> Half-Baked Biscuits
>  by Admiral Biscuit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Caramel gets Lost
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Caramel Gets Lost
(Alt title: Caramel Comes out of the Closet)
Admiral Biscuit
Sept, 2012

Caramel was standing in the Apple’s barn, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof.  He wasn’t panicking, not yet.  He was apprehensive.

Last year, he had lost the grass seed during winter wrap-up.  Big Macintosh had yelled at him for a while, then lead him to Miss Applejack, the team leader.  She hadn’t yelled at him, but she was disappointed in him.  And he really admired her.  One of these days, Caramel was going to ask her on a date, he just knew it.  And it would be magical.  In a romantic, not snowplow affected by a come-to-life spell way.

But not if he couldn’t find the grass seed again.  Nopony who messed up the same job twice would have a chance with Miss Applejack.  Sometimes he felt lucky that they still let him work on the farm, but he was real good with his hooves.  Plus, he got to admire the flanks of his soon-to-be special somepony.

Caramel stomped his left forehoof in frustration.  Couldn’t let his thoughts go there, it wouldn’t get the job done.  He was here a day early, just so he would know exactly where the grass seed was; in fact, he had every intention of sleeping on top of it, of guarding it with his body, defending it against all who would move it…he chuckled at the thought.

But it was nowhere to be found.  He walked deeper and deeper into the barn; nothing.  Finally, he was almost against the back wall.  He had found seeds for nearly every crop he’d ever seen planted, and more besides.  He moved a sack of ‘Genuine Wildwood Weed Seeds’ off a small table, and nickered in surprise at a small door thereby revealed.  Caramel couldn’t remember if there was a storage shed off this particular barn, but if there was, than this door might be the way in, and maybe that was where the grass seed was.  He took a deep breath, frowning at the skunky odor of the Wildwood seeds, and pushed the table aside with his muzzle.

The door was stiff and creaked as he opened it.  Inside it was pitch black, and Caramel’s frown deepened.  He was a grown stallion, not some little colt who was afraid of a little dark, unknown place.  He wished Miss Applejack were with him, though.  She wouldn’t be scared.

He stuck his nose in and sniffed around.  He couldn’t smell grass seed; the pungent herbal odor of the other seeds were stuck in his nose.  He shrugged, and stepped into the dark. 


*        *        *


It seemed like it had been forever that he had been in there.  He knew it wasn’t; it couldn’t have been.  But he did wish he had brought a lantern.  He had tried to pace off the confines of the room, and it seemed to stretch before him, like a tunnel.  Long and narrow.  But what could it be a tunnel to?  Surely the Apples wouldn’t have dug a mysterious tunnel that started in the back wall of one of their barns; they were far too sensible for that.  Pinkie Pie might have, if she had a farm.

Resolutely, he kept walking.  If he was going the right way, he would be back in the barn in no time at all.  If he was going the wrong way, soon he would reach the end of whatever this was, and he could turn around, and go back.  He decided that perhaps, to get back to looking for the seeds sooner, trotting was in order.  After he had done that for a bit, his hooffalls echoing strangely up and down the corridor, he thought cantering might be better.

He had almost decided that perhaps a full-on run was in order, when he crashed into a wooden door.  Such was his relief, that the pain in his nose went completely unnoticed, especially since it felt to him like there were branches or roots or maybe skeletal hooves or spiderwebs rubbing against his head.  With a  sudden cry, he scrabbled his hooves against the door, eventually finding a knob.  Sobbing with relief, he struggled with it for quite some time—it was awkwardly positioned, and very slippery.  He could hardly grip it with his hooves at all.

The door squeaked open, and Caramel’s eyes were filled with wonderful, amazing light.  He happily trotted out of his tunnel prison, and began to whistle.  Specifically, he pursed his lips, sucked in a breath of air, and then froze.

His pupils shrank, and his ears began twitching.  He could hear, to his right and slightly ahead of him, a steady drip…drip…drip.  A slight breeze rustled the trees outside the window.  Off in the distance, he heard unfamiliar mechanical noises.

He was undoubtedly, unquestionably, in a mare’s room.  The bed had a pink cover on it, and little bottles of probably expensive perfume, conditioners, soaps, and who-knew-what-else were scattered on bedside tables, the windowsill, and the dresser.  But the bed was too big, much too big for any of the Apples, and it was too high to comfortably get up on.  The posters on the walls all depicted strange, peach-faced monsters, and the writing was unfamiliar.  The floor was littered with bits of cloth.  When he pulled one up with his mouth, he determined that it was some kind of clothing, although far too big for a pony to wear, and it hardly looked like the kind of thing a pony would wear anyways.

At this moment, Caramel came to several realizations simultaneously, and they crowded into his mind so fast that he could not, for a moment, sort them out.  They were: 
        A. He had not found the grass seed
        B. He was not in the Apple’s barn
        C. He was in some giant pony’s room
        D. He was in some giant not-pony’s room
        E. He had no idea where he was.

When Caramel had sorted these ideas out a little bit, he did the only thing that an adult stallion would do, finding himself in such a situation.  He panicked and began running in circles as fast as he could.  Eventually, he tired himself out.  Finding himself perched somewhat precariously on an end table, he jumped onto the bed and burrowed deep under the covers, taking solace in the warmth and darkness they offered.  His breathing slowed, and he fell asleep.





Susan staggered back to the frat house, her navigation greatly impaired by the vast quantities of alcohol she had consumed.  Her path of travel led her across the sidewalk, a lawn, bouncing off several trees in a manner not unlike a pinball, and she finally tripped over a curb and fell in the street.  Giggling, she staggered back to her feet, fell over again, and determined to crawl for a little bit.  A convenient parking meter provided a good location to pull herself back up, and she managed to stagger a few more feet before realizing it might be easier to walk if she took off her high heels.

Now barefoot, her travel was much improved.  She began singing an off-key rendition of a Lady Gaga song, which was barely recognizable since she couldn’t remember the words, and was giggling frequently.  

Eventually, she made it back to her rental house, which was silent.  All her roommates were gone for spring break, but she’d stayed behind, claiming she needed the time to study rather than admit she was nearly flat broke.  The quiet had finally driven her to desire human contact, and she’d spent more time and drank more than was wise at her friend’s party.  After a little trouble getting the key to fit in the front door, she finally made it inside.  

Susan tossed her heels by the door, and walked into the kitchen to get a tall glass of water, which hopefully would help to mitigate a hangover in the morning, and threw her coat across the kitchen table.

She managed to get mostly undressed while sitting on the toilet, a commendable accomplishment since she was holding her head in her hands most of the time to keep it from floating away.  She staggered into her bedroom and managed to pull on a t-shirt before she passed out across the bed, completely oblivious to the unexpected lump under the covers.

A few hours later, she staggered into the bathroom again, her bladder informing her that she was going to get up, half-drunk or not, and when she finally returned to her room, she pulled the covers over herself as she curled up on her side, hoping that the room would settle by the morning.  In a moment she was snoring softly.





Caramel half-woke to something poking him in the side and a cold flank.  He muttered a curse against covers that wouldn’t stay put, then shifted around until he was nestled against something warm that had a soothing heartbeat.  His brain registered the scent as Berry Punch (an understandable mistake), and he promptly fell into a deeper, more comfortable sleep.  He dreamed of a Pinkie party followed by a walk in the park.

Susan woke again at 6:30, an unfortunate habit caused by early classes every semester so far, managed to make it to the bathroom without opening her eyes, and got back into bed.  As she pulled the covers towards herself, her arm brushed across something warm and furry.  “Mmm, I missed you, Rover,” she muttered softly, throwing an arm across what she believed to be her dog.  She dreamed of playing fetch in her backyard.

A few more hours passed, until Susan finally woke up.  She stretched, bumping into Caramel, and for a moment, she still thought it was her dog, then she remembered that her dog was at home in Cleveland, and so this was not, in fact, her dog.  Caramel, meanwhile, woke up, opened his eyes, and suddenly remembered that he was not asleep in his bed or Berry Punch’s or anypony else’s for that matter, and there was a very strange monster looking at him with a look that had, in a moment, gone from happy memories to vague alarm.  Caramel did what anypony would do in that situation, and bolted away from the source of his fright, which, unfortunately, was cut short by the wall of Susan’s room.

Susan’s alarm turned to concern as Caramel smashed into the wall hard enough to knock her framed Lady Gaga poster off the wall, then fell over on his side.  She had no idea whatsoever what the strange creature was, but she did know that it was clearly terrified of her, and had also managed to injure itself.  It looked like a horse, but much smaller, and with fatter legs, a shorter muzzle, and much larger eyes.  It kind of reminded her of Pokeman for some reason she couldn’t quite place her finger on.

She leaned over the prostrate figure and began stroking its mane.  It was definitely some kind of horse, she reasoned, or maybe a donkey.  Aside from its head, it looked almost like a miniature Clydesdale.  

Caramel slowly came to his senses.  The collision with the wall had managed to give him brief retrograde amnesia, as well as cause an inability to focus his eyes, so when he saw the blurry face hovering over him, he muttered, “Where am I?  What happened?”  He did not expect the response he got.

When it spoke with a clearly male voice, Susan’s first thought was that she was only wearing a thin t-shirt and a pair of panties, and she shrieked and jumped backwards.  A moment later, she realized what had just spoken in clear, understandable English, and she screamed, scrabbling backwards on her hands, butt, and feet, until she crashed into the wall of her room.  She yanked a ‘Got Hemp’ poster from the wall in an attempt to protect her modesty.

At that precise moment, with Caramel’s vision and memories coming back, and Susan’s world-view undergoing a profound shift, both of them were thinking the exact same thing: This can’t be happening.  This can’t be real.  I’m imagining this.  They both closed their eyes.  When I open my eyes, this will be nothing more than a bad memory.  A moment passed in peaceful silence.  Simultaneously, both opened their eyes, and in unison, they spoke.  “You can’t be real.”




> Hell is a Happy Place
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hell is a Happy Place
Admiral Biscuit
November 8, 2012

Spitfire rubbed her eyes, a gesture that produced no useful results whatsoever.  Blushing slightly, she pushed her goggles up on her forehead and tried again.  She had awakened to yelling, and she wasn’t sure why.  She faced the noise, to see a pegasus and a unicorn, engaged in a furious verbal battle.

“I can’t believe you were so selfish!”  Rainbow Dash stomped her hoof for emphasis.  “Really, what were you thinking?”

“Darling, I am sorry.  I was just so fabulous, I had to show everypony…but I am truly sorry it had to end this way.”

Dash lowered her head.  “I won’t stay mad at you, Rares, but right now I want you out of my sight!  Go!”

Rarity looked around at the seeming endless grassland.  ‘Go where?’ was on her lips as a retort, but she bit it down, and trotted off some distance away, and decided to huddle in the grass.  It was hardly comfortable, but she did feel really bad about messing things up like she had.

Meanwhile, Rainbow had seen Spitfire, and flew over to hover next to her face.  “Did you see it?”

“Murgh.”  Spitfire looked at Rainbow curiously.  “I…no, I don’t think I saw it.  Whatever it was I was to have seen.”  She looked around.  “Where are we?”

“I was all like—zoom, and I went so fast, I bet it was faster than anypony has ever gone!  I bet everypony will be talking about it, like, forever.”  She flopped down to the grass, a contented, slightly idiotic smile on her face.  “Oh, I wish you could have seen it.”  Her eyes brightened.  “Hey, I bet I could do it again!”  

Before a bemused Spitfire could stop her, Rainbow was climbing to the sky, a cyan dot which blended into the nearly flawless sky.  A few minutes passed, while Spitfire looked on in interest, and suddenly, she could make out a vague disturbance in the atmosphere, which suddenly resolved into a rainbow annulus with a rainbow streak in the center.  Said streak rocketed towards her, suddenly crashing into the ground in front of her with a shockwave she felt through her chest.  Rainbow stood proudly, while Spitfire looked at her, then at the sky, then back at her.

“Did you just…”

“Yup, sonic rainboom.  Hah!  Bet you thought it was a legend.  I did one when I was a filly, and this one is my fifth—I did one this morning, and two more before you woke up.  Oh, and then that last one.”

“But how did you manage to land like that?  You must have been going faster than sound.”

“Ah.”  Rainbow looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Well, it’s because, um, I guess you wouldn’t know yet.  Erm, remember how Rarity’s wings melted, ‘cause they were made of morning dew or something not awesome like that?  Well, you and Soarin’ and, um, Minty—

“Misty.”

“—right, Misty dived to save her, but she knocked you three out with her hooves, and then I dived to save everypony because that’s how awesome I am, and—“ Rainbow looked down and flattened her ears a little bit, “—well, don’t be mad, but I kinda didn’t pull out of the dive fast enough.  I wasn’t gonna leave anypony behind, but it was too late to pull out, and, well, here we are.”

“Which is?”

Dash looked around curiously.  In truth, she hadn’t really thought about it all that much, which was sort of her nature.  “Well, um, I guess it’s either Tartarus or the Summer Lands, or something like that.”  She looked brightly back at Spitfire who still seemed to be trying to process it all.

“So, in a nutshell, you’re saying we’re all dead.”

“Yup, me, you, Rarity, Soarin’, and Mindy.”

“Misty.”

“Right.  But it’ll be totally awesome, ‘cause I won’t have to work at all, and I can hang out with the Wonderbolts, like, all the time.”

Spitfire sighed.  Eternity might be a lot longer than she had anticipated.  “How did the other two take it?”

“Well, they’re not awake yet.”  Rainbow looked over.  “Maybe you should wake them up.  I guess maybe I’m not so good at breaking bad news.”

Spitfire looked at the enthusiastic Pegasus.  “No, I don’t suppose you are.”

“Right, I’m off to try another sonic rainboom.  See ya in a bit!”  She shot off into the sky, leaving Spitfire to explain what had happened to her two co-fliers.


*        *        *


Eventually, the five ponies had come to terms with the change in their circumstances, and began to explore the new land in which they found themselves.  They were somewhat surprised that nopony had come to greet them, but decided that perhaps that really wasn’t necessary in this place.  They were a little surprised to find that they were slightly hungry; however, Rainbow discovered that the grass tasted fantastic.  It took a while to convince Rarity to try to eat grass right from the ground ‘like a common pony,’ but she eventually capitulated, and agreed it was the best grass she had ever eaten.

When they had finished, Soarin’ looked at the grass wistfully.  “If only there were some apple trees, and some grain, perhaps I could have an apple pie.”

The other ponies nodded in agreement.

“In fact, I wish I could have an apple pie right now,” he amplified.

An apple pie, fresh-baked, appeared in front of him.

Soarin’, never one to look a gift pie in the mouth, promptly ate it.

“Do you suppose,” Rarity suggested, turning slightly green at Soarin’s uncouth method of pie-eating, “that whatever anypony wishes for comes true in this place?”

“I dunno,” Rainbow offered.

“It would hardly be pony heaven if we were wanting for anything,” Spitfire suggested.

“Does it not take away the challenge of a thing if it is given freely, with no effort?”

“Nopony asked your opinion, Misty,” Soarin’ mumbled around a mouthful of pie.

“Hey, look, there’s some more ponies,” Rainbow said.  “Let’s go over and greet them!”





> Fog
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fog
Admiral Biscuit
November 2012

Thunderlane pounded a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s door, to little effect.  Cloud houses were, unsurprisingly, springy and supple, thus rendering knocking a fairly useless exercise.  Some pegasi hung a board on the front door for this very purpose.  Rainbow, preferring to sleep in peace, had not.

Thunderlane was faced with a dilemma.  On one hoof, he was unable to make enough noise to wake Rainbow by knocking and shouting.  On the other hoof, he had little choice but to wake her, since she was chief weather pony for the Ponyville region, and there was a weather-related emergency.

The simplest, most effective solution to the lack of a response was to go in and wake Rainbow up, Thunderlane decided.  Since cloud homes weren’t very secure against other pegasi, he simply pulled the door apart, and walked through.  He paced up the stairs nervously, somewhat worried that he might catch her in an embarrassing situation, as well as the fact that it seemed morally wrong to be walking through somepony’s house uninvited.  He was relieved that he could hear the sound of snoring as he got to the second floor.  Following it to its source, he flew quietly into Rainbow Dash’s bedroom.

A giant clump of brilliant white cloud filled the center of the room, and in the center, Rainbow was curled into a tight ball, her head tucked between her forelegs.  Thunderlane poked her on her forelock.

“Just five more minutes, mom,” Rainbow muttered softly. 

Thunderlane looked around, then poked her harder.

“Ow!  What the hay?  I said I’d get up in—“ She opened her eyes and looked at Thunderlane.  “What are you doing in my bedroom?”  She started to glance around the room.  “We didn’t—“

“Boss,” Thunderlane interrupted, not wanting to know what she thought they might or might not have done.  “We’ve got a weather problem, and you’ve gotta handle it.”

“Ug.”  Rainbow stood up, stretching.  She rubbed a hoof through her bedmane, which accomplished nothing as far as Thunderlane could see, and walked over to the window.  She looked around at the lightening sky, instantly spotting a half-dozen pegasi flying aimlessly about.  There was not a cloud to be seen.

She looked back at Thunderlane.  “Ok, good prank.  Well, not really that great.”

“No.”  He shook his head.  “It’s not up here, it’s down there.”

“Down there?  Like, in Ponyville?  Did you lose a cloud?”

“Worse than that,” he muttered, as she looked out the window.

Below her, the ground was obscured by a nearly flat sheet of grey.

“Tartarus’s bells.  Is it all the way down?”

Thunderlane nodded.  “Had Flitter check it.  Whole town’s covered, all the way up to the Everfree.”

