself up so much that he was practically yelling in the prince’s face. When he realized what he was doing, he jerked backwards as if he’d burned his muzzle on a hot stove. Using one hoof to smooth back his mane, he coughed awkwardly into his hoof.

Blueblood meanwhile just sat there in stunned silence, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ in bewildered surprise at Red Tape’s outburst. Finally, after several tense moments, Red Tape made the first move. Coughing into his hoof again he said, “I am terribly sorry for that Your Grace, I’m... not sure what came over me there, it seems the stress of the past week is starting to get to me too.”

Blueblood gave himself a mental shake and willed his expression to recompose itself back to a more neutral setting. “It is alright, no harm was done, I suppose the stress of everything gets to even the best of us. Still...”

Red Tape nodded. “Yes, but that still doesn’t excuse my actions, however if you’re willing to let it go, then I thank you and I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. In anycase, as I was saying before,” he paused when he saw Blueblood grimace, but when the prince didn’t say anything, he continued, “I believe that your dislike of Mercantile is affecting your judgement when it comes to making plans to counteract his moves. In this case, you will need to be careful when you go to sway Allen to your side.”

“And why do you feel it necessary to urge caution in regards to this matter?” asked Blueblood, a hint of tired exasperation creeping into his voice.

If Red Tape heard Blueblood’s exasperation, he didn’t acknowledge it, instead he calmly replied, “Because if you miscalculate, the consequences for you, and especially Allen, will probably be severe. While your finances have recovered slightly, they’re still nowhere close to what they used to be, and Mercantile is in a much stronger position now than he was ten years ago. So if you tip your hoof too soon, he might feel that you need to go, and will finish what he started.”

Blueblood chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully for a moment, before conceding to Red Tape’s point with a sigh. “You’re right, that is something he would probably do, and not even my position as the nephew of Princess Celestia and Luna would probably be able to protect me,” he rubbed the bridge of his muzzle with a hoof as he tried to figure out his next move. In truth, he didn’t really have a plan at the moment, only the beginnings of one, and he was currently playing everything by ear. He knew that he needed to continue to rebuild his family’s fortune, because after all, money was what made the world go round, and the more you had, the more you could influence how fast it went.

The problem was that his family’s fortunes had been waning for years, several generations of mismanagement had left them with precious little to begin with, add in his father’s disastrous attempt at getting into the sugar trade ten years ago and that added up to very little money left over. If it wasn’t for the fact that his family lived in the castle in Canterlot with his aunt’s then he’d probably have even less money than he did now.

But that was besides the point, it wasn’t just money that he needed, he also needed influence, and influence was hard to come by when your purse was empty. Of course, if it wasn’t for a certain Guild Master throwing wrenches into his financial plans at every turn, his fortunes would have probably recovered by now. But they hadn’t, and it showed, where once his family had held firm control over the Stable of Lords and the Canterlot elite, now they were considered has beens, unworthy of anypony’s attention these days.

But maybe, Allen will change that, the question is, how? He gazed out the window at the passing scenery. They were nearly to Ponyville now, the passing landscape having given way from the rolling, forest covered hills at the base of Mt. Canterhorn, to the fertile crop land of the Canterhorn plains.

As he stared out the window, his mind kept turning over the question of how to get Allen on his side and prevent the Guild from getting their hooves on him in any way. That was the issue at present. The Guild controlled pretty much every economic aspect of Equestria these days, the issuing of permits, training, safety laws, zoning, investing in infrastructure projects, the balancing of trade, both internally and externally, collecting tariffs, and so on. It was as though the Guild were some kind of bureaucratic Smooze, starting out small, but getting bigger and bigger as it gobbled up shiny things, leaving precious little for anypony else to pick over. Granted, there were exceptions, especially if one was a noble, but Blueblood felt as though those exceptions were soon to be gone

It didn’t always used to be that way, thought Blueblood bitterly. It used to be that us nobles made those kinds of decisions! If we wanted to build a factory or start a farm or a mine somewhere, we could just do it without having to tell anypony what we were doing or why! Now we have to worry about whether some Guild bureaucrat is going to shut us down if we don’t dot every i and cross every t!

He gave a harsh snort, and shook his head to dispel those tiresome thoughts. He noticed Red Tape giving him a curious look out of the corner of his eye. Giving the other unicorn a rueful smile, he said, “Don’t worry about me, I’m just pining for the good old days here.”

Red Tape returned Blueblood’s smile with one of his own. “Oh, you means the days where you nobles didn’t have to answer to anyone but yourselves and the princess?”

Blueblood turned his gaze back to the window, his smile slowly fading. “Yes, I suppose I am,” he said with a nod of his head, “I remember how my grandfather would regale me with stories about the ‘good old days’ when the nobles used to have more say in the affairs of the kingdom. When the Guild wasn’t some kind of unfeeling, bureaucratic monstrosity that could wipe out a pony’s fortune with the stroke of a quill. When instead it was meant to help ponies think of new ways of doing things, and grant them the resources to do them, to help them when things went wrong,” he sighed, and slouched down in his seat, “but those days are long gone, and it’s all that we can do to hold onto what we still have now.” He gave a bitter laugh at the thought, shaking his head as he did so.

“So,” began Red Tape cautiously, “what comes next?”

Blueblood shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, at this point I’m sort of playing it by ear. What I do know is that I can’t let Allen fall into Mercantile's sphere of influence, which at this point is looking very likely.”

“How do you figure?”

Blueblood turned his gaze away from the window and back to Red Tape. “Simple,” he said, “while we in the Equestrian government plan to provide recompense for Allen’s lost assets, that won’t help him very much in the long run or especially right now. I did some digging last night, and it looks like we’re about to run into a major problem.”

Red Tape gave Blueblood a confused look. “What major problem is that? His citizenship paperwork is going through fine, and we should have the weapons issue cleared up in a day or two, plus he has plenty of time to secure a source of income to help cover his living expenses and taxes come this time next year. Other than those things, I can’t think of anything else that could pose an issue.”

Blueblood gave a knowing smirk. “What about his land?”

Red Tape blinked in confusion, and then it hit him like a hammer to the head, and Blueblood’s smirk widened when he saw the look of comprehension and panic dawn in Red Tape’s eyes.

“The land! Oh sweet merciful Celestia! How could we forget about who owned the land! We... we need to locate the current owner and begin negotiations with them, oh this is a nightmare! It could take days, weeks, to sort this all out!”

“Take it easy, Red Tape, I have everything under control,” said Blueblood, as he made calming motions with his hooves.

Red Tape took a deep breath, and using his magic, straightened his glasses and mane which had gone askew in his earlier panic, and fixing Blueblood with a hopeful expression asked, “You do?”

“Well, sort of,” replied Blueblood with a slightly sheepish expression, “I don’t have a fully fleshed out plan as it were, really it’s just a skeleton at this point, but if everything goes well, that’s all I’ll need.”

“Okay, so what do you have so far?”

Blueblood gave a small shrug and said, “I know that part of the land that Allen’s farm is sitting on right now belongs to the local Apple family.”

“And the rest of it?” asked Red Tape, a hint of trepidation coloring his voice, “I mean it’s bad enough that our guest is currently squatting on land that belongs to not only an Element of Harmony, but also one of the largest earth pony clans in Equestria. Dealing with them is going to be difficult at best, especially if we don’t wish to anger them.”

Blueblood nodded in agreement, his expression unhappy. “Agreed, luckily the rest of the land isn’t owned, and thus belongs to the local lord, which just so happens to be yours truely,” he said, his expression becoming smug.

Red Tape nodded. “Well I suppose we should be grateful for small favors then, the question on my mind however is how much of his land is sitting on Apple property?”

Blueblood’s smug look evaporated like a morning mist before the might of the midday sun. “About half, if my memory and the maps are accurate. We won’t know for certain till we talk to them and get a chance to compare notes,” he idly tapped his saddlebags with a hoof for emphasis, “but I’m betting it will probably be around half.”

Red Tape sighed. “Great, and here I thought we were past the difficult parts.”

A corner of Blueblood’s mouth twitched upwards in a sort of half smile. “If only it were that easy, but that’s why you and I get paid the big bits, now isn’t it?” he replied jokingly.

Red Tape gave a solemn nod of his head, though it’s effect was ruined by the smile on his face. “Oh yes, I should say that my salary of two pieces of string fits the discription of ‘big bits’ quite nicely. Though,” his expression took on a more serious look, “all joking aside, this new development does put us in something of a bind.”

Blueblood’s smile faded and he gave a solemn nod. “It does. While I am perfectly willing to give Allen my part of the land, I am not sure how the Apple’s will feel, especially if the land has been improved. Regardless, we won’t know until we get there, so I suppose there really isn’t much point in worrying over it right now.”

Red Tape nodded in agreement. “Point, but still it would be wise to try and figure out what our options might be when we do meet with them.”

“A fair point,” agreed Blueblood, “I suppose our only two options are to either purchase the land from them or to simply seize it in the name of the crown.”

Red Tape’s expression soured, as if he’d bitten into a particularly bitter lemon. “I don’t think seizing the land would be a good idea. Even if Applejack wasn’t an Element of Harmony, she’s still part of the Apple clan, and you and I both know just how much pull that group has. You’ve got enough enemies already without adding even more into the mix.”

Blueblood sighed. “Believe me, I am all to aware of my many enemies and rivals. Still no sense in adding anymore I suppose,” his eyes took on a faraway look for a moment, as if he were looking at something only he could see, after a moment however, he gave himself a shake and noticing that they were rapidly approaching Ponyville station, stood up and gave a mighty stretch, his joints popping in protest. Letting loose a content sigh, Blueblood lifted his saddlebags onto his back and said, “I suppose we should get ready to depart, we’re almost to Ponyville.”

Red Tape glanced out the window and gave a nod of agreement. Stowing his things away he asked, “You know, Your Grace, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how do you intend to keep Allen out of the Guild? You know that current law states a pony that wishes to open a business, and a farm counts as one, has to become a member of the Guild.”

Blueblood nodded as he opened their cabin room door and stepped out into the train car's hallway. “Yes, I know, I never really cared for that rule, especially nowadays, maybe it had a purpose when my aunt first founded the Guild nine hundred years ago, but society has moved on since then, and all that law does is give more power to the Guild and get in the way of progress. Regardless, to answer your question, I had my lawyer do some digging yesterday and he found a loophole.”

“A loophole?” asked Red Tape curiously.

Blueblood nodded, a smug smile stretching across his face, truth be told, he looked like a cat that had managed to eat the canary without getting caught. “Indeed, a rather convenient loophole for us I would think.”

“And are you going to tell me about this supposed ‘loophole’ or are you going to just keep me in suspense?” snarked Red Tape.

Blueblood laughed. “I suppose I could tell you,” he said with a cheeky grin, and upon seeing Red Tape’s unamused look, he finally relented, “alright, alright, I’ll tell you.” Turning his attention forward as he strode down the hallway he said, “it’s pretty simple really, all I have to do is get Allen to swear fealty to me and become my vassal. This will then mean that Allen is free of the restrictions of the Guild, though he will not be free of any restrictions that I may place upon him, but at this time I don’t really see the need to limit him.”

Red Tape came to a sudden stop, and blinked, a confused look on his face. “Do you have proof of this ‘loophole’, Your Grace? Because I’ve never heard of anything like this at all in the fifteen years that I’ve been in the civil service.”

Blueblood stopped and turned around, his cheeky grin having morphed into a smug smile. Lighting up his horn, he opened his left saddlebag and pulled out a large, green book with golden borderings on the cover and spine. Presenting the book to Red Tape, he said, “Here you are, my dear Mr. Red Tape, if you will just open the book up to where I left the bookmark, and scroll down to the second paragraph on the first page, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Giving the smiling Prince a dubious look, Red Tape opened the book and looked for the indicated paragraph. Quickly finding it, he began to read, and as he did so a look of wonder slowly dawned on his face. He re-read that section of the book several times to make sure it really said what it did. He even skipped to the first page of the book to make sure it was a current edition, and seeing that it was in fact current, he felt a small smile break out on his face.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I don’t think I would have believed it. Even now I can barely wrap my mind around the fact that a law like this exists! How did you find it?”

Blueblood took the book back and placed it in his saddlebags before resuming his steady pace. Looking back over his shoulder he gave Red Tape a confident grin and said, “Let’s just say that this little exemption isn’t widely publicized in law books these days. Between my aunt Celestia’s attempts to neuter the nobility over the years and the Guild’s power creep, it’s no surprise that this law has been quietly hidden away in a select few law books over the years. This one,” he patted the bag with a hoof, “is from the Canterlot Archives, and as I’m sure you know, they are required to keep copies of the complete and unabridged versions of all important books, and documents, legal or otherwise.”

“But...why not just repeal this provision if they don’t like it?” asked Red Tape in confusion.

Blueblood clucked his tongue in mock disappointment. “Red Tape, and here I thought you were an experienced civil servant!” He laughed when he saw Red Tape’s muzzle scrunch up in irritation. Deciding to give his companion a break, he continued saying, “But in all seriousness, the reason neither my aunt nor the Guild have tried to repeal this law is that it would be a political nightmare to do so.”

By this point they had reached the exit to their car, and just in time, as they soon heard the three short blasts of the train’s whistle which signaled their arrival in Ponyville. As they waited for the doors to open, Blueblood turned his attention back to Red Tape and continued, “Right now, most nobles either don’t know about this law or don’t care about it. However, if somepony were to try and get rid of it, they might raise a fuss about it. While the Stable of Lords is filled with incompetence and decadence, its members aren’t completely stupid. If they sensed that their way of life was or could be threatened by the removal of this law, they would move heaven and earth to see it remain in place. Not that it would do much good in the end,” he said with a sigh, “my aunt is a stubborn old mare, and she always gets her way in the end, even if the consequences are less than pleasant.”

Red Tape’s ears perked up at that. “What are talking about, Your Grace?”

Blueblood quickly glanced around, and seeing that nopony was in earshot, leaned in close to his companion and whispered, “I think it best that we not talk about these sorts of things in the open where somepony may overhear us,” he paused and gave Red Tape a measuring look, as if he were inspecting his very soul. It was a rather uncomfortable moment for Red Tape, to have somepony look at him that way, but after a minute, Blueblood continued in the same low voice, “I’ve grown to like you Mr. Tape, even though you and I haven’t known each other for very long, I feel as though I can trust you,” he chuckled, as if suddenly remembering something funny, “though in my case, I’m probably going to have to trust you, what with everything I’ve said to you so far. But,” he paused again, this time, his eyes took on a far away look, as if he were seeing something that only he could see.

“But... what, Your Grace?” asked Red Tape after Blueblood had been quiet for too long.

Giving a surprised jerk at Red Tape’s sudden question, Blueblood gave his head a small shake, and plastering an apologetic smile on his face, replied, “Sorry about that, I was thinking about my next move, and I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the passage of time.”

Red Tape returned Blueblood’s smile with one of his own. “It’s alright, Your Grace, it happens to the best of us,” his smile however didn’t last long, slipping into a more neutral expression he pressed, “but what were you going to say earlier, if I may ask?”

“You may,” said Blueblood with a nod of his head, though his expression took on a more pensive look, “I guess what I was going to ask was, if I can trust you any further in this matter?”

Red Tape felt his ears pin flat against his scalp. Turning his head away from Blueblood, he gazed out the window as the train glided into Ponyville station. He could feel the tension in the car ratcheting up as the seconds ticked by without an answer from him, but unfortunately, he didn’t really have one at the moment, and he knew he needed to find one, and fast.

I could just wash my hooves of this whole affair really. Just tell Prince Blueblood that I’m not interested in his scheme against Mercantile, and that I’ll keep what he’s told me quiet. After all, if I couldn’t be trusted to keep my mouth shut in regards to sensitive information, then I wouldn’t be working in my current job now would I? The problem is however, will he believe me? He glanced back at Blueblood then, and felt a cold shiver run down his spine, as if somepony had walked over his grave, and maybe they had. Because as he stared into the suddenly cold, blue eyes of Prince Blueblood, he realized then, that not all nobles were soft, and decadent; content to play foalish political games with each other, with low stakes for their amusement. In that moment, he realized that some of them still played for keeps.

Suppressing his shiver as best he could, he put on his best diplomatic smile and replied, “I give you my solemn word, Your Grace, none of what we have spoken of this morning will reach another pony’s ear without your permission.”

Blueblood held Red Tape’s gaze for what seemed like an eternity, and Red Tape felt a drop of sweat roll down the side of his face. Finally, however, Blueblood’s expression relaxed and his charming smile was back. Stepping next to Red Tape, Blueblood gave him a pat on the withers and said, “Good to hear that, Mr. Red Tape, good to hear!”

The train by this point had come to a complete stop, steam hissing from the engine’s cylinders drifting by the window on the cool morning air. Grasping the doors handle in his magic, Blueblood opened it and stepped out onto the small station’s platform, Red Tape right behind him. Taking a moment to stretch, Blueblood felt several pops and let go a contented sigh of relief, a satisfied smile coloring his expression. However, his happy expression didn’t last, as when he turned to look back at Red Tape he spotted another pony exiting a car further down the platform.

She was a unicorn mare, with a dark cyan coat, a forest green mane with golden highlights, and a pair of round silver glasses. Her mane was done up in a conservative bun, both her mane, coat and tail were well groomed, and shone with a subtle shine in the morning sunlight. She had on a blue collar with white trim and a tan necktie, in addition, she wore a pair of brown saddlebags, and it was these saddlebags that fully caught Blueblood’s attention, as they were emblazoned with the sigil of the Guild of Occupations, Talents and Industries. It was at this moment that the mare spotted Blueblood, and her previously bored expression morphed into an unpleasant looking smile upon seeing the prince. Giving a mocking bow of her head, she turned and quickly trotted off into town, her form quickly lost in the early morning crowds.

Blueblood meanwhile stood dumbstruck. How... how is she here already! Is this just a coincidence or did they find out my plan?! He grit his teeth together in barely contained anger. Doesn’t matter, they are not going to ruin my plans!

Grabbing Red Tape with his magic, Blueblood all but dragged the suddenly confused bureaucrat off the train platform and into Ponyville proper.

“Your Grace! Please, put me down! What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” cried Red Tape in confusion as he was dragged along the road, his hooves leaving three furrows in the soft earth in the wake of his passing.

Realizing he was causing a scene, Blueblood let his magic fade from around Red Tape’s outstretched hoof and said, “We just ran out of time Mr. Red Tape, the Guild’s representative is already here.”

“What?!” cried out Red Tape in wide eyed astonishment, and then realizing that his outburst had attracted some undue attention from the surrounding ponies, he quickly lowered his voice, “are you sure?”

Blueblood nodded. “Positive, she was a cyan unicorn with a dark green mane with golden highlights in it, and silver rimmed glasses, and she was wearing a pair of Guild saddlebags.”

Red Tape’s face scrunched up as if he’d just bitten into a sour apple. “Oh ponyfeathers.”

“You know who she is?” asked Blueblood.

Red Tape gave an uncertain grunt. “Well, I can’t be positive, but from your description, it sounds like it might Balance Sheet, did you happen to get a look at her cutie mark perchance?”

Blueblood shook his head. “No, it was covered by her saddlebags. Do you know her then?”

“I’ve only met her a couple of times, but if it is who I think it is, then we might be in serious trouble here.”

“And why is that?” asked Blueblood, exasperatedly.

“Because that means Guild Master Mercantile has taken a very strong interest in Allen. Balance Sheet is his main problem solver when it comes to business negotiations. If he’s sent her then he’s not fooling around, my guess is that he’s probably figured out part of what you are planning to do soon, and sent her here to sabotage your efforts.”

Blueblood let out a frustrated growl, stomping his hoof in emphasis. “No, she will not ruin my plans! I will not allow it! Come on Red Tape, we have to get moving if we want to beat her there!” and without waiting for Red Tape’s reply, Blueblood took off at a full gallop, leaving Red Tape behind in small cloud of dust. Coughing to clear his lungs, Red Tape gave a tired groan, and took off in hot pursuit of Blueblood.

It was nearly twenty minutes later that the two unicorn stallions, both winded and slightly damp from the sweat generated from the run, made it to Allen’s front door. Taking deep breaths, Blueblood looked around him, and seeing that Balance Sheet wasn’t in sight, he allowed himself a satisfied smile. Using a hoof, he roughly combed his mane back out of his face and turning to Red Tape said between breaths, “Looks...like...we beat...her...here.”

Red Tape just nodded as he gulped down as much air as his lungs could hold. Motioning a hoof to the door, he said, “I... think... that you... should... let... Allen... know... we are... here... now.”

Blueblood, being in better shape than Red Tape, had managed to recover his breath for the most part, nodded. “Yes, I think that’s probably a good idea,” and turning to the door, he took one last moment to use his magic to tidy himself up as best as he could and gave the door three sharp knocks with his hoof.

It didn’t take very long before Allen opened up the door, a tired look on his face. “Oh, go-” his welcome was suddenly interrupted by an enormous yawn, “-od morning, Your Grace, you’re here early. I wasn’t expecting you for another hour or two.”

Blueblood gave an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry if we woke you Mr. Ross, but circumstances dictated that we come as quickly as we could I’m afraid.”

Allen sleepily rubbed his eye and replied, “You too huh?”

Blueblood blinked in confusion. “What do you mean ‘me too’?”

The sudden sound of hoofsteps behind Allen caused him to turn to the side, revealing a unicorn mare with a cyan coat, slowly approaching the three. Her lime green eyes shimmered with smugness as she eyed Blueblood and Red Tape from the doorway.

Coming to stand next to Allen she extended her hoof haughtily and said, “It is a pleasure to finally meet you Your Grace, I’ve heard so much about you from my boss, Master Mercantile.”

Blueblood, at first surprised by the unexpected appearance of Balance Sheet, quickly recovered and gave the mare a withering glare in reply.

When she saw that Blueblood wasn’t going to extend his hoof in return, the mare gave an uncaring shrug and let her hoof fall to the floor. “In anycase, now that everypony is here, shall we get started?” she asked, her face taking on a predatory look as she smiled.

Still glaring daggers at her, Blueblood replied through gritted teeth, “Yes, let us begin.”

Allen meanwhile just stood there staring in confusion as the two ponies glared at each other, both locked in a mutual contest of wills that neither one was willing to lose. Turning his attention from them, he glanced behind Blueblood to see an apologetic looking Red Tape. When Red Tape saw him looking his way, he mouthed silently, ‘Sorry.’

Allen just sighed, and rubbed his face in tired irritation. Something tells me I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed this morning.

ALT Chapter 12

Giving a nod in thanks, he motioned for Blueblood to follow him, which he did, through the adjacent living room, and then past a pair of double doors into an office. Allen waved Blueblood through first and shut the doors behind them. As Blueblood entered, he took a moment to inspect the room. A large oak desk sat in the middle of the room, a high back swivel chair behind it. On the desk was some sort of plastic picture frame, with various wires coming out the back, and attached to a short stand.
Deciding to ask about it later, Blueblood continued his quick inspection of the room, in addition to the desk and swivel chair, there were several large bookcases that were practically overflowing with books and papers, along with several metal filing cabinets that were likewise stuffed to capacity with folders and papers.

The walls were painted an adobe white, and were covered with paintings, photos, and shelves that contained various knick knacks and trophies, while the floor was covered by a soft beige carpet. Looking around at the room, Blueblood’s impression was that this office was something that had evolved overtime rather than having been created all at once, and wasn’t really meant to inspire awe or intimidate guests, as so many usually were.

The sound of the door closing, and the lock engaging drew Blueblood’s attention away from the office and it’s decorations, and back to Allen, who looked rather tired all of a sudden, if his drooping posture and tired looking eyes were anything to go by.

Taking a deep breath, Allen levered himself off the door, and crossing his arms, asked, “Okay, just what was all of that shit out there between you two? Is there something going on that I should know about? Because from the look of things, you two have a history, and I don’t like being used as a pawn in some kind of political game of chess.”

Blueblood’s ears fell flat along his scalp, and he winced at Allen’s accusatory tone. “Mr. Ross,” he began, “let me first say that I am terribly sorry about what happened out there, Ms. Checklist is a member of an organization that I have a... history with, and I am afraid that you just got caught up in an old feud that never really got settled.”

Allen’s arms remained crossed over his chest. “And just what kind of ‘feud’ are we talking about here?” his tone was like that of a parent trying to weedle the rest of the story of what happened to have caused a child to end up in trouble.

“I’d... rather not go into detail at the moment, if it’s all the same to you, all you really need to know is that this incident was a rather major scandal at the time and nearly ruined my family financially. In addition, it also nearly destroyed the DOTI in the process. Suffice to say, there is some bad blood between the Crown and the DOTI as it were.”

“Is this ‘bad blood’ going to affect me?” asked Allen seriously.

Blueblood shook his head. “No, I promise you that I will make sure that it doesn’t affect you in anyway, Mr. Ross, you have my word,” replied Blueblood, as he placed a forehoof over his chest, as if taking a solemn oath.

Uncrossing his arms, Allen gave a tired sigh. “Alright, so what was all that jazz about the government mismanaging this Discord fellow then?”

Blueblood bit his lip, as if unsure of how much he should really say. After a few moments he finally seemed to come to a decision. “It’s a... complicated and rather long story, but the short version is that Discord is a being that can manipulate reality itself to suit his whims. He feeds on chaos and spreads it everywhere he goes, as the more chaos there is, the more powerful he becomes.”

“So sort of like a positive feedback loop? Only, if there isn’t any chaos, or very little, he becomes weaker?”

Blueblood nodded, a pleased smile on his face. “Exactly! Except that is an impossible scenario to achieve without the powerful artifacts known as the Elements of Harmony. These artifacts allow those chosen by them to purge Discord’s influence from the land, while at the same time imprisoning him in the process.”

“So by using these Elements of Harmony, you guys can kill two birds with one stone, get rid of Discords power, while at the same time, get rid of him.”

Blueblood gave an uncertain smile. “Well yes... though I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. Regardless,” he said, while shaking his head to remove the image from his mind, “that isn’t the only thing Discord is capable of. Naturally, being able to bend reality is bad enough, but he is also able to manipulate the personality of people as well, as well as their physical being too.”

“Wait, you’re saying that he is capable to turning people into other things and then mind fucking them in the process?” asked Allen, a hint of fear creeping into his voice.

Blueblood gave a nod, his face serious. “I’m afraid so, and while the Elements can restore those affected by his Chaos magic back to normal, both in body and mind, the memories of their time under his influence are still there, and those are wounds which take a long time, if ever, to fully heal.”

“That is some messed up shit right there. Now I kind of see why Ms. Checklist was acting the way she was.”

Blueblood gave an angry harumph. “Yes, well, regardless of who is to blame for this mess, the fact of the matter is that she,” he pointed an accusing hoof towards the door, in the direction of Checklist, “is using this disaster to extort money from the Crown!”

“From the Crown? You mean that I’m not going to have to pay?” asked Allen.

Blueblood gave Allen an incredulous look. “Why would you be the one to pay? You’re just as much a victim here as Mrs. Smith is! Besides, if the DOTI were to try and make you pay, they would probably lose whatever credibility and public good will they had left.”

“Okay, so go ahead and pay her then, I really don’t see why you have to make this such a big deal,” replied Allen with a shrug.

Blueblood rubbed his forehead with a hoof, as if in an attempt to dispel a headache, which was probably the case, given the situation. “The problem, here Mr. Ross, is that as the Crown’s representative here, if I give in to her demands without so much as a whimper, than that could be construed as weakness on the part of the Crown. The political landscape is already shaky at best, what with the return of Princess Luna after she was cured of her insanity by the Elements of Harmony. That was less than a year ago, and now with the mess that Discord created, there have been murmerings both in the halls of government and among the general population, that maybe it’s time for a change.” He shook his head, “And as the nephew of both Princess Celestia and Luna, along with being the Grand Duke of Canterlot, and the fourth in line for the throne should anything happen to my aunts or my cousin, it is my responsibility to ensure the continued survival of the Crown in its current form, no matter the cost.”

“So, what are you going to do then? It sounds like she’s got you over a barrel here.”

Blueblood let loose an angry growl. “You think that I am not aware of my position?

~oOo~

“Me and my big mouth,” muttered Red Tape wearily to himself three hours later, as he and Blueblood stumbled out of the Ponyville town hall. What should have taken less than an hour had turned into a grueling three hour session of looking at paperwork, signing said paperwork, and discussing, you guessed it, more paperwork. Mayor Ivory Scroll, affectionately known locally as ‘Mayor Mare’, had been ill prepared for their meeting today. Though, Red Tape supposed that he couldn’t really blame her for the way things had gone. Even though it seemed as though the Elements of Harmony had restored the world to its previous state before Discord’s meddling, it turned out that even the Elements had limits on what they could do.

In this case it was the fact that most of Ponyville’s town records had been rearranged by Discord in, as he had put it, ‘a more efficient system’. Of course, his idea of ‘efficient’ was considerably different from the average pony’s, and even with nearly a week having gone by, the poor mayor and her staff were still struggling to put everything back where it was supposed to go. Consequently, most of their meeting had consisted of the mayor either sending somepony to go and find the information they needed, or having to make due without. To say the least, it had been rather stressful for all involved.

Thank Epona that Discord never had time to mess with Canterlot’s filing system! The thought made Red Tape shiver in suppressed horror at the nightmare that would have been.

Chapter 12 #2 cut stuff

not to mention that you’ll need to report on what you plan to grow and-”

“Wait, hold up a sec,” interrupted Allen with an upheld hand, “what do you mean that I have to ‘report on’ what I plan to grow?”

“Well, it’s really quite simple, each farm tends to specialize in either a single or small group of crops. For instance, Sweet Apple Acres grows mainly apples, though they do have a few other crops and animals that they tend to as well, but apples are their primary crop,” replied Checklist easily.

“Okay, so let me see if I get this straight,” replied Allen, crossing his arms across his chest in a thoughtful pose, “you want to know what I plan on growing for the coming year?”

Checklist nodded, a smile growing on her face.

“Okay, so what is the purpose of collecting this information then?”

Checklist shrugged. “Mostly to make sure that ponies aren’t over saturating the market with a particular commodity. That is what the D.O.T.I. was originally meant to prevent in the first place.”

“So if I want to grow apples you’ll tell me no?” Allen replied, an unhappy look growing on his face.

Sensing that she was on thin ice, Checklist quickly held her hooves up in front of her in a placting manner. “No, no! Not at all, far from it!” she cleared her throat and continued, “allow me to elaborate. I’m not sure how much you know about ponies and how we as a society function, but one of the core parts of anypony is their cutie mark, their special talent.”

“Cutie mark?”

Checklist nodded, and rising in her chair, turned sideways so that Allen could see her flank upon which was emblazoned a sheet of paper with several red check marks, and a pencil in the process of checking an empty box.

Pointing to the mark, she said, “This is my cutie mark, and it represents my abilities to organize and categorize information in a way that allows others to be more informed and efficient in their tasks. Each pony’s cutie mark is a representation of what they do best in life, what makes them the happiest, as it were.”

“Okay,” said Allen, uncertainty coloring his tone. “So what, do you guys get them painted on or something when you find something that you like to do? Seems like a lot of work to keep it looking as nice as it does.”

Checklist and the others chuckled at Allen’s reply, and Allen felt his face flush red in embarrassment. Waving a hoof as if to banish his embarrassment from the room, Checklist replied good naturedly, “No, no, Mr. Ross, we don’t paint them on, they magically appear when we discover what we’re best at in life, what completes us and brings us the greatest joy you could say.”

Allen for his part just sat there, a blank look on his face, finally he said, “So basically you guys have an epiphany about what makes you unique and bam you get an ass tattoo? Just like that?”

Checklist nodded. “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but in essence, yes, ‘just like that’, as you say.”

“Okay, and what does this have to do with what we’re talking about?”

Checklist sighed. “Do you know what the lowest common denominator is, Mr. Ross?”

“Yeah, I did take a math class or two while I was in school,” replied Allen flatly.

“Good, well in this case, as with the lowest common denominator in a mathematical problem, most ponies will simply break their cutie marks down to the most literal meaning that they can think of, are you with me so far?”

Allen made a so-so motion with his hand. “Kind of? Can you give me a clearer example?”

Checklist gave a nod. “Of course, hmm, let’s see...” she paused for a moment, a thoughtful look over taking her expression, and tapped her chin absently with a hoof, finally after a few seconds, a pleased smile blossomed and she said, “let’s take Ms. Applejack and her family as our example, they each have an apple related cutie mark, save for her younger sister of course, and each of them live and work on their family’s farm, growing and selling apples. Are you with me so far?”

“Yeah, my neighbor’s family loves growing apples, and they tend to get cutie marks related to what their family does,” replied Allen simply.

“Yes, they tend to get cutie marks related to what they do on a regular basis. However, that doesn’t mean that they have to grow apples or that their talent is related to the growing of apples. For instance, Granny Smith, that’s Applejack’s grandmother by the way, has an apple pie for a cutie mark, and I’ve had the pleasure of tasting one of her famous pies, they are very good by the way, and one might think that she’d be more comfortable as a baker than a farmer, considering her cutie mark and her abilities.”

“But I take it that she isn’t?” replied Allen, an unsure look on his face.

Checklist gave a happy nod, like a teacher would to a student who had given a good answer to a question. “Correct! While she does enjoy baking and selling her pie’s and other apple related pastries, she’s been running Sweet Apple Acres ever since her husband passed away, back before her grand foals were born. Her ability to take apples and make them into other goods has allowed her to increase her profit margins and make her farm highly profitable. Therefore, while she does enjoy making pies, that’s not where her main talent lies.”

“So what you’re saying is that she’s really good at turning raw food products, that would normally sell for a low price, into finished items that people will pay more for?”

“Precisely! She doesn’t limit herself to just baking pies, she makes jams, butters, pastries and some much more! Oh, it makes me so excited just thinking about it!” replied Checklist with a giddy giggle.

“Right, so where does that leave you guys in this equation?”

Composing herself again, Checklist replied, “Simple, while there are ponies out there, like Granny Smith who don’t just go do what their cutie mark literally means, such as growing apples or baking pies, many do.”

“But I thought you said that ponies only get cutie marks when they know exactly what they are good at doing in life?” asked Allen, a confused expression on his face.

At this point, Blueblood decided to jump into the conversation. “It’s complicated, even today we still don’t know everything about how cutie marks work or where they come from. Even the why sometimes isn’t really understood, such as, why do some colts and fillies get their cutie marks early and others don’t, even when they had been doing the activity that they eventually earned their marks in for years.” He shrugged, “As best as we can tell, cutie marks are not so much a definitive answer of what you were destined to do in life, but a guide that points one in the direction where they will find the most fulfillment and where they will see the most success. Take my cutie mark as an example,” he paused to show off his flank, a compass rose proudly emblazoned on either side, “my cutie mark could mean many different things, if I were to take it literally, I might consider myself a cartographer rather than what I am today.”

“And wouldn’t that make my life easier,” grumbled Checklist from across the table.

Ignoring her remark, Blueblood continued, “Simply put, my cutie mark could have seen me sitting in some room pouring over maps or out in the world making them, and while I do enjoy those things, and am fairly good at reading and even creating maps, it’s not what I believe my mark means.”

Glancing at Blueblood’s mark, Allen asked, “So what does it mean to you then?”

Blueblood gave a small, happy smile, “It means that I provide direction to ponies, after all, that is what a leader is meant to do, much like a compass and a map, each helps ponies find their way in the world, and I, like them, do the same. Often times I am attending meetings between groups that are at odds with each other and or I’m off in a foreign land negotiating a trade deal. In each of these cases, I often find myself guiding both sides to a consensus where they can both equally benefit. Simply put, I help ponies get to where they want to be or at least as close as is possible.”

“Okay... I still don’t really get how this involves you guys,” said Allen, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice.

Checklist and Blueblood sighed, with the former rubbing the side of her head and the latter rubbing the bridge of his muzzle, frustration evident on their features.

“Okay,” said Checklist with a sigh, “let me ask you a question then. In your world do you have guidance counselors?”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“Think of us as a sort of government run guidance service then.”

“Now there’s a scary thought,” quipped Allen.

Checklist gave a huff of a irritation at Allen’s less than complimentary reply, but let it slide, “In any case, our primary mission is to make sure that Equestria’s economy runs as smoothly as possible, and while it is true that in the past our methods led to less than satisfactory results, we learned from those mistakes and moved forward. Today most of our focus is on diversification and innovation within our economy, and that is hard to do when everypony just does whatever is literally emblazoned on their flanks. So, we offer advice, training, and low interest business loans to ponies to help them broaden their horizons and branch out into other occupations.”

“What if a pony doesn’t want your help?”

Checklist shrugged. “Then we don’t help them, simple as that. I feel as though you might be projecting something from your world onto what we do here, Mr. Ross, our services are entirely voluntary in nature, though many ponies come to us for help as they sometimes have difficulty securing employment in their desired occupation. After all, just because you are good at making maps, doesn’t mean that Equestria has a map making job just waiting for you. So we become a way to help that pony find something to help put food on the table and to find the next best thing that lets them exercise their talent.”

“Have you ever had a situation where you couldn’t help a pony find a job that used their talent?” asked Allen curiously.

Checklist gave a nod. “Yes, sadly, there have been instances where a pony came in and we couldn’t help them locate a job that fit their talent or even help them create a job for themselves. In cases like those, we oftentimes have to just find the best fit that we can, and keep an eye on them.”

“What do you mean ‘keep an eye on them’?”

“Well, many times, a pony who can’t use their special talent can often become depressed. In those cases, we step in and offer counseling and whatever aid that we can give them. Thankfully, I’ve never had to experience a situation where one of my clients was unable to fulfill their special talent, but I have heard of cases where a pony couldn’t and it caused them issues.”

“I...see, so how does this affect me then? I don’t have a cutie mark, so I doubt I would be effected the same way as a pony.” replied Allen thoughtfully.

“Well true, clients of ours who don’t possess cutie marks, such as minotaurs, donkeys, griffons and so on, don’t usually seek out our cutie mark related services, that doesn’t mean that we can’t help them in their quest to better their lives. After all, you don’t need a cutie mark to do something if you’re willing to put in the time or effort to learn a skill, and besides, not everypony goes into a job that their cutie mark is related to, some simply view their cutie marks as a hobby or a talent that only really benefits them personally. As I said, our goal is the bigger picture of helping to keep ponies from thinking too literally about their talents when and if they want/need us to.”

“Okay, still don’t really see why I need to deal with you people

Chapter 12 #2

The following morning found Allen checking on his fridges and freezers, as while he hadn’t been without power for long stretches of time, he didn’t want to find out the hard way that some of his food had spoiled on him, so he thought it prudent to double check his refrigerated foods for quality loss. This served the double purpose of helping him to forget, for a time at least, the fact that he wasn’t on Earth anymore. Though inevitably, that world would come knocking, in this case literally.

Sighing to himself, he strode to his front door, and opening it, found that both Prince Blueblood and Red Tape were the first to arrive. Inclining his head in greeting, he said, “Good morning, Prince Blueblood, Red Tape, how are you?”

Blueblood bobbed his head in greeting and gave a polite smile in return. “Good morning, Mr. Ross, we are doing about as well as can be expected given the circumstances.”

Allen nodded his head in understanding. “Yeah, I can imagine you’re probably feeling pretty tired right about now, you two are the first to arrive, so come on in and take a load off,” he said, as he waved them inside.

Blueblood gave a thankful nod in return. “Thank you, Mr. Ross,” he began as he entered, though his polite expression morphed into one of confusion after a moment. “Though I must admit, I would have thought that the mayor and DOTI representative would have arrived by now, I wonder where they could be?” He gave Red Tape an enquiring look.

Red Tape for his part merely shrugged. “I was not informed as to when the mayor and inspector would arrive today, Your Grace, only that they would be here.”

“I see,” said Blueblood. Turning his attention back to Allen he asked, “Did you get a chance to look over some of the literature that we left you last night?”

Allen waggled a hand back and forth in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Sort of, I kind of skimmed it after you guys left, but didn’t really dig into it so to speak.”

Entering the kitchen, Allen took a seat at the kitchen table, and waved for the ponies to join him. “So,” he said, as Blueblood and Red Tape took a seat, “what’s on the agenda for today?”

“Well, we need to get your land issues sorted out, as well as allow the DOTI inspector a chance to meet with you and inspect your farm, once those are taken care of, the rest should fall into place.”

“And how difficult is it going to be to resolve this land issue?” asked Allen, a touch of nervousness coloring his voice.

Blueblood grimaced. “I do not know. Though I will imagine it will not be enjoyable. The local Apple clan holds a lot of clout in this area, not too mention the influence that they hold across the nation. If they want to make things difficult, they will.”

Allen’s face scrunched up as if he’d just bitten into the world’s most sour lemon. “So do you guys know how much of my land overlaps theirs?”

“About half, if our initial surveys are correct, that also includes your home and barns I’m afraid, though the rest of your land sits on top of land owned by the crown, which will make transferring it to you a simple affair,” replied Blueblood.

Allen felt a headache forming. “Great, just fucking great,” leaning back in his chair, he stared up at the ceiling, a despondent look on his face.

Hoping to potentially cheer him up, Red Tape said, “Don’t worry Mr. Ross, I highly doubt that the Apples would be so callous as to force you from your home, and even if they were, there are ways for us to mitigate the potential damage.”

Allen just grunted in reply.

Red Tape opened his mouth to say something more, when the sound of hooves knocking against wood interrupted him. Giving a groan, Allen rose from his chair and went to answer the door, with both Blueblood and Red Tape deciding to tag along. When Allen opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of two mares, and looked to be in their early middle ages, one of them was an amber colored earth pony with a tan scroll tied in a blue ribbon as her cutie mark, and her mane was a blueish gray with darker gray highlights. In addition, she wore a white collar with a green cravat and half rimmed wire glasses.

I wonder if that’s the mayor? thought Allen to himself.

His suspicions were confirmed seconds later as the mare strode forward and giving him an easy smile, thrust a hoof towards him said, “Hello, my name is Ivory Scroll, and I am the mayor of Ponyville, though most ponies around here just call me ‘Mayor Mare’.”

“Uh, nice to meet you Mayor Mare,” he said as he shook her hoof, “I don’t know if you know yet, but I’m Allen Ross.”

Mayor Mare continued smiling as she replied, “It is nice to meet you, Mr. Ross, and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our humble community,” her expression however quickly changed from happy to somber, “though let me be the first to say that I am terribly sorry to hear about what happened to you. I sincerely hope that something can be done to send you back home as soon as possible so that you can can be reunited with your family.”

Looking into her dark blue eyes, Allen could see that she was being sincere and with a grateful smile for her kind words replied, “Thank you madam mayor, I hope I can go home soon too.”

The sudden clearing of a throat caught Allen’s attention and he glanced to the source of the disturbance which happened to be the second mare of the group.

Unlike Mayor Mare, who seemed content with just a simple cravat and collar, her companion wore a sharp looking business suit, sans pants. Her fuchsia eyes slowly looked over her surroundings, as if bored. Like Mayor Mare she appeared to be middle aged, as her yellow mane had several streaks of gray shooting through it, and her pink coat looked like it had been a more vibrant shade at one point, but life had dulled it somewhat. Her cutie mark was a sheet of paper with several red check marks and a pencil in the process of checking an empty box.

The mare approached Allen, and said, “I am Inspector Checklist of the Department of Occupations, Talents and Industries, and I am here to inspector your... farm to see that it meets with DOTI standards and regulations.”

Allen gave a single nod of understanding. “And am I to assume that you’re also going to help us figure out this land issue that I’ve been saddle with thanks to this Discord fellow?”

Checklist gave a nod and grunt in reply. “Of course, Mr. Ross, that is why I am here after. It should be relatively simple to sort out quickly,” turning to regard both Blueblood and Red Tape she said, “Your Grace, Mr. Red Tape, I have heard that you’ve both been working closely with Mr. Ross over the past few days.”

“That’s correct,” replied Red Tape.

Checklist gave a satisfied nod, and turning back to Allen said, “Good, now if you would be so kind as to invite us in, we can get started.”

“Oh, right, sorry about that,” replied Allen sheepishly as he stood aside to allow the two mares access to his home. Checklist simply waved aside his apology with a hoof as she made her way inside with the mayor following close behind.

Shutting the door, Allen quickly moved to the front of the group and lead them to the kitchen. Upon reaching the kitchen, Checklist made a beeline for the dining table and after selecting a seat and seating herself, she began withdrawing papers from her saddlebags and setting them in front of her while everyone else claimed their own seat.

However, soon everyone was seated around the table and Checklist opened the meeting by tapping the table top with a hoof. “Very well, if everyone is present and ready, I believe we should get started.” When no one contradicted her she continued saying, “Now, before we can get started with any kind of inspection, we need to take care of this land dispute.”

“Agreed,” said Blueblood, “am I to assume that you plan to represent Sweet Apple Acres in these negotiations?”

Checklist nodded. “You would be correct in your assumption,” she said, as she pulled several sheets of paper from her saddlebags. “Now, given the... unique situation, that we are currently facing, I felt it was important to meet with my client beforehoof and make sure we were both on the same page. As such, this,” she slid a piece of paper across the table, “is our offer, and it is my hope that it will be the only one. Considering the circumstances leading up to this meeting, I would hope that the Crown would like to do the right thing, and provide proper compensation for their negligence which lead to this whole sad affair in the first place.”

Blueblood picked up the paper in his magical aura and began reading. The more he read, the more unhappy his expression became, while Allen became more and more worried. Finally after several minutes, Blueblood gently set the paper down on the table and replied, “As the representative of the Crown, I will be the first to admit that the whole Discord affair could have been avoided, and that many people were affected by this event. Moreover, the Crown has released a statement regarding the incident and has accepted full responsibility for what happened. As such it is willing to pay out an appropriate amount for damages done by Discord upon the populace. However, this,” he pointed a hoof at the offending piece of paper in front of him, “is too much, the Crown will be willing to pay half of what you have asked for, and no more.”

A smile suddenly grew on Checklist’s face as she gave a shrug of her shoulders. “Oh well, can’t blame a mare for trying.” To which Blueblood simply rolled his eyes and gave a long suffering sigh. Letting loose a hearty laugh, Checklist reached into her saddlebags again and fished out another set of papers, which she slide across the table to Blueblood.

Taking the papers in his magical grasp, Blueblood quickly skimmed through them, and after a moment, gave a satisfied nod. “This is much better, I believe the Crown would be amicable to these figures. Of course, I would need to run them by the Princesses for final approval, but I believe that they’ll say yes.”

“Excellent!” responded Checklist, a pleased smile adorning her face, before then turning her attention to Allen. “Well, now that we have that little matter taken care of, I think it is time for us to move onto you, Mr. Ross.”

Allen sat there, feeling confused. “Wait a minute,” he said, holding up his hands in a ‘stop’ gesture, “that’s it? I thought you guys would be at this for hours? I mean you,” he turned to Blueblood, “made these guys sound like bad news yesterday, but she’s been here less than twenty minutes and you’ve guys have already reached an agreement!”

Blueblood blinked, nonplussed at Allen’s reaction. “Well...” he glanced at Checklist across the table, as if asking silently for help in explaining the situation.

Apparently Checklist decided to take pity on the confused prince and interjected, an amused look on her face. “Simply put, Mr. Ross, the DOTI and the Crown have almost always been on opposite sides when it comes to these things, plus there’s been the occasional scandal when somepony thinks they can bend the rules to suit their agenda and get away with it. However, that is neither here nor there, in this case, this isn’t the first time I’ve tussled with His Grace here over some kind of dispute, and naturally there are appearances to be maintained, but it was never my or my boss’s intention to cause a major scene."

Chapter 29 (Cupcakes and Classroom Apologies)

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Chapter 29

“Sooooo? How does it taste?” asked Pinkie Pie eagerly as Allen thoughtfully chewed on one of her new honey cupcakes.

Slowly nodding his head, Allen gave a thumbs up and swallowed. “Tastes great, not too sweet, not too bland. Just the right level of softness and moisture in it and the honey glaze is a nice touch. It’s a winner in my book.”

Giving an enthusiastic hoof pump of victory, Pinkie jubilantly exclaimed, “Yes! Another win for Pinkie Pie’s baking skills!”

Taking a swig of milk to chase the remains of the cupcake with, Allen chuckled. “You wouldn’t happen to be willing to share the recipe with me by any chance?”

Slapping her hoof down on the counter, a little recipe card poking out from beneath it, Pinkie happily replied, “No problem!”

Sliding it towards him, Allen picked it up and looked it over. The recipe looked pretty simple, for which he was thankful, as while he could follow instructions well enough, he knew that he was no Gordon Ramsey when it came to cooking.

“Thanks, Pinkie, I’ll be sure to tuck this away in my mom’s old rolodex of recipe cards for later,” said Allen as he placed the card carefully in his satchel pocket and grabbed another cupcake to eat.

Giving him a friendly smile, Pinkie lightly bounced in place. “You’re welcome, Allen! I’m glad the recipe turned out as well as it did. So, how was your trip to Canterlot with Twilight yesterday?”

Swallowing, Allen replied, “It went well. We found Chisel and Son’s a lot faster than we expected, and so when we were done there, we had some time to spare before we had to come back. So we decided to see what Canterlot had to offer and Twilight volunteered to be my guide while we were there.”

“Ooh, did you go to Donut Joe’s? His donuts are the best!” asked Pinkie Pie with a wide smile.

Allen nodded. “Sure did, though I couldn’t eat most of what he was selling, due to my diet restrictions, but he had a really good buttery croissant that hit the spot. When Dr. Stable clears me, I fully intend to head back there and get some more.”

“Do you know when those Canterlot ponies are coming?” inquired Pinkie as she idly wiped down the counter with a clean rag.

Finishing off the last of his milk, Allen replied, “Tomorrow around noon. Not sure how long it’ll take for them to look everything over and give me an estimate, but hopefully not too long.”

Wiping a few loose crumbs into a trash can behind the counter, Pinkie idly asked, “So what do you plan to do then?”

“What, you mean with my farm?” When Pinkie nodded, Allen said, “Well most likely I’ll just do hay this year and see where everything stands come winter. Chances are I’m gonna struggle once my fuel runs out unless I can find an alternative in the meantime. That means I’m going to need to make as much money this year as I can and hope I either get sent home or figure something outcome next year.”

“You could always try asking Mr. Rich if he has something you can use as fuel, he’s got all sorts of stuff over at his store, and if he doesn’t have it, he might know somepony else who does.”

“Who’s Mr. Rich?” asked Allen.

“Filthy Rich, he owns Barnyard Bargains, you can buy all kinds of different things from him, and he’s got stores in a bunch of other places too, like Canterlot and Manehatten,” replied Pinkie helpfully.

Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Didn’t know this town had any general stores, I thought you guys bought all your stuff at the market?”

“A lot of ponies do, but sometimes the market doesn’t have what you’re looking for or you don’t want to spend all day looking for it and haggling. That’s where Barnyard Bargains comes in, you can just walk right in, find what you’re looking for, and instantly know the price because Mr. Rich has everything labeled with little price stickers. If he doesn’t have it, you can ask if he can order it for you and have it shipped here. As much as I love shopping in the market, they don’t have everything I need to plan my various parties, Mr. Rich does.”

Nodding, Allen replied, “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind, thanks Pinkie.”

Giving Allen a sharp salute, Pinkie replied happily, “No problemo!”

Glancing at the clock on the wall nearby, Allen saw that it was almost four o’clock and he needed to get home. Levering himself up, he said, “Well, I better get going, thanks for the cupcakes Pinkie, I’ll see you around.”

“No problem, Allen! I’m glad you liked them!” waved Pinkie energetically from behind the counter as Allen left. “See ya later,” she called out as Allen left.

Giving a final wave, Allen exited Sugarcube Corner and grabbed his bike from where he had left it leaning against the side of the bakery, he hadn’t bothered chaining it up, figuring that nopony would be interested in stealing it as they probably couldn’t even successfully get on it let alone pedal it very far before falling off.

Swinging his leg over the seat in a smooth and practiced arc, Allen settled himself and then pushed off, slowly making his way to the edge of town. He was just passing the Ponyville Schoolhouse when a cheerful voice called out to him.

Coming to a stop, he looked past the white picket fence and spotted the local school teacher waving at him from the front door of the school. Giving a wave back to acknowledge he saw her, Allen eased himself off his bike and walked it up to the front door.

Putting the kickstand down, he gave the teacher a friendly smile and said, “Evening ma’am, how can I help you?”

Giggling, the mulberry earth pony stuck out a hoof, which Allen gently shook in return before saying, “Thank you for stopping, Mr. Ross. I’ve been hoping to speak with you since Friday. I would just like to start off by saying how sorry I am about what my students said to you. It was very rude, and I just wanted you to know that I do not tolerate that kind of behavior in my class. Oh, I’m Cheerliee by the way, it’s nice to finally meet you,” she quickly added when she realized she hadn’t introduced herself yet.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you as well, Ms. Cheerilee,” replied Allen, surprised that he was getting an apology from the local school teacher like this. “I must admit, I’m a bit surprised you’re doing this.”

“And why would that be?” she asked, cocking her head to one side in curiosity.

Allen gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know, I just thought you might not have noticed when it happened or cared.”

“Of course I care!” exclaimed Cheerilee in shock. “My students were very rude to you, if I didn’t do anything about it, then I would be a very poor excuse for a teacher!” she said as she stomped a hoof on the wooden stoop in emphasis. “It is the duty of every teacher to make sure their students learn civility when interacting with others. Most foals do not realize that words have a very powerful effect on others and they can be very painful when used inappropriately.”

“That is true, and I won’t pretend I wasn’t upset, but well... it wouldn’t be the first time someone said something nasty to me, and I doubt it’ll be the last, so no use getting all bent out of shape over it,” replied Allen simply.

“Still, I would be remiss in my duties as an educator if I didn’t take the opportunity to educate wayward foals on why certain behaviors are not okay,” said Cheerilee, a disapproving frown on her face.

Allen gave a thankful nod. “Alright, well thank you for the apology, I appreciate it.”

Cheerilee’s frown quickly disappeared and she gave Allen a soft caring smile. “You are welcome, Mr. Ross. Though if it isn’t too much trouble, would you be willing to come inside real quick? I’d like for the three students to apologize to you personally, I gave them detention when I saw their behavior, and apologizing to you would be the last part of their punishment.”

Leaning slightly to one side to peer past Cheerilee, Allen could see that the three foals who had made fun of him several days ago were sitting morosely at their desks. Turning his attention back to their teacher, he replied, “I suppose I can spare a few minutes, though I hope you didn’t punish them too hard.”

“Just a few days of detention, some remedial lessons, and a note to their parents explaining the situation,” replied Cheerilee with a small smile and shake of her head, as she turned and invited him in.

Stepping through the doorway, Allen felt a wave of nostalgia hit him as the smell of musty books, art supplies, and chalk dust hit him. Giving his head a small shake, he stood aside as Cheerilee closed the door behind him and trotted to the front of the classroom.

Standing in front of her desk, she tapped her hoof against the wooden floor loudly and said, “Alright class, as you know today is your last day of detention, and as such, we have a special guest today,” she pointed at Allen with a hoof. The three foals turned their gaze to Allen, and three pairs of ears wilted to one degree or another in discomfort at having to face their final test. Motioning for Allen to stand by her, Cheerilee said, “Now, I want each one of you to come forward and apologize to Mr. Ross for the things you said to him last Friday,” her tone brooked no argument and she fixed the pink earth pony filly in particular with a firm glare.

Allen guessed that she was probably the class bully or at least the one that had a problem with authority, in either case, he didn’t really care. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he casually leaned against Ms. Cheerilee’s desk and waited for one of them to come forward. However, it looked like none of them were in a hurry to face the music, and Allen could practically feel Ms. Cheerilee’s disappointment in her students, however, all she did was point at the violet-colored unicorn filly and say, “Dinky Doo, how about you start us off?”

The little filly jerked in her seat as if she had been pinched when her name was called, and when she looked up from her desk, her amber-colored eyes were filled with nervous tears and she looked like she was on the verge of breaking down and crying. Looking at Ms. Cheerilee, out of the corner of his eyes, Allen could see that she didn’t want to do this to her students, but she knew that in the long run, it would help them grow into better ponies.

Pushing off from the desk he had been leaning against, Allen calmly strode up to the little filly who shrank down in her seat in an attempt to become as small as possible in order to hide from the approaching human. Not saying anything, Allen loomed over the little filly for a moment before squatting down so that he was eye level with her, and with a calm, reassuring smile gave her a little nod of encouragement.

Looking from Allen to Cheerilee and back again, Dinky slowly sat up and with a trembling voice said, “I-I’m s-sorry I-I called y-you weird.”

“Your apology is accepted,” he replied with a small smile and gently patted her on her head, taking the opportunity to lightly muss up her golden-colored mane at the same time, which earned him a small, relieved sounding giggle from her and her playfully trying to shove his hand away from her mane.

Pulling his hand away, he turned to the nervous-looking pegasus colt to his right and cocking an eyebrow waited for him to say something.

Fluttering his blue wings nervously, he looked everywhere but Allen as he fiddled with his red and white tail before muttering out, “I-I’m sorry too, for saying what I did, Ms. Cheerilee said it was inappropriate to say that you couldn’t do magic like I did.”

Giving the colt a satisfied nod and a gentle pat on his head, Allen replied, “You are also forgiven, and she is right, though you didn’t know any better at the time, but now you do, so take this a learning opportunity, okay?”

Life Flight gave a hesitant nod and a small smile. Returning his smile, Allen gave his head one last pat and turned his attention to the final foal, and waited for the pink-colored filly to say something.

Giving an irritated huff, she grumbled, “I’m sorry too or whatever.”

“Diamond Tiara! That is not how we apologize to ponies!” reprimanded Cheerilee sternly as she moved from her desk to stand next to the petulant little filly.

Crossing her hooves and pouting harder, Diamond Tiara muttered quietly under her breath, “It’s not like it’s even a pony,” though not quietly enough as she thought because both Allen and Cheerilee heard it easily.

Allen for his part felt his temper spike at being called an ‘it’. However it was Ms. Cheerilee that seemed the most offended by her student’s choice of words and by the dark look that crossed her face, Allen was glad that he wasn’t in the little filly’s shoes right then.

“Diamond Tiara, I am very disappointed in you right now,” said Ms. Cheerilee, her words dripping with acidic disappointment and her expression one that promised a strong talking to later. Turning to Allen and the other two foals, Ms. Cheerilee plastered a troubled smile on her face and replied in a too-sweet tone of voice, “Mr. Ross, Dinky, Life Flight, would you three please step outside for a minute? It seems that Diamond Tiara needs an additional lesson on proper manners.”

The two other foals quickly nodded and took off for the door as if someone had lit their tails on fire. Allen for his part glanced down at the bratty filly and decided to give her one last chance to save herself. Taking a deep breath he cleared his throat and said, “If I were you kid, I’d rethink my apology real fast. For what it’s worth, I’ll forgive you, whether you mean it or not, but I don’t think that’ll be enough for your teacher, so unless you like being punished, I’d suggest trying again.”

Diamond’s muzzle scrunched up as if she’d just bitten into a rotten piece of fruit and glared up at the two adults as if they were being mean to her for no particular reason. However, seeing the dark look that Ms. Cheerilee was giving her and the patient one from Allen, she realized that maybe she should just swallow her pride and take the easy out she’d just been given. Screwing up her face in displeasure even further, she spat, “Fine, I’m sorry that I said mean things to you.”

“And?” asked Cheerilee with a note of warning in her tone.

Her ears pinning back, Diamond ground out, “And for calling you an it and being disrespectful towards an adult.”

Deciding that that was the best he was going to get, Allen, nodded and said, “Your apology is accepted,” turning to Ms. Cheerilee, he asked, “anything else you need from me?”

Cheerilee gave a single nod. “I do, so would you be willing to wait outside for a minute while I have a quick word with Diamond Tiara here?”

“Sure,” replied Allen as he gave the frazzled teacher a nod and turned to head for the door. Shutting the door behind him, he caught the first few scolding words of what sounded like a long and worn-out lecture beginning before the door cut off the rest. Letting go of the door handle, he let loose a tired sigh, and shaking his head turned around and sat down on the front stoop of the schoolhouse.

Stretching his legs out in front of him, he leaned back with his arms propping him up and looked up at the gathering twilight sky. It was a beautiful sight, with the various fiery reds, dull oranges, and dark violets contrasting with each other across the evening sky, he could even see a couple of stars twinkling in the gathering evening.

“Mr. Ross? Can I ask you a question?” asked a quiet voice from his left.

Looking down, he saw that both Dinky and Life Flight were sitting on the next step down and were looking up at him in quiet curiosity.

“Sure,” he replied easily.

Shifting nervously, Life Flight licked his lips before finally blurting out, “Is it true that you really can’t do magic?”

Allen tilted his head to one side in quiet contemplation, finally, he shrugged and replied, “I honestly have no idea. Before I came here I couldn’t, but Dr. Stable said that once my thaumic pathways are stronger I should be able to use magic. Though, he’s not sure how it will manifest.”

“Is it hard? Not being able to do magic, I mean,” asked Life Flight quietly.

Allen shrugged again, an unconcerned look on his face. “Well considering I’ve lived my entire life up till now thinking that magic wasn’t real, I never really thought I was at a disadvantage.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” mumbled the little colt, his ears falling flat against his scalp and shrinking in on himself slightly.

Sensing that there was something bothering the little guy, Allen leaned forward and gently asked, “Do you have trouble with your pegasus magic? Is that why you wanted to know if I had magic?”

With tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, Life Flight nodded. “I can’t fly really well right now, my dad says that it’s because my thaumic pathways aren’t big enough to let me fly yet, even though they should be.”

“And you wanted to know how someone like me got through life with no magic, to see if I could give you some advice or something,” said Allen as he filled in some of the dots.

Biting his bottom lip, the little colt gave a single nod as tears started falling down his cheeks. “I have to go to physical therapy every weekend, take icky tasting medicine, and do wing exercises every day to make my thaumic pathways bigger and stronger, and I’m scared that it won’t be enough and that...”

“You’ll never get better,” finished Allen for him when Life Flight trailed off. At the colt's nod, Allen rested a hand gently on his head and ruffled his mane, before asking, “So let me ask you a question then, how long have you been doing these treatments for?”

Sniffling, Life Flight rubbed his muzzle with the back of his fetlock and replied, “A couple of months now.”

“And do you feel like it is easier to fly than it was back then?” prodded Allen.

Life Flight gave an apathetic shrug. “I guess, a couple of months ago I couldn’t even glide, but I can now, at least for a minute or two before my wings give out and I crash. But what if that’s as good as it gets? I don’t want to stay grounded for the rest of my life and be made fun of by the other pegasi!” he exclaimed as he stomped a hoof in frustration.

“Hey, chin up kid,” said Allen as he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and gently wiped away the tear tracks on Life’s face, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and if after two months you went from not being able to even get off the ground to being able to glide, well that’s progress,” tucking the dirty handkerchief in his satchel, Allen fixed the pegasus colt with the most confident look he could and said, “If you think positively and focus on how you’re improving rather than worrying about what might happen or go wrong, then I have a feeling that you’ll find it easier. After all, a lot of people’s problems are simply up here,” he tapped the side of his head with a finger, “and by changing how you look at things, you might be surprised at how things change for the better.”

Sniffing, Life Flight looked up at Allen with a hopeful look in his eyes and quietly asked, “Really? It’s that easy?”

Allen shook his head. “I wouldn’t say it’s ‘easy’, because you have to change how you think about things, about how you react to disappointment in your mind, and sometimes that’s not easy to do. Especially when things aren’t going the way you want them to. But it’s possible, it just takes effort, consistency, and the right attitude on your part to make it happen.”

“It just takes the right attitude,” repeated Life Flight to himself quietly before a look of determination spread across his face, and flaring his wings, he pointed a hoof to the heavens and declared, “Then starting today, I’m going work really hard and do what it takes to become strong enough to fly by myself one day!”

Smiling at the little colt’s determination, Allen clapped his hands together and said, “That’s the spirit!”

Giving Allen a big smile, Life Flight buzzed his wings in excitement before suddenly shooting forward and latching onto Allen’s leg and giving it a tight hug. Looking down at the colt, Allen chuckled and gently pried him loose before sitting him down next to him on the front stoop and giving his head a final pat.

“So what about you... uh, Dinky wasn’t it?” asked Allen as he turned his attention to the little unicorn filly, who nodded in response.

“Yep, that's me!” she proudly proclaimed, puffing out her chest adorably.

“Alright,” chuckled Allen at her adorable display of pride, “so did you want to ask me anything while we wait for Ms. Cheerilee to get done?”

Dinky sat down and scrunching up her face in thought, contemplatively tapped her chin with a hoof that nearly gave Allen diabetes from the sheer cuteness factor. Finally, after a minute, she chirped happily, “Nope, can’t think of a thing!”

“Really? Not a single thing you want to ask me?” asked Allen as he cocked an eyebrow in humorous doubt.

Dinky just shook her head. “Not really, I mean my mommy already read the notice about you that was put out by Mayor Mare the other week to me. Plus, I already asked Ms. Twilight about you when I saw her in the market the other day, and she told me everything that she knew about you, and I literally mean, everything.”

Allen laughed, knowing exactly what she went through. “Oh you poor thing, how long did she talk for?”

“For hours!” exclaimed Dinky as she threw her forelegs up in child-like exaggeration. “I just wanted to know a couple of things about what you were like, you know, like if you were nice or what you liked to eat, but she went on and talked about all kinds of stuff that I didn’t understand, and she used big words that made my brain hurt. Thankfully, Pinkie Pie saved me by randomly popping out of a rain barrel and throwing a cream pie in Ms. Twilight’s face.”

Laughing at the image of Pinkie Pie popping up and throwing a pie in her friend’s face like something out of a cartoon, Allen asked, “And I take it that you took the opportunity to make yourself scarce?”

“I sure did! Though I hope Pinkie Pie didn’t get into too much trouble,” replied Dinky, a worried look on her face at the thought of the lecture that Pinkie Pie probably endured at the hooves of Twilight.

“Somehow I doubt it was that bad for her,” replied Allen with a knowing smirk on his face.

“I sure hope so, normal Twilight lecture mode is bad enough, I’d hate to have to sit through angry Twilight lecture mode,” said Dinky with a fearful shiver.

Allen gave a solemn nod of agreement as he recalled his run-in with the bookish unicorn and her infamous lectures on various topics. He was just about to open his mouth to recount his own Twilight lecture encounter when the door behind them opened and a petulant-looking Diamond Tiara and slightly irritated-looking Cheerilee trotted out. Though upon seeing Allen and the other two foals, her expression morphed into a more happy look, though Allen could still see the strain around the corners of her mouth and eyes.

“Oh! I didn’t expect you three to be sitting on the stoop this whole time waiting for us,” exclaimed Cheerilee in mild surprise as Allen stood up to clear the way for her and Diamond.

“We were just talking about some things while we waited for you two to get done inside,” replied Allen as he stood to one side and waited for Ms. Cheerilee to lock up for the night.

Double checking that the door was properly shut and locked, Ms. Cheerilee replied, “Well I’m glad to see you three getting along, I trust they were on their best behavior?”

“The very best,” replied Allen with a solemn nod.

“Good, I’m glad to hear that,” said Cheerilee with a happy smile, before turning to address the three foals, “Now, it’s getting late you three, so you should run along home now, and I’ll see you all tomorrow morning, alright?”

“Yes, Ms. Cheerilee,” replied the trio before they turned and scampered off, though from how little pep was in her step, Allen surmised that Diamond Tiara wasn’t looking forward to getting home.

Once the three foals were far enough away, Allen casually asked, “I’m assuming from how unhappy she looks, that you sent Diamond home with another note for her parents?”

Cheerilee sighed and with a nod replied, “Yes I did, I’m not sure why she is displaying this kind of antisocial behavior, but I’m determined to get to the root cause of it and correct it before it gets any worse. It’s bad enough that several of the other foals claim that she teases them in class because they haven’t received their cutie marks yet, but this was just completely unacceptable, and I won’t stand for it any longer.”

“Well if you’ve known that she’s been picking on the other kids in the class, why haven’t you done anything about it till now?” asked Allen as he grabbed his bike and put the kickstand back up in preparation to leave.

Cheerilee let loose a frustrated snort and replied, “I’ve tried, but the problem is that it’s only three other students that claim she’s bullying them regularly, and I haven’t been able to actually see her when she does it. So without actually seeing it with my own eyes, it’s a lot harder to dole out a punishment without it coming across as playing favorites among the students. This time, however, I was able to catch her in the act, and so I took action, as you can see.”

“Yep, I saw alright,” said Allen as he watched the filly in question disappear into the gathering dusk of early evening.

Cheerilee sighed, a tired look in her eyes as she gazed into the distance. “I don’t like punishing my students, but I also don’t like it when they hurt each other either. Sometimes I just feel so helpless because of some rule that binds my hooves until a certain requirement or threshold is met, and by then lasting emotional damage might already have been done.”

Allen nodded in sympathetic understanding. “Yeah, but what can you do but just do your best?”

“Nothing I guess,” she replied absently as a contemplative quiet fell over the two.

“So what did you want to talk to me about now that the foals are gone?” prompted Allen when the silence dragged on for too long between them.

Cheerilee gave a little start when she realized that she’d completely forgotten that she’d asked Allen to stay behind so that she could speak with him once they were alone. “Oh forgive me, I entirely forgot,” she replied with a sheepish laugh.

Allen smirked in amusement and waved her apology away. “It’s alright, I’ve done that a time or two myself, so what’s up?”

Clearing her throat, Cheerilee turned to face Allen fully and asked, “Well, I was wondering if you might be willing to come in and do a small question and answer session on humans for the class. We’re just about to start covering early Equestrian history in class, and that portion of the lesson module includes some mythology elements. So I was hoping that you would come in and answer any questions the foals might have on human myths and history.”

Allen scratched his head, an uncertain look on his face. “I thought you guys didn’t really teach that stuff in school? From what I’ve gathered, humans aren’t very well known except in certain academic circles.”

“That is true,” agreed Cheerilee with a nod, “however, we were recently issued with a new history module at the beginning of this year. I think they changed the curriculum because of Princess Luna’s return, and it briefly touches on early Equestrian history and folklore. I’ve just finished looking through it and there is a section that references your species, though not in any great detail, and the author obviously classified humans as myth rather than fact.”

“I guess that makes sense from your standpoint. I mean we humans consider unicorns and pegasi to be myths in my world, seeing as how nobody has ever seen one,” interjected Allen as he and Cheerilee slowly walked through the empty schoolyard. Coming to a stop at the gate marking the edge of the schoolyard and roadway, Allen idly scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not really that great at giving speeches or lectures. But I suppose I could answer some questions, when were you thinking of having me come by?”

Cheerilee gave a happy little dance in excitement and replied, “Oh thank you, Allen! I’m so glad you’re willing to do this, if you are free, how does next Monday at ten o’clock sound? That’s when we’ll get to the mythology section of the lesson module.”

“I can’t think of anything I’ll be doing at that time, so I suppose that’ll work,” he replied.

“Wonderful, I’m sure the class will be thrilled to have you, oh, and feel free to bring some visual aids with you if you want, pictures, books, music, that sort of thing. Some of the foals have a hard time sitting still and listening to someone talk to them for long periods of time, but if you have something for them to focus on, such as a picture, they tend to be less disruptive for the rest of the class.”

Allen gave a nod of understanding. “I think I’ve got a couple of things that’ll be interesting to them.”

Shutting the gate behind her, Cheerilee stuck out her hoof and replied, “Then I look forward to seeing you next Monday then, Mr. Ross.”

Taking her hoof in his hand and shaking it, Allen smiled and said, “Sounds like a plan then. Guess I’ll see you on Monday then, have a good night.”

“And you as well,” she replied with a smile, and giving a final wave goodbye, she turned and trotted back towards town, a happy spring in her step.

Allen watched her go for a minute before turning and swinging his leg over his bike seat, resumed his interrupted journey home. As he sped along the swiftly darkening country lane, he mulled over what he should bring with him next week.

Probably should leave the dark stuff at home, and the weird internet stuff as well while I’m thinking about it, I doubt Ms. Cheerilee would be very happy with me if I accidentally corrupted her students by introducing them to internet memes and leetspeak. I suppose showing them some of my sister’s manga collection wouldn’t hurt... probably.

Chapter 30 (This Old Barn)

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Chapter 30

It was Wednesday morning, and Allen had been busy getting animals fed and things in the hay/storage barn moved around so that they wouldn’t be in the way of Rune Chisel when he came by for his initial inspection. Unfortunately, some of the things Allen needed to move were too heavy to do by hand, which meant he was forced to use his family’s skid loader, and that meant using up precious fuel.

Allen had already run the numbers, and based on his rough calculations, he figured he might have enough fuel to get him through this year's hay season. However, that was if he only used the fuel for the hay-making process, and not for anything else. Every drop of fuel that he burned for something else was one less drop for making hay, and by extension, money.

He’d looked to see if it was possible to plant regular row crops, such as corn or soybeans, but the numbers just didn’t add up. He’d run out of fuel long before he managed to harvest all of his crops, and then he’d really be in trouble. As it was, he was going to have to find ways to stretch his fuel supply as far as he could. The good news was that all of his equipment, save for a few pieces, ran on diesel, and they were all old enough that they didn’t require DEF to run as well, which was a huge load off of his mind.

Maybe I can try and see if I can use cooking oil to help stretch my diesel supplies. I remember Twilight mentioned that Ponyville had some kind of fast food restaurant that just opened up, maybe they would be willing to let me have their used fryer oil, he mused to himself as he carefully pulled the old Farmall Super M out of the barn with the Bobcat.

Letting the tractor roll to a gentle stop to one side of the door, Allen got out and unhooked the tow chain from it, and placed a couple of pieces of wood under the back and front tires to keep the machine from rolling away by accident. Dropping the chain into the skid loader’s bucket, Allen climbed into the cab and shut the glass door before lifting the bucket and heading back in for another load.

Time passed quickly and before long, Allen was finished. Parking the skid loader back in its spot in one of the machine sheds, Allen had just finished turning the engine off when he noticed that he had company.

“Mr. Chisel, glad you could make it,” greeted Allen as he took off his work gloves and stuffed them into his back pocket before offering the Canterlot unicorn his hand.

Taking the proffered hand, Rune Chisel gently shook his hoof and gave Allen a shallow nod in greeting. “Hello, Mr. Ross, I know we’re a little early, but the train down from Canterlot wasn’t delayed like usual, so we made good time.”

Releasing Rune’s hoof, Allen looked around but saw only Rune Chisel and the two-wheeled cart he’d brought. Cocking an eyebrow, he asked, “Who else is with you? I don’t see anyone else here but you right now.”

“I brought two of my sons with me, Spell Matrix and Silver Filigree, they should be along later, they said they had something to do in Ponyville. When they get finished they should be along. In the meantime, why don’t you show me the building we’ll be looking over,” explained Rune with a toss of his head towards Ponyville.

“Ah, I see,” replied Allen simply with a nod of his head in understanding, “Well hopefully they don’t take too long then,” turning, he pointed to the large barn behind him and waving a hand said, “This is the barn, I just finished moving some things out of the way so that you can get a better look at it.”

“Well, thank you,” replied Rune as he and Allen made their way inside. Coming to a stop, Rune quickly unhooked himself from his cart and grabbed several tools, slotting them into loops on his harness. Giving himself a little shake to settle everything, he slowly surveyed the inside of the building and pulling out a measuring tape, said, “Well, I suppose I better get to work, if you see my sons, just point them in my direction.”

“You don’t need me to stick around?” asked Allen as Rune set to work.

The unicorn artisan shook his head. “If I need you for anything, I’ll come and find you. No offense, but I prefer it if my customers don’t bother me or get in my way while I’m working, it makes for fewer distractions and potential mistakes that way.”

“I see,” replied Allen with an understanding nod, “well, in that case, I’ll be puttering around working on equipment most likely. If you hear any loud droning noises, that’ll probably be me moving stuff around.”

Rune Chisel simply gave a wave that he understood, and continued his work. Seeing that there was nothing further for him to do, Allen left and headed for the machine sheds, intent on inspecting and making his machines ready for this year's hay season.

Several hours later and Allen was finished. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he set his grease gun on a nearby workbench. Giving an almighty stretch, he felt a few of his joints pop in a satisfying manner, and letting loose a contented groan, he went to go check up on Rune Chisel.

Trotting across the yard, he noticed that another pair of carts had shown up in the time that he’d been working. Walking into the barn, Allen spotted the trio of unicorns in the far corner. In addition to Rune Chisel, Allen could see Spell Matrix rummaging around in a toolbox for something, while a silver-colored unicorn sporting a pair of silver-rimmed glasses jotted down notes on a small notepad.

Looking up from his toolbox, Spell spotted Allen and with a friendly wave called out, “Hi Allen! How’s it going?”

“Hey Spell, and not too bad all things considered,” replied Allen simply with a wave of his own.

Looking up from his work, Rune Chisel nodded in greeting. “Coming to see how things are going?” he asked.

Allen nodded. “Yeah, I just finished looking over and greasing my equipment and I saw a new pair of carts out front of my barn, so I thought I’d swing by on my way to the house and see how it was going.”

Rune grunted, his lips turned down in a frown. “Well, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s not looking good.”

Allen grimaced, as judging by Rune’s tone, he wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “How bad is it?” he asked cautiously.

Still frowning, Rune floated a worn notepad in front of him and replied, “Well, some of the edges of the foundation are crumbling and cracked in places. In addition, there are several cracks running the width of the foundation from frost heave. Whoever poured this foundation didn’t do a good job at leveling and compacting the ground underneath before they poured, and thus the cracks. Not only that, but you’ve got leaks in your roof from where some of the nails have come loose, plus there are gaps everywhere that allow birds and insects inside, not to mention ground critters being able to squeeze under the sliding doors and walls. Basically, from my calculations, it’s going to cost more for us to try and ward this barn in its current condition than it would for you to either have this one renovated or another one built properly and warded afterward.”

“Really? I would think the opposite would be true, I mean, can’t you just carve the runes into the cement and rafters?” asked Allen.

Rolling his eyes, Rune shook his head. “It’s not so easy as carving a rune into something, filling it with the proper metal, and bespelling it. Think of it like this, would you build a house on a bad foundation?”

“Well, no obviously,” replied Allen with a shake of his head.

“Well, the same thing applies for runework. This,” he said tapping the concrete with a hoof, “is crumbling and cracked in places. That means any runes carved into it would be inherently weak due to the degradation of the materials and would risk shorting out due to a gap in the materials opening up. Plus, carving runes into already hardened cement is a pain anyways. Now, we could have somepony come and rip up the floor and pour a new one, but that still won’t get rid of the rest of the problems with this barn, namely, the large amount of ingress points for animals and the parts of the roof that leak. While it’s true we could just put up animal wards everywhere, that gets expensive. It's much better to use physical barriers where possible and have the runes cover the rest,” he explained.

Allen sighed but conceded the point with a nod. “So what do you recommend? I can’t imagine a new barn is going to be cheap or quick to put up.”

Rune Chisel smirked. “You’d be surprised, though,” he looked around at the metal pole barn and said, “If you really want, we can fix this barn up, but it might take just as long as putting up a new one, and there is the chance it will be more expensive.”

“By how much?” asked Allen as he mulled over his options.

“It depends on how much of the old material can be saved, these metal panels look like steel. Though I don’t recognize the alloy. If my youngest son were here, he could probably figure it out, he’s got a talent for metal casting and alloy mixing. As it stands, we’ll need some samples to make sure we have a fill material for the runes that will be warding the walls that aren't going to be incompatible with this metal.”

“I’ve got a couple of scrap pieces laying around that you can take with you,” replied Allen helpfully.

Rune gave Allen a thankful nod. “I appreciate it, having some scrap metal to test with will be very helpful. Of course, that brings us to the cost of material and labor, both of those vary depending on location. I’ll need a couple of days to figure out the rough estimates for both routes and to source the needed things.”

Allen nodded, an unhappy look on his face, he had been hoping that Rune could just carve a couple of runes and drop some molten metal in the grooves before enchanting them and calling it a day, but apparently, that wasn’t going to happen. Sighing, he said, “Alright, see what you can find out for both options. I’d like to see what kind of new designs you guys can come up with too and what they’ll cost as well if that’s not too much trouble.”

“Shouldn’t be,” replied Rune with a shake of his head. “As I said, give me a few days and I’ll see what I can find. I should have something for you by Friday if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, that should be fine,” replied Allen before then turning his attention to the only other pony who he hadn’t been properly introduced to yet. “So I take it that this is your other son then?”

Rune nodded, a proud smile on his face. “This is my second oldest, Silver Filigree, he handles the more delicate runework now that my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, along with taking care of the finances when I’m too busy.”

“Greetings, and salutations,” greeted Silver, as he used his magic to readjust his round silver-framed glasses, and to move an errant lock of his black and silver striped mane out of the way of his gold-colored eyes.

“Well it’s nice to meet you,” replied Allen with a wave.

“And you as well, though, if there is nothing further you wished to discuss, I believe we should be going,” replied Silver as he glanced up at the sky through the open doors and saw that the sun was well into the afternoon. “We have quite a few things to do, right father?”

Nodding, Rune carefully began packing his things into his cart. “That we do,” quickly finishing, he turned and offered Allen a hoof, “As I said, we’ll do some asking around and see what we can come up with, if it’s alright with you, we’d like to be able to bring ponies out here to get a look at your barn so that they can give their own opinion on the matter.”

“That’ll be fine, so long as they’re with you and don’t go poking around elsewhere,” replied Allen as he watched Rune and his two sons strap themself into their individual carts and start trotting.

Falling in beside the group, Allen commented, “Honestly, it’d be a real shame if we had to tear that barn down, most of the material is still good, even if it’s a bit worn in spots.”

“Most likely we won’t have to tear it down, Allen,” replied Spell, “honestly, I think my father is being a bit pessimistic when it comes to the barns suitability for hay storage, but he doesn’t like to underestimate what a project might cost.”

Rune nodded. “I’ve always found that when I underestimate, it causes problems, and while the original estimation might cause some ponies to pass on our business initially, they usually end up coming back anyways when the other guy goes over budget or cuts corners.”

“Father hates cutting corners,” commented Silver quietly.

Rune snorted in frustration. “It’s short-sighted and stupid, if you’re planning on building something and want it to last, then you should build it right the first time. These days however it seems as if everypony is only thinking about today, and not about tomorrow and what a bad job will cost in terms of fixing in the future.”

Allen nodded in agreement. “Amen to that,” he said as the group reached the end of Allen’s driveway.

Looking back over his withers, Rune waved goodbye and said, “Well, unless you’re planning on walking with us all the way to town, I guess this is where we part ways.”

Chuckling, Allen replied, “As much as the exercise will do me good, my stomach is telling me it’s time for supper, so I think I’ll pass this time.”

His lips turning up in a small smile, Rune gave a final nod and started trotting back towards town, his two sons also bidding their farewells and falling in behind their father.

Allen watched the trio of unicorns grow smaller in the distance before deciding to check his mailbox for any mail. The mayor had been out a couple of weeks ago and had informed him that his property had finally been given an address and that his records were properly filed at town hall. Shortly thereafter, mail had started arriving, most of it was the usual junk mail, advertisements, magazine subscription offers, and so on.

Opening the mailbox, Allen noticed that in addition to the usual junk mail, there was something else.

A letter, from Blueblood? He thought as he turned the fancy-looking envelope over in his hands inspecting it. It had a red wax seal with what Allen assumed was the coat of arms for Blueblood’s noble house stamped on it, while on the back was his name and address in flowing golden-colored script.

Tearing it open, Allen pulled the expensive-looking letter out and began to read.

Dear Allen,

I hope this letter finds you well. Things are progressing nicely on my end in regards to the founding of our new business venture, and you will be pleased to note that the bits that I have allocated to you per our agreement should have arrived at the local bank by now. This will be in addition to the bits promised to you by the government as compensation. Thus, if my calculations are correct, you should have 140,000 bits currently at your disposal. Please spend them wisely as I have no further bits to give you and neither does The Crown at this time either. Finally, I have enclosed another letter in this envelope, it is intended for Ms. Farthing, so please make sure that she gets it post-haste.

Sincerely,

Blueblood

Looking in the opened envelope, Allen spotted a smaller one resting inside and pulling it out, noticed that it was addressed to Penny in the same flowing golden script. Tucking the rest of the mail under one arm, he closed the mailbox and headed for the house, rereading his letter as he went.

“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about paying Rune with an I.O.U note in the near future, so that’s one less thing to worry about anyways,” he said to himself as he stepped through the front door and laid the mail on the dining room table for sorting later. Looking around, he idly tapped his chin as his stomach rumbled in hunger and muttered, “Now, what do I want to eat? I’m thinking... steak, yeah, a nice steak sounds good right now.” With his decision made, Allen set to work fixing himself something to eat.

Several hours later, Allen was kicked back and relaxing in his easy chair. He’d fixed and eaten his supper, cleaned the dishes, and now he was taking it easy for the rest of the night before bed. The sound of the front door opening and closing caused him to perk up and crane his neck to look over the back of the easy chair to see who was clip-clopping through his home.

“Hey Penny,” he called out when he saw his temporary housemate, “how’d it go, you find a place yet?”

Setting her saddlebags on the dining room table, she pulled out the pins holding her mane up in a bun and gave herself a shake, her auburn-colored hair flowing over her neck and withers.

“I did,” she replied as she grabbed a glass from one of the cupboards and poured herself some water from the tap. “The best part is that it’s a two-story shop with an apartment on the second floor, so I will only need to purchase a single property instead of two. If everything goes right, I should be moved in by Saturday, and open for business on Monday.”

“Well that’s great news, where is the building located?” asked Allen with a smile, pleased that Penny was able to secure herself an office and home so quickly and easily.

Swallowing her sip of water, Penny replied, “It’s across from the bank, on the corner of Saddle St. and Market Lane, it gives a lovely view of the market square and is within easy trotting distance of Sugarcube Corner, the best part is that the realtor told me the previous owners had put sound dampening runes in so the noise from the market won’t be an issue either.”

“Glad to hear that you found a place that you like, you gonna need any help getting moved in?” asked Allen curiously.

Penny shook her head. “I’ve already made arrangements, but thanks for the offer, Allen.”

“I figured it was the least I could do, considering all of the help that you’ve given me since we met,” replied Allen sincerely.

“Just doing my job Allen, nothing more. In any case, I see that His Grace sent you a letter, good news I hope?”

“Oh yeah, the money he promised me came in,” commented Allen as he suddenly remembered Blueblood’s letter and by extension his request, “and I almost forgot to tell you, Blueblood sent you a letter too, let me get it real quick,” he said as he levered himself out of his chair and strode over to the dining room table to sift through the mess of ads and junk mail before finding what he was looking for. Turning around, he handed Penny her letter and said, “Here it is, I’d completely forgotten about it, just came today.”

Taking the letter in her magic, she carefully opened it and began to read, after a minute, she put the letter done and gave a satisfied nod. Allen, curious as to the letter's contents asked, “So, what did he say?”

“Hmm? Oh, he was just informing me that he has finished updating my employment file and adjusting my pay to match my new position accordingly. That, and he sent me a check to cover my moving costs as well,” she replied as she folded the letter back up and slipped it back into its envelope. Setting it back on the table, she turned to Allen and asked, “So how did your meeting with Rune Chisel go?”

Allen sighed, as he ran a hand frustratedly through his hair. “Not as well as I was hoping. He basically said that we’d need to rebuild the barn in order to do the job right, and he thinks that it’s going to cost more than I was hoping it would, though he wouldn’t give me an exact estimate yet as he needs to talk to some other ponies and see how much they’re going to charge for labor and materials.”

Penny’s ears fell flat as she scrunched up her muzzle in sympathetic frustration. “Well, that sucks, did he say why the barn needed so much work?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, the concrete foundation isn’t in good enough shape to carve runes into it, and besides, he said that it would be harder to carve them into concrete that’s already been set in comparison to concrete that’s still wet and pliable. Plus the roof has some leaks in it and there are more places for animals to get in than he likes to see. He said he should have all the numbers by Friday though, and that he tends to overestimate how much a job is gonna cost as he doesn’t like to underbid and be forced to cut corners to stay within budget.”

Penny nodded in understanding. “A lot of traditional runesmiths are like that... or well, they used to be at any rate. They’ll say the job costs more than it might, thus giving them more wiggle room if something comes up. Usually, if there is any money left over, they’ll refund it to the customer. However, a lot of ponies these days are more concerned with saving a few bits up front than in the long term, and so ponies like Rune who take pride in their work and strive to do the job right the first time are getting priced out of the market.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, he basically said the same thing. Regardless, we’ll just have to wait and see what the end total will be, and go from there.”

Penny hummed in agreement. “So,” she asked, “what were you doing?”

“Nothing, just laying in my easy chair here and staring at the TV,” replied Allen simply.

“That black screen over there?” asked Penny, pointing at the large flat-screen TV that was set above the fireplace.

“Yep.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you what that thing is and what it does,” she replied, a curious look on her face, having never really had the time till now to ask Allen what some of his things did.

“Well, sit back and be amazed at the power of modern technology,” Allen replied grandiosely as he grabbed the remote control on the side table next to his chair and hit the power button. The TV came to life, the Samsung logo flashing across the fifty-inch screen as it booted up before it settled on the welcome screen. Navigating through the menu options, Allen selected the DVD player and hit okay. He hadn’t watched anything on the TV in a long time, so he couldn’t remember what the last movie they had in it was, if it even had anything in it, but considering that his sister had a habit of leaving movies in the DVD player, the chances were pretty good that it was either a Disney movie or one of his sister’s anime movies. As the main menu screen for the movie came up, Allen saw it was the latter, as he was greeted by the title, Porco Rosso, and the sight of a red seaplane flying across the screen played on a loop with music in the background.

Penny’s eyes were as wide as saucers and her jaw was doing its level best to hit the floor. “Wow,” she breathed quietly as she took in the sight before her. Turning to look at Allen, she adopted a cute, pleading look and asked, “Can we watch it, please?”

Looking up at the nearby clock, Allen could see it was just after eight, and since he wasn’t tired yet, he figured it would be a nice distraction. “Sure, have a seat,” he shrugged, pointing at the couch next to him.

Letting out the most adorable squee he’d ever heard, Penny did a little happy dance and jumped up on the couch before laying down much like a cat or dog would and eagerly awaited the beginning of the movie. Smirking at her antics, Allen hit the play button and upped the volume, before reclining back in his chair to enjoy the show.

As the main screen faded, and the movie began, Allen felt a little frown tug at the corners of his lips. This must have been the last movie that Laura watched before she and dad left to go see Aunt Sarah. God, it feels like forever ago since I saw them or heard their voices, I’ve been so busy and stressed out since I got here that I haven’t really had time to think of them... I miss them. Penny’s sudden laugh pulled Allen out of his funk and he gave himself a small shake, Don’t think about it Allen, just enjoy the movie and worry about getting back home later, Blueblood said they were working on getting me home, I just have to be patient.

Adjusting himself slightly to get more comfortable, Allen returned his focus back to the movie and let his worries fade into the background as he watched the story unfold. Glancing at Penny out of the corner of his eyes, he could see that she was enraptured by the movie, her teal eyes sparkling in wondrous joy at the novelty of watching a movie at home and in such high quality. Allen supposed that Equestrian entertainment wasn’t quite as advanced as what he had back home yet.

As the movie continued, he found himself reminded of his discussion with Ms. Cheerilee the day before, and thus his thoughts suddenly turned to the upcoming question and answer session on Monday at the Ponyville Schoolhouse and what he should bring. Obviously, he would be bringing some books and maps with him so that the class could see what his world looked like in comparison to their own. However, he didn’t think that would be enough, and so he thought about what else he might consider bringing.

I wonder if I can get that old CRT TV set to the schoolhouse? It’s a bit heavy, but if I had someone to help me move it there, it should be doable, plus I bet the kids there would love to see some of the shows that I watched as a kid. He mulled that thought over as the movie continued, I think it should still work, and I know I’ve still got that old VHS player buried around here somewhere. I bet they’d love to watch The Magic School Bus or The Berenstain Bears, though, I wonder if I still have any Schoolhouse Rock videos laying around, that might be another good one too... hmm, I’ll have to go do some digging tomorrow, see what I can find.

Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the movie and settled in to enjoy it, his mind free of distractions for the time being. When the movie ended, Penny jumped up and started clapping her hooves in excitement exclaiming, “Oh that was wonderful! Can we watch another one Allen? Please?”

Chuckling, Allen shook his head and turned off the DVD player and the TV. “Sorry Penny, but it’s getting late, and I’m tired. Maybe we can watch something else tomorrow, though I’m afraid if I’m not careful, you might not want to leave, TV can be quite addicting.”

Pouting at being denied more TV, Penny begrudgingly nodded. “Alright, I suppose it is getting late.” Hopping down from the couch, she made her way upstairs, Allen following behind her, turning the lights off, one by one, and making sure the doors were locked for the night.

Reaching his bedroom door, Allen said, “Good night Penny, see you in the morning.”

“Good night Allen, you too, and thank you for letting me watch that movie with you, it was simply amazing,” she replied, a happy smile on her face.

“No problem and I’m glad you liked it,” replied Allen with a casual wave of his hand. “Night,” he said as he shut the door, a muffled reply, ‘you too’ followed by the shutting of the guest room door signaled the end of the day, and as Allen undressed and crawled into bed, he couldn’t help but think that despite the disappointing news regarding his barn, that today hadn’t been all that bad, and closing his eyes, he soon felt the magic of sleep take him to the realm of dreams.

Author's Notes:

I apologize that this chapter took a week longer than I wanted it to. I work full time and so I don't generally have the will or energy to write when I get home a lot of the time, so the weekend is when I do the majority of my writing. Two weeks ago I was basically out of the house all day Saturday, so that cut my writing time in half, and then last weekend I got sick, (which meant no writing) and I'm still recovering, though thankfully it's just a residual cough at this point, annoying, but not debilitating.

In any case, I was hoping to do a bit more with this chapter, in regards to Allen's barn, but I felt that this was a good enough point to stop as I don't want you guys to wait another week for it. So you'll just have to wait for Allen's Friday meeting, which will be in the next chapter. Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in the next chapter.

Chapter 31 (Estimations)

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Chapter 31

Allen, Rune Chisel, and a large earth pony stallion named Steel Girder were standing in Allen’s barn staring at the large-sized hoof print embedded in the concrete floor.

“Yep, just as I thought, low quality concrete, see how far the cracks spread?” stated Steel, his gravelly voice full of disapproval. “Honestly, it’s a wonder your barn is still standing Mr. Ross,” he complained, “whoever put this concrete floor in was an idiot. I can already tell that the ground underneath wasn’t packed and leveled right, and this shoddy workponyship would never fly on one of my job sites.”

Allen just mutely nodded his expressionless face still staring at the hoofprint that Steel Girder had made just a minute ago to test the resilience of his concrete floor, needless to say, it hadn’t passed muster.

Note to self, never make Steel angry, actually, I should probably not make any pony angry, thought Allen quietly, a drop of nervous sweat rolling down his cheek.

This was the first time that Allen had really met somepony of Steel’s stature up close. True, he had heard that there were several stallions in Ponyville who were pretty tall and strong, such as Applejack’s brother Big Macintosh, and Allen had briefly run into Big Mac a couple of weeks ago when he had been in town. He was a pretty large pony, being easily a head taller than most ponies in town, and he was built like a brick shithouse.

But Steel Girder was built like a brick fortress. Currently, he was the only pony that had been able to nearly look Allen in the eye, and Allen wasn’t short, being six feet and four inches tall, just about everypony around Ponyville was either eye level with his belly button, his midchest, or fell somewhere between those two points. Big Mac on the other hand was eye level with Allen’s chin, and unlike many of the other ponies he had seen, had a more draft horse-like build, including the feathering around his hooves. So Allen figured this guy was strong, but when Steel had casually stomped his metal shod hoof into the cement floor and the floor had splintered into a spider web of cracks, Allen had felt like his asshole could turn coal into diamonds.

Clearing his throat nervously, Allen remarked, “Is that so?”

Still frowning his blue eyes staring intensely at the floor as if it had just grievously insulted his mother, and he was deciding how best to hide its remains, Steel said, “Yep, you were right to recommend this be torn up Rune, it would never have supported any kind of enchantments for long.”

Rune nodded, a disapproving frown of his own marring his features. “I figured as much, and seeing the results of your hoof strike test, I’m glad I decided to ask for a second opinion.”

Rolling his toothpick around in his mouth, Steel removed his orange construction helmet and idly scratched his dark brown mane for a moment as he ran some numbers in his head. Finally, after a minute he nodded and turning to Allen said, “Mr. Ross, I can’t let something like this slide, it's an insult to my profession. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to take a look at the rest of your buildings. If the foundations are as bad as this one, we might need to do all of them or risk them falling down. I can give you a discount if you decide to do them all at once.”

Allen grimaced. I do not need to spend any more money than I’m already about to. The rest of the foundations should be fine. Truth be told, dad did go with the lowest bidder on this barn, so I guess it isn’t a surprise they half-assed it like they did, but... he sighed and shook his head. Motioning for the ponies to follow him he led them over to the machine sheds.

Pulling the sliding doors open he waved them in and said, “You can take a look around, but please try not to put a giant hoofprint in my floor again.”

Steel Girder gave a nod and trotted deeper into the shed. He walked around for several minutes inspecting everything, from the floor to the walls and ceiling and even the door frames. His final act was to do another hoof stomp, which caused Allen to winch, but other than a slight indentation mark in the shape of a hoof, the concrete held.

Allen let loose a sigh of relief, while Steel Girder gave a satisfied nod. “That’s better, not great, but it’ll do for now, and don’t worry, I’ll have my boys patch that hoofprint for you later, free of charge. I’d still feel better if we could redo the foundation, but everything seems to be in decent shape, so I’ll leave it up to you on this shed.”

“I’ll think about it,” was Allen’s reply.

Giving a nod of his head, Steel and Rune followed Allen to the machine shed next door, and repeated the process, with the same results, much to Allen’s relief. The same however could not be said for the animal barn as Steel didn’t even bother going inside before rendering his verdict.

“Needs to be torn all the way down to the ground and redone,” he stated, a disappointed frown on his face. “I’ll give credit where it is due, whoever built this barn did a good job, but even the best-built building will fall without a good maintenance schedule, and that’s what we have here. Honestly, I’m surprised it’s still standing, and if I were you, I would look at getting your animals out of there pronto.”

“You haven’t even gone inside yet,” said Allen, a hint of frustration in his voice.

“Don’t need to, see there?” replied Steel, pointing his hoof at an exposed section of the concrete foundation that made up the lower portion of the barn. “You don’t see large cracks like that unless the foundation has shifted, plus chunks of the outer layer of concrete have fallen away. Your barn is on borrowed time, Mr. Ross, that’s just one crack, but I bet there are more and with each crack water can get into the foundation, this can rust away any exposed rebar which will cause the metal bars to swell and make the cracks worse, that’s also not taking into account water freezing in those cracks causing them to get bigger. Meanwhile, you’ve got holes in the roof and walls of your barn, which naturally lets water in and causes the support beams to rot away, and if I can see the holes from this far away and outside, then you know they are bad.”

Sighing in frustration, Allen kicked a rock and mumbled, “Tell me something I don’t already know. You think I like having buildings that are one good windstorm away from falling down? I’d love nothing more than to tear that old eyesore down and build a new one, but I doubt I’ll have the money to cover both the hay shed and the animal barn at the same time.”

Steel gave Allen a weird look and asked, “Well how many bits do you have in your budget?”

Allen rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I don’t know, a hundred thousand I guess?”

Steel felt one of his eyebrows try to ascend to low Equus orbit. “One hundred thousand? That’s your budget?”

Feeling his face heat up in embarrassment, Allen kicked another rock and stuck his hands in his pockets grumbling, “I don’t have a lot of money right now, okay? Prince Blueblood only gave me one hundred thousand bits, and The Crown only gave me another forty thousand, so I’m kind of working on a shoestring budget here, if that’s not enough to cover things, then I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“Uh, Mr. Ross, I get the feeling that you misunderstood me when I commented on your budget. One hundred thousand bits is a pretty substantial budget for remodeling your hay barn.”

Allen blinked in confusion. “It is?”

Steel nodded, a smile slowly forming on his face. “It sure is, with a budget that big, we could remodel all three sheds, tear down your old animal barn and build you a new one that is twice as big as the old one, throw in all the bells and whistles too, and still have money left over.”

“B-but, Bon Bon said it cost her forty thousand bits just to have her shop warded,” replied Allen hesitantly, not fully understanding what was going on.

Rune Chisel tapped his chin thoughtfully as the name sounded familiar, after a few moments he stomped a hoof as he recalled where he’d heard the name. “Ah yes, I remember now. Cream-colored earth pony mare, runs a candy shop in town, has a trio of blue and yellow striped candies on her flank?”

“That’s her,” confirmed Allen with a nod.

“Yeah, I remember that job, the thing you need to understand Allen, is that she had that shop built from the ground up, plus she had me put in just about every damn rune in my catalog, not sure why, but I’m not complaining, it was a very lucrative job.”

Steel Girder nodded along too as he recalled the candy maker. “Yeah, come to think of it, she had us put in a pretty stout two-story basement with a simple elevator that could travel between the two lower floors and the ground floor. Claimed she wanted plenty of storage space and that she didn’t want to carry stuff up several flights of stairs. Though why she didn’t just have us add an additional storeroom to the back of her shop puzzles me, I mean she had plenty of land, guess she wanted a big yard or something, whatever, the money was good, so we did what she wanted.”

“Alright...” began Allen, unsure of what to make of the two craftponies revelations, he decided to tuck that line of questioning away for another day and instead asked, “So what do you think it’ll cost me to have you remodel my hay barn and the animal barn then?”

“Well, for the wards it’ll only cost about three thousand I would think, maybe as much as five depending on what you have Steel here do,” replied Rune thoughtfully as he consulted his worn notepad.

“If you just need us to redo the foundation, patch the holes in the roof, and plug up the ingress points for the animals, shouldn’t be more than three maybe four thousand bits on my end. That’s assuming we save as much of the material as we can during the demolition phase, otherwise, it’ll probably double in cost, but that’s still not bad all things considered,” commented Steel idly as he picked some concrete chunks out of the feathering around his hooves.

“And for the animal barn?”

“Now that I don’t know off hoof,” replied Steel, as he eyeballed the aforementioned structure, “If we go on the assumption that we can’t recover any usable material and that you keep the dimensions of the barn the same, it’ll probably run you about twenty thousand bits, though if you want my opinion, you should consider expanding it, you’ll need the extra storage space for hay. Plus there’s always the milk market to consider, adding in a milking barn can help bring in some easy revenue.”

Allen nodded. “I’d already considered that, and since my current milking parlor doesn’t meet DOTI regulations, I’ll need to have a new one built anyways. What about the grain silo in the back, do you think it can be salvaged?”

Trotting closer so that he could get a better look at it, Steel snorted and shook his head. “Be better off tearing it down and building a new one, a silo that size will run you about two grand I reckon, maybe a bit more.”

“Well, that can wait then, not like I can do grain crops right now anyways, though if we do tear the animal barn down, we might as well pull that silo down too,” replied Allen as he stared up at the decrepit building. Turning to look at Steel he asked, “Alright, so let’s assume that we go ahead and remodel the hay barn, tear down and rebuild the animal barn and remove the silo, what kind of price range are we looking at?”

Both Rune and Steel quickly put their heads together and began comparing notes and figures. After a few minutes, they turned back to Allen and Steel said, “Well for construction, if we just remodel the hay barn and rebuild the animal barn to its current dimensions, I think we could do it for around thirty thousand bits in total, that includes the cost to demo the silo as well. If you wanted to expand the animal barn we could be tacking on an additional ten to twenty thousand depending on how big you want to make it. This is just a rough estimate, but I could get you a more detailed quote by Monday.”

“As for me, it’ll depend on what runes you want to put in, the standard package that’ll make you compliant with DOTI regulations will run you about three to four grand for the hay barn, if you’re willing, there are a couple of additional runes I can add that I think you might like to have, they are purely optional, but the cost will go up by an additional grand or two. For the animal barn, it’ll be somewhere between eight to ten thousand at its current size for the standard package and ten to twelve thousand for the quality of life package. If you expand it, then we might end up tacking on an additional two to four thousand depending on the size of the new dimensions,” said Rune as he consulted his notepad and made a few additional calculations.

“So if my math is right, if I go with the expansion and the quality of life package for everything, it’ll probably be somewhere around seventy thousand bits?” guessed Allen.

“And around fifty thousand if you go with the basics,” replied Rune with a nod.

Allen quietly nodded as he mulled over his options, finally, he said, “I’d like three quotes, one for the basic, just remodel and rebuild with the bare minimum needed to pass DOTI requirements. A middle package, with all of the basics, plus a slightly expanded animal barn, specifically a bigger milking parlor that can comfortably fit six cows at a time, while the runes are unchanged save for adding in any that makes keeping the milking parlor clean easier. Finally, I want the last quote to have the fully expanded animal barn with all the bells and whistles for both it and the hay shed’s runes and whatnot.”

Both Steel and Rune looked at each other and sharing a smile they turned back to Allen, stuck out their hooves, and replied, “You’ve got a deal, Mr. Ross.”

“We’ll have a detailed list for you by Tuesday, since you want three options, it’ll take us an extra day,” said Steel, while Rune nodded in agreement.

Allen shook both their hooves, though Steel was a little confused when Allen didn’t hoof bump him like he expected and instead wrapped his hand around his fetlock and gave it a couple of pumps. “That’ll be fine,” replied Allen without missing a beat, ignoring Steel’s confused look at Rune who just went along with the strange greeting without batting an eye. “I’m probably going to be busy most of Monday anyways, so Tuesday will work better for me. Of course, I’ll need some time to go over the plans and pricing with my business manager, but that shouldn’t take too long. I reckon I can give you guys an answer by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest.”

“That will be fine, I expected to be in Ponyville for a few days anyways, so I can take the opportunity to check up on some of my older customers who are due for their annual inspection soon,” replied Rune as he, Steel, and Allen started walking back towards the hay shed and where they had left their carts.

With their business concluded, both Rune and Steel quickly hitched themselves to their respective carts and after bidding Allen goodbye, they set a quick pace for Ponyville. Allen waved and watched them go for a bit before heading inside to have something to eat and to contemplate what he wanted to do next. While he was eating, he decided to start getting his upcoming Q&A session at the schoolhouse organized, and so after he was finished eating, he set to work. The first thing he did was go and dig up the old TV and VHS player in the attic to make sure they both still worked. After confirming that both were still functional, he moved them downstairs, cleaned them up, and set them aside for later.

Next, he searched the house for any old, age-appropriate, VHS tapes that he could take with him to show the foals on Monday. This took several hours, mainly because his parents just kind of put the old tapes wherever there was room, and thus he found random boxes full of them in all parts of the house, oftentimes intermixed with ones that were not age-appropriate.

Something tells me that Ms. Cheerilee would not be too happy with me if I traumatized her class by having them watch Jurassic Park. Thought Allen as he set aside the Steven Spielberg classic, memories of when he’d had nightmares after watching it as a young child flitted through his mind.

Digging further in the box, he finally hit paydirt, a VHS tape of The Magic School Bus. Flipping it over, he saw that it was part of the second season. “Revving Up, huh?” he muttered to himself as he looked over the short synopsis on the back of the box. “Oh, this is the episode where Ms. Frizzle and the class learn how an engine works. That could be a good one.” Setting the tape aside, he continued his search. By the time that Penny returned that evening, Allen had amassed a large collection of items that he was considering showing to the class on the dining room table and was carefully sorting through them.

Looking over the cluttered table, Penny picked up a VHS tape box in her azure aura, and carefully read the title. “Schoolhouse Rock, America Rock, Knowledge is Power,” flipping the box over she pointed at it with a hoof and asked, “What is this Allen?”

Looking up from a book, Allen glanced at the tape box and replied, “Oh that’s just an educational kids show from the 70s. That one talks about American government and some basic American history in the form of songs. I’ve got more, some of them cover grammar and mathematics along with science and health. I’m trying to decide which of these I should bring along to potentially show the kids during the presentation on Monday if I have time. I was going to show them an episode or two of The Magic School Bus, but the episodes are nearly thirty minutes long, so unless Ms. Cheerilee wants me to take up an entire school day, then I can’t really show them except as examples of children’s programming from my world. The nice thing about Schoolhouse Rock is that it’s broken up into smaller lessons within the video on different topics. So it’ll be easier to show and take up less time.”

Setting the video down, she looked over the rest of the table which was covered in all sorts of books, pictures, VHS tapes, and small circular disks with a small hole in the center that was shiny on one side with a rainbow hue when she titled the disks and caught the light from overhead. Setting it down carefully, she pulled up a seat and asked, “So did Rune Chisel come out today?”

Allen nodded in confirmation. “He did, and he brought the biggest pony I’ve ever seen with him too, the guy could nearly look me right in the eyes, he was that tall, and the dude was built like a fucking tank,” explained Allen, throwing his arms wide to emphasize how big the earth pony had been.

“Oh, and what was his name?” asked Penny, an intrigued look on her face, as though even though she didn’t quite know what a ‘tank’ was, she figured it meant something big and imposing the way Allen was talking.

“Steel Girder, he’s a khaki-colored earth pony that runs a local construction company here in town, has a steel I-beam for a cutie mark” replied Allen.

Penny nodded, a flash of recognition flitting across her face as she said, “Ah yes, now I know who you’re talking about now. I’ve heard ponies talk about him around town, and I caught a glimpse of him at one of the local construction sites. Didn’t know he was in charge though.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, that dude is scary, he freaking pulverized the cement floor in my hay shed just by stomping it!”

Penny giggled. “That doesn’t surprise me, draft ponies like Steel Girder are very strong, and with him being an earth pony on top of that makes him even stronger.”

“Draft pony? What is that, some kind of different breed or something?” asked Allen as he set aside the book he was looking at to turn his full attention to Penny.

“Well it’s what Steel Girder is obviously, not all of us ponies are small and cute like me,” replied Penny as she batted her eyelashes at Allen and made a cute face.

Rolling his eyes, Allen shot back, “Yeah, I kind of figured, what I wanted to know was what’s the difference between a regular pony and a draft pony.”

Giggling, Penny gave Allen’s arm a playful shove and said, “I was only teasing you Allen, but to answer your question, there are several types of ponies that you can run into here in Equestria. There are your regular ponies, such as myself, we make up the majority of the population and are generally on the shorter side in comparison to other races, but we’re still plenty strong where it counts, so most other species have learned not to mess with us. Anyways, the other type are those who are called draft ponies, these are ponies that are both bigger and stronger in physical and magical aspects. Tell me, have you had a chance to meet Big Macintosh yet, Applejack’s older brother?”

Allen nodded. “I’ve run into him a couple of times, we haven’t really talked much beyond a casual greeting, that guy is pretty big too, not as big as Steel Girder, but still plenty big.”

“Well, Big Mac would still be classified as a draft pony, though he’s on the smaller end of the spectrum, while Steel would be on the upper end. Earth ponies tend to have a higher chance of producing offspring that exhibit draft pony traits, though unicorns and pegasi to a much lesser extent have also been known to sire foals who have those traits as well.”

“So it’s a genetic trait then?”

Penny nodded, pleased that Allen was catching on so quickly. “Exactly, I had a colt friend in college who was studying to be a doctor and he liked to talk about this sort of thing from time to time. In any case, draft ponies are larger and stronger than the average pony, and they also tend to have feathered hooves, which many consider a holdover from our primordial past when ponies were larger and lived in cooler and wetter climates than we do now.”

“Interesting, are there any other types of ponies out there, besides regular and draft?” asked Allen, a curious look on his face.

“Well, if you want, you could count alicorns as a third type, though, most ponies don’t really do that as there are only three known alicorns in existence and so far no one has been able to identify an ‘alicorn gene’,” explained Penny.

“And I’m assuming that those three would be the princesses?” guessed Allen.

“Yep, Princess Celestia, her sister Princess Luna, and their niece, Princess Cadence, from my understanding, there are no known alicorns that have been born, all current alicorns started off as a different race and ‘ascended’ to alicornhood, though nopony knows how, and the princesses can’t or won’t say,” replied Penny.

“Interesting, I remember learning about how alicorns were a combination of all three tribes into one while I was in the hospital, well that and how magic works,” commented Allen.

“Did they also teach you about the Unicorn Power Scale?” asked Penny.

“Not really? I think Nurse Redheart commented about how Twilight was an Upper Beta unicorn, whatever that means,” replied Allen.

Penny gave a low whistle. “Wow, I’d heard from Prince Blueblood that Twilight was pretty strong magically, but I didn’t realize she was that strong. Did she say what number she was?”

“Number? What are you talking about?” asked Allen confused.

Running a hoof through her mane, Penny sighed and said, “Alright, how best to put this?” she asked herself as she gently tapped her chin looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling as if it would have the answers she sought. Finally, she said, “Alright, so you said that you got the basics on how ponies use magic here in Equestria while at the hospital, right?”

Nodding, Allen said, “Yeah, they gave me the basics while I was laid up. Ponies consume mana from the environment in the form of food and water and the body processes the mana into usable energy that is transferred through the body by thaumic pathways.”

Penny nodded at Allen’s bare-bones explanation, pleased she wouldn’t have to start from square one. “Right, well in some cases, there are ponies who are better able to utilize that mana than others, meaning they can absorb more of it from their food, store more of it in their bodies, and for longer periods of time, and their thaumic pathways are able to handle more energy flowing through them at a given time. What this means, is that in unicorns at least, they are able to cast more complicated, energy-intensive spells.”

“Okay, and I’m guessing that’s where this grading system comes in,” guessed Allen.

“That’s correct,” replied Penny, slipping into lecture mode as old memories of when she was in magic kindergarten rose to the surface of her mind, “we use this scale to determine the range of power a unicorn possesses. The Unicorn Power Scale is broken up into three parts, the first part is the broad power category that a unicorn could fall into. There are seven levels, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, and the weakest is Eta. These levels are broken down into three parts, Lower, Middle and Upper, and are then further broken down into a number scale from one to ten, with one being the weakest and ten the strongest. For the average unicorn, they will usually just focus on the first two parts of the grading scale, however, if you have a unicorn that is very powerful, such as Twilight, then other ponies might pay close attention to the number scale as well. Most unicorns tend to fall into the middle three levels, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, those that fall into the two lowest tend to either have some sort of medical condition or are permanently injured from magical burnout or from damage to their horn or head.”

“So what level are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Penny shook her head with a smile and replied, “I don’t mind at all Allen. I’m rated as an Upper Delta Level 8 unicorn, meaning I’m pretty average when it comes to magical power. I can levitate multiple objects, so long as I have a line of sight of them at the time I cast my levitation spell or I can pick up twice my own weight with my magic and hold it steady for an hour. I can cast basic spells such as illumination and small fire spells, along with minor freezing and cooling spells. Repair spells are kind of tricky for me at times, but I can mend simple rips, tears, cracks, and holes.”

“I see, so what’s the reason behind the grading system, other than bragging rights?” asked Allen with a good-natured chuckle.

Penny returned the chuckle with one of her own and replied, “Oh there are a lot of reasons. As I mentioned before, the scale allows a pony to know at a glance how magically powerful a particular unicorn is, this can help with things in regards to employment, law enforcement, medical procedures, and mental health, to name a few. That last one is probably the most important though.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, generally speaking, when a unicorn is above a certain power level, they tend to develop... quirks,” explained Penny, an uncomfortable look on her face, as if she were having to explain why a family member acted weird to someone else.

“What kind of ‘quirks?” pressed Allen.

Penny sighed and said, “Usually mental quirks, OCD is a fairly common symptom among high-level unicorns. However, other more... dangerous quirks can also occur, such as megalomania, lack of empathy for others, lack of self-preservation instincts, and so on. When it comes to magic, as a general concept we understand it fairly well. We know where it comes from, how our bodies acquire and use it, and how to mold it into something that can impact the world around us. However, it’s the details that are still a little fuzzy at times.”

“So what causes these problems then?”

“Nopony is really sure why higher-level unicorns tend to turn out this way. The prevailing theory is that it's because the higher levels of energy flowing around the brain to the horn during spell casting can disrupt or damage neural pathway formation, leading to changes in behavior or outright brain damage. This is why growing unicorns that display high power levels for their age group are closely monitored, and receive specialized training during their formative years. The more powerful foals are also made to wear special horn rings that limit the amount of energy they can draw at any given time and are placed on strict diets so as to control the amount of mana that they ingest at any given time. As they get older, these restrictions are lessened or removed. However these restrictions can have their own negative effects, and some families can take things too far, especially if they are unfamiliar with powerful unicorn foals. Thankfully, unicorns with that level of power are fairly rare and there hasn’t been a top-tier Alpha unicorn in nearly two hundred years.”

“I can’t imagine that sort of regimen is very cheap or easy to follow,” commented Allen dryly.

Penny shook her head. “It’s not, however, the government usually steps in to help as they find it is cheaper and easier, in the long run, to make sure magically powerful foals don’t grow up to become psychopaths or genocidal despots... or on the other side of the spectrum, magically burn themselves out or die from an uncontrollable magic surge.”

Allen winched. “Yeah, I can imagine that preventing a bunch of crazy magically strong unicorns from overthrowing the government or causing widespread chaos would be in everyone’s best interest. Though I bet all of those restrictions are tough on young foals.”

Penny nodded in agreement, and replied quietly, “A lot of unicorn foals who display prodigious amounts of power are usually handled very carefully and as such are often ostracized by their peers due to perceived favoritism or just because they are different.”

“Seems as though no matter what you guys do, those foals are still gonna develop mental issues, either from frying their brains from too much magic, or from getting bullied because of said magic,” finished Allen with a sad sigh.

“It’s not as bad as it seems Allen,” remarked Penny, “I know I’ve given you a lot of information, and a lot of it paints the system in a less than stellar light. However, we are getting better at treating foals with overly strong magic for their age, and things are getting better for them. Plus there are plenty of support networks and resources available for adult unicorns who went through a tough foalhood because of their magic.”

“Still makes me a little worried that somepony like say, Twilight might go crazy at the drop of a hat or something,” grumbled Allen.

Penny rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen Allen, while I can’t say for one hundred percent certain Twilight is playing with a full deck of cards, so to speak, I doubt somepony such as Princess Celestia would let her out of her sight if she thought Twilight posed a risk to others. I mean, Twilight is the personal student of Princess Celestia after all, and she’s been living in Ponyville for nearly a year now, and the town is still standing, so I’d say everything should be fine.”

Uncrossing his arms and leaning forward in his chair, Allen rested his elbows on the table and said, “Alright, I’ll take your word for it, but if she goes crazy, I’m gonna reserve the right to say, I told you so.”

Penny rolled her eyes again, though this time she had a small smirk on her face. “Whatever you say, Allen.”

“Anyways,” said Allen, as he moved to steer the conversation in a less gloomy direction, “I’ve noticed something kind of odd since I’ve been here, and I wanted to ask you about it.”

Cocking her head slightly, Penny said, “Oh? And what would that be?”

“You guys seem to have a lot of human influence in your culture, specifically Greek and Roman, and it’s been kind of bugging me, though I can’t figure out why,” explained Allen, a frustrated look on his face.

“Are those countries back in your world?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, though the Roman Empire hasn’t been around for well over a thousand years, Greece is still around, but it’s not as powerful as it used to be. But what’s odd is that I’ve noticed that your guards have Roman-style legionnaire armor and some of your buildings have the same architectural style as the Romans and Greeks did, and earlier, you used Greek letters to describe your Unicorn Power Scale system. Plus let's not forget that the days of the week and the months of the year are the same as back home, I’m still trying to figure out how that all works. Finally, there are the city names being horse puns of human cities. Canterlot instead of Camelot, Manehattan instead of Manhattan, Vanhoover instead of Vancouver,” he rubbed his face with a hand in frustration, “it’s just bugging me, so many coincidences. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you guys had pony versions of pop culture figures such as Batman, Spiderman, or Superman at this point,” though when he looked up at Penny, he saw that she had a sheepish look on her face, and sighing, he asked with a resigned tone, “Alright, what are they called here?”

“Well, I was always partial to the Batmare comics, but Spidercolt and Supermane were fun to read sometimes as well. My friend was super into the Power Ponies, though I could never really get into them,” explained Penny.

Allen groaned and decided to change the topic, again. “Alright, so you told me about how unicorns measure their power, do pegasi and earth ponies have a system like that too?”

Penny tapped her chin with a hoof thoughtfully as she tried to recall her middle school lessons on the other two tribes. “Well if I remember correctly, pegasi use wing power to determine how powerful somepony is, while earth ponies use... uh, draft power, I think or was it leg power?” she scrunched up her muzzle as she tried to recall the details, but for the life of her, the memory stubbornly refused to resurface. Grunting in frustration, she shook her head and continued, “Ah I can’t remember, all I know is that it has something to do with how physically strong they are and a couple of other things related to their school of magic. Though I don’t know the specifics of each system, you’d need to ask a member of that respective tribe to learn more, either that or a medical professional. We never really covered those measuring systems while I was in school, save for a single lesson in middle school, as Canterlot is predominantly made up of unicorns, and the few non-unicorns that we had in our class learned about their power measuring systems elsewhere.”

