Ch1 beginnings [edited]

Author's Notes:

Fimfiction does not seem to want me to list Sad and Comedy together. As this is principally a comedy I have gone with that, but there will be sad moments here and there for flavoring and blatant reader manipulation. This is also a slow story that will take a long time to reach major milestones. I hope I have made the journey entertaining for you.

Jake and the Kid: "My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic" Fan fiction. My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, and the characters were created by Lauren Faust, bless her.

Various other characters like Pumpernickel Rye and his wife Lamina were created by Georg. Read his stuff. Really, you will enjoy it.

Jake and the Kid

Chapter 1 - Beginnings

In the beginning:

It was a dark night.

The stormy part was still a couple of hours away.

Despite that, the wind was already howling through the trees and rattling the loose shingles on the old barn that slumped in the middle of the clearing. It was surrounded by a stand of tall trees, their branches bare in the chill November night. Long branches reached out like grasping claws the tips of those closest rubbing against the moss-covered shingles. Clouds scudded through the sky hiding and revealing a bright full moon and sending the tree’s shadows skittering through the clearing and inside the barn as the moonlight filtered through old dusty windows.

Inside the barn, a young Percheron stallion shuffled nervously. At eighteen and a half hands high he was tall, even for one of his breed, but still fairly slender, not having come into his full growth yet. His black hide blended into the darkness so that sometimes only the whites of his eyes rolling from side to side in trepidation were visible. Every now and then he shied as shadows chased across the dusty floor and climbed the walls. He was all alone, except for a solitary hungry mouse scavenging for seeds in the straw covering the floor of his stall.

Jake wasn’t scared. He was a destrier. Big sister Curry said so. His great-grandpa had carried knights into battle with dragons. Jake didn’t know what dragons were, but from the way Curry talked about them, they were a lot of scary wrapped up in a ton of mean. But Jake’s great-grandpa hadn’t been frightened, and so he wasn’t either. Besides, Curry was a knight, she’d told him so herself, and he could never be scared if she was with him, even if they were facing a dragon.

So, no, he wasn’t the least bit scared just because he was alone in the dark. He was just a little worried. It had been over a week since he had seen Curry or Old Ben. Strangers had been by to see that he had food, and his stall was cleaned out. Not that it would have needed to be cleaned out if they hadn’t locked him in. He flushed slightly at the memory. If only they had given him free rein of the barnyard to take care of business properly. Curry was going to be so mad at him, Jake thought, with more than a touch of shame. It had been months since he had an accident, and now it had been five days in a row.

Jake shuffled his massive feathered feet in the clean straw covering the floor of his stall, scaring the life out of the scavenging mouse who squeaked in panic. Jake danced backward slightly at the faint noise till his rump bashed into the back of his stall. The planks bowed from the pressure put on them by over a ton of skittish horse. There was a groan of overstressed timbers and Jake hastily moved forward slightly. He stood shivering slightly, not daring to move his hooves for fear that they might come down on something soft, squishy, and crunchy. A frantic rustling in the straw drew a snort of relief from him as his unexpected guest vacated the premises with all due haste.

A sudden creak from the barn door caused Jake’s ears to flick up and swivel toward the sound. His eyes widened and he tossed his head in fear as he once more tried to crawl through the back of his stall. What looked like a miniature haystack was slipping through the door. As wide as it was tall, there were no distinguishing features. Jake felt his heart pounding in his chest. This was it, the monster from the woods was finally coming to get him. Goodbye Curry, goodbye Old Ben.

‟What in tarnation has got you all in a dither, you overgrown pony?” a high pitched, derisive voice asked from the shadows of the blob.

Jake’s fear vanished and he tossed his head in anger. *I ain’t no darn dang, pony!*

‟Then quit acting like one,” the figure said in a familiar voice as it stepped into a pool of moonlight. A huge red fluffy winter coat nearly dragged on the floor, its puffy folds hiding all hints as to what might be underneath it. An over-sized Stetson was shoved down on top of the mound, held firmly in place by a long scarf that disappeared under the collar of the coat. The two articles of clothing left only a small slit through which a pair of lively green eyes stared out at Jake.

‟I declare, how such a big fellow like you can be so skittish is beyond me,” the figure grumbled as it shoved the sleeves of its coat up past a pair of small work-roughened hands. It unwound the scarf from around its head and swept off the over-sized Stetson to reveal a mop of tangled reddish-blond hair that looked like birds should be nesting in it. The green eyes were bracketed by a tanned forehead, a snub of a nose and cheeks liberally sprinkled with freckles. A small scar marred the center of her forehead.

*Curry!* Jake neighed loudly as vision confirmed what sound had hinted at. He stepped forward to thrust his head out over the stall door. The flimsy wood bowed outward with a groan as he pressed his chest against it but this time he ignored the sound.

‟Course. Who else would I be but me?” Curry said, unzipping her over-sized coat and pulled it open with a sigh of relief. She’d felt like she was about to cook. Cool as it was outside, the coat had been a bit of overkill, meant for much colder conditions, and a much larger wearer. It had been a bit like wearing a portable tent.

Jake’s eyes widened this time in surprise rather than fear as he took in how his big sister was dressed. Was that a . . . Dress? And black tights with black flat-heeled shoes. What on earth?

‟You needn’t go looking at me like that,” Curry said, flapping the front of her coat to cool herself. ‟Tweren’t my idea to dress so foolish,” Curry said in a disgruntled voice. ‟Stupid busybody, going and packing away all my proper clothes like that,” she muttered.

Jake’s nostrils flared as Curry’s efforts to cool herself off sent a wave of overpowering floral scent wafting toward him. He snorted and leaned forward to get a good stiff. *Smells good.* he said, memories of spring fields filled with wildflowers popping into his mind.

‟Yeah, I know, I smell worse than a darn skunk,” Curry said, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

Curry could not remember a time when she did not ‘talk’ with Jake. She knew others thought she was just playing, like some fru fru girl with her dollies, but she knew better. Maybe Jake could not speak, but she knew him better than anyone. His every twitch and body movement spoke volumes to her, and it was natural for her to provide him with the words he couldn’t say himself. Like right now, when it was obvious he thought she reeked.

Now that Jake’s surprise was retreating, he remembered that he had been left all alone for ever so long. He pulled his head back inside the stall and turned slightly sideways as he adopted a nonchalant pose. He twisted his head away from Curry, apparently finding the side of his stall fascinating. Let her see what it felt like to be ignored.

Curry grinned as Jake pouted. She knew how to fix that. ‟Aww, now don’t be like that, Jake,” The ten-year-old crooned in a sweet voice that some boy at school had once called real nice, but only once. She’d taught him good. ‟Look what I brought you,” Curry added. She stuck a hand in one of the capacious pockets of her coat and held up a hand.

Jake twitched his head slightly. Just enough to look and see what Curry was offering. His eyes opened wide and he snorted in eagerness when he saw she was holding a large, juicy, crunchy, sweet, delicious, scrumptious, APPLE!

Jake’s pose of indifference vanishing quicker than the frightened mouse had. Curry was clearly very sorry for leaving him alone all this time. It would just be plain rude to not accept such an obvious, heartfelt, apology. Jake leaned out over his door and delicately lipped the smooth cool fruit out of Curry’s hand. Drawing the cool fruit between his teeth he crunched down with delight, savoring the texture and the cold sweet juice that filled his mouth as he pulped the crunchy apple between his massive teeth.

As Curry observed Jake’s pure childlike enjoyment of his treat the tightness in her chest eased slightly. She had missed the big lug so badly over the past week. If she’d been able to she would have dragged a sleeping bag out to the barn and bedded down in his stall. But, they wouldn’t hear of such a thing. There were lots of other things they wouldn’t hear of. Like Curry mucking out the barn, or wearing comfortable clothing and boots. Or skipping a bath when she really didn’t need one for at least two or three more days.

She had thought the neighborhood ladies were just being their usual prissy selves, at first, but then she’d overheard the conversation between them and old man Sedgwick. She turned her head and spat in a ritual manner from just thinking of the bane of her existence.

Curry had been sitting on her bed, trying once again to keep the tears from flowing. She had just come back from the funeral and this was the first time all day, heck, the first time since she had been called to the principal’s office a week before, that she had been both awake and more than a few steps away from an adult. A familiar and hated voice had roused her from her introspection, and she had crept out onto the landing that ran in front of all the rooms on the second floor. From that vantage point, she had peered over the railing into the common room that took up most of the first floor.

A gaggle of the good ladies from town, along with the bucking social worker who had been trying to take her away from Old Ben for the last six months were there. As was Old Man Sedgwick. Her arch enemy. He might have fooled Old Ben, but Curry knew he was pure evil. He’d do anything to get his hands on Jake. He was always telling Old Ben how Curry needed a properly sized pony instead of a great big lumbering lug like Jake. Sure, maybe it would have been nice to have a horse she could ride, she thought for a moment, and quickly dismissed the traitorous thought. Maybe Jake was too big for her to straddle, but he was far superior to those nasty tempered spoiled ponies at the boarding stables.

Mind you, it was old man Sedgwick who had taught her the words she used to get around Old Ben’s injunctions against swearing. That had saved her a few warm backsides. But, that was back before she caught on to his wicked nature.

She wondered what they were all doing here. She focused on listening as hard as she could as their words floated up to her.

‟For the last time, no, Mr. Sedgwick. It is out of the question.”

‟You don’t understand, Ms. Endora. You can’t expect Curry to stay put. There is no way in he . . . hay, you’re going to be able to keep her someplace she doesn’t want to be. She’ll be heading straight back to that horse of her’s the minute your back is turned.”

Curry startled. What was this about heading back to Jake? She wasn’t going to be leaving to be heading back.

Ms. Endora gave the old man a look, that if it had been on any other person would have given Curry great satisfaction. At last, someone else who understood what a stinker he was. Even the other ladies looked like they wanted to side with him against the social worker, but didn’t dare.

Being as how it was Ms. Endora, however, Curry was seriously conflicted. She had no more liking for the busy body than she had for Mr. Sedgwick. He might have been trying to get his hands on Jake. But, in a way, that was perfectly understandable. Jake was the best horse in the whole world. The social worker, on the other hand, had been trying to place Curry in a more suitable home. As if any other place could be better for her than right here. There was no rhyme or reason for it, other than being a nasty old busybody who couldn’t stand seeing a kid happy. Her next words pretty much confirmed that for Curry.

‟I assure you, we are well practiced in dealing with difficult children. Besides which, her trust fund gives us more leeway than is usual in these cases. She will be moving into her great-uncle’s home on the west coast. A governess has already been hired to look after her. Her living situation for the last nine years has been intolerable. I swear, the girl has the devil in her. A complete break from this life is for the best.”

The information that Old Ben had another house was news to her. As was the trust fund, whatever the heck that was. Far more critical, however, was the information that she was to be moved, taken away, and a long way away at that. She had just assumed without really thinking about it that she would stay at Old Ben’s place and her life would continue on just as it always had with the exception of Old Ben no longer being here. It had been bad enough losing the great-uncle she loved so dearly, to lose Jake as well. That was unthinkable.

With Curry, an action often came before good sense could hone in and quibble over her plans, and this case was no exception. She was going to see Jake, right now. Which sort of left her with a bit of a problem. She wasn’t really dressed proper, and her coat was hanging by the door not five feet from all the adults. To make matters worse, all her good clothing had been packed away, leaving her with nothing but a few useless going to church and special event outfits. Such as the one she was currently wearing. She solved this problem by snagging Old Ben’s winter coat from the back mud room, and as an afterthought his old, much loved, Stetson and scarf. Taking a half dozen fall apples from the bin by the door had been more reflex than a considered action.

Curry hadn’t thought about much beyond getting to Jake. But, on the quarter-mile walk up the mountainside to his barn she had time to think, a little. And by the time she reached him, she knew what she was going to do today. She and Jake were going to run away together.

*********************************

Bon Bon, Ponyville’s premier designer of picture-perfect confectioneries for the discriminating shopper, was feeling extremely pleased with herself, and life in general.

It had been a beautiful day outside and an even better one inside the candy shop. The weather had been just the sort to get ponies out of their homes and promenading around town. The sky had been blue with only a few nicely arranged decorative clouds hanging in the sky. The temperature had been in that comfortable range, not so hot as to make a pony sweaty, not so cool as to cause a pony’s flanks to shiver. The lush, green grass just invited picnic blankets and of course, if you were going to have a picnic with your special somepony sweets were a must. Bon Bon had enjoyed a steady flow of customers and had even received a few rave reviews over her latest experimental creations. Not always a given. And to top things off, just before closing time Pinkie Pie had shown up and given Bon Bon an order large enough for every pony in town, and then some, to enjoy several selections. Pinkie had been vague as the reason she needed such a large quantity, just that it was going to be the best party ever. But then again Pinkie said that about every party.

The party pony had been equally vague on time and date, just assuring Bon Bon that she knew the candy maker would have it done in time. Which was more than a little strange, as Bon Bon hadn’t actually given her an estimate on how long it would take. At least a week, as it turned out.

Bon Bon had started preparatory work on the order at once, in between serving the more regular customers. She’d made up a list of everything she would need. After closing up shop in the early afternoon when the crowds died down she spent the remainder of the very pleasant day running around town confirming supplies and putting in orders for all the various things that were not currently available. Pinkie had paid up front, so Bon Bon had no trouble ordering such large quantities of ingredients. She had returned home tired but content assured that everything she would require would be here within two days at the most.

With nothing more to do until she had the materials to start on Pinkie Pie’s order, Bon Bon was at loose ends. Knowing the non-stop labor that was coming she intended to take this precious free time to relax. Or, at least doing something that would put her in the proper frame of mind to make the most delightful candy possible. A slightly lecherous expression appeared on her face as she started to put up her special closed for the day sign(1).

‟Wait, wait, hold on,” a gasping voice cried out and Bon Bon looked out the door to see Derpy Hooves, the mailmare, making her usual erratic way through the air on a general heading for the candy shop. The light grey pegasus mare looked a bit the worse for wear, but that wasn’t unusual for her, just as getting the morning mail in the evening was not out of the ordinary for Ponyville. Normally, Bon Bon enjoyed that laid back attitude, so different from the high pressure go, go, go, attitude of Canterlot, at least on the part of those ponies who actually had to make a living there. At the moment, however, she was expecting a reply to a submission she’d made to her former employer, Black Knight Confectioners.

Bon Bon had served a five-year apprenticeship with Black Knight, and was currently a journeyman, striving to become a master. A month ago she had sent off her most recent attempt at a masterpiece and was waiting to hear back from them.(2) If it hadn’t been for Pinkie’s order and all her other customers keeping her so busy, she would have been walking the floor waiting for Derpy to show up or heading out into town to track the mailmare down.

Bon Bon opened her shop door wide and ducked to the side as Derpy came in for a landing in front of the store. The mailmare’s front legs crossed just as she touched down and she stumbled forward, and almost recovered, until her rear legs crossed as well. She pitched forward and from long practice tucked and rolled. The accident-prone pegasus somersaulted into the shop and rolled across the floor until she slammed up against the main display case. A platter of Bon Bon’s signature candy, arranged in a pyramid shape, jostled slightly. The round sweet on the very tip-top of the pile teetered back and forth and then rolled down the side of the display, bouncing as it went. It careened off the bottom row, skittered across the countertop, and dropped toward the floor, only to be intercepted by Derpy’s mouth as she snapped it up.

‟Mmmmm, good. Got your mail,” Derpy said in a muffled voice as she fumbled with her mailbag and produced a sheaf of letters, flyers, and one rolled up tabloid style newspaper. Bon Bon rolled her eyes at the sight of that, and wondered if she could arrange to lose it before–

‟Is the mail here?” Lyra Heartstrings; the love of Bon Bon’s life stuck her head out through the doorway connecting the shop with their living quarters. ‟Oh, yes,” she shouted out with glee, her horn glowing as she levitated the day’s mail out of Derby's hooves. In return, she horned Derpy a manilla envelope.

Derpy examined the envelope, ‟Another submission to the Enquirer?” she asked.

‟Yeah, got some great shots of those crop circles in Applejack’s oat field.” she enthused. ‟I’m sure this time they’ll print one.”

Lyra shuffled the papers she gotten from Derpy in front of her eyes. ‟Yes!” she hoof pumped as she separated out the tabloid from the rest of the mail. She then quickly sorted out the rest. Filing some on the counter, some in the trash, and handing some to Bon Bon. ‟Bill, bill, advertisement, Oh, give it a rest Mom, bill, flyer, oooh, a letter for you, and...” Lyra blinked and fell silent for a moment. ‟Why on earth is weird Uncle Storm Warning writing to me?”

Bon Bon had to fight down the urge to squeal with glee when she saw the distinctive logo of a Unicorn in full old-time black armor on the letter. She immediately began to rip it open but paused on hearing Lyra’s last comment.

‟You have an Uncle, you call weird?” Bon Bon asked, her mind reeling at the concept.

‟Oh, yeah. Uncle Storm Warning is totally nuts,” Lyra said, making the universal sign for crazy by spinning her hoof in a circle next to her temple while sitting casually in front of a tabloid opened to an article entitled I Had Big Hoof's Foal with various paragraphs highlighted, and photos of an Earth Pony attempting to bottle feed a colt twice her size.

‟He thinks that the Night Guards are conspiring to bring back Nightmare Moon. Or that’s what he used to always be ranting about. I haven’t heard from him since Nightmare Moon was defeated and Princess Luna was freed, so I don’t know what he believes now.”

‟Sounds like a real nut job,” Derpy said, giving a casual nudge to the display case in the hope of further candy avalanches.

Bon Bon reached over and nudged a candy that had fallen off the platter and onto the counter over the edge, which Derpy happily snagged. ‟Well, got to be going,” she mumbled through a mouthful of sticky caramel as she got back to her feet and headed for the door. Bon Bon locked it behind her and instantly ripped open the letter she was holding. Her look of anticipation shifted to disappointment as she read the very shaky writing inside

‟Dear Miss Bon Bon, we regret to inform you that our panels of experts do not feel your three beans, triple espresso, dark chocolate swirl, is suitable for inclusion in our All Equestria special sampler case.

You might consider marketing this to Cart Stops. It was the belief of our marketing department, once they stopped jittering, that it might do very well if targeted at the correct demographic, such as long-distance cart haulers.

We thank you for your consideration and hope you will try again.

Your sincerely, President Sweet Tooth,
Black Knight Confectioners.”

‟Darn it. I was sure that last batch was good enough,” Bon Bon groused, partially in frustration, and partially in the hope of a little physical sympathy from her loving spouse, but, when she looked over at her special somepony with an appropriate kicked puppy expression, Lyra had already vanished back into their living quarters. She gave a sigh and gathered up the mail and walked out of the shop and into their home.

The usual chaos reigned in what was Lyra and Bon Bon’s living room. Lyra had co-opted one entire wall and had covered it with various pictures and labels spider-webbed with threads showing cross-connections between various different ponies and situations. In addition, several bookcases were crammed with reference material while various unique ‘artifacts’ were scattered here and there.

Lyra was currently levitating the tabloid in front of her, turned to a particular article. She would peruse it for a few moments, and then shift a push pin and thread on her wall of evidence, all the while muttering to herself. ‟Of course. Why didn’t I notice that? This makes much more sense,” and various other comments.

Bon Bon heaved another deep sigh. It looked like there wasn’t much hope for some early evening delight. Her expression turned more hopeful as she remembered previous episodes like this one, and how energized Lyra had been afterward.

Knowing her heart’s delight was off visiting strange realms for at least the next hour or so, Bon Bon checked out the mail. Sure enough, just as Lyra’s earlier remark had indicated, there was yet another package from the unicorn’s mother, addressed to Lyra and Bon Bon Heartstrings. Bon Bon felt a bit of relief that Cello was once again placing her name on her messages(3)

Bon Bon didn’t really blame Lyra’s mother for being more than a touch upset with her. Cello had allowed her beloved daughter to marry a common earth pony in large part because Bon Bon was at the time the premier apprentice at the most prestigious candy manufacture in all of Equestria. She had not taken it well when Bon Bon had taken her journeyman papers and set up shop out in the backside of nowhere in some no-name hole in the road.