Rainbow shook her head.  “Guess night crew’s gonna be working overtime.  I’ll have to get everypony on this.  Mayor’ll have my tail for this.”

“Nothing we could’ve done,” Thunderlane reminded her.

“I know.  That’s what makes it suck.”  Both pegasi knew that sometimes when the weather was just right, fog formed, and it was Cerebus’ own job clearing it.  It got tangled up in everything on the ground—buildings, trees, bushes—and had to be cleared around them in chunks.  Nopony wanted to risk going at it quickly, since it was too easy to misjudge distance to the ground, and where structures were, so it was pretty much a matter of clearing it on hoof.  If it was thin, the sun would burn it off fairly quickly, but this stuff looked thick enough to cut with a knife.

“It’s standard cloud density four,” Thunderlane muttered, to which Rainbow stamped in frustration. 

“Four?  We’re gonna be at this all day.  What did the schedule say?”

“Sunny, scattered standard whites, zones 2 and 4, add zone 5 midday, clear zone 2 prior to sunset.  Clouds are pulled by the warehouse.  We’ve been too busy checking on the fog to push them out.”

Dash nodded absently.  She was already dividing up the teams in her head, mentally assigning them to zones.  “Alright.  Night team clears between the Everfree and Ponyville, my team’s gonna clear the west side of Ponyville, afternoon team gets the east half, and thunderstorm team can take the orchards, ‘cause they’re careful.  Have somepony send a letter to Cloudsdale informing them of the incident, and to tell them we aren’t putting up today’s clouds, make sure they don’t overstock the warehouse.  I’ll tell the teams their assignments.”  She looked out the window again.  “Nopony’s gonna be happy,” she muttered.


~        ~        ~




Rarity opened her shutters, and gasped in surprise at the thick fog that rolled in.  With a shriek she pulled them shut again.  She sighed dramatically, even though nopony was around to hear.  Fog meant that nopony would be out today, and school would be closed.  That meant that Sweetie Belle would be cooped up with her all day long, which meant she wouldn’t get anything done at all, unless she could come up with some way to amuse Sweetie that didn’t involve the destruction of any of her things.  She supposed she could send Sweetie to play with Apple Bloom, but she knew what Applejack would think about that idea; she could almost hear the words in her head.  ‘Ah cain’t believe ya’d send yer own kin all the way out ta the farm in a thick fog.’  Of course, AJ and Big Mac would be out in it, working like they always did.  They might stick closer together, but they’d be out there.

“I suppose I could take her to Sugarcube Corner,” she muttered out loud, “but then I’d have to go out in it as well, and it would simply ruin my manestyle.”  She shuddered at the thought.  “Well, perhaps it isn’t a loss.  I suppose I could try to teach her to sew with some of the leftover fabric I have from that last dress order.”


~        ~        ~




“What the hay?”  Twilight looked out her window, rubbing her eyes with a hoof in disbelief.  Instead of the bright rays of the morning sun, the view outside her window was a featureless grey.  She got out of bed and grabbed the doors to the balcony with her magic, pulling them open.  Much to her surprise, some of the grey started to drift in, like particularly sluggish smoke.  Intrigued, she walked over to it, running a hoof through it, watching as it shifted around in the eddies of air.  It looked like the fog that pervaded the Everfree Forest, but what was it doing in Ponyville?

“Where did this come from?” she mused to nopony in particular.

“Oh!  I love guessing games!  Did it fall out of the sky?”

“Pinkie?  What are you doing here?”

“Spike let me in.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow.  “Spike let you in?  At this time of the morning?  Is he even awake?”

“Oh wow, that’s a bunch of questions, all at once.  Well, technically, no, he didn’t let me in, ‘cause I bet he’s still asleep because he’s a dragon and dragons sleep a lot, like pegasuses, because they can fly, also like pegasuses, so he’s probably in his room asleep right now, but I know he would have let me in if he had been awake, so I just came in on my own, because my tail was twitchy and my mane was going flat.”

“Did he leave the door unlocked again?”

Pinkie looked around behind her guiltily.  “Maybe?  I dunno.”

“But you came through the door, Pinkie.”

“I did?”  She looked around, confused.  “Are you sure?”

“Well, how else—you know, never mind.  Pinkie, what is this stuff—this fog—doing all over Ponyville?  It was supposed to be sunny today.”

Pinkie’s ears flattened.  “I dunno.  It just happens sometimes.  Nopony knows why.  Someponies think it happens when Cloudsdale messes up on the cloud mixture, but I don’t think so, ‘cause yesterday it was clear, so where would it have come from?”  She zipped past Twilight, and pulled a small chunk free, then rolled it into a sphere, which she began to toss from hoof to hoof.  “It’s kinda random.  I don’t know why, but I really like that.”  She began bouncing it on her head.  “You should totally try this.”

“I don’t want to play with it, I want to know where it comes from.”

“Well, I can’t help you with that.  Oh!  Gotta go, cupcakes are burning!”  With a leap, Pinkie soared off the balcony, landing with an audible thump in the cloudstuff.




> Missionary
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Missionary

Thaddus was having the worst day of his life, which was unfortunate, because it was one of the most beautiful days he had seen in a long, long time.  He had just finished a 42 day stay at his uncle’s house, which he normally would have enjoyed, except that the reason he was staying there was his mother was sick, and his father needed him out of the house so that he could take care of mother.  If that hadn’t been bad enough, it had started raining the day he arrived at his uncle’s, and he hadn’t seen the sun once since then.  It didn’t rain every day, but when it wasn’t raining, it was overcast.  His uncle assured him that the weather wasn’t usually this gloomy, but with his mood and his uncertainty about his mother, he felt depressed; then, by the end of it, practically suicidal.  He went about his business as usual, of course, but with a feeling that he was being tested and that he was not passing the test.  Along with his depressing thoughts came a deeper and deeper dread, as if the end times were upon him.

Sometime after sunset—or at least what he assumed was sunset, since the sky got darker and then thick fog rolled in—his uncle knocked on the door to his room and said that he had just heard from Thaddus’ father that his mother was better, and that he should come back home, and there was a train leaving in a couple of hours, if he wanted to leave tonight.  He should have said no; he could have stayed one more day, but his spirits were beginning to buoy with the thought of actually being home and out of this wretched rain, so he quietly gathered his things and stuffed them into his bag, then walked out into the rain.  The station was only a few blocks away, if he cut through the park.

But somehow he had gotten turned around in the dark and the rain, and walked for what seemed like hours in the darkness, sinister trees lurking out of the mist.  The streetlights he had been able to see across the park had vanished long ago, either swallowed up by the thick fog, or else brought down by a power failure or something.  The strange but comforting sounds of the city had faded into a more ominous silence.  Finally, he had tripped over a root and slid down a small ravine, and just lay there miserably for a while, feeling as if he was drifting in and out of consciousness.  

He couldn’t say when the mist cleared, but there was a bright full moon above, and the sky was covered with more stars than he could remember ever having seen.  It was comfortably warm, and his clothes were mostly dry.  He picked up his bag, and decided that he would follow the ravine until he came to a bridge.  He vaguely remembered that there was a road that crossed the ravine on the south end of the park.  He couldn’t remember the ravine having been this deep, but to be fair, he hadn’t been in it before, either; besides, everything had taken on a kind of spooky aspect it seemed.  He chalked that up to his mental state.

When he finally reached the bridge, it was cut stone, although he was sure he had remembered it being concrete.  Then, he got another surprise when he crawled up to the road and discovered it was dirt, not the asphalt he had remembered.  I must have walked father than I thought.  He brushed a little dried mud off the knees of his pants, and looked around to get his bearings.  He could make out a small village off in the distance, so he headed there.

When the sun rose, and he saw just how strange things really were, he fainted.





He came to on the grass just outside of the town proper.  It was just after dawn, and the streets were deserted.  As the sun rose over the horizon, he felt a sudden invigoration.  Perhaps he was here to share the faith in this strange village.  He thought back to the stories of brave missionaries, taking their faith into the oddest corners of the world.  Yes, this was surely his mission.  Emboldened, he took out his book of scripture, and read through a few comforting passages, then adjusted his tie, gave himself a critical once-over, and walked up to the first house and knocked.  

As soon as the front door opened, he gulped, but he had been greeted in English, as strange as it seemed, so he launched into his spiel.  “Good morning!  I am Thaddus, and I am here to offer you—“  The door slammed in his face.

It didn’t improve from there.  Closed doors were about the kindest greeting he got.  At one home, the welcome mat was pulled from under his feet before the door was slammed.  At another large home, all the time he was speaking the occupant appeared to eagerly be examining him with the look that suggested she wanted to pull him into the house and take his clothes off and then…well, he wasn’t really sure what would happen next; blushing furiously, he ran away as she called out after him.

He finally ended up in front of what looked for all the world like the tree those weird cookie elves lived in.  He pounded on the front door in desperation; the harlot he had encountered earlier was out in the street, looking for him, and he saw her blue eyes suddenly lock on him.  His brain was rapidly processing the age-old fight or flight debate, when the door opened.

Not waiting for an invitation, he bolted right into the room, shouting on the way past, “Hide me, she’s trying to take my clothes or something.”  Then he ran up a flight of stairs and crouched behind a small bed that looked over the main room.  He had a moment to ponder how strange that arrangement was, before his pursuer arrived at the front door and demanded to be let in.

“Where is he?  Ooh, the moment I saw him I just had the greatest inspiration!  He looks just like a Diamond—“
“Rarity.”  Twilight looked at her friend with a calm, yet slightly chilling gaze.  “He just ran in here, saying that he thought you were going to take all of his clothes and—“

Rarity rolled her eyes.  “Well, of course, darling, how else could I get proper measurements?  But I would fairly compensate him for his time and trouble, you can be sure.”  She tilted her chin up and closed her eyes.  “Can you imagine how much of an honor it would be to be the inspiration for an entire new line of clothing?”

“Well, that may very well be so, but for right now he seems scared.  Perhaps you could calm yourself, he and I could have a rational discussion, and you could go back to the Boutique, and, if he is interested, he could come over on his own terms.”

Rarity pouted.  “I suppose that will have to do.”  Her expression brightened.  “Oh, darling, I don’t suppose you know, um, what he is?”

Twilight pondered for a moment.  “He ran by so quickly…I’m not really sure.  I suppose I will have to ask him.  Perhaps I should write a letter to Princess Celestia, as well.”  She clapped her hooves together.  “And to think that when I woke up this morning I felt as if something exciting were going to happen.  Perhaps I’m getting a little Pinkie sense of my own!”

“I believe that is very unlikely.  Ta ta, please do let me know if he shows any interest in coming over.  Perhaps you could come with?  Oh, and please do extend my apologies.  I might have been just a trifle overbearing.”  Rarity bounced her mane for a moment, then walked off towards her home.

For his part, Thaddus hardly heard the conversation.  He suddenly realized that he was crouching behind a woman’s bed, in her bedroom, and that somehow seemed indecent, although he couldn’t really say why.  The sheets were rumpled, as if she had just gotten up to answer the door, and he was certain that if he were to put his hand on the bed it would be warm, and that thought brought a blush, and he backed away until he hit the wall behind him, bringing a bottle of perfume or something crashing to his head.  

He fumbled it around between his hands, feeling that if he broke it he would be committing an awful crime, and set it on the floor just as she came up the stairs, looking completely nonplussed about the fact that he was in her bedroom with a bottle of her perfume in his hands.  She looked vaguely curious, but that was all.  She jumped onto the bed, folding her legs under herself, and looked at him intently.  His blush deepened, and he set the perfume bottle down.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said calmly.  She was unaware that her demeanor almost perfectly matched that of Princess Celestia, a mannerism she had picked up through the years of watching her mentor calmly handle whatever Equestrian society happened to throw her way.  She looked at him carefully.  “Who are you?”

Of all the things that had gone wrong this day, at last he was on slightly familiar ground.  Sure, he was suddenly and inexplicably in a quasi-medieval village that appeared to be filled with what looked like a cross between a horse and a St. Bernard, some of whom were apparently unicorns, and they all spoke English, and all of that was a lot to take in, but at least here was one who didn’t slam the door in his face, or try to undress him, one who was simply interested in a pleasant conversation (he hoped, oh how he hoped). 

“I am Thaddus O’Conner, ma’am,” he respectfully replied.  

She nodded thoughtfully, and he relaxed a little.  It seemed like a long time before she posed the next question, but the calming half-smile she had adopted relaxed him a little more.  “And, if you may forgive my asking, what are you?”

“I am a missionary,” he stated simply, having decided this morning that was clearly his calling; else why would he be here?

“I see.”  There was another pause.  He realized that her look seemed almost maternal.  He couldn’t really describe it, but he felt oddly comfortable.  “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is.”

He nodded.  He had expected this.  While his understanding of medieval villages wasn’t very comprehensive, and he certainly had never imagined one filled with little pastel horses, he vaguely remembered something about how they all had a church as their central point, at least in Europe, and he certainly hadn’t seen anything like that here, or at least nothing that appeared to be very church-like.  But that was just fine; after all, wasn’t the whole point of being a missionary to bring the scriptures to those who didn’t know what they were?  “I would like to explain it to you,” he offered.

“I would like that,” she admitted.  Her eyes widened as he pulled out a thick book and flipped it open with the familiarity of a scholar.


*        *        *


Hours passed as he explained the scriptures to her.  At first, she seemed confused, but as time passed she seemed to be understanding more and more.  There were concepts he had great difficulty getting across, of course.  The biggest difficulty, it turned out, was trying to relate concepts that she seemed completely oblivious to, as he had great difficulty in trying to come up with a cultural example, knowing nothing of their culture.  He had a brief moment of panic when she levitated a cup of tea over towards him, because he was pretty sure that there was something about witches being bad, but then he thought that if she didn’t know she was a witch (if she was), than maybe she wasn’t sinning after all, and would stop her witchy ways (if her ways were witchy) when she realized that she was sinning.  Oh, it was so complicated.  Thaddus was wishing that there were an elder with him to explain all this.  

It wasn’t that he had never done this before, but every time in the past, he had been talking to people of a similar culture who at least understood where he was coming from, even if they did slam the door in his face.


*        *        *


The day passed mostly uneventfully.  For Thaddus, the only awkward moment was when he had to have the unicorn explain how the bathroom worked; he had never seen anything quite like it in his life, and the unicorn seemed more curious about his bodily functions than he felt was proper, asking him far more questions than he felt were strictly necessary in order to use the facilities, as it were.

Twilight, on the other hoof, had a million questions she wanted to ask, but she had sensed this creature’s fright—in a way, he reminded her of Fluttershy—and felt that pressing the issue might lead him to clam up.  She hoped that if she made this thing that called itself a missionary comfortable, it would eventually give a better account of itself.  While its explanations of its book of philosophy was interesting, and gave her all sorts of cultural insights, it still didn’t explain to her satisfaction what the creature was, nor how it had gotten here.

While it was using the bathroom, Twilight wrote a quick letter to the princess, although with Spike being gone with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, she had no quick way to send it.  Although it was a disappointment that she couldn’t immedeatly communicate with Celestia, given the skittish nature of the creature, she was actually grateful that he was absent.  She put the letter in the mailbox instead, trusting that the industrious mailpony would get the letter to Canterlot quickly.  For all her clumsiness, she was absolutely devoted to her job.

The afternoon passed quickly, and Twilight suddenly realized that she was starving, and assumed that the creature must be as well.

“Are you hungry?”  Twilight asked.

“Actually, yes,” Thaddus answered.  He hadn’t really thought about it, he had been so wrapped up in trying to explain the scriptures to this willing listener.  “I’m so hungry I could eat a . . . lot.”

“What do you eat?”  Twilight was hoping to get an idea of this thing’s digestive system.

“I can eat a lot of different things,” he replied, suddenly thinking that he might offend her with his diet.

“Such as?” she pressed.

“Well, why don’t you tell me what you have?” he replied, unwilling to offend.

Twilight sighed.  He wasn’t going to make this easy.  “I have hay, alfalfa cubes, fresh daisies, carrots, apples, oats, bread, a couple of cupcakes…” she thought for a moment over whatever else might be in the cupboards.  “Hmm, topaz, I think there are still some sapphires, oh, and lettuce, tea, ferns….”

“I think carrots and apples would be fine,” Thaddus replied.  “Do you eat gemstones?”

“No,” she said, walking to the kitchen to get the apples and carrots.  “My assistant does, though,” she said without thinking.

“Your assistant?”  Thaddus paused.  “What kind of creature is your assistant, and what does he do that you can afford to feed him semi-precious stones?”

Unseen by Thaddus, Twilight facehoofed.  She shouldn’t have mentioned Spike’s eating habits; but since she had broached the subject, she supposed she would have to explain.  And, even though she hadn’t meant to bring it up, it seemed that wherever he came from sapphires and topaz were rare enough that one wouldn’t eat them.  Yet another reason to keep him away from Rarity for a while, she decided.  

“Spike, my assistant, is a baby dragon,” she explained.  “Right now, he’s away with the Crusaders, a trio of fillies.”

Thaddus was silent for a moment, pondering this new information.  Dragons were apparently tame enough that they were used as assistants, and they ate gems, which must be common enough here that they could be eaten—or perhaps his manner of assistance was sufficient enough that gems were kept as treats for particularly good behaviour.  Still, if they kept dragons, then they probably weren’t squeamish about carnivourous behavior…but perhaps that was too much to assume.  

As for Crusaders, he only knew the term in the sense of soldiers trying to free the Holy Land from the infidels, but if fillies still meant young ponies here, then why were they sending children?  Although he seemed to remember one of the Popes had done that once.  He wondered if perhaps this was a parallel, horse-centric, historical Europe.  “What is it they are Crusading for?”