Allen nodded. “Guess that makes sense, you can’t fly so learning how to measure someponies wing power probably isn’t really that important, though I would assume if you had to work with them it might be important to know.”

“Naturally, and most companies will test for that during the hiring process if you are going to be working regularly with the other tribes in a line of work that requires that knowledge, though...” she trailed off, a thought suddenly flitting through her mind like a drunk pegasus, “considering that I’m going to be helping you run your farm and that we might need to hire and work with non-unicorns in the future, I should probably work on correcting that lack of knowledge sooner rather than later.”

“I should probably do that too, now that you mention it,” remarked Allen in agreement. “Oh,” he said, pounding a fist into an open palm as he remembered something. “I almost forgot to mention that Rune and Steel were going to draw up three quotes for me by Tuesday on building renovations. It’s going to take them a bit longer than they originally thought because Steel wants to tear down my current animal barn in addition to rebuilding my hay barn. He said the foundation was bad for both buildings, and that the animal barn was in danger of falling down due to its poor condition.”

Penny sighed. “I was afraid of that, did they give you a rough estimate?”

“Yeah,” nodded Allen, “it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it’s still pretty pricey. If we do both barns, and just go with the basics, then they figured it’ll be around fifty thousand bits, while if we went all out, they think it’ll be seventy thousand. Personally, I think they might be lowballing me, and it’ll end up being closer to ninety or a hundred thousand if we went with all the bells and whistles, but maybe I’m just being pessimistic,” he finished with a shrug.

“Well, regardless, we’ll want to look over those numbers carefully and see if we can’t find somepony else who can give us a second quote. I know Ponyville doesn’t have many construction companies, but there are a few independent contractors around who might be able to do it cheaper. I’ll see what I can turn up next week, it wouldn’t do to lock ourselves in with the first group we see after all.”

Allen nodded in agreement. Truthfully, he was thinking the same thing, and his hay fields wouldn’t be ready to cut for a couple more weeks anyway. Though from the looks of it, the grass field across from his farm looked like it might be ready to go. He shook his head, I’ll take a closer look at it tomorrow.

Suppressing a sudden yawn, he glanced up at the nearby wall clock and noticed that it was well past ten o'clock, and shaking his head he said, “Damn, where has the time gone?”

Craning her neck to look up at the clock, Penny gave a quiet hum of agreement and said, “Well you know what they say, ‘time flies when you’re having fun'.”

“That they do,” replied Allen as he stood up and stretched, his back making several satisfying popping sounds before he began cleaning up the table for the night. “Guess I’ll work on this some more tomorrow then.”

Lighting her horn, Penny moved to help him organize everything. “Here let me give you a hoof real quick.”

Muttering a ‘thank you', the pair of them made quick work in tidying up and before long their task was finished. Turning the kitchen lights off, Allen and Penny made their way to bed, and after saying their goodnights, they each retired to their rooms for the night.

As he was brushing his teeth, Allen quietly mulled over the day and what the next few weeks promised to bring. If everything goes right, I might be able to start cutting hay by the end of this month or the beginning of next month. Though I still don’t have anyone to sell the hay to... here’s hoping Penny can drum up some business real soon.

Spitting into the sink, he rinsed out his mouth and headed to bed. Slipping under the covers, he turned out the lights and let sleep slowly take him away to dreamland.

Chapter 32 (Show and Tell)

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Chapter 32

Allen sat at the back of the classroom, quietly organizing his notes and thoughts as Ms. Cheerilee called out attendance, ignoring the stares of the curious foals as the teacher began the morning class. Over Saturday and Sunday, Allen, with a little help from Penny, had managed to put together a short presentation on humanity. Naturally, it would be anything but comprehensive, as he felt going too in-depth would leave the foals feeling overwhelmed with information. Moreover, Allen didn’t want to risk taking up too much time during the school day in case Ms. Cheerilee had other plans for her students that day.

All in all, he was as prepared as he could be given the amount of time and resources at his disposal. Man, am I glad the school has a power plug that works for the TV and VCR. Thought Allen quietly to himself as he looked at the cloth-covered television on Cheerilee’s desk. He’d had to get here early enough to set it up and make sure it properly worked, and thankfully Ms. Cheerilee had been here to let him in to do so. He had also been glad that he’d been able to fit it and the VCR in the little garden handcart that had been sitting in a corner of one of the barns gathering dust for years as well, as he didn’t think he would have been able to get it to the schoolhouse in one piece otherwise. All it had taken was a little bit of elbow grease to clean the cart, inflate the tires, add several old pillows and blankets to cushion the bumps from the road and he’d been good to go.

Quietly patting himself on the back for his ingenuity, he perked up when Ms. Cheerilee happily announced, “Alright class, I’m glad to see that everypony is here and ready for a new day of learning! As you can see, we have a special guest with us this morning,” pointing a hoof at Allen, she continued, “Everypony, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Ross, the newest resident of our little community.”

Allen gave a small wave as the class all turned around in their seats to stare at him. Clearing her throat to regain the class's attention, Ms. Cheerilee said, “Now, as many of you are aware, we are about to start the final learning module of this school year, Equestrian History, this module also includes a few lessons on folklore and mythology. As some of you may be aware thanks to that informative pamphlet that Twilight put together for everypony, humans were previously regarded as a myth. However, Mr. Ross’s arrival has since debunked that notion, and I have asked him to come and tell us a bit about humans and their culture. I would ask that you all remain respectful, and quiet until Mr. Ross finishes his presentation, after which there will be time before lunch for him to answer any questions you may have, so I encourage you to take notes and ask him questions. Mr. Ross, the time is now yours,” finished Ms. Cheerilee happily as she took a seat along the wall out of Allen’s way.

Giving a nod, Allen stood up and strode to the front of the class. Reaching the teacher’s desk, he turned around and surveyed the mood of the class. Judging by how most of the students were sitting up straight, with their ears perked forwards, and their full attention on him, Allen figured they were rather interested to see where he would go with this. Smiling, he cleared his throat and began, “Hello, as you know, my name is Allen Ross, but you can just call me Allen, and as Ms. Cheerilee said, I am a human from another world. I’m sure many of you have heard rumors of me around town, and I’m hoping that this presentation will answer some of your questions regarding humans. Now, it should be fairly obvious that I can’t cover the entire history of my country, let alone the entire world in a single lesson, so understand there are going to be a lot of things that I won’t cover for the sake of time.”

God, I sound like my history teacher from high school, groaned Allen to himself as he got started. Giving his head a shake, he walked around behind Ms. Cheerilee’s desk, grabbed a large cardboard box, and lifted it up onto the desk. Reaching in, he began pulling several things out in no particular order. The first item he pulled out was a rolled-up map of the world, and with a little help from Cheerilee, he managed to get it tacked up in front of the blackboard for the entire class to see.

Thanking the mare for her help, Allen pointed to a spot on the map and said, “This,” he tapped his finger for emphasis, “is the country I was born in. It is called The United States of America, and it is what is called a 'Constitutional Federal Republic'. Meaning that we do not have any kings or queens that rule over us, nor any nobility. Instead, we elect our leaders,” pulling out another item from the box, Allen placed it gently on the corner of the desk, it was a little flag, with thirteen red and white stripes, with a blue field of fifty white stars in the upper left corner. Pointing to it, he explained, “This is the flag of my country, these white stars each represent a state, and there are fifty states in the union, thus there are fifty stars represented on this flag. The thirteen stripes represent the original thirteen colonies that helped form the United States during our war for independence against Great Britain, which would be this country here,” he said, pointing to a cluster of islands on the other side of a large ocean.

He was about to continue when he saw a hoof shot up near the back, turning around, he pointed at the foal and asked with a hint of hesitation in his voice, “Yes?”

The yellow-coated filly put her hoof down and asked in a southern drawl, “Why did ya have to fight fer yer independence? Did that other country attack yer’s or something?”

“Uh... well that’s kind of a complicated question,” began Allen, suddenly realizing just how difficult a task he had before him, clearing his throat he continued, “The United States was originally a colony of Great Britain, many of the early settlers went to the New World to seek either religious freedom, a new life, riches, and fame, among other reasons I’m sure. However, as time passed, the two people disagreed on how things should be run, and well... it all eventually resulted in the colonies deciding to go their own way. Great Britain on the other hand didn’t want to let the colonies go, so war ensued. I don’t really have a lot of time nor all of the facts to go into great detail regarding the reasons why this happened, but needless to say, the colonists didn’t want to be told what to do from across the world, and so they declared independence and formed a new country. Did that answer your question, uh...” he trailed off as he hadn’t heard the filly give her name.

“Applebloom,” she replied, “and I guess so,” she added with a noncommittal shrug.

“Right, well thank you Applebloom,” replied Allen as he turned back to the map. “Now, as you all can see, there are many different countries around the world, and each one has its own unique history, culture, and language, this map here is fairly out of date, as there are several countries on here that no longer exist, but it was the only one I could find that was large enough so that you all could see it at once,” pointing to the largest country on the map, Allen continued, “This is the country that my mother and her family come from, it no longer exists, but when it did, it was called the USSR or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

“Why doesn’t it exist anymore?” piped up another voice from the back of the class. Allen didn’t see who it was as his attention had been focused on the map at the time.

Clearing his throat, however, he replied, “A lot of reasons, most of which I do not think we have the time to get into, let’s just say that certain forms of government are not as robust as others, and that, as what happened with my country, sometimes certain groups of people don’t want to be part of a country anymore, and we’ll leave it at that,” turning around so that he was facing the class, Allen turned to look at Miss Cheerilee and asked, “I don’t think I ever asked, but how much time do I have to speak today?”

Cheerilee had been looking out at her students, probably looking for the foal who interrupted Allen with a question. Not expecting Allen to ask her a question, she gave a little start and whipped her head around to look at him, plastering on a smile, she quickly replied, “Well, I thought that you would have a lot of material to cover, and we’re actually ahead on our lesson plans this year, so you can take as much time as you want today, Allen.”

Feeling his eyebrows hike up in surprise, Allen replied, “Are you sure?”

Giving a happy nod, Cheerilee said, “Absolutely, so please, don’t feel as though you have a set time limit here, take as much time as you feel you need, I’ll let you know if time is getting short.”

“I... see, well, in that case, I guess we can keep going then,” replied Allen as he thought about how he was going to go forward. After a few seconds of quiet thought, he looked out at the group of students and asked, “I was originally going to just talk to you guys for about an hour or so and then answer some questions, but I’m thinking that it might be more interesting for everyone if we just skipped straight to the questions part and you direct where this thing goes. Does that sound good to all of you?”

When he saw an overwhelming majority of the class nod their heads in agreement, Allen smiled and said, “Alright, so this is how we’ll do things, if you have a question raise your hoof and I’ll call on you, once I’ve answered your question, I’ll point to another foal until everyone has had a chance to answer, that means until everyone has had a turn, you won’t be able to raise your hoof again, alright?”

Another round of nods and Allen said, “Alright, so who wants to ask the first question?”

An orange pegasus filly in the back shot her hoof up. Pointing at her, Allen asked, “Yes, what is your question, and could you say your name as well?”

“My name is Scootaloo, and I wanted to know if humans can fly,” she replied, her little wings buzzing in excitement.

Allen smiled and nodded. “Thank you Scootaloo, and yes we can fly, but not without assistance. Humans do not have wings like you pegasi do, so we have to rely on artificial means to achieve flight.”

Reaching into the box of things, Allen pulled out a small model airplane and held it up so that everypony could see it. “This is a model of what we call a jet airliner,” he explained, “it uses these engines here,” he pointed to the pair of jet engines that were hanging under the wings of the plane with a finger, “to generate enough thrust in order to overcome gravity and fly. It can carry a lot of people and cargo very quickly over a long distance before it needs to land to refuel. Millions of people and things use planes to fly to other countries in my world every day. It is actually possible to fly halfway around the world in less than a day for a lot of people, where before it would take days, weeks or even months of dangerous travel to reach the same destination less than one hundred years ago.”

Another hoof shot up, this one belonging to Life Flight, when Allen pointed to him, he asked, “So how long have humans been able to fly?”

“Sustained heavier than air flight has only been around for a little over one hundred years in my world. Humans have used lighter than air balloons to ascend into the sky earlier, but obviously, balloons are not very practical for moving lots of people and things long distances quickly. However, planes are not the only things that humans have created to allow us to fly,” reaching into his box of things, Allen pulled out a book and flipped to a bookmarked page, turning it around, he showed the class a picture of a Saturn V rocket ascending into space. “This is what we call a rocket, and humans have used rockets to go into space,” turning the page, Allen showed them a picture of Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon. “This is a picture taken from the surface of my world's moon, I’ll pass this around so that you can get a better look,” he handed the book carefully to a foal in the front row.

The little filly looked down at the picture of the Buzz Aldrin in his spacesuit and said, “What is that human wearing?”

“That would be a spacesuit. There is no air in space and it is very, very cold up there, so if you didn’t wear a protective suit, you would die very quickly,” explained Allen as the filly passed the book to her neighbor. “The United States was the first, and so far, the only country to put a human on the surface of the moon. However, we were not the first country to put a person in space, that honor falls to the Soviet Union, they were also the first to put a satellite into space as well.”

“What’s a satellite?” asked Dinky after Allen had pointed to her.

“It is a machine that is launched into space on a rocket,” said Allen, “a lot of satellites are used to help people communicate with others elsewhere on earth. Some take pictures from space, while others track weather patterns, thus giving valuable warning of changes in the weather.”

Another foal's hoof shot up, and Allen called on him, he was a pudgy-looking unicorn with an orange mane and tail and a pair of scissors for a cutie mark. “How come you need a warning if the weather is going to change? Don’t you guys have a way to manage the weather like we do here? Oh, and I’m Snips,” he said at the end as he remembered that Allen wanted to hear their names when he called on them.

Allen smiled. “If only that were true, Snips. You see, unlike Equestria, magic isn’t readily available on earth. In fact, most people consider magic to be a myth, and anyone claiming that they can do magic is seen as an entertainer at best or a fraud at worst.”

Another colt, this one a bit pudgy, with a light gray coat with a fork and knife cutie mark piped up. “My name is Truffle and my question is, what is your favorite food?”

“Honestly, I think it would be easier to say what don’t I like to eat, which if anyone wants to know would be cottage cheese, boiled spinach, asparagus, and brussels sprouts,” he replied with an exaggerated shiver and look of disgust on his face. The rest of the class giggled at the display and voiced their combined agreement that those foods were icky.

Once they had settled back down, Allen looked around and asked, “Alright, so does anyone have another question?” In response, everyone who hadn’t already gone yet raised their hoof and so Allen called on another foal, and thus it went until the bell for lunch was called and the foals reluctantly filed outside to eat their lunch. Allen for his part sank down onto a nearby stool and rested his back against the schoolhouse wall.

He was honestly surprised by how well things had gone. Over the past few hours, the class had asked questions covering a wide range of topics, such as what a normal day was like in his world, what kind of books he liked to read, what toys he played with as a kid, and so on. One chocolate-colored earth pony colt had been particularly interested in Allen’s old Gameboy Color that he had shown to the class along with his collection of games that went with it. This in turn had led to Allen explaining what a Pokemon was, which then led to a short discussion on all things Japan, such as manga, and anime. What had surprised Allen was that apparently there was a version of Japan on Equus, though it was called Nieghpon instead, and they had also developed manga, however, it was still relatively unknown in Equestria, so only a couple of the foals knew anything about it.

However, when a little unicorn filly named Sweetie Belle had asked him what kinds of music he had listened to as a kid, he had immediately smiled and pulled out an old radio cassette player from the box. Pushing in a cassette tape he’d found lying around, he hit play. Within seconds the first song on the cassette started playing and soon the voice of Billy Crawford singing the opening theme song of Pokemon: The First Movie belted out of the speakers and the foals began bobbing their heads in time with the beat and smiling. As soon as the song ended, Allen hit the stop button and asked, “So what did you guys think?”

“That was so neat!” squeaked Sweetie Belle excitedly from the back along with several other foals nodding in agreement, “Can we listen to another song, please?” She begged, giving Allen the biggest puppy dog eyes that she could, seeing this, the rest of the class, save for Diamond Tiara and Ms. Cheerilee joined in to combine their powers of cuteness.

Allen stood there on the receiving end of nearly an entire class of already adorable foals giving him their biggest, cutest, most pleading puppy dog eyes that they could. That much-concentrated cuteness would have given most people instant diabetes and or a heart attack on the spot. However, Allen was made of sterner stuff than that. Giving a shrug, he simply said, “Alright,” and hit play, M2M’s, Don’t Say You Love Me quickly filling the classroom with its sugary 90s pop music, much to the apparent joy of the foals.

When the song ended, Allen again hit the stop button and prepared to move on, however, the class hit him with another round of puppy dog eyes. Rolling his eyes, he said, “Alright, but I’m only going to play one more alright, then we have to move on.” Cheering the class waited as Allen fiddled with the cassette player, bits and pieces of random songs playing for a second as Allen would hit the buttons that would cause the cassette tape to fast forward or backward as he hunted for a particular song. Finally, after a minute of searching, Allen found it and hitting the play button, one of his favorite songs from the movie soundtrack kicked off.

To say that the foals really liked Angela Via’s, Catch Me If You Can would be an understatement, by the time the song had finished, just about every foal had gotten out of their seats and were happily dancing to the beat of the song. As the song ended, Allen, for the third and final time, hit the stop button and waited as the foals climbed back into their seats at Ms. Cheerilee’s urging.

Once the last student was back in their seats, Allen nodded his head and said, “Well, judging by how out of breath you all are after all that dancing, would it be safe to assume that you enjoyed that very tiny sample of human music?”

All the foals vigorously nodded. “Yeah! They reminded me of Sapphire Shore’s newest album!” said a random filly that Allen hadn’t called on yet.

“Sapphire Shores? Who is that?” he asked, his head cocked to one side.

Ms. Cheerilee replied, “She’s a new pop artist that’s taken the music scene by storm recently. A lot of the big city radio stations like to play her.”

“Wait, did you say that you guys had radios?” asked Allen incredulously.

Ms. Cheerilee opened her mouth to respond, but Diamond Tiara’s haughty reply cut her off. “Of course we do or at least rich ponies like my family do. Everypony else has to make do with mechanical record players if they want to listen to music.”

“Diamond Tiara, what I have told you about bragging about how well off your family is like that?” asked Ms. Cheerilee, a hint of warning in her tone.

Seeing the unhappy look that her teacher was giving her, and not wanting to get in further trouble with either Ms. Cheerilee or her father, Diamond simply sunk low in her seat and mumbled out a half-hearted apology. Seeing that her troublesome student was sufficiently humbled, Ms. Cheerilee turned her attention back to Allen and replied with a smile, “Yes, although it’s still relatively new, so a lot of ponies can’t afford a set yet, plus they’re quite large and heavy.”

“Huh, well isn’t that interesting, I wonder...” said Allen to himself as he turned back to the radio cassette player and flicked a switch, rough static squealed out of the speakers and everypony’s ears fell flat against their scalps as Allen fiddled with the dial and antenna as he searched for a signal, after several seconds of hunting on the FM band and not getting anything, he switched over to AM and immediately found something.

And here they come around the final turn everypony! It’s Spitfire in first, with Fleetfoot right on her tail, while Soarin is taking the outside to pass Surprise in third, and Gale Force is bringing up the rear in fifth. Allen leaned in and adjusted the volume upwards as the voice of the race announcer came over the radio through the mild static.

Adjusting the tuning knob a touch, he managed to get rid of the worst of it as the announcer continued, I’ve got to tell you, folks, this race is a close one and it’s anypony’s guess as to which Wonderbolt is going to take home the trophy today! Here they come down the final stretch, Spitfire is still in the lead by a muzzle, but Fleetfoot is giving it everything she’s got and is inching ahead, Soarin has managed to pass Surprise, putting him solidly in third, while Gale Force is struggling to keep up, I’d say he should have sat this race out after just recovering from that sprained wing last month.

Suddenly the announcer gasps and excitedly shouts, OH!? What’s this? It looks like Fleetfoot has managed to inch ahead of Spitfire, and with only a hundred hooves to go from the finish line, can she hold that position and take the trophy for the first time in her career... YES! SHE DID IT! Fleetfoot has won by a muzzle! Hear that crowd go wild out there everypony! Shouted the announcer pony joyously as the sound of a screaming crowd leaked through in the background, though judging by the excited shouting coming from several of the pegasi foals, they had also been rooting for Fleetfoot as well, either that or they were just excited to be excited, he wasn’t sure. The announcer continued, The results are in, it’s Fleetfoot in first, Spitfire for second, Soarin has taken third place, Surprise fourth, and Gale Force has come in at fifth place. What a race everypony. This is Mic Check coming to you from the Canterlot Royal Raceway! Thank you for tuning in and we’ll see you next week for more exciting pegasi racing action, now back to the studio!

Turning the radio off, Allen leaned back and watched as the excited pegasi leaped and fluttered around the classroom, much to the consternation of their teacher. While Ms. Cheerilee was busy pulling excited pegasi foals out of the rafters of the schoolhouse, Allen was contemplating the fact that Equestria’s technology wasn’t as backward as he thought it was. It looks like I’m going to have to compare notes with Twilight and Lyra sooner rather than later about the similarities and differences between our two worlds. Thought Allen to himself, however a tug on his pant leg pulled him out of his thoughts, and looking down, he spied a light gray coated filly with a pair of pale opal colored eyeglasses and a silver spoon as her cutie mark. Leaning down, he asked, “Yes? Did you have a question?”

She nodded and asked, “How come that radio is so small compared to the one my father just bought last month? I’m Silver Spoon by the way.”

Glancing between her and the radio on the desk, Allen replied, “My world has made many great advancements in electronics technology, that,” he said, pointing at the radio, “is so small because we’ve managed to make the internal components very small and more powerful than what you people likely can make.”

Silver Spoon blinked and edged closer to the radio, rearing back, she placed her hooves on the desk and looking back at Allen asked, “Can I take a closer look at it please?”

“Just be careful, if you break it there’s no way for me to fix it,” replied Allen.

The filly nodded and flipping her braided mane to the other side of her neck, she carefully pulled it closer and looked it over. Allen for his part just smiled as he watched the curious filly for a moment before a loud crash drew his attention. Apparently, Scootaloo had tried to fly up and roost in the rafters with the other pegasi foals and hadn’t been able to make it, crashing into her desk in the process. Ms. Cheerilee looked like she was just about done with the foals antics by this point as she untangled Scootaloo from her desk, pushed her down in it, and gave the others a stern look before pointing up at them with a hoof and then down at the floor silently, a stern look on her face as she did so. The wayward foals got the message and sheepishly returned to their seats.

“What does ‘FM’ mean?” asked Silver Spoon suddenly, drawing Allen’s attention away from the class again.

“Huh? Oh, FM stands for frequency modulation, it’s another way for information to be sent over radio waves. I don’t really know the details, but if my memory is correct, you have better sound quality with FM and it doesn’t suffer from as much interference like AM is.”

Silver Spoon turned back to the radio and continued looking it over. “Interesting,” she muttered quietly to herself.

Seeing that Ms. Cheerilee was just about finished getting the pegasi settled, Allen was about to tell Silver Spoon to return to her seat when she hit a button, and the radio burst to life with an ear-splitting unearthly wail of static, and metallic screeching that made everyone clap hooves and hands over their ears.

Rushing to shut off the radio, Allen had his hand on the off switch when the static suddenly ceased and a soft, cultured voice came over the radio saying, We are terribly sorry about that everypony, we don’t know what happened there. It seems as though we had some interference with our signal. Rest assured our technicians are looking into the matter, and it won’t happen again. In the meantime, back to our original programming with the weather-

Allen turned the radio off and turned to Ms. Cheerilee, who had just removed her hooves from her ears as had the rest of the class. Some of the foals had faint tears welling up in the corners of their eyes from the terrible racket caused by the radio.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Ms. Cheerilee broke the tense silence by calmly saying, “Well, I think this is a good time to break for recess everypony.”

The foals didn’t need to be told twice, and within seconds the classroom was empty save for Allen and Ms. Cheerilee. Letting loose a sigh, Allen said, “Well... that just happened.”

Cheerilee gave a single nod. “I think it would be best to put the radio away for now.”

“Agreed,” replied Allen as he returned the radio to its place in the box, “do you think I should pack the rest of this stuff up and head home?”

Cheerilee quickly shook her head. “No, you didn’t know that this would happen, and I don’t want to end things on a sour note like this.”

“Alright,” nodded Allen as he sat down on a nearby stool, “if you’re sure, I’ll stick around for a bit longer then.”

Smiling, Cheerilee nodded and replied, “I’m sure, now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and make sure the foals are behaving themselves. Recess should be over in about forty-five minutes, so if you want you can go and get something to eat.”

Allen's stomach chose that moment to let loose a disgruntled rumble and he replied with a chuckle, “I think I’ll do just that,” and with that, he followed Cheerilee outside and across the playground to the road.

When the foals saw him leaving, several of them came running up with upset looks on their faces and all asked at once if he was leaving for the day. When Allen shook his head no and explained that he was just going to get something to eat, they all relaxed and happily smiled before turning and rejoining their friends.

Allen watched them go for a minute before turning and heading home to grab a quick bite to eat. When he returned, he found that the foals were all back inside, eagerly awaiting his return. Stepping inside, he was greeted by all the foals shouting excited questions at him at once. Smiling to himself, he, along with Ms. Cheerilee managed to return order back to the classroom and resume the interrupted question and answer session.

When the bell signaling the end of the school day rang, Allen had managed to cover a wide range of topics from his world, such as technology, geography, art, and some history, though he wasn’t sure how much of it made sense to them, still, they seemed excited enough, so he didn’t worry too much about it. He even had enough time to show them several of the VHS tapes that he’d brought as well. The foals had loved watching the Magic School Bus, though Ms. Cheerilee had a look of horror on her face when she saw how seemingly carefree Ms. Frizzle was regarding the safety of her students.

Though, in hindsight, showing them the episode that went over how an engine worked, might not have been the best one to start with, as near the end of the show, he thought he saw Ms. Cheerilee shoot a suspicious look at Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle. As the trio had suddenly put their heads together and started excitedly whispering to each other towards the end of the episode. However, when nothing else happened, Allen gave a mental shrug and dismissed it as just normal classroom chit-chat between friends.

When he had popped in the VHS for Schoolhouse Rock, the catchy songs had become an instant favorite, and several of the foals had started to sing along to some of them. Conjunction Junction, judging by how many of the foals had started singing and humming by the end of it was probably the class favorite. Though when they had watched the video about US history and government he had needed to give a bit of additional context in regards to it. As the information in the episodes were hilariously basic and had glossed over a lot of things that had left the foals confused. Though he felt that his poor attempts at filling in the gaps were not much better judging by the number of blank expressions by the end of it, and the less said about world history the better.

All in all, however, he felt that things had gone rather well today, save for the radio incident. Obviously, the foals had asked him a lot of questions about himself and some of the rumors that had been circulating around town. Most of the rumors had been pretty harmless, such as how he was unable to do magic, and in all honesty, Allen felt that this rumor might have some merit to it as he didn’t really feel any different from before he came to Equestria. However, only time would tell if he might develop any magical abilities, and from what he had learned from Dr. Stable, that might take a few weeks or months.

Other rumors were fairly silly, such as the claim that he was a secret government project that had escaped from a lab, and the government couldn’t cover it up so they blamed Discord, among others. He wasn’t sure how that one came about considering his farm was literally on the edge of town for anyone to come and see, but whatever. Thankfully, he’d been able to dispel the crazier rumors, and hopefully, when the kids went home they would be able to reassure their parents that Allen wasn’t some agent of chaos or secret government experiment that escaped from some secret lab in the Everfree Forest.

As he watched the last of the students leave, Allen gave an almighty stretch and let loose a satisfied groan as he felt his muscles stretch and joints pop. Looking around at the now-empty classroom, Allen remarked, “Well, that went well all things considered.”

Cheerilee hummed in agreement as she set aside a few papers she had been grading, while Allen had been answering questions. “I agree, and it looks like the foals had a good time as well, even if we did have that little scare in the middle of it.”

Glancing down at the radio, Allen slowly nodded. “Yeah... that was pretty freaky, don’t think I’ve ever heard radio static sound like that before.”

Cheerilee gave a quiet shudder as she recalled the sound, and hoped that she wouldn’t have to deal with any irate parents banging on her door accusing her of giving their precious foals nightmares. Shaking her head, she instead focused on Allen and asked, “In any case, would you like some help getting things packed up?”

Allen gave her an appreciative smile and nodded. “I’d never turn down free help,” he said as he placed several books back in the box.

Returning his smile, with one of her own, Cheerilee quickly set to helping clean up, and soon the both of them had everything packed away, save for the TV and VCR.

“I’ll go and grab the handcart and wheel it to the front door, that way we won’t have to carry this stuff as far,” said Allen as he made for the door.

Cheerilee, merely waved in understanding as she had moved towards packing up her own things in her saddlebags to take home for the evening.

Seeing that he’d been heard, Allen turned and opened the door and stepped outside to collect his cart. As he rounded the corner on the backside of the school where he had left it. He was momentarily taken aback when he spotted a large sunflower growing next to the back wall of the schoolhouse between a pair of windows.

Cocking his head, he blinked in confusion and thought, That’s odd... I don’t recall there being a sunflower back here this morning. Especially one this big this early in the year, wonder how they made it grow so fast? Did they plant it back at the beginning of April or something?

Stepping closer, he took a closer look at it. It looked to be about five feet in height, and its large yellow flower was fully opened and had several local honey bees happily buzzing around it, collecting nectar to take home to their hive to turn into delicious honey.

Looking around, he could see no one around nor anything to suggest who might have planted this sunflower nor how long it had been here. Looking at the base of the stalk, he noted that the soil didn’t appear disturbed and there weren’t any hoof prints around it either. Giving his head a shake, he turned and grabbed his cart and pulled it around to the front.

Must not have noticed it this morning in my hurry to get things set up before school started, he thought as he tried to rationalize to himself how a random sunflower could suddenly appear out of thin air like that.

Parking the cart in front of the door, he stepped through the doorway and was greeted by Ms. Cheerilee, his box of things next to her. Looking up at Allen with a smile, she happily said, “I took the liberty of moving your box closer to the door so you wouldn’t have to carry it as far.”

Returning her smile with one of his own, Allen replied, “Well thank you, I appreciate it,” grabbing it, he gave a mighty grunt and lifted the heavy box into the cart behind him. After shifting it so that he would have room for the TV and VCR, he, along with Ms. Cheerilee, carefully moved the two delicate items to the cart and gently set them down inside.

Wiping some sweat from his brow, Allen let loose a sigh of relief and said, “Thank you for the help, Ms. Cheerilee, would have been a major pain to do by myself if you hadn’t been here.”

“It was my pleasure Allen,” she replied as she gave the inside of the schoolhouse one last look for anything out of place before turning the lights out and closing and locking the door behind her. “Besides, it was the least I could do after you so generously came and shared a little bit of your world with us today, and I know most of the foals really appreciated it.”

Smiling and giving a nod of thanks at the compliment, Allen said, “It was no problem, besides, it never hurts to do a little public relations work to help boost one’s image to the local community.”

Cheerilee laughed. “It certainly doesn’t.”

Stepping between the pull bars of the cart, Allen lifted it up and slowly navigated his way through the school’s playground, Ms. Cheerilee trotting contently beside him. Reaching the road, he turned to look down at her and said, “Well, I guess I’ll catch you later then.”

Giving a happy wave, Cheerilee replied, “Well alright then, have a good night Mr. Ross.”

“Same to you,” he called back as he started on his way home before pausing and calling back over his shoulder suddenly, “Oh, I almost forgot, that sunflower you guys planted behind the schoolhouse is looking a little wilted, should probably give it some water soon.”

“I... will?” replied Cheerilee as she gave Allen a confused look as he turned and walked away. Looking from Allen to the schoolhouse, she unlatched the gate and trotted around to the back of the building, and quickly spotted the aforementioned sunflower. Cocking her head to one side, she cautiously approached the plant and inspected it.

How odd, this wasn’t here yesterday, and it's too old to have been recently planted too, she thought quietly to herself as she poked one of the leaves gently with a hoof. Pawing gently at the soil at the base of the stalk, she felt her eyebrows knit close together in curious suspicion as she noted that the soil under the grass had a reddish hue to it instead of its normal brown. Continuing her quick inspection, she found that the reddish soil extended nearly four inches in all directions from the base of the sunflower, forming a perfect circle.

Stepping away from the plant, she thoughtfully chewed on her bottom lip as her mind tried to figure out how a full-grown sunflower had ended up in the back of the schoolhouse like this. Shaking her head, she turned and quickly trotted towards town, a slightly worried look on her face.

I better get Twilight.

Author's Notes:

Well, sorry for the delay with this chapter, but for the last two weeks, I have been very busy, as it's the middle of hay season, and my dad and I just did about fourteen acres worth of hay in four days this past week. So yeah, I didn't have a lot of time nor energy to write this week, and last week I was busy at work, so yeah, that's why it took an extra two weeks to get this out.

As far as the quality of this chapter is concerned, I apologize as it's not really that great, and reading through it, I feel it's awkward as hell, but you guys have been waiting long enough and I don't want to look at it anymore, so sorry, again.

Hopefully, the chapter wasn't too difficult for everyone to slog through, and hopefully, the next chapter will go a bit easier for me, so until then, see ya!

Chapter 33 (Calculations)

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Chapter 33

“Hmmm,” hummed Twilight quietly to herself as she sat in her lab in the basement of her treebrary and stared at her notes. Strange things had been happening around Ponyville over the past week. The first occurrence, some rain clouds that had been meant for Sweet Apple Acres had disappeared without a trace or reason. Thankfully, Rainbow had been able to get an emergency order of fresh rain clouds sent in from Cloudsdale, but that had meant she had been forced to burn a couple of favors, as well as fill out extra paperwork in regards to the incident. This had made Rainbow cranky as a consequence, and a cranky Rainbow Dash was not something anypony wanted.

However, what was even stranger was that Fluttershy was reporting that her animal friends would randomly become agitated, and only for a minute or two at most, before then returning to normal. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and either the animals couldn’t tell her what was bothering them or wouldn’t.

Now, however, Twilight had an interesting conundrum and some concrete proof that something was amiss. Last night as she had been curled up in her usual reading spot with a cup of calming peppermint tea a plate of chocolate chip cookies and the latest Daring Do book, she had been interrupted by an insistent banging on her front door, even though she knew that she had switched the library’s open sign to closed for the evening.

Grumbling to herself, she had risen from her comfy spot and answered the door, intent on giving a stern lecture to the pony foolish enough to ignore her closed sign. However, the stern words died on her lips when she spotted a concerned-looking Cheerilee on her front step. Sensing that this wasn’t a social call, she had invited the mulberry-colored mare inside and after moving her cookies and tea to the kitchen, she poured another cup of tea and offered it to the spooked mare.

Cheerilee had thanked her, taken a deep gulp, nearly draining the cup in the process, before then explaining the reason for her early evening visit. At first, Twilight was rather annoyed to learn that Cheerilee had asked Allen to talk about his homeworld and not inform her of this chance to collect invaluable data. However, her annoyance was quickly overshadowed by curiosity when Cheerilee told her about the strange radio static and the mysterious sunflower appearing behind the schoolhouse. Her curiosity was further piqued when Cheerilee told her about the perfect circle of reddish dirt surrounding the flower and how it didn’t match the local soil.

Quickly coming to a decision, Twilight gathered her field research sample kit and with Cheerilee hot on her hooves, took off for the schoolhouse. When the two mares arrived, the sun was just about to the horizon, and Twilight knew that she didn’t have much time before it got too dark to work. So trotting around to the back of the building, she quickly pulled out her camera and took as many pictures as the fading light of day would allow her. When she was happy enough, she put her camera away before immediately collecting samples of anything and everything.

She didn’t want to take the whole plant back with her as she wanted to observe it over the coming days and weeks and see if there would be any changes in its growth or physical state. As she was collecting soil samples, she noticed that the reddish soil seemed to go down far deeper than her soil sampler could reach, which suggested to her that the change to the soil extended farther down into the earth than she first thought.

However, with the moon beginning its slow ascent into the night sky and the light having long since faded, Twilight decided that she had collected enough samples from the surrounding area for now. Tucking the last sample jar away, she had given Cheerilee a reassuring smile and said, “Well, I’ll take this back home and get to work on it right away, if I find anything concerning, I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as possible.”

Shifting nervously back and forth, Cheerilee had asked, “Should I postpone school until you’re sure it's safe?”

Twilight chewed thoughtfully on the inside of her cheek for a minute before slowly nodding. “I think that might be a good idea. I’ll let Lieutenant Palisade know that something odd has appeared here at the schoolhouse and that he should leave some guards here to keep ponies away from the site, so as to avoid possible contamination or destruction of valuable evidence. It shouldn’t take me more than a day or two to get back with you.”

Giving Twilight a relieved smile, Cheerilee thanked Twilight for her help and had quickly bid farewell for the evening, leaving Twilight to finish up and head home by the light of her horn, after making a quick stop by the temporary guard headquarters at town hall to inform them of her and Cheerilee’s discovery. Palisade had quickly sent a full squad to secure the area around the schoolhouse.

Upon returning home, she had immediately sequestered herself in her basement laboratory and set to work. Spike, as usual, had made sure she ate and used the bathroom at regular intervals. By the next morning she had made several interesting, yet troubling discoveries. The first was that the soil was definitely not from the local area, as it contained large amounts of iron oxides and silicates, which gave it its reddish color and had a higher clay content than the other soil samples she had taken from other locations around the schoolhouse.

Secondly, she had determined that the sunflower was much older than it should be, being around sixty-five to seventy days judging by the size of its flower and leaves along with the height of its stalk. This was impossible given that even with Winter Wrap Up having been completed in mid-March, it had still been too cold to plant sunflowers outside for another three to four weeks, and seeing as it was now only mid-May, that hadn’t been enough time for it to reach this stage of growth. While it was possible for somepony to have started it in a greenhouse and then transplanted it. That still didn’t account for the red soil around the base of the plant, nor the lack of freshly disturbed dirt that would be present following a transplant like this.

So many questions, and not enough answers. She thought to herself as she continued to look over her notes. Is this some sort of elaborate prank? If it is, it’s extremely well done, but something tells me that isn’t the case. The root samples I took don’t indicate that they had been disturbed before I came along, and while I am no earth pony, I can safely assume that this dirt isn’t from around here either.

She idly tapped a hoof against her desk as her mind mulled things over. I need more information. Grabbing her saddlebags and her restocked sample kit, Twilight hurried out of the library and set a course for the schoolhouse once again. Now that the sun was up, she was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. Quickly trotting through town, she soon arrived at the schoolhouse, which other than several roving guards hadn’t changed since last night.

After checking in with the guards, she made her way around back and quickly set to work taking additional pictures, now that the light was better, as well as additional samples. Unfolding a much longer soil sampler, Twilight gently drove it deep into the soil in an attempt to see just how far down it went. Turns out it went pretty deep as her ten hoof long soil sampler hadn’t found anything but the same reddish soil she had found near the surface.

Just how deep does this go, and what caused it? Did Discord do this directly, or is it just an after-effect of his spell? Pondered Twilight as she stared at the cheerful sunflower. So far it doesn’t appear that this flower has been negatively impacted by its sudden arrival here, and if what Cheerilee told me was right, then it’s probably been here for at least twenty-four hours by now. Leaning in close, she carefully inspected one of the leaves and noted that there were no signs of wilting.

Stepping back from the flower, she thoughtfully chewed her bottom lip as she tried to figure out what her next move was. I can’t think of anything else to do here. I’ve taken all the samples that I can without causing harm to the plant, and Cheerilee told me everything she knew about it last night, though she did say that Allen found it first... maybe he saw something that Cheerilee didn’t? Shaking her head in annoyed frustration, Twilight made her decision. I can’t do anything else here, and whatever magic brought it here has long since dissipated to the point where I can’t get an accurate reading of it with the equipment I have at my disposal, so the only thing left to do is go and talk to Allen and see what he knows. Her mind made up, she quickly gathered her things together and headed for Allen’s farm.

~oOo~

Allen sat at his dining room table and looked over the three proposed plans before him, along with their accompanying price tags. The final prices were actually lower than what Rune and Steel had originally quoted him. The basic tear-down and rebuild with the minimum runework needed to pass DOTI inspection, for instance, came in at around forty-five thousand bits. While the second quote, which included some extra floor space added to the milking parlor and a few extra spell wards, came in at fifty-three thousand, and the most expensive option where they threw all the bells and whistles in came in at sixty-five thousand.

Setting the last quote down, Allen looked up at Rune and Steel, who sat across from him and slowly nodded. “Well, I must admit this is a pleasant surprise,” he said, before turning to Penny who sat next to him, he asked, “What do you think Penny?”

She hummed thoughtfully to herself as she idly tapped her chin with a pencil as she studied the papers in front of her. After a minute of quiet contemplation and a few number crunches, Penny nodded, a satisfied look on her face. “It’s better than I was expecting, and everything seems to check out. Though I want to run some of this by an associate of mine to see if we can find some better deals on good quality material, if not, then oh well. In any case, none of these options will cause issues financially for you Allen, so it’s really just up to you what you want to do.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” he gently asked, he was already leaning towards either the second or third plan, as since the costs were less than expected, he didn’t feel he needed to go with the bare minimum.

Pulling the third set of plans closer to her, Penny said, “I think going with the third set of plans would work best in the long term, especially if you want to expand your operations in the future. This will give us that flexibility to do so,” she said with a single tap of her hoof on the papers. “If we went with this option, we could easily tap into the local milk market and make deals with a decent sized herd, plus you could store even more hay than before and it would stay good for longer with less chance of spoilage.”

Allen nodded, and pulling a sheet of paper out of the stack, he looked over the runes that Rune Chisel had suggested he use. Beyond the basic runes that would keep birds and bugs out of the hay while it was in storage, there were runes that helped keep the dust and dirt down, as well as runes that would dispel moisture, thus helping dry the hay further once it was baled and undercover. Pointing at that rune, Allen asked, “How effective is this rune at drying hay that’s been baled in comparison to hay that is stacked loose?”

It was a fair question as, while Equestria was an industrializing nation, they were still lacking in certain forms of mechanization, especially on the farm. Hay baling machines were around, but they tended to be very big, very heavy, and could only make large square bales that were used to ship hay long distances, such as over the ocean. Thus, they were usually employed as stationary equipment that were powered by a steam engine run off a belt drive. Loose hay would be fed into a large four-sided chamber and a hydraulic press would smash it down into a large flake of hay, like a pancake. This process would be repeated several times until the bale chamber was full. After which, several strands of heavy wire would be wrapped around the bale to help keep it in its shape. Unlike the small square bales that Allen’s baler would make, these bales weighed nearly a ton each and required heavy equipment to move around.

As such, most Equestrian farms would store their hay in loose form inside barns and bins until it was time to sell it. This naturally wasn’t as efficient as baling the hay in the field would be volume-wise, but most farms couldn’t afford a giant piece of machinery that would make a bale that was so large it would require yet more equipment to move it in the first place. So they made do with the loose stuff and let somepony else worry about squishing it down to move it more economically.

In Allen’s case, however, because his equipment could produce hay bales that were more manageable for a single person to move from a weight perspective, such as his small square baler or could be picked up with one of his tractors with a bale spike attachment as was the case with his round baler. Either way, Allen’s operation was much more efficient in regard to volume and space requirements. However, tightly packed hay doesn’t dry down as well as loose hay does as air has a harder time moving through it. What this meant was that if Allen was forced to bale up hay with a higher moisture content than normal, then he risked his hay either molding or in a worst-case scenario catching on fire. So if this moisture dispelling rune worked well with baled hay, then it would help keep things like that from happening.

“Well,” began Rune Chisel, “it doesn’t do as good of a job of pulling the moisture out of the middle of the haystack if it’s baled in comparison to when it’s loose, but it’ll still pull a decent amount out of it if it’s not sopping wet of course. I’ve put plenty of these runes in many buildings that have stored hay, both baled and loose, and I’ve never had somepony say that they felt as though it was a waste of money to have it in there.”

“Alright,” nodded Allen as he continued to look down the list, noting a rune dedicated to putting out fires. Pointing at it, he asked, “Can this be retrofitted to my other buildings as well?”

Rune pulled the paper from Allen’s hand and glanced at the rune in question. Nodding his head, he replied, “Yeah, unlike the anti-pest runes, this one can be inscribed in a simple metal plate with a few powered gemstones and hung from either the wall or ceiling.”

“How much would it cost to install these in all my buildings, including my house?” asked Allen.

“It’ll add about another two thousand bits on top of the current price,” replied Rune simply.

“Then let's do that as well, in addition to going with the third building option package,” said Allen. Nodding, Rune grabbed another sheet of paper and quickly made out a new itemized list for the additional work before floating it over for Allen to look over.

Seeing nothing wrong with it, Allen passed it to Penny who tucked it in with the rest of the papers. Turning back to the two stallions, Allen asked, “How soon do you think you guys can start?”

“I can start as soon as next week,” replied Steel confidently, “we should be finished with our current job by then.”

Rune nodded and added, “And I’ll be able to start as soon as they have the old buildings torn down and the new foundations poured.”

“Penny?” asked Allen to see what her thoughts were.

“That is acceptable to us as it will give me time to finalize everything and see if we can’t save some bits on materials if possible. As such, if you’re comfortable with this, I do not see any reason why we can’t sign the contract and get this thing rolling, Allen.”

Allen gave a nod of agreement and, smiling, he stood up and extended his hand to shake the two stallions' hooves across the table from him. “Then we have a deal, the full package, plus the added fire protection runes on all of my buildings. I’ll start getting the barns cleaned and the animals moved out so that you guys can start as soon as possible next week.”

“Sounds good to us, we’ll be sure to give you a couple of days' notice so that you know when to expect us,” replied Steel as he shook Allen’s hand in return.

“Likewise,” said Rune as he too shook Allen’s hand before he and Steel gathered their things together and made to leave.

Reaching the front door, Allen was about to open it when a sharp series of knocks rang out, catching him by surprise. Opening the door, he was greeted by the sight of a slightly winded and heavily encumbered Twilight Sparkle.

“Hey Twilight,” he greeted, “what brings you out my way?”

Panting slightly from her long hike, and making a mental note to allow additional time in her daily schedule for physical exercise, Twilight looked up at Allen with a small smile and said, “Hello Allen, I was hoping I could have a little bit of your time today to answer some questions.”

“Uh,” replied Allen, an unsure expression on his face as he looked back over his shoulder at the other three ponies standing behind him. Turning back to Twilight he said, “I’m a little busy at the moment, do you think you could come back another time?”

Twilight’s smile faded and she shook her head. “I’m afraid this is time-sensitive Allen, it’s about that sunflower that you found at the schoolhouse yesterday, I wanted to ask you some questions about it.”

Sighing, Allen wearily nodded and stepped aside to allow Steel and Rune to leave. Bidding the two stallions goodbye, Allen quickly ushered Twilight inside and helped her remove her overstuffed saddlebags. Setting them on the floor by the table, Allen motioned for the studious mare to have a seat in the chair that Rune had recently vacated, and grabbing a clean glass, he filled it with some water and offered it to her.

Accepting the glass with a quiet ‘thanks’, she drained half of it in two gulps and letting loose a sigh of happiness, set it down on the table. Pulling a notebook and pencil from her bags, she flipped to an empty page and said, “Thanks for agreeing to this Allen, I’ll try and keep this quick, as I need to get these samples back to my lab before they deteriorate further,” she motioned to her saddlebags.

“Sure, no problem,” replied Allen as he took a seat across from her. Penny, curious as to what was going on, had decided to resume her seat next to Allen. Shifting slightly in his seat, Allen asked, “So what did you want to know?”

Jotting a couple of notes in her book, Twilight replied, “When did you first notice the sunflower?”

Leaning back in his chair, he idly scratched his chin as he thought back to yesterday afternoon. “Right after Cheerilee dismissed the class for the afternoon. I’d gone around back to collect my handcart to put my things in it when I noticed the sunflower between the back windows.”

“Did you see it when you arrived earlier that day?” she asked.

Allen shook his head. “No, though I got to the schoolhouse pretty early in the morning to set things up for the presentation, even though the sun was just a bit above the horizon, it was still light enough that I’m pretty sure I would have seen it had it been there. So as far as I can remember, it wasn’t there when I arrived that morning.”

Twilight hummed thoughtfully to herself as she added a few more notes. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen while you were there?”

“Like what?” he asked.

Twilight made a circling motion with her hoof and said, “Such as a bright light, a lack of light, strange smells or noises, that sort of thing.”

Leaning back in his chair again, Allen quietly rubbed his chin as he tried to recall anything strange happening. But other than the weird static on the radio, nothing came to mind. Shaking his head, he said, “The only thing that stands out is when my radio picked up a burst of static that sounded like the souls of the damned and grating metal on metal,” he shivered at the memory.

Twilight made another note and nodded. “That lines up with what Cheerilee told me too. When did that burst of static happen?”

Allen shook his head in annoyance as he tried to remember. “I don’t remember what time it was when it happened. Though, I do remember it happened after we heard a broadcast from Canterlot covering a race of what I assume were pegasi.”

Humming to herself, Twilight asked, “Was it the race between Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, Gale Force, and Surprise, from the Canterlot Royal Raceway?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, I think Fleetfoot won that race.”

“That would have been between noon and one o’clock then,” she mumbled to herself as she made some mental calculations and jotted down some more notes. “And you’re sure that you didn’t see or experience anything else out of the ordinary yesterday?”

Once more, Allen shook his head. “Not that I can think of, why, what’s going on?”

Putting the finishing touches on her final thought, Twilight closed her notebook and slipped it back in her saddlebags. Focusing her full attention on Allen for the first time since she had sat down, she replied a serious look on her face, “There have been a couple of strange occurrences over the past few days. A batch of rain clouds meant for Sweet Apple Acres went missing, and nopony knows what happened to them. Rainbow thinks they were a defective batch from the weather factory, but Cloudsdale says otherwise. Regardless, new ones had to be ordered, and Rainbow isn’t happy about having to do that.”

“Okay, so some clouds went missing, maybe somepony stole them or a wind blew them into the Everfree?”

“Both are possible, but unlikely, stealing clouds carries harsh penalties if you’re caught, and pegasi are able to track the clouds to a certain degree with their innate magic. As the clouds from the weather factory have a special magical signature that differentiates them from wild clouds. Rainbow reported that there was no trail of magic that matched the missing clouds anywhere. So that rules out a random breeze blowing them away, as Rainbow could have just followed the magic trail and brought them back, and while it is possible that somepony could have stolen them. The needed magics and gear to hide the magic trail the clouds would have made is expensive and not worth it for the small quantity that went missing. Then there are the local animals acting strangely.”

“In what way?” asked Allen curiously, “I haven’t noticed anything odd with mine lately.”

Twilight shook her head. “Perhaps you haven’t been around when they act out or they aren’t able to show their unease as obviously as Equestrian animals. My friend Fluttershy has told me her animal friends will randomly become agitated and afraid for a short time, as if a major disaster is about to happen or a large predator is nearby, before then returning to normal as if nothing had happened. It’s only happened a few times so far, but she’s worried something is going on.”

“Odd,” muttered Allen quietly.

Twilight nodded in agreement. “And now we have the seemingly random appearance of a nearly fully grown sunflower along with a perfect circle of soil surrounding it that is not native to the area.”

“So what do you think is going on?”

Twilight shook her head. “I can’t really say, not without more data,” looking around at Allen’s dining room, she grimaced, “but from what data I’ve collected, I have two hypotheses,” she stood up and began pacing back and forth as her lecture mode was engaged. “The first is that this is simply the after-effects of whatever spell Discord used to bring you and your farm here to Equestria from your world.”

“After effects?” asked Allen.

“Yes,” nodded Twilight, “chaos magic is highly unstable by nature, its use can cause... instability in the fabric of reality if used in great quantities, which is why Discord is so dangerous. He can bend reality to his whims, which of themselves are random and chaotic and change like a leaf in a windstorm. The fact that he was free for nearly twenty-four hours before we managed to defeat him allowed him to unleash a large amount of chaos magic in the local area. Even though the Elements of Harmony banished most of the magic when they resealed him, the proximity of The Everfree Forest could have prevented the Elements from purging all traces of chaos magic from the area.”

“But wouldn’t that magic just go away after a while?” interjected Penny from her spot at the table.

Twilight shook her head. “In theory, yes, but the problem with chaos magic is just that, chaotic, if you don’t remove it all in one go it will stick around and mutate, potentially creating mutated creatures such as chimeras or change the local ecology such as what happened to the Everfree. What’s worse is that if there is enough chaos magic in an area it can create a positive feedback loop where the chaos magic creates chaotic events that create energy that feed the magic which allow it to create bigger events that release even more energy and so on.”

“Like a nuclear reaction,” commented Allen quietly to himself.

“A what reaction?” asked Twilight, a very curious look on her face at the prospect of learning something new.

Realizing he had voiced his thoughts out loud, and not wanting to be the one responsible for opening up the pandora’s box of nuclear goodness in this world, Allen quickly said, “Nothing important, just thinking out loud.”

Shooting him a suspicious look, Twilight slowly lowered her quill and paper that she had suddenly magicked into being at the thought of gaining new knowledge. Giving her head a shake, she reorganized her thoughts before resuming her lecture. “Yes, well as I was saying, that is one possibility. The problem with chaos magic is that, unlike harmonic or dark magic, it doesn’t follow any known set of rules, which makes it hard to figure out how to counter it if one were to find it in the wild. Of course, it is also possible that the chaos magic won’t have enough energy left to create a chain reaction and it will eventually break down into harmless mana that will eventually be absorbed by the environment, and what we are seeing are just aftershocks. However, that’s not what worries me the most.”

“It’s not?”

She shook her head. “No, what worries me more is that Discord’s fail-safe spell still is active. If it is, then what is its ultimate purpose? Is it just going to continue pulling things from other worlds, gaining strength as it goes until it completely destroys this world in a burst of chaos, or is its purpose to create enough chaos so that Discord can free himself from his prison like he did last time?”

“What do you mean ‘destroy the world in a burst of chaos?’” asked Penny nervously.

“Well, as we have seen, with both Allen’s farm and the now this sunflower. This spell can exchange parts of Equestria with other worlds, right now I’m not sure if the swap goes all the way to the center of the planet or if it has a maximum depth. If it’s the first option, then having parts of our planet’s core mixed with core fragments from different worlds could cause problems in the world’s magic field. On the other hoof, if the swap is regulated to just the upper crust of the planet, it’s not as bad as the first scenario, but could still cause major problems. Imagine having an active supervolcano replace Mt. Canterhorn just as it’s erupting or a mile-high glacier appearing in place of the badlands and what that would do to weather patterns, not to mention potential flooding. That’s not even considering what would happen if some disease that we have no immunity against were to suddenly appear without warning. The point is, that we have been very lucky that whatever Discord did hasn’t pulled something here that could bring about an end of the world type of scenario.”

“So... is there like a plan to prevent something like that from happening?” asked Allen hopefully, though in the back of his mind, he didn’t think that very likely.

“I... don’t really know,” admitted Twilight, a worried look on her face, “I’ve written at length to Princess Celestia about this topic, and other than a short reply telling me she has ponies looking into the matter, she hasn’t said anything else on the matter other than for me to keep her informed of any new developments.”

Allen massaged his face with his hands, a frustrated groan spilling from his mouth. “I need a drink,” he mumbled through his hands, before then dropping them to the table carelessly with a meaty smack as his hands impacted the table's surface.

Levering himself up from the table, he walked over to his fridge and pulled out a couple of beers. Popping the top of one of the bottles, he took a long swig, draining nearly half the bottle in one go. Pulling the bottle from his lips, he let loose a content sigh before promptly resuming his seat at the table.

Turning his attention to Twilight, he gave her a serious look and asked, “Alright, let’s assume we’re dealing with the first case. That this is just leftover chaos magic causing shenanigans, what is the likelihood that this will just burn itself out?”

Twilight quickly poofed several rolls of paper into existence and a chalkboard for good measure in reply and rapidly set to work jotting down equations and notes. Allen meanwhile just sat back and watched, taking a sip of his beer every so often as he watched the nerdy unicorn fill-up the chalkboard with numbers and equations, before quickly erasing them and starting over again, muttering quietly to herself as she went.

Penny meanwhile simply sat in awe as she watched Twilight work, her brain tried to keep up with the high-level magical equations, but she quickly became lost and gave up her effort, instead she nudged Allen’s elbow. Looking back over his shoulder at her, Allen cocked a silent eyebrow as if saying, What?

Looking down at Allen’s unopened beer bottle, she gave him her best, Please may I have some? smile and puppy dog eyes. Rolling his eyes, Allen shook his head but decided to give the mare his spare bottle after popping the top off of it.

Shooting him a thankful look, Penny quietly accepted the beer bottle and took a swig. It wasn’t as good as Equestrian beer, but it had an acceptable taste, and right now she just wanted the alcohol to ease her jangled nerves, the taste was just a consolation prize.

Turning his attention back to Twilight, Allen quietly watched Twilight work as she crunched numbers and ran scenarios. Finally, after nearly an hour, she set her much-reduced chalk piece down and after checking several of her notes, she gave a satisfied nod and said, “Alright, I think that should just about do it.”

“Alright, so whatcha got for us?” asked Allen, his beer long since finished.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight replied, “With the limited data that I have to work with, all I can give you is a limited guess at best, and wishful thinking at worst.”

“I kind of figured, just give it to me straight here, how screwed are we?” asked Allen, a hint of tired frustration coloring his voice.

“Surprisingly, not that much,” replied Twilight calmly, “now obviously this could change if a new variable is introduced, but as of right now, assuming that this magic isn’t being controlled by Discord, we have three possibilities. The first is that we are just suffering aftershocks of Discord’s spell and that it will eventually peter out, the second is similar to the first, except that the aftershocks will get worse as time goes on, however, unless something changes, they should remain fairly localized and ‘small’ in size and intensity.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Penny curiously.

“What I mean is that these aftershocks will not be able to get very big or powerful. During my initial calculations, I remembered reading about how the Everfree Forest interacts with local magic fields and ran a scenario that included the Everfree Forest acting as a magical heat sink so to speak, and the math checks out,” she explained, a pleased look on her face for thinking that possibility up.

“And that means... what, exactly?” asked Allen.

Sighing, Twilight flipped the chalkboard around and began writing on it. “In laypony terms, the Everfree Forest has been known to pull magic of varying types from the surrounding area and use it to, for lack of a better word, power itself. Long ago, when Princess Luna fell to the nightmare, she and Princess Celestia did battle in what would eventually become the Everfree. Obviously, the nightmare used dark magic against Princess Celestia in an attempt to kill her, while Princess Celestia used harmonic magic to save or at least stop her fallen sister. This culminated in Princess Celestia using the Elements of Harmony to stop the nightmare, with the result being that Princess Luna and the nightmare were both imprisoned on the moon for a thousand years. Now, with the amount of magical power of both dark and light being thrown around, it... changed and corrupted the land that surrounded their old castle and created the Everfree Forest in its place. Scholars have studied the forest's properties for years and while they do not fully understand it, what they do know is that the Everfree actively absorbs magic from the surrounding area and... does something with it. Nopony is one hundred percent sure exactly what it does, but it does do something with it. Some think it uses the energy to fuel its growth as they believe the soil is not capable of supporting the forest through natural means. While others think it just acts as a giant magical heat sink that purifies magic taken in and dissipates it into the earth, but regardless of what you think, everypony all agrees that the forest does absorb magic at a steady rate.”

“So what you’re saying is that you think the forest will act as some sort of magical limiter on the growth of chaos magic around Ponyville?” asked Penny as she cocked her head to one side, a questioning look on her face.

Giving a proud smile at her fellow unicorn’s quick uptake, Twilight happily replied, “Exactly! The forest will both slow down the rate of growth and act as an upper limit to what this magic can do in the future. If my calculations are correct, we won’t see another noticeable event for at least another month or two, as the forest will actively drain the chaos magic over time, and the magic needs to reach a certain threshold before it can activate and cause a chaotic event.”

“Which the forest will drain as it is happening, thereby lessening the amount of overall energy that the chaos magic will uptake,” finished Penny with a relieved smile.

“Precisely!” chirped Twilight happily. “In this scenario, while the chaos magic will remain present in the local area for some time, if my calculations are correct, eventually, the forest will simply drain the magic away over time until it can no longer replenish itself,” turning back to the chalkboard, she flipped it back around and pointed at two numbers on the board, “This first number is the likelihood of the first scenario playing out, and with my calculations, it has a fifty-four percent chance of occurring, while our second outcome is around eighty-five percent, with a plus or minus six percent error rate.”

“And what is the last outcome?” asked Allen as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.

Twilight’s smile faded and was replaced with an uncertain look. “That one is that the chaos magic will overpower the Everfree and expand at an exponential rate. Most likely, it will re-empower Discord and he will escape from his prison again to exert some form of control over the magic. However, there is a chance that it will get away from even him and cause an end of the world scenario where all life is essentially destroyed.”

A tense silence fell over the trio and after looking between themselves for a time, Penny was the first one to scrape up the courage to ask, “And what is the likelihood of that happening?”

“I don’t know.”

Chapter 34 (The Other Side of the Story)

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Chapter 35

Allen stood in the middle of the partially rebuilt animal barn and took a deep breath, the smell of freshly cut wood filling his nostrils with its calming aroma. Opening his eyes, he looked around and smiled.

Everything is coming along nicely, he thought happily to himself, a satisfied smile evident on his face. Steel and his boys sure know how to put a barn together.

It had been nearly two weeks since Steel, Rune, and Allen had come to an agreement on the price to be paid for the work to be done, and for the past six days, the sounds of construction had echoed across the farm.

Too bad Penny couldn’t find a better price for the materials, lamented Allen as he continued his inspection of the timber frames. But, I’d rather pay a little bit more now than run the risk of expensive repairs down the road due to substandard building material.

Kicking a scrap piece of wood out of his way, he carefully made his way down into the newly expanded milking parlor. Even though it wasn’t finished yet, it promised to be much better than the old one ever was. For one, it was now twice the size, and the ceiling was high enough that Allen didn’t have to constantly duck when he came in and out anymore, for which he was thankful. In addition, the entrance and exit doors were both larger and on rolling tracks instead of hinges, which would make getting cows in and out much easier. The old, flat concrete floor had been torn up and replaced with a new one that had a slight slope that would allow water to flow into a linear drain that ran nearly the length of the milking parlor and promised to make keeping the place clean in the future much easier.

The addition of larger windows, better overhead lights, and three-sided, wooden stalls made out of cedar gave the place a more cozy feel to it that the old milking parlor severely lacked. Allen smiled happily to himself as he glanced up at the lantern-style electric lights with their fine brass finish, gleaming in the early Sunday morning sun. Turning his attention away from the ceiling, he looked at one of the ten milking stalls, five to each side, that now occupied the majority of the floor space.

It was large enough that even a heavily pregnant cow could get in and out without feeling confined and the stall floors were raised above the aisleway enough that the bedding inside would stay clean and dry, even if it were raining or snowing outside. Each stall also had a hay manger and water trough so that if the cows were hungry or thirsty, they could sate their needs. Finally, there was a bracket for the milking apparatus to hang from out of the way and off of the ground when in between uses. Otherwise, they would be stored in a separate room with the milk holding tank and other milking supplies. All of the stall milkers were connected to the milk storage tank via stainless steel pipes that ran between the stalls and up along the ceiling, thus keeping them out of the way, and through the dividing wall between the milking parlor and the basement of the barn to Allen’s left.

Stepping through an access door, Allen entered the barn's basement. This is where the milk tanks were located and where he intended to put things that he didn’t plan on using very often. At the far end of the barn opposite from him, was a large sliding door that would allow him to bring things in and out as needed, and the ceiling was now high enough that he could easily fit his skid loader inside without issue as well.

Looking around at the nearly finished room, Allen noted that the milk tanks had been reinstalled, but had not been fully hooked up to the milk delivery system. In addition, he noted that the electric pumps that ran the whole system were still sitting in a corner on a pair of pallets, a cloth cover shielding them from dirt and debris.

Looks like they managed to get the lights hooked up though, thought Allen as he flipped a nearby switch on the wall and the formerly dim room was suddenly bathed in a warm, yellow glow from the overhead lights. Much like the milking parlor, this room sported a concrete floor, though it only had a square drain near the milk tanks rather than one down the length of the room. This suited Allen just fine as he didn’t need to keep the whole place clean, just the area around where he would store and process the milk.

Walking around the large milk tanks, Allen was glad to see that Steel’s crew had finished hooking up the output pipe to them, as this would allow him to easily empty milk into waiting delivery carts for market.

Giving a final nod in satisfaction, Allen turned and left, shutting the lights off as he did so, and closing the door behind him. Exiting the milking parlor entirely, he returned to the main floor of the barn and headed towards the eastern side. Sadly, Steel hadn’t been able to get the main floor finished yet, but Allen wasn’t overly worried as the weather schedule, which he had recently received in the mail, had called for sunny skies for the rest of this week. As such, he figured they would have the barns roofed by then, and thus he wasn’t worried about any potential inclement weather causing issues.

Reaching the far eastern side of the barn, Allen was pleased to note that the construction crew had finished laying the last of the timbered floor down on this new section. Per the construction plans Allen had selected, his animal barn had nearly doubled in overall size. However, since they couldn’t expand the barn any further east, as the machine sheds would be in the way, the plans had called for a southward expansion instead. The end result was that Allen’s barn was now in the shape of an L, with the new southern section being built where the old grain silo used to be.

Looking out through the unfinished south wall, Allen spotted Reuben casually munching on a patch of grass next to several cows in a nearby pasture. Due to the fact that the old barn had to be completely torn down, Allen had been forced to disperse his animals to the various paddocks around the farm. This meant more work for him, as he needed to haul water and hay to the various areas he was keeping his livestock. However, he knew that this wouldn’t last for long, so in the end, it was more a minor annoyance than anything else.

Everything else that had been in the barn had been removed and put in one of the machine sheds. Of course, this meant that Allen was forced to waste precious fuel moving things around, but there was little that could be done about it. In the end, he had managed to get the remaining hay out of the old animal barn's loft and safely stored inside the machine shed next door with a little help from some of Steel’s crew. As even though there wasn’t much hay leftover from last year’s hay season, moving nearly five hundred, fifty-pound hay bales by yourself wasn’t something that Allen wanted to do if he had to.

Once that had been completed and the rest of the barn cleared of animals and items, Steel’s crew had swiftly demolished the barn and the nearby grain silo in less than half a day. After which they spent the next several days cleaning up and preparing the ground for pouring the new concrete foundations. This had entailed some serious excavation and dirt-moving as the old barn had originally been built into the middle of a small hill which had only left the eastern and western sides of the barn's foundation exposed. Thus, Steel’s team had been forced to excavate and reshape some of the surrounding land in order to accommodate the barn’s new dimensions.

Standing at the edge of the unfinished southern wall, Allen admired the finished results as already, the grass seeds that the pony crew had spread were sprouting and by the time the rains were scheduled to hit, they should be well enough established to keep the dirt locked in place. What’s more, the extra dirt that they had removed from the eastern side of the hill had been used to improve both the northern and southern ramps that allowed access to the main floor of the barn. Specifically, they were heightened to compensate for the now higher foundation walls, as well as extended to reduce the grade of the slope. Allen hoped doing that would reduce the amount of erosion to the southern ramp caused by rain in the future, as even though his family never let the animals linger on the ramp area for too long, their hooves still caused a lot of damage to the area over time, especially when the ground was wet or during the winter. This had often entailed his dad pushing dirt around with the skid loader from time to time in order to flatten out the ruts and valleys caused by erosion. Hopefully, such activities would be a thing of the past from now on.

Turning around, he slowly meandered his way to where the front doors would eventually hang on the northside of the barn and gave another satisfied nod at seeing the finished ramp there. Unlike the southern ramp, the north ramp had been reinforced with a layer of crushed rocks and gravel in addition to the newly added compacted dirt that extended all the way to the main driveway. Moreover, Steel had insisted that they put in some concrete sidewalls to prevent the dirt from shifting as much over the years. The intent was to make it easier to get equipment into and out of the main floor of the barn as needed without digging ruts into the yard or risk wheels slipping due to wet conditions when going up the ramp. Plus, it looked nice.

Everything is coming along nicely, he thought as his eyes wandered over the cluttered farmyard. Glancing in the direction of where his old hay shed used to be, Allen decided to head over and see how the concrete was curing.

Coming to a stop next to the large concrete pad, Allen squatted down and gave the concrete an experimental touch. It feels cooler than it did yesterday, and it’s definitely hardened up nicely. Standing back up, Allen turned his attention to the silver and golden runework that lined the outer edge of the concrete pad and was pleased to see that Rune Chisel had finished laying them in place as well as making sure they were adequately covered with a protective layer of clear quartz set into a shallow channel cut into the concrete.

Even though he’d been in Equestria for nearly two months, there were still things that surprised and amazed him nearly every time he interacted with the locals. Such as watching Rune easily turn a chunk of solid quartz into the consistency of syrup and casually pour it over the runes as a means of protecting them from damage. When he asked how he had done it, Rune had simply smirked, and said, “Sorry, old family secret,” before returning to his task.

Allen had simply shook his head and continued watching in silent amazement as the unicorn craftspony continued his task of steadily pouring the syrup-like quartz into the shallow channel, and making sure there were no air bubbles or imperfections. Once finished, Rune Chisel lit up his horn with another spell and less than a minute later, the quartz had returned to its previous solid-state.

Turning to Allen, he had said, “There, that part is finished, we’ll need to let everything settle for a couple of days, and then we can charge it up and test it to make sure the runic circuit is properly set. After that, Steel and his boys can finish putting this building together.”

“Sounds good, and what about the animal barn? Are you finished with that one as well?” asked Allen.

Rune shook his head. “I’ve gotten the foundational runes put in place, but I haven’t charged them up and tested them yet. I need to wait until Steel and his crew finish getting the rest of the framework built before I can do more. So that is what I am waiting on right now.”

If I’m not mistaken, Rune and his sons should be back tomorrow to charge up and test out these runes. Mused Allen idly to himself as he slowly turned and walked away from the bare concrete pad. After that’s done, Steel and his boys should be able to put the hay shed’s frame up the next day, and since they were able to save the metal siding and roofing when they tore down the old shed. They might have it all back on by Wednesday. Which means I can start cutting hay by Tuesday at the earliest or Thursday at the latest. A happy smile spread across Allen’s face at the thought of finally getting the farm running again.

Winding his way through the construction site, Allen spotted a pair of ponies trotting down the driveway towards him. Lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he recognized one of them, but the other was new. Giving a friendly wave, he called out, “Morning, Ms. Checklist, I gotta say, I didn’t expect to see you again for a while. What brings you out to my neck of the woods?”

Returning Allen’s wave with one of her own, she happily replied, “Good morning to you too, Mr. Ross. The local DOTI office informed me that you were doing some renovations to your farm, and since I was in the area, I figured I’d pop on by and have a look at your progress. If that’s alright with you of course.”

Giving a shrug of his shoulders, he replied easily, “Don’t see why not,” waving an arm at the half-finished animal barn, Allen said, “As you can see, it’s not quite done yet, but it’s coming along nicely.” Turning he pointed back to the concrete pad that would eventually become the new hay shed. “They just finished putting the runework in the new foundation yesterday. Should have it charged up and tested in the next day or so.”

Checklist happily stomped her hooves in glee. “Oh, that’s wonderful Mr. Ross, I’m so glad to see your farm rising up from the ashes and returning to its former glory!”

Allen smiled and nodded his head in agreement. “Thanks, but I can’t take all the credit here, if it wasn’t for His Grace loaning me the needed funds, and for his assistant helping me manage things, I’d still be stuck here without a pot to piss in, pardon my French.”

Hearing Blueblood’s name, Checklist’s smile lost some of its warmth. “Oh, you decided to go with Blueblood then? I had thought you might have elicited the help of the local DOTI office. Did you not like the benefits and program opportunities they gave you?” she asked, a disappointed and confused look on her face.

“Yeah, Prince Blueblood offered me some very generous terms, and he was able to get me the resources I needed quickly,” replied Allen with a shallow nod. However, his expression suddenly turned a bit sheepish and he admitted, “Though I’ll be honest, I didn’t speak with the local DOTI office. In fact, I don’t even know where they are.”

Checklist felt one of her eyelids twitch in barely suppressed annoyance. “I see, and what kind of terms did he give you?” she asked in an overly casual way.

“Well, in exchange for twenty percent of my net profits, he gave me a cash infusion of one hundred thousand bits, as well as letting me farm his duchy’s land, rent-free. Plus, Penny, that’s the assistant he assigned to help me, has really made this whole process go by so much more smoothly than if I had to do this on my own.”

By this point, Checklist’s smile had disappeared and she was quietly grinding her teeth in barely suppressed anger at the thought of Blueblood getting one over on her like this.

And it’s all because the local office didn’t do that damn follow up visit with Allen after I left like I told them to! She internally raged.

Her companion, seeing her about to lose her cool, calmly laid a yellow-colored hoof on her withers and leaning in quietly whispered in her ear. “Easy Checklist, take a deep breath and calm yourself.”

Sucking in a sudden, deep lungful of air, Checklist held it for a couple of seconds before letting it out in a dramatic whoosh and repeating the process a couple of times. Allen, seeing her suddenly start doing breathing exercises out of seemingly nowhere, asked in a concerned voice, “Is she going to be okay?”

The yellow stallion gave a single nod. He ran a hoof through his graying, reddish-brown mane, before offering his hoof and a pleasant smile to Allen in greeting. “She’s just a little frustrated that our local office didn’t follow up with you after she left. Allow me to introduce myself,” he replied pleasantly, “I am Just Cause, chief attorney, and legal department executive officer for the Canterlot and Manehatten region, and longtime friend of Checklist. She asked me to come with her to meet you and see how you were doing since she last came by.”

Taking the proffered hoof and shaking it, Allen leaned to one side and eyed Just’s heavily laden saddlebags. “And would you also happen to be tagging along on the off chance that I might be interested in joining your organization as a new member?”

Letting loose a hearty laugh, Just Cause replied, “Hit the nail on the head with that one, Mr. Ross. Checklist here was hoping we might convince you to work with us instead of Blueblood, but alas, it seems as though he got to you first. Let me guess, he hit you with that sob story of his, about his father losing the entire family’s fortune during the Sugar Bubble Crisis?”

Releasing his grip on the stallion's hoof, Allen quietly nodded. “He did, among other things.”

Letting go a long-suffering sigh, Just simply nodded in understanding. “I remember that time very well. I happened to be a junior paralegal stationed in our Canterlot office at the time. Those were some dark times for everypony. By the time it was all over, nearly all the senior staff in my office had been hauled off to prison, and a large section of the middle and junior members had either retired or quit from disillusionment. I went from a lowly paralegal just out of law school to legal department head in under a week. Just due to the fact that there wasn’t anypony else to do the job. Somehow, I managed to keep it and advance from there to where I am now.”

“So was he telling the truth then, no embellishments? You guys really let Hollow Sword pump up that bubble that nearly killed your entire economy?” asked Allen incredulously.

Another sigh, this one sad. “Yes, I am afraid so. Prince Blueblood’s family wasn’t the only one wiped out financially, mine suffered as well. Though thankfully, my father wasn’t foolish enough to put all of his eggs in one basket like Prince Blueblood’s did, and he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to do so on credit either.”

“Point, though to be fair, he was operating on false information. Information that you guys helped spread if Prince Blueblood is to be believed,” retorted Allen.

“True, all of what you say is true. My predecessor was a very corrupt stallion, the whole system was in fact. But what can you expect from five hundred years of successful complacency? Our hubris nearly led to the complete destruction of our country and our organization. I am forever thankful that Princess Celestia is so merciful as to allow us to atone for our misdeeds as we have. In any case,” he said suddenly, changing topics like a sailor would change tack while sailing, “I’m sure His Grace saw fit to paint us in as poor a light as he possibly could. If the rumors are to be believed, he has a vindictive streak as wide as the night sky. I know it’s probably too late to change things, but I would be ever so grateful if you would be willing to hear us out on what the DOTI can offer you. Nopony said that you had to only work with His Grace after all... unless he put that in your contractual agreement,” he finished awkwardly.

Allen shook his head. “He didn’t, though he did say that joining you guys would entail a lot of rules that I would have to follow and fees that I would have to pay. I’m not sure how much that would end up being, but I’m a little leery about having more of my earning potential sucked away before I’ve even figured out what kind of cash flow I would be looking at, I mean, I haven’t even cut a single acre of hay yet, let alone sold any of it.”

Just Cause smiled and gave a nod of understanding. “That is certainly a concern, Mr. Ross. Though, I think His Grace might be overexaggerating the requirements necessary to be a member of the DOTI along with the financial and regulatory burdens that we place upon our members.”

By this point, Checklist had managed to calm herself down enough to rejoin the conversation. “Just is right Allen,” she cut in, “surely you can see that Blueblood is painting us in an unfair light due to his lingering grudge against us for what happened all those years ago?”

“Well yeah, even Blueblood admitted he wasn’t the best pony to ask in regards to the costs and benefits of becoming a DOTI member. He even said he was biased against you guys when I asked him,” admitted Allen.

“So then why not come to us, and let us tell you our side of the story, before you signed your farm over to him?” pouted Checklist.

“First of all, I didn’t sign over anything. I retain full control over my farm and what I do with it. Second of all, I was in the hospital for several weeks due to medical complications with being in a mana rich environment and my body not being able to properly handle it, and yes, I’ll be fine,” he confirmed when he saw both earth ponies open their mouths to speak, “so I didn’t have the opportunity to go looking for your guy’s local office. Finally, Prince Blueblood approached me while I was recovering in the hospital and offered me his deal. I liked the terms that he gave me and felt as though I didn’t have many good options at the time, so I accepted it and hoped for the best. Simple as that,” he finished with a shrug.

“So... does that mean you’re not interested in hearing about the benefits that we can offer you?” asked Checklist hesitantly as she turned up the cuteness factor and hit Allen with her best puppy dog eyes, quivering bottom lip and all.

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Allen tiredly to himself as he dragged a weary hand across his face, “fine I can spare an hour or two to listen to your spiel.”

The effect was immediate as Checklist’s face lit up like a happy Christmas tree as she gaily bounced around Allen like a hyperactive six-year-old that had just learned they were going to Disneyland for their birthday.

Just Cause chuckled at his friends' antics. “Easy there Checklist, don’t overload the poor fellow.”

“I’m sorry,” she replied, though she continued to bounce around like a small wind-up toy, “but I’m just so happy to hear that you’re willing to listen.”

Motioning for the pair to follow him, Allen stood aside and opened the door for them, waving them inside. “I take it from your reaction there, that if somepony sides with the nobles they tend to shut the door in your face?”

Checklist gave a derisive snort in reply. “Pretty much, though most times they just tell us to leave, many times rather rudely. It’s such a shame. The DOTI’s primary purpose is to help ponies, but there are a lot of ponies nowadays that look down on us because of the Sugar Bubble Crises. Membership is down in many parts of the country, especially in areas such as Manehatten and Canterlot where most of the upper classes tend to live. They like to spread misinformation about us,” she clarified, “However, even in working and middle-class areas, we’ve seen a noticeable drop in membership. It's taken our organization a lot of effort to turn that decline around. I’m afraid that it’ll take much more effort and many years to get things back to where they were before that whole mess happened,” lamented Checklist sadly.

Motioning to a pair of chairs at the dining room table, Allen asked, “You guys want any water or something else to drink?”

“Water will be fine, thank you,” said Just Cause with a grateful nod.

“Same for me as well, thank you,” added Checklist as she began pulling various papers and pamphlets out of her bags and spreading them excitedly over the table.

Filling up a pair of plastic cups for his guests, Allen set them down in front of them before grabbing a cup for himself. “You know, I can’t help but feel that I’m being fed conflicting messages about how things work in this country.”

Taking a sip of her water, Checklist paused for a moment before swallowing and saying, “What do you mean?”

Taking a seat across from the pair, Allen set his cup down on a coaster and said, “Well, it’s just that when I was speaking with Blueblood, he made it sound like you guys had a near stranglehold on the economy. In fact, I remember him saying that if a pony didn’t join the DOTI, their business would suffer as other ponies wouldn’t want to buy or sell things with them in an attempt to either force them to join or drive them out of business.”

The sudden loud crack of a hoof against wood made Allen and the water cups jump as Checklist slammed her hoof onto the tabletop. “He’s a LIAR!” she snarled angrily, her lips pulled back in an ugly snarl. “Our organization would never tolerate such behavior from one of our members! So long as the minimum standards of safety and health were met, there would be no reason for somepony to exclude a fellow businesspony from the market! Nopony should have to worry about being discriminated against just because they weren’t part of our organization! Nobles and their thugs might do such things, but we do not!” By this point, Checklist had both front hooves on the table and was practically frothing at the mouth in rage.

Allen for his part had his chair leaned as far back as he could and he was very worried that Checklist would either have a stroke or fly into some kind of murderous rage. Neither of which he wanted to deal with at the present time.

However, before she could continue her tirade, a pair of yellow hooves gently encircled her in a hug and calmly pulled her back down into her seat. Adjusting his seat so that it touched the edge of Checklist’s, Just Cause gently held his friend and whispered calming words in her ear as he quietly stroked her mane. Slowly, the fire of rage died down in her eyes, to be replaced instead by tired sadness.

Allen for his part simply sat still and didn’t say a word, lest he reignite the pink mare’s fury. Finally, after several minutes, Just Cause let Checklist go, however, he did leave his side pressed against hers, and Checklist leaned into him, her head bowed low.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Just quietly said, “My apologies for that, Mr. Ross. Checklist has had a... difficult history with the nobility and their... associates, and she tends to get rather upset when she learns that they are spreading lies and half-truths about us. It’s not even really that difficult for them, there are many ponies that remember the economic crisis and still resent what our predecessors did that allowed it to happen. Noble propaganda just makes it worse.”

“R-right, I-I remember Blue-” Allen paused when he saw Checklist tense up, “uh-I mean my business partner told me that the...uh, noble who oversaw Checklist’s hometown was a real ‘twat’, as he put it. He didn’t seem to particularly like this individual either.”

Checklist let loose a harsh laugh. “Well, at least we have one thing that we can agree upon,” taking a deep breath to steady herself, she used the back of her fetlock to wipe away a few tears before saying, “I’m sorry for my outburst Mr. Ross. If you do not want to listen now, I would completely understand, we’re sorry to have wasted your time.”

She made to gather up her material and slowly stuff them back in her bags, however, a hand gently laying itself done on her hoof caused her to pause. Looking up at Allen, she saw that he had a small, comforting smile on his face. Shaking his head, he said, “It’s alright, I might not know what is going on right now, but I’m willing to let you give me your pitch.”

Sniffing, she regarded Allen with a hopeful look. “Really?” she asked.

He nodded. “Really, I might not say yes to joining, but I am at least willing to listen.”

Giving him a grateful smile, Checklist said, “Alright, well before we go any further, there is one thing that I want to clear up with you.”

“What’s that?” he asked curiously, having let go of her hoof.

Readjusting her mane slightly, as it had gotten a little messy when she had her outburst, she continued, “The DOTI does not require anypony to join our organization as a full-fledged member anymore. That rule was changed a few years after the Sugar Crisis and instead, you can elect to remain a non-member and just pay for those services that you want. Though, if you are a member, you have access to everything and at a reduced cost than if you were a non-member. The board felt that this was one of the reasons that led to the crisis in the first place, as we had gained too much power and it went to our heads.”

“I believe that we should also point out that, regardless of our personal opinions, the DOTI does not forbid its members from forming business partnerships with anypony they desire, this naturally includes nobles,” explained Just Cause helpfully. “Now, there are obviously some ponies out there that will discriminate against you if they find out you are not a member and work with the nobility. However, our organization works to... correct these ponies when their bad behavior comes to light.”

Allen felt a headache coming on as he gingerly rubbed his temples in quiet frustration. Fuck me, can’t anyone just give me the straight facts around here?

“Are you alright, Mr. Ross?” asked Just Cause, concerned at seeing Allen’s distress.

Still rubbing his temples, Allen groaned out, “No, I’m not. I suddenly feel like I don’t know who is right and who is wrong anymore, and it’s giving me a headache.”

Checklist opened her mouth to reply, however a stern look from Just made her reconsider and she closed her mouth with an audible click.

Seeing that his friend wasn’t going to put her hoof back in her mouth again, Just Cause turned his attention back to Allen and said, “I understand how you must be feeling right now, Mr. Ross.”

“Do you now?” groaned Allen, not moving his hands from his face.

Just nodded. “I do. When I first joined the DOTI twenty-seven years ago at the tender age of eighteen, I was fed a lot of bunk about how great we were. About how we were saving Equestria from the ‘evil’ nobles,” he made air quotes with his hooves at the word ‘evil’. “I even believed the propaganda for a time, and that’s what it was, Mr. Ross, pure propaganda. It wasn’t until after the Sugar Bubble popped the following year that I saw the corruption, the greed, the lies that had been hiding in the background. Make no mistake,” he said, “the DOTI of twenty-five years ago was everything Prince Blueblood accuses us of being today. However, the crisis was like a refiners fire, it cleansed us of the dross and the impurities that had been allowed to gather in our organization for the hundreds of years that it has existed. In one fell swoop, everypony was finally able to see what really was happening, and we didn’t like it. The end result is that the DOTI has undergone serious reforms both internally and externally over the years, and Princess Celestia has made sure that such excesses are kept to a minimum. That’s not to say incidents do not happen, but they are not as common as they once were.”

Looking up from his hands, Allen gave Just Cause an unconvinced look. “You really expect me to buy that? That you guys just changed overnight and now you’re the ‘good guys'?”

Just Cause laughed. “Oh heavens no, it took years to clean out the DOTI from top to bottom and to make sure the rot wouldn’t easily return. Even today, there are still ponies that are stuck in some of the old ways of doing things. However, we keep a close eye on them and bring them to task when they step out of line, and there are ponies that will use their position to abuse others for personal gain, the same as there are among the nobles. However there are ponies, such as I, who work tirelessly to root out those ponies that would abuse their positions of power for personal gain and to bring them to justice, and for what it is worth, I do not believe that Blueblood has misled you, Mr. Ross.”

Giving Just Cause a tired and frustrated look, Allen replied, “And what makes you say that? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s sounding a lot like he did, and I can assure you, I’m going to have words with him the next time I see him.”

“While it is true that Blueblood may have given you the wrong idea about us. I do not think he had malicious intent in his warnings. I mean, you said it yourself, he did caution you that he was a biased source of information. It would be no different than if you asked Checklist about the Equestrian nobility and whether they are good ponies or not.”

“They aren’t,” muttered Checklist quietly.

“Regardless,” continued Just Cause as if nothing had happened, though Allen thought he saw a small smile flash across his face before it returned to its more serious state, “my point is that Blueblood sees the DOTI as what it was, not what it is. Ponies tend to have a nasty habit of allowing their biases to blind them to what is in front of them, even when reality says otherwise.”

“Sounds like home,” remarked Allen dryly, before then asking, “So then why would he make it sound like they still happen all the time then?”

Just Cause shrugged. “My guess is that it has to do with his upbringing. A sheltered noble foal, fed on a steady diet of vitriol against the DOTI for what they did to his family, and a lack of interaction with us over the years has led him to believe that we are still as corrupt as we were back then. Of course, there could be other factors involved that neither you nor I can see which have influenced his current attitudes on the matter. Obviously, you would need to speak with him.”

Allen rested his elbows on the tabletop and put his head in his hands and sighed. “Why can’t people just fucking get along?”

“One of life’s great mysteries I suppose,” replied Just Cause quietly.

Lowering his hands, Allen quietly regarded the two earth ponies sitting across from him. Alright, let’s think about this. I know why Blueblood wants me to be his business partner or at least part of the reason why anyways. He wants me to help him restore his family’s fortune back to the way it was before his dad lost all their money. That alone is reason enough that he would be willing to bend the truth if it meant getting me on his side instead of the DOTI’s. I mean, if he still thinks that it’s a zero-sum game, where if I join the DOTI, then I won’t work with him, and thus he’ll lose out on the chance to improve his family’s standing. However, that doesn’t sound like it’s the case anymore. If Checklist and Just Cause are being truthful, then I can pick and choose what I want from the DOTI without having to worry about choosing one side or the other. The question is... are they telling me the truth? What would they have to gain from bending the truth or even outright lying to me? It doesn’t make any sense... and now my head hurts, fuck.

“Uh, Mr. Ross? Are you okay? You’ve been staring at us for a while now,” said Checklist, a nervous look on her face.

Jolted out of his thoughts by her sudden interruption, Allen gave himself a shake. “Sorry, I was just... thinking about... things,” he replied lamely.

Both Just Cause and Checklist shared a knowing look with each other. “If you want, we can come back some other time, perhaps next Saturday? Give you a little time to think things over and talk to some other ponies? We don’t want you to feel as though we are trying to pressure you into making a decision or anything,” said Checklist gently, a concerned look on her face.

Allen shook his head. “No, it’d be better if you just gave me your little presentation now. I’m planning on cutting my first hayfields as soon as I’ve got a place to put the hay. Which should be either this week or next week at the latest sometime if everything goes well.”

Checklist’s ears perked up at hearing Allen’s plans, and licking her lips nervously, she hesitantly asked, “W-will you still let me come watch? I promise I won’t get in the way.”

Allen blinked in confusion, before remembering that Checklist had expressed an interest in seeing his machinery in action the last time she was here. Nodding his head, he gave her a little smile and said, “You bet, you can even bring your friend here too if you want. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a small audience as I’m sure Lyra and Twilight will want to record everything that I do for their research. Though, if he’s returned from Olenia by then, Blueblood will probably be there too, so just an FYI.”

“So long as he stays civil, and far away from me, then I will stay civil,” replied Checklist, a determined look on her face.

Having gotten her promise to behave, Allen nodded and waved a hand at the material on the table and said, “Alright, enough politics and crap, tell me about all of this stuff.”

Her eyes lighting up in genuine excitement, Checklist quickly launched into her well-rehearsed presentation.

As he had expected, the DOTI had many programs and products to offer, so many in fact that Checklist went well past the couple hours that had been originally agreed upon.

“Training programs, apprenticeships, research and development, loans, health insurance, crop insurance, and you guys even have life and disaster insurance too?” asked Allen incredulously. Even though when last they spoke, Blueblood had mentioned in passing that the DOTI offered a myriad of services and products, Allen still found himself blown away by just how much was available to choose from.

“Sure do,” replied Checklist with a smug smile, “and the more you apply for, the greater the discount that goes with it, and really, that’s only a small portion of what the DOTI can do for you. We also offer cost savings when shipping products as we can coordinate with the railroads to maximize the amount of product that gets shipped from one location at the same time, thus netting our members a bulk rate discount.”

Looking over the various pamphlets Allen just shook his head. It was surprising to him just how much the DOTI offered people, and all of it without the need to fully commit if you didn’t need or want everything. However, the biggest service that they offered was that they also served as a sort of national job board.

The concept was straightforward and simple, businesses, for a small fee, could list open job positions with the local DOTI office. They would include all the basic information, such as what the position was, the responsibilities associated with it, the necessary qualifications, and any pay or benefits that went along with it. On the flip side, a pony looking for work would just need to go into their local DOTI office and ask if they had any work offers available. If they did, then they would help that pony try and get the job.

This often included helping the applicant with their resume or providing interview coaching tips for those who needed it, among other things. However, if there were no jobs, the office would look beyond the local area to see if there were any open job requests in nearby towns. If none were available or were a poor fit, they would inquire with the DOTI’s main office located in Manehatten if they had anything available. When the inquiry arrived, the main branch would look through their records for any potential positions that the pony might be able to fill and then send that information back to the requesting office.

“Wait, you’re saying that your main office knows what open positions are available for every business in every town and city across the entire country? How do you keep track of all that?” asked Allen in disbelief.

“Well, we don’t actually,” replied Checklist, “most local offices only send job positions that either requires an extremely specialized pony or have been open for longer than two months. Though sometimes the main office gets a request for a job that hasn’t been put into their system, so they’ll just send out a general alert to the other branch offices around the country to see if there is a matching job available.”

“What happens if there isn’t?”

Checklist shrugged. “It can happen from time to time, usually we just tell the job hunting pony to loosen up their criteria and try again. I’ve never heard of a pony that was never able to find a job through us.”

“Do they have to be a DOTI member to either post or look for a job through you guys?” asked Allen as he thumbed idly through a little promotional booklet.

Checklist shook her head and replied, “No, but members get both priority and a lower fee, so there is that. However, regardless of their membership status, if we do find them a job in another part of the country and they accept the offer, we will help make arrangements for that pony to meet with the employer for an interview. This can include helping them with train fares, finding them accommodations, food, and so on, and if the pony doesn’t have the means to make the trip on their own. The local office could step in and offer them financial assistance, which they will need to pay back at a later date. If the worker is hired, then we can also offer them assistance in moving themselves and their family across the country if necessary as well.”

“Huh,” grunted Allen as he sat there thinking. To him, this sounded no different than one of those job search websites back home, save for the fact that it was all done physically, rather than electronically, and that the DOTI would help relocate ponies around the country as needed. All in all, it sounded almost too good to be true. However, Allen had learned very early on in his stay in Equestria that things sometimes worked differently here than back home. So he decided to remain cautiously optimistic.

By the time the presentation had ended. It was getting well into the late afternoon, at which point Allen, feeling hungry and not wanting to be a poor host, had invited the two ponies to stay for dinner. However, Checklist and Just Cause declined his invitation, saying that they had to catch the evening train back to Canterlot or risk having to get a room at the local inn for the night. Nodding in understanding, Allen helped them quickly pack up their things and walked with them to the end of his driveway before saying their final goodbyes for the evening.

Waving as he watched them go, Allen sighed. While his outward appearance seemed calm, his inner thoughts were awhirl, like a handful of leaves caught in a windstorm.

Fucking hell, why is it my luck that I get caught in the middle of political shenanigans in fantasy ponyland? He grumbled silently to himself as he watched Checklist and Just Cause disappear around a bend in the road just past the edge of where Sweet Apple Acres began. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he quietly turned and started walking towards the house.

His mind kept turning over the new information that he’d learned today, and he couldn’t figure out what to do.

Stomping up onto the front porch, Allen wiped his boots on the welcome mat and went inside. Walking tiredly down the hall to the kitchen, he turned to the fridge and opened it. Looking inside, he spied one of the few remaining beer bottles and grabbed it without hesitation. Popping the cap off, he took a hearty swig and after draining a third of the bottle in one go, let loose a sigh of contentment as he felt the beer settle in his belly.

Turning, he sat down at the dining room table and stared at the various pamphlets and brochures that Checklist and Just Cause had left him. Picking one up at random, he looked it over. It depicted a courtroom scene with a smiling pony in a suit looking at him, with a caption above them saying, When you need legal help, big or small, call the DOTI, we’re there for you!

Shaking his head, he carelessly tossed it on the table and took another swig of his beer before leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling, the cogs in his mind silently turning.

Okay Allen, let’s just think this through. What do we know right now? Blueblood has a grudge against the DOTI, because they ruined his family financially, even though his dad was an idiot for putting the family in that situation in the first place without having done his due diligence. Now, however, Blueblood is trying to change that, and for some reason, he thinks a thirty-year-old, displaced farmer’s son from Indiana can help him achieve that. To the point that he might have lied to me in order to keep me from working with the DOTI. The problem is that he didn’t need to do that. If what Checklist and Just Cause said is true, then I never had to choose between Blueblood or the DOTI. Which means that I could partner with Blueblood for fast cash and rent-free access to more land than I know what to do with, while at the same time selecting services and products from the DOTI that I need in order to make my operation more efficient in the long run. Even if my overhead does go up, I would still be making good money without running the risk of going without a safety net, which means that in the end Blueblood would make more money, and if something did go wrong, he wouldn’t have to help me get back on my feet. So it would be a win-win right?

Leaning forward, Allen stood up and began pacing. But, what if Checklist and Just Cause were lying to me? He paused and shook his head. No, that doesn’t make any sense. What would they gain from lying? Sure, they’ll get another member, big whoop. That still doesn’t change anything for their organization in the long run, unless their reason is just to spite Blueblood and deny him my help by convincing me to work with them instead. But again, what will that accomplish? If I find out that they’re lying to me, and they suckered me into a bad deal, then I’ll just cut ties with them the first chance I get and go back to Blueblood and be even more committed to helping him. The same could be said if Blueblood lied about the DOTI.

Coming to a stop at the back sliding door, Allen stared out across the backyard and to where Blueblood and Twilight had originally erected the large sign that allowed the two parties to establish peaceful contact. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Allen nodded his head silently as he made a decision. I need more information before I go any further. Both Blueblood and Checklist are biased as hell and hate each other for no reason other than what side of the proverbial picket line they’re standing on, so they’re pretty much useless as far as reliable sources go. And I should have thought about that before I went all in and signed that contract with Blueblood. Allen mentally kicked himself for his hasty decision to accept Blueblood’s initial offer, without first doing some of his own due diligence on the matter.

However, what was done, was done and there was no easy way to change it. Allen just counted his blessings that Blueblood didn’t try to sneak some clause into the contract that would cost him dearly if he didn’t place nice with the noble. Turning away from the door, Allen returned to his seat and drained the last of his beer. Setting the bottle back on the table, he quietly made a decision.

I’m going to go have a talk with Penny.

Author's Notes:

Well... sorry about the two-month delay, but life finds a way to get in the way. I won't bore you with all the details, but things have been busy in my neck of the woods and it's left me with little time or energy to write lately. It also didn't help that I rewrote this chapter a couple of times, split it into two chapters, then recombined the two chapters together to create... this mess. Sorry.

I was actually planning on taking this chapter in a completely different direction at first, but the more I wrote the less I was happy with it, so I decided to change things. Even now, I'm still not happy, but it is as good as I can make it.

I felt it was necessary to bring the DOTI back into the picture to give you guys their side of things so to speak, and to muddy the waters a bit. I know we haven't seen much of them, and that we've just been getting information about how Equestria works from those with ties to the nobility. This has led to some complaints which I wish to address now.

When I originally started this story many years ago, the DOTI was actually going to be called The Guild, and they were meant to be the main antagonists that Allen would have to deal with, and Checklist was supposed to be a bad guy that would make Allen's life difficult.

I scrapped that idea pretty early on, but you can still see some of the lingering traces in earlier chapters, especially chapter 18 when Blueblood tells Allen about his family's past. This lead to several people voicing their... displeasure shall we say on the way I was handling the story and portraying how things work in Equestria.

Now, I'm not here to tell you what is right or wrong, I have my opinions, and you have yours, and we all know that opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one and they all stink. Jokes aside, however, I've been mulling over some of the things those people said and I came to the idea that since the DOTI wasn't going to be the 'evil organization' that our MC would have to overcome with help from his wacky sidekicks like I had originally intended. I needed to do something to bring them more into balance and push them away from being seen as some kind of nefarious bureaucratic stereotype bent on making the little guy miserable for the sake of being jerks. Thus, this chapter, which I hope sheds a little light on what happened from the DOTI's perspective and clears up some things.

In any event, I think that's enough rambling from me, and so I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 35 (Dinner Meeting)

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Chapter 35

“And, done!” chirped Penny as she sorted the last of the day's paperwork into their appropriate bins. Working on Sunday wasn’t exactly something she enjoyed doing, but sometimes it was necessary in order for the rest of the week to run smoothly.

Tidying up her desk, she headed for the staircase at the back of the room which would lead to her living quarters upstairs.

It’s so nice living just above where you work, she thought happily to herself. No commute, and if I get hungry I can just eat at home instead of going out and buying something at a restaurant that would cost more than if I just made it myself.

Opening up her refrigerator, she selected a pre-made bowl of salad greens, and a bottle of bitalian dressing and set them on the counter. Lighting up her horn, she pulled out a bowl, a fork, and filled up the tea kettle from the sink before setting it on the stove and turning it on. Leaving the kettle to boil, she hummed a happy song as she looked over her tea selection, and spotting a lone bag of lemon tea, she quickly scooped it up and unwrapped it, placing the little bag by the kettle as she waited for the water to come to a boil.

Puttering around her kitchen, she set the table, and just as she finished placing the salad bowl and dressing bottle down, she heard the whistle of the kettle. Without even looking, she once again lit her horn and turned off the stove, gently taking the lid off and putting the tea bag inside to soak.

Trotting into the adjoining living room, she glanced over her record collection and pondered which album she wanted to listen to while she ate. However, a sudden knocking on the downstairs door pulled her away from her vinyl perusal. Eyebrow cocked in confusion, she glanced up at the clock above the fireplace and saw that it read half-past six.

That’s odd, she thought as she trotted downstairs. I know I don’t have any evening appointments scheduled for tonight and I know I put the closed sign up as well, so who could be knocking?

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she heard another round of knocks, louder this time, and hastened over. Swiftly undoing the lock with her magic, she opened the door just as she reached it.

“I’m sorry, but the office is closed for the evening, if you want, I can sche-Allen?” she asked in surprise as soon as she realized it wasn’t just a random pony knocking. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey Penny, sorry for bothering you, but something’s come up and I need to talk to you about it,” replied Allen apologetically.

Blinking in momentary confusion, Penny shook her head and stood aside, waving him in. “Oh, it’s no bother at all Allen, come on in.”

“Thanks,” he replied as he stepped through and into the business portion of the building.

It was a cozy-looking place. A pair of large windows sat to either side of the door and let in plenty of light, even with the afternoon sunlight swiftly giving way to dusk. To his left, Allen saw what must have been Penny’s desk, and a pair of cushion chairs in front of it while to the right was a small waiting area, complete with the obligatory magazine-covered coffee table, and sort of comfortable couch and chairs. The rest of the room was relatively empty, save for another desk tucked into a back corner, a large fireplace, and some filing cabinets along the left wall. Along the back wall were a pair of doors, one was plain, and was probably some sort of storage closet, while the other had the letters, W.C. imprinted into it.

“I know it’s not much to look at right now,” said Penny as she trotted towards the entrance to the staircase in the back right corner of the building. “But I’m still waiting on the rest of the furnishings and paintings to come. Once they get here, the place will look a lot nicer.”

Allen nodded in understanding. “It looks alright, if a little bare, but I’m sure you’ll have it looking real professional soon. Though it does look a little big for a one pony operation.”

Penny giggled. “I know, but the building had everything I needed and was in a good location, so I couldn’t really pass it up. Plus, if things go well, maybe I’ll need to hire additional staff to help me. The realtor told me the last owner ran a small insurance office here with about ten other employees. Granted they were stuffed in here like peas in a pod, but I figure this place can support about seven or eight other ponies beside me without issue.”

Nodding, Allen let Penny go up the stairs before following along behind, shutting the downstairs door as he did so and casting the stairwell into semi-darkness. Reaching the top of the staircase, he found himself in a short hallway that ended in a cozy-looking living room. Looking around, Allen could see that Penny hadn’t fully unpacked everything yet as there were a few unopened cardboard boxes scattered around.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Penny, an apologetic expression on her face as she moved a pair of boxes off her couch. “I haven’t finished unpacking everything yet, and the living room just sort of became a storage room.”

Waving off her apology with a grin, Allen maneuvered his way around the couch and replied, “No worries.”

Trotting into the kitchen, Penny called back over her shoulder, “Are you hungry? I was just about to have dinner.”

Allen quickly waved away the offer, his own face taking on an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were eating. I can come back tomorrow if you want.”

Shaking her head, she waved a hoof at an empty seat and replied, “It’s alright, I made some extra salad if you’re hungry.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to-” an angry growl from his stomach cut him off as he suddenly realized he hadn’t eaten anything since that morning.

Hearing his stomach’s loud protest, Penny giggled. “I’ll take that as a yes then. Do you have any preferences for salad dressing? I have prench, bitalian, and ranch,” she said as she floated another bowl of leafy greens and a pair of bottles over to the table.

“Uh... ranch is fine thanks,” replied Allen as Penny set the bowl and requested bottle in front of him, before returning the unwanted prench dressing to its home at the back of the fridge.

“Anything you’d like to drink? I was just about to pour myself some lemon tea,” asked Penny as she grabbed the tea kettle and poured herself a mug of tea.

“Tea is fine, thanks,” he replied with a thankful nod.

“Any sugar?” she asked, holding up a bowl full of sugar cubes.

“Sure, though just one cube please.”

Nodding, Penny quickly grabbed another mug and poured Allen his tea. Setting it on the table, she placed a single cube of sugar in the steaming mug and floated it over to him, along with a fork and spoon. Taking the spoon in hand, Allen gently stirred his tea before gently raising the mug to his lips and blowing on it to cool it. Taking a cautious sip, he nodded in satisfaction.

“It’s good tea.”

Smiling, Penny replied, “Thank you, there’s a little tea shop in Canterlot that I buy my teas from. They sell all kinds of blends, and this is one of my favorites.”

“Well, it’s pretty good, I’m not a big tea drinker, but I don’t mind having a cup every once in a while,” said Allen as he poured a generous dollop of ranch on his salad. Stirring the topping in amongst the green leaves, Allen stabbed a fork full and took a bite. His eyebrows hiked upwards as the crisp greens hit his taste buds. Pausing, he thoughtfully chewed the collection of veggies and leaves for a moment before swallowing them and saying, “Wow, that’s some pretty good salad right there.”

“Glad you like it, I made it this morning after buying the ingredients fresh from the market yesterday. That’s one of the nice things about places like Ponyville. They tend to have a few ponies that have greenhouses that grow produce year-round. So it’s always fresh and at peak ripeness.”

Allen nodded. “You ain’t kidding. These little cherry tomatoes you added in are pretty sweet, and so is the cucumber.”

Giggling, Penny simply took a bite of her own salad and hummed happily in agreement, before then going in for another forkful. After that, the conversation quickly petered out and all that could be heard was the clanking of silverware on ceramic and the occasional sip of tea. Soon, however, both Penny and Allen had polished off their salads and drank their tea. Taking the now empty bowl and mug from Allen, Penny carefully floated the plate and mug, along with her own to the nearby sink. Turning on the water, she quickly plugged and filled the sink to allow the dishes to soak while she spoke with Allen, all without needing to leave her chair.

Allen felt a little jealous, watching the unicorn work her magic.

With a final twist of the faucet knob, Penny shut off the water and turned her attention back to Allen. Regarding him with a curious look, she asked, “So, what did you want to talk about?”

Ever since he’d decided to come and speak with Penny, Allen had been trying to figure out what to say to her about his encounter earlier with Checklist and Just Cause. Unfortunately, nothing had really come to mind.

“Allen? What’s wrong?” asked Penny when he hadn’t responded.

Sighing, Allen said, “I had a visit from the DOTI this morning, and we had an... interesting discussion, and I guess it put a couple of things in a different perspective for me.”

“About what? Are you in trouble with them?” asked Penny, a concerned look on her face. “I can send a letter to His Grace right now if you want. He should be back from his trip to Olenia, or at least that’s what his last letter to me said anyways.”

Allen shook his head. “No, I’m not in trouble or anything like that. They just came by to check up on me when Checklist heard that I was doing some farm renovations, and to give me their sales pitch on the benefits of using the DOTI’s services, along with potentially becoming a member. They also said some things that made me question Blueblood’s claims regarding them and how they operate.”

“Oh,” said Penny as her ears fell flat in annoyance at hearing the DOTI was still bothering Allen after he had expressed disinterest in working with them before. “What did they say?”

Taking a deep breath, Allen retold Penny everything that had happened earlier that day. From Checklist and Just Cause showing up, to Just Cause giving his side of the story of the Sugar Crisis, as well as Checklist calling Blueblood a liar when Allen had told them what Blueblood had claimed the DOTI still did when nopony was looking, to finally wrapping up his tale with Checklist’s little sales pitch and seeing them off.

Throughout it all, Penny had remained quiet, occasionally she would ask a question, such as asking about Prince Blueblood’s family’s experience during the Sugar Crisis as she didn’t know much about his past in that regard. However, other than seeking clarification on certain topics, she was content to sit and listen. During Allen’s tale, she had manifested a legal pad and a pencil and began taking notes. By the time Allen had finished speaking, Penny had filled out nearly ten pages worth of notes, both on the front and backside of each page.

Idly tapping her pencil eraser on the table, Penny hummed thoughtfully as she looked over her notes and digested this new information. Truth be told, she wasn’t surprised Prince Blueblood had acted the way he did. While she hadn’t had much experience with the noble, she had heard about a few of the stories that he had let slip about himself from time to time. These stories would often get circulated around the usual office gossip sessions at the water cooler, most of them were garbage, but occasionally a few nuggets of truth would shine through.

Looking up from her notes, Penny affixed Allen with a contemplative look, as if unsure what to do next. “So,” she began, setting her pencil down, “tell me your concerns. After all, it’s why I am here in the first place, budding business relationships are always fraught with these types of things.”

“They are?” asked Allen, an unconvinced look on his face.

Nodding, a grin on her face, Penny replied, “Of course. Why, did you think that business ventures between two different individuals, with different goals and experiences, would always be smooth and without conflict?”

Allen sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and quietly replied, “Kinda?”

Giggling, Penny shook her head. “If only it were that simple, of course, if it was that simple, then there really wouldn’t be any work for a pony such as myself, now would there?”

Chuckling in return, Allen said, “I suppose not, it’s just that...”

“You’re worried, confused, and stressed, and meeting with Checklist and Just Cause just made things worse. Naturally, they focused on the good things about themselves and shied away from the bad ones, just like His Grace did when you two met,” she shrugged helplessly, “I’m afraid that happens a lot in these circumstances. Everypony wants to be the good guy, and paint the other as someone not to be trusted. The question, however, is what do you want to do next?”

Allen bit his bottom lip as he thought. “I don’t know,” he began, “I just don’t like feeling as though I’ve been lied to, I know it makes me sound like a whiny baby, but...”

Putting her notes down, Penny fixed Allen with a firm look. “Allen, you are not being whiny, so stop that right now. You have a genuine concern, and I am here to allay that concern and help you find the correct path forward. So, I’ll ask again, what do you want to do?”

Allen shifted uncomfortably for a second before replying, “Well, I know I already looked it over before I signed it, but can we read that contract again? I just want to make sure I didn’t miss anything. After that, I guess maybe we can see what services the DOTI have that might be a good fit for me? I don’t know enough about this stuff, and I don’t want to buy something expensive that I don’t need, so I was hoping you could help me with that?”

Penny’s face lit up with a bright smile and she nodded. “I’ll go grab the agreement real quick,” she hopped out of her chair and trotted past Allen, though she paused at the threshold between the kitchen and living room and glanced back at him. “Did you happen to bring anything from the DOTI? I don’t have anything on hoof from them.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, I left it sitting in a plastic bag on my bike’s handlebars. I didn’t know if we were going to get this far so I didn’t bother bringing it inside.”

“You’re talking about that strange two-wheeled contraption you left leaning against the front lamp post outside, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s it,” replied Allen with a nod.

“I’ll grab it on my way back up, I’ll be right back,” she replied before turning and trotting out of the room, the sound of her hoofsteps quickly fading as she headed downstairs.

With nothing to really do, Allen let his eyes wander around the kitchen. It was kind of on the small side, but rather than feeling cramped, it gave off an air of homely coziness that a lot of apartment kitchens would struggle to replicate. The cabinets were made of oak and had brass handles, while the stove was well taken care of and clean. Standing up from his chair, he stepped closer and fiddled with a knob, after a quiet click, a small circle of blue flame sprang up and quietly burned, waiting for a pot or pan to heat that would never come. Turning the stove off, Allen moved over to inspect the upright refrigerator-freezer combo. It looked like something out of the 1950s, with smooth rounded corners and lines along with chrome handles made for a hoof to grab and pull, and it was colored an eggshell white.

Popping open the top door, a cold wave of air hit his face and a slight fog rolled out as the cold air of the freezer met the warmer air of the kitchen. Shutting the freezer door, Allen opened the bottom door and wasn’t surprised to see that this was the fridge part of the machine, and it looked like Penny had recently stocked it too as it was full of leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, and drinks, including what looked suspiciously like a bottle of wine at the back of the fridge.

“Are you still hungry?” asked Penny playfully from the kitchen doorway when she saw Allen snooping around in her fridge.

“Gah!” exclaimed Allen as he hastily shut the fridge door and tried to look innocent, failing miserably.

Giggling, Penny set a manila folder on the table, along with a plastic bag that said Walmart on it and had several papers and pamphlets inside.

“Sorry, I was just curious if it worked the same as mine,” replied Allen sheepishly. “With magic, I’m always wondering if something works the same as it does in my world or if there is a noticeable difference.”

“Well magic does make certain things easier, Equestria has had refrigeration for several hundred years. Of course, up until recently, you had to have a special rune installed in order to keep things fresh. Now we just use electricity, but the principle is still the same,” she explained as the two sat back down.

Pulling out the agreement from the manila folder, she slid it across to Allen and said, “Here you go. What was it that you wanted to look for specifically?”

Flipping to the first page, Allen began reading. “I just want to see if Blueblood put any restrictions on me. I’d rather not go through the trouble of setting up an account with the DOTI only to learn that he’s forbidden me from doing so.”

Penny nodded in understanding. “Fair enough, however, we never put any kind of stipulation like that in there when we drew it up, but looking it over again isn’t a bad idea,” she paused for a moment before asking, “would you like some more tea? I have a feeling we’ll be here for a bit.”

Looking up from the papers, Allen shot her a grateful smile and nodded. “Sure, thanks.”

Penny returned his smile with one of her own and set about making another batch of tea for the both of them. By the time she had finished the next batch, Allen was putting the agreement back in its folder.

Leaning back in his chair, he said, “Well there is nothing obvious that I can see in there that would keep me from taking advantage of their services.”

Setting another cup of tea in front of Allen, Penny replied, “I didn’t think there would be, I drew up the agreement myself, so unless His Grace slipped something in behind my back, I figured we would be fine.”

Taking a sip of tea, Allen nodded. “Yeah... but I just want to make sure my memory isn’t playing tricks on me. When I get worried about something, I tend to look it over several times to make sure I’m reading and understanding it right, even if I ‘know’ it’s good. It’s a weird quirk I guess.”

Penny giggled in reply. “Well I can think of worse quirks to have, and at least this one helps keep you from any nasty legal surprises.” Looking over the collection of DOTI literature, she picked up a pamphlet at random and asked, “So, now that we have that out of the way, which of these did you want to look over first?”

Setting his cup down, Allen replied, “Well looks like you picked up the one about insurance, so I figure that’d be a good one to start with, as right now I have none.”

“Alright then, let’s dig into this,” said Penny in reply as she pulled her legal pad over and turned it to a fresh page.

Scooting his chair around so that he was sitting closer to Penny, Allen pointed to the first page and remarked, “After my hospital stay, I think I want to have a good health insurance plan for myself just in case anything else happens to me, so why don’t we start there?”

“Good idea,” replied Penny as she used her hoof to hold open the pamphlet on the correct page and began looking things over with Allen.

There was a lot of information to go over and even with Penny’s expert knowledge on all things business and legal, it still took the two of them the better part of two hours to go through most of the services and products that were relevant to Allen’s needs.

While they had been reading through and discussing things, Penny had been keeping a list of items that Allen was interested in. These ranged from health insurance for him, and any potential employees, to seed and equipment procurement and training, along with the possibility of getting better rates for shipping products via rail.

Giving an almighty stretch and yawn, Allen looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was nearly ten o’clock at night. Grimacing, he realized that meant a long ride home in the dark with no light other than what the moon and stars could give him. Standing up from his chair, he said, “Wow, it’s later than I thought, I guess time flies when you’re having fun.”

Looking up at the clock herself, Penny hummed in agreement. “Well good company helps make even the most tedious of tasks bearable. Regardless, we should probably call it a night, unless you’d like to stay the night with me,” she replied, a teasing grin on her face, and a slight suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows, “of course what would the neighbors say?”

Rolling his eyes, Allen gathered his things up and dryly replied, “Probably something along the lines of how you have a weird taste in male companions. Thankfully for all parties involved, I need to head home, so we don’t have to worry about what the neighbors think.”

Giggling, Penny stood up and helped Allen pack his things before lighting her horn and leading the way down the dark stairwell and into the equally dark office downstairs. Opening the door, she watched as Allen slid the plastic bag over one of the handlebars on his bike and mounted it. Lifting the kickstand up, Allen grimaced at how dark it was.

“Geez, it’s darker out here than I thought it was,” he complained as he struggled to see into the inky blackness beyond the yellow circle of light supplied by the street lamp overhead. “Ah well, guess I’ll just have to take it slow going home, see ya later Penny,” he said as he turned to Penny and with a wave of his hand goodbye made to push off.

“Wait Allen!” called out Penny suddenly.

Rolling to a stop, Allen looked back over his shoulder and asked, “What?”

“Let me get you something so that you’re not riding home in the dark, I’ll be right back,” she said as she turned and hurried back inside, not bothering to close the door in her haste.

Turning his bike around, Allen waddled it over and calmly waited for Penny to return. He didn’t have to wait long as a few minutes later he could see the blue glow from her horn getting brighter, along with the sound of her hooves clattering on the wooden floorboards drawing closer.

“Here we go, this should help,” she said as she trotted back into view, a small brass lantern held aloft in her magical grasp. Trotting to the front of Allen’s bike, she quickly set about attaching the lantern to the front of the bike’s handlebars by way of a clamp that fit around the bike’s stem. Once she was satisfied that the lantern wouldn’t move, she unscrewed its top and pulled out a small gemstone. Screwing up her face in concentration, she lit her horn and proceeded to power up the gemstone with a spell, with it becoming brighter and brighter with each passing second until it shone like a miniature star.

Panting slightly, Penny gently returned the gemstone to its resting place inside the brass lamp and closed the lid. Flicking a little leaver on the side of the lantern, she opened the shutters and allowed a bright beam of light to shine outwards, banishing the darkness in front of it away.

“Whoa,” said Allen in amazement, “what the heck did you just do?”

Buffing a hoof against her chest, a smug smile on her face, Penny casually replied, “Oh just a little illumination spell I learned back in college. It lets me charge a gem to act as a light source, it’s helpful when you want a light source without it being a constant drain on your magic or risk losing your light in an emergency. Plus it frees up your horn for other spells.”

“That’s pretty handy, do you have to do anything special to the gemstone?” asked Allen curiously as he carefully inspected the lantern.

“Naw, it just needs to be properly cut and polished. Gems are very useful for storing and enhancing spells and magical energy,” explained Penny simply.

Nodding his head, Allen replied, “Well, thanks for letting me borrow this then. Getting home should be a lot easier, and safer now. I’ll be sure to bring this back tomorrow.”

“No problem Allen, I’m happy to help, and you can bring it back next time you’re in town, I’ve got another one in case I need it,” replied Penny with a dismissive wave of her hoof.

“Alright, well thanks again, and I’ll see you later to finish going over that DOTI stuff. It’ll probably be later next week. I still need to finish the renovations, and get at least some of my first cutting done.”

“That will be fine, I’ll come by and discuss it with you later this week then. In the meantime, don’t forget that we still need to finish looking over the paperwork for your company too, and be sure to think of a good name for it while you’re at it,” replied Penny cheerfully.

Allen groaned at the thought of yet more paperwork in his near future but figured that he should probably get used to it as paperwork was the lifeblood of any good business.

“Oh don’t be like that Allen, it won’t be that bad,” giggled Penny, “I’ve taken care of most of it, all you need to do is look it over and sign a couple of pages.”

“Right, a ‘couple of pages’,” replied Allen as he made air quotes with his fingers and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. Shaking his head, he chuckled and said, “Well anyway, I’ll see you later, just let me know a good day would be for me to come by, and I’ll be there.”

“I’ll let you know, and you let me know when you’re going to do your first cutting of hay, I wanna be there to see it!”

Allen laughed and replied as he kicked off and started pedaling away, “You and just about everyone else!”

Penny laughed in reply as she waved Allen goodbye before turning and heading inside for the night. Allen meanwhile turned his attention back to the road in front of him and putting a bit more effort into his pedaling, quickly made his way down the darkened Ponyville roads and towards home.

However, as he was coming up to the stone bridge leading out of town, he spotted a strange figure leaning up against a nearby light pole. They were wearing a trenchcoat and a fedora and had a small box sitting next to them. They seemed to be waiting for someone.

The only thing missing is a lit cigarette hanging from their mouth and they could have stepped right out of some old crime movie. Thought Allen as he slowly pedaled closer, wary of the strange figure. Angling his bike towards the far side of the road, he continued to approach the trench-coated figure.

When he was nearly upon them, the figure suddenly darted out in front of Allen, blocking his way. Clamping down on his brakes, gravel crunching underneath him, Allen came to a halt. Sticking a leg out to balance on, Allen stared at the figure whose features were blacked out due to their hat casting their face in shadow, waiting for them to make their move.

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here for you, Mr. Ross?” said the figure in a raspy voice.

Allen blinked. Why does that voice sound familiar?

“Can’t say I do,” he replied carefully.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the figure mysteriously as they slowly advanced. “I’ve been waiting all day to make sure you get what is coming to you, so you better prepare yourself.”