As the letter in her hooves was addressed to both Lyra and her, Bon Bon felt no hesitation in opening it, even though she already had a pretty good idea of the contents. Sure enough, there were a half a dozen eight by ten glossies inside of suitably eligible stallions, complete with a complete synopsis of their bloodlines. And not one word about what these particular stallions did for a living. Though looking through the collection of chinless wonders Bon Bon had a pretty good idea that it involved living off a trust fund while congregating with their peers at the Stallion Club and congratulating themselves on how important they were.

It wasn’t that Lyra and Bon Bon were not interested in finding a suitable coltfriend someday. They had discussed it at length, with various degrees of seriousness, depending on the level of hard cider in their respective bloodstreams. In general, they were not that particular. He just had to be somepony they both could love. Bloodlines and family fortune did not feature high, or at all really, on their list of admirable qualities.

Bon Bon set the letter and its contents aside for Lyra to check out later. Lyra always had a great deal of fun dreaming up personalities and behavior for the various stallions Cello brought to their attention. They were frequently hilarious, always scurrilous.

That left Bon Bon one last letter the one from Lyra’s weird Uncle Storm Warning. The mind-boggling implications of Lyra considering somepony weird made it very difficult to resist opening, but her name was not on this letter, and while Lyra would not have objected, Bon Bon was very careful about not stepping over certain boundaries. One of those was that she did not open Lyra’s personal mail unless asked to.

‟Go ahead, take a look,” Lyra said from where she was focussing on her periodical while circling several sections with a highlighter, proving that she was not as oblivious to her surroundings as it might have seen.

Given permission, Bon Bon ripped open the letter and scanned the sheaf of paper inside. It only took a few paragraphs for her to realize that Lyra had if anything understated the situation. The man was a total lunatic. He was obsessed with Princess Luna. He was sure that the princess was lulling her gullible sister into complacency in preparation for murdering Celestia in her sleep while her demonic minions, the night guard, would descend on the aristocratic houses in the dead of night to remove any potential resistance to her taking over the country.

Oh, it was not set out so blatantly as all that. No doubt Storm Warning felt he was being very circumspect in his ranting, but Bon Bon had been immersed in conspiracy speak from the first day she’d met Lyra in a cute little coffee house next door to her place of work. She was by now perfectly fluent in it. Proving true the old adage that to truly learn a language you must sleep with a native speaker.

‟So, what does my weird uncle want?” Lyra asked, mumbling around the marker in her mouth, her meager telekinetic abilities maxed out due to the numerous pins and threads she was juggling.

‟As near as I can figure he wishes you to subtly warn the Elements of Harmony about Princess Luna’s dastardly plot and have them prepared to take unilateral action before things go too far. Apparently, he was very impressed with how Twilight stood up to the entire court during the Changeling crisis. He feels, however, that she only succeeded in exposing the puppets and not the puppeteer.”

‟That would be Princess Luna, I assume?”

‟Got it in one,” Bon Bon said. ‟So, what are you going to tell him?”

‟Yes!” Lyra shouted out.

‟What? Are you nuts? You can’t. . .” Bon Bon trailed off as she watched her marefriend bounce around the room in a manner that would have made Pinkie Pie envious, all the while shouting out, ‟Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Correctly deducing that they were no longer talking about Lyra’s weird uncle, Bon Bon filled that missive in the correct receptacle. (4)

A moment later she was enveloped in a rib-cracking hug and received a kiss that caused her knees to go rubbery. Lyra broke her lip lock long enough to hold Bon Bon’s head between her two front hooves while grinning like a maniac from just a few inches away. ‟The Humans are coming back!” she declared confidently. ‟Luna’s essence in the moon blocked the moon path. Tonight is the first proper stellar configuration since she was freed. Just think, somewhere in Equestria tonight a Human will step onto our soil for the first time in a thousand--” Lyra was cut off as Bon Bon, feeling she had done her duty for as long as was needed when it came to humoring her marefriend, wrapped her front legs around Lyra’s neck and pulled her into a passionate kiss.

The pale green Unicorn struggled for a moment, and then let out a low moan as she and Bon Bon settled down onto the soft rug.

*********************************

Curry sneezed, wiped her nose on her arm and then drew her hands up into her sleeves and crossed her arms over her chest to keep out the cold. The temperature had dropped several degrees since she and Jake had left the barn. She drew the old horse blanket up over her shoulders and hunched over to conserve as much warmth as possible.

She was currently sitting in Jake’s training sledge. Unlike the work sledge that they used to haul timber, firewood, or rock, this was a lightly built device that had been used to teach Jake the various commands and techniques required for hauling heavy loads. It only weighed a couple of hundred pounds and Jake likely barely even noticed it as he trudged up the mountain, taking the familiar route to Old Ben’s logging camp. They had been on the trail for nearly an hour now, and they had at least another hour before they would reach the old cabin that was her goal. She could hardly wait to build a roaring fire and heat up some powdered soup to warm up her chilled bones.

Curry hunched over even further, pulling the blanket right over her head. She was exhausted. The mental and physical stress of the last few days had left her with no reserves at all. Despite the cold, she nodded off and was soon fast asleep. Which was why she missed seeing the first of many snowflakes that started to flutter down out of the night sky around her and Jake.

Jake trudged along, his head drooping. It was way past his bedtime, he thought in disgruntlement. Why had Curry insisted on setting out now, instead of first thing in the morning like usual? Everything was messed up. Jake had been upset for days, wondering where Curry and Old Ben had gotten too. He was used to his usual routine. During the week Curry would visit him in the morning, feed and water him, and then disappear. She’d come back in the evening, spend an hour or so, and then leave again. Old Ben would pop in now and then over the course of the day. On the weekends, however. Curry and Old Ben would show up first thing in the morning and they’d head out on this path. He would get to spend two whole days playing with Curry before they had to come back. Always before he’d gone up the path eagerly, and come back down regretfully. But it was all different now. Something was the matter with Curry. She didn’t seem happy. There was a tension about her that disturbed him, and he didn’t know why. He might have spent more time fretting if he hadn’t been so tired. He focused on putting one dinner plate sized foot in front of the other and looking forward to getting up to the lumber camp and his nice snug stall.

Jake was pretty much on auto-pilot when he came to a large fork in the trail, a small tree had fallen over the well-trod path on the right causing him to veer up the left-hand side. Instead of heading for the lumber camp he began moving deeper and higher into the mountains. The area he was heading into had been posted as private property and no trespassing for longer than anyone could remember. Nothing came this way but the deer that had made the trail he was following.

Old Ben had pointed out the fork to Curry and told her that there wasn’t anything but swamp and bugs up there. Curry, who hated black flies and mosquitoes with a passion, had never been tempted to explore up it, despite her incurable urge to ramble over every bit of land within walking distance of her home.

As Jake and Curry disappeared into the heavy overgrowth the snow began to fall heavier and heavier, erasing all sign of their passage.

**********************************************

‟Sheriff! I want to talk to you.”

Sheriff Griffith looked up and gave a sigh of resignation as Joe Sedgwick all but stormed into his office. He knew what this was about, and what he could do about it, which was nothing. Still, he put on an expression of polite attention and waited for Joe to make his case.

‟There has to be something you can do about the situation with Curry. You know darn well that Ben appointed me her guardian in his will. How can that woman just override a dead man’s last request?”

The sheriff let out a sigh. ‟Joe, you know that she’s been trying to get Curry away from Ben for the last six months. It started back when he told her to stick it where the sun don't shine when she came out to evaluate Curry’s home life after the girl gave Matt Colson’s boy a black eye for trying to kiss her, and hasn’t stopped since. Face it. There is no way that the courts are going to let a ten-year-old girl go live with a sixty-year-old lifetime bachelor. It just ain’t going to happen, not even if Endora was to vanish right off the planet. And your teasing Curry for the past two years by trying to talk Ben into trading Jake for something much more suitable for a little girl, like a pony, likely didn’t help matters either. The girl thinks you’re a villain straight out of a Disney TV show.”

Joe opened his mouth to argue and was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

‟Hold that thought,” the sheriff said holding up a finger while picking up the phone. The sheriff’s lethargic pose disappeared as he sat up straight in his chair, a look of deep concern on his face. ‟How long ago? That’s not very helpful, can’t you narrow it down? Is the horse still in the barn? Well, send someone to check and call me back.”

The sheriff hung up and turned to Joe. ‟Curry’s gone. They don’t know when. Sometime between getting home from the funeral and a half hour ago, which was when they noticed she wasn’t in the house anymore."

Joe chuckled. ‟I told that woman the kid wouldn’t go quietly.”

‟This is no laughing matter, Joe,” the sheriff snapped. ‟Haven’t you been listening to the weather reports? There is a major fall storm closing in on us. At the elevation around Ben’s house, they’re predicting anywhere from two to five feet of snow in the next forty-eight hours. If she’s done a runner with Jake, we only have a short time to find them. Cross your fingers she only just snuck out to the barn to be with Jake. Because, if she’s already gotten up into those mountains it could be bad.”

‟The lumber camp,” Joe interjected, the humor disappearing from his face and voice. At the Sheriff’s look, he added. ‟Ben had a brush lot higher up on the mountain where he cut his firewood. He’s been taking Curry and Jake up there for the last two years so Curry could learn how to train Jake on a weight sledge. It was all she could talk about. She was planning on winning first prize at the fall fair next year and rubbing my face in the dirt. There is a snug cabin and a stall for Jake. Ben kept it stocked with emergency rations and fodder. If she’s a runaway, that’s where she’s gone.”

‟Sounds good. If she’s run off with her horse.” Just then the phone rang, and the sheriff snatched it up. ‟Yes. Good. We think we know where she’s gone. Stay put, we’ll be there in the next few minutes.”

Hanging up the phone, the sheriff strode across the floor, snatching his winter coat from the rack beside the door as he did so. ‟Come on. The horse is gone. We’ll use the search and rescue ATVs. You know the way, I assume?”

‟Sure do. Let’s go retrieve them before that dang fool girl gets them both killed.”

Less than three-quarters of an hour later two ATVs pulled to a halt in front of a dark cabin high up in the mountains. Snow swirled around them cutting visibility to less than twenty feet. Only the blazes Ben had cut on the trees lining the path along with assorted coffee can lids nailed at potential forks had let Joe make it.

Joe dismounted with a creak of his old bones, staring with dismay at the cabin which showed no sign of life.

‟Maybe she doused the lanterns?” the sheriff suggested.

Joe shook his head, a bleak look on his face. He gave a sniff. ‟Even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to do anything about the wood smoke. Cold as it is the first thing she would have done would have been to start a fire. I can’t smell anything. Besides, she wouldn’t have time to hide Jake,” he added, nodding toward the stall built against the leeward side of the cabin. The door was partly open, giving a view into the interior. Not even a pony could have concealed themselves from sight, let alone a brute like Jake. Besides, if the friendly horse had been about and loose he’d have been over to say hello by now and hopefully cage a few free apples.

His stomach tied in knots, Joe turned to stare out into the swirling mass of snow. Even as he watched, visibility decreased. He looked over at the sheriff. Already a good inch of snow had accumulated on his Stetson hat even though he’d only been standing still for less than a minute. Joe knew it was only the start. Up this high in the mountains, by the time this blew itself out, there could be as much as ten feet of snow on the ground. Despite that, he was ready to head out into the storm to look for Curry and Jake.

‟Maybe they took a wrong turn? They would have heard our ATVs, that could bring them back to the trail?” the sheriff said, his tone saying he didn’t really believe his own words.

‟If she didn’t head in the opposite direction,” Joe said bleakly. He started to walk toward his vehicle, determined to find the girl.

The sheriff caught his arm. ‟It’s no good, Joe. We’re better off lighting a fire and hoping the smell of smoke will guide her in. If it doesn’t. There are lots of pine to shelter under. Even a few spruce groves. Jake is a big horse, he’ll offer shelter and warmth all by himself. Ben taught Curry basic woodcraft. We have to hope he taught her enough."

Joe was about to shake off the sheriff’s grip when the moon suddenly lit up the clearing. He looked at it in shock. There was no way it should have been visible, but that was not the only thing. The moon wasn’t in the right spot, and the Sheriff didn’t seem to have noticed it. He stared blankly at the perfect disk, his mind flying back more than sixty years.

The strange moon was only there for a moment before it faded away. Joe remained frozen in place, his eyes fixed on the spot where the out-of-place moon had shone. In his mind’s eye, he was seeing the same moon, only with the outline of a unicorn’s head visible if you looked at it just right. An outline that hadn’t been there this time. It had been years since he’d last seen it during his induction as a youth into the Order of the Knights of Equestria.

The sheriff twisted around, following Joe’s gaze. ‟What. You see something?”

Joe slowly shook his head, still staring. ‟No. Nothing. You’re right, sheriff. Best thing is to get ourselves under shelter and build a fire.” Joe turned toward the cabin, the knot in his stomach unraveling. It seemed like a miracle. He was the last of the order. The last bearer of their sacred duty. And in the end, after all his failed attempts, it looked like their master’s child was returning home with no help at all from him.

*****************************************

Unlike humans, deer were far more interested in taking the easy path than getting from point A to point B quickly. As a result, Jake’s path was anything but straight. It followed the hollows between the hills, twisting around trees and rocks. Only two years of training and practice kept the sledge with the sleeping Curry on it from tangling in the underbrush.

On the plus side, the trail was mostly sheltered by overhanging branches and steep valley walls. While the snow grew deeper and deeper around Jake’s legs it did not begin to match the amount accumulating in the clearings they bypassed on their trek. His powerful muscles made short work of the deepening fluff and if anything the sledge Curry was dozing on became easier to drag as its runners slipped smoothly over the freshly fallen snow.

Jake’s eyes drooped and he focussed all his efforts on putting one leg in front of another. One step became ten became a hundred, then a thousand. Higher and deeper into the mountains they pushed until at last he broke through the tree line and after pushing through a drift of snow that was over six feet in depth walked out onto a barren windswept slope. In front of Jake’s weary eyes, a full moon gleamed. A path of soft white light ran from his feet to the gleaming globe and Jake wearily stumbled onto it. His eyes grew more and more tired until he could barely keep his eyes open. Jake and the sledge behind him began to glow softly. Only that white path existed and he walked along it mechanically, not even pausing when the rock under his feet disappeared and he stepped out onto what seemed to be clouds.

Jake walked straight toward the moon floating in front of him which swelled ever bigger and bigger till it filled his entire vision and he walked into it. The glow around Jake and Curry merged with that of the moon until they became one, and then slowly dimmed into nothingness. All that was left was the windblown snow dancing in the air, the flakes glimmering until they too lost their glow and all was dark and still except for the sound of the endless wind.

********************************************

Luna, Princess of the Night, Mistress of the Moon and Stars, and Diarch of Equestria, was feeling a touch smug. Tonight’s efforts had been particularly fine, in her honest, unbiased, opinion. The Raising had been smooth as silk, her moon gleamed, a full bright disk shedding moon glimmer over the land while all around it twinkling stars added just the right amount of extra sparkle to the setting. She knew all this because she’d had an audience to this raising who could truly appreciate all the extra little magical touches that went into making a simple moon raising an art form. And who unlike most ponies, did not see her only as one of Equestria’s two rulers, or worse, the monster of the night.

Luna was just turning away to go about the evening’s duty when something made her turn around. A soft white glimmer surrounded her horn and she felt her eyes being drawn to the moon high overhead. She blinked, and for just a second the moon seemed to swell to twice it’s typical size, and then retreated back to its more normal dimensions. Seconds later a wave of magical energy buffeted Luna, causing the glimmer around her horn to flare bright enough to temporary destroy her night vision. She blinked tears from her eyes as her mind boggled at what had just happened. ‟It is not possible. After all these years. Celestia must be told! This could change everything!”

*************************************

Twilight Sparkle had always loved the early evening. Before coming to Ponyville she’d often found herself high up in the observatory tower in Canterlot immersed in the beauty of the night. Below her vantage point, the day-loving ponies would be retiring for the evening, and the Nocturne guards that patrolled the palace would slip unnoticed into their sentry positions, their dark grey hides concealing them in the shadows. It had been easy back then to think that she had the night all to herself, just her and the heavenly bodies over her head.

That was no longer the case, she knew she shared the night sky with at least one other pony now. But rather than diminishing her pleasure, it increased it. She might have been miles from Canterlot, but it was easy to close her eyes and imagine Luna standing next to her, gazing up at the sky she commanded.

During a normal evening of stargazing Twilight would have her eye glued to her telescope while sipping hot cocoa, a cozy blanket draped over her shoulders.

She had the cocoa and blanket this night, but she had decided to try a different way of observing the stars this evening. One she’d only taken after getting permission from Princess Luna to attempt. She’d closed her eyes, and reached out with her magic, feeling for the moon and the stars, and maybe for the feel of Luna’s magic as she manipulated those objects. And she’d done it. She’d felt Luna, felt the flow of the Night Alicorn’s magic as she performed her sacred duty. It had been awe-inspiring. Even now, with Luna going on about her normal night’s business, Twilight kept her magical senses extended to savor the last lingering flow of magic around the moon and stars.

In her half-somnolent state Twilight was taken completely utterly by surprised when a sudden blast of energy rocked her off her stool and onto her backside while leaving her mane looking like Rainbow Dash had just nailed her with a mini-lightning bolt.

‟What the hay was that?” Twilight cried out. She stared wide-eyed up at the sky from her position on her back for a long moment, before scrambling to her feet. ‟Luna,” she cried out in shock, fear for her friend in her voice. For a moment, she didn’t know what to do. Luna was so far away, it could take hours to get to her, and Twilight didn’t even know if this had anything to do with her. ‟I have to ask Princess Celestia about this.”

Twilight scrambled to her feet and rushed inside while calling out, ‟Spike! Spike, get up. We need to send a letter. Right now.”

*************************************

(1)A welcome to Ponyville present from Pinkie to her and Lyra that read. ‟If this shack is rocking, don’t come knocking,” Which drew amused laughs and comments about newlyweds from the adults. Various foals had staked out the shop for a while in the hope of seeing it rocking but had been disappointed when it showed no sign at all of shifting on its foundation. Though there were some suitably spooky sounds that emerged from time to time.

(2) Ponies take their sweets seriously. The founder of Black Knight had received his Knighthood when his Dark Night truffle cream swirl received credit for mellowing out a peace conference to the point where they signed a treaty that actually worked well for all parties while in a haze of flavor bliss overload.

(3)After Lyra returned half a dozen letters unopened with, ‟No such Recipient” scrawled across the front.

(4) The one for burnable material. It was far too toxic to put in the compost heap.

Author's Notes:

Welcome to my story. Not wanting to post one chapter and then find myself blocked and not producing anymore material. I've made sure I have a large amount of work prepared before submitting this first chapter. At least enough to provide a good read if no where near finished. This story is slice of life. I really have no big conclusion in mind. It will just continue for as long as I'm inspired to work on it.

For those fans of Bon Bon and Lyra, they will be featured as a side plot in this story but after this chapter it will be quite sometime before they get more screen time. Which is why I did not use their character icon.

No other human besides Curry will appear in the story after this chapter. All the humans in this chapter were just to supply a little context and a bit of a mystery.

Ch2 Alicorn Alarm [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Ch2
Alicorn Alarm

*************************

Cockatrices are not pleasant creatures. Possibly due to the circumstances of their birth. An egg laid by a rooster, on a dung heap, hatched by a toad. With a childhood like that who wouldn’t end up a bit twisted? Whatever the reason, every single one of the chicken/lizards was just plain nasty. They didn’t like anyone. They most certainly did not tolerate rivals. The only good thing that might be said about them was that they also hated their own kind. Only the nastiest and strongest survived, all others either fled or got stoned in a stare down.