“Their cutie marks,” Twilight explained, as she levitated a plate of carrots and apples on the table.  Seeing the blank expression on Thaddus’ face, she realized that this was no explanation at all.  I suppose that the exchange of information is a two-way process, she thought. I guess if I want to get more out of him, perhaps I should give him a little.

“A pony’s cutie mark appears when she or he discovers the special talent she has,” Twilight explained.  “In my case, it was magic, and it appeared when I hatched Spike out of his egg.”  She pointed with her horn at her flank, but the blank look suggested he still wasn’t getting it.

“It’s the stars on my flank,” she said.

Thaddus nodded slowly.  “So, you had that, um, put on, when you realized your special talent was magic?”

“No, it just appeared.”

“Like magic?  Poof, tattoo?”

“I don’t know what a tattoo is,” Twilight said.  “But, if it is a marking on one’s body, then yes, just like that.”

Thaddus thought about that as he started chewing on a carrot.  “Is it there forever?”

“Unless my fur falls out, yes.”

“Does that happen?”

Twilight thought about the answer for a moment.  She had never heard of a pony losing her coat, although she supposed such a thing was possible.  Snips and Snails had lost part of their cutie marks when they had pulled out their fur when they had somehow managed to stick themselves together with chewing gum, and she had seen one pony in the hospital who had had to have her flank shaved for a medical procedure, but in both cases when the fur grew back, the cutie mark had reappeared completely unharmed.  “Not that I am aware of,” she finally replied.

Thaddus continued eating carrots, while Twilight watched him, trying not to be obvious.  She noted that he didn’t eat the carrot greens, which she thought was the best part, but didn’t press the issue.  When they had finished, she looked at him carefully.  “I don’t wish to sound too forward, but do you have a place to stay?  For the night?”

Thaddus blushed.  “Um, no, not really, but I really don’t know if—“

“I have a guest bed,” she said, cutting him off.  “I’d be happy to set it up for you.”

“Oh, well, that would be all right, then.”

“If it’s not too much to ask,” Twilight said a little awkwardly, “I think that we both have very many questions about each of our cultures.  I wonder if we could perhaps spend the rest of the evening studying?”

Thaddus looked at her thoughtfully.  “What do you mean?”

“Well, this is a library,” Twilight said.  “There are a few good books on Equestrian culture here, perhaps you could indulge your curiosity—that is, if you are curious, but I get the sense that there are a lot of questions that you have that you are too polite to ask—and perhaps I could read through your book of, um, scriptures, and we could take notes on what we’re curious about, and maybe in the morning, we could kind of compare notes?”

Thaddus thought about that.  He had so many questions—the most pressing of which was ‘why am I here,’ something he suspected that no book in the library would be able to answer—and it would surely be to his benefit to gain an understanding of their societal norms.  He had already decided that this unicorn was an exception, in that she hadn’t kicked him out, and she seemed quite willing to learn and understand.

“That seems like a good plan,” he said, blinking as she suddenly popped out of the kitchen, then back in with several books hovering around her head.

“These three should get you started,” she said.  “A brief history of Equestria, Etiquette for Mules, and Why does the Sun Shine?”


[somewhat later]

Thaddus looked at Twilight intently, almost maniacally.  “Do you ever wonder where you came from?”

Twilight frowned.  “No, not really.  I mean, after my parents had Shining, they decided they wanted another foal, and—“ her eyes brightened “—are you curious about unicorn mating habits?  Because I know all about them!”

Thaddus blushed.  “No, not that.  I mean, do you wonder why you are here?”

Twilight looked around at the library.  “Well, the Princess wanted me to go to Ponyville to make some friends, which was really important, although I didn’t realize it at the time, because the five of use needed to work together to use the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon.”

Thaddus rested his face in his hands.  His head seemed to be unusually heavy, and it seemed like the beginnings of a headache were forming.  

“Perhaps I am approaching this from the wrong angle.  What do you feel your purpose in life is?”

“Well, as a librarian, of course, I have to take care of the library, and check out books and help ponies find the books they want.  To do that efficiently, I need to have an understanding of each book, which, of course, means that I have to have read it.  To be honest, I’ve only skimmed over some of the foal’s books, though.  And, in my free time, I study the magic of friendship, as well as magic in general.  Princess Celestia says I’m the most powerful unicorn since Starswirl the Bearded,” she said proudly.

Thaddus frowned.  This really wasn’t going where he wanted to go, so he decided he’d pop the big question.  “What do you think happens after you die?”

Twilight didn’t answer for a moment, pondering the question.  “Well, I suppose my relatives and children if I have any will be sad, and will have a funeral for me, and then they will bury me.  After that, I’m not sure, because magic has a way of affecting the biology of unicorns, sometimes preserving them in a relatively, um, complete state for a considerable amount of time.

“No, I don’t mean physically.”  Thaddus traced his finger over the table.  “I mean, what do you think happens to your soul?”

“My what, now?  Is that something like Starswirl glands?”  Twilight levitated a book on unicorn biology over to the table and flipped to the index.




> Almost Human
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh the Humanity

Tomorrow was Bon Bon’s birthday.  Naturally, Pinkie Pie had already planned a party, and naturally, everypony was invited.  There were sure to be lots of fantastic gifts, and everypony would have a good time.

Yeah.

Lyra sat dejectedly on the couch in her apartment.  She wanted to get Bon Bon the best gift at the party, but what would that be?  Something that could be interpreted as “I want to be with you,” on one hoof, or, if that wasn’t Bon Bon’s thing, “This is really useful/tasty/pleasing to the eye; I can’t believe you got it for me.”  But what?

Lyra’d thought about it for what seemed like days, and hadn’t come up with something.  It couldn’t be too expensive, but couldn’t be cheap, either.  Candy was out, obviously; Lyra’s skills at candymaking were—well, about the same as Bon Bon’s magical unicorn skills, which is to say, nonexistent.

She had thought of composing a song, or at least re-writing lyrics to a song, or maybe just playing a song on her lyre, but the only song that kept coming to the forefront of her mind was “I want to mate with you like an animal” by the Nine Inch Horseshoenails, and that didn’t seem appropriate.  Certainly not for a public birthday party.

Sighing, Lyra decided that seeking inspiration from a living room whose décor was mostly old newspapers and empty juiceboxes was a lost cause, she decided to take a walk.  

She started by walking around towards the library.  There was a chance it was open, and perhaps there would be a book there that would inspire her.  As she got closer, she began trotting, and had to remind herself to slow down.  But, as she came around the front door, she was disappointed, as usual.  The door was closed, and the notice about having to see the mayor for a key was still posted.  I wish we could just get a librarian, she mused.  Ponyville’s big enough now, we have a school and everything.  Dejected, she made her way towards Carousel Boutique.

Rarity looked up as she peered in, levitating bits of fabric here and there around a defenseless clothes horse.  “One moment, darling, I’m in the middle of a most inspired line of clothing.”

A moment turned to several, but finally Rarity turned, the blue shimmer of her magic fading off.  Lyra had to admit, the dress did look good, although perhaps a little garish to her eye.  “What can I do for you, Lyra?  Are you looking for the perfect little ensemble for the party tomorrow?  I have just the thing….”

Lyra raised a hoof.  “I, um, I don’t know what I’m looking for.  I guess, not really something for me, you know?”

Rarity smiled.  “Oh, I see.”  She frowned.  “Perhaps you could share with me just a little more detail?  Maybe who it would be for?”

Lyra’s face reddened.  “Well, I think, um, I think, you know, maybe clothes aren’t the thing for a first date.  Not that we’re dating.  I mean, not that I’ve asked.”

“I see.”  Rarity looked puzzled.  “Well, perhaps you could get some treats?  Like chocolates, or something?”  At the expression on Lyra’s face, Rarity grinned.  “Perhaps some Bon Bons?  I hear they’re particularly…satisfying.”  Lyra’s face turned an interesting shade of pink, but Rarity pretended not to notice.  “Oh, or you could get flowers.  There’s many a pony who likes nothing better than an attractive, pleasant-smelling flower, with smooth petals—“

“Flowers!”  Lyra cut off Rarity before she could work another double entendre into her gift ideas, and ran out the store, muttering “Sometimes a flower is just a flower,” over and over.  Rarity shook her head, and got back to the fiddly business of dress design.


*        *        *


Daisy shook her head.  “No, Lyra, these are all the flowers we have for sale.  Every.  Single.  One.  Of.  Them.  There are no others.  There is not a secret depository of flowers out back, and if there was, you still couldn’t see it.”

“Yeah,” Lily chimed in.  “There isn’t a special room full of special flowers.  Not at all.”

One of the display shelves swung open.  Daisy and Lily looked at it awkwardly, although its significance didn’t seem to register on Lyra’s face.  Roseluck came through, holding a small bag of shredded green leaves.  She spotted Lyra and casually, if slightly hastily, stuffed it into her mane and slammed the display shelf shut so quickly that all the glassware on it rattled.  “Oh, hi Lyra, I didn’t know you were here.”  She glared at Lily and Daisy.  “Nopony said you were here.”

“Yougottahelpme,” Lyra said, kneeling in front of the mare.  “Those two say you haven’t got any other flowers or anything, and I need to find the perfect flower, and you just haven’t got it.”

Rose stuck her nose up in the air.  “We have the finest flowers in all of Ponyville,” she said.  “Each one of them carefully raised from bulb or bud or whatever, using the most accomplished Earth Pony magic.”  She looked down at Lyra.  “If we don’t got it, nopony’s got it.”

“You could always try the Everfree Forest.  Flowers grow there all on their own.  Ooooh.”  Lily waved her hooves around to illustrate her point.

“Yeah, and maybe you could see if Zecora has a ‘special’ flower for you.”  Daisy mimicked Lily’s hoof-waving, and then the two burst into giggles.

“Girls, really.”  Rose gave them a stern look, the looked back down at Lyra.  “I must agree with them, to a point.  Perhaps a wildflower is more what you are seeking, rather than a cultivated flower.  There’s a certain hardiness that wildflowers often have that cultivars lack.  A kind of feral ruggedness.”  She licked her lips.  “But do be careful if you go into the Everfree.  Don’t go in too far.  Know your way out.  There really are monsters in there; it isn’t an old mare’s tale.”

“Okthanksseeyoubye.”  Lyra ran out the door.  Rose looked over at the other two girls, who were still giggling.

“Lyra’s got a special somepony,” Daisy said quietly.

“Ooh, I bet it’s Caramel,” Lily suggested.

“Oh please, I bet she’s got her eyes on Big Macintosh.”  Daisy hugged herself.  “Oh, I’d love to run my tongue across—“

“GIRLS!”  Rose gave them a death stare.  “Let’s be mature.  Our customer’s private business is their own.”  She pulled the small bag out of her mane.  “Anyway, there’s no way she’d go for an earth pony.  Bet it’s Thunderlane.  Now,” she set the bag down on the table, “who wants to make tea?”


*        *        *


Lyra trotted into the Everfree Forest, looking around her with a mix of optimism and fear.  There were all sorts of plants that looked unfamiliar, and it was kind of creepy.  She didn’t like the way that the sun didn’t seem to reach all the way to the floor.

She had almost decided to turn around when she came across a small clearing, filled with blue flowers.  They reminded her of the color of Bon Bon’s eyes, and they looked splendidly exotic.  She hadn’t ever seen anything quite like them.

Grateful that she had remembered to wear her saddlebags, she levitated a bunch of them, looking carefully at each one for perfection.  Once her saddlebags were full, she turned and cautiously made her way out of the forest.


*        *        *


Sitting back in her apartment, turned each one in front of her nose, searching for the very best of the best.  She had gotten a nice vase to put them all in, and finally picked the dozen most perfect blooms.  Their scent was intoxicating; she had opened her balcony doors to help waft the perfume out.  She looked up at the mare in the moon and smiled.  Legends told of the ever-changeable Luna being the alicorn of love, and she decided it wouldn’t hurt to offer a small token.  She took one of the flowers out onto the balcony, and looked up at the full moon.  Gazing upon it, she tried to think of the right words to say, but could come up with nothing.  She sighed.

As she was setting the flower back down, she remembered she had forgotten something important.  Sure the flowers looked nice, and they smelled nice, but, she hadn’t tried the ultimate test.

She gently tore a petal off one of the flowers and brought it to her lips.  With a deep breath, she put it in her mouth, and rested it on her tongue, trying to tease out the nuances of its flavor.  She smiled; she had worried for nothing.  This was undoubtedly the best flower she had ever tasted.  She ate the whole thing.

With one last look at the moon, she closed the balcony doors and walked to her bedroom.  Tomorrow would be perfect.  As she drifted off to sleep, she imagined Bon Bon’s happy expression.  Perhaps she would even get a hug.





Lyra’s sleep was fitful.  She kept waking, or thinking she had.  Her dreams were strange, and, in one case, slightly disturbing.  That one, she couldn’t remember specifically, but she woke up in a cold sweat, and thought her horn was missing.  A quick check with her hoof revealed that it was, in fact, still firmly anchored to her skull.  She rolled over and fell back asleep.

She woke up with the sun streaming across her face.  She hurt all over, as if her bed had suddenly rebelled against her and turned hard where it should be soft, and vice-versa.  Besides that, she was freezing cold, and her mouth was dry.

She tried to pull her blankets back over herself, but try as she might, they didn’t move.  Muttering curses against rebellious blankets, she tried to move her hooves around to move them manually, but the first touch of hoof to blanket brought about strange sensations of softness and an almost tickling pain.  She wondered at first if a limb had fallen asleep, and then if she had somehow lost a shoe in the night.

She opened her eyes, squinting against the sunlight, and saw a pink thing wiggling about on top of her blanket.  She shrieked, trying to pull away from it—whatever it was—and wound up falling out of bed, and the pink thing followed her, smacking her across the chest.  She wound up tangled in her sheets and blanket on the floor, struggling to get free, with a body that no longer seemed to obey her.  She twisted and turned, trying to get to her hooves, but it wasn’t working right, somehow.  Lyra thought about the time she’d drunk too much of Berry’s special punch, and shivered.  That had been a morning not unlike this one.

She allowed herself a moment of introspection, and a chance to catch her breath.  She was half-awake, nothing in her body seemed to be working like it was supposed to, and there was a strange pink thing sitting on her chest.  Either she was hallucinating, or she was still dreaming, or this was really happening.  Regardless of the possibilities, it seemed like a good idea to keep panicking, so she did.

Eventually, she managed to win her fight with the covers.  Somehow she wiggled out of them, more through persistence than actual skill, and now lay on her bedroom floor, trying to get to her hooves.

The problem was, she didn’t have hooves anymore.  They had been replaced by appendages that looked much like a diamond dog’s.  The moments of what she hoped wasn’t lucidity had revealed that she was now a pale pink color, with a few thick patches of pale blue fur but mostly it was sparse.  Her horn was gone, and her mane was roughly the same color as her fur.  She had tried getting to her hooves, or whatever these new things were, but it felt very awkward and since they were different lengths, it stuck her flank high in the air, and her neck had gotten somehow smaller and less flexible, so she couldn’t see properly like that.

Oh Celestia, I somehow turned into a Diamond Dog.  She ran her forehoof over her skin.  A Diamond Dog with mange.  This was a dream.  This had to be a dream.  A bad, bad dream.  The only solution to dreams like this was to curl up under something strong, and try to forget it had ever happened.  So, that’s what she did.  She crawled under her bed awkwardly, tugging the blanket after her, and tried to wrap up in it as best she could.  As she drifted back to sleep, she thought, I can’t even curl up in a terrified little ball properly.

Lyra sat up in a cold sweat.  I had the most horrible dream—and crashed into the underside of her bed.  Eyes wide, she looked down and her new misshapen body.        

“No, no, no, no, no.”  She punctuated each word with banging her head on the floor of her bedroom.  “This can’t be real.  This can’t be.”  The only result of her self-abuse was a sore head.  Sighing, she dragged herself out from under the bed.

She rolled on her side and began to examine her new body, to see if she could figure out how it worked, trying to remember what she could about Diamond Dogs.  At least a faint outline of her cutie mark was still visible in the sparse fur on her flanks; that was a touchstone of sanity there.  She had heard stories of mature ponies who had somehow lost their cutie marks, and they had all ended badly, with insanity in the milder cases, and suicide in the rest.  As worried as she was about this new situation, it could be put right, somehow, and she was still Lyra Heartstrings.  Her cutie mark proved it.

Suddenly, she shivered, and not from the lack of warmth her missing fur failed to provide.  Tonight was Bon Bon’s birthday party, and she clearly couldn’t go if she was a monster.  She needed help, and quickly.

Her thoughts racing, she started to make a mental list of her priorities.  First, she would need to ask somepony to help her.  That suggested that she would have to leave her apartment.  In order to leave her apartment, she would have to move more efficiently than a terrified crawl.  Diamond Dogs, she knew, moved about on their hind legs, so she would have to do that.

With the help of her bed, she was able to pull herself to her hooves.  No, they’re called feet, she thought.  Diamond Dogs don’t have hooves.  They have feet and hands, and arms and legs.  I’m so glad we had a xenobiology class in school.  Her feet were quite sensitive, much more so then her hooves had ever been, and it felt very odd to be putting her weight on them.

It was also uncomfortable to be standing this tall.  She had bent her neck and back so that she didn’t hit her head on the ceiling, which was uncomfortably low.  For a moment, she thought that she should sit back down and think this over some more, but decided that if she did, she wouldn’t want to get back up again, and then she would never get anything done.