Allen wasn’t really in the mood to deal with shenanigans this late at night. Quickly angling the handlebars of his bike slightly to the right, he flashed the mysterious figure in the face with the powerful beam of his headlight and prepared to speed past while they couldn’t see.

“GAAH! I can’t see!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she found herself suddenly blinded by the bright light.

Allen felt himself relax when he finally saw who was messing with him. Shaking his head, he moved the beam of light off of Pinkie and dismounting the bike, put the kickstand down, and walked over. Bending down, he asked, “You okay Pinkie?”

Rubbing her eyes with a hoof, she blearily blinked the after images out of her vision. “I’ll be fine,” she replied, “looks like my little joke didn’t go over so well huh?”

“Yeah... no, but sorry for blinding you like that,” said Allen, a hint of remorse in his voice. Looking over at the package sitting near the light pole he pointed at it and asked, “That for me?”

“Yeppers!” replied Pinkie cheerfully, her lantern-induced blindness seemingly forgotten as she pronked over to the box and collected it. Bringing it over to Allen, she presented it to him with a big grin and happily exclaimed, “Happy Thirtieth Birthday, Allen!”

Taking the box from her, Allen carefully opened it, and found a small cake nestled inside that had Happy Birthday Allen! written on it in flowing pink frosting. Looking up from the cake, Allen cocked his head to one side in confusion and asked, “How the hell did you know it was my birthday today? I don’t remember telling you what day it was.”

“You didn’t! My Pinkie Sense told me that there was a person in town that had a birthday today that I needed to throw a party for. But when I looked through my Book of Birthdays, I saw that I didn’t have any marked down for today. This obviously meant that it was for someone who I either didn’t know, which is impossible because I know everybody in town or it was for someone who I hadn’t put in my Book of Birthdays yet! Which kind of narrowed it down as the only new person to move into town lately was you!” she happily exclaimed, pointing at Allen and giggling in joy.

Allen blinked. “What?”

“Anyways, it’s getting late, and I gotta get up suuuuper early tomorrow to help the Cake’s, so I gotta go! Happy Birthday Allen, and sorry I couldn’t throw you a party today, I’ll throw one for you later!” said Pinkie happily as she bounced away into the night like some sort of life-size wind-up toy.

Watching her go, Allen tried to figure out what had just happened, but his brain came up with nothing. Shaking his head, he shut the box and gently nestled it inside the plastic bag with the DOTI literature. Remounting his bike, he lifted the kickstand up and pushed off.

As he pedaled into the night, Allen wondered. How did she know it was my birthday today, and for that matter, how in the hell did she know how old I was? I don’t remember telling anybody. Glancing back over his shoulder, he wondered if there was more to Pinkie Pie than met the eye.

Shaking his head, he put a bit more effort into his pedaling, and thought, Probably best to just not think about it. Maybe I did tell somebody and she heard about it from them. Wouldn’t be the first time I forgot about telling someone something before. In any case, I’m not gonna worry about it till I need to, I’ve got enough problems without looking for more.

Putting the thought out of his mind, Allen focused on the road before him and put a bit more effort into his pedaling as he sped into the night.

Author's Notes:

Man, life has a way of getting in your way when you want to buckle down and do stuff. It's amazing how just one week away from my computer can derail my entire schedule. Please forgive me if this chapter isn't up to par, I haven't had a lot of time or energy lately to sit down and write for long periods of time, so I've been forced to write a little bit here and there, and when you do that the flow of the chapter tends to suffer as ideas come and then flit away before you can commit them to paper.

However, we're finally almost to Allen's first cutting of hay! Yay!

Now I know there are several people asking the questions, "Why can't Allen just sell his stuff to the ponies? Why is he focusing on cutting and selling hay? He's sitting on a literal gold mine of advanced technology that the ponies would pay a lot of money for." There are several reasons for this, one I won't say here as it will be covered later in the story. The other however is that I don't want Allen to do that. I've found that a lot of HiE stories tend to go that route where the MC gets rich really quickly, and with little effort on their part by selling stuff they brought from Earth to the Equestrians, and I didn't want to do that for this story as it wouldn't fit what I had in mind for Allen to do.

Now, that doesn't mean Allen isn't going to sell some of the things that he has laying around that will allow him to make a lot of money, but that's a little ways down the road.

So with that out of the way, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 36 (Making Hay Part 1: Morning Prep)

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Chapter 36

The barns were finished. Steel and his crew, along with Rune Chisel and his sons, had put the last of the finishing touches on both the animal barn and the hay shed yesterday, and Allen was excited. He was finally free to cut some hay.

With a spring in his step, he closed the front door of his house behind him. Water jug in hand, he whistled a happy tune as he jogged across the yard towards the nearby equipment shed. Opening the sliding doors, he looked around to see what he wanted to do first.

Let’s see, I still need to grease and check over the discbine, and I need to decide which tractor I want to use, probably one of the Farmall’s. The Case is a bit too big for the kind of hay work I’ll be doing today, even if it does have a cab.

Setting his water jug down, he stepped over to the workbench and rummaged around for a grease gun. After hunting through about half of the drawers, he found what he was looking for, and pulling it out, he looked it over.

Still some grease in here, maybe about half a tube left, better not waste any, he thought as he grabbed a spare tube of grease and headed over to the discbine to prep it for the day. Humming a quiet tune to himself, he carefully checked over the machine for any obvious defects, such as frayed belts, loose bolts, broken blades, etc. Satisfied that nothing was out of place, he set to work greasing every zerk fitting with an adequate amount of grease. It was important to make sure that he used the right amount for each area, as some needed only a pump or two, while others needed more like five or six to be properly lubricated.

Unhooking the grease gun from the last zerk fitting, Allen swapped out the now empty tube with a full one and turned his attention to the pair of Farmalls sitting on the other side of the shop.

Sitting side by side, they were part of the 06 series of tractors, a 706 and 806 respectively, and had been the pride and joy of his late grandfather who had bought them in the back in the early to mid-sixties to replace the old, but still reliable Super M with something a bit more powerful. Back then, these two tractors had done everything on the farm, from plowing and planting to harvesting and carting. Nowadays, however, they were regulated to mostly carting and hay duty, while the Case 7220 took care of the heavier tasks.

Both tractors were nearly identical, save for the different engines and a few accessories between them. The 706 had the lower horsepower, but for Allen’s purposes, it was good enough, plus it didn’t have a bad rear hydraulic port like the 806 did.

706 is it, thought Allen as he grabbed the key for the tractor from a key box on the wall by the door. Opening the petcock valve above the fuel sediment bowl, Allen checked the fluid levels for the radiator and oil. Climbing up, he sat himself down in the worn seat, stuck the key in the ignition, and turning it to the on position, he glanced at his fuel gauge.

Full, that’s good. That should get me through the day then.

Opening the choke to the half-open position, he nudged the throttle lever a little to the right, opening it up a bit more, and then hit the ignition button. The engine whined as the starter spun and cranked the engine over several times before with a cough and puff of black smoke, the engine rumbled to life. Pushing the choke back in, Allen let the engine warm-up for a minute while he jumped down to check and make sure nothing new was leaking. The exhaust flapper up top making a rhythmic, metallic tinking sound as it floated up and down on the exhaust fumes released by the idling engine.

Satisfied that everything was in order, Allen climbed back on and flipped the park lock lever down, pressed in the clutch, and put the tractor in gear. Opening up the throttle a little more, he eased off the clutch and let the tractor creep forward.

Leaning slightly to the left on the flat top fender to see better, Allen glanced down to make sure he wouldn’t hit anything with his front wheels on his way out of the shed. Things had a habit of being left in front of equipment at times, and it never hurt to make sure you weren’t about to roll over a misplaced box of tools.

Rolling out into the morning sunlight, he felt a sense of happiness wash over him and his trusty steed, the sun glinting off the few bits of old chrome left on the tractor after fifty-plus years of service. Pushing the clutch in again, he let the tractor roll to a stop before gently putting her in reverse, the gears making a grinding racket as they begrudgingly meshed with each other with a loud pop.

Slowly he backed in again, expertly aligning the tractor with the discbine behind him. Splitting his attention between the drawbar hitch point and how close he was in relation to the mower, Allen slowly and carefully continued to reverse, making sure to keep the drawbar’s hitch lined up with the mower’s.

Feathering the clutch to slow the tractor down even further, he finally got the two holes lined up, and fully pressing in the clutch again, he put the tractor in neutral. Throttling down, he re-engaged the park lock and jumped down, quickly slipping the hitch pin in, linking the two pieces of equipment together. Leaning down so that he could look underneath, he expertly slotted the cotter pin in and made sure it wasn’t going anywhere before reaching over and adjusting the lift controls to raise the tractor’s drawbar, and by extension the mower’s tongue up so that he could lift the jack stand up and out of the way.

With that task taken care of, Allen clambered back up and turned the tractor off, the Farmall sputtering to a stop. The sudden quiet of the barn felt almost deafening after the racket of the diesel engine. With the engine off, Allen could finish hooking up the mower to the tractor safely. Grunting, he slotted the mower's PTO shaft yoke to the PTO spline on the rear of the tractor, jiggling and rotating it back and forth to get it to slide on.

“Come on, you stupid piece of... got it!” grunted Allen as the yoke slid into place. Giving it a firm tug to make sure it was properly seated, he heard the satisfying click of the yoke pin popping into position, signifying that it was properly attached, and wouldn’t come off while it was spinning. With that done, he hooked up the two hydraulic hoses that would allow him to swing the mower out into its operating position and lift and lower the mowing deck while cutting. Slotting the last hose into place, he did a final check and seeing that everything was good, gave a satisfied nod.

Grabbing his water jug from where he put it down on the workbench earlier, he set it on the platform in between the clutch and brake pedals, and climbed up, settling himself easily into his seat. Hitting the starter button, the tractor once more came to life. Adjusting the lift controls until the discbine tongue was at the right traveling height, Allen double-checked to make sure that he wouldn’t hit anything when he pulled it out of the shed, before turning around and putting the tractor into gear.

Letting out the clutch, he let the tractor roll forward slowly until he and the mower were clear of the door. Pushing the clutch in again, he shifted from first to third gear and let it out, the engine slowing a little as it struggled a bit with the higher gear ratio until he gave it some more throttle, at which point the tractor surged forward, a puff of black smoke bursting from the exhaust pipe as the hungry engine was fed more fuel.

Spinning the wheel expertly, his palm flat against the metal wheel spinner, Allen guided the Farmall through the farmyard. Zipping past the house and up the driveway, he soon reached the end of his drive and without even slowing down, turned right.

Opening the throttle up further, Allen pushed the torque amplifier forward, the tractor speeding up further still. Cruising at nearly fourteen miles an hour, Allen soon arrived at his destination. Backing off the throttle, he let the tractor slow down for a moment before pushing in the clutch and swinging wide to the left before then turning the wheel to the right to better align himself with the entrance to the field. Slowing to a stop, Allen throttled down further, the engine quieting down to a low rumble and putting the 706 in neutral, Allen jumped down.

Walking up to the red-painted metal gate, he undid the chain keeping it shut, and pulled it outwards, giving him access to the field. Wrapping the chain around a nearby post to keep the gate from closing on him as he drove through, Allen trotted back over to the tractor and drove it forward off the road and into the field so that it wouldn’t block the road, and any traffic that may pass by. Shutting it off, he jumped down, stretched, and looked around.

Penny should be here soon, he thought as he walked out into the field, the morning dew getting his boots and lower pant legs damp. He’d already walked the field the day before to see if it was ready to cut. Normally, he would wait until the beginning of the second week in June to cut, but in Equestria, with its favorable weather systems, he was cutting earlier than normal as the grass had practically exploded in growth.

Walking through the waist-high grass, Allen shook his head in wonder, he’d never seen this field look this good before. Usually, the grass would be half the height it was now, and there would be sections that were even shorter. However, everywhere he looked, the grass stood tall and proud as it waved gently in the morning breeze. It was tallest, and thickest along the fence line, however even in the middle of the field it was still very good volume.

“Amazing,” he muttered quietly to himself as he idly inspected a stalk of orchard grass. “Just an extra month of warm weather, and some mana in the soil makes all the difference it seems.”

Tossing the orchard grass away, Allen turned and headed back. As he walked along the fence line, he heard a pair of voices drifting on the wind from amongst the trunks of the apple trees to his right. Unfortunately, the voices were too far away for him to make out what they were saying. Shrugging his shoulders, he figured it was just Applejack and her family out working in the orchard.

Taking in a deep breath as he walked, he let it all out in a happy sigh as the fresh country air tickled his senses. What a beautiful morning, he thought. Just a couple of clouds in the sky, and this slight breeze should help the hay dry down nicely.

Coming to a stop next to the tractor, Allen leaned his shoulder against the rear tire and waited. While he waited, he thought back over the last few days. Apparently, Penny had sent a letter to Blueblood the morning after their discussion, and he had come down to speak with Allen and Penny in person.

He hadn’t stayed long, as he had claimed he was needed back in Canterlot post haste for an important diplomatic summit or something. However, in the short time that he was there, he had quickly laid to rest any worries that Allen had in regards to using DOTI services. That didn’t mean Blueblood was exactly thrilled at this turn of events, but he wasn’t so obstinate that he would block Allen from doing something that he and Penny thought would be beneficial for the business. In the end, he had grudgingly given his blessings on the matter and after learning that Allen was nearly ready to make his first cutting, he had asked Allen to let him know when he had a firm date in mind as he was very interested in seeing how the process worked with human technology in comparison to Equestrian.

Allen had been more than happy to accommodate his request and had asked if he wanted to take a quick tour of the nearly finished barns. Blueblood had regretfully turned down the invitation. However, he had said that he would be quite happy to see the progress the next time he was there. Allen, of course, was fine with this, and soon after Blueblood departed.

With the royal gone, Allen had asked Penny to make sure to send invitations to Checklist and Just Cause for the event, as well as Twilight and Lyra, as he figured they would be interested in watching him work. When Penny had asked why he wanted Checklist and Just Cause there, Allen had replied that he had promised Checklist he would invite her, and he figured that having somepony who could calm her down if she got upset at Blueblood was a good idea. Penny had readily agreed.

After that had been taken care of, both Allen and Penny had sat down and finished the needed paperwork to formally incorporate Allen’s farm. Though Penny had been a bit put out when she learned that Allen hadn’t thought of a good name for the farm, at least in her opinion it wasn’t good enough.

“You can’t just call it The Ross Family Farm and be done with it, Allen!” she admonished, an irritated expression on her face.

Allen merely shrugged dismissively. “It’s what we’ve called our farm since my great grandfather bought the first patch of ground back at the turn of the last century, and it's worked well for us since then, besides, it's not like it really matters anyways.”

“But it does matter!” she shot back, pointing a hoof at Allen in frustration from her seat across the dining room table from him.

Leaning back in his chair, Allen took a sip of water from his glass and gave her a skeptical look. “It happens all the time back home. Naming your farm after your family surname is perfectly normal.”

Penny rolled her eyes and said, “Maybe back in your world, yes, but here it’s another matter entirely. We need to build a brand name Allen if we’re going to be competitive in the market.”

Setting his glass of water down, Allen leaned forward and said, “I think you’re overthinking things here Penny.”

“And I think you're underthinking them!” she shot back. “Ponies aren’t going to buy things from you if you don’t have a name that stands out, Allen! Besides, Ross sounds too close to moss, and nopony likes eating moss.”

“Are you saying that my last name is boring and tasteless?” asked Allen, a bit miffed at having his name compared to lichen.

“Yes! Uh... no offense,” she replied, a sheepish look on her face at seeing Allen’s unamused look. Clearing her throat, she quickly moved on. “Look, I'll make it simple. We want ponies to buy things from us. Our first impression is our name. For example, if you were to buy an apple from Sweet Apple Acres, naturally, you’d think that the apple tastes sweet right? I mean, it’s in the name after all.”

Allen shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Penny shook her head, a serious look on her face. “There’s no guessing about it. I studied this stuff Allen, good marketing is what separates successful companies from those that fail. It’s not just about having a good product, it’s also about making sure that you have a good image to back up that product. We only get one shot to convince ponies that our products are worth buying, and if they don’t buy our products because our brand name sucks, then it becomes that much harder to do business.”

Allen sighed and shook his head as he threw up his arms in defeat. “Fine, you can call it whatever you want. Fuck, call the farm Green Acres or Hidden Valley for all I care,” he paused as he frustratedly rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do we have to get this stuff in now or do we still have some time?” he asked, suddenly feeling very tired.

Penny jotted down some notes on her legal pad. “We still have some time, but the sooner we get it done the better. I can file the needed paperwork with the mayor and just use a placeholder name for tax and insurance purposes until we come up with something more appropriate.”

“They’ll let you do that?” asked Allen as he took another sip of water.

Penny nodded absent-mindedly as she shuffled papers around. “Yep, it happens all the time. Most of the time it’s just the ponies name followed by the word ‘company’.”

“So... we could literally just do what I suggested in the first place?” replied Allen with a cheeky grin.

Penny sighed and glared at Allen. “Yes... we could, but as I mentioned, that is just a temporary solution, and we change the name as quickly as possible. In our case, we can temporarily use ‘The Ross Family Farm’ as a name until we can find a better one.” She paused a thoughtful look on her face, “The one that you just mentioned, ‘Green Acres’ has a nice ring to it, as does Hidden Valley,” she paused as she spread her hooves out to either side as if she were spreading an advert poster on the wall. “I can already picture some of the advert slogans that we could use to sell our products. On the other hoof,” she said, dropping her hooves back to the table, “we could use names from the surrounding area, such as Everfree Farms, though that might not sit well with the locals due to the Everfree’s... strangeness, hmmm....” she idly tapped her chin with the eraser end of her pencil. “We’ll probably want to do a couple of focus groups to see which names ponies will like.”

“Let’s worry about that later,” said Allen as he tried to move the conversation along. “We don’t even know if these names are even available. It could be that someone’s already beat us to the punch.”

“Hmm, you’re right, I’ll need to make some inquiries. In the meantime, I’ll get this stuff over to the mayor’s office and filed, after that, I can head over and coordinate with the local DOTI office to get your buildings re-inspected and approved, along with purchasing those services that you wanted to try out. Then I’ll need to send out invites, do you know when you will be cutting hay?”

“Probably Thursday,” replied Allen. “The weather schedule is calling for dry weather through next week. Steel and Rune told me they should be finished by the end of this week, and since temperatures aren’t going to be much over eighty degrees, it’ll take an extra day or two for it to dry down properly. So realistically, I’ll probably be baling either Saturday or Sunday. Which means the barns should be ready to put hay in.”

Scratching out another note, Penny nodded. “Where are you going to make your first cutting?”

“It’ll be on my land and for my animals only. I want to make sure that everything is working properly before I do any large amount of cutting, so I’ll probably only take down about ten acres or so. It’s still going to be a lot of hay, maybe about a thousand bales or so, possibly more. I walked the field I wanted to cut this morning and the grass looks really good, like really good. Nice and tall, plus it's thick with grasses that’ll give me some good volume.”

Looking up from her notes, Penny asked, “How many acres do you have dedicated for hay production on your land?”

Allen leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He hummed quietly for a moment and then said, “About fifty acres I think is dedicated purely for hay, another fifty as pasture, and the rest for row crops, which I won’t be doing this year, so I’ll just let them lie fallow for now.”

Penny tilted her head to one side and asked, “Why? I thought you would want to do something productive with them?”

Draining the last of his water, Allen paused to swallow then replied simply, “Wouldn’t be worth it,” pointing out past the sliding glass door of his house he said, “Blueblood has given me access to an area of land that is bigger than some countries back home. A couple of hundred acres of depleted cropland wouldn’t be worth my time to do anything with. By the time I got done plowing, cultivating, and planting grass, I could have harvested probably ten times that amount of hay from Blueblood’s land for the same amount of fuel and time I would waste trying to convert that over to grassland. Besides, if I let it lie fallow for a bit, nature will do all the hard work for me, and it could use a rest anyways. Modern human farming practices can be pretty demanding on the soil, so sometimes we are forced to let the field rest for a season or two in order to let it recover a bit.”

“Alright, I see your point,” replied Penny, “with our limited resources, it would be best to focus on what will bring us the greatest return on our investment in the short term while we explore more long-term solutions.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, have you been looking into finding me an alternative fuel to use for when my diesel runs out?”

“I am afraid I’ve been too busy dealing with all of this paperwork, I’m sorry,” she replied sadly. “But, now that we’re almost done, I should be able to devote more time to finding alternatives for your consumables. Though, I’ll need some samples of items that you need so that I can look for suppliers. It would be easier to show them rather than try and explain what we need. About how long can you go before you run out of key materials?”

Allen leaned back and rubbed his chin as he quietly tallied up his inventory in his mind. Thankfully, he and his father tended to buy things ahead of time so that way they had it on hand in case they needed it during the growing season. As a consequence, he had plenty of fuel in the underground storage tanks ready for use, along with critical spare parts, oils, filters, grease, and other necessities needed to run a modern farming operation. Even so, he knew that unless he found replacements, he’d be out of business by the end of the summer, maybe even sooner depending on how much work he did.

Sighing, he replied, “I’ve got enough for now, but I’m going to start running out of things by the late summer, maybe even midsummer depending on how much hay I bale. If my calculations are right, I should have enough fuel and lubricants to get me through a full hay season, but the problem will be if I have enough baler twine.”

“How much do you have?”

Allen tilted his head back and forth for a second in the way people do when they’re thinking really hard about something. “Probably enough for ten, maybe fifteen thousand small square bales, and maybe about five hundred round bales. My dad bought more twine than we needed this year by accident, which I guess was a good thing as it’ll let me pack my barns with hay for my animals and still give me a decent amount to sell at market.”

“And I take it that not just any old twine will do?” inquired Penny as she wrote something down on her legal pad.

Allen shook his head regretfully. “Nope, it needs to be a certain thickness and tensile strength in order to go through the knotter properly. Too thick and the knotter won’t tie it right, and if it’s too thin, the bales will break when they’re getting tossed around. Plus the twine balls need to be designed so that they unwind properly without kinking up and breaking. I’ve got a couple of twine rolls that you can take, one of them is for my round baler and the other is for the square baler.”

Looking up from her notepad, Penny asked, “Which one do you want me to focus on getting first? It might take some time before I can find a supplier willing to retool part of their operation for a single customer... let alone just finding a supplier in the first place. Hay balers are only used in certain areas and so there isn’t much of a market for twine for that sort of thing anyways.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured,” replied Allen with a nod of understanding. “Just try and find something that I can feed one of my balers with, and I’ll worry about making it run right. I doubt anybody is really going to make a fuss over whether I use round or square bales anyways.”

“Which do you prefer doing?”

Allen shrugged. “Each one has its pros and cons, Penny. Square bales are small and easy to move, but they require more people to move them around in large quantities than round bales. Whereas round bales are too big to move by hand, so you need a machine to do it, in our case that’s a con because I don’t have a lot of fuel to waste on moving bales around in the field. If I didn’t have to worry about fuel, then round bales all day long, as I can pack a lot of hay into a single round bale and I don’t have to get hay chaff on me from moving it. Even so, I’ll probably still need someone to help me move things, so we’ll need to hire somepony to come and help when I bale my hay this weekend.”

“I’ll see if anypony is interested,” commented Penny, “there’s usually somepony looking to do an odd job for some extra bits on the weekend, and don’t worry, I’ll take care of the compensation side of things.” Jotting down one final note, Penny closed her notepad and put it away in her saddlebags before jumping from her seat and slipping them over her back. Giving a little jump to settle them just right, she looked up at Allen and said, “I think that’s good enough for today, I’ll get started on securing some help and trying to find some suppliers. Do you think you could get me some samples of the twine and fuel that you need?”

“Sure,” nodded Allen as he stood up and followed Penny. “I’ll get you a small can for the diesel and a pair of twine rolls.”

“Great, there’s no rush to get it for me right now, I’ll collect them this Thursday when I come back,” said Penny as Allen opened the front door for her.

“Sounds like a plan, you let me know how things go with the mayor’s office and the DOTI, alright?”

Smiling, Penny replied, “Of course, and don’t worry, I’ll be sure to get a couple of quotes from them on different packages and let you look them over before we decide on anything.”

“Alright, well I guess I’ll see you on Thursday then,” replied Allen with a wave goodbye as Penny turned to leave, giving her own goodbye as she departed.

The sound of wing beats overhead drew Allen out of his memories and looking up, he spotted a small, Roman-style chariot pulled by a pair of white-coated pegasi in golden armor coming in for a landing on the road behind him. Stepping away from the tractor, Allen approached the gate just as the chariot touched down and rolled to a gentle stop in front of him.

Stepping down from the chariot was Blueblood and a stallion that Allen hadn’t seen before. He was a unicorn like Blueblood, with a wavy azure-colored mane, and tail. His coat looked white until you got closer and noticed the slight grayish hue to it. He was dressed in a black waistcoat, with a blue vest, white undershirt, and purple bow tie, with a monocle completing his ensemble. His blue eyes looked Allen up and down as he used the corner of a well-manicured hoof to stroke his neatly trimmed mustache, an unsure look on his face.

“I must say Blue, you certainly have a knack for meeting... interesting creatures,” he said in a posh, upper-class accent.

Cocking an eyebrow, Allen looked at Blueblood and asked, “Friend of yours?”

Seeing Allen’s unamused look, Blueblood swiftly leaped into damage control mode with a grace befit that of a seasoned diplomat. “Allen, might I introduce you to my old friend, Baron Fancy Pants of Manehattan. I do apologize for not informing you of my plus one beforehoof, but he just sort of invited himself along at the last minute,” replied Blueblood, a touch of faux exasperation coloring his voice.

Extending his hoof, Fancy said, “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ross, though you may call me Fancy or Fancy Pants, I leave the titles for official occasions. Blue here has mentioned you a time or two during our weekly poker games and I must admit, between that and the rumors floating around Canterlot the past few months, I was extremely curious to see what all the fuss was about myself. I do hope it’s no bother.”

Allen gave a curt nod. “No trouble at all,” he replied as he took the offered hoof and shook it gently.

Letting go of Fancy’s hoof, Allen turned to Blueblood and said, “Looks like you guys were the first ones to arrive.”

Blueblood puffed up his chest and smugly replied, “Naturally, being early all but guarantees one gets a good spot to watch the upcoming demonstration.”

“Unless you are a pegasus,” said Fancy Pants teasingly.

Blueblood’s smug expression fell. “Well obviously,” he retorted before straightening up again and saying, “I do not believe we will need to wait long, I believe I spotted a small group of ponies making their way past Sweet Apple Acres as we flew over.”

“Well that’s good,” replied Allen as he looked up in the sky to check the current position of the sun, “cause it’s getting along into the mid-morning, and I’d like to get this field cut and give it a chance to dry a bit before I ted it this afternoon so that it can dry down during the hottest part of the day.”

“I’m sure they will be here soon,” replied Blueblood, before he excused himself for a moment to go and talk with the guards.

Dropping his gaze from the sky, Allen looked at Fancy Pants and asked, “So, what do you do?”

“Oh well, as Blueblood mentioned, I am the baron of Manehattan, but I am also one of Princess Celestia’s advisors and event organizers.”

“Event organizer? Doesn’t sound like something a baron would do,” remarked Allen skeptically.

Fancy Pants chuckled as he removed his monocle with his magic and carefully cleaned it with a handkerchief he had pulled from the breast pocket of his coat. “Normally, I would agree with you old chap, however certain events require a pony with the right connections to properly put together and have it go off without a hitch.”

“And you’re that pony?” guessed Allen.

Fancy Pants nodded, a pleased smile on his face. “Of course, I am the kind of pony that everypony wants to know after all.”

“I bet,” replied Allen, “and how come you wanted to come out here? I wouldn’t expect you would be interested in watching me cut hay.”

“If there is one thing that I have learned from being the baron of the financial capital of Equestria, it’s that one should never pass on a potential opportunity to meet new and interesting people. One never knows what kind of doors they may open,” replied Fancy, a knowing smile on his face.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call myself ‘interesting’, but I am definitely new around here,” replied Allen.

“I think you might be surprised how many ponies will find you interesting, Mr. Ross, the world is an ever-changing place and I have a feeling that you might be someone worth knowing, here,” he said as he pulled out a small silver case and produced a business card, “my card.”

Taking the card, Allen looked it over. With its flowing gold lettering and high-quality paper, it was quite fancy looking, as befitted a pony with the title that Fancy Pants had.

“Blue isn’t the only noble-looking to increase their fortunes, you know,” said Fancy as he tucked the card case away in his jacket pocket. “I’m just as much a businesspony as he is, and I am sure that you are in need of things that may be hard to come by. One of my businesses is shipping and I have contacts all over the world that allow me to acquire resources that other ponies would have difficulty obtaining for you.”

Allen looked at Fancy and quietly nodded. “Well, thank you for the offer, I’ll be sure to keep it in mind,” he said as he slipped the card into his front pants pocket to give to Penny later.

Turning away from Fancy Pants, Allen looked up the road and spotted a small herd of ponies headed their way. “Looks like the rest of the group is here,” he stated as he waved. Several ponies waved back, including Penny, who appeared to be hitched to a small two-wheeled cart.

It was a larger group than Allen was expecting. Besides Penny, there was Twilight and Spike, who was perched on her back, while Lyra trotted alongside Twilight and seemed to be talking excitedly about something to the other unicorn. Up above them, Cloud Kicker and Rainbow Dash lazily kept pace with the group below, occasionally flapping their wings to stay aloft, but more often just gliding along on some weak morning thermals. At the rear of the group were Just Cause and Checklist, who seemed to be fussing over a stallion that Allen hadn’t met before. They were too far away for Allen to make out any details, but judging from the stallion's awkward gait, he seemed to have trouble walking, which probably explained Checklist’s fussing over him. Then there was the last arrival, an earth pony stallion with a dark slicked-back mane and sporting a red tie with a white and blue-collar that seemed to be speaking with Just Cause about something.

When Penny saw Allen waving, she immediately picked up the pace and made a beeline for him, coming to a stop near the gate, while the rest of the group paused to gawk at the nearby tractor and mower sitting just inside the entrance to the field.

Walking over to Penny, Allen said, “I wasn’t expecting this many ponies to show up.”

“Sorry about that,” she apologized as she unhitched herself from her cart, having parked it next to the fence. “Turns out that word got out a bit, and we ended up with some extra tagalongs,” pausing, she peered past Allen and seeing Fancy speaking with his fellow noble, remarked, “I see I’m not the only one who brought a plus one today.”

Allen sighed. “Yeah, so who are the extra guests? I recognize everyone but those two stallions over there by Checklist and Twilight.”

Setting her harness in the cart, Penny looked over her withers at the group nearby and replied, “Well, the earth pony stallion talking to Twilight is Filthy Rich, he owns and runs a company called Barnyard Bargains here in Ponyville, he’s got other stores in several towns and cities nearby. I’ve been talking with him to see if he might be able to help us with part of our supply problem, he said he would look into it.”

“What about the other one talking to Checklist?”

Penny hummed thoughtfully. “I’m not sure about him, he came in with Checklist and Just Cause on the morning train from Manhattan. I think he might be related to Checklist, but I’m not sure.”

“I see, and who invited this Filthy Rich guy along?” Allen asked quietly.

Penny shrugged. “Probably either Lyra or Twilight. I sure as hay didn’t invite him.”

“And Cloud Kicker and Rainbow?”

“Well, Twilight invited Rainbow, and Cloud just kind of invited herself along,” replied Penny.

Allen rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” he sighed and straightening up said, “Well, best get the introductions out of the way. The sooner I get that done, the sooner I can start mowing.”

Chapter 37 (Making Hay Part 2: False Start)

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Chapter 37

“Hey Twilight, Lyra,” greeted Allen as he approached the group of ponies clustered by the entrance to the field.

Turning to face Allen, both Lyra and Twilight’s faces lit up with happy smiles as they trotted up to meet him.

“Hey Allen!” they greeted in stereo. Looking at each other in surprise, they burst into laughter with Allen joining in with a quiet chuckle.

Wiping a small tear away, Twilight was the first to recover and asked, “How are you this morning? Is everything ready for the demonstration?”

Allen nodded, a pleased smile on his face. “Yep, the tractor's fueled up, and the mower is greased and ready to go. So as soon as the meet and greet is done, I can get started.”

“I can’t wait to see what human technology can do,” said Lyra excitedly. “Ever since you showed up Allen, I’ve been working overtime scouring as many libraries as I could, I’ve even been allowed access into the more restricted sections of the Canterlot Archives. Prince Blueblood even said that it might be possible for me to travel to other countries and look through their records as well.”

“What are you hoping to find?” asked Allen curiously.

“Anything really,” replied Lyra with a shrug. “I haven’t found much so far. Though I did find an interesting journal written by Clover the Clever that managed to survive the Discordant Age. Unfortunately, it’s in poor condition and written in Old Ponish, so it’s taking some time for me to translate it.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” replied Allen in encouragement.

“Oh I know, it’s just taking time is all,” she replied with a ‘what can you do’ shrug. “In the meantime, how have you been?”

“Busy,” replied Allen, “Penny has been a godsend, I don’t know where I would be without her. The amount of paperwork I’ve filled out and looked at just makes me want to pull my hair out at times, but we’re getting it all sorted. This,” he said pointing with his chin, “is what I’m good at doing. Being out in the field working, not sitting behind a desk filling out paperwork all day.”

“Ugh, I know,” replied Lyra in commiseration, “filling out the needed forms to get permission to take things from the archives is such a pain in the flank, and don’t even get me started on what I had to go through to even get access to the more restricted sections.”

“Well, there is a reason that they are restricted,” interjected Twilight, “I’m all for spreading knowledge around, but there are some things that should never be shared.”

Lyra nodded. “I get that, but it’s still annoying,” she grumped.

Allen just smiled and shook his head. “Say,” he asked as he looked past the two mares at the group of ponies gathered around his tractor and mower, “do you know who that stallion is talking with Checklist over there?”

Both Lyra and Twilight looked back at the aforementioned stallion. “Nope, can’t really say,” said Lyra.

Twilight likewise shook her head. “Same, though I think he got off the train with them, and Checklist has been staying pretty close to him since they got here. Maybe they’re related?”

“Well, one way to find out I suppose,” said Allen as he strode past Lyra and Twilight, his sights set on the mysterious stallion.

He’d nearly reached the gate when someone called out his name. Turning, he spotted a stallion who he assumed was Filthy Rich waving at him and heading his way, both Twilight and Lyra decided they had other places to be and made themselves scarce.

Cowards.

“Mr. Ross, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, I’m Filthy Rich, owner of Barnyard Bargains.”

“Uh, nice to meet you as well, Mr. Rich,” replied Allen as he took Filthy’s hoof in hand and shook it.

“I would just like to apologize for my daughter's behavior at school the other week. I just can’t imagine what could have made her act that way. She’s such a sweet filly, really.”

Allen internally rolled his eyes. Yeah, real sweet, like vinegar maybe. However, he didn’t let his inner thoughts show on his face, and instead returned the amber-colored earth pony’s smile with one of his own, even if it was a tad forced.

“Well, kids can sometimes say mean things, even if they don’t think they are being mean,” replied Allen diplomatically.

Filthy nodded in agreement. “Oh yes, I agree. That is why it is so important for us older ponies to teach them proper manners. I made sure that my little princess understood how disappointed I was with her behavior and meted out proper punishment. In anycase, that’s not why I am here today, or at least not the main reason,” he said, quickly pushing past the obviously upsetting subject of finding out that your supposedly ‘sweet little princess’ was actually more of a sour little brat.

“And what is the ‘main reason’ you’re here today?” asked Allen curiously, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well, I’d like to speak with you about potentially selling your hay in my stores. I have several you see, and I’m in the process of building more. In fact, we just opened our first one in Manehattan last week, bringing the total to twenty stores nationwide!”

Allen gave a noncommittal grunt. “I see,” he said, looking around to see where Penny had gotten off to, “well I would certainly be interested in hearing what you have to offer us, Mr. Rich. However, I’m afraid I’m not really familiar with the business climate here in Equestria,” he finally managed to spot Penny by the chariot talking with Blueblood and waved at her in an attempt to get her attention. “So, I think it would be best if you talk with my assistant, Penny Farthing. She’s the one who handles that stuff,” he said as he finally caught her attention.

“Oh, well I was hoping to speak with you rather than your assistant,” replied Filthy as he watched Penny trot closer, a disappointed look on his face.

Letting his arm drop to his side, Allen turned back to Filthy and said, “I’m sure, but as I said, Penny is more the business and financial side of things, while I handle the day-to-day operations on the farm.”

“Hello Allen, Mr. Rich,” greeted Penny with a nod as she trotted up to the pair. “What’s going on?”

“Mr. Rich here is interested in selling our hay in his stores,” replied Allen with a nod of his head in Mr. Rich’s direction.

Penny’s face lit up in happiness. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Mr. Rich! You know, I was actually going to come and speak with you about that this week, but since you’re here now, how about I schedule a time and we can go over the finer details later? Say Tuesday at ten o’clock? Will that work for you?”

Mr. Rich looked like a stallion whose cunning plan had just gone up in smoke. Allen internally smiled when he saw the stallion’s barely hidden crestfallen look.

“Uh, yes I think that will work for me,” he replied, a slightly disappointed tone in his voice, before suddenly clearing his throat and saying, “Well since that’s set, I’ll just leave you two be, I haven’t had a chance to take a closer look at Mr. Ross’s machine over there.”

Beating a hasty retreat, Penny and Allen watched the businesspony go.

“You didn’t agree to anything did you?” asked Penny quietly enough so that only Allen could hear her.

Allen shook his head. “Naw, I know I’m not smart enough to handle negotiating with a guy like that. It’s why I waved you over when he started making noises about wanting to do business with me.”

Penny gave Allen a proud smile. “Good, I’m glad to hear that. Knowing when to ask for help isn’t always easy, nopony likes to admit they don’t know how to do something.”

“Yeah well, I’d rather not lose a lot of money because I wasn’t willing to ask for help,” replied Allen simply. “Do you think it would be a good idea to work with him?”

Penny hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe, Filthy Rich is a well-respected stallion around here and if what I heard is correct, his business is doing very well these days, so it would be short-sighted of us if we didn’t at least look into a potential business arrangement.”

Allen nodded but didn’t say anything. Motioning with his head in the direction of the tractor, he strode away, Penny falling in alongside him as he approached the group of curious ponies.

Striding through the gate, Allen spotted Checklist speaking excitedly with the mystery stallion at the front of the tractor. Changing direction, he made a beeline for the two of them, Penny following along sedately behind.

Upon seeing him approaching, Checklist’s face lit up with a happy smile and she nudged the stallion with a hoof and pointed it at Allen. Giving a small wave in greeting, Allen and Penny came to a stop next to the two.

“Hey Checklist, how’s it going?” asked Allen in a friendly greeting.

Checklist happily replied, “Oh it is going great, thank you so much for inviting me Allen.” she paused and turned to wave the other stallion forward. His coat was a dull gray and covered in scars of varying sizes. The more prominent ones ran across his chest and barrel as if someone had tried to gut him with a knife at one point. His right rear leg had a nasty-looking scar running up it from just above his hock to the top of his thigh, neatly bisecting his cutie mark of a pair of gear wheels in the middle. His left rear leg however was worse, as the leg ended at the hock joint, and had been replaced by a wooden and brass prosthesis with a complicated-looking pulley system of belts and gears.

Jesus, what happened to this guy? Thought Allen in amazement, as up until now, he’d never seen a pony as messed up as the stallion before him. However, he kept his thoughts to himself as he stepped forward and stuck out his hand in greeting.

“Allen,” Checklist said simply, “this is my father.”

The stallion stuck out his forehoof, the hoof chipped in places from hard work and shod with an iron horseshoe. “Zubchatoye Koleso is good to meet you,” he greeted in a deep Slavic accent.

Allen felt his eyebrows hike upwards in surprise as he shook Zubchatoye’s hoof. “Zubchatoye Koleso, rad s vami poznakomit'sya,”* replied Allen in turn, earning surprised looks all around.

Zubchatoye blinked in surprise before leaning back and letting loose a booming laugh. “Your accent is strange my friend, but better zen most southern ponies can manage!”

Allen laughed in return. “Well it’s been a few years since I last spoke my mother’s maiden tongue,” he admitted, “so I’m not surprised. Hopefully, it wasn’t too bad.”

“Nyet, nyet,” replied Zubchatoye with a wave of a forehoof. “Just needs bit of vork and you vill be fine.

“Well that’s good to hear,” he turned to regard Checklist with a curious expression. “You never mentioned that you spoke Russian... or whatever the equivalent language is called here.”

Checklist shifted uncomfortably. “I try not to when I am not at home in Serveryana. Most southern ponies look down their muzzles at us, especially those in Canterlot and Manehattan, they consider severyanaian to be a provincial tongue at best and a barbaric one at worst. I spent years working with several speech coaches to lose my accent, and improve my equestrian so I try not to speak severyanaian too much for fear of it coming back.”

Allen nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I understand what you mean. My mother came over to the US in the mid-seventies with my grandfather and grandmother... political shifts back in the old country made staying there... problematic shall we say. Anyways, she didn’t speak very good English, and Russians at the time were regarded with suspicion due to differences in ideological opinions of the two nations. So she and my grandparents had a hard time adjusting, but they managed well enough in the end. My mother was always proud of her heritage, and she never tried to hide it from others. You should be proud of yours too, it’s what made you, well... you,” replied Allen with an encouraging smile.

Checklist returned his smile with one of her own and nodded. “You’re right... though most ponies here in the south do not particularly care for Serveryanian culture. So it is hard to hold onto it when it feels like a large burden on your back weighing you down,” she replied, her smile having faded, replaced by a look of melancholy as old, painful memories resurfaced.

Not wanting to see his daughter upset, Zubchatoye quickly changed the topic to something safer. “So, tell me about zis machine of yours!”

Startled by his sudden, forceful outburst, Allen stared dumbly at the scarred stallion for a moment, before shaking his head and giving them a quick explanation of how a tractor and mower-conditioner worked.

“Amazing,” said Zubchatoye after Allen had finished speaking. He was on his belly underneath the mowing deck inspecting one of the mower blades, his prosthetic leg splayed out to one side awkwardly as he did so. “You say zis machine can cut zis entire field in two hours?”

Allen shrugged. “More or less, it depends on the shape of the field, how rough the ground is, how thick the grass is, and so on. But yeah, it shouldn’t take me very long to cut this field here.”

Zubchatoye shook his head in amazement while Checklist had an excited grin on her face. “See father? I told you this would be worth coming all the way from Princessyn to see this.”

Zubchatoye nodded as he carefully extracted himself from underneath the mower with a slightly pained groan as he awkwardly rose from his prone position. “Da, you vere right, zis is vorth it,” he said as he trotted around to the back of the mower and tapped one of the rubber padded conditioning rollers. “Tell me, vhat do zese rollers do?”

Allen joined him at the back and replied, “They crimp the grass after it's been cut, crushing the cell walls of the plants without tearing them, and allowing the hay to dry down faster by at least a full day.”

“Ve don’t have anything like zis that I know of,” said Zubchatoye as he traced a hoof along the raised chevron patterns in the rollers.

“You know, I’ve been curious to see how you ponies harvest hay, do you use scythes to cut it or something else?”

“Yes, some still use scythes, but a lot of hay cutters are switching to mechanical mowers that they can pull behind them,” replied Checklist helpfully.

“What about tedders and mechanical rakes? Do you guys have those?” queried Allen.

“I’m not sure what a ‘tedder’ is, but I know that we do have mechanical rakes,” answered Checklist.

“Alright, well that’s good to know that you at least have mechanical rakes in case mine breaks, and in case you were wondering, a tedder is a machine that spreads and fluffs the hay after cutting to help it dry down faster,” explained Allen, “I’ll probably be using mine later today after the hay is cut and had a chance to dry a bit.”

Checklist’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, you’re talking about a wuffler! Yeah we have those, but from my understanding, they’re not very common yet,” replied Checklist.

“Interesting name,'' commented Allen as he watched Zubchatoye continue looking over his tractor with a curious eye, talking with Twilight and Lyra as he did so. Looking down at Checklist, Allen cautiously asked, “Say, how did your dad get those scars? Was it from some kind of accident at work or something? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

Checklist stiffened up, her ears falling flat against her mane as she pulled her tail tight against her rump. She didn’t immediately reply to his question. Finally, after a minute of silence, she quietly said, “No, he didn’t, and no offense, Allen, but I would rather not talk about it, and please do not ask my father about it either.”

Sensing he was on very thin ice, Allen wisely backed down and said, “Alright, sorry if I overstepped my bounds, I was just curious is all.”

Checklist relaxed. “Your apology is accepted, and thank you Allen for understanding.”

“Sure, no problem,” he replied with an unconcerned shrug of his shoulders. Glancing up at the sky, he shielded his eyes with a hand and said, “Well, better get to it then before something else-”

“Hey, Allen!” called out Cloud Kicker as she and Rainbow Dash came in for a landing next to him and Checklist.

“...comes up,” finished Allen lamely. Turning to the two pegasi, he gave them a nod in greeting and asked, “Hey Cloud, Rainbow, what brings you both by?”

“Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Rainbow and I were busting some rogue clouds over Sweet Apple Acres when we spotted a bunch of ponies heading this way and decided to see what was going on,” explained Cloud Kicker.

“Yeah, when I saw Twilight I asked her what was happening and she said there was going to be some kind of demonstration out here, so I asked if I could come and she said ‘sure’, and Cloud just kinda tagged along,” added Dash with a grin before her grin faded, and she looked around before hesitantly asking, “So, uh... what is, going on here?”

“They’re just here to watch me cut some hay is all,” replied Allen simply.

“Psh, that’s what all the fuss is about?” complained Rainbow, “that sounds boring.”

Cloud shot Rainbow an annoyed look. “Rainbow, don’t be a jerk,” she admonished.

“I’m not being a jerk,” retorted Rainbow hotly. “I’m just saying that watching somepony cut hay sounds boring! I mean, I’ve seen the hay cutters cut tons of hay before, and there’s nothing exciting about that. The way Twilight made it sound, I thought there was gonna be something exciting happening here, not boring hay cutting.”

Allen smirked at Rainbow. “Is that so? Well, have you ever seen a human cut hay before?”

“Well... no, but it can’t be that interesting,” she replied with a little unsure expression on her face.

Allen shrugged. “Only one way to find out,” he said as he strode towards the tractor intent on getting started. Pulling out a pair of foam earplugs he’d stuck in his pocket earlier that morning, he idly rolled and squished one down as he asked, “Say, how long do you think it would take me to cut this field?”

“What, by yourself?” she asked.

“Yep,” nodded Allen,” Well, myself and my trusty steed over there,” he said, hooking a thumb at the 706 behind him.

Cocking her head to one side, Rainbow sized up Allen’s tractor and mower. Judging by her unimpressed look, she didn’t think much of them. Which Allen supposed was understandable, his tractor was pretty old, and her formerly bright red paint had faded to a muddy brown, and the white paint around the engine bay was stained with streaks of rust, along with a few spots where the paint had blistered and popped leaving a rust spot behind. Plus, he and his dad hadn’t made the time to power wash the years worth of grease and crud that had built up in places, and the tires were worn and had spots where the rubber had pitted and worn down in places from use, which made the tractor look even more run-down than it should.

“She might not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts,” replied Allen confidently. “I bet you I can get this field cut in less than two hours, no problem.”

Hearing Allen’s challenge, Rainbow’s ears perked up and she sneered. “You expect me to believe that that rust bucket can cut this entire field in less than two hours? Heh, no way you can do that. Something like that would take like, a hundred ponies to do and even then I doubt they could do it.”

Allen returned Rainbow’s sneer with a confident smile. “Well then this should be an easy win for you, shouldn’t it?”

By this point, both Twilight and Lyra had trotted over to see what was going on. Oh no, thought Twilight when she heard Allen’s challenge and saw Rainbow’s face, she’s going to do something dumb.

“What’s the bet?” asked Rainbow curiously.

Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully before he said, “How about a wager of say... fifty bits?”

Rainbow scoffed. “Fifty? Come on, those are rookie numbers, you’re gonna have to bump it up if you want me to be interested.”

“Uh, Rainbow,” said Twilight as she tried to catch Rainbow’s attention.

“In a minute Twilight,” waved Rainbow dismissively with a hoof.

Allen glanced over to Penny and asked, “How much money do I have to waste on a bet?”

Penny shot Allen an unamused look and replied tersely, “Not as much as you think you do.”

“Well if I risk a hundred will it cause an issue?”

Penny sighed and shook her head, muttering something under her breath about some deity giving her strength. “Go ahead Allen, it’s your money, I’m sure we won’t miss a hundred bits if you lose it.”

“Great thanks, Penny,” replied Allen cheerfully, before turning back to Rainbow and asking, “Well? Is a hundred bits good enough for you?”

“Meh, I guess so,” replied Rainbow as she stared at her hoof in a bored, dismissive manner.

“Uh, Rainbow, you do know that you still owe me and Thunderlane like sixty bits each right, or did you forget about that little poker game that you lost last week already?” reminded Cloud Kicker, a long-suffering look on her face.

“And I told you, I would pay you back after this week's paycheck comes in, besides, this is easy money, Cloud. I have never seen a pony cut a field this big in under two hours, there’s no way that he can do it!” replied Rainbow confidently.

“So we got a deal then?” asked Allen as he stuck out his hand.

“You got a deal!” replied Rainbow as she shoved her hoof into the palm of his hand and gave it a firm pump.

Smiling confidently, Allen shook her hoof and asked out loud, “Does anypony have a watch? I’m going to need someone to keep time.”

Fancy Pants strode forward and pulled out an elegant gold pocket watch from his vest pocket. “Why do you need somepony to keep time, Mr. Ross?”

“Oh, just a little bet Rainbow and I have going. She doesn’t think I can cut this entire field in less than two hours,” replied Allen, an amused and confident smile on his face.

“Ah, I see, well if that is the case, I would be delighted to be the timekeeper for your little challenge,” glancing down at his watch he said, “It is currently half-past nine in the morning. When do you want me to mark the start time?”

“When I start my tractor,” replied Allen, “I figure that’ll be a good start point, and the end is when the last bit of grass is cut, and I shut off my engine, sound good?”

“It does,” he replied as he wound his watch up in preparation for the coming challenge. “Ready when you are.”

Nodding, Allen turned to address the rest of the crowd. “If I could have everyone’s attention, I’ll be getting started soon, and I’ll need you all to leave the field while I’m working. So if you all could stand on the other side of the fence, that would be great, thanks!”

Hearing his announcement, everypony quickly exited the field and stood along the fence line, looking between the fence rails, or if they were tall enough, standing up and resting the forehooves on the topmost rail. While Rainbow and Cloud Kicker had zoomed upwards and snagged a pair of random clouds to use as improvised viewing seats and after fluffing them they each settled down to watch.

Twilight, Lyra, and Penny were the last to leave the field. “Are you sure you can do this in under two hours, Allen?” asked Penny, a doubtful look on her face.

“Psh, no problem. This is one of my flatter fields, I walked it the other day and didn’t see any sinkholes or animal burrows so I should be able to let fly after I do my first circuit around the field. That’ll be the slowest because I don’t want to accidentally run the mower into the fence and tangle up all the wire around the blades,” explained Allen as he and the three mares walked around to the other side of the tractor and Allen climbed up. Settling himself in his seat, he stuck his earplugs in and said, “Alright, better get back, I’m going to start her up.”

Nodding in understanding, the three mares turned and quickly left Allen to his task.

After one last check, Allen was ready. Pressing in the clutch pedal, he gave the tractor a little choke and hit the starter button. The engine whined as the starter spun up cranking the engine over several times, before with several coughs and chugs, the motor sputtered to life, a puff of black smoke exiting the exhaust stack. Pushing the choke back in, the engine settled into a low growl as Allen let it warm up for a moment. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that several of the ponies had their ears down and had even taken a step back, startled by the loudness of his tractor.

Turning his attention back in front of him, Allen put the tractor in gear and gave her a bit more throttle. Turning the steering wheel to the right, he let off the clutch and let the tractor roll forward as he expertly guided it to his desired starting point. Checking to make sure the mower wasn’t too close to the fence, he pushed the clutch in again and let the tractor come to a stop. Reaching down, he pulled up on a lever next to his right leg and let the mower swing outwards to its operating position before pulling the one right next to the first, this time dropping the mowing deck down to the desired cutting height. With that done, he advanced the throttle and kept an eye on the tachometer as he watched the needle rise to the point where it said, ‘PTO Engage’ before then reaching over his seat and pulling up on a lever behind him.

With the PTO engaged, Allen could hear the quickly building whine of the discbine behind him as it spun up to operating speeds. Many years of experience let him know when it was ready to go, and with a final nod, he let off the clutch and started forward, the mower quickly consuming the helpless grass before it and spitting it out the back in a neat, thick windrow.

Splitting his attention between watching the mower and how far it was from the fence, and where he was going, Allen deftly controlled his steed as he cut his first row of hay in Equestria, a wide smile split his face as he came to the first corner and turned left, the mower staying right where he wanted it, out of the fence and in the field.

The first pass is always the hardest, thought Allen to himself as he made minute corrections to the steering wheel to keep the tractor on course. But after that, it’s simple, you just keep front wheels between the windrow you just cut and you're golden.

He was about a third of the way down the field when he spotted movement out in front of him. It was a small bird desperately trying to get away from the oncoming machinery but it was having trouble taking off, either because it was too panicked or partially entangled by the tall grasses. Either way, it didn’t matter, as Allen gently placed his foot on the clutch pedal and pushed, causing the tractor to slow. Disengaging the PTO, Allen throttled down, the engine quieting from a dull roar to a comparatively quiet burble. Putting the tractor in neutral, Allen jumped down and circled around, quickly spotting the struggling bird who was now tangled in amongst a stand of thick timothy grass.

“Shhh, shhh, you’re alright,” he cooed as he slowly and gently bent down and worked to disentangle the stuck bird. Picking it up, he brought the frightened bird up to eye level and said, “You are a lucky little bugger. I almost didn’t see you there until it was too late, now shoo, I’ve got work to do,” he said as he opened his hands and the terrified bird spread its wings and took flight as fast as it could. Watching it go for a moment, Allen gave a satisfied nod before returning to his seat.

Meanwhile, back at the main gate. The ponies had noticed that Allen had suddenly stopped.

“Hey Rainbow, what’s Allen doing? I can’t see anything from here!” asked Lyra in frustration from her position on the ground.

Leaning over the side of her cloud to look back down, Rainbow said, “I don’t know, looks like he spotted something in the field and stopped before he ran it over. Probably a rock or something,” she guessed.

Cloud Kicker, who hadn’t taken her eyes off of Allen, suddenly gasped when she saw the bird Allen had just released, race for the relative safety of the sky. Leaning over her own cloud, she called down to Penny and urgently asked, “Penny, did you tell Allen he needed to hire a bush beater before he did any fieldwork?”

Penny blinked in confusion and cocked her head to one side. “Bush beater?” she asked before her mind made the connection and she asked, “Oh, are you talking about a field clearer?”

Cloud Kicker groaned. “Bush beater, field clearer, potato, potahto, yes I’m talking about a field clearer! Did you have one come out before Allen started working on this field?”

Penny stood there, her mouth hanging open slightly as she racked her brain trying to remember if she had or not. Her prolonged silence provided all the proof that Cloud needed. Turning to Rainbow, she said, “Rainbow, go get Fluttershy and tell her we need a field cleared pronto. I’ll go and stop Allen before he accidentally kills an animal and contaminates his hay.”

Snapping off a crisp salute, Rainbow took off, obliterating her cloud in the process. The distant rumbling rhythm of Allen’s tractor suddenly changed as he increased the throttle in preparation to resume cutting. Realizing she was running out of time, Cloud Kicker, spread her wings and with a powerful flap jetted off in Allen’s direction, her own cloud also poofing away in her wing’s backblast.

Allen meanwhile had climbed back into the driver's seat and had just throttled up in preparation to resume cutting. Turning around and flipping the PTO engagement lever up, the discbine came back to life, a high pitch whine emanating from underneath the mowers shroud as the blades spun up. Looking up, he spotted a rainbow contrail suddenly heading towards the northeast.

Huh, wonder where Dash is going? He wondered before shrugging, unconcerned about her sudden departure. He was just about to turn around when he spotted a pale purple and yellow streak heading his way very fast. Now he was very confused.

Why is Cloud Kicker heading this way? He thought to himself as he watched the distant pegasus closing the distance. Sighing, he flipped the PTO lever down and listened as the discbine slowed to a halt. Turning around, he throttled down again and waited for Cloud to arrive.

He didn’t have to wait long before the speedy pegasus came to a halt, hovering next to him. Leaning forward on the steering wheel, Allen curiously asked over the noise of the engine, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Panting slightly from her dash over, Cloud replied, “Allen you have to stop cutting.”

“What for? I just got started,” he replied, a confused expression on his face.

“Because you didn’t clear your field of animals before you started, that’s why,” said Cloud Kicker as if that explained everything.

Still confused, Allen leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms in befuddlement. “How the hell am I supposed to clear ten acres of grass of animals and keep them out while I’m cutting? There’s no way I can do that in a reasonable amount of time.”

Not wanting to argue with Allen, Cloud gave him a pleading look and replied, “Allen please, just stop cutting and wait for the bush beater to get here so that she can clear your field before you accidentally run over an animal and contaminate the hay.”

“Are you pulling my chain?” asked Allen, an unconvinced look on his face.

“Allen I’m being one hundred percent serious. This is a real thing you have to do if you want to sell your hay and not get in trouble with the law. Just turn off your machine and wait for the bush beater to get here and she’ll explain everything that needs to happen. I promise it won’t take as long as you think it will to safely clear the field of animals,” begged Cloud desperately, not wanting to see Allen get in trouble because of his impatience.

Letting go a frustrated sigh, Allen reached forward and turned the key, shutting the tractor off. Pulling it out of the ignition and sticking it in his pocket, he grumbled as he stepped down.

“If it’s not one thing, it’s another around here.”

Author's Notes:

Oh so close, well at least we get to meet the final member of the Mane Six.

I hope I didn't butcher Zubchatoye’s accent too badly, if I did I apologize in advance. I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but for those of you who play Hearts of Iron 4, and specifically, the Equestria at War mod, you might have recognized many of the names that I've used for places, such as Wingbardy and New Mareland, along with a few other things. Unlike in EaW, Stalliongrad doesn't exist here, Princess Celestia stepped in before things became bad enough for the population there to revolt and break away from Equestria like in the EaW timeline, though that doesn't mean everything was sunshine and rainbows up there, as evidence by Zubchatoye's scars and missing leg, but that's a story for another day.

*(Rough translation: Gear Wheel, glad/good to meet you.)

Chapter 38 (Making Hay Part 3: Kindness Arrives)

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Chapter 38

“Now, please hold still, Mr. Robin, I know this is very uncomfortable, but if you want your leg to heal right, I need to put this splint on properly,” instructed a butter-yellow pegasus mare gently as she tended to an injured robin.

The bird chirped softly as the mare carefully tended him, a kind smile on her face as she worked. Humming softly, she tied the last knot and said, “There we go, all done. Now, you’ll need to stay off that leg for a few days while it heals, so let’s see, which nest box is open?” she idly tapped her chin with a hoof as she quietly trotted around her living room, peering in to see which nest was unoccupied.

“Ah, here’s one,” she said happily. Gently picking the bird up in her hoof, she carefully settled him inside his new, temporary home. “Now, you wait right there and I’ll go get you some food and water.”

The robin gave a thankful tweet as he carefully maneuvered himself into a more comfortable position in his new nest. The mare meanwhile had turned and trotted into her kitchen to get him something to eat and drink. Rummaging around in her seed pantry, she located an appropriate seed mix for the robin and filled a small bowl with it, along with filling another bowl with water. Placing the two bowls in a wireframe to hang from the nest box, she returned to the now settled robin and attached the food and water bowl combination to the front of his box so that he wouldn’t have to leave his nest to eat or drink.

“There you go,” she smiled, happy to have helped another animal in need, “do you need anything else?”

The robin, having taken a quick drink, replied with a negative chirp.

Glad that he was fully settled, the mare said, “Alright, well if you need anything else, don’t be afraid to ask.”

Turning away from her newest patient, the mare was about to return to the kitchen to make herself some tea when a rustling of feathers outside, followed by the sound of somepony attempting to beat her door in with their hooves startled her and her animal friends, who all scurried for whatever cover they could find.

“Fluttershy? Are you in there?” called the raspy voice of her friend, Rainbow Dash from outside.

Relaxing somewhat, Fluttershy quickly opened the door before Dash could upset her animal guests any further.

“Rainbow, please don’t knock so aggressively, it spooks the animals,” admonished Fluttershy softly.

“Yeah yeah, sorry, look Cloud sent me to get you. We need you to do an emergency field clearance,” replied Rainbow hurriedly.

“R-right now?” stuttered Fluttershy.

“Yeah, right now,” said Rainbow with a firm nod.

“What happened? I didn’t think anypony needed a field cleared so soon. Did Carrot Top decide to expand her carrot patch after all?” asked Fluttershy timidly.

Rainbow shook her head. “No, it’s that new farmer that showed up after we beat Discord, you know the one the mayor sent that letter out about?”

Fluttershy blinked in confusion as she racked her brain trying to remember what Rainbow was talking about. Due to her social anxiety, even if it had gotten better over the years, she didn’t get out and interact with other ponies that much so it was easy to miss hearing about happenings in town.

Seeing Fluttershy’s confusion, Rainbow groaned and said, “The human? You know, the tall bipedal monkey-looking thing that Discord brought here?”

“Oh!” she gasped as the pieces finally clicked into place. “That’s what that was about?”

Rainbow groaned impatiently. “Yes, that’s what that was about, so now that that’s cleared up, can we go now? I have a bet to win.”

Fluttershy nervously pawed at the ground with her front hoof as her pink mane fell over her face, covering one of her eyes. “I’d really like to help, Rainbow, but this is really sudden and I’m not sure if I can afford to be away from the house right now.”

“Ugh, come on Fluttershy! I’ve got a hundred bits riding on proving that monkey wrong. I mean, it can’t take that long to clear a field! I’ve seen you work your magic before,” complained Rainbow.

“Well, that depends on how big the field is,” replied Fluttershy quietly, “Do you know how big it is?”

“Don’t know, didn’t ask,” replied Rainbow dismissively.

A feeling of frustration welled up inside Fluttershy, and taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and said firmly, “Well if you don’t know how many acres it is, how am I to know how many warding stakes I need to bring or how many helpers? I don’t even know where this field even is, Rainbow. You know I’m not a very strong flyer... or strong period, so if the field is too far away, I won’t be able to get to it today.”

Taken aback by Fluttershy’s sudden burst of assertiveness, Rainbow stammered, “W-well it’s over by AJ’s place on the road that leads out of town towards Pine Top, a-and the field wasn’t super big, maybe a bit bigger than one of Carrot Top’s carrot patches?”

Fluttershy sighed and gently rubbed her face with her hoof. She loved Rainbow like a sister, she really did. Ever since flight camp, she and Rainbow had been good friends, but some days, Rainbow really tried her patience, which was saying something.

Taking another deep breath, she let it out in a quiet puff and said, “Alright, so it’s southwest of Applejack’s orchard and is bigger than one of Carrot Top’s fields.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Rainbow as she nodded her head in reply. “So... are you gonna do it... or what?”

Fluttershy felt one of her eyes twitch and took another calming breath in reply. “Only if you pull my supply cart,” she replied calmly.

Giving Fluttershy a cocky grin, Rainbow leaped up into the air and hovered in place, flexing her muscles. “No problem! Just show me where that cart is, and I’ll get it over there in ten seconds flat!”

Returning Rainbow’s exuberant expression with an unamused one of her own, Fluttershy simply replied, “Wait for me over by my shed out back and remember, don’t go in it,” she finished, a hint of warning in her tone.

“Yeah, yeah I know,” said Rainbow as she gave a powerful flap of her wings and rocketed over Fluttershy’s little cottage.

Shutting the front door, Fluttershy turned around and paused when she spotted a small white bunny staring up at her with its arms crossed and a disappointed look on its face.

Sighing, she said, “Don’t give me that look, Angel. You know I have a hard time telling my friends no, especially Dash, even if she is an insufferable jerk sometimes. Besides, business has been slow this spring, and if you want me to keep buying you fresh carrots, I need to do this.”

Angel unfolded his arms and gingerly hugged his caretaker's leg in an attempt to comfort her and let her know that he wasn’t upset with her. Smiling at him, Fluttershy gently rubbed his back before saying, “It’s okay, I know you’re just looking out for me. I know I can be a pushover sometimes... okay maybe a lot of times, and I am working on being more assertive, it’s just... really hard. Anyways,” she said as she gently removed her hoof from Angel’s hug and carefully picked him up and placed him on her back. “We’d better get things together before Rainbow gets antsy, you know how she doesn’t like waiting.”

Angel just rolled his eyes, and Fluttershy giggled in reply.

Turning her attention away from her passenger, she quickly set about organizing everything and everyone that she would need for this upcoming job.

It didn’t take long for Fluttershy to gather everything she needed, it helped that Harry the bear was visiting as he was able to carry more in a single trip than she could in several. Settling the last of her animal helpers and items in her specially built cart, Fluttershy turned to Rainbow and said, “Alright Rainbow, this is very important, I need you to go slow while pulling this cart. A lot of things in here are delicate and they break very easily if you’re too rough while pulling.”

Slipping into the cart's harness, Rainbow absently nodded her head. “Go slow, yeah, I got it.”

Sensing that her friend didn’t get it, Fluttershy walked around so that she was fully facing Rainbow and said, “I’m serious Rainbow, you need to go slow, if you go too fast, you’ll break things and upset my animals, and if you do that, I will be very upset with you,” her voice was as hard as steel as she spoke, and when Rainbow glanced up from a particularly troublesome buckle, she saw that Fluttershy had unleashed her trademark Stare on her to ensure Rainbow knew she wasn’t going to let this slide.

Nopony who had ever been on the receiving end of one of Fluttershy’s Stares could ever fully explain what it was about the way the normally timid mare looked at you that made them so nervous and willing to do the pegasus mares bidding. However, one thing everypony could agree on was that if Fluttershy turned The Stare on you, you either messed up big time or were about to, either way, nopony liked it and did their level best to avoid her wrath.

Feeling a drop of sweat roll down the side of her face, Rainbow chuckled nervously and replied, “G-go slow, no prob, I’ll go so slow that a snail would be flying in comparison to me.”

“You don’t have to go that slow, Rainbow, just be careful, please,” replied Fluttershy with a roll of her eyes at her friend's sudden dramatics. “If you’re not sure how fast to go, just keep pace with me, now are you all set?”

Shaking her head to dispel the effects of The Stare, Rainbow gave herself a final check over and seeing everything was good, nodded at Fluttershy, “Yep, all good to go!” she replied with a newly returned confident smile.

Smiling in reply, Fluttershy spread her wings and with a bit of a trotting start, was soon airborne, with Rainbow and the cart right behind her.

Rising up above the treetops, the two pegasi oriented themselves in the proper direction and set off. For several minutes, neither one said a word, eventually, however, Rainbow broke the silence and asked, “So have you met him yet?”

Not taking her eyes off her flight path, Fluttershy replied, “Met who?”

“Allen? The human that we were just talking about?” asked Rainbow as if it should have been obvious who she was referring to.

Temporarily splitting up to bank around a particularly tall tree, the two were soon side by side again. Shaking her head, Fluttershy finally glanced over at Rainbow and said quietly, “You know I don’t like meeting new ponies by myself Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah, I know, but Allen’s not a pony. I mean, I heard you got all excited when you met Spike for the first time, I figured that Allen wouldn’t be much different.”

Fluttershy’s cheeks suddenly turned red in embarrassment and she replied, “W-well, that’s because Spike is a baby dragon, and he was smaller than me, so it wasn’t as intimidating to talk to him. I did read that pamphlet the mayor sent out, and it sounds like Allen is a lot taller than Spike was.”

“Oh, I guess that’s a fair point,” said Rainbow lamely. Conversation between the two soon petered out. The only sounds around them were their wing beats and the occasional deep breath as they continued their journey.

“So... I’ve been meaning to ask you if you don’t like talking to other ponies, how come you started doing this job? I mean you have to talk to a lot of different ponies to make sure you get things done right, doesn’t that bother you?” asked Rainbow suddenly when she couldn’t take the awkward silence any longer.

Fluttershy didn’t say anything for a bit, and Rainbow was afraid that Fluttershy either hadn’t heard her or was ignoring her question. However, with a quiet sigh, Fluttershy replied, “It does bother me, but it’s really the only job I can do, Rainbow. I’m not a strong flyer, never have been, and I’m very awkward when it comes to talking with other ponies, so that means I just can’t do a lot of jobs that other ponies do. When I moved to Ponyville, my parents had to send me money every week so that I could feed myself, and sometimes they would have to physically bring me food because I was too scared to leave my cottage. I hated it, I hated that I was so weak and awkward that I couldn’t support myself, but I was too scared of messing up and being bullied like I was back in Cloudsdale that I couldn’t get a normal job. I almost ended up moving back in with my parents before I happened to see a wanted ad for field clearers here in town. That’s how I ended up meeting Mrs. Soil.”

“Who’s Mrs. Soil? I don’t recall ever hearing that name around town before,” asked Dash curiously.

Fluttershy shook her head. “I doubt you would, she passed away before you moved here, she was the old field clearer for Ponyville and by the time I met her, she was pretty old.”

“So how did you apply for the job? I thought you said you were too scared to leave your cottage?”

“I was, but my mom was in one of her rare assertive moods and practically dragged me along to meet Mrs. Soil to see if she would give me the job,” replied Fluttershy quietly. “I was so scared that she had to practically carry me up to her front door and knock on it for me.”

“What happened next?”

“Mrs. Soil answered the door and my mom made the initial introductions and explained that I needed a job, and that I had... issues that made it difficult for me to find employment. Mrs. Soil I guess was either desperate or took pity on me because she hired me on the spot.”

“Really? Just like that, no interview or anything?” asked Dash skeptically.

Fluttershy shook her head. “Nope, no interview or anything. She just smiled and waved us inside and started telling me about what the job entailed. She was really patient, and she never once yelled at me if I messed something up. She would just tell me what I did wrong, show me how to fix it, and move on,” she paused as she smiled fondly at the old memories, “she was a very kind mare and she helped me overcome a lot of my earlier social anxieties and awkwardness. I worked for her for three years before she passed away... I still really miss her, she was my first friend here in Ponyville, and I don’t know where I would be right now if it wasn’t for her taking me in like that.”

“So what did you do after she died? I mean, obviously, you’re still doing the job, but I mean... you know?” asked Rainbow awkwardly as she tried to say what she meant without coming across as mean.

Fluttershy nodded, understanding Rainbow’s intent, even if her delivery wasn’t the best. “I don’t think I left my cottage for a week after she passed away. I hadn’t found Angel yet, and I didn’t have as many animal friends as I do now, I mean I had Harry around, but he was still a bit shy and didn’t visit me as often as he does now. So I didn’t have anyone to really comfort me while I grieved and I almost gave up again and went home. Thankfully Granny Smith came by and helped me pull through my grief. She got me back on my hooves and working when she noticed I had missed our yearly field clearing appointment. I will admit, it was really hard for me to go back to work without Mrs. Soil around to talk with the customers, but I think by then most ponies knew I was very shy, so they just kept things simple and business-oriented.”

“So that’s how you deal with that stuff? Just keep it focused on business?”

“More or less,” replied Fluttershy with a nod, “I still get really nervous around new ponies, but clients that I’ve had for years know how to put me at ease and I’ve grown to trust them, so it works... for the most part. Having Angel around also helps a lot,” she said with a happy smile that was aimed at the little white bunny riding in the cart behind Rainbow.

Rainbow shot Angel a skeptical look but chose not to comment further on the matter. The two falling back into a more comfortable silence as they winged their way over Sweet Apple Acres.

In short order, Rainbow spotted Allen’s home and barns in the distance. “We’re here,” she said, pointing with a hoof at a small crowd of ponies gathered around a tall, bipedal individual and, to Fluttershy, a pair of strange-looking mechanical contraptions in a nearby field.

“Oh my, it looks like they already started,” gasped Fluttershy as she sped up, having noticed the cut swath of grass along the fence line.

“Yeah, but Cloud Kicker stopped him before he could go too far,” replied Rainbow as she and Fluttershy came in for a landing on the road outside of the field.

Rolling to a stop, Rainbow started unhitching herself from the cart, while Angel Bunny jumped off and settled on Fluttershy’s back between her wings.

“Fluttershy!”

“Oh, Twilight! I didn’t know you were here,” exclaimed Fluttershy in surprise when Twilight trotted over to give her a hug in greeting.

Nodding in excitement, Twilight replied, “Sure am, neither Lyra nor I wanted to miss seeing how human technology works after all!”

“Yep,” nodded Lyra as she too came over to greet the newly arrived pegasus. “I’ve been very excited to see what Allen and his machines can do, though it looks like somepony didn’t tell him he needed to have his fields cleared of animals before starting.”

“Oh, I hope no little critters were hurt,” said Fluttershy as she began opening boxes and pulling out various tools, and setting them in her saddlebags.

“I did a contamination scan while we waited, and it doesn’t look like anything was injured or... killed in the area he already cut. Thankfully, Cloud Kicker stopped Allen before he went too far,” replied Twilight as she watched Fluttershy open a pair of cages and let a pair of border collie dogs out. They each had a collar around their neck with several dull-looking gemstones stitched around the outside of the collar, while at the center sat an empty bezel shaped like an oval.

Pulling out a pair of small rubies, Fluttershy carefully inserted them into the empty bezel. With a quiet click, the two rubies lit up with a soft glow that spread along the collars towards the other gems in pretty patterns. As a string of light hit each gem, they would each begin to light up, until all of them were giving off a soft, warm glow.

Patting the two canines on their heads, Fluttershy cooed, “Alright now, it looks like we have a decent-sized field to work in today, so no slacking off, alright?”

The two dogs barked in readiness and scampered over to the fence line before stopping and waiting for their caretaker to follow behind.

Satisfied her two helpers weren’t going to get into trouble, Fluttershy turned her attention back to Twilight and said, “Well I’m glad to hear that. So, um, where is, um... Allen, you said?”

Motioning with her hoof, Twilight cheerfully replied, “He’s over by his tractor, come on, I’ll take you to him.”

Falling into step alongside, Fluttershy followed. However, as they got closer to the large group of ponies, she felt her anxiety ratcheting up with each hoof step. Sensing his caretaker getting upset, Angel Bunny hopped forward and hugged the back of her neck, snuggling deep into her soft pink mane and offering her what comfort he could. His efforts were not in vain, as Fluttershy felt herself relax a little at feeling his comforting presence as if her worries and fears were being drained away.

Coming to a stop at the edge of the group, Twilight motioned for the tall, bipedal creature that Fluttershy had seen from the air earlier, to come over.

“So is this the pony we’ve been waiting for?” he asked as he strode over, a light gray unicorn mare followed along behind him.

Twilight nodded. “Yes, Allen, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Fluttershy. Fluttershy, this is Allen Ross. He is the human that Discord brought here after we beat him.”

Sticking his hand out in greeting, Allen waited for Fluttershy to return the gesture, but instead, she seemed to shrink back at his presence. Having spent enough time around horses, Allen could see that Fluttershy was nervous. Judging from the way she shied away from his outstretched hand and shifted her hooves, he suspected that it wouldn’t take much to get her to bolt. So in an effort to put her more at ease, he withdrew his hand and elected to sit down so that he was nearer her eye level rather than looming over her.

“So, what all do you need me to do?” he asked casually, as he sat down. Already he could see her relax now that he wasn’t in a more imposing position.

“Um... well, I don’t really need you to do much,” replied Fluttershy softly.

“Alright, so... how long will this take and how much will it cost?” he asked, getting straight to business.

Shifting from hoof to hoof nervously, Fluttershy hesitantly replied, “W-well it depends on h-how many acres you n-need cleared. S-since this is an e-emergency field c-clearance, i-it’ll cost you ten bits per acre, p-plus material, which a-adds another t-ten bits per acre cleared.”

Looking over his shoulder at Penny, Allen asked, “What do you think?”

Penny sighed tiredly, having already expected to be paying more money than she wanted to and resigning herself to that fact. “It’s not what I wanted to hear, but beggars can’t be choosers so, if we want to get this done today, we don’t really have a choice.” Turning her attention to Fluttershy, Penny asked, “We need ten acres cleared today, can you do that?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I believe so,” looking at the nearby fence she pointed at it and asked, “does that fence go all the way around the field?”

“Yep,” replied Allen with a nod.

Putting her hoof to her mouth, Fluttershy let out a sharp whistle, her two border collies swiftly bounding over and coming to a sliding halt in front of the little pegasus.

“Alright Roy, Nan, you two know the drill. Stay inside the fence and push out all the critters that you can, and remember, no rough play, got it?” instructed Fluttershy, like a general would to their troops. Both dogs barked their understanding before racing off in opposite directions becoming quickly lost from view in the tall grass, the only sign of them being the disturbed grass shaking at their passing.

Trotting back to her cart, Fluttershy pulled a harness out and began fastening it to herself. Curious, Allen and Penny watched the quiet mare as she carefully slipped the harness over her head and began cinching it tight to her body. It was made of canvas with various small gemstones sewn into it at certain places. Each gemstone seemed to have a faint light inside it that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Watching from his sitting position, Allen leaned over and asked Penny, “What’s she doing?”

Penny opened her mouth to reply, however, Cloud Kicker chose that moment to show up and replied instead, “That’s an animal repellent harness. It’s designed to emit a feeling of uncomfortableness that makes small animals flee an area. The two dogs Fluttershy released into the field also have gems in their collars that emit that same feeling.”

“How come it doesn’t affect the dogs then?” asked Allen.

“Because the gems are tuned to smaller animals more than larger ones, and Fluttershy told me she trained her dogs to ignore the faint feeling the gems emit while they are working.”

“So these gems make small animals think that there is a predator nearby or something?”

Cloud nodded. “Something to that effect. Plus, the dogs reinforce that by providing physical stimuli to back up the feeling of unease that the gems produce.”

“Huh, cool,” replied Allen as he went back to watching Fluttershy get ready. “So what’s with that mask she’s got?” he asked when he spotted her pull out a mask shaped like the head of a hawk.

“It’s part of what makes Fluttershy such a good field clearer,” replied Cloud Kicker as they watched Fluttershy put the mask on and adjust it until it sat where she wanted it. “Most field clearers are earth ponies, and while they all wear the same harness that Fluttershy is wearing, and use dogs to herd unwanted animals out of fields, it takes them a lot longer because they have to physically walk the field in order to flush out all the animals. With Fluttershy, because she’s a pegasus, she can fly and she uses the mask to make herself look more like a large bird of prey from the ground.”

“Which makes all the little birds and critters run for their lives,” finished Allen.

“More or less,” nodded Cloud Kicker, “there’s a bit more to it than that, but the whole point of field clearing is to make animals think the field isn’t safe to be in, hence the dogs running around barking and making a ruckus, along with the gem emitters and Fluttershy flying around.”

“Neat, but what’s to stop the animals from coming back later? I doubt that this little process will scare them off permanently.”

Shaking her head, Cloud replied, “No it doesn’t, that’s why she uses warding stakes. Once the field is cleared, or mostly cleared in some cases, she’ll go back and put little warding stakes around the edge of the field. The stakes have runes in them that mimic her harness’s gemstones and will keep animals out of the field. Larger animals are generally unaffected, but you can usually see those while you’re working and so they’re less likely to get hurt or killed during harvest operations.”

“Cool, so how long will this take?” asked Allen as he watched Fluttershy give a few test flaps of her wings before jumping into the air and gliding out over the field.

“Not long, maybe an hour or two for a field this size. The tedious part is putting the stakes in the ground and making sure they’re not too far apart, but in this case, since you’ve already got fence posts up, she’ll probably just use them as her planting points,” replied Cloud as they watched Fluttershy circle the field several times, before suddenly diving down like, well, a bird of prey and causing a flock of quail to break cover and scatter.

“So, I take it you’ve known her for a while?” asked Allen quietly.

Cloud Kicker nodded. “Yeah, we go way back. I’ve known her since I lived in Cloudsdale before my parents were transferred to Canterlot. We even went to school together, though I was a couple of grades ahead of her. She’s always been awkward and shy, and a lot of the other foals would bully her, so she has a hard time opening up around other ponies.”

“Yeah, I know how that goes,” said Allen with an empathic look on his face. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of bullies growing up as a kid. The best way I found to deal with them was to stand your ground and not take any of their shit. Most bullies are cowards and if they think you’re gonna mess them up, they’ll leave you alone.”

“Yeah, but not everypony is willing to do that,” replied Cloud quietly as the little group watched Fluttershy spook another group of birds into flight.

A calm silence fell upon the group as conversation dried up, the distant conversation of the other ponies and the barking of Fluttershy’s border collies as they raced through the field having the time of their lives.

The sound of approaching hoofsteps made Allen look over his shoulder.

“So tell me, how long do you think she will be?” asked Blueblood.

Allen shrugged. “Cloud said about an hour or two.”

“I see, well, in that case, I believe Fancy and I will retire for an early lunch then. We shall return in one hour,” replied Blueblood. As he was turning to leave, he paused and asked, “Would anypony like for us to bring them something to eat?”

Allen shook his head. “Naw, I’m good.”

“Oh, thank you Prince Blueblood, that’s very nice of you. If you don’t want to buy a bunch of different things for everypony here, might I recommend the party sampler platter from Sugar Cube Corner?” said Twilight, a little too quickly, “It should be enough for everypony here to at least have a snack.”

Blueblood looked like he suddenly regretted his offer of bringing food back, but decorum forbade him from backing out now, so instead, he simply nodded and left.

Once Blueblood was out of earshot, Rainbow looked at Twilight and gave her a hoof bump. “Nice going, Twilight. I can’t believe you talked him into buying that for us!”

Twilight returned Rainbow’s hoof bump and smugly replied, “Well I figured he owed us after the whole Gala fiasco. Just be sure to save some triple chocolate cake for Rarity, you know how she’ll get if she finds out we didn’t save any for her.”

Rainbow cringed. “Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets a piece.”

“What happens if she doesn’t get some?” asked Allen curiously.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “She’ll whine for hours about it.”

Allen chuckled and went back to watching Fluttershy work. It was interesting watching the pegasus mare work. She would slowly circle the field, much like a hawk would, riding thermals and occasionally flapping her wings to stay aloft. Every once in a while she would dive down on a random patch of ground and then take off. Sometimes it looked like she was holding something in her hooves, and she would fly to the edge of the field and touch down again, before lifting off once more. Meanwhile, her two dogs were crisscrossing the field and slowly working their way down to the other end. However, the thing that really caught Allen’s attention was a little white rabbit wearing a little orange hardhat and high vis-vest, carrying small wooden stakes, along with a little hammer, from the cart that Rainbow had pulled earlier, and planting them along the fence line. It was honestly one of the most adorable things Allen had ever seen.

Getting up from his sitting position, Allen carefully approached the little rabbit. The rabbit noticed Allen’s approach and paused its work to stare up at him, seemingly unconcerned about the giant two-legged creature approaching it.

Squatting down nearby, Allen watched as the bunny resumed its work planting the wooden stakes next to each fence post and hammering them into the ground with several mighty, for it, swings.

“Careful Allen, you don’t want to mess with Angel Bunny, he can get pretty mean if you provoke him,” cautioned Cloud Kicker as she walked up beside the human.

Turning to look at her, Allen replied, “I just wanted to take a closer look at what he was doing. I’ve never seen a rabbit drive stakes before... or do anything really besides eat, poop and breed.”

“Angel Bunny is special,” replied Cloud Kicker, “I don’t know where Fluttershy got him, but he’s always been smarter than the other animals she looks after, and he only likes Fluttershy. He’s mean to everypony else.”

“He doesn’t seem that mean,” observed Allen as he watched Angel drive another wooden stake into the ground with a forceful swing. Which was pretty impressive to him, considering that each stake was easily as long as Angel was tall and was as wide as one of the bunny’s forearms. “If anything, he looks like a pretty hard worker, I mean, look at how easily he’s driving those stakes, a couple of swings and bam, he’s done,” Allen shook his head in amazement, “I ain’t never seen anything like that before.”

Angel shot Cloud a smug look, picked up another stake, and hopped to the next fence post. Cloud stuck her tongue out at the bunny but kept her distance. Allen meanwhile had inched closer and closer till he was next to the little white rabbit, who when he noticed how close Allen was simply looked up at the human, and pointed at the small pile of stakes with a paw and motioned for Allen to follow as he hopped to the next fence post. Allen looked down at the pile, then at Angel, who was impatiently waiting for him, and tapping his hind paw on the ground, and then back to the pile at his feet. Shrugging his shoulders, he picked them up and followed after Angel.

Squatting down again, he gently placed one of the warding stakes in the ground and held it while Angel swung his hammer with all his might, driving the stake into the soft ground with minimal effort, before moving on to the next post. This process repeated itself until Allen ran out of stakes. When Angel motioned for another stake, Allen opened his hand to show that it was empty. Setting his hammer down, Angel pointed at Allen, then at the distant cart, and made shooing motions with his front paws.

Taking the hint, Allen stood up and walked back to the cart to get some more. It didn’t take him very long to find more as they were in a box sitting in the back of the cart. Deciding it would be faster and easier to just take the whole box with him, Allen reached in and picked it up. Looking inside, he could see the box was nearly full of the little stakes, and balancing the box on the side of the cart with one hand, he picked up a stake to examine it more closely. It was about ten inches long and made of some kind of wood that Allen couldn’t identify, and it was painted a bright white, with various runes carved into the wood. At the top of the stake was a piece of gemstone inset into the wood and where all of the runic lines met. Holding it up closer to his face, Allen could see that the gemstone emitted a soft green light and that this light seemed to flow out of the gem and along the carved pathways.

Huh, that’s kinda cool, thought Allen as he placed it back in the box.

Picking it back up, he quickly returned to the waiting Angel Bunny. Setting it down next to the rabbit, he said, “I figured it would be easier to just bring the whole box with me than to keep going back to the cart for more when we run out.”

Angel just nodded and picking up his hammer once more, got back to work. As the two worked silently together, Allen came to a sudden and strange realization.

I’m talking to a rabbit, and the damn thing understands me. If I hadn’t seen magic and flying ponies already, I’d think I was going crazy... either that or I just became Dr. Doolittle.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose with a weary hand, Allen took a deep breath and held it while he counted backward from ten. Letting it go with a gusty sigh, he shook his head at the weirdness of it all. A sudden and insistent thumping pulled him out of his weary thoughts. Looking down, he spotted Angel impatiently thumping his paw against the ground as he waited for Allen to give him another stake. Shaking his head, Allen reached down and handed him another one.

“Sorry, I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed all of a sudden,” said Allen wearily while he held the stake steady for Angel. The bunny didn’t reply, beyond simply rolling his eyes at Allen’s dramatics and driving the new stake into the ground with several well-practiced swings.

This pattern continued, Angel would drive a stake next to a fence post, and then move on to the next one, while Allen followed along behind carrying the box with the extra ones inside, before pulling one out and holding it steady for Angel to drive deep into the earth. Allen wasn’t sure how much time had passed while the pair worked, but eventually, their routine was interrupted by a large winged shadow crossing over them.

Looking up in the sky, Allen shielded his eyes from the rays of the sun and spotted Fluttershy coming in for a landing next to the working pair. Lifting her mask up, she wore a tired, but happy smile upon seeing the two together.

“Aw, are you helping my little Angel Bunny, Mr. Ross?” she cooed happily while picking up Angel and snuggling him against her face.

“Uh, yeah, I guess I am,” replied Allen as he stood up from his bent-over position, his muscles aching from being hunched over for so long. Cracking his back, he gave a content sigh and said, “I wasn’t doing anything anyways, and when I saw him, I figured I’d give him a hand and speed things along.”

Looking around, he noticed that they were on the final stretch of fence with maybe another two to three hundred feet to go before they reached the gate. Working the kinks out of his neck, Allen remarked, “Huh, didn’t realize we were this close to being done already.”

Still snuggling Angel, who had at first tried to escape his mistresses affectionate grip, but had now resigned himself to his fate, Fluttershy replied proudly, “Well when he puts his mind to it, my little Angel can be a very hard worker.”

Allen nodded. “I can see that. I’m honestly, both impressed and a little frightened by that.”

Setting Angel down, who promptly jumped out of snuggling reach, Fluttershy turned to Allen and cocked her head, a confused look on her face. “Why does that frighten you? Angel’s not scary at all, he’s actually really sweet, aren’t you Angel Bunny?” said Fluttershy as she made baby talk at him. He promptly stuck his tongue out and pantomimed gagging on something disgusting.

Fluttershy ignored this.

“Well... to be honest, coming across an intelligent rabbit-like Angel here is kinda... disconcerting to me, if I’m going, to be honest,” replied Allen as he hesitantly rubbed the back of his neck. “Back home, most animals don’t really make a habit of acting, like well... people, if you get my meaning. The thought of sapient rabbits being able to form an army and pillage my fields and garden kind of terrifies me.”

Fluttershy giggled. “Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about bunny armies looting your carrot patches and burning down your hay fields. As far as I know, Angel is the only rabbit that acts like this. All the other ones are just normal bunnies that are more scared of you and other ponies than anything else.”

“He is? Well, that is kind of reassuring, but it’s still kind of odd,” mused Allen as he watched Angel continue his work. “Where did you find him?”

Fluttershy tapped her chin as she tried to remember, but her mind came up blank. Giving a shrug with her wings she replied, “I... don’t really remember, I think I found him orphaned near the edge of the Everfree, but the details... are kind of fuzzy...” she trailed off as she suddenly got an odd faraway look in her eyes.

When she didn’t move or even blink for a minute, Allen became kind of concerned. Waving a hand in front of her face he asked, “Uh, are you okay? Hello? Anyone home in there?” he snapped his fingers in front of her muzzle, but she didn’t so much as blink. The lights were on, but no one was home.

Angel, noticing his mistress's odd behavior, quickly hopped over and jumped up on her back, giving it a firm thump with one of his rear paws. This snapped her out of her daze and she blinked, looking around confused. “Oh my, I seem to have drifted off there.”

Giving her a skeptical look, Allen nodded. “Yeah, you kind of spaced out for a minute, you okay?”

Feeling a little woozy, Fluttershy took off her mask and gently rubbed the side of her head. “I think so, oh maybe I overdid it today. I’m not the strongest flyer, so when I have to do a big job on short notice like this, it tends to take a bit out of me.”

“I can get you some water if you want?”

She shook her head. “Oh no, I should be okay, I brought some water and snacks with me. I’ll be fine once I have something to eat, but thank you though,” she replied with a smile. However, when she turned to leave, she swayed and nearly fell.

Reacting quickly, Allen easily caught her in his arms. “I gotcha, guess you’re more tired than you thought you were.” He said as he adjusted her in his arms, carrying her like he would a dog. Setting course for the gate, he left Angel to finish his work.

Cheeks red from embarrassment, Fluttershy hid her face behind her flowing pink mane and stuttered out, “I-I’m okay, you d-don’t need to c-carry me.”

“I think I do, you nearly fell down back there, so something isn’t right. Just hold on, and we’ll get some food and water in you and you can rest by the cart,” replied Allen firmly.

Realizing he wasn’t going to put her down, Fluttershy resigned herself to being carried. Though, a small part of her found the process kind of nice.

As the pair of them approached the gate and the small crowd of ponies, there was a gasp and a cyan blur raced towards the pair.

“Fluttershy are you alright?!” exclaimed Dash in concern.

Giving her a weak smile, Fluttershy nodded. “I’ll be fine, I think I just overexerted myself. I didn’t really get a chance to have lunch before you came and got me earlier. So I guess I didn’t have as much energy as I thought I did.”

“Fluttershy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t...” began Dash, but Fluttershy cut her off with a shake of her head.

“I’m not hurt or anything Rainbow, just tired and hungry. I forgive you, so you don’t need to worry, though if you would maybe not hurry me next time, that’d be kind of nice.”

Rainbow momentarily looked ashamed, but that quickly passed as she gave a firm nod, a look of determination replacing the shame. “I will, I promise,” she said with a smile.

Fluttershy returned the smile with one of her own, while Allen set her down gently next to her little cart. By this point, both Twilight, Lyra, and Cloud Kicker had rushed over to express their concern after seeing Allen carrying her in. After reassuring everypony that she was fine, Fluttershy, with a little help from Twilight, removed a small picnic basket, water jug, and blanket and set up an impromptu picnic by the gate.

“Allen, would you go get my mask, please? I think I left it out in the field,” asked Fluttershy softly as she and her friends sat down on the blanket.

Giving her a thumbs up, he left to go get it. Walking through the field, he spotted Angel Bunny driving the last few stakes nearby. As he walked by, Angel paused and regarded Allen with an unreadable expression, as if he were sizing Allen up for something. Feeling an unexplained shiver go up his spine, Allen gave himself a shake and hustled over to where Fluttershy had left her mask behind.

Bending down, he picked it up and set it in the now empty stake box that Angel had left behind, probably due to how heavy and ungainly it was for him to move. In short order, Allen returned to the group, just in time to see Blueblood and Fancy Pants return with a large pink box floating between them.

Setting the box down on the picnic blanket, Blueblood regarded Twilight with an unamused look. “Here is your party sampler platter, Ms. Sparkle.”

Giving the noble a sweet, innocent smile, Twilight happily replied, “Thank you, Your Grace, that was very kind of you.”

Blueblood gave a noncommittal grunt. “Yes, I suppose it was. It was certainly expensive enough,” he grumbled, “Though I find it somewhat odd that your friend, Ms. Pie, seemed to know I was coming and had it ready and waiting for me when I got there.”

Twilight chuckled. “Her Pinkie Sense probably told her you were coming,” she replied deftly, dodging the unasked, but implied question of whether she had planned this little stunt beforehoof.

Blueblood arched an eyebrow. “‘Pinkie Sense’”? he asked skeptically, obviously not buying her excuse.

Opening the box and selecting a succulent-looking cream-filled donut, Twilight nodded, still smiling. “Yep, Pinkie has a sort of sixth sense, don’t ask me how it works, I tried to figure it out once and ended up in the hospital for my troubles.”

“My word, the hospital, what on Equus happened?” gasped Fancy Pants, concerned over how something as innocent-sounding as figuring out whether your friend had premonition powers could land you in the hospital.

Taking a large bite of her donut, Twilight replied, “I had a frog fall on me, got smashed into a wall by a door, got stung by a bunch of bees, fell into a cellar at Sweet Apple Acres, had a flower pot, anvil, hay cart, and a piano fall on me, got chased by a hydra and then burst into magical flames due to an emotional magic overload.”

Both Allen and Fancy Pants were regarding Twilight with twin looks of increasing disbelief and concern as she listed off her various injuries during her study of Pinkie Pie. Blueblood still didn’t look convinced.

“Jesus, how the fuck are you still alive?” asked Allen incredulously.

Polishing off the last of her donut, Twilight shrugged. “Believe it or not, unicorns are pretty tough, not as tough as earth ponies mind you, but we can take a few hits when we need to. Though it still sucked, so I don’t recommend trying to repeat my experiments if you value your health.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” said Allen with a shake of his head.

“Nor I,” added Fancy Pants cautiously, as he looked around as if afraid Pinkie would suddenly appear and cause chaos.

Blueblood simply rolled his eyes and gave a skeptical huff. Turning to Allen, he asked, “So are you ready to resume your work then?”

Allen shrugged. “Don’t know,” he replied, before looking at Fluttershy, “Is the field ready to go yet?”

Taking a small bite out of red velvet cake, Fluttershy chewed and swallowed. “I believe so, both Roy and Nan are lying over by the gate resting and it looks like Angel just finished putting the last stake in the ground, and I didn’t see anything moving around on the ground during my last flyover. So I think you should be okay.”

“Perfect,” replied Allen, a big grin on his face as he eagerly turned and headed for the gate. “Hope you’re ready to pay up when you lose Dash, cause that money is as good as mine!” he called out over his shoulder as he left.

Rainbow Dash, not one to let a taunt go unanswered, sprang up into the air and fired back, “Oh I’m ready, alright, ready for you to pay up!”

Laughing, Allen called out to Fancy Pants, “You got your watch ready?”

Pulling said watch from his pocket, Fancy opened it up and took note of the time. “Ready when you are,” he said with a nod.

“Alright, start timing me when you hear the sound of my engine.”

“Will do,” called back Fancy as he watched Allen jog across the field.

Turning his attention away from Allen, he asked, “Do you think I should start over at sixty minutes or deduct some from the first attempt?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course, you should give him a time penalty,” scoffed Rainbow, “it’s his fault for not making sure everything was good to go in the first place.”

“But Allen didn’t know,” interjected Fluttershy, “so I don’t think that would be very fair to him.”

“But-”

“Fluttershy is right, Rainbow,” said Twilight, cutting off Rainbow’s protest, “Allen didn’t know, and he hasn’t done that much. Let’s just reset the clock as that will make it easier to determine if he finished the field in time.”

Rainbow crossed her forehooves and pouted. “He still cut some of the field though.”

Rolling her eyes, Twilight replied, “Alright, I’ll go ask him if he’ll take a time penalty, but if he says no, you have to abide by it, okay?”

“Fine,” grumped Rainbow.

“Alright, I’ll be right back,” nodded Twilight, before she lit up her horn and teleported with a flash of bright light and a pop.

Reappearing next to Allen’s tractor, she inadvertently startled him in the process.

“Whoa!” exclaimed Allen as he jumped back from Twilight’s materialization point.

Blinking the stars from her vision, as teleportation still left her a little disoriented. Twilight gave Allen an apologetic smile and said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“Did you just teleport?” asked Allen incredulously.

Puffing her chest out in pride, Twilight nodded. “Sure did. Though I’m still getting the hang of it,” she continued a little more humbly this time.

“Well that would explain why your tail is smoking,” replied Allen dryly.

Whipping her head around, Twilight saw that her tail was indeed smoking, prompting her to yep in alarm and quickly use her magic to dispel the acrid-smelling smoke before it could get any worse.

“Does that always happen?” asked Allen as he tried to suppress an amused chuckle.

“Less than it used to,” replied Twilight absently as she carefully inspected her tail and mane ends to make sure nothing else was smoking or damaged. “Teleportation involves a lot of energy and math, and if you don’t do it right, it can cause the caster to come out the other end a little... charred around the edges.”

“I think I’ll stick to walking, seems a little safer,” remarked Allen, wary at the idea of suddenly finding parts of himself on fire or missing.

Satisfied that her mane and tail ends were safe from spontaneous combustion, Twilight turned her attention fully to Allen and said, “Oh, don’t get me wrong, modern teleportation spells are quite safe I assure you. If you don’t cast it within safety tolerances, the spell won’t fire. The worst thing that can happen to you is part of your mane, tail, or horn tip gets a little singed.”

“Still walking,” said Allen, still not fully convinced on the merits of teleportation.

“Yes well, I’m still not comfortable teleporting with passengers yet, so it’s a moot point anyways. Regardless, we’ve gotten off-topic.”

“And what topic would that be?” asked Allen as he prepared to resume cutting.

“It’s about the bet, Rainbow wants to give you a time penalty because you already cut some of the field. Fluttershy doesn’t think you should be penalized as you didn’t know about the need to clear the field of small animals beforehoof.”

Allen shrugged, seemingly unconcerned at the idea at being given a time penalty. “Sure, you can give me a five-minute penalty, not like it’ll help her. I’ll still get this field done in less than two hours.”

“Are you sure that’s okay Allen?” pressed Twilight, a doubtful look on her face.

Waving her question off, Allen climbed up and said, “I told you, it’s fine. Now, get back to the others, I’m gonna get started.”

Nodding in understanding, Twilight lit up her horn and disappeared in a flash of magic. Allen, not expecting her to teleport again, jumped in his seat, startled again by the sudden flash of light. Holding a hand to his chest while he waited for his heart to stop racing, he shook his head and muttered, “She better not make a habit of doing that. Feels like she set off a damn flash-bang next to me.”

Rubbing his eyes in an attempt to get rid of the afterimage of Twilight teleporting, Allen leaned forward, pushing in the clutch as he did so, turned the key, and hit the starter button. The old Farmall’s engine whined for a couple of seconds before with a couple of coughs and chugs, the old diesel motor roared to life. Giving it some more throttle, Allen let the engine warm-up for a minute before turning around and flipping the PTO lever up. The engine slowed down for a second as the PTO shaft engaged and brought the discbine to life behind him.

Satisfied that everything was working properly, Allen put the tractor in gear and gave it more throttle before letting out the clutch pedal, the tractor surging forward as if eager to get back to work.

Watching from his seat as the mower turned the tall, proud-looking grass into neatly cut windrows to dry in the late spring sun, Allen happily thought to himself, Time to make some hay, and win a bet!

Chapter 39 (Making Hay Part 4: In the Field)

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Chapter 39

With the throttle wide open, the Farmall roared across the field at eight miles an hour, the discbine whining behind as it effortlessly cut the tall, thick grass into neat and tidy windrows. Even though this was one of Allen’s smoother fields, with very few bumps and ruts, that didn’t mean there were no bumps or ruts, and every time he hit one, he felt it.

“Urk!” he grunted as his seat bounced wildly up and down, its old hydraulic cylinder and springs bottoming out each time Allen hit an imperfection in the field.

I’m gonna feel this tomorrow, he thought regretfully as he came to the end of another row. Pulling the torque amplifier lever back towards him, he felt the tractor lurch roughly as the TA did its duty and ‘down shifted’ the tractor, slowing it so that Allen could turn.

Keeping one eye on the end of the row, and one on his rear wheel, Allen waited until his rear tire had nearly cleared the uncut section of the field before rapidly spinning the wheel to the right with the palm of his hand. The tractor's hydraulic steering whining as he hit the stops, the tractor practically spinning ninety degrees on a dime before he spun the wheel back to the neutral position and straightened out. Looking back over his shoulder, he smiled when he saw the discbine make the turn effortlessly, and with no uncut grass left behind.

The perfect turn, he grinned to himself, turning forward and readying himself for the next turn, which was rapidly approaching. Again, he effortlessly made the turn and found himself pointed back towards the front of the field, where everypony else was watching with interest.

Back on the long straightaway, he pushed the TA lever forward, the tractor surging with power as the TA gave him more speed as he rocketed down the long straightaway. He glanced to his right and examined the remaining grass to be cut.

Looks like another two, maybe three passes, and we’ll be done, wonder how much time I have left? He pondered idly to himself as he drew closer and closer to the group of ponies and the end of his current row. Years of practice meant that he could effortlessly split his attention between keeping the tractor and mower on course and making sure they were operating correctly.

Reaching the end of the row, Allen watched as the mower easily cut the last of the grass, and with a nudge of a lever, he lifted the mowing deck up. The blades now cutting nothing but air now as he made a wide turn to the left and then back to the right, so as to line up with the other side of the uncut section of the field. It was just one of the little quirks you had to deal with near the end of a cutting session, especially on a rectangular field such as this one, as the uncut section got narrower and narrower. Eventually, you just couldn’t make the turn anymore because it was too awkward to do so. Which necessitated Allen’s current maneuver.

Getting lined up on the previous windrow, Allen put it between his front tires and lowered the mowing deck as he hit the edge of uncut grass. The mower scything effortlessly through it as he made another run up the field. To many people, the back and forth nature of cutting grass would grow boring very quickly, but for Allen, it was a satisfying, and uncomplicated job, it was just him, his tractor, and nothing else, no angry customers to deal with, no overbearing boss nagging you about a mistake on your TPS reports, no emails or phone calls bugging you, just you, your mechanical steed and nature.

Coming to the end of the row once more, Allen could see that there was only a single pass worth of grass remaining. So as he finished his current pass, he again swung the wheel left, the tractor dutifully following its master's orders without hesitation. Once far enough out, he turned the tractor back to the right and easily lined up on the final row.

Dropping the mowing deck a final time, Allen gave the Farmall more throttle, the tractor speeding up as the end drew near. Thankfully, the final row was narrower than his discbine, which meant that he wasn’t going to have a ‘row of shame’ to go back and cut. This made the odds that he would finish in time and win the bet more in his favor.

Aaaaand... done, he thought happily as the mower cut down the last few feet of standing grass, leaving a perfect windrow of drying hay behind. Throttling down, he flipped the lever behind his seat, disengaging the PTO, the mower soon whining to a halt. Raising the mowing deck up, he aimed his tractor at the gate and gently rolled to a stop next to the small crowd of gathered ponies.

Putting the tractor in neutral, he turned it off and waited to hear the results.

Glancing down at his watch, Fancy Pants cheerfully announced, “Allen is the winner with thirty-three minutes remaining!”

“What?! I lost?! How could I lose?!” exclaimed Rainbow in disbelief as Allen leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest, a satisfied smirk on his face as he reveled in his victory, even if it was a minor one. After all, knowing roughly how long it takes to cut a field that you’ve been cutting for twenty years makes it pretty easy to win a bet on how long it would take you to cut it, barring a random breakdown of course.

Chuckling to himself, Allen recalled many summers gone by when he was out bouncing around on a tractor making hay.

As soon as my feet could touch the pedals, dad had me out there cutting hay.

Uncrossing his arms, he hopped down and shook his head with a grin, replying, “Sorry, Rainbow, but a deal is a deal.”

Rainbow grumbled something under her breath. “I’ll get you the money next week after I get paid,” she said out loud.

Allen shrugged, in truth, he wasn’t really interested in the money, he was just as happy with knocking the boisterous pegasus down a peg or two. Though the money was a nice consolation prize. “Eh, you can give it to Fluttershy instead, that’ll cover half the bill for her coming out and clearing this field for me.”

Rainbow looked like she had just bitten into an especially sour lemon. Giving a jerky nod of her head, she forced a smile and said, “Sure, no problem.”

“Don’t forget about the money you owe me and Thunderlane, Dash,” cut in Cloud Kicker in an overly happy voice as she gleefully reminded Rainbow of her other debt obligations.

Her forced smile took on a more rictus look as she turned her attention to Cloud. “Yep, I didn’t forget about you guys, don’t worry.”

It was then that Fluttershy trotted up and handed Rainbow and Allen their respective bills. “Um, payment is due in seven days, if you can not pay the full amount by then, we can work out a flexible payment plan... if that’s alright with you of course.”

Looking the bill over, Allen shrugged and passed it to Penny, who folded it up and tucked it away.

“Penny handles that stuff for me,” replied Allen, while Penny nodded her head.

“I’ll also be the main point of contact in regards to future service requests,” she added helpfully.

“Oh, I see, well... um, if that is the case, then I’ll need some contact information from you... m-mine is on that billing statement I just gave you.”

“I’ll be sure to give that to you before you leave. We’ll need to schedule an appointment to get the rest of Allen’s hay fields cleared as well. How does next Tuesday sound, say around noon? We could have a working lunch, my treat,” she replied with a professional smile.

Fluttershy nervously nodded. “T-that s-should work, I think.”

“Super, I’ll see you then, my office is across from the bank at the corner of Market Lane and Saddle Street,” explained Penny happily as she gave Fluttershy a business card, though, from the looks of it, Fluttershy wasn’t as enthused about venturing that far into town to meet with her. Still, business was business, and so long as she had Angel with her, she’d be alright.

“W-well if there is nothing else that you need from me, I guess I’ll go home now,” said Fluttershy as she slowly backed away from the group and headed towards her cart.

“Hey, Fluttershy! Wait for me, I’ll pull your cart home for you!” yelled Dash suddenly as she chased after the shy pegasus. Allen figured she just wanted to get away from Cloud’s teasing more than anything else and grabbed onto this as an excuse so as to not lose any more face in front of everyone.

“Welp, there she goes,” commented Cloud Kicker as they watched Rainbow runoff.

“Yep, there she goes,” repeated Allen.

“So... what’s next?” Twilight curiously asked after trotting over to Allen and Cloud.

“Oh, I’ll wait a couple of hours and come back and ted the hay, after that just normal chores and stuff,” replied Allen with a shrug. “I’m gonna go and have lunch real quick and get the tedder hooked up in the meantime.”

“Would it be okay if we tagged along, please? I have so many more questions to ask you,” begged Twilight, a hopeful look on her face.

“Sure, just don’t get in the way, I’d hate to run you over by accident,” replied Allen as he made to climb back up on his tractor.

“Allen, before you go, may I have a word with you?” called out Blueblood.

Pausing, Allen turned around and asked, “Sure, what’s up?”

“I’m afraid that Fancy Pants and I must depart, we have an afternoon engagement that we cannot miss, I’m afraid.”

“Alright, well thanks for coming, I guess,” said Allen as he waved goodbye.

“Thank you for letting us come,” replied Blueblood with a thankful nod, “it was a very interesting experience. Seeing you take down that much grass in such a short time by yourself was quite a sight. I look forward to when you are ready for full-scale production.”

“As soon as Fluttershy clears some of your land for us, we’ll be running as fast as we can. Though for how long, I don’t know, but we’ll run it for as long as we have the supplies to do so.”

Cocking an inquisitive eyebrow, Blueblood asked, “What supplies are you low on?”

“Baler twine mostly. Though fuel will become an issue sooner rather than later,” he nodded his head towards Penny, who was busy speaking with Checklist and her father by the gate. “I already told Penny, and she’s asked for some samples of what I need, that’s why she brought that little cart with her today. Hopefully, she’ll be able to find a supplier for me soon.”

Sensing an opportunity, Fancy gently cut in. “If it is hard to find materials you are looking for, I would be happy to assist where I can.”

Remembering the business card that Fancy had given him earlier, Allen reached into his front pocket and pulled it out. It was slightly crumpled from having been in his pocket while he’d been up on the tractor, but it was still intact. Looking it over, he saw that it had Fancy’s contact information on the back, and nodding he handed it to Penny, who had just returned, having finished talking with Checklist, for safekeeping.

Taking the card from Allen, she looked it over in turn and replied, “We would be happy to see what you have to offer us.”

Smiling, Fancy Pants replied jovially, “Splendid! I will have one of my ponies get in contact with you tomorrow and make the necessary arrangements.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Allen with a nod.

Giving Fancy a gentle nudge, Blueblood cut in, “While I am glad to see you expanding your business contacts old friend, we really must be going,” giving Allen, and Penny a nod of farewell, Blueblood hurried his friend along, “thank you for having us here Allen, and until we meet again.”

“See ya, have a safe trip,” said Allen as he and Penny waved goodbye. Both Blueblood and Fancy returned his wave with one of their own as they climbed into their chariot and departed, the pegasus guards getting a running start before with several powerful beats of their wings, they were airborne and heading north towards Canterlot.

Looking around, Allen could see that their initial group had shrunk considerably, besides Twilight, Lyra, and Cloud Kicker, the only other ponies left were Just Cause, Checklist, and Zubchatoye.

“Hey, you guys planning on sticking around or heading out?” called Allen.

“Is it alright if we stay?” asked Checklist hopefully.

Allen shrugged. “Sure, the more, the merrier,” waving them to follow him, Allen climbed back up on the tractor and started it up. Fiddling with the hydraulic levers to the right of his seat, he swung the discbine back into its traveling position behind the tractor, and satisfied that it was good, put the tractor in gear and headed back for the barn.

Watching Allen expertly navigate his machinery through the gate and onto the road, Twilight and the others followed along as Allen shifted into a higher gear and left them behind. By the time the group of ponies caught up with him, Allen had already backed his mower into the shed and unhooked it; he would clean it off later.

Jumping back on his tractor, he sped off to hitch up to his hay tedder which he kept in a smaller shed elsewhere on the property. While they waited for Allen to return, Twilight and the group decided to sit on the front porch as it was out of the way and provided a decent field of view of the farmyard.

They didn’t have to wait very long before Allen returned. Coming to a stop near the shed he put the mower away in, Allen shut the tractor down and hopped off, disappearing inside. Twilight, deciding to get a closer look at the new piece of equipment, got up and trotted over to inspect it, the rest of the group following along behind her.

Reaching the tractor, Twilight saw that Allen had returned and was busy greasing the mystery machine. Clearing her throat, she asked, “So Allen, what is this?”

Glancing up from his task, Allen replied, “It’s my hay tedder or as you guys call it a ‘wuffler’.” Detaching his grease gun from the zerk fitting, he used an old piece of cloth to wipe the end of it off, keeping it clean for later use.

Stepping closer, Twilight looked the machine over, it looked like it had been in use for a long time as there were various dents and dings in the tube frame, and small spots of rust marred the faded orange paint. Spotting what looked like a company logo, she leaned in and used a hoof to wipe some of the dust away to get a better look. It was a red diamond with bold white lettering.

“Kuhn? That’s an odd name,” she said, reading the name out loud.

“I think it’s a French company,” replied Allen as he checked the tire pressure in the two small tires along with the hay tines. This took a couple of minutes as they were each attached to the end of a metal arm, and there were twelve arms to check, with six to each rotor, and since he couldn’t easily turn the arms manually, he had to walk around the machine to look them over one by one for broken or missing tines.

“But they build some of the best hay-making equipment on the market, so a lot of farmers in my area use them,” he explained as he finished his final inspection.

“Interesting,” muttered Twilight as she jotted down several notes. “So how long before you go back out?”

“A couple of hours, it’s pretty sunny out and with this light breeze, the hay will dry nicely,” replied Allen as he finished his tasks and put his tools away.

Walking over to a corner of the shed, he called over to Penny and said, “I’ve got those material samples for you to take, Penny.”

“Wonderful,” she replied as she brought her cart over for Allen to load. “I’ll get to work on finding suppliers immediately.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Allen with a nod. “You mentioned that you could help find me some help to put hay away as well?” he asked.

Penny nodded in reply as she lifted one of the twine rolls into her cart and secured it with some rope. “Yep, how many do you think you will need?”

Lifting a yellow fuel can into the cart and tying it down, Allen replied, “Well, usually my dad, sister, and I were all we needed to put a small field away like that as we generally only got at most seven hundred or so bales off it during first cutting and less for each subsequent cutting. But, considering how thick the grass is, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up with double that amount, which means I’ll be baling a good chunk of the day. Plus I’m not sure how well ponies can handle small square bales with hooves.”

“I think you might be surprised what an experienced pony laborer can accomplish,” cut in Checklist, in defense of her fellow equines, “regardless of tribe, all of us are used to using our hooves and mouths to move and manipulate things of varying sizes and weights.”

“I never intended to make it sound like I thought ponies couldn’t do the work,” replied Allen, his hands up in a placating gesture, “I just meant that I wasn’t sure how many workers I would need, ideally, you want three, one to put a bale on the hay elevator, one to take it off and pass it up to the final person who then stacks it. Anything less than that, and you’ll be going slow. My concern is that we’ll need more ponies to pass hay bales up the stack once it gets tall enough because of how unwieldy a forty to fifty-pound bale can be when you’re carrying it up said stack. Plus you have to take into account the issue of worrying about putting a hoof into a gap in the hay and getting hurt. I've lost my footing numerous times and fallen into gaps in the haystack, and I only had to worry about two legs, let alone four.”

Penny nodded, seeing the point that Allen was trying to make. “Yes, I see what you’re saying. We’ll also need to take into account stacking hay on the wagons and moving it from the field to the barn.”

Allen shook his head and replied, “Naw, we don’t have to worry about that, I’ve got a couple of hay baskets, so we don’t need anyone standing on the wagon stacking hay. Though I do like the idea of having a pair of ponies pulling the baskets between the field and the barn, it would save me from having to stop baling to deliver the hay.”

“What is a hay basket?” asked Lyra curiously, she’d also conjured a notepad and pencil from somewhere and was rapidly writing things down in it alongside Twilight.

“It’ll just be easier to show you, come on,” said Allen as he waved for them to follow him with his arm. The group falling in behind him.

They didn’t have far to go, as once they cleared the second machine shed, Allen came to a halt and pointed at a pair of three-wheeled contraptions parked next to the shed.

“There they are,” he said, pointing at the nearest one. It was very tall, nearly as tall as the shed’s eve. It had three wheels arranged in a triangle, two rear wheels connected by a thick axle that could carry the heavyweight of a full load of hay, and a single pilot wheel that could spin in a three hundred and sixty-degree arc. It was painted red, though after years of sitting outside, the paint had long since faded and there were several visible rust spots. The actual basket itself sort of looked like an upside-down triangle made of metal tubes welded together with a long chute starting just in front of the pilot wheel and angling upwards until it terminated at the top of the basket. A small sign on the side of the basket bore the name of the company, EZ-Trail.

“Each one can hold around eighty to a hundred bales if you really stuff them, but that requires stopping and climbing up top to move the bales around,” explained Allen as he pointed up at the basket closest to them.

“How do you get the hay in them?” asked Checklist curiously.

“The baler pushes the bales up this chute and they drop into the basket, you’ll have the occasional broken bale, and some of the bales can get deformed if they land wrong, but it’s a small price to pay for turning a two or three-person operation into a single person one,” replied Allen as he happily patted the chute with a hand.

“How do you get them out?”

Pointing to a lever next to him, Allen replied, “Pull this lever, and that will release a latch at the rear, allowing the entire back end to swing out, dropping the hay on the ground.”

“Ingenious,” said Zubchatoye in amazement, the possibilities of such a labor-saving device running through his head. “You said zer is baler zat goes vith zis hay basket of yours?”

Allen nodded and gestured back the way they came. Guiding the group of ponies, he escorted them into the first machine shed and pointed at a squat, boxy-looking yellow and red painted machine sitting in a corner, with the words, New Holland printed on the front in bold yellow letters, and said, “There she is, my family’s square baler.”

Trotting over, his hooves beating an odd cadence on the concrete floor as his prosthetic didn’t quite have the same sound as if he had a real flesh and blood leg, Zubchatoye looked the little baler over with a barely restrained look of wonder and amazement. He desperately wanted to tear this machine apart and see what made it work, but that would be rude, and he didn’t want to end up with extra spare nuts and bolts when he put it back together.

How zat happens, I vill never know, he wondered to himself as he inspected a chamber at the front of the baler. It was obvious that this is where the hay entered the machine. Though as to how Zubchatoye wasn’t sure.

Turning to Allen, he asked, “So, how does zis vork?”

“Well,” began Allen as he strode up next to the curious pony, “when the baler is running, these,” he pointed at one of the metal tines set in between a pair of metal slats, “are attached to a mechanism inside behind these metal guards that turns in a counterclockwise motion. As the tractor pulls the baler along behind it, these tines will pick up the hay and feed it into this feeder chamber here,” he pointed at the rectangular chamber just behind the pickup head. “Inside, either an auger or in this case a feeder tooth will pull the hay into the bale chamber where a giant plunger will squish the hay into flakes,” he pointed at a square hole in the side of the feeder chamber. Squinting his eyes, Zubchatoye could make out the front of the giant plunger. He noted that it had a sharpened edge and winced at the thought of what it would do to any pony unfortunate enough to be caught in it.

Walking around to the backside of the baler, Allen opened a metal box and said, “This is where the baler twine is kept,” he pointed at several rolls of twine inside, “when I put a new roll in, I tie it to another one, so that way when the first roll runs out of twine, the second will begin feeding automatically.”

Propping the lid open, he traced the twine with his finger to where it entered the baler. “Here is where all the magic happens,” he said as he lifted another metal cover-up exposing the complicated mechanism underneath.

Hopping up on his rear legs, Zubchatoye rested his forelegs on the top of the bale chute and took a closer look at what Allen was pointing at. Inside was a mess of gears, levers, screws, and chains that Zubchatoye desperately wished to tear apart and figure out how they worked. However, he held himself back and waited for Allen to explain.

“This is the most important part of the baler, and the most finicky,” he began, “here is where the twine is wrapped around the bale and knotted. If the timing is off, you could end up with poorly tied bales or even wreck your baler, so it’s very important that the knotter mechanism is adjusted just right.”

Nodding his head in understanding, Zubchatoye pointed at a pair of crank handles just past the knotter that were attached to a long metal bar set above where the hay would exit the baler. “Vat are zese for?” he asked curiously.

“Those set the tension bar here,” replied Allen, as he pointed at the bar Zubchatoye had noticed earlier. “You can adjust them to make bales heavier or lighter depending on conditions. If you find too many of your bales are breaking, loosen the tension, if you have too many that are deforming or are too squishy, tighten it.”

“Amazing,” he replied as he pushed off the baler and returned to all fours. Trotting around the other side, he spotted a small little box with some random numbers on it. Pointing at it, he asked, “Vat is zis?”

“Oh, that’s my bale counter, every time a bale is made, that will record it. It’s not one hundred percent accurate, but it’s good enough,” Allen replied as he bent down to inspect it. “Huh, looks like I didn’t clear it last year,” he muttered to himself upon seeing the counter. Pulling a little lever on the side of the box, he reset it to zero.

“There, all good now,” he said as he straightened up and moved on. Zubchatoye gave the baler one last look, before following Allen.

Walking out of the barn and towards the house, Allen called back over his shoulder, “Do any of you guys want some water? I can get that for you while I’m cooking my lunch.”