As a result, the Everfree Cockatrice was the only one of its kind in the forest. For years it had reveled in the fact that while it was one of the smallest monsters in the forest, all other beasts, no matter how large, gave way before it. They all, without fail, lowered their eyes to the ground and stepped aside whenever they encountered it. The forest was littered with the stone remains of the ones foolish enough to not give it the respect it deserved.

That had been then. This was now. Everywhere it went the beasts still stepped aside, but behind its back, it could hear their snickers. They wounded its pride and caused a raging fire of anger to ignite in its lizard belly.

The mighty Everfree Cockatrice outstared by a pony. Oh, the indignity. It longed for nothing more than to gain revenge on the filly who had shamed it in front of the entire forest. But if its humiliation caused it to burn for revenge, the thought of facing off against that pale yellow pegasus soon cooled that emotion. It still woke in the middle of the day, cold with sweat, seeing those eyes, those terrible, terrible eyes. The mere sound of a pony’s hooves clopping on stone was enough to send it scrambling for the underbrush.

It tried to salve its pride by stoning any monster it could catch unaware. Before it had been content merely to see them turn their eyes aside. Now it did everything in its power to force the creature to meet its deadly gaze. Where before it had snaked through the underbrush, sneaking up on unwary travelers, now it marched straight down the trails it traveled, daring anyone to get in its way. It had even gone so far as the claim the old royal palace as its personal roost. Not that it could actually enter the building. But it could stake out the portion of the forest the castle stood on and as far as it was concerned it was the same as being in control of the old palace.

In doing so, it was pretty much declaring itself ruler of the Everfree forest. It was about to find out that the forest did not take kindly to would-be rulers, and that its sense of humor was of the low variety.

The Cockatrice was on the fringes of the old palace strutting down the cracked surface of the old royal highway when a bright light in front of it caused it to blink and turn away from the glow for a moment. It squinted as it twisted its head to the side, trying to get a look at what was happening. The light grew brighter and brighter until it was forced to close its tear flooded eyes. The light grew still brighter till the Cockatrice could see the red veins running through its eyelids. Magical energy started to resonate through its body and it could feel the ground itself trembling.

Just when it thought that the end was here, the entire world seemed to take a breath and go utterly still. Tentatively the Cockatrice removed the wing it had been using to shelter its eyes and blinked to clear the tears away. It took an involuntary step back as a huge dark shadow came into focus, startling it. As the shape stepped forward it resolved into the form of a pony. A very large, very black, pony, but a pony nonetheless. Angered at once again flinching in the face of something that should be its proper prey, it forgot its newly learned fear and set itself in the middle of the road as it glared with burning red eyes at the oversized lummox of a pony. There was going to be a new ornament decorating its palace this night.

Only, the pony kept coming, getting bigger and bigger with each step. The Cockatrice craned its head back to maintain eye contact, and at the last moment, realized with a thrill of terror that the brute had its eyes closed. Before it could escape the oncoming avalanche of equine flesh, a hoof bigger than its entire upper body swung forward and sent the chicken/lizard sprawling across the cracked paving stones.

‟Bwakkkkkkk!” The cockatrice cried out in dismay, rolling this way and that to avoid the thumping hooves that stamped the road all around it. Its tail was flattened, one toe got smashed, it was sent tumbling again and again as the pony kicked it further and further down the road. But, finally, it escaped as the beast passed over it and it heaved a weak sigh of relief. It started to get back onto its wobbly legs when a hissing sound caused it to turn around. Its eyes just had time to go very wide when the steel-clad runner on the sledge being dragged by the pony ran over it. The Cockatrice gave a despairing ‟Bywakkkuhhhhhhhh,” as it was rolled over and over under the heavyweight until at last the runner passed all the way over it and left it lying in the middle of the road, battered and bruised. Slowly it crawled into the underbrush, the snickers from the shadows burning into its very soul.

‟Huh, what,” Jake muttered, his eyes flickering open. He blinked as he looked around himself. His eyes grew wide and he looked up, and up, and up, at the massive edifice of stone rearing out of the ground just a few feet in front of him. ‟Wow, that sure is a big barn, Curry,” he muttered. He looked back over his shoulder at the snow-covered lump resting on the sledge. ‟Curry?” he queried. He backed up a step and lightly kicked the front of one of the runner, causing the sledge to bounce slightly and a pile of snow to fall off onto the bare ground. A muffled groan came from under the white mound and a second later it slid to the side as his best friend in the whole world lifted up the blanket she had been resting under.

Curry ached all over and she let out a hiss of distress as she slowly worked her way off the sledge. Based on what she was feeling Jake must have hit every rock and stump between the barn and the lumber camp. Curry blinked and held up a shading hand as her dark acclimatized eyes watered in the bright light of a full moon floating overhead. After the light, the first thing she was aware of was a warm breeze playing over her face. The second was the sensation of icy cold as a clump of snow fell down the back collar of her coat.

‟Ahhhh, cold, cold, cold,” Curry shouted, jumping out of the sledge and pulling off her over-sized coat. Dropping the snow heavy garment onto the sledge she grabbed the back of her dress top and pulled it away from the small of her back. She gave herself a hard shake to get rid of the melting clod of frozen water nestling against the small of her back. Only when Curry had ditched the chilly stowaway did she start to pay attention to her surroundings. As always, her first thought was for Jake, and she looked toward him to find him staring back at her impatiently. There was something funny about the way he looked, but it was hard to see even with the moonlight being as bright as it was. His black hide seemed to flicker in and out of visibility in the dark and it was difficult to focus. Before she could explore this curiosity she became aware of what was behind Jake. Mimicking Jake's earlier reaction her eyes widened as her head tilted back, and then further back, till she threatened to fall over backward on her rear as she stared nearly straight upwards.

‟What the buck,” she exclaimed as she stared at what had to be the ruins of a castle in front of her. ‟No way,” she exclaimed in amazement. ‟That is so cool. Old Ben never said anything about this.”

‟Curry. I need to go,” Jake said, his voice sounding slightly strained.

Curry didn’t take her eyes off the castle. She just waved her hand in the general direction of some bushes and said, ‟Go ahead. Don’t look like there is anyone around to yell at us.

Curry dropped her gaze and stared first one way and then the other. The huge stone building extended for yards and yards in either direction. ‟This is way better than some old log cabin. Should be ok. Don’t look like nobody been here for a...”

‟Hurry up, Curry,” Jake whined in a deep voice, but with a decided childish undertone. ‟Unhook me.”

‟Huh? What?” Curry pulled her attention away from the ruins of the fairytale castle in front of her and looked over at Jake, who was doing what looked an awful lot like a four-legged potty dance. His harness jangled with his motion. ‟Oh, ok. Just hold on.” She moved over to him and began undoing the catches and latches that held all the various straps wrapped around his body. She was too small to throw the whole thing on Jake in one piece so when she’d put it on him she had to disassemble it down to the basic and then harness him up one bit at a time. Taking it off was a lot easier. She undid a few critical catches, gave a yank, and it slid off him to pile onto the ground beside him. He lifted up his own hoof and shoved the horse collar around his neck off. Unencumbered he headed for the bushes at an urgent trot.

Curry watched him go with amused affection for a moment, and then her eyes suddenly squinted in puzzlement. ‟Wait a moment,” she said. ‟Did Jake . . . nah, I’m imagining things." Still. She looked over to where Jake was looking for a good opening in the bushes. Hesitantly she approached her best friend as he finally gave up on finding an opening and forced his way through the bushes. She followed right behind him, letting him break trail for her. Jake looked over his shoulder at her, with what was a very obvious expression of dismay. ‟Jake, did you,” Curry started to ask in a hesitant voice, only to be interrupted.

‟Curry. I need to go. Right now,” Jake whined. His rear legs shifted and this time there was no doubt at all. He had talked, and he was doing the potty dance.

‟Not possible,” Curry told herself out loud. She reached out to touch Jake, surely this must be a dream. But before she could he shifted around, lifted a foreleg, and gently pushed her back through the bushes. ‟Sorry, sorry. Only. I really, really, need to go, Curry,” Jake said in a very apologetic voice. With maybe a hint of annoyance at Curry’s willful disregard for a colt’s need for privacy. This wasn’t part of the current strangeness, as it happened. Back when Jake was still only half grown Curry had found the sight of him taking care of business a bit daunting. She had not only barn trained him but had worked to instill the importance of doing such things out of the sight of delicate young girls who would whomp him good if he forgot.

Jake’s upper body was still visible, but he was concealed from the chest down. He clearly felt that in the circumstances that was good enough. His body shifted slightly and there was a huge gushing splashing sound as he emptied his too full bladder. A few seconds into the deluge there was a sudden commotion at the bottom of the bushes and a very wet chicken dashed out and dove into the bushes on the other side of the path. Sort of.

Curry blinked. She hadn’t gotten a very good look, but she could swear she’d just seen a snake with a half-swallowed chicken in its mouth. Wow, that wasn’t something she wanted to meet. She looked around quickly to see if there were any more chicken eating snakes in the area. Ones without a chicken to fill their bellies and looking for something else to do the job. Like say a helpless little girl?

The lost young girl sat down on the edge of the sledge. Her mind churned as she tried to absorb everything. A strange ruined castle, Jake talking, looking strange, and now chicken snatching snakes. There was only one possible conclusion.
Either she was having one of the weirdest dreams ever, or. . .

"This is the coolest place, ever!"

************************************

Princess Celestia, the penultimate ruler of Equestria, the epitome of grace and power, the pony that all other ponies looked at as the best of the best, walked out of her bathroom dressed in a ratty old bathrobe with her mane done up in bright pink rollers decorated with balloon and candy patterns. The first was a treasured Hearth’s Warming Eve present from her, then, ten-year-old student. The second, a more recent gift from one of her student’s new friends. Both were highly valued for their example of function over form. Bathrobes were supposed to be comfy, and curlers practical. For some reason the more powerful you were, the less acceptable it was to dress in a purely practical manner. Heaven help Equestria if she were to appear in public in an outfit that was more than a month old. The economy was likely to crash as Stall Street brokers jumped to the conclusion that the government was running out of money.

Celestia’s current wardrobe was a direct if unintended consequence of, her sister Luna’s return. Being able to hand over responsibility for Equestria during the night time had left Celestia with a luxury she had not experienced for a thousand years, uninterrupted leisure time.

Oh, there were still those courtiers who tried to bypass Luna and come straight to her with their petty problems. Partially because they did not deal well with change, partly because Luna lacked her sister’s diplomatic sensibilities but mostly they were a little afraid of what Luna might actually do. Luna, while a very different pony from Nightmare Moon, was still a product of the world of a thousand years ago. She tended to take the straightest line approach in regards to conflict resolution.

Luna had actually solved one of the problems brought before her. The said solution had, among other things, involved shutting down a five-hundred-year-old government department, that did not seem to actually do anything, and throwing numerous well-connected ponies out of work.

It had taken Celestia every bit of her own hard-won experience to keep from laughing out loud when she had been apprised of the situation. But, tempting as it was to leave matters as they were she had reinstated the department. They had been an important bulwark against the machinations of at least five other departments. The chaos that would have resulted by the realignment of various alliances would have disrupted the work of the ponies who actually got things done for months if not years. Entertaining as that could have been, the consequences to her little ponies would have been dire. Celestia had, however, taken the chance to winnow out some of the more annoying ministers, granting them early retirement. It had been fun coming up with ways of kicking their plots out the door that left them having to actually thank her for her generosity in allowing them more time to spend with their hobbies and families.

Celestia was sure it was only a coincidence that there had been a short-lived spike in divorce rates right after that.

Afterward, Celestia sat down with Luna and explained how important it was that a balance is maintained between the various government agencies. Both so that none of them gained too much influence, and that their internal machinations kept them out of the manes of the ponies that actually ran the country. Celestia had long ago calculated the expense of this practice as compared to throwing the lot of them out into the street. She had concluded that the expense of their fancy offices and well-catered lifestyle was far less than the damage they could cause if she lost her grip on their reins and they were allowed to run loose in the wild, so to speak.

Still, the expression on their faces when they had to come top hat in hoof and beg that she overturn Luna’s decision had made all the extra work of reinstating their department worth it. It still gave her a warm fuzzy glow on cold nights like this one.

Luna had promised to consult with her sister before taking such unilateral action again, but Celestia had in return given her permission that Luna was free to channel a bit of Nightmare Moon when the occasion demanded it. She’d become particularly good at it after participating in Ponyville’s Nightmare Night celebration. Celestial was particularly impressed with the fake fangs and wished she didn’t have to project a gravitas that made such a display impossible for her.

An unexpected, but a pleasant, side effect of all this was that many of the officials went out of their way not to have to deal with Luna, even if it meant actually solving their problems themselves.

As for those few who still didn’t seem to understand the new situation. Well, Celestia’s guards had gotten very good at vetting those petitioners who still insisted that only Celestia, and only now, would do for their particular problems. The number who made it through them had in recent times been reduced to, none. Which was why she felt perfectly free to indulge herself in very un-princess-like attire. And to partake of the ultimate forbidden act: Eating cookie dough ice cream straight out of the container while reading an improbable, steamy, romance novel.

*******************

To many of the ponies of Equestria, the Nocturne Pegasi were the terrors that flap in the night. Those huge glowing golden eyes, the dark grey hide, and worst of all, the membranous dragon-like wings they possessed instead of good honest feathers. Many a fair mare had fainted at the mere sight of one of these fearsome creatures. What then, could frighten such a monster? Many things, for despite their appearance, they were much like their fellow ponies. They loved, they cried, they drank too much while visiting the in-laws over the holidays.

Many of them, however, served in the Royal Guard, Night Division, and this opened them up to things that normal ponies could not dream of in their worst nightmares. Case in point, a young Nocturne by the name of Pumpernickel Rye who had recently been both promoted and married. Terrifying indeed to a self-effacing sort like him. But he had not even started to plumb the depths of horror his new life supplied.

Absolute terror was not something one usually associated with undergoing instruction in the fine art of diplomacy. On the one hoof, most students of the art would not expect to be quizzed by Princess Luna personally during each lesson on the fine differences between the flanks of various court attendees, up to and including the Princess herself. On the other hoof, most students of diplomacy were not expected to answer these delicate questions while in the company of their own wife, who just happened to be the Hoofservant of Princess Luna, and who paid great attention to the hapless stallion's lessons for later review, in a location free from royal interference.

That was the sort of thing that could cause you to wake up screaming in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.

So, it was not so strange that Pumpernickel, a Nocturne Night Guard, felt a great deal of happiness to be standing a nice, quiet guard shift ‘outside’ of the princess’s chamber for a change, ‘playing statue’ as more than a few civilians had been overheard stating.

While the Royal Guard took great pride in the stoicism with which they performed their duties. To dismiss them as simply living ornaments was seriously underestimating them. A civilian hired security guard could possibly get by with sleeping on their hooves at work, but any Royal Guard Cadet who was foolish enough to try such a stunt was very soon disabused of the notion or was quickly shown the door. Generations of crusty sergeants had passed down soft and gentle reminders to generations of delicate Cadets that they were there to guard, not to catch up on badly needed beauty sleep. Normally this gentle inspiration was passed on at a volume sufficient to preclude the lecture from being held in an area where breakable glass was present, or where young mares below a certain age might learn unwelcome additions to their vocabulary.

This entailed, as the sergeant would go on to explain in great detail, being constantly aware of their surroundings, and ready to act at a moment’s notice. This was remarkably difficult to do with actual reasons to act being far and few between. The solution was to keep your mind active. To find things that kept you focused while allowing you to maintain full observation of your surroundings. That did not mean daydreaming about your beautiful new wife, something Pumpernickel was finding a bit difficult to avoid this evening. But he was well trained, and while he couldn’t fully eliminate Laminia from his thoughts, he found thinking about her reaction to discovering he had been mooning over her like a lovesick colt was as effective as an ice cold shower. So instead of thinking about her soft grey hide, or her lovely yellow eyes, or the way her wing felt as it stroked across his flank, he sought out other forms of stimulation that were not quite so distracting.

Pumpernickel could still remember, very vividly indeed, his first stint of standing guard as a raw cadet. For generations, Royal Guard Cadets had guarded a special gallery devoted exclusively to portraits of Princess Celestia donated to the Crown by various nobles anxious to curry favor over many, many centuries. Despite never being guarded by anyone but cadets, not a single piece of artwork had ever been stolen from the gallery, which was a great source of pride to the Royal Guard, and a source of constant despair to the Princess who seriously considered dropping by with a match some night, if not for the probable loss of a perfectly good Cadet.

At the time Pumpernickel had felt enormously proud in being trusted with such a task. He had also felt that he had acquitted himself quite well. He had not fallen asleep even once. That feeling had lasted right up to the point where his Sergeant had quizzed him. He had wanted to know a detailed listing of every painting, along with size, content, date, and color within line of sight.

Pumpernickel had barely been able to recall half a dozen particular pieces of art, and that only because they were so awful that he feared they had been burned into the back of his retina permanently.

He’d worn out two toothbrushes cleaning the latrine over the next week.

Two weeks later his turn at the duty rolled around again. This time he paid particular attention to his surroundings, cataloging every possible thing the sergeant might choose to ask him about. The sarge had indeed been impressed. Especially at Pumpernickel’s recollection of the signature on a piece of art fifty feet down the hall, and on the same side of the hallway as his guard station.

He went through six toothbrushes at that time.

Slowly, along with those of his fellows who did not wash out, Pumpernickel learned how to stand guard. How to stay loose so your joints didn’t seize up. How to observe and take note of your surroundings on an instinctive level. To listen, to see, to smell. And to do all of this without wearing yourself out from nervous stress. To see what was there, and sometimes, more importantly, to see what wasn’t.

Now, a fully trained, and recently promoted guard, seconded to the personal service of Princess Luna herself, he regarded watch duty as a chance to relax. To think, and to let the pressure from the more active parts of his job seep away. All while staying fully focused, no matter how silent or still the night.

It wasn’t as bad as it had been before the return of the Princess, Pumpernickel thought. He shuddered to imagine a thousand years of night guards standing sentry in the cavernous halls of the lunar court. With only the occasional foolish burglar once every decade or so to enliven the duty.

Things had been a bit more lively since the return of Princess Luna and looked to become even more so in the future if the princess had her way. Which, no matter how hopeful the bureaucrats in charge of Royal Guard staffing might be to the contrary, he was sure she would.

As if to prove his point, at least in part, Pumpernickel could hear one of those changes a few hallways away. His mind slipped back to the start of duty briefing and remembered that one of the first results of the great TP scandal (1) was due to start working this night.

For a thousand years, the night court had been cleaned during the day, the flowers changed, the linens kept fresh. At night the court became an empty mausoleum, inhabited only by the still white and gray forms of the various guard pairs.

Even after Princess Luna returned, the practice of doing all custodial duties during the day had continued. For the most part, it didn’t really matter. But with the increased activity during the night in the formerly vacant court, it had become more and more obvious that there needed to be at least some night staff to handle the routine maintenance of the court. But bureaucratic inertia is a powerful force and it wasn’t till the great TP disaster that things actually started to happen. New maids and maintenance personnel were to be hired, specifically to work the night shift.

Part of the sudden rush was in the forlorn hope that Princess Luna would forget, or at least soften, in her determination to include mares in the very conservative Royal Guard, more specifically, the even more tradition-bound Night Guard. The ponies in charge were hoping that the presence of cleaning staff, of the female variety, would cause her to forget her strange and perverse request that mares serve in the guard. After all, you hardly needed female guards to make sure the various bathrooms were kept fully stocked at all times. Pumpernickel could have told them how faint that hope was. And, as he expected, Princess Luna bent not one iota in her determination that mares would be added to her guard detachment.