Instead, she tried to think of what unicorns in Ponyville might help her.  There weren’t all that many unicorns, although the numbers were increasing slowly.  There certainly weren’t as many skilled practitioners of magic here as in Canterlot or Manehattan.  Rarity was probably her best bet.

She struggled out of her bedroom and faced her next challenge in the stairs leading down.  What was simple as a pony was no longer easy.  Finally, swallowing her pride, she sat down, and scootched down the stairs one at a time on her bottom.  As she descended, she made the interesting discovery, previously unnoticed, that she could move the appendages around at the ends of her hand and feet.  It seemed quite useful, and she remembered that Diamond Dogs could carry things in their hands without magic.  She hadn’t quite understood how until just now, as she flexed a hand experimentally, opening and closing it, and wiggling her fingers tentatively.  It was a fascinating thing, in its own right, but it seemed a lot more fragile than a hoof, and not nearly as useful as magic.




> 69-II (working title)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

69-II (working title)
Admiral Biscuit
11.10.14

 
Beautiful summer afternoons were meant to be spent relaxing and socializing. The beach was a popular destination, or one of the many parks. Cafes around town were doing brisk business at their tables, serving refreshing treats to ponies who had just finished their day's work.

 
Comet Tail was not among them. He was inside a barn, which was a bad enough place to be in the summer; what made it worse was that he was helping to unload a hay wagon.

 
It had started innocently enough. Cherry Berry had told him that she would have to cancel their date, because hay was in, and if she helped unload the wagons, she could get four bales at a deep discount. Four bales was enough to last a pony for two months, and that was the kind of deal any sensible mare would take.

 
He hadn't made any alternate plans for the evening. Comet Tail thought that their relationship was starting to go somewhere, and that it would soon be time to take it to the next level; he wasn't going to risk that by flaking out on his marefriend. He did have a book he'd been meaning to finish eventually . . . but he had an idea that he'd instead spend the evening at home thinking about all the fun he wasn't having. So he had foolishly opened his stupid mouth and offered to come by after he got done with work, and help out.

 
He'd arrived to a busy scene. Empty hay wagons were neatly lined up one one side of the yard, with full ones waiting to be backed into the barn. He watched from the fence as Golden Harvest hitched herself to the nearly-empty wagon in the barn, pulling it out as soon as the last bale was tossed free.

 
Unable to delay the inevitable any longer, Comet Tail walked through the open doorway like a stallion headed to the gallows.

 
Cherry Berry gave him a wave when he entered the barn, and Berry Punch did the same a moment later. Both of them were standing on the open floor, a mountain of bales stretched out behind them, stacked in a stair-step arrangement. Applejack was queen of the hay-pile, standing four pony-lengths above everypony else. A pegasus he vaguely recognized was stretched out one tier below. Shoeshine, who was standing waiting for the next wagon, gave him a friendly hoof-bump.

 
“Comet Tail! Cherry said you'd come, but I didn't believe her.” She gestured to the open space behind her. “Once Goldie backs in the next wagon, you and I will toss the bales to Cherry, Bea, and Goldie.”

 
“Sounds easy enough,” he stupidly said, moving to the side to give Golden Harvest room to maneuver.

 
Two wagons later, he was regretting his words. The bales were heavy, and there were a lot of them. The barn was hot and stuffy, and he was sweating like a pig, and the tepid water he eagerly lapped up from the communal trough hardly cooled him down at all. Worst of all, small flakes of hay went everywhere. He quickly gave up at brushing them out of his mane and just tried to ignore how they were making him itch.

 
The afternoon turned into a blur. Lift, turn, toss. Lift, turn, toss. Wagon out, wagon in. Lift, turn, toss. The stacks of bales got higher and moved closer to the edge, but simple calculations told him that if they were planning on filling the entire loft, they'd be there all night long . . . and as yet another loaded wagon was backed into the barn, he had a sinking feeling that was exactly what was going to happen.

 
He almost collapsed with relief when they reached the end of the last wagon. He was barely able to resist the urge to pass out in a senseless lump on the wagon, and if it hadn't been for the thought of how much more hay chaff he'd have stuck in his everywhere, he would have done just that.

 
Cherry hopped easily down off the loft, and nuzzled him. He obediently turned his muzzle up for a quick kiss. “Thanks for helping out.”

 
“No problem,” he told her, spacing it carefully between pants. She was completely lathered, and her mane was sticking up in wild spikes, clogged full with hay. Outside, the vengeful sun was still well above the trees—he could have sworn he'd been in the barn forever, but it looked like it had only been three or four hours. Comet Tail didn't think that listening for the town clock’s chimes would be any help; the constant pulse of blood in his ears would drown out any sound the clock might make.

 
It was a pity. He'd hoped to slink home after dark, so that nopony would ask why he was so filthy. A silly matter of pride, perhaps—the condition of his coat would be a giveaway.

 
“I've got some beers over at my house,” Cherry said. “You've earned one.”

 
“I need to go to the pond and rinse off,” he told her. “Get this hay off me.”

 
“I've got a shower.”

 
“Really?”

 

*	*	*


 
The pair of them walked through Ponyville, Comet Tail making extra sure to lift his hooves high enough to avoid tripping over them. Normally not a task he gave any consideration, after today his hooves felt like they were encased in lead. Cherry Berry didn't seem as affected by the labor as he'd been, which was patently unfair.

 
When they got to her house, she pushed open the door and let him in. “Beer's in the kitchen,” she told him. “I'm going to the sandbox.”

 
“Don't take forever.” He trudged into the kitchen, lifted a beer off the counter, and looked at it warily. He wasn't normally much of a drinker, but a day like today was the perfect reason to have one or maybe even two if he was feeling adventurous. He slumped into the kitchen chair, opened the lid, and took an exploratory sip, grimacing as the bitter brew touched his mouth. But the second and third sips were better, and so he continued on.

 
He was a quarter of the way through when Cherry came back, hoofing a beer off the counter for herself. She took the chair opposite him, and slammed half of her first beer down. “I needed that,” she muttered. “I'm gonna finish this, and then hit the shower and get cleaned up.” She batted at a wild lock of her mane, knocking some chaff loose.  “You should too.”

 
“I don't want to move any more,” he muttered.

 
“You're filthy,” she informed him.

 
“I know.” He took another sip of his beer. “But I haven't got the energy to do anything about it.”

 
Cherry slammed down the rest of her beer, and looked at him thoughtfully. “You sound like a little colt at bathtime.”

 
“I ache all over.” He slumped across the table.

 
Cherry grinned. “If you were gonna go in the pond, you'd have fallen over and drowned.”

 
“That would make the pain stop.”

 
“You gonna finish that beer?”
 

“No. I'm too weak to lift it.” He let a few sparks fall off his horn. “Tell my sister that I'll miss her.”

 
“You big baby.” Cherry took his beer bottle and finished it for him. “Come on—it's showertime. You're never going to impress a mare if you look like that.”

 
His ears fell. “Just get me when you're done. I don't wanna—“

 
“Be useful,” she chided. “I can't get all this chaff off me by myself.”
 

Comet's ears perked back up. “You—really?”

 
“Me 'n Berry usually help each other out during hay-time, but I ditched her for you. Don't make me regret my choice.” Cherry got up and headed out of the kitchen, grabbing a mouthful of towels on her way out. Comet eagerly followed her, his body bristling with newfound energy.

 
She led him out behind the house, towards a small wooden deck, where a pair of pipes were fastened to two uprights.

 
She tossed the towels over the fence and stepped up on the deck, nodding for him to follow. He eagerly trotted up behind her, crowding next to her.

 
“It's a bit cold, but that's okay for a day like today.” She pushed down on a hoof-valve, and the water spurted out of the showerheads.

 
Any other day, he wouldn't have liked the cold water, but today it was the perfect thing, unbelievably brisk and refreshing. He let out a contented sigh as the water sluiced across his back, and shoved his head completely under the spray.

 
Comet Tail turned, giving it a chance to rinse down his side, before turning tail to the showerhead.

 
“Do you have soap?”

 
Cherry nodded and lifted the lid on a rusty metal box.  Comet pulled a bar loose with his aura, and moved back under his showerhead, casting a sidelong glance at Cherry to make sure she wasn’t watching as he reached under his belly and dislodged a particularly uncomfortable bit of chaff.

 
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, letting the chilly artesian water cool him.  As it rinsed off the lather, he started to feel more and more like a normal pony again, instead of some kind of filthy beast.

 
Comet jerked in surprise as Cherry rubbed the soap across his back.  “You’re not getting yourself very clean,” she chided.  “More scrubbing.”

 
“I can do it myself,” he protested, side-stepping away from her.

 
“This is more fun,” she insisted.  “Do you wanna scrub my belly?”

 
He looked dumbly at the bar of soap floating in front of his face, before he nodded and pushed it against her chest gently, trying to gauge how much pressure he was putting on it.  It was easy enough to soap himself—he had automatic feedback, after all—but somepony else was a different matter, and it didn’t help that he was completely exhausted.

 
Comet moved it in an easy swirling motion down Cherry’s belly, all his attention devoted to the motion until the soap was just shy of her hind legs.  “Um, should I—“

 
“They won’t bite,” Cherry insisted.

 
He took a deep breath and continued onward, his face reddening as he reached her teats.  Cherry flicked an ear as the soap brushed across a nipple, and he backed off.

 
“Just surprised me,” she said, spreading her hind legs slightly.  “Keep going.”

 
He bit his lip and finished up, his face beet-red by the time he’d finally soaped the inside of her thighs and down to her fetlocks.

 
When Cherry turned back to her showerhead to rinse off, he quickly lathered his own belly, making certain his back was to her as he rinsed himself off.  It was hardly a thorough job, but he didn’t want to spend any more time at the task and risk her seeing.

 
Once the water ran clear again, he dropped back to all fours and glanced over in her direction.  She was gamely scrubbing the soap into her mane.  I ought to get her some nice shampoo as a present, he thought, looking distastefully at the bar in his aura.  This is no good for manes and tails.  With no other alternative, though, he started to work on his own.

 
He scrunched his eyes shut and stuck his head under the shower, giving his head a quick shake once he was sure he’d rinsed out the soap, and then he turned to his tail.

 
When he turned to rinse it, he turned fully in her direction.  Her head was directly under the spray, and she’d turned her backside to him, leaving a sudsy tail pointed practically at his muzzle.  He couldn’t help but watch as a thin trail of soap dribbled off the end and pooled on the boards below. 

 
Cherry Berry finished rinsing off her head and went on to her tail. To his mild disappointment, she hadn't let him clean that. He idly floated the soap back to the small storage cabinet, imagining how her tail would have felt to have it in his hooves, when she swished it forward, catching, the tip of her tail in her mouth . . . which gave him a clear and entirely unobstructed view of her backside.


He was sure it was unintentional, and it was probably rude to stare, but stare he did.
> CMC Filly Scouts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

CMC Filly Scouts
Admiral Biscuit
June, 2013

Applejack and Rarity were sharing a peaceful moment in Carousel Boutique.  While the earth pony was normally only marginally more likely to be seen there than Rainbow Dash, today was a special occasion.  The two of them were having tea--although the farmer was actually drinking black coffee from a chipped enamel jug--and sharing Filly Scout cookies.

The reason for their celebration was twofold.  First, Rarity had purchased a vast quantity of the thin mints--she couldn't resist them, which is perhaps why an intrepid filly, bedecked in a little beret and a sash with crudely sewn badges arrived at her door in the first hour of the annual fund-raiser.  Upon buying the filly's entire stock, Rarity had discovered that the new den leader was not a local.  Within the hour, Sweetie Belle and Applebloom each had new uniforms; for good measure, Rarity chipped in for Scootaloo, too.  They had gleefully foisted the fillies off on the unsuspecting den mare for a whole week of summer camp, and the two had cheerfully skipped back to the boutique.

"Ah do feel a little bad about the whole situation," Applejack commented, taking another thin mint.  "Poor mare's got no idea what she's up against."

Rarity waved a hoof dismissively.  "She'll be fine.  Probably.  And the flyer said that the camp builds character, and that's just what those fillies need."

"Somepony's gonna get a hoofful of character, but ah don't know if'n it's gonna be our sisters, or the den mare."


THE HIKE INTO THE WOODS


The Cutie Mark Crusaders stood upon the train platform, gazing out into the woods as if it were a new territory to conquer.  Although their big sisters had helped pack their bags, they had promptly discarded half of the items as 'useless' and replaced them with what they believed to be more fitting for a trip into the wild.  First on that list was their wagon.  Applebloom had cleverly disassembled it, and spread the pieces throughout their bags.  She'd expertly pegged it back together as soon as they left the train, and loaded it with their saddlebags and scootaloo's backpack.  The den mare raised an eyebrow at their ingenuity,but said nothing.

The first five minutes were uneventful.  The sole purpose of the train platform was for access to the camp, so the woods came right up to it. A few cartponies were loading supplies into their wagons, which led to some good-natured griping among the filly scouts about why they needed to carry their backpacks.  The den mare intervened, and in hardly any time at all, the den was marching through the woods, cheerfully singing a marching song.

"Can anypony tell me what kind of tree that is?"

"A tall one!"

"An oak."

"This is boring," Scootaloo whispered as the den mare stopped yet again to point to a tree.  "A tree's a tree."

"Unless it's an apple tree," Applebloom interjected.

"I bet if we get to camp first, we'll get the best campsite," Sweetie whispered.  

"Ah dunno.  I think we're supposed to stay together."

"It's a path to a camp.  How hard can it be?"  Scootaloo flapped her wings impatiently.  "Last one there's a rotten apple!"

"Hey!"

The three fillies charged off along the trail, the wagon bouncing behind Sweetie Belle.  Although Applebloom had done a credible job engineering a harness from leftover rope she found in the barn, it was not rigidly attached, although she had at least considered that they might want to steer the wagon.  On the first downhill grade, Sweetie made the unfortunate discovery that the wagon lacked any type of brakes.  In a regretful moment of inspiration, leapt to the side to let the wagon pass--only to remember too late that she was tethered to it.

As her two friends disentangled her from the wreckage at the bottom of the hill, Sweetie looked at her flank hopefully.

"It's just as well," Applebloom offered.  "Nopony would want a run over and dragged by an out of control wagon cutie mark, anyway."

"You'll juft haf to be careful on downhills, thaf's all," Scootaloo muttered around a mouthful of backpack.

"Yup."  The three fillies started galloping down the path again.  In no time at all--and after only three more wagon crashes--they arrived at what they presumed was their campsite.  There was a fire pit and a picnic table, anyway.

"Wind's blowing this way," Scootaloo said, pointing with a hoof.  "That's the side of the fire we want to put our tent on, 'cause heat gets blown along with the wind."

"Ok."  They dumped their bags out on the ground, quickly locating the ridgepole and three of the four support poles.

"Ah . . . close enough.  If it falls over, we can always get a stick," Scootaloo muttered.  "Remember to leave the open side by the fire."


MORNING, DAY ONE


The morning got off to a rough start.  The three fillies reeked of wood smoke, and the ground under the tent was far lumpier than they'd expected.  On top of that, the tent had collapsed on them when Sweetie went off into the woods as a result of too much punch before bed.

The den mare broke up their brief scuffle and handed them a map and a compass.

"What's this fer?" Applebloom asked suspiciously.

"Breakfast," the den mare explained.  "It's an orienteering exercise.  All you need to do is follow the directions on the map, and you'll get to the dining hall."

"Sounds easy enough," Sweetie said.  "Let's go!"

Forty minutes later, the three fillies huddled in the woods, staring at the evil compass.

"Ah think it's busted.  The dang needle always points in the same direction, no matter which way we go."

"I'm hungry," Sweetie moaned.  "I bet everypony else got a compass that worked."

"Ah say we go back to camp an get a different compass."

"Yeah."  Scootaloo scratched her head.  "Um, which way is camp?"

"Well, duh.  We followed the white end to get here, so let's go away from that, and I bet we'll get back to camp in no time at all."

The three fillies set off determinedly through the woods.


AFTERNOON, DAY ONE


"Here are your hatchets, girls.  Don't go too far, and remember that the blade is sharp.  You can either strap the loop to your dominant foreleg, or use your teeth.  Unicorns, if--and only if--you have good control of your magic, you may try using the hatchet with your horn.

"Next, we have a simple folding saw.  Two fillies should use this, one on each end of the handle.  Pull slowly back and forth, and it will saw through logs with ease.  Remember what you've learned about identifying wood; you want dry softwoods to start your fire, and only use hardwoods on an established fire."

"Got it," the three fillies said excitedly, grabbing their implements of destruction.  They happily skipped off into the woods.

"Ah don't think we've ever tried to get cutie marks in lumberjackin'."

"Oh, there's one."  Sweetie pointed a hoof at a dead pine tree.

"She said softwood, stupid.  Pine cones are hard.  We want a tree that makes soft fruit, like a cherry tree."

"Scoots, how are we gonna know if it's a cherry tree if it's dead?  And who'd plant a cherry tree in a forest, anyway?"

"Mah sis says birds sometimes carry seeds from fruit an drop em an they grow inta trees."

Scootaloo looked at her skeptically.  "Why would they do that?"

"Ah dunno.  Ah guess they want a place to sit, or somethin."

"How about this one?"  Sweetie kicked it with a hoof.  "It feels . . . soft?  Kind of?"

Applebloom cast an appraising eye over the tree.  She walked around it, occasionally bucking the gnarled bark.  "It's too punky.  It'd make good kindlin, but that's all.  'Sides, it's way too big fer us.  Even if we could chop it down, we'd never get any logs back to camp.  Ah think we should jest look fer some big branches that've come down in a storm."

"Like that?"  