“Yes that would be nice, thank you, Allen,” replied Twilight with a thankful nod. Both Lyra and Cloud Kicker also voiced their thanks, while Zubchatoye, Just Cause, Penny, and Checklist merely nodded, grateful smiles on their faces at the thought of a cool refreshing glass of water to chase away their building thirst.

Seeing that everypony wanted some water, Allen nodded and hurried inside, while his guest loitered around on his front porch.

Hopping up on a wooden bench seat, Twilight and Lyra quietly compared notes while Cloud Kicker took off with the intent on finding a replacement cloud couch, as the one she’d had earlier had since wandered off, pushed along by a random breeze.

Zubchatoye, Checklist, Just Cause, and Penny contented themselves with various spots on the floor and steps of Allen’s porch. The faint sounds of kitchenware being jostled about drifted out from the open front door, and with nothing to do but wait, the ponies passed the time with idle chit chat.

“So how long do you plan on staying here in Ponyville?” asked Penny.

Checklist replied, “Not very long, unfortunately, both Just Cause and I have a meeting in Manehattan tomorrow, so we will be leaving on the evening train. My father however plans to stay and watch the hay-making process from start to finish. If that is alright?” she asked hesitantly.

Penny smiled. “I’m sure that will be fine,” turning to Zubchatoye, she asked, “Are you staying at the local inn?”

He nodded. “Da, it is very nice, very comfortable. Zey also have free breakfast!”

Giggling, Penny was about to reply when Allen returned, a rectangular serving tray in his hands with plastic water glasses for everyone. Setting it down, he let everyone choose which cup they wanted before heading back inside leaving the ponies to resume their earlier conversation.

Humming softly to himself, he made a couple of sandwiches, the soft sounds of conversation drifting in through the screen door. Pulling up a chair, he sat down at the dining room table and chowed down, making short work of the pair of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Getting up, he put his dirty plates in the sink and glanced up at the clock.

Hmm, not much longer and the hay should be ready to ted, he thought to himself as he slowly made his way to the front door. Stepping through the screen door and onto the porch, he saw that Cloud Kicker had returned and was lounging lazily on her own cloud having an afternoon snooze. Meanwhile, Twilight and Lyra were still comparing notes and whispering between themselves.

Turning to look at the rest of the group, Allen saw that they were talking amongst themselves.

“So what is it that you do back home?” asked Penny as she took a sip of her water.

Swallowing his own sip of water, Zubchatoye replied, “I run vorkshop, ve make and repair zings for ponies.”

“What kind of things?” asked Penny curiously.

Zubchatoye shrugged. “Vatever ponies vant. I usually repair vork tools or make new ones. Though sometimes I repair machines. Last veek I fixed important pump in ze local coal mine, vas good job, very good pay. I hope to get more vork like zat in future. Ever since ze new duchess took over, zings have been improving in Serveryana, slowly, but zey improve so I no complain too much. I even make enough money to take on apprentice to help me in ze shop now zat my daughter is grown up and gone,” he smiled, looking at his daughter with pride. “It makes me happy to see her so successful and happy.”

Checklist blushed in embarrassment as her father put a hoof around her withers and pulled her in for a hug.

She only offered token resistance as she whined, “Dad, please don’t embarrass me in front of everypony.”

Zubchatoye looked at his daughter in faux shock and put a forehoof to his chest. “But I am your father! It is my job to embarrass you! Besides, I tell ze truth! You vorked very hard to get to vere you are! I vould be poor parent if I didn’t tell other ponies of how proud I am of you!”

Her cheeks still red, Checklist leaned into her father's embrace and muttered, “Thanks.”

Having gone unnoticed by everypony so far, Allen announced his presence by letting the screen door close with a loud bang, causing everypony to jump and turn to look at the source of the loud noise.

Pulling away from her dad, Checklist jumped up and made it as if nothing was wrong, but Allen wasn’t fooled. However, he decided to not embarrass the flustered mare any further and instead said, “Well, I think it’s about time to head back to the field and get this all wrapped up for the day,” he pointed to the tray he’d left sitting on the porch, “You can leave your glasses there, I’ll get them later.”

Pushing past the group of ponies, Allen made his way over to the barn, Penny falling in alongside him.

“How long will it take you to get the tedding done?” she asked.

“Not very long,” replied Allen, “An hour or two at most. At least on a smooth field like this, otherwise you need to go slower so as to not damage the equipment.”

Walking up to the tractor, Allen stopped, turned, and said, “Why don’t you go and get the group moving over to the field. I’ll catch up with you guys in a minute.”

Nodding Penny returned to the group.

“Allen said to go ahead, and he’ll catch up,” she said as she gently pushed the group along.

Watching them go, Allen climbed on and fired the old tractor up. He let the engine settle for a minute before putting her in gear and giving her some throttle, the tractor slowly rolling forward. Lifting the tedder up so that the tines were off the ground, he slowly drove out of the yard, and once out on the driveway, Allen put her in a higher gear and the Farmall lurched forward as the gears engaged. In no time at all, he was back at the entrance to the freshly cut hayfield.

Slowing down, he gently lowered the tedder back down and flipped the lever to engage the PTO, and with a quiet clunk and clatter, the little tedder lazily whirled to life. Allen watched as the little implement gently tossed hay in all directions, including into the small strip of uncut grass he had left along the fence line. Normally, he would go and grab the hay rake and rake the cut grass away from the fence line so that way the tedder wouldn’t fling the hay into the uncut grass, but he hadn’t gotten around to getting the hay rake ready yet, and didn’t feel like messing with it.

Meh, it’s for my animals anyways, so if I get some green stems mixed in it won’t be a big deal. I’ll just take it easy on the first pass, and I should get most of it, he shrugged to himself as he turned around and dropped the tractor into a lower gear before increasing the RPMs, the tedder’s arms becoming a blur as they spun faster. Letting out the clutch, he let the tractor roll forward, the tedder following happily along behind as it did its job of throwing hay around like an excited toddler on a sugar bender.

Keeping the windrow between his front tires, Allen would shift his attention between the tedder behind him, and the row in front on a regular basis. Coming to the first turn, Allen expertly guided the tractor and tedder through it with no issues. Still keeping the same steady pace, he made his way up the field and made the second left turn, followed shortly after by the third which put him on the fence line bordering Sweet Apple Acres.

Glancing to his right, he spotted Applejack and Applebloom inspecting some of the nearby apple trees. The roar of his tractor's engine had caught their attention and both ponies had paused their work to gawk as Allen drove past. Giving a neighborly wave, Allen watched as Applebloom’s eyes lit up in excitement and she raced over to the fence to get a closer look, much to the apparent annoyance of her elder sister who appeared to call after the little filly. However, Applebloom ignored her and skidded to a halt next to the fence as Allen drove by.

Smiling at her antics, Allen just shook his head and returned his attention to the task at hand. Making the fourth and final turn, Allen quickly passed by the much smaller group of ponies by the gate and started on his second round of the field. This round went much the same as last time, keeping the windrow between the tires and staying aware of his surroundings and equipment.

However, as he passed by the spot Applebloom had been standing at earlier, he noticed that Applejack had trotted over and was carefully watching him with an unreadable expression as he went by. Thinking nothing of it, he just mentally shrugged and turned his full attention back to the task at hand.

He went another two rounds around the edge of the field in this manner, slowly working his way further in from the outside edge. However, as he finished up the fourth pass around and he started on the fifth go-round, he changed things up. When he made it to the second turn and turned left, he didn’t continue his circuit as he had previously, instead, he elected to skip two windrows and make a left turn to go down the third one. It was at this point that he changed to a higher gear, the tractor surging forward like a race car that had just left the pit lane to rejoin the race.

Speeding down the field, the tedder bouncing along behind him every time it hit a minor imperfection in the field. These imperfections didn’t bother the tractor much with its larger tires and heavier weight but caused the smaller and lighter implement to bounce around like an excited puppy on a leash.

Nearing the end of the current row, Allen slowed the tractor with the assistance of the TA, and expertly executed a sharp left turn, skipping the untedded windrow to his immediate left and slotting in on the next one over.

It was a little trick he had learned when he was younger to make tedding easier and faster. Instead of trying to turn into the row to his immediate left, he would skip two rows and go down to the third row, which meant that when he was ready to make the return trip he would just skip a single row and continue this pattern as he went down the field. This made it so that he didn’t have to do any fancy maneuvering at the end of the row, and with how thick the windrows were, it was easy to tell which ones he had already gone over, and which ones he hadn’t yet.

Falling into a comfortable rhythm, time passed quickly and before he knew it, Allen was cruising down the last windrow.

Hmm, looks like Applejack and her sister are still watching, he thought to himself as he drove past. Little Applebloom excitedly waving a forehoof at him. Chuckling, he returned her wave with one of his own. He watched as Applejack gently guided the excited filly away before turning his attention forward again as he drove the tractor through the gate. Cutting power to the tedder, he watched as it spun to a stop before turning the tractor off as well.

Hopping down, he wiped some sweat from his forehead, and seeing that everyone had gathered around, he asked, “So what did you guys think?”

“Very impressive,” remarked Just Cause, “usually it takes a lot of ponies to cut and spread this much hay in a day, even with the help of tools, let alone a couple of hours.”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, the wonders of mechanization, though,” he smiled, “if this impresses you, you should see what the new equipment is capable of doing. I’m doing this with stuff that’s anywhere from twenty to sixty plus years old.”

“Well, while that might be so, to me it is an impressive feat. You are able to do the work of many ponies in a fraction of the time, and you are doing it with equipment that is older than most of us. I believe it is a testament to the craftsponyship of those who built these machines,” remarked Just Cause.

Allen smiled and gently patted the old Farmall. “Yeah, they don’t make things like they used to, that’s for sure. Anyways, that’s all for today, depending on the weather, I might be able to rake and bale the hay tomorrow, but it’s unlikely with how thick the grass is. Getting it to dry down quickly will be difficult,” he paused and glanced up at the sky, “if it were in the nineties, with a decent wind, the hay would probably go tomorrow, but as it stands, I think it unlikely.”

“Well that is fine,” replied Penny, “I will need some time to find helpers. How many do you think we’ll need?”

Allen rubbed his chin as he pondered. “Well, we’ll need at least one pony to put hay on the elevator, one to take it off, one maybe two to stack it, and possibly another two to pull the hay baskets back to the barn and dump them. So probably six or seven in total? I’m not sure how well they will be able to handle stacking hay, so it might be better to err on the side of caution and make sure we have plenty of hooves this first go-round.”

Penny nodded as she jotted some notes down in her little booklet. “I’ll see what I can do,” she turned her attention to Checklist and asked, “Do you think the local DOTI office would be able to help us find some temporary workers?”

Checklist nodded, a happy smile on her face. “Oh, absolutely!” she replied easily, “They should be able to point you to ponies looking for extra work without any long-term commitment. If you want, I can take you over and introduce you to them on our way back to the train station.”

Penny gave her a grateful smile. “That would be wonderful,” pausing, she turned and asked Allen, “do you need me to stick around for a bit more?”

Allen shook his head. “Naw, I’m pretty much done, so there wouldn’t be much left to see.”

“Alright then, let me just grab my cart, and we can go,” she said to Checklist, who nodded as she made to follow her.

“Well, I better go too, Dash is probably off sulking somewhere, and unless I kick her lazy tail into gear, she’ll just mope around all day,” said Cloudkicker as she hopped down off her cloud seat and offered Allen a hoof bump, which he easily returned.

Chuckling, he replied, “Heh, well good luck with that, glad you could come.”

“Thanks for letting me, it was fun. Well, catch ya later,” and with that the pegasus spread her wings and took off, a couple of feathers floating gracefully to the ground in her wake.

“We should probably get going too,” said Twilight as she and Lyra stepped forward to offer their own goodbyes.

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of data to go over,” added Lyra cheerfully.

Allen chuckled. “Well just remember to eat some food and get some sleep you two, all-night study sessions aren’t good for you.”

“Pfft, I can sleep when I’m dead,” Lyra replied, flippantly waving a hoof.

Twilight rolled her eyes and said, “Spike will make sure we eat and get enough sleep I’m sure.”

Allen chuckled as he bid the two mares farewell before turning to the remaining ponies.

“So, what did you guys think?” he asked.

Checklist smiled and excitedly bounced on the tips of her hooves. “Oh, it was really invigorating, Allen!”

“Da, it vas very interesting,” agreed Zubchatoye, “I look forvard to seeing your baler in action.”

“And I look forward to having you here,” replied Allen with a nod of his head.

Glancing up at the sky, Just Cause cleared his throat and cut in, “I believe we should be going. It’s getting late, and if we want to stop at the local DOTI office with Ms. Penny, and leave enough time to make our train, we better get going now.”

“Let me go get hitched up real quick, and we can get going then, see you later Allen,” said Penny as she rushed off. While the others followed along at a more sedate pace.

Waving goodbye, Allen watched the group give Penny a hoof before they all waved goodbye in return and set off towards Ponyville.

Watching them go, Allen felt a small smile tug at his lips.

Well, I’m finally in the field and everything is off to a good start.

Turning around, he climbed back up in the tractor’s seat and started it up, the engine roaring back to life. Putting it in gear, he pointed himself towards home, a smile on his lips.

Yep, today was a good day. Here’s hoping tomorrow is as well.

Chapter 40 (Making Hay Part 5: Baling Hay)

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Chapter 40

Saturday, the weekend for many people. A day to kick back and not worry about work. A day where you can do anything you want, unless you're a farmer, then it’s just a day like any other.

“Come on... you annoying little... thing. Get... on, there! Finally,” grumbled Allen as he fought with his hay rake’s drive chain.

Wiping some sweat from his face with the back of his hand, he looked out across the messy windrows of drying hay and stretched his back to work some of the kinks out of it. He’d been bent over at an awkward angle for what felt like forever as he struggled to put the drive chain on.

Almost makes me wish I’d let dad talk me into buying that rotary rake last year, at least I wouldn’t have to mess with a greasy drive chain again. Thought Allen as he used a semi-clean rag to wipe the worst of the grease off his hands.

He was just about ready to start raking, as the last of the dew had burned off maybe thirty minutes ago, and with the temperature steadily climbing into the eighties, it promised to be a perfect day to bale hay, hot and dry. Taking a long swig of water from his water jug, Allen let loose a content sigh as the water chased away his thirst.

Putting the jug back up on the tractor, Allen looked around to see if anypony had shown up yet, but he was the only person around.

Looking down at his watch, he saw that it was nearly eleven o’clock.

“Well, they’ll get here when they get here, I’m not waiting any longer,” he muttered to himself. Climbing up on the tractor, Allen settled himself and put on his hearing protection; he'd managed to find a pair of over-the-ear hearing protectors that had an aux port built-in that would allow him to listen to music while he worked. Fiddling with his MP3 player, he hit shuffle and laughed out loud when the first song to come up in the rotation was International Harvester by Craig Morgan.

Firing up the tractor, he put her in gear and started singing along as he got to work.

~oOo~

Penny meanwhile was certainly not in the mood to sing as she paced back and forth in her, currently, spacious office. She would stop every couple of paces and look up at the clock on the wall, and each time she did, her frown would deepen.

Her mood was not helped by the fact that she was running on just a few hours of sleep as the last thirty-six hours had been jam-packed with meetings, paperwork, and running around trying to find workers. Which had turned out to be harder than she had anticipated. Turns out that late spring/early summer was a very busy time of the year for farmers, and as such farm help was hard to come by.

She had been severely disappointed in the amount of available help at the local DOTI office, even with Checklist helping out, they had struggled to find the needed workers, and the few that they had found had wanted more than she was happy paying, but she’d had little choice in the matter and so she’d bit the proverbial stick and paid up. However, it seems that her money and time was wasted as the help had yet to show.

“Where are they?!” she grumbled for the twentieth time.

“Maybe they got lost?” said Twilight from her spot on the office couch.

“Or forgot when they were supposed to meet with us?” piped up Lyra from her spot next to Twilight as she idly flipped through one of the magazines on the table.

“No,” said Penny with a shake of her head. “I gave them exact instructions on when and where to meet us!”

“I vouldn’t vorry, temp vorkers are always late,” said Zubchatoye knowingly.

“They said they would be here at ten! It’s now eleven-thirty!” growled Penny.

Zubchatoye shrugged, an unconcerned look on his face. “Zey probably sleep in, it happens.”

Penny snapped back irritably. “Not to me, it doesn’t!”

“Yet here ve is.”

“UGH!” screamed Penny in frustration as she threw her hooves up in the air.

The sudden jingle of a bell interrupted the irate mare's pacing. Whirling towards the door, she saw that three of the seven workers she had contracted to help Allen with his hay had shown up.

“Where have you been?!” she snapped, her patience having long since dissipated.

“Sorry, we got lost and had to ask around town if anypony knew where your office was,” replied the pony to open the door sheepishly.

“But I gave you detailed instructions on how to get here!”

The stallion shrugged helplessly. “Well the guy who had the instructions probably took them when he left town last night, so we had to make do.”

Penny felt one of her eyelids start to twitch. “What do you mean he ‘left town’? Where is the rest of the crew that I hired?”

The three ponies shifted uneasily. “Well,” began one, “they got a better offer in Appaloosa last night, and decided to go work there instead?” he finished with a nervous little grin.

The other eyelid was twitching now.

Seeing that Penny was not handling things too well, Zubchatoye stepped in and gently pushed the mare away from the visibly sweating stallion, angling her towards a nearby chair.

Getting up from her spot on the couch, Twilight walked over and asked, “So you three were the only ones to come then?”

The stallion nodded. “Yes ma’am, my brother, sister, and I always keep our word when it comes to stuff like this. We agreed to do the job, and we’ll do it, even if a better one pops up in the meantime.”

Twilight nodded. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is my friend Lyra Heartstrings.”

“Hello!” waved Lyra from her spot on the couch.

The stallion returned the wave with a nod of his head. “Nice to meet you all, my name is Clover Leaf, this is my brother, Rye Grass, and my sister Honeysuckle.” The other two quietly waved a hoof in greeting.

They were all earth ponies, Clover Leaf was the tallest and obviously the strongest judging by the bulging muscles that shifted under his greenish-white coat every time he moved. Which was impressive considering how shaggy and unkempt his coat looked, his dark brown mane and tail were also long and shaggy while his cutie mark was a four-leaf clover.

His brother was also large and well built, though not to the extent of Clover, and his light, golden brown coat reminded Twilight of ripened rye or wheat ready for harvest. Both his coat and dark green mane were likewise unkempt and shaggy, his cutie mark was a bundle of rye bundled together into a shock.

The mare of the group, Honeysuckle, looked like she had just gotten a coat and mane trim as her harvest gold-colored coat seemed to shine in the sunlight peeking through one of the office windows, and her umber colored mane was tied neatly up in a short bun. Her cutie mark was that of a flowering honeysuckle vine.

Looking between the three, Twilight asked, “So how long have you been in town for?”

Clover Leaf replied, “A couple of days. We’re working our way north following the yearly spring planting times.”

“I take it that work has been hard to find?”

Clover’s ears fell in slight embarrassment at the question. “Yeah, that and we lost most of our bits in Manehattan to a pair of unicorn stallions who promised they could double our money if we invested in a scheme of theirs.”

“Turns out they were a couple of grifters and skipped town the next morning with our bits, leaving us with barely enough money to survive,” said Honeysuckle, with a derisive snort. “The only reason I’m not as ragged looking as those two was because I managed to get my mane and coat done the day before we met them.”

“That’s horrible!” exclaimed Twilight, “Are you telling me that you don’t have any bits at all?”

Rye shook his head. “No, we do, just not enough to spend on getting a coat brushing and mane cut is all. We weren’t completely stupid, and kept enough money back to afford things like food and cheap lodging. But with the loss of most of our savings, things have been tight lately.”

Nodding, Clover chimed in, “That’s why we took this job in the first place. The pay was good and the cost of living around here is low.”

“Well, we’re glad that you decided to stay. Allen is going to need a lot of help to put his hay away in a timely manner,” replied Twilight with a grateful smile.

Clover opened his mouth to ask who this ‘Allen’ person was, as the name sounded odd to his ears, however, the return of Penny prevented him from asking.

Taking a deep breath, the recently calmed mare stated, “While I am still upset at recent events, I am grateful that you three decided to stay. As such, I will give each of you a bonus upon completion of the job. Additionally, depending on how well you three do, I will also offer to extend your initial contract to work for Mr. Ross for the remainder of the haying season. He has big plans, and will need plenty of workers to see those plans through,” she held up a hoof when she saw Clover open his mouth to reply. “I don’t need an answer right away, just think on the offer while you three are working for us, and when the task is complete, we can hash out the details then.”

The three earth ponies looked between themselves, before turning their attention back to Penny and nodding in agreement. “Alright,” said Clover Leaf, “that sounds good to us.”

Smiling Penny replied, “Wonderful, now,” she glanced up at the clock on the way and blanched at seeing that it was nearly noon, “we need to get going. Twilight,” she pointed at the studious unicorn, “I need to go and find some extra help on short notice, can you take everypony over to Allen’s and introduce them?”

Nodding, Twilight replied happily, “Sure! Come on everypony, let’s go.”

Following everypony out of her office, Penny turned around and shut the door, locking it behind her and flipping the sign from Open to Closed. Heading in the opposite direction, she set course for the DOTI office, a determined look on her face.

I might have suffered a minor setback, but I am not going to let that stop me. Let’s see what I can find for help today.

~oOo~

Wiping some sweat from his brow, Allen took a long swig of water from his water bottle. He’d finished raking and had just dropped off the rake out in front of the machine shed. He’d noticed that a couple of the metal fingers had snapped off, so he needed to grab some spares to put on later. For now, though, he was taking a short break before he went out to start baling.

Looking around he sighed, Still no Penny or help. I hope she was able to find someone, otherwise, this is gonna suck.

Setting his water bottle on the tractor's footplate, Allen decided to give the baler one more check before he hooked it up to a hay basket and headed out to the field. The day was turning out to be perfect weather for hay. High temperatures, low humidity, and light winds all combined to dry out his fields in record time.

Humming a random song to himself, he set about giving everything a final look over. His work however was soon interrupted by the sound of approaching hooves. Looking up from the twine ball compartment, Allen looked up the driveway and spotted Twilight, Lyra, and Zubchatoye heading his way, followed by a trio of earth ponies that he didn’t recognize.

Shutting the lid, Allen gave a friendly wave. “Hey Twilight, Lyra, Zubchatoye. Glad to see you all finally made it,” he paused and looked around confused at the absence of Penny. “Where’s Penny?”

Twilight returned Allen’s greeting with a wave of her own and said, “She’s trying to find some additional help. It seems that four out of the seven she had contracted to work for us decided to leave town yesterday for better-paying work elsewhere. These three,” she pointed at the earth pony trio, “were the only ones to stay.”

Pulling his leather glove off, Allen gave the three a welcoming smile and said, “Well thanks for sticking with us, and welcome aboard, my name is Allen Ross, but you can just call me Allen. I’m the owner of this farm.”

The three newcomers seemed unsure of what to make of Allen at first, but the tallest, and shaggiest, of the bunch, stepped forward and took Allen’s proffered hand and gave it a firm shake.

“I’m Clover Leaf, and these are my siblings, Rye Grass, and Honeysuckle,” he pointed a hoof at each indicated pony. “We’re migrant workers heading north following the planting line.”

“I see,” nodded Allen, “well I’m glad you were willing to come and help me then. I’ve got ten acres of hay down and I need to put it up in that loft up there,” he pointed up at an opening to the left of the main doors that was big enough to allow a hay bale to pass through with some extra room to spare.

“And how were you planning on getting it up there? I don’t see a ramp or hay claw to lift it up there,” asked Clover Leaf, a confused look on his face.

Turning around, Allen pointed to a strange-looking contraption next to the barn. It was a long construct made up of metal tubing with a long chain running up the middle with spikes spaced evenly along its length and it was set on a two-wheeled axle.

“We’ll be using my hay elevator there,” replied Allen as he walked up to the device. Patting it, he said, “It shouldn’t give you guys any issues, since I put a new chain on it last year and tightened a few things up. She’s all oiled and I tested the motor this morning, so she’s good to go. All we have to do is move her into position and raise her up and we should be good to go.”

“Did you want to move it now?” asked Clover Leaf.

Allen nodded. “Might as well, let me raise it up first, and then we can swing it into position.”

Walking over to the axle, Allen grabbed a crank handle that was connected to a wire pulley system and with a grunt, began to turn the crank. Slowly, and with a couple of groans of rusty metal on metal, the elevator began to rise higher into the sky. Coming to a stop, Allen secured the crank handle to keep it from unwinding and crashing down while they were working. Turning to the three ponies, he motioned for them to take up a position around the elevator, Rye Grass, Honeysuckle, and Clover Leaf took spots on either side next to the wheels and made ready to push, while Allen went to the front and grabbed the tongue lifting it into the air with a grunt.

Through gritted teeth, he said, “Alright, start pushing!”

Putting their forelegs on the elevator, the three earth ponies began to push, the elevator slowly moving as Allen carefully guided the awkward machine until it was lined up with the upper door to the loft.

“Okay, hold it!” he called out again as he dug his feet in to slow the elevator’s forward momentum. The three ponies scrambled to help stop the hay elevator. “Okay, now let’s slowly push it up to the barn, and get ready to stop it so that it doesn’t hit anything. Ready? Push!”

With a grunt, the three ponies and lone human carefully guided the elevator into place. As they got closer, Allen slowly lowered the tongue to the ground, and when the elevator was only a foot or two from the barn wall, he dropped the tongue to the ground and yelled, “Okay, that’s good enough!”

Backing off, the three earth ponies watched as the elevator came to a quick halt in front of them. Walking past them, Allen looked up and saw that the elevator wasn’t quite high enough to clear the floor of the loft, so he grabbed the crank handle and gave it a few more turns. Seeing it would clear now, he indicated for the ponies to resume pushing, and with a couple of steps, the elevator was in position and ready for its first load of hay.

“And that’ll do it,” said Allen as he waved them off. “Nice job.”

Trading smiles, the three siblings gave each other hoof bumps.

“So now what?” asked Honeysuckle.

Unspooling an orange-colored power cord, Allen replied, “A quick safety lesson and then we’ll go over where to put you three.”

Grabbing the wire coming out of the little electric motor mounted to the side of the hay elevator, Allen said, “Alright, this is the electric motor that runs this thing, and this,” he pointed to a small box to the left of the motor, “is the lever that turns it off and on.”

Connecting the power cord to the motor, Allen flipped the switch up and with a rattle, the elevator sprang to life.

Pointing to the various moving parts, Allen said, “I feel it should be obvious, but just for the record, you do not want to let your tails or any other part of you get caught in these belts and chains. They will get ripped off if you’re not careful, and I’d rather not find out that you got hurt, okay? I can see that you two have pretty long tails, we’ll either need to cut them short or tie them up so that they don’t get in the way. I’ve got some hair ties and clippers if you need them.”

Both Clover and Rye looked behind them and gave their long tails a flick. A slightly embarrassed look on each of their faces.

Honeysuckle also looked back at her tail and gave it an experimental swish. It wasn’t as long as her brothers, which were dragging the ground, but it did come down to about the midway point between her hock and fetlock. Looking back at the belt that connected the electric motor to the drive wheel on the elevator, she grimaced at the thought of her tail getting caught in that while it was running.

Honeysuckle looked at her two shaggy brothers and nodded. “Yeah, I think we’re gonna need those clippers and mane ties.”

Smiling, Allen replied, “Alright, I’ll be right back.”

Both Clover and Rye gave their sister an uncertain look. “Uh, sis? You remember what happened the last time we cut each other’s mane and tails?”

Honeysuckle rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a foal, Clover. We’ll just cut a little off the ends so that our tails won’t get caught in anything. After, that we can go to the barber and get them done properly. It’ll be easy. Besides, we’re not foals anymore, cutting our tails shorter should be a piece of cake.”

Her two brothers didn’t share her confidence.

~oOo~

Opening the door to the local DOTI office with a bit more force than needed. Penny stomped inside.

The receptionist behind the counter looked up from her magazine, an unconcerned expression on her face as she watched Penny stalk up to the counter.

Casually flipping to the next page she asked in a bored tone, “Welcome to the Ponyville DOTI office, how may I assist you?”

Taking a deep breath, Penny’s horn lit up and snatched the magazine out of the mare’s hooves, and fixed her with a glare that could melt steel.

“Why did four of the workers that I hired yesterday leave town?”

The mare, unperturbed by Penny, blinked, her expression radiating apathy. “Which four workers would that be?” she finally asked.

Pulling several papers out of her saddlebags, Penny all but slammed them down on the counter. “These ones!”

Glancing down at the papers, the receptionist calmly collected the abused pieces of paper and looked them over, nodding as she did so.

“Oh yes, these four. Well, they got a better offer yesterday, after you left, for a job in Appleloosa working for one of the fruit orchards out there. Turns out they’re planning to expand their fields this year and need extra hooves to plant all the trees on time.”

“And you just let them go?!” exclaimed Penny in disbelief.

The receptionist shrugged. “What did you want me to do? Have the local guard arrest them and make them work for you?”

“They signed a contract to work for us!”

“They did,” nodded the mare in agreement, “and they paid the fee for breaking the contract. Which reminds me,” she reached under the desk and opened a small safe, pulling out a small bag of bits and setting it on the desk. “This is your portion of the breakage fee. I am sorry that these ponies did not stay true to their contract, but there is little that I can do if they pay their fees and leave.”

“But-”

“I can assure you that this incident will be notated in our records for future consideration. The DOTI does take a dim view of those that renege on their commitments. However, as I told you and them yesterday, the contract can be canceled by either party for any reason before any work actually takes place, unless otherwise stipulated in the original contract. So long as the party breaking the contract pays the associated fees, there is little that can be done.”

“Ugh, that still doesn’t help me!” complained Penny. “I need those workers more than I need the bits!”

The receptionist sighed and replied, “Unfortunately, I don’t have any additional workers waiting for jobs at the moment. Sorry.”

Slumping in defeat, Penny grabbed the bag of bits, put it in her saddlebags, turned, and left the DOTI office feeling defeated.

Trudging outside, she let the door swing shut behind her. Head hung low, she began walking towards Allen’s farm.

What am I going to do? We need more workers in order for things to run smoothly. Looking up, she looked around the marketplace as the locals went about their business. Maybe I can find somepony who would be willing to work for just today? There must be somepony around here who would be willing to work for a few hours in exchange for some extra bits.

With a goal in mind, Penny gave a resolute nod and set off into the market in search of potential workers. For the next half hour, she searched, maneuvering around market stalls and dodging ponies as they hurried on their way. Sadly, she didn’t find anypony that looked like they needed work. She was just about to give up and head back to Allen’s farm when she noticed a board covered in flyers and notes, and a couple of ponies gathered around it. Her curiosity piqued, she changed direction and approached the board.

Drawing closer, she realized that this was the local community board, where ponies would put up wanted ads, lost pet bulletins, and various announcements that they wanted to share with the community. Walking up next to a tall, red-coated stallion, Penny scanned the board and noticed that there were several ‘help wanted’ ads up, and the stallion next to her was reading one of them.

“Are you looking for work?” blurted Penny before she could stop herself, her desperate nerves getting the better of her.

The hulking red stallion turned away from the board and looked down at her and replied, “Eeyup.”

An intense feeling of hope surged up within Penny and she said, “Great! Because I’m looking for some workers after some of the ones I contracted last night left for Appleloosa. Would you be interested perchance?”

The stallion calmly chewed on the stalk of orchard grass in his mouth as he thought. After a minute, he said, “Maybe, what do ya need done?”

“Oh well, I need somepony to help my friend put his hay away this afternoon. He only cut enough for an afternoon’s worth of work, but I’m willing to pay well for your time,” replied Penny as she hit him with her best ‘please say yes because I’m cute and desperate,” smile.

Adjusting his wooden yoke with an unshorn hoof, the stallion again thought over her proposal and asked, “How much?”

“Uh, well I was going to pay the other ponies fifty bits for the day, along with a bonus at the end, but I can bump that up to seventy-five bits for you seeing as how this is such short notice. We should be done before sunset, so it shouldn’t take very long.”

Chewing thoughtfully on his stalk of grass, the stallion was silent for a moment, and Penny was worried that he would say no, but after a few more moments, he simply nodded his head and said, “Sure, Ah can spare a few hours. Where do you need me to go?”

Her face lighting up in a relieved, happy smile, Penny motioned for him to follow her. “This way, he lives out by Sweet Apple Acres, by the way, my name is Penny, what is yours?”

“Big McIntosh, and Ah think Ah know where ya need me to go now. Yer friend wouldn't happen to be that human feller would it?”

The question and realization that she was speaking to one of the Apples caught Penny off guard and she hesitantly replied, “Yes? Is that going to be a problem?”

Big Mac shook his head. “Eenope, just so long as Ah’m done before dinner, it should be fine. Lead the way.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Penny said, “Phew, alright then, follow me,” and with that said, she turned and quickly headed for Allen’s farm, Big Mac quietly following along behind her.

Their trip out to the farm was a quiet one, as Big Mac didn’t seem to be that much of a conversationalist. As the couple of times that Penny had tried to start up a conversation, Big Mac’s lack of responses beyond ‘Eeyup’ and ‘Nope’ had quickly smothered any potential dialogue in awkward silence before it could take off.

However, eventually, Allen’s farm came into view and Penny was pleased to see that the formerly messy carpet of drying hay had been gathered into neat little windrows, ready for baling. In fact, as the two approached the gate that led out into the field, she could see Twilight, Lyra, and Zubchatoye standing by the entrance casually watching something out in the field. Trotting over, she asked, “What’s going on?”

“Oh Penny, you’re back,” replied Twilight as she turned to greet the newly arrived unicorn. Noticing the large earth pony stallion next to her, she smiled and said, “Oh, hey Big Mac, what brings you out this way?”

“Work,” he replied simply.

Noticing Twilight’s quizzical look, Penny explained, “The DOTI didn’t have anypony else available to work, and he was the only pony I could find in time to come help.”

“Ah, I see,” replied Twilight with a look of understanding. “Does Applejack know you’re here?”

Big Mac shook his head. “Nope.”

“Huh, I kind of figured she’d need your help with Sweet Apple Acres right now.”

“Nope, spring clean-up is done, and we don’t have anything to sell at the market yet,” replied Big Mac.

“Okay, well I think Allen is about done with the first load of hay. He started about forty-five minutes ago, and we should have everything ready back at the barn to start the unloading process,” replied Twilight.

Penny looked around at the small group of workers and chewed on her bottom lip in worry. “I don’t think we’ll have enough workers to both unload and transport the hay, as Allen wanted.”

Twilight hummed thoughtfully to herself as she puzzled over the problem. While she was thinking, Penny looked out across the field and spotted what looked like the top of one of Allen’s hay baskets slowly moving across the field.

I guess baling is a little bit slower than the rest of the process.

“Hmm, I think I might have a solution,” said Twilight, interrupting Penny’s thoughts.

“What solution would that be?” asked Penny, a tinge of hopefulness coloring her tone.

“Well, Allen said that he would need two ponies to pull the basket, one to put the hay on the elevator, one to take it off, and two or three to stack, correct?”

Penny nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right, why?”

“Well, seeing as we now have Big Mac here to help us, I don’t see why he couldn’t pull the basket by himself. I’ve seen him pull heavy boulders out of the fields without the use of anything other than some strong rope, and it is not very far from this field to the barn, plus it's pretty flat ground so the going shouldn’t be that difficult.”

Looking up at the massive red stallion, Penny asked, “Do you think you can pull that much weight? Allen says that he can get around a hundred or so forty to fifty-pound bales of hay in it, and by my estimation, I would say the basket itself weighs at least fifteen hundred pounds, maybe more. That’s a lot of weight for one pony to pull by themselves, even over a short distance.”

Big Mac thoughtfully tapped his chin with a hoof as he gazed off into the distance, his mind quickly crunching the numbers. Assuming that the average bale weight was fifty pounds and there was one hundred in the basket, and the basket weighed fifteen hundred pounds by itself, Big Mac figured he’d be pulling nearly fifty-five hundred pounds each trip. Which was a lot, granted. However, he was pretty strong, stronger than most earth ponies in fact, and while he did pull heavy boulders out of the fields, they usually didn’t weigh more than a few hundred pounds each, and he usually didn’t pull them very far very fast. However, wheels did make even the heaviest loads fairly easy to pull around, so in the end, it really came down to how easy it would be for him to pull these so-called ‘hay baskets’.

Putting his hoof back down, Big Mac turned to Penny and replied with a nod, “Ah should be able to pull it, so long as it's not awkward to pull.”

Penny chewed her lip. Okay, so if Big Mac can actually pull the baskets by himself, that removes one pony from the equation, but we still potentially need another two ponies.

“Perhaps one of you three could help?” suggested Zubchatoye, “If only for today at least.”

The three unicorns looked at each other for a moment, before turning back to Zubchatoye with equal looks of uncertainty on their faces.

“Uh, Zubchatoye?” began Twilight cautiously, “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we’re,” she used her hoof to point amongst the three of them, “not really up to doing farm work. We don’t really have the stamina.”

Zubchatoye nodded, acknowledging her point. “True, zat is true, but zere are three of you, and you don’t need to do much I zink. Just pick up ze bales in your magic and place them on ze elevator, simple. Ze other three ponies in ze loft will take care of ze rest, and if you get tired, just switch.”

“Well, I guess that could work, but,” began Lyra hesitantly, as she carefully formed her reply, “We were kind of wanting to take notes on what Allen is doing, and we can’t do that if we are working.”

Again, Zubchatoye nodded. “Also true, but Allen will make more hay in ze future , correct?” When Twilight and Lyra nodded, he continued, “Zen you can take notes zen, and help a friend now. Zink how happy and grateful he would be to find out zat you helped him when he needed it.”

Looking at the two studious mares, Penny could sense that their resistance was breaking and jumped in to deliver the coup de grace. “Zubchatoye is right, and don’t worry, while I might not be as strong as you two magically, I can still pitch in to help, giving you a chance to rest and compile your thoughts into research notes. Besides, this will give you some first hoof experience in the methods of baling hay the human way. Think of all the potential improvements that could be made to Equestrian agricultural practices.”

That did it, as both Twilight and Lyra looked at each other, and with a simple nod, both turned and said, “Okay we’ll do it.”

“I can go first, and when I get tired, I’ll switch out with Twilight,” said Lyra, “that way she can observe Allen for a little bit longer. I may not be an Upper-Level Beta like Twilight here, but us Gamma’s can still do some heavy lifting when needed.”

“Zen I zink we have everypony we need for zis project, vat do you zink, Ms. Farthing?” asked Zubchatoye with a happy smile.

Penny, nodded with her own smile, happy that her first time managing a project in the field like this wasn’t going to go up in metaphorical flames, replied, “Thank you Lyra, Twilight, this means a lot to me, and I’m sure it will mean a lot to Allen. Of course,” she paused for a moment as her mind changed gears, “you will need to be compensated for your time. How does seventy-five bits for the day sound? Seeing as this is on such short notice and you won’t be able to do the observations that you wanted to do.”

Both Lyra and Twilight looked at each other, Lyra gave a slight jerk of her head, and the two unicorns stepped away from the group a couple of paces to discuss the offer. After a minute, the two returned and shook Penny’s hoof and replied, “That sounds fair to me.”

Smiling from ear to ear, Penny readily took Twilight’s and then Lyra’s hooves and shook them in turn. “Perfect, as soon as Allen is finished with this first load, I’ll let him know, and he can show you what to do.”

The roar of Allen’s tractor paused further conversation as Allen came around the final turn, and spotting the group of ponies, came to a halt next to them. The engine quieted down enough that the ponies could hear the rhythmic metallic thumping of Allen’s baler as it gobbled up hay to turn into bales. To Penny, it sounded almost like a large heartbeat, and as she watched, she could see it and the tractor rocking backwards and forwards with each large thump it made. Zubchatoye had a large giddy smile on his face, like a foal on Hearth’s Warming Day who had just opened up a present and found an amazing prize inside.

Turning around in his seat, Allen disengaged the PTO and the baler slowly ground to a halt, its thumping growing slower and slower. It made Penny think of a heart that was dying, as each thump came later and later until finally the machine had run out of inertia and only the large flywheel spun around, making a loud ticking sound as it spun before it too came to a halt.

Turning the tractor off, Allen jumped down and approached the group.

“So, what do you guys think?” he asked as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at his baler.

Zubchatoye was the first to respond. “Amazing, it is like mechanical poetry in motion!”

Chuckling, Allen replied, “Well I wouldn’t go that far, but it is pretty slick.”

“So how is everything working Allen?” asked Penny, a hint of anxiousness in her voice. Which was understandable considering the morning she had.

“Pretty good, the hay’s dried down well and the bales are behaving themselves. So that’s good,” looking up, he spotted Big Mac, and cocking his head he asked, “Aren’t you Applejack’s brother?”

“Eeyup.”

Allen gave Penny a questioning look. Biting her lip nervously, she said, “Four of the seven workers didn’t show up this morning, apparently, they got a better offer in Appleloosa and took off last night. I had to scramble to find somepony to fill in and Big Mac here was the only pony I could find in town. He says that he thinks he can pull a fully loaded hay basket by himself.”

“I see,” replied Allen with a nod. “Ah well, those things happen, at least you were able to find us a fourth pony on short notice, so good job there. Though it looks like we’re gonna be a bit slower with only three at the barn full time to load and stack hay.”

“Actually, Twilight and Lyra are willing to help us as well,” replied Penny, a pleased smile on her face.

“Really?” asked Allen, a skeptical look on his face. “Are you two sure you can do it?” he asked them.

Both Twilight and Lyra looked at each other for a moment before then turning back to face Allen. “We’ll do our best,” said Twilight, a determined look on her face.

“Yeah, and when one of us gets tired, the other will take over,” added Lyra.

Shrugging, Allen said, “Alright, well welcome aboard then. Let me go ahead and get the hay basket unhooked from the baler and get Big Mac hitched to it.”

“Uh, Allen? How are you going to do that? Big Mac doesn’t have a harness with him,” asked Penny quietly.

Glancing back at the big earth pony, Allen replied, “Yeah, I know, that’s why I brought one that I had laying around. It might be a bit loose on him, but it should fit well enough for what we’re doing today,” raising his voice, he asked, “You ready to get hitched up big guy?”

Big Mac silently nodded and followed Allen as he went and grabbed a mess of leather straps from off the metal gate. Though he left the leather collar behind on the gate, since Big Mac had his own collar, Allen didn’t need to use it. Fiddling with the straps for a minute, Allen set about getting Big Mac harnessed up. However, he quickly ran into a problem.

“Damn, just as I thought, you’re just a bit too small for this harness,” grumbled Allen as he stared at the cause of his current frustration. “I’m going to need to punch an extra hole in these straps so that we can get them snug. Let me grab my toolbox real quick and see what I’ve got that will work.”

Leaving Big Mac in his drooping harness, Allen trotted back over to the tractor and opened the toolbox he had bolted to the frame. Opening it up, he fished around inside looking for something he could use to pierce the leather. Unfortunately, all he could find that might work were a pair of screwdrivers and a dull awl at the bottom of the toolbox. Grabbing the awl and one of the screwdrivers, he closed the lid and returned to where he had left Big Mac.

Grabbing the belly strap, he pulled it tight and asked, “How’s that feel?”

“Tight,” wheezed Big Mac.

“Too tight?” queried Allen.

“Eeyup,” nodded Big Mac.

Allen let the strap loosen a touch and said, “Let me know when it’s good and I’ll stop.” Big Mac simply nodded, and let Allen keep slowly loosening the strap.

Finally, he said, “That’s good.”

Stopping, Allen used his thumb to mark the rough position and let the strap come loose. Grabbing his awl, he slowly worked it into the leather until it punched through. Inspecting his handiwork, he said, “Well, it ain’t the cleanest hole, but it’ll do for now. Let’s see how it fits now.”

Grabbing the hanging part of the strap, he once again pulled it tight and fed the buckle’s prong through the hole. It was a tight fit, but after a little wiggling, it went through. Securing the hanging bit of strap, Allen asked, “How does that fit?”

“Good,” replied Big Mac with a nod.

“Alright, let’s get the rest of the straps done. and then we’ll see about getting you hitched up to the basket,” said Allen with a nod before he set to work. All in all, it took Allen nearly a half hour to get everything adjusted properly, and for the most part. it went pretty smoothly, at least until he got to the straps that went around Big Mac’s rump. That’s when Allen learned that ponies were just as susceptible to wedgies as anyone else.

The first sign that anything had gone wrong was when Big Mac suddenly let out a pained, “Urk!”

Pausing his work, Allen looked over at Big Mac and asked, “You okay?”

Big Mac’s left eye was twitching, and his whole body was tensed up as if someone had kicked him somewhere uncomfortable. Teeth set, he slowly turned his head and gave Allen an unhappy look.

“Yer pulling on mah overwear, Allen,” he replied, “Please stop.”

Allen blinked in confusion. Overwear? What the heck is he talking about? I’m just adjusting these breeching and back straps.

“Uh, Allen? I think you might have grabbed onto Big Mac’s overwear by accident when you were adjusting one of the straps, and it’s kinda... riding up if you get my meaning,” said Twilight with an uncomfortable wince as she watched the embarrassing situation unfold before her.

Letting go of the straps, Allen turned around and shot Twilight a confused look. “What are you guys talking about? I’m just adjusting these breeching straps here and...” his voice trailed off as he turned around, pointed at the harness draped over Big Mac’s flanks, and saw what everyone was talking about.

What he had at first thought was just fur had turned out to be some kind of shorts that covered Big Mac’s private areas, thus preserving his modesty, though now they weren’t doing as good a job as before now that Allen had accidentally given Big Mac the biggest wedgie of his life.

“Oh...” he replied upon seeing the results of his actions. “Um... my bad?” he said sheepishly.

Big Mac just glared at him and nodded his head in the direction of his rump. Allen understood the meaning loud and clear. ‘Fix it now or else.’

Jumping forward, he carefully undid the accidental wedgie and smoothed things out as best he could while trying to keep from making it worse. He figured he was on the right track when he felt Big Mac’s body relax and the glare slowly leave the red stallion’s face. Though understandably, he still looked a tad peeved at the incident.

With Big Mac’s unmentionables more or less fixed, Allen carefully finished getting Big Mac’s harness buckled up.

Stepping back, Allen gave the harness a once-over and awkwardly asked, “So... how’s everything fit?”

Big Mac trotted around in a circle and did several stretches with the harness on, satisfied with his range of movement, the big stallion replied, “It’ll do, but next time, Ah’m bringing mah own harness.”

Rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment, Allen said, “Ah yeah, I’m really sorry about... what happened just now, I... didn’t know you guys had that... kind of thing.”

“What, you just thought we walked around naked all the time?” asked Twilight incredulously.

Feeling the tips of his ears burning red, Allen looked up in the sky and replied, “Maybe? I mean, I didn’t try to look or anything... that would be weird, and since I didn’t see any obvious clothes on anyone, I just kind of... assumed, you know?”

All the ponies looked at each other and either sighed or facehooved at Allen’s ignorance and their forgetfulness in explaining basic Equestrian norms and customs to him.

It seems I’m going to have to set aside some time soon to rectify that little oversight. Thought Penny to herself. And judging by the look on Lyra and Twilight's faces I can only assume they are thinking the same thing.

Still looking up at the sky, Allen said, “I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say that we should probably keep this little incident between ourselves?”

A chorus of, ‘yeses, agreeds, and yeps,’ followed as everypony nodded in agreement.

His ears still tinged red in embarrassment, Allen cleared his throat and said, “Welp, then let’s just move past this little faux pas and get Big Mac here hitched up to the basket.”

Another round of agreement swept the group and everypony moved aside as Allen and Big Mac approached the fully loaded hay basket.

Walking ahead of Big Mac, Allen reached under the baler’s hay chute and pulled out the pin connecting the basket to the baler. Clambering up on the tractor, he restarted it and pulled it away, the hay basket’s tongue impacting the ground with a loud clank.

Maneuvering the tractor through the gate, Allen drove onto the road and idled the throttle after putting the tractor in neutral. Hopping down, he grabbed a long pole that he had laying by the fence, along with another smaller pole with several metal rings attached to it, one on either end and one in the middle. Jogging over to where Big Mac was waiting next to the fully loaded hay basket, Allen dropped the pole next to Big Mac and said, “I’m not sure how well this is going to work, because you’re all by yourself. Ideally, I would have two of you guys working side by side with this wagon pole attached in between you, but I don’t so it’s gonna be a pain because I don’t have a single ho-pony hitch.”

“Why is that gonna be a problem?” asked Lyra curiously.

Allen made to reply, but Big Mac beat him to it. “Because Ah’ll have less control over the load since Ah’m offset ta one side instead of being in the middle with the shafts to either side of me.”

“What he said,” added Allen as he set to work hitching everything together. “I’ve never really messed much with horse teams back home, my mother did for a bit, but we had to get rid of them a while ago, Reuben is the only horse left on the farm, all the others were sold off to better homes.”

Grunting, he attached the long pole to the hay basket’s tongue and slotted a metal pin through the holes, connecting the two together. “This wagon pole here is really meant for two or more horses, or in this case ponies, working side by side as they would be able to evenly pull the load together. Big Mac is gonna struggle because he’s offset to one side, like he said, so it’s gonna be really awkward for him. If I had a single horse hitch, it wouldn’t be a problem, but I don’t or at least if I do, I couldn’t find it.”

With the wagon pole attached, Allen grabbed the smaller pole with the metal circles and attached them to the back of the wagon pole. With that done, he waved Big Mac over and the draft pony easily slotted himself next to the long pole and waited as Allen finished hooking him up. With the hookup finished, he stepped back and gave it all another look over before nodding in approval.

“Alright, I think that should do it, go ahead and see if you can pull that.”

With a nod of his own Big Mac leaned into his harness with a heavy grunt and slowly put one hoof in front of the other. At first, it didn’t seem as though he would move it, but with another determined grunt, the hay basket started to move. Though Allen could see that Big Mac was straining a bit.

Walking along beside him, Allen asked, “You doing okay there?”

“Eeyup, pretty heavy and awkward though,” grunted Big Mac.

Allen nodded and said, “Yeah, I can see that, guess I’ll have to reduce the amount of hay I put in each basket a bit. The bale counter says I have about a hundred in there right now. I’ll drop it down to about eighty and we’ll see if that will pull better for you.”

Big Mac just grunted in acknowledgment and kept pulling. Getting as much speed as he could, he pulled the heavy basket of hay through the gate and onto the road, the rest of the ponies following along behind, while Allen clambered up into his tractor seat and followed slowly along behind them.

As he followed along behind, Allen took note that when he was on a straightaway, Big Mac seemed to do alright, but when he went to make the turn into his driveway, he noticed the big red pony struggling to keep the momentum up. However, Big Mac trudged on, and eventually, the basket arrived at the unloading point. Coming to a stop, Big Mac panted as he tried to catch his breath, the uneven pull having worn on him more than he had thought it would.

Allen meanwhile had driven around the stopped earth pony stallion and was in the process of hooking up to the second hay basket over by the machine shed.

“Are you okay, Big Mac?” asked Penny in concern.

Taking deep breaths of air, Big Mac replied, “Ah’ll be alright, just gotta catch mah breath fer a second is all.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. I wasn’t expecting this to be so difficult for you,” she replied.

“Normally it wouldn’t be, but because Ah ain’t centered, it’s harder ta pull. Ah think if Allen lightens the load a bit, it’ll be manageable.”

“Okay, well if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask, okay?”

Big Mac gave her a thankful smile and nodded.

By this point, Allen had finished hooking up and after turning the tractor off, he came over.

“Alright,” he began, “let’s get this thing dumped and then I’ll show you guys what I want done alright?” a round of nods from the ponies answered his question, though he noticed that two ponies were missing. “Hey, where’s Rye and Clover?”

“Hiding in the barn,” replied Honeysuckle with a roll of her eyes as she trotted over from the barn. “They think I did a bad job on their mane and tail cuts, but I think they’re just being melodramatic.”

“You did do a bad job!” yelled Clover from the barn, though from the angle that he was at, Allen could only see the tip of his muzzle.

“It’s not that bad!” his sister yelled back, “now you two stop acting like a pair of little foals and get out here!”

“No!”

Groaning in annoyance, Honeysuckle squared her shoulders and marched up to the barn. Turning the corner, she was soon lost from view, however, a calamitous racket soon started up as Honeysuckle fought to pull her two brothers out into the light. After about a minute or so, first one, then the other brother were unceremoniously kicked out of the barn and came tumbling head over tail down the ramp before coming to a stop at Allen’s feet.

Looking down at the pair of groaning stallions, Allen could see why they didn’t want to be seen. Both their manes and tails looked like a four-year-old on a sugar bender had attacked them with a weed wacker. What was worse is that it looked like said four year old had missed a couple of times and had shaved several patches of fur off in random spots on their coats in the process. All in all, the two looked ridiculous, and Allen winced in sympathy at their plight.

Lyra on the other hoof thought it was hilarious and broke out into uproarious laughter.

“BWAHAHA! You two looked ridiculous!” she wheezed as she fell back on her flanks and held her stomach from laughing so hard.

“Lyra! That’s not very nice!” scolded Twilight, though Allen could see that she was fighting to hold back her own chuckles as well.

Penny just looked tired, while Big Mac and Zubchatoye also tried to hide their amusement at the pair's predicament.

“See, what did I tell you? It doesn’t look that bad,” said Honeysuckle as she trotted over.

Rye spun around and spat back. “‘It doesn’t look bad?!’ Sis, we look like we’ve been attacked by parasprites that got addicted to eating hair!”

“Actually if that was the case then you two would be furless,” pointed out Twilight, “we had an infestation last year and they nearly ate the town clean of food.”

“They nearly ate the town,” added Lyra between giggles.

Clover and Rye paused and looked at each other before Rye said, “I’m sure there is a story behind that line.”

Lyra grinned as Twilight groaned. “Well, Twilight here thought it would be a good idea to cast a spell on them that would keep them from eating food. The trouble was that when she did so, it made them eat everything else.”

Everyone winced at the mental picture of the kind of devastation that would cause.

“I think we’re getting off-topic here,” cut in Allen in an attempt to move the conversation back on track.

“Right, let’s get back to the matter at hoof, which is the fact that my brother and I look like some demented pony with clippers attacked us. Oh, wait! They did, and they’re standing right here next to us telling everypony that everything is fine!” complained Clover as he pointed an accusatory hoof at his sister.

Honeysuckle just shook her head and rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault those clippers weren’t designed for hooves.”

Seeing that the conversation was about to descend into further sibling bickering, Allen stepped in and said, “Okay, that’s enough,” pointing to Honeysuckle he asked, “Go get my clippers from wherever you put them, and you two,” he pointed at Clover and Rye, “go sit by the outlet over there and I’ll try to fix your manes so they look less like a disaster, okay? Everyone good with that?” Seeing some reluctant nods, he said, “Okay, good, now get moving, we’re burning daylight here.”

Twenty minutes later both Rye and Clover looked... better, though both their manes and tails were now very short, and they still had a couple of spots that were noticeably shorter than the rest of their coats, but it would have to do.

Inspecting their manes with a small mirror that Allen had pulled out of the bag that the clippers came in, they nodded their heads.

“I guess it’ll do,” said Clover.

“Yeah, it’s not great, but it’s better than what we had before, so thank you,” added Rye with a nod of thanks in Allen’s direction.

Taking the mirror from them and putting it away along with the clippers, Allen replied, “You’re welcome, and sorry I couldn't make it better, but your sister didn’t leave me with much to work with, so I did the best that I could. On the positive side, we won’t have to worry about either of you getting your mane or tails caught in the elevator now.”

Zipping up the bag, Allen set it aside and motioned for the three earth ponies to follow him up into the loft. Climbing the stairs, Allen flicked a light switch, the lights in the loft flickering to life as he did so.

“Okay,” he began, “here’s how this is gonna work. One of you is going to stand next to the elevator here,” he pointed at a spot next to the door that the elevator was poking through. “When a bale comes up, it will fall off the end here. There is no rush to catch it, as these,” he pointed at a pair of curved metal bars that extended out past the elevator track, “will keep the bale from getting caught in the elevator chain that brought it up. So all you have to do is just grab the bale and pull it away from the elevator. Probably the best way to do that is by using one of these hay hooks here,” he grabbed one of the aforementioned implements from off the wall and showed it to his new employees. It was a red metal hook with a large wooden handhold on one end that looked big enough that a pony could grab with their mouths, though it didn’t look very comfortable.

“Unfortunately, this is all I have at the moment, so you guys are going to have to figure out how to use this to move the hay around while you are up here.”

“Allen and I are working on getting some better tools, but unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find anything that fits our needs at the moment. So we’re kind of stuck using these and hoof power until we can cook up something better,” added Penny, who had followed the four of them up.

Allen nodded and continued, “We’ve got a couple of ideas, but if any of you come up with something while you’re working, let us know and we will compensate you for your idea. In the meantime, you’re just going to have to get creative I’m afraid.”

Setting the hook down, Allen pointed towards the south-eastern corner of the loft. “That is where I want you to start stacking the hay first. Stack it as high as you safely can,” leaning out the door, he called down to Twilight and Lyra below, “Hey, send up about twelve bales of hay please, I need to show them how I want it stacked.”

Waving that they heard him, Lyra flipped the power switch and the hay elevator clattered to life. The well-oiled chain made a soft rattling sound as the links traveled up the track. Twilight meanwhile had grabbed several bales of hay in her magic and floated them over, ready to put them on the elevator. Giving her the signal that he was ready, Allen watched as Twilight carefully set a bale on and watched as it was slowly pulled upwards towards its new temporary home. As the first bale reached the door, Twilight put another bale on and repeated the process. Seeing that she had the hang of it, Allen stood up and waited as the first bale dropped off the end of the elevator with a solid thump.

As each bale came up the elevator, Allen would grab it and toss it towards the back of the loft, uncaring of how far or where they landed. All he cared about was that they were out of his way. When the last bale reached the end of the elevator, Allen motioned for Lyra to cut the power, before turning around and addressing his ‘students’ as the elevator suddenly quit running behind him.

“Alright, each of you grab a bale and get it over in that back corner over there,” he pointed to where he wanted them to go with a finger, before reaching down and picking up a bale in each hand by the strings and waddling over to the aforementioned corner.

Setting the two bales down, he waited for the other three to bring their bales over. Honeysuckle had elected to push her bale with her forehead, and thanks to the smooth wooden floor, the bale slid effortlessly to its destination. Rye had opted to grab the hay hook with his mouth and thrust it into his chosen bale before dragging it along like a dog would a large branch. Clover, on the other hand, had decided to go with the old adage of ‘working smarter, not harder,’ and had decided that since he’d been blessed with two sturdy hind legs, he would kick the hay bale where he wanted it to go. The result was that with one solid kick, Clover managed to send his hay bale sailing across the loft and right into an unsuspecting Allen’s legs. This meant that Allen ended up on his back with no idea how he had gone from standing to lying down in the span of a second.

Groaning, Allen levered himself up and asked, “Did anyone get the number of the bus that hit me?”

“Oh, Sweet Celestia! Are you okay Allen?” gasped Honeysuckle as she rushed to give aid to the fallen human.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” hissed Allen as he shakily stood back up. Looking around, he spotted a very sheepish-looking Clover standing over by the hay elevator waving at him. Turning back to Honeysuckle, he asked, “What happened? One second I’m standing, and the next it felt like I just got hit by a pissed-off ram.”

Honeysuckle shot Clover an unamused look. “My brother apparently decided to use his legs rather than his brain to solve the problem of moving hay around up here.”

“Is it too late to say sorry?” asked Clover remorsefully.

Rubbing his sore back, Allen asked, “You mean to tell me that your brother just kicked one of my hay bales over here?”

Honeysuckle nodded. “Yeah, he did, I’m really sorry about that Allen, I hope you’re not mad. Please say you’re not mad, we really need this job,” she begged.

Allen shook his head. “I’m not mad, and I need you guys just as much as you need me,” he turned to Clover and said, “Just... be careful where you send those bales flying, someone could get hurt.”

Clover hung his head in shame. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think that I kicked it that hard.”

“Yeah, well... just... tone it down about fifty percent for the next kick okay?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” replied Clover with a relieved nod.

Seeing that he wasn’t going to be taken out anytime soon by another rogue hay bale, Allen waved everyone over and quickly explained how he wanted the hay stacked. While this task wasn’t super critical in the loft, it would increase the stability of the overall haystack as it got taller. The general idea was to make sure that the bales weren’t all stacked the same way, such as when you started a new layer, you rotated the bales ninety degrees and moved them over a bale space so that way they sort of ‘tied’ the stack together and decreased the likelihood that part of the stack would collapse under you when you were on it. Which is not a fun experience.

“Alright, I’ll hang around for a bit and watch you guys work to make sure you got it, after that, I’ll get back to baling, sound good?” said Allen as he finished explaining what he wanted done.

With a chorus of ‘yeses’ in reply, Allen nodded and strode over to the loft door and called down, “Okay, we’re ready, fire her up!”

Giving a wave in reply, Lyra flipped the power switch on, bringing the hay elevator to life, and signaling the official start of haying season.

Author's Notes:

Okay, so the last two months have been kind of busy for me, which is why this chapter has taken so long to get done. I won't bore you with all the minute details but, suffice to say that I got sick, then my dad got remarried in March, and he and his new wife have been doing their own thing so I've been taking care of the farm while they've been gone.

Additionally, I've had a sudden increase in hay sales over the month of March and April, and since we haven't had many people buying, I essentially still had about ninety percent of my stock of hay left. So I have been juggling selling over a thousand plus bales of hay, alongside my normal day job, this means that I've been making phone calls, setting up times for people to come out, and then helping them load the hay. In addition, I'm in the process of leaving my current job, and starting next month I will be helping one of my neighbors with his hay cutting operation all through the summer, so updates may slow even further, we'll see. After that, I'm not sure, but I feel it is time for me to leave my current job as I do not think it wise to remain for much longer.

The final reason this chapter took so long was the fact that I had to do some research, and that takes time. Specifically, I needed to look into proper harness terminology and the proper ways in which to hook horses up to implements. Between Youtube videos that I found, an old book that belonged to my mom on draft horses, and some general web searches, I was able to piece things together well enough I think. Though, if I missed something, please let me know.

Anyways, this author's notes has gone on long enough, so as always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 41 (Socially Awkward Shopping)

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Chapter 41

It was Saturday morning in Equestria. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, school was out for the summer, so all of the foals were celebrating their newfound freedom, and Allen was a man on a mission.

“Come on, where is it?” he mumbled to himself as he searched through the cupboards in his kitchen in search of the coffee can. He’d used up the last of his current container of coffee yesterday, and he had thought there was still one more somewhere in the pantry. Alas, there wasn’t, and now Allen was stumbling around his kitchen looking for coffee grounds that weren’t there.

Angrily slamming the final cupboard door shut, Allen muttered under his breath. “For fuck’s sake! I could have sworn I had another fucking can of coffee left around here somewhere.”

Leaning his head against the cupboard door in tired defeat, Allen sighed. It was bound to happen eventually. I mean, it’s not like stuff magically replenishes itself when you use the last of it up after all... even if that would be a nice feature to have. I wonder if Twilight has a spell for that? He shook his head. No focus, I’m out of coffee... and a lot of other stuff as well.

He stood up straight and looked around his kitchen. Striding over to his fridge and freezer, he opened it and peered inside, the shelves were nearly bare save for a jar of pickles and a jar of strawberry jam, along with a plastic bowl of leftovers from last night.

Hmm, I’m out of just about everything it seems, thought Allen to himself as he surveyed his barren fridge. Shutting the door, he leaned down and opened the freezer door below and was greeted to equally bare shelves.

Shutting the door with another sigh, he shook his head. Guess this is what I get for not paying attention to my food stocks. To be fair, I’ve been kind of busy these last couple of months. Though it looks like I’m going to need to make a supply run into town today then.

Re-opening the fridge door, he grabbed the plastic bowl and pulled it out. Grabbing a plate from a cupboard, he emptied the bowl’s contents onto the plate and stuck it in the microwave to warm up.

While his ‘breakfast’ was cooking, he grabbed a pen and paper and began making a grocery list, only pausing when the microwave dinged that it was done, before resuming his list-making when he had retrieved his food. In short order, he finished his breakfast, and his list, and gathered up some things to take with him, namely his bit bag and backpack. Sticking the list and bit bag into his backpack, he slung it over his shoulders and grabbed his house keys before heading outside. Locking the door behind him, he ambled over to the barn, the mid-morning sun gently warming him as he walked.

Entering the barn, he set his backpack down by the door and wandered over to where Reuben was happily finishing his morning breakfast of fresh-cut hay. Giving the horse an affectionate neck rub, Allen said, “Okay, boy. Today you and I are going to go into town and pick up some groceries.”

Reuben just continued munching on his hay with a snort.

Laughing, Allen replied, “Well of course you can finish your breakfast, I need to grab a couple of things out of the tack room anyways.”

Leaving Reuben to his morning meal, Allen set course for the tack room. Opening the door, he stepped inside and began searching for the two panniers that he knew his mom had bought several years ago for some reason and never used.

I know they’re here, cause I just saw them not that long ago... now, where did I put them? Hmm... ah, there they are.

Stooping down, he pulled the two canvas panniers out from under several saddle blankets that had been ‘temporarily’ placed on the floor until he could get around to putting them away properly. Dusting the canvas bags off, Allen inspected them for any rips or holes, and seeing none, nodded in satisfaction before turning around and setting them in the main area of the barn before returning to the tack room to grab a saddle blanket, saddle, and lead line.

Setting everything down next to the panniers, Allen looked over and saw that Reuben was nearly finished with his morning breakfast and decided to give him a couple more minutes before saddling him up. Turning around, he decided to head upstairs and throw a couple of bales of hay down for tonight ahead of time as he figured he would be pretty tired by the time he came home, and the less work he needed to do then, the better.

Ascending the stairs, he quickly threw down the necessary amount of hay for the evening’s feeding and paused to admire the decent-sized haystack.

Those three did a good job, thought Allen as he gazed at the neat stack of hay. If they’re still around when I cut the next field, then I’ll definitely hire them again. Twilight and Lyra did a pretty good job as well, though by the end they looked like they were about to drop from exhaustion. Can’t say I really blame them, hay work is hard work, and I had a lot more hay than I thought I was going to have.

It was true, Allen hadn’t thought that his ten-acre field would produce over fifteen hundred bales of hay. In all the years that he and his family had done that field the best they had ever gotten off of it in one cutting was around a thousand bales. Usually, it would produce around six to seven hundred bales during the first cutting, and half that for subsequent cuttings. However, this time, things had been different, not that Allen was complaining, as he figured that if this field’s hay yield had essentially doubled in the short time that he had been here, then the Equestrian hay fields should be even better.

Shaking his head, he turned and headed back downstairs. I still can’t believe we managed to get all of that hay put away in a day. Poor Big Mac though, he looked pretty rough by the end of the day. Next time... if there is a next time, I’ll be sure to use a single horse setup instead of a double, it should go a lot better for him. Plus he’ll be using his own harness instead of one designed for a horse that’s a third bigger than him.

Reaching the main floor, Allen strode over to Reuben’s stall and peeked inside.

“You done yet Reuben?” he asked playfully.

Reuben simply nickered in reply and bobbed his head, a couple of stalks of hay falling from the corners of his mouth.

“Well alrighty then, since you’re done, let’s get you saddled up, time’s a-wasting,” said Allen as he opened the stall, grabbed Reuben by the halter, and put a lead line on him.

Walking him out, he tied him to a post and gave him a quick brushing to get any dirt off before he put the saddle and panniers on. Brushing complete, he put the saddle blanket on, followed by the saddle, and adjusted the various straps so that they were snug. Grabbing, the panniers, he hefted them over Reuben’s back and got them attached to the saddle.

The panniers were pretty simple, comprising of a pair of canvas pouches that would hang down on either side of Reuben, with a strong canvas strap that went over Reuben’s back and connected the two bags. One of the bags even had an insulated pouched inside for frozen foods, which was a plus in Allen’s book. Finally, a pair of loops at the front that went over the saddle horn and two metal clips to hook onto the saddle, one on either side at the rear helped keep the two bags from sliding off.

Testing to make sure everything was tied down, Allen gave a satisfied nod and went to collect his backpack. Sticking his arms through the straps, he let it settle on his back and went to untie Reuben, before heading out.

Leading him out of the barn, Allen whistled a merry little tune as he lead Reuben down the driveway before turning right and heading for town. The first part of the journey was relatively uneventful as Allen and Reuben plodded along the dirt road. The only trouble was when they reached the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres, and Reuben became skittish as he remembered what had happened the last time he was here.

“Shhh, easy there buddy, nobody is gonna dive-bomb or chase us today,” whispered Allen calmly as he turned around and rubbed Reuben’s neck comfortingly while keeping a firm grip on the lead line in case Reuben decided to turn tail and head home.

Dancing back and forth on his hooves, Reuben slowly calmed down as Allen continued to whisper calm and encouraging words to the nervous horse. The fact that no weird armored-covered equines charged out of the tree line or dived out of the sky at him helped too.

Seeing that Reuben was relaxing, Allen walked him around the area to show him that there wasn’t anything to be scared of. He even walked him under the Sweet Apple Acres archway several times and let him sniff whatever he wanted to sniff. Finally, after about ten or fifteen minutes, Allen decided Reuben had gotten over the worst of his skittishness, and with a firm tug on the lead line, he said, “Alright bud, you’ve had your time to look the area over, so let’s get going, we’re burning daylight here.”

Flipping his ears back and forward, and letting loose a huff, as if annoyed at being hurried, Reuben allowed himself to be led away. Allen for his part just chuckled and shook his head as he resumed his interrupted journey.

Passing by the schoolhouse, Allen could see that it stood empty, the small white gate closed, and the playground devoid of playing foals.

Guess schools out for the summer, mused Allen to himself as he and Reuben walked by. Well, that’s fine, at least I won’t have to worry about a bunch of hyper-active foals spooking Reuben with their antics.

With the school behind them, Allen soon reached one of the rivers that ran near Ponyville. Coming to a stop, he tried to figure out which way to go. Before him the road split and went over two bridges, one went north, and the other went east. The eastern bridge led directly into the market, while the northern bridge went to the train station. Looking back over his shoulder at Reuben, he chewed his bottom lip in thought.

I’m not sure how Reuben will react to being around so many ponies... or how the ponies will react to Reuben for that matter. But I need to get food, and the market is the only place that I know that sells food around here... but it’s really busy and noisy, with a lot of ponies walking and flying about, and I know Reuben will freak the second a pegasus passes by overhead.

Looking around at his surroundings, Allen could see a couple of trees and a few posts along the river. I suppose I could tie Reuben to one of the trees or posts and leave him here while I go buy stuff, problem is that I’d only be able to bring back whatever I could fit in my backpack and carry in my arms, which means a lot of trips back and forth. Plus, what happens if something spooks him while I’m gone or some ponies get the wrong idea about what he’s doing tied up out here, untie him and he wanders away?

Scratching his head, he tried to figure out what to do when a posh voice called out from the other side of the river, “Hello! Allen, is that you over there?”

Blinking, Allen peeked around Reuben and looked in the direction the voice came from, spotting an alabaster-colored unicorn as she came trotting over the bridge.

“Uh, yeah it’s me,” replied Allen with a nod as he watched her approach.

“I thought so,” she replied primly, as she gave a toss of her head, her lush, purple locks bouncing. “I mean, after all, you are the only human in Ponyville.”

“Yep, the only and only,” said Allen simply.

Giving him a warm smile, she turned her attention to Reuben and her eyes practically lit up as she took in his form. “Oh my, and who is this handsome stallion?”

“This is my horse, Reuben,” Allen replied, before turning to Reuben and half-jokingly saying, “Well go on and say hi.”

Reuben’s ears flipped back and forth before he bobbed his head, as if in greeting.

The mare tittered and replied, “Charmed to meet you, Reuben, I am Rarity, Ponyville’s premier fashion designer, if you ever need anything that is chic, unique, and magnifique, just come by my shop, I will be happy to whip something up for you and...” she trailed off as she noticed that Reuben had started munching on the roadside grass, and was now completely ignoring her.

Turning a little green at the sight, she glanced up at Allen unsure as to what was happening. Allen chuckled and explained, “Sorry, Rarity, Reuben doesn’t talk. He’s smart, but not sapient smart.”

Still confused, Rarity replied, “But he nodded when you said to say hi?”

Allen shrugged. “My mom taught him to do that, along with a couple of other tricks. He doesn’t really know what the action means, only that doing it will get him a reward of some kind when you say the command and he does it. He’s like a dog in that regard.”

“I’m... not sure how to feel about this now,” replied Rarity with a slightly disturbed expression on her face as she got a better look at Reuben and noticed the differences between an Equestrian pony and a Terran horse. Stepping closer, she watched as Reuben happily continued to munch away, and decided that her initial remark on his handsomeness had been somewhat premature.

Looking between the two equines, one sapient, the other not, Allen nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I suppose he would fall a little into the Uncanny Valley for someone like you.”

Blinking, she looked away from Reuben and asked, “Uncanny Valley? What is that?”

“It’s when something looks almost like you, but it’s not quite the same, and it elicits feelings of unease or revulsion,” replied Allen as he gently rubbed Reuben’s neck.

“Yes... I suppose that is one way to put it,” remarked Rarity as her eyes wandered over Reuben’s features, before with a sudden gasp, she averted her eyes away from Reuben, her face a bright red in embarrassment.

Noticing her sudden discomfort, Allen asked, “Are you okay?”

Clearing her throat awkwardly, Rarity, still looking away from Reuben replied, “Um, well, did you know that Reuben isn’t... shall we say, decent, dear?”

Still rubbing Reuben’s neck, Allen cocked his head to one side questioningly. “How so?”

Face stilled flushed red, Rarity replied, “He isn’t wearing any overwear dear, and he’s... presenting.”

Allen paused his neck rubbing and blinked as his brain worked through the issue. Finally, the awkward realization hit as he heard the tell-tale sound of Reuben relieving himself, and he said, “Ah... yeah I see what you’re getting at there.”

Retreating swiftly to avoid any chance of being splashed, and her red blush having turned a definitive shade of green, Rarity said, “Yes well, perhaps you should make Reuben here more... presentable before you parade him through town?”

“What, you want me to make Reuben put on a pair of pants or something?” questioned Allen skeptically.

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a pair of overwear or at the minimum a cloak to protect his modesty,” suggested Rarity, “as well as to keep you from running afoul of public nudity laws,” she quietly added.

Allen sighed. If it’s not one thing, it’s another, he grumbled to himself.

“And just where the hell am I going to find something in his size on short notice?” complained Allen.

“Perhaps I could be of assistance? I mean, it’s not as if I own a clothing shop and know how to sew custom pieces or anything,” replied Rarity coyly.

Allen gave her an unamused look. “Don’t patronize me.”

Giving Allen a faux look of shock, Rarity easily replied, “Moi? Patronizing? Darling, I haven’t the slightest idea of what you are talking about.” Her small smile and fluttering eyelashes however indicated that she knew exactly what Allen was talking about.

Rolling his eyes, he didn’t rise to the bait and instead asked in a tired tone, “How much?”

Seeing Allen wasn’t in the mood to play word games, Rarity let go a little huff. “You’re no fun,” she said, a small pout forming on her lips at being denied her fun.

“How much?” repeated Allen.

Rolling her eyes, Rarity trotted closer and lit up her horn, pulling a tape measure from... somewhere, Allen wasn’t sure where probably her mane if he were to guess, and after letting Reuben see the floating tape so that he wouldn’t spook, she set to work measuring the patient stallion.

Several minutes later, she returned the tape to wherever it was she brought it from and said, “Alright, I’ve got my measurements, I will return shortly with the finished product.”

“But how much is this going to cost?” called out Allen as Rarity turned and trotted away.

Calling back over her shoulder she replied, “It should only cost about twenty or so bits. Now please be patient dear, I should be back in about an hour!”

Allen opened his mouth to reply, but by that point, Rarity was already over the bridge and had disappeared amongst the buildings of Ponyville.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose with a hand, Allen grumbled, “I need a beer.”

With nothing better to do, Allen looped Reuben’s lead line around a nearby tree and sat down to wait for Rarity’s return. He amused himself by watching random things float down the river, occasionally adding the odd twig or leaf that was in reach to the procession.

Every so often, a shadow would pass by overhead, and Allen would look up to see a random pegasus flying by as they went about their morning routine. The first few times one of them flew over, Reuben had gotten nervous and Allen had been forced to get up and calm the skittish horse. However, after a bit, Reuben became used to the random large shadows passing by overhead and wouldn’t even bother looking up from his grazing binge.

Eventually, Allen spotted Rarity returning, a brown paper package held aloft in her light blue magical aura.

Huh, I’ll be damned, she was only gone for fifty-five minutes, thought Allen as he glanced at his watch.

Levering himself up, he waved in greeting. “Well, that didn’t take long,” he remarked as Rarity floated the package to him.

Taking it in his hands, he quickly unwrapped it, letting the odd mess of straps and canvas fall over his arms like a dry inanimate octopus.

“Well, I did say it would only take me an hour or so darling,” replied Rarity as she gathered up the paper and twine in her magic, carefully folding the paper and rolling up the twine for later use.

“So you did,” commented Allen absently as he tried to figure out how the blasted thing in his arms worked. “How do you put this thing on?”

Gently scooping the article of clothing from Allen, Rarity replied, “Like this darling.”

Carefully showing Reuben the garment, she let him sniff it before then running it along his side so that he knew where it was and wouldn’t become spooked when she went to ‘dress’ him.

Unfolding it, she carefully threaded it between his rear legs and gently lifted it into place underneath him, before fastening it to the stallion.

As she worked, Allen carefully watched and came to the realization that what she was putting on Reuben was essentially a large canvas diaper with a few extra attachments.

As she worked, Rarity happily explained how her creation worked. “I do apologize darling for the crude and rather primitive nature of this overwear, but it was the best I could manage on such short notice,” giving a firm tug on a strap, she made sure that it fit snuggly, but wasn’t too tight. “But, it should work well enough for your needs, and I doubt that dear Reuben here cares too terribly much about how he looks.”

Allen chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, Reuben couldn’t give a damn about how he looks. Hell, half the time he’s content to be covered in dried mud and... other things, and either I or my sister have to hose and brush him to get him looking clean.”

“I... see,” replied Rarity with a wince of disgust at the thought of being perpetually covered in mud and filth. Shaking her head, she refocused her attention on tightening the last strap. “Well, regardless this overwear should keep him decent and prevent him from making a mess when he needs to answer the call of nature as it were. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any elastic bands on hoof, so I had to make do with these straps and buckles, nor did I have any material in his coat color.”

Allen shrugged again. “This is fine Rarity. As I said, Reuben doesn’t really care about fashion, and I’m not really big on it myself. All that matters is that it works.”

Pouting a little at hearing Allen’s polite dismissal of the importance of looking one’s best, Rarity replied, “Well, in any case, as I said this should work just fine at keeping him decent and clean. I’ve sewn a pair of enchanted gems into it that will keep any smells contained, as well as make cleaning a breeze.”

Allen nodded as he inspected the overwear. Lifting Reuben’s tail out of the way, he could see that everything was completely covered and that it appeared that there was some extra padding partway under Reuben’s barrel. “So, not meaning to be crude here, but where will the waste go when Reuben needs to relieve himself?”

“Well, for the... solid waste, there is a pouch that will allow the feces to fall into a separate part of the overwear. This will keep him from soiling himself and will make later clean up easier, simply turn the overwear upside down and dump, and the waste should tumble out. Plus, it’s lined with fluid-resistant fabric which should prevent any... stains from manifesting on the outside. As for liquid waste, there is an absorbent pad underneath his groin that should be sufficient to soak up any urine he may produce while out and about. When you need to clean it, simply detach the straps from the main part of the overwear and let it soak for an hour in a warm, soapy solution before wringing it out, giving it a rinse and final wring and letting air dry.”

“Seems simple enough,” replied Allen with a nod.

Rarity replied with a satisfied nod of her own. “For the most part yes, if I had had the needed materials, then it would be even simpler, as all you would need to do is pull the overwear up between his legs and slot his tail through the opening. However, this will do I suppose.”

“So long as it works, I’m happy,” said Allen as he pulled out his bit bag and asked, “So how much do I owe you?”

“The final price should be twenty bits.”

Absently nodding as he counted out the needed bits, Allen handed the required bits over. Taking them in her magic, Rarity smiled happily at her sale and said, “Thank you very much, and before I forget, that overwear has a six-month warranty on it, if it should start to fray or a strap should break, do not hesitate to bring it to my shop, and I shall repair it free of charge. Though willful destruction of the article is not covered and you will be charged the normal price of repair, plus materials.”

Stashing his bit bag, Allen replied, “A six-month warranty, huh? Never had anything like that before.”

“Really?” asked Rarity in surprise, “I would think that any tailor or seamstress worth their needlework would offer something such as that. After all, if you make good quality clothing, you shouldn’t need to make any repairs for quite some time, so long as the customer takes care of their clothes.”

Untying Reuben from the tree, Allen casually offered a shrug and said, “If any do, I’ve never encountered them before. Of course, I usually just buy mass-produced clothing from a store. It’s cheap and lasts long enough that it’s not a big deal to just toss the worn-out clothes and go buy some new ones.”

“And how long do your clothes last?” she inquired as she fell in alongside Allen as he started walking.

“Depends on the clothes and what you are doing. I’ve seen guys burn through clothes in a few months, but that’s usually because they’re doing hard manual labor and their clothes end up getting shredded. For me, I usually have to get new pants every couple of years.” He paused as he came to the fork in the road and after pondering for a moment asked, “Say, do you know if there is any other place to buy food around here? I’m not sure Reuben is ready for the hustle and bustle of the market yet.”

Rarity gently tapped her chin in thought before saying, “Well, there is Barnyard Bargains on the north side of town, they have a pretty decent stock of affordable foodstuffs, even if it isn’t the freshest, plus they also stock other goods as well.”

“Can you tell me how to get there without going through town? I’m trying to keep Reuben from getting overwhelmed by everything coming at him all at once,” asked Allen.

Giving a nod of understanding, Rarity pointed at the bridge leading north over the river. “If you go over that bridge and follow the road, it’ll keep you on the outskirts of town. Once you reach the library tree, you’ll want to turn right onto Bridle Way and follow that all the way to Barnyard Bargains.”

“Awesome, thanks for your help,” replied Allen gratefully.

“Think nothing of it, dear,” said Rarity, a happy smile on her face, “I am always happy to lend a hoof when needed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home before Sweetie Belle gets into any more trouble.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Allen asks, “Sweetie Belle? If I remember right, there was a filly who went by that name at the Ponyville Schoolhouse when I did my presentation I think, how do you know her?”

“She’s my little sister,” clarifies Rarity, “my parents dropped her off for the summer while they are on vacation.”

“Ah, I see,” replied Allen with a knowing nod. “Though from what I remember, she didn’t seem like much of a trouble maker.”

Rolling her eyes, Rarity replied, “Yes, well you do not have to live with her. I mean, just this morning she tried to make breakfast, and burnt everything, including the juice... somehow.”

“I... didn’t think you could do that,” said Allen, a disbelieving look on his face.

“Neither did I until this morning, yet somehow she managed it,” Rarity sighed, an exasperated look on her face. “Then she managed to upend the table when she tried to put some garnish on one of the plates, making a big mess,” she sighed, “I love her, truly I do, but somedays...”

Allen laughed. “I know exactly what you mean, my little sister can be a real brat sometimes...” he trailed off as his eyes took on a faraway look, “I really miss her though, and my dad too. Guess you don’t realize how much you care about people until they’re gone, huh?”

Lay a hoof on the side of his leg, Rarity said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset by reminding you of your family, I’m sure that Twilight and the others will find a way to make things right.”

Shaking his head, Allen fixed Rarity with a sad smile and said, “Thanks Rarity, and I’m sure you’re right,” taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and with a nod of his head, he continued, “Welp, I better get going, thanks for your help.”

“It was no trouble, you take care, and you as well Reuben,” replied Rarity with a happy nod in return.

Giving a final wave, Allen gave Reuben’s lead line a tug and the two set off. Rarity watched them cross the bridge before with a sigh, she turned around and headed back to her boutique.

As she trotted along, her mind kept replaying the final part of her conversation with Allen. Perhaps, I can spare an hour or two to spend time with Sweetie Belle today.

A small smile tugging at the corners of her lips, Rarity nodded and with a slight spring in her step turned into her front yard. However, both her smile and spring quickly disappeared as she spotted Sweetie Belle hanging up a certain, one-of-a-kind, woolen sweater on the line to dry.

“Oh, hey Rarity!” chirped Sweetie Belle happily as she noticed her sister’s return. Turning, she proudly pointed at the clothesline behind her and said, “I noticed that you had a bunch of things to wash, and since breakfast didn’t go as planned this morning, I thought I could make up for it by doing the laundry for you!”

Rarity’s mouth hung open in muted horror as, before her eyes, her woolen sweater quickly shrunk on the line to the point that only her cat Opal would be able to wear it. Feeling one of her eyes start to twitch in anger, she opened her mouth to berate her little sister before Allen’s voice whispered from the back of her mind.

Guess you don’t realize how much you care about people until they’re gone, huh?

All the frustration and anger that had been welling up in Rarity vanished and in its place was a feeling of shame for her near outburst.

Sweetie was only trying to help, she didn’t know any better. Thought Rarity as she trudged up to the clothesline and looked over the shrunken sweater. Glancing down at her sister, she could see Sweetie’s ears were lowered and she had a sheepish expression on her face as she realized that she had somehow messed up... again.

“Um, oops? Hehe...”

Taking a deep breath, Rarity closed her eyes and took a moment to center herself before opening them again and looking down at Sweetie Belle.

Seeing her sister’s now very worried look, Rarity gave her a small smile and said, “While I appreciate the kind gesture of wanting to help me, I think you should have waited until I was home, Sweetie. Not everything can be washed the same way after all.”

Hanging her head in disappointment, Sweetie replied dully, “I’m sorry Rarity. I just wanted to help.”

Pulling her little sister into a hug, Rarity replied, “I know, and while I am upset at what happened to my sweater, I’m not mad at you,” she paused and looked the ruined sweater over, “at least Opal should be able to fit into it, so it’s not a complete waste.”

“So, I’m not in trouble?” asked Sweetie Belle hopefully.

Looking back down at her sister, Rarity replied, “Only if you promise not to wash or clean anything here without my permission and supervision again.”

“I promise,” nodded Sweetie Belle enthusiastically, a smile forming on her face.

Returning the smile with one of her own, Rarity nodded. “Good, then I think we can put a pin in this lesson and go do something fun together. How does getting some ice cream sound?”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Sweetie excitedly as she jumped up and down at the thought of a tasty treat. This continued for several moments before she suddenly paused and said, “Oh, there was something I wanted to ask you, wait here a second!” and with that, she turned and raced back into the boutique.

Perplexed, Rarity patiently waited for her sister’s return. She didn’t have to wait long, as soon Sweetie re-emerge with a flyer firmly held in her mouth. Sliding to a stop in front of her big sister, she spat it out and presented it to her, a hopeful smile on her face.

Taking the flyer in her magic, Rarity gave it a quick look over.

“Sister Hooves Social this Sunday at Sweet Apple Acres?” she read aloud

“Yeah! Applebloom gave that to me yesterday at school. They’ve got food, games, prizes, and all kinds of cool stuff, so can we go, please?” begged Sweetie Belle.

Reading over the rest of the flyer, Rarity gave her sister a skeptical look. “I don’t know Sweetie, I’ve got a look of work to do if I want to make my deadline on time for my new fashion line.”

Sticking out her lower lip, Sweetie Belle hit her sister with the saddest puppy dog eyes that she could. “Please? We never get to do anything together, and I was really hoping we could do that... I know you don’t like getting dirty and stuff, but maybe just this once, for me?”

Letting loose a sigh of defeat, Rarity conceded. “Alright, we can go, but...” she added, when Sweetie’s face lit up in excitement, “you are going to have to help me with my work order. So that means you will have to do exactly what I tell you to do, understand?”

Adopting a serious face, Sweetie gave her sister a sharp salute and replied, “Yes, ma’am!”

“Good,” nodded Rarity, “now, let me go get my bit bag and we can go and get some ice cream real quick, but we’ll have to eat it on the way home as we’ve got a lot of work to do if we’re going to go to the social tomorrow.”

“Oh thank you Rarity! You’re the best big sister ever!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle happily as she hugged Rarity.

“And you are the best little sister ever,” replied Rarity with a smile.

~oOo~

Meanwhile, Allen and Reuben were just reaching their destination.

“So that’s Barnyard Bargains, huh?” muttered Allen to himself as he and Reuben reached the end of Bridle Way. The store was made to look like your stereotypical gambrel style red and white painted barn, except it had a pair of sliding glass doors and large glass windows showing off the various things for sale inside.

Slowly walking up to the front, Allen watched as several ponies came and went, the glass doors opening and closing automatically as they entered and exited.

Huh, didn’t think they would have automatic sliding doors here. Thought Allen to himself as he and Reuben reached the front doors. Pausing for a moment, Allen looked around but found no place to tie Reuben to that would keep him out of the way. So, with no other options, he decided to bring Reuben inside with him, even though part of him felt very self-conscious at the idea of bringing a full-grown horse into a store of any kind.

However, before they went in, Allen, once again, gave Reuben a minute to get accustomed to the various smells, noises, and sights of the store. As he waited for Reuben to get comfortable, Allen felt his own discomfort rise as he watched various ponies come and go, many of them giving the two of them odd looks.

Guess it’s not every day you see a man trying to lead a horse into a grocery store.

Deciding that Reuben had had enough time, Allen gave his lead line a gentle tug and walked inside. As the two entered, Allen looked around casually.

This place could pass for your average small town dollar/grocery store back home. He thought as he took in the neat orderly rows of carefully stocked shelves, along with the various employees, each wearing an apron that had the store’s logo and name on the front, going about their jobs. The only thing that seemed different from your average human store was the fact that the floors weren’t made out of ceramic tiles, but were instead made out of wood.

Giving Reuben’s lead another tug, he carefully maneuvered the stallion around a group of odd-looking shopping carts and out into the more open main area. Pulling out his shopping list, Allen read the first few items listed, Eggs, milk, butter... hmm, I’ll save those for last, don’t want to break or squish them at the bottom of the bags. Let’s see, let’s start with the canned and dry goods first and then work our way over to the frozen section last.

With his plan firmly set, Allen set off. As he walked through the store, he couldn’t help but notice that ponies were still giving him and Reuben odd looks, as if they weren’t entirely sure what they were seeing or how to respond.

Allen couldn’t really blame them. After all, he figured that a pony leading a prehistoric human around a store back home would draw a few looks as well. The thought didn’t make him feel any better though, and as the awkwardness levels increased, he increased his pace.

Just got to hurry up and get this done, then I can go home and never do this again.

Reaching the canned goods aisle, Allen turned down it and began pulling various items off the shelves and putting them in Reuben’s panniers. Occasionally, he’d catch a pony or two staring at him and Reuben out of the corner of his eye. Most of the time he tried to ignore them, but occasionally he’d turn and give them a forced smile and wave if they stared for too long. This usually resulted in the pony turning red from embarrassment and quickly finding somewhere else to be. However, for the most part, the other shoppers left him and Reuben alone.

At least until he heard an annoyed cough behind Reuben.

“Excuse me, you’re blocking the aisle.”

Leaning around Reuben, Allen caught sight of an annoyed yellow and pink earth pony mare. “Sorry, I’m almost done, and I’ll get out of your way here,” he apologized.

The mare rolled her eyes in reply and went back to waiting impatient, her hoof rhythmically tapping on the wooden floor and her glower of annoyed disgust deepening.

Allen, not wanting to make the awkward situation any worse, quickly finished grabbing what he needed and moved on to the next aisle over.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the annoyed mare was heading in the same direction as no sooner had Allen started looking over the next set of shelves then he heard the mare pipe up again.

“Excuse me, but you are blocking the aisle again.”

Once again, Allen leaned to look around Reuben and replied, “Again, I’m sorry ma’am, give me just a minute and I’ll get out of your way... again.”

Looking at Allen, the mare shot him a dirty look and replied, “I wasn’t talking to you ape, I was talking to your weirdo coltfriend here with the bondage fetish.”

Blinking in stunned confusion, Allen’s only reply was a bewildered, “What?”

Now more upset, the mare maneuvered her cart to the side and stormed past Reuben, drawing a nervous nicker from the stallion and a stamp of his hoof.

Paying him no mind, the mare pointed a hoof at Allen and replied angrily, “You heard me freak. Do you get some kind of sick thrill walking around with this stallion dressed up like this or something? There are foals here for Epona’s sake! So why don’t you take your perverted pet play bondage fantasy and go somewhere else before I call the Guard and have you arrested for indecency! This is a nice town and we don’t need freaks like you two parading around!”

Allen was stunned by the sudden hostility and for a moment, all he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish out of water as his brain couldn’t come up with a proper response that wouldn’t make the situation worse. As the seconds ticked by, he could see that this bothersome mare was becoming more and more angry. Allen knew he needed to find a way to deescalate the situation, but he couldn’t figure out what to say.

His salvation came in the form of a third voice butting into the conversation.

“Now what is going on here?”

The irate mare’s expression quickly changed from disgusted anger to overly smug happiness.“ Oh, Mr. Rich! Thank goodness you are here, this... ape and his freaky coltfriend are causing a disturbance. You need to have them thrown out of this establishment at once!”

Broken out of his temporary brain paralysis, Allen turned to see Filthy Rich casually adjust his tie and offer the mare a pleasant smile, though the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Why Miss Glitter Hoof, what a pleasant surprise to see you again,” replied Filthy with a practiced managerial charm. Though Allen could hear the distaste just under the cheerful surface.

Adjusting her inverted bob cut with a hoof, Glitter Hoof replied, “And it’s nice to see you again, Mr. Rich. I must thank you for intervening in that little incident the last time I was here, that bagging colt was very rude, I do hope you disciplined him properly?”

Mr. Rich’s smile took on a more forced look as he replied, “No need to worry, I made sure to have a talk with him.”

“Hmph, I would think he needed more than a talking to, but it is your store, so whatever. Regardless, what are you going to do about this situation, hmm?”

By this point, Mr. Rich’s smile had disappeared, and Allen could see that the business owner was straining not to start grinding his teeth.

“And what seems to be the problem with Mr. Ross and his friend here shopping in my establishment?” he asked calmly.

It was at this point that Allen noticed quite a few shoppers had started hanging around the ends of the aisle, their ears cocked his way as they ever so slowly looked over the available items for sale. Though Allen could see that there were several that weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they were watching the altercation unfold before them. One of them seemed to have decided to start munching on a bag of popcorn that they hadn’t bought yet.

“What is the problem?” retorted Glitter, aghast at the idea that Mr. Rich couldn’t see the very obvious problem right in front of his muzzle. Pointing an accusing hoof at Allen and Reuben, she snarled, “These two freaks are traumatizing young foals with their public perversions, and hogging all the aisle space to boot!”

Mr. Rich for his part looked both Allen and Reuben up and down for several tense moments before asking, “Mr. Ross, what is the purpose of this get-up that your friend...”

“Uh, Reuben,” supplied Allen helpfully.

“Yes, Mr. Reuben here is wearing?” nodded Filthy in thanks.

Licking his lips nervously, Allen replied, “Well, uh, Reuben here doesn’t really interact with the world like you and I do. He relies on instinct to keep him safe and to get him through his day. He can’t really reason like you and I can, so that means if I’m not here to guide him and calm him down when he spooks at something he doesn’t understand, he can get into trouble and either hurt himself or someone else. So this ‘get up’ as you put it is for both his and everyone elses safety.”

“I see, so what you are saying is that Mr. Reuben is essentially ‘disabled’ and you are effectively his ‘caretaker’?” queried Mr. Rich politely.

Allen gave a hesitant shrug. “I guess that is one way to put it. Even though he looks a lot like you guys, at the end of the day he’s just an animal and will react like an animal to things. The only reason I brought him into town today was because I had a lot of things I needed to buy, and he was the only way I had to transport my purchases home quickly. I was planning on leaving him outside, but there wasn’t any place to tie him up where he would be out of the way and safe... and so since the aisles seemed wide enough, I figured I could bring him in with me, and figure something out next time... though from the looks of things, maybe I should have figured something else out instead.”

By the time Allen had finished speaking, he found himself fiddling nervously with the leadline and felt embarrassed that he was acting like a young boy caught doing something unintentionally wrong and trying to reason his way out of trouble.

Seeing Allen’s unease, Mr. Rich gave him a warm smile and replied, “Mr. Ross, we here at Barnyard Bargains are always willing to work with our customers to fit their needs. While we have a no pets in the store policy, I think an exception can be made just this once, however, I would ask you to leave Mr. Reuben outside next time you visit. I’ll see what I can do to provide a place for you to leave him while you are shopping so that he can be safe.”

A feeling of relief flowed through Allen, and giving Mr. Rich a grateful smile he replied, “Thank you, Mr. Rich, I really appreciate that.”

“It is my pleasure,” he said in return before turning his attention back to a dumbstruck Glitter Hoof, “Now, Miss Glitter Hoof, I believe that you owe Mr. Ross and Mr. Reuben an immediate apology, as well as an apology to everypony else here for causing an unnecessary scene.”

Glitter Hoof sputtered, an indignant look on her face. “You want me to apologize to them?!”

Mr. Rich nodded. “And to everypony else as well,” he added, a hint of smugness creeping into his tone.

“I will do no such thing!” she raged, “They are the ones who caused a scene, you even said that this ape was in violation of the store’s no pet policy!”

“That is true, however, in this case, Mr. Ross couldn’t have known about the policy, as we haven’t put up the ‘no pets allowed’ sign back up yet after the last one got up and walked away during Discord’s rampage. Still can’t figure out where the blasted thing got to,” he muttered to himself.

“But-” said Glitter Hoof as she wound herself up for another tirade.

“No buts, Miss Glitter Hoof, I am putting my hoof down,” stated Filthy with authority, “either you apologize right now or I will be forced to ban you from the store until you do.”

“Ban me?!” she screeched, flabbergasted at the thought that someone would ban her of all ponies. After all, she was a customer, and the customer was always right, right?

“That’s correct,” replied Filthy with a nod of finality, “I think that this is something that is long overdue. Do not think that I have been happy with the way you have treated my employee’s in the past. About how you bully and belittle them when they do not bend the knee for your every whim. To be honest, I would have banned you from my store years ago if I had been able to catch you in the act. But you always managed to pull your little stunts when I wasn’t around to witness them, and so it would be your word against my employees, which meant that my hooves were effectively tied. However, things are different now, and it's not just my word either, but everypony else that’s watching right now as well. So, you can either apologize or you can find somewhere else to shop, your choice.”

Glitter Hoof’s eyes darted back and forth as she weighed her options. Finally, she took a deep breath and in an almost mechanical fashion, turned to Allen and Reuben.

“I am sorry,” she ground out, her lips set in a thin, unhappy line.

Clearing his throat, Allen replied, “I, uh, accept your apology.”

“Good, now if you’ll excuse me, I must go,” and with that, she turned, collected her cart, and trotted away.

Letting go a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, Allen turned to Filthy and said, “Thank you, Mr. Rich.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said as he waved a hoof as if dismissing Allen’s thanks, “I’ve been having trouble with that mare for years. Honestly, it was to the point I was nearly ready to sick my wife on her and let her deal with it.”

“Well, all the same, thanks again.”

“Sure, happy to help, now if you’ll excuse me, there’s some paperwork calling my name, have a pleasant day, Mr. Ross,” replied Filthy as he made to leave, though he paused after a few steps and turning back said, “Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll be sure to have something set up for your friend here when you come back next time.”

Allen simply nodded once more in thanks, and with nothing further to say, Filthy simply turned with a final goodbye and left, leaving Allen to finish his shopping. Which thankfully was far less stressful on both man and stallion.

With no further distractions, Allen quickly finished his list and headed for the checkout lanes. Selecting the one at the far end, as it had the widest aisle, Allen began setting his purchases on the counter for the cashier to check out and the for the bagging colt to bag up.

Unlike a human store, Barnyard Bargains didn’t have a scanner as none of their products had a barcode on them. Instead, they each had individual price labels stuck on them and as the cashier read them, she punched in the price on her mechanical cash register before passing the item to the bagging colt.

“That will be fifty-two bits and sixteen cents please,” said the young mare.

Reaching into his bit bag, Allen pulled out fifty-three bits and handed them to her. Passing back his change to him, she said, “Thank you for shopping at Barnyard Bargains, have a pleasant day.”

“Thanks, you too,” replied Allen in an almost automatic fashion as he moved to gather up the various bags of groceries and put them carefully in Reuben’s panniers. Once the last bag had been stowed, Allen gave Reuben’s lead line a gentle tug as he made his way to the exit. Stepping outside into the bright, early afternoon sun, Allen headed for home, glad that this awkward day was nearly over.

Just as he was about to pass over the stone bridge on the edge of town, Allen spotted Rarity, and her little sister Sweetie Belle on the road in front of him.

“Oh, hello Rarity,” greeted Allen with a friendly wave and tired smile.

“Oh, Allen, how did your shopping trip go?” asked Rarity as she paused in eating her vanilla and chocolate swirl ice cream cone.

“It could have gone better,” replied Allen.

“Oh? What happened?” she asked, a hint of concern in her voice.

Allen rolled his eyes in exasperation and said, “Just some mare named Glitter Hoof, she thought Reuben and I were...” he trailed off and looked down at the little, impressionable filly next to Rarity and chose his next words carefully, “causing a ‘disturbance’ and up to no good, as it were.”

Rarity sighed. “Why am I not surprised that she would be causing trouble for you, I’m terribly sorry to hear that Allen.”

Allen shrugged. “It all worked out, Mr. Rich saw the whole thing and called her out on her BS. He even made her apologize to Reuben and I.”

“Wow, you’re tall Mr. Reuben!” cut in Sweetie Belle suddenly as she stared up at Reuben.

“Sweetie Belle, please don’t interrupt, it’s rude,” chided Rarity half-heartedly, as if she knew that the reprimand wouldn’t stick, but did it anyways for appearance's sake.

“Sorry Rarity,” mumbled Sweetie Belle as she went back to eating her mint ice cream cone.

“Allen, you’ve met my little sister, Sweetie Belle, correct?” asked Rarity.

Allen nodded. “Sort of, we met when I gave the presentation at the schoolhouse last month.”

Sweetie Belle brightened up at that and excitedly chimed in, “I really liked that music you played for us, Mr. Ross! Do you think me and my friends could come and listen to some more of it?”

“Friends and I,” corrected Rarity automatically, as if this was a regular occurrence.

“Yeah, that.”

Allen chuckled. “Maybe some other time, I’m pretty busy right now, and a whole schoolhouse worth of foals bouncing around listening to music would be a bit more than I can handle right now.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be everypony from school. It would only be me and my two friends, Applebloom and Scootaloo,” replied Sweetie Belle, Rarity didn’t even bother trying to correct her little sister's grammar this time.

Allen shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s a good idea either.”

“Why?”

Allen sighed, not wanting to go through the whole stranger danger talk with her. Instead, he simply said, “Where I am from, that sort of thing is heavily frowned upon, so I am afraid I will have to say no.”

“But why?” whined Sweetie Belle, “we’ll be good, honest! Besides, Ms. Fluttershy let us stay over with her before, so what’s the difference?”

The fact that you barely know who I am and that I’m a strange adult from another world? Thought Allen sarcastically to himself. However, he didn’t let slip his mounting frustrations and instead said, “Be that as it may, I am not Fluttershy, and my answer is still no.”

“But-” protested Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie Belle, Allen said no, so stop pestering him about it,” cut in Rarity, finally having enough of her sister's poor manners.

Sighing in defeat, Sweetie Belle dropped her head and said, “Okay, I’m sorry, I just really wanted to listen to those songs again, they were really neat.”

Allen nodded, a soft smile touching the corners of his mouth. “Your apology is accepted,” pausing, he glanced at his watch and said, “I need to get going or all of my perishables will perish from the heat. Thanks for making Reuben that overwear Rarity, and pointing me in the direction of Barnyard Bargains, they had pretty much everything I wanted to get.”

Waving the thanks away with a hoof, Rarity replied, “It was no trouble dear, I am always happy to help,” looking down at her sister, she said, “I suppose we better get going as well. We have a lot to do today if we want to go to the Sister Hooves Social tomorrow at Applejacks.”

“Sister Hooves Social? What’s that?” asked Allen confused.

“Oh, it’s a little get-together that Applejack’s family likes to hold every year. They have games, food, entertainment and prizes. All the sisters in Ponyville and the surrounding towns are invited to attend. I’ve never gone as Sweetie Belle was too young to go with me when I was still in school, and lately, I’ve been too busy until now thanks to my business.”

“Oh interesting,” replied Allen with a nod of understanding, “well, have fun at the social you two.”

“Thanks, we will!” said Sweetie Belle excitedly as Allen made to leave.

Chuckling, Allen waved goodbye to them and headed home.

Well, today was a strange, awkward day, but at least it's over and done with. Glancing over at Reuben, he gave the stallion an affectionate pat on the neck and said, “Come on boy, let’s get you home and unloaded and get some food in the both of us, cause I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

Reuben neighed in agreement and Allen just laughed. The two of them picking up the pace to get home a little bit sooner and feed their hungry bellies.

Author's Notes:

Hey guys, long time no see. Been super busy this past month and a half. As I mentioned last time, my work and family life has been hectic, and it got a lot more hectic when my dad and his wife moved out at the end of April. Suffice to say, they moved out on a Friday, and then Saturday they were going to take the moving truck back when my dad's wife fell out the back and broke her right elbow and knee. She's doing better now, but she was bedridden for a couple of weeks. Couple that with my switching jobs, getting our decent-sized garden planted, and doing an engine overhaul on our tractor, I have been very busy, and once the weather clears up enough to do hay work, I will be even busier, so yeah.

Anyways, now for the chapter. I actually had a different idea for how this chapter would go, but I just couldn't make it work and this is what we ended up with. I'm not super happy with it, but it moves the story along. Hopefully, it's not too cringy or anything like that.

As always, hope you guys enjoyed it, and I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 42 (Research and Meetings)

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Chapter 42

To Twilight there was nothing more relaxing than curling up in her favorite reading spot on a sunny, Sunday morning with a good book, a fresh cup of tea, a plate of cookies, and spending the day just reading. Especially after a long and busy week, though thankfully not the saving the world kind of busy. Unfortunately, before she could even crack open her chosen book, a flurry of knocks, followed by the front door bursting open interrupted her plans.

“Twilight? Are you here?” called Lyra from downstairs.

Sighing in frustration, Twilight set her book aside and trotted downstairs to see what her surprise guest wanted.

“Lyra, what are you doing here? I thought you said you were going to be in Canterlot this weekend?” complained Twilight as she descended the stairs.

“I was, but I finished my business up earlier yesterday, so I decided to head home and bug you,” replied Lyra cheekily as she playfully stuck out her tongue at the irritated librarian.

Taking a sniff of the air, Lyra asked, “Did you just make some cookies and tea?”

Rolling her eyes, Twilight nodded tiredly. “I suppose you want some?”

Trotting past her, Lyra quipped, “Naturally! I never turn down free food, thanks for asking.”

Sighing, Twilight turned and trotted back upstairs to collect her things and bring them down to the lower floor while Lyra made herself comfortable at one of the low reading tables. Emptying her saddlebags, she lit up her horn and pulled a nearby chalkboard over, and began writing various equations down while she waited for Twilight to return.

She didn’t have to wait long, as she soon heard the tell-tale thuds of Twilight’s hooves descending the stairs. Turning away from her current equation, she saw that Twilight had brought down a massive plate full of chocolate chip cookies, a still steaming kettle of tea, and a pair of mugs.

Setting everything down in the middle of Lyra’s commandeered table, Twilight poured her guest a mug of warm tea as well as refilled her own mug before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table and asking, “So, what brings you by this formerly quiet Sunday morning?”

Taking a sip of mint-flavored tea, and snagging a couple of cookies, Lyra replied, “So, as you know, I’ve been doing some digging in various archives and repositories of lesser-known knowledge about where our little sunflower might have come from.”

Rolling her eyes, Twilight took a bite of her cookie and muttered under her breath, “Yeah, I know... lucky nag.”

Lyra took another sip of tea to hide her smirk. She knew that Twilight was a bit jealous at the fact that she hadn’t been given the same level of access as Lyra had been to the more restricted areas of the Royal Archives and other knowledge vaults around Equestria.

The reason was that apparently when Twilight was younger she had a certain penchant for sneaking into restricted areas and reading forbidden tomes. Consequently, she was still banned from said areas after several... incidents had occurred, at least that is what the Royal Archivist had told Lyra when she had asked, though the old mare hadn’t elaborated on what incidents had taken place so Lyra was left to wonder. In the end, it didn’t really matter to her, though it was kind of funny to tease Twilight about it from time to time and watch her get flustered. Though on the downside, that meant that the lion's share of the research work fell on her withers, but it was a small price to pay for what she had uncovered, doubly so because she was the first one to put some of the pieces together of what was turning out to be a much bigger puzzle picture than she had originally thought.

Setting her mug down, Lyra put on a more serious face and replied, “Well, that digging has turned up some interesting findings. I’ve also been looking over those calculations you did about a month ago when that sunflower showed up behind the schoolhouse. I even got a couple of my math buddies at Canterlot University to look them over as well to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”

Munching on another cookie, Twilight cocked an eyebrow and said, “And? What’s your point?”

Lyra sighed and shook her head. “That you’re predictions were off, like, way off.”

Pausing mid-bite, Twilight stared at Lyra and slowly put the cookie down. “What do you mean they were off? I double and triple checked my calculations, they should be accurate.”

“Well, they weren’t,” said Lyra as she pulled out a sheaf of papers and passed them across to Twilight, “Your notes stated that you thought that the aftershocks created by Discord’s chaos magic would either get weaker and go away naturally or they would get stronger and stronger until they destroyed the world.”

“There was also the option that the magical aftershocks would remain localized and relatively small in scale,” added Twilight defensively.

“Or that,” agreed Lyra, “but even that’s not a good thing.”

“Well not for Ponyville, and the surrounding area it’s not, no,” agreed Twilight, “but we’re getting off-topic here. You said that my calculations were off, what was wrong with them?”

“Nothing really, you were just missing a couple of variables that would change the results is all,” replied Lyra simply.

Twilight felt a stab of frustrated irritation flare up, however, she tamped it down using that breathing exercise she had learned from her old foal sitter. Taking a deep breath, she held it before releasing it while pushing her hoof away from her chest, as if she were trying to physically push away the frustrations.

After doing this several times, she felt calm enough to rejoin the conversation and asked, “Would you care to explain what I missed and what you think is going on then?”

Lyra pointed to the papers in front of Twilight and said, “It’s all right there.”

Twilight looked down at the papers skeptically and said, “Uh Lyra, these pages are talking about Paradoxical Pendulum’s Theory of Dimensional Gates and Temporal Bridges. Which is a load of bunk and you know it. His theories and formulas were proven inaccurate nearly a thousand years ago right after he died and Starswirl the Bearded disappeared.”

Lyra’s smirk returned and she slid another sheet of paper across to Twilight and replied, “Except they weren’t.”

Twilight shot Lyra a flat look and replied, “Lyra, stop trying to be mysterious and all-knowing. It works for Princess Celestia, it doesn’t work for you.”

Lyra’s smirk turned into a pout and she said, “Fine, be that way, take all the fun out of it for me.”

“I will, now get to the point please,” remarked Twilight as she ate another cookie.

Sighing, Lyra explained, “Alright, so it turns out that Pendulum stepped on a couple of hooves when he was still alive and when he died his enemies messed with his work to discredit him. Apparently, Pendulum was really big on preserving his legacy and I guess they figured this was the best way to get back at him, petty as it is. Anyways, these pages are from his original manuscripts that he gifted to Princess Celestia right before he passed. Everything else that we know about him is a corrupted version of his work.”

Glancing back down at the papers in front of her, Twilight carefully pulled them closer and took another look at what they had to say. As she read, she asked, “So if his work was sabotaged after he died, why did nopony try to correct it later? I can’t imagine Princess Celestia would be too happy hearing that somepony’s hard work was destroyed just for petty revenge.”

Lyra shrugged. “The Royal Archivist said that it was better that his true works remain hidden as apparently he and Starswirl managed to not only confirm that his theories were correct, but they were able to put them into practice by pulling items from other worlds. I’ve also found some evidence that they were working on making a stable portal between worlds. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to verify if they managed to do it or not. This, however,” she tapped the pages in front of her, “was all I was allowed to copy and bring with me. There is a bunch of his work that I wasn’t allowed to bring for security reasons. But everything I’ve seen paints a very different picture as to what is going on than we initially thought.”

“And that would be?” pressed Twilight.

Lyra took a sip of tea. “That Discord might have been trying to open a dimensional gateway between worlds when you and your friends stopped him. I mean, look at what he did with Allen and his farm. He managed to bring him and his home through before or just after you defeated him.”

“But for what purpose?” asked Twilight, partly to Lyra but mostly to herself as she floated over a quill, ink pot, and several sheaves of paper and began adjusting her calculations based on Pendulum’s formulas.

“Chaos perhaps? Pendulum theorized that the space between worlds is full of chaotic energy. Maybe Discord was trying to breakthrough and absorb it so that even the Elements of Harmony couldn’t stop him.”

“Hmm,” hummed Twilight to herself as she worked. Her horn lit up again as she began pulling more and more books, scrolls, and pieces of paper to swirl around her like a tornado of research and knowledge. Lyra for her part sat back and waited for Twilight to finish, contenting herself with a couple more cookies while she waited.

Twenty minutes later and the paper tornado subsided and left Twilight staring down at her final answer, a frown on her face.

“Well?” asked Lyra after a minute of waiting.

Without saying a word, Twilight shoved the paper across the table to her guest and Lyra looked it over. Chewing on her bottom lip as she read, she was pleased to note that Twilight had come up with the same answers that she and her friends at the university had.

Setting the paper down she nodded. “Matches what I and my friends got, so either we’re on to something or we’re all wrong.”

Twilight sighed, a look of worry on her face. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Lyra shrugged. “Well, look on the positive side, at least we don’t have to worry about an end-of-the-world scenario anymore or at least an end-of-the-world scenario that we can’t stop anyways,” she quietly added at the end.

Nibbling thoughtfully on her last cookie, Twilight said, “I need access to those archives. I can’t figure out what’s going on if I have to rely on second hoof information or what you are allowed to bring out of the archives.”

Lyra adopted a hesitant look. “Yeah, something tells me that isn’t likely to happen after what the Royal Archivist said when I mentioned your name.”

Twilight mostly suppressed a groan of exasperation. “Ugh, summon just one extra-dimensional being by accident and you’re branded for life.”

“You summoned a what now?” asked Lyra incredulously, unsure if she heard her friend right, and praying that she hadn’t.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I was like nine, and it wasn’t even my fault. How was I supposed to know that a book titled, Summoning for Dummies was for summoning eldritch horrors from another dimension? I mean it wasn’t like Glub Glub even did anything other than demand fish flakes and call Princess Celestia fat before said princess banished him back to where he came from.”

Lyra blinked. “What?”

“You heard me, and I’m not going to repeat myself either,” Twilight shot back flatly.

“Okay, well I suppose I can try to put in a good word for you and say that I need your help with research but...”

Twilight sighed, a depressed look on her face. “I know, Dusty Shelves will probably still say no and we’ll be right back to square one. Ugh, the fact that there are books out there that I’m not allowed to read is driving me crazy!”

“Well, like I said, I’ll see if I can’t get your ban overturned, perhaps now that you are a Hero of Equestria and a responsible adult that has an actual need to read those books and records other than to just read them will get them to change their minds,” replied Lyra with a placating gesture.

“Maybe, but I’m not going to hold my breath, after the Glub Glub incident, Dusty Shelves ended up in trouble because I got access to the restricted section without adult supervision, and you know how she likes to hold a grudge until it dies of old age, then stuff it, and put it on display,” pouted Twilight.

Silence descended between the two unicorns as they both tried to figure out their next move. Lyra for her part was really hoping that Twilight would be able to get her ban overturned as she had hit a bit of a brick wall with her research and she desperately needed a fresh set of eyes to help her finish connecting the dots. She had a pretty good idea of what they were dealing with, and if her assumptions turned out to be true, then Equestria, and by extension the world should be safe(ish) or at least in no more danger than normal, meaning that Twilight and her friends should be able to handle it... probably.

“We could ask Princess Celestia to overturn the ban,” suggested Lyra, suddenly breaking the thoughtful silence.

Twilight hung her head and shook it. “I thought about asking her, but she was the one who originally instated the ban after the summoning incident. Though at the time I was only banned from browsing the restricted section by myself. Dusty Shelves added further restrictions onto the princesses ban after she got in trouble for letting me wander the restricted section unattended, though to be fair to her, I did kind of sneak past her, and make a bit of a mess of her bookshelves. That might have been more irritating to her than getting in trouble for not keeping a closer eye on me.”

“But what does that have to do with Princess Celestia and asking her to overturn the ban?”

“Because the princess is the one who has to approve of any further restrictions on access to the various knowledge vaults and archives around the country. Especially when it involves their personal student,” replied Twilight glumly.

“Well, maybe if the both of us go and speak with her, we can convince her to unban you. Besides, we need to give her an update on what’s been going on since Allen got here. I know she’s got ponies keeping an eye on things in the background, but they might have missed something in their reports,” said Lyra, hoping to lift her friend's mood a bit.

Twilight nodded. “You’re right, I’ll have Spike send her a letter,” she said before turning and yelling, “Spike! I need you to send a letter to Princess Celestia for me!”

“Coming!” came the muffled reply from upstairs.

While she waited, Twilight grabbed a scroll and quill and began to write. She was just finishing up when Spike plodded down the stairs.

“Why do you need me to send a letter to Princess Celestia on a Sunday, Twilight? Oh, hey Lyra, how’s it going?” greeted Spike when he spotted the mint-colored unicorn.

Giving the little dragon a friendly wave, Lyra replied, “It’s going alright, how about yourself?”

“Pretty good, I managed to snag the latest Power Ponies comic yesterday before they sold out,” he bragged.

“Oh, is that the one where they fight the Mane-iac in space?” questioned Lyra.

“Naw, that was last month's issue, this time they’re fighting the evil Dr. Horse who plans to take over the world using a mind control beam!” replied Spike excitedly, “I was just getting to the good part when Twilight called me down,” he said, a hint of a pout on his face.

Twilight meanwhile finished her letter with a flourish as she signed it and passed the rolled scroll to Spike who took it and sent it off in a gout of green fire without hesitation.

“Thank you, Spike, sorry for pulling you away from your comic, but Lyra and I were discussing some research and we needed to set up a meeting with Princess Celestia to discuss some things,” said Twilight gratefully.

“Hmph, well alright,” grumbled Spike as he turned to leave, however, he paused as his cheeks swelled up and a scroll was expelled from his mouth in another burst of flames, falling to the floor in the process. Picking it up with a claw, he handed it to Twilight.

“Anything else you need me for or can I get back to my comic?” he asked.

Twilight quickly opened the letter and read it over, nodding to herself as she went before grabbing another scroll and jotting something down, and hoofing it back to Spike. “I just need you to send this reply please, and that’s it.”

Grabbing it out of her magical aura, Spike took a deep breath and sent the message on its way in a burst of spellfire.

“Now can I get back to my comic?” he snarked.

Twilight smiled and pulled her little brother in for a hug and said, “Yes you can get back to reading your comic, thanks for your help Spike,” letting him go, she pointed a hoof to the kitchen and said, “There are a couple of rubies sitting in the jar on the counter. Go ahead and have them.”

His grumpy mood dispelled itself in an instant, Spike happily waddled to the kitchen, calling back over his shoulder, “Awesome, thanks Twilight!”

“You’re welcome, Spike. Oh, and Lyra and I will be leaving shortly to head to Canterlot, so you’re in charge of the library till I get back,” added Twilight.

“Why are you going to Canterlot?” asked Spike as he poked his head back through the kitchen doorway.

“Princess Celestia’s reply letter stated that she was free this afternoon to meet with us, so we are going to catch the next train to meet with her to give her an update on what’s been going on here in Ponyville since Allen arrived.”

“Oh, okay, well say hi to the princess for me,” called Spike as he ducked back into the kitchen to raid the gem jar.

Chuckling, Twilight replied, “I will Spike.”

Turning back to Lyra, she asked, “That’s not going to be an issue, is it? I kind of assumed you were free this afternoon since you stopped by here. If you’re not, I can have Spike send another message before he goes back upstairs.”

Lyra shook her head. “Naw, I’m free for the rest of the day. Let me go get a couple of things from the house and let Bonny know where I’m going and I’ll meet you at the train station.”

“Sounds good, the next train should be leaving in about an hour,” replied Twilight as she drained the last of her tea and began cleaning up the various papers on the table and organizing them into neat stacks.

Lyra quickly shoved her things into her saddlebags and stood up. “Okay, I’ll meet you at the train station in one hour then, see ya around Spike!” she called as she made to leave.