That eliminated the reason behind hiring new maids but did not stop the process. While it was insanely difficult to start the wheels turning in government service, it was nothing compared to the effort of stopping them. As a result, the same day applications were taken for the position of female Night Court guards, they were also taken, and in the same office, for ponies interested in the exciting and fulfilling world of domestic service. Potential applications had been taken, security checks had been made, and new hires had been made. Or at least, one had.

Out of over fifty applicants, mostly unicorns, that had shown up that day, only one had applied for a position in housekeeping. According to the grapevine the most asked question the new applicants for the guard position had, was whether they’d be sharing training facilities with all those handsome young Guard stallions. The general consensus within the Royal Guard was not a single one of them would make it through Tartarus Month. Personally, Pumpernickel had four days in the office pool.

The single applicant for the domestic position had been a smallish Nocturne mare named, Goose Down. In fact, she was the only Nocturne mare to apply at all, and more surprisingly still, from one of the more traditional Nocturne families. Pumpernickel had been surprised she’d been allowed out of the house, let alone allowed to apply for an outside job. The more hidebound families had a tendency to keep their females sequestered, for the most part, not allowing them to go anywhere without a male family member along for protection. The only reason he could see for why she was permitted to apply was that the position involved Princess Luna unless there was something going on behind the scenes.

His own wife was a prime example of that. As personal hoofmaiden to Princess Luna, she enjoyed (2) a very high level of social status in Canterlot society, and an unprecedented level of public exposure for a Nocturne, let alone a ‘female’ Nocturne. Her family didn’t know whether to preen in pride or skulk in the shadows over the shame of having a female member of the family working outside the home. They had settled for a sullen silence. But not all families carried quite that much baggage. Maybe Goose Down’s family felt that having a family member, even a female, in Luna’s direct service would bestow significant bragging rights on the family elders?

Security was more than happy to have a nocturne mare employed on the job. In addition to Goose being naturally nocturnal, there was pretty much zero chance that she was in the employ of one of the local scandal sheets. Personally, Pumpernickel felt that any tabloid reporter who tried to bribe Goose into a behind the veil expose of Luna’s court was risking at the very least the integrity of his hide. He didn’t know Goose, of course. Hadn’t even seen the mare yet. But he knew the type. Nocturne Pegasus mares might appear meek and mild on the surface, but as he knew from first-hoof experience with his sisters, you did not want to make them mad. You would most certainly not like them when they were mad. He shuddered as childhood trauma threatened to come to the surface.

Of course, she wasn’t fully cleared to work in the actual royal residence yet. She was fully qualified to work in the general domestic staff of the palace, which was an accomplishment in itself. But the intention was for her to enter the personal service of the Princess herself. No one knows you better or has more access to you than the one who makes your bed and scrubs your toilet. Hence the need for her to have a higher security clearance than even the rank and file of the palace guard. She had only passed the standard evaluation so far. Much more was required. She needed to be evaluated by an expert to start with.

That was why the older maid who was working as Goose’s partner this evening was Miss Grace, supposedly a mare with years of experience in domestic service. In actuality, she was newly seconded to the Night Guard from her previous position of Lieutenant Commander in charge of special investigations for the Canterlot police department.

Pumpernickel had met the lady in question when she and her fellow three members of the Canterlot Police department had been introduced to the squad. He’d felt positively flayed as her eyes had bored into his for a few seconds before she smiled and shook his hoof.

Pumpernickel was not sure if adding mares to the Guard was a good idea or not. But his first meeting with the four mares transferred over from the Canterlot Police department had been enlightening. Others might have their doubts but in regards to those four at least he was convinced. He had no doubt that Miss Grace would know every single detail of Goose’s life before the night was out. Given a week she’d know the girl better than her mother. If Goose passed, the next stage would start, which would entail making sure Goose had the proper training to handle her not so obvious responsibilities.

Pumpernickel frowned at that. The powers-that-be had been desperate to make sure nothing like the great TP crises happened again on their watch. Which was why they were rushing things. By all rights, Goose should have gone through a two-month condensed guard training program before even setting foot in the palace. It wasn’t the cleaning. No Nocturne mare of her age, from a family as traditional as hers, would fail to be fully versed in all the minutia of keeping a house spotless.

The problem was that Goose could easily find herself the last line of defense between the princess and an assailant. While she did not require the full program of training that a guard candidate underwent, she would need to know how to fight effectively, or at least well enough to delay an intruder till others could act. He wasn’t sure a sheltered little filly like Goose would be able to handle the training, or for that matter, the fact that she might be expected to inflict severe damage on another pony. On the other hoof, she was a Nocturne. That meant with no training at all she’d still be likely to throw herself between the princess and danger. That wasn’t something that could be easily taught or instilled. You either had it or you didn’t. It would be interesting to see how she took to the advanced classes in constructive mayhem.

With all that in mind, he cocked an inquisitive ear toward the sounds that were echoing up the halls to his position. He could recognize Miss Grace’s voice and the other one conversing with her must be Goose. He could not quite make out their words yet, but they were slowly coming closer as they attended to sweeping the hall clean of any microscopic speck of dust that might have accumulated in the ten hours since the day crew had swept, mopped and polished it.

The day shift hadn’t wanted the new cleaning crew thinking they couldn’t keep a simple little palace spit-polished.

It took the two mares a while to work their way toward Pumpernickel’s position. Eventually, however, they came close enough for him to make out their words. It seemed that Miss Grace had succeeded in gaining Goose’s confidence because the new hire was being particular voluble.

She had a pleasant feminine voice, but at the moment it was strained from frustration. ‟I tried and tried to tell them. But they wouldn’t listen. And every time I cornered one of the guards interviewing the applicants some silly filly would butt in asking things like, Goose’s voice squeaked in a high falsetto. ‟Oh, do I have to shave off my mane like the other guards? Oh, do we share quarters with the Stallion recruits? Oh, can we accessorize our uniforms? They’re all so bland.”

‟Dear, why did you take this job if what you really wanted was to be a guard? I’m sure there will be another chance to apply,” asked Miss Grace with an air of authentic concern.

Pumpernickel’s ear flicked forward and twisted to the side in surprise.

‟Because after dealing with those silly fillies, they’ll never try to hire mares for the Royal Guard ever again.” the younger mare answered, dismay and frustration even more evident in her voice. ‟If they had tried on purpose they couldn’t have found a better group to prove that mares can’t be guards. This might be my only chance to serve my Princess personally. I had to take it.”

Pumpernickel raised an eyebrow. He had heard from more than a few of the barrack room gossips that Princess Luna’s edict was not in the least popular among the guard commanders. Could they be trying to stack the deck? And if so, how would that affect the various office betting pools? Most importantly, how could he take advantage of that inside information?

While Pumpernickel was pondering, the pair of cleaners finally rounded the corner and started down the hallway toward his position. It was clear that Miss Grace saw him the moment they came into sight, but Goose kept on rambling, her eyes focused on the walls and floor as she applied the polishing cloth attached to her front hooves.

‟Good Evening to you, Guardstallion," said Miss Grace, causing Goose to abruptly cut off her rant and stare in his direction. She might have flushed, at this distance, he couldn’t tell, but if she did she would have been a good match for Pumpernickel at the moment.

His first impression of the mare could be encapsulated in one word, short. She was short in height, short in length, with a short cut mane and tail and while she had a broad, deep chest it added little to her bulk as the rest of her was so petite. What was not short, were her wings. Oh, stars those were wings! The dragon-type wings of the Nocturne normally tucked up between the shoulder and the flank neatly enough to half-conceal whatever cutie mark was there, but this mare's wings not only brushed against her neck but also protruded out behind her. Whatever cutie mark she had was completely obscured unless she were to take flight, and then any red-blooded stallion would certainly not be looking at her flank. It probably would be a good idea for her not to be out on the practice field with the pegasus stallion trainees, the rate of accidental crashes from distracted flying could wipe out an entire male cadet class. Pumpernickel tore his eyes away from the young mare's wings with a strong mental reminder of his married status, and the certain headache that would result from wandering eyes in Laminia's presence. Or anywhere she heard about it. And being the Princess' Hoofmaiden, she heard a lot.

A sense of certainty filled Pumpernickel that Goose’s failure to convince anyone that she had meant to sign up for guards duty had nothing to do with the chaos caused by all those other mares and everything to the sergeant in charge taking one look at her and going. ‟Oh, no. No way in hay am I borrowing that sort of trouble.”

As a dragon-winged Nocturne, Pumpernickel had little experience with guarding high society events except within the shadows or hovering overhead. But he had heard tales. The bane of the Royal Guard’s existence was the common royal unicorn. Specifically, the ones the guards thought of silently as the humorless twit, and the all too common, in both senses of the word, flirtatious flit who thought it hilarious to try and use their feminine charms and wiles to get a rise, literally, out of the guards on duty.

Which was why the guard commanders almost exclusively staffed such events with Pegasi. Most of the mares in question were unicorns, with a few earth ponies thrown into the mix. And while Pegasi stallions appreciated a well-turned flank as well as the next stallion, most of them were not into horns. What really drew their eyes and interest, was a well-formed set of wings attached to a well-formed mare.

The new female recruits might not be sharing quarters with the male recruits, but they would be sharing training facilities. Pumpernickel shuddered at the thought of the havoc Goose would have created simply doing basic calisthenics in front of a crowd of young studs, all too eager to compete with each other to demonstrate that they were hot enough to be raised by Celestia.

Reminding himself that he had a perfectly lovely wife, with a questionable temper, he wrenched his eyes away from Goose and toward Miss Grace, who gave him a small smile and a wink that deepened the blush on his cheeks at being caught out.

Before the situation could degenerate any further the door behind him crashed open against the wall, on the other side of where he was standing thank Luna. Speaking of which. Princess Luna rushed into the hallway, and without a look at any of the three ponies in the hall took off like a shot past the two cleaners. Miss Grace dropped into a graceful bow, while Goose all but flattened herself against the floor with the front of her wings cupping forward to conceal her head and block her vision.

Even after Luna passed out of sight, Goose remained prone while whispering in a small voice, ‟That was the princess. My princess. Our princess. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. The princess was right there, she almost stepped on me. Oh my gosh. What if she had? What if she’d twisted an ankle? My mom would kill me. I’d be fired. I’d never be able to show my face in public again.”

‟Oh, dear. I’m afraid the Princess may have broken her.” Miss Grace said.

There was a standing joke in the Royal Guard that had a bit more truth to it than he would like to admit. Sudden Royalty Exposure Syndrome (SRES) could cause normal ponies to freeze up in a catatonic state from which there was only one rumored cure: A quick lick of the ear, preferably applied by a young unmarried mare of great beauty, although a Guard would do in a pinch. He managed to catch himself before volunteering to apply the cure, after catching a sideways glance from the older mare that led him to believe that perhaps she knew more than she was letting on about Royal Guard lore. That and picturing Laminia stepping out of the Princess' private suite in time to see him giving the good looking filly's ear a lick made cold sweat break out on his brow.

*******************

Celestia focus was completely on the book levitating in front of her.

Rock Hard, the night black Nocturne Pegasus had just swept the helpless Unicorn mare, Chastity Harness, off the ground and was carrying her back to his night-black castle deep in the Everfree forest. One by one the buttons on her dress, the only shield against his despicable desires, were undoing themselves as Rock Hard’s magic overwhelmed Chastity’s feeble efforts to resist.

A spoon laden with half-melted ice-cream floated up in the air toward Celestia slightly flushed face. The Princess of the Sun opened her mouth without taking her eyes off the steamy scene unfolding in front of her eyes. The spoon wavered slightly before homing in on the appropriate target.

‟Sister!” Luna cried out, slamming open the door to Celestia’s private chambers. Luna was using the royal Canterlot voice, and the various vases and nicknacks bounced on their pedestals and shelves, while the windows vibrated in their frames.

Celestia jerked back in surprise. Her book went flying one way as her spoonful of ice-cream got dumped into her nose instead of in her mouth. She experienced a sudden coughing sneezing fit that caused several of the rollers in her hair to come loose. She tried to rise to her feet, only to have her hooves get tangled in her bathrobe, sending her tumbling backward onto her royal rear. Her legs sprawled out in a most undignified, and rather compromising manner.

A couple of guards had rushed in behind Luna. They took in the disheveled mess that was their sovereign, flushed red, and wisely choose discretion over valor. They withdrew from the room, carefully closing the door behind them.

Luna ignored both her sister’s disarray and the guards' retreat. ‟Sister! Didst thou feel it?” she asked, her voice excited.

Celestia lifted a napkin to her nose and gave a hard blow, then levitated a hundred-year-old cloth off of one of the nook tables to wipe herself clean. ‟That, my dear sister, would very much depend on what you meant by, it,” she said dryly. She got to her feet and gave her flank a rub with a hoof. ‟I just felt several things.”

‟The Alicorn magic,” Luna exclaimed impatiently.

That gained Luna her sister’s undivided attention. ‟ A new filly?” she asked with sudden intent and with a touch of worry in her tone. It was far too soon for anything else, she tried to tell herself. Twilight was still several months away if her calculations were correct. She shuddered at the thought of what a panicked Twilight might do if she evolved without being prepared. The frustrating thing was that she couldn’t warn Twilight this soon. Merely knowing it was possible could severely compromise her potential.

Luna was oblivious to Celestia’s inner turmoil. She answered the question her sister had asked out loud in a voice quivering with excitement. ‟Yes . . . no! I do not know! It was not exactly like the sign that indicated a birth flare. But it was an Alicorn coming into the world all the same. I know it.” she stamped her hoof in frustration. ‟It was very faint. And did not last long. I did not have time to teleport and triangulate. I only deduced a general direction before it winked out! I was hoping thou hadst felt it! I was not here when Cadence was born! Or when she manifested her magic! I do not know what a new Alicorn feels like first hoof! But I swear it was an Alicorn. Of this, I am most positive!”

‟What direction? Did you get any gender indication?”

Luna expression turned thoughtful as she focused on remembering everything she could about what she’d felt. ‟Somewhere in the direction of Ponyville. Roughly only I am afraid. It was so faint, it might have been well past them.”

Celestia stifled a gasp of worry.

Luna’s mane was bristling with excitement and she began strutting back and forth in front of her sister as she chattered with an excitement very similar to that exhibited by Twilight when she was working out something new from the first principle. And was still trying to get it straight in her own head while explaining what it was at the same time.

‟Unless it was merely the leakage of a working. In which case it might have been closer. But if it was a working that would mean a mature Alicorn. I do not see how that would be possible. You have told me often enough, sister, how I leaked magic randomly when I was young. I don’t see how any Alicorn could escape notice long enough to learn the control needed to conceal their presence. I could not determine gender, but it felt different from you or Cadence. I am quite used to the feel of your magic of course and have learned to recognize Cadence’s magic since my return. I am not sure I would be able to recognize a stallion. But that might explain the difference.”

Celestia was calming down as she remembered certain basic facts. Evolution was not a quiet event. If Twilight had manifested early not only she but every Unicorn in Equestria would have felt it.(3) With that worry out of the way, she started thinking about the other options. She shook her head in puzzlement. ‟It is strange. I can not imagine how an Alicorn pregnancy could fail to be noted. The signs are very distinct.”

‟But most rare, sister. It is not beyond reason to think that the signs would not be recognized.”

‟Yes, that might explain it,” Celestia mused thoughtfully. The warning signs were contained in about one paragraph of the latest midmare handbook if she recalled correctly. Easy enough to believe that they would be overlooked, or forgotten by an older mare.

‟Of course. I may have been mistaken?” Luna qualified, a touch of doubt creeping into her voice.

‟We can all make mistakes, sister of mine. But you are not the sort who shies at every blown leaf or dropped cup. I think this needs to be investigated.”

‟Yes! I will call out the guard. We shall do a house by house search in the correct direction. Interview the medical clinics. Find out who was expecting.”

‟Or,” Celestia broke in. ‟We could ask Twilight and her friends to investigate, discreetly.” she directed a serious look at her sister. ‟For you and me, and Cadence, this is personal. For many others, it is a chance at gaining influence or losing it to rivals. I would prefer any new Alicorn not become the centerpiece in a political tug of war. At least not until she, or he, grows a suitably sharp horn.

A sudden flare of green fire lit the room, and faded away, leaving a rolled scroll hanging in the air, which Celestia snagged with her magic just before it would begin to fall.

‟Not so quickly, Sister,” Luna chided her big sister. Snatching the scroll from Celestia before her surprised elder could react. ‟Thou art off duty for the moment I beg you recall,” There was a teasing tone to her voice, and a mischievous look in her eyes that said this was payback for lumbering Luna with all those annoying politicians.

Luna had never thought to miss the solitary night, but Canterlot was no simple farming community. Its inhabitants did not pay a great deal of attention to the cycle of the sun and moon. So her nights were often filled with visitors. Of the most unwelcome sort. Luna was positive that it was only the most annoying of the citizens who choose to work deep into her cycle of duty.

Only after she had fully unrolled the scroll did Luna look at it. Her eyes widened. ‟It would seem that I was not the only one paying attention this night. Thy student, Twilight Sparkle has also noted the magical flare, though she has no idea what transpired. She greatly fears some harm might have befallen me as she was observing my magic at the time she experienced it.” A touch of fondness crept into Luna’s voice at the last statement. But vanished as she continued to read and it was replaced with excitement, ‟Ahhhh, even more wonderful. She deduced a direction. Quickly, a map.”

Celestia felt a huge sense of relief. No matter how much she had reassured herself the worry had remained that Twilight had once again exceeded expectations. She reached out and extracted a large atlas from her bookshelf and set it down on a nearby table. The large book opened to a detailed map of Equestria.

‟Now. Let us see,” Luna mused, floating an ink well and quill over from Celestia’s writing desk.

Celestia winced and extracted the objects from her eager sister’s grasp. ‟If you would, sister. I have no wish to face my secretary and librarian and explain why I felt compelled to doodle in a five-hundred-year-old priceless folio. Or see Twilight give me that look.” She shuddered delicately even as she floated two long straight twigs from a nearby flower arrangement.

Luna did not even bother to react to her sister’s humorous chiding. She lay the two slender stalks on the map of Equestria, lining them up as to origin point and direction. Both sisters lowered their heads over the map and focused on where the twigs crossed.

‟There is a certain symmetry to it,” Celestia at last commented.

‟Indeed. What more fitting place to see the emergence of a new Royal Alicorn. I will fly there at once.”

‟Hold. Please, sister.” Celestia said. ‟We have discussed this. If our little ponies are to evolve. We must allow them the opportunity to succeed or fail, on their own. Powerful as we are, it would be so very easy to forget our ponyanity. To become something much more, and much less.”

‟But, sister.” Luna protested.

‟I trusted Twilight to save you. I may have influenced her from behind the scenes. But in the end, it was her heart and will, and that of her friends that brought you back to me in a way that could not have happened if I had fought your release and turned it into a fight between me and thee. I ask you to trust her now. Go, watch, but from a distance. Allow them to bring our newest sister, or brother, to us.”

Luna was reluctant, but she had placed herself second to her sister and would abide by her wishes in all matters till she had proven to herself that she was once again worthy of sitting with Celestia as an equal partner.

‟As you will, sister. I will try. Though I fear it will be most difficult. So what shall we tell thy student?”

‟I do not like to send my student in with preconceived notions normally. But, In this case, I think it is important that she be at least prepared somewhat for what she might find. A baby is not a pile of rocks or a carved crystal heart. She may need certain necessities for both the babe and the mother. So, let us see,” Celestia mused as she levitated a scroll and quill and began to write. She chuckled slightly with her first line, but her demeanor turned serious as she continued.

************************************

[1]This would be, "Papergate" The repercussions from a single event where the newly returned Princess Luna had been effectively trapped in a bathroom without toilet paper while her sole male Royal Guard dithered about entering The Royal Presence with an extra roll, had a great effect on prospective staffing inside the Guard. In particular, the penguin counting science team at the polar regions had suddenly been determined to be one Royal Guard short of their full contingent, and the Royal Guard contingent in charge of Princess Luna's security had been determined to be short several female guards. Both shortages had been rectified rapidly, one by direct assignment and pre-paid first class train ticket, the other by 'borrowing' several experienced police officers from the Canterlot Police force.