Sweetie and Applebloom turned to look where Scootaloo was pointing.  Sure enough, a sizeable tree had fallen over, getting wedged midway down in the branches of another tree.

"Yeah!  This is perfect!  We kin climb up the trunk, an chop off the top part!"


EVENING, DAY ONE


Sweetie Belle held a flaming stick aloft.  "I don't think it's working."

"You're supposed ta turn it an not put it all the way in the fire."

"But it cooks faster if it's in the hotter part."  The former marshmallow dribbled off the end of her stick.
> Round Robin Fic, Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Four—
Admiral Biscuit


Chrysalis stepped back slightly, retreating into the shadows to give the four ponies time to discuss their options.

Predictably, Knickknack spoke first. “How can we trust her? How do we know she isn’t just using us—or luring us into a false sense of security?”

“We trust Trixie, right?” Gutter looked at the showmare, blushed, and shifted around on his hooves.

“You just want to snog her,” Amber reminded the pegasus. “That’s why you trust her.”

Trixie’s face reddened. “Look—I don’t think this is a productive direction for this discussion to take. The question is if we can trust Chrysalis’ word.”

“Nobles are bound by their word,” Knickknack reminded them.

“Maybe in normal times, back when your title meant something,” Amber countered, “but these times are hardly normal. I don’t know if leader-of-an-invading-bug-army is a recognized noble rank, anyway.”

“Wait.” Gutter fluttered up into the air, taking a long look at Chrysalis. “Oh, that Chrysalis.”

“Is there more than one?” Knickknack and Trixie spoke simultaneously. Both the unicorn and earth pony shared a glance.

Amber facehooved. “No, Gutter, there’s only one Chrysalis. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Princess Cadance? Pretty pink princess?”

“Ohhhh. But wasn’t she disguised as her?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Trixie snapped. “Nor does it relate in any way whatsoever to the discussion at hoof. Look, I don’t trust her. Not really. But what have we got to lose?”

“Our love?” Gutter looked around nervously.

Knickknack began pacing. “What if what she says is true? She’s got some of her hive left, she said so herself. Maybe some of her changelings could, I don’t know, disguise themselves as other ponies and infiltrate that crazy cult? It’s a long shot, sure, but it might be our best chance.”

“Do you really think that would get us anywhere?” Amber waved a hoof towards the statue. “I mean, this clue you found—this inscription—is just as likely to be useful as the hope that a changeling disguised as a cultist could get their supreme leader to reveal his plans.”

“‘Seek out the Pool of the Moon and seek her blessing,’” Trixie read the runes carefully, briefly forgetting about Chrysalis. “Do you think that’s supposed to be literal?”

“A lot of the pools in the city had little signs next to them with their name,” Gutter suggested. “There was ‘Martin’s Pool,’ ‘Moor Pond,’ and ‘No Diving.’ Maybe that’s all we have to do, is find the pool with the right sign.”

Amber sighed. “That’s a great plan,” she sarcastically suggested. “Look for a sign.”

“How did you four even make it this far?” Chrysalis walked back up to the group. “Especially the pegasus?”

“Trixie had a tank. Until somepony knocked it over with a boulder.” She glared at Amber.

“We were scared,” Amber reminded the other unicorn. “Anypony would have been scared of a tank running through the woods, especially after what happened in Trottingham.”

“Could Trixie, you, and Chrysalis put it back on its treads?” Knickknack looked thoughtful. “It might be safer than traipsing through the woods without cover. I’d hate to walk that far back over ground we’ve already covered, but. . . .”

“Somepony would have to pull it,” Trixie said flatly. “When it got knocked over, a bunch of smoke came out of the mechanism and I heard gears breaking. I don’t think it will run anymore.”

“Enough of dwelling on the past!” Knickknack stomped her hoof on the stone floor of the chamber, the noise echoing over the sudden shocked silence. “If we keep this up, we’re going to be just as crazy as those PATA ponies. I almost am already.”

“Agreed.” Amber looked at Trixie. “Are you still with us?”

The showmare shrugged. “What have I got to lose?”

“Well, that’s settled, then,” Chrysalis said with false enthusiasm. “Where are you going next?”

“Nowhere,” Knickknack said. “We need to rest.”

Gutter looked at the mares in amazement. “How can we sleep with . . . with her with us?”

“One of us will have to keep watch,” Knickknack said. “Same as always.”

“I’ll go first,” Trixie offered. “The rest of you, split up as you see fit.” She paced around a section of floor, eying it intently. Finally, she lowered her horn and traced a glowing circle on the floor. “That’s a ward, okay? Everypony who stays inside of it will be safe from the Changelings. Trixie promises.”

Gutter looked her admiringly. “Amber’s never done that before.”

“Amber doesn’t know how,” the unicorn responded. “Are you going to lie down or are you going to keep staring at Trixie?”

“Um. . . .”

“Who’s on next watch, anyway? I want to know who to wake up.”

Amber yawned. “How about Gutter? Then I’ll go, and Knickknack can be last.”


***


Helios idly poked at a plastic tentacle on his throne. He wondered if gluing a backrest to it would make his followers think he’d gone soft. Truthfully, the thing was not only painful to the eye, but whoever had designed it had clearly given no thought to the idea that it might actually been sat upon: the fangs which made up the seatback were just a too little much. Perhaps he could subtly hint that a tapestry hung right over the back on the throne would add to the ambience.

He snapped to attention as a hoodie-wearing follower shuffled into the chamber. After allowing his follower a few moments groveling at the base of the throne, he raised his hoof. “Arise, loyal subject.”

The pegasus rose, and Helios sighed inwardly realizing that it was the same one as before—the pierced eyebrows and nosering were a dead giveaway. Unless that was a fashion all his followers were suddenly copying, like they had with the hoodies. Some of them had even taken to ironing skulls onto the sides of their sweatshirts.

“Oh great prophet, I bring news which may incur your wrath.” He bowed his head, as if he feared being chastised.

As the silence stretched on, Helios felt his rage building. While it was great to have a group of loyal followers eager to hang on his every word, the fact that they mostly were morons occasionally caused him to wonder if it was really all worth it. Finally he could take it no more.

“What is this news, loyal follower?”

“I have come from the watcher room. The four ponies who have banded together have discovered another ally.”

“Are you the pegasus who gave me the news earlier that some ponies had banded together and were making their way through the woods together?”

“Yes, your—um, high prophet.” He bowed his head and took a step back.

“And you remember what I said, right? They don’t have to be at each other’s throats all the time; they can gang up if they want to. It’s only if they seem to be gathering a large enough group to oppose us that we need to take action.” Helios let out a long sigh. “You do remember that conversation, right?”

“Yes.” He spoke with slightly more confidence. “I remember exactly. I would not disregard the words of the high prophet. But, the thing is, well, it seems that they’ve joined forces with the . . . with the Queen of the Changelings.” He bowed his head in supplication.

“Interesting.” Helios’ mind was racing, effortlessly carrying out the complicated business of probability and pony nature. “Perhaps she is not as weak as we believed. Or perhaps she is so weakened, this is a desperate move. Does she have any of her swarm with her?”

“Well . . . we don’t know.” The pegasus began to grovel again. Helios imagined piling the garish tapestries up and dumping them upon the hapless pony, then commanding him to light them afire. He could tell his other followers that self-immolation was the path to righteousness, but then they might all try it. On the other hoof, it might be the best way to get rid of the stupid fang blood and tentacle theme that was currently giving him a mild headache.

“You don’t know. Why do we even have watchers if they can’t WATCH?”

The pegasus cowered on the carpet, and Helios began to wonder if he’d wet himself.

“Since they’re changelings, we can’t easily tell them apart from real ponies,” the pegasus whined. “If they’ve taken the shape of ponies, that is.”

“But you can still count, can’t you? If there were, let us say, three ponies who entered the ruins, and three plus Chrysalis come out, then probably none of them are changelings. But, if there were three ponies who entered the ruins and six plus Chrysalis come out, than three of them are probably changelings, do you see?”

“Oh, yes.” The pegasus began nodding his head eagerly. “I understand. Of course it doesn’t matter which ones are changelings and which ones are real.” He bit his lip. “So, there were four of them who went into the ruins. The ones who grouped together.”

“And how many came out?”

“Well, Chrysalis, of course. And then eight more besides. So, four of them must be changelings. Unless there were other ponies hiding in the ruins.”

Helios tapped a hoof on the throne for a few moments, while the pegasus stayed motionless on the carpet. Finally, he spoke. “Maybe we should try to take out one or two of them. Get the others worried.”

The pegasus grinned. “Should I tell everypony?”

“Keep watching them,” Helios ordered. “I don’t want to be too hasty. If we pick off a loner, they’ll stick together more. If we can manipulate the situation to make it seem as if the changelings are attacking the ponies, though, we can drive them apart. That might work to our advantage.”


***


Trixie yawned hugely. In the half-light of the ruins, she had no idea what time it was, but it was one of the better night’s sleep she’d gotten in awhile. It was true; it was better to be with company than alone when on the run.

She frowned, feeling something hard pressing up against her barrel. Last night, Amber had protectively wrapped her hooves around Gutter, trying to keep him from Trixie, but the pegasus favored the showmare. Finally, the three of them had settled on a Gutter-in-the-middle sleeping arrangement, with poor Knickknack on the outside of the group.

Trixie turned her head. “That’s a heck of a way to wake up in the morning.”

“Sorry. I must have rolled over in my sleep.” Amber moved her head, moving her horn away from Trixie’s side. “Where’s Gutter?”

Trixie tilted her head, drawing Amber’s eyes towards the ragged pegasus, who was splayed out on his back. His legs were twitching sporadically, and a thin trail of drool ran from the corner of his mouth to the floor.



The trek from the ruins to the Pool of the Moon got off to a rocky start. Chrysalis called out her four remaining changelings from wherever they’d been hiding; whether by instinct or malice, the four changelings promptly each took the form of one of the ponies.

Chrysalis immediately began chittering at them. Eventually, they changed their forms slightly; perhaps because they weren’t terribly intelligent, they took elements of the ponies who stood before them. Amber glared at the counterfeit unicorn who wore Gutter’s raggedy coat, while Knickknack managed a rare smile at the noble-looking orange earth pony who’d adopted Amber’s colors. “I told you how nice you’d look when you cleaned up,” she whispered.

“How can I ‘clean up’ when we’re running for our lives?” the unicorn muttered back.

The only pony who didn’t seem to object too much was Gutter, although that came as no surprise to anypony else. He seemed glad of aerial company.

“Do you have any idea where this ‘Pool of the Moon’ is? Or whose blessing one receives upon reaching it?” Knickknack looked at Chrysalis thoughtfully.

“I’d guess it refers to Nightmare Moon.” She half-closed her reptilian eyes as she pondered the clue. “I’m not sure who or what would answer the call now.”

“Yeah,” Amber added. “The Elements of Harmony cleansed Luna, at least that’s what everypony says.”

“So maybe the pool will be a fizzle.” Knickknack hung her head. “I hope not. I mean, I’m glad to be out of the city and all, but it’s dangerous in the woods, and if we just find another dead end—well, I don’t know if I could take it. My hooves hurt.”

“Typical noble thought, Lady Knickknack,” Trixie muttered.

“Hey.” Amber glared at her fellow unicorn. “She’s out here, risking her life like everypony else. Maybe she’s not as prepared to survive in the woods as you’d like, but she’s what we’ve got.”

Chrysalis let out a long, drawn-out noise that might have been a sigh, but sounded more like a hiss. “How did you make it this far, anyway? Besides the normal predators in this jungle, there’s dozens—maybe hundreds—of terrified half-crazed ponies looking for the same thing you are. And with all your arguing, they can hear you but you can’t hear them.”

“Trixie made it by pure tenacity.” She waved her blood-stained bat around to prove her point. “And Trixie had a tank, too, until somepony wrecked it.” She forestalled a protest with a wave of her hoof. “But that’s the past. Trixie . . . um, I know I little bit about weird magical artifacts. Normally, I would say that we were foals to try and experiment with something that we don’t have a full grasp of its power. Do we know for a fact that the Nightmare was destroyed when it was banished from Luna? If it was, then the pool will do nothing. But if the Nightmare survived—perhaps banished to an object of power—we might summon her, and she might be worse than what we are fleeing.” Trixie tilted her head towards Chrysalis. “I suspect that she would go towards the creature who she believed held the most power.”

“So, she’ll go for Trixie?” Gutter asked.

Three heads snapped around.

“How long have you been back there?” Amber glared at the pegasus. “You’re supposed to be flying a patrol, not staring at our butts.” She wagged her rump suggestively anyway, causing the pegasus to blush.

“Not Trixie.” Knickknack looked at him flatly. “Chrysalis. She’s got more power than Trixie could ever hope to have.”

“I did have—but Knickknack’s right. You’re supposed to be looking for a pool, hopefully surrounded by ruins or something.”

The pegasus bristled. “I just came down ‘cause my wings are tired. The fake-Guttter’s looking still.”

“It’s even dumber than you,” Trixie muttered.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Amber turned to face Chrysalis. “Is a changeling drone clever enough to recognize a mystical pool?”

Whatever response Chrysalis was about to give was interrupted by a high-pitched scream, echoing across the suddenly silent forest. Knickknack blanched, Gutter screamed and ran up to Amber, while Chrysalis flinched and slowly lowered her head.

“Apparently not,” Trixie whispered to nopony in particular.




The rest of the day’s travel was nearly silent. The changeling pegasus was never seen again, to nopony’s surprise. They ate lunch late, the four ponies staring grimly at Chrysalis and her three remaining changelings.

Finally, as the sun was setting, Gutter spiraled down towards the group excitedly. “Hey, guys, there’s some ruins just ahead. We could spend the night there.”

“You’d think we could find a cave or something, to change things up a bit,” Amber mused. “Still, they ought to be safe enough.”

“It looks like a castle,” Gutter added. “Except it’s all fallen down.”

Amber facehoofed. “That’s what ruins are, Gutter. You know that.”

He nodded eagerly. “Yup, it’s just ahead. Across a little ditch.”

“Don’t you mean the moat? Castles have moats.”

Gutter looked wounded. “Moats have water.” He flew up to hover just above the group, eagerly leading the way.

Before they expected it, the ponies and changelings had reached the castle. There was a subtle shift in the tenor of the jungle: while it still looked the same, there was a different feel to it. Even Chrysalis shivered a little bit as they crossed the threshold.

They bypassed the crumbled remains of a bridge—now no more than stone abutments—electing to slowly walk through the deep ditch. The barbican still stood, although the upper floors were missing. Rust streaks on the walls showed where the great doors had once been hinged.

Once they were inside the courtyard, it was easy to see that time had not been kind on the castle. Their former camping site had been remarkably intact; this looked to have been deliberately razed. Stones were scattered across the ground as if they had been flung, rather than fallen. Statues lay shattered below their plinths.

“I don’t know if there’s anywhere here to camp,” Knickknack muttered, looking around in the gathering darkness. “Aside from the barbican and gatehouse, there’s hardly one stone atop another.”

“Back in that corner.” Chrysalis pointed with a holey leg. “There’s a short hollow under those columns. We might be able to squeeze in there. I’d rather be in some shelter than sleeping out in the open. Who knows what might come in the night?”

“Yeah.” Trixie nodded. “I agree. At least there’s only one entrance to that little hidey-hole.” She trotted over, lighting her horn as she reached the shadows. As she got close, she frowned. “I think this hidey-hole is bigger than we thought.” 


Ten minutes later, the ponies looked around in amazement in the glow provided by Trixie and Amber. The roof had collapsed on a giant sunken chamber, preserving it relatively unharmed. True, room was littered with shards of stone; the statues here were also knocked on their sides—but the room had survived otherwise unharmed.

In the center, a ringed depression took up most of the floor space. Great marble blocks were neatly fitted around the edge, inscribed with runes that seemed to shift in the light of Trixie’s horn.

“What’s this?” Amber levitated a black feather off the floor.

“Hey!” Knickknack yanked a feather out of Gutter’s wing and carried it over to Amber, who examined it closely. Both ponies agreed it looked very much like a pegasus feather.

“I don’t think we’re the first ponies in here recently,” Trixie said. “The entrance looks like it’s been disturbed. I don’t know if anypony else noticed, but there were a lot of stones stacked neatly in the outer ruins, like somepony dug their way in before us.”

“Well, nopony’s here now,” Gutter said hopefully. He flew over to the edge of the depression and landed on one of the marble blocks. “What do you think this was for?”

“I don’t know.” Trixie looked over the edge thoughtfully. “If it were in a market square, I’d say it was a fountain.” She squinted at the runes. “Maybe there’s some kind of explanation. It’s not in a language I know, but I bet I can get the gist of it.”

“I don’t recognize these,” Knickknack said.  “They’re different than the ones on the statue base.”

“It looks like an older language.”  She tapped a stone.  “Which really makes sense.  Look at how worn these are.  They might not have always been in a building; maybe the castle was built up around it.  And judging by the condition of the ruins, even the castle has been abandoned for a long, long time.”

Amber glared as one of the changelings flitted over the shallow hole, peering down with his expressionless blue eyes. Apparently, he hadn’t felt the need to keep his disguise when he was indoors.

“That’s probably the symbol for ‘moon,’ but it’s opposite of the usual way.  And next to it is . . . hmm, maybe it’s supposed to be a confectionery.”  Trixie scratched her head.  “Cake moon is . . . no, wait, was?”

“Let me see,” Chrysalis hissed.  She paced over and squinted at the worn stones.  “Trees . . . worship . . . do you think that’s a line there, or a crack in the stone?”