The little drake waved goodbye from the staircase as he balanced his haul of gems in one arm. “See ya later Lyra!”

With a final wave, Lyra stepped outside and rushed home, while Twilight set about gathering her things.

~oOo~

Several hours later, both Twilight and Lyra found themselves seated in one of Canterlot Castle’s many meeting rooms. Their train ride up the mountain had been uneventful, as had been their short journey to the castle. They had been met at the main entrance by Celestia’s personal assistant, Raven Inkwell who had swiftly escorted them to their appointed meeting room. Upon entering the room, Raven had asked if they required anything, and after being given a short list, by Twilight Sparkle standards, she had taken her leave to procure the needed items, leaving Twilight and Lyra to make themselves comfortable.

Setting their saddlebags down beside their chosen seats, both Twilight and Lyra set to work organizing their presentation. In truth, neither mare had been sure exactly what Princess Celestia knew concerning Allen, the events following his arrival, and what they had so far learned. As such, they had felt it better to err on the side of caution and had decided to bring everything they had discovered with them.

By the time Raven had returned with their requested items, which included refreshments and several blackboards and boxes of chalk, both mares had covered the table in neatly organized piles of paper and rolled up scrolls and charts.

“Princess Celestia will be here shortly, she is just finishing up morning court. Was there anything else you needed from me?” asked Inkwell in a courteous, yet professional manner.

Twilight and Lyra looked at each other for a moment before turning back to Raven and shaking their heads.

“No, I think we’ve got everything we need,” replied Twilight politely.

Bowing her head, Raven said, “Very well then. If you need anything else, just pull on that rope by the door, and a servant will attend you. Good day.”

With Raven now gone, both Lyra and Twilight had little left to do other than wait for Princess Celestia to arrive. As the minutes ticked by, Twilight felt her nervousness grow. She couldn’t even distract herself by talking to Lyra about their findings, as the two of them had discussed everything in detail on the journey from Ponyville. She couldn’t even organize the papers around as she had already done that three times already, and she could tell that Lyra was getting annoyed at her constant paper shuffling. As such, she tried to distract herself by pouring herself a cup of tea and sampling the various treats from the snack cart.

Thankfully, the wait wasn’t very long and after a short time, Twilight’s ears perked up as she heard the doors open behind her. Leaping up from her seat, she turned and beheld her teacher and princess step through the doors, a warm, motherly smile adorning her muzzle as she spotted Twilight.

“Princess, it’s so good to see you!” exclaimed Twilight in equal parts happiness and nervousness.

Shutting the door with her golden magic, Celestia stepped forward and met her student. “Indeed it is, Twilight. How have things been in Ponyville since your last letter to me?”

“That’s kind of why we are here,” interrupted Lyra as she rose from her shallow bow on the other side of the table.

“Oh, and why is that?” she asked with an inquisitive expression.

Both Twilight and Lyra shared a silent look between the two of them.

Well, here goes nothing, thought Twilight as she turned to launch into her and Lyra’s preplanned presentation.

“Well Princess, I suppose, first of all, we should ask you how much you know about the situation with Allen the human in Ponyville?” asked Twilight first.

“Along with our research into the matter,” added Lyra.

Picking a comfortable-looking cushion, Celestia gracefully lowered herself down and floated over a tea cup and plate of cookies. Taking one in her magical grasp, she delicately nibbled on it for a moment before saying, “I’ve received regular reports from various sources, many of which I cannot share with you at present for reasons of security, as such, I feel quite confident in saying that I have a strong grasp of the current picture.”

Seeing both Lyra and Twilight’s confused, and slightly disappointed expressions, Celestia added diplomatically, “Though, it would not hurt to have a refresher on what all you have learned so far.”

Giving a nod, Twilight was the first to lead off. What followed was several hours of lecture, with the occasional question from the princess, as both Twilight and Lyra brought her up to speed on what they knew.

“So, you believe that Discord may have attempted to open a portal to another world in an effort to bolster his power?” asked Princess Celestia once she heard Lyra’s newest hypothesis.

Lyra nodded. “Yes, the evidence, coupled with Paradoxical Pendulum’s Theory of Dimensional Gates and Temporal Bridges, seems to indicate that this might have been Discord’s goal. Though it is also possible that it was a backup plan of his should he be contained again to create enough chaos to free him at a later date. On the other hoof, he might have also attempted to use it as a means of escape to another world where his powers could not be challenged and Twilight and the Elements stopped him before he could run.”

Celestia looked over Lyra’s notes, her face an impassive mask to her inner thoughts. Finally, she nodded and set the papers back down. “I believe you might be on the right path, Ms. Heartstrings,” she concluded, “if you do not mind, I would like to share your recent findings with a few other talented ponies to see what they think on the matter, if that is alright with you.”

“Of course, Princess,” replied Lyra quickly, the thought of saying no never even entering her mind.

“Good, if you could make copies for me, I’ll have them dispersed amongst my ponies for review. I suspect they’ll agree with your current hypothesis. Paradoxical was a stallion ahead of his time, and his work was quite revolutionary.”

“You remember him Princess?” asked Twilight.

Celestia smiled. “Of course I do, he was a close friend of mine, as was Starswirl, in his own prickly way, before he disappeared. It pained me to see Paradoxical’s legacy dragged through the proverbial mud like it was,” she added, her smile turning into a sad frown.

“Then why didn’t you do something to fix it?” asked Twilight, as she couldn’t understand why her teacher would allow somepony, who she called a friend, to be disgraced like that.

Celestia sighed. “Believe me Twilight, I wanted to, I really did. However, things were... different back then. My and my sister’s authority was not nearly as strong as it is today and there were many ponies looking to remove us from power. Paradoxical, while he was alive, was a strong supporter of mine and more importantly, my sister, and he frequently butted heads with powerful nobles. Naturally, this left him with few allies at Court and when he passed, his enemies took advantage of the fact that my sister and I were distracted with other pressing matters at the time to sabotage his work and discredit him, and by extension his allies. By the time I realized what they had done, it was too late. If I had attempted to restore his image it would have seemed as though I was attempting to rewrite history to make one of my supporters look better than the population thought they were. As such, the best I could do was to keep his true works safe until his and my enemies, along with several generations of their children, were dead and buried before I could attempt to rehabilitate his image. The fact that you two found his original works and are putting them to use in this manner will be a strong first step in restoring his legacy to its rightful place.”

Both Lyra and Twilight were silent for a moment as they digested Celestia’s words. Finally, Twilight spoke up and said, “That... makes a lot of sense, but I must confess Princess, I didn’t help Lyra with her current theory using Paradoxical’s work, she was the one that did it all. All I did was look it over this morning for anything she might have missed. Other than that, I haven’t done much besides keeping an eye on Ponyville for any further displacement activity, and refining my initial calculations, which have turned out to be all wrong anyway,” she sighed, a disappointed look on her face.

“Is this true?” asked Celestia, puzzled as to why Twilight wasn’t horn deep in books researching alongside her friend in a musty archive somewhere. When Lyra nodded, Celestia frowned, “I thought you two were planning on working together on this task?” she asked confused.

Twilight sank lower in her seat, her ears flat against her scalp. “We were... but I’m still banned from the restricted sections of the Royal Archives, and I’m not allowed to remove or request any books or artifacts from the Royal Archives either.”

“And because of those restrictions, a lot of other archives and repositories around the country won’t let Twilight near them either,” complained Lyra, “so I’ve been the one doing the majority of the legwork when it comes to researching things. Twilight’s sort of been stuck being my glorified proofreader ever since we tapped out the easily accessible libraries and archives that will let her in.”

Now Celestia was even more confused. Why would anypony deny access to my student like that? She wondered quietly to herself as she took a sip of her tea to buy time while she thought, but her mind kept coming up blank. The only thing she could think of was that time Twilight had accidentally summoned an eldritch horror when she was a filly in the restricted section of the Royal Archives. But there hadn’t been any damage, beyond a few torn pages and bent book spines, and Twilight hadn’t been tainted by the use of dark magic during the ritual. Really, the only pony who had been somewhat at fault had been the Head Archivist at the time for letting Twilight wander around unsupervised, and Celestia had only given her a warning to keep a better eye on ponies accessing the restricted section. There hadn’t even been an official reprimand, just a verbal one.

Setting her teacup down, Celestia gave Twilight a concerned look and replied, “I’m afraid I do not understand Twilight. I don’t remember issuing any restrictions against you being given access to the archives once you came of age following the summoning incident. You should have full and unfettered access to any and all archives and repositories across Equestria. Especially considering what you and your friends have done for this country and the world.”

Now it was Twilight’s turn to be confused. “But that doesn’t make any sense. If I’m not banned from the archives anymore, then why won’t Dusty Shelves let me in or for that matter the other major knowledge vaults around Equestria?”

The corners of Celestia’s lips turned down slightly in a frown as she pondered Twilight’s question. The more she pondered, the more her frown deepened, finally, she said, “I believe I will need to have words with my Head Archivist about going behind my back and issuing restrictions without my knowledge or permission.”

Twilight’s downcast expression lifted at the words of her mentor and she hesitantly asked, “Wait, so does this mean that I can enter the restricted section again?”

Celestia’s frown lifted and she chuckled. “Yes, Twilight, you can enter the restricted section again, so long as you abide by the rules that everypony else does. I’ll be sure to correct Dusty Shelves' misconceptions about who she can and cannot ban on her own initiative. I know that she has a tendency to be a bit of a pain for those who have annoyed her, and disturbed ‘the peace and quiet of the archives’ as she puts it.” she sighed.

Twilight’s frown returned. “I think she needs more than a talking to,” she grumped, memories of dealing with the prickly mare flashing through her mind.

“Perhaps you are right Twilight,” mused Celestia, “that mare has been in that position for a long time. Maybe it is time that she moved on. I will have to speak with her about that. I know she would think I’m punishing her if I force her to retire, perhaps there is another position that I can ‘promote’ her to that will keep her somewhat happy in her final years.”

“Well just so long as I don’t have to ever deal with her crustiness anymore I’m happy,” remarked Lyra, a distasteful look on her face as she recalled her most recent encounter with the elderly, and cranky Royal Archivist.

“Oh Dusty isn’t that bad,” chuckled Celestia, “in fact, she used to be quite the troublemaker back in her younger days. She had a penchant for pranking the other librarians when things were slow. Whoopie cushions were her favorite if I remember correctly.”

Both Lyra and Twilight shared a look of disbelief at the thought that Dusty Shelves the most hidebound, cranky, stickler of rules that ever lived would ever prank anypony.

“You’re kidding, right?” asked Lyra skeptically.

“Nope, she and Philomena used to be thick as thieves back in the day. Always getting into mischief and annoying Faded Ink, the head archivist at the time, with their antics,” replied Celestia with a fond smile as memories played back through her mind.

“So, what changed?” asked Lyra curiously.

Celestia shook her head. “I do not know, perhaps it was when she was named Faded Ink’s successor that she decided to become more strict in her manners,” she shook her head, “it doesn’t matter. I will get your access to the archives restored Twilight and if you run into any further issues, please let me know as soon as possible and I will remove them.”

Twilight smiled. “Thank you so much, princess.”

Celestia returned the smile with one of her own. “You are welcome, now why don’t you two tell me how you have been doing since I last spoke with you. I know I haven’t spoken with you Lyra since you graduated from the School for Gifted Unicorns.”

Lyra’s face lit up with a bright smile and she quickly launched into a story about how she met her current marefriend Bon Bon. Celestia for her part simply sat back and let her former student speak, enjoying the time she had with her and Twilight as they spoke of their day-to-day lives.

However, eventually, that time ran out and the return of her personal assistant caused Celestia to reluctantly rise from her seat and say, “I’m afraid it’s time for me to go, my little ponies. Matters of state rarely wait patiently.”

Both Lyra and Twilight stood up from their seats and nodded in disappointed understanding.

“Of course princess,” they replied with shallow bows of respect.

“Keep up the good work, and I look forward to hearing from you in your next report. Twilight, feel free to send me updates through Spike when you learn something new, and I will be sure to pass anything along that the other research teams learn to you as well.”

“Wait, there are other research teams?” asked Lyra, a confused, and slightly disappointed look on her face at learning she and Twilight weren’t the only ones working to save Equestria.

Celestia giggled. “Of course, there are Lyra. Though their focuses are in other directions and topics. Most of them are simply building upon what you and Twilight find in your research, though that is not to say that some of the other groups haven't come up with interesting ideas themselves.”

“Can we see their work princess? It might give us a fresh idea on what and where to look in the future,” asked Twilight as she, along with Lyra gathered up their various papers.

“That might be difficult,” replied Celestia hesitantly, “currently every team is working independently, and collecting all of their work might take some time. However, with this latest revelation, it might become necessary to create a way for the teams to collaborate. I’ll have to look into that at a later date, in the meantime, you two continue your efforts in monitoring events in Ponyville and in sifting through the various archives.”

“We won’t let you down, Princess Celestia,” replied Twilight seriously.

Celestia smiled proudly at her student. “I know you will do your best, Twilight, you always have,” turning to Raven, Celestia said, “Raven, I want you to help Twilight and Lyra with anything they will need going forward. If what they have told me today is correct, I believe that a more coordinated effort will be needed soon.”

Raven gave a shallow bow of her head. “As you command, Your Highness,” before turning to the other two unicorns. “I am afraid I am not as up to speed as Her Highness on your efforts, and unfortunately, my schedule is full for the next few days so we will nee-”

“Your schedule is fully cleared starting now, Raven,” cut in Celestia.

“Y-Your Highness?” said Raven as she blinked in confusion, a lock of her mane coming free from her perfect mane bun.

“As I said, the situation appears to have changed, Ms. Inkwell,” stated Celestia seriously, “there is no time for delay. I am assigning you to this task as you are my most trusted assistant and your organizational skills cannot be matched. Wisteria will fill in for you while you are gone.”

“B-but...” sputtered the now shocked Raven, however upon seeing Celestia’s commanding expression, she bowed her head in deference and quietly said, “As you wish Your Highness.”

Celestia’s expression softened and she leaned down to give her assistant a gentle nuzzle, who immediately blushed in embarrassment. “I know you will do well. You were one of my best students before Twilight and Lyra came along, and you have been one of the best personal assistants that I could ever ask for. However, now I need you to help protect Equestria and all of her citizens in these unknown and trying times.”

Raven’s blush disappeared and raising her head, she squared her shoulders and gave a single confident nod. “As you command, so shall it be.”

“Thank you,” replied Celestia before she lifted her head and made for the door. Opening the door with her magic, she turned to look at the three unicorn mares behind her and offered them an encouraging smile, “I look forward to seeing your next report, good luck to all of you,” and with that she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her as she left.

A silence descended upon the three mares left behind as they each looked at each other awkwardly. Finally, Raven cleared her throat and said, “Well, since Her Highness has seen fit to reassign me, I suppose now is as good a time as any for you two to bring me up to speed on what has been going on and where we should go from here.”

Both Lyra and Twilight looked at each other before letting loose a happy squee of excitement and dancing happily in place before lighting up their horns and producing a literal tornado of papers, charts, and documents around the suddenly worried Raven.

As the two excited scholars descended into what looked to be a long lecture, Raven quietly sighed to herself.

My brain hurts already.

Chapter 43 (A Sisterly Meeting)

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Chapter 43

Nighttime had descended on Canterlot, and many ponies were getting ready to go to sleep. However, there were just as many who were either waking up for their evening shifts or getting ready to go out and sample the city’s nightlife.

With its many late-night restaurants, bars, clubs, dancehalls, theaters, arcades, and other street venues, Canterlot, like many other major cities around Equestria rarely slept. The various advancements in magic and technology had also made the streets brighter and safer to be out in after sunset, and many ponies took full advantage of the cool, clear night to enjoy themselves after a long day of work.

Tis a far cry from a thousand years ago before We were imprisoned. Thought a melancholy mare as she gazed out at the bustling nightlife of the city beyond Canterlot Castle’s walls.

A soft knock on her bedroom doors made her tear her eyes away from the window. “Tis open,” she called out.

A golden aura surrounded the door’s handle and gently opened it as Princess Celestia carefully stepped inside, shutting the door softly behind her, the clicking of the latch sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet of the bedroom.

Trotting to stand next to the mare, she looked down and gave her a hug with her wings and asked, “How were your classes today, Luna?”

“Hmph, they were as they always are, annoying and humiliating,” grumped Luna, Princess of the Night, Guardian of Dreams, and Mistress of the Moon among many other titles. However, to Celestia, the most important one to her was the title of little sister.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” replied Celestia carefully. “I had hoped that your new teacher would be better than the last one.”

“They are not, if anything, they are even more insufferable,” replied Luna irritatedly, as she broke from her sister's hug and turned her gaze back to the window.

Her wings drooping slightly, Celestia looked out the window alongside her sister and said, “I know I haven’t had as much time to spend with you as I had wanted to, what with Discord’s recent return and the mess that has caused, along with the various politicking I have had to deal with after you were freed from the Nightmare. But, I want you to know that I love you.”

Luna sighed, her irritation fading away like smoke on a breeze. “We know sister, We know, and We love thee as well.”

“I see that you are doing better with modern Equish these days,” said Celestia.

Luna nodded. “Yea, though We still struggle with it at times. Reading is also still difficult, though at least Our skills with numbers art still sharp.”

Celestia nodded and smiled. She was glad to see her sister making progress, even though there were times when she would mix modern and old Equish grammar together in a confusing mixture of rules and pronunciations that often left modern ponies feeling lost. Such as she was doing now. However, that was happening less and less as time went on, except when Luna felt stressed or upset, and then she tended to fall back into the old ways of speaking to a degree as it was more comfortable for her. Celestia thought that it would take many more years before her sister fully transitioned to modern Equish full-time, and even then she still had her doubts.

“Have you had a chance to learn about the new mathematics systems they invented since you’ve been gone?” inquired Celestia.

Again Luna nodded. “We have, though Our teacher doth try Our patience. He claimth that We are not ready to learn them yet. He wilt not even allow Us to use Abigail!” she replied with an angry stomp of her hoof.

Celestia glanced over at a nearby table that had several doused candles, a quill and ink pot, several sheaves of parchment, and an old abacus that was propped up against several books.

“Well... there are easier ways to do math these days Luna, I’m afraid your old abacus is a bit... outdated, shall we say?”

“Outdated?! Sister how couldst thou sayest such things?! Abigail is one of the finest abacuses ever made! She hath helped Us to count for centuries! Apologize!” she declared, pointing a hoof at the table.

Celestia looked between her sister and the table and sighed. “Luna, I’m sorry for calling your abacus obsolete.”

“Nay sister, thou shouldst not apologize to Us, but to Abigail!” she retorted, pointing an emphatic hoof at her abacus.

Celestia felt a headache starting. I should have left that stupid thing back in Whinnysor with all the other junk when I moved to Canterlot.

However, she didn’t let slip her inner thoughts, and instead, with as much grace and dignity as she could muster, she turned and said, “I am sorry for calling you obsolete Abigail, that was rude of me.” Turning back to her sister, she asked, “Happy now?”

“Yea,” replied Luna, a cheeky-looking grin on her face as her sister gave her a deadpan look that lasted for all but a minute before it disappeared in a smile that quickly turned to laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation.

Joining in her sister’s laughter, Luna felt her spirits lift, if just a little bit. However, her uplifted mood quickly evaporated and she turned back to look out the window.

“So much hath changed since We were imprisoned,” she remarked quietly, “settlements that were barely a village are now grand cities, and grand cities that seemed as though they would last for millennia are naught but empty ruins. Everypony We knew, save for thee sister, is naught but dust on the wind. What is more, the mores of today’s society baffle Us and We fear as though We shall never understand it.”

“Luna, you have barely been back for a year, and need I remind you that you spent several months in the hospital getting your medical records up to date?” reminded Celestia in an attempt to head off the building cloud of depression that was forming over her sister.

It sort of worked as Luna shuddered, remembering the many, many needles that she had been poked with, alongside dealing with a rather nasty cold that she had caught shortly after her return.

“We prithee not to remind Us of that time, for it wast most unpleasant.”

“And yet my point still stands, you have made remarkable progress in readjusting to the modern world, and once this business with Discord is in hoof, I will spend more time with you,” declared Celestia firmly.

“Thou already spendest more time with Us now than thou ever didst before Our fall,” remarked Luna quietly.

Celestia winced at the reminder of her less than stellar record at being there for her little sister when she needed her.

Sensing her sister's embarrassment, Luna gave her a reassuring smile. “Please do not be upset sister,” comforted Luna, “We meant no ill will against thee. We art grateful that thou hast changed for the better in Our absence and We look forward to the day when this annoyance is behind us. In the meantime, We will savor what time We have with thee as it is far more than We had before.”

Celestia felt a tear well up at the corner of her eye and she pulled her little sister into a warm embrace, happy that she was willing to be patient and understanding.

Though I still intend to spend more time with you. I’ll just need to find a way to add some additional free time to my day is all.

Pulling away from her sister's embrace, Luna moved away from the window and deeper into her room. Lighting up her horn, she used her cobalt blue magic to turn on the lights before dimming them, leaving the room in a sort of twilight. Taking a seat at her study table, she moved several books from a nearby pillow and motioned for her sister to sit.

“We understand that thine student hath visited thee today,” remarked Luna as she continued to tidy up her table.

Taking the offered cushion, Celestia made herself comfortable. “She did, along with a former student of mine.”

“Ah yes, a Lyra Heartstrings, if We art not mistaken.”

Celestia nodded. “They came to me with an update regarding the situation in Ponyville.”

“Hast there been another incident?” asked Luna, a hint of worry in her voice.

Celestia shook her head. “Not as of yet. However, they did bring forth another theory for what Discord might have done before the Elements sealed him away again.”

“Oh?”

“It seems that Lyra came across Paradoxical Pendulum’s uncorrupted research in the Royal Archives, and using his work as a base, feels as though Discord might have been trying to create a portal to another world,” explained Celestia softly.

Luna’s ears fell flat against her mane at hearing Paradoxical’s name. “We wish that thou hadst done a better job defending his legacy than thou didst.”

“I’m sorry Luna, I know you and he were close, and I know that seeing his name besmirched like that didn’t help things, but you know as well as I do that we had much more pressing matters at the time or do I need to remind you about how Duke Pivot Pelt tried to kill me and blame it on you so that he could take the throne for himself?”

Luna sighed as the ancient memories replayed themselves in her mind. “Nay sister, We remember him quite well, his name was quite the appropriate fit for his actions, the traitorous rat. Though we are unsure of what happened to him after our fall. He obviously did not succeed in his plans.”

Celestia smirked. “Believe it or not, a common thief ended his life a week after your banishment.”

“Surely thou jest,” replied Luna in disbelief.

Celestia shook her head. “Honest truth, the arrogant fool was apparently on his way to meet with some of his co-conspirators to come up with another plan when a griffon rogue got the drop on him. Rather than surrender his bit bag, the fool tried to fight the griffon tom off while said griffon had him in a headlock with a knife at his throat. Long story short, Gerald dispatched him with minimal effort.”

“Hmmm... wait, how doth thou knowest this rogue’s name? Surely he would not have gotten himself caught after slaying a noble as powerful and well connected as Pivot,” wondered Luna.

Celestia’s smile shifted to one that a cat would have after having eaten the canary. “He didn’t mean to, a pair of guards happened upon the scene and gave chase, poor Gerald ended up getting tangled in a clothesline as he tried to escape. The two guards brought him straight to me, as I am sure you are aware, the murder of a noble is seen as quite a serious event.”

“Yea, though it would depend on the noble in question about whether thou wouldst reward or punish the ne’er do well, and We believe that We know which option thou picked,” replied Luna dryly.

Celestia giggled, her face turning a hint of red at the memory. “Well, naturally I... rewarded him for his service, after which I kept him around doing odd jobs for me, before eventually making him my spymaster, while also swearing the two guards that caught him to secrecy.”

“It appears that thou also saw him as a good companion to share thine bed with if thine blush is to be believed,” remarked Luna, a teasing smile on her face.

Celestia’s blush deepened and after clearing her throat, she replied, “Yes well, what I get up to in my bedroom is my business sister. Besides, don’t think that I didn’t know about your midnight rendezvous with Pendulum when he was still alive. Though considering how... loud you two could get at times, I’m surprised that the whole castle didn’t know about it.”

Now it was Luna’s turn to blush, and she wisely decided to change the subject to something less risque.

“Yes well, We fear that this conversation hast gotten onto the wrong path, thou wast speaking on what Lady Heartstrings hast found?”

Celestia allowed herself a small smirk of victory as Luna hastily worked to back peddle from the proverbial mess she had found herself in, and deciding to be merciful, Celestia replied, “Yes, Lyra believes that Discord attempted to open a portal to another world, either to pull upon the chaotic magic between worlds to bolster his power and fight off the Elements with it or in an attempt to escape when things went south for him. In either case, it doesn’t really matter, what matters is that Discord’s spell is still active to a certain degree, as there have been strange occurrences around Ponyville since his defeat.”

“Thou speakest of the sunflower that appeared behind the schoolhouse,” said Luna.

“Among other things, such as various cloud formations disappearing or appearing in the skies around Ponyville. I have had several other teams quietly observing the surrounding area since Discord’s defeat independent of Twilight and Lyra’s efforts and they have reported random spikes in chaos magic followed by odd effects happening beyond the sunflower and random disappearing cloud.”

“What other effects hath been observed?” asked Luna with a curious raise of her eyebrow.

“Strange noises, smells, visual effects, static playing from radios when they are playing, the feeling of being watched, among other things. Unfortunately, the research teams haven’t found anything concrete yet, the sunflower has been the first solid piece of evidence that we’ve had that something strange is going on around Ponyville. Up until now, most of these mysterious phenomena have happened on the edges of the Everfree Forest or just slightly inside, and as you know, the Everfree is hazardous to travel in if one is unfamiliar or unprepared.”

“What doth thou intend to do, sister?” asked Luna curiously.

“I have already put my secretary, Raven Inkwell in charge of working to better coordinate the various team's efforts. Many hooves make light work as they say.”

“Forsooth, however, they also warn about having too many hooves in the kitchen as well,” cautioned Luna.

Celestia nodded in agreement. “I trust that Raven will keep things moving forward smoothly. None of the teams have become overly concerned with the situation in Ponyville yet, and as such, I will trust that things will work out in the end. In the worst-case scenario, we could always release Discord and beat the answers we need out of him.”

Luna smirked. “Temper, temper, dear sister. What happened to thy desire to try for the diplomatic course first?”

“Yes well, that desire tends to lose its appeal in the face of Discord. Especially when dealing with his shenanigans,” muttered Celestia, an annoyed expression on her face.

“He did something to thee didn’t he?” asked Luna, a knowing smile on her face.

“I will neither confirm nor deny that he did,” replied Celestia, an unhappy look on her face.

Deciding to let the matter be, Luna instead remarked, “We to have been busy lately.”

One of Celestia’s ears twitched and she asked, “Oh, in what way?”

“We have resumed Our duties as the Guardian of Dreams,” replied Luna regally with a hoof laid against her chest and her chin lifted into the air, a proud smile on her face.

“That’s wonderful news, Luna!” exclaimed Celestia excitedly as she reached across the table and pulled her sister into a surprise hug. “What about the moon? I haven’t felt you attempt to move it since you have returned.”

Luna broke the embrace and replied, “Dream walking is not as energy-intensive as lifting and lowering the moon each evening and morning. However, We believe that We should be able to resume that part of our duties within the next fortnight. Though We would ask that thou stand by our side the first few times in case We... slip,” she added quietly at the end as if worried that somepony might hear her and make fun of her insecurities, it had happened before.

Celestia softly replied, “Of course Luna, I will stand by your side as many nights and mornings as you want me to. Hmmm, perhaps we could make that a morning and evening ritual going forward, what do you think?”

Luna nodded, a happy smile on her face. “We would like that very much.”

“Then it’s decided, we’ll need to make a few minor adjustments to our schedules, but I believe that we can make this work. Perhaps we could have our respective first and last meals of the day together right after we move our celestial charges and have some personal time together.”

“That sounds nice,” agreed Luna after a few moments of thought.

“Alright then, I’ll let Wisteria know and get that taken care of on my end,” replied Celestia with a nod as she made a mental note for herself.

“And We... will just make a personal note We suppose,” said Luna, as she realized that she still didn’t have a personal assistant of her own yet.

“You haven’t hired any staff yet have you, Luna?” asked Celestia with a deadpan expression.

Nervously touching her hoof tips together like a foal who had just been asked by their parent if they had finished their chores when they hadn’t, Luna sheepishly replied, “We... are still working on that.”

Rolling her eyes, Celestia said, “Seriously Luna, you’ve been back for nearly a year, and you haven’t even hired one pony yet? What happened to all of those recommendations I gave you?”

“Well it is not as if We have that much to do yet, sister,” snarked Luna in reply. “Nor do We need to hire any staff for our respective wing of the castle, as thine staff is more than sufficient to maintain it. Besides, none of thy Solar Guards nor staff wish to transfer to Our Lunar Guard and staff positions.”

“They don’t?” asked Celestia, surprised at hearing that. “When Cadence formed her Heart Guard she had ponies falling all over themselves trying to get in, I would have thought the same would happen with you. Have you put out a notice among the castle guards and staff of the open positions beyond my recommendations?”

Luna rolled her eyes and nodded. “Of course We did, Tia, and so far We have had a total of three ponies show any kind of interest since.”

“Oh... well at least you have three ponies working for you, so that’s a start. What positions did they fill?” replied Celestia with a forced smile.

Luna however did not return the smile. “Nay sister, you misunderstand, We said that they merely ‘showed interest’ not that they decided to join. Of the three, one refused to work nights, another got a better offer from one of thy staff, and the third got hit by a runaway cart before they even made it to the first interview,” she sighed, “We are trying not to lose faith, Tia, but it seems that old habits die hard with thy ponies.”

“No Luna, they are just as much your ponies as they are mine,” corrected Celestia sternly, determined not to let the conversation return to that well-worn rut.

“And yet they prefer thee to We still, though We are happy to see that at least they no longer shun the night as they once did,” replied Luna wearily.

Celestia sighed. “Just... give them some more time Luna, they’ll come around... eventually.”

“Hmmm, perhaps, perhaps not, we shall see. Regardless, our talk has once again wandered, let us return to the matter at hoof.”

“What about the thestrals? Surely they would love to come and work for you again,” asked Celestia quickly, hoping that maybe her sister had overlooked them and that bringing them up would lift her spirits.

Luna’s expression however dashed those hopes, and her icy reply buried them deep, “They also have shown little interest in returning to the mainland following Our banishment, something about angry day ponies chasing them from their homes with pitchforks and torches with murder in their hearts tends to leave a sour impression on a people.”

Celestia’s head dipped in shame. “I tried to help them... but I wasn’t strong enough... I’m sorry.”

Luna let her anger subside. “We know, Tia. The thestral council spoke very highly of thee in their letters with Us. However, the prejudice still remains, and nothing hast changed for them beyond the fact that they are no longer outright hunted by their fellow ponies in a fear-induced rage. We understand that there are a few thestrals here on the mainland, but they tend to keep to themselves and are very careful to avoid drawing attention to themselves.”

“I’ve passed anti-discrimination laws,” replied Celestia weakly.

“And yet if nopony follows or enforces them, they are worse than useless,” countered Luna a tad heatedly. “Though at least thou tried to do the right thing, even if nopony else wants to,” she sighed, the heat disappearing from her voice. Shaking her head, she continued, “Alas, we have wandered again in our conversation. Let us not dwell on that which we cannot change at the present.”

Celestia sadly nodded. “Very well,” she said before taking a deep breath and forcefully changing the subject to one less emotional, “So tell me how have your first few dream patrols been?”

Luna smiled softly, glad for the change of topic, and replied, “They have been uneventful save for a strange dream portal that We have found near Ponyville.”

Celestia cocked her head to one side. “Oh, weird in what way?”

Luna’s face scrunched up in thought as she tried to describe to her sister what she saw. “We are unsure of how to describe it, pray tell, doth thou remember what a normal dream portal looks like?”

Celestia shook her head. “It’s been so long since you last told me, Luna, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Very well, We shall remind thee then,” replied Luna as she shifted a bit on her pillow. “As thou knowest, the dream realm is made up of the energy created by all living creatures that can dream. This means that much of the waking world bleeds into the dream realm. Rules that apply out here, will also apply there. Things such as gravity, light and darkness, the various elements and how they react to the environment around them, and so on. Doth that make sense to thee, sister?”

Celestia nodded as her mind dredged up the old memories of her sister excitedly telling a younger Celestia about her adventures in the dream realm. “I think it’s slowly coming back to me.”

“Good, then thou might remember how each dreaming creature connects to the dream realm when they sleep. These connections may take on many forms. Some of them are as humble as a cloth over an opening to a hut or as grandiose as a castle gate. Furthermore, the dreamer may subconsciously add defenses to the portal to their mind, these often take on forms such as locks or even deep moats that attempt to bar access. There have even been the rare few dreamers that have consciously created guardians that will defend the portal from attack, however they are very rare and We have only found a few individuals capable of such feats over the years,” explained Luna.

“So what is different about this one then?” asked Celestia.

“We can not interact with it. We can see it and feel its connection to the dream realm, however, We are unable to enter it. It is most vexing. What is even more frustrating is that it changes forms each night.”

“What do you mean?” asked Celestia curiously.

Luna grunted in frustration. “Every night the portal looks different. The first night We came across it, it was a humble wooden door, the second night however it appeared as a much larger door made out of metal and painted white that would slide to one side when it opened.”

“I thought you said that you could not open them?”

“We can not,” replied Luna, “however that doesn’t mean that the doors will not open on their accord occasionally. We are most curious as to why they do that as the only other time we have seen that occur is when a pony gains the ability to dream walk, however that happens very rarely. We have only ever come across a few individuals in our lifetime so far that can enter the dreamscape unaided by Us.”

“So do you think the owner of this dream portal is doing that?”

Luna shook her head. “Nay, we believe that they are lucid dreaming instead as We have yet to see anything exit the dream portal. Lucid dreamers may occasionally come close to leaving their dreams, but it only happens rarely, and never multiple nights in a row as this one has done. We shall be keeping a closer eye on them in the coming nights.”

Celestia nodded as she quietly digested this new information. Finally, she asked, “Do you think this is something to be concerned about?”

“Nay, We believe whatever is creating this dream portal is harmless as there have been no disturbed dreams from the ponies in the area. Nor do We think the dreamer themselves are in any danger from nightmares and the like entering and feasting upon their dreams as they slumber. Though, as We have said, we will keep a close watch for anything amiss in the coming nights. We might even attempt to discern who they are so that We may meet with them in the waking world or at least in their dreams. A being with this sort of potential talent would greatly aid Us in our efforts to keep the realm of dreams in check”

Celestia quietly nodded before glancing at a nearby clock on the wall, and seeing that it was getting late, she arose in preparation to leave. “Very well, if you believe there is no cause for concern, then I will leave that in your capable hooves, though please let me know if there is anything that I can help you with sister.”

Luna, seeing her sister getting ready to leave, also got up and walked around the table to give her sister a goodbye hug. “We will sister, of that thou canst be assured of.”

Returning her sister's hug with one of her own, Celestia softly replied, “Goodnight Luna, I’ll see you in the morning when it is time to lower the moon, and then we can have some breakfast for me and dinner for you.”

Breaking the hug, Luna said, “Very well, We look forward to the morning supper, goodnight sister, and pleasant dreams.”

“Goodnight, and may your patrols be both uneventful and successful,” said Celestia as she turned to leave, Luna following her to the door.

Stepping into the hallway, the two guards to either side of the door stiffening to attention, Celestia gave Luna one last smile, and wave goodnight before she began the quiet walk to her room on the other side of the castle.

Shutting the door softly, Luna returned to her spot at the window and looked out over Canterlot, her spirits higher than they were, as a small smile formed on her lips as she looked forward to the morning and the time she would spend with her sister.

Chapter 44 (Progress)

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Chapter 44

The rumble of the diesel engine subsided as Allen shut it off. Stretching in his seat, he felt his back pop and let loose a satisfied grunt as it did so. Slowly climbing down off the 706, he looked around and nodded, satisfied with the job his workers were doing as they started in on the last hay basket for the day.

The past week had been busy for Allen as he and his workers worked to get the hay out of the fields and into the barn. So far, Allen had only focused on his fields as they were the easiest for Fluttershy and her animal helpers to clear. However, after a week of steady work, she had managed to clear and ward all of his hay fields of animals, and she was now in the process of working on warding the fields across the road from his farm. It was slower going as those fields had more critters living in them, and they weren’t happy about being forced to move, but Fluttershy was making progress. In the meantime, Allen had been following along behind cutting hay and had managed to take down around fifty acres at this point, which left him with about another fifty before he was done with his own land and could move onto Blueblood’s.

Those fifty acres however had yielded around five thousand additional bales of hay in his barn loft, which made Allen very happy. What made him even happier was the fact that Penny had managed to find more ponies to help out, at least part-time anyways.

Walking up to the elevator, Allen watched as his latest hire casually set a bale on the elevator. He was a big stallion and looked like he could be Big Mac’s twin, save that his coat was a light caramel colored instead of red and his mane was a darker shade of caramel, instead of Mac’s straw blonde. At first, Allen had thought they might be related. Though when he asked, he got an annoyed ear flick and brusque reply that they were not related. Sensing that it was a sore subject, Allen had wisely let the matter drop.

Coming to stand next to the stallion, Allen raised his voice and asked, “How’s the head spikes working for you Brulee?”

“Just fine,” he replied, before skewering another bale and setting it down on the elevator to take the short journey up into the loft where it would join its fellows in a nice comfy stack.

Allen nodded and turned away. It amazed him what these ponies could come up with to get around the issue of not having opposable thumbs. Zubchatoye had been the one to come up with the idea after watching Twilight get a hay bale stuck on her horn at one point. He’d mentioned the idea to Allen before he left for home and Allen had been interested in it. A week later, and the finished product had arrived in the mail. It wasn’t much more than a padded head plate with a pair of tines jutting out from the top, and some straps to keep it secured to the worker's head. The idea was that a non-unicorn would be able to spear a bale with it and carry the bale above their head before dropping it on the elevator. So far it seemed to work, though, after a while, neck fatigue would set in and the pony would either need to switch out with somepony else or would have to take a break.

Currently, Creme Brulee was the only pony besides Big Mac who could do this sort of work for hours on end with little complaint. Allen had already had Penny send a letter to Zubchatoye to see if he could find a way to improve on the design to make it so that anypony could use it, Zubchatoye had written back and said that he would look into it. In the meantime, what they had right now worked well enough, so Allen wasn’t going to complain about it.

Spotting Big Mac getting unhitched from the now empty hay basket, Allen walked over to him and asked, “How are you holding up?”

“Better,” he replied, “Now that Ah’m using mah own harness and a proper single pony setup, Ah’m not gettin as winded.”

Allen nodded. “That’s good to hear. I’m not loading the baskets too heavy am I?”

Big Mac shook his head. “Nope, they’re just fine.”

“Good,” said Allen before he asked, “I’ve noticed that you and Creme Brulee have been switching off every so often on carting duty. Have you been using that hay spike that Zubchatoye came up with?”

“Eeyup,” nodded Big Mac.

“And what did you think of it?” pressed Allen.

Big Mac shrugged. “It works, though the hay chaff that falls on ya gets irritating after a while, and yer neck can get pretty sore as well.”

“Any problems with them putting the hay on the elevator?”

“Only that ya gotta be careful that ya don’t stick it fully on before you’ve pulled the spikes out of the bale, otherwise the bale will want to start moving up into the barn and it’ll try ta pull you along in the process,” explained Big Mac.

Allen nodded in understanding. “Yeah, Brulee said the same thing. He told me that as he sets it down in the track he’ll pull his head back and use the sides of the elevator to slide the bale off the spikes before the chain can take it too far.”

“Eeyup, Ah do the same thing,” replied Big Mac with a nod as he watched Brulee put another bale on the elevator. “Though it would help if we had something a bit higher up to help pull against.”

Allen thoughtfully chewed on his lip as he watched Brulee put another bale on, though it appeared that this time the bale didn’t want to easily slide off the head spike and he was forced to do a half step to the side as he struggled to pull his head back. However, he managed to get it free and stood back for a second as he watched the troublesome bale head up.

“Yeah, I see what you’re getting at,” replied Allen, “I think I might be able to rig something up after we’re done tonight that will make things a bit easier for you guys next time. At least Zubchatoye had the foresight to add a quick release latch so that you can get out of that helmet before you get dragged off your hooves if you can’t get free of the bale.”

“Yeah, thankfully Ah haven’t had ta use it, but it’s nice knowing it’s there.”

Allen chuckled. “Yeah, safety devices tend to have that effect on people,” his smile faded as he turned his attention to the big red stallion and asked, “Are you going to be available next week to help again?”

Big Mac shook his head. “Eenope, AJ’s gonna need mah help on the farm, Ah might be able ta help later in the week, but Ah don’t want ta make a promise Ah can’t keep.”

Allen nodded in understanding and said, “Fair enough. At least I’ve got Brulee to pull the baskets... though I’m not sure if he has a harness.”

“Pretty sure he don’t,” replied Big Mac as he started undoing his harness and shrugging out of it. “He doesn’t do enough heavy hauling like Ah do ta have one.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let him borrow yours?” asked Allen hopefully.

Big Mac shook his head. “Ah might need it, but Ah’ve got an old one that just needs a few repairs and it’ll be fine. You can have it if you pay to get it fixed fer him.”

“Alright, I guess that’s fair. You want to bring it by tonight or tomorrow and I’ll take a look at it?” asked Allen.

“Ah reckon Ah can,” replied Big Mac as he removed the last of his harness and stepped over to a nearby duffle bag, and pulled out an old rag and white bottle of what Allen assumed was some kind of cleaning product for the harness. Upending the bottle over the rag and giving it a squeeze, Big Mac put a generous dollop of clear liquid on the rag before he began carefully working it into the sweat-covered harness.

Allen watched him work for a minute before he politely excused himself and headed into the barn to check on his other workers. Climbing the stairs, he entered the loft just in time to see a bale come off the end of the elevator and Clover Leaf kick it across the floor towards Honeysuckle.

“How’s it going up here?” asked Allen as Honeysuckle tossed the bale up the stack to her brother Rye.

Wiping some sweat from her brow, she shot Allen a smile and said, “It’s going pretty good, we’ve got a rhythm going and we’re getting things stacked like you want them.”

Allen looked up at the now towering haystack as Rye speared the bale with his own set of head spikes and carefully maneuvered it into place in the stack.

“I can see that, it looks good,” replied Allen as he watched the trio work. “This will be the last load of the day, so as soon as you guys are done, come see me and I’ll give you your days pay.”

Tossing another bale up to her brother with a grunt, Honey replied, “Okay, sounds good!”

Giving her a wave, Allen turned and headed down the stairs and made his way to the porch where Penny was seated at a small portable desk going over several papers. Walking up, Allen sat down in one of the wicker patio chairs and snagged a nearby glass, and poured himself some cold lemonade before taking a long pull of the refreshing beverage.

Ah, nothing beats a nice cold lemonade on a hot day. He thought to himself as he refilled his glass. Especially when it’s kept cold with magic runes engraved in the pitcher.

Leaning back in his chair, he looked over at Penny and asked, “So, how are things going?”

Glancing up from her papers, she took a sip of her own lemonade glass and replied, “Well, I’ve got a lead on some twine for your baler.”

“Oh?” asked Allen curiously as he took another sip.

“They’re a rope maker out of Manehatten, but they can also do smaller stuff such as twine for packages and things. They said they would be sending us some samples here in the next few days. The problem is that we’re going to have to make a bulk purchase in order for it to be worth their time,” she explained as she straightened up.

“How much?”

“More than I would like, but it can’t really be helped,” she replied as she passed Allen the letter she had received from them. “Though considering how much we’re going to need, it’ll probably be fine.”

Looking it over, Allen pursed his lips and grunted as he saw how much he would have to buy from them. “And there wasn’t anyone else we could go with?”

“Nopony else that Fancy Pants recommended has returned my letters. I sent a letter to Prince Blueblood to see if he knew of anypony, but he hasn’t responded yet. So I went ahead and asked them to send us their samples so we could try them out and see how they work.”

“Are they going to be able to wrap the twine the way I need them? No other way will work with my balers,” he asked as he passed the letter back to Penny.

“I sent them one of the twine rolls you gave me and they said they should be able to come close enough with these samples. Seeing as how nopony else has ever done something like this, I would imagine they’re going to be improvising a lot to get this done.”

“I don’t care how they do it, just that the finished product works,” replied Allen as he took a sip of his drink and watched as Brulee put the last few bales on the elevator.

“And that’s what I told them in my latest letter,” remarked Penny as she shuffled some papers around, “I expect they’ll have the samples here in the next week or two. Their letter said that they were going to be using several different materials and processes to see which one worked best for you, so we’ll need to let them know which sample we want them to make for us if we go with them.”

Allen nodded. “What about the other stuff?”

Penny sighed. “Nothing as far as the fuel is concerned, though there’s been some promising alternatives for your grease and lubricating oil needs. But it’ll take some time, I’m afraid.”

Allen shrugged. “Well, we’ll just have to do the best we can with what we got, I’m sure something will turn up eventually.”

“Yeah, eventually,” agreed Penny, “Oh, looks like they’re done now.”

“Yep,” said Allen as he watched his five workers shut things down for the evening and dust themselves off before coming over to collect their pay for the day. Sitting back, he let Penny take care of them while he mulled things over.

I’m going to need to find a way to reduce fuel consumption until I can secure a new source of fuel. He thought quietly to himself as he watched the last pony receive their pay for the day and bid goodbye.

Having Big Mac and Brulee pulling hay baskets is a start, but it’s not enough. With having to cut, ted, rake, and bale, I’m going over the same piece of ground four times minimum to make my hay. I have to use the tractor to cut, ted, and bale the hay, as there just isn’t any other workable alternative that I can see, as I need a PTO to use them. The hay rake on the other hand is ground driven, so I could have a pony pull it, the problem is they’d have to pull it fast enough to make it work right, too slow and it doesn’t fluff the windrow well enough to allow air to circulate and dry the hay. It’s not a big deal for first cutting, as that stuff dries fast enough that it’s ready to go by the time you get to raking it into a windrow. But second cutting onwards, that’s where things get harder.

He drummed his fingers idly on the arm of his chair. But, if I have somepony pulling the rake, then I can focus on other things as it’ll reduce my workload. He nodded as he came to a decision. I’ll need another employee at least, preferably two, that way they can switch off on the rake. A decently strong earth pony should have no problem pulling it solo, and if need be we can have two working together, at least until I can get another source of fuel.

Turning to Penny, Allen asked, “Do you think we can hire another two ponies?”

Penny cocked an ear his way and gave him an inquisitive look. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking of ways to reduce my fuel usage and free up some more time for me. If I can have a couple of ponies pulling my rake for me, then I don’t have to do it myself, meaning I don’t use fuel and I can cut more acreage as I won’t have as much to do since they’ll be taking over part of the job from me.”

Penny’s expression turned thoughtful as she began crunching numbers in her head. “I think we should be able to, but we’ll need to start selling hay to ponies soon or we’re going to run out of bits before long.”

“Do you have anyone lined up?”

She nodded. “Filthy Rich is interested, and he and I have come to an initial agreement. He’ll pay by the ton and take delivery here in Ponyville for all of his stores across Equestria.”

Allen nodded. “How much per ton is he willing to pay?” he asked.

“We’re still negotiating the final price, but I think it will be in our favor. While hay is a major staple in Equestrian diets, it’s very labor intensive, so the cost can be rather high in comparison to other food crops for the amount of effort put into it. However, your system will completely change that, meaning we’ll have a stronger profit margin to work with going forward. The question is what will we do if we can’t find replacements for your consumables?”

Allen quietly nodded, a serious look on his face. “I’m working on that, but I just haven’t been able to figure anything out. I guess we’ll just have to hope that the feelers we’ve put out find something soon.”

Sighing, Penny nodded in understanding. Running a business was hard, especially when you were up against the proverbial clock. Allen expected that he would have enough fuel to do around six to seven hundred acres worth of hay before he ran out. Though if he found a way for ponies to take over some of the lighter duties, such as tedding and raking, he might be able to do more, however, time would tell.

Unfortunately, the day-to-day grind prevented Allen from making those sorts of plans, which was where Penny came in. She’d already come up with a few ideas for when Allen ran out of fuel. Mostly along the lines of adapting some of his equipment to be used by Equestrians and then selling it. Zubchatoye’s hay bale head spikes had given her the idea, and she had reached out to him to see if he might be interested in some kind of partnership in the future. Even though she hadn’t heard from him yet, she figured he would be interested as she had seen the way he had practically drooled over Allen’s equipment when he had been here with Checklist.

However, that and several other ideas were still in the early stages of development and a lot could happen between now and when they would need to be implemented. In the meantime, she would just have to focus on what she could do, and pulling a sheet of papers out from under her stack of papers, she figured now was as good a time as any to get one task that she’d been meaning to do finished.

Clearing her throat, she lifted the piece of paper in her magic and asked, “Allen, do you remember when I told you that we needed to find a good name for your farm for marketing purposes?”

Allen’s shoulder’s slumped and he let loose a gusty sigh. “Yeah,” he replied unhappily as he took another sip of his drink. He’d been hoping that the topic wouldn’t come up for a while longer. Alas, it appears that his luck had run out. Even though he’d said she could change the name, in his heart, he hadn’t really meant it, and had just said he was fine with it to get her to quit pestering him about it at the time. In hindsight, he should have just put his foot down and said no, but he hadn’t, and now he was going to have to make a final decision whether he wanted to or not.

“Oh don’t be so melodramatic about it,” chided Penny as she floated the paper over to him. Taking it in his hand, he started reading it as Penny continued, “Now, while I was speaking with Filthy Rich, I asked him what he thought of your farm’s current name, and he wasn’t sure it would be a good brand for your product.”

Allen grunted in reply, not surprised at hearing the news.

Taking that as her cue to continue, Penny said, “Well, I asked him if he might be able to help us do some focus tests with his customers and see what names elicited a strong positive response, and that,” she pointed at the list in Allen’s hands, “was the result.”

Allen grunted again as he passed the paper back to Penny. “Okay,” was all he said, though a hint of petulance leaked through.

Penny waited for several seconds, but when Allen didn’t say any more, she asked, “Okay, what?”

“Pick whichever you want,” replied Allen grumpily as he took another sip of his drink.

Penny sighed wearily, she couldn’t figure out why Allen was making such a fuss over the proposed name change. Didn’t he want his business to do well? Ross Family Farms just didn’t rate very well with potential customers, it wasn’t as though it was bad per se, but it wasn’t as though it did well either.

Taking a deep breath, Penny decided to confront Allen. “Allen, why are you fighting me on this? Don’t you want your farm to do well?”

Allen didn’t say anything. Instead electing to stare straight ahead and glare at nothing in particular.

Now getting annoyed, Penny jumped down from her chair and stood in front of Allen, all but glaring at him, and said, “Allen, please stop being stubborn and help me understand why you are against the name change. I thought that you were willing to let me change it after our last conversation regarding this topic?”

Allen shifted in his seat and took another sip of his drink before saying, “Maybe because I don’t want to change my farm’s name? The name that it’s had for generations? I know it’s not the most catchy or elegant name out there, but it’s the name that it’s always had, and changing it just for the sake of marketing seems... disrespectful, I guess. I know it’ll make things more difficult, but, I’ve lost so much already... I just don’t want to lose anything else if I can help it,” he finished sadly before then draining his glass dry.

Penny felt her ears droop as she listened, and she felt a twinge of shame. I... didn’t think of that, she thought quietly to herself, I was just so focused on the business side of things that... I didn’t consider what the name might actually mean to him.

“I’m sorry, Allen,” she replied sadly, “I didn’t think about what I was asking you to do by changing the name like that... we don’t have to change it if you don’t want to,” she added reluctantly.

Staring down into his empty glass, Allen didn’t say anything for a bit. Inside he felt his heart lighten at the news he’d be allowed to have his way. Though on the other hand, he felt a hint of shame at how he had acted. If he’d just come out and stated his reasons for keeping the name, this whole mess could have been avoided, alas, it hadn’t and as the silence started to become oppressive, he sighed and said, “It’s okay, you were just trying to help, and I didn’t make it easier by being all petulant like I was. I should have told you from the beginning that I didn’t want to change it rather than make it sound like I was willing to let the name go.”

Penny nodded silently before she took a deep breath and lifted her head up. “Well, then I guess I better get to work on getting ‘Ross Family Farms’ branding set up, huh?”

Allen reached over and grabbed the lemonade pitcher and refilled his and Penny’s glasses. Pointing at the chair with a small smile, he said, “You can get to that later, right now, just kick back and relax for a bit and have another lemonade.”

Looking between him, the chair, and her paperwork, Penny chuckled and jumped up on the chair, and settled herself in. Taking a sip of lemonade she asked, “So what are you going to do now?”

“Relax and enjoy my lemonade, then I guess I’ll put everything away for the night and do my evening chores before I have dinner and go to bed, what about you?”

“Pretty much the same, I suppose, though I’ll have to add walking home in there somewhere,” she joked.

Allen chuckled and sat back in his chair as he took the opportunity to enjoy the quiet moment, eventually, however, he had to get up.

“Well,” he said with a grunt as he stood up and stretched, “I guess I better get things put away.”

Looking up at the now much lower sun, Penny nodded and replied, “And I better get home before it gets too dark out,” gathering up her papers and things, she stowed them in her saddlebags and levitated them onto her back. Giving a little hop to settle them fully, she turned and bade Allen goodnight.

Waving goodbye, he watched her go for a moment before getting started on putting things put away for the night.

~oOo~

The following morning found Penny sitting in Filthy Rich’s office in the back of Barnyard Bargains as she explained the change in plans regarding Allen’s farm.

Leaning back in his chair, Filthy had a thoughtful look on his face as she steepled his hooves under his chin.

“So is his decision on the name final?” he asked.

Penny nodded. “It is, he told me he felt that changing it would be ‘disrespectful’ to the name and his ancestors that gave it to the farm.”

Filthy grunted in acknowledgment. “I can respect that,” he said, though he clearly wasn’t happy hearing it. Leaning forward, he grabbed a piece of paper and looked it over, “though I hope he realizes that he’s made a lot more work for both himself and us going forward. Ross Family Farms was about the middle of the pack when it came to customer favorability, not bad, but not great either. I was hoping he’d either choose Green Acres or Hidden Valley Farms as those scored right at the top, though the name you suggested, Golden Acres had a nice ring to it as well, and folks responded very well to it.”

“I know, and he knows as well, I showed the results to him, but he seems set on keeping the name,” she replied.

Filthy chewed on his bottom lip as he contemplated their next move. “Well, then I suppose our next move would be to come up with a good product name to compensate for the loss of brand name power.”

“Do you have any ideas?” asked Penny hopefully.

Filthy shook his head. “Not right now, I’ll need to consult with a couple of my marketing ponies first. See if you can bring us a few bales of hay for testing purposes.”

Penny nodded and made a note in her notepad. “I’ll snag a couple once Allen starts cutting his Equestrian fields, right now he’s focused on getting his personal hay needs taken care of.”

“Can’t say as I blame him, hay prices have been rising steadily lately, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be coming down anytime soon either,” he replied with an understanding nod.

“Yes, I have noticed that,” she replied, a thoughtful look on her face. “Though I don’t understand why, really.”

“Too many new towns, and not enough farmers to supply them,” replied Filthy with a sigh.

“Really? I thought that the princess’s settler initiative was working out well?”

“Yes and no,” replied Filthy as he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a bottle of apple cider and a pair of glasses. Popping the top off the cider bottle, he poured the sweet-smelling liquid into the two glasses with practiced ease. Offering Penny a glass, which she accepted with a thanks, he elaborated, “A lot of these new towns aren’t self-sufficient yet, and quite a few of them aren’t agriculturally focused. My contacts in the government have told me that Princess Celestia has been concerned with Equestria’s lack of industrial capacity for several decades and as such, she’s been pushing to rectify that situation.”

“At the unintended expense of the agricultural sector,” finished Penny as she took a sip of the sweet-tasting cider.

“More or less,” nodded Filthy. “As you know, hay has never been as lucrative a crop per acre as say apples or carrots. It’s a lot of work, and it generally yields less tonnage in comparison to other fruit and vegetable crops, so most ponies don’t really bother growing it beyond what they require for local needs. Sure you’ve got your traveling hay cutters and local farmers are all to happy to harvest the wild meadow grasses around their farms and villages for local consumption. However, that’s not enough to keep up with the growing demand, especially as more ponies move to the cities or these new settlements in search of a better life.”

Penny nodded in understanding. “High demand, low supply.”

“Bingo,” replied Filthy with a wink and a chuckle. “Which brings us to our resident human. With his machines, I doubt he will have much trouble supplying not just Ponyville’s hay needs, but quite possibly, Canterlot’s as well.”

“You really think so? That’s a lot of ponies,” replied Penny, a doubtful look on her face.

Resuming his seat, Filthy took a sip of his cider and gave a hum in acknowledgment. “I do,” he said as he leaned back in his chair, “His little demonstration he gave us on how many acres he could cut by himself the other week was quite impressive. What’s more, since he has access to Prince Blueblood’s land, he should be able to meet a large part of that demand with little difficulty.”

“Well, so long as his equipment is supplied with the needed parts and fuel he will. If he runs out though...” she trailed off, but Filthy understood what she was getting at.

“I’ve been looking into that since you mentioned that to me during our initial negotiations,” he replied, “we still haven’t found a good substitute for his fuel requirements. However, I’ve found some good alternatives for his lubrication needs that I think he will find helpful,” he slid a manila folder across his desk to Penny, who took it in her magic and opened it, glancing at its contents.

“I’ll be sure to pass this along to him,” she said, “I’ve been able to find a few things myself lately, such as a potential source of new twine, so that’s taken some of the stress off of him. As for the rest, we just need to figure out which substitutes will be the best choice.”

Pouring himself another round of cider, before offering to refill her glass, Filthy replied, “I’ve heard about that, and I’m glad to hear it. Who’s your potential source of twine, if I may ask?”

Waving away the offer, Penny said, “They’re a rope maker out of Manehatten. They mostly deal in rope for ships and such, but they say they make twine as well for wrapping packages and such. We should have some samples to test out soon.”

“When do you think he plans to move on to the Equestrian fields? I’d like to have a little bit of a heads up so that I can get the logistics sorted out on my end,” he asked.

“As soon as Fluttershy clears enough acreage for him to start,” she replied, “I spoke with her yesterday, and she said she’d managed to get around twenty acres cleared, and warded so far. Though it’s slower going as the local wildlife are resistant to move somewhere else this late into the year. In addition, she needs to put up the warding stakes, along with markers to show where they are so Allen doesn’t run them over by accident. I’ve recommended that she seek a few more pony helpers to speed the process along, but as you can guess she is reluctant to do so.”

Filthy nodded, an understanding look on his face. It was no secret in Ponyville that Fluttershy was a well... shy pony, and lacked the level of confidence that most ponies carried themselves in their day-to-day lives.

“I know of a couple of good earth pony field clearers that I think would work well with her. They’re not from around here, but they’re some of the best. I can send them a letter to see if they can help speed the process along.”

Penny shook her head. “I’m afraid our budget won’t be able to cover the additional expenses of hiring non-local field clearers. We could swing an extra one, maybe two locals assisting Fluttershy, but non-local professionals would break our bank I’m afraid. I’ve already looked into it,” she said sadly.

Filthy waved a hoof as if batting her concerns away like one would a persistent fly. “Barnyard Bargains will take care of the expense.”

Her ears perking up in surprise, Penny gave him a wary look. “That is very... generous of you Mr. Rich, but I must ask what will this cost us?”

Filthy chuckled. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” asked Penny in disbelief, “Forgive me, but I can’t help but feel a little perplexed at this offer. What’s the catch?”

Filthy leaned back in his seat and grinned. “No catch, beyond a small discount on the price of this year's hay sold to me.”

Narrowing her eyes, Penny warily asked, “How much of a discount are we talking about here?”

“Oh I was thinking say... ten percent?” he casually ventured.

Sitting up straight in her chair, Penny settled fully into business mode. “You know I can’t agree to something like that until I get an estimate for how much it will cost us per acre to clear with you hiring the ponies.”

His smile widening, Filthy leaned forward and said, “Well, then it's a good thing I’ve got those estimates right here, along with when the selected ponies can start, here take a look,” he slid another manila envelope across his desk to Penny.

Taking it in her magical grasp, Penny quickly scanned the papers in front of her and started doing the math.

It seems to add up, and giving up only ten percent on the final sale price of the hay wouldn’t be a bad trade... but if there is one thing I’ve learned in business is that you need to do your own homework.

“Well, everything looks good, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to take some more time to look things over, you understand of course?” she asked diplomatically as she carefully slid the manila folder into her saddlebags.

Filthy simply smiled. “Of course, I do not mind at all. Though just a forewarning, this offer won’t stay on the table forever. I will need an answer by the end of this week, one way or another.”

Keeping her expression neutral, Penny easily replied, “I’ll have an answer for you within the week, both in regards to this new offer of yours, as well as when you can expect those samples.”

Smiling even wider, Filthy stood up from his desk and said, “Glad to hear it, now unless you have something else you need to bring to my attention, I’m afraid I must get going. I promised my daughter I would spend some time with her today.”

Slipping her saddlebags on, Penny trotted out after him. “Not a problem, Mr. Rich,” she replied as she watched him lock up for the day. “I didn’t have anything else to add to the conversation anyways.”

Giving the door a firm pull to make sure it was shut properly, Filthy turned around and replied, “Well, I’m glad to hear that, I always hate it when meetings run late.”

“Oh, I know,” replied Penny with a sympathetic giggle as she fell in alongside the business stallion, “I’ve had my fair share of late-night meetings that seemed to just drag on for eternity.”

As the two entered the front of the store, they continued to make casual small talk before then parting ways at the front doors. Filthy to go home, and Penny to return to her office to get started on cross-checking this new wrinkle in the deal between Allen and Filthy.

Looks like it's going to be another late night tonight, she sighed to herself. Oh well, it’s what I signed up for, and if this works out the way I hope it will, it’ll all be worth it in the end.

Chapter 45 (Done Deal)

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Chapter 45

“Sign here, here, here as well, and finally, initial here.”

With a final flick of his pen, Allen finished signing the contract laid out before him. He was sitting at his kitchen table, with Penny to one side, and Filthy Rich and one of his staff on the other side, with a sales contract between them.

Capping the pen and laying it down, he spun the contract around and slid it back to Filthy.

Picking it up in his hooves, the business stallion looked the signed contract over with a satisfied nod. “Perfect, everything looks to be in order now. A pleasure doing business with you Mr. Ross.”

Rising from his seat, Allen stuck out his hand and took Filthy Rich’s offered hoof in a firm grip. “Likewise, Mr. Rich, glad we could come to an agreement.”

“When do you think you can have the first delivery ready?” he asked as the two shook on the deal.

Releasing his grip, Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, well we just finished the last fifty acres of hay on my property yesterday, and Fluttershy says that she’s got at least fifty acres cleared across the road from me, so unless the weather team decides to forecast rain in the next few days I could probably cut tomorrow, and have it up in at least two days from now.”

Filthy’s grin grew wider. “Wonderful, I look forward to the first delivery. I’ll give Ms. Farthing the final details regarding where to transport the hay, in the meantime, I need to send word to the new field clearing team that they can get started.”

“Sounds good, we’ll be waiting for them,” replied Allen with a nod as he escorted Filthy and his associate to the door.

“I expect they will be here later this week,” said Filthy as he stepped out onto the porch, “Their letter told me they were nearly finished with their current contract near Tall Tale, and that once finished they could get started here.”

“Works for me, and Fluttershy told me she was happy for the additional help... so long as she didn’t have to interact with them too much,” replied Allen.

“I’m glad to hear that, in any case, we must be going now, good day,” said Filthy as he bade Allen and Penny goodbye.

Waving goodbye in return, Allen watched them go for a moment before he turned and shut the door behind him. Walking into the kitchen, he spotted Penny sitting at the dining room table going over some paperwork.

“Well that’s done now,” said Allen as he resumed his seat.

Glancing up from her current paper, Penny set it down and smiled. “Agreed, I’m glad we were able to come to an agreement. This is a good first step to getting your farm profitable.”

Allen nodded. In truth, he hadn’t done much as Penny had been the one to do most of the leg work and setup. All he had done in the end was review and sign the contract between his farm and Barnyard Bargains. Although, the deal had almost not happened as Filthy had tried to get Allen to agree to sell his hay exclusively to Barnyard Bargains. Allen had flat out refused, as he had wanted the flexibility to sell to whomever he wished and had told Filthy that if that was the condition for him to do business with him, he would pass on the deal. Filthy, being the savvy business stallion that he was, had quickly smoothed things over and reluctantly backed down on the exclusivity requirement.

With that particular speed bump behind them, the rest of the negotiations had gone much more smoothly. The end result being that Allen would sell his hay to Filthy at just under the current market price of five hundred bits per ton for this year, which would come to around four hundred and fifty bits once the ten percent discount was factored in. With an added clause that if the price of hay fell, then further purchases would reflect that new price. In addition, the contract would be up for renewal, and by extension, negotiation the following year.

All in all, it was a pretty nice deal from Allen’s point of view. Even with the built-in discount, Allen knew he was getting a very good price. In fact, when he had read the agreed-upon price for the first time, he had thought that someone had made a typo, but no, it had turned out that hay prices in Equestria were just that high right now. Though Filthy had cautioned that the price might start falling once Allen’s farm production came online, at least locally anyways.

Even if the price drops to one hundred bits per ton, that’s still workable, thought Allen to himself as he sat quietly in his seat. Normally, I’m selling around that price anyways, and heck, I’ve sold hay for less than that before. Idly drumming his fingers on the table, he mulled over his options. Depending on how long that price holds its current place, I might be able to make enough money this summer to last me a long time once I run out of fuel, assuming I don’t find any alternative sources soon.

Leaning back in his chair, he hummed to himself. Penny, hearing Allen’s hum, perked up and gave him a curious look. Noticing her looking at him, Allen waved a hand and said, “Just thinking to myself.”

Putting her paper down, Penny asked, “What were you thinking about?”

“How much money I might be able to realistically make this year before I run out of diesel.”

“Well, with the current price of hay, I would assume you could do very well for yourself,” she stated.

Allen nodded in agreement. “I know, but the question is how long that price will last once I start dumping hay on the market.”

“Do you think you might be able to keep up with demand?” she asked curiously.

Allen shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess it just depends on how many tons of hay are consumed on a daily basis locally, and what even counts for local.”

“Well, there is Ponyville, that’s obvious, but also Canterlot, not to mention about half a dozen smaller towns within an hours trotting distance of Ponyville that rely on the town to supply their needs as well. Finally, you have all of the farmsteads around here that come into town to buy whatever they can’t make or grow on their land,” replied Penny as she listed off the various sources of supply consumption.

“That much huh?”

“Well, Ponyville is the only town around, besides Canterlot, that has a train station, and Canterlot can’t really grow much food due to the fact that space is at a premium on the side of a mountain. So really the only logical choice for ponies down here in the valley to go shopping is Ponyville.”

“So those other towns don’t have stores of their own?” questioned Allen.

Penny shrugged. “They probably do, but most likely they’re your typical small-town general store that has a limited selection available for purchase. If you want something else or to buy in bulk, you’ll either need to order it and have it shipped in or come to Ponyville or Canterlot, and since Canterlot is too far away for most of the outlying ponies to make regular shopping trips to, Ponyville becomes the only logical choice.”

“That makes sense, if you already have to travel an hour one way, you’re probably not going to want to deal with the additional hour-long round trip to and from Canterlot, in addition to waiting for the train and walking around the busy streets of the capital just to go and pick up some nice to have things every week or so,” replied Allen with a nod of understanding.

“Exactly, so I don’t think we’re going to need to worry about oversaturating the market that quickly. Besides, if you manage to over saturate the local market, Filthy can just ship the excess hay elsewhere without having to lower his prices.”

Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe, I mean if I’m just focusing on making hay, then I can crank out a lot of it. Plus with predictable weather, my main limiting factor is essentially removed, meaning I can take down a lot more in a go without having to worry about getting it up before any potential rain hits it.”

“How much do you think you can do at a time?” asked Penny curiously.

“Oh right now I’m planning on taking down all fifty acres Fluttershy’s cleared tomorrow, though...”

“What?”

Allen sighed and shook his head. “I’m just now realizing that some of my equipment isn’t big enough to keep up with this sudden expansion in acreage.”

“How do you mean?” asked Penny curiously, “I mean you’re able to take down tens of acres in just a few hours. Whereas it would take a pony days to do the same amount of work.”

Leaning back in his chair, Allen nodded. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying, but Penny you have to understand the equipment that I’m working with is old. To you, my equipment seems high-tech and rocketship fast, but I’ve seen equipment that can do hundreds of acres in the same amount of time that I can do fifty.”

Penny felt her eyebrows climb upwards in astonishment. “Really?” she asked quietly.

Allen chuckled. “Penny, didn’t I tell you? My 706 was built over fifty years ago, the same with my 806. The Case tractor is twenty years old, and that’s one of my newer pieces of equipment. All of my stuff is old and small compared to what’s out on the market today back home.”

Penny sat back in her chair and idly chewed on her lower lip. “So what do you plan to do?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You said your equipment is old and small. What do you plan to do to overcome these limitations?” pressed Penny.

“Truth be told? I don’t know,” admitted Allen as he rubbed the back of his neck, an unsure expression on his face. “I hadn’t really given much thought to it until now, because my equipment was sufficient for my needs, though my dad and I had been discussing getting a bigger tedder, but we just didn’t have the money it would take to buy a good one, even used at the time. So like every other farmer, we just made do with what we had, and I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do here. I’m going to see if I can have Brulee and maybe one other pony pull my hay rake, as it’s ground driven, so that’ll reduce some of my workload, but...”

“You need to reduce it further,” finished Penny.

“Yeah,” nodded Allen, “I wish I could have a pony pull my tedder, it’s a bit lighter than my rake, so there’s no reason somepony couldn’t do it. The problem is that it’s PTO driven, so it would need a forecart with some way to power it.”

“Does it need a lot of power to run it?” asked Penny as she pulled a pencil and piece of paper over to her and began jotting down ideas.

Allen shook his head. “Not really, probably twenty horsepower, maybe less depending on how heavy the hay is. My Super M could run that no problem... if it was currently running of course, but that’s a project for later.”

“Well, there are some ground-driven, Equestrian-made tedders on the market, though they are a bit pricey, and are not much bigger than yours,” replied Penny hesitantly.

“How much are they?” asked Allen curiously.

“I don’t know the exact price, other than that they are really expensive,” admitted Penny, “I haven’t really looked into them since I started working with you other than knowing they exist, and what they look like.”

“Well, I suppose that’s something,” said Allen thoughtfully.

“If you want, I can see if I can find one and how much it would cost?” offered Penny.

“Yeah, go ahead and do that,” replied Allen as he stood up.

“Going somewhere?” asked Penny.

“Yeah, I need to get the tractor and mower ready for tomorrow, and seeing as it’s getting on into the late afternoon outside, I figured I’d go ahead and get my evening chores done a bit early and call it a day.”

Grabbing his hat from off its hook on the pantry door, he looked back over his shoulder and asked, “Are you going to be heading home soon or are you gonna stick around for a bit longer?”

“Why? You eager to get rid of me?” she asked jokingly.

Rolling his eyes, Allen replied sarcastically, a grin on his face, “Oh yeah, can’t stand the sight of you, plus you stink.”

Penny giggled before replying, “I wasn’t planning on leaving just yet. I’ve got some paperwork to finalize before I take it down to the mayor’s office and have it notarized in the morning, and I figured I could do it here just as easily as I could at my place.”

Allen nodded, a small smile on his face. “Alright, well if that’s the case, why don’t you stay for dinner then? I’ve been meaning to even up the score since you had me over for dinner at your place last time.”

“Oh, thank you, Allen,” replied Penny, a thankful expression on her face at the unexpected turn of events, “that’s really nice of you, I’d be happy to stay for dinner.”

“Great, once I get done with my chores, I’ll get started on dinner then. How does alfredo pasta sound?”

“It sounds wonderful,” said Penny eagerly.

“Well alright, I’ll get started on that as soon as I get back,” replied Allen with a final nod. With that said, he turned and quickly strode out of the room, leaving Penny to her paperwork.

Humming happily to herself, she dug back into it, the promise of good food with a good friend making the work a little less dull.

~oOo~

The following morning found Allen across the road from his farm, discbine in the field as he made one last look over his equipment before getting started. This fifty-acre section of field had been cleared for several days, and Allen was ready to get started.

Climbing back up on the tractor, Allen put his ear protection back on and put the tractor in gear. Advancing the throttle, he turned around and flipped the PTO engagement lever up, and listened as the discbine whined to life. Not hearing any metal-on-metal action, Allen slowly let out the clutch and set off along the road at a comfortable seven miles an hour.

Looking back over his shoulder, he watched as his mower cut through the grass with little difficulty. Turning forwards, he hit the play button on his mp3 player and silently bobbed his head in time with the music.

Eventually, he reached his first turn, which was marked by a tall fence post painted white that had been planted along the roadside to his left. Giving the wheel a spin, the tractor happily turned to the right with the mower cutting along behind. Looking down to the right, Allen spotted the little warding stakes as they slipped by underneath.

You know, it’s kind of nice being able to open the field this way, instead of how I normally have to do it, thought Allen to himself, Since there’s no fence or real obstacles to worry about, I don’t have to drive with the mower next to the fence for the first pass, then turn around to go back the way I came. It’s too bad I can’t drive over those stakes though, he thought regretfully to himself, I’d love to be able to have a fully clean-looking field, but oh well, still better than dealing with actual fences.

Coming up on his second turn, he once again turned right and continued along the edge of the cleared field, his attention constantly jumping between keeping an eye on the mower, and where he was going. Thankfully, even though the warding stakes were close to the ground, they were a nice bright white, which helped them stand out amongst the lush green grass. Plus the fact that Fluttershy had trampled much of the grass around each stake as she planted them made it relatively easy for Allen to make a nice straight windrow. As he drove along, he would occasionally see the grass in the uncleared field to his left rustle as a startled animal darted away from the loud tractor and mower.

I wonder if Equestria has landscaping fabric, he idly wondered to himself, it would be pretty easy to lay some down along the row of stakes and put some stone on top to make it easier to see where the field boundary is, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally running them over with the tractor or mower. Hmm, I think I’ll bring that up with Penny the next time I see her.

Another turn came and went. This time, Allen found himself bordering Sweet Apple Acres, thankfully there wasn’t a fence here, just some boundary rocks that, while decent size, still managed to pass easily underneath Allen’s tractor with minimal fuss. Although in this section Allen did pull the TA back and let the tractor slow down, his feet hovering near the clutch and brake pedals in case he had to stop quickly because a rock was a bit too big for the tractor to pass over without causing damage.

That’s the last thing I need right now, thought Allen as he carefully drove along, the rocks safely passing under the axle where there was more clearance. Nearing the end of the row, Allen spotted an orange figure walking through the nearby apple trees.

That must be Applejack, wonder what she’s doing out here? Wondered Allen as he passed her by with a polite nod of his head when he saw that she was looking his way. Applejack at first didn’t respond, but after a second, she tipped her hat and continued on her way when she saw that Allen wasn’t causing any harm to her trees.

Coming up on the last turn, Allen carefully timed it so that his front tire would miss the final boundary stone followed by his larger rear tire. Seeing that he was fully clear, Allen pushed the TA forward and the tractor surged ahead.

Round and round the field Allen drove, the hours ticking by until finally about mid-afternoon, he was finished. Pulling out of the field, Allen felt tired but happy. Glancing down at his watch, he saw that it was around three in the afternoon.

Fifty acres in about seven hours? Not bad, he thought to himself as he guided the tractor down the driveway and parked it in front of the fuel pumps. Shutting it off, he gingerly climbed down and stretched, his aching muscles protesting slightly at moving, but with a satisfying pop, his back muscles relaxed and he let loose a sigh of relief. Pulling the fuel cap off, he refilled his tractor. While he waited for the tank to refill, he debated what his next course of action should be.

I won’t be able to get all of the field tedded tonight. I might be able to do about half of it before it gets too late though, hmmm... do I ted part of it tonight or wait until tomorrow? Decisions, decisions.

A rumble from his stomach, and pressure from his bladder, however, helped him make up his mind on what his next thing to do was.

Finish fueling, then bathroom, and then get some supper. I can decide if I want to do anything else tonight after that.

Peering into the fuel tank, he saw it was full, and shut off the pump. Giving the nozzle a little tap to get the last couple drops off of it, he put it away and after putting the cap back on, headed for the house.

A quick bathroom break and a couple of sandwiches later found Allen in one of the machine sheds, the mower unhooked and put away, and the little two basket tedder hooked up and ready to go. While he had been eating, Allen had decided to ted part of the field tonight, and then ted the rest of it in the morning, it wasn’t ideal, but he figured if he got twenty or so acres done tonight, by the time he finished tedding the other thirty tomorrow, he could check the first twenty and see if it was drying well enough to bale that day, if not, then he’d let it go another day. Though he figured it would probably go, the morning dews had been quite light the last week or so, burning off around eight or nine o’clock in the morning, and with the temperatures being in the mid to upper eighties, plus the full sun and steady breezes, he hadn’t had any trouble getting his hay to dry. In fact, he’d actually run into the rare issue of the hay drying too quickly.

Eh, we’ll see how it goes, that grass over there was much thicker than my grass, so it’s probably gonna be a bit harder to dry, we’ll see. He thought to himself as he climbed up on the tractor and fired her up. Putting her in gear, he set off down the driveway, the little tedder bouncing happily behind.

Once at the field, Allen made a few final adjustments and pulling up on the PTO lever, he watched as the little tedder whirled to life. Satisfied it was set correctly, Allen turned forward and let out of the clutch, the tractor rolling forward into the first windrow. Looking behind him, Allen smiled as he watched the little tedder rip into the nicely laid windrow and scatter the drying grass all over the place. Giving the tractor a little more throttle, he turned forward and settled in for the next few hours of work.

By the time he decided to call it quits a little after seven o’clock, Allen had managed to meet his goal of about twenty acres. He’d pushed the tractor a little faster than he had when he’d been mowing, and as such had made decent time, but as he watched the sun getting closer to the western horizon, he’d felt the early evening dew beginning to fall across the countryside and had finally decided to call it quits for the night.

Exiting the field, he motored back down his driveway and into an open spot in the first machine shed. Shutting the engine down for the final time that night, he listened to the metallic tings the motor made as it slowly started to cool down. Standing up, he gave a mighty groan as he stretched tired and sore muscles. Gingerly climbing down off the tractor, he walked over to a nearby water hydrant and turned it on. Letting it run for a minute or two he then stuck his head underneath the cool stream of water and scrubbed some of the day's dirt off his face and arms before then taking several long gulps of the cool, clear water to help quench his thirst.

Letting go a contented sigh of relief, he shook his head like a dog to get the excess water out before shutting it off and heading for the animal barn to get the evening chores done.

By the time he managed to stumble into the house, it was after nine, and his stomach reminded him again that it was time to feed it. Too tired to cook anything, he settled for cold meat sandwiches. Wolfing them down, he dragged himself upstairs, changed out of his work clothes, and took a shower before then making a bee-line to his bed. Making sure his alarm was set for the next morning, Allen turned out the light and crawled into the beckoning embrace of his trusty bed. His head had barely hit the pillow before he was off to dreamland.

Chapter 46 (Overheated)

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Chapter 46

“Allen? Are you in here?” called out Penny as she slowly walked into the machine shed.

A loud thunk emanated from behind a large metal box that was hooked up to Allen’s 806 and a muttered curse answered her question.

Peeking around the corner, she saw Allen clutching the back of his head.

“Oh Allen, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you like that,” she said as she quickly closed the distance. “Here, let me look at it,” she instructed as she pried his hands away from the back of his head. A large knot already forming from where his head had connected with the edge of the large door that hung open above them.

Lighting up her horn, she cast a minor healing spell, the swelling slowly beginning to recede and Allen’s body slowly relaxed as the pain lessened.

“Thanks, that feels better,” he said.

“You’re welcome, I’m sorry, but it’s the best that I can do. Healing magic can be very difficult to do without causing more harm by accident. This is just a minor healing spell for bumps, scrapes, and bruises. So all it did was lessen the swelling a bit and reduce the pain. We should probably take you to the hospital to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

Allen shook his head. “I’m fine, the pain’s almost gone anyways.”

“Allen-”

He waved her off. “I’m fine, trust me, I’ve knocked my head against things harder than that before. I’m okay. Now,” he said as he cautiously straightened up, “what’s going on?”

“I just came to see how things were going,” she replied as she eyed the strange, boxy machine in front of her. Peering inside, she could see a mass of large belts that wound around various rollers. Pointing at it, she asked, “What’s this?”

“That’s the round baler, I’m getting it serviced before I start baling today,” replied Allen as he returned to his work.

“Oh, so that’s what it looks like,” remarked Penny as she watched him work. “I thought it would look like your square baler, but I guess I was wrong.”

Stepping back, she looked up at the side of the red baler and saw the words New Holland 660 emblazoned on the side in yellow.

“So how does it work?” she asked curiously.

Standing up, Allen set his tools aside and pointed to the front. “Well, it picks the hay up like the square baler does. Though instead of feeding it into a chamber where a giant ram smashes it into individual flakes. This one feeds it into this chamber here with all of these belts and it rolls it up like a carpet until it gets to the right size and then I stop the tractor and let the baler wind some twine around it before dumping it out the back here.”

“How do you know when it’s the right size?”

“Oh, I could look at these indicators here on the baler,” he said, pointing to a section on the front of it that had a line with numbers on it. “This little triangular piece of metal will slowly move to the other side of the baler as the bale inside gets larger, and once it gets to the number I want it at, I’ll stop and wrap the bale. The other, and more precise method is to use this,” he held up a small plastic and metal box with a screen and buttons on the front. “This is a bale monitor and lets me know how big the bale is in inches and whether the bale is uniform in shape or not.”

“Uniform?”

Allen nodded. “Yeah, there will be two little black bars displayed here,” he pointed at the blank screen with a finger, “as I’m baling they will grow bigger. Now if one of them gets bigger than the other, say the right one, then I know that there is too much hay being fed into the right side of the baler. You see, normally the windrow isn’t wide enough to fill the entire bale chamber, so I have to drive to one side of the windrow or the other to even things out inside the baler. Make sense?”

Penny slowly nodded. “I think so.”

“It’ll make more sense when you see me actually doing the baling,” replied Allen as he moved to mount the monitor on the right side fender of his tractor.

“So did you manage to get the tedding and raking all done?” asked Penny.

Allen shook his head. “I got the rest of the tedding done this morning, but I’ve got Brulee, Clover, Rye, and Honeysuckle out raking right now.”

“I saw them on my way in,” said Penny, “I didn’t think you had everything you needed for them to do that yet.”

“I didn’t,” replied Allen simply, “when Clover came by this morning to see if I had any work for them, I said if he could find a couple of extra harnesses that fit them, I’d have them go and try pulling my rake. Since the rake has three wheels, there isn’t a need for a forecart, so all they would need is a harness that fits and a two-pony wagon shaft to pull it, and I already had the shaft and single trees so all that was needed was the harnesses.”

“Well from the looks of things, I’d say he found a harness or two,” replied Penny dryly.

Allen chuckled. “Yeah, Big Mac gave me his old harness so that Brulee could use it. It needs some work done to it, but it’s good enough for today's job. As for the other three, apparently, they bought theirs used at a harness shop in Canterlot. Turns out there’s a lot of ponies around the area who need things moved and don’t want to do it themselves. So those three have been doing the odd hauling job on the side while they wait for me to have work for them to do here.”

Penny nodded. “Makes sense, and now that I think about it, I do recall seeing Honeysuckle pulling some carts around town lately.”

Double checking that the monitor was fully secured to the fender, Allen finished hooking it up to the baler and making sure the wires wouldn’t get caught on anything while he was working. “Yep, and now that I know they can pull my rake without any issues, I’ve got one less thing to worry about.”

“That’s good to hear,” replied Penny happily, “So do they switch off then? Because I only saw Clover and Brulee working, while Rye and Honey were sitting off to one side talking.”

“Yeah, they tried having one pony pulling it, and it worked, sort of. Flat ground was doable, but only Clover and Brulee could pull it by themselves for any length of time, and if they went up any kind of incline, they’d start to struggle. Plus they couldn’t keep up the speed I need them to for very long before they started to tire. However, with two ponies, they can cover a good bit of ground at a reasonable pace without much trouble. Though I bet Big Mac could pull that rake by himself without much trouble, he seems to do well with the baskets by himself.”

“I thought Brulee could pull them too?”

Allen nodded. “He can, but I have to lighten the load a bit for him. Big Mac’s just stronger, not surprising considering all the hard work he does every day. Plus he hasn’t been pulling the baskets very far or up and down a hill. I reckon when we start hauling from father away, he’ll need somepony else to help him,” explained Allen as he checked the oil level in the tractor.

“So how big are these round bales going to be?” asked Penny curiously as she followed Allen around as he worked.

“This baler can make them five feet wide and up to six feet tall, but I generally only let them get to about four feet, as they’re a bit easier to move and work with, plus it’s less stress on the baler,” said Allen as he grabbed a dirty rag and wiped the oil and grease off of his hands. Reaching up, he pulled a couple of levers on the back of the baler that let the rear door swing shut with a loud thud.

“How heavy does that make each bale?”

He shrugged. “Around a thousand pounds, give or take a couple hundred pounds either way depending on what I’m baling, how high I’ve got the density set and how much moisture is in the bale.”

“So how are you going to move them once they’re made?” asked Penny.

Allen paused as he was climbing up on the tractor and replied, “I’m... working on that part,” pulling himself the rest of the way up, he settled himself in his seat and looked down at Penny, “normally I would use either my 806 or 706 with a front loader to load up my hay wagons, and I’ll probably have to do it this time until I can find a way to load them without having to use my tractor.”

“I could see if Zubchatoye can make something up for you,” offered Penny.

Allen laughed and shook his head. “Thanks, Penny, but I’ve got a couple of ideas, a pile of scrap metal and a welder. I think I might be able to whip something up while I’m waiting for Fluttershy and the other field clearers to do their job. Now, go ahead and stand back, I’m gonna get started here,” he made a shooing motion with his hand, and Penny backed up as Allen hit the starter button and the 806 rumbled to life with a cloud of black smoke pouring out of the exhaust pipe before it cleared up.

After letting the tractor warm up for a minute, Allen put it in gear and slowly rolled out of the machine shed, Penny following along behind as Allen guided his metal steed down the driveway. Pushing the clutch in, he changed gears and sped away, forcing Penny to gallop after him to keep up.

By the time they reached the field, Penny was wheezing.

I really need to schedule some time in my day for running, she thought to herself as she huffed and puffed. I didn’t realize I was this out of shape! Lifting her head up at hearing somepony giggling at her expense, she spotted Honeysuckle trying, and failing, to hide her amusement nearby.

Trudging up to the giggly earth pony, Penny shot her an unamused look and asked, “What... is... so... funny?” she panted.

Giving the out-of-breath unicorn an amused grin, she replied, “You are, silly.”

“Well... I’m glad... I could provide some... entertainment,” Penny shot back, as she felt her heartbeat return to a more normal level and her breath slowly return to her.

Hearing Allen’s tractor engine rev higher, followed by the baler engaging, Penny glanced his way to see the displaced human take off down the field, the round baler gobbling up the hay like a hungry foal slurping up spaghetti, though with less mess and annoying slurping noises.

“Sure puts out a lot of dust doesn’t it?” commented Honey idly as they watched the large dust cloud kicked up by the baler follow along behind Allen.

“Yeah, it sure does,” replied Penny as they saw Allen come to an abrupt stop, the dust cloud catching and swirling around him as he pushed a button on the bale monitor next to him. After maybe about ten or twenty seconds, the back doors of the baler opened, and a bale was literally kicked out by a metal bar before the door closed again.

They watched as Allen put the tractor in neutral, turned the baler off, and climbed down, a strange-looking black stick in his hand.

“I wonder what he’s doing?” asked Honey as the two mares watched Allen inspect the bale and poked it a couple of times with his hand and the stick. Walking around the baler he disappeared from view around the other side for a few minutes before he reappeared and climbed back up on the tractor and took off again. This process repeated several times as Allen would drive forward until he had a full bale, come to a stop, wait a little bit, drop the bale, climb down, check it, and make some sort of adjustment to the baler before then getting back on and resuming his work. However, after the fifth time, he did this, he apparently had things working the way he wanted as he didn’t climb down again after he stopped to drop off a completed bale.

Turning her attention away from Allen for a moment, Penny looked at Honeysuckle and asked, “So how are things going for you and your brothers?”

“Do you mean that in the general sense or along the lines of how we’re doing with the raking?” she asked in reply, not taking her eyes off Allen's progress.

“A little bit of both, I suppose,” said Penny in response.

“We’re doing better, thanks to Allen hiring us, we saved up enough bits to rent a small house on the edge of town for the summer, as well as buy some used harnesses as well. We’ve been doing the odd hauling job around town when Allen hasn’t had any work for us. Plus, Clover wants to save up enough bits for us to buy a caravan this year so that way we don’t have to spend so much money on lodging. So we’ll need some good harnesses to pull it over the road,” she explained, a contented smile on her face.

“And how much will that cost?” asked Penny curiously.

Honey shrugged. “Depends on what kind of model we buy, and whether it’s new or used. The one Clover wants to get is nearly twenty-thousand bits, but it’s one of those top-of-line models made in Canterlot. You know, the ones that are bigger on the inside than the outside, and have tons of runes and enchantments built into them. I think he said it was called a Startrotter Galaxy 500 or something.”

“Oh yes, I’ve seen those, they can get pretty pricey,” replied Penny with a knowing nod.

Honeysuckle laughed. “Yeah, that’s the understatement of the year,” she said as she shook her head. “I told my brother there was no way we’d make enough money this year to buy one, even a heavily used one is ten thousand bits or better.”

Penny nodded. “Yeah, my parents thought about buying one several years ago to use when they went camping, but for how many times they’d use it in a year, it just wasn’t worth it. So they decided to buy a Prairie Princess model instead. A top-of-the-line one is half the price, and almost as nice as the Startrotter’s, and if you get one with fewer options, it’s even cheaper.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the models I was thinking about getting. They’re less luxurious, but from what I’ve heard, they’re less maintenance intensive and more durable.”

“They are,” replied Penny with a single nod, “my parents love theirs. My dad says he’s only had to have one of the enchantments replaced in the last five years since they bought it, and that was because of a defect in the rune when it was built. The company replaced it at no cost to my parents.”

“How is the used market on them?” asked Honeysuckle curiously.

“Eh, I’ve heard that it’s better to buy them new, as most ponies don’t get rid of theirs unless something is really wrong with it,” explained Penny.

“Oh, I was hoping there would be some cheap used ones for sale my brother’s and I could snap up. I don’t mind dealing with a few problems that can be fixed later, but I’d rather not buy one if it’s been used up to the point it can’t be fixed,” replied Honeysuckle, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

Penny shrugged with a ‘what can you do,’ look on her face. “The price of being a popular model that keeps going until it can’t go anymore, I guess. Though the new ones aren’t that expensive. A base model starts in at around two thousand bits, while the top of the line is about eight to nine thousand.”

“Yeah, but for that price, I might as well buy a used Startrotter instead,” complained Honey.

Penny laughed and shook her head. “If you can find a Startrotter that cheap, then you’d be better off buying the new Prairie instead. The cost to fix those enchantments is not cheap. Plus the Startrotter’s aren’t built as tough as the Prairie’s, so they tend to break down more, which means you’re paying more in repairs.”

“Are they that unreliable?” questioned Honey.

“It’s not so much that they’re unreliable as that they’re not meant for the kind of use that you intend. They’re more meant for that weekend romp at the posh local campground or a weekend trip to the beach with the other well-to-do ponies, rather than trekking across half of Equestria as part of a group of traveling workers,” explained Penny.

“Huh, I didn’t realize that,” said Honey thoughtfully.

“Most ponies don’t. Canterhorn Carriages make their stuff to be more of a status symbol than a rugged and reliable daily use item, like the Fillydelphia Wagon Works does with their Prairie Princess caravans. That’s not to say that you can’t take a Startrotter into the wilds of Equestria, but... you’ll probably wish you hadn’t after a couple of days when things start breaking on it, and you can’t fix it.”

Honeysuckle gave Penny a knowing smirk. “Sounds like you have some experience with that sort of thing.”

Penny rolled her eyes. “Not directly no, I had a classmate at Manehatten University that had more bits than sense. Decided to buy one to impress his nature-loving marefriend with a weeklong excursion into the MacIntosh Foothills one year. Let’s just say that the Startrotter didn’t make it two days before it had to be abandoned, and my classmate got dumped in the process, and leave it at that.”

“Ooh, that sounds bad. I’ve been down that way before, it can get pretty rough out there once you get off of the roads,” winced Honey as she recalled the rocky and uneven trails.

“Well, the funny part is that they didn’t get off the roads. The wagon broke both axles before they reached the end of the dirt road they were on. Though to be fair, he said the road had been partially washed out and was pretty badly rutted, but still,” added Penny with a small chuckle.

Honey shook her head with a sigh. “Geez, well glad I talked to you before we sunk a bunch of bits into something that couldn’t stand up to the rigors of the trail, so thank you.”

Penny smiled. “No problem, I’m always happy to help. Now how is the raking going for you guys? ” she asked, changing the topic in the process.

“Pretty well,” replied Honey easily, “with two of us on the rake, we can keep a steady trot going without getting tired quickly, and can do quite a few acres before you need a break. Rye and I just switched out with Clover and Brulee not that long ago, and we’ve managed to cover some ground. I’m not sure if we’ll get the entire field up today, but we’ll get a good chunk of it. The hay is really thick, so we can only do single windrows, but that’s fine.”

“Did it dry well?” asked Penny curiously.

“Oh heck yeah,” said Honey with an enthusiastic nod, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen hay this dry before, outside of an oven,” she paused and looked around before leaning in and dramatically whispering in Penny’s ear, “don’t tell Allen, but I got a little hungry while pulling and snagged a couple hoofful’s of hay to snack on. It was super crunchy, and tasted great.”

Penny giggled in reply. “Don’t worry, you’re secret's safe with me, though I don’t think Allen would really care, in fact, he’d probably be happy to hear that his hay tastes good.” She paused and looked around. “Say,” she asked curiously, “Where’s your brother at? I don’t see him anywhere.”

“Oh, Rye? He’s over under one of those apple trees over there,” replied Honey as she turned and pointed in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. “He was complaining about the sun being too hot on his coat.”

Penny glanced up at the aforementioned ball of hot gasses hanging above them, and shielding her eyes with a hoof, replied, “Yeah, it is a bit on the warm side today, so I guess he’s got a point. Though that begs the question of why you are still sitting out here on the edge of the field without a tree in sight.”

“Eh, I guess I’m just too lazy to move right now,” laughed Honey in reply.

Penny joined in with a laugh of her own before the two fell into a companionable silence as they watched Allen bale and Brulee and Clover rake. Eventually, the sound of iron-shod wheels creaking on the dirt road behind them caused the two mares to turn around and see who was coming.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Farthing,” called out Filthy Rich as he trotted ahead of the two wagons trundling along behind him.

“Mr. Rich, what are you doing out here?” asked Penny curiously, surprised at seeing the business stallion outside of town like he was.

“Well, I’m here to oversee the collection of hay,” he replied as he pointed to the two wagons behind him with his chin. “I’d like to get some of this hay into the store so that my customers can give me their opinions on it and whether they’ll want more of it or not.”

Penny smiled and replied, “Well, Honeysuckle here seems to like it, right Honey?”

Honey nodded, a wide smile on her face. “Oh yeah, it was nice and crunchy, like it had just been pulled out of an oven, hardly any moisture in it.”

Filthy regarded Honey with a skeptical look and said, “Yes well, I’d like to have a bigger sample size before I make any major purchases. Now,” he said, changing the subject, “where is the hay?”

Penny and Honey looked at each other before Penny pointed out into the field with a hoof and said, “Right there.”

Filthy looked from Penny to the field and felt his jaw drop a hair as he stared at the sight before him.

“That’s the hay?” he asked quietly.

Penny nodded. “Sure is,” she replied dryly.

Slowly walking over to the nearest round bale, Filthy looked it up and down.

“This thing is huge!” he exclaimed, “it’s got to weigh over a thousand pounds!”

“Probably,” said Penny from her spot by the road, “Allen said that these bales could weigh from eight hundred to over a thousand pounds at this size depending on how dense he makes them and how much moisture is in them at the time.”

Filthy trotted around the bale and marveled at it.

“How big is this?” he asked, “I mean, it’s got to be at least four hooves high as I can barely see over it.”

“Allen said his baler can make them five hooves wide by six hooves tall, but he likes to keep them around four hooves tall as it’s easier for him to move and store,” said Penny.

“Uh, Mr. Rich? How are we going to load these?” asked one of the earth pony pullers, an uncertain expression on his face.

Filthy shook his head. “I... don’t know. I didn’t think the bales would be this big or... heavy,” he grunted when he tried to move the bale with his shoulder, having limited success. Ceasing his attempts to push it, he looked from the bale to the nearby hay wagons that he had brought and shook his head. “My wagons are designed to transport loose hay or those small bales that Allen made the other day, not... these big things,” he said with a wave of his hoof in emphasis at the offending bale.

“I suppose you could ask Allen if he could load it for you,” ventured Penny, “though you’ll need to catch his attention first, and he’s moved down the field a ways since he started, as you can see,” she pointed out.

“Yes, I can see that,” replied Filthy as he turned to watch a now-distant Allen disgorge another bale from his machines. Sighing to himself, he started walking. “Wait for me, I’ll be right back after I have a word with Mr. Ross.”

The four pony pullers all just looked at each other, before one shrugged and hit the quick release for his harness and went to go sit in the shade under the wagon, his buddies following suit soon after.

Both Penny and Honey watched Filthy’s progress across the field, and Penny took note that Allen had noticed the business stallion headed his way, though he didn’t stop until Filthy was maybe a half a dozen yards away, and only when he had to drop another bale from his baler. Penny watched as Allen shut off the baler, and throttled down, the sound of the tractor’s engine dimming a second or two later.

She watched as he jumped down from the tractor, and had a quick conversation with Filthy before he then reached up and pulled the throttle all the way to the left, causing the tractor’s engine to shut down from lack of fuel. Falling in beside Filthy, Allen walked back across the field with him.

When the two reached the little group, Penny got up and asked, “So what’s going on?”

“He wants a few bales to take back to Ponyville to give out as samples for the afternoon customer rush.” Explained Allen as Penny fell in alongside of him, while Filthy pealed off to speak with his teamsters, “He said he wanted to see how well the customers reacted to this new hay before he made a large purchase. Which I guess is fair,” said Allen with a shrug.

“Okay, but what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go and put the loader on my 706 and use that to load a couple of bales of hay on his wagons. Apparently, he can take the sides of them off, so I can stick two on each wagon lengthwise, and then they can put the sides back on to keep them from rolling off until they get back to town. After which they can take the sides off and push the bales off the wagon into the store,” explained Allen as he and Penny reached the farmyard.

“And how long is that going to take?” she asked.

Shaking his head, he replied, “Not very long. I should have the loader on in about ten minutes, and have him loaded up in less than fifteen. After that, I’ll just leave the seven out in the field and get back on the eight and start baling again. Besides, this’ll give Brulee and Clover a chance to get ahead of me, I’d noticed I was catching up to them, so this break will give them a chance to add more of a buffer between us.”

Walking into the machine shed, Allen made a beeline for his trusty 706 and climbed up. Settling down in the seat, he pressed his thumb against a silver button on the steering column and waited for a few seconds. While he waited, he turned back to Penny and said, “Why don’t you go ahead and head back to the field and wait for me there while I get hooked up?”

Nodding, Penny replied, “Alright, I’ll see you there,” and turned to leave. As she exited the shed, she heard the seven fire up behind her and looked back over her shoulder as Allen confidently drove out of the shed and turned right to head to the other machine shed where she assumed he kept this ‘loader’ he was talking about.

Picking up the pace to a fast walk, she arrived back at the field just as Filthy’s crew removed the last of the side walls on the wagons. Trotting up to stand next to Filthy she said, “Allen should be back and have you loaded soon.”

“Good, I’ll have the hay weighed back at the store and make a note to add it to the final price if we buy anymore,” he said with a nod.

“So you think your customers aren’t going to have a problem with Allen’s hay then?” she asked.

He nodded. “I don’t see why not. I took the liberty of snagging a sample out of the nearest bale for myself, and your friend was right. It was some of the driest and crunchiest hay I’ve had that hasn’t been run through an oven beforehoof. I think it will sell very well. But you know how fickle customers can be, so I want to test the waters first. Besides, I do believe I did tell you I wanted to have some samples for testing purposes before I did a full rollout.”

Penny nodded, as she did, in fact, remember him saying that. “I do remember you saying something along those lines.”

Filthy opened his mouth to reply, however, the rumble of Allen’s approaching tractor cut him off. Turning, the pair watched as Allen drove past, the tractor now sporting a long spear on the end of what Penny assumed was his ‘loader’. From her point of view, it looked like a pair of metal arms had been attached to either side of the tractor, with several metal cylinders acting as ‘muscles’ to move the arms up and down or to tip the spear point down or up as Allen needed it.

Allen meanwhile had lined up on a nearby round bale and with practiced ease, skewered the hapless bale, and after coming to an abrupt stop, he lifted the bale off the ground. Once he was sure the bale wouldn’t go anywhere, he carefully maneuvered the loaded tractor to one of the nearby wagons and gently set it down on it, before backing up and going to get another bale. He repeated this little dance three more times, before shutting down the tractor.

Jumping down, he approached Penny and Filthy.“Alright, that’s all done. Were you planning on getting any more hay tonight or did you want me to bring it over in the morning?”

Filthy, still amazed at how easy Allen had made that look, shook his head slowly and replied, “Uh, I’ll send a runner tomorrow and let you know. I want to see how my customers react to the hay tonight during the afternoon and evening shopping rushes.”

Shrugging, Allen easily replied, “Well, whatever works for you, just let me know, but if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work, so see ya later,” he said with a wave as he headed back across the field to his waiting tractor and baler.

“Pretty neat huh?” asked Penny, a small smile on her face at seeing Filthy’s amazed expression.

Filthy nodded absently. “Yes, it was, and is, to think he can do all of this with only a few workers is simply astounding.”

“Hey boss, we’re ready to go!” yelled one of Filthy’s workers suddenly, causing Filthy to jump slightly as he was pulled from his thoughts.

Shaking his head, he turned to Penny and said, “We’ll be in touch tomorrow morning to let you know how things went.”

“Alright, we’ll be waiting,” replied Penny with a smile.

Returning her smile with one of his own and a nod of his head, Filthy turned and left, his workers straining momentarily in their harnesses as they dug their hooves into the dirt to get their heavy loads rolling.

As Penny watched them leave, she felt somepony walk up next to her, and turning, she saw that it was Honey.

“So, do you think he’ll buy a bunch of hay?” she asked curiously.

“I think so,” replied Penny with an assured nod of her head. “Both you and he liked the taste of the hay, so I’d say there is a good chance that other ponies will like it as well. I have a feeling we’ll be selling all of these bales tomorrow, no problem.”

“So does that mean I should let my brothers know that we’ll be needed tomorrow?” asked Honey with a small giggle.

“I would say it’s a fair assumption,” replied Penny dryly.

“Well, it never hurts to check,” said Honey with a cheeky grin.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Penny replied with a shake of her head as she and Honey resumed their interrupted tractor-watching.

Time slowly passed by, and eventually Honey and Rye switched out with Brulee and Clover, who went and laid out underneath a convenient apple tree after having downed an entire bucket's worth of water each.

“Are you guys okay?” asked Penny, a hint of concern evident in her voice as she watched the two stallions guzzle water down.

Coming up for air, Clover replied breathlessly, “Yeah... just a bit overheated is all... give us a bit and we’ll be fine.”

“Do you guys want me to get you some more water?” asked Penny when she saw that they’d drained their water buckets dry.

Brulee raised his head up a bit from where he was laying and nodded, a tired, but grateful look on his face. “Yes, please,” he said.

Giving a nod, Penny gathered up the two buckets and went to go fill them up at Allen’s as that was the closest place she knew that had clean, cool water. Walking down the driveway, she made a beeline for a nearby hydrant and set a bucket underneath it before pulling the lever up and waiting for the water to come pouring out. While she waited, she hummed quietly to herself as first one, then the second bucket were filled to the brim with water before then shutting it off and heading back to the field, the buckets following along in her magical field behind her.

Returning, she set the buckets down next to the two exhausted stallions and said, “Here you boys go, just let me know if you need me to go on another water run okay?”

The two stallions gave her grateful looks and nodded before each one pulled a bucket to themselves and drained half of it in a go, before nearly simultaneously coming up for air once more with a content sigh

Seeing that they weren’t about to die from heat exhaustion, Penny turned her attention back to the field and saw that Allen was still going, while Rye and Honey had just gotten started on the rake.

“So, how are things going out there?” asked Penny casually as she continued watching the activities in the field.

Having caught his breath, Clover replied, “They’re going okay. We’re struggling to keep up with Allen though. His tractor just gobbles up those big windrows and spits out those round bales like crazy. Brulee and I were keeping a steady pace, and Allen was still gaining on us.”

“Not surprising,” remarked Penny, “machines don’t get tired like ponies do. The only thing that would stop Allen is he runs out of fuel or he gets tired, and something tells me that he’d probably finish this field before either of those things happen.”

Brulee groaned and remarked, “Yeah that’s nice and all, but I don’t see us finishing this field tonight. We’ve barely gotten over a third of it raked and I’m ready to call it quits. My legs feel like jelly and every muscle feels like it's on fire.”

Clover nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty tired too, though I think I can do a few more acres if I get a chance to rest for a bit. I’m just not used to pulling that long and hard.”

“Is it that difficult?” asked Penny curiously as she turned around and sat down next to the two stallions underneath the shade of the apple tree.

“It’s not so much that it’s hard or heavy, just that you’re having to keep a steady pace and pull it through heavy hay,” he replied.

Brulee nodded, his ears dropping as he laid his head against the ground tiredly. “Yeah, and this hot weather doesn’t help either. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated this much in my life before.”

Looking over at Brulee with a sudden, serious expression, Clover asked, “Have you had any additional salt today?”

Blinking sluggishly, he slowly shook his head. “No, why?”

“Because you need to replace the salt that you’ve sweated out since you’ve been working,” said Clover seriously as he levered himself up with a groan and trudged over to his nearby saddlebags. Opening a flap with his muzzle, he reached in and pulled out a pill bottle, and slowly walked back over. Popping the cap off, he dumped several white-colored pills into the frog of his hoof and wordlessly gave them to Brulee, before dumping some more out for himself and downing them in one gulp.

Following suit, Brulee washed the pills down with a deep gulp of water from the bucket, before he laid his head back down on the grass and closed his eyes. Clover meanwhile sat down next to Penny and watched Allen work.

“How much do you think you guys can get done today?” asked Penny quietly.

“Maybe half,” replied Clover, “I’m the strongest between my siblings, and even I’m pretty tired.” He paused and glanced up at the sun hanging far above them. “Judging by the sun, I’d say it’s probably just after noon. Honey and Rye will probably quit here in about another hour or two at most.”

“What about Allen? He wanted to get the field done today,” asked Penny.

Clover shrugged. “We can only do so much. Sure we could push it and try and do more, but then we run the risk of hurting ourselves. Poor Brulee over there is probably going to be out of action tomorrow judging by how much he was hurting by the end.”

“Is he going to be okay?” asked Penny worriedly, her voice low.

Clover nodded. “Yeah, he just overdid it. I’ve seen it before. He’s strong sure, but he’s not used to doing this kind of work all day in this kind of weather. Once his body gets used to it, he’ll be able to go longer. I bet if Big Mac was here working with me, he and I would still be out there raking. Point is that Brulee, and to a lesser extent my siblings and I, aren’t used to this kind of sustained work, so we run out of steam sooner than we’d like. Give it a week or two and we’ll be able to stay out in the field longer.”

Penny silently nodded and turned her attention back to watching Allen work. With nothing more to say, the three ponies silently watched from their shady spot as the others worked. Eventually, however, Honey and Rye ran out of steam themselves and slowly plodded back to the welcoming shade of the apple trees.

“Ugh, my everything hurts,” complained Rye. Honey just grunted in agreement before then dunking her head into a bucket of water and chugging for all she was worth.

Clover had wordlessly stood up and retrieved the salt pill bottle from his saddlebags and hoofed his siblings their dosage of pills, which they gratefully accepted.

Standing up from her spot of chosen grass, Penny walked over to assess the team.

“How are you all holding up?” she asked.

Honey gasped as she came up for air and said, “I don’t know about my brothers, but I’m done for the day.”

Penny nodded and turned to look at the three stallions. “And what about you three?” she asked.

“I’m wiped too,” said Rye tiredly.

“I could do a little more, but only if Brulee can help,” replied Clover who out of the four looked to be in the best condition.

Brulee shook his head. “I’m done for the day, and tomorrow too,” he quietly groaned from his spot on the ground.

“Yeah, not taking enough salt will do that to you,” said Clover with a nod of understanding. “You’re strong, but you can’t work outside all morning and through the hot part of the day like that without drinking plenty of water and keeping your salt levels up.”

Raising his head slightly, Brulee looked over at Clover and replied, “I didn’t see you take any salt tablets today.”

“That’s because I took em before I started working,” shot back Clover, “That and I drank a bunch of water before we set to work. Plus I’m used to this kind of work, so my body isn’t gonna give out on me like yours is right now.”

“Ugh,” said Brulee as he let his head flop back down.

By this point, Allen had noticed that his workers weren’t working, and had decided to see what the hold-up was. Pulling up next to them on the 806, he shut the engine off and hopped down.

“So, what’s going on?” he asked.

“We’re done for the day,” replied Clover simply. “Brulee overdid it and the rest of us are too tired to keep working at this pace and with it being this hot out.”

Looking around at his tired crew, Allen nodded in understanding. “Yeah, you guys look like you’re about to fall over.”

“Sorry, we couldn’t do more,” said Honey, her ears turned down at having been unable to finish the job.

Allen waved her apology away. “It’s fine. You guys did a super job today, I reckon you got at least half of the field raked for me, and I greatly appreciate that,” pausing he looked at his watch and said, “It’s about two o’clock. I should be able to get the rest of the field raked tonight, and most of it baled. Whatever I don’t get done tonight, I’ll finish tomorrow. The dew hasn’t been that heavy the last few nights, so I don’t expect it would bother the windrows much if I leave some behind. Worst case scenario, I just flip them over in the morning and finish baling then.”

Turning to Penny he said, “Go ahead and give them their pay for the day and send them home when they’re rested. If they want, they can cool off in the house for a bit. I’ve got the air conditioning turned on, and you know where the water cups are inside. Make sure they get some more water in them before they go.”

Nodding Penny said, “Okay, but what about you?”

“I’ll go grab the seven and hook it up and finish raking,” said Allen, “If it all goes well, I should have the rest of the field raked up by six, and then we’ll see from there how much gets baled up tonight.”

“You’re not going to take a rest?” she asked.

Allen shook his head. “Naw, I’ve still got some water on the tractor, and I don’t really have time to waste resting. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” he said when he saw her concerned look, before turning away, intent on not wasting any more time.

Looking back and forth indecisively between the crew and Allen for a moment, Penny sighed and said, “Okay, everypony let’s go get you inside and paid,” before turning and heading for Allen’s house.

Clover and the others levered themselves up with a groan or, in the case of Brulee, were helped up to their hooves. As the group of ponies wearily trudged towards the promised land of air conditioning, they could hear the other tractor fire up and drive off to finish the job they couldn’t.

Upon reaching the house, Penny let them in, as Allen had left the door unlocked, and everypony let loose a happy sigh of relief as the cool air inside washed over them.

Making a beeline for the kitchen, Penny pulled out several cups and filled them with cold water from the sink before passing them out to the others. Everypony greedily drank down their allotted water and all of them passed their cups back for refills when they were empty. After several rounds of draining and refilling, everypony felt their thirst was satiated.

By this point, Penny had opened her saddlebags and pulled out her ledger and bit bag. Looking at Clover she asked, “Okay, so when did you guys get here this morning?”

Taking a sip from his water cup, Clover thought about it for a moment before replying, “I believe it was just before nine o’clock, right?” he asked, looking over at Honey for confirmation.

She nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Looking up at the nearby clock, she saw that it read just half past two in the afternoon, and after doing some quick math she withdrew the bits from her bag and divvied it up amongst the workers.

As each pony came to collect their pay for the day, she had them sign their initials next to each ledger entry, signifying that they had in fact received their promised pay.

With the last pony paid, she made a final note in her book before closing it and putting it away, along with the now much lighter bit bag.

“Alright, as Allen said you can stay here for a little bit and cool off. However, I will need to go into town soon, so when I leave I’m afraid you’ll need to go as well.”

Everypony nodded in understanding and took the opportunity to enjoy the cool air. While central air conditioning existed in Equestria, it was somewhat out of reach of the general population at the current time, being limited to larger commercial, government, and service-related buildings such as hospitals or those ponies who were sufficiently wealthy to have one installed in their home. Though there were magically enchanted fans that could help keep a pony cool, they tended to have a limited area of effect and would struggle if the ambient temperature got too high.

As such, everypony present was in no hurry to leave. However, eventually, Penny forced them out as she herself had to go, and while she didn’t think Clover, his siblings, or Brulee would cause trouble if left alone in Allen’s home. She didn’t feel it appropriate to let them stay when she left. So with some grumbling and hoof dragging from them, she chivvied them outside and shut the door behind herself. The hot, June air already causing her to sweat before she’d even had the chance to fully shut the door behind her.

“Okay everypony,” she said as the door latch clicked closed behind her, “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Everypony else groaned at the tired old joke that ponies liked to utter whenever it was closing time at some late-night establishment or when they were trying to get rid of the last few party guests that stubbornly tried to keep the party going when everyone else had long since gone home for the night.

“Well thanks for letting us cool off inside for a bit,” said Clover as the group slowly started the long walk back to Ponyville.

“Don’t thank me, thank Allen,” replied Penny as she fell in alongside him.

“Well, still thanks anyways.”

Looking back over her withers, Penny addressed Brulee, “Are you going to be okay?”

Perking his head up slightly, the tired stallion nodded. “I’m feeling a bit better, but I’m probably going to take it easy tomorrow.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” piped up Rye, “wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself after overdoing it today like you did.”

“Agreed,” said Penny with a firm nod, “in fact, I think all of you should take it easy tomorrow. From my understanding, Allen isn’t really going to have much for you to do anyway. Though if that changes, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Brulee and the others each gave a grateful nod of appreciation in reply but said nothing more. Walking in silence, the group soon passed by the field Allen was working in. It was hard to tell, but it seemed as though Allen had made some progress since they’d last seen him. After confirming that Allen was doing okay without them, the group continued on. Entering the shaded section of road that meandered between the fields of Sweet Apple Acres, the group continued on, thankful for the respite from Celestia’s burning sun.

There wasn’t much talking amongst the group as most of them were too tired to hold a conversation and walk at the same time. However, the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of distant music.

Stopping, the group looked around in confusion as they couldn’t figure out where the music was coming from.

“Do you guys hear that music?” asked Clover in confusion.

Honey nodded her head. “Yeah, I hear it too, where is it coming from?”

“I don’t know,” replied Rye, “though the tune is rather catchy, don’t you think?”

“I’ve never heard it before,” said Brulee as everypony continued looking around searching for the source of the music.

“It sounds like it’s getting closer,” commented Penny, then with a startled gasp she pointed to a spot just up the road in front of them and said, “Look!”

As one, the other four turned their heads and felt their brains lock up at the strange sight before them. It was a chicken, riding a red and yellow tricycle with a little radio on the back. The music by this point was loud enough that they could make out the lyrics to the song being played.

~Oh well I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around, I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town~

As the chicken drew closer, Penny noted that it appeared to be a rooster with a brilliant green tail and a little blue bandana with white dots around its next. But what was odd to her, besides the fact that she was watching a rooster ride a tricycle, was that he was singing in time with the song.

“I’m not the only one seeing this right?” asked Brulee nervously, as he wondered if he was suffering a hallucination from delayed heatstroke or something.

“I’m seeing it too,” whispered Honey worriedly.

The rooster continued to sing and pedal on, taking no notice of the five ponies staring dumbfounded at him. Parting, they watched as he happily pedaled between them.

“Is it just me or does that rooster look strange to you guys?” asked Rye suddenly.

Shooting her brother an ‘are you serious look, Honey shot back, “Rye, it’s a rooster, riding a tricycle, and singing along with a song none of us have heard before. This is the very definition of strange.”

“No, besides that,” Rye quickly replied, a tad defensively, “I mean, he looks a little... faded, is what I’m getting at, like he’s a ghost or something.”

Tearing her gaze away from her brother and back to the rooster, Honey realized that he was right. The little bird was almost translucent. Taking a sudden, deep breath, Honey broke into a run to try and catch up to the strange bird.

“Hey, wait!” she called out, but the rooster didn’t seem to notice her and continued pedaling away.

“I said wait!” she called again, having nearly caught up with him when suddenly the rooster stopped and backed up as if he’d just seen something along the side of the road. Honey, however, not having anticipated that he would stop and reverse so suddenly, dug her hooves in and tried to keep from running the little guy over, however she was going too fast and couldn’t stop in time.

“Look out!” she yelled seconds before she would skid into him. Closing her eyes, she braced for the impact, but the impact never came. Coming to a stop and opening her eyes, she saw that the rooster wasn’t in front of her anymore. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen, and the music had suddenly stopped.

“Are you alright?” asked Penny as she and the rest of the group came running up.

Feeling a little shaken, Honey gave herself a quick look over and hesitantly nodded. “Y-yeah, I think so. D-did I miss the rooster or something?”

Clover shook his head. “No, it looked like you were going to hit him when he just phased through your legs like he was a ghost or something. Then he just faded away right after.”

“Did you feel anything?” asked Brulee.

“No... not a thing, that’s why I thought I might have missed him,” replied Honey, an unsettled expression on her face.

The group all looked at each other and then around at the quiet apple trees. All of them were wondering what had just happened.

“D-do you think we should tell somepony about this?” asked Honey nervously.

“And who are we going to tell?” asked Clover skeptically. “Nopony is going to believe that we just saw a ghost chicken riding a minotaurian toy and singing a song none of us have ever heard before.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” replied Penny, “there is at least one pony that I know that might listen to us.”

Turning to regard Penny with a raised eyebrow, Clover asked, “And who is this pony?”

Looking around at the spooked ponies, Penny straightened up and replied firmly, “Twilight Sparkle. There was an incident at the Ponyville Schoolhouse a few weeks ago where a fully grown sunflower appeared behind it. Allen happened to find it and told Twilight about it. I bet you that she’ll take this report just as seriously.”

“And what if she doesn’t believe us?” Shot back, Clover. “I mean, we don’t exactly have any physical evidence like a giant sunflower to show her this time, and she might think we’re just hallucinating from sunstroke or something.”

Penny shrugged. “Then I guess she doesn’t believe us. Even though I don’t know her very well, I think she’ll at least be willing to hear us out and come investigate the area. So, unless you have a better idea other than just pretending we didn’t see anything, then I suggest we get going before whatever magic allowed that chicken to ride through here like that disappears.”

The others didn’t argue with her any further, and they all quickly resumed their journey, their tiredness long forgotten as they hastened on their way. Hoping that they wouldn’t run into any more strange oddities before they reached Twilight.

(Cut Content) Chapter 18-19

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Author's Notes:

Okay, as promised, here are a pair of chapters that didn't make the cut. The main reason I cut them was because I felt they were slowing down the flow of the story and would have required a lot more research than I wanted to put in. Moreover, it would have required a much longer arc to rectify the situation and I didn't want to go that route. Thus they were cut. There is a third chapter that would have gone along with these two, but I'm holding that one in reserve as I might be able to salvage parts of it for later chapters. Also, I have not edited these chapters for grammar or spelling mistakes, nor do I intend to, they are what they are, so enjoy what could have been.

Finally, I would like to note that some of these characters that are introduced in these chapters may appear in future chapters or they may not, I have not decided yet.

Chapter 18

Dr. Stable sat behind his desk, working. The clock on the wall read five past three in the morning, and he felt it, his eyes had bags under them, and he felt the dull ache of fatigue coursing through his weary body. He reached out with his magical aura to take another sip from his coffee cup. Sadly, it was empty. Sighing, he set it down and leaned back in his chair as he rubbed his tired eyes with the back of his fetlocks.

A soft knock on his door caused his ears to perk forward and for him to call out tiredly, “Come in.”

The door opened and allowed Nurse Redheart to trot inside, a pot of freshly brewed coffee riding on her back in an insulated and most importantly, spill proof container.