(2) 'Enjoyed' as in 'Was dragged with great reluctance to many social affairs only because of Luna's presence.'

(3) Probably by hearing a loud cry of "Oh, no!"

Ch3 Dream a Little Dream [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 3
Dream a Little Dream

**********

‟Ah, here is Princess Celestia ’s reply now,” exclaimed Twilight Sparkle, as Spike belched up a ball of green fire, which condensed into a ribbon wrapped scroll. ‟I'm certain she knows what that magic flare means. There's nopony as talented as her!”

Spike cleared his throat with a few yadda, yaddas, and then started to read in a declarative tone, [1] ‟I’m deeply sorry, my favorite student. But I am afraid I was preoccupied with other pressing issues and did not sense the magical flux you detected,”

‟What, how is that possible? Did I imagine it? Am I coming down with something that has thrown off my magical sensitivity?”

‟However, Princess Luna, who was watching over the night as is her duty, did sense it.” Spike continued, with a laugh, once he figured he’d milked as much fun as he safely could from the delay.

‟Give me that,” Twilight snapped, snatching the scroll from the laughing dragon with her magic.

She quickly scanned over the lines that Spike had already read and picked up where he had left off.

‟More importantly, Luna believes that she recognized the burst as possibly being the flare given off at the birth of an Alicorn foal. I would like you and your friends to visit this newborn Alicorn and provide a formal welcome to Equestria as representatives of both Luna and myself. You are to give them whatever assistance they require and are to escort them to Canterlot in as quiet a manner as possible unless the parents object. In that case, render what aid you can, and notify us at once.

With the greatest affection and trust, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.”

‟Whoa. For real.” Spike exclaimed. ‟That’s incredible. I mean for so long it was just Princess Celestia. Then Cadence was found and there were two. Now Luna has returned and a new foal has been born. I don’t think there have ever been this many alicorn alive at one time. Isn’t that incredible, Twilight?” Spike, receiving no reply to his question, looked over to see Twilight frozen in place, the scroll dangling in front of her glazed eyes.

‟Twilight? You-hoo, Twilight. TWILIGHT!”

‟Ahhh. What? Where? Oh, sorry, Spike. I’m just a bit overwhelmed.”

‟Yeah. It is pretty amazing.”

‟You don’t know the half of it. The Princesses trust me! Me! I mean it's such a huge honor but there's so much responsibility involved! I have to officially congratulate the parents on behalf of the Princesses and welcome the new Alicorn foal! They can't possibly know what it means to have a baby Alicorn, so I'll have to explain to them everything involved! There should be a ceremony of some sort, but baby Alicorns are so rare, maybe I'll just have to make something up! Or maybe there is a ceremony, and I missed studying for it! Princess Celestia or Princess Luna would have said something in the letter if there was a ceremony, right Spike? Oh, I don't have time to look it up, I'll just have to wing it! There are so many things we need to do!"

‟Three, two, one,” Spike counted down as he walked over to Twilight's writing desk.

‟We need a checklist!”

‟And there we go. Ready when you are, Twilight.” Spike said, sitting himself down at the desk and picking up a freshly sharpened quill.

‟Don’t be silly, Spike,” Twilight said, levitating her saddlebags from the bag rack and over her flanks. ‟We have to do this on the go.” She reached out with her magic and snatched two books off the shelves. Thanks to the recent birth of the Cake twins she knew exactly where these particular books were. Pinkie had been checking them in and out nearly constantly for some time. While neither book was specific to Alicorns, she should be able to do some cross-referencing from them as they specialized, respectively, in Unicorn and Pegasus foals. She added an Earth Pony foal book to the bag so all possibilities would be covered.

‟Come on, Spike. We need to find Rainbow Dash first,” Twilight said, flinging open the door to the library.

Tongue in cheek, Spike carefully wrote on his scroll as he trotted after Twilight out the door. ‟Baby books, check. Look for Rainbow Dash, Check.”

A little while later Spike wrote down. ‟Find Rainbow Dash, check. Wake Rainbow up, check. Dodge retaliatory rainstorm, check. Send Rainbow to tell Applejack to meet us at Fluttershy’s place, check. Pick twigs out of Twilight’s mane as a result of the backlash from Rainbow’s departure, check.”

Even later.

‟Here you go, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said excitedly. ‟Baby bottles. Baby wipes. Baby diapers. Did you know there were other types of diapers? Boy, I didn’t. That was sure embarrassing. Baby saddle. Baby Pacifier. Baby powder. Baby Lotion. Baby toys. Baby carrots. Baby oil. It's not made from real babies, I checked to make sure.”

‟Check, check, check. Really? Check and check checkity check,” Spike said, marking off the last items on his Pinkie list.

Just then Rainbow Dash came racing in, pulling to a sudden stop in front of Twilight, who closed her eyes in protection from the sudden dust cloud. ‟Okay, Applejack is on her way to Fluttershy’s. Now, do you want to tell me what the hay is going on? This had better be important. The dream I was having before you woke me up was just getting to the good part.”

Twilight coughed as she tried to keep Rainbow's dusty arrival from contaminating her giant collection of Pinkie's baby support equipment. "Tell you when we get there. If I can get all this in the bag!"

‟Oh, oh, let me. I’ve gotten really good at handling all these in the last month,” Pinkie Pie caroled. She snatched the items from Twilight and in less time than it took to say, had them neatly arranged in bags hanging over her own flanks.

‟Ah, well, thank you, Pinkie. But it’s not really necessary. You can go back to bed.” Twilight said, visions of the hyper pony deciding to throw a welcome foal party in the middle of the Everfree forest, in the dead of the night, attracting, or maybe even inviting, Timber Wolves, Hydras, Cockatrices, and who knows what else, flashing through her mind. (2)

‟Don’t be a silly willy, Twilight. I told you. I’ve learned a lot. You’re going to need me. It’s not like I’m going to throw a big loud splashy party and attract all sorts of nasty wasty beasties who are just dying to gulp down a little helpless foal.”

Twilight big sweated and sheepishly trotted after her friend. ‟Of course you wouldn’t. No one would do something like that,” she mumbled.

Rainbow Dash flew along beside Twilight and whispered out of the side of her mouth. ‟Don’t sweat it. I was thinking the same thing.”

‟I can heeeaarrr, you,” Pinkie said cheerfully from her position a dozen yards in front of them.

******************************************

Curry’s initial wild excitement at finding a for real ruined castle right in her own bucking back yard, more or less, had waned fairly quickly as she and Jake had wandered through the various rooms. While no doubt there was lots of interesting stuff for people who liked empty dusty rooms, there was none of what Curry thought of as being essential.

Where were all the old suits of armor? The discarded swords? The skeletons? Discarded swords jutting out of a bunch of skeletons dressed in old suits of armor? Most importantly, what was with the serious lack of hidden rooms and treasures?

No matter how many mantelpieces Curry checked for secret triggers, or how many torch brackets she hung from, secret doors adamantly refused to open. It was a total rip-off. The only good thing about the places were all the carvings and statues of horses, unicorns, and pegasi. There was even a whole bunch featuring some really cool looking mares who were both. She never even heard of winged Unicorns. Those were pretty cool. Not as cool as overflowing treasure chests would have been, however.

Jake was uninterested in any of this. He was tired. The stone floor hurt his feet, the ramps they walked up and down made him nervous, many of them lacking what he regarded as sufficiently high guardrails. After looking over one and seeing nothing but darkness because the floor was so far away he resolutely kept himself pressed tightly to the wall and he followed after Curry, complaining nearly every step of the way.

Curry ignored Jake’s continued whining in her excitement; something she would never have done if he hadn’t suddenly started talking. It was as if the mere fact that he could gripe about the situation was proof enough that he wasn’t really in any dire need of care.

Neither Jake or Curry really paid attention to the soft, diffused light that filled the castle and allowed them to find their way, even in rooms with no windows. Curry just took it for granted as a feature of a ruined castle, and Jake didn’t think about it at all.

Eventually, however, the exertions of the day and the stress of the last week started to tell on the young girl. She could not stop yawning. And was not helped by the fact that Jake was letting out contagious yawns of his own every few steps as he shambled along behind her. So, when they walked into a room filled with drifted leaves and other forest litter that had been blown in through a huge hole in the wall, she decided to call it a night. She gathered up some dry leaves and twigs and made a small pile in the big stone fireplace that took up almost all of one of the room’s walls. Over the top of the fireplace was a bas-relief of a winged unicorn mare rearing up on her hind legs with her wings outspread. The figure was outlined against a full moon. A sliver of a curved moon decorated the mare’s flank, with a few stars cupped within the crescent shape. Her mane stretched out over her back, so finely carved that it seemed to almost be floating.

Starting to have a hard time keeping her eyes open, Curry used some waxed matches from her emergency survival kit to light the small pile of tinder. With the help of Jake, who used his teeth to drag over some large pieces of broken furniture, and under Curry's guidance break them up into smaller chunks by stepping on them. The young girl soon had a large fire blazing and a good stockpile of well-cured wood ready to throw on it. The night had only been a little cool and the crackling fire soon dispelled that. With all that accomplished she had time to think about other things. Like how long it had been since her last meal.

Jake had snatched a few bites from the foliage just outside the fallen wall, but Curry’s belly was starting to complain. It was too dark to look for edible plants or set a rabbit snare. She’d do that tomorrow. For a moment she thought about the coat she had left on the sledge. There were still a couple of apples in the pockets. She frowned and discarded the idea. She wasn’t sure how long it would take to find her way back to where she’d left their stuff. She decided that she just needed to suck it up.

With the help of Jake, who used a tree branch as a broom after seeing her do the same thing, Curry made a large pile of smaller twigs and leaves in one of the room’s corners, at the same time making sure she left a large area of bare stone in front of the fire. To her surprise, Jake lay down on the bedding she had made for herself. He curled up much like a dog, not even seeming to have any difficulty doing something that should have been impossible for the big horse. She stifled her instinctive protest. It wasn’t like she was actually going to get any sleep. She hadn’t been able to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time all week. Jake might as well have the bed, he’d get more use out of it. Besides, she’d been wanting to sleep with Jake all week. She kicked off her shoes and hung her socks to dry over the mantlepiece. Padding on well-calloused feet across the room she clambered up on top of the drowsing Percheron. Curry curled herself up in the hollow between Jake’s legs and his stomach. The warmth of his body helped make up for the lack of any covering. But it was still a bit cool. Once again she regretted leaving Old Ben’s coat back at the sledge.

Jake didn’t stir or even seem to notice her weight. Not surprising. Proportionally, she looked like a cat curled up on a wolfhound. Curry, finding Jake’s warm body surprisingly comfortable listened to his deep even breathing as she gazed up at the carving over the fireplace. The winged unicorn mare was bathed in the moonlight that shone down into the room from a window high up on the wall. Her mind, nearly numb with exhaustion, Curry wondered about the carving. Was this a magical castle, like Beast’s? Were all those sculptures and carvings actually ancient lords and ladies waiting for the curse to be lifted? Maybe the carving over the fireplace was the princess who belonged with the castle. Turned into a carved wall ornament till she could be freed. Would she step down from the wall as a Unicorn still? Maybe she’d give Curry a ride among the stars? The small girl’s eyes drooped and her breathing became slower. The strain on her face eased and a small smile quirked the corners of her mouth as she slipped into a deep slumber.

As the youngsters slept, all curled up together, a faint glow began to grow at the point where their bodies touched each other, getting larger and larger till they were both encased in a soft glowing cocoon of light.

**********************************

After some thought, Luna made the decision to visit the suspected location of the Alicorn foal in the Dreamscape. There were disadvantages. She would be unable to see anything that had not been rooted to the same spot for several weeks for one thing. That meant she would be unable to see the physical bodies of the people she was looking for. But it was late, the mare had just experienced a difficult birth. The stallion, if present, was also likely worn to a knife edge. All of them would, in all likelihood, be asleep. And that meant dreams. Not the babe, she, or he, would be far too young to dream coherently. Though Luna might spot the unformed blobs of color and sound that made up the dreams of infants.

With any luck, she would be able to enter into a conversation with the parents. This would grant her critical information, and they would wake with at the most only vague memories of the conversation. Unless one of them was an experienced unicorn mage they were unlikely to imagine her visit was anything more than a dream. So there was no way that her big sister could claim she was interfering. Twilight and her friends would still have the privilege of making the first contact. Luna was just going to make sure there were no unexpected problems.

But first, Luna decided, she needed to make sure the area was safe for the suspected foal. The old wards on the palace itself were still active. Those would last as long as one stone stood on another. So there was no risk of any danger inside the old palace. She just had to make sure the surroundings were safe. Both for the newly born foal and its parents and for Twilight and her friends.

Keeping high in the sky, hidden in the darkness, Luna flew a circuit around the ruins of her old home, scouring the area. For the most part, she maintained a certain amount of detachment, but old scars twinged in her mind when she flew by the blasted out wall of her old bedchamber. She averted her eyes and focused on the grounds.

The only danger Luna located was a rather wet and bedraggled Cockatrice that gave a loud squawk of terror when she thumped down on the ground inches from its beak. It took off like a shot and she followed just long enough to make sure it was well away from the castle. Only then did she let herself fade into the dream realm.

Finding a dreamer was not all that hard. All you had to do was look for the landscape of the dream world being altered to fit their dreams. When she spotted a large chunk of the castle fading away to be replaced by a sun-drenched meadow she flew straight toward it and then hovered in the air overhead as she took in the scene coming to life before her dream vision.

A large black Earth Pony stallion was running through the fields, kicking up his hooves and tossing his head in the air in an exhibition of sheer jubilant elation. Luna smiled. That would be the proud Papa now. Her eyes were drawn to a roan filly standing by the fence watching the earth pony. As she watched the pony details became clearer. A horn appeared on the mare’s forehead and russet wings spread out from her shoulders. Her straw blonde mane and tail rippled in the wind. It was like looking through a veil at a summer field. A pattern resembling swaying grain and flowers decorated the flowing hair.

For a moment Luna felt anticipation. An Alicorn of the harvest. This would be very good for the empire and very good for the earth ponies. She dampened her enthusiasm quickly, applying a cold dash of rationalization. The foal was far too young to present such an image in the dreamscape. What she was seeing was the father’s image of his young daughter as a filly. It was only natural an earth pony would see her as a harvest-themed Alicorn. Luna reminded herself to remember that the filly she was seeing existed only in the mind of the Earth Pony kicking up his hooves in the field.

Luna gently floated down to the field, placing herself in the path of the happy stallion. Her eyes widened. Goodness, he was huge. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a pony so big. Was this a result of his pride at becoming the father of an Alicorn? His newly inflated ego reflecting in the dream realm? An interesting question to study on. Some other time perhaps.

‟Our congratulations on your most happy event, good sir,” she called out. ‟Might thou stop and tell us of thy new child?”

That should get him. New parents would wade through lava to sing the paeans of their newborns.

To her disgruntlement, however, he paid her no mind at all. Merely continued to gambol in the field like some great colt. She drew in a breath, prepared to use her royal Canterlot voice.

‟Are you the enchanted princess?” asked a youngish, but rather brash, voice from behind her, causing Luna to choke on her own words. She whirled in place and found herself staring down at the young roan Alicorn she had seen by the fence. The filly was looking up at her with wide-eyed wonder, but not a trace of fear. The former was not uncommon, the later, much to her regret, was rare.

Luna was nonplussed. What was going on here? This filly had to be at least ten. Even if she were younger and dreaming herself older there was no way she had just been born. How had she kept hidden for so long?

‟So, I guess you don’t talk,” the filly sighed. Turning away she resumed staring at the frolicking earth pony.

‟We do talk,” Luna said in a quiet tone. The roan filly turned to look at her eyes widening slightly.

‟We?” Curry asked, looking around for the beautiful winged unicorn’s companion.

‟My pardon. I used the royal we. We, I, am Princess Luna.”

‟A for real unicorn princess? Or a person turned into a Unicorn?” Curry said, looking pleased that she’d guessed right about the carving.

‟Do you not know me?” Luna asked in surprise, putting aside the puzzling comment about a ‘person’ for the time being.

‟Nope never heard of you. You someone special?”

‟Someone?” Luna repeated, drawing out the strange word. ‟Doth you mean, Somepony?”

‟You sure do talk funny. And why would anyone say Somepony?” That sounds like something those stupid girls at school would use. Always going on about how special this pony is, or that pony.”

Luna broke in, trying to regain some control of the conversation. ‟Ah, you attend school. Where might that be?”

‟Down the mountain,” Curry started to gesture in the direction and then stopped. She looked around. For as far as she could see there was nothing but an endless sea of grass and flowers. ‟This is a dream, I reckon. You’re part of it.” I saw a big carving of you over a fireplace.” Curry’s brow furrowed. ‟We went to sleep there. Guess I’m still sleeping. That carving, it looked like you. Don’t know why I’m dreaming you all black and spooky though. Really like your mane though. Reminds me of laying back on the grass and looking up at the stars through a wispy cloud.”

Luna was listening to the filly with half an ear. She was thinking about the remark, down the mountain. Could she be from an isolated mountain village? It might explain how she had remained hidden for so long. Many mountain ranges had crystal outcrops that could block or distort magic. If she had grown up in a valley lined with them. Yes, that might explain things.

At the same time, Luna made a mental note. The filly was in her old bedchamber.

The little roan reared up on her hind legs and hooked her hooves over the rail of a fence that was now separating them from the field where the big earth pony was running. ‟Guess I’m going to have to say goodbye for real,” she whispered, a tear trickling down her cheek.

‟What is the matter, child?”

The filly did not answer her directly but continued to look out at the black stallion. ‟I was so bucking stupid. I figured all I had to do was run away from home with him and everything would be just fine. We’d be able to stay together. Yeah, right. More like freeze together.”

‟Thou ran away?”

‟My uncle, Old Ben, died,” The filly sniffed, and wiped her nose with a foreleg, drawing a grimace from Luna. ‟They were going to take me away from Jake. Said I needed to go to the big city. Learn how to be all girly. Dress in stupid dresses and talk all nice and perlite. Take a bath every day whether I need it or not.”

Luna nodded to herself, things were starting to come together. The filly had been born in the mountains. Her magic shielded from detection by crystal outcrops. No mention of her parents, only her uncle. Possibly her mother had passed away. The uncle may have tried to shield her from the consequences of her nature. Just as Celestia wanted to do. He passed on, and the village mares had decided to take her to the city to be raised as they thought was proper for an Alicorn. Luna could not fault them for that, though she did wonder at their motivation. Were they concerned for the filly? Or, for their own standing?

The big stallion was a crush on the filly’s part, no question. Luna blushed slightly as she remembered her filly feelings for the head of her guard detachment so long ago. And the earth pony in the field was prime crush material, no question of that.

But what was the stallion’s feelings in the matter? Did he see her as a little sister? A responsibility? Or, as a golden prize that would gain him power and wealth? That would have to be very carefully investigated.

Things were starting to come together. She knew exactly where the filly was. She knew why she was there. She had a very good theory as to how she had grown up without detection. One last thing before she retired from the filly’s dream.

‟What is your name, child?”

Curry flushed slightly, ducking her head. She darted a look at the incredibly beautiful creature next to her, feeling unusually shy. Never in a million years would she have revealed the truth normally, but, this was a dream after all. Not like anyone would be able to tease her about it.

‟Moonlight On Water,” she whispered.

‟Tis true?” Luna exclaimed, taking in the bright roan coat of the filly. Not a name she would have ever guessed.

‟My mom was a moon worshiper. A Wiccan, Old Ben called it. He said I was born high in a mountain valley, beside a little lake. There was a full moon in the sky and she made him hold me up to it and ask for the Moon’s blessing.”