Unseen, by the two, Amber rolled her eyes.  “It probably says ‘no refunds.’  This was clearly their guest chambers.  That is probably the honeymoon suite.”  She glanced over at Gutter.  “Do you want to try it out?”

“I don’t like sleeping in pits.”  Gutter folded his legs under himself and stretched out his left wing.  “Sometimes when it rains, they fill with water.”  He began preening himself.  “You could have asked for a loose feather.”

“Our wine cellar used to flood if it rained a lot,” Knickknack mused.  “Mother wanted to put in a new drain, but—”

“Wait.”  Amber held up a hoof.  “Gutter, what did you say?”

“You could have asked for a loose feather.”  He spit one out.  “I think I’m moulting.  It’s probably the stress.  It was a lot more relaxing in a dumpster than being out in the woods on the run.”

“No.  You said that pits fill with water.”

“Dumpsters do, too.  The lids don’t close tightly enough.  If there’s stuff in them, they’re okay.”

Amber sighed deeply.  “Don’t you get it?  What if this is the moon pool, but there isn’t any water in it?”

“We could put some in,” Knickknack finished.  “And then . . . maybe, we could get it to work.”

“Yeah.”  Amber eyed the depression skeptically.  “Where are we going to get enough water?”
> Centorea Shianus in Equestria
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Centorea Shianus in Equestria 
Admiral Biscuit


Source

Her morning exercise had started out normally enough.  She’d left the house and headed toward the park, despite the slight chill in the air and the thick fog.  After all, it wasn’t the first time that she’d been this way, and there probably wasn’t anything in the fog to fear.

Still, the morning air was chilly and foreboding, and she clenched her arms around her chest for a moment, before giggling at her silliness.

The sound of her hooves on concrete were strange in the thick fog, and it wasn’t until she was almost at the park entrance that she realized that she wasn’t hearing them echo back to her.

Cerea flicked her tail as if to dismiss the strange feelings, and turned towards the park entrance.

The gate loomed up over her, and then her hooves were on the soft grass of the park, and she relaxed at the familiar—if mostly unseen—surroundings.

She hadn’t been in there too long; even without checking the time, she knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.  But it was long enough to somehow cross the barrier between worlds.

As she rounded a bend around a copse of trees, a strange, alien face suddenly loomed at her through the fog.  She thought she could dimly make out a building where there shouldn’t be one, and then another shadow-shape flittered across her vision, this one above her, and she panicked and broke into a full gallop.

What happened next was the tragic yet inevitable result of physics and physiology.  As her equine body went down, her unfettered bosoms went up.


***


Twilight woke to the sound of panicked screaming outside her Crystal Castle.  This, unfortunately, was not an unusual event, so after peering through the window long enough to determine that all the celestial bodies were still where they belonged and that the town wasn’t on fire, she made her way slowly and deliberately down the stairs, pausing long enough to use the bathroom and make herself a cup of tea on the way.

By the time she reached the base of the stairs, she was suitably refreshed.

The Cutie Mark Map wasn’t flashing any urgent messages, and the hooves pounding on the front door hadn’t even reached a level three emergency yet, so she waited until she was nearly to the doors before grasping the handles in her aura and pulling them open, sending one panicked petitioner to sprawl out on her floor.

“Tirek is back!” he gasped, before fainting dead away.

“He’s going to take our cutie marks again!” a voice wailed from outside her door.

Twilight took one final sip of her tea before setting the cup aside.  Ponies never liked seeing a princess panic.  “Where is he and what is he doing?”

The resultant explanation was a typical insight into herd behavior; Twilight eventually managed to determine from the various roundabout explanations that the crowd offered that somepony’s friend or sister had heard from some other pony that there was a monster in the Everfree and that it was a centaur.  Also that it was wearing clothes.

In Canterlot, that would not have been worthy of mention; in Ponyville, it was.

As Twilight had been interviewing the crowd, her friends had shown up as well.  Pinkie and Rarity were the first: they lived in town and could hear the worried mob just as easily as Twilight could.  Rainbow saw them from her cloud perch, and Applejack just had a sort of sixth sense about that kind of thing.

Fluttershy arrived at some point as well, or else she’d been there all along and nopony had noticed.

Going trekking off after some monster or friendship problem or whatever other situations might happen to arise was old hat to the girls, so after all six of them were gathered together they immediately headed off to the forest, with the town slowly returning to normal behind them.

Unexpectedly, Fluttershy found Cerea first.  The shy pegasus was instinctively drawn towards injured creatures, after all, and Cerea fit the bill.

She was sprawled out on her side, not terribly far in the forest.  Applejack immediately noticed the trampled underbrush that marked her path from the edge of Ponyville.

“It’s a centaur,” Rarity said, a tone of surprise in her voice.

“At least the panicked mob got something right,” Twilight muttered.

“Poor thing’s out cold.”  Fluttershy put her head up against Cerea’s cheek.  “I think she’s been in a fight, maybe.  She’s got a black eye.”

“Are we sure it’s a she?”  Rainbow crossed her hooves and then zoomed over Cerea’s prone form for a closer look.

“She’s got bigger udders than Daisy Jo.  Ain’t no stallions I’ve ever heard of that—”

“I had them as a biped—”

“Definitely a mare; she’s got an innie and not an outie.”  Pinkie dropped Centorea's tail and pronked back around to her head.

“These are very well-made clothes.”

“Um, maybe we should focus on the patient and not on her clothes?”

“Sorry, darling.”

Twilight nodded her assent. “You’re right.  We can discuss other issues later, once she’s back on her hooves.  For now, let’s focus on getting her comfortable.”

“Ain’t too much comfortable in these here woods.  If’n Ah was hurt but not too bad . . . “

Five pairs of eyes turned to Fluttershy, who wilted slightly under their gaze before she squared her shoulders.  “AJ’s right.  I think her recovery would be quicker if she were in an actual home and not out here in the forest.”

“Do you think it’s safe to move her?”

“I can’t find any serious injuries.  Some bruises and small cuts, and of course she’s knocked out, but I don’t think any bones are broken.”

Now every eye turned to Twilight, and with good reason.  If Cerea were to be moved, it was going to be up to the young alicorn—the other five together didn’t have much chance of lifting her, given her size.

“Fine.”  Twilight’s horn lit, and a moment later, a magenta aura twined around the fallen centaur, but nothing else happened.

The glow intensified.

Still nothing.

“Oof, she’s heavier than she looks.”  Twilight scrunched up her muzzle and stuck her tongue out and added a little bit more magic to her telekinesis spell, and a moment later, Centorea Shianus’ limp body lifted up off the dirt.


***


As luck would have it, Twilight had gotten some Yak-sized furniture, and since her Crystal Castle wasn’t lacking for storage space, she still had it.  The couch was large enough for Cerea to fit on somewhat comfortably.

Fluttershy continued caring for the centaur, with Rainbow’s help.  Applejack and Pinkie Pie went off to the kitchen to make snacks for when she woke up. Twilight found a book on centaurs and started reading it, and Rarity did what she could for Cerea’s grass-stained clothes.  Luckily, she knew a few spells for removing stains from clothes and coats, spells which had been learned as a direct result of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

They hadn’t been back for too long before Cerea’s ears started twitching, followed by her tail.  Pretty soon, she was moving around a little bit on the couch, and by the time her eyes fluttered open, the Mane 6—now with a freshly-baked batch of cookies—had arranged themselves in a semicircle around her makeshift sickbed.

To her credit, Cerea didn’t flip out when she saw them.  She grabbed a carrot out of Twilight’s vegetable bowl and started munching on it, much to Pinkie Pie’s dismay.

Since she wasn’t freaking out, Fluttershy gave her a bag of ice so that she could nurse her black eye.

“So how come you aren’t afraid of me?” she asked around bites of carrot.  “After Tirek, I’d think that you’d fear centaurs.”

“Putting aside for now the question of how you know who Tirek is—since you’re not a native of Equestria—we ponies are just naturally inclined to be more receptive towards other females, since we live in a matriarchal society.”

“How did you know that I was female?”

Twilight gestured towards Cerea’s enormous breasts, Fluttershy blushed slightly and pushed the thermometer under the couch, and Rarity shoved a hoof into Pinkie’s mouth before she could open it.
> (Fragment): 17: Inheritance
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

17: Inheritance


You obscure aunt has died. leaving you her only possession—a mysterious trunk. You think you hear noises from it. . .



You’ve always been a sucker for mysteries.

Unfortunately, real life hardly ever provides them. Practically everything turns out to be mundane.

That was the case until you got the trunk.

As trunks went, it was fairly standard. What your sister called a steamer trunk. It was old, and it was locked.

It had been left to you by your aunt. She was eccentric, everypony knew it, and had willed her only possession to her youngest close relative which turned out to be you.

There was something in the trunk. You had no idea what, and there was no key.

The clear solution was to take it and wildly speculate with the help of your friends.


***


It’s sitting in the middle of the room, while the three of you poke and prod it by hoof. That provides no clues. The next obvious solution is to pick it up and estimate how much heavier it is than it would be if it were empty.

That, too, provides no clue. It’s heavy, but then things built a long time ago usually are, because ponies built things to last back then—at least, that’s what your big sister always says.

“Just open the darned thing already,” Scootaloo mutters. “And then we can go and do something fun.”

“I like the mystery,” Sweetie Bell says. “’Cause, right now it could be anything in there. And when we open it, there won’t be any more guessing.”

“It’s just going to be a dusty old book or a cooking pan or something. I know it.”

“What if it’s a turtle? Like Tank?”

“That’s a tortoise. And you can’t keep a tortoise in a box; it’d die.”

“Maybe its hibernating.”

“The box ain’t sealed,” you observe. What if it is some kind of animal? A turtle or a tortoise or a lizard—”

“Or a snake or spiders.” Sweetie Bell shivers. “You don’t think that anypony would keep spiders in a box do you?”

“Not apurpose,” you tell her. “Spiders sometimes like dark, undisturbed corners, though.”

“Eww.”

“But unless there are bugs and stuff getting in there, too, the spider ain’t gonna have anything to eat.”
> Jinglemas 2019: Original Intro
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Naturally, Silverstream was excited about Hearth’s Warming.  She listened attentively as other students talked about the preparations, the history, the pageant, the unity, the friendship, the gifts.

“We didn’t have anything like Hearth’s Warming,” she gushed.  “On account of being under the sea.”

“Griffons don’t celebrate Hearth’s Warming, either.”

Silverstream spun in the air.  “Really?”

“Dragons don’t, either,” Smolder said.

“Or changelings,” Ocellus added.  “Well, not like ponies do.  Historically, we learned about it because . . . well, because there was a lot of love to be had over Hearth’s Warming, and, um, if you wanted to integrate with a pony family, posing as a distant relative for Hearth’s Warming was a good way to get in.”

“That’s kind of disturbing.”  Sandbar looked at the changeling nervously.  “Maybe my uncle Spray was actually a changeling.”

“Weddings were good, too.  Lots of ponies, they’re all happy, nopony knows if you’re related to the bride or the groom.”

“Yaks have Yule, which is like Hearth’s Warming.”  Yona frowned.  “Except ponies not have julbock.”

“What’s a julbock?”  Silverstream landed in front of Yona.  “Can we get one?”

“A goat made out of straw.”

“Those are the ones that you burn, right?”  Ocellus grinned.  “I’ve heard about them.”

“Burn or smash.”

Gallus frowned.  “Changelings learned that to infiltrate yak society, didn’t you?”

Ocellus nodded.  “We know a lot about all the species that we imitated.”

“So what do you know about griffons?”

“Not to waste our time.  And that went for dragons, too.”

“Hey!”

“It’s a fair point,” Gallus said.  “They feed on love, remember.”

“We didn’t know about hippogriffs at all.  There were some old legends, but since no one knew where any were. . . .”

“I think this is an opportunity,” Sandbar said.  “For all of us.  The pageant is coming soon and that’s important, we’ll all want to watch that.  And I think we can all agree that exchanging presents is fun.”

Several heads nodded.

“But why stop there?  We can do all the pony stuff, and we can have a julbock to smash, and Ocellus, you must know all sorts of weird midwinter things that some creature does.  As for the rest, maybe some other tradition you have?  The holiday’s about unity, and not just pony unity.”

“One of the teachers didn’t put that idea in your head, did they?”  Smolder ruffled Sandbar’s mane.  “Maybe Starlight, or Princess Twilight?”

“Honest, I just thought of it on my own.  When Ocellus said how many different traditions other creatures have.”

“It sounds like a great idea to me.”  

“Yeah, me, too!”  Silverstream’s tail was practically wagging with excitement.
> Rainbow Dash Lays an Egg
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash Lays An Egg
Admiral Biscuit

The Storm Astrophysix weighs fifteen pounds, has an asymmetric core, and a polished finish suitable for medium-heavy lanes. It’s part of Storm’s premier bowling ball line, and the $174 price not only includes a unique swirled charcoal, cyan, and indigo finish, but it even has a plum nectar scent.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t interested in any of those facts.

Much like the bowling ball, Rainbow Dash was generally performance-oriented, spending countless hours training for the Wonderbolts and honing her aeronautic skills.

That wasn’t the only skill she’d been practicing lately. While she was well-attuned to her body, spring brought changes, and this year those changes had started with an urge to build a nest in a high place.

She didn’t know much about nest-building, but that didn’t really matter; it was all instinctual. She gathered sticks and dead grass and wove them together into a bowl shape on a high place—in this case, the roof of an apartment building a few blocks from a bowling alley. Mud helped with adhering her makeshift building materials together, and once the basic structure was constructed, she looked around for shiny things that might make it stand out from other nests. 

Luckily, Earth had plenty of those to offer. Some of them were found objects, a bit of leftover Christmas tinsel in a backyard, a few shards of broken headlight reflector she spotted alongside a road, an empty bottle of Budweiser Platinum in a ditch. Others were bought; human stores carried plenty of shiny things.

Her spring moult provided an abundance of feathers to line her nest, and for an hour around sunrise and an hour around sunset, she flew her acrobatics in sight of it, waiting for the arrival of a suitable stallion.

Only one arrived: Soarin. Rainbow should have known enough about the birds and the bees to know what was supposed to happen next. For that matter, Soarin also should have.

As it happened, neither was interested in the other on any level other than professional, and as spring gave way to summer, Rainbow would have left her nest behind as she had so many times in the past.

But this year wasn’t normal. Rainbow knew herself, knew her body, and had no idea that being on Earth might betray the normal balance of her hormones. Aside from an urge to return to her nest that kept recurring during her morning workouts and her normal spring craving for plum blossoms, her life went on as normal.

Until she spotted the Storm Astrophysix. It was behind a car with an open trunk, in its own leather carrying bag. Some fortuitous quirk of fate caused her to look down at just the right moment—normally she wasn’t terribly interested in what happened on the ground—and before she could even think about what she was doing, she swooped down and grabbed the bag’s handles in her teeth.

The owner of the bowling ball turned in time to see her taking to the air with his prize ball. His shouts fell on deaf ears; Rainbow had a biological imperative and was not to be denied.

She circled around her nest once, then landed beside it. She set the bag in the center of her nest and carefully tipped it over, letting the ball roll until it was in the center.

As for the bag, that was no use to her, so she tossed it off the edge of the roof.

She didn’t personally have any memory of being a hatchling, and she was an only foal, so she didn’t have any direct knowledge of what a pegasus egg should look like.

To a hormone-addled brain, the bowling ball was close enough. She piled some feathers around it to help keep it warm, then settled down on top of it. 

At first, the unyielding sphere was unpleasant, and she shifted around, trying to find a way to sit that didn’t hurt her ribs or press into her belly. Lots of her friends had taken their turn incubating eggs, but she never had.

She turned around in her nest, her maternal instincts clashing with her go-fast impulses, finally managing to find a position that was at least reasonably comfortable.
> Ponies Play Among Us
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ponies Play Among Us
Admiral Biscuit

Chapter Title: They’re bad at it



Ten ponies waited in the dropship.  Despite it being a computer game, most of them were actually close together—one of the large rooms in Twilight’s castle was a logical place to gather and experiment with video games.

They’d gone through dozens and dozens of titles, many of which weren’t all that interesting.  They were versus games, or they were solo games, and neither seemed to offer valuable friendship insights.

Among Us, at first glance, did.  The crewmates would have to work together to get their tasks done.  Working together was an important aspect of friendship, of tribal unity and while the game required that they play on ten different computers, most of them were close.

Not all of them, though; that was one other thing the game offered, a chance to be with friends who were far away.

“Um, my screen says that I’m an imposter,” Fluttershy said.  “What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re supposed to prevent us from doing our tasks,” Rainbow offered.  “Sabotage the ship, or kill crew members so they can’t complete their tasks.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“You don’t have to,” Twilight explained.  “There are some helpful things you can do, like fixing oxygen or opening doors if you want.  The game’s about working together.”

“The saboteurs won’t win if they don’t kill crew.”

“Why should they?”

“That’s literally how the game’s supposed to work.”  Rainbow turned to face the other girls.  “The imposters win if they kill enough of the crew members or break the ship.”

“I couldn’t hurt my friends.”

“It’s just a game.”

“A game that encourages you to have unponylike thoughts,” Applejack muttered.  “Just like every other game humans invent.  We couldn’t run an orchard if somepony was trying to sabotage it, best that everypony does her chores.”

“Last game the crew won,” Twilight said.  “Maybe we should try it with the crew not winning, which I guess means that Fluttershy is going to have to kill us.”

“And there’s a second imposter, too, remember.”

“It’s me,” Pinkie Pie cheerfully announced.  “Me and Flutters are teammates.  Promise not to vote us out, and we won’t hurt anypony.”

“That’s not how the game works,” Rainbow muttered.