Relieving the nurse of the pot of liquid gold, Dr. Stable refilled his cup and took a long, appreciative sip. Letting loose a contented sigh as he felt the caffeine flood his tired system he looked up and said, “I’m surprised to see you here this late, I’d of thought you went home hours ago.”

Redheart replied dryly, “I did, but I decided to come in early today to get a head start on Mr. Ross’s lab work and see what can be done.”

Dr. Stable nodded. “Probably a good idea, after getting blindsided by his appendix I decided to have a more thorough workup done. I’m still awaiting the results from Canterlot, but-”

“Canterlot? Why would you send samples to them?” asked Nurse Redheart, cutting him off, as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“Because I didn’t want to miss anything else. One medical scare per visit is more than enough, thank you very much,” replied Dr. Stable with an unhappy look.

“Fair enough,” said Redheart as she took a sip. “So who did you send his samples too then?”

“Pretty much everypony I could think to send them to,” was his reply.

“Hmm, the Crown is gonna be getting a hefty bill for that,” remarked Redheart dryly.

“They can either accept the bill or a potentially dead human, their choice,” snapped Dr. Stable, his ears laid back in irritation. Though he quickly composed himself upon seeing Redheart’s shocked and slightly hurt expression, and said quietly, “Sorry for snapping at you there Redheart, I didn’t mean it.”

She returned his contrite look with a warm smile and trotting around his desk wrapped the tired doctor in a hug and said gently, “You’re forgiven, I understand that you’re under a little stress,” she giggled, “you always get that way when a medical conundrum presents itself to you. You get so wrapped up in solving it, that you forget to take care of yourself and that leads you to being a big grumpy wumpy pants.” She said as she teasingly squashed his cheeks together with her hooves and saying the last bit like a mother making baby talk with her grumpy foal.

He was not amused.

“Are you quite through?” he asked through squished cheeks.

“I don’t know, are you going to go home and get some sleep or am I going to have to make you?”

“You and what army?” came the defiant reply.

“I know your body weight, what you are allergic too, and what you drink mister, don’t think I won’t slip a sleeping potion in your coffee when you aren’t looking,” came the threatening reply.

Knowing he had been beaten, he let his shoulders slump tiredly, Nurse Redheart let his cheeks go as he slid out of his chair, his joints and muscles stiffly protesting from being locked in position for so long.

However, once out of the chair, he let loose a satisfied groan as he felt his joints pop and turning to Redheart said, “I guess you’re right, we won’t know anything till later this morning at the earliest, and since it’s a slow week, the hospital only has a few patients, none of them serious, other than Mr. Ross. As such, I believe the morning shift should be able to take care of anything they should require, and if not-”

“We know where you live, yes, yes, now go home and get some sleep!” said Redheart as she pushed the doctor out of his office with her head.

“Alright, alright, I’m going, I’m going!” complained, Dr. Stable as he was herded towards the main lobby. Though judging by the slight smile on his face, he wasn’t too put out by his head nurse’s behavior.

Arriving at the main entrance, he finally got Redheart to quit pushing him and opened the front door with a burst of magic. Turning back to her he said before he left, “I’ll be back after lunch, come get me if, Mr. Ross’s condition changes.”

Giving him an exasperated smile, “Of course, now off you go, shoo, shoo!” she said, waving at him to go with a forehoof.

He shot her a parting smile and with that turned and left, the door swinging shut behind him.

Letting loose a sigh of relief, Redheart turned and trotted back into the depths of the hospital. There, now that the workaholic is out of my mane, I can work in peace! She thought happily to herself, a slight spring in her step and a soft smile on her lips, as she grabbed a nearby clipboard and began her early morning rounds .

Several hours later, however, the spring had lost its sprung, and the smile was now an irritated frown. The main cause of her irritation were several manila folders that had just arrived from the Royal Canterlot Hospital’s toxicology lab, and the results didn’t look very good. The second cause of her irritation was the pony who had delivered them to her.

She was an average looking unicorn, with a pine green coat, coffee brown mane and tail with gray highlights that were done up in buns. Her white lab coat covered both her cutie marks of a flowering hemlock plant, and a gray turtleneck sweater. While her square, wire rimmed glasses framed a pair of vivid orchid colored eyes that promised a painful demise if you wasted her time, and right now, she was aiming those eyes at Redheart.

“Nurse Redheart, I do not know what kind of game you are playing here, but I am not amused at being dragged into the middle of whatever it is,” said the clearly irritated mare.

Redheart rolled her eyes at the other mares bluster and dryly replied, “Nice to see you too, Connie.”

“That is Doctor Hemlock to you, Nurse Redheart,” came her acidic reply.

Nurse Redheart merely glanced at the unhappy mare across from her whose face was currently twisted up in an offended expression at Redheart’s impropriety at failing to call her by her full name and title.

Sighing, Redheart put on her best ‘Do not mess with me face,’ and calmly replied, “Fine, Doctor Hemlock, if that is the way you want to play it, I’ll play it that way. So,” she said, as she steepled her hooves together, and shot the mare across from her a steely look, “would you kindly enlighten my as to why you’ve come here at this time in the morning acting like an unprofessional nag?”

Hemlock’s eye twitched, but she took a deep breath and calmed herself. “I,” she began, her tone as icy as the Northern Crystal Mountains, “am here, acting like an ‘unprofessional nag’ because you sent my lab contaminated samples!”

Redheart blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about? What samples did we send you?”

Hemlock rolled her eyes in frustration and pointed to the folder jacket. “These ones for a, ‘Mr. Ross’. Honestly, do you take me for a fool, Redheart? Even a slack jawed medical intern could have seen that the samples were contaminated. Though, the fact that your samples were this heavily contaminated in the first place is raising some eyebrows back in Canterlot.”

Grinding her teeth together at the condescending tone of the doctor, Redheart replied, “Well, maybe if you would show me just what the hay you are talking about, we could clear this all up! I personally oversaw the extraction of those samples and I watched Life Flight fly them up to Canterlot yesterday! There should be no way they came in contact with any kind of contaminate between here and there!”

Hemlock picked up a folder in her brown magical aura and shoved it in Redhearts face and said, “Here, see for yourself then!”

Catching the folder, Redheart began reading over the graphs and data tables inside, her irritated expression slowly transition to confusion. However, the further she read, the more that confusion turned to horror, until finally she looked up at Hemlock and said in a shaky voice, “Please tell me you double checked these.”

Hemlock rolled her eyes and sarcastically replied, “No, I just guessed they were right the first time. Of course I double, then triple, then quadruple checked them, you ninny! I even went so far as to check the packaging for signs of tampering or outside contamination. However, I didn’t find any, which is why I assumed the samples were compromised here before you sent them out.”

“Oh, this is not good,” turning, Redheart shouted, “Nurse Snowheart! I need you to get Doctor Stable, right now!”

A pale yellow earth mare trotted to the front, her face scrunched up in confusion at Redheart’s sudden outburst. “What’s wrong, Redheart? Somepony come in banged up or what?”

Redheart shook her head and quickly said, “No, Mr. Ross’s toxicology report came back, and it’s not good.”

“How bad is it?” she asked, as her green eyes scanned the various folders strewn across the front desk.

“Bad enough that if you don’t get your flank moving, you’re gonna need to find another job,” growled Redheart, her frustration visibly showing on her face.

Rolling her eyes at Redheart’s reaction, Snowheart said, “Alright, alright, I’m going. Geez, no need to get your tail in a twist, I’ll be right back,” and with that she quickly trotted out, leaving Redheart and Hemlock alone.

An awkward silence descended over the two as Hemlock stared at a suddenly very tired looking Redheart whose face was currently buried in her hooves, as she gently rubbed her face with them in an attempt to banish the headache that was trying to emerge. She was not fully successful. Finally, after what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes, Hemlock asked, “So, judging by your reaction, I take it that you believe our report to be accurate?”

Redheart nodded. “My heart doesn’t want to believe it, but from everything we’ve seen so far in regards to Mr. Ross’s current condition, it would definitely explain a lot.”

“I feel as though I’m missing something here, just who is this ‘Mr. Ross’? The name doesn’t sound ponish, is he a griffon per chance?”

Redheart shook her head. “No, he’s a human.”

Hemlock blinked. “I’m not sure if I am familiar with that species.”

“I would be surprised if you were. Long story short, Discord brought him here from another world. We’re not sure why, but he’s here so we have to deal with it. In this case, we’ve found his appendix was too small to handle the ingestion of high levels of magicules, additionally his gut flora isn’t able to properly break down the magicules, so he had a bad reaction to some medicine we gave him. As a result, we’ve decided to run a full battery of tests on him. Those,” she said, pointing at the folders, “were samples we took from him yesterday morning. Too be honest, I’m surprised you processed them so quickly.”

“Well, we had a slow day, and when we saw the first result of the batch, we devoted our full attention to it, so it didn’t take long once we got the bit between our teeth,” said Hemlock nonchalantly.

Redheart nodded in reply, a dour expression on her face as she glared at the folders in front of her. Finally, the front doors banged open signalling the return of Nurse Snowheart and Dr. Stable.

Suppressing a yawn, Dr. Stable trotted blearily over to the front desk and shot Redheart a tired look. “You know, when you sent me home, I would have thought I’d have more than a couple hours of sleep before the next emergency cropped up.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, Dr. Stable,” replied Redheart, an unhappy look on her face, “but the toxicology report from Canterlot is in and it’s not good.”

“What do you mean, and who is this?”

Bowing her head in greeting, Dr. Hemlock replied, “I’m Dr. Hemlock, from Canterlot General, at your service. I’m the one who brought the results here, as I thought you had contaminated them, and I may have taken my irritation out on your staff, for which I apologize,” she said, while looking at Redheart.

Redheart for her part waved the apology away and replied, “You’re forgiven, I can understand your irritation at a botched sampling. Still we have a bigger issue at hoof, namely that according to the toxicology report, Mr. Ross should be dead from heavy metal poisoning.”

Dr. Stable blinked in surprise, and lighting up his horn, quickly scanned the reports before him. As he read, he could feel his heart fall to his hooves, and turning to Hemlock he asked, “I don’t suppose you-”

“We quadruple checked them, that’s another reason why I’m here. If your patient is this toxic, I want to be here to evaluate them myself. I’ve had my personal lab packed up and sent after me, it should be arriving on the next train in an hour. I would appreciate having some help to get it set up. After which, I’d like to run some of my own tests as well, if that is alright with you.”

Dr. Stable nodded. “Of course, we’d be happy to have you here, Dr. Hemlock. I’m sure we can find some space for you to set up, and find you a place to stay while you’re here in Ponyville.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that. In the meantime, why don’t we go and see this patient of yours so that I can get a first impression of them?”

“Of course, right this way,” said, Dr. Stable as he quickly took the lead, the folders still in his magical aura, while Hemlock and Redheart fell into line behind him. Snowheart meanwhile took Redheart’s place at the front desk.

The trip through the hospital was quiet, save for the sound of hooves against tile and the tinkling of magic as Dr. Stable continued to peruse the toxicology report. Years of practice of reading and walking, along with a good memory of the hospital’s layout, allowed him to navigate his way unerringly to Allen’s room. Giving the door a perfunctory knock, he stepped through before Allen had a chance to respond.

Both Nurse Redheart and Dr. Hemlock quickly stepped into the dimly lit room, while Redheart strode over to the window to pull back the blinds and let in the early morning sunlight, Dr. Hemlock took the opportunity to see this mysterious Mr. Ross for the first time.

“Well, he is certainly an...interesting looking specimen,” she stated patently.

Allen for his part simply stared back at the new pony as an awkward silence fell upon the room. Finally, he stuck out his hand in an effort to get past the awkwardness, and said, “Hi, I’m Allen. What’s your name?”

Clearing her throat, Dr. Hemlock stepped closer and extending her hoof replied, “I’m, Dr. Hemlock, from the Royal Canterlot Hospital Toxicology Department. We received your samples yesterday, and there were some questions regarding their results that I needed to clear up. Hence why I am here.”

Allen smiled as he gently shook her hoof. “Hehe, I get it, cause hemlock is poisonous, and you work with poisons, hehe, that’s a good one.”

Dr. Hemlock’s expression immediately morphed into a frown. “Is there something funny about my name?”

Allen quickly held up a hand and shook in a negative gesture. “No, no! I meant no offense, it’s just that a lot of you’re names tend to line up with what you do in life, and your, uh, what were they called again, those pictures on your butts?”

“Cutie marks,” supplied, Dr. Stable helpfully as he went about checking the various machines and their printouts.

“Right, cutie marks, those also seem to fit in with what you do.”

“Well, of course they do, they are our special talents after all,” replied, Dr. Hemlock with a huff.

“Well, sure, but like I said they also tend to fit well with your name, I mean, your name is Hemlock, and you have a hemlock plant as your cutie mark. So either you changed your name when you got your mark, or your name and mark are linked together somehow.”

Dr. Hemlock blinked, confused slightly at where the human was going with this train of thought of his. Giving her head a shake, she decided to get the topic of their discussion back on track. “Well, much as I would like to ponder the mysteries of the universe, we have more pressing matters at hoof at the moment.”

Allen, shrugged. “Alright, so what do you want to know? I’m assuming that the results were not very good.”

She nodded. “You are correct,” she turned to, Dr. Stable and asked, “may I?” Indicating a folder with a hoof.

“Certainly,” he replied, hoofing over to her.

“Thank you,” she said, as she transferred the folder from her hoof to her magical aura. Opening it up, she leafed through it, till she came to the page she wanted. Turning it around, so that Allen could see it, she explained, “As you can see here, this is your toxicology report, these graphs,” she pointed at a box with various color coded bar graphs in it, “represent the levels of various toxic compounds in your body. This graph,” she pointed to a black bar that was very small,“represents the average level of a given toxin within the general population of Equestria, the lower the bar, the better. However,” she then moved the tip of her hoof to indicate a red bar that was much bigger than the black one, “this red one represents the level of toxins within your body. As you can see, they are quite high in comparison. In fact they are so high, we initially thought that the samples had been contaminated somehow. However, I believe that to be less likely now than earlier. Though, I still want to run some of my own tests when my equipment gets here to make sure.”

“Okay, so what does this mean for me?” asked Allen, an unsure expression on his face.

Clearing her throat again, Dr. Hemlock cautiously said, “I’m not entirely sure, it would depend on whether these readings are accurate or not. Part of me wants to believe that there was some sort of contamination of the samples, but, since you are not from Equestria originally, I can’t just outright dismiss the possibility that your body has toxin levels in it, that in many cases, would be considered lethal to the average pony.”

“Well...that’s a fine thing to hear in the morning,” replied Allen dryly.

Hemlock nodded. “Now you understand my position. You, Mr. Ross,” she said, pointing an accusing hoof at the bed ridden human, “are a medical conundrum. If these results are accurate, then you should, by all known pony medical standards, be either extremely ill, or dead. Yet, here you are, seemingly none the worse for wear, at least outwardly.”

Glancing between, Dr. Stable and Dr. Hemlock, Allen finally asked, “So...does this mean more needles?”

The grim smile that played across Hemlock’s face put paid to that question.

Chapter 19

Dr. Hemlock slowly pushed herself away from the lab bench that she had been hunched over the past several hours with a groan. Glancing up at the wall clock nearby, she noted that it read, 11:49 at night. Letting loose a tired sigh, she stood up and stretched, several loud and very satisfying pops rang out through the quiet medical lab. However, the sound of hooves on tile quickly took their place.

Glancing at the door, she watched as Dr. Stable trotted through with a pair of warm cups of coffee in his magical grip. Giving Hemlock a tired smile, he floated one over to her, which she gratefully accepted. Taking a healthy pull from it, she let loose a contented sigh and asked, “So, how is the patient doing?”

“Exhausted, sore, and a little grouchy, but otherwise no change. Of course,” he added with a small smirk, “I can’t say I really blame him. I was afraid you were going to drain him dry the way you were sticking him today.”

Rolling her eyes, she set her coffee cup down on the nearby counter and retorted saying, “I wanted to make sure I had enough to work with, that’s all.”

Dr. Stable didn’t respond, electing instead to sip from his own cup, a humorous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. However, the smile quickly faded and his expression shifted to one of professional focus. “So, what did you find?” he asked.

Taking a long pull from her own cup Hemlock sighed, and said, “The original samples you sent us weren’t contaminated, they are exactly the same as these ones.”

She pulled a sheaf of papers over to her and began looking them over. “He has lethally high levels of lead and mercury to name a few, and that’s just the ones that I’ve been able to identify. He has several compounds in him that I’ve never even seen before, just that they come up as being harmful according to the medical scan spells.”

“Hmm, that is quite troubling,” replied Stable as he glanced over her shoulders at the print out. “I’m not sure how much you know about Mr. Ross’s condition, but after he had a bad reaction to some vaccines, we did an MRI of him and found that his appendix was badly underdeveloped. In addition, the gut bacteria that are responsible for the digestion and regulation of magicules were next to non-existent.”

“So in other words, his body can’t break down magicules, store them, or dispose of them should they become too concentrated?”

“In essence yes. At first we didn’t suspect anything was wrong with him when we did our first round of vaccines.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, if you followed the standard immunization program that all foals and foreigners get, then the amount of magic that you put in his body would have been so small that even his system would have been able to handle it. Not too mention the fact that if what you, and he, said is true, and that his world has so little magic as to be practically non-existent, than his body was probably scarfing those magicules down like a college frat colt downs free carrot dogs at a homecoming game.”

Dr. Stable gave a snort of amusement at the mental picture that, Dr. Hemlock provided him. “Yeah, probably. Though, I would have thought that he’d have shown at least some signs of magic over-saturation.”

Dr. Hemlock shrugged. “Maybe he did, and he and you all wrote it off as the medication reacting to his biology. It obviously wasn’t severe enough at the time to warrant a closer look.”

He sighed. “Still, I feel as though we should have seen something.”

She shook her head. “That’s just the joys of being a medical professional. You think you have everything figured out, and then something new comes along and throws a wrench right into the middle of your perfectly organized beaker collection.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Dr. Stable replied, “That sounds a little too specific to be a metaphor,” an amused smile tugging at his lips.

Hemlock returned his smile with one of her own. “Yeah, one of my ex’s was into mechanical things, so he carried a tool belt around all the time, in case he, and I quote, ‘ever needed to fix something’. Well, he fixed something alright, my prized beaker collection. Came over one night, drunk as could be and proceeded to try and impress me by juggling his tools. Needless to say, he failed rather spectacularly.”

“So is that why he’s your ex now?” asked Dr. Stable with a chuckle.

Dr. Hemlock shook her head. “No, after I bucked him out of my apartment, and he sobered up, he came over later and apologized by buying me a new beaker set.”

“So why is he your ex then?”

She gave an indifferent shrug. “Life got in the way, and we decided to break up to focus on our chosen professions. We still exchange letters and gifts every so often, but we’re just friends now.”

“Ah, I see,” said Dr. Stable, a knowing look on his face, “college romance’s rarely last in my experience.”

“In anycase, back to the topic at hoof,” she said with a tired sigh, “the fact that he has such high concentrations of toxins in his body is going to mean that we need to do a detox and hope we don’t accidently kill him the process.”

“Well it’s either that or he dies from the magic destroying his body because his body can’t handle them.”

Dr. Hemlock nodded, a tired, and frustrated look on her face. “I know, but nopony has ever done a detox with toxin levels this high before! I mean for Epona’s sake, Stable, his toxin levels are at a minimum ten times the national safety limit! It’s a miracle he’s survived this long, and speaks highly of his species biology if they are all capable of carrying around this much toxins in their bodies and still somehow function!”

Dr. Stable placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder and replied, “I know, trust me, I’ve had similar thoughts as well.”

“However, that begs the question of whether he’s the only thing on his farm that is contaminated to this degree,” she said with a deathly serious face.

Dr. Stable nodded in agreement. “The Royal Engineers have already been out there and have been working on taking and analyzing various samples from the farm and the surrounding area.”

“Judging by the look on your face, I can guess that the news isn’t good,” remarked Hemlock.

Stable nodded. “I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Ross in between my daily rounds, and I’ve found that because his world lacks any appreciable amount of magic, they’ve been forced to use less than...safe methods for weed and pest control on their food. This usually means the use of toxic compounds that we ponies would consider insane to even think about using on our food.”

Hemlock nodded in understanding. “In the meantime,” continued Dr. Stable, “I’ve been going over everything that we’ve collected and analyzed from both Mr. Ross and his farm. Thankfully, the Royal Engineers have been very thorough in their collection of samples, and they have even had time to analyze some of them. The initial results are less than pleasing.”

“In what way?”

Dr. Stable leaned forward and pulled a manila folder out from a large pile to one side of his desk, opening it, he pulled a piece of paper out that had various lines and graphs on it with periodic symbols next to each graph and line. “This,” he said as he floated the paper into her outstretched hoof, “is the top soil collected from various portions of the property. According to the initial analysis, the Engineers say the soil barely meets the minimum quality standard for even the most lax of safety standards on the export market, and that is only because they averaged all the soil samples currently taken into one grouping.”

Hemlock felt her muzzle scrunch up in consternation at the preliminary results she was seeing. Dr. Stable meanwhile just nodded in agreement at seeing her expression. “Exactly, which is why I when I read that, I went and spoke with them after I finished my rounds yesterday.”

“And what did they say?” she asked, expecting bad news if her facial expression was anything to go by. She was not disappointed.

“That their initial report, which is what that,” he said, pointing a hoof at the paper in her grasp, “is incomplete and that they had just finished writing a more complete version the day before. I asked if they would let me have a copy, and they were only too happy to give it to me. Which,” he said as he lifted a much thicker folder onto his desk with a grunt before letting it fall with a hefty thump, “is what this is. I actually just got done reading the summary a few minutes ago, and suffice to say. Mr. Ross’s farm won’t be cleared for use in an agricultural fashion until the Engineers have had a chance to decontaminate the land. In fact, the engineer I spoke with told me that they had requested priority in getting labor and resources to decontaminate the farm as they fear the various chemical compounds in the soil may leech over into neighboring fields and into the groundwater supply if something isn’t done soon.”

“Just how bad is it?” asked Hemlock in a distracted tone as she glanced over the report.

“According to him, it was and I quote, ‘A crime against nature, ponykind and the law.’ As far as he was concerned the parties responsible for this ‘crime against nature’ should be locked up for life in Tartarus.”

Hemlock hummed thoughtfully in response as she continued to look over the Engineer’s report.

“What concerns me the most, is the high concentrations of lead in certain areas, as shown by this map here,” he said, flipping the pages till they came to one that had a crude aerial map of Allen’s farm with various shaded areas that denoted the various chemical concentrations present in that area.

Hemlock’s eyebrows knit together in confusion as she stared at the map. While nearly every square inch of Allen’s farm was contaminated with lead, or at least a chemical compound similar in composition to it. There were areas that were worse than others, particularly around the equipment sheds, Allen’s driveway, and the part of his property that bordered the road. The roadside especially had extremely high concentrations of lead present in the soil. This was quite concerning as lead was well known to block magic and by extension magicules. It’s why it was often used to line rooms where sensitive magic experiments were being conducted, as it was an excellent way to block out unwanted magical fluctuations and readings.

Naturally, this meant that if a pony were to have too high a concentration of lead in their system, it could be crippling, if not fatal, as their magic wouldn’t be able to properly circulate and interact with their cellular structure. Hence, the concern and confusion over Allen’s current condition and why Hemlock was here.

“That is not going to be cheap to fix,” she stated.

Stable shrugged in response. “Agreed, but what can you do? Contamination levels of this magnitude can’t be ignored, and it’s going to be an absolute pain to pull that lead out of the soil. The only upside is that it’s not exactly the same as normal lead in its composition, so the Engineers think they can use less...costly methods to extract it. However, because of the sheer amount of the blasted stuff, it’ll take time. What’s worse, is that not only is the soil and Mr. Ross contaminated, but every plant and animal on that farm is as well. I shudder to think how much it will take to clean it up. From my understanding, His Grace is going to be coming back soon to oversee things.”

Hemlock nodded. “Probably for the best, Epona knows how much this will cost The Crown, not too mention how the public will react when they hear about this.”

“Which is probably why we were told to keep our mouths shut on the matter,” replied Stable matter of factly.

“We were?”

He nodded, passing a scroll bearing the official seal of Princess Celestia to Hemlock he said, “Just came in an hour ago. Apparently, word travels fast, and decrees even faster. Both Princesses don’t want to cause a panic, hence the gag order. Everypony that knows anything about this has been told to keep quiet. Lieutenant Palisade has also mustered the garrison and they’ve cordoned off the area around Mr. Ross’s farm to try and keep nosey ponies away. Though in this case, it’ll probably just make said ponies even more curious. But, alas, they don’t ask me for my opinion.”

Hemlock chuckled in response. “Agreed, so,” she asked, her expression turning serious, “when is His Grace supposed to arrive then?”

“Early tomorrow morning. He’s supposed to arrive on the first train from Canterlot, at which point he’ll probably want a meeting with everypony involved to bring him fully up to speed.”

“I see, well in that case, I think it would be wise to get some rest then, Epona know’s it’ll be a long day tomorrow and I’d rather not do it on a couple hours of sleep and ten pots of coffee.”

Dr. Stable nodded in agreement. “Probably a good idea, well then, I suppose I’ll see you in the morning then, good night.”

“Good night, Dr. Stable,” replied Hemlock as Stable turned to leave. “As soon as I finish this final test here, I’ll be off myself.”

Dr. Stable waved a hoof in acknowledgment as he walked tiredly away.

Turning back to her interrupted test, Dr. Hemlock resumed her work, the clock quietly ticking away as the seconds marched ever onwards.

Chapter 47 (Mysteries and Unruly Shoppers)

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Chapter 47

“So let me get this straight, you all say you saw a ghost chicken, riding a tricycle and singing along to a radio playing a song that none of you have ever heard before?” asked Twilight with a skeptical look on her face.

Penny nodded, having been chosen by the group to act as their spokespony. “That’s correct, and when Honey tried to catch it, it disappeared,” she added.

Twilight jotted down another note on the piece of paper in front of her. “I see,” she said. Chewing her bottom lip for a moment, she asked one last question, “How long ago was this... incident?”

“It was out by the southern edge of Sweet Apple Acres, and we came here straight away, so after factoring in the time we spent talking to you, I would say less than an hour ago?” ventured Penny.

“Okay,” replied Twilight with a single nod as she suddenly stood up and began floating various objects over to her, one of which was her lavender-colored saddlebags. “Then we better get back there before whatever magical signature is left disappears.”

“So you believe us?” asked Honey hopefully. The whole group, sans Penny, hadn’t expected Twilight to really take them seriously. After all, they were all tired after having been out in the sun all day, save for Penny, and it would be entirely plausible that they had all hallucinated the whole encounter.

Again Twilight nodded. “Considering everything that has been going on, I feel it is my duty to take all potential chaotic sightings like this as if they are real. Whether you all really did see this chicken or not is immaterial. I must treat it as though you really did see it, and if it does turn out to be nothing, then no harm done. After all, over the last year, I’ve learned that nothing is entirely outside the realm of possibility when it comes to things that concern Discord and his magic,” explained Twilight as she finished settling her saddlebags on her back and packing the last of her things.

Turning to the others she said, “Alright, I’m ready, so go ahead and show me exactly where you saw this chicken, and I’ll take it from there.”

“Follow us then,” said Penny as she turned and quickly trotted out of the treebrary, the others right behind her. Even though they were all very tired, none of them wanted to be the one to miss the events unfolding in front of them by heading home now.

The group mostly traveled in silence save for the occasional question from Twilight and the scratching of her quill across her paper as she composed her notes. Eventually, the group reached the spot where the rooster disappeared.

“We’re here,” announced Penny as she came to a stop pointing at the road in front of her.

Looking up from her paper, Twilight looked around. “Are you sure this is the spot?”

Penny nodded and pointed to a row of skidmarks a few feet in front of them. “Yep, those are Honey’s skidmarks from where she almost crashed into the chicken.

Putting her quill and paper away for a moment, Twilight’s horn lit up as she advanced on the spot, her head low to the ground as she cast several scanning spells. Reaching the spot, she hummed thoughtfully to herself for a moment before turning around and heading back towards Ponyville, head still low to the ground and horn still lit up. She came to a stop a few yards up the road and started walking back and forth across the road in a search pattern. Occasionally she would stop, pull out her quill and paper and jot down some more notes before resuming her scanning. Eventually, her horn winked out and she rejoined the group.

“Well, what did you find?” asked Penny a bit worried that Twilight hadn’t found anything to back up their claims.

Twilight frowned. “There are traces of chaos magic here, along with some underlying spatial and temporal resonances. Though unfortunately, it’s decayed enough that I can’t say for certain just what happened here, other than that something happened.”

“But you believe us, right?” asked Brulee hopefully.

Twilight looked up at the weary stallion and gave him a reassuring smile. “I do, but unfortunately, there isn’t much magical residue left for me to study. Whatever happened here wasn’t very strong. Which makes sense with what you all reported initially.”

“So... what do you think happened?” asked Honey hesitantly, unsure if she actually wanted to know, but too curious to let the matter go.

Staring up at the sky, Twilight rocked her head back from side to side as she tried to formulate a response. After a minute of thinking she finally sighed and said, “I’m not really sure, but if I had to guess, I would say that this was some residual effect of Discord bringing Allen here from his world. Inter-dimensional travel isn’t very well studied, and for good reason. Other than Starswirl the Bearded, nopony has been able to safely open a portal to another world without there being... issues.”

“What kind of issues?” asked Clover curiously.

Twilight cringed. “Messy issues, the kind that I don’t really want to remember after having read about them. So let’s just say that opening portals or summoning objects from other worlds isn’t easy or safe to do and leave it at that.”

Clover gulped and gave a single nod. “Noted, don’t open random portals to other worlds.”

“So... do we need to worry about anything bad happening?” asked Honey, the others all nodding along as she had been the one to ask what they were all thinking.

Again, Twilight did not immediately respond, which worried everypony around her. However, after a few moments, she slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so... normally we would have seen some sort of major indications of trouble by now, however other than Allen and his farm appearing, along with the sunflower and now this rooster, we haven’t seen much of anything that would cause concern,” everypony began to relax. “However,” she continued, which made everypony tense back up again, “that doesn’t mean that something of concern won’t happen in the future. Dealing with chaos magic like this is... well, chaotic and unpredictable. Both Lyra and myself have run many calculations and probability curves on possible outcomes of Discord’s shenanigans, and we just don’t have enough data to definitively say whether things are getting better, staying the same, or getting worse. Only time will really tell.”

“So... what do we do?” asked Rye hesitantly.

Twilight shrugged. “Keep an eye out for any strange phenomenon happening around Ponyville, such as the aforementioned chicken. It’s been over a month since the last incident that we know about happened.”

“What do you mean, ‘that you know about?” piped up Brulee. “Are you saying that there might be other events happening that we don’t know about?”

“The possibility is always there. There have been reports of clouds randomly appearing and disappearing over the past few months since Discord’s defeat. In addition, Fluttershy, one of my friends who is good with animals, has told me her animal friends will get randomly spooked for a few minutes before returning to their normal behavior as if nothing happened. So at this point, we are not sure just exactly what is going on, only that we know that something is happening.”

“But you can’t predict when and where it will happen or even what will happen,” finished Clover.

Twilight nodded, a pleased smile on her face that somepony understood what she was trying to say. “Exactly,” she said, “so really, at this point, all we can do is just keep our eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary and report it when it happens. I know it’s not an ideal strategy, but until we have a better understanding of what is going on, that’s the best option we’ve got.”

The others all looked at each other for a brief moment before Penny turned to Twilight and said, “Well, it’s not exactly what we wanted to hear, but thanks for telling us.”

“And for believing us,” added Honey.

Twilight gave them a warm smile and replied, “It was my pleasure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run a few more field tests and take some samples for further study back at my lab.”

Sensing that they were dismissed, the rest of the ponies all left Twilight to her studies and headed back to town. As they walked, they each quietly ruminated over the new information that they had uncovered. Penny in particular felt a tinge of worry over what might happen to Allen if things got worse.

Ponies, as a prey species, did not care for things that they did not understand and would often times react in an overly negative fashion towards perceived threats. This led to many misunderstandings in the past between the ponies and the other species of the world. A common stereotype among those other species was that ponies were xenophobic speciests that thought of themselves as morally superior to everybody else.

While it was true that there were elements of Equestrian society that were xenophobic and bigoted, Penny felt that for the most part, ponies were just skittish by nature of new things that they didn’t understand. Once they realized that whatever was spooking them wasn’t going to hurt them, they would warm up to the thing rather quickly. Of course in the meantime, whatever was persona non grata in the eyes of ponies would have a difficult time living among them. Thankfully, it seemed as though the ponies of Ponyville were made of sterner stuff than their contemporaries from other parts of the country.

I suppose living next to a wild forest full of dangerous creatures tends to desensitize ones fear of the unknown a bit. Thought Penny to herself as the group passed over the western stone bridge leading into the market square.

Sighing to herself, Penny turned to the others and said, “Well everypony, today has been an interesting day, to say the least, but I’ve got paperwork to do, so have a goodnight.”

“You too,” replied Honey with a smile, her brothers and Brulee simply nodded or grunted their goodbyes as their exhaustion from earlier was starting to catch up with them now.

Waving goodbye to the tired group of ponies, Penny turned and headed across the still-busy market. Reaching her door, she lit up her horn and unlocked it. Stepping inside, she had just enough time to slip off her saddlebags and set them next to her desk when the door nearly burst off its hinges behind her.

Shrieking in alarm, Penny spun around, her horn reflexively lit up with a basic defensive spell, ready to blast whatever had foolishly decided to startle her after today's events.

However, as soon as she saw that the intruder who had burst through her door was a pimply teenage colt in a Barnyard Bargains vest, she let her horn go out and slowly straightened up from her defensive stance. Fixing the colt with a very unamused expression, she took a few moments to let her heart rate return to more normal levels before asking him in an overly calm manner, “Hello, how may I help you?”

The young teenager, out of breath, held up a hoof signaling that he needed a minute to get his breath back. Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Penny waited impatiently for the colt to speak, her left front hoof tapping an irritated rhythm on the wooden floor beneath her.

Finally, after a few moments, the colt asked, “Are you, Miss Penny Farthing?”

“I am,” she replied, somewhat patiently.

“Awesome, I’ve been looking all over town for you for like the past hour,” wheezed the colt.

“And why is that?” she asked when the colt didn’t elaborate further.

“Cause Mr. Rich told me to come find you. He says he ‘needs to speak with you right now’. His words, not mine.”

Sighing to herself, Penny wearily turned around and floated her saddlebags back over and set them on her back before fastening them again.

And here I was hoping I could have the rest of the evening to myself. She grumbled quietly to herself as she shooed the colt out of her office before closing and locking the door behind her.

“Alright, lead the way,” she sighed tiredly, figuring that it was best to deal with whatever problem Filthy had with Allen’s hay now rather than later.

“Right, follow me,” replied the colt with a wave of his hoof before he took off at a fast trot with Penny in tow.

The trip to Barnyard Bargains was both quick and quiet, as neither pony was the in best of shape and thus had to save all of their breath to keep moving. Soon, however, Barnyard Bargains came into view, and Penny came to an abrupt stop, her jaw just about hitting the floor in the process.

Why are there so many ponies here?! She wondered as she took in the gigantic crowd that was milling around in front of the store.

“Ms. Farthing, this way!” yelled the grocery colt, having noticed that Penny had quit following him to gawk at the chaotic crowd.

Giving her head a shake, she quickly followed him around the side of the building, away from the crowd and to an entrance around the back. Ushering her through a door with an Employee’s Only sign on it, he took her to Filthy Rich’s office.

Giving a quick knock on the door, which was almost immediately answered by a rather frazzled-looking Filthy Rich, the colt gave a sloppy salute and said, “I found Ms. Farthing for you, Mr. Rich!”

“Finally! Where in Tartarus have you been?! You’ve been gone for nearly an hour!” reprimanded Filthy crossly.

“I-I’m sorry Mr. Rich I-” stammered the colt as he tried to explain why he took so long.

However, the usually personable Filthy didn’t look as though he was interested in hearing any excuses and opened his mouth to cut off his worker in preparation for giving him a good dressing down for his tardiness.

Penny however was quicker. “It’s my fault, Mr. Rich,” she began, catching the attention of the unhappy store owner, who turned his glowering expression on her instead. The poor colt nearly sagging in relief at having been spared his boss’s wrath, if for a little bit, “I’m afraid I wasn’t in my office and this young colt has been running all over town trying to find me. I had just returned to my office from Allen’s place when he came bursting in through my door not a minute later. He brought me here as fast as he could.”

“I-it’s true Mr. Rich, honest!” piped up the colt, sensing that his job might not be as gone as he had thought a minute ago.

His glower lessening, Filthy took a deep breath before letting his frustrations go with a mighty sigh. Turning back to his employee, he fixed the young colt with an apologetic look and said, “I’m sorry for yelling at you son, that was wrong of me. Thank you for getting Ms. Farthing here as soon as you could. Now, go ahead and see where you can help with organizing this circus out front, okay?”

Giving another salute, the colt replied, “Yes sir, Mr. Rich, I’ll get right to it,” and with that, he turned and scampered away as fast as he could, grateful to have escaped that situation with his job still intact.

Turning her attention to Filthy, Penny lifted an eyebrow and gave the frazzled store owner a look of mild disappointment.

Wincing at her look, Filthy lowered his head and said, “I know I shouldn’t have done that, I’ll make it up to him later. The colt’s due for a raise anyways, an extra bonus won’t hurt the store budget too bad.”

Penny didn’t say anything, merely nodding, satisfied that Filthy had learned from his mistake.

If there is one thing that I will not tolerate is a boss who treats his employees poorly. Giving her head a shake, she turned her attention to the double doors that lead to the front of the store and the hustling workers struggling to move pre-portioned hay from the backrooms to the front to meet the demands of picky customers.

“So...” she began quietly, “I take it that Allen’s hay is a hit?”

Filthy used a hoof to try and slick back his mane, he was only partially successful. “Unfortunately, it would appear so. We’ve already gone through three of the bales, and we are nearly halfway through the final one.”

“Well, luckily for you, Allen’s got plenty waiting in the field, all you need to do is go and collect them,” replied Penny, a cheeky smile tugging at her lips.

Filthy sighed, a tired look on his face. “Unfortunately, I can’t spare anypony to go and collect them. In fact, I’ve had to pull in every worker just to keep the crowd under control and moving in a semi-orderly fashion. That and breaking up fights between impatient mothers and their screaming, ill-tempered foals.”

“Ah, that could be a problem,” said Penny, finally understanding why Filthy wanted her here so quickly. “So let me guess, you want me to go and have Allen bring you more hay, is that it?”

“Well, you do have employees that could easily pull a wagon back and forth, don’t you?” replied Filthy, a touch of annoyance creeping into his voice.

Penny shook her head. “I’m afraid our employees aren’t able to work anymore today as they are physically exhausted. So it’s just Allen and I left, and I’m not exactly built for pulling heavily loaded hay wagons. Which reminds me, how much did those bales weigh?”

“They averaged around nine hundred pounds each,” replied Filthy tiredly as his one hope for rescue seemingly vanished in front of him, like a mirage in the desert before a weary traveler.

“You might consider seeing if anypony else in town might be willing to run loads between Allen’s place and here,” offered Penny helpfully.

Filthy shook his head. “No dice, I’ve tried everypony that I could think of, including the Apples. Tartarus, I was so desperate, I asked Ditzy if she could do it. Sadly, she said she wasn’t available, apparently, she’s got a date tonight with Time Turner, and she told me she wouldn’t miss that for all the bits in Equestria.”

“Sounds like you’re just going to have to tell everypony you're out when you use the last of the hay up,” replied Penny with a shrug.

Filthy slowly turned his head to regard Penny as if she was crazy. “You... want me to tell them that I’m out of hay? Have you lost your mind?!” he exclaimed incredulously as he pointed a hoof at the double doors and the unseen crowd of rowdy customers beyond.

Feeling a tad defensive at being called crazy, Penny shot back, “Well it’s the truth isn’t it?”

Grabbing her foreleg with his, he all but dragged her to the door and pushed it open with a hoof, being very careful to stay out of the direct line of sight of the shoppers, and said, “You want me to tell that crowd out there, that we don’t have any more hay to sell them?”

One look was all it took for Penny to understand what Filthy was getting at. What greeted Penny’s eyes was a crowd on the edge of starting a full-on riot. She could see it in the way that everypony was looking at each other, how they were pushing and jocking for a better position, and their expressions all said the same thing, If I don’t get what I want, I’m not going to be happy, and if I’m not happy, nopony is going to be happy. She shivered as long-repressed memories of working retail around Hearths Warming and all of the various last-minute shoppers trying to take advantage of sales in their desperate search for presents, came burbling up from the back of her mind.

Letting the door swing shut, Filthy quietly whispered in Penny’s ear. “I can’t stall them for long. I’ve been having my employees go as slow as they can, along with giving out the smallest amount of hay that we can get away with, but I’m running out of time, and this crowd is one word away from going crazy.”

Fixing the store owner with an incredulous look Penny asked, “All of this from giving out free samples?”

Filthy’s ears fell flat against his skull, and he replied defensively, “It started well enough, but then it just sort of got out of hoof. One minute we’re giving a few hooffuls away for free to happy customers, the next minute we’re being literally swarmed by ponies who want Allen’s hay, and they won’t take no for an answer!”

“And you didn’t think to prepare for this or something?!” shot back Penny.

“I’ve never had to deal with something like this before! Everypony that tried Allen’s hay said it was the tastiest, and crunchiest hay that they’ve ever had! I didn’t think things would get this out of hoof, this quickly!” retorted Filthy angrily.

“Well, why don’t you get the town guard to come and disperse the crowd?”

“I did, and they are! But there’s too many ponies out there, and they’ve got the dander up! It’s all Palisade can do to keep the crowd somewhat under control!” hissed Filthy in reply.

“Mr. Rich, Mr. Rich!” exclaimed a panicked employee who had come running up from deeper in the backroom.

“What?!” snapped Filthy.

“W-we’re out of hay,” she whimpered.

At that moment, Filthy’s anger was extinguished, as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on him and as the color drained from his face, he quietly asked, “You mean...”

The employee nodded. “I just sent the last of the hay out front. We even swept the fines off the floor and mixed them in, but...” she trailed off as she glanced to the door and the mass of tired and soon-to-be very angry customers beyond it.

Filthy didn’t say anything, he just stood there stunned. His brain ran a million miles a minute, but he couldn’t think of anything. Licking his dry lips, he opened his mouth, but then closed it again when he couldn’t come up with anything to say.

Penny, seeing that Filthy was locked up, turned to the nervous worker in front of her and asked, “Are you sure there isn’t any more hay back there?”

The mare shook her head. “N-no, I-I checked myself, we used it all up.”

Sighing, Penny realized that it would take too long for her to get any more hay before anypony out front realized the store was out. So squaring her shoulders, and putting on her best ‘I am in control’ face. She pushed through the doors and strode up to the counter, reaching it as the last batch of hay was hoofed over by the overworked employee.

Coming to a stop next to him, she watched as that customer was replaced by another.

The customer looked around at the empty counter and gave the worker a dirty look. “So, where’s my free sample? I’ve been waiting for over an hour for it.”

Seeing the poor worker tense up next to her, Penny laid a comforting hoof on his withers and taking a deep, practiced breath, she put on her most winning smile and said, “I’m very sorry ma’am, but I regret to inform you that we have currently run out of free samples this afternoon. However, I can assure you, that by tomorrow, Barnyard Bargains will be fully stocked with Ross Family Farms hay at a very reasonable price.”

The mare’s face scrunched up in displeasure and she opened her mouth to make a no doubt scathing retort. However, Penny forestalled her by speaking first. “I understand that this is not ideal, however, Barnyard Bargains did not foresee the level of demand that its customers would place upon the limited stock for this new item. This promotion was merely to gauge if this item would be something worth stocking, and judging by the reception, I would say that it is a hit. As such, we will endeavor to make sure that by tomorrow morning, Barnyard Bargains will be fully stocked to meet future demand, and as a way to show our gratitude for our customer's support, all ponies that did not receive a free sample today will be given a voucher for one tomorrow.”

“Well, fat lot of good that does me right now!” spat the mare bitterly at having found out she’d wasted several hours of her day waiting for something and now being told that she wasn’t going to get anything. “You ponies should have done a better job of making sure you had plenty of stock before pulling a stunt like this!”

“Again, ma’am, we are sorry. We did not expect this level of interest in the new product,” replied Penny amicably.

The mare snorted angrily. “Well, you should have! Ponies have been looking forward to hay season all winter around here. That cheap hay that Filthy brings in during the winter tastes bland and rubbery. You can’t make anything good with it besides stew and casseroles! I want some good quality hay damnit!”

Penny felt her patience running out as the irate customer turned around and started yelling out at the crowd telling them that Barnyard Bargains had run out of hay and that they were horrible ponies for inconveniencing their customers like this.

Looking back over her shoulder, Penny saw that Filthy wasn’t by the door anymore. She hoped that he had overheard her explanation to this irritating customer and was working on those vouchers while she tried to keep things under control. However, she realized that if she didn’t do something soon, this crowd was going to go into a frenzy and cause a riot.

Taking a deep breath and lighting up her horn, she looked over at the cowering worker and leaning down whispered in his ear, “Cover your ears, it’s gonna get a bit noisy.” Straightening up, she released her spell, which was a lesser version of the Royal Canterlot Voice, and was most commonly used at events that required an announcer to be heard over the general crowd but not at levels that threatened to blow ponies away with its strength.

“QUIET!” she shouted, her spell having the desired effect of short-circuiting the building anger within the crowd and preventing it from morphing into an angry mob. Seeing that everypony nearby had clapped their hooves over their ears in an effort to dampen her shout and that she had their undivided attention, Penny climbed up on the counter and said in a lower volume, “I’m sorry everypony, but unfortunately, we have run out of free samples tonight, as we were not expecting this level of turnout. We would like to thank you for your patience and understanding. In addition, we are planning on giving out special vouchers for those of you who did not get a free sample today. These vouchers may be redeemed here during this week for a free sample of Ross Family Farms hay when we have more in stock. I would also like to remind everypony that causing trouble can lead to your ejection from the store and denial of this voucher. Additionally, it will lead to your arrest by the local guard and you will get to cool off in the local jail. So if you will please remain in line and calm, we will quickly get you your vouchers and you will then be able to come in tomorrow to get your free sample along with a purchase of freshly cut hay. Thank you again for your patience and understanding in this matter,” and with that, she cut the spell and stepped down off the counter.

By this point, a basket of freshly made vouchers had been brought out from the backroom and placed on the counter. Giving the counter colt a nudge with her hoof, Penny watched as he gave a startled jerk, before realizing what she wanted him to do. Grabbing a hoofful of vouchers, he all but threw them at customers as the line began moving forward slowly, but steadily, and while the customers weren’t happy, they didn’t look like they were one step away from becoming an uncontrollable mob either.

I’ll count that as a win. Thought Penny as she watched the line move along, before turning and slipping into the storeroom.

Looking around, she spotted Filthy Rich using a hoof stamper to sign the vouchers, while another employee used a miniature printing press to create them.

Walking up to the store owner, she said, “Well, that’s taken care of.”

Pausing for a moment, Filthy looked up at her with a grateful expression and said, “Ms. Farthing, I can’t thank you enough for this.”

She waved away his thanks with a hoof. “It’s not a perfect solution, and to be honest I wasn’t sure if it would work or not.”

“I-if what would work?” asked the pony running the printer.

Looking over at him, she replied with a wink. “Oh, just an old trick one of my business professors taught us. In that, if you are in a situation where you’ve run out of product and ponies are getting rowdy, give them a voucher for some free stuff that they can redeem at a later date. It makes them feel as though they didn’t completely waste their time and allows them to feel as though they got at least something to show for their efforts. In this case, they can still get their free sample of hay, without having to fork over any bits in case they don’t like it. I figured Filthy was probably going to either continue the free samples for a few more days or wouldn’t mind losing a bit of money from lost hay sales in exchange for not having his store wrecked by angry customers.”

“You figured right,” said Filthy as he resumed stamping as if his life depended on it.

“Huh, I never figured something like that would work, until now that is,” remarked the printer operator.

Penny shrugged. “It doesn’t always work, such as if the crowd is too far gone to mob mentality, no amount of free stuff is going to stop them from wrecking the place. But if you can get their attention before they cross the threshold, and the offer is good enough then you’ve got a better than even chance of pulling it off.”

“Well, I’m just glad it worked,” muttered the printer pony as they returned their full attention to their work.

“Me too, me too,” sighed Penny as she grabbed a nearby chair and sat down in it and watched the barely controlled chaos of workers rushing to and fro as they worked to keep things moving.

After an hour or two, things began settling down, the crowds had dwindled and Filthy had just finished stamping the final voucher when an exhausted-looking Lieutenant Palisade trudged into Filthy’s office.

Kicking the door closed behind him with a hind hoof, Palisade gave Filthy an annoyed look. “Mr. Rich, next time you plan on nearly starting a riot, kindly don’t, or at least have the good sense to warn me beforehoof.”

Holding up his hooves in a placating gesture, Filthy replied, “Believe me, lieutenant, it was not my intention for things to get out of hoof-like they did. Though I am sorry that it happened, so please accept my humble apologies in that regard.”

Pulling his helmet off with a hoof, Palisade let loose a tired sigh. “Well, apology accepted, and thankfully there was no meaningful property damage or injuries beyond a few bumps, bruises, and hurt feelings, so paperwork should be minimal.”

Stepping forward, Penny gave the tired guard a grateful smile and said, “Thank you for your help Lieutenant Palisade. You and your ponies helped keep things from getting out of hoof outside.”

“And Miss Farthing helped keep them from getting out of hoof inside,” remarked Filthy as he opened up a desk drawer and pulled out a glass bottle and three shot glasses. Pouring an equal dollop of amber liquid in each glass he said, “I think we could all use a calming drink right now to help settle our nerves after that near disaster earlier.”

“Normally I would refuse when I’m on duty, but as of five seconds ago, I clocked out,” replied Palisade as he accepted a glass.

Chuckling, Filthy offered the second glass to Penny who took it with a nod of thanks.

Grabbing his own, Filthy raised it up and said, “Well then, I’d say here’s to a successful launch of a new product with minimal property damage!”

The other two raised their glasses and clinked them against Filthy’s before knocking them back and draining them in one go.

Smacking her lips, Penny regarded the now empty glass with an appraising look. “That was pretty good, where did you say this came from?” she asked.

Putting the bottle away, Filthy replied, “Sweet Apple Acres, they keep some cider back each year to let ferment a bit longer. This cider’s about five years old now.”

“Sweet, and smooth, I like it,” remarked Palisade as he passed his now-empty glass to Filthy. “I’ll have to see about getting a bottle or two for myself while I’m stationed here.”

“Well if you want one, you’ll need to order it ahead of time. Anything having to do with Sweet Apple Acres cider sells out quickly around here,” said Filthy.

“Hmm, well, in that case, I know where I’ll be heading tomorrow.”

Penny nodded in agreement. “Same, that was really good, thank you, Mr. Rich.”

Filthy waved away the thanks. “No, thank you for your help... though do you think Allen would be willing to bring a few wagon loads in tomorrow? I’ve only got the two wagons, and I don’t think they’re going to be enough to keep us stocked up. First cutting around here tends to make ponies a bit pushy. I try and keep my store stocked with hay over the winter, but unfortunately, it’s not always of the best quality, and this year's hay, unfortunately, fell short.”

“So I heard,” said Penny as she remembered the unhappy customer from before. “But I’ll see what he says. He might charge you extra if he brings it here himself though, so just be ready for that.”

“If he can help stock my store quickly, I’ll happily pay... so long as it’s a reasonable price that is.”

“I’m sure we’ll work something out,” replied Penny as she and the two stallions exited Filthy’s office.

“Well, thanks for the drink, Mr. Rich, but I better get going and let my subordinates know that I’m off for the night. Have a good evening you two,” said Palisade with a nod as he turned and left.

“And I better go and let Allen know about the change in plans. Did you want any hay delivered tonight or early in the morning?” asked Penny.

“If he can make a delivery tonight, that would be excellent. If not, then as soon as he can tomorrow will work as well,” replied Filthy with a nod.

“I’ll see what we can do,” said Penny as she and Filthy reached the back door of the store. “If you don’t hear from me tonight, then assume that we’ll make a delivery first thing in the morning.”

“Perfect, try and be here before eight, as that’s when the store opens. If you can make a delivery tonight, we’re open until nine,” said Filthy in reply.

Giving a nod in understanding, Penny waved goodbye and even though her legs protested, she turned and headed for Allen’s place.

By the time she made it to the field, the sun was getting low in the afternoon sky. Looking to the right, she spotted a large cloud of hay dust in the distance. “Looks like Allen’s still baling,” she commented to herself as she changed direction and set out across the now clean field.

Weaving her way between the round bales, Penny quietly marveled at how quickly Allen had managed to clear the field of loose hay. Amazing, it would have taken an army of ponies to do all of this in the same amount of time as Allen and the others did.

Reaching the area where Allen was working, Penny came to a stop next to a random round bale and sat down next to it as Allen sped towards her. Looking out over the field, she could see that he didn’t have much left, and would probably be able to finish it all before the sun went down. Though she wasn’t sure if he would be able to do this and bring Filthy the round bales he wanted before night fell.

Well, regardless, I won’t know until I ask. She thought as she watched Allen come to a stop and let the round baler disgorge another bale. Getting up, she trotted over to Allen, who having noticed her, throttled down until the engine was just gently burbling. Putting the tractor in neutral, Allen climbed down and took off his earmuffs.

“Hey, Penny, what are you doing back here? I thought you’d be at home right now,” asked Allen curiously.

“Well I was, but there’s been a slight change in plans,” replied Penny.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Well, it turns out that your hay is really popular, like, really popular.”

Allen chuckled. “That good huh?”

Penny nodded. “Good enough that ponies nearly rioted when Filthy ran out.”

Both of Allen’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as he gave Penny an incredulous look. “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“Wow,” he shook his head in disbelief. “That’s crazy.”

“I know, thankfully the situation was defused, but Filthy wants to know if you can deliver some hay to his store, either tonight before nine or tomorrow morning before eight.”

Allen rubbed the back of his neck, an unsure expression settling on his face. “I don’t know Penny. I’d rather not waste fuel driving back and forth like that. I mean, that’s why I hired everypony in the first place.”

Penny nodded. “I know but, I don’t think anypony is going to be up to helping tomorrow. They’re tired and a bit spooked after seeing a ghost chicken out by Sweet Apple Acres.”

“A what chicken?” asked Allen, who was not sure if he’d heard Penny correctly or not.

She shook her head. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Right now, I just want to know if you’ll make a trip or two into town for Filthy. He’s willing to compensate you for it, within reason.”

Allen rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at the unfinished field behind him, then down at his watch. “I’m running out of time to get this all baled tonight. If I push it, I should be able to get it all done in another hour or so, but that isn’t going to leave me enough time to get wagons filled and delivered tonight.”

“So... do you want me to tell him that we’ll deliver it tomorrow?” asked Penny.

Allen shook his head. “I’m not delivering anything. I’ll load it, but if Filthy wants that hay, then he can come and get it. I don’t have enough fuel to waste on driving in and out of town like that. I’ve got some wagons that’ll hold more round bales than the ones he brought today. You tell him that if he brings the ponies to pull them, I’ll let him use my wagons to transport the hay. But he’ll need to supply the harnesses and single trees to pull them with.”

Penny bit her lower lip. “Filthy isn’t going to be happy hearing that, and I don’t know if he’ll have the ponypower to do all of that either,” she replied hesitantly.

Allen shrugged. “Well, that’s just the way it is. I’m not wasting precious fuel moving hay around when he can get a few ponies to pull the wagons. If he doesn’t like it then too bad.”

Sighing Penny saw that Allen wasn’t going to budge, and to be honest, she didn’t blame him. He was already going to be using up more fuel than he wanted, loading the wagons, it didn’t surprise her that he wanted to avoid using up fuel going back and forth between Barnyard Bargains and the field.

“Okay,” she said with a nod. “I’ll go and let him know then.”

Allen gave a nod. “Alright, sounds like a plan,” he paused and looked back at his watch one last time, “and unless you need me for anything else, I need to get back to work.”

Giving a shake of her head, Penny waved a hoof at Allen and said, “No, that should be all. I’ll swing by in the morning and fill you in on the rest of today's events.”

“Okay, works for me. See ya tomorrow then,” replied Allen with a wave before he put his hearing protection back on and climbed back on the tractor.

As Allen resumed his interrupted work, Penny turned around and made the final trip back to town for the night to relay the bad news to Filthy.

Here’s hoping he’s had a few more drinks of that apple cider to help mellow him out since I last saw him.

Chapter 48 (Logistics and Answers)

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Chapter 48

Penny sighed as she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. Glancing up at the clock on the wall, she saw that it was well past eleven at night, and was actually closer to midnight. However, even though she was tired, she felt a sense of accomplishment when she looked over the numbers laid out before her.

Even with His Grace’s cut, we turned a very nice profit, thought Penny as she began organizing things in preparation to go to bed.

Putting the last of the papers away, she recalled how Filthy Rich hadn’t been happy when she relayed Allen’s reply last night to him. However, she’d managed to get him to see things from Allen’s point of view and after that, they’d been able to work things out. Filthy, in addition to his own two hay wagons, along with several of his stronger employees, had called in some favors and contracted several professional teamsters to help out. Allen had offered to let them use his wagons, as they were bigger, to help deliver the round bales from the field to Filthy’s store in town.

However, the teamsters had declined as they had their own and while their wagons couldn’t fit as many bales as one of Allen’s, they held more than Filthy’s. Moreover, the various enchantments placed on their wagons made their jobs easier, as the wagons were lighter to pull, plus they would automatically tie down whatever they were carrying and would untie the load when they reached their destination. Moreover, they were paid by the load rather than by the ton, so by using Allen’s wagons, they would make less money overall. Allen for his part couldn’t fault their logic, and since he wasn’t paying them, he didn’t really care. Though he was interested in the enchantments on the teamster’s wagons, and when he looked at Penny he said, “I want those features on my wagons, I don’t care how much it costs.”

Penny had simply nodded and said, “I’ll look into it and see what I can come up with. I’m not sure if your wagons will be compatible as the enchantments are usually placed on the wagon while it’s being built, but it never hurts to ask.”

With that out of the way, things had gone smoothly, with each team making several trips to town and back. While Filthy’s wagons could each only hold two bales safely, the teamster’s wagons could hold eight each. This meant that between the four wagons, they were able to move twenty bales total per trip. Which wasn’t bad, however, Allen’s bale counter had recorded two hundred and twenty-two bales made, which meant a long day of back and forth for the ponies.

It also meant that Filthy had to quickly find places to store all of the hay that was coming in, as his store's stockroom didn’t have enough space for all of that hay, and neither did his warehouse down the street. By the time they had delivered half of the round bales, Filthy’s buildings were full to bursting, and even though his customers were taking away thousands of pounds of hay per hour, even they weren’t able to keep up.

“Penny, I don’t think I can take delivery of all of this hay today,” lamented Filthy sadly as they stood behind Barnyard Bargains and watched the unloading.

“But I thought you said you’d have enough space for it all?” she asked, an exasperated expression on her face.

“I thought so too, but I didn’t take into account the fact that these bales would be so big and heavy! We’re having a hard time stacking them more than two high in the warehouse right now. Plus it’s hard to maneuver them around all of the other stuff I have inside there. We’re going to have to move things to better accommodate the loading and unloading of these bales.”

“I thought you had a hay unloading system already?”

“We do, but it’s designed for loose hay, not for bales that weigh nearly a thousand pounds!” he replied. “We’re going to have to tear that out and rebuild the overhead crane system so that it can take the added weight. Once we do that, we should be able to stack those bales all the way to the ceiling,” he paused as a thought popped into his head, “on second thought, we might need to do more than that.”

Penny cocked her head to one side and asked, “What do you mean?”

Filthy sighed. “Well, it’s like this. Right now we’re only stacking the bales two high because that’s all we can manage with ramps and the few unicorns that I have to lighten the load while my earth ponies push the bales up to the second layer. But if we start stacking them all the way to the ceiling, all that extra weight is going to squish the bottom layer of hay downwards, and that might cause the bottom layer to spread out, which means we run the risk of the stack pushing out the walls of the building if we don’t reinforce them.”

“Is that a big risk?” she asked.

Filthy shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never worked with hay like this before. But with the loose hay, we had to make sure the walls were sturdy enough that the pressure from the weight of the hay wouldn’t damage them. As far as these round bales go, I don’t know if they’ll push the bottom layer outwards if you stack too many of them on top of one another, and frankly, I’d rather not take the risk of my warehouse collapsing on my employees... or me. Besides, I’ve been meaning to upgrade and expand it for a while anyways, so this just gives me a good excuse to do so.”

“Is business that good?” asked Penny as she and Filthy watched another wagon unload its cargo.

“It’s picking up. Ponyville is expanding slowly, but steadily, and I don’t like reacting to changes, I’ve found it’s better to be ahead of the curve than behind it. As a consequence, I’ve always been more proactive when it comes to business decisions.”

Penny gave a single nod as she watched as a worker kicked a round bale off the back of a wagon, the bale making a heavy thump as it landed.

“So what do you want me to tell Allen then?” she finally asked.

Filthy sighed. “You won’t need to tell him anything, other than to keep them coming if he asks. I’ll find the room for them. Worst case scenario is that I have my employees stack them outside and throw a tarp over them. The weather team hasn’t scheduled any rain for the rest of the week, so I should have enough time to get the remainder undercover.”

“Alright, works for me,” she paused as she glanced up at the sun and said, “Unless you need me for anything else, I need to go, Mr. Rich.”

Filthy shook his head and replied, “Go ahead, I think we’ve got things well enough in hoof here, tell Allen I said hello.”

Giving him a smile, Penny waved goodbye and said, “I will, have a good evening, Mr. Rich.”

Filthy gave her a wave in return before turning and trotting over to better supervise the unloading.

After leaving Barnyard Bargains behind, Penny had made a beeline for Golden Oaks, as she wanted to see if Twilight had made any progress in figuring out what she and the workers had seen yesterday on their way back to town.

Nearing the treebrary, Penny spotted Twilight’s little brother/assistant, Spike watering some flowers out front with a watering can. Approaching, she smiled and said, “Hello, Spike!”

Pausing his task, Spike turned and returned Penny’s smile with one of his own. “Oh hey, Penny, how’s it going?”

“Pretty well, how about yourself?” she replied.

He shrugged. “Busy, since Twilight and Lyra started their project, I’ve been pretty much running the library for her.”

Cocking her head to one side, Penny asked, “She’s having you run the whole library by yourself?”

“For the most part. She helps out when she can, but this sort of stuff takes priority. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been doing this since we moved here. The only difference now is that I get to make the decisions about where stuff goes and what I need to prioritize doing for the day,” he paused and looked around, before motioning Penny to come closer. Doing so, she bent down and cocked an ear as Spike raised a claw and whispered, “Between you and me, I prefer things this way. Twilight was always hoarding the new books to read that came in and even though she is a fast reader, it could take her a few days to a week or more to read through them all, even longer if she decided to read them again. Of course, this usually meant that the books didn’t get put on the new releases shelf until she was done reading all of them.”

Penny giggled. “I bet that irritated a few townsponies.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “You have no idea. Now that she is so busy, ponies don’t have to wait for her to read them first. So I can just put the books on the new releases shelf and everypony is happy.”

Shaking her head with a smile at the antics of the local librarian, Penny asked, “Well, if you’re happy with how things are going, then I’m happy. Now,” she paused and looked up at the treebrary, “is Twilight in right now?”

Spike nodded. “Yep, she should be down in the basement working on stuff. Just be careful and ring the bell by the door when you go down so that you don’t startle her. She gets kind of irritated if you surprise her and ruin one of her experiments... ask me how I know.”

“Thanks for the heads-up Spike,” replied Penny with a giggle as she opened the door and trotted inside.

Shutting the door behind her, she looked around the ground floor of the library. The late afternoon sun bathed the room in a warm yellow glow, perfect for curling up on a reading pillow and enjoying a good book. Quietly walking past a couple of late afternoon patrons, Penny quickly found the entrance to the basement of the treebrary, a sign on the door warning ponies not to enter, which she promptly ignored.

Carefully opening the door after finding it unlocked, Penny stepped into the dim stairway and spotted the small bell hanging next to the door. Gripping the pull chord in her magic, she gave it three tugs and waited a second before softly descending the stairs.

Reaching the bottom, Penny stepped out of the dim stairwell and into a well-lit earthen chamber, the occasional exposed root hanging from the ceiling or poking out of a wall. Looking around, she took in the various books, boxes, lab equipment, and chalkboards, along with a pair of unicorns on the opposite side of the chamber from her.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” she said when she saw Twilight and Lyra turn around from working on a nearby chalkboard.

“Not really,” replied Lyra dismissively, “Twilight and I were just running a few calculations.”

“Are these about the ghost chicken?” asked Penny as she trotted over and looked over the board filled with equations that she had no hope of understanding.

“Partly,” replied Twilight as she turned back to the board, “but we’re also seeing if some formulas Lyra found while researching might help us work out a better model.”

“Model? What kind of model?” she asked confused.

Lyra smiled and replied, “We’re trying to create a model that can predict when and where chaotic events will happen. That way we can be prepared ahead of time. Unfortunately, we need a lot more data points in order to properly set it up so that it’s accurate. However, with this latest incident that you brought to Twilight’s attention, we’ve made a little progress. Plus thanks to some of these old theorems and formulas that I’ve managed to dig up in various archives, we might be able to have a semi-working prediction model in a couple of months.”

“You can do that? I thought chaos was by its definition unpredictable,” asked Penny confused.

Twilight nodded. “In a manner of speaking. True chaos is unpredictable, however, in our case we are dealing with a spell, which is orderly in its nature. Though this spell is badly broken, whether that is because it wasn’t properly cast or seemingly completed, we can’t tell. All we do know is that the spell or its effects have not ended at this time.”

“So you’re trying to predict when the spell will fire again and where the effect will occur?” guessed Penny.

Smiling proudly, like a teacher whose student had managed to complete a difficult problem, Twilight nodded happily, “Exactly, while we don’t know what kind of effect the spell will have, we might be able to guess when and the general where that effect will take place. Thus, we will be able to better prepare for whatever may come our way,” she paused as her smile turned into a frown and she turned her attention back to the board in front of her, “However, we just don’t have enough data to start putting our model together yet, and it is unlikely that we will for the foreseeable future. What’s worse is that there isn’t really any previous research into something like this to build upon, so we are sort of trotting through the wilderness without a clue as to where we are going right now.”

“On the positive side,” pipped up Lyra, “this is really helping me get my doctorate.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You would have had your doctorate done by now if you hadn’t goofed off and changed your mind every couple of semesters.”

“Oh, I’m sorry ‘Ms. I have a full-ride scholarship because I’m the princess’s student’, some of us have to occasionally work in order to afford the classes we need to take in order to get our degrees you know,” snarked Lyra.

“There are plenty of scholarships out there that you could have applied for and gotten, and you know it, you just didn’t want to put in the academic work needed to obtain them,” Twilight shot back.

Penny had a feeling that this was an old argument between the two mares and decided to stop it before it could go any further.

“So... getting back on track here, do you have any more information about this chicken or not?”

Turning her attention away from her fellow egghead, Twilight sadly shook her head. “We’ve combed through all the material that we have here in Ponyville on chickens, and we’ve found nothing on singing ghost chickens riding tricycles. However, we did find a couple of interesting references to other things that we’ve been looking into, but they’re locked away in some restricted vaults in Manehatten.”

“So you can’t read them?” asked Penny, a disappointed look on her face.

“I never said that,” replied Twilight with a shake of her head. “Now that Princess Celestia has granted me unfettered access to every library and knowledge repository in Equestria, as well as some that are outside the country, Lyra and I should be able to access those records. In fact, she and I were planning on heading to Manehatten next Saturday to find those books that we need.”

“That’s good news?” said Penny, an unsure look on her face.

“It’s a start anyways,” replied Twilight, “now that my record has been cleared and I am allowed access to these restricted areas, it should make our research task much easier as I won’t have to fully rely on Lyra to find what I need.”

“Plus I won’t have to lug around all of those heavy books and stacks of notes anymore for you either!” interjected Lyra happily.

“Anyways,” said Twilight, ignoring Lyra’s remark, “for the time being, we don’t really have any further news to give you on the matter, sorry.”

Penny sighed in disappointment. “Well, it was worth a shot, thanks.”

Twilight gave her a reassuring smile. “Any time, was there anything else that you needed from us?”

Penny shook her head. “No, I just wanted to know if you’d found out anything regarding that chicken from yesterday, and since I was in the area, I’d thought I’d drop by on my way to see Allen.”

“Okay, well, when you see him, tell him we said hello,” replied Twilight before she turned her attention back to the board.

Sensing that the conversation was over, Penny said, “I will, have a good evening.”

“See ya,” waved Lyra before she too turned and resumed her work.

Turning around, Penny slowly ascended the stairs, disappointment weighing heavily on her mind as she was hoping that Twilight would have some kind of answer that would sate her curiosity. Leaving the treebrary behind, Penny waved goodbye to Spike as she left, who returned her wave with one of his own before he went back to his current task, and set her course for Allen’s place.

Taking it slow, as it was a nice day and she figured that Allen would still be busy when she got there, she arrived about an hour later and found that Allen was loading the last round bale onto a wagon. She’d seen three of the four wagons pass her on the way out of town, and apparently, this was to be the last one of the evening.

It is getting a tad late, she thought as she looked up at the sun as it hung low in the western sky. I won’t have a lot of time to waste if I want to get home before it gets dark out, she thought as she approached Allen’s tractor.

Allen, seeing her approach, shut off his tractor and climbed down. Stretching, he grunted out a greeting, “Hey Penny, ugh, how’s it going?”

“Fairly well,” she replied coming to a stop next to him, “how are things going out here?”

Rubbing his back with a hand, Allen replied, “We’re done, just finished loading the last bale as you walked up.”

“That’s wonderful, I just came from speaking with Mr. Rich.”

“Oh yeah, and what did he say?” asked Allen curiously.

Penny chuckled. “He’s having a hard time finding places to store all of this hay. It seems as though you made too much for him to handle at one time.”

Allen laughed. “Well, that sounds like a personal problem to me.”

Still smiling Penny nodded. “Oh yes, but don’t worry, he told me to tell you to ‘keep them coming’, and he’d find a place to store them all.”

“Well that’s good, I’d hate for that hay to go to waste because he couldn’t find a suitable place to store it before it got rained on,” commented Allen.

“I checked the weather schedule, and the local weather team isn’t planning on having any rain until Thursday. Though from my understanding they’re planning on letting it rain for a couple of days as there was a mix-up during the last scheduled rain shower and the rain clouds meant for Ponyville ended up going to Bales instead. So this time we’re getting the rain that was supposed to go to Bales this week as compensation.”

Allen shook his head. “It still boggles my mind that you guys can control the weather like that.”

“And it boggles my mind that you humans can’t control it at all,” replied Penny with a cheeky smile.

“Well if you were to listen to some of the conspiracy theorists back home, we can, but just not for the betterment of mankind.”

“Conspiracy theorists? What are those?” asked Penny curiously.

Allen laughed. “Strange people with a lot of time on their hands,” he shrugged, “but that’s not important right now. So what brings you out this way this late in the afternoon?”

“Well, I just wanted to stop by and see how things were going on your end, as well as tell you about something that happened to me and the others on our way home last night. Oh, and Lyra and Twilight say ‘hi’, by the way” she added, remembering Lyra’s request at the last minute.

“Okay, well what did you want to tell me then?”

Taking a deep breath, Penny told Allen about her encounter with the strange ghost chicken. As she spoke she watched as Allen’s eyebrows at first went up in skepticism, before knitting together in thought. By the time she finished, Allen was idly rubbing his chin and had a thoughtful frown on his face.

After thinking quietly to himself, he asked, “Do you think you could recognize the chicken and song if you heard and saw them again?”

Penny nodded. “I’m pretty sure I could, why?”

“Meet me at the house, I think I might be able to shed some light on what you saw last night,” he replied as he turned and climbed back up on his tractor. Penny wanted to ask him what he knew, but the deep rumble of the engine turning over prevented her from asking.

Sighing to herself, she turned and did as Allen instructed and trotted after the human and his tractor.

Reaching the porch, she turned and waited for Allen to put his equipment away and join her. A few minutes later and the two were inside and Allen was rummaging around in one of the cabinets next to the TV.

“What are you looking for Allen?” she asked.

“A movie,” he replied, giving no further information.

Feeling a tad frustrated at being left in the dark, Penny was about to speak when Allen let out a soft, ‘ah ha’ and pulled out a shiny rectangular box. Opening it up, he pulled out a smaller black rectangle and strode over to the TV. Popping it into a slot on the console where he had put the DVD movie in when they had watched Porcco Rosso together, Allen stepped back and turned on the TV. Grabbing the nearby remote, he hit a button on it and the screen changed from black to some kind of warning that Penny didn’t get a chance to read as Allen hit the fast-forward button and the movie player started whining as he skipped through the movie.

Penny wasn’t really able to make out much of what was happening, it seemed to be a story about clay-looking chickens in some kind of prison. She wasn’t sure as fuzzy bars of static would dance across the screen distorting the picture and making it hard to see what was going on. However, after a bit, Allen had apparently found what he was looking for and hit the play button. Immediately, Penny’s ears perked up as she heard the song from before started playing, and she nearly lept at the TV screen when she saw that same rooster come around the corner in the road pedaling his little tricycle and singing along to the song.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed, pointing a shaky hoof at the screen, “that’s the chicken we saw last night!” turning to Allen she asked, “how did you know?”

“Because your description of the chicken was a dead ringer to him,” he pointed at the rooster on the screen and said, “That’s Rocky, he’s a character in this movie called Chicken Run,” he hit the pause button, freezing Rocky at the point where he was looking up at a large billboard with a smiling woman on it holding a pie with a chicken in it. “It’s basically about a bunch of chickens trying to escape from a farm because they don’t want to be turned into pies.”

Penny was gobsmacked. Her brain was trying, and failing to comprehend what she was seeing before her. How is it possible that we saw a fictional character from a movie in the real world last night? That makes no logical sense!

“This makes no sense,” she finally stated out loud, the beginnings of a headache forming.

“In what way?” asked Allen curiously as he sat down on the couch.

“Because that rooster should not exist!” retorted Penny as she threw her forelegs up in the air in exasperation. “He’s a work of fiction! Why would he exist in our world, even as a phantom, if he’s fictional?!”

Allen shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine Penny. Maybe Discord’s spell created Rocky from my memories, partially lifted him from the movie to mess with us and cause additional chaos, or tried to pull him from another world where he does exist, but didn’t have the energy to do so at the time. I mean, isn’t that what Twilight was talking about when she told us about her theory?”

“Ugh, this is making my head hurt,” groaned Penny as she slumped down on the floor.

Allen shrugged again. “Either way, we should probably let Twilight know.”

“I already told her about him last night,” moaned Penny from her position on the floor, her hooves laid over her eyes to block out the light in an attempt to lessen her growing headache, which was only partially successful.

“But have you told her about what you learned just now?” queried Allen.

Penny just groaned again.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” said Allen as he turned off the TV and VCR player and stood up. Bending over, he grabbed Penny’s foreleg and pulled her suddenly up off the floor.

Letting out a squeak of surprise at being unexpectedly hauled to her hooves, she shot Allen an annoyed look and asked, “What was that for?”

“To get you up off the floor so we can go and get Twilight,” replied Allen evenly as he made his way to the front door, turning the lights off as he went.

Trotting quickly to catch up with him and not be left behind in the darkening house, Penny asked, “But it’s getting late, and by the time we get her and bring her back, it’ll be dark out.”

“Then I’ll bring a flashlight so that we can see in the dark, problem solved,” replied Allen as he walked into the kitchen and grabbed the aforementioned flashlight from off the top of the fridge. Clicking it on to make sure it worked and giving a satisfied nod when he saw it light up he looked over at Penny and asked, “Unless you just want to wait until tomorrow to get her.”

Penny shook her head in resignation. “No, it’d be better to get this out of the way now, while everything is still relatively fresh in our minds.”

“Alright then, let’s get going,” said Allen as he headed for the front door, Penny quickly falling in behind him.

Shutting the door behind him and locking it, both he and Penny started walking toward town. They reached Golden Oaks as the sun was beginning its final descent in the west. Striding up to the door, Penny found it to still be unlocked and stepped inside after a moment's hesitation.

“Twilight, Lyra? Are either of you still here?” she called out.

“Hey Penny,” greeted Twilight as she descended the stairs from the upper floor, a surprised expression on her face. “What are you doing back here? I thought you were going to Allen’s?”

Penny nodded her head and replied, “I did, but I discovered something that I thought you and Lyra would want to know about.”

“Is it another chaos event?” she asked perplexed.

“Not exactly,” piped up Allen as he stepped inside, taking a moment to look around at the cozy interior of the library. “More along the lines of finding out some new information on her recent encounter with that ghost chicken.”

“Oh, she told you about it?” asked Twilight.

Allen nodded. “Yeah, and the description she gave reminded me of something I’d watched as a kid. So I showed it to her and it turns out that the two matched.”

Penny nodded. “And so that’s why we’re here, I wanted to come and get you and Lyra if possible to come and see it for yourself.”

“Well Lyra already left for the evening, but if you’ll give me a minute, I’ll go and grab my saddlebags, along with some supplies, and come with you,” replied Twilight as she turned and trotted back upstairs.

“Okay, we’ll wait for you outside then,” said Penny as she and Allen turned to go and wait out front.

A few minutes later and Twilight appeared with her saddlebag. “Okay, I’ll be back in a little bit Spike, so make sure you finish your chores for the evening before you start reading your Power Ponies comic,” she called back into the library.

“Okay, Twilight,” came the muffled reply from inside, “see you later.”

“Bye,” replied Twilight with a small smile and nod before she shut the door behind her. “Okay, I’m ready to go, so lead on.”

Giving a nod, Allen turned and wordlessly started walking, both Penny and Twilight falling in behind the lone human who had turned on his flashlight to combat the gathering darkness as the trio made their way out of town over the north stone bridge.

By the time they arrived at Allen’s house, it was fully dark outside as well as inside. However, a quick flick of a light switch and the darkness inside was banished by the warm glow of electric lights.

Standing aside, Allen ushered his guests inside before shutting the door behind them and guiding them to the living room.

Setting the flashlight down on the counter, he pointed to the couch and said, “Go ahead and have a seat while I start up the TV real quick and we’ll show you what we’ve been talking about.”

Twilight nodded and hopped up on the couch. By this point, her curiosity had been thoroughly piqued as Penny and Allen had tried to explain to her what they had discovered on their way over. However, Twilight figured that it would be best to see it firsthoof before she jumped to any conclusions one way or the other.

With that thought in mind, she patiently waited for Allen to start up the TV and to find the correct spot in the movie. After a minute or so of fiddling with it, he turned to her and said, “Okay, are you ready?” When she nodded, he hit the play button and Twilight silently watched the scene play out before her on the TV.

Even though she had a basic understanding of how the TV worked in principle, thanks in large part to Allen lending her an old book that explained how a lot of human technologies worked in basic principles, she was still fascinated by this marvel of human technology. In Equestria, motion pictures were still a relatively new invention, and they had no sound nor did they display color. Additionally, the projection equipment required to play movies was both expensive and big, which meant that only the very rich or purpose-built businesses could afford to operate them. Ponyville currently didn’t have a movie theater, though, from her occasional conversations with Mayor Mare, there was apparent interest in having one built, but so far nopony had been willing to front the considerable amount of bits needed to have it built yet.

And yet, here Allen has his own private movie theater in his home, she marveled to herself as she watched the scene unfold before her.

After a few minutes, the scene ended and Allen paused the movie. Turning to Twilight he said, “Well, that’s it.”

“That’s what you wanted to show me?” asked Twilight.

Penny nodded. “Yep, that’s the rooster that I saw, he’s a perfect match, right down to the song playing on his little radio.”

“Can we watch it again, please? I’d like to take some notes,” asked Twilight as she pulled some paper and a quill, and ink out of her saddlebags.

“Sure, let me just rewind it real quick,” replied Allen as he hit the rewind button on his remote.

The VCR player dutifully rewound the movie to just before the scene started and Allen hit the play button. This time, the quiet scratching of a quill on paper could be heard underneath the sounds emanating from the TV speakers. When the scene finished again, Twilight had Allen rewind it once more, and then resumed her note-taking. This process repeated itself several times until finally with a nod she looked up and said, “I think I’ve got everything that I need right now, thank you, Allen.”

Hitting the rewind button for the final time, Allen replied, “No problem, happy to help.”

“So...” began Penny hesitantly, “what can you tell us?”

Twilight took a deep breath and replied, “Well, my initial thought is that Discord’s spell might have attempted to duplicate the scene in the real world as a means of creating more chaos magic. Then again, the other option was that the spell attempted to pull Rocky here from his world into our world.”

“Like what happened to me?” asked Allen as he ejected the VHS tape and put it back in its box before putting it back on the shelf where he got it from.

Twilight nodded. “Possibly. Unfortunately, by the time I was able to get to the spot where the incident happened, there wasn’t much, if any, magic left for me to analyze. What makes this even harder is that I can’t even use your arrival as a baseline because the Elements of Harmony had essentially destroyed whatever spellwork Discord used to bring you here when they were activated. Moreover, by the time your place was discovered and we were able to safely inspect everything, whatever might have been left over had decayed into little more than background magical energy.”

“Meaning it was useless,” supplied Allen with a sigh.

Twilight nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so.”

“But what about that sunflower?” asked Penny suddenly.

Twilight shook her head. “I found about the same amount of magical energy and spell signature as when I analyzed the area around where the chicken appeared. Chaos magic by its nature breaks down very quickly. So any spells that use it tend to not leave much of a signature behind after a short period of time.”

“How short of a period are we talking here?” asked Allen curiously.

Twilight shrugged. “We don’t know, it could be seconds or hours, nopony really knows, as chaos magic isn’t very well understood because almost no ponies are able to successfully or safely cast it for study. The only entity that can do so in a consistent manner is Discord, and for obvious reasons, we can’t ask him for help.”

“So what, are we just screwed then, with no way to figure out what’s going on?” asked Allen, a tad exasperated at the lack of apparent progress.

Twilight shook her head. “Not necessarily,” she began, “if I can just be there when an event happens, or even a few minutes later, then I might be able to conduct some scans and get some solid data. But until that happens, we’re kind of just trotting in the dark here and making educated guesses at best based on what we already know, or more likely, what we suspect that we know. At this point, our best guess is that either the Elements didn’t purge all of Discord’s magic when they turned him to stone or he had some kind of failsafe waiting in case he was defeated. Since we don’t know precisely when your farm arrived in Equestria Allen, then we can’t figure out if it was before or after Discord was defeated.”

“Would that matter?” asked Penny.

Twilight nodded. “If Allen was brought here before Discord was turned back to stone, then we are more likely dealing with the after-effects of the spell that brought him here. Which means that the Elements were not fully successful in ridding the area of the chaos corruption, probably due to the nearby Everfree Forest, and we are dealing with the remnants of his broken spell. However, if he arrived after Discord was defeated, that means that Discord left a trap behind that would activate only after he was defeated, which means that said spell is probably still active.”

“Both of those options don’t sound good,” remarked Penny, a nervous look on her face.

“They aren’t,” agreed Twilight, “but of the two, I would prefer it to be the first one, rather than the second.”

“Why’s that?” asked Allen curiously.

“Because a failing spell, while dangerous, isn’t as bad as one that still is trying to accomplish whatever its caster created it for. In the case of the first one, while we don’t know what the side effects of this failing spell might be, they should, in theory, be minor as time goes on and the spell degrades into nothingness. Thus, so long as nothing comes along and renews said spell, it should eventually run out of energy and collapse on itself. If however, its the second option, then things become a bit more concerning as until we learn what the spell is trying to accomplish, we won’t know how to counter it. In addition, we won’t know if the spell is getting weaker or stronger as we can’t know for sure what the caster set the spell to feed off of to power itself. Though with Discord I have a pretty good idea of what he might have set it to use to power itself.”

“Chaos?” ventured Penny.

Twilight gave a nod. “Most likely, it would fit his MO, and would make the spell very dangerous as the more chaos it causes, the stronger it gets, which allows it to create more chaos and so on.”

“A positive feedback loop,” said Allen.

“Correct,” replied Twilight, “which is what I had partly guessed previously before Lyra brought some additional information to my attention. In any case, as of right now, we don’t really have enough information to go on, and I’m hesitant now to state one way or the other which scenario is currently happening.”

Both Allen and Penny looked at each other for a moment, before then turning back to Twilight, and Allen asked, “So what can we do?”

Twilight shrugged helplessly. “Nothing really except report any unusual events that happen as quickly as possible and hope for the best. With these low-level events, any evidence of what’s going on will be too badly degraded to properly analyze after an hour or less. However, if the events start getting bigger and more powerful, they should leave behind evidence for a much longer period of time. Though who is to say what other effects they will leave behind.”

“Yeah, I’d rather deal with random sunflowers popping up and ghost characters from movies running around,” replied Allen with a nod, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Same here,” replied Twilight, “but as I said until we have more information, we won’t know what exactly we are dealing with here, which means we need to stay alert in case this spell manages to gain enough energy to throw something big our way.”

“Well, I guess until that happens, we’ll just keep moving forward then,” said Allen as he looked up at the clock on the wall and saw it was a little past nine in the evening, “In the meantime, unless anyone has anything else that they want to share, we’d best be getting you two home as it’s getting late.”

Looking at the clock herself, Twilight nodded in agreement and replied, “Agreed, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll be sure to fill Lyra in the next time I see her.”

“You’re welcome,” replied Allen as he and the two unicorns headed for the front door.

As Allen moved to grab the flashlight from where he’d put it down on the kitchen counter, Twilight looked at him and said with a grateful smile, “Oh, you don’t need to escort us back to town Allen, we’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? Penny made it sound like you’d have a problem getting home in the dark,” asked Allen.

“I’m not very good with holding light spells for a long time, so I generally don’t like walking long distances in the dark,” replied Penny quietly.

Twilight smiled and lit up her horn, a bright yellow orb forming a couple of inches above the tip. “Don’t worry, I’ve got us covered.”

“Are you sure you can hold it all the way back to town?”

“Positive,” replied Twilight with a nod, the little orb bobbing as she moved her horn, “I used to read books at night under my covers when I was a little filly, so I’ve gotten good and holding the spell for long periods of time without getting tired.”

Penny frowned. “You really shouldn’t read by horn light at night like that, it’s not good for your eyes.”

“There is no scientific study that proves that is the case,” rebutted Twilight, “that’s just something that unicorn parents tell their foals so that they don’t stay up late reading when they should be sleeping.”

Allen chuckled. “Yeah, well you probably should have been sleeping instead of reading. Kids need their sleep if they want to grow up healthy and strong.”

Twilight stuck her nose up in their air and ‘harrumphed’. “Well I did it, and I turned out fine.”

Both Penny and Allen gave each other a sideways glance but decided not to say anything to the somewhat neurotic mare.

“Whatever you say Twilight,” said Allen instead.

Choosing to ignore the slightly sarcastic comment, Twilight instead just shook her head and said, “Well, anyways, goodnight Allen, we’ll see you later,” and turned and trotted off, her little yellow orb following dutifully along above her head.

“See you later Allen,” added Penny as she turned and hurried after Twilight.

Waving goodbye, Allen watched the two mares go for a moment before heading back inside, his stomach reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since lunch and that it wanted food.

Meanwhile, both Penny and Twilight walked back to Ponyville occasionally making small talk as they went. Eventually, the glow of the house lights and streetlights pierced the deepening night and both Penny and Twilight parted ways at the river bridges. Twilight taking the north bridge and Penny the east.

Now that she was closer to home, Penny lit up her own horn, and a smaller yellow ball of magical light formed above her horn as she quickly trotted towards home. Reaching her home/office, she unlocked her door and stepped inside, hitting a light switch on the wall next to the door and extinguishing her horn light at the same time.

Shutting the door behind her, Penny noticed that there was some mail waiting for her in the little mail basket attached to the door just under the mail slot. Pulling the letters out, she rapidly sorted them as she trotted over to her desk, and after glancing at the clock on the wall, she decided she wasn’t tired enough to go to bed yet and sat down to get some late-night work done before bed.

As the clock ticked closer to midnight, Penny sighed and got up from behind her desk. Shaking her head, she wearily trotted towards the stairs, turning the downstairs light off as she went.

Lighting up her horn again, she ascended the stairs and tiredly stumbled into her upstairs apartment. Fighting back a yawn, she thought, Today and yesterday have certainly been interesting, to say the least.

Deciding to forgo dinner, she instead opened the door to her bedroom and pulled back the cover of her bed. Turning off the light, she slipped under the covers and closed her eyes. As she slipped into slumber, her last thought of the day was, Hopefully things will settle down for a bit after today.

And with that final thought, sleep took her fully and all that could be heard was the gentle snoring.

Chapter 49 (May the Best Pet Read)

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Chapter 49

“Hmm... well Mr. Ross, everything looks normal,” commented Dr. Stable as he looked at Allen’s latest bloodwork.

“So does that mean I don’t have to keep to my diet anymore?” asked Allen hopefully.

Dr. Stable hesitantly nodded. “I don’t see why not, though I would caution you to not go and gorge yourself at SugerCube Corner just yet. While you don’t have to stick fully to your diet restrictions anymore, you still shouldn’t put any undo strain on your system until it has had a chance to fully normalize to an Equestrian diet. This will probably take another month or two.”

“Makes sense,” replied Allen with a nod as he sat on the examination table in Ponyville General Hospital.

It had been a little over a week since he’d finished cutting the first fifty acres of hay from Blueblood’s land, and nearly two months since he’d been discharged from the hospital. In that time, he’d stuck as close as he could to the diet recommendations that Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart had given him. Though he might have more or less ignored their recommendations regarding overexerting himself physically, but that was normal behavior for a farmer. After all, the animals weren’t going to take care of themselves, and the hay wasn’t going to cut, rake and bale itself either.

Though that would be kind of nice, thought Allen to himself as watched Dr. Stable put his things away.

“Well, Mr. Ross, other than not overindulging in mana-heavy foods such as sweets and meats, I’d say you’re good to go.”

Allen smiled. “Glad to hear it doc.”

“And you should be,” replied Dr. Stable as he opened the door and bade Allen to follow him. “Though, as I mentioned, don’t go crazy and eat too many sweets or meats for a while, at least none that are Equestrian in origin.”

“Well, how much can I eat?” asked Allen as the two walked towards the front of the hospital.

“You should be able to safely double your intake of sugar and proteins from what you are currently eating. Do that for about a week or two and then increase it by ten to twenty percent every one to two weeks after that until you fully normalize. If you start feeling ill, cut back immediately, and if symptoms persist for more than twenty-four hours, come here at once. Understand?” he asked as he glanced at Allen over the top of his glasses.

Giving him a small salute, Allen replied, “No problem doc.”

Smiling, Dr. Stable nodded. “Excellent, it’s always good to know that at least some of my patients will listen to me.”

“Problem patient?” asked Allen.

Dr. Stable rolled his eyes. “Yes, they’ve been a bit of a regular here lately. Obviously, I can’t go into details, doctor-patient confidentiality. You understand?”

Allen nodded. “Of course, well good luck with that, hopefully, you can talk some sense into them,” said Allen as he waved goodbye and made to leave.

Dr. Stable chuckled. “Somehow I’d probably have more success convincing a dragon to share part of their hoard with me than getting this patient to slow down. Take care Mr. Ross and we’ll hopefully see you in October for your next check-up, and not anytime sooner.”

“Okay, see you then,” said Allen as he turned and headed for the door.

However, as he was preparing to push his way through, the doors opened in front of him, and Twilight and Fluttershy came in. Twilight was carrying a couple of board games in her magic and Fluttershy had a small pet carrier nestled on her back between her partially outstretched wings.

“Oh! Allen, what are you doing here?” asked Twilight in surprise at seeing the lone human in the hospital.

“Hey Twilight, Fluttershy,” replied Allen with a nod to each mare, “I just got done with my last bi-weekly check-up.”

“Oh, in regards to your thaumic pathways and mana absorption?” she asked.

Allen nodded. “Yep, Dr. Stable just gave me a clean bill of health and said that I don’t have to stick to my diet anymore, though he did caution me to not eat too much mana-heavy foods right off the bat. Said that I needed to let my body get fully used to them before I overloaded it,” he paused and looked between the two mares, a curious look on his face. “So what brings you two here?”

“Oh, we’re visiting Rainbow Dash, she broke her wing yesterday doing some aerial stunts,” replied Twilight.

“Oh shit, is she going to be okay?” asked Allen in sudden concern.

Twilight nodded. “The doctor said that she should be fine to go home in a few days. It wasn’t a bad break, but she won’t be flying for a week or two, and they told her absolutely no aerial maneuvers above three g forces for a month after that.”

“Oof, that sounds rough,” remarked Allen sympathetically. While he didn’t really know Rainbow Dash that well, having only met and talked with her a handful of times, he’d heard Twilight talk about how Rainbow loved flying. Upon hearing that she wasn’t going to be allowed to really fly anytime soon, Allen figured the poor mare was going to probably go crazy.

Pointing at the various items each pony was carrying, Allen asked, “So is that why you’ve got all that stuff with you there?”

Twilight nodded. “Yep, we’re going to spend some time with her today to try and cheer her up.”

“And I brought Tank, her pet tortoise as well,” piped up Fluttershy, “he’s been missing her ever since she crashed.”

Leaning down, Allen glanced inside the little pet carrier and spotted the small, green tortoise as it lazily blinked its eyes at him.

Giving the butter-yellow pegasus a skeptical look, he said, “Not exactly the pet that I imagined she’d want.”

“I was surprised too, but she picked Tank after the competition, so Tank’s is hers now,” replied Fluttershy with a small wing shrug.

Now really confused, Allen asked, “Competition? What competition?”

Looking between themselves, Fluttershy and Twilight shared a small look before Twilight said, “It’s a bit of a story.”

Glancing down at his watch, Allen replied, “Well, I don’t really have anything to do for a bit, as the fields are still too wet to do anything after that massive rainstorm we had the other day. So I’ve got some time.”

“Why don’t you tell Allen the story, Twilight, and I’ll go see if Rainbow is able to receive vistors yet,” suggested Fluttershy.

“Works for me,” was Twilight’s reply, and with a nod, Fluttershy left the two to go and speak with the duty nurse about their friend.

Turning back to Allen, Twilight began explaining the story of how Rainbow ended up in the hospital. By the time Fluttershy had returned and the trio had been shown to Rainbow’s room, Allen felt as though he’d lost more than a few brain cells.

“Okay, so let me get this straight. Rainbow saw all of you girls had pets and wanted one for herself last week,” began Allen as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yep,” said Twilight in reply.

“And you offered to let her come and select a pet from your place,” continued Allen, pointing at Fluttershy.

“That’s right,” confirmed Fluttershy.

“And rather than just pick a pet that she liked, she tried to get them to do some kind of competition to win her affection, which ended in a race through a place called Ghastly Gorge, where she ended up getting her wing pinned under a falling rock, spraining it.”

“Uh huh, and don’t forget that Tank rescued her and helped her finish the race,” added Fluttershy with a nod and a fond smile.

Allen gave a slow nod. “Right, and so that’s why Rainbow picked this tortoise as her pet. After which, you all took her to the hospital to get her wing looked at, and the doctor told her not to do any flying tricks for a couple of weeks while the wing healed. But, she went and ignored him and ended up crashing yesterday, breaking that same wing in the process, which brings us to the present time,” finished Allen.

“Yep, that pretty much sums the story up nicely,” agreed Twilight with a nod.

Pausing outside the door to Rainbow’s room, Allen gave Fluttershy and Twilight an exasperated look and asked, “Is your friend just that naturally dumb or does she just have a death wish?”

Fluttershy and Twilight looked at each other for a split second before they both shrugged in unison.

Allen sighed and rolled his eyes before muttering under his breath. “Typical adrenalin junkies, got all the common sense of a rock,” turning around, he knocked on the door and waited for a response.

“Just a moment please,” came the answer from the other side, and after a few moments, the door was pulled open and Dr. Stable exited the room.

“Oh Allen, I had thought you left already,” he commented as Fluttershy and Twilight squeezed past him.

“I was just about to when Fluttershy and Twilight told me that Rainbow Dash had hurt herself and ended up in the hospital, so I thought I’d drop by and give her my sympathies before I left.”

“Oh, well that’s very kind of you,” he remarked with a smile.

“Thanks, doc,” replied Allen as he made to enter the room, but then paused as he recalled the earlier conversation he had with him and leaning out of the doorway said, “Say doc.”

“Hmm?”

“Rainbow wouldn’t happen to be that patient you were complaining about earlier would she?”

Dr. Stable merely smiled a knowing smile and without a word turned and left. Chuckling to himself, Allen said, “Yeah, I thought so.”

Entering the room, he spotted the prismatic mare propped up in her hospital bed, a green hospital gown covering her, and her wing was wrapped up in a plaster cast that looked rather uncomfortable.

Walking up next to her bed and pulling one of the chairs from against the wall, Allen sat down, gave Rainbow a smile, and asked in his best surfer dude impression, “Hey, how’s it hanging there brah? Heard you had a pretty gnarly wipe-out dude.”

Rainbow groaned and hide her eyes behind her hooves. “Please, for the love of Celestia don’t do that voice again.”

Smelling proverbial blood in the water, Allen’s smile grew almost predatory and he asked, “Like why not man? Yer killing the good vibes I’m trying ta send yer way dude.”

Dragging her hooves down her face, she fixed Allen with a look that said, ‘If I could move I’d be strangling you right now.’

To which Allen’s expression replied, ‘Well you can’t, so nyah.’

Any potential violence was ended when Twilight jumped between the two with a forced smile and said, “Hello, Rainbow, how are you today?”

Looking from Allen to her friend, Rainbow replied with a heavy sigh, “I’m getting better, but I’m just sooooo bored.”

Twilight giggled. “We kind of figured, that’s why we stopped by.”

Fluttershy chose that moment to remove Tank from his pet carrier and place him on Rainbow’s bed. “We even brought Tank by for a visit.”

Rainbow’s face lit up in happy excitement and she quickly scooped the little tortoise up and hugged him close, a happy squee emanating from her as she did so, that she quickly covered up with a cough and rapidly set Tank aside next to her. The little tortoise seemingly not bothered by the sudden change of location as he slowly nuzzled up next to his mistress instead.

Allen leaned back in his chair and watched the trio talk for a bit, though he couldn’t help but notice that Rainbow seemed a little... off. It wasn’t anything super obvious, but she would glance around nervously on occasion, and look up at the clock on the wall every minute or so. To him, it was almost as if she didn’t want her friends there for some reason, which was odd considering how she had been complaining about being bored just a minute ago.

His confusion doubled when he noticed what looked like the spine of a book wedged under one of her pillows as if she were trying to hide it from view. Why does she have a book under there? Is she trying to hide it from us for some reason? He wondered to himself.

His suspicions were confirmed when Dash noticed him looking at the book and tried to hide it from his view by adjusting her pillows to better cover it, and giving Allen an almost begging look that said, ‘Please don’t say anything.’

Which is why Allen said something and pointed at the pillow the book was hiding under. “Say, what’s that book you got under your pillow there Rainbow?”

“Book?! What book? I don’t see a book, you must be imagining things, hehe,” exclaimed Dash, as she looked around the room nervously.

Reaching forward nonchalantly, Allen slipped a hand in between the pillows and grabbed the book before Rainbow could do more than exclaim, “Wait, no!”

Pulling the book out so that he could read the cover, he said, “Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone.”

“Hey, isn’t that the book that I suggested you read yesterday Rainbow?” asked Twilight as she plucked the book from Allen’s grasp and inspected it.

Rainbow by this point was sweating bullets. “Um... no? I mean, maybe? But I don’t know how that book got there or anything,” she crossed her hooves over her chest and looked away.

“Hmmm, well it looks like somepony has been reading it judging by the placement of the dust jacket flap here on page 108,” remarked Twilight as she looked from the book to Rainbow, a knowing smile on her face.

It was at this point that Rainbow broke down and exclaimed in anguish, “Okay! I admit it! I read the book, and I liked it!”

Allen looked at Twilight and Fluttershy with a confused look on his face. “Uh... am I missing something here?”

Twilight giggled. “Not really, Dash just thinks reading will make her and I quote, ‘an egghead, and uncool’ unquote,” she waggled her hooves in the pony version of air quotes, and Allen had to suppress a laugh at the silliness of it all.

“You think reading is only for ‘eggheads’, and is ‘uncool’, Dash?” he asked, a barely repressed smile on his lips.

Openly pouting, now that her dirty little secret had been revealed, Dash grumped, “Yeah, only eggheads like Twilight read.”

Said egghead rolled her eyes and replied, “Dash, Princess Celestia reads, does that make her an egghead and uncool?”

“That’s different, she’s reading boring reports and stuff. Even I do that, but it’s not the same,” she replied with a huff.

Again Twilight rolled her eyes, but this time she added a long-suffering sigh. “No Dash, Princess Celestia does not just read ‘boring reports and stuff’ all day. She also reads other books too. Including the same one you’re reading right now.”

Dash perked up slightly at that. “Princess Celestia reads Daring Do?” she asked, a hint of hope in her voice.

“Yes Rainbow, Princess Celestia reads Daring Do, and she also reads Shadow Spade mystery books, and is particularly fond of trashy romance novels as well, along with just about any and all books out there that are released.”

“But the princess isn’t an egghead, so why does she read?” asked Dash confused, her entire perception of how the world worked was now turned on its head and her brain was trying to reconcile it all. Needless to say, it was having a hard time.

One of Twilight’s hooves met her face and she groaned in annoyance. “Dash, just because somepony likes to read, does not mean they are an egghead!”

“But-”

“No buts! Reading books doesn’t make you an egghead! End of discussion!” retorted a now very annoyed Twilight.

Turning to look at Fluttershy, Rainbow quietly asked, “Do you read Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy smiled and nodded. “Oh yes, I love reading! Especially to my little animal friends when they’re having a hard time going to sleep.”

Almost desperate now, Rainbow turned to Allen and pointed at him, and asked, “And what about you?”

Allen rolled his eyes. “Yes Rainbow, I read too. Mostly science-fiction, but I dabble in a few other genres as well from time to time.”

Her hoof dropping limply to her side, Rainbow fell back against her pillow with a soft whomph and stared up at the ceiling as her brain worked overtime. For a moment, Allen thought he could almost see steam coming out of her ears.

Twilight for her part just held her head in her hooves and shook it back and forth, muttering something to herself that Allen couldn’t quite make out, but was probably in regards to wondering where ponies got the idea that reading was stupid or something.

Finally, after a minute or two, Rainbow looked down from the ceiling and said, “Um... I’m sorry.”

Pulling her hooves away from her face, Twilight looked at Rainbow with a neutral expression and asked, “For what?”

“For... calling you an egghead and saying that reading was uncool and for losers. It’s not, at least in regards to Daring Do, that’s pretty cool,” muttered Dash, her cheeks red in embarrassment.

“It’s alright Rainbow, I forgive you,” replied Twilight, her expression lifting slightly as she placed a gentle hoof over her friends. Though her smile turned down slightly and she asked, “But why did you think reading was so ‘uncool’ before?”

“School was hard enough for me without being labeled as an egghead on top of it, so I just never got into reading until now,” replied Dash, a hint of discomfort as old memories replayed themselves in her mind.

Twilight looked like she wanted to inquire further on the matter, but a look from Fluttershy and a shake of the pegasus mare’s head held her back. Instead, she gave Rainbow a happy smile and said, “Well, better late than never to learn about the joys of reading!”

Rainbow crossed her hooves over her chest and feigned apathy at the thought. “Yeah, it’s okay, I guess.”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “Okay? Just okay? Rainbow-”

She paused, seeing the teasing smirk Rainbow was giving her as she wound herself up over Rainbow’s apparent dismissal of the idea of reading being fun.

“Haha, gotcha,” said Rainbow, booping Twilight’s nose with a hoof as her friend pouted. Though her pout quickly dissolved into giggles as she realized Rainbow was just teasing her.

Shaking her head, Twilight remarked, “Okay, very funny Dash, you got me. But in all seriousness, I’m glad you’ve discovered the joys of reading. If you want, I can recommend many more books for you to enjoy when you finish with that one.”

“Eh... let’s not go crazy here. Yeah, I’m liking Daring Do, but maybe let me read at my own pace?” said Rainbow a tad nervously when she saw the almost maniacal look in Twilight’s eyes at learning that Rainbow was finally interested in reading.

Chuckling, Allen said, “Yeah Twilight, go easy on Dash here. She’s been literarily starving herself for years, and you don’t give a starving person a heavy meal right off the bat.”

Twilight took a deep breath and exhaled it, in an effort to calm her excitement. “You’re right, both of you. It’s just... you’ve been so averse to reading ever since I met you, and now you’re willing to give it a chance! It just fills me with happiness and joy!” said Twilight as she all but hugged herself in excitement.

Rainbow leaned away slightly from Twilight as if afraid she would catch whatever had infected her friend. Sure she liked reading Daring Do, but that didn’t mean she wanted to turn into another Twilight Sparkle and have her nose stuck in a book all day if she got the chance.

“Yeah...” she began hesitantly, “well I’m glad that you’re happy and all, but like I said, I kinda want to take this at my own pace.”

“Oh, of course, of course,” replied Twilight, a slight blush of embarrassment on her face as she realized what she was doing and promptly ceased hugging herself. Clearing her throat, she asked, “If it’s not too presumptuous of me. Might I assume that you’d be interested in reading the rest of the Daring Do book series?”

Rainbow blinked in surprise. “There’s more?”

Twilight nodded excitedly. “Oh yes, this is just the first book in the series of twenty books, and A.K. Yearling is supposed to be releasing another book next year.”

“Did you just say, A.K. Yearling?” asked Allen incredulously.

“Yes, why do you ask?” asked Twilight in confusion.

Facepalming, Allen just muttered, “More goddamn horse puns.”

“Uh, are you okay Allen?” asked Rainbow in concern at the pained look on Allen’s face.

Waving her concern away with a hand, Allen replied, “I’m... fine, don’t worry about me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he groaned.

Another concerned look was shared between the three ponies, but they decided to not press Allen further on the matter and instead turned their attention back to each other, resuming their conversation.

“So has Tank been behaving himself while I’ve been gone?” asked Rainbow to Fluttershy.

Smiling, Fluttershy nodded. “Oh, he’s been wonderful,” she said, giving the tortoise a soft pat on the head, who leaned into the affectionate contact.

“Awesome, I’m glad to hear that,” replied Rainbow happily.

Looking up from his hands, Allen suddenly asked, “Ever since you mentioned his name, I’ve been meaning to ask, why did you name him Tank?”

Rainbow shrugged. “It just seemed appropriate at the time.”

“But where did you get the name from? I don’t remember anyone telling me you guys had giant metal boxes on tracks rolling around tearing up the countryside.”

“Is that what a tank is in your world?” asked Twilight curiously, a paper, quill, and ink pot randomly appearing next to her as she began taking notes.

“More or less,” replied Allen as he waggled a hand back and forth, “there’s a bit more to it, but it’s basically a large armored box on tracks that can move under its own power and shoot large projectiles at people and things. Remind me sometime, and I’ll show you a picture of one.”

Twilight finished her current note and nodded. “I would like that, thank you.”

“Sure, no problem, but I’m still wondering where you got that name from if it’s not based on a tank from my world. Is it an animal or something?” asked Allen curiously.

“Well...,” began Twilight, as she slipped partly into lecture mode, “not exactly, you see, in ancient times, before Equestria was founded, earth ponies used to pull heavy war carts that were covered in sturdy wood and metal spikes. The ponies in the cart would usually have long spears or short bows that they could shoot out or thrust from behind the walls of the cart at the enemy. The pullers would be covered in heavy armor and would usually have some kind of heavy shield, usually wooden with iron bracing, in front of them that they would use to crash through enemy formations and sow chaos amongst them.”

“Sounds kind of dangerous,” commented Allen.

Twilight nodded. “Oh it was, but it wouldn’t be done by one or two wagons by themselves, but a large host of them all charging at once. The main purpose of the tank was to break through the enemy's shield wall and allow the lighter-armed and armored infantry charging behind a chance to get in close to finish the fight, hoof to hoof. Which is where earth ponies excel at. However, tanks were worse than useless against pegasi and unicorns figured out ways to counter them fairly quickly. Usually by fighting in rough terrain or from behind fortifications. So eventually the tank was rendered obsolete on the battlefield.”

“Okay, so why did they call these carts, tanks then?”

“Well they didn’t, they called them tanukas, which in old earthen translates to... well tortoise,” admitted Twilight in slight embarrassment, “The word tank is thought to be a shortening of the original word which lead it to become corrupted into what it is today over the centuries,” she explained.

Turning to look at Rainbow, Allen dryly said, “So you named your tortoise... tortoise.”

“Hey, I didn’t know it meant that!” replied Rainbow in flustered embarrassment, “I just remembered seeing one at the Canterlot Natural History Museum when I was a filly on a class field trip and thought it was awesome, and when Tank rescued me it just seemed the right thing to call him at the time, so sue me.”

Allen just shook his head and smirked before looking down at his watch and saying, “Well, it’s getting on in the day, and I need to go and take care of some things at home before it gets dark out,” Standing up, he gave Dash and company a friendly wave and said, “See ya later and get better soon.”

“I will, thanks,” replied Rainbow as Allen left.

“Well that was... interesting,” said Fluttershy once Allen was gone.

Putting her paper and quill away, Twilight nodded. “Agreed. It’s been somewhat difficult to learn about his world from him. Either he’s too busy or I’m too busy and our schedules won’t line up. That or he just doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“I mean can you blame him?” asked Rainbow as she set her book on the bedside table.

Twilight gave her a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

Shrugging, Rainbow replied, “I mean, I’d be a little hesitant to tell anypony about Equestria if I ended up in some weird world with little chance of going home, at least until I had a chance to get to know them better. I mean, even though I didn’t like to read much when I was in school, I still learned about ancient Pegasopolis, and let me tell you, those guys were hardcore brutal at times.”

Twilight hesitantly nodded. “That is true, I remember reading about some of the more... darker practices that the three tribes engaged in before unification, and even after. Equestria wasn’t always peaceful, and ponies didn’t always get along.”

“Some still don’t,” added Fluttershy quietly.

The other two nodded somberly. “True, but things have gotten better since the founding of Equestria,” replied Twilight.

“Yeah, but ponies still did bad things in the past, and I can’t imagine that humans are any better,” said Rainbow as she idly petted Tank.

“From what little I’ve managed to extract from Allen since his arrival, you are right,” said Twilight as she pulled one of the board games she’d brought out and placed it on the bed in preparation to play. “But at the same time, I would have hoped by now he’d be a little more willing to let me go dig through his library to learn more about his people by now.”

“Just give him time Twilight,” said Fluttershy as she picked out her piece and placed it on the board, “Like you said, both of you have been very busy lately, and Allen is still getting used to Equestria. Even though he’s been here a few months already, that’s still not enough time for a pony to become fully comfortable in their new surroundings. I mean, it took me a long time to get used to Ponyville after I moved here.”

“And it’s not like Allen has spent his entire life living in Equestria,” added Rainbow as she moved her piece around the board, “So it’s even worse for him.”

“I know, it’s just that I wish there was a way to get him to open up to us a bit more,” replied Twilight sadly. The thought of so much knowledge being inaccessible to her because of mistrust, even if it was minor, greatly saddening her.

“Maybe you could trade?” asked Rainbow helpfully, “You know, tell him something about our history in exchange for something of his?”

“Hmm... that might work, but I wouldn’t want to push him too hard too quickly or he might balk,” said Twilight as she moved her piece again. “On the other hoof, I’m also worried about things appearing in our world that might be dangerous and ponies getting hurt because Allen wasn’t willing to tell us beforehoof.”

“Well, what about Allen? Equestria has a lot of dangers that he’s not aware of. I mean, he lives right next to the Everfree Forest. Have you told him about the Timberwolves, cockatrices, manticores, hydras, and poison joke, that he might encounter if he goes near it?” asked Fluttershy quietly.

“Yeah, and that’s just a few of the things he might run into out there,” commented Dash as her piece reached the finish line and she declared victory.

Putting a hoof to her chin, Twilight realized that her friends were right. She’d been so worried about what might come from Allen’s world or someplace like it anyways, that she hadn’t considered all the dangers that might impact him from her world. Plus, there was no guarantee that anything bad would appear or even if Allen would recognize it as a threat in the first place. However, in Allen’s case, there was no doubt that he could encounter a wild monster from the Everfree, and not realize how dangerous it was before it caused him harm.

Nodding her head, she said, “You’re right girls, we need to share information with him just as much, if not more, than he needs to with us. The first chance I get, I am going to sit down with Allen and give him a crash course in monster identification and how to keep oneself safe.”

“If you want, I’d be happy to help,” offered Fluttershy, “I’ve got a little bit of experience dealing with the animals of the Everfree, and my animal friends have taught be a lot about avoiding the more dangerous creatures that live there.”

Smiling, Twilight nodded, happy to have her friend offer her help. “I’d be happy for your help Fluttershy, thank you.”

“Oh it’s no trouble at all,” she replied.

“Okay, so are we done talking about all this heavy stuff now? Cause I’m ready to beat you girls in round two here,” asked Dash, her chest puffed out proudly at her recent win.

Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Twilight said, “Okay Dash, but be warned, I’m not going to go easy on you this time.”

“Ha! Bring it on egghead!” challenged Rainbow, a cocky smile on her face.

“Consider it brung!” declared Twilight in determination.

Fluttershy was just happy to be there and would go on to win that particular round, much to Dash and Twilight’s chagrin.

Author's Notes:

Well, not only did I manage to get the last chapter out as a nice little Christmas present for you guys. I went and got a burst of inspiration, and plenty of free time thanks to my work giving us nearly a week and a half off for the Christmas holidays, to get this chapter done and out on the last day of 2022, woot woot!

I would also like to note that the chapters that are based on episodes will not always be in the order that they aired on TV, but will be moved around so as to better fit the story's timeline. In this case, May the Best Pet Win and Read and Weep became a mash-up as it kind of made sense in my head to have events play out this way instead. In addition, some episodes may not be mentioned or their events may only be mentioned in passing as obviously this story is heavily focused on Allen and he's not going to always be around when the Mane Six have an episode event. In fact, some episodes may not even happen at all depending on future events in this story.

But anyways, enough yammering on my part, I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year's Eve, and I'll see you next year!

(As always, please point out any spelling mistakes you may encounter and I will correct them, thanks in advance.)

Chapter 50 (Independent Discussions)

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Chapter 50

Even though it was a Saturday morning, Allen had been up before the sun. With the weather schedule calling for hot and sunny all day, Allen had gotten up early to get his morning chores done before the heat of the day set in, and he was just now retreating back inside. His clothes already sticking to him as sweat dripped down his face from the oppressive heat and morning humidity.

Glancing at the temperature gauge on the front porch, he shook his head as he saw that it was already over eighty-five degrees and it was barely past nine in the morning. The lack of a breeze didn’t help matters either, as evident by Old Glory hanging limply from its bracket next to the steps. Quickly opening the door to escape the oppressive heat, he stepped inside and let out a happy sigh as the cool air washed over him.

Quickly shutting the door behind him, he made his way upstairs, stripping out of his sweaty clothes as he went, intent on taking a cool shower and then taking it easy for the day. After all, even farmers occasionally took holidays off and seeing as today was July 4th, Allen fully intended to enjoy the day by relaxing inside, before later cooking up a couple of steaks for himself, and enjoying the last of his beer like a true American.

Too bad nopony sells fireworks in town, he thought to himself as he deposited his sweat-soaked clothes in the laundry hamper in the bathroom. Would have been nice to celebrate by shooting some off, oh well... maybe next time.

Turning on the water, he stuck his hand inside and when the temperature was just right, stepped in and let the cool water wash away the sticky sweat and heat of the morning. As he let the water cascade over him, Allen closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation of the cool, clear water running over his hot skin. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes, grabbed the soap, and set to work getting himself clean.

After cleaning and drying himself off, Allen got dressed in a pair of old gym shorts and a white t-shirt. Heading back downstairs, he decided to get some paperwork done before he relaxed too much. Sitting down at his desk, he gathered up the various papers stacked on it and began going through them.

Most of these papers were things that Penny had already dealt with, although there was a smaller pile of papers that pertained to things she needed him to give his approval on before she could proceed, one of which was a potential source of alternative fuel for his tractors. The rest of the papers were mostly for Allen’s files so that he had copies of everything, just in case anything were to happen to the originals.

At least there isn’t a lot of paperwork that I need to take care of today, he thought thankfully to himself as he set a paper detailing last month's expenses aside for later scanning and filing.

Grabbing another paper, he quickly scanned it before adding it to the growing pile of papers to file. Of course, that assumes that I don’t let them pile up in the first place.

Settling into a rhythm, Allen quickly worked his way through the small stack of paperwork and made sure to carefully scan each one into his work computer for added redundancy and ease of access later.

As he was scanning the final paper, the sound of hooves knocking on the front door drew his attention. Pausing, he got up from his desk and went to open the front door. The heat and humidity hit his face like a brick, and he immediately started sweating as the hot, humid outside air battled with the cool, dryer air inside for dominance over the foyer. Looking out, Allen saw that he had two visitors.

“Hey Twilight, Fluttershy, what brings you two out here today?” he asked curiously upon seeing the two ponies.

Giving him a strained smile, Twilight used a hoof to wipe some of her sweat-soaked mane out of her face and replied, “Well, after your visit with Rainbow Dash the other day, Fluttershy and I realized that nopony had probably told you about some of the dangers of living near the Everfree Forest. So we decided that the first chance we got, we would come by and correct that. Though admittedly, we probably should have picked a cooler day to walk out here,” she added miserably as the heat took its toll on the two overheated ponies.

Looking between the two, Allen nodded and said, “Yeah, you two look like you should get out of the sun, here,” he said as he stepped aside and waved them in, “come on in out the heat before you stroke out or something.”

Quickly stepping inside, both Twilight and Fluttershy heaved grateful sighs of relief as the cool air flowed over their hot fur. Allen took note that Fluttershy had her wings partly extended away from her body, mimicking birds when they also got too hot.

Twilight meanwhile just panted and fanned herself with a sheaf of papers held in her magic, as she and Fluttershy followed Allen deeper into his house. Entering the kitchen, Allen quickly filled two glasses of water for his guests and handed them to the two ponies.

“Speaking of Rainbow Dash, how’s she doing?” he asked curiously.

Accepting them gratefully, both Twilight and Fluttershy chugged the cool, clean water down quickly before hoofing the glasses back to Allen for a refill. Filling them up again, Allen handed them back and the two mares proceeded to drain the cups dry again. This process repeated several times before finally the two mares were sated.

Letting out a content sigh, Twilight replied as she and Fluttershy hopped up on a pair of seats at the table. “She’s doing better. The doctor said she should be out of the hospital tomorrow. Unfortunately, she’s still not allowed to engage in powered flight for another couple of days, so she needs to have somepony take her up to her cloud house when she wants to go home.”

Filling up his own glass of water, Allen pulled up his own chair at the dining room table and sat down. “Well that sucks,” he replied.

Fluttershy nodded, and quietly added, “Thankfully she’s cleared to glide, but only from her house down to the ground, so she doesn’t need anypony to come and get her when she wants to go out for the day.”

“Yeah, and she’s only on flight restrictions for another couple of days anyways,” said Twilight as she began pulling books out of her saddlebags and setting them on the table between her and Allen. Fluttershy meanwhile had mirrored her friend and pulled out her own set of books.

“That still sounds rather inconvenient,” replied Allen as he reached across the table and scooped up a random book to read its title. “Dangerous and Annoying Beasts and Where to Avoid Them,” he read aloud, “Interesting title,” he commented as he casually flipped through the book's pages.

“It’s an older book,” replied Twilight as she opened several of the books in front of her to various pages, “and not everything in it is accurate. However it’s a good starting point, I think, for somepony new to Equestria’s native fauna.”

“It will at least give you an idea of which animals are best left alone,” added Fluttershy softly.

Allen nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. So what should I be most worried about coming out of the Everfree?”

“Honestly? Not much comes out of the forest of its own volition,” admitted Twilight, “most things tend to avoid the edges of the forest unless food stocks run low further in or something causes them to leave. Though the timber wolves tend to get more aggressive during certain times of the year, or at least that is what Applejack has told me.”

Allen nodded absently, as he turned a page. “Probably due to mating season, having pups, or a lack of food in their territory,” he remarked off-handedly, “we have timber wolves back home, though none live in my area.”

“You are already familiar with them?” asked Twilight, greatly surprised that Allen had experience with the magical constructs when he had previously stated there was no noticeable magic in his world.

Perhaps his people don’t consider their timber wolves to be magical in nature or maybe they have evolved to be able to survive in a world with little mana? Odd, this bears additional study, she thought quietly to herself.