Luna was overcome with a sense of joy. It was not uncommon for a newborn to be shown to the sun, and for Celestia’s blessing to be asked, but she could not remember a single time when the same had been asked of her. She reigned in her pleasure, however, as she recalled that at the moment of this filly’s birth she was still Nightmare Moon. That lent a rather darker potential to the mother’s actions. What sort of person worshiped that dark aspect of her?

‟I never knew my Mom. Old Ben raised me. He said there was no way he was going to send me to school with a moniker like Moonlight. He told me that almost as soon as I could walk I started trying to use a currycomb right alongside him. Screamed like crazy when he tried to take it away. So that’s what he called me. Curry Comb. Curry for short.”

Luna blinked. Not exactly the most appropriate name for a princess, but she was yet a filly. Her true name was much more appropriate. Hopefully, she would not object to using it now that her life was about to change. Still. ‟And how do you feel about your true name?”

‟I like Curry. And I just know how the girls at school would act if I tried to use Moonlight. But I guess because I had that name I’ve always liked the moon best of all. I always liked it when the last thing I saw before I went to sleep was the Moon up in the sky through my window. Makes me feel like maybe my mom is up there, looking down on me.”

Luna was starting to feel choked up.

‟Old Ben, he used to say that the Moon was much more important than the Sun.”

Luna stood up a little straighter, trying to look truly regal.

‟On account of the Sun only shining in the day when there’s a lot of light, while the Moon shines at night when you need it.”

Luna looked at the filly in shock. ‟But child . . .”

‟Uncle Ben sort of liked corny jokes.” the filly said with a grin and a shrug.

‟Ah, yes, a joke, of course. Most droll.” Luna would have liked to continue the conversation but did not wish to absent herself too long from the real world. ‟I will take my leave of you now . . . Moonlight?” Luna made a question of the name.

‟It’s ok. It sort of sounds fine coming from you. I know you’re not laughing at me when you say it.”

‟I would never. So, till we meet again, Moonlight. May the moon always light your path and guide you.”

Luna turned away to leave but remembered one last thing. She looked back over her shoulder. ‟There are friends coming. You may trust them with your life.”

And with that, she faded away.

‟Ok, that was weird,” Curry said to herself. She looked over at Jake and said, ‟You know, I bet you’d look really cool with wings and a horn,” and just like that Jake had them. Curry used her own dream wings to fly over the fence to join Jake playing in the field. The mysterious flying unicorn slipped from her mind as she lost herself in the joy of running with all her might across the summer meadows with her best friend in the world.

**************************

Sneak Peek, a formerly mottled brown unicorn, with a half-concealed eye for a cutie mark, loathed Ponyville. He despised it right down to the bottom of his smoke stained and alcohol-drenched soul. His lungs regularly threatened to abandon his body if he inflicted any more crisp clean country air on them. His eyes watered in the unfiltered sunlight he was forced to endure because the town rolled up the sidewalks after sunset; the very time he was used to finally rolling out of bed. His soft comfortable bed at the boarding house made his back ache, his cigarettes continually vanished and there were none for sale in the town itself.

Worst of all, he had been forced to abandon his dingy brown trench coat and dirty beige fedora. In Canterlot they had been as good as a don’t-see-me spell, able to deflect any attention that might have come his way. In Ponyville they gathered attention, offers of a few bits to tide him over, the promise of a warm home-cooked meal, a coupon to the spa and an offer to do his laundry. Worst, the very worst, the offer of some good honest labor until he could get his hooves back under him.

Everyone was just so, bucking, nice! It made him want to retch up all that apple cobbler his landlady kept stuffing down his throat, along with the all those disgusting savory vegetables and creamy mashed potatoes. He’d gained a good twenty pounds since starting the assignment six months ago.

If only he hadn’t shot off his mouth. It had been foolish to boast about how he was going to have an exclusive on the Elements of Harmony splashed all across the front page of the Equestrian Tattler within the week. Sneaky, as his associates called him because he certainly did not have any friends, wished his sense of pride would allow him to give the whole mess up as a bad deal.

It had been unbelievable. As far as he could find out, they were all virgins, even the faux sophisticate, the white unicorn with the fine, fine, flanks. Buck, he was pretty sure two of them didn’t even know what sex was. He blamed it on the local stallions. Six fine mares like that and not a single player was trying to get between their sheets. He despaired for the future of Equestria if this was an example of the stallion-hood of the new generation.

There were times he almost envied his more traditional colleagues. They had it easy. Ursa Minor rampage, Parasprite invasion. The stories practically wrote themselves. But, he was better than that. He went for the hard news, not the stuff that happened out in front of every Jill and Trigger. He dug in and came up with all the juicy bits that everypony tried to hide. Only, this time all that was down there was a big old nothing.

He’d tried, oh, how he’d tried. He’d gotten his coat and himself shredded by a cat. Freaked out by a toothless Alligator in a drawer. Whacked upside the head by a flying tortoise. Mugged by a cute little bunny and his gang of furry thugs. Questioned incessantly by an overstuffed bug-eyed bird, who kept demanding he tell it who he was, and the one time he’d tried to use his illusion magic in the countryside to disguise himself as a bush, used as a rest stop by a mangy mutt.

Then, to add insult to injury, he’d had his coat sewn up as good as new, without his favorite rips and tatters, and his own hide bandaged. Given a party. Been carried to a nearby doctor, by a filly. Apologized to by a contrite Pegasus as if it were her fault he got waylaid trying to sneak into her house to look for incriminating evidence. Offered a library card, gratis, and finally, offered a garden hose and a chance to clean up plus a nice slice of warm apple pie when he was finished.

He was now a pale plumper shade of the intrepid reporter he had been. His brown coat had regained the shine it had lost back during adolescence somewhere, the greasy mottled appearance giving way to a deep chestnut hue, and his hooves fairly gleamed with a spa-induced glow on top of new shoes. He could walk more than a block without needing to stop to catch his breath. He was greeted with friendly shout-outs wherever he went, no matter how hard he tried to keep to himself. Everypony knew his name, or at least the one he was using. He had even been asked out on a date by a cute barmaid with great flanks and a local weather pegasus with the most perfectly formed wings he’d ever seen.

If he didn’t do something soon, his career would be in the dumpster.

Then fate, that fickle mare, had taken him by the hoof.

Sneaky had been strolling around town in the early evening, wondering if he should just chuck it all and take Berry Punch and Cloud Kicker up on their offer to give domesticity a try when he had spotted Twilight Sparkle, the ringleader of his tormentors wandering the town, apparently gathering up her friends. He had crossed his hooves that this was going to be actual news and not yet another instance of the six of them saving all of Equestria from some dire peril. ‟Please, please, let them be heading out to the woods to dance naked in the moonlight and get down and dirty in the dirt,” he muttered to himself as he trailed along behind them at a respectable distance.

**************************

[1] Twilight’s habit of having Spike read her correspondence from Princess Celestia to her started when she began using the letters to teach Spike to read. As her studies became more and more difficult she developed a morbid fear of opening her letters from the Princess, convinced that it was only a matter of time before she failed and the letter would contain negative news of one sort or another.

Possibly an order for her to return to magical kindergarten for a refresher course in the basics.

During one such panic attack, an impatient Spike opened the letter and began to read it out loud. The relieved Twilight handed the duty of reading all future letters over to Spike.[1a]

[1a]There is no truth at all to the rumor that Twilight has Spike read the letters so she can bask in the glow of someone else speaking Princess’ Celestia’s praise out loud.

(2) It was a silly worry. The Timber Wolves never returned Pinkie's invitations.

Ch4 And so They Met [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Ch4
And So they Met

It was just past midnight in Ponyville. The nocturnal critters were out and about, but the vast majority of animals and ponies were snuggled up in their respective dens and beds. Several exceptions to the rule, some willing, others much less so were gathered in front of a cute cottage on the outskirts of town trying to talk the resident into coming out to go adventuring with them.

This was being observed, from a suitably safe distance, by a chestnut stallion who was skulking behind a bush with a quickly crafted paper cone pressed against his ear as he tried to listen in on what was going on, without much success. The ponies Sneaky was trying to eavesdrop on were keeping their voices down out of consideration for others. There was no way he was going to try and get any closer, however. That bunny was vicious.

‟Oh, I don’t think so, Twilight,” Fluttershy whispered around her partially open cottage door. ‟Maybe in a few hours, when the sun is up, and it’s brighter, and there are not so many shadows.”

‟But Fluttershy, we need you,” Twilight protested, to a now closed door. A whispered ‘sorry’ floated through from behind it.

‟That’s strange. I would have thought for sure you’d want to see the new foal,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. ‟I bet she’s going to be just the sweetest little bundle of fun.”

Fluttershy’s door cracked open a bit and one eye peeked through the crack, almost obscured by her pink mane. ‟New foal?”

‟Well, of course. That’s what I’ve been saying.” Twilight said with some exasperation.

‟Actually, dear. You haven’t,” Rarity said. ‟You scared poor Opalescent frightfully banging on my front door and rousted me out of my nice warm bed. But you only said you needed my help and all would be explained once we reached Fluttershy’s.” Rarity finished her statement with a huge yawn, which she hid decorously behind an upraised hoof.

‟But. I was sure.”

‟Ahem,” Spike coughed from his position on Twilight's back. When she turned to look over her shoulder at him he tapped the scroll in his hand with his quill. Right under, the properly checked ‘Gather at Fluttershy’s’ there was a blank in front of both Apologies, and Explain to everypony.

‟Oh,” Twilight blushed. ‟I’m so sorry everypony. I guess I was just so excited I forgot that nopony but me and Spike knew the whole story. But you have to admit that it is the most incredible news.”

Spike checked off the Apologies square.

‟Well, Sugarcube,” Applejack said with a smile. ‟Could be that we might at that. If we knew what the news was. Something to do with a new foal? I take it.”

‟Pffff, what’s special about a new foal,” Rainbow Dash snorted, doing an aerial backstroke through the air above her friends.

All five of the other mares stared up at her, putting her on the defensive, ‟What? It’s not like it’s all that rare. The Cake’s had their twins just a month ago. I didn’t see you getting us all together in the middle of the night for that.”

Pinkie blew a raspberry in Dash’s direction. ‟Well, duh. Their babies weren’t born at night. There isn’t anything more special and wonderful than a baby foal. They’re just so scrumptious and cute and smell so nice, well, not all the time. But most of the time. And the way their little eyes look at you, and how they reach out and try to steal your nose. What could be more wonderful?”

‟Well, yes, that’s true, but in this case,” Twilight had not even gotten up to speed before Rarity stepped in and took over the conversation.

"Rainbow Dash, you simply have no idea how many things must be done to properly care for a newborn. You have to take note of her personal color scheme, her body type, and only then can you even begin to think of fabrics. You must determine if she has any allergies that would make certain fabrics inadvisable. And they grow so fast. You have to design clothes that will look good when they are over-sized so that they can grow into them while still looking fabulous.”

‟That’s very interesting, but--”

Applejack was next up for the foal boosters. ‟The new mama and poppa are going to be just about worn down to a nub. They’re going to really need someponies to lend a hand, bring over some prepared meals. Let them rest and get to know their little one without having to worry about nothing.”

‟That’s very true, but,”

Fluttershy had been swiveling her head from one friend to another, every now and then opening her mouth as if to comment only to be cut off before she could start. The words inside her had continued to build up like a boiler with no relief valve. Finally, the pressure got too much, and she exploded, ‟Oh, oh, a baby, how wonderful. Why didn’t you tell me, Twilight? And Rainbow, every new baby is the most special thing in the world to its parents.”

*************

Some distance away Sneaky jolted in surprise and fumbled with his homemade ear-horn as it threatened to fall to the ground. ‟A baby?” He whipped out his camera to look through the telephoto lens, and carefully examined every mare he could see, looking for a baby bump he might have missed before. Nothing was visible, and he chided himself for letting his hopes override his good sense. It was hardly likely they’d get together at this time of night just to share such news. So, who was having a baby? And why was it so important that all six of the Elements of Harmony needed to be gathered? In secret? This could be his big break. He quickly put aside his camera and picked up his ear-horn, just in time to get a real earful.

**************

‟TWEEEEEEEEE!!”

**********

The hair along Sneaky’s spine stood up as his eardrum threatened to vibrate right out of his head.

**************

All conversations stopped and everypony turned to look at Spike who was just removing two fingers from his mouth after letting out an ear-splitting whistle. ‟Ahem, Twilight,” he said, gesturing to his surrogate big sister.

‟Yes. Thank you, Spike. This is no ordinary foal. This is an Alicorn foal. That is why the Princess thought it was so important that we lend every assistance possible to the new parents and the foal, and make sure that they are cared for till proper arrangements can be made.”

Twilight, as was usual when giving a lecture, hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to her audience, which was a failing of hers that she would need to address if she ever wanted to become a really effective speaker. She became aware of absolute silence, except for the chirping of a cricket. Even all of Fluttershy’s nocturnal friends had gone silent.

Twilight blinked and found everypony of her friends staring at her in various poses of shock and surprise.

‟An Alicorn foal, and you’re just now getting around to telling us?” Rainbow Dash shouted out, as she hovered forward and placed her face right in front of Twilight. ‟Do you realize how incredible this is? How cool? What are we waiting around here for?”

‟Well, yes--" Twilight started to say.

‟Excuse me,” Fluttershy whispered, her voice barely audible.

‟Really, Twilight. How could you keep this from us? The darling poor foal is Royalty! Why I imagine she does not have a single appropriate garment! We must rush to her side right now so I can determine the most fitting accessories!”

‟I really--” Fluttershy said faintly.

‟I don’t know what you were thinking, Sugarcube. We’ve been wasting all this time jibber jabbing when we could have been acting. We got to get going right now!”

‟I agree and--” Twilight said, tried to get a word in edgeways.

‟I can’t believe you didn’t tell us! A new foal is stupendous, wonderful, great! But an Alicorn foal! That is stupendous, wonderful, cubed! Because, you know, they have the magic of all three types of ponies which means three times the parties!. We have to go right now!”

‟Of course we need...”

Twilight trailed off as she realized all her friends had headed out without her and were almost to Fluttershy’s gate ‟Wait for me,” she called out and raced after them, Spike hanging on for dear life while trying with great difficulty to make one last check on Twilight’s list.

Before Twilight could make it to the gate, however, there was a horrendous racket caused by the loud ringing of a cowbell. All five mares and Spike turned to look at Fluttershy who was still standing on her stoop with Angel Bunny next to her, dressed in a nightcap and holding a bell that was bigger than he was.

‟Thank you, Angel,” Fluttershy told the grumpy looking rabbit in a very soft voice. For his part, the cute fluffy bunny directed a withering look at Fluttershy's friends gave a sniff and retreated back into the house with an annoyed twitch of his tail.

Fluttershy looked down the path at the five ponies who were closer to her than any other pony she knew, steeling herself for the ordeal that was to come. ‟I don’t think we should go right now.” She had intended to say this in a loud firm voice, but what came out, was as usual, barely loud enough to be heard.

‟Oh, come on, ‘Shy. We’ll protect you. Don’t you trust us?” Rainbow Dash said in exasperation as she darted like a hummingbird to hover in the air above her oldest friend.

‟We really do need your help, Fluttershy,” Twilight said encouragingly. ‟No one knows more about the Everfree’s flora and fauna than you unless it’s Zecora.”

‟Well, that’s just the point,” Fluttershy whispered. ‟It’s too dangerous right now.” She cringed as she said this last little bit. She was an awful coward, she knew. For herself, it didn’t bother her. She so hated to disappoint her friends, however.

Twilight sighed in resignation. "Well, if you feel that strongly about staying out of the woods, we won't force you to come with us. Come on, girls. We have a long trip ahead of us."

‟No!” Everyone froze in their tracks as Fluttershy let out a loud, for her, shout. She trotted down the path until she was standing right in front of Twilight and her other friends. Rainbow floated along overhead.

‟None of you should go. Not just yet,” Fluttershy said, her voice shifting from soft to almost loud and back again.

‟This just ain’t about you being scared is it, Sugarcube,” Applejack said, pushing herself in front of her friends to stand in front of the shy Pegasus.

‟No, no it isn’t,” Fluttershy said. She looked at Twilight with her head lowered slightly so her face was veiled by her mane. ‟Did Princess Celestia say it was urgent, an emergency?” she asked tentatively.

‟Well, no, but--”

‟And you are sure the new foal is at the old palace?” Fluttershy said, uncharacteristically interrupting Twilight.

‟Well, the triangulation is not that precise, but yes, they should be there.”

Fluttershy heaved a deep sigh of relief. ‟Then they should be perfectly safe till morning. But we might not be. It is terribly dangerous to travel in the Everfree forest at this time of night. You should know that, Twilight.”

Twilight blushed slightly at Fluttershy’s almost apologetic reminder of how she had let herself get stoned because she hadn’t taken the perils of the forest seriously. Still, she argued. ‟How can you say the foal and its parents will be safe when we wouldn’t be?”

‟Because they’re in the palace, and no critter goes inside it,” Fluttershy said in a soft voice, but with firm conviction.

Twilight started to say something and changed her mind and instead asked, in honest curiosity. ‟How do you know that?”

‟Because when we chased after Nightmare Moon there was no animal sign in the palace. It had been vacant for a thousand years, but there was no sign of scat or dens. The only way that could happen in the Everfree forest where everything runs wild would be if something was keeping the critters away.”

‟That’s actually . . . a pretty good point,” Twilight admitted as her brow furrowed. She went over her own memories of that night, but for the life of her, she could not remember noticing the things Fluttershy had pointed out. Of course, the pegasus pony was talking about things that were not there, and those were always the hardest things to see.

She looked over at her friends. ‟What do you think?”

‟I think if Fluttershy feels this strongly about it, we should listen to the girl. Apple Bloom told me what happened the night you got stoned. Shy’s the closest we got to an expert on that place. If she says wait, I say we wait.” Applejack said.

‟Well, I don’t like it,” Rainbow Dash said in a disgruntled voice, then her tone softened. ‟But ‘Shy would never hold us back, or herself, if she thought there was any chance a foal, or any other baby critter, was in danger. So, yeah, we should listen.”

‟I concur. Fluttershy would never lead us astray in this sort of matter,” Rarity chimed in.

‟Babies and their parents get so cranky when you wake them up for a party. We should let them get a good night rest so we can have lots of fun when we get there,” Pinkie said, pausing in her efforts to blow up a huge balloon with ‘Welcome, insert name of new Alicorn here’ written on it in huge letters.

***************

Sneaky had been cursing the ringing in his ears that prevented him from hearing anything further from the group of mares. He'd been forced to go back to the telephoto lens and try to do a little lip reading. His poor abused heart almost exploded when he spotted the balloon Pinkie was blowing up. A new Alicorn?

By all the gods of ink and paper! One of the princesses had gotten themselves knocked up! Likely by one of those eye candy stallions Celestia surrounded herself with.

After a moments thought, Sneaky discarded the idea that it might be Luna. She hadn’t been free from the moon long enough unless she had already been in a delicate condition when she was exiled. It was all making sense now. They could cover up Celestia’s baby bump with magic. Hiding the actual foal? Not so easy. An explanation would have to be found for that. He didn’t know what it was going to be, but clearly, if they had gone to all this trouble, they were not going to admit to Celestia being the mother. If he could blow the lid off this coverup he would go down in history!

***************

‟Well, I guess that’s final,” Twilight said. She looked around at all her friends, and up at the sky, measuring the time until dawn. She experienced a nervous shiver as she realized just how long her friends were going to be waiting without any sort of structured activity. ‟So, what do we do for the next six hours?”

‟Oohhh, I know, I know. Tic Tack Toe Tournament.” Pinky said while bouncing happily in place.

‟Well, I’m going to get back to my nap,” Rainbow said.