“So who’s got what tasks?  How fast can we get them done?”

“I’ve got wires,” Rarity said.  “And samples, and a scan.”

“I’ve got scan, too.”

“Wanna be scan buddies?”

“Sure.”  Applejack reached out a hoof and Rarity bumped it.

“Can I stand on the scanner, even if I’m an imposter?”

“Don’t see why not.”


•••


Victory, the screen proclaimed, showing the avatars of the ten ponies.  The tasks had gotten done, and nopony had gotten ejected.
> Gordon Ramsay in Equestria
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gordon Ramsay in Equestria
Admiral Biscuit

As often as not, the best-kept treasures were off the beaten path. The outside of a restaurant didn’t always foretell the quality of the food—both of these statements were truths that Gordon Ramsay knew. 

Just the same, there was a bit of a slump to his shoulders as he beheld the restaurant in front of him, a moment before he adjusted his human expectations back to what was decidedly non-human.

Had this stone edifice with its thatched roof been back on Earth practically anywhere, the mere sight of its facade would have been a reasonable indication of the dreck served to customers, to people who were willing to brave the uninspired menu for the experience and the opportunities to Instagram said experience to the masses.

Taken out of that light and put into context, it fit the surroundings. It wasn’t pretentious, it wasn’t pretending to be something that it wasn’t. The buildings around it were constructed similarly, raw stone weathered by the winds and the seas, a neat thatched roof—a substantial building, one that squats on the land as which says it won’t be moved. One that will be there rain or shine, sun or storm, whenever someone—whenever somepony wants to have a meal.

There were rules about dressing a restaurant, and even the ponies sometimes went too far. He’d been in trendy Canterlot eating establishments where the point was to get a reservation and to be seen. He’d been to Manehattan restaurants where the food was new and edgy and human-inspired and he’d also eaten a meal at a thermopolium, which only sold two kinds of porridge, both of which were delicious.

The sign was simple, a shingle painted with a mug of beer and a cutie mark.

In the interests of television, one of his cameramen went in first, in order to show his face as he went through the front doors for the first time.

There was that brief moment where he wondered as he always did if that cheapened the moment, if that gave the occupants of the restaurant time to reflect on the fact that they were about to be on national TV, if it gave the owners and the cooks and servers warning, but it couldn’t be avoided. People wanted to see that, wanted to see the moment where he found a dead rodent right by the front door and the wait staff’s unlikely denials of how such a creature could have gotten there.

When he went far enough afield that nobody knew who he was, save that he was a white man with cameras, he got a more genuine reaction.

Here, he’d managed the soft lob. Ponies didn’t rush up and mob him, either drawn to his fame or drawn to the fact that he was not a pony and therefore worthy of interest. Likewise, they didn’t panic or worry, and they were either unaware of what the camera portented, or didn’t care.

Inside, it was exactly what he should have expected, what he would have expected if years of cynicism hadn’t fully sprouted in his mind. A tavern, no more, no less. A meeting place, an eating place. Warm and inviting despite the cold stone and dark wood.

Here, he was not such a celebrity that the owner rushed over to take his order, nor watch on from nearby, trying to gauge his satisfaction or disappointment as each dish was offered.

Sometimes old habits died hard, and he couldn’t help but make an estimate based on the crowd of the popularity of the place, reminding himself as he did that ponies didn’t operate on the same schedule as humans, especially out of the city.

There wasn't a maitre’d, nor a hostess’ stand, so he picked a table. A moment later, an adolescent pony wearing naught but an apron came over. “Welcome to Zucche’s! I’m Irio! Would you like a menu?”

“Yes, please.” He wasn’t a master of Equestrian, not by a long shot, but he was good enough to be understood.

She flounced off in the manner of waitresses the world over, and quickly returned with the menu.

“Do you have any specials?” That was always a good question, and often gave him the measure of the restaurant.

She shrugged. “The Cassoulet is pretty good, but I dunno if you’d call it special. Maybe you’d like a black bean crunchwrap supreme? That’s popular.”

“I’m sorry, a crunchwrap supreme? What’s that?”

“It’s black beans and lettuce and tomatoes and sour cream and nacho cheese wrapped in a burrito with a taco half for crunchiness. It’s really good, just like at Taco Bell.”

“At Taco Bell?”

She nodded earnestly. “Zucche makes them just like Taco Bell does. You—you do know about Taco Bell, don’t you? They have them on Earth.”

“The Taco Bell?”

Irio nodded. “We got the proper recipe, and we’re the only tavern on the coast that does.”

When it came to fast food, Gordan Ramsay knew little beyond that it existed. It was better that way.

Nonetheless, he hadn’t yet encountered an Earth restaurant franchised in Equestria, and as much as this one screamed ‘anything but faux Mexican food’, he was willing to give it a try. “Also, you have a catch of the day, what’s that?”

She shrugged. “Whatever we catch. Mostly its fish but sometimes if it’s a bad day for sailing it’s sand crabs.” She leaned a bit closer. “Once it was catfish. That was a real bad day.”

Gordon nodded, even though mentally he was watching a tennis match and not quite sure where the ball was, or even if there was one. “What is it today?”

“Mostly redfish so far—they’re really going for the bait today.”

“Well, I’ll try that.”

“Cooked or raw?”

“Excuse me?”

Irio blushed slightly. “Sorry, I don’t know humans all that well. You can have the fish cooked or raw, whichever you prefer.”

Gordon glanced back down at the menu, and reached a decision. “I’ll try the burgoo, one crunchwrap, and two catch of the days, one cooked and one . . . not.”

“Wow, you must be really hungry.” She eyed him up and down. “Okay, and do you want anything to drink? We’ve got cider and beer and wine and milk.”

“Do you have water?”

She shrugged. “Salty or not?”

“Not.”

As soon as the camera crew had gotten a parting shot of her headed towards the kitchen, Gordon turned to the camera. “I don’t want to make any assumptions here, but horses like salt licks, and they may enjoy salty water. I doubt this restaurant gets much in the way of human clientele.”

“There was a girl in here,” one of the cameramen remarked. “Left when we came in. Sitting over in that corner booth with a blue pegasus.”

“Really?”

“Surprised you didn’t see her. She . . . she’d gone native.”


•••



The waitress hadn’t said anything about a bread bowl, but she’d brought one out with his glass of water.

Gordon took a sip of the water first, then picked up a slice of bread. It was dark, speckled with seeds, and felt heavy in his hand. As the secondary cameraman angled around for a closeup of the bread, he looked up at the first. “I can’t identify half of what they put in this. I’m going to take a bite of the corner and see if I can figure it out.”

He tore a piece loose and sniffed at it, then popped it into his mouth. “Grainy, grassy, very dense. An interesting flavor, not one that I personally prefer, but honestly you could make an entire meal out of the bread, and I think it would stay with you for half the day. They’ve got fennel in here, I can taste that, and there’s a bit of a bite—they might be using a sourdough starter on the loaf.” He picked up a couple of pieces and hefted them. “You could kill a man with a stale loaf, it’s that heavy. Jesus.”

He’d barely finished one slice of bread when the waitress returned, once again with a plate balanced on her back. “Here’s your raw catch of the day—it’s a tripletail. Salty just caught it.”

“Hold on a minute,” he said, looking at the fish on his plate and playing back the prior conversation in his mind. “This is raw.”

That was undeniably the truth. It was not only raw, it was a whole fish, just as it had been caught. Complete from head to tail, unscaled, ungutted, and entirely unmolested.

“You said you wanted a catch of the day raw and one cooked, so this is the raw one. Fresh from the ocean . . . you got lucky, tripletails like to fight and they’re really hard to catch. A lotta pegasi would be happy to have it.” Her ears drooped, and she looked at the cameramen in turn, who were focusing on the fish and her respectively. “How do humans have raw fish?”

In any of his shows on Earth, Gordon would have torn her a new one.  There was a measure of trust when a person went to a restaurant, which when stripped down to the most basic element was that the food wouldn’t make a person sick. And he could honestly say that he had been in restaurants on Earth which couldn’t even get that basic expectation right.

There were any number of doe-eyed tourists who thought a trip to Equestria was like a trip to Disneyland but with ponies, and as long as they stuck to the main human attractions, maybe it was. He was on a culinary adventure—hardly the first of his career—and couldn’t apply human rules to the food he was offered. Ponies might be able to eat a raw fish, fresh from the sea, with no ill effect, but he wasn’t willing to try.

Nor was he willing to berate the waitress for bringing him exactly what he’d asked for. He’d wanted a fresh fish, and the only way this one could be fresher would be if it was still swimming.

“Humans can’t eat fish raw,” he said softly, placing a hand on her withers. “Not this raw, anyway. I’m sorry. I should have asked you to be more specific about what I was ordering.” He looked around the tavern, where numerous ponies were enjoying their meals despite the disruption of his cameramen. “I haven’t touched this fish, and I’d hate to see it go to waste, especially if it’s one that I’m lucky to have. Are there any other peo—ponies in the restaurant who might like it instead?”

Irio glanced around the restaurant and nodded. “Over there,” she said, pointing. “Tira-Mi-Su and Mochanut.”

“Give it to them, please.”

Sne nodded and took the plate off his table.

He watched as she placed it in front of them and gave a brief explanation of its origin, pointing once to him as the source of the bounty.

Irio came back to his table to tell him that they’d been honored by his gift, but he hadn’t needed her to tell him; he’d been watching as the pair had picked up the fish and nibbled at it, worked it over like a chicken wing, leaving little behind except for the tail and a few bones. One of them had even swallowed the head whole, after they’d finished with the main parts of the fish.

“That’s something you don’t see every day,” one of the cameramen muttered.

“Literally every inch of your roll is something you don’t see every day,” Gordon said.

“Including naked chick in restaurant.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“Nope, that happened. Maybe she’ll come back for dinner.”


•••


Some of the fancier restaurants he’d visited in Manehattan and Canterlot had cared about plating, while most of them didn’t. While he knew that plating wasn’t a reliable indicator of the quality of food, it was still the first look a potential customer had at what they were about to eat, and Gordon firmly believed that it had a psychological effect on the taste—unless the food was so bad that no presentation could save it, or on rarer occasions where it was so good it could have been served in a trash can and he still would have asked for seconds.

He’d given them a pass on the dead fish on a plate. It had been exactly what he’d ordered, after all, and dressing it up would have been silly.

He also mentally gave more isolated eateries a pass, and this one certainly qualified.

So he was pleasantly surprised with the burgoo. It looked like oatmeal, and it was served in a bowl. A bright yellow flower adorned the top, making it look more cheery, and there was also a little sprinkle of nutmeg on the top.

There wasn’t a spoon. 

This was something that Gordon had figured out already. Restaurants run by unicorns always included silverware. Those which were fancy offered it, while the more homely establishments didn’t tend to have it. It made sense; two thirds of the statistical population rarely used it, and in places where unicorns made up less than a third of the mix, they were just expected to do as the other ponies did. When in Rome and all that.

Normally, Gordon didn’t comment on the dishes, not unless they were particularly horrible. This being a bit of a departure from his normal fare, he couldn’t help himself.

“Look, here around the edges, you can see where the enamel is scratched and scuffed. Some of the ponies wear shoes, and that must be terrible for the dishes.” He nodded his head over to a nearby table, where the two earth ponies were supping on burgoo. Each of them would pinch the bowl between their forehooves and bring it up to their mouths, at least until they noticed a camera pointed in their direction.

Most people would have been honored to be on his show, but the ponies didn’t go for television all that much, and in the more rural areas didn’t particularly care for the baggage that went with his show.

It was a delicate balance, giving an adoring television audience what they wanted, and having a genuine experience. He’d sneaked into a few traditional restaurants sans camera crew, and he’d experienced the whole gamut of reactions, from fear to flattery.

“I suppose I’m meant to enjoy it that way. . . .” He picked the bowl up and brought it to his nose. “Hint of molasses, and a bit heavy on the salt, but not too much.” He tilted the bowl experimentally, just to make sure it wasn’t too liquid-y. TV audiences might get a laugh if he poured his meal down his shirt, but he’d rather not. “Hmm, interesting. A basic oatmeal, done just right. More salt than I’d prefer, but not offensive, and the molasses adds quite a bit of sweetness. A bowl of this would get you going for the day, that’s for sure.”

The flower changed the scent of the burgoo, and he looked over to the nearby table. They didn’t have flowers in theirs. “Am I meant to eat it?” He tore off a petal and popped it in his mouth. “Plenty of flowers are edible, and can easily add variety to a plain dish, both from color and flavor. A nice touch, and it really does complement the burgoo.”

“So do you figure they know what they’re doing here?” one of the cameramen asked. 

“The raw fish is a wash, chalk it up to species differences. This burgoo, though, I like. Simple fare, but quite good—prepared perfectly.”


•••


The crunchwrap supreme came up next. It was, Gordon believed, exactly as described. He hadn’t ever eaten Taco Bell food and was perfectly content to live out the rest of his life without partaking.

The only thing it missed was being wrapped in paper, with printing to inform the consumer what it actually was. And he had to admit, if Irio hadn’t confessed to its origin, he wouldn’t have made the connection. It would have just been an out-of-place item on an otherwise themed menu, a standard dish that every restaurant in a particular niche served because it was expected. Pizzarias served pepperoni pizzas, Chinese restaurants served General Tso’s chicken, American restaurants had burgers, and British restaurants had fish and chips, that was just the nature of the thing.

While he hadn’t yet seen crunchwrap supremes on pony menus, he couldn’t rule out that it was a rural treat, nor that it was inspired by Taco Bell of all places.

As was his wont, he spent a moment examining his food before tucking in.

Despite his brash demeanor on countless TV shows, Gordon did appreciate cultural cooking, even if he didn’t always understand it. He was self-aware enough to know that the world didn’t revolve around him or his palette, and made a conscious effort to temper his expectations accordingly. Thinking back only a few minutes, he would have railed against any chef on Earth who thought it was acceptable to offer a complete dead fish on a plate as a special of the day, yet here Tir-Mi-Su and Mochanut had devoured the thing without any hesitation.

The crunchwrap supreme could have been some existing cultural dish, fancied up into a human package because of course everybody wanted something new and exotic. Or it could have been a shameless copy of an existing dish, something that didn’t fit into the gestalt of traditional cooking but which had been shoehorned in, and he knew he wasn’t culturally aware enough to render a verdict.

Television must, so after an exploratory bite, he shook his head. It might taste just like Taco Bell’s, that was something he didn’t have the culinary experience to confirm. Nonetheless, it wasn’t good.


•••


Back on Earth, he was a celebrity. Back on Earth, when he went into a restaurant, any staff worth their salt knew who he was, and reacted accordingly.

Here in Equestria, he was a human tourist, and worse than that, he was a human tourist with two cameramen. That was something he’d always struggled with when he went to remote locations and sampled the food; it was one of the faults of television and the demands of the audience. TV watchers wanted to see his reactions in the moment, not have him describe them afterwards. They wanted to see his clear the plate or more likely spit the abomination into a napkin,

Gordon was no expert on ponies, so it was hard to say how their reactions were altered by the cameras. Some of them kept looking in his direction while others ignored him, and a few ignored him with intent, possibly thinking that if they didn’t pay attention, he might disappear. Such was the nature of fame; they weren’t entirely wrong.

So far, he still didn’t have a proper understanding of the restaurant’s food. He’d had one dish which he couldn’t even eat, one which was fantastic, and another that was at best uninspired. None of the other ponies he saw as he scanned the dining areas were eating it.


•••


Their waitress was reasonably attentive, and when she had a bit of a lull time and came over to check on their drinks, Gordon asked her about the burgoo.

“It’s kinda traditional on ships,” she said. “Bigger ships, mostly, but lots of ponies have gotten used to it, and like a bowl before or after work. Did you like it?”

“I did. It’s basically a porridge.”

“And you can season it with whatever you have, you can make it sweeter or saliter if you like.”

“Does your cook always make it the same?”

Irio shook her head. “It depends on the seasons, what flowers are available, and if ponies have a lot of work to do. She puts in more salt and sometimes fish if there’s a big feral storm and all the pegasi are working hard. During the spring planting, she makes it a bit thicker and with more molasses or honey so it’s got more energy to keep a pony going. And in the summer when it’s hot, she makes it thin and with a lot of flowers so she can serve it a bit cooler and it doesn’t weigh down your belly.”

“Thank you,” Gordon said, and once she’d gone off to another table, he turned to face the camera. “That’s quite impressive, tailoring a dish to current conditions and the availability of fresh food. There aren’t many restaurants on Earth that would do that, that would alter menu items on a day-by-day basis. Some of us are so used to always buying the same things, to always having the same food available that we get complacent.”


•••


“Your cooked catch of the day,” Irio announced, setting the plate down with a flourish. “Coalfish with breadcrumbs and timothy.”

“Coalfish?”

“It’s kinda like cod, but darker,” she informed him. “There’s a bit of cheese on there as well—humans like cheese, don’t they?”

“It smells delicious, thank you.” He looked down at his plate, where his fish was sitting on a bed of grass which was likely a salad. While he was unlikely to derive any useful calories from the grass, it was part of the experience.

Not surprisingly, his main course also didn’t come with utensils, so he tore a piece loose. “Light and flaky, looks to have been properly cooked.” He held it up to the camera, edge-on. “Just look at that cut . . . magnificent. The cook really knows what he’s doing here.”

Gordon took a bite, a smile on his face before he’d swallowed. “Oh, this is perfect. Practically melts in your mouth. Let’s try a bit of the grass as a chaser. See if it complements the flavor.” He picked up a few blades, turning them over in his fingers before committing. “Hmm, chewy, just a hint of salt, about the perfect complement. This is fantastic; I’d put their chef up against any on Earth . . . if she really does know how to prepare whatever’s brought to her fresh.”