“More or less, I’ve never seen one in the wild before, only in books and TV documentaries,” admitted Allen as he casually flipped through the book, glancing over the various entries. “Us humans hunted many of them to extinction or near extinction over the years. It’s only been in the last few decades that conservation movements have worked to get their numbers back up in certain areas of the country.”

Opening her mouth to inquire further, she was interrupted when Allen turned the book around, and pointing to an illustration, asked, “You guys have cockatrices here too?”

Leaning forward, her question momentarily forgotten, Twilight looked at the entry that Allen was pointing at. It depicted a creature with the head of a chicken and the body of a winged reptile hissing at the reader, its leathery wings spread out in an intimidating display.

“We do,” she replied, a shiver running down her spine as she recalled her relatively recent encounter with one. “And speaking from personal experience, I highly recommend that you steer clear of them. They are very territorial and will turn you to stone when they lock eyes with you.”

Pulling the book back to himself, Allen looked at Twilight in surprise, and asked, “You were turned to stone?”

Twilight shivered again. “I was out doing some research on local flora one night in the forest shortly after I moved to Ponyville, and I accidentally stumbled upon one. After our eyes met, I couldn’t look away, and I felt myself turning to stone. The next thing I remember was walking up with Fluttershy standing over me asking me if I was alright.”

“So you don’t remember anything else?” asked Allen curiously.

Twilight shook her head. “No, it was like falling asleep. One minute, I was turning to stone, the next, I was back to normal. Though it was still a terrifying experience as I hadn’t really told anypony where I was going that night. If Fluttershy and the Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn’t found him, I don’t know how long I would have been stuck out there for.”

“I’m sorry, the Cutie Mark what now?”

Twilight sighed, as she rubbed her forehead with a hoof, the mere thought of the terrible trio bringing a headache on. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders are a trio of... energetic local fillies who are trying to earn their cutie marks by doing anything, and everything, they can think of to get them, with often... very messy results.”

“I see,” replied Allen, “should I be concerned?”

Twilight shook her head. “Unlikely since you live so far outside of town, but if you are approached by some fillies named Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, or Scootaloo, offering to help you with something, then you should be cautious. I made the mistake of letting them help me organize the library one time,” she shuddered, “I still can’t figure out how they got tree sap between every single page of every book in the library.”

Allen winced at the mental picture. “I’ll... keep that in mind,” quickly moving the subject back to the previous topic, he asked, “So how did you become de-petrified?”

“Oh, I convinced the cockatrice to turn Twilight back from stone,” interjected Fluttershy softly.

“And... how did you do that?” asked Allen skeptically.

Blushing a little and hiding her face slightly behind her mane, Fluttershy replied, “Well, I just used The Stare on him, and gave him a good scolding. He was more than willing to turn her back to normal after that.”

“Wait, you looked at the cockatrice, scolded it, and he turned Twilight back? I’m confused, I thought you weren’t supposed to look at them or they would turn you to stone?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh you aren’t, and they do, but my special talent is related to animals, and I can usually get even the most uncooperative animal to behave themselves... but I will admit, it was a bit of a gamble that I took. However, I didn’t really have many options at the time, considering I was trying to protect the girls from the cockatrice.”

“I feel as though there is a story there,” remarked Allen dryly.

Both Twilight and Fluttershy looked at each other and smiled. Turning back to Allen, Fluttershy nodded and quickly told Allen the story of her first time foalsitting the Cutie Mark Crusaders. By the time she had finished her story, Allen was shaking his head. Geez, it sounds like those three are a walking disaster waiting to happen. He thought to himself as his mind tried to put faces to the names. I know I’ve heard those names before though. I think Sweetie Belle is Rarity’s sister, and I think I met them all at that Q and A session at the schoolhouse back in May. He wondered to himself, however after a moment, he decided it wasn’t important enough at the moment to worry about, and shook his head. Taking a drink of water instead, he replied, “Well, that’s quite the story.”

Fluttershy nodded. “They can be a hoofful at times, but they are really sweet fillies. They just need to learn to tone down their crusading activities a bit.”

“Yeah... no kidding,” remarked Allen as he set his glass down. “So other than scolding a cockatrice into turning people back to normal, is there any other way to turn them back?”

Twilight took the opportunity to reply. “There are,” she nodded, “after I was petrified, I did some research and found that there are several spells that can be used on an affected individual, along with some potions that can both protect you from and reverse petrification. Zecora, the local zebra shamaness, can make them quite easily and Ponyville General is well-stocked with many of her potions. So, just so long as you are found, the effects can be reversed.”

“And while you are petrified you don’t notice time passing?” inquired Allen curiously.

“As far as we know, you won’t,” replied Twilight with a shake of her head. “The longest known case of a pony being petrified was over one hundred years, and after their initial shock of finding themselves in the future, they reported they don’t recall experiencing time pass for them. One minute they were walking along, the next, they woke up in a hospital.”

“One hundred years?! Jesus H. Christ, that’s horrifying,” exclaimed Allen. “What happened to them afterward?”

“They went on to live a full and happy life, with no noticeable side effects of having been petrified for so long. I think they passed away a few years ago. From my understanding, the first few years were difficult, but after they met their spouse, it became easier.”

“What about their family?” pressed Allen.

“Apparently, their parents had already passed away before they were petrified, but their siblings were all still alive, though obviously much older, so they were able to reconnect with them before they passed away, which helped,” said Twilight.

“Damn, they were still alive? How long do you guys live for again?” asked Allen incredulously.

“It depends, on average pegasi tend to have the shortest life spans, being around one hundred to one hundred and twenty years, earth ponies tend to live the longest, with some making it to two hundred, but the average is around one-fifty, while unicorns are a mixed bag. Some can live for many years, while others live around one hundred and forty or so,” explained Twilight. “It really just depends on how strong their magic is, and what they do for a living.”

Allen felt his eyebrows creep higher and higher as Twilight spoke and by the end of it, he was shaking his head. “Damn, that’s crazy, I know that Dr. Stable told me I could expect to live a bit longer now that my thaumic network was fixed but to hear that there are some of you guys living past two hundred years old is just mind-blowing.”

Twilight giggled. “Well, if that blew your mind then hang on, because Princess Celestia and Luna are both well over a thousand years old.”

Allen blinked in disbelief. “Bullshit,” he said simply.

“It’s true!” replied Twilight defensively at hearing Allen’s blatant skepticism. “Go out and ask anypony and they’ll tell you that the princesses don’t age, or if they do, it’s so slow as to be unnoticeable.”

“But... how?”

Twilight shrugged. “Not even the princesses know, and I know that because I asked her once and she told me she doesn’t know why she and her sister age so slowly, and I suppose in the end it doesn’t really matter. Besides, they’re not the only beings on the planet that age slowly. Dragons, for example, can easily live for thousands of years. Hydra’s are also known to have very long life spans as well.”

“It’s mostly due to their ability to regenerate lost or damaged body parts, up to and including their heads,” explained Fluttershy softly when Twilight paused to look through one of her books for references.

Allen just shook his head in amazement. “Just when I start getting used to how things work around here, you guys throw me another curve ball. Okay, so getting back on topic, what other things do I need to worry about?”

“Well, other than the cockatrices, timber wolves, and the occasional parasprite, not much really. Most of the really dangerous stuff, such as hydras and manticores tend to live further inside the Everfree,” replied Twilight absently, as she read from one of her books. “Though if you go to Froggy Bottom bog, you’ll be more likely to run into cragadiles and hydras.”

“Cragadiles, don’t you mean crocodiles?” asked Allen, unsure if he’d heard Twilight correctly.

Twilight shook her head. “Nope, cragadile. It’s a cousin of the crocodile, but its hide is very tough with a texture and composition similar to rocks, hence the name. Though for all intents and purposes, it acts the same as its cousin, the crocodile.”

“Okay, and uh, what’s a ‘parasprite’?” asked Allen, a small headache forming in the back of his brain.

Fluttershy winced and shrunk in on herself a little. “It’s a small, colorful bug that looks really, really cute, but will eat everything in sight if you let it, and it multiplies very, very fast. We had an infestation of them last year, and they nearly destroyed the town. Thankfully, Pinkie was able to get them to return to the Everfree using polka music.”

“Oookay?” said Allen, a confused and worried look on his face, as he wasn’t sure what to make of Fluttershy’s description of the little pest.

“They look like this,” said Twilight helpfully as she levitated her book over to Allen.

Taking the book in his hands, he looked down at the page in question and saw a picture of a small, green orb with large eyes, small legs, and tiny iridescent wings hovering in front of the camera.

Fluttershy is right, it does look kinda cute, thought Allen as he began to read the description underneath the photo.

Parasprites are voracious eaters and can easily wipe out entire fields of food in minutes if the swarm is large enough. Additionally, they reproduce asexually by consuming twice their body weight in food and expelling their resulting offspring out through their mouth. This form of reproduction allows the parasprite to rapidly multiply and one may turn into thousands within an hour or less. Thankfully, parasprite swarms are rare and are easily contained by using appropriate music, such as polka or standard marching music, and leading the swarm away from populated areas. Additionally, the average lifespan of a parasprite that is in swarming mode is less than forty-eight hours, hence its high birth rate. If they are not swarming, however, they have been known to live for upwards of one to two weeks. Parasprites have many predators in the wild and are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world. As such, between their short life spans, and the many entities that feed on them, their populations are kept under control.

Scratch that, it is no longer cute, and must be destroyed on sight, thought Allen grimly as he finished reading the bug's description.

Setting the book down on the table, Allen leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Alright, well if I see any of the little buggers, I’m hitting them with a can of Raid, and the biggest fly swatter I have.”

“What’s ‘raid’?” asked Twilight.

“It’s an insecticide used to kill bugs, such as wasps, cockroaches, ants, and such,” explained Allen simply.

“Oh, interesting,” she replied before returning to looking over her books for additional information.

Allen meanwhile had gone back to idly looking through the book Twilight had given him and had come across the section dealing with manticores. Looks like they’re the same here as in our mythology back home, thought Allen as he flipped the page. In fact, there are a lot of creatures here that are essentially identical to the mythological ones back home. It’s very strange that our worlds have so many similarities in mythical creatures. Makes me wonder if they were somehow connected in the distant past or something.

Turning a page, he came across an entry showing a large eel-like creature sticking out of the side of a cliff. Hmm... Quarray Eels... is that? Yep, that’s a pun. Sigh, well at least they prefer to live in rock caves in the side of cliffs instead of soil, so the odds of having to worry about dealing with an Equestrian version of a Graboid are low. Shaking his head, Allen set the book aside and drained his glass of water. Once it was empty he stood up and refilled it. Turning around, he leaned against the sink and asked, “So those woods on the other side of the river from my farm are part of the Everfree Forest?”

“They are,” confirmed Twilight with a nod.

“And so long as I don’t go wandering too far into the forest I’ll be fine?” he asked.

“Most likely,” she nodded again, “though there is no guarantee that something won’t come out of the forest, so I would still advise caution when working near it. Timber wolves have been known to wander out at random intervals and attack ponies near the edge of the forest.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Allen as he closed the cover of Dangerous and Annoying Beasts and Where to Avoid Them. Scooting back his chair, he stood up, looked at the nearby clock, and asked, “So was there anything else you wanted to tell me about the Everfree?”

Both Twilight and Fluttershy looked at each other before turning back to Allen. “Well, there are also some plants you need to look out for, and a few other creatures we haven’t covered yet,” said Twilight.

“But will I need to worry about them if I stay out of the forest?” asked Allen as he headed for his fridge and began pulling out the fixings for his solo BBQ, namely a couple of steaks, some potatoes, and a couple of ears of corn on the cob that he had purchased in town the other day that had been grown in one of the locals greenhouses.

“Well technically no, but it never hurts to be prepared in case you need to venture into the forest sooner rather than later,” replied Twilight as she watched Allen begin preparing his food at the kitchen counter, “are you planning on having lunch or something? We can go if you want,” she said, having noticed Allen’s meal preparation, and not wanting to be a bother.

Allen shook his head. “Naw, I’m just prepping for my solo cookout today,” he said as he went back to the fridge and pulled out one of the last few beer cans. Popping the top with a hiss of escaping air, he took a swig and went back to work. “Besides, it's the middle of the day, and pretty hot out, and it doesn’t feel right to kick you out just so that I can eat by myself, so I don’t mind you staying a bit. In fact,” he paused and opened the fridge door to see if he had any pony-friendly foods, “I think I’ve got enough fixings here to make you both a nice salad if you want, as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for giving me the heads up about the forest.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to impose,” replied Twilight with a hasty wave of her hooves.

“I’m not much of a salad eater, so this stuff will all just go to waste otherwise,” admitted Allen, “Penny is the one that brought it over the other day when she and I had a working lunch, that was more work than lunch, so we didn’t eat as much as we thought we were going to,” he said as he started pulling additional ingredients out of the fridge and setting them on the counter.

Both Twilight and Fluttershy looked at each other for a moment, unsure if they should accept Allen’s offer or not. However, after a moment, they decided to go for it, and with a small smile, they turned back to Allen, and Twilight replied, “Thank you, Allen, we’d be happy to have lunch with you. Though next time, we’re going to treat you to a meal on our bit.”

Allen laughed and set about mixing the salad and various cut vegetables together. “Alright, I’ll hold you to that.”

As Allen worked, Twilight and Fluttershy glanced around his kitchen while they waited. Noticing Allen’s calendar hanging on the upper fridge door, Twilight saw that today’s date was circled and had a small bit of text at the bottom. Unfortunately, she was too far away to make out what it said, and not wanting to let an awkward silence descend due to lack of conversation, she asked, “So do you mind if I ask why you have today’s date circled? Were you planning on doing anything special today?”

Allen shrugged. “Sort of,” pointing to the calendar, he said, “It’s July 4th today,” as if that explained everything.

Twilight nodded slowly. “Yes, yes it is and is that a significant date for you and your people?” she asked as she slowly began pulling out her ever present and faithful quill and parchment from her saddlebags.

Allen paused his meal preparations and sighed, as he realized that naturally, Twilight would be ignorant of the importance of that date to him. It was easy to forget sometimes that not everyone knew about your country’s Independence Day, or cared.

Resuming his work with a nod, he replied, “It’s the day my country was born. July 4th, 1776 was the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed, which declared that we were no longer a colony of Great Britain, but an independent nation free from foreign rule.”

“I can’t imagine this ‘Great Britain’ was too happy about that,” remarked Twilight as she quickly set to work committing words to parchment.

Allen shook his head. “They weren’t, and we fought each other for another six years until they finally gave up and went away, with a lot of help from the French and Spanish of course,” he added as he began dividing up the salad between two bowls for his guests.

“Soooo... why did your country separate itself from Great Britain?” asked Twilight, a hungry curiosity burning in her eyes, her quill continuing to dance across her lengthy parchment.

“Taxes mostly,” replied Allen simply as he set the pair of bowls down in front of the two mares, who thanked him for the food, before he resumed his explanation, “along with a few other things that annoyed the local colonists to the point that they had enough. Honestly, if the king had been less of a douche and had been more willing to work with the colonies, we’d have probably remained subjects of him. But that’s just my American bias kicking in. I’m sure someone from England would have said that if us colonists hadn’t been such whiny, ungrateful bastards and just done what we were told, we’d have gotten along just fine.”

“Um... I feel as though we’re missing a lot of context here,” commented Fluttershy, as Twilight was too busy scribbling notes to say anything.

Allen nodded as he filled a pot with water and dumped the de-husked corn cobs in it before turning the burner on underneath. “Oh yeah, but I don’t have the time to give you guys a history lesson on the who, what, where, when, how, and why the Revolutionary War happened. That would take days. All you need to know is that we got tired of being ignored and pushed around by the king and essentially said, ‘Screw you guys, we’re going home,’ and left.”

“Fascinating,” muttered Twilight absently as she continued to write.

“So what are you planning on doing today then?” asked Fluttershy as she took a small bite of her salad. “That is... if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Well normally, my dad invites friends and family over and we have a big cookout every year, complete with fireworks and lots of beer drinking. Sometimes we’d go to town and watch the local parade and fireworks show there. But since I’m by myself this year, and nopony around in Ponyville sells fireworks, I’m just going to settle for taking it easy today, have a nice steak, and enjoy the last of my beer,” he replied as he washed the potatoes, stabbed them and then stuck them in the microwave to cook.

“Were you planning on inviting anypony over to celebrate with you? Maybe Penny or your workers?”

“Not really. Penny is busy right now, and I figured most everybody else was probably busy doing other things or trying to beat the heat to be bothered coming over to celebrate the birth of a nation they have no knowledge of,” replied Allen with a shrug.

“I see...” Fluttershy fidgeted a bit as she glanced at Twilight who was still scribbling away on her parchment, and not wanting to let an awkward silence take hold, she screwed up her courage and asked, “So that flag with the red and white stripes on your porch is your country’s flag?”

Allen smiled and nodded as he turned around. “Yep, the stripes represent the original thirteen colonies, and the stars represent each state in the union. There are currently fifty states that comprise the United States of America, so there are fifty stars,” he paused, noticing that both mares' water glasses were low, and pointing asked, “Would you like some more water?”

“Yes, please,” Giving a thankful nod, Fluttershy pushed her glass closer to Allen, who leaned across the table to grab both of them.

Filling them up, he returned the glasses back to their spots on the table and resumed his work. Fluttershy, meanwhile wracked her brain to figure out what to ask Allen next as the dreaded awkward silence began to descend upon the group. Thankfully after a few moments, an idea popped into her mind, and she blurted out, “So how are your animals doing?”

Looking back over his shoulder as he seasoned the steaks, Allen saw that Fluttershy was giving him an awkward and strained smile, and sensing she was way out of her comfort zone, he took pity on her and returned her rigid smile with a gentle one of his own.

“They are doing very well. Nothing out of the ordinary, other than the chicken eggs are tasting better than before. Reuben’s coat is shinier, and he’s been putting on more weight, even though I haven’t been feeding him any more food than usual. In fact, all of my animals are packing on the pounds and seem much healthier than usual. Not that they were sick or anything back home, but that they just seem to have a sort of... healthy glow to them, if that makes sense.”

Glad to be on a subject she was comfortable with, Fluttershy seized the opportunity and replied, “It must be the higher concentration of mana in their diet. If they are gaining weight, you might need to cut back on how much you are feeding them. Giving them too much food could lead to health issues.”

Allen nodded as he finished up the last of his food preparation. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about cutting all of them back around ten percent of what I normally feed them, and seeing how they respond. Though I honestly didn’t expect the mana in the soil to be impacting them this quickly. I figured it would take a year or two before I started seeing changes.”

“Mana is a lot like water,” interjected Twilight as she committed her final thought to parchment and set her writing implements aside. “It likes to take the path of least resistance, and with your farm having little to no mana in the soil, it is not a surprise that the local mana reserves were quick to fill it in and reestablish equilibrium. The plants meanwhile, having been deprived of mana, likely sucked it up as fast as it came in.”

“Well that would explain why my hay fields along the border of the farm were so good in comparison to the ones further in during first cutting,” mused Allen as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Exactly,” nodded Twilight, “and the longer your farm remains in Equestria, the greater the impact will be. Your animals will become stronger, and healthier.”

“Well they’re definitely healthier that’s for sure,” said Allen with a nod of his head as he headed for the sliding glass doors.

Both Fluttershy and Twilight made to get up to politely follow Allen outside, however, a wave of his hand made them stay where they were while Allen stepped outside to fire up his propane grill.

Getting the grill lit up, Allen closed the lid, stepped back inside, and taking a sip of his cool beer, he asked, “So Twilight, how is the research on getting me home going?”

Twilight swallowed, and replied sadly, “Very slowly. Even with all of the help that Princess Celestia and Luna have given us recently, both Lyra and I have a lot of material to sift through. What’s worse is that what we’ve found so far seems to point to it being very difficult if not impossible to send large amounts of matter between dimensions without consuming an astronomical amount of energy.”

“So you’re saying I’m stuck here forever?” asked Allen quietly as he stared down into his beer can as if he’d find the answer floating in the alcoholic liquid.

Twilight sensing Allen’s souring mood, quickly shook her head and explained, “No, just that we can’t send you back right now. We’ve found some promising leads lately, but there are a lot of unknown variables that we still need to work through, and what that means is that our only current way of sending you back would be by brute forcing it. Which is the most inefficient solution, not to mention the fact that we don’t have any reliable way of finding your home amongst all of the other possible worlds out there.

She paused and shook her head as she tried to gather her thoughts better. “Both Lyra and I have been combing through everything we can find on the matter, and... well, as I said, there is a lot of stuff to go through, and not all of it is going to be useful. We have found evidence that Starswirl the Bearded supposedly created a stable portal to another world before he disappeared with the help of a friend of his, and while that’s a positive sign, we’re not sure if that will help get you back home. Besides, nopony is sure where the portal is any more or even what it looks like. I’ve asked Princess Celestia if she could help, and she told me she has ponies working on trying to locate it. She thinks it's a mirror, and that it’s somewhere in Canterlot Castle, but she doesn’t really remember.”

Allen sighed and took a long pull of his beer, draining the can in one go. “Well... that’s disappointing,” he said quietly as he set the now empty can on the counter and grabbed another one out of the fridge.

“But we’re obviously not giving up!” replied Twilight hastily, seeing Allen’s forlorn look. “And one never knows what can happen! I mean, we haven’t even managed to finish looking through all of Canterlot’s or Manehatten’s archives yet, and there are still plenty of archives inside and outside of Equestria that we can look through... but it’s going to take more time... I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” replied Allen as we waved away her apology with his hand, “you guys are doing the best that you can with what you got. I mean, unless you’re willing to risk releasing this Discord guy and try and get him to talk, you’re kind of limited on what you can do at this point.”

“Yeah...” sighed Twilight as she for a brief, and crazy moment, considered the idea of freeing Discord. However, she shook her head and quickly discarded the idea. We only just managed to get that maniac back in his stone prison, there is no way we’re going to let him back out without looking everywhere else first.

Conversation trailed off at this point as no one was sure what to say next. Allen took the opportunity that the lull in conversation gave him to go and check the grill and seeing that it had reached temperature, he grabbed his plate of steaks off the counter and put them on. The smell of cooking meat soon drifting across the deck.

Closing the lid again, he stepped back inside and shut the door in an effort to keep the cool air inside. However, he didn’t stray far from the door as he kept an eye on the grill from just inside.

Twilight meanwhile broke the silence by asking him how things were going on the farm. To which Allen replied, “Pretty well, all things considered. We’ve managed to get a good rhythm going with hay production, and have been making regular deliveries.”

“I saw a few of them pass by the library on the way to the train station,” nodded Twilight.

“Yeah, apparently, Mr. Rich has filled up his local warehouse, and ponies aren’t able to take the hay away fast enough, so he’s been sending the excess hay to his other stores in Canterlot and Manehatten.”

“Is it selling well there?” asked Fluttershy as she finished her salad.

Alle nodded. “Sure looks that way. The local store managers are begging for more, and so we’re sending as much as we can to them. But I’m starting to run into the issue of distance.”

Tilting her head, a forkful of lettuce suspended in her magic, Twilight asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well,” began Allen as he stepped out quickly to check on the steaks, before slipping back inside, “I’ve cut all of the hay that I can on my farm for the moment, and I’ve been cutting all of the fields closest to my farm as well. Unfortunately, grass doesn’t grow back in a day, even with good weather, and so we have to go farther and farther away from the farm to work. That translates to more fuel consumed along with wear and tear on the equipment with no real work getting done. I’ve been getting around that by having my workers pull my equipment to the hay fields before I fire it up. But that slows us down and tires them out, and is just an all-around pain in the ass.”

“Is there anything you can do about your fuel problem?” asked Twilight.

Allen nodded as he spared a glance out through the glass door at the grill. “Yeah, at least in the short term. Penny has had a bit of luck in that regard. The solution isn’t perfect, but it’ll stretch my fuel reserves even further if I go with it.”

“What did she find?” asked Fluttershy curiously as she watched Allen step outside again to go flip the steaks over.

Allen replied as he closed the door behind him, “Used fryer oil apparently. It’s not perfect, and I’ll need to make a couple of modifications to the tractors, but it’ll do for now. Thankfully, I use older diesel engines, so they are more forgiving on what I run through them.”

“Is it going to be difficult to make these modifications?” asked Twilight.

Allen shook his head. “Naw, I just need to bolt an additional fuel tank on the side of the tractors and hook in another fuel line with a valve to cut off the oil when I’m not using it. The problem is going to be getting the fryer oil clean, as well as keeping it fully liquid. I’ll need a way to keep it from congealing in the fuel tank. Probably the easiest way is to put an electric heating element in it, while another option would be to run a hose from the radiator through it so that the tractor will keep it warm naturally. Of course, that will mean that I have to run diesel fuel for a bit until the tractor warms up enough that I can switch over, and I’ll have to switch back to diesel before I shut it down so that way I can clear the lines of the oil.”

“What would happen if you didn’t do that?” asked Fluttershy curiously.

“The oil would congeal in the engine and I wouldn’t be able to get the tractor to start again,” explained Allen, “basically if I forgot to clear the fuel lines, I’d have to tear down the engine and clean out all of the congealed oil before I could start it again.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” replied Fluttershy quietly.

Allen shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t, but so long as I remember to switch back to diesel before I shut down for the night, it should be fine. Unfortunately, I’m not one-hundred percent sure if running the tractor on straight fryer oil isn’t going to cause additional problems down the road in regards to maintenance, but I’m kind of running out of options, so it’s a bit of ‘damned I do, and damned if I don’t' situation,” he replied with a helpless shrug.

“Why don’t you just modify one tractor to run on the fryer oil, and so that way if anything bad happens, you’ll still have the others?” suggested Twilight.

Allen nodded. “I was considering that. If I did that, I would probably modify the 806, as it can do both the mowing and round baling, and it's in better condition than the seven.”

“But if something goes wrong, wouldn’t you rather it be with the other tractor?” questioned Twilight.

“Yeah, but the whole point of using the fryer oil is to cut down on fuel usage, and the 706 can’t run the round baler, so modifying the seven wouldn’t be as good, because I would only be able to use part of my hay equipment. Besides, even if the eight does go down, I still have the Case 7220 for baler work. Like I said, it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the best that I have right now, and unless there is some magical creature or plant out there that can produce diesel fuel that you guys haven’t told me about, then this is the next best thing.”

Both Twilight and Fluttershy looked at each other for a moment, before Twilight replied hesitantly, “As far as I know, I haven’t read about any creature or plant that can secrete fuel. What about you Fluttershy?”

The pegasus shook her head. “Me neither.”

Stepping back outside one last time, Allen saw that his steaks were ready, and after turning off the grill and piling the cooked meat on a clean plate, he came back in and said, “Well then, I guess this is as good an option as we’re going to get. Because Penny hasn’t been able to find anything else even remotely close to what I need.”

“Anyways,” he said as he walked past the two mares and set the plate on the counter, steam lazily wafting off the succulent meat, “other than that, there hasn’t been much going on around here besides working our tails off,” he quickly loaded up his plate with food, and sat down at the table. Spreading some butter on his potato and ear of corn he asked, “So what about you guys? Anything happening since I last saw you?”

Finishing off her salad, Twilight swallowed and replied, “Well, school’s been out for the last few weeks, so between doing research with Lyra, I’ve helped Ms. Cheerilee set up a summer reading program for the foals. They get points for each book that they read, and when they accrue enough, they get to pick a prize.”

Cutting into his steak, Allen took a bite and chewed, relishing the tender meat and delicious juices as they hit his tongue. Swallowing he cocked an eyebrow and asked, “What kind of prizes?”

“Well, I was planning on giving away books, but Ms. Cheerilee suggested we give away things such as balls, inexpensive toys, coupons to various stores in town, such as Sugarcube Corner, and so on,” replied Twilight, a hint of a pout on her lips as if she couldn’t believe that anypony wouldn’t love the idea of winning a book for reading books.

Smiling, Allen took a bite out of his corn on the cob and replied, “Sounds a lot like what my local library did when I was a kid back home.”

Twilight’s ears perked up and she asked, “Oh, and how was it?”

Taking a sip of beer, Allen replied, “Pretty good. The prizes were nice, for a kid anyways, and it was something to do during the summer. I’d ride my bike to the library and spend an afternoon there reading, before going and getting some ice cream at the ice cream parlor down the road,” his face relaxed into a smile as his mind took a trip to a happier time. Pausing, he noticed that both Twilight and Fluttershy’s bowls were empty, and glancing back at the counter, saw that there was still plenty of salad left. Pointing at it, he asked, “Do you want some more salad? I’ve got plenty left.”

Smiling, Twilight lit up her horn and floated the bowl over. “Thank you, and yes, as I don’t know about Fluttershy, but I’m still pretty hungry,” her stomach took the opportunity to growl loudly in agreement.

Everyone froze for a second at the sudden growl before glancing at each other and then bursting out into laughter. Calming down, Twilight quickly portioned out the rest of the salad between her and Fluttershy and the group resumed eating and chatting about whatever came to mind.

Time quickly flew by, and before the group knew it the sun was beginning to set in the distance. Glancing outside, Allen remarked as he stood up from the table, gathering the dishes as he did so, “It’s getting late, you two should probably start heading home before it gets too dark, and I better get out and get everyone fed.”

Twilight nodded in agreement as she gathered her things and carefully put them back in her saddlebags. “Agreed, I wasn’t expecting to stay this long, sorry about that,” she apologized.

Allen smiled and waved her apology away as he set several dishes and plates in the sink. “It’s fine, it was good to have some company today. Even if it wasn’t the usual celebration my family did, it was still a nice little get-together.”

“Yes, it was rather nice, thank you for letting us stay,” said Fluttershy as she too got up from her seat and gently pushed it back in.

“No problem,” replied Allen as he grabbed his ballcap off one of the pegs on the pantry door and motioned for the two mares to follow him into the foyer so that he could change into his work boots.

“I’ll go ahead and leave Dangerous and Annoying Beasts and Where to Avoid Them here for you, in case you want to look it over some more,” said Twilight as she and Fluttershy waited for Allen to put his boots on.

Pulling his laces tight, Allen replied, “Thanks, I’ll look at it later.”

Tightening the last of his bootlaces, he stood up and opened the door, the hot, humid air smacking him in the face as he stepped outside and to the side so that Twilight and Fluttershy could come out behind him. Quickly shutting the door, he wiped his brow with a hand, as even though the sun was heading down, it was still oppressively hot enough out that he was already sweating.

And I haven’t even done more than take a half a dozen steps outside.

Turning around, he glanced down at the two mares and said, “Welp, I better get chores started, and you two better get going before it gets too dark.”

They both nodded. “Yes, we should, thanks for lunch Allen,” replied Twilight with a smile.

“And thank you for the warning about the Everfree,” said Allen with a grateful nod as he and the two ponies walked down the sidewalk together. “Though I’m not really planning on going on a hike there anytime soon.” Both Twilight and Fluttershy giggled at his joke.

Reaching the driveway, Allen said, “Well, goodnight, and I’ll see you two around sometime.”

“Same to you,” replied Twilight happily, while Fluttershy just nodded, a small smile on her face as the two of them set off towards town.

Allen returned their waves and headed for the barn so as to get started on evening chores.

Reaching the end of Allen’s driveway, Fluttershy and Twilight both turned towards town and walked in companionable silence for a time. As they entered the edges of Sweet Apple Acres, Fluttershy quietly turned to Twilight and said, “Well, I think that went well.”

Twilight nodded in agreement. “I think so too, though one thing still confuses me.”

“What’s that?”

“Allen mentioned that there were timber wolves back where he lived, but not anything else, even though he knew what a cockatrice and a hydra were. Though from the way he spoke of them, it sounds as though they were more myth than reality,” replied Twilight, a puzzled look on her face. “What’s more,” she continued, “he said that his world has little to no mana in it, though the fact that he has an appendix seems to indicate that there is at least a little mana floating around.”

“Maybe his timber wolves are able to survive in a low mana environment?” guessed Fluttershy.

“Hmm, maybe, but something is telling me that his timberwolves, and our timbers are not the same.”

“Well then how come you didn’t say anything?” asked Fluttershy.

Twilight’s shoulders sagged slightly, and her ears pinned back. “I didn’t want to overload him with too much information at once, and don’t give me that look, I’m getting better at not lecturing ponies all the time as I used to,” grumped Twilight when she saw Fluttershy’s look of disbelief at her not jumping at the opportunity to spew knowledge like an erupting volcano every chance she got. “Besides, he’s got Dangerous and Annoying Beasts and Where to Avoid Them, and that book has a whole section dedicated to timber wolves. Plus, he seems to at least have a basic understanding of their behavior and that it is best to avoid them if he sees one.”

“True,” nodded Fluttershy in agreement, “and it’s not like they come out of the Everfree that often anyways.”

“Exactly, besides, this section of the Everfree is separated by the river, so unless they have a way to cross it, they’re unlikely to be an immediate threat to him. Besides, it’s kind of hard to mistake a timber wolf for anything else,” replied Twilight with a single nod. Opening her mouth to continue her current thought, she was cut off by the sound of distant thunder coming from the direction of the Everfree.

Stopping, the two mares looked to the east and saw dark thunderclouds gathering menacingly over the distant forest, and a sudden burst of wind caused the pair to shiver as the temperature plunged sharply.

Looking at each other, Fluttershy quietly said, “I think we better hurry home, it looks like a nasty storm is coming out of the Everfree.”

While uncommon, wild weather was prone to spill out of the Everfree from time to time. It was one of the reasons that all towns, no matter how small, that bordered the forest had their own dedicated weather team to combat these storms in an attempt to lessen the damage caused by them.

Studying the angry clouds for a moment, Twilight was quick to agree as the pair hurriedly resumed their journey. “Yes, let’s get going. Hopefully, the weather team will be able to keep the storm from hitting us or at least lessen the impact.”

“I don’t know, that looks like a pretty nasty front forming over there,” worried Fluttershy, “and with Dash unable to help, the weather team is going to really struggle to keep that storm away.”

“I’m sure they’ll manage,” replied Twilight confidently, though even to her ears, her confidence sounded hollow.

Author's Notes:

Ugh, these last three months sucked. I'm really glad I got the last chapter out on Dec. 31st because when January hit, everything went down the crapper. First I caught a nasty stomach bug that landed me in the emergency room as I couldn't keep any food or fluids down and ended up with blood sugar so low they couldn't even get a reading, and even after giving me meds to help with my nasuea and getting my blood sugar back up, I was still pretty sick for the rest of the week.

Then the next day, my dad went to the doctor for some antibiotics to help fight off a nasty cough he'd had for a while. However, when he got there they found out that he was suffering from congestive heart failure and tachycardia episodes. So he got to spend a week in ICU, after which they put a pacemaker in him and gave him some meds to keep his heart under control. (He is doing a lot better now, thankfully,) but that was pretty stressful and killed all of my motivation to write for a while.

Then through February and the early part of March I was working overtime and stuck on first shift, which sucked because, by the time I came home, I was too tired to write anything. Though now they've finally put me on second shift, and I haven't had to work any overtime since, so I can actually start writing again as I'm not tired all the time.

Then let's not forget the fact that I've probably re-written this chapter several times, and even now I'm not entirely happy with it, but you guys have been waiting long enough for it, and it's apparently been long enough since my last update that people are starting to put this story in their 'dead' bookshelves. So yeah, I figured a mediocre chapter was better than none, so here you go.

Anyways, here's hoping it doesn't take me three months again to push out another chapter.

Chapter 51 (Wooden Problems)

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Chapter 51

Allen stood and glared at the large tree that had dared to flatten his fence. It was a giant, gnarled oak that had probably been there since before Ponyville was even an idea in the first settlers' heads. Now it was a mess of smashed, moss-covered branches and cracked wood laying across his back field’s boundary fence next to the river.

Speaking of the river, it had nearly burst its banks. The previous night's storm had caused it to rise alarmingly high. However, thanks to the efforts of the local weather team, they had managed to divert enough of the storm clouds away from Ponyville that the river hadn’t flooded, but only just. Even now its usually calm, clear waters were a roiling, muddy brown, with pieces of debris floating down the river.

Turning his attention back to the tree, Allen shook his head. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked the felled giant. The tree had no answer, nor did Allen expect it to give one. Looking down the trunk towards the Everfree side of the river, he saw the reason for the ancient trees' demise.

“Looks like the river washed away your section of embankment during that storm last night,” he said to no one in particular. Shaking his head again, he sighed as he tried to figure out the best way to remove this current obstruction in his field.

“Hmm... I can cut away most of your canopy, but your trunk is just too damned big for my saws, and I don’t have any explosives to clear you with either. Ugh, this is not what I wanted to be doing today. Well, on the positive side, I’ll have a good supply of top-grade firewood for a while,” he said to himself as he turned and headed back towards the house.

As he walked, he looked down the fence line for as far as he could see, and other than this one particular tree, no others had managed to make it across the river. Though from the looks of things, plenty of them fell in the river. He thought as he spotted a group of trees that had formed a large log jam just downriver from where he stood. Can’t let that sit there too long or it’ll dam up the river and make a mess.

Closing the gate to the field behind him, Allen again shook his head as he stuck his hands in his back pockets and trudged through the wet grass. In all honesty, he was a little irritated. With all of the unexpected rain they had gotten last night, all of his fields were too wet to get the equipment out into them, and probably would be for the next couple of days. What was worse was the fact that it was still plenty hot out, and with the humidity at damn near one hundred percent, he didn’t expect anything to dry worth a damn.

At least I didn’t have any hay down, he grumbled to himself as he walked.

Reaching the farmyard, he made a beeline for the nearest machine shed and began rummaging around for his tools. After a half-hour he’d managed to find his biggest saw, a five-gallon can of gas, cut with motor oil for the saw, a jug of water, some used motor oil for chain lube, some rope, an axe, gloves, hearing and eye protection, and a wheelbarrow to carry everything in.

With everything collected, Allen soon returned to the fallen tree and set about getting started. Fueling up the saw, he put on his hearing protection, as well as his safety goggles. Priming the saw, and opening the choke, he gave the starting cord a good yank. The saw coughed but didn’t start, so he primed it a couple more times and tried again. Once more, the saw coughed but didn’t start. Grunting in annoyance, he tried again, this time, the saw came to life, a cloud of blueish smoke emanating from the exhaust. Closing the choke, he let the saw warm up for a minute as he surveyed the downed tree and tried to figure out where a good spot to start would be, after a minute, he found his starting point, and with the saw in hand, set to work.

Time passed by as he worked, and slowly he began cutting away the fallen oaks' upper branches, many of which were thicker than his legs, and some that could give a regular tree a run for its money in girth. The main trunk was so thick that laying on its side, it was taller than Allen, and standing at six feet, four inches, Allen wasn’t a small person by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s amazing this tree has managed to survive this long, thought Allen as he cut through another section of branch, the saw kicking up a cloud of sawdust that coated Allen from head to toe in wood shavings. But, in the end, death comes for us all I suppose.

Cutting the last part of the branch off, Allen shut down the saw to let it cool, as well as to let his arms rest from its vibrations. Pulling off his goggles and ear muffs, Allen grabbed his jug of water and chugged half of it in one go. Letting go a happy sigh, he set the jug down and tried to wipe some of the sweat and sawdust that had accumulated on him off, with mixed success.

Glancing back at his handy work, Allen saw that he’d made a small dent, key word being small, in the giant tree.

Damn, this is gonna take forever to clear away, he thought as he shook his head. Glancing up at the sun, he saw that it was past noon, and decided to call it a day.

No sense in getting heat stroke, this tree ain’t going anywhere.

Packing his things up, he was soon heading back to the house for a well-earned cool shower and rest. However as he was leaving, he failed to notice several pairs of glowing eyes watching him warily from the Everfree.

Over the next couple of days, Allen would wake up early and head out to the field to continue cutting up the fallen tree. By Tuesday, he’d managed to cut away about a third of its canopy, and by that time, the ground had dried out enough that he could bring his tractor back there without any fear of leaving muddy ruts everywhere. Additionally, the oppressive heat that had plagued the area had subsided a bit and Allen was able to work longer.

Cutting away another branch, Allen paused and looked around at the mess that he’d left behind. I better start cutting these up and loading them before I cut any more branches off of this tree, he thought to himself as he surveyed the tangled mess of downed tree limbs. Pausing his de-limbing task, Allen set about cutting the downed limbs into smaller chunks and loading them into the trailer he’d hooked to his tractor. Once the trailer was full, he drove it back up to his house and offloaded the wood into a messy pile for later splitting and proper stacking. This process repeated itself several times until Allen finally decided to call it quits for the day.

As he was gathering up the last of his tools, he happened to glance towards the edge of the forest across the river, and wiping the sweat from his eyes, he paused his work as he thought he saw a pair of glowing acidic green dots disappear into the gloom.

Shaking his head, he muttered to himself, “Must be seeing things from working too hard, better get inside, get some water in me, and cool off.” Loading the last of his equipment up, he quickly left.

The following morning saw Allen getting ready to go back to work cutting hay, instead of wood, as now that the ground was dry again, he was eager to make up for lost time.

“Morning Allen, and everypony,” greeted Penny as she trotted up while Allen was servicing his equipment and Clover, Rye, Honeysuckle, and Creme Brulee were getting into their harnesses in preparation to pull Allen’s tractor and discbine to the field.

“Morning Penny,” replied Allen as he finished greasing the last zirc fitting, “how are you?”

Smiling, she replied, “Glad that the temperature has cooled off a bit and the humidity has come down.”

“You and me both,” replied Allen as he put his tools away. “So what brings you by this morning? Got some paperwork for me to sign or something?”

Penny shook her head. “Nope, I’m just here to receive delivery of our first batch of used fryer oil is all.”

Pulling the dipstick out, Allen checked the oil in the tractor. “Is that today?” he asked as he put the dipstick back in, satisfied with the oil level.

“Sure is,” replied Penny with a happy nod, “I gave them your address, and they said they would be here around ten o’clock.”

Allen nodded as he checked the tow ropes that had been attached to the front axle of the tractor. After making sure they were secured, he turned and pointed to the nearby machine shed. “Sounds good, tell them to put the barrels in there along the wall. I made some room over there for them.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure they don’t make a mess,” replied Penny as she trotted over and peeked her head inside to see where the cleared area was that Allen was referring to. “While you’re here,” she added as she trotted back over, satisfied with what she saw, “I was wondering if it would be okay if I waited inside and used your dining room table to work on some things.”

“Yeah, no problem,” replied Allen with a wave of his hand towards the house, “just be sure to lock up when you leave, and if you want something to drink, water glasses are in the top right cabinet above the sink.”

Penny smiled at Allen’s thoughtfulness. “Thank you, Allen, I was getting a tad thirsty on my walk over here.”

Allen chuckled, and turning to his team asked, “Is everypony ready?”

“All set to go, boss!” yelled back Clover.

“Alright, well let’s get going, we’re burning daylight here,” replied Allen as he climbed up on the tractor and released the park lock, allowing the pony’s to begin pulling.

“See you later Penny,” he called as he slowly rolled away.

Returning his wave with one of her own, Penny called back as she watched them leave, “See you, be safe!”

Allen nodded before turning his attention forward. Leaning back in his seat slightly, he enjoyed the slow trip to the field. Due to the fact that everything on the tractor ran on hydraulics, he didn’t have much control over it while the engine wasn’t running.

Thankfully, there weren’t any hills between his home and the field, so everything was smooth sailing.

Hopefully, the tractor will be able to run on that fryer oil, even if I lose some horsepower and fuel economy, I should be able to keep working, thought Allen as he watched the previously mowed fields roll slowly by.

Fluttershy has been doing a really good job clearing those fields, and that earth pony couple that Filthy hired is helping a lot too.

In truth, Allen hadn’t seen much of them since they had started, as they were employed by Filthy, rather than him, and Fluttershy was the one to give them their assigned work areas. He’d only met them once, on the day that they had arrived. A nice middle-aged couple, named Log Jam and Willow Branch, whose foals were all grown up and out of the house. So they didn’t have anything tying them down to one spot anymore, and as Log Jam, a former lumberjack, had told him, ‘the wandering bug had bit them’. So they’d sold their home, bought a caravan, and started traveling around Equestria doing odd jobs to earn some spending money. That’s how they had ended up becoming field clearers, and they had discovered they were pretty good at it, so they’d just kept doing it.

From what Allen had gathered, they and Fluttershy had become good friends, and she had let them park their caravan at her place to save money and make it easier to coordinate.

Allen was pulled from his thoughts when the group came to a halt. Looking around he saw that they had arrived at the field he intended to cut today. Jumping down, he undid the tow lines and coiled them up before hooking them to Brulee and Rye’s harnesses so that they could take them back to the farm while they waited for him to cut the field.

“There we go,” said Allen as he secured the second tow line to Rye’s harness, “alright, you guys go do whatever you want, I should be done in about an hour or two.”

“You got it, boss, we’ll see you in a couple of hours,” replied Honey with a salute as she and the three stallions unhooked themselves from each other. They were just getting ready to leave, and Allen was just starting to haul himself up on the tractor when Honey called out, “Are you sure there isn’t anything you want us to do at your place while we wait? I mean, you are paying us to just sit around for a couple of hours, and that just doesn’t seem right to me,” she asked. The others silently nodded in agreement.

Settling himself in his seat, Allen looked down and thought about it for a second, then replied, “Well, I’ve been working on cutting up an old oak tree that fell down across the river into my backfield from the Everfree. If you want, you can hook yourselves up to a wagon, go back there, haul some of the cut wood up to the house, and stack it in a pile.”

Honey smiled. “We can do that! Is there a particular spot you want it stacked?”

“Just stack it near the rest of the wood, you’ll see it,” replied Allen as he opened the throttle a touch and hit the starter, the old 806 rumbling to life.

Taking that as their cue to leave, the four earth ponies turned and headed back to the farm while Allen got busy cutting hay.

The roar of the diesel and whine of the discbine slowly faded as the four ponies trotted along back to the farm. Normally, they would usually just wait around until it was time to either bring Allen his next piece of equipment or to bring him and his tractor home for the night. However, now that Allen had given them a job to do while they waited, they were eager to get started.

Reaching the farmyard, they first decided to hook up Allen’s tedder to the forecart that Allen had built for them to use. It wasn’t much to look at, just some old angle iron that Allen had welded together over an old axle of some kind. None of the ponies were sure what it had been originally a part of, and Allen wasn’t entirely sure himself. However, he’d pulled it out of his ‘resource pile’ behind one of the machine sheds, and after welding a hitch on the back, for equipment to hook to, and some eyelets up front for the harness to attach to, it was ready to go.

“So, what should we use to move the wood with?” asked Honey as they finished hooking the tedder to the forecart.

“We could use one of Allen’s hay wagons,” suggested Rye.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan,” agreed Clover as he and the others started walking towards the far machine shed.

“Why don’t we use that small one? You know, the one with that hole in the deck?” said Brulee as the group rounded the corner and spotted the wagons in question.

Honey nodded. “Yeah, I think that one will work, and I doubt Allen will be too upset if we bang it up loading wood.”

Clover laughed. “Do you think he’d notice any more damage to it?”

Honey looked from Clover to the wagon in question and slowly shook her head. “I doubt it. This thing looks like it needs to be junked,” she said, poking one of the wooden boards that made up the deck with a hoof, a part of it breaking off as she did so and falling to the ground. “Honestly, looking at it, I’m not sure it would even last one load. This wooden deck looks pretty sketchy to me.”

Walking up next to his sister, Clover put his front hooves up on the deck and gave it an experimental tap. “Seems solid enough to me, besides, it’s not like we’re going to be pulling this thing through the wilderness or something. We’ll just need to make sure it’s not overloaded is all.”

Pushing himself away from the decrepit wagon, he walked around to the front and grabbed the tongue with a hoof. “Here, give me a hoof will you?” he asked as he pushed it away from him.

In short order, the four ponies had managed to pull the wagon from the tall grass and weeds along the side of the shed.

“Whew, looks like this thing has been sitting there a while,” commented Rye as he wiped some sweat away from his brow.

Clover nodded. “Yeah, I think Allen mentioned that he and his family didn’t really use these wagons that much anymore.

“I can tell, it looks like all of these tires have gone flat,” remarked Brulee, “how are we going to move it now?”

“We just need to re-inflate them,” said Honey, “I watched Allen do it on his baler the other day. He’s got an air pump in this shed, all we have to do is turn it on and stick the hose on one of these little stems and the tire should fill up with air. Though...” she trailed off for a moment, an unsure look on her face, “I’m not sure how much air we should put inside each one.”

“We’ll just put enough air in so that the tires aren’t flat anymore, simple,” replied Brulee as he and Clover maneuvered themselves into position on either side of the wagon tongue and hitched themselves up to it. Giving a grunt, the pair soon had the wagon slowly rolling forward, while Honey and Rye ran around behind it to give it a push, and before long, the group was in front of the machine shed’s double doors.

Pushing open the smaller service door, Honey fumbled around inside for the light switch. After a minute or two, she finally found it and flipped it on, the overhead lights flickering to life.

“Okay, we’ve got light, now let's see if we can get these doors open,” she said as she trotted to the middle of the double doors. Levering herself up on her hind hooves, she managed to undo the chain keeping the two doors together. Dropping back to all fours, she tried opening the left side door but found it wouldn’t move very far. Looking to the left, she spotted the reason, an additional latch on the far edge of the door. Groaning she quickly undid it and tried again, this time she was able to effortlessly slide the door open.

“Okay, so where is this ‘air pump’?” asked Rye as he looked around.

“Over there,” said Honey, pointing to a small red cylinder on wheels by the wall.

Trotting over, the two ponies looked it over for a moment, before Rye asked, “Okay... so how does it work?”

Grabbing the power cord that was wrapped around the pump's handle, Honey carefully slotted it into a nearby wall socket and flipped a switch on the pump which nosily came to life.

“Now we just got to wait until this needle gets high enough and we can turn it off!” she shouted over the din of the air pump, a hoof pointing at a small gauge that read air pressure.

“And how long is that going to take?” replied Rye, his ears pinned back from the racket the little machine was making.

Honey shrugged. “A couple of minutes? I think Allen waited until this gauge reached one hundred before he unplugged it.”

“Okay, well you do that, I’m going outside where it’s quieter!” shouted Rye as he beat a hasty retreat.

Honey stuck her tongue out at him as he left, leaving her to watch the needle steadily climb. Eventually, it reached one hundred and she pulled the plug, a quiet hissing noise replacing the noisy clattering and whirring of the air pump.

Grabbing the metal handle in her mouth, she carefully dragged the air pump out of the shed and set it down next to the wagon.

“Okay, now we just got to take those little black caps off the stems and stick this... doohickey on it and the tires should inflate,” she said, pointing to the air hose fitting and the tire stems in turn.

“Alright, well go ahead,” offered Clover as he waited for his sister to get started.

“Why me? I got the air in the tank. One of you should fill the tires,” she whined.

“But you’re the only one who saw Allen fill them, none of us have any idea what we’re doing,” retorted Clover.

Honey opened her mouth to reply, but after a moment closed it instead and pouted. “Fine, grab that hose and bring it over here,” she commanded as she sat down next to the first tire, and awkwardly tried to get the little cap off the tire stem.

It took a few tries, as even though pony hooves are surprisingly dexterous, they are still hooves at the end of the day, and things that were made with fingers in mind tend to be difficult to use with said hooves. However, patience and persistence, along with a small amount of swearing, saw the little cap come off in the end.

I’m not putting it back on, thought Honey, an annoyed look on her face as she carefully maneuvered the air hose into place and pressed the end against the stem. At first, a loud hissing was all that could be heard as the air went everywhere but inside, and the tire didn’t seem to want to inflate. However, after a few moments, Honey managed to get it properly seated and the loud hissing sound became more muted as the tire slowly started rising.

“So how much air are we supposed to put?” asked Clover as he peered around Honey’s withers.

“Don’t know,” she replied with a shrug, “I was just going to put enough air in so that the tires aren’t flat anymore.”

Kicking one of the flat tires, Clover grumped, “These tires seem like they're more trouble than they are worth. I mean, a good steel shod wagon wheel will last a pony a long time, and you don’t have to keep it filled with air either.”

Honey just shrugged again. “Allen said metal wheels would tear up the roads back home too much, and at the speeds the vehicles in his world traveled at, they would be very uncomfortable, and even dangerous.”

“Still seems like a real hassle,” mumbled Clover as he watched Honey pull the air hose off the tire stem and move to the next one.

“Yeah, but unless you want to go back to town and grab a cart, we’ve got to make due with what we got,” she replied as she unscrewed the second cap and started filling the tire.

The sound of the front door opening and closing caught the earth pony’s ears and they all glanced back to see Penny exiting Allen’s home, a curious expression on her face.

“Hey everypony, what’s going on?” she asked as she trotted up.

“We’re filling these tires up with air, so that way we can haul some wood that Allen cut up from his backfield to the house, while we wait for him to cut the field,” replied Clover.

“Oh, I see,” she replied as she watched Honey finish filling the second tire with air and drag the pump around to the other side of the wagon. Looking down at her hooves, she noticed the little black stem cap, and picking it up in her magic she asked, “What’s this?”

“It goes over that tire stem there, but it’s hard enough getting it off, so I didn’t feel like putting it back on. I was just going to put them on Allen’s workbench inside once we were done and let him put them back on,” replied Penny as she removed the third cap and got to work filling the third tire up.

Inspecting the little cap in her magic for a moment, Penny quickly reattached the cap to the stem, before doing so as well for the first one.

“You really should try to put things back the way you found them,” she lightly admonished as she followed Honey around to the other side and put the third cap back on when Honey moved to the fourth and final tire.

“Normally I would, but these little caps weren’t really made for hooves to grasp,” replied Honey as she began filling up the final tire.

Picking up the final cap in her magic, Penny said, “I understand, but still, I doubt Allen would have been happy to find these little caps missing from his tires.”

“I was going to tell him,” retorted Honey as she finished filling the last tire and began looping the air hose back around the handle of the air pump.

“And I never said you weren’t, but we all know how things go,” replied Penny as she stuck the final cap back on,” You might tell Allen, but he might get busy and forget to put them back on.”

“Well then that’s his problem,” snorted Honey around the handle of the air pump as she dragged it back into the machine shed.

Following her inside, Penny shook her head. “Maybe, but you were still the one to take them off. In any case, they’re back on now, so it’s a moot issue. Just at least try and put things back together when you take them apart in the future, please? If these little things get lost, Allen has no way to replace them, and that could impact his operation.”

Honey opened her mouth to reply but ended up shutting it and instead giving a shallow nod of understanding.

Seeing that the matter was dealt with, Penny turned around and trotted out of the machine shed, Honey following along behind.

“So,” she began as she trotted up to the group of stallions, “what’s this about some wood that Allen cut up?”

“Allen said he had a tree fall across the river and into one of his fields. Apparently, he’s been cutting it up over the last few days, and since we don’t have anything to do while we wait, we offered to move some of it out of the field for him,” replied Rye.

“Interesting, do you all mind if I tag along to take a look at it? I need a break from paperwork anyways,” asked Penny as she watched the four earth ponies get hitched up to the wagon.

“Not at all,” replied Clover as he finished hitching himself up, “just follow us.”

Falling in alongside them, Penny and the four earth ponies set off. Exiting the farmyard, they soon found themselves on a dirt track that ran through a large windbreak comprised of pine and various deciduous trees arranged in four orderly rows on the east side of the farm past the machine sheds. Once past the trees, the group found themselves in a wide laneway between fenced fields that gently sloped down towards the river.

“I see the tree he was talking about,” remarked Penny as she spotted the fallen giant in the distance.

Clover whistled. “Wow, now that is one big tree.”

The rest of the group nodded or hummed in agreement as they trotted along the laneway. Eventually, they reached the gate that would let them into that section of field and turned left through the opening.

Coming to a stop near the large tree, the earth ponies quickly unhitched themselves and spread out to inspect the fallen giant.

“This thing must be over two hundred years old,” commented Rye and he laid a hoof gently against the fallen trunk.

Clover hummed in agreement. “Easily.”

“Looks like Allen made a good-sized dent in cutting it up,” said Penny as she trotted around the outer edge of what was once the tree's crown.

“Yeah, and it looks like he cut the logs up into manageable sizes for us as well,” said Brulee as he inspected some of the cut branches.

“Yeesh, some of these branches are as big as a normal tree!” said Clover, a look of awe coming over his face.

“Yeah, well they aren’t going to move themselves, so we better get started,” replied Brulee as he stuck his head under a smaller diameter branch and lifted it enough that Clover took the hint and stuck his own head under the opposite side. With the branch balanced between the two stallions, they carefully maneuvered it over to the wagon and with the help of Rye and Honey, rolled it onto the wagon.

“Would you like some help?” asked Penny as she watched.

“Up to you,” replied Clover as he worked.

“We never turn down free help,” commented Honey with a cheeky smile.

Laughing, Penny lit up her horn and started picking up the smaller branches and gently floating them over to the wagon. Occasionally, she’d help the earth ponies with an awkward log and she’d even use a low-power cutting spell to further trim down the length of some of the smaller logs for easier work.

After a time, the wagon had a decent collection of wood on it, and the ponies decided it was time to take it up to the house. All of them were covered in sweat, dirt, and sawdust to one degree or another, though Penny was the cleanest of the group by far, and none of them wanted to overload the wagon in case the tires couldn’t handle the weight.

The four earth ponies were just getting ready to hitch themselves back up when all five of them heard a bone-chilling howl from the other side of the river that sent shivers down all of their spines.

Whipping around, they spotted half a dozen pairs of glowing, acidic green eyes peering at them from the edge of the Everfree Forest. Nervously, the ponies all bunched up together as they watched six adult timber wolves stalk out of the forest, their jaws open in vicious snarls as sap dripped from their wooden teeth.

Swallowing nervously, Penny said, “I-I think we should go now.”

“Y-yeah, I-I think t-that’s a g-good idea,” agreed Honey shakily.

“Everypony stay calm, and slowly back away,” said Brulee quietly. “If we turn and run, they’ll give chase. Thankfully they’re on the other side of the river, and timber wolves can’t swim.”

“They can’t?” whispered Clover.

“No, they start coming apart if they get submerged in water for too long, and the river is flowing too fast for them to get across quickly,” he replied confidently, as having lived in Ponyville his entire life, he was passingly familiar with many of the creatures that called the Everfree their home.

“But what if they start crossing the downed oak tree?” said Penny suddenly as she pointed at the large trunk with a hoof.

The group turned their gaze away from the main group of timber wolves and spotted a pair gingerly attempting to cross the river via the fallen oak tree.

“Then we might have a problem,” said Brulee as he began weighing their options.

Risking a look over his withers, he grimaced. Too much open ground, we’ll be run down before we can get to safety, and the wolves will just jump over Allen’s fences, while we’ll be penned in. Looking back at the two wolves trying to cross, he saw that they were halfway across the river now, though judging by their movements, they weren’t very confident in their footing.

The only way they can get to us is over the tree trunk, which for all its size, is still very narrow, he gave Penny a sideways glance, before then looking at the mess of smaller branches littering the ground around the tree, he suddenly came up with a plan. It wasn’t a good one by any stretch of the imagination, but it was the best chance they had at surviving.

“Okay, new plan,” he said quickly, catching everypony’s attention as they managed to wretch their gaze away from their impending doom. “We can’t run, as they’ll catch us before we get to safety, and all of these fences will just end up funneling us while they can just jump over them. We need to bottle them up on the tree trunk while one of us goes and gets help.”

Turning to Penny he said, “Do you know any shield spells?”

Penny shook her head. “Just a weak one to keep the rain off,” she replied sadly.

“What about offensive spells? Timber wolves hate fire, and ice spells can mess them up pretty good too.”

“I know a small fire spell, but it’s only good for lighting fires, not for fighting giant wooden wolves, and the only cooling spell I know is to chill drinks... sorry,” she replied sadly.

Brulee sighed. “It’s okay, not everyone can be as good at magic as Twilight Sparkle.”

“Uh, guys, those wolves are getting closer, if we’re going to do something, we better do it now,” called out Clover as he watched the wolves get closer and closer.

Grunting in annoyance, Brulee looked around and spotted several long, sturdy branches and said, “Okay, here’s the plan, we’ll use those branches to try and push the wolves off the tree and into the water while one of us goes and gets help. Penny,” he turned to the unicorn, “is your magic good enough to levitate a heavy branch and push it around?”

The unicorn nodded.

“Good, grab one and help me, Rye and Clover keep those wolves off this side of the river, Honey,” he said turning to the other mare of the group, “you run and get help, and please don’t argue, we don’t have time,” he said as he watched her open her mouth to argue, before turning away and rushing towards the nearest sturdy looking branch, picking it up with a hoof and awkwardly limping to a spot where he could push the timber wolves away from their side of the shore.

The rest of the group quickly followed suit, with only Clover staying just long enough to look at his sister and jerk his head in the direction of Allen’s house and safety before turning and joining the others.

Shutting her mouth with an audible clack the earth pony mare simply gave a single, determined nod, turned, and ran.

Chapter 52 (Require Metallic Solutions)

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Chapter 52

*Bang!*

“Fuck,” cursed Allen as he slammed the mower’s front cover down angrily.

It had to happen eventually, he sighed mentally to himself as he held a pair of shattered blades in one hand, and the object of his irritation in the other.

“Stupid, fucking rock,” he spat as he tossed the cantaloupe-sized rock up on the tractor’s platform and climbed up after it. Glaring down at it in disgust, he looked around at the field and shook his head.

Only managed to get about half of it done, and thanks to that rock, that’s all I’m getting done today, he thought bitterly to himself as he punched the starter button and felt the tractor rumble to life beneath him.

Settling his hearing protection over his ears, he pressed the play button on his MP3 player and let the next song in his lineup play as he put the tractor in gear and eased out of the field onto the dirt track that would take him back to the farm where he could hopefully make repairs.

But not today, he thought as he cruised along, I gotta get this tedded first. I’ll worry about replacing the busted knives and fixing the bent turtles later.

Rocks and other loose debris were one of the biggest causes of machine breakdowns in the field, next to general wear and tear. A rock the size of a cantaloupe hitting a pair of blades spinning at several thousand rpm could do a massive amount of damage. Thankfully for Allen, he had spare blades back at the farm, but only one spare turtle. Which meant he’d need to apply some heat and beats to the least bent one and hope for the best.

A blacksmith might be able to make me another one, but I doubt it would be very quick... or cheap, he thought to himself as he reached the southern border of his property. Slowing down, he made the right turn into his driveway and made a beeline for the machine sheds.

Coming to a stop, he was just getting ready to put the tractor into reverse when he saw Honeysuckle come galloping up the laneway as though the devil was after her. Throttling down, he watched her with concern as she came running up to him, her body covered in a lather from running and her mane flying about wildly, a look of unbridled terror in her eyes.

“Hey, what’s going on?” asked Allen in concern as he paused his music and pulled one side of his headphones away so that he could hear her.

Huffing and puffing, she pointed with a sweat-soaked hoof back the way she came and gasped, “Timber wolves... attacking the... others... sent me... to get... help...”

Allen stared at her for a split second as his mind tried to process what he’d just heard, when suddenly a bright, red flare shot up over the treeline, followed seconds later by a loud, blood-chilling scream, caught his attention.

Honey gave a panicked whinny and hopped from hoof to hoof as if unsure what to do before turning to Allen and giving him a desperate look.

Allen wasn’t paying attention to Honey, instead, he gripped the steering wheel tightly and slammed the range lever forward without a word, the tractor easily slipping from neutral into high range as he yanked the throttle wide open, the tractor’s engine going from a quiet burble to a deep-throated roar as dark, black smoke belched from the exhaust pipe.

Startled by Allen’s reaction, Honey stumbled backward and barely had time to open her mouth before Allen took off, his face a stone-cold mask of determination. Turning to look around, she spotted a group of ponies, pulling a pair of loaded wagons, coming cautiously down Allen’s driveway, and seeing that there was a pegasus amongst them, she took a deep breath and galloped over hoping that they could get a message back to Ponyville about the attack in time.

Allen meanwhile had the 806 going flat out, high range, 4th gear, TA lever forward, the old girl’s 361 cubic-inch, six-cylinder giving all 110 horses that she could as he tore down that laneway faster than he had ever done before, his rear tires kicking up dirt clods as he went. It was all he could do to stay in his seat as he hit various old ruts and dips, but he didn’t care, his friends were in trouble, and he wasn’t going to waste one precious second getting to them, even if it meant wrecking his equipment in the process.

Bursting past the windbreak, he spotted them in the distance. A pair of large, odd-looking, brown wolves had managed to get across the fallen oak tree and were circling Brulee, Clover, and Rye. Each stallion carried a hefty branch and were using them to try and keep the wolves away. However, there were three more wolves across the river that were nipping at each other as they jockeyed for position to try and cross. Unfortunately, Allen couldn’t see Penny, though as he looked, he spotted a third wolf tearing at a section of still attached oak branches as it tried to get at something under the remains of the tree's canopy. He hoped that it was Penny, and that she was safe.

Hitting a particularly hard rut, Allen was nearly flung from the tractor seat, however, he managed to stay in it, though the rock between his feet wasn’t so fortunate. As he came down, he must have bumped his MP3 player as he suddenly heard the opening riff to Mötley Crüe’s Kickstart My Heart playing in his ears as he reached the end of the laneway. Though he was only dimly aware of the music as the first verse started.

~When I get high, I get high on speed, Top fuel funny car’s a drug for me~

Cranking the steering wheel as hard he could to the left, a light, blue-tinged haze suddenly fell across his vision as the tractor somehow made the tight turn into the field, implement and all, without hitting either fencepost or tipping over.

~My heart, my heart, Kick start my heart~

Lining the hood ornament on the front of the tractor up with the wolf furthest to the left of the stallions like a gun sight, Allen focused all his attention on running the damn thing over. The song blaring in his ears as he closed the distance.

~Always got the cops coming after me, Custom-built bike doing 103~

The wolf barely had time to realize it was in trouble before eighty-five hundred pounds of angry American iron and steel slammed into its face at close to twenty miles an hour.

~My heart, my heart, Kick start my heart~

The wolf disintegrated as its face connected with the reinforced front grill of the 806, its shattered limbs crushed under the tractor’s tires as Allen spun the wheel and aimed his tractor at the next wolf threatening the group of stallions. The chorus kicking in as this wolf realized that it had made a horrible life choice and quickly tried to disengage, but Allen wasn’t going to let it.

~Oh, are you ready girls? Oh, are you ready now?~

You ain’t getting away that easily you little shit, snarled Allen internally as he adjusted his aim and ran the second wolf down just like the first one as it tried to retreat back to the tree.

~Whoa, yeah, Kick start my heart, give it a start~

By this point, the three wolves on the other side of the river had lost all enthusiasm in trying to get across and were beating a hasty retreat back into the forest, their tails between their legs and ears pinned low against their scalps as they watched their pack mates be viciously run down by the angry iron monster.

With the next verse going strong, Allen spun the tractor and discbine around to see where the third wolf had gotten to, and his sharp eyes quickly spotted it cowering on the other side of the canopy.

~Yeah, are you ready girls? Yeah, are you ready now, now, now?~

His target located, Allen kept his eyes fixed on the cowering creature as he maneuvered around to run it down, just like its companions.

~Whoa, yeah! Kick start my heart, give it a start~

Clearing the far side of the canopy, he was angling to run it down with the discbine when the wolf quickly scrambled up and over the fallen trunk and tried to get away. However, by this point, the three stallions had recovered from Allen’s sudden, and brutal arrival and weren’t about to let this wolf go without some retribution. The end result being that the wolf was forced to leap off the tree when three angry earth ponies began beating it mercilessly with their large branches to the point that the wolf felt some of its wooden hide shatter as a solid hit from Brulee sent it pinwheeling end over end out into the middle of the field, and right into the path of an angry and vengeful Allen.

For a split second, the wolf stared up at the looming iron monster, its six glowing blue eyes, and its unnatural roar, striking fear into its very core.

~Say I got trouble, trouble in my eyes~

Scrambling with all its might, the wolf barely managed to dodge away from the snarling metal beast that had managed to somehow easily kill its pack mates with only a single hit. Realizing that it couldn’t get back to the Everfree the way it came in, the wolf took off for the perceived safety of Sweet Apple Acres. However, Allen saw what the wolf was trying to do and wasn’t about to let the weasily varmint get away.

With the song reaching its final crescendo, Allen managed to cut the wolf’s final retreat off and force it to turn left, and straight into the barbed wire fence that split the field in two. Yanking the wheel hard to the right, Allen barely managed to avoid the same fate as the wolf.

Coming to a stop, Allen looked back over his shoulder and saw that the wolf was utterly entangled in the fence, having ripped out nearly twenty to thirty feet of fence with its initial impact and subsequent thrashing as it desperately tried to get free. However, the rusty old barbed wire held firm and like an anaconda, wrapped tighter around its prey, the metal barbs digging deep into the hide of the hapless wolf.

Seeing that the wolf wasn’t going anywhere, Allen threw the tractor in neutral, and throttled down, the engine quieting from a roar to a dull rumble. Leaping out of his seat, the cord connecting his MP3 player and headphones together caught on one of the spinner balls on the wheel and yanked them off his head as he hit the ground, running for where he suspected Penny to be hiding. The slight blue haze lifting as he ran, though at the time he didn’t pay it any mind, nor did he notice the headlights of his tractor start to lose their blue glow either.

Please don’t be dead, he silently begged whatever god was listening as he rushed to the tangled branches that had formed an impromptu safe haven for the unicorn mare.

“Penny!” he called as he rushed over, desperate to find her, “Answer me!” he called out as he desperately searched for her amongst the fallen branches.

“Allen! I’m over here!” he heard her call out, though her voice was weak and scratchy. With a partial sigh of relief, Allen pushed his way through the stubborn branches until he reached her.

Pushing aside a final, cracked branch, Allen finally got a good look at his friend, and he grimaced at what he saw. Penny’s auburn mane was a mess, filled with twigs and dead leaves. Her normally immaculate business jacket and shirt were torn and dirty, her glasses were nowhere to be seen, she was covered in scratches, some of them pretty deep looking, and she was favoring her left foreleg.

Reaching her, he carefully began to clear some of the branches away and gently asked, “What happened?”

Penny tried to push herself to her hooves as Allen removed the last branch between them, but she fell back to the ground with a pained hiss, her front left leg flaring with pain.

Fighting back tears, she looked up at Allen and made to answer, but paused as she saw that his eyes were faintly glowing. However, when Allen blinked, the glow disappeared and Penny shook her head, thinking that she was seeing things due to blood loss.

“Timber wolves attacked us while we were working on picking up the branches that you cut earlier. One of them bit me on my foreleg and tried to drag me away from the group, but Brulee managed to hit it in the head with his branch and it let go. I... couldn’t get back to the safety of the group, so I sought shelter amongst the downed branches on this tree, hoping that Honey would find help in time,” she gave him a weak smile, “and it seems she did.”

Gently picking up her left leg, Allen carefully inspected it. He grimaced, Shit, that doesn’t look good, he thought as he looked the mangled limb over.

The wolf had done a number on her foreleg, blood was flowing freely, staining her light gray coat crimson, and upon closer inspection, Allen saw that some of her leg bone was exposed. Thinking quickly, he pulled his shirt off and swiftly wrapped it around the open wound, tying it as tight as he could, and eliciting a hiss of pain from Penny, as he cinched it down.

Doesn’t look like the wolf managed to break her bone, but we’re gonna need to get her to the hospital ASAP.

The sudden sound of flapping wings made Allen look up through the remaining branches of the tree, and spot a squad of pegasi in various armors come in for a quick landing.

One of them, a mare, quickly took in the scene and barked out orders, “Cherry, Azure, and Sky! You three go keep an eye on that timber wolf! Blaze, Nimbus, Spear you three secure this side of the crossing and keep any other wolves from getting across! Doc, you’re with me.”

Striding over to where Allen and Penny were, the mare unfurled one of her wings, the sun glinting off a sharp metal blade that extended along her wing, and made several slashing motions with it. Several smaller branches immediately fell to the ground as the wing-blade made a clean cut through them and opened up access to the spot where Allen and Penny were huddled in.

Stepping aside, the mare waved ‘doc’ through and the second pegasus hurriedly pushed his way inside.

Sensing that he’d be more of a hindrance than a help, Allen scooted past the pony medic and exited through the newly created opening. Standing up, he looked down at the mare and felt his eyebrows crawl upwards in surprise.

“Cloud Kicker? What are you doing here?” he asked incredulously upon seeing the previously goofy, and flirtatious mare acting in a more commanding role.

Turning her attention to him, the sunlight almost blinding him as it reflected off her red-coated armor, she gave him a nod in greeting and replied, “We were out training when we saw that somepony had shot off a distress signal from this general direction and as we were the closest unit we responded. On our way here we intercepted a pegaus hauling tail back towards Ponyville with a message that timber wolves were attacking a farm out past Sweet Apple Acres and that ponies were in danger. So we told him to continue on with his message and that we would move in to assist in the defense until reinforcements arrived...” she paused as she took in the carnage around them, “though from the looks of things, it seems that the threat has already been contained.”

Allen slowly nodded and looked around himself. “Yeah... I guess you could say that.”

A grunt, and a hiss of pain interrupted the two as the pony medic called out, “Hey, a little help here? Her legs pretty banged up and there’s not enough room for me to pull her over my back to get her out.”

Rushing back in, Allen worked to help the medic get Penny out from amongst the fallen branches and out into the open. Gently setting her down, he asked, “Is she going to be okay?”

The medic looked up at Allen’s worried face and gave him a confident grin. “She should be fine, though she’s probably going to have some scaring on this leg, and it might ache when a weather front moves through, but so long as we get her to the hospital quickly, she should make a full recovery.” Turning, he yelled back over his shoulder, “Hey, Cherry! Bring me that flight stretcher you got! We’re gonna need to fly this one back to Ponyville ASAP!”

One of the pegasi, a cherry-colored mare, with a blonde mane came running over. Reaching the group, she began unfolding a wooden and canvas-covered contraption while the medic tended to Penny.

“Oh, I’m assuming this is yours?” he asked, hoofing Allen’s blood-covered shirt back to him.

“Yeah, thanks,” replied Allen as he accepted the blood-soaked garment. “So... what happens now?” he asked, a sudden tiredness falling over him as he sat down heavily on the ground.

Cloud Kicker replied, “We’ll secure the area, and get you all to the hospital to be checked over. Then we’ll get this tree here,” she pointed at said tree with a wing, “cut up and removed so that the wolves won’t be tempted to return again.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” grunted Allen in reply, “the wolves didn’t touch me. My tractor did all of the touching,” he grimaced as he looked back towards said tractor.

The front grill was pointed towards the group, and Allen could already tell that there was some damage. Deciding that rest could wait, he tiredly levered himself up and walked unsteadily over to it, Cloud Kicker following along at his side just in case he stumbled.

Reaching it, he reached up and shut the tractor off. No point in leaving it running anymore, he thought, as he picked up his mp3 player and put it in his pocket as well as set his hearing protection on the seat. Before beginning to look the old girl over for damages. However, he quickly felt his brows knitting together in confusion as he took notice of various pieces of wood, tree sap, and other detritus stuck to the tractor.

“What the fuck?” he muttered as he noticed a pretty large stick wedged between the bent cast iron bars on the front of the tractor. Pulling it out with a grunt, he turned it over in his hands. “Where did this come from?”

Cloud Kicker peeked around his legs up at the stick in his hands and replied, “Probably from one of the timber wolves. I mean, you did just say that you ran them over.”

Allen dropped his hands to his side and looked down at the pegasus. “What?”

“Timber wolves? You know, the monsters that you said you just killed?” she replied, a confused look on her face.

Blinking, Allen turned around, and with the stick still in hand, marched purposely over to where the two pegasi were carefully watching the now-still wolf as it lay entangled in the barbed wire.

“The wolf seems to have run out of energy ma’am, and- Sir! Stay back! It’s still dangerous!” shouted one of the pegasi guards as he jumped in front of Allen, preventing him from getting any closer to the dangerous magical construct. Giving the guard an irritated look. Allen reluctantly complied and contented himself with observing the creature from a relatively safe distance.

The so-called ‘wolf’, seeing Allen’s approach, began to whimper and twist in an attempt to get free of the entangling wire. However, even though it was rusted from years outside, the wire held firm as it dug further into the wooden hide of the wolf.

Taking in the wolf’s wooden features, Allen felt his lips pull back in a snarl as his frustration mounted, and the terrified wolf, seeing Allen’s snarling face and barred teeth tried even harder to get away, though with no success.

Coming to stand next to Allen, Cloud Kicker commented simply, “Yep, that’s a timber wolf.”

Allen felt his irritation mount. ‘Timber wolf’, of course it’s another fucking pun, everything else around here is a fucking pun. Why would this be any different? Stupid fucking moron, you just had to assume something called a ‘timber wolf’ would be the same here as in your world. He shook his head in disgust and turned to leave, the stick still in his hand, though by this point his knuckles were white from how hard he was clenching it.

Stalking away from the trapped wolf, Allen went back to his tractor and stood there silently for a moment as his body tried to figure out what it wanted to do with all of the emotions running through it at that moment.

“Allen, are you okay?” asked Cloud Kicker gently from, what she hoped, was a safe distance.

Taking a deep breath, Allen looked down at the stick that he was holding, and then without warning, he cocked back his arm and threw the stick with as much force as he could towards the Everfree. The stick pinwheeled through the air before falling gracelessly into the river with a distant *plonk*, the current quickly carrying it away downstream.

Taking several deep breaths, Allen turned around. “No, I’m pretty far from fucking okay,” he replied angrily.

Taking an involuntary step back at the anger in his tone, Cloud Kicker forced herself to stand her ground and reply evenly, “Alright, then what can I do to help?”

Taking a deep breath, and letting it out, Allen felt the anger leave his body, as well as what strength remained, as if his anger was the only thing keeping him going, and he all but collapsed into a sitting position in the grass, his head falling forward to stare at the ground. “I don’t know,” he replied, an extreme feeling of exhaustion suddenly overtaking him.

The distant rumble of hooves on dirt made Cloud Kicker look up towards the direction of the field gate. “Looks like reinforcements have arrived,” she said, a tinge of relief coloring her voice.

Allen was too tired to look up or even acknowledge Cloud Kicker.

“Report!” barked Lieutenant Palisade as he came to a halt next to Cloud Kicker and Allen, a light sheen of sweat covering his fur from his run from Ponyville.

Snapping a sharp salute, Cloud replied, “Area secured sir, one civilian injured, we are prepping her for evac to Ponyville General.”

Glancing from Cloud to the trapped wolf, Palisade asked, “Hostiles?”

“Two wolves killed, and one ‘captured’. The rest have retreated back into the Everfree,” she replied crisply.

Palisade nodded. “Good work lieutenant, timber wolves aren’t easy to deal with for inexperienced troops.”

“We didn’t ‘deal with them’, sir,” she replied, turning to point at Allen, “he did.”

Palisade let one of his eyebrows rise in confusion as he glanced between Allen and Cloud Kicker. “I don’t follow,” he said.

“All hostiles were either dead, captured, or fled by the time we arrived. All we’ve done is secure the area and tend to the injured civilian,” she explained.

“I... see,” replied Palisade slowly as he digested what Cloud had told him. “Very well, make sure to submit a detailed report of the incident to me by eleven hundred hours tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Cloud with another salute.

Turning back to his ponies, Palisade pointed a hoof at the trapped wolf and began barking orders, “Sargeant Standard, I want this wolf fully secured and ready for transport in thirty minutes.”

A well-groomed unicorn gave a crisp salute and began barking their own orders as they gathered the needed troops to secure the timber wolf.

Meanwhile, Palisade hadn’t wasted any time and had continued his own barrage of orders. “I want an air patrol up five minutes ago, and send word we’re going to need saws, axes, and rope to start moving this tree. I also want...” his voice grew quieter as he moved further away from Cloud Kicker and Allen before being lost to the general noise of many armored ponies moving around to complete said orders.

Standing quietly next to Allen for a moment, Cloud Kicker finally reached out with a hoof and said, “Come on, let's get you guys out of here and have somepony look at you.”

Allen ignored her offered hoof. “I told you, I don’t need to go to the hospital,” he said.

Cloud rolled her eyes and hooked a hoof around his arm and pulled him to his feet. Allen swayed slightly at the sudden change in elevation, his vision warping slightly from the sudden bout of dizziness.

“Yeah...” began Cloud, an unconvinced look on her face, “I think you probably do. You look like you’re about to fall on your tail there. Besides, you’re going to need to give a statement about what happened here anyways. Might as well do it sooner rather than later.”

“Fine,” sighed Allen, as he reluctantly let Cloud pull him towards one of the recently arrived carts brought by Palisade’s ponies.

Sitting down on the edge of the cart, with a heavy *thump*, his legs dangling over the edge, Allen felt even more tired, his vision still swimming as he shook his head in a vain attempt to get his vision back under control.

“You okay Allen?” asked Clover as he jumped up in the cart next to him, a concerned look on his face. “You don’t look so good.”

Allen slowly shook his head and replied, “I’m just really tired is all, though I’m not sure why.”

Clover slowly nodded but kept a close eye on him as the rest of their group slowly climbed into the back of the cart. After the last of them had squeezed themselves in, one of the two armored earth ponies pulling the cart looked back over his shoulder and asked, “Everypony in?”

“Yeah, we’re all in,” replied Clover.

“Okay,” replied the guard as he turned around and started pulling, the cart gently bouncing over the grass as they made their way out of the field.

As they were leaving the field, Allen watched as Penny’s stretcher was airlifted into the sky by a pair of pegasi guards.

Clover, seeing Allen watching the airborne ponies fly away from them, said, “She’ll be okay. They’ll get her to the hospital lickity-split and get her patched up.”

Allen just wordlessly nodded, but almost immediately regretted it as his head was hit with a wave of dizziness and he struggled to keep himself upright.

Seeing Allen struggling to stay upright, Clover gave him a concerned look. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Turning to give Clover an annoyed rebuttal, Allen was hit with another wave of dizziness. At the same time, the cart hit a particularly hard bump which caused him to lose his balance, as he was using his arms to keep himself upright; when they gave out he suddenly found himself falling out of the back of the cart.

“Whoa!” cried Clover as he tried to grab Allen, however, he missed and Allen toppled out the back and face-planted into the dirt with a groan of pain.

Why do I feel so weird right now? He wondered as his vision swam in and out of focus, while his body began to ache all over and his breaths became more labored as if he’d just run a twenty-six-mile marathon.

“Allen! Speak to me!” yelled Clover as he rushed over to check on him. The cart having come to a sudden stop from when the pullers heard Clover’s cry of surprise and concern.

Allen didn’t really respond, his whole body felt so tired all of a sudden, and he just couldn’t muster up the will to move more than his head so that he wasn’t breathing dirt.

Turning it to one side, his vision cleared enough that he could see that he was lying inches from the cantaloupe-sized rock that he’d hit with his discbine earlier today.

What’s that doing here? His brain idly wondered as he tried to figure out what was going on. I could have sworn I put that up on the tractor platform between my feet. He blinked stupidly at it for a heartbeat or two before muttering, “Stupid rock,” before then promptly passing out.

Author's Notes:

Whew, it's been a bit since the last update. Sorry about that. Right after I quit my winter job, I pretty much jumped right into baling hay. On the first day, we did a thousand bales, and the only reason we didn't do more was because the customer's hay elevator broke and we didn't have any more wagons that we could fill. After that, it was pretty much go go go for the next few weeks, so I didn't have a lot of time or energy to write.

Then I had a nasty episode of Gerd hit me that made me feel as though I was having a heart attack at one in the morning, went to the ER for that, so that was fun. (I'm doing better now, thankfully.)

Anyways, hope you guys liked the chapter, I tried something new with the song lyrics mixed in, hope it doesn't detract from the flow of the story, and as always let me know if you find any misspellings or grammar issues that I didn't catch, thanks in advance.

Chapter 53 (After Action Report)

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Chapter 53

The soft rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor was the only sound in the room as Allen lay quietly in his hospital bed, his chest rising and falling softly as he slept.

Following his collapse at the farm, he and the rest of his workers had been rushed to Ponyville General as fast as the two guards could run. Upon arrival, Allen had been immediately rushed to the ICU after a short preliminary checkup showed that he was suffering from acute magical exhaustion.

However, a quick mana transfusion, along with a standard IV drip, stabilized him enough that he wasn’t in any immediate danger of dying or suffering permanent damage to his systems. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be doing much of anything for several days, though at present, he wasn’t aware of this as he hadn’t woken up since his collapse yesterday.

In the meantime, Clover, Rye, Honeysuckle, and Brulee were all given their own checkups, and after being given a clean bill of health, they were released, only for the local Guard to swoop in and bring them back to the Ponyville guard station for questioning. Penny was spared this fate as she was still being tended to, and Dr. Stable was adamant that she be given time to recover before he would allow the investigators access to her.

This meant that Clover and the others had the solo and undivided attention of Lieutenant Palisade and his ponies.

“Alright, Mr. Clover Leaf, would you, in your own words, tell us what happened yesterday at Mr. Ross’s farm?” asked Palisade politely from behind his desk. A nearby scribe dutifully recording every word said for the report that Palisade would eventually be writing to send up to the brass in Canterlot.

“Um, well, I’m not sure what more I can tell you in addition to what the others have probably already said,” replied Clover nervously from his seat in front of the lieutenant’s desk.

Giving the nervous earth pony a reassuring smile, Palisade said, “Mr. Leaf, please be at ease, you’re not in trouble, nor is anypony else. This interview is merely to try and obtain as much information, from as many different sources as possible regarding the recent timber wolf attack at the farm. While it is true that your friends have told us a lot, you might have seen something that they missed, and we want to make sure that we leave no stone unturned in this endeavor. So please, take a deep breath, and just tell me what you saw happen from your point of view, alright?”

Taking a deep breath to settle his nerves, Clover gave a nod before letting the trapped air out in a *whoosh* and beginning his account of the incident.

“Well, we were loading wood on a wagon to take it up to Allen’s house while we waited for him to finish cutting hay when we suddenly heard howling coming from the Everfree Forest. At first, we didn’t see anything, but then all of a sudden, six timber wolves ran out of the forest and came right for us.”

“Did you notice anything strange in the time leading up to the appearance of the wolves?” asked Palisade.

Clover slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so? I guess it would depend on what you would call ‘strange’.”

“Oh, things such as out-of-place sounds, lights, smells, vibrations, unusual weather phenomena, that sort of thing,” replied the lieutenant with a wave of his hoof.

Clover took a moment to try and think back to his experience from the day before, but he couldn’t think of anything odd that he experienced in the lead-up to the attack. So shaking his head, he said, “No, as far as I can remember, there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just a sunny, summer day, no clouds in sight, even over the Everfree, and none of the birds were acting odd until the wolves showed up, but that’s to be expected, I would suppose.”

Nodding, Palisade looked down at a stack of notes in front of him. Some of these notes were things that he observed at the site of the attack himself, others were mentioned in Cloud Kicker’s report while the rest were things that he’d thought of as he was questioning Allen’s workers. It had led to some of them getting irritated as he’d needed to have them come back in several times after they had given their original testimony when he’d thought of a new question that he hadn’t asked before moving on to another pony.

However, he figured he was done doing that, as by the time he’d gotten to Clover, he felt he had pretty much gotten as much information out of this group as he was going to get. However, protocol dictated that he interview everyone, and so that was what he was going to do.

“Alright, then we’ll move on to the next question. You, Rye Grass, Penny Farthing, and Creme Brulee were all bunched together when the wolves attacked, correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“How did Ms. Farthing get separated from your group?”

Clover let his head fall down a bit in shame. “That was my fault,” he replied quietly. “When the wolves attacked, we all grabbed whatever was at hoof and rushed to the fallen tree trunk, while Honey ran to get help. Our plan was to use the already cut branches as makeshift spears to try and keep the wolves from crossing the river, as they could only cross in a single file line. Rye and Brulee took up positions on the right sight of the tree, and Penny and I were on the left. Penny was using her magic to hold up a smaller branch and jab it at the wolves as they tried to cross. The rest of us were meant to just keep them from jumping down, and for a little bit, the plan worked. The wolves couldn’t jump over our makeshift spear wall because anytime they tried, Penny would hit them with her branch and unbalance them, and anytime the wolves tried to push through, we would push them back with a strong jab with our spears.”

“So what happened?” asked Palisade, even though he already had a pretty good picture of the events that had unfolded from the others by now.

“I wasn’t fast enough during a jab and the lead wolf managed to bite into my spear and yank it out of my hooves, at which point I tried to grab another one, while the others tried to keep them back. But one slipped through and snapped at me and I lost my balance and fell on my back. Before anypony could do anything to try and stop them, the lead wolf managed to jump clear and land next to Penny.”

“And that is when it bit her?”

Clover nodded quietly. “She’d just shot off a distress spell when it bit her and she screamed before shooting it in the face with a magic blast. It let her go and she took the opportunity to grab me with her magic and chucked me over the tree to land next to the others while she retreated underneath the remaining tree branches.”

“I see,” said Palisade as he jotted down a note. Looking back up at Clover he asked, “And what happened next?”

“I landed on the other side, and the others quickly pulled me up and gave me a new branch to fight back with. We all ended up going back to back when two other wolves managed to get across and start circling us.”

“And is that when Allen showed up?” queried Palisade.

Clover nodded. “Yeah, Rye was the first to see him come roaring into the field on his tractor. I didn’t really see him at first because I was looking towards the river, but I heard the tractor.”

“So you didn’t see him when he ran the first wolf over?”

Clover shook his head. “No, I was too busy trying to keep the other wolf away from me. But I saw what happened to the second wolf.”

Jotting down another note, Palisade motioned for Clover to continue speaking.

“Well, I guess the second wolf saw what happened to the first one, because it tried to run away, but Allen didn’t let it,” continued Clover.

“What did he do?”

“He ran it over with his tractor,” replied Clover with a shrug, as if it should have been obvious.

“Did you notice anything different about Mr. Ross during this time?”

Clover quietly nodded. “Yeah, it looked like his eyes were glowing blue, and his tractor’s lights were also glowing blue. When he passed by, they would leave blue, wispy streaks behind that quickly disappeared after a few seconds.”

“What happened when Mr. Ross hit that timber wolf? Did you see it?”

“Yeah, I did. The second that his tractor touched the wolf, it exploded in a shower of wooden fragments.”

“Did you see anything else?” pressed Palisade.

Clover bit his lip and softly chewed on it for a second as he debated whether or not he should say anything further. After a few moments, he finally added, “Well... I’m not sure, but I think I saw a wisp of greenish smoke get sucked into the front of the tractor when it hit the wolf. But it could have just been a trick of the light or something,” he replied hesitantly.

Palisade felt his ears perk up and he hastily wrote down Clover’s reply. “I see, anything else?”

Clover shook his head. “I don’t think so. After Allen ran the second wolf over, he turned around and went after the last one. The other wolves on the Everfree side of the river had already run away by this point, so there was only the one trying to get at Penny left, which Allen chased down and ran it into the fence. After which, Cloud Kicker showed up, and you probably already know the rest.”

Writing down a final thought, Palisade stood up and leaned across his desk, offering Clover his hoof. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Leaf, you and your friends are free to go now. If we need to ask any further questions, we’ll let you know.”

Standing up, Clover returned Palisade’s hoof bump and made to leave, Palisade escorting him out of his office.

Stepping out into the hallway, the two stallions walked along quietly. As they reached the main entrance, Clover suddenly asked, “So what happens now?”

Palisade looked at him and asked, “What you do mean?”

“I mean, what happens to us and Allen?” asked Clover meekly.

“Well for you guys, I would say not much. Other than answering questions, there really isn’t anything else that we need from you. As for Mr. Ross and Ms. Farthing, they’ll obviously need to recover from their injuries, and then probably answer some questions themselves. After that, I’m not sure,” replied Palisade with a shrug of his wings.

Clover slowly nodded, an unhappy look on his face at Palisade’s answer. However, there was nothing he could really do so he slowly turned away and trotted out of the guard station.

Palisade watched him go before turning around and heading back to his office to finish writing his report on the timber wolf incident, along with the small mountain of other office paperwork that needed doing daily in order to keep the higher-ups happy.

Sitting down at his desk, he pulled various papers over and began to read them. Occasionally, he would grab a quill with a wing and scribble a note or two on another piece of paper or sign his name on the page he was reading. It wasn’t the most exciting or glamorous part of being a guard, but paperwork was what made things happen, though from how slowly military bureaucracy moved at times, Palisade wondered if it was something worth doing at times.

However, unlike some of his classmates from West Hoof, Palisade was never one to shirk his duties and slack off.

Though the temptation is there some days, he admitted to himself as he set aside another signed report.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud commotion coming from down the hall. Looking up from Clover’s testimony, Palisade glanced up at the clock on the wall and noticed that it was nearly ten o’clock at night.

Strange, I could have sworn it was only four o’clock just a few minutes ago, wondered Palisade to himself as he stood up and stretched his stiff muscles. After a couple of satisfying pops, he trotted around his desk and poked his head out into the hallway to see what all the commotion up front was.

Looks like visitors, he observed when he noticed a pair of golden armored pegsi standing to either side of the entrance and the low murmur of voices drifting back towards him. Deciding to see who all was bothering his evening duty stallion, Palisade left his office behind and casually trotted down the hall to see for himself what was going on.

As soon as he reached the front lobby, he felt his eyebrows hike up in surprise upon seeing that his unannounced visitor was none other than Prince Blueblood.

Blueblood, hearing Palisade’s hoof falls on the wooden floor behind him, turned his attention from the desk guard and affixed it to Palisade.

Seeing that the prince’s attention was now on him, Palisade quickly snapped to attention.

“Good evening sir!” he barked out crisply.

“Good evening, lieutenant,” nodded Blueblood in reply. “I was just asking your desk sergeant where I might find you. I’m glad to see that I will not need to go far.”

“Yes sir, I was in my office when I heard you come in,” said Palisade in response, hoof still raised in salute.

“At ease lieutenant,” remarked Blueblood with a wave of his hoof.

Dropping his hoof and adopting a more relaxed posture, Palisade attempted to subtly adjust his rumpled uniform in an attempt to make it more presentable.

Seeing Palisade’s attempt to stealthily fix his uniform, Blueblood smirked. “Do not worry lieutenant, I’m not here on an inspection tour, and contrary to popular belief I am not that much of a pompous twit that I would rake you over the coals for a uniform that isn’t perfect after a long day of performing your duties.”

Palisade felt a rush of relief flow through him as he ceased trying to fix his uniform.

“Thank you, sir,” he began, “Now may I ask what brings you to Ponyville at this time of night?”

“I received word that several of my business associates were involved in a timber wolf attack yesterday, and I wished to check up on them. I would have been here sooner, however, I just got back to Canterlot from Manehatten a few hours ago. Thankfully these gentlecolts,” he waved a hoof at the pair of armored pegasi by the door, “were kind enough to fly me down here on short notice.”

Looking from the pegasi guards to Blueblood, Palisade slowly nodded. “I see,” he said before stepping to one side and inviting Blueblood down the hallway and to his office.

“If you would like, I can bring you up to speed in my office, Your Grace.”

“I think I would like that, thank you,” replied Blueblood with a satisfied nod. “You two are dismissed. Go see if you can find something to eat. I’ll send for you when I’m ready to leave,” said Blueblood to the two pegasi who’d brought him to Ponyville.

“Thank you, sir!” They replied with crisp salutes before turning and trotting outside in search of someplace to eat.

Turning back to Palisade, Blueblood trotted after him as the lieutenant guided him to his office.

Entering the office, Blueblood made sure to shut the door behind him and after taking a seat in front of Palisade’s desk, he let himself relax as he waited for Palisade to take his own seat.

“Is there anything I can get you before I begin the briefing sir?” he asked.

Blueblood shook his head. “I’m alright, but if you need something please feel free to go and get it before we get started.”

“I’m fine sir,” replied Palisade easily as he sat down behind his desk.

“Very well then,” began Blueblood, “let us begin then.”

“Yes sir, where would you like me to start?”

Blueblood brought a hoof to his chin and idly rubbed it while he thought. After a few moments, he said, “Start with the attack. How did it happen?”

“A pack of timber wolves were able to cross the river on the eastern side of Mr. Ross’s farm due to a large oak tree falling across it after a heavy rainstorm washed away the river bank from underneath it. Apparently, Mr. Ross was in the process of cutting it up when the incident occurred,” answered Palisade as he told Blueblood what he had learned during his short investigation.

“I see,” commented Blueblood eventually as Palisade finished speaking, and leaning back in his chair, his hoof still idly rubbing his chin, Blueblood asked, “Is there any protocol here to keep something such as this from happening?”

Palisade felt his ears fall against his scalp in embarrassment. “There is, yes.”

“And what would that protocol be?” asked Blueblood curiously.

Clearing his throat nervously, Palisade replied, “The river is to be kept clear of anything that creates an easy access point between the Everfree and settled lands. Normally, a pegasi patrol is organized to fly along the Everfree’s border and report any such access points back to the local authorities so that they may be quickly removed, and or have the local guard keep the crossing under observation so that if anything crosses, a defensive response can be organized quickly.”

“Something tells me that this crossing wasn’t reported,” commented Blueblood with a raised eyebrow.

Palisade hung his head in shame and gave a shallow nod. “No sir... it wasn’t. The storm happened the night of the fourth and fifth and we did not know about it until yesterday.”

“And why did you not know about it, lieutenant?” pressed Blueblood, a hint of disapproval in his voice.

Palisade chewed the inside of his cheek as he tried to figure out what to say.

Blueblood, seeing the lieutenant’s hesitation, stopped rubbing his chin and leaned forward. “Tell me the truth lieutenant, and do not try and sugarcoat anything. Ponyville falls within the boundaries of my duchy, and its citizens and their safety are ultimately my responsibility. If there are problems, I need the unvarnished truth, no matter how distressing it is. So please, tell me why this happened so that we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Palisade gave a single nod and prepared to kiss his career goodbye.

“Well, the truth is that I don’t have enough ponies to cover Ponyville and the surrounding area as protocol requires. If I tried, my ponies wouldn’t be able to do anything other than patrol, and they would be constantly tired.”

“How many ponies do you have under your command?” asked Blueblood.

“At present, there are thirty-eight, including myself,” replied Palisade with a sigh. “Though that number will drop further at the end of the month due to retirements and transfer requests going through.”

Blueblood blinked in confusion. “That can’t be right. If I remember correctly, my aunt authorized that Ponyville would receive a full-strength company to help with local security after the Discord incident. That was in addition to helping protect the Element Bearers, as well as keep an eye out for further chaotic incidents caused by Discord’s spell that brought Allen here.”

Palisade nodded. “Yes, that was all included in my orders when I was assigned here after initial contact with Mr. Ross.”

“So why do you have only thirty-eight ponies instead of the normal one hundred?” pressed Blueblood.

“Because I wasn’t assigned one hundred ponies to start with, and what I was assigned hasn’t been replenished as ponies have retired or been reassigned to other posts,” explained Palisade quietly.

Now Blueblood was even more confused. “Lieutenant, this is not making sense to me. You were supposed to have a full-strength company as well as the local guard to aid you in protecting this area,” he paused and suddenly looked around at Palisade’s office, a scrutinizing look on his face. “Lieutenant, correct me if I am wrong, but your office seems rather...”

“Barebones?” Palisade offered with a rueful chuckle.

“I was going to say rustic, but that works too,” admitted Blueblood.

“We just moved in a few days ago. We’re hoping to have the barracks finished next week, and the armory next month. Though that is under the assumption that we receive the required building materials and money to make that happen,” replied Palisade, a touch of bitterness coloring his voice.

By now, Blueblood had stopped rubbing his chin and had leaned forward and was staring intently at Palisade.

“Lieutenant,” he began, his voice dangerously soft, “are you telling me that you have been without proper accommodations and facilities since your arrival in Ponyville?”

Palisade nodded bitterly. “Yes sir, Canterlot considers us a low priority, even with the princess’s command that a garrison be established here. If I had realized that we were going to be this badly slow-rolled. I would have prioritized the barracks being built first rather than the administration building we’re sitting in right now.”

Blueblood slumped back in his chair and sighed as he rubbed a temple with his hoof. “Even though you probably already have, I still need to ask, have you informed Canterlot of your needs and current situation recently?”

“Every single week since I got here sir,” replied Palisade with a bitter chuckle. “As I mentioned, they view Ponyville as a low priority. Which is evident by the state that the local town guard is in, as it is both small and underequipped compared to Canterlot. Not only that, but their training consists of four hours twice a month. If it wasn’t for Lieutenant Cloud Kicker, I doubt they would have any kind of training or equipment.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Blueblood.

“Because 1st Lieutenant Willow spends more time in Canterlot schmoozing with the higher-ups in the hopes that she can transfer up there, than she does down here doing her job,” replied Palisade, an annoyed and disgusted look on his face. “From what Cloud has told me, she’s had to call in a few favors with family members to even get Ponyville’s guard equipped with what it has, and it isn’t even new stuff either. Basically, a bunch of old, worn-out hoof me downs that were destined for the scrap pile before being diverted here, and don’t even get me started on their pay rates. Epona knows Mayor Mare wants to pay them better, but the money just isn’t there, as such, not many ponies are willing to sign up and help out.”

“How many?”

“About a dozen ponies, but that is only in an emergency. Usually, it’s only about five or six that show up for regular training and occasional patrols.”

Blueblood’s headache wasn’t getting any better as he groaned. “Wonderful.”

Palisade gave a helpless wing shrug. “Could be worse, sir. Ponyville could have no local guard at all. From what Cloud Kicker told me, for a long time, that was the case. The only reason they have one now was because of what happened to the Apple family nearly ten years ago.”

Blueblood grimaced in remembrance of that particular event. They wouldn’t have died if they’d had at least a couple of damn house guards like every other noble out there. Even the poorest noble has at least a few on staff for security.

He shook his head. “Yes, that was a terrible day,” he replied, “they never did find Bright Mac and Pear Butter’s bodies. Though whether that was a mercy or not, I am not sure,” replied Blueblood quietly.

“Yeah, Mayor Mare said that it really shook up the town when it happened. A lot of ponies suddenly wanted to have a local guard to help protect them and they all pitched in with additional funding to outfit them as well as joining up. She told me that at its peak, Ponyville had nearly a hundred ponies in the local guard, but time and budget constraints saw that number dwindle down to what it is now. They had to sell pretty much all of the old equipment to pay to repair the town hall after lightning struck it a few years ago.”

“Wonderful,” remarked Blueblood sarcastically. Taking a deep breath, he continued, “Alright, let us return to the matter of why you didn’t receive a full-strength company when you arrived here.”

Scratching the side of his head, Palisade leaned back in his chair and gave a helpless shrug with his wings. “I’m not entirely sure on that myself, sir. All of my orders were cut right after Discord was taken care of, and while we had plenty of ponies in Ponyville at the time. Few of them stayed when everything was said and done.”

“Were they assigned to your company?” asked Blueblood with a cock eyebrow.

Palisade nodded. “Most of them were yes, but the ones that could, pulled strings to be returned to their original postings before the Discord Incident. A few just up and left and returned to their old units, and unfortunately, we haven’t been able to properly identify those ponies so we are unlikely to get them back or met out punishment for going AWOL.”

By this point, Blueblood’s headache was one step away from turning into a full-on migraine and he dearly wished for something to take the edge off. “I see,” was his only reply.

Shrugging helplessly again, Palisade said, “Could be worse, I could have no company at all sir. Seeing as how chaotic the operation was, and how hastily everypony was thrown together, I doubt any proper orders were dispatched that would allow us to untangle this mess. The fact of the matter is that most ponies were under the impression that this was a temporary assignment and that they would return to their old units upon completion of the operation. Not only that but thanks to Discord shuffling the entire Equestrian military around like bingo balls in a tumbler, unit cohesion was practically non-existent following the incident.”

“I am aware of how screwed up everything was lieutenant,” replied Blueblood wearily, “that still doesn’t change the fact that ponies disobeyed their superiors and disregarded direct orders from the princess to create a new unit that was meant to safe guard the Element Bearers against more mundane threats, such as timber wolf attacks so that they could focus on the big stuff. Right now, if someone wanted to, they could waltz right into town, foalnap or kill one of the Bearers and our greatest defense would be neutralized. This is unacceptable.”

“So what are we going to do, sir?” asked Palisade softly.

“You are going to remain here and continue your mission to improve local defenses. I am going to return to Canterlot and kick some sense into those hoofdraggers up there. Worst case scenario, I’ll call in some favors and dip into my funds so that Ponyville can at least have a functioning guard unit.”

Palisade simply nodded his head. Though after a few moments of silence, he tentatively asked, “Did you want to go and see Mr. Ross and Ms. Farthing?”

“It was my main reason for coming down here, yes,” replied Blueblood with a nod.

Pushing himself away from his desk, Palisade stood up, buttoned up his tunic while trying to get the worst of the wrinkles out of it, and motioned for Blueblood to follow him with a wing as he opened the door and stepped out of his office.

Following close behind, Blueblood waited as Palisade closed the door behind them, and fell in alongside as the two trotted down the hallway and out into the front office area.

“Sergeant Hill, I’m stepping out with His Grace for a bit, if anypony needs me or him, they can find us at the hospital,” said Palisade as the two headed for the exit.

“Understood sir, I’ll pass the word along if required,” replied the earth pony sergeant with a crisp salute.

Giving a nod in reply, and a return salute, Palisade and Blueblood stepped out into the night air before turning and heading for the hospital.

The walk there was quiet as neither stallion really had much to say to one another. Eventually, the dim outline of the hospital came into view. A few lighted windows signaling that there were still ponies working at this late hour.

Reaching the front door, Palisade opened it and waited for Blueblood to enter ahead of him before following behind.

Striding up to the receptionist's desk, Blueblood greeted the night shift nurse with a nod of his head and said, “I’m here to see Mr. Ross the human and Ms. Farthing the unicorn.”

The pegasus nurse looked up at Blueblood and replied with an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry sir, but visiting hours are over.”

“I understand that, but I will not be able to wait until tomorrow to see them, and I merely wish to confirm their health and speak with them for a few minutes if possible. Is there a doctor on duty that I may speak with?”

The nurse looked between Blueblood and Palisade for a moment and slowly nodded. “One moment, I’ll go and get him.”

“Thank you,” replied Blueblood with a gracious nod.

The nurse quickly departed, leaving the two stallions alone in the waiting room.

“Are you going to push to see them?” asked Palisade quietly.

Blueblood shook his head. “No, if the doctor won’t let me see them tonight, then I will send a representative later to check in on them. In the meantime, I will simply leave a message for them when they wake up. This visit is just to make sure they are going to be okay, and to soothe my own worries, nothing more.”

Palisade opened his mouth to reply, however, the return of the nurse with another pony forced him to close it.

Stepping forward, Blueblood held out a hoof and said, “Good evening, am I to presume that you are the doctor on duty this evening?”

The doctor bumped Blueblood’s hoof with his own and replied, “Dr. Crash Cart, and yes I am. How may I help you, Your Grace?”

“Lieutenant Palisade, and I were hoping to see Mr. Ross and Ms. Farthing this evening,” replied Blueblood easily, pleased that the doctor had recognized him, and hopeful that this meant he had a better chance of seeing Allen and Penny this evening as a result.

“I see, and what is your relationship with these patients?” queried Dr. Cart.

“They are my business associates, I’ve invested in Mr. Ross’s farm, and Ms. Farthing used to work for me before I transferred her employment to Mr. Ross. In addition, Mr. Ross is, for lack of a better term, a ward of the crown, due to the circumstances of his arrival here in Equestria from his world. We are currently attempting to return him to his world and Princess Celestia has tasked me with watching over him while he is here, as he lives within the boundaries of my duchy.”

Dr. Cart nodded. “I see,” he paused and idly tapped a hoof against the tile floor in thought. Turning to the on-duty nurse, he asked, “Nurse Soft Touch, would you bring Mr. Ross’s file to me? It should list everypony that is allowed to see him after hours.”

“Of course Dr. Cart, did you want me to bring Ms. Farthing’s file as well?”

“Might as well,” replied Dr. Cart with a wave of his hoof.

Giving the doctor a quick nod of understanding, Nurse Touch quickly trotted off.

Turning his attention back to Blueblood, Dr. Cart said, “While Nurse Touch is retrieving their records, is there anything in particular you wished to know?”

“Will we be able to see them?”

The doctor shrugged. “If you are an emergency contact, then I can allow you a few minutes. Otherwise, you will need to wait until tomorrow morning.”

“I see, then are you able to tell me how they are doing? The information that Lieutenant Palisade provided to me on their condition is several hours old, and I am wondering if there has been any change since then.”

Dr. Cart scratched his chin and replied, “I cannot go into detail until I’ve seen their records, but I can say they are both alive and stable.”

Blueblood breathed a small sigh of relief. “Well, that is good to hear at least.”

“Hmm, yes I am sure it is- Oh, thank you Nurse Touch,” said Dr. Cart as Nurse Touch suddenly returned, a pair of folders tucked in her wing.

Taking them both from her in his magic, the doctor quickly scanned the both of them and after a few minutes nodded. “Well, it appears that you are in fact listed as an emergency contact for both of them and are allowed access to them, even after visiting hours, within reason of course .”

Blueblood felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips. It’s good to be the prince sometimes.

“Excellent, may we see them now then?”

Passing the files back to Nurse Touch, Dr. Cart sighed tiredly, “I suppose, in truth, it’s about time for me to do my rounds anyways. Though if they are asleep I ask that you not wake them,” he cautioned.

“Of course,” responded Blueblood with a nod of his head.

“Very well then, follow me,” said Dr. Cart as he turned and headed deeper into the hospital, both Blueblood and Palisade falling in behind him.

The trip to Allen’s room was quiet as nopony had anything to say, for which Blueblood was glad as he didn’t really feel like engaging in small talk at the moment.

After a few minutes, the group arrived at Allen’s room and Dr. Cart softly opened the door and stepped inside to check on Allen. Both Blueblood and Palisade waited patiently outside until the doctor cleared them to enter.

Stepping inside, Blueblood noticed that Allen was fast asleep, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, while his heart monitor beeped softly. Turning to Dr. Cart, he softly asked, “Has he woken up since arriving?”

Dr. Cart shook his head and replied just as softly, “I’m afraid not, though we do not think he is in any danger. His body is just tired. He expended a large amount of mana during the fight and his body is not used to that sort of strain. Thankfully our preliminary tests seem to indicate that there was no damage to his thaumatic system. So he just needs plenty of food rich in mana along with some rest and he should be good to go in a week or two.”

“That is good to hear,” replied Blueblood as he softly lit his horn and carefully pulled out a small ‘Get Well Soon’ card from his vest pocket. Placing it on the bedside table, he turned to leave.

“That’s it?” asked Palisade after the doctor had closed the door behind them.

Blueblood nodded. “As I said, I just wished to confirm their wellbeing with my own eyes. I had no intention of waking either of them if they are resting. It would be poor form on my part.” Turning to Dr. Cart, Blueblood inclined his head and said, “And now Ms. Farthing’s room please.”

“Right this way, Your Grace,” replied the doctor as he turned and trotted away, with Blueblood and Palisade following quietly behind.

When they arrived at Penny’s room, however, they found that, unlike Allen, Penny was wide awake, as evidenced by the light spilling out from beneath her door into the dimly lit hallway.

Dr. Cart carefully opened the door after a brief knock and poked his head inside.

“Ms. Farthing? You have visitors,” he said gently.

A muffled response caused him to pull back and motion for the two stallions to enter. As Blueblood was walking past, Dr. Cart stuck out a hoof and stopped him. “If I am not currently needed, I have several other patients that I need to check in on.”

Blueblood nodded. “That is fine, we won’t be long and should be able to find our way out.”

“Very well, have a good evening Your Grace,” bowed Dr. Cart as he turned and left.

Giving the doctor a nod goodbye in return, Blueblood stepped into the lit hospital room and took in the sight of the battered mare lying in the hospital bed.

Seeing his concerned look, Penny gave Blueblood a small smile and replied, “It looks a lot worse than it is, Your Grace, though it does still hurt a bit when I move my leg wrong.”

Trotting up to her bedside, Blueblood lit up his horn, pulled another ‘Get Well Soon’ card out of his vest pocket, and floated it over to Penny.

Taking the card in her own magical field, Penny quickly looked the card over and gave Blueblood a grateful smile. “Thank you, sir, this was very sweet of you.” She then set the card down on her bedside table next to a few others.

“You’re welcome, I figured it was the least I could get you considering the circumstances. Though to be honest, my secretary was the one to pick them out,” he admitted sheepishly.

Penny laughed. “Well, it’s the thought that counts, thank you.” Taking a deep breath, she allowed her smile to soften and adopted a more serious look. “So, with that out of the way, were you wanting a report from me on the incident sir?”

Blueblood shook his head. “Only if you want to give one. I’ve gotten the majority of it from Lieutenant Palisade here when I arrived, in addition to other issues that contributed to the attack, though you will need not concern yourself with those, I will take care of them so that this doesn’t happen again. In any case, I just wanted to stop by and see how you two were doing.”

“I am doing alright, all things considered. The doctors told me to stay off this leg,” she gently lifted her left leg in emphasis, “for several weeks until it heals, and to take it easy once the cast is off for a few months. Thankfully, they told me it looked as though there wasn’t any permanent damage beyond maybe some small scarring. Considering the reputation that timber wolves have around here, I came out of this encounter relatively unscathed,” she paused and bit her bottom lip in worry before asking, “Is Allen okay? They wouldn’t really tell me anything about him after I woke up, only that something happened to him after I was flown out.”

“He’s suffering from magical exhaustion. Apparently, he somehow managed to cast a spell while working to save you, and his body wasn’t ready for it. We just came from his room and he’s resting. The doctors say he will be fine with rest and time,” replied Blueblood gently.

Penny sagged in relief. “That is good to hear, I was worried when they wouldn’t tell me what had happened to him after I woke up and asked for him. Though,” a worried look suddenly crossed her face, “who is going to look after his farm while he’s in the hospital?”

Palisade stepped forward with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry ma’am, that shouldn’t be an issue. If you want, I can pass word along to your employees that you need to see them tomorrow and you can brief them on what needs to be done in Mr. Ross’s absence.”

“Would you? Oh thank you so much,” replied Penny with a relieved sigh and smile. “That’s a load off my mind,” a sudden yawn forced her to cover her mouth with her good hoof. “Oh, sorry, I must be more tired than I realized.”

Glancing up at the clock on the wall, Blueblood saw that it was past midnight and said, “That is alright, it is getting late anyways, and we should let you get some rest. I will send somepony down shortly to help you with things while you and Allen recover.”

Penny opened her mouth to argue, but a raised hoof from Blueblood stopped her. “This is not open for debate, you and Allen need to recover your strength, and you cannot do that if you are forced to work. You and he are to focus on getting better, and you will let my pony take care of the workload. All you will need to do is bring them up to speed and double-check their work. Understand?”

Penny felt her droop slightly. “Yes sir,” she replied as though she were a student having been scolded by their teacher for overworking themselves.

Blueblood gave a satisfied nod. “Good, now unless you have something further to add, the lieutenant and I will let you get some rest. Good night, Ms. Farthing.”

“Goo-” another yawn interrupted Penny’s thought, “-d night, Your Grace,” she finished before adjusting herself in bed so that she was more comfortable.

Ushering Palisade out before him, Blueblood turned off the lights as he shut the door behind him, leaving a now slumbering Penny to walk amongst the land of dreams.

Chapter 54 (Night Dreams and Meetings Part 1)

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Chapter 54

A terrified scream echoed through the dark and foggy night as a young mare ran along a misty lake shore, her heart beating in her chest like a jackhammer and tears flowing from her terrified eyes.

Behind her, a hulking blue earth pony wearing a white and red accented hockey goalie mask lumbered after her, a machete gripped in his rotten teeth, his red glowing eyes laser focused on the fleeing teenager with murderous intent.

Jumping over a fallen log, the frightened teenager spotted a cabin to her right, and in blind panic veered off the path and ran for the apparent safety of the lone building. Stumbling through the front door, she quickly slammed it behind her and dropped an oak beam across it, locking it from the inside.

Frantically looking around, she spotted a few pieces of furniture scattered throughout the cabin and quickly began piling them up in front of the door and windows in a vain attempt to keep the monster out. However, her efforts were in vain as with a few heavy bucks, the front door exploded from its frame and flew across the cabin, exploding into matchsticks against the far wall.

Terrified eyes looked upon their impending doom as the monster pony slowly advanced upon the frightened teenager, his machete raised in preparation to hack and slash the poor filly to pieces.

“N-no, p-please, d-don’t k-kill me!” she begged as the monster slowly backed her into a corner, unmoved by her tears.

Feeling her flank bump into a solid wall, the teenager gasped and looked back in horror at the wall that now prevented her from escaping her grisly fate. Hot, fetid breath ruffled her yellow mane as she slowly turned to face her fate, tears now liberally streaming down her face as she came nose to nose with the Monster of Pleasant Lake.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the monster reared back in preparation to cut off her head. However, a sudden spear of light burst through the monster’s chest and caused him to let out a cry of pained rage as cracks of light slowly crept up his form before with a bright flash, he disappeared in a cloud of sparkles.

“Please, calm thyself, young one,” came a comforting voice from seemingly nowhere, yet everywhere.

“W-who’s t-there?” stuttered the frightened filly.

A small ball of light suddenly appeared in the middle of the room and gently floated closer to her.

Flinching away from the small light, the young teenager shut her eyes and prepared for the worst. However, she was surprised when she felt a gentle, and warm hoof touch her cheek and a soft voice whisper, “Shh, tis fine. Thy nightmare hath been vanquished and thy dream is safe once again.”

Slowly opening her eyes, she was greeted by a pair of warm teal eyes gazing back into her own pink ones, and a dark blue hoof gently brushing away the tears staining her light pink coat.

“W-what’s going o-on? W-where are m-my friends?” she stammered, still scared after her run-in with the monster.

“They art safe, the same as thee. We art in thy dream, and there is no monster,” came the reply.

“W-who are y-you?”

“We art Princess Luna, Princess of the Night and Guardian of Dreams. We saw that thy dream was especially disturbed this evening and We banished the nightmare that wast plaguing thee,” replied the mare in front of her.

Pulling her head back, she noticed that the mare in front of her had both a horn and wings, and recognition flashed across her face as she realized just who was in front of her.

Her fear temporarily forgotten, the young mare quickly prostrated herself in a bow before Princess Luna.

“Please, rise. There is no need for that here,” replied Luna as she gently pulled the young mare into a standing position. “Let Us go somewhere more pleasant than here,” and with a flash, both she and the young mare were transported to a small clearing where laughter could be heard drifting through the trees, and the pleasant smell of wood smoke and smores tickled one's nose.

“I-I don’t understand, this is... a dream?” she muttered as she watched her friends laugh and joke with each other around the fire. “It all feels so... real.”

“Tis because We art here stabilizing thy dream,” replied Luna quietly.

“But what about before? That also felt real.”

“Night terrors can fool the mind into believing things are real when they are not. We have placed a calming spell upon thy mind, thou shouldst have pleasant dreams for some time. Now go, be with thine friends, and perhaps thou shouldst skip the scary stories right before bed next time,” said Luna with a smile as she pushed the young mare forward with her magic.

Turning around, the young filly said, “T-thank you,” before her eyes lost their focus and she blinked in confusion for a moment, wondering what she was looking at in the dark woods.

“Hey, Strawberry! You better get over here before Pinecone eats all the smores again!” yelled one of her friends.

Strawberry gave a shake of her head and yelled back, “I’m coming!” all memories of her terrifying encounter earlier were long forgotten, along with any memory of Princess Luna.

Said princess smiled happily at seeing one of her ponies enjoying themselves before with a swish of her horn and a flash of spell light, she exited the dream.

Stepping out through the now shimmering portal, she gave it one last look and said, “Sweet dreams Strawberry Lemonade,” before then turning and trotting away down an ethereal forest path.

Hmm... tis calm this night, mused Luna to herself as she trotted along. Other than just now, We have yet to find other signs of distressed dreaming.

Taking a right turn at a fork in the path, Luna soon found herself exiting the dream forest and entering a sweeping grass field that stretched on for miles.

Opening up her wings, she gave them a powerful beat and leaped into the air. Quickly gaining altitude, she oriented herself toward the nearest cluster of dreamers and set off.

Looking down at the dreamscape below, Luna smiled. Tis good to return to the Dream Realm after so long away. We art pleased that it hast been able to weather Our thousand year absence without serious damage.

Humming a soft lullaby under her breath, Luna silently winged her way over the moonlit fields of softly swaying ethereal grasses in search of additional ponies to help. However, every shimmering dream portal that she came across was a calm blue, and thus unneeding of her help. Though occasionally she would spot one whose aura was a vibrant pink, with small hearts floating from its edges.

She made sure to stay far away from those types of dreams, she was no voyeur, and unlike Cadence held little interest in the love lives of her ponies.

Banking slightly, she caught sight of a group of portals in the near distance. A town most likely, judging by the layout of the portals and their density.

Hmm, if mine understanding is correct, then that should be the village of Ponyville over there, mused Luna as she came in for a landing in the center of the town.