Except for Pinkie and Twilight, everyone quickly agreed with Rainbow, and soon they were slumbering under blankets in Fluttershy’s main room while the yellow pegasus retreated to her own bed.

Twilight pulled out the three baby books, which she had already read twice, and started refreshing her memory.

Pinkie merely shrugged and decided to see if she could finally beat herself. She was a tough opponent, but she thought she had her measure this time.

*****************

One of Sneaky’s legs started to cramp, but he maintained his vigil. They’d be starting out for the location any second now and he was not going to miss the chance to follow them. Any second, annnnyyyyy, second.

****************************

Celestia walked side-by-side with her sister through the cool evening corridors of the castle, enjoying her precious time alone with Luna despite the anxiety of the moment. The guards were giving them considerable space this evening, after a choice comment she had dropped to them about 'mare issues and cramps.' It worked every time. Stallions were so easy, and Night Guards even more so. In the momentary privacy of their walk, Celestia could not help but confess her failure.

‟I still have a hard time believing that an Alicorn could have gone unreported and undiscovered like that. I should have noticed.”

‟You were busy, sister. Performing both your duty and mine.” Luna said bluntly, not sparing herself.

Celestia shook her head and leaned over to nuzzle her sister affectionately. ‟I have told you, little sister. The past is the past. Focus on the now. Or do you wish more frogs in your bed?”

‟Thou wouldst not!” Luna said, in a loud but very unconvincing tone of voice. Waking up to find yourself sharing your bedding with numerous wet amphibians was not something you soon forgot. She felt it most unfair of her sister to resort to such juvenile pranks. They were princesses. They should be above such things. But even as she recalled the incident she remembered how much fun it had been, singing the rainbow-hued pony’s posterior with a lightning bolt during the recent Nightmare Night celebration. Pranking was the most fun! Maybe she should consider hunting up suitable sleeping partners for her sister?

Satisfied that she had derailed her sister from sinking into another darkly emotional episode, Celestia returned to the matter at hand. ‟I am quite pleased that the child of your dream is already showing signs of maturity. When Cadence manifested, there were a number of misinformed advisers of mine who wished her to be declared a ward of the state and trained in a suitable manner by the most accomplished tutors and experts they could find. Can you imagine their reaction to a foal?”

Celestia gave a delicate shudder at the thought. ‟A child raised by committee, I would not wish that fate on any filly. And especially not one who must someday take up the reins of power. How sure of her age are you, Luna?"

‟I believe I am very close. She had no cutie mark. No pony who has gained their mark would ever lack it in the Dreamscape. Unless it is a nightmare, centered around losing it. If she were older than ten and lacked one, peer pressure would most likely cause her dream avatar to have one. But such things are ethereal and tend to fade in and out and change from moment to moment, unlike a natural mark. I saw no such thing. She was a blank flank and fully unconscious of the fact. She had a certain amount of maturity, true, but did not come across as precocious. I do not believe she is any younger than she appeared. Only adults tend to have pleasant dreams in which they are foals again. I am fairly confident that she is between eight and ten.”

‟Her personality will be formed, but malleable,” Celestia mused. ‟It is troublesome that she is alone except for her earth pony companion. It will be much harder to fight off those who wish to ‘care’ for her.”

‟It would seem to us . . .” Luna coughed into her hoof at her slip and continued. ‟To me, that you already have taken this into account, sister. Why else would you have sent the Elements of Harmony to recover her? They are good ponies who have never thought to make use of the political power their status gives them. Indeed, I do not believe a single one of them is even aware of the potential for abuse their position contains. Your student, Twilight, would make a most wonderful guardian.”

‟The argument would be that she is too young for such a responsibility. If you are right about the age, she is at most ten years older than the filly. She would make an excellent sister figure, but I do not believe she would be accepted as a parental one. No, I’m afraid there really is only one option. I think you will make a most wonderful mother, my darling sister.”

Luna stopped dead in her tracks. ‟Sister! Hast thou took leave of your senses? Such a thing is impossible. If they would object to Twilight, how much more vehement would they be against Nightmare Moon raising a filly of such potential. I have seen her mane and tail. I have no reason to question it. She is a creature of the day, of field and harvest. Not the cold and dark. By your logic, you would be the much more suitable choice.”

Celestia had not stopped walking and Luna was forced to trot to catch up to her. Not until she was once again abreast of her sister did the solar princess speak in a teasing tone. ‟Were you not just now castigating yourself for not pulling your fair share, dear sister? You know that I oversee the bearer’s of the Elements, while at the same time making sure that those who keep Equestria functioning are able to do so with the minimum of interference from experts. All I am asking from you is that you take one small filly under your wing and be a mentor to her. Think of her as your own little sister who you can tease to your heart's content.”

Luna was chagrined. Her sister was right. It was not an unreasonable request that she take on this burden. That did not ease her fear and worry. How in Equestria could she be a proper role model when she had such trouble navigating the reefs that constantly threatened to founder her in this new world of the future? She could not continue to rely on her sister and Twilight Sparkle to ease her path. She needed to apply herself to the task as well.

Celestia smiled inwardly as she saw her sister become introspective. She would not push her sister any further on this matter. Celestia was content with having planted a seed in what she hoped was fertile soil.

For now, however, their royal duties called. Luna had a moon to lower and herself a sun to raise. A demigoddess’s work was never done.

***************************************

‟Okay, everypony, this is it. Everyone stay behind me so I can shield if needed.” Twilight’s horn had finally begun to glow, picking up the faint traces of Alicorn magic she had been trying to detect for the last hour. Actually the trace was surprisingly strong for a foal, but certainly, it was not anything she was unable to handle. The nature of Alicorns was power incarnate. Both Celestia and Luna restrained their own power to a great extent, but a foal would have no such conscious limitations. Even a baby unicorn could spark up dangerous flares; it would be far better to proceed with caution. However, before she had even taken a few steps, the glow around her horn flickered and died as the magical trace vanished.

‟Darn, why is it never easy?” Twilight grumped. If only the foal had kept radiating she could have gone directly to her. All she knew for sure was their target was somewhere inside the castle. ‟Okay, looks like we’re going to have to spread out a bit and look. Everyone be careful and whatever you do, don’t startle the adults. The last thing we want is for the foal to let off a heavy defensive flare because we frightened her parents.” Twilight was addressing all her friends, but she focused her look on Pinkie Pie when she said the last.

The party pony was very nearly vibrating in place in her eagerness to get started, but she stalled long enough to shoot a reassuring grin at Twilight. ‟Don’t worry. I learned my lesson with the twins. Don’t startle the babies, you won’t like what comes out if you do, from either end.”

Rainbow Dash zipped up just then, and Twilight felt a bit annoyed when she realized the Pegasus had darted ahead, out of range of any support Twilight could have offered. Before she could chastise the hyperactive Pegasus, however, the Rainbow Dash started to speak. ‟Something strange on the old road up ahead. Might, maybe, have something to do with the folks we’re looking for?”

A minute later the friends were gathered around Rainbow Dash’s mystery object. ‟Well, this here is a sledge,” Applejack said, nudging the over-sized sled like object. ‟We use one on the farm a lot like this when we have to haul in firewood or stone over rough ground, or in the winter. Better than a cart if you have to move something without a road. If this is what our foal’s family used, they must have come some ways that didn’t have any proper paths.”

‟Now this is interesting,” Rarity said, levitating a large puffy red object. Using her magic she inflated it while at the same time arranging it so it looked like it was being worn by an invisible pony. ‟No, that’s not right,” she muttered. ‟The legs are far too short in proportion to the barrel. Maybe,” she shifted the piece of apparel so that the two legs were now extended out to the side instead of pointing down.”

‟Hmmm,” the white unicorn hummed. ‟Do you mind, Spike dear?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer shifted the small dragon off of Twilight’s back and onto the ground next to the large red garment. ‟Hold your arms out if you would, dear,” she said in a distracted way.

Spike, ever ready to assist Rarity obeyed with none of the protests he might have made if it had been Twilight doing something similar.

‟Yes, see. The proportions are much more suitable,” Rarity said in triumph. ‟This is meant for someone of roughly Spike’s build, though much larger.”

‟A bigger dragon?” Fluttershy asked with a touch of trepidation. Spike was a baby, the dragon big enough to wear the garment Rarity was floating in the air would be three or four times as large.

‟I shouldn’t think so. There are no allowances for spines or wings. A Minotaur, maybe,” Rarity speculated. ‟But, Twilight, look at this fabric. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

‟I’m not really very well versed in cloth, Rarity,” Twilight said, even as she trotted over from where she’d been examining the pile of straps and horse collar that had been lying beside the sledge. ‟Oh, I see what you mean,” she said with some interest as soon as she was close enough to see what Rarity was talking about. She rubbed her cheek against the fabric. ‟It’s not silk, wool, or cotton. I don’t think it’s any sort of plant-based fiber. And look at this thread, it’s translucent.”

‟Indeed. I can safely say I’ve never seen anything quite like it. And I would have said that was impossible. I wonder where on Equestria it was made?”

‟Maybe it wasn’t made anywhere in Equestria,” Spike said in his version of an eerie voice. ‟Maybe it came from, beyond!” Spike dropped the ominous voice and spoke in a more intrigued manner, ‟You know, there was an article just last week in The Equestria News of the World --”

‟Hardly a reliable reference, Spike,” Twilight interrupted while rolling her eyes. How anyone with Spike’s background in academia could believe in such things as Bighoof, space ponies, and even humans, was beyond Twilight.

Rarity used her magic to compress the garment she was holding in the air. ‟See here, there is actually very little bulk, it’s almost all air. The style is horrendous, but it would be extremely warm. I shall have to experiment and see if I can design something similar, with a bit more panache. But, what is this?” she asked as she detected a bulge on one side of the garment. Investigating she determined that there were pouches incorporated right into the garment. ‟How useful,” she muttered as she extracted the contents. ‟Now these are much more your area of expertise, Applejack, dear,” she said while floating a pair of large apples in the air.

‟Let me see,” the farm pony said, taking one of the fruits in her hoof. She gave it a sniff. Her look turned speculative. She took a bite and chewed with a thoughtful expression. ‟Well, it didn’t come from around here,” she said at last. ‟And it certainly ain’t an Apple Family apple. Can’t really place the region. Tastes a little bit like a Northern Spy. Good pie apple keeps really well. Might be worth planting the seeds to see what comes up.”

‟Well, I’d like to know what this is all about,” Rainbow Dash said, using her hoof to nudge the pile of harness Twilight had been looking at earlier. ‟There’s enough harness here to hook up a half dozen ponies, but only one horse collar.”

‟Let’s see, dear,” Rarity said, carefully setting aside the coat she’d been examining and duplicating the process she’s used on it with the harness. The straps were all tangled but clearly also all one piece. Frowning in concentration she arranged it according to the way the various connection points seemed to indicate was the proper manner.

‟Well, hay,” a startled Applejack said. ‟That looks like something my cousin Naval Orange might wear. He was one strange pony, let me tell you.”

‟Ohhhh, the Ponies at the Blue Oyster in Canterlot would love that,” Pinkie Pie said in enthusiasm. ‟Those ponies really know how to party.”

Rarity had been so focused on figuring out the hang and connection points that she hadn’t taken in the finished appearance. Hearing Applejack and Pinkie Pie’s exclamations Rarity replied in a distracted voice. ‟Yes, they do have some eccentric tastes in their accouterments. This resembles one of those garments, but who . . .” Rarity suddenly trailed off as she felt all eyes on her, and she mentally reran her recent words through her brain. Her eyes went wide and she hastily bundled up the collection of strapping and deposited them on the sledge. ‟Oh, my, who would have ever imagined finding such a thing in the middle of the forest.”

Feeling the eyes of her friends still on her, Rarity gave them a glance. Applejack, of all people, had a rather knowing smirk on her face, or so it seemed in her rather flustered state. Pinkie was cheerful as always while the other ponies merely looked puzzled. ‟What?” she huffed at Applejack. ‟It was a well-paid commission! I needed to do a little research!” by this time her face was feeling very heated and she just knew that she was blushing heavily. She abruptly tore her gaze away from Applejack’s and said in a quelling tone, ‟We will never speak of this again!”

Applejack wasn’t exactly sure why Rarity had gotten so in a dither. Just because the same outlandish outfit her cousin had liked to wear had shown up in the Everfree. But it sure had been fun to see her get all tangled up over it.

Spike, who was feeling the call of nature decided to visit the little dragon’s bush while everypony was otherwise distracted by Rarity’s antics. He was taking care of business when he noticed what he was pointing at.

‟Oh! My! Goodness! Ican’tbelieveit! It’s Big Hoof!”

‟Really, for real?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed and buzzed behind the bushes to join Spike, who hastily cupped his hands over himself in a fit of sudden shyness. ‟Oh my gosh, you’re right!” she exclaimed, completely ignoring Spike’s attempted modesty.

‟Oh. Are you sure? I mean. Isn’t that just a story?” Fluttershy stammered out, looking around for a good place to hide.

‟Really, Rainbow, I find that highly unlikely.” Rarity said as she rolled her eyes. Inside she welcomed any distraction, even a silly one.

‟Unlikely or not. I think he’s right Sugarcube. What do you think, Twi?” asked Applejack who had stuck her head through the bushes.

Twilight looked down at the huge hoof-print pressed into the slightly damp ground. Beyond a doubt, it was equine and wearing a shoe. But she had never seen one so big. She placed one of her own hooves over-top and the size became even more obvious. It was at least four times the size of hers.

‟I needed to take a whizz. Sure didn’t expect to find anything like this. Looks like Bighoof had the same idea. It’s half again as big as Big McIntosh’s hoof-print,” Spike enthused.

Twilight suddenly realized why the ground was damp enough to take a good print, and what she had placed her hoof on. She resisted the urge to go Ewwwwww, and carefully wiped her hoof on some nearby, and dry, grass before replying to Spike.

‟I really don’t know. It is large, yes. But not to the degree I would start throwing around words like in-pony." Blushing and not meeting Spike's eyes she continued, "From the evidence, I think we can safely say it is a stallion. The father? A companion? We’ll find out very soon I hope.” Twilight moved back onto the path, dragging her forehoof through the brush a bit as she did so.

‟Wait! What? You can’t be serious Twilight!” Spike said not following her.

‟Spike. What are you doing?” Twilight said in surprise, looking through the bushes to where Spike had produced a measuring tape and was busy noting down the dimensions of the huge hoof prints.

‟This is the greatest discovery in the history of Equestria, Twilight. Absolute proof of the existence of Big Hoof. We’ll be famous.”

‟Hello, come to find the first Alicorn born in hundreds of years and escort them and the parents back to Canterlot. Pretty significant.”

‟Twilight does have a point, Sugarcube.”

Spike looked at them like he couldn’t believe his scaly ears. You talk with three Alicorns all the time. No one has ever talked with Big Hoof. No one has ever gotten proof that he even exists. ‟I’d say that trumps a baby Alicorn. All it’s going to do is make funny noises and messes for the next few months.”

‟A baby, Spike. A baby born in the Everfree forest. That’s not natural. There has to be something going on for the foal’s parents to come here. We need to find them. As soon as possible.”

It was clear that Twilight’s words were having an effect on Spike, but he could not stop looking at those hoof marks. Twilight could see how torn he was. She was going to have to have a really strong talk with Lyra back in Ponyville about filling Spike’s head with nonsense. She rubbed her horn with a forehoof and gave a sigh.

‟Ok. How about this? There are six of us here. That should be more than enough. You can try and follow the tracks. But you are not to get out of yelling range of the Castle. And I expect you to call for help if you spot this--,” Twilight paused as if using the unscientific name was giving her physical pain, ‟--Big Hoof,”

‟Thank you, Twilight. You won’t regret this. We’re going to be famous.” Spike took off like a shot along the old road, following the giant hoof-prints. Despite his eagerness, he was true to his word and kept an eye out for danger as well as along the roadside for more signs of his quarry.

‟Are you sure that was completely wise, Twilight?” Rarity asked, in a worried tone as she watched Spike’s small form moving away from them. ‟What if he should encounter the brute?”

For a moment it looked like Twilight might explode. She took a deep breath and said in a very calm, very controlled, voice, that caused Fluttershy and Applejack to take a step back. ‟There is no such thing as Big Hoof. A very large pony was here. An Alicorn was just born here. The Pony in question is either a parent or traveling with them. Maybe a hired guard. With his size that would seem logical. If we find the foal, I assure you that we will also find Spike’s, Big Hoof.”

************************************

Curry was feeling warm and toasty. The nice warm feather-filled comforter over-top of her held in the heat nicely. It was also doing a really good job of holding off the chill morning air that was cooling her face. Jake made a surprisingly comfortable mattress and listening to his deep even breaths and feeling his heart beat against her body was soothing. She frowned as she snuggled down more firmly under the warm comforter. Something niggled in the back of her mind but was pushed aside by other thoughts. The need to go back down the mountain.

Curry wanted to stay just like this, forever. Because, as soon as she woke all the way up, she would have to start making preparations for returning home to face the music. Maybe if they’d made it to the logging camp they could have spent a few weeks together till the supplies ran out, but there was no food here for her, and she didn’t trust the fodder she might find in a forest to be good for Jake. For his sake, she was going to have to take him back to where he could get proper care. As big a stinker as Mr. Sedgwick was she knew he’d do right by Jake. All the horses and ponies at his boarding stable were happy and well cared for.

Something tickled her nose, and she brought a hand up to rub it. Her fingers brushed against something velvety soft, like a swans wing she’d once felt. Must be a feather poking out of the comforter she thought. The little niggle in her mind hauled off and gave her a kick in the pants. Curry’s eyes flew open. What comforter? She certainly hadn’t packed one. Her eyes opened and she found herself looking up at the sunlight as it filtered around the edges of a great black wing.

‟Ahhhhhhh,” Fear of what sort of creature would possess a wing that large caused Curry to roll off of Jake and out from under the feathers that had covered her. She whirled in place looking for something, anything, she could use to beat off whatever it was. Her eyes darted to Jake, expecting to see some horrible monster perched on top of him. Instead, she found herself looking into his sleepy eyes as he blinked at her.

‟What’s wrong, Curry. Is it time to get up?” he asked in a deep, rumbling voice that sounded both childlike and much like an ongoing avalanche. He lifted a leg and rubbed it across his eyes like a toddler just waking from a nap.

Curry didn’t reply, she was too busy trying to absorb what was in front of her. Jake had wings. Jake had wings! JAKE HAD WINGS! Oh, and a horn sprouting from his forehead. Curry felt her vision going gray as her heart started to hammer relentlessly. What was happening? How could this be? She rubbed her eyes furiously and looked again. Nothing had changed. Jake was laying on the pile of leaf litter, his legs tucked under him like a foal. The huge wings that had sprouted behind his shoulders flexed and twisted.

Jake blinked sleepily and looked over his shoulders at his new accessories. For a few moments, he didn’t move. Then in a rather tremulous voice, he asked. ‟Why do I have wings, Curry?”

‟I don’t know, sugar. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll get you back to normal. I promise.”

Jake wasn’t listening. He stumbled to his feet and looked first over one shoulder and then the other as his wings spread out, stretching out a good thirty feet and almost brushing against the walls on either side. ‟This. Is. So. Cool!” Jake shouted, prancing like a colt and flapping his new wings awkwardly, raising a huge cloud of dust.

‟Do you think I can fly!” he yelled out in excitement. He stumbled from side to side as his uncoordinated efforts threw him off balance.

Out of a simple sense of self-preservation Curry hastily backed away, and tripped on a bit of debris. She windmilled her arms frantically as she began to fall over backward.

‟Oopsy, got you,” a cheerful voice caroled in her ear as she felt strong arms wrap around her mid-section, stopping her from falling any further. The scent of candy floss tickled her nose, bringing to mind memories of country fairs and bright lights.

Curry was lifted up and set back on her feet. ‟Okey doky, there you go. Wow, he’s big!”