He took another bite, following it up with more grass. “I can’t say that I approved of the raw fish, but this here is magnificent. I think once I finish, I need to go back into the kitchen and meet the chef.”
> Jinglemas '22 first attempt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story Name
For Jinglemas2022
Admiral Biscuit

A knock at the door perked Ms. Peachbottom’s ears.  She set down a gingerbread slab--soon to be a roof on her gingerbread house--wiped her hooves on a dishtowel, and trotted to the front door.

She caught the receeding rump of the mailmare.  Hearth’s Warming was such a busy time for the postponies, sometimes they were even dragging wagons around filled with cards and parcels.  Pity, it was always nice to chat and catch up on gossip, but it would be rude to keep her neighbors waiting for their packages.

I wonder who it’s from?  She hoofed the package up and looked at the return address.  Gloriosa Daisy.  That was an unfamiliar name.  The address was weird, too: 32845 Lone Pine Rd.  Were there any streets anywhere with that many houses on them?  It didn’t seem likely.

She didn’t recognize the town name; maybe ponies numbered things differently there.  Maybe the first house was number one, then number two, and so on.

The shipping address was correct, if somewhat illegable: 6 Cresthaven Terrace, Mus . . . IA 52761.

Another big number.

As if that wasn’t weird enough, the package had a weird stylized bird on it, similar to archetectural reliefs she’d seen in the northlands.

Ms. Peachbottom knew what to do when a package was mis-delivered: return it to the post office, inform the ponies there of the mistake, and then it was out of her hooves.  They’d figure out where it needed to go, and they’d get it there.

Just as soon as she finished her gingerbread house--it wouldn’t build itself.

[SOFT BREAK]

There was a long line of ponies at the post office.  An unbelievably long line . . . it was hard to belive so many ponies lived in Mustangia, or that they’d all want to mail packages at the same time.

It was a nice way to exchange gossip.  

<gossip>

And then [PONY] said something which would set an entire advanture in motion.  “Why dontcha deliver the package yourself?  You’ve been wantin’ to go on a vacation, and an excuse just landed on your lap.”

“You’re right.”  Ms. Peachbottom grinned.  “All the postponies are working so hard, I’m sure this only got overlooked ‘cause the address is kind of blurry.”  She pulled the package off her back and showed it to her companion.  “I wonder if it’d be better to return it to Gloriosa, or deliver it to Flaming Embers [real place in Muscatane] myself?  Do you think that’s a dragon name?”

“Could be,” [PONY] said.  “Or maybe it’s a kirin name.”

“I bet it is.  Ooh, I’ve never been to the Peaks of Peril.”

“I hear they’re really pretty.”

“And the archetecture, it’s not like anything ponies make.”  Ms. Peachbottom turned to see the line extending behind her--not only would she save some of the hard-working postponies some time if she took care of it herself, but everypony in line behind her might get served quicker.  Everypony won.

[SOFT BREAK]

Ms. Peachbottom was the kind of pony who was always ready for anything, because you never knew what might come up.  She was also a trot by the direction of her horseshoes pony, because that was just a great way to live life.

Just the same, getting to the Peaks of Peril took some planning.  She couldn’t just trot there.

She could, with a connection in Manehattan, take the train there.  Well, almost there.  There’d be some walking she’d have to do to get to the kirin village.

Everything she needed fit into her flower-print suitcase, and she was at the train station in ample time to get a ticket.  On its way out of town, the train took her past the post office, where ponies with parcels still stood in a line that stretched out the door.

Not her!  She settled back in her seat and watched the world go by--first the town and then the surrounding fields and then into the wilder lands, largely untamed by ponies.

The rail line followed villages she knew, and then it turned off and started passing through new towns.  She’d brought a newspaper to read, but kept her muzzle against the glass whenever the train went through a village or town, seeing how the ponies built their homes and businesses.

[SOFT BREAK]

Manehattan was a slog, it always was.  The train slowed down and sometimes it ran on the street, other times on elevated iron bridges, and occasionally underground until it finally arrived at the Manehattan Station.

Ms. Peachbottom had a few hours until her next train left.  She wasn’t fond of the vast open atrium, high enough for pegasi to bring in a rain shower if they wanted to.  But the detail in the columns and reliefs, the gentle gilding and the murals of trains and Equestria . . . a train station was meant to inspire a pony to travel the world, to go where her own four hooves couldn’t take her, and by golly, she was inspired.

Her eye went over to the long queue at the Equestrian Post kiosk.  She could turn in the package, take a tour of Manehattan and be on her way back home, but she’d already bought her ticket to the Peaks of Peril.

Instead of getting in that line, she instead joined a different queue: [NAME] pizza.  Manehattan Pizza was famous and she’d never tried a slice.  Everypony said that it was the water that made it good.

She wasn’t a gourmet or a food critic, but it was good, thin and crunchy and with a white sauce that perfectly balanced the crispy salted timothy grass.

[SOFT BREAK]

The train to the Peaks of Peril wasn’t as nice as the Mustangia to Manehattan train.  The locomotive was old and the coaches creaky; the trip out of Manehattan wasn’t any faster than the trip in had been.  It was a different route, though; instead of looking up at the tall shiny buildings and down on the broad ways, she was funneled along the backside of stores and warehouses and alongside a train yard which gave way to a canal yard.

That canal paralleled them until finally the train climbed up on a spindly trestle and curved alongside an alleyway which had been repurposed into a battleground for foals.  Two snow-forts were built up at either end, although the opposing forces were battling it out in open ground.

One filly got distracted by the train passing by and was rewarded by a flurry of snowballs to her barrel.

<MORE>

[SOFT BREAK]

<missing section (in gDoc)>

She took their advice to go through the mountain, rather than over the Peaks of Peril.

<desx from episode>

Ms. Peachbottom looked around in wonder at tke kirin village.  <do some kirin research, does it have a name?>  Dozen of kiren milled around.  The valley was spring-like despite the snow-topped mountains which surrounded it.

Unlike most villages she’d been in, there were no signs.  She counted off the houses--there were at least six, so it was possible the package was meant to go here.

Or else Flaming Embers lived somewhere else now.  Not all the kirin lived in the village anymore; the Mustangia Daily said that there were kirin enrolled at the School of Friendship.

Well, Rain Shine would know.  

Who was Rain Shine?  She hadn’t thought to ask any of the kirin waiting on the station platform.

[SOFT BREAK]

Rain Shine wasn’t hard to miss.  She stood a head above the other kirin, her tail was at least twice as long, and she wore a golden diadem between her ears.

Many ponies would be nervous around royalty, but Ms. Peachbottom had personally met Her Higness, Princess Cadence, Protector of the Crystal Empire.

There was a cluster of kirin around her, but they parted and let her through.  “Excuse me,” she said.  “Your highness.”  Ms. Peachbottom wasn’t sure how kirin royalty was normally addressed.

Rain Shine bowed her head “Do you bring word of Summer Chills?”

“It’s not all that cold . . . it’s not even summer.”

“Our student, Summer Chills.  She attends the School of Friendship.  I thought you were from Equestria.”

“Sorry for the misunderstanding.  I live in Mustangia. I got a package delivered to my house in error, it was addressed to an, uh, Flaming Embers.  Wonder if you’ve heard of her.”

A half dozen kiren looked at each other, and then as one they all shook their heads.

Rain Shine also shook her head.  “Could that not be a dragon name?”

“Well, it could be, I suppose.  My friend [NAME] said it sounded like a kirin name, that’s why I’m here.”  She lifted the package off her back and showed it to the assembled kirin.  “See how the address is all smudged?”

Rain Shine studied it.  “Do homes have numbers in Equestria?”

“Usually.”

“And names?”

“Your town doesn’t have a name?”

“Why would it need a name?  It’s our home, it needs no name beyond that.”  Rain Shine wrinkled her muzzle.  “What will you do if you cannot deliver your parcel?”

“I’ll deliver it, no mattter where I have to go,” Ms. Peachbottom said.  “Maybe to Mount Eris next, Flaming Embers could be a hippogrif name.”

“Not the dragonlands?”

“Well. . .”  Ms. Peachbottom leaned in close.  “Just between you and me, I’m kind of afraid of dragons.  They’re big and scary and can breath fire, you know.”  She scuffed her hoof on the ground, and then said a little louder, “Trains don’t go to the dragonlands anyway, so I don’t think anypony could mail a package there.”

“Would you like a travelling companion on your journey?”

“Trips are always better with two ponies,” Ms. Peachbottom said.  “Usually it’s only me, though, most of my friends don’t get around a lot.  But that’s okay, half the fun of trips is the friends you make along the way, isn’t that right?”

Several of the kirin, Rain Shine included, nodded.  Then: “Let us go, then.  There is a parcel to be deliverd.”

“You?”

“Why not?  It has been many years since I’ve ventured beyond my home.”

“Have you ever been on a train?”

Rain Shine shook her head.

“You gotta get to the train early to get the best seats.”

[SOFT BREAK]

The train left once daily, and they’d missed it.  Ms. Peachbottom spent the rest of the day getting to know the kirins, and she got a sleepover at the palace, which was like every other house but bigger, as would befit a taller kirin.

It wasn’t uncomfortably large; unlike the soaring archetecture that some ponies preferred for their palaces and train stations, the ceiling was only a few hoofspans above the top of Rain Shine’s horn.

There wasn’t a guest bedroom, but Rain Shine’s couch was oversized and very, very comfortable.

<brief train station interlude>

Predictably, the train to Mount Aris connected through Manehattan.  The now-familiar--to Ms. Peachbottom--path to the station was filled with wonder for Rain Shine.  All the buildings, all the ponies, even a canal boat piled with coal.

In the station, Rain Shine’s eyes were drawn to the relifs and columns and high ceilings, while everypony elses’ eyes were drawn to her.  Over the last twelve years, ponies had united the world in ways that Ms. Peachbottom never could have imagined, and yet there were new things to discover.

[SOFT BREAK]

The train to Mount Aris was newer and plusher and filled with holiday-makers and tourist and creatures of all types, enough so that the duo didn’t seem all that out of place.

Where she’d had a private seat on her way to the Peaks of Peril, now the train was crowded.  Nevertheless, they’d gotten the best seats by virtue of being the first ponies on the platform.

Even with the crowding, everycreature was in a festive mood.  Hearth’s Warming was upon them.

[SOFT BREAK]

Her mood lasted until the train had reached the outskirts of Manehattan, then she turned to Rain Shine.  “Do you celebrate Hearth’s Warming?”

Rain Shine shook her head.  “I know of the legends, of the world grown cold due to the greed and selfishness of the pony tribes, but we do not celebrate it.  Instead we have our own winter festival when the days begin to grow long again.”

“Do you give gifts?”

She nodded.  “Calendars.  And we all feast in the great hall on red bean porridge and dumplings and then welcome in the new year.”

“Excuse me ladies.”

The two looked up at a bipedal cat--something neither of them had seen before.

“You mind sliding over?  My paws are weary, and all the other seats are taken.”

Neither of them minded.  “Are you bound all the way to Mount Aris?”

“And beyond,” he said.  “Back home.  Trains only get me so far, and then after that it’s either shanks’ pony, or else I’ll get lucky and Captain Celaeno’s airship’ll be in port.”  He grinned, then extended a paw.  “Name’s Capper.  Some call me Dapperpaws, but those days are past.”

“I’m Ms. Peachbottom.”

“Rain Shine.”

“Pleased to meet you both.”  He settled into the seat next to Rain Shine, who hadn’t packed any luggage.  “What brings you to Mount Aris?”

“A package.”  It was sitting on the seat next to her, and she told the story of its provenance.

“You’ve met the right cat,” Capper said.  “I . . . well, I don’t know a Flaming Embers personally, but I know people who know things and sometimes that’s as good as knowing it personally.  Have you considered the pony who sent the package?”

“It’s not somepony I know,” Ms. Peachbottom said.  “Or else I would have given it to her, told her how the address got messed up.  You don’t know her, do you?”

Capper shook his head.

“Rain Shine?”

The kirin shook her head.  “Noone in our village has a name anything like that.  We also don’t have any pine trees.”

“Are you headed home for Hearth’s--for the holidays?”

Capper shrugged.  “You could say that.  Some Abyssinians feel like the Princesses have abandoned us, like they forget we even exist.  Like they abandoned us to the Storm King.”

“Do you think that?” Rain Shine asked.  “We don’t really interact with the ponies much.”

“Well, when it really counted, they came through.”

Rain Shine nodded.  “We--Applejack and Fluttershy came to our village and taught us a valuable lesson.  If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be speaking to you right now.”

“Applejack and Fluttershy?  I know them, I’ve met them, too.”

“So have I,” Ms. Peachbottom said.  “They’re about the friendliest ponies anypony could ever meet.”

<more?>
> Scaling Errors 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scaling Errors 2

“Theo!”  Will let the branches in front of him snap shut.  “I think your contraption worked!”
“It’s not a contraption, William,” Theo whispered, “It’s an extra-planer teleportation device.  Powered by two AA batteries, it will revolutionize the travel industry with its—“
“Quiet.  I think I hear someone coming.”
The two fell silent as the sound of hoofbeats got louder.  And louder.  Then they stopped.
“Now where did I put that measuring tape?  Oh, Rarity, how do you expect to get anything done if you can’t find—oh, there it is!”
“Your machine worked!”  Will grabbed Theo by the shoulders.  “We’re here, in Ponyville, just outside Rarity’s shop!  Oh, I can’t wait to meet her!  To meet all of them!”
“Well, I believe as the inventor of the machine, I should go first.”
“No way, Theo, I paid for it.  Let’s both go together.”
“All right.”  The two took a step forward, when suddenly Theo was snatched off the ground by a huge white paw.  Will shrieked, and began running as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
As he went, his mind was racing through the various monsters he had seen on the show.  The arm was furry, not scaly, so it wasn’t a dragon; besides, he couldn’t remember there ever having been a dragon in Ponyville, besides Spike of course.  Not a manticore, not a minotaur, not a griffon, oh please not Discord….
He was so focused on his thoughts that he ran out into the street without even looking.  As a shadow loomed over him, he suddenly realized that the internet had been horribly, horribly wrong.

Rarity finished sewing lacy trim on the border of her latest creation.  She took a step back to admire her work, and smiled.  This would be the talk of the next Grand Galloping Gala, she was sure.  The thought brought a momentary frown to her face, as she remembered that she was henceforth banned from the Grand Galloping Gala, although Princess Celestia had promised to intervene on their behalf.  “Still,” she sighed, “I suppose somepony will look absolutely fabulous in it.”
She put her sewing tools and reading glasses away, then walked into the kitchen to make a glass of tea.  As the water was warming, she poured out a bowl of food for Opalescence, which brought the cat proudly strutting into the kitchen, holding a bloody something in her mouth.
“Oh Opal,” Rarity sighed, “what poor creature have you got now?  Let mama see it.”
Opal hissed.
“I really must insist, dear,” Rarity muttered, grabbing it with her telekinesis.  Opal resisted for a moment, but let go before her back paws were dragged off the ground.  She sulked over to her food bowl and began eating slowly, eying Rarity warily.
“It looks like some kind of diseased rat,” Rarity decided, not willing to levitate it close enough to her face to get a really good look.  “I suppose Twilight or Fluttershy would best be able to identify it.  I’ll just put it in a little box….”

Twilight looked up from her parchment in annoyance at the knocking on the library door.  Admittedly, she was still up, but the library had closed hours ago.  “I’m coming,” she muttered, wiping off the tip of the quill and closing the ink bottle.
“Rarity!”  She opened the door.  “What brings you at this hour?”
“Oh dear,” Rarity said, “Opal caught another poor creature.”
“Shouldn’t you take it to Fluttershy?”
“Oh, no, the poor thing is beyond Fluttershy’s help, and I just didn’t want to bother her.”
“So, what do you want me to do?”
“Well, darling, I was wondering if you could identify what…it was.”  She levitated up a small cardboard coffin, complete with a silk liner.
“Um, Rarity, why is it in a miniature coffin?  And why do you have a picnic basket?”
“Oh, yes, that.”  The unicorn blushed.  “Well, I was making tea, and of course one cannot have tea without biscuits or cheese, or something, and I thought that since I was going to come over here anyway, it wouldn’t be any trouble to make enough for two, since you are doing me a favor…”
“And the coffin?”
“Well, honestly darling, it just didn’t seem right to put the poor thing in a simple cardboard box.”  Rarity waved a hoof absently.  “But, a little laminated wood, a bit of satin, and voila!”
Twilight rolled her eyes, and took the coffin from Rarity.  She hovered it over to a small table and laid it down on the table, then opened the coffin, while Rarity laid out the tea on the kitchen table.

Presently, Rarity came out of the kitchen.  Twilight was deep in study, and jumped in surprise as Rarity tapped her on the shoulder.  “The tea is getting cold, darling.”
“Oh!  Rarity, I have never seen anything like this, ever.  Its body looks kind of like a minotaur, although its upper body is far less developed, and it doesn’t have bovine features.  It also appears to be wearing some kind of covering.  Can you leave it with me?  I need to study it more, and write to Princess Celestia!”
“Of course, dear, but why don’t we have a tea, first.  I should get back home.  Sweetie Belle is asleep, but one never knows if she will get up during the night, and what kind of trouble she might get into if she does.”
Twilight nodded absently, and began to walk into the kitchen, her mind still racing at the strange creature laid out on her table.  Already she was going through books in her mind, trying to imagine how it would be classified.  Her first book would be [why all the bad stuff comes from the Everfree].