Folding her wings as she touched down, she cast her gaze around but found every portal to be a placid blue, and thus unneeding of her help.

Feeling equal parts glad and disappointed, Luna idly wondered if she should return to the waking world when she suddenly felt something odd caress her senses.

That feeling, she thought as she looked around before jumping up into the air for a better look, tis the same as that of the odd dream portal from earlier. Where is... ah ha! There it is. She exclaimed in excitement as she angled herself towards a distant building on the outskirts of town.

Entering through the front doors she quickly navigated her way to the room where the mystery dreamer slept. Much as in the real world, in the dream world, walls and objects blocked Luna’s ability to pass through unless there was an opening. In the case of Strawberry Lemonade’s dream, her dream portal was placed over the entrance to her tent, and until Luna passed through it, she was unable to enter the inside of the tent. Though, unlike in the real world, entering through the dream portal would transport Luna into the dreamscape of the individual, rather than where they were sleeping.

In the case of the portal in front of her, if she were to step through, she would not find a hospital room, as she guessed that this is what this building's function was in the real world, but the unknown dreamers, dreamscape.

Of course, that assumed that she could pass through. Which given the many tens of times that she had attempted to enter it in the recent weeks since she had first encountered it, and failed, was unlikely. It was to the point in fact, that she’d long since given up trying, and instead merely contented herself with checking in on it every so often to see if anything had changed. Much like a botanist would with a unique plant they had just discovered. However, tonight, something felt... different with the portal, as unlike the last time she was here, this time she could feel the energies of the dreamer leaking into the dream world.

Interesting, she mused to herself as she cautiously stepped forward, We wonder what hath caused this portal to change since Our last visit? Perhaps its owner has finally acclimated themselves to Equestria and its magic?

While she couldn’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, Luna had grown increasingly confident over the past several months since she had discovered this odd portal, that it belonged to Equestria’s recent human arrival. Thus, unlocking its mysteries had fallen down on her steadily growing list of things to do in recent weeks, to the point where she’d nearly forgotten about it until she felt its presence this night.

Hmm, curious. Before it was nearly undetectable to my senses, but now, We can feel the faint tug of the dreamer beyond. Reaching out a hoof, she gently pushed against the portal, fully expecting her hoof to merely pass through, as it had done countless times before. However, to her surprise, her hoof met with resistance.

Strange, thought Luna as she pushed on the elastic dream portal. Dream portals do not normally behave in such a manner. Continuing her inspection, Luna pushed on the rubbery portal several more times, before lighting up her horn and casting a simple scanning spell.

Hmm, it is as if the portal is both here, and not here at the same time, she thought to herself as her scan returned the strange results to her. We wonder what would happen if We tried something different...

Charging up another spell, Luna prepared to release it at the portal. This spell was normally meant to stabilize dream portals that were suffering from some sort of magical or psychic attack that prevented her from entering to help the dreamer.

Thankfully, knowledge of those spells and techniques were very rare, and it was even rarer that someone had the ability to use them on another individual, but it had occasionally happened. Thankfully, in the few times that Luna had encountered those types of attacks on dreamers, she was able to step in and save them with minimal damage to their psyche, and more importantly, she was able to track down and stop the cause of their peril before it could attack anyone else.

However, in this case, Luna felt confused, as this portal did not give off the same symptoms of a dreamer under attack from malevolent forces, but it still resisted her attempts to enter.

Perhaps tis the dreamer themselves that art preventing Us from entering? If so, the question is, why?

Feeling her spell was finally ready to cast, Luna banished her questions from her mind and released the spell. Upon impact with the rubbery and stubborn portal, the spell went to work and attempted to stabilize it, and for a few moments, it appeared that it had done so, as the portal stabilized and took on the familiar appearance of a healthy dream portal for a few seconds. However, as Luna put her hoof to the portal to pass through, she felt it quickly stiffen up and return to its rubbery texture, much to her increasing frustration.

Vexing thing, she grumbled to herself as she found herself denied entrance again, Why wilt though not allow Us to pass through thee? Charging up her horn again, she poured more power into her spell and released it again. Once more, the portal stabilized and she waited a few seconds before trying again, this time she felt herself partially enter the dream before the portal stiffened up and launched her back into the dream hospital’s corridor like a cannonball.

Holding her head with one hoof, Luna waited for the corridor to stop spinning and the stars in her vision to go away. As she felt her equilibrium start to return she shakily got to her hooves and with a determined look on her face, she made ready to hit this irritating portal with another spell when she felt somepony attempting to wake her in the real world.

Sighing in annoyance, she shot the portal a final glare and declared, “This is not over, We will return.”

Lighting her horn, she disappeared in a shower of sparkles as she returned to the waking world.

Back in her room, Luna’s eyes fluttered open, and she groggily looked over to her bedside clock to see that it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. Turning her head to the right, she saw that the one to wake her up was a nervous-looking Solar Guard.

“Why hast thou awoken me?” asked Luna, her tone indicating that the poor pony in front of her had better have a good reason for interrupting her dream-walking duties.

Clearing his throat nervously, the guard stuttered, “A-apologies Y-Your Highness, b-but Prince B-Blueblood wishes t-to speak w-with you.”

Feeling one of her eyebrows rise, Luna asked, “And why pray tell is he bothering Us and not mine sister?”

“Because Auntie is sleeping right now and I did not wish to wake her,” came the tired voice of Blueblood as he entered Luna’s room, two cups of coffee, a large thermos, and a white cardboard box floating around him in his magical aura.

“And thou thought it was fine to bother Us?” declared Luna angrily as she pushed the covers of her bed back and stood up.

Floating one of the coffee mugs over to the angry princess, Blueblood gave her a small smile and said, “Of course not, which is why I brought a peace offering.”

Taking the cup from his magical aura in her own, Luna carefully floated the fragrant elixir to her muzzle and took a deep breath. Instantly, she felt her irritation lessen, and taking a breath, she blew gently on the hot liquid before taking a delicate sip.

“Ahhh, We accept thine peace offering, though, thou shouldst not make a habit of interrupting Our nightly duties,” sighed Luna as she took another, longer, sip.

Nodding, Blueblood opened the box, revealing a dozen donuts inside, and set them on the nearby table. “Apologies Princess,” he replied as he selected an apple fritter and took a bite. He waved for her to have some before pulling a pair of chairs from the wall, setting them around the small table, and after placing his saddlebags on the floor, he took a seat.

Now fully awake, Luna set her cup down on the table and selected an eclair for herself as she sat down across from Blueblood. Turning to the guard, she said, “Thou mayest go now.”

The guard gave a quick salute and beat a hasty retreat, shutting the door a tad too quickly behind him as he left.

Chuckling, Blueblood remarked, “Must be new. Everypony always acts twitchy around Auntie for the first few months before they get used to her.”

Luna paused, the eclair part way to her mouth. “Truly? We had thought they disliked Our presence.”

Blueblood chuckled. “No, I am afraid Aunt Celestia gets the same treatment. They’re so worried about disappointing her that they end up making foals of themselves for a while. Eventually, they get that nonsense out of their system and shape up, but it takes a little bit. Doesn’t help that the old timers tend to fill their heads with silly nonsense about her sending tardy guards to the dungeons or the moon. Though, in your case, they may be worried you’ll turn into Nightmare Moon again and gobble them up or something if they displease you.”

Luna’s mood quickly soured at the mention of her alter-ego. “Yes, well, We are not surprised that they act that way around Us. Tia told Us it would take time for them to get used to Our presence,” she sighed, “Though, We suppose it is an improvement over how ponies viewed Us a thousand years ago.”

She fell silent as she moodily munched on her eclair, the sweet treat now tasting like ash in her mouth.

Sensing he was straying too far into dangerous territory, Blueblood quickly changed the subject. “How is the coffee and eclair? I picked them up from Donut Joe’s downtown. Aunt Celestia really likes his food, and I must admit, it is quite good. I wasn’t sure what kind of coffee you liked-”

“Tis fine,” she interrupted as she took another sip, “To be truthful, We are not sure what type of coffee We like either. So We are pleased to try many different combinations. Pray tell, what is this one?”

“I believe that one is just creme and two scoops of sugar,” replied Blueblood.

Taking another sip, Luna swished it around her mouth, savoring the flavors before swallowing and declaring, “We find this acceptable, We will have another.”

Nodding, Blueblood floated the insulated thermos over and topped up her coffee.

Taking another sip, Luna enjoyed the invigorating feeling of fresh caffeine rushing through her system for a moment before she regretfully set her cup down on the table and turned her full attention to Blueblood.

“Now that thine peace offering has been accepted, wilt thou tell me why thou hast decided to interrupt Our nightly watch over the dreams of the realm?” asked Luna directly.

Blueblood smiled and set his own cup down. Leaning back in his chair slightly, he replied, “I have a report to give on an incident in Ponyville, and since Auntie is still asleep, you are the only princess that I can give the report to.”

Luna frowned. “Thou knowest that We art still learning the ways of the modern world and that as such, We can not yet make decisions without Our sister's final approval.”

Blueblood nodded in agreement. “That is true, however, you are still a princess, and as such, that title carries with it a certain... gravitas, as it were. Besides, even if you are a thousand years out of time, there are certain things that do not really change all that much.”

Luna rolled her eyes in exasperation and curtly replied, “Get to the point, what is it that thou requires of Us at this hour of the the night?”

Sensing that Princess Luna was quickly losing her patience, Blueblood got to the point, “Ponyville was attacked...” he paused and glanced at the clock on the nearby fireplace, and seeing that it was after midnight, amended his dates accordingly, “two days ago.”

Seeing her ears perk up and move to stand up, he quickly held up a hoof and continued, “The situation is under control, damage and injuries were kept to a minimum, and nopony has died as a result of the incident.”

“We see why thou hast hastily come to us, considering Ponyville is within thy domain and the ponies who live there. Very well, tell Us what happened,” commanded Luna as she relaxed back into her chair.

Glad that he wasn’t about to have to chase after the night princess, Blueblood quickly recounted the events that had transpired over the last few days in Ponyville. By the time he finished, Luna’s face had become thoughtful, though Blueblood could tell that she wasn’t happy.

“We see what thou meant by certain things ‘not changing’ over the years,” she finally admitted with a sigh. “Though We had hoped that Tia had managed to improve things in our absence. Twould seem We were mistaken.”

“Quite,” remarked Blueblood softly as he took a sip of his cooling coffee. Setting the cup aside, he adjusted his mane with a hoof and continued, “Regardless, something will need to be done, and unfortunately, while I am quite influential in many circles, the Royal Guard is not one of them. If I were to go and berate those pompous West Hoof twits, they would laugh me out of their cushy offices.”

Luna cocked an eyebrow and asked, “We thought that thou had also attended a military school and held a commission of thine own?”

“I did, and do, though it’s for a different branch of the military,” replied Blueblood simply, “Father thought it best that I attend the Sunset Naval Academy in New Mareland instead of the more traditional Canterlot West Hoof Military Academy, and unlike many of his previous decisions, I believe this was one of his better ones.”

“We did not take thee for a sailor,” remarked Luna.

Blueblood shrugged. “Most ponies don’t, but I must confess I do have a soft spot for the sea. She can be a cruel and unforgiving mare, but on her good days, she is the most beautiful and kind creature you could ever encounter. Besides, unlike the army, I won’t have to worry about getting mud in my coat as much, and I will have a hot meal every night along with a soft bunk.”

“And thus the true reason comes out,” teased Luna playfully.

“The curse of having a lustrous white coat and flowing blonde mane, I am afraid,” sighed Blueblood in an overly dramatic fashion. “Dirt and it doth not mix well.”

Giggling, Luna finished off another eclair. “True, so very true,” however, her expression turned serious once more and she said, “Getting back to the matter at hoof. If they wilt not listen to thee, then why doth thou think that they shall listen to Us?”

“You’re a princess,” stated Blueblood as if the answer were obvious.

Luna rolled her eyes and retorted, “Yes, We are a princess. A princess who hast no support from anypony in government other than Our sister. A princess who has no guard of her own at present, nor any staff. Who is so far out of date on all matters of the modern era that even a newborn foal better understands how the world works than said princess. A princess who is still feared and reviled by many who think that she will turn back into Nightmare Moon at the drop of the proverbial hat. Thou art referring to that princess?”

“Yes,” nodded Blueblood as he casually sipped his coffee, “that is precisely why you would be perfect for my upcoming little scheme.”

Luna blinked in confusion. “What?”

Blueblood smiled. “As much as I love my aunt, she is bound down by tradition, red tape, and politics. Furthermore, she prefers to not ‘rock the boat’ as it were by upsetting her ‘little ponies’. You on the other hoof, are not. Nor do you care as much as her about upsetting certain ponies. In fact, you may just be the breath of fresh air that this country needs in order for things to change in a positive manner.”

“We do not follow,” replied Luna slowly, an unsure expression on her face.

His smile widening, Blueblood threw his hooves out wide, as if he were about to hug the room. “Princess Luna, you are a blank slate! You have no ties to any party or institution! Thus nopony can accuse you of playing politics or favorites. Furthermore, nopony knows what to expect from you, as you have no history! Therefore they can’t easily guess what your next move will be. Finally, you cannot be bound down by tradition, and nopony can easily use their influence on you to undermine your wishes by calling in favors or blackmail. You, Princess Luna, are the wild card. You can do whatever you feel is needed, and nopony can easily stop you, as they have no leverage over you!”

“We feel that thou art getting ahead of thyself,” remarked Luna drolly. “Tis true, We have no strings tying us down. However, We also have no strings binding Us to anyone or thing either. We doubt We would have much pull with those ‘West Hoof twits’ as thou called them earlier.”

Blueblood’s smirk turned predatory and waggling a hoof at her, he replied, “Ah ah ah, that is where you are wrong. You see princess, you actually have more authority than you think you do. For instance, did you know that you can summarily dismiss ponies within the guard for failure to properly follow lawful orders and procedures? Regardless of whether or not maliciousness was involved?”

Luna blinked in confusion. “We... believe We remember something regarding that. Yet any action We take must be approved by mine sister.”

“Not so,” replied Blueblood with another waggle of his hoof. “Let me show you something,” he said as he pulled a book from his saddlebags and opened it to a bookmarked page.

Turning the book around, he slid it across the table and using the bookmark held aloft in his magic, he pointed to a spot and said, “Would you read that paragraph there for me please?”

Doing as instructed, Luna leaned in and quietly read the indicated passage of text. As she read, she felt one of her eyebrows begin to rise, followed quickly by another. Once she finished reading, she went back over it again and found her lips twitching upwards in a smile.

Finishing her second read-through, she looked up at Blueblood and remarked dryly, “Well, twould seem that We were wrong in Our initial assumption. Doth, thou have any more surprises for Us or shall we go and put these ‘twits’ in their places?”

“I believe we shall. It will take a bit for the appropriate ponies to be gathered anyways, and I can fill you in on my full plan, and give you some background on them before we meet with them,” replied Blueblood as he retrieved the book and placed it back in his saddlebags.

“Very well then, We shall entrust thee with sending forth Our wishes to meet with them post haste.”

Giving a shallow bow of his head, Blueblood turned and opened the door. Sticking his head out into the hallway, he relayed his instructions to the guards and sent them on their way.

Once the guards were gone, he shut the door and returned to his seat. Refilling both of his and Princess Luna’s coffee cups with fresh coffee from his thermos, he said, “While we wait for our guests to arrive, I have a few ponies that I believe would make excellent replacements for our soon-to-be departing West Hoof twits.”

“We look forward to seeing them,” replied Luna with a smile.

Chapter 55 (Night Dreams and Meetings Part 2)

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Chapter 55

Three unicorn stallions of varying ages and levels of dress trotted down the darkened corridors of Canterlot Castle. The oldest, grumpily muttered under his breath about being awoken so early in the morning, while the other two trailed along behind him in silence, keeping any complaints that they may have had about being up so early wisely to themselves.

“Damn nag,” muttered the older, gray-maned pony. “Who in Tartarus does she think she is waking me up at this goddess damned hour and not even have the fucking good manners to tell me why?!”

“She must have a reason, sir,” remarked the youngest stallion softly.

The older stallion shot the younger one an angry look of contempt. “I don’t recall asking you for your opinion, Lieutenant Armor!”

Lieutenant Armor quickly dropped his gaze to the floor and muttered an apology.

“It is highly unusual sir,” Remarked the second, middle-aged stallion trotting next to the young lieutenant, as he struggled to button up his uniform front and get the wrinkles out of his undershirt while he walked, with poor success. The guard that had been sent to fetch him, hadn’t really given him enough time to properly put his uniform on after he had received the early morning summons before practically dragging him to meet with the captain and lieutenant. “Princess Luna has up until now contented herself with remaining aloof from the day-to-day operations of government. To suddenly call upon us at this time of night is very unusual and concerning.”

The elder stallion stopped and turned around. “You think I don’t know that, Stick?” he snapped, his bushy gray eyebrows twitching in barely suppressed anger. “The gall of that mare to call me,” he pointed to his chest with a hoof in outrage, “to her office at this time of night like I am some junior, wet behind the ears butterbar, fresh out of West Hoof and not tell me why she wants to see me is beyond the pale! I am the Captain of the Royal Guard! I will not stand for this kind of treatment!”

“Sir-”

“I said shut up, Armor!” snapped the elder stallion, his gold-colored eyes flashing with fire. “One more word out of you, and you can kiss any hope of promotion goodbye! Along with finding yourself stationed up in the frozen north counting icicles till the day you retire! Understand!?”

Armor snapped off a wordless, textbook-perfect salute, his armor softly clanking in the process, and prayed that his commanding officer wouldn’t follow through on his threat.

Seeing that his subordinate was sufficiently cowed, the stallion turned back around and resumed his angry, stomping march toward the night princess’s office.

With their commanding officer’s infamous temper quickly reaching a boiling point, both stallions wisely decided to remain silent until they reached their destination.

Turning the final corner, the trio found themselves standing before the silver inlaid ebony doors of the princess of the night’s office/bedroom. Coming to a halt, the senior of the three adjusted his perfectly starched uniform and polished medals so that they were without blemish. Turning his head to look at his two junior officers behind him, he said, “Let me do the talking, you two just keep your muzzles shut unless I say otherwise, understood?”

Both stallions gave a sharp salute in understanding but otherwise said nothing. Satisfied with their response, he took a deep breath as he made his expression appear a little more neutral, and stepping forward, he knocked loudly upon the door.

The door opened without a sound, and without hesitation, the old stallion strode through the portal, his subordinates following meekly along behind him.

Entering the otherwise quiet room, he confidently strode forward until he was a body length away from the princess’s desk. Coming to a halt, the old stallion glared at the princess with a barely suppressed look of contempt, and for a moment, it appeared as though he was debating whether or not to salute her. However, in the end, decorum prevailed, and after snapping off a sharp salute, he growled out, “Captain Hardtack, reporting as ordered, princess.”

Luna regarded the old captain in front of her with her own look of cool disdain. While the captain certainly cut an imposing figure, with his well-groomed mane, mustache, and toned muscles from years of service. She had heard stories about the burgundy-colored stallion, and precious few of them were complimentary.

I can see why many ponies call him ‘Captain Hardass’ now, she thought quietly to herself as she leaned forward and placed her hooves on top of her desk before softly saying, “We thank thee for answering Our summons so swiftly this morning. We understand that the hour for this meeting is rather inconvenient. However, matters have forced Our hoof, so, please have a seat captain, we have many things to discuss this morning.”

Dropping the salute, Hardtack took up a position of parade rest, ignoring the princess’s offer/command, and instead replied with barely contained irritation, “And what exactly was so important that it required I and my subordinates to be summoned this early in the morning? Are we under attack?”

“Not anymore, no,” replied Luna evenly, ignoring the prickly response. “However, We have received word of an attack by timber wolves on the village of Ponyville two days ago. Thankfully, nopony was killed, and damage was minimal.

“Then, why am I here, Your Highness? That sort of incident should be dealt with by local forces, and I should only hear about it in a passing report on my desk.” asked Hardtack through gritted teeth.

“Because you suck at your job,” Blueblood suddenly interjected jovially from his seat next to the door that Hardtack and the others had entered.

Both of Hardtack’s junior officers whipped around in surprise, neither having noticed the smiling noble sitting in their blind spot. Hardtack for his part slowly turned his head and glared at the smiling noble. Narrowing his eyes, he asked softly, “What did you say?”

Lazily inspecting one of his hooves, Blueblood replied, “I said that you suck at your job. Do you need to have your hearing checked old chap?”

Hardtack felt his temper rising further as a vein began to visibly throb in his temple.

A quiet cough from Luna drew his attention away from Blueblood.

“Yes well, while We would not put it quite like that, there are certain issues that have come to light that worry Us. As such, We decided to get to the bottom of what may have caused them, and correct them.”

Both of Hardtack’s subordinates felt a shiver of fear run down their spines at the tone the princess had used when she said the word ‘correct’. Though if their commander felt any fear, he didn’t outwardly show any sign of it.

“Are you calling into question my ability to command, Your Highness?” he replied softly, a hint of challenge coloring his tone.

If Luna heard the captain’s challenge, she didn’t show it, instead shaking her head. “Not at the moment no, however, as We mentioned, there are some concerning patterns that have been brought to Our attention, and We felt it warranted this early morning meeting.”

Lighting up her horn, Luna carefully levitated a stack of papers from the corner of her desk and set them in front of her. Picking the topmost paper up, she remarked, “For instance, We have been informed that the guard garrison that mine sister hast recently ordered created in Ponyville is woefully understaffed and supplied. Additionally, they are without proper facilities and have been repeatedly denied both ponypower and supplies to remedy these issues. Moreover, the town of Ponyville’s militia has also been found lacking in both ponypower and supplies as well, and can only muster a hoofful of trained ponies to defend the town in the event of an emergency. We find these issues troubling, and We wonder if Ponyville is the only town out there that is having these concerns or if there are more like it.”

Barely suppressing the urge to grind his teeth together, Hardtack retorted, “Are you accusing me of undermining a directive given by Princess Celestia by denying resources and ponypower where it is most needed to fulfill this order?”

Cocking her head to one side, Luna simply asked, “We do not know, thus Our question. Why is Lieutenant Palisade’s command in Ponyville understaffed and under-supplied?”

Turning to his second in command, Hardtack fixed him with an intense glare and asked harshly, “Sub-Captain Ink Stick. Perhaps you can shed some light on this issue for both the princess and I?”

Unlike Captain Hardtack, who nopony could mistake for anything other than an experienced and long-serving Royal Guard with his well-muscled and groomed appearance. Sub-Captain Ink Stick looked as though he was an overworked accountant stuck in a dead-end job at some large corporation in Manehatten. Stick’s portly, and slovenly appearance, along with his receding maneline and deep bags under his eyes only adding to his look of overworked mediocrity.

Giving an audible gulp, Ink Stick timidly took two steps forward and gave a shaky salute. “I-I am unsure why t-this issue has occurred, sir. T-To the best of my knowledge, we’ve allocated t-the required resources to the Ponyville garrison.”

Even though Luna was no longer the Bearer of the Element of Honesty, she had no trouble seeing that the sub-captain was not being entirely honest in his reply, and it seemed that Captain Hardtack was of the same opinion.

“Oh?” replied the captain, a false smile blossoming on his muzzle as he turned around fully, and leaning in close, sweetly asked, “You’re ‘not sure’? I had thought I had placed you in charge of making sure our various garrisons were adequately supplied, staffed, and organized following the Discord Incident.”

Now visibly sweating, the poor stallion nodded weakly. “You did sir, but-”

“Then why am I here getting my tail chewed out?!” screamed Hardtack furiously, spittle flying from his mouth as his horn sparking in anger.

“Because Commander’s Posh and Bags called in favors to have the supplies and ponypower that was earmarked for Ponyville be sent to their commands instead, sir!” interjected the, until now, silent Lieutenant Armor.

Wheeling on the helpless junior officer with murder in his eyes, Hardtack was about to tear into the poor colt, when the sound of wood scraping on wood drew their attention to Princess Luna, who had stood up and gracefully walked around her desk to stand in front of the two officers.

“Explain,” she commanded in a tone that cooled even Hardtack’s fiery temper.

Feeling as though his insides were turning to mush, the now terrified Lieutenant Armor shakily raised a hoof in salute as Princess Luna gazed deep into his eyes as if daring him to lie to her.

“Your princess gave you an order lieutenant,” said Blueblood from his seat by the door.

“Be quiet,” commanded Luna, her calm, cyan-colored eyes never moving from the lieutenant’s terrified cerulean ones.

Still unable to speak, his mouth only able to open and close like a fish out of water, Princess Luna sighed and said, “Whatever thou hast to say, thou mayest say it, and We shall not lay any blame at thy hooves. We can see that thou art a good stallion, that hast been put in a poor situation. Please, ponies' lives art dependent on thy words. Speak now so that they mayest be safe.”

A small feeling of calm swept across the young lieutenant, and after taking a deep breath, he steeled his nerves, and said, “First Lieutenant Shining Armor, ma’am.” At Luna’s nod to continue, he said, “After the Discord Incident shuffled all of the commands around like a stack of playing cards, we spent the first couple of months trying to untangle everything.”

“Yes, We were aware of that issue,” commented Luna as she returned to her seat behind her desk. “We also understand that it has since been resolved.”

Shining Armor hesitantly nodded. “That is somewhat correct ma’am, however, we had to take some shortcuts to get it done, which has led to some... unforeseen consequences.”

“Which are?” pressed Luna.

“Because everypony and their corresponding records were shuffled around so thoroughly, we were forced to leave a lot of the non-comissioned officers and enlisted personnel in whatever place that Discord dumped them, while most of the higher ranking officers were sent back to their original postings... which has caused some... resentment within the rank and file,” explained Shining, his ears falling and voice growing softer by the end of his explanation.

Luna sighed as she realized where Shining Armor was going with things. “And thus, enterprising officers are using this resentment to get what they want by sprinkling ‘favors’ amongst certain enlisted guards to make sure things that were supposed to go to one location, end up elsewhere with nopony the wiser.”

“More or less,” replied Shining a look of shame on his face.

Shaking her head sadly, Luna muttered, “It seems that some things never change.” Turning her attention to Sub-Captain Ink Stick, she said, “Sub-Captain Ink Stick, We do not like being lied to, and even though We no long wield the Element of Honesty, We still have the ability to detect when somepony is lying to Us. So We would ask that thou pickest thine next words carefully. Didst thou knowest about these practices?”

Now put fully on the spot, Ink Stick felt small rivers of sweat flowing down his face and staining his collar. His mouth felt as dry as the Badlands and his heart was beating so fast he thought it might jump out of his chest. Opening his mouth, he tried to speak, but no words would come, and his mind was spinning a million miles a minute as he tried to formulate a response that wouldn’t get him instantly dismissed or worse.

Seeing his lack of an immediate response, Luna sighed, his silence and look of terror telling her everything she needed to know. Opening her mouth to reply, she was cut off by the sudden flare of Captain Hardtack’s horn as he shot Ink Stick off his hooves with a telekinetic blast of magic, the hapless sub-captain flying across the room and crashing into a nearby bookcase, its contents raining down on him in an avalanche of paper and parchment.

Stomping towards the downed stallion, his eyes glowing like molten gold, and his horn’s magical aura pulsing, Hardtack looked as though he was about to kill his fellow officer. “You son of a nag. How dare you undermine my authority like that. I ought to have your legs broken.”

“S-sir, please, I-I didn’t want to do it, they didn’t leave me any choice!” pleaded Ink Stick as he desperately tried to dig himself out from underneath the pile of books and parchment.

If Ink Stick thought that his words would dissuade Hardtack, he was sorely mistaken as the furious captain poured more power into his glowing horn, its intensity shining like a miniature sun in the dimly lit room.

However, as the captain was preparing to launch his next attack, he felt his magic dissipate like smoke before a strong breeze as somepony cast a magic nullification spell on him. Whirling around, he prepared to lash out at the pony foolish enough to attack him. However, when he saw Princess Luna staring down at him with a look of disappointment etched on her face, his hot, righteous anger was instantly extinguished as if she had poured a bucket of cold water on it.

Lowering his head in deference at his princess’s display of power, the captain retreated a pace and silently waited.

Seeing that he wouldn’t cause any further trouble, Luna turned her attention to the still-trapped Ink Stick and simply asked, “Why?”

Utterly defeated, Ink Stick hung his head in shame and said, “My son is currently in jail in Manehatten. He made a poor choice in friends while attending the university there and was arrested for theft and possession with intent to use a dark magical artifact.”

“What forbidden artifact was he accused of possessing?” asked Luna calmly.

Ink Stick’s ears fell flat against his scalp and he quietly replied, “They claimed he had one of Grogar’s grimoires and was planning on using it to take over the city.”

Luna felt her eyebrows rise in surprise. We had thought that Tia had found and destroyed all of those abominations centuries ago. Giving her head a shake, she refocused her attention on the sub-captain and asked calmly, “And was he?”

Looking up at the princess of the night in a mix of horror and pleading, he shook his head violently and replied, “N-no ma’am! My son would never! He gets squeamish as the mere thought of blood, there is no way he would be willing to go through the necessary rituals needed to actually use the blasted book!”

Luna narrowed her eyes before glancing up at the clock on the wall. Tis still late enough, We may be able to speak with his son still.

“What is thy son’s name, and where is he?” she asked.

Feeling a tinge of hope welling up in his chest, Ink Stick blurted out, “H-his name is F-Feather Q-Quill, Your Highness, and he is being held in Rider’s Island Penitentiary while he awaits trial.”

Luna cocked an eyebrow. “Rider’s Island? We had thought that place was reserved for the worst of the worst only. Why is he there if his trial has not taken place yet?”

Hardtack spoke up. “Standard procedure ma’am. Anypony accused of dabbling in dark magic is taken to the most secure facility in the area and separated from the rest of the inmates while they await trial.”

Luna hummed to herself as she turned and trotted towards her bed. “We see,” she said as she climbed on top of the covers and lay down. “All of thee are to wait outside Our chambers until We call for thee.”

“What are you planning on doing princess?” asked Blueblood as he stood up.

Resting her head on her pillow, Luna replied, “We art going to speak with the sub-captain's son. We shall return shortly,” and with that, she closed her eyes and entered the Dream Realm once more.

The four stallions looked at each other for a moment, before Blueblood used his magic to extract Ink Stick from his papery predicament and usher him and the others out of the room while Luna worked to locate Feather Quill.

Shutting the door behind him, Blueblood found himself standing between Hardtack and Ink Stick while Shining Armor stood in front of him. Looking the young lieutenant up and down, he took note that he was wearing armor and not wanting to let any awkward silence fall upon the group struck up a conversation with him.

“So, drew the short straw tonight huh?”

“I’m sorry sir?” asked Shining, a confused look on his face.

Nodding at the lieutenant’s armor, he said, “You’re in armor, while Hardtack and Ink Stick are not. I just assumed you had night duty this evening.

A flash of understanding raced across the young stallion's face and he nodded. “Yes sir, I’ve been on night duty for the past year.”

Shaking his head, and making a tut-tutting sound, Blueblood turned to Hardtack and said, “A whole year of night duty? What did the poor guy do to earn your ire Hardtack?”

“Nothing, Lieutenant Armor volunteered for the post when the previous night watch officer retired, and I haven’t been able to find anypony to replace him yet.”

Cocking his head to one side, Blueblood smirked and replied, “Really? I find that hard to believe, considering how you treat your subordinates.”

Captain Hardtack snorted and shot back, “I will not lie and say that I am an easy commander to get along with. In fact, I know that I can be a real pain in the flank. But I do what I do so that my officers will be able to stand up to the rigors of combat that much easier.”

“The ‘rigors of combat’? Please, that just sounds like an excuse for you to bully your subordinates whenever you please,” retorted Blueblood.

Hardtack’s mustache twitched and he said, “Believe what you want to believe, but every officer that has ever worked under me has gone on to do great things. You may not like my method’s but they get results.”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing, it seems as though your sub-captain is one step away from a nervous breakdown, and Lieutenant Armor here looks at you like a foal looks at their abusive father after he’s had one too many hard ciders.”

Taking a step forward, Hardtack glared daggers at the bold prince and opening his mouth, appeared to getting ready to issue a challenge when the door to Princess Luna’s room opened and the night princess herself stuck her head outside and said, “Thou mayest enter, We have spoken with Feather Quill and art ready to resume Our conversation.”

“Is my son alright Princess?!” cried Ink Stick as tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.

Luna nodded. “For now, however, let us discuss the rest in the privacy of mine chambers.”

Standing aside, she allowed the four stallions to re-enter her office/bedroom, and closing the door behind them, lit up her horn and cast a ward of privacy over the room.

Returning to sit behind her desk, Luna sat down and said, “As We have said, We spoke with thine son, and while he is well, he is indeed in serious trouble. However, We do not believe that he committed any crimes. It is as thou said, Ink Stick, he simply made friends with the wrong kind of ponies and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“C-can you help him? I-I’ll do anything, princess, anything!” begged the middle-aged stallion as he all but threw himself prostrate before the princess’s desk.

Rolling his eyes, Hardtack roughly pulled Ink Stick to his hooves with his magic and berated him. “Pull yourself together stallion. You are an officer in the royal guard, not some punk yearling praying that they can beg their way out of trouble after getting caught after some petty crime. Have some damned dignity for yourself while you await your fate.”

“Captain,” said Luna, her warning glare enough to even bring the hot-tempered captain to heel.

After seeing that the captain wasn’t going to make more trouble, she turned her attention back to the sub-captain and gave him a soft smile. “We believe that We shall be able to free thy son, however,” she raised a hoof to forestall the suddenly elated sub-captain when he opened his mouth to speak, “that does not mean that everything is going to go back to the way it was beforehoof. Thy unwillingness to bring these issues to thy superiors' attention in a prompt manner has allowed corruption to fester. Furthermore, the poor performance exhibited by thee and others in restoring the guard to its pre-Discord Incident locations has also allowed for confusion and corruption to come to the surface. This displeases Us. As such, We will be launching an investigation into the matter at a later date, and before thou sayest that We have no authority regarding this matter, please read this,” she said when she saw Hardtack open his muzzle, no doubt to contest her decision.

Pushing a book in front of the three officers, Hardtack glared at her before looking down at the offending document, picking it up in his magic, and beginning to read. As he read, Luna could see his jaw tightening further and further, to the point that she thought he might crack his teeth from how hard he was biting them together. However, just when she thought his teeth might explode from the pressure, his entire body suddenly slumped, as if somepony had dropped a great weight on his back, while his face took on a defeated look.

Nodding slowly, he floated the document to his subordinates and looked at Luna, his golden eyes no longer fiery and proud, but weary and old. Taking a deep breath, he let out a tired sigh and said softly, “If my princess wishes, I will tender my resignation to her, effective immediately.”

“Nay, thou still hast much to do before We let thee rest. However, thine position in the Royal Guard shall be changed from being it’s captain, to that of the newly created position of Inspector General,” replied Luna as she leveled a commanding gaze at the now disgraced captain. “We shall go over thy new posting at a later date. For now, prepare to remove thyself from thine current quarters, and do not tell anypony else what you are doing, save for mine sister if she asks, until We say otherwise, understood?”

Dipping his head low, Hardtack softly replied, “As you command.”

Seeing that the troublesome and headstrong stallion had finally been put in his place, Luna turned her attention to the other two and said, “Sub-Captain Ink Stick, while We would prefer to place somepony else in the former captain’s position, there is nopony senior enough to fill it who is also familiar with the issues that are at hoof. As such, We art reluctantly placing thee in his position until such time as We can find a suitable replacement for thee. Do not get comfortable.”

Ink Stick’s look of horror almost made Luna giggle, as she figured the poor stallion would have rather been sent to the Frozen North instead of being given the massive headache that was the position of Captain of the Royal Guard. However, she maintained her solemn look and turning her attention to Shining Armor said, “Out of the three of thee, thou art the only one that We partially trust to not make this mess worse, Lieutenant. As of this moment, We art promoting thee, as well. Congratulations Sub-Captain Armor, and Captain Ink Stick on thy promotions. We expect great things from thee.”

“B-but P-Princess L-Luna, w-what about P-Princess-” stuttered Ink Stick as he desperately tried to weasel his way out of his new and very much unwanted position.

However, a stern glare from Luna cut the newly promoted captain off, and in an ice-cold tone, she replied, “Thou hast read that parchment, hast thou not?” At Ink Stick’s shaky nod, Luna continued, “Then understand, things are going to be changing around here. I am a Princess of Equestria just as much as mine sister, and I have, by that decree, that you read, and that my sister and I created over a thousand years ago, equal power to change the structure of any branch of government as I see fit, at any time, and for any reason. So it is written, so it shall be. I shall inform my sister of these changes, and mine reasoning for them when she awakens later this morning. However, in the year that We have been back from our millennium-long exile, We have seen that the Equestrian State has become bloated, inefficient, negligent, and worst of all, corrupt, as this meeting hast proven. Therefore, I and those I deem worthy, shall undertake a program to right these wrongs, and repair that which hast been left to rot by my sister’s inattention over these past thousand years.”

Fixing the former sub-captain with a look that could have frozen water from how cold it was, Luna quietly said, “We know that thou art a coward and a fool, Ink Stick. However, history has decided to place thee here at this moment and allow thee to atone for thy past transgressions. If thou loveth thy country, and thy princesses, then thou shalt carry this burden that We have placed upon thee with dignity and courage until completion or death. Our country cannot be allowed to be left with a weakened defense, nor shall We allow it. Thou shalt do as I command thee, and worry not of the consequences, understand?”

“Y-yes, m-ma’am,” quivered Ink Stick. The poor stallion looked as though he were about to melt into a puddle of pure stress and terror as he watched his whole career and life go up in metaphorical flames.

“Good,” stated Luna with a curt nod. Turning her attention to Shining Armor, she said, “As for thee, We hope that thou wilt perform well in thy new position.”

Swallowing nervously, Shining Armor snapped off an only partially shaky salute and replied, “I’ll try my best, Your Highness.”

Luna frowned and shot back. “We expect you to do thy best, as We hath never seen anypony succeed by ‘trying’. Thou shalt do, rather than try, understand?”

“Y-yes ma’am.”

A single nod. “Good, thou art all dismissed until after sunset today. We wish to see a list of potential replacements for Sub-Captain Armor’s former position, as well as a list of ponies to assist Inspector General Hardtack in his work in straightening out the reprobates and bureaucratic entanglements within the military. Do not worry about things such as tasks and boundaries, we shall go over them tonight. Dismissed.”

All three stallions gave Princess Luna a salute, though some were steadier than others, before then turning and leaving.

A few moments after the door had closed, and their hoofsteps had faded. Blueblood glanced up at the clock on the wall, and seeing it was nearly five o’clock in the morning, stretched his forehooves, his back giving a satisfying pop in the process.

“Ah,” he sighed as he stood up, “well that went better than I expected,” he remarked cheerfully.

Nodding, Luna replied, “Quite, though this is only the beginning. Contrary to popular belief, We have been quietly observing the daily goings on around the castle, and within Our sister’s government. Even though We lack any true allies and much of Our knowledge is secondhoof through Our sister, We still understand that not all is well in Equestria.”

“Indeed, but with you reassuming your role within government, I doubt these problems will be problematic for long, “remarked Blueblood as he made to leave, “So with that being said, I believe it is well past my bedtime, goodnight Your Highness,” he said with a shallow bow of his head.

“Pleasent dreams, Blueblood,” replied Luna as Blueblood departed, leaving Luna alone in her dimly lit chambers.

Looking down at her hooves for a time, Luna pondered what her next move should be. This meeting did not go the way We thought it might, however, circumstances have forced mine hoof. While We would prefer sacking everypony involved in this debacle, tis obvious upon further reflection that this would be a mistake.

Standing up from her desk, Luna proceeded to wander her office/bedroom while she pondered. Obviously, both Hardtack and Ink Stick are less than ideal for their new positions. Tis obvious that Ink Stick is an unreliable asset, and if We had a choice, We would rather he either be retired quietly or moved to another position where he could do no harm. We doubt he wants to be in the position that he is in anyway, however, his lack of spine is what hath gotten him into this mess. We hope that Shining Armor and Hardtack can keep him on track until We can put somepony else in his place. As for Hardtack, his bellicose nature and pridefulness are also concerning. Though to a lesser extent now that he has been shown that the power of the law is on Our side thanks to that law that Tia and We made at the start of our reign. Though We will still need to keep an eye on him. He is likely to start more fires due to his caustic personality than put out, at least at the start, but perhaps that could be put to Our advantage during Our upcoming campaign. Something to think about anyways.

Her wandering hooves came to a stop in front of the mess made by Ink Stick crashing into her bookshelf. The sight of all the papers and books made her think of the book Blueblood had shown her that started this whole affair. Sighing to herself, she began cleaning the mess up. Tis hard to believe that We could have forgotten that particular law. We art thankful that Blueblood was able to locate it, either by his own work or through somepony else’s labor. In the end, it doth not matter, only that We now have legal merit for Our path forward. That alone is worth more than its weight in gold.

Pausing in her cleaning, Luna’s muzzle scrunched up in thought as she tried to remember if there were any other laws that she and her sister had created or signed in the past that could help or restrict her in her journey forward. Shaking her head when nothing came to mind, she thought, We will need to have somepony look into that thought in more detail at a later date. In the meantime, We should inform Tia of our sudden changes. We doubt she will be pleased, as she never did like it when somepony unsettled things. However she did agree that once We felt We were ready We could resume Our position within the government, along with all of the obligations and benefits that entailed. Besides, before Our fall, We were the one who held sway over martial matters anyway. We doubt she will be overly upset with our sudden return to duty for very long.

Putting the last book back in its place, Luna glanced up at the clock on the wall and noted that it was nearly time for her to lower the moon to make way for Celestia to raise the sun.

However, We should have just enough time to write a few letters. Tis long past time We stopped moping about Our weakened position and started doing something to correct it.

Chapter 56 (Night Dreams and Meetings Part 3)

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Chapter 56

Luna sat at her desk, the clock on the wall reading five minutes to eleven. She was currently pouring over several reports as she waited for her eleven o’clock appointment to arrive.

Things are worse than We had thought, thought Luna bitterly to herself as she set another report aside with a look of disgust. How sister has managed to keep things functioning this long with this amount of mismanagement and rot happening in the background We will never know.

Setting the rest of the reports down on her desk with a frustrated groan, Luna leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes with her fetlocks. When she had accepted Blueblood’s proposal to begin making reforms, she hadn’t thought things were going to be this frustrating, yet here she was. Thankfully, the one good thing was that her sister was on board with Blueblood’s overall plan, even if she didn’t know the finer details yet.

We art grateful that Tia was so supportive of Our actions and plans this morning when We broke the news to her.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Luna recalled that morning’s meeting. After she had lowered the moon, and her sister had raised the sun, she quickly made her way to their private dining room and taken a seat to await her sister’s arrival. While she had waited, she had busied herself organizing the stacks of reports and papers that she’d commanded to be brought to her so that she could get a head start on disentangling the rats nest that was the royal guard.

Unfortunately, she was only able to acquire a small amount of reports and papers this early in the morning, and she was confident that she would need her sister’s help to acquire everything else before the day was done.

The fact that We art a princess is not enough for some of these ponies. She had thought bitterly as she’d set aside the most recent personnel report for Canterlot’s guard force. To them, We art an outsider, a pretend princess. All they have ever known is the warm rays of mine sister’s rule. They still shun the cool beams of Our moon and scoff at the comforting twinkle of Our stars. But We shall prove to them that We are just as capable as Our sister and that We can bear the weight of Our office with grace and aplomb that befits a princess.

The sudden opening of the dining room doors pulled Luna from her thoughts, and setting aside the latest report, she looked up to see her sister come trotting gracefully into the room.

“Good morning sister,” greeted Luna as she stood up to hug Celestia.

Celestia, seeing Luna, eagerly returned her hug with one of her own. Her warm smile lit up the room like the noonday sun.

“And good morning to you too Luna, how are you doing this morning?” she asked as she cast a side glance at the piles of reports and paperwork on the dining room table.

“We art fine, dear sister,” replied Luna as she returned to her seat. “Though unfortunately, We hath encountered a most vexing problem that will require both of our attentions this morning.”

Celestia’s smile dimmed. “A working breakfast Luna? Can’t it wait? I was hoping to simply spend some quality time with you and leave the drudgery of government outside for a bit.”

Luna sighed and shook her head. “We art sorry, dear sister, but this cannot wait. Art thou aware of the recent timber wolf attack near Ponyville?”

Celestia’s muzzle scrunched up in distaste as she gracefully seated herself at the head of the table nearest Luna. “I am, but from my understanding, it was taken care of with no fatalities and minimal injuries.”

Luna nodded and passed Celestia a report. “Indeed, however, additional information has come to light showing that this incident should hath been avoided. Hence why We hath turned this meal into a ‘working breakfast’ as thou put it.”

Quickly skimming the report in her magical grasp, Celestia’s shoulders slumped slightly and she let loose a disappointed sigh. “Why am I not surprised? Those two have been scheming for years, but it’s always been small things that were ultimately harmless or not worth the political headache to go after them. I never thought they would go this far and in this way.”

“We wish to remove them from their positions post haste, as well as dismiss them from the guard as quickly as possible. If possible, We would also prefer that these two be hauled before the courts and charged accordingly for their actions. This type of behavior is unacceptable, and doubly so as they have interfered with a direct royal command.”

Setting the report aside, Celestia shook her head. “If only it was that simple Luna. Commander Money Bags has an extensive network of wealthy contacts in Manehatten and across Equestria. Dismissing him in this manner, let alone charging him with a crime, will be difficult as many of his contacts are involved with other matters that are also equally important. Losing their support would be catastrophic for several ongoing projects across the country. On the other hoof, Commander Pish Posh has noble connections here in Canterlot. His wife is the sister of one of my senior cabinet ministers. Getting rid of them will cause me no amount of grief, and all of my political capital is tied up right now with various long-term projects.”

Luna nodded in understanding, after all, before her banishment, things had been much the same. Ponies looking out for only themselves or their closest allies and family, to the detriment of everypony else, a tale as old as time. However, she kept her thoughts to herself, and instead replied, “We understand sister, which is why We’ve brought this to thine attention. Thy nephew has convinced Us of a plan that he hath created, though he failed to provide much in the way of details on said plan, that should remedy some of these problems while reducing the political fallout for thee and Us.”

Celestia smiled and leaned in to playfully whisper. “You know Luna, he is just as much your nephew as he is mine. After all, Princess Platinum did adopt us into her family all those years ago as sisters, and Blueblood is a descendant of hers.”

“A distant one at best,” replied Luna, an unamused expression on her face at her sister's antics.

Giggling Celestia leaned back and waved a hoof. “Does it really matter? As I said, he’s family. He calls me auntie all the time, so I don’t see why he can’t do the same for you.”

“We believe he is uncomfortable with the idea, as he only referred to Us as princess when we met. We art not surprised, as We hath only recently returned, and judging by how he spoke and acted around Us last night. We believe that he doth not see Us as family yet. Thus We shall not push him if that is not his wish.”

Celestia’s smile vanished and she reached out to place a comforting hoof on Luna’s foreleg. “Have you asked him about it?”

Luna blinked. “What?”

Celestia sighed. “Perhaps he thought that you would be uncomfortable if he treated you as he does me in private. Maybe you should speak with him on this matter and find out for sure one way or the other. I don’t want to see you bottling your emotions and thoughts up again, we both know how that ended the last time.”

Luna’s ears fell flat against her scalp and she looked away, a hint of shame flashing across her face as she recalled her slow fall to the nightmare all those years ago. Sighing, she quietly replied, “We know sister, but old habits die hard, We suppose. Things are... delicate right now, and We do not wish to create tension where it would cause issues until things art better sorted.”

“Luna, you and I both know that will never happen. There will always be some kind of issue where additional tension will cause problems. I believe it is best to sit down with Blueblood and have an honest discussion with him regarding your feelings. Understanding where boundaries lay is very important in creating a healthy relationship with somepony, and avoiding problems later on. Besides, the longer you wait, the more awkward it will be when you do finally ask him.”

Luna cast an irritated look at her sister and asked with a huff, “And why doth thou care about this so much? We have thee, and that is good enough for now, there will be plenty of time later for other things.”

Instead of answering, Celestia stood up and walked around to stand next to Luna. Extending her wings, she wrapped her younger sister in a warm hug and replied softly, “We both know that isn’t true Luna. You and I both know that I can’t, and won’t, always be there for you and that sometimes you and I will not see eye to eye. You need other ponies to help you through difficult times when I can’t be there for you. Please, don’t isolate yourself again. I know it’s hard for you to open up to others, and I’m not asking that you try and make friends with everypony out there. All I’m asking is that you have somepony other than me in your corner for when times get difficult.”

Loosening the hug, Celestia pulled back slightly and looked into her sister's eyes, a single tear rolled down Luna’s cheek and Celestia felt a few welling up in the corners of her own eyes as well.

Her throat feeling as though it was clogged up, Luna choked back a sob and said, “Okay, We will, promise.”

Leaning back in and tightening her grip, Celestia quietly replied, “And that’s all I can ask for, thank you.”

“I love you, sister,” said Luna from within Celestia’s embrace, her words were slightly muffled from being trapped behind Celestia’s large wings, but the solar princess heard them all the same.

“And I love you too,” she replied, her heart nearly bursting with love for her recently returned sister.

Neither one knew how long they held that hug for, but they quickly broke it when the sound of the doors opening heralded the arrival of their morning breakfast.

Returning to her seat, Celestia discreetly wiped any sign of tears away and slipped her serene mask back on. Luna for her part simply hid her face behind some papers and pretended that nothing was amiss.

Once their food had been delivered, and the servants had left, Luna said, “So, returning to our original topic.”

Celestia sighed. “As I said, I won’t really be able to help you sister. My hooves are effectively tied in this matter.”

Passing her sister the book that Blueblood had brought her, Luna pointed to the passage with a fork, before digging into her morning omelet. “Read that section please, dear sister, We believe it will improve thy mood.”

Taking a sip from her teacup, Celestia quickly read through the passage. I remember this law, has it been that long since Luna and I created it? My, how time flies. Still, it would be best to make sure nopony has since amended or even outright rescinded this law and snuck it through under my muzzle over the years. Even if the law is wholly intact, I can imagine the blowback this will cause amongst the powers that be should we use it. Most likely it’ll end up in court, and the nobles and other powerful ponies will make a big stink about it. But, if Luna can push this through quickly, then it shouldn’t matter in the long run. Even if they force us to remove or amend the law, we’ll have already gotten what we want, and we can always sneak it back in a few decades from now when everypony is either dead or has forgotten about it. Hmmm...

Setting her teacup down, Celestia looked at her sister and nodded. “Assuming it is still on the books and has not been amended, I don’t see why this couldn’t work in your favor.”

“So thou hath no objections to this path?” queried Luna.

Celestia shook her head. “No, I don’t believe I do. You have my full blessing and full support, however limited it may be, to pursue this matter.”

Luna felt a smile blossom on her face. “And that was all We needed to hear. Thank you, Tia.”

Returning Luna’s smile with one of her own, Celestia replied, “You are welcome Lulu, now come, let us talk of something other than political intrigue and skullduggery.”

Giving a nod in agreement, Luna set aside her current batch of papers and she and Celestia let the conversation drift to other, more enjoyable topics until it was time for Celestia to go and hold morning court and for Luna to go and get some rest for the day.

A sudden and forceful knock pulled Luna out of her pleasant memories and opening her eyes, she glanced up at the clock to see that it was eleven o’clock on the dot. Schooling her expression, she called out, “Enter!” and waited as four stallions trotted in.

Unlike earlier this morning, all of them were dressed and groomed properly, though Ink Stick still looked haggard with dark bags under his eyes, and his mane messily combed over.

We art not surprised. Even though nothing hath been made official yet, We art sure he is still upset about the upcoming changes.

Keeping her thoughts to herself, Luna cleared her throat, catching the attention of everyone before her. Fixing each pony with a stern look, she said, “We thank thee all for coming.”

The four stallions bowed their heads in return, signaling their humility before their princess.

Lighting up her horn, Luna summoned four chairs and placed them behind each pony with a wave of her horn. Blueblood was the first to sit, followed quickly by the other three after they saw no ire directed the prince’s way.

Once everypony had been settled, Luna settled her attention on Blueblood and asked, “Hath thou anything to report?”

Blueblood shook his head. “Not really. A few rumors were flying around the castle today regarding our earlier morning meeting, but nothing that couldn’t be redirected elsewhere with a few words of misdirection.”

“So none of the other nobles or guardsponies suspect the coming changes?” she pressed.

Again, Blueblood shook his head. “Unlikely, the usual gossips and rumormongers have been quiet in regards to that particular topic according to my informants within those circles. However, I doubt that situation will last very long, given our second meeting tonight.”

Hardtack grunted and gave a nod of his head. “We passed a few night guards on the way here, and much like old mares, bored guards spread gossip and rumor around as fast as a wildfire tearing through a pine forest. I reckon we’ll start drawing attention within twenty-four to forty-eight hours at the earliest, possibly four to five days max.”

“I agree with the inspector general,” piped up Shining Armor, his purple-accented armor clanking as he shifted slightly in his seat. “While I’ve done what I can to teach my subordinates to keep their muzzles shut when on and off duty, guards will talk, and servants will spread it soon after.”

“Then we must act with haste,” replied Luna as she began passing out sheaves of paper from her desk. “Within these sheafs, are thine orders. Mine sister and I have come to a consensus, and she hath given her blessing to our efforts. As such, We hath been busy drafting these plans and orders. They are not complete, but will be a strong starting point in thine coming endeavors. Thine ranks and position changes have been made official, effective this moment. By tomorrow morning, everypony else shall be made aware of these changes as We have already sent out the corresponding orders and notices. Inspector General Hardtack,” she said, causing the stallion to look up from his orders, “We expect thee to vacate thy current office by this time tomorrow. Thou shalt find the location of thy new office within those orders, any questions?”

He shook his head before returning his attention back to his new orders, his eyes quickly scanning each page, and committing their contents to memory.

“Good,” replied Luna with a nod of her head before turning to look at both Ink Stain and Shining Armor, “As for you two, the same orders stand. Thou art to move to new offices effective immediately. Sub-Captain Armor, hath thou found a replacement for thine previous posting yet?”

Shining Armor lowered his head slightly and replied, “Not as of yet ma’am. I have a few officers in mind to take over my position, but I was waiting to speak with them after the changes went into effect.”

“Understandable, how many doth thou have?” she inquired.

“Half a dozen, though I doubt any of them will be very interested in taking my position. Being in charge of the night shift is often seen as a demotion and the hours suck... no offense,” he added hastily when he saw Luna frown.

Sighing, Luna shook her head and replied, “None taken, tis not surprising that most day ponies prefer to spend their time awake during the day, rather than at night. Very well, do thine best to fill the position, even if thou must order somepony to do it for the time being.”

Shining’s ears fell flat against his scalp and he replied, “I’d prefer not to have to do that. It tends to lead to resentment and poor performance, and night duty is very important as most of the castle is quiet, making it easy for somepony to sneak in and cause mischief.”

“Understandable, however, thy new duties will prevent thee from performing thy current ones, as such We expect thee to have this matter sorted by the end of the day tomorrow, one way, or another. Understood?”

“Perfectly, ma’am,” replied Shining Armor with a sharp salute as he sat up straighter in his chair.

Glad that he had gotten the message, Luna turned her attention to Ink Stick and said, “As for thee, We expect thee to follow our instructions outlined in thy orders to the letter. As We mentioned, these instructions are only the beginning, and any deviations will not be tolerated, understood?”

Licking his dry lips, Ink shakily nodded. In truth, he was relieved that Luna was keeping him on a tight leash. Thinking on his hooves was not his strong suit, and nopony would ever accuse him of having any amount of creativity either. The fact that he was essentially just to observe and report back anything out of the ordinary that came across his desk to Princess Luna was something he felt he could do. Additionally, any changes that needed to be made would come directly from her as well, so really, his job hadn’t changed much. He was still just moving paper from one tray to another and signing on the dotted line. The only difference was that his position and pay rate were higher now.

“Uh... Princess Luna... about my son?” he asked nervously.

She shook her head sadly. “As of this moment, We are unable to fully help him. The best We can do is to provide him with nightly counseling within his dreams as a way to ease his suffering, at least at night. However, regretfully thy son’s situation may worsen before it improves due to a need to mask Our movements from others. As of this moment, nopony else knows that our group knows of their treachery. However, if We were to release thy son now, they may grow suspicious and change their plans or worse. As such, the most We can do is prevent him from coming to permanent harm, however, other than that, We cannot do much else. We have explained this to him, and he understands. So take courage in that, your son is a strong pony, and he hath hope that things will turn out alright. Those two things wilt see him through till the end. In the meantime, if thou wilt do as We direct thee, then thy son shall be less likely to suffer for long, and this unpleasant affair shall end sooner, rather than later.”

Ink Stick’s head fell low, and tears welled up at the corners of his eyes. “I... understand, Your Highness,” he replied, a light sob breaking through at one point. Swallowing, he looked up, met her eyes, and continued, “You can count on me. No matter what the price is I... I’ll pay it if it means my son can be free and safe again.”

“We hope that thou shalt not have to pay a high price. However, the hour grows late, let us move onwards. Inspector general,” Hardtack looked up, “as much as We wish that We can throw thee at our nearest problem, We art certain that would be an unwise move. As such, thou art to direct thy attention to lesser matters first. Namely the smaller towns and lesser cities. Thou shalt go on an inspection tour and record thy findings, along with a list of recommendations for fixing any problems that thou mayest encounter.”

“Do you want me to start with Ponyville, Your Highness?” asked Hardtack as he lit up his horn and summoned a pencil and notepad.

Luna nodded. “Indeed, thanks to Lieutenant Palisade bringing to light the issues facing his command to Prince Blueblood following the timber wolf attack. Twould make sense if thou shalt go there first and inspect things. After which, We believe that thou shouldst start upon the peripheries of the kingdom and work thy way in. We expect regular reports from thee. In addition, thou art also ordered to build from the ground up a proper office of inspection, complete with ponies who are able and willing to execute the law when needed.”

Hardtack nodded as he scribbled down Luna’s instructions. “Understood ma’am. Though what is to be the limit of my authority when dealing with local issues?”

“Thou art second in rank only to Mine sister and I. Thou speakest with our voice and thy word is to be taken as ours. Anypony who goes against thee goes against us, and thou mayest relieve them of their command as needed to accomplish thy tasks, which thou shalt find laid out before thee in thy orders.”

“I have seen them, and I understand. What of any subordinates that I need?”

“They are able to exercise authority over those who are equal rank or lower, except in cases where gross dereliction of duty and outright treachery are evident, and report directly to thee or whomever thou choosest to place over them. To be frank, We trust thee to take care of the creation of this office, and unless thou overstep thy authority, We shalt be content to let thee set things up thy way. Any further questions?”

Hardtack shook his head. “Not at present, though if I think of one later, I’ll let you know.”

Lighting up her horn, Luna summoned a stack of blank parchment papers and passed them to him. “Take these, they are dragonfire scrolls, simply write on one what thou wishest to write, roll them up, and set them alight with any flame, they will be sent to Us directly. The same is true if We send thee anything in return.”

Accepting the parchment with a bow of his head, Hardtack carefully set them aside next to his chair.

With that out of the way, Luna turned to the final pony in the room. “Prince Blueblood,” she began, a serious look on her face, “We have saved thee for last. Thou art the one who hath brought this issue before Us, as well as provided the seed of this plan. As of this moment, We have little in the way of direction for thee beyond keeping an eye on various parties within and without the government. Mine sister hath told me that thou art quite the ‘little snoop’ as she calls thee, and that thou hath found things even her spymaster hath missed on occasion.”

Shooting the princess of the night a wide smile, Blueblood casually buffed a hoof against his chest and replied, “Yes well, it pays to be well-informed on various matters. How do you think I managed to improve my family’s fortune so quickly after taking over from my father? Information is power, and the more of it that I have, the more I can do. Simple as that.”

“Indeed,” replied Luna, an unamused expression on her face, “which is why We art tasking thee with providing Us with all of the information that thou collect going forward. As all of thee art aware, I have only recently returned from my thousand-year banishment, and as such, any supporters that I may have had at one point are long gone. Consigned to the dusty pages of history, and with them, any political pull that I may have had is also gone. Therefore, I am counting on all of thee to help me rebuild my political power so that I may bring forth the needed reforms.”

Turning her full attention to Blueblood she said, “Which is where you come in... dear nephew,” Blueblood felt his eyebrow’s rise slightly in surprise when he heard Luna call him nephew suddenly. However, he quickly schooled his expression to hide his surprise and put on a look of normalcy.

“In what way?” he asked.

“Thou hath many friends and acquaintances, correct?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Then We would like to be introduced as soon as possible. Mine sister hath restored Our yearly stipend to Us. Additionally, she hath returned Our wealth to Us from before Our banishment, though she called it a ‘small loan’ at the time.”

“Why would she do that?” asked Shining Armor curiously.

“Because the other nobles would throw a hissyfit if Auntie just gave the money back to her sister,” snarked Blueblood with a roll of his eyes.

“Indeed,” nodded Luna, “even so, they still ‘threw a hissyfit’ as thou said, only it wasn’t as big as it might have been otherwise. The reality is that I simply owe my sister a weekly back massage and preening for the next few years as ‘payment’ for holding Our money and artifacts from before Our banishment. Tis no great trouble, as it gives Us time to bond with Our sister and as a way to say ‘thank you’ for not squandering it while We were gone.”

“But... why a back massage?”

Seeing Shining’s look of confusion, Luna giggled. “Yea, apparently, We give the most excellent massages according to her, the preening is just an extra goodie she tacked on, as mine sister doth not like to preen her wings.”

“Really?” asked Shining, a look of disbelief on his face at the thought that Princess Celestia would hate keeping herself looking presentable.

“Yea, sister was always being scolded by our mother for not properly preening her wings when we were foals. Honestly, it was a wonder that her wings are as nice looking as they are today considering how raggedy they looked back then,” explained Luna with the smirk of a sibling sharing embarrassing stories about their family with others. “In truth, ‘twere it not for her personal servants attending to her daily preening, We believe her wings would still be in poor shape to this day.”

Adopting a thoughtful look, Shining slowly nodded his head in understanding. “Yeah, Twily’s the same way, though in her case it’s her horn. She hates filing it, and says it makes her ‘brain feel itchy’, whatever that means. Mom was constantly on her case about doing it when we were foals too.”

Blueblood snorted in amusement. “I would think, given her meticulous nature, that she would be better at maintaining her appearance.”

Rolling his eyes and blowing a raspberry, Shining replied with a laugh, “Ha! My sister? Yeah sure, she’s meticulous alright, but I wouldn’t call her ‘neat’. If it wasn’t for Spike she’d be an absolute mess right now. There is a reason her mane and tail are styled the way they are, as it is the easiest for her to keep them brushed and trimmed and nothing more. Same way with her horn, she will only do the bare minimum necessary to keep it working at peak efficiency, and not an ounce more.”

“Really? Because I remember the last time I spoke with her, her horn looked quite nice, well polished, and even lacquered if I remember correctly,” remarked Blueblood curiously.

“She told me in one of her recent letters that Ponyville has a local spa service that several of her friends go to, and unlike everywhere else she’s gone, the owners have a special technique that doesn’t make her ‘brain itch’ when they work on her horn. Don’t ask me how, but she swears by them. I’m just glad she’s finally getting it properly taken care of these days. It used to be a nightmare getting her to take care of it properly, what with her constantly keeping her nose in a book all the time, I swear, if she could, she would marry her books,” replied Shining with an exasperated shake of his head.

Giving a small snort of amusement at Shining’s description of his little sister Luna replied, “Yes We have gathered that much from the few times We have visited thy sister’s dreams. However, We believe that this conversation has wandered, let us return to our original path, shall we?”

After a course of nods from all the stallions, Luna returned her attention back to Blueblood and said, “As thou said earlier with Us, We art without allies and friends at this moment. Moreover, Our funds, while adequate for Our personal wants and desires, will not last long should We dip into them heavily to provide patronage for those We seek to curry favor from. As such, We will place Our trust in thee in regards to building Our war chest once more in these coming months. We expect this campaign to be a long one, and not without issues. Mine sister hath been overworked and distracted for many years, through little fault of her own, and this hath allowed corrupting forces to sink their fangs into our great kingdom. You four are the beginnings of change within Equestria. Should thou remain faithful and stand by Our side, then thy rewards will be great and history will regard thee as saviors. However, thou shalt not be enough to stem this tide, We must find additional allies and friends, and thus, I turn to thee, Blueblood. Please bring to Us trustworthy ponies that We can count on to carry Our banner and fight for what is right in this coming campaign.”

Licking his lips slightly, Blueblood slowly nodded. “I will see what I can do, Your Highness. I can think of a few ponies already who would be interested in hearing what you have to offer them.”

“Excellent,” replied Luna, a pleased look on her face, “then unless there is more to discuss, We bid thee all a goodnight and pleasant dreams.”

Hardtack, Ink Stick, and Shining Armor all stood up, bowed their heads, and swiftly departed, though not before casting a curious glance towards Blueblood who had yet to stand up from his chair.

As soon as the door closed behind the last one, Blueblood waited for several seconds before turning to Luna and arching an eyebrow casually asked, “So, what made you feel the need to call me ‘nephew’ back there, Your Highness?”

Surprisingly, Luna fidgeted nervously in her seat, an expression of discomfort marring her previously neutral look. After a few tense moments, she replied, “While W- I was speaking with my sister this morning, the topic of thy lineage in relation to us came up. Thou referrth to mine sister as ‘auntie’ and to U-me as princess.”

Blueblood nodded slowly. “Yes, I thought you might be put off if I were to refer to you in a familial fashion the first time we met. So I just used your title to play it safe,” he paused and cocked his head slightly to one side. “Would you prefer that I also call you ‘auntie’ as well?”

Luna fidgeted some more, unsure if she really wanted Blueblood to acknowledge her as his ‘aunt’. However, a small part of her soul yearned for the acknowledgment, and it yelled loudly its desires to the heavens. Swallowing her nervousness, Luna fixed Blueblood with an unreadable look and slowly nodded. “We... I mean, I would like that, I think. It shall be an adjustment for sure, as you and I are not related by blood, but only by paper.”

Blueblood smiled and gave a nonchalant shrug. “In the end, what does it matter if we are related by blood or not? I have met many ponies that were related to each other and they couldn’t stand to be around one another for even a second. Conversely, I have met ponies that were not related who acted as though they were the closest of family and would do anything for their fellow pony. So in the end, I suppose it all comes down to how you see our relationship. I’m fully willing to embrace you as family if you are as well... Aunt Luna.”

Luna felt her heart warm a touch at Blueblood’s words and she bit her bottom lip as she tried to figure out how to respond. After a few moments, however, she opened her forehooves wide and waited.

Seeing her invitation, Blueblood rose from his seat, stepped into his aunt’s forehooves, and gently embraced her, like one would a long lost relative that they had recently found, which in this case was most applicable considering the circumstances.

To Luna, the hug, which was slightly awkward at first, quickly turned warm, and she felt some of the cold loneliness that had clung to her since her return, leave her soul, and in its place, the warm fire of friendship and love sparked to life. A single tear fell from the corner of her eye as she and Blueblood shared this close moment together. However, after a few moments, she broke the hug, subtly wiping the tear from her features and after ruffling her wings, she said, “Thank you... Nephew, that felt... nice. It has been a long time since We hath felt like this.”

Stepping back, Blueblood inclined his head and replied, “Happy to help,” he paused and glanced at the clock on the wall, and seeing that the hour was getting late, he turned back to Luna and asked, “It’s getting late, and as much as I would like to continue this conversation, I am afraid that duty calls. I have several ponies to speak with before I retire to bed this evening. Was there anything else that needed to be discussed before I left?”

Luna shook her head slowly. “Nay, We hath given thee all that thou needest right now, and We would not wish to keep thee any later than We need to.”

Giving her a respectful bow, Blueblood replied, “Very well then, until next time Auntie.”

“Safe travels, and pleasant dreams, nephew,” said Luna as Blueblood turned to leave.

Reaching the door, he looked back over his withers and gave a nod in return before quietly slipping outside, and gently shutting the door behind him with a soft click, leaving Luna alone with her thoughts once more.

Chapter 57 (Night Dreams and Meetings Part 4)

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Chapter 57

Trotting down a dark alley, a cloaked figure cast a furtive glance behind them to see if anypony was following. Seeing as how it was quite late at night, the odds were low that anypony had taken notice of the cloaked figure’s movements. Even if they had, very few would care.

However, this particular individual felt that prudence was best and so took their time heading to their destination, taking various turns and twists in an attempt to throw off any would-be pursuers.

Eventually, satisfied that they were alone and not being followed. The cloaked figure turned down a final alleyway, a few overflowing garbage cans lined one side of the narrow passage, while a few rotten crates clogged up the other side.

Winding their way past the debris, the lone figure finally reached their intended destination. A nondescript wooden door at the end of the alley.

Striding forward confidently, they reached up with a blue-colored hoof and knocked three times, followed by a pause, then twice, another pause, then finally five times. After waiting several seconds, a small slit at eye level slid to the side revealing a pair of amber-colored eyes.

“Can I help you?” a deep male voice asked.

“I was told that I can purchase fresh persimmons here,” came the reply.

“Who told you that?”

“The baker on Merry Lane.”

Glancing to the left, and then the right, the eyes stepped back, shut the slit, and began undoing several locks and chains on the other side of the door. After several seconds, the door opened inwards and the cloaked pony strode forward.

Stepping into a narrow entryway, they glanced back over their withers as a large, orange-coated unicorn quickly shut the door behind them. With the door firmly shut, they finally lowered their hood, their bright red mane shining under the lone electric light bulb dangling from the ceiling above.

The orange unicorn looked the cloaked pony up and down for a moment before simply nodding and wordlessly walking past.

Falling in behind him, the blue-coated unicorn silently followed the orange one down the dimly lit hallway until they reached the end. Coming to a stop in front of a large black oak door, the orange unicorn gave a pair of swift knocks.

A muffled voice called out from the other side, “Enter.”

Opening the door, he wordlessly stepped aside, allowing the blue unicorn to enter.

Shutting the door behind him, the orange-colored unicorn returned to his spot at the front door, leaving the visitor alone with the only other occupant in the room, a dark gray unicorn mare with a short, dark cerulean-colored mane sitting behind a large oak desk in a high backed swivel chair. Her emerald green eyes almost seemed to glow in the dimly lit office as she sized up her late-night visitor.

“Well, well, well,” she purred as she leaned forward in her seat, her teeth gleaming as her lips parted in a wide, almost predatory smile, “Haven’t seen you in a while, Bluey.”

The blue-coated stallion sighed, lit his horn, and in a flash, dispelled the illusion covering his body. His previously blue coat turning a bright white, and his red mane fading to blonde.

“I really wish you wouldn’t call me that,” grumped Prince Blueblood sourly as he stalked up to stand closer to the mare’s desk.

Said mare cackled. “Oh, but it’s so much fun to tweak you whenever I see you, which isn’t very often. Letters can only do so much for my entertainment, Bluey. Besides, that glamor was terrible, I would have thought you, with all of that fancy education and money would be able to craft a better disguise than a ratty old cloak and basic glamor spell.”

Blueblood rolled his eyes in exasperation and shot back, “I was in a hurry, and not all of us have cutie marks in subterfuge like you, Mystery.”

“Who said I had a cutie mark in subterfuge? I don’t remember telling you about my cutie mark,” replied Mystery with a cheeky smile.

“Well considering your line of work, I just assumed,” replied Blueblood.

Mystery giggled. “Well, you assumed wrong then, but enough about my flank stamp, what’cha got for me? It’s gotta be good considering that you came down here yourself instead of using one of my dead drops.”

Lighting up his horn, Blueblood pulled a manila folder out of his saddlebags from underneath his cloak and laid it on Mystery’s desk in front of her.

Gathering it up in her brilliant green magic, Mystery quickly poured over the folder’s contents.

Humming to herself, she idly chewed on her bottom lip as she read. After a few minutes she replied, “Well, this is very interesting alright. Can’t say I’m surprised that this is going on behind the scenes. Old Sunbutt ain’t exactly the most attentive ruler in the world, so it’s not surprising the corruption has gotten worse.”

“Do you know anything about this?” pressed Blueblood.

Mystery nodded. “A bit, military ponies are like old wives, they love to gossip and tell tales,” she paused as she flipped the page, before continuing, “The military hasn’t really been very high on my priority list to keep tabs on in recent years, and Discord showing up screwed up what network I had inside to Tartarus and gone. It’s taken me months to get things somewhat back to normal, and even then it’s still a mess,” she shook her head and clicked her tongue in irritation.

Reaching back into his saddlebags, Blueblood pulled out a large bag and threw it on the desk. The bag landed with a heavy thump and a jingle of coins.

“Consider its priority level raised,” said Blueblood seriously.

Cocking an eyebrow, Mystery leaned back in her chair and regarded Blueblood with a small smile. “Oh? You think you can just throw a large bag of money on my desk and tell me how to run my operation, hmmm?”

“Considering how much money and favors I’ve spent on you over the years, I would assume I have some say in what it is that you do with your operatives,” retorted Blueblood, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice.

Mystery chuckled as she pulled the sack closer to her and opened it. Inspecting a random coin, she replied, “I suppose you do have a point in that regard, though this is a bit of a change from your normal informational gathering requests on potential business, and romantic partners.”

“Does that mean you’re not interested?” pressed Blueblood.

Mystery shook her head. “I didn’t say that, now did I?”

“It sounded as though it might be implied,” shot back Blueblood, an unamused look on his face.

Seeing his expression souring by the second, Mystery dropped the coin back in the bag and heaved a weary sigh, “Oh you’re no fun tonight. Alright, who do you want me to dig up dirt on then?”

“It should all be laid out in that folder,” replied Blueblood as he pointed a hoof at the folder before her.

Mystery nodded as she returned her attention to the folder. “Hmm, yes I see. So you want me to find dirt on Pish Posh, along with Moneybags and their combined associates? I can do that, but there is a problem. I don’t have enough agents to go around right now. So I’ll ask again, who do you want to be looked at first, and how deeply?”

Blueblood sighed. He’d been hoping that Mystery would be able to spy on both Pish Posh and Moneybags at the same time, that way the princesses could deal with both of them at once rather than separately.

But it doesn’t look like that is going to happen now, great. Thought Blueblood sourly to himself, though outwardly he replied, “They are both equally important, but my information on which is more dangerous is sadly, limited. Perhaps you might have some additional insight into the matter?”

“Sort of,” replied Mystery with a smile, “though it only really pertains to Pish Posh as he’s more local. As I said, the military was a low priority until now, considering that everypony that uses my services either wants to know if their loved one is cheating on them, or to get a leg up on the competition in regards to business affairs. Spying on the government and military has been, until now, a fairly high-risk, low-reward sort of work considering the consequences if we got caught. Besides, doesn’t your aunt have her own spy network?”

Blueblood nodded. “She does, but they’re bound by law to not spy on Equestrian citizens, and up until now, there didn’t appear to be a need to engage in these sorts of activities.”

“However things have changed,” finished Mystery.

“Correct,” replied Blueblood, “This is only the first payment. Should you decide to continue helping me, and by extension the Equestrian Crown, then you can expect additional payments, along with certain protections, should anything go awry.”

“Well, isn’t that a nice thing to hear,” purred Mystery, as she levitated the sack of bits off of her desk and set it down on the floor. “However, both of us know that if ‘things go awry’, as you put it, myself and my agents will be left swinging in the breeze as it were.”

“Turn to page four, paragraph five. That should alleviate your fears.”

Turning to the indicated page, Mystery quickly scanned the indicated paragraph. Her eyebrows slowly rising in surprise as she read. Eventually, she leaned back in her chair and fixed Blueblood with an impressed look on her face.

“Well, this certainly changes a few things, but that still won’t fully save us if we get caught.”

“Then don’t get caught,” replied Blueblood with a thin smile. “You’re the one saying that your ponies are the best in the business and have never been caught in the act before.”

Mystery burst out laughing. “So I have,” she replied after she had gotten her laughter under control.

“Okay, we’ll do it,” she replied after a few moments of idly tapping a hoof on her desk in thought, “We should have something in a week or two, I’ll let you know through the usual channels once we’ve got something.”

Nodding, Blueblood replied, “Very well. Make sure that what you bring us is ironclad. The situation is very delicate right now, and we need to make sure that our group is the one holding all of the cards when the time is right.”

Arching an eyebrow, Mystery shot back, “Who do you take me for? An amateur? Next, you’ll tell me you’re going to teach your grandma how to suck eggs.”

Blueblood rolled his eyes. “It never hurts to remind somepony of what is expected of them.”

Mystery snorted in amusement. “You keep telling yourself that. In any case, I’ll let you know when we’ve got something. Was there anything else you needed?”

Blueblood shook his head as he lit his horn to reapply the illusion. “No, I believe that is all for now, get us something on Pish Posh and his local associates first, then see what you can do about Moneybags and his ilk in Manehatten,” lifting the hood of his cloak, he turned to leave, before pausing and looking back over his withers and saying, “and thank you for your help Mystery. The Crown will not forget this.”

“I should hope not, considering you’re gonna need to pay for all of this,” she replied with a cheeky grin.

“Quite,” was Blueblood’s only reply as he turned and left, leaving Mystery alone in her office.

Several minutes later, the door guard returned and shut the office door behind him as he trotted up to Mystery’s desk and glanced at the folder left open before him.

“So what now?” he asked.

Mystery shrugged. “We do the job, nothing more.”

“And your mother?”

“What about her?” asked Mystery with an eye roll, a touch of annoyance creeping into her voice.

“You know she’s gonna want to know about this,” he pressed, as he lifted a hoof and pulled the folder closer.

“Ugh, fine. I’ll tell her, but you know she’s gonna want to micromanage the whole operation,” grumped Mystery.

“And for good reason,” he retorted.

Mystery thunked her head against her desk and groaned. “One time, just one time, I’m part of an operation that goes sideways and I’m branded a dunce for life.”

“To be fair, it was a pretty big screw-up,” he replied simply.

Mystery rolled her head to one side to glance up at her assistant and gave him the stink eye. “Oh, like you haven’t messed up before Orange? Besides, it wasn’t my fault it went pear-shaped in the first place!”

Orange shrugged. “Sure I have, I won’t deny that, and I will even grant that you weren’t solely responsible for that operation going down the tubes. But you certainly didn’t help by getting drunk on caffeine and finishing what Bees started with his little stunt earlier in the mission.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do? Not drink it? That would have been just as bad!” complained Mystery as she shot up and spread her hooves wide in anger.

Orange calmly shrugged again as he idly leafed through the documents that Blueblood had brought. “I don’t know, but it didn’t help that you practically chugged the whole cup in a single go. Besides, you knew that Zebrican coffee was stronger than Equestrian.”

Mystery’s head dropped back down to her desk as she collapsed into her chair in defeat. Moaning, she replied, “Yeah well, next time, mom shouldn’t mess with Zebrican smugglers. Those guys guzzle that damn coffee by the bucket load, and since I was masquerading as another zebra smuggler at the time, it would have looked kind of odd if I hadn’t drunk the damn cup in the first place, now wouldn’t it?”

Another shrugged. “Your mother did tell you that in situations like that you need to load up on food before drinking, and only take small sips in between as it’ll reduce the effects of the caffeine on you until you are finished with your mission.”

“Ugh, now you’re starting to sound like my infiltration teacher,” she grumped.

Orange chuckled. “Well... was he wrong?”

“... no,” she admitted begrudgingly.

“Then stop complaining about past operations and focus on this one, everyone makes mistakes, even your mother, it is what we do after we mess up that separates the good operatives from the poor ones. From my understanding, even though you blew your team's cover, you managed to get everyone out in one piece and still achieve most of the objectives, so it wasn’t a complete loss.”

Lifting her head from her desk, Mystery took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right, I’ll get in touch with mother and we’ll see what she says.”

His smile morphing into a smug grin, Orange followed Mystery into a side room and replied, “I usually am.”

Shooting him a half-annoyed look, Mystery just rolled her eyes and elected to ignore her underling’s smugness.

Passing into a smaller room, she stepped up to a small stone altar, an iridescent green orb floating placidly between four curved spikes that met just above the orb. Stepping up to it, she placed a hoof in an indent and lit up her horn. Her magic reached out and touched the orb, causing it to begin pulsing rhythmically for several moments before with a flash, the floating ball turned into a flat oval as the call connected. The face of a cream-colored earth pony with a dark, rose-colored mane done up in a ponytail appearing before Mystery.

“Oh! Howdy Mystery!” the mare happily drawled in a thick Appleloosa accent. “Haven’t heard from ya in a while, what’s up?”

Keeping her expression professional and neutral, Mystery replied, “Hello Apple Crisp, I need to speak with my mother please, we’ve received an interesting request from a patron with ties to the Equestrian Crown, and I need to run the details by her before we proceed.”

Apple Crisp’s smile faded and she adopted a more serious look, her Appleloosa drawl quickly fading as she asked, “Is this a priority call? Her Majesty is a little busy at the moment with a recent report that came in from near your office in Ponyville.”

Cocking an eyebrow at that piece of information, as she hadn’t been informed of any operations around Canterlot, but not saying anything about it, Mystery simply nodded and replied, “It is.”

“Alright, hold on a second and I’ll patch you through,” said Apple Crisp before her face disappeared and soft music began to play. Much to Mystery’s irritation.

“Ya like jazz?” joked Orange from near the door.

Shooting him an annoyed look, Mystery shot back, “Shut up, Orange, you know what music I like, and it isn’t this,” expelling an irritated huff of air, Mystery muttered to herself, “I don’t understand why Mother thought that we should have hold music, let alone this kind of music. I feel like it's going to put me to sleep every time I hear it.”

“I chose it because I like it, as it helps me relax, and I have good taste in music, thank you very much, unlike some people that I know,” cut in a voice suddenly from in front of Mystery, startling her and causing her to flinch.

“Mom! Don’t do that!” complained Mystery as an older-looking version of herself appeared in front of her.

Chuckling, her mother replied, “Sorry dear, but it’s always funny to watch you jump like that, reminds me of when you were little and I’d spook you. You’d always make the cutest pout after I managed to get you down off the ceiling.”

“Moooom! Not in front of my underling!” hissed Mystery as she watched her mother roll her eyes.

“Oh, quit being so dramatic, Orange Slice already knows about it from your file that I gave him when I assigned him to work with you,” retorted her mother with another eye-roll.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to say it out loud!” she complained, her ears pinned back. From behind her, she heard Orange snicker quietly to himself.

Mom simply chuckled. “Anyways, I’m sure you didn’t just call and interrupt my meeting to just have a little chat. Apple Crisp said that you had a potential mission you wanted to run by me before you get started?” she asked, a curious light shining in her emerald eyes.

Glad that her mother was refocusing the conversation on something that wasn’t personal and embarrassing, Mystery hastily nodded and said, “I had a client come in asking us to look into some things going on in the Royal Guard. Apparently, there’s quite a bit of rot and corruption festering below the surface and this client wants me to find them hard evidence.”

Leaning further back in her chair and steepling her hooves together in front of herself. Mystery’s mother idly tapped the tips together as she pursed her lips in thought. “Hmm, what is the status of your local network?”

Mystery sighed. “A mess I’m afraid, I’m still trying to track down quite a few agents and contacts that were flung about when Discord got loose.”

Nodding, Mystery’s mom replied, “Well it can’t be helped. Thankfully, your timely warning saved quite a few of our agents from... undesirable outcomes thanks to that chaotic noodles antics.”

Mystery shuddered as she recalled the draconquus’s rampage. Even though he’d spent most of his attention and energy on the Elements of Harmony, Equestria as a whole hadn’t been fully spared from his shenanigans either. This of course had extended to her own informant network and even though it had been several months since he’d been put back in his stone prison, the nature of her organization meant that tracking down lost informants and field agents wasn’t always a straightforward process. As a consequence, her information network had several large holes in it that she was scrambling to fill in again, with oftentimes mixed results. It was quite frustrating for the little information broker.

Giving her head a shake, Mystery, refocused her attention back onto her mother and replied, “It was the least I could do given the circumstances. I just wish I could have done more.”

Her mother shrugged. “Such is life dear, we all wish we could have done things differently at times, but there is no way to fix them, so with that being said, why don’t you bring me up to speed on what your royal customer wants you to do?”

Giving a nod, Mystery quickly filled her mother in on what Blueblood wanted her to do along with most of the why of it. By the time she finished her report, her mother looked pensive and silent. After several quiet moments, she finally nodded and said, “If your network can handle it, go for it. But don’t stretch yourself too thin, I don’t have anyone I can spare at the moment so if you get in trouble, I won’t be able to help you.”

Bowing her head in acknowledgment, Mystery replied, “Understood Mother, I told my customer that I could only deal with one target at a time.”

“Hmm... well that’s not entirely true dear and you know it,” replied her mother carefully.

Mystery’s face scrunched up in irritation and she replied, “I’d rather cut off my horn than work with him, and you know it.”

Her mother sighed. “Dear, you really need to let that go. Mirror apologized and Manehatten is his area of responsibility. Even though you are my daughter, and I let you have a lot of leeway in how you run your operations, you know it’s only polite to inform the local office of any operation that you are going to conduct in their area. Besides, he knows the area better than you do, and his agents and contacts will make your job that much easier.”

“But-”

“No buts, I’m putting my hoof down. This little spat between you two has gone on long enough. He admitted he was wrong, and apologized. Now you are going to accept his apology and work with him. No more solo operations in Manehatten, this is my command. Understand?”

Feeling her mother’s order flow across her body like cold water with a shiver, Mystery hung her head, and weakly said, “Yes, mother.”

Softening her features, her mother leaned in closer and quietly said, “I love you sweetie, and I know you don’t like Mirror, but we can’t afford divisions in our organization. Please work with him to the best of your abilities and focus on the mission. I’ll send him a message to let him know to expect a call from you soon and to not be an ass, alright?”

Mystery simply nodded without saying a word. Realizing that was all she was going to get, Mystery’s mother leaned back and gave her daughter a single nod before asking, “Now, was there anything else you needed to discuss with me?”

Biting her bottom lip, Mystery asked, “Apple Crisp mentioned that you were going over a report from Ponyville? I wasn’t aware that we had anything going on in that little town.”

Sighing, her mother muttered something under her breath, Mystery wasn’t sure, but she thought it sounded like her mother was speaking about ‘having a chat with Apple and the importance of keeping her big mouth shut when taking calls,’ but it could have been something else she’d heard, and she wasn’t going to press her mother on it either.

Either way, her mother didn’t elaborate and instead replied, “Yes, one of our traveling agents found something interesting in Ponyville. Apparently, Discord left behind a little present before he left,” seeing her daughter tense up, she quickly reassured her with a wave of her hoof and explained, “as far as we can tell, there is nothing immediately concerning about this ‘present’. Apparently, Discord pulled some creature called a...” she paused and pulled a piece of paper from off-screen and carefully continued, “human, along with his farm from another world and plopped it on the outskirts of Ponyville. Up until now, I haven’t had anyone that I could send to check more closely on the situation, so we were relying on second-hoof sources, which were few and far between. As it seems that Princess Celestia and Luna decided to try and keep this human’s presence as quiet as possible from the general public.”

“But now things have changed?” queried Mystery.

Her mother nodded, setting the paper aside. “They have, and considering the timing of your current patron's request, I think it’s time that we send in someone to keep a closer eye on Ponyville and its denizens. To be honest, it is long past time that I set up an operation in that town anyway. Considering that Princess Celestia’s personal student now lives there, along with the fact that she and five others wield the Elements of Harmony, it seems prudent to keep a closer eye on them.”

“And the ‘human?’” asked Mystery.

Her mother shrugged. “So far the human hasn’t caused any issues, but they are an unknown, and you know how much I dislike not knowing things.”

Mystery rolled her eyes and replied, “Which is why we all go through such lengths to hide your birthday, and Hearth’s Warming gifts from you, Mother.”

“Don’t you sass me, young lady, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out,” her mother shot back, but Mystery could tell she wasn’t serious in her ‘threat’, as she saw her mother's lips twitch upwards ever so slightly as she breathed out her mock threatenings. After a moment, however, her features turned properly serious and she said, “Getting back to the task at hoof, was there anything else you wished to share with me concerning this mission of yours?”

Mystery shook her head. “Not at this time, no.”

“Very well, keep me apprised of your plans, but otherwise do as you see fit, so long as it doesn’t go against protocol.”

Mystery’s ears perked up and she hopefully asked, “Does this mean that I’m off the leash again?”

Her mother sighed and shook her head. “Mystery, how many times do I have to tell you, you were never ‘on the leash’ or being punished for the Zebrican job fiasco.”

Looking down at her hooves, Mystery idly kicked at a small pebble and muttered, “It sure felt like it.”

Another sigh. “Mystery, look at me,” commanded her mother.

Tearing her gaze away from the floor, she looked up at the frowning visage of her mother.

“You had a bad operation, some of it wasn’t your fault and some of it was. We all make mistakes, and mistakes lead to people getting hurt or killed in our line of work, you know this. Thus, we as managers of the organization need to be better than anyone else out there. I understand that you believe I was punishing you by taking a more direct hoof in your daily operations after that incident, but that was not the case. You were shook up and your confidence was damaged. I sent you to Canterlot and kept a closer eye on you than the others because I didn’t want you to make more mistakes because you weren’t confident in your abilities, whether you believe your confidence was an issue or not,” she added when she saw Mystery open her mouth to argue with her mother.

“Someday you are going to take over from me and there won’t be anyone else that you can turn to when things go wrong. You will need to know how to pick yourself up and dust yourself off when you make a mistake, and most importantly, you will need to know how to learn from that mistake so that it doesn’t happen again and that you don’t become paralyzed with fear of making another mistake in the future. Understand?”

Looking down at her hooves again, Mystery idly tapped a hoof against the rock and quietly nodded.

“Good, I’m glad that you do. Your confidence has returned over these past few years, which is good, but it has been tempered with humility and an understanding that you and your agents are not invincible. As such, I feel as though you should be able to deal with this sensitive manner appropriately. As such, you will have full say in your operational decisions. However, if you wish, you may ask me for advice at any time, okay?”

Looking up at her mother, Mystery nodded, a look of determination set on her face. “I will.”

Her smile growing large and proud, Mystery’s mother gave her daughter a nod of her own and said, “Very well then, make up your plans and let me know when they are ready. I am going to look forward to seeing what you have planned.”

“Okay Mom,” replied Mystery with a single nod, plans and contingencies already forming in her mind.

“Was there anything else you needed from me before I go?”

Mystery nodded and asked, “Who are you sending to Ponyville to set things up? I thought we didn’t have anyone to spare?”

Her mother sighed and nodded. “In truth, we don’t, but I felt the situation there was a high enough priority that it warranted some shuffling around. Besides, your youngest brother needs the practice, and Ponyville should be safe enough for a first-time deployment.”

“Wait... you mean you're sending him out into the field?!” exclaimed Mystery in shock.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Oh don’t be so dramatic, he’ll be fine. Besides, I’m sending your brother Onyx with him as well as Kevin to act as field operations officer.”

Hearing that her youngest brother wasn’t going to be running a solo operation on his first time on the outside calmed Mystery a bit, but she still bit her bottom lip in worry. Her youngest brother was a bit of a spaz in her opinion, and even with a seasoned field operations officer like Kevin in charge of things, she wasn’t confident in the overall success of the mission, especially with her younger, hot-headed, edgelord brother, Onyx tagging along as well.

Groaning to herself, she pinched her eyes shut and asked, “Please tell me he’s finally decided on a persona, Mom. Last I heard, he hadn’t even picked out a name yet.”

“Well... he’s, working on it,” admitted her mother hesitantly.

Mystery’s head fell in her hooves and she wearily shook it. “Moooom, he’s terrible at operations, and you know it. I mean, for Epona’s sake, he failed Background Character 101! That’s the easiest class to take! It’s practically a guaranteed A+! All you have to do is just not be noticed, and he couldn’t even manage that!”

“He’s gotten better. He managed to pass it last semester with a B+, I’ll have you know,” replied her mother in a more defensive tone.

Mystery groaned again and replied, “Mom... even Bees managed to get an A+ in that class, and he’s an idiot.”

“Mystery! What have I told you about calling him that?! Bees does the best that he can.”

“And yet he’s banned from fieldwork!” shot back Mystery, heedless of her mother’s chastizing tone.

Sighing, replied, “Yes... I know, but he can’t help it, he is a real sweetheart around the office, and everyone likes him, so watch what you say, young lady.”

“But my point still stands, Bees has a persona, even though he doesn’t go out in the field anymore, my youngest brother can’t even manage that!”

“And that is why Onyx and Kevin are going with him. Besides, he’s managed to create a persona, just not a name yet... or a credible backstory... and his cutie mark is still a work in progress.”

Mystery arched an eyebrow.

“Alright fine, you’re right. He’s not ready to go out yet, but I’ve tried everything else!” she exclaimed in exasperation.

“So you’re just going to throw him into the deep end and hope he doesn’t drown?”

Groaning, Mystery’s mother gently massaged her forehead just under her horn and tiredly replied, “It was the only thing I could think to do, sweetie. He’s not getting any better sticking around the office, and it’s killing his confidence.”

“Do you want me to help them? I could send Orange down there to help them get set up,” offered Mystery gently upon seeing her mother’s frustration.

Her mother shook her head. “No, it’s already going to be difficult enough as it is. Any more agents showing up at the same time will just draw unneeded attention. If you want to pop down and visit them later after they get set up in town, you can, otherwise keep interactions to a minimum, alright?”

“Understood, I’ll send them a letter after they get established, and check in on them, see if they need anything, but otherwise keep my distance,” replied Mystery with a nod.

Giving her daughter a grateful smile, her mother looked away for a moment as someone off-screen caught her attention, and after a few moments of whispering, she turned back to Mystery and said, “I’m sorry sweetie, but I’ve got to go now. I’ll talk with you later, alright?”

“Okay, love you, mom.”

“Love you too,” replied her mother with a smile before cutting the connection, the screen quickly collapsing back into a softly glowing orb.

Turning away from the now smaller, and softly glowing orb, Mystery walked past Orange, who fell in alongside her as they both left the communications room.

“So... now what?” he asked.

“Start planning this operation, what else?” replied Mystery.

“And your brothers in Ponyville?”

She shook her head and sighed. “Mother knows best, if she thinks it’ll help the little spaz, then it probably will, besides, nothing really ever happens in that little podunk town anyways, so they should be fine.”

“And all the stuff that’s happened lately in that so-called ‘podunk town’ doesn’t count because?”

Groaning, Mystery rubbed her forehead with a fetlock and replied, “Because I said so, now shut up and get to work.”

Giving his boss a sloppy salute, Orange turned and trotted out of Mystery’s office, leaving her alone.

I need a drink, she thought tiredly to herself.

Chapter 58 (Back in the Hospital)

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Chapter 58

The sun’s early morning rays peeked through the hospital blinds and danced across Allen’s sleeping face as if teasing him to wake up. Scrunching his nose, Allen grunted and tried to roll on his side to get away from the mischievous light beams. However, a painful tugging sensation in his right arm, caused him to open his eyes and look around his room blearily.

This isn’t my bedroom, thought Allen groggily as he took in the green-colored wallpaper. Looking down at his arm, he saw that he had an IV tube sticking out of it along with a mess of wires taped to his chest that led to a heart monitor that beeped gently next to his bed.

Why am I in the hospital?

Looking up from his arm he looked around the room, however other than a couple of Get Well Soon cards and a few balloons, there wasn’t anything or anyone in sight.

With a groan, Allen tried to push himself up into a sitting position, however, his arms felt like lead and he couldn’t bring himself to sit up. So instead, he let himself fall back down and waited for someone to come check on him.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long, as the sound of hooves on the tile floor outside his room grew louder and louder before a white forehoof pushed his door open, and Nurse Redheart trotted into the room.

She quickly noticed that he was awake when she saw him turn his head to look at her. “Oh, you’re awake,” she said as she trotted up next to his bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” rasped Allen, his dry throat and mouth making it difficult to speak.

Nurse Redheart nodded. “That’s to be expected with acute magical exhaustion. You’re very fortunate that you did not do any damage to your thaumatic system with how drained you were when you came in. Here, slowly drink this,” she said as she offered him a cup of water with a straw in it.

Wrapping his lips around the straw, Allen greedily sucked down the cool refreshing water.

“I said slowly,” chastised Redheart as she pulled the cup and straw away from Allen and gave him a stern look, before slowly returning the cup and straw to his mouth.

This time, Allen obeyed the nurse’s orders and slowly drank down the life-giving water. Drinking the cup dry, he asked, “Can I have some more, please? I’m still thirsty.”

Giving a wordless nod, Redheart refilled his cup and offered it back to him, and once again, he drank it dry, to which she refilled it and the process repeated several times. Finally, after a few minutes, Allen’s thirst was quenched, and letting out a contented sigh, he let his head drop back to rest on his pillow.

Setting his cup aside, Redheart turned to look at him and asked, “Do you feel up to seeing the doctor yet?”

Allen gave a wordless nod, and Redheart quickly departed to go and retrieve Dr. Stable. A short time later, Allen heard Redheart returning, with who he presumed was Dr. Stable. His assumptions were proven true when the unicorn doctor trotted inside, a clipboard held in his magical aura.

Giving Allen a bright smile, Dr. Stable asked, “So how are you feeling right now, Mr. Ross?”

“Been better,” replied Allen tiredly.

Dr. Stable nodded. “That is understandable, considering that you’re suffering from acute magical exhaustion. Thankfully, there does not appear to be any lasting damage to your system, so some bed rest and nourishment should see you right as rain in no time.”

“What’s magical exhaustion?” asked Allen.

“It’s when your body uses up too much of its mana reserves during magical use. It’s a common occurrence in unicorns, especially when they are young and don’t know their limits yet. Earth ponies and pegasi are less likely to experience AME, but it can happen. In your case, your symptoms are more like what we would see in a young unicorn who’d pushed themselves too far too fast.”

Allen lay in his bed, his tired brain trying to process what Dr. Stable was saying. “So,” he began, an uncertain look on his face, “are you saying that I was using magic?”

Dr. Stable nodded, a happy smile on his face. “Precisely, as I said, your symptoms are very similar to a unicorn who’s pushed themselves too hard. Which given your previous condition when you arrived here in Equestria, isn’t too hard to believe. Even though you are off most of your dietary restrictions, your ability to cast magical spells will be very limited for quite some time. Honestly, I was very surprised to learn that you had managed to cast magic in the traditional unicorn manner, seeing as you lack a horn, which we use as a spell focal point. Many of us were under the assumption, that your magic casting abilities would be more passive in nature, much like an earth pony or pegasi’s. Yet here we are,” he said with a chuckle as he moved to begin taking Allen’s vitals.

Looking up at the doctor with a confused expression. Allen replied, “But... I didn’t cast any magic spells.”

Dr. Stable paused his examination and gave Allen a skeptical look. “I find that hard to believe, Mr. Ross, considering the evidence and eyewitness testimonies that we collected following your admittance here. It looks and sounds to me as though you did in fact use magic during your encounter with those timberwolves the other day.”

“But-”

“No buts,” cut in Dr. Stable sternly, “now open your mouth and say ‘ahh’.”

“Ahhhh.”

Using his horn as a light, and a wooden tongue depressor, Dr. Stable examined Allen’s mouth and gave a happy hum as he found nothing out of the ordinary.

“Well,” he said as he extinguished his horn and threw the used tongue depressor away, “everything looks to be in order. I would say you should be good to go home tomorrow. But I am going to tell you to take it easy for the next week. Which means plenty of bed rest, limited extraneous work, and no magic casting. Understand?”

“But-”

“Understand?” repeated Dr. Stable, a warning tone in his voice that brooked no argument.

Sighing, Allen nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

A happy smile returned to the doctor’s face and he replied, “Excellent, Nurse Redheart, do you need me for anything else?”

Shaking her head, she replied, “No, I should be fine, thank you, doctor.”

Giving a pleased nod, Dr. Stable gave a wave goodbye and trotted out, leaving Allen and Nurse Redheart alone.

Taking the opportunity while she was there, Redheart decided to change Allen’s bedsheets for fresh ones.

Allen for his part, simply lay in bed thinking, occasionally moving as Redheart nudged him while working. Finally, as she was bundling the used sheets up in a ball to place on her back, Allen asked, “How’s Penny doing?”

Pausing in her work, Redheart turned and offered Allen a smile. “She’s doing just fine. We actually released her a little bit ago this morning, and don’t worry, she told me to tell you that things on the farm are well enough in hoof. She’s got your workers taking care of tending to your animals while you are in here. If you want and are willing, I can have somepony send word to her that you’re up now and ready to receive visitors. A lot of ponies have been worried about you since the attack.”

Nodding his head, Allen replied, “Yeah, that would be good thanks. It’ll give me something to do.”

Redheart laughed. “I understand, laying in bed all day with nothing to do gets pretty boring, pretty quickly,” looking out into the hall, she glanced at the clock on the wall and asked, “It’s about nine o’clock, would you like some breakfast?”

Allen’s stomach chose that moment to let loose a hungry rumble and laughing, Redheart said, “I’ll take that as a yes and get you something to eat. Be back in a bit,” and with that, she left Allen alone with his thoughts.

Sighing to himself, Allen stared up at the ceiling, his thoughts wandering around at the recent revelation that he had apparently used magic.

I don’t really remember casting anything. I just remember driving the tractor around like a madman and praying I didn’t flip it. Maybe my body cast it subconsciously while I was trying to save Penny and the others? He shook his head in irritation. Bah, I just don’t know, maybe someone else can explain what happened later.

Banishing those thoughts from his mind, Allen decided to close his eyes and try and get a little more rest while he waited for his breakfast and for Penny to show up.

A soft knock on his door a short time later pulled Allen back out of his light sleep and looking groggily towards the door, he saw three ponies enter the room. The first was Nurse Redheart pushing a cart with some food on it, behind her was Penny. Allen winced when he saw her battered appearance, along with her left foreleg wrapped in a plaster cast and supported up off the ground by a double-wheeled contraption that was strapped to her barrel to help her keep her balance while she walked in addition to keeping any weight off her bad leg.

Penny, seeing Allen looking at her leg, gave him a soft smile. “It looks worse than it really is. The doctor says I should have the cast off in a few weeks at the most, though I’ll still be on light duties for a couple of months afterward.”

“That’s good to hear,” replied Allen as Nurse Redheart adjusted his bed so that he was in a more upright position for eating.

Turning his attention to the final pony in the room, Allen asked, “So who’s this?”

The mare strode forward and gave a shallow bow. “Perfect Time, at your service sir,” she said, her voice carrying a soft Canterlot accent, though to Allen it sounded British. “Prince Blueblood informed me yesterday via dragonfire mail that I was needed in Ponyville to help Ms. Farthing with her duties while she recovered. Though I am afraid I only just arrived this morning on the six o’clock train from Canterlot.”

Taking a bite of his oatmeal, Allen nodded and after swallowing replied, “Well, I’m glad to hear that Blueblood was willing to send somepony down to help out while we get back on our feet.” Turning to look at Penny he asked, “Have you had a chance to talk with her?”

Penny shook her head. “No, we only just got her settled in at my place when word came that you were awake.”

“I see, well I suppose now is as good a time as any for everyone to get on the same page then,” remarked Allen as he took a sip of coffee, the bitter brew jolting his system awake even further.

“My thoughts exactly,” nodded Perfect, as she pulled a pair of chairs over from against the wall and sat down. Penny for her part struggled a bit to sit comfortably in hers, though with a little help from Perfect’s magic, she managed well enough.

“Is there anything else you will need Allen?” asked Nurse Redheart from the side.

Allen shook his head, “Naw, not yet, though you’ll probably need to swing by in about a half hour or so. I’ll probably need to use the bathroom by then.”

“Alright, I’ll be sure to make a note of that and check back in a half hour, see you then,” she chuckled as she turned and left, closing the door behind her as she went.

With Redheart gone, Perfect lit up her horn, pulled several folders from her saddlebags, and said, “Well, now that that’s taken care of, shall we get started?”

Taking another sip of his coffee, Allen nodded. “Sure.”

“Alright then,” began Perfect as she opened the first folder and asked, “In regards to the most recent expense report-”

Several hours later, Allen, and Penny had managed to bring Perfect more or less up to speed in regard to the day-to-day operations of the farm. However, there were still several things that had been left unaccounted for due to the timberwolf incident several days prior.

“Do we know what happened to the fryer oil delivery?” asked Allen as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. Meetings had never been one of his favorite activities, and coupled with his body’s need to heal itself, he was on the verge of drifting off to sleep.

Penny shook her head. “No, I think the barrels were delivered, but in all the chaos, I’m not sure. I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with any of our workers other than to inform them of what chores need to be done, and there is no guarantee that the delivery ponies would have left the barrels at the farm without proper payment.”

Sighing, Allen nodded. “Alright, Perfect, that’ll be your first task then, figure out where our cooking oil delivery went and what we’ll need to do if it wasn’t delivered.”

“I’ll get right on that,” remarked the light blue mare as she jotted down Allen’s request.

“Next, we’ll need to make sure that Honeysuckle, Clover, Rye, and Creme Brulee got paid for their work this week, and that they’re actually doing everything that needs to be done while I’m laid up.”

Another line was jotted down in Perfect’s notebook. “Alright, anything else?”

“Let Filthy Rich know that I won’t be able to deliver any more hay to him for the foreseeable future due to my injuries. I doubt the doctors are gonna let me work all that hard for a while, so I reckon first cutting is pretty much over now,” sighed Allen.

“Does that mean no more hay?” asked Penny.

Allen shrugged. “I’m not sure it’ll be worth cutting is what I’m saying. Once enough time has passed, grass tends to go to seed and die back, meaning your feed quality is going to go down. Since we’re in the middle of July now, the grass will be overripe. We could probably still cut it, but it won’t be worth as much, and it’ll be full of stemmy stuff that might not taste as good. So now we’ll just have to wait until the grass has regrown enough that we can start on second cutting. Which shouldn’t be long, at least for my fields as they have a nice mix of clover and alfalfa in them. I’m not sure about the meadow fields, but from what I’ve seen driving past them, they’re looking okay.”

“And when will that happen?” asked Perfect.

“If the weather is good, about every thirty days or so,” replied Allen. “Though here it could be even shorter, I don’t know, I’ll have to go and take a closer look at the fields that I’ve already cut. We got started late this year, and we haven’t been able to make a lot of progress due to equipment limitations, but if all goes well, we should have a respectable hay season.”

Perfect nodded and continued writing. “Very well, anything else?”

Allen shook his head. “I can’t think of anything at the moment,” he replied, though at the end of his sentence, he let loose a large yawn. “Ugh, I guess I’m still pretty tired.”

Closing her notebook, Perfect stood up and, after helping Penny to her hooves, said, “Then we should probably go and let you get some rest.”

Allen nodded blearily. “Yeah, that sounds like a go-” another powerful yawn interrupted him, “-od idea,” he finished.

Hobbling up to stand by his bedside, Penny leaned against the bed and gently patted Allen with her good hoof. “Don’t worry Allen, we’ll take care of everything, you just get some rest.”

Giving her a tired smile, Allen nodded and after making a shooing motion with his hand, let his eyes close and after a moment, he drifted off to sleep.

Exiting his room quietly, the two mares slowly made their way out of the hospital.

“Do you want me to go to the farm now and inspect things while you head back to the office and rest?” asked Perfect as the two mares stood at the front entrance to the hospital.

Penny shook her head. “No, I better come with you. You’ll need somepony to show you where the farm is and what to look for.”

Perfect’s face scrunched up in concern and she said, “I think you should probably go home instead. The doctor said you should take it easy.”

Penny nodded in agreement. “He did, but I’ve got too much stuff to do and you have no idea where to start. Worst case scenario, I can sleep at Allen’s place, I doubt he’ll mind. Besides, we can stop at my office on the way there and grab a few additional files and papers that need going through.”

“I really think you should rest, ma’am,” protested Perfect.

Penny sighed and gave Perfect an annoyed look. “Then source me a taxi then, if you’re so worried about my health. But regardless, I’m going to Allen’s place. No offense to you or your skills, but you have no idea where you need to go, who you need to talk to, or what needs to be done, and I’m not in the mood to try and explain things to you long distance. Understand?”

Conceding defeat, Perfect lowered her head and said, “Very well, I’ll see what I can find then. Do you want me to stay with you or are you comfortable walking back to your office on your own?”

“I’ll be fine. Just meet me there once you’ve found something,” replied Penny as she slowly started walking home.

“Very well, I’ll see you there,” said Perfect in reply as she quickly trotted off to find transportation for Penny.

~oOo~

An hour later found Penny and Perfect standing in front of Allen’s house. Perfect had managed to find somepony who was willing to cart Penny out to Allen’s place for a small fee. However, they were unwilling to wait, so she and Penny were going to have to figure out how to get Penny home later.

We’ll worry about that issue when we get to it, thought Perfect as she helped Penny out the back of the wagon.

“Thank you for being willing to take me here, Mr. Radish,” said Penny as she carefully adjusted her harness.

The old stallion smiled and said, “Ain’t no problem miss. I was heading this way anyway, so I figured it weren’t no trouble to add ya to my cargo. Though like I said, I ain’t coming back this way, so you’ll have to figure out how ta get home by yerself.”

Penny nodded, an understanding smile on her face. “It’s no issue, I’m sure Perfect and I will be able to figure something out, and worst case scenario I can just stay here for the night.”

Looking around the farmyard, Mr. Radish slowly nodded his head. “If’n ya say so, but between you, me, and the fence post, this place gives me the willies.”

Penny cocked her head in confusion. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Mr. Radish shrugged. “Dunno, just something off about this place. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard nothing by good things bout that hooman that lives here, but that still don’t change the fact that the land under my hooves don’t feel the same is all. Anyways, I better get a move on, it’s a long ways to my next stop, and if I want to get there before dark I better hustle. You ladies have a pleasant day.”

“You as well,” replied Penny as Mr. Radish turned his wagon around and slowly trotted away.

Once he was gone, Penny turned to Perfect and said, “Well, let’s go and see if we can find one of Allen’s workers.”

“Lead the way,” replied Perfect with a shallow nod.

Humming quietly to herself, Penny idly tapped her good hoof as she tried to figure out where to start looking. After a moment, she hobbled off towards the main barn, figuring that it was the most likely place they would find somepony.

Entering through the double doors, Penny looked around and taking a deep breath called out, “Is anypony here?”

After a couple of seconds, someone replied, “Up here!”

Looking up into the hayloft, she spotted Honeysuckle waving at her. Returning her wave with a friendly smile, she asked, “How is everything going?”

Honeysuckle returned Penny’s smile with one of her own and said, “Not too bad, give me a sec and I’ll be right down. I was just getting ready to kick some bales down to feed, so watch yourselves.”

Backing up a few paces, Penny and Perfect watched as Honeysuckle kicked a half-dozen bales down from the loft, each bale giving a hefty *thump* as they hit the floor below. After the last bale had landed, Honey quickly descended using the staircase and met the two unicorns. She was covered in sweat and hay chaff.

“Hey Penny, glad to see you up and about, how are you doing?”

“I’ve been better,” admitted Penny, “my leg is still pretty sore, and I get tired pretty easily. That’s why Prince Blueblood sent me an assistant to help take some of the load off while I recover,” turning to Perfect, Penny said, “Honeysuckle, this is Perfect Time, Perfect, this is Honeysuckle, she and her brothers are working for Allen and I this summer.”

Perfect gave a shallow bow of her head in greeting. “It is nice to meet you.”

“Same,” replied Honeysuckle with a smile.

“So Honey,” began Penny, “where are your brothers?”

“They’re out moving animals around and filling up water troughs,” she replied.

“How have things been going these last couple of days? I know this wasn’t something you were expected to do, and both Allen and I greatly appreciate your willingness to help out after the attack,” said Penny with a grateful smile.

“Everything’s been going pretty good,” replied Honeysuckle as she turned around to resume work, Penny and Perfect following behind her. “I will admit, it was a bit of a hassle the first day, but we’ve gotten the hang of things since, and honestly, even though we didn’t initially sign up for this, we’d be pretty poor friends if we left you and Allen hanging in the breeze after he rushed in to save us like he did.”

“Well, I’m glad that things have worked out as well as they have then,” replied Penny as she and Perfect watched Honeysuckle effortlessly carry a bale over to a stall, balanced on her back, and proceed to dump it into a hay feeder for the animals inside to eat.

Reaching in, she effortlessly removed the baling twine from the bale and fluffed it for the animals inside. “Yeah, we are too, plus now that the fallen tree has been removed, we don’t need to worry about any timberwolves coming across the river anymore either.”

“Oh they’ve already removed it?” asked Penny, a surprised look on her face.

Honey nodded. “Sure did, yesterday as a matter of fact. Clover, Rye, and I have been busy hauling the debris out of the field and up to Allen’s woodpile for him to process later. The guard asked if they could take the main part of the tree to process into lumber for their needs, and I said they would need to ask Allen or you, so they’ve just set the trunk aside in the field to collect later if you decide to sell it to them or whatever.”

“Hmm, I haven’t received any word from Lieutenant Palisade regarding that particular request,” remarked Penny with a thoughtful hum. “Perfect, would you make a note for me to follow up with him on that please?”

“Of course,” replied Perfect as she effortlessly pulled her notepad and pencil from her saddlebags and jotted down Penny’s request. “Were you planning to speak with Allen on the matter as well?”

Penny nodded. “I am, though I would like to hear Palisade’s offer first, that way I can pass it on to Allen in one go, rather than having to go back and forth on it.”

“Understood,” nodded Perfect as she finished jotting down the request in her notebook. “Were you also planning on asking Honeysuckle about the cooking oil delivery now?”

“Thank you for reminding me,” said Penny as she turned her attention back to Honey and asked, “Do you know if any barrels of cooking oil have been delivered here since the attack? They were supposed to show up on Wednesday, but obviously, we’ve all been a bit preoccupied since then.”

Honey paused in her work and tapped her chin with a hoof in thought. After a few moments of thinking, she slowly nodded. “Yeah, I remember a group of delivery ponies showing up that day, and I remember them sending somepony back to town to get help when you fired that magical flare into the air.”

“Do you know if they dropped the barrels off or if they took them back with them?” pressed Penny.

“I... think they took them with them. Once they heard there were timberwolves in the area, they weren’t too keen on sticking around to unload their wagons,” admitted Honey.

Penny sighed and gave a tired nod of understanding. “Yeah, I thought as much that this would be the case. Still, at least we have an idea of what happened. I’ll reach out to the company and see what they have to say. Worst-case scenario, we’ll just have to reorder everything, which considering the current circumstances, won’t really inconvenience us too much.”

Chewing on her bottom lip for a moment in thought as she looked around the yard, Penny suddenly asked, “Did any of you bring Allen’s tractor and mower up from the field yet?”

Honey shook her head. “We tried, but it was very hard to move and we didn’t want to break anything, so we just left it where it is. If Allen wants it moved, he’ll have to do it himself, none of us really knows how it works.”

Penny nodded in understanding. “I’ll be sure to let him know when I see him again,” turning to look at Perfect she asked, “Would you please make a note of that for me, Perfect?”

“Already done, ma’am,” she replied as she made a flourish with her pencil before tucking it into her light yellow and gray colored mane bun.

“Excellent, thank you. Now, let’s go ahead and take a look around to make sure nothing has been neglected.”

“Do you need me to come with you?” asked Honey.

Penny shook her head. “We’ll be fine, you can go ahead and get back to work. I just want to make sure nothing has been forgotten is all, and if I need help, either Perfect can assist me or she will come and get you or one of the others.”

Nodding her head, Honey let a smile form on her muzzle and she replied, “Okay, sounds good. I’ll be in the main barn here for a bit, but if you can’t find me, I’ll probably be out helping the guys finish picking up the remaining cut wood from the field.”

“Sounds good, see you later,” said Penny with a nod of her head, Perfect meanwhile contented herself with a small wave of her hoof as the two departed.

Once they were out of the barn, Penny set her path towards the closest machine shed. Seeing her intended destination, Perfect arched an eyebrow and asked, “Why are we heading there?”

“Just double checking that the delivery ponies didn’t actually leave anything here when nopony was looking,” replied Penny simply.

“Do you believe Honeysuckle was lying to us?”

Penny shook her head. “No, but she might have misremembered or not seen them unload. As Allen’s assistant, I need to double-check everything to make sure there has been no miscommunication or misplacement of items. Allen wanted the barrels put in this machine shed along the wall, and even though I didn’t get a chance to pass that information along to the delivery ponies, it’s possible they simply offloaded the barrels into the nearest open building with an invoice and left quickly.”

Perfect slowly nodded as Penny’s argument made sense. Reaching the main door of the building, the two ponies stepped inside and looked around. Frowning, Penny could see that her hopes were in vain, as there were no obvious barrels to be seen. However, not one to leave a job half done, she took the time to look around before moving on to the next building. However, much like the first one, the second machine shed offered no oil barrels either. Nor were there any barrels in the hay storage barn or in the animal barn when the two mares doubled back.

Letting loose a disappointed groan, Penny muttered, “Well looks like they didn’t deliver after all. I figured that was the case, but a mare can hope.”

Perfect quietly pulled her pencil out of her mane bun and quickly jotted down their findings. “Do you want me to look into this matter?”

Penny nodded. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a lot of walking and talking, and I’m just not in the mood right now. I’ll get you the information you need when we get back to the office later.”

With a few more scribbles of her pencil, Perfect nodded, satisfied with the results. “Very well, was there anything else you wanted to look at while we are here?”

Another nod from Penny as she slowly headed for the house. “Yeah, I left some paperwork that I need in Allen’s office. Let me get that while you go round up one of the hired help to lug me back to Ponyville. They should have a cart or something to put my fat flank in.”

Perfect simply nodded, while avoiding any comment on whether Penny’s flank was too fat or not. Instead, she asked, “Could you tell me where they might be?”

Turning around, Penny used her chin to point at a dirt path leading past a row of trees and said, “Just follow that path there, it should lead you right to the field where the tree fell. I figure that would probably be your best bet to find them quickly.”

“Very well, I shall return shortly, are you sure you don’t need any further assistance?” she inquired.

Penny shook her head and replied, “I’ll be fine, now shoo.”

Having been dismissed, Perfect turned and swiftly trotted in the appointed direction, her even strides quickly eating up the distance as she passed the tree line and soon spotted the aforementioned remains of the tree in the distance.

Sure enough, there they are, she thought when she spotted several ponies working on loading up a wagon with wood. Stepping up the pace a bit, she quickly covered the distance and was soon trotting up to the four working ponies.

Honeysuckle, apparently having since finished her chores as she was now here, spotted Perfect first, and giving a friendly wave, came to meet her.

“Hey, how’s it going?” she asked, a happy smile on her face.

“Ms. Farthing is finished inspecting the premises and will require somepony to help her get back to town as the pony who brought her out here in his cart couldn’t stay.”

“I see, hmmm...” replied Honey as she casually tapped her chin in thought. After a moment she turned around and called out, “Hey Brulee! Didn’t you say you needed to head back to town soon?”

A large caramel-colored stallion looked over at Honey and nodded. “Yeah, Mrs. Cake said she needed me to make a delivery for her this afternoon, why?”

“Penny’s gotta head back to town, but she needs somepony to cart her back because of her leg. Would you be willing to do that?”

Creme nodded. “Yeah, I should have enough room in my cart to take her back. Is she leaving now?”

Perfect chose that moment to interject. “We’ll be leaving very shortly yes.”

“Alright, let me help them get this wagon pulled up to the house and then I guess I’ll knock off early then if that’s okay with you guys.”

None of the others voiced any objections and so, the four quickly resumed their work while Perfect idly looked around at the mess left behind by the battle. As she was looking, a large, red object caught her attention, and with nothing better to do, she trotted over to investigate.

This must be that ‘tractor’ and ‘mower’ Penny was talking about, though Perfect as she walked around the large, to her, tractor. It looks like it’s seen better days, she idly mused as she took note of the bent bars on the front of the tractor, along with the various dings, dents, scratches, and rust that covered the old tractor.

Stepping closer, she noted that there were several rotten sticks and dried sap stuck to it as well. That must be the remains of the timberwolves that Allen hit with it. She thought, her muzzle scrunching up and her ears pinning back in disgust at the gruesome remains.

Well hopefully, Mr. Ross will take some time once he’s better to clean it up. I can’t imagine timberwolf sap is very good for paint.

“Hey Perfect! We’re ready to go now!” called Honey from the wagon.

Turning away from her inspection, Perfect called back, “Very well, I’ll be right over.” As she trotted away, Perfect suddenly paused when she heard a faint *click, click* coming from behind her. Looking back over her shoulder, she cocked her ears forward wondering where that noise had come from.

“Hey! Are you coming or not?” called Honey again as the four earth ponies pulled the wagon out of the field.

Shaking her head, Perfect turned around and quickly trotted to catch up. Must’ve been the wind catching on something loose. She thought as she trotted away.

However, unseen by her, a faint, yellowish-green light danced across the tractor's headlamps for a second, before they went dim once more.