She turned to find her rescuer was a pink pony? A feeling of disgust filled her. While she wasn’t fond of ponies, she really hated the girls who treated them like fashion accessories. Who would be so stupid as to dye their pony pink?

While she’d been fuming, the pink pony had been rummaging around in her saddlebags, which was strange to see. Ponies, and horses, simply did not bend that way. She might have objected more to the action if she’d been older than ten. As it was she accepted it as strange, and not out and out impossible.

The pink pony pulled out a white object that Curry identified after a moment as a disposable diaper. The pony held it up as if measuring it against Jake for some strange reason.

‟Well, would you look at that. Looks like I should have brought the other sort after all,” the pony huffed, tossing the diaper in her hoof over her shoulder.

Jake in the meantime had noticed the new pony and had given up his attempts at flying. He very seldom had a chance to socialize with other equines and was always eager to greet one when he could. Unfortunately, most of the ponies he encountered were owned by snotty daddy princesses and tended to be just as nasty tempered as their owners. Jake had earned more than a few nips and bucks for invading their personal space a bit too roughly. It never seemed to discourage him. Knowing what was coming Curry retreated to a neutral corner. Jake was the nicest hoss you could ever want, but he tended to get a bit excited around new equines and it was best to get out of his way if you didn’t want to get stepped on.

He trotted right up to the pink pony till he was looming over top of her before bending over to nuzzle her with enough force to set her back on her hind legs. This was the point where most ponies tended to snap at him. The pink pony, however, didn’t seem to mind in the least. ‟Oh, your just a big cuddly wuddly, ain’t you?” she said happily, giving the top of his head a rub with her hoof.

Jake took a big sniff of the pink pony’s fluffy mane, obviously finding it as pleasurable as Curry. ‟Smells nice,” he rumbled before proceeded to give her a giant lick, much as if he expected the pink pony to taste as good as she smelled. His broad tongue covered nearly her entire face and left her poofy mane with a distinct slicked back cow-lick.

The pony laughed out loud then did a rather surprisingly good Elvis impersonation. ‟Why thank yeww, thank yeww very much.”

‟I’ll save you, Pinkie” a voice shouted from the corridor just outside the door. A rainbow seemed to fly into the room. There was a thump and Jake staggered to the side slightly while the rainbow resolved into another pony, this one with a multi-hued mane and tail. For just a moment Curry felt as if something was pulling against her from the inside, but it faded as Jake regained his footing. She checked out the pony who had shoulder checked him. Yet another poor victim of some girl’s bad judgment. But doubt crept into her mind as she took in the wings that this pony sported. A quick glance confirmed that no, the pink pony didn’t have any. The Rainbow pony was staggering slightly on her feet, her eyes a bit swirly. ‟Don’t worry, I got this,” she said, right before falling over backward onto her hindquarters.

Jake trotted over and gave her a big wet kiss as well. He looked a bit disappointed. ‟Don’t taste like candy.”

Unlike the pink pony, this one did not seem to enjoy the experience, she scrubbed frantically at her face with her hooves, making gagging noises and spitting. ‟Well sorry all to buck about that! Dude, get some mouthwash,” she complained.

Curry stifled a giggle. She could sympathize with the disgusted pony. She’d received more than a few of Jake’s overly sloppy kisses on occasion. Usually, if she’d forgotten to wash her face after having an ice-cream cone or a chocolate bar.

A new pony appeared, this time in the break in the outside wall. This one was much more conventionally colored palomino, but with an incredible mane of light pink hair that must take hours of care to keep so gorgeous. Was there a whole clique of girls trying to outdo themselves by making up their ponies. Oh, and she also seemed to have wings. So that was one without, and two with so far, not counting Jake. Jake spotted the new pony and in overexcited exuberance charged toward her.

‟Oh dear. Whatever is going . . . eeeeeee” The pale yellow pony took one look at Jake rushing toward her, his new wings flared out like a dark cloud and folded over in a dead faint. Curry became alarmed. She’d seen ponies run from Jake, or gnash their teeth at him. She never seen one out and out faint.

Just then a beautiful white pony with a dark blue mane and tail came rushing through the opening in the wall, crying out. ‟Fluttershy.” She turned to put herself between the fallen pony and Jake, and cried out. ‟Stop right there, you brute!”

The words weren’t really needed. Jake had started to skid to a stop the instant the palomino pegasus had keeled over. He’d even flared out his wings to their full extent to help bring himself to a halt. He came to a complete stop a couple of feet from the white unicorn, his wings mantling over top of her and his head high in the air as he reared back slightly. The Unicorn looked up at him, her eyes wide. ‟Magnificent! That chest! Those wings, oh my, that horn! She held a foreleg to her forehead and fainted over in a very decorous manner that carried her to the floor in a suspiciously choreographed move.

Ok, that was one pony, one Unicorn, two pegasuses. It looked like Jake wasn’t a total freak. Must be something in the water . . . or the castle. Curry’s eyes tracked to the carving on the wall portraying the mare with the same wings and horn that Jake now sported. She had a vague image of her in her mind, all black with stars floating in the hair of her mane and tail. Was that the answer? Had each of these ponies fallen asleep in other rooms with similar carvings and been transformed accordingly? Clearly, there was magic going on here. This place was certainly looking more and more like a real magical castle.

A lasso suddenly whirled into the air over Jake’s head and settled down around his neck. Jake gave a startled, ‘wuffff’ but stayed still. He’d learned long ago not to tug against his harness or a rope unless asked to. He looked over his shoulder at the one who had roped him.

Curry too followed the rope to its source and fell in love. A palomino pony with a blond tail and mane, topped off with a Stetson hat sitting square on her head stood there, the end of the lasso caught between her teeth. The urge to let out a huge girly squeeee was almost more than Curry could resist. This was a proper working horse. You just had to look at the mare to know she was well trained and used to a life of practical labor. Her proportions were perfect, her muscle tone top notch. Her eyes were clear and bright, and she had an open countenance that spoke well for her temperament. All Curry’s disdain for ponies flew out the window. As much as she loved Jake she had long ago realized that there was just no way she could ride him properly. Not unless she had a growth spurt and grew a foot or more. But this pony was just perfect. Curry could already see them at the Junior rodeo, cleaning up in all the events, barrel riding, calf roping, point to point racing. She’d leave those other ponies and spoiled brat momma girls in the dust. And then she and Jake could take the gold in the individual pulling contest, maybe even the plowing contest if she got a chance to practice. She’d make a clean sweep.

Curry’s excitement lasted for a few moments, and then reality came crashing down. There wasn’t going to be any more fairs, either for her or Jake. No rodeo either. She was going to get dragged off to the big city and Jake would go to work for Mr. Sedgwick. At least Jake would be happy, surrounded by other horses. He'd forget her soon enough. A tear trickled down Curry’s cheek.

‟Popcorn?” Curry was jolted out of her sudden depression before it could even get properly started.

‟What?” she said, using her sleeve to wipe the tears from her face. She turned to find the pink pony sitting on her haunches beside her. And sure enough, she had an honest to goodness bowl of popcorn resting between her two front hooves. Seeing she had Curry’s attention she lifted the bowl and offered it to the young girl. As if to prove it was safe, she took a hoof-full and stuffed it in her mouth.

‟Isaiah, gould.”

Curry, more out of instinct than any real desire for some, took a handful of popcorn. It was still warm, and perfect, with enough butter to explode the flavor, but not enough to make it soggy. She nodded her head. ‟Thanshhh, ish gould,”

‟I know! I’m Pinkie Pie!” The pony introduced herself and held out a hoof to Curry. ‟What’s your name?”

Hesitantly Curry held out her hand and felt it, somehow, grasped by Pinkie’s hoof, and shaken once firmly. A vague memory popped into her head of telling some other pony her name, her real name. The name that was not spoken. The name she was not about to give in the light of day, no matter how weird the situation was. ‟Curry, Curry Comb. Pleased to meet you Ms. Pinkie Pie.”

‟Oh, just call me Pinkie, Curry, Curry Comb. And I’ll call you Curry.”

Against her will, Curry found herself smiling. The pink pony, Pinkie, had the same sense of humor as Old Ben.

‟Yeah, you got him, Applejack. Hold him tight,” an enthusiastic yell from the center of the room drew Curry’s attention. The rainbow Pegasus was hovering in the air in front of Jake, who was watching her in fascination while the farm pony was holding the rope snug. Not that Jake was making any effort to fight it.

‟You know, Jake could just walk away if he wanted, dragging her right along,” Curry said, feeling the need to defend her friend’s abilities.

‟Really, Jake? That’s a funny name. I would have thought he’d be named something like ‟Black Fury. Or Black Awesome to the Max.” She leaned in close to Curry and shielded her mouth with a hoof as she whispered. ‟Cause you know. He’s a real stud.”

Curry, who had taken another handful of Popcorn snorted in laughter and sprayed a great deal of it across the floor while Pinkie looked on in pleasure.

‟What on earth is going on here? Applejack. Let him go this instant.” Curry turned her head to see a purple Unicorn, slightly smaller than most of the other ponies, but with an aura of authority around her, that reminded Curry of some of the teachers at school she actually liked.

‟That’s Twilight. She’s a bit bossy sometimes. But she’s really nice. And she’s really, really, really, really, good at magic.”

Curry was about to say there was no such thing as magic, to a talking pink pony with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, when the purple unicorn’s horn started to glow. The rope around Jake’s neck went slack and floated up and over his head.

The unicorn, Twilight, marched over in front of Jake, and said, ‟Hello. My name is Twilight Sparkle, student to Princess auggggg!” she sputtered as Jake leaned down and gave her a big sloppy kiss.

‟A two, and only because he’s enthusiastic. He’s got a lot to learn about kissing,” Pinkie remarked, holding up a card labeled '2.0’.

Curry found herself being drawn into the conversation as if it were all perfectly natural. Even to the point of ignoring where the heck the scorecard had come from. ‟Hey, give him a break. He’s only five.”

‟Really?”

‟Yep, just had his birthday last week.”

Over in the middle of the room, the Rainbow Pegasus was laughing her ass off, while somehow floating upside down in front of Jake, who was once again watching her with wide-eyed wonder. The purple Unicorn was standing there with a shocked look on her face, her mane slicked back from her horn, which was letting off little sparks. The beautiful farm pony looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or run for cover.

Twilight’s face started to draw up into an angry scowl when Pinkie bounced, literally, up to her. ‟Twilight, this is Jake. Jake, this is Twilight. Jake just turned five last week. Isn’t that great? Did you have a fantastic party Jake?”

Jake looked uncertain and glanced over at Curry, who shrugged. He shook his head. ‟Didn’t have a party.”

‟What. No party. That’s terrible. Well, as soon as we get back to Ponyville I’ll throw you the most wonderful spectacular, stupendaroonie birthday party you ever did have. Would you like that?”

Jake looked a bit overwhelmed and settled on. ‟Eyup,” for lack of anything better to say. For some reason that made the Palomino cowpony’s jaw drop, releasing the lasso she had still been gripping.

‟Wait a moment, Pinkie,” said Twilight, who’s horn was once again glowing, straightening out her mane and removing the excess saliva from her face. ‟Five?” she looked up, way up, at Jake. ‟That’s not possible. How can he only be five? I mean look at him. He’s huge.”

‟Yes, Pinkie. Surely you must be mistaken. No pony so magnificently built could be so young.” This was from the white unicorn who it seemed had recovered from her earlier swoon and was standing to the side of Jake running an admiring eye over his flanks and pinions.

For some reason her predatory gaze made Curry feel a protective surge. She started to get to her feet but before she could say anything another pony entered the argument.

‟Well, he doesn’t have a cutie mark,” the palomino pegasus with the flowing pink mane, who had walked up beside the white Unicorn, said in a very, very quiet voice that no one else seemed to hear.

Pinkie put in her two cents, ‟Of course he’s five. Curry told me so herself. And if anyone should know, she should know.”

‟Say what now, Sugarcube? Who the hay is Curry?”

‟She’s Curry,” Pinkie said, gesturing toward Curry who was standing up against the wall. Six sets of pony eyes turned toward her. Five of them opened wide as five sets of jaws fell open. Pinkie didn’t seem aware of her friends' reactions and just carried right on talking. ‟Wait, you are a she aren’t you? Cause it’s sort of hard to tell with all that stuff your wearing. I hope I’m right. Stallions get awfully huffy sometimes if you make a mistake and call them a mare.”

‟Uh, yeah, I’m a girl. Hi,” Curry said a bit faintly as the incredulous stares from five of the ponies were making her feel self-conscious. ‟How Y'all doing?” she said, her nervousness thickening her accent.

***************************

Many miles away Sneak Peek gave a muffled snort as sunlight slanted through the bush he’d been hiding behind and woke him up. He slit his eyes against the light for a moment, before an expression of panic crossed his face and he lurched to his feet. He looked in the direction of the cute little cottage he had been observing. Not a sign of any of the Elements. ‟Nooooooooo!” Sneaky screamed into the uncaring sky.

************************

Ch5 Walking Goose Home [edited]

View Online

{apologies. This chapter takes place at the same time as chapter four, and is concerned with fleshing out the original Character of Goose. Jake and Curry will be back next week. On the plus side, I did manage to squeeze Molestia into the story^_^}

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 5
Walking Goose Home

‟Plum, Corporal of the Royal Guard reporting for duty! I am ready to relieve you, Optio Pumpernickel!” snapped the Day Guard with a sharp salute as he arranged himself for the ages old tradition.

“As Duty Guard, I stand ready to be relieved. There are no issues currently with this station to report!” snapped back Pumpernickel Rye with a near-identical salute of his own.

‟I hereby relieve you of the watch, Optio Pumpernickel!”

‟I stand relieved Corporal Plum.”

The heavily built, yellow-eyed, dragon-winged, dark grey Nocturne pegasus turned and marched away leaving the critical job of guarding Princess’s Luna’s currently vacant quarters in safe hooves. The same scene was being repeated all over the castle as the Night shift passed to Day, exactly the same as it had been done twice a day for centuries.

Pumpernickel kept up the parade ground stride until he turned the corner and was out of sight of the day-guard. Only then did he allow his legs to bow slightly and his back to sag. He was never going to get used to being the superior officer after being a low pony on the buffalo pole for his entire, admittedly fairly short at this point, career. Technically his rank as Optio may not have been very high, but as one of Luna’s personally selected guards, he was somewhat out of the normal chain of command and had far more power than he was really comfortable with.

For one thing, back when he was just another guard, there had never been any danger of the Princess’s hoofmaiden calling him into the royal presence so she could use him as a dress dummy to show off some new creation to the Princess. And the Princess still displayed a startling tendency to parade around in next to nothing while in her personal chambers. It was one thing for most common ponies to walk around without clothes, but when the Princess of the Night discarded her shoes and neck regalia after a long session at Night Court, the cognitive dissonance of 'Naked' and 'Royalty' was nearly more than his simple male mind was able to handle. It wasn’t as debilitating as it once had been, but he still grew greatly flustered at those times, which amused the Hoofmaiden greatly. Maybe because she knew the best way to calm him down once they retired to their own chambers.

Pumpernickel often mentally referenced the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony when he started to get a bit overwhelmed by his new status and the potential influence. Their reputation from defeating Nightmare Moon gave them great temporal and political power and not one of them seemed to care in the least. Regardless of their level of ambition, they relied exclusively on their own natural talents and efforts, frequently treating their new found status as more of a hindrance than a benefit.

Circumstances had placed him where he was now, only because of the pony he had been when those circumstances arose. Just as with the Bearers. And just like them if he let his position alter the sort of pony he was, he would no longer deserve the position.

In some ways, he had to be even more diligent than the Bearers. It was quite likely that if they betrayed their basic nature in the pursuit of power, their element would abandon them. He had no such fail-safe. It was up to him, and his loving wife, to keep his ego in check. Fortunately, or not, depending on how you looked at it, she was proving extremely adept at the task.

Still, there were some perks he could quite get to enjoy. He no longer had to worry about his off duty hours being spoiled because some superior, and everyone had been his superior, had a hankering for some of Pony Joe’s coffee and doughnuts. No more snapping to attention and being sent off on wild goose chases at a superior officer’s mere whim for him stars forbid! Now he was only sent off on wild goose chases by Princess Luna and her Hoofmaiden, who seemed to collude on the best quality of wild goose that needed chasing at the moment.

‟What sort of posture do you call that, Soldier?” a voice that sounded like the owner gargled with gravel snarled out behind him.

Pumpernickel’s back snapped straight, his legs stiffened, his head lifted high on a suddenly stiff neck. ‟Sir! No excuse, Sir! Won’t happen again, Sir!” he snapped out in a conditional reflex.

‟What the hay are you doing, Mister? You’re an officer now. You don’t sir a sergeant, even if this particular one had the misfortune of being saddled with your poor pathetic carcass and given the impossible task of turning you into something that at least looked like a guard!”

The voice softened, slightly, as the all too familiar shape of his old Cadet trainer walked around in front of the still at attention Pumpernickel. Sergeant Shadow Dash stared at him with his deep yellow cat eyes, one great dragon-shaped wing snapping up in a formal salute as he went to attention. ‟Pleased to see my efforts were not a total waste, Sir! If I could have a moment of your time, Sir?”

Pumpernickel knew exactly how the rule book instructed him to reply to the sergeant. The thought of telling his former drill instructor, who was more than twice his age, to stand at ease and explain his needs caused his tongue to stick to the roof of his mouth. He urgently tried to work up enough spit to at least free his dried tongue, all too conscious of the sergeant standing at rigid attention in front of him. In the end, it was only the barely discernible twinkle in the sergeant’s eyes that loosened his mouth enough to get words out.

‟What can I do for you, Sergeant?” he asked in a voice that contained a touch more strain than he would have liked to display.

‟Have a bit of a personal problem, Sir! Was hoping you could maybe give me some assistance, Sir!”

Pumpernickel winced with each deafening shout, resisting the temptation to fold his ears flat in order to preserve his hearing. That habit had been ruthlessly drilled out of him by the very same pony that now stood in front of him. ‟What is the problem, sergeant?” Pumpernickel asked in a soft voice, hoping to lead by example. The continued twinkle in the Sergeant’s eyes did not bode well for his hopes, as was soon proven.

‟Was suppose to escort my little sister home from work, Sir! Unable to do so, Sir! A small bit of trouble with two of my cadets, Sir! Was hoping you could lend me some assistance, Sir! As you are now an officer and a gentlecolt, Sir!”

By this time Pumpernickel was just about ready to offer his first born if only the sergeant would moderate his tone slightly. His eyes were starting to water from the stentorian flood of words, but one part of the sergeant’s remarks did filter through the aural discomfort.

‟You have a sister?” he asked, in much the same tone with which he might have asked, ‘You and the grandmotherly head librarian are having a torrid and illicit affair?'

‟Yes, Sir! Several, Sir! This is the youngest, Sir!”

By this time, Pumpernickel was desperate enough to actually snap out, ‟Please, less with the sirs, and more with the explanations, if you would sergeant.” His ears flattened slightly when he heard himself say those words.

The sergeant gave a grunt, and the twinkle in his eyes increased, turning his expression into something that might almost have been described as 'only mildly disgusted. ‟I was rather hoping that you would see yourself clear to see my little sister home! She has just started her employment and our mom does not like the idea of her walking the streets alone at this time of the day, sir! No, she does not! Very protective of our little Goose is our sweet mother!”

Pumpernickel was trying to come to grips with the sergeant not just having a sister, but a mom, but the name registered and his eyes widened. ‟Goose? The new maid trainee? The one with the great big–” Pumpernickel got a look at the sergeant’s eyes, which were no longer twinkling and hastily changed his words. ‟–eyes. Very lovely they were. Noticed them last night when she was looking at Princess Luna, outside the princess’s private room. Where my wife was. Just on the other side of the door. Just a couple of feet away. Really.”

The twinkle didn’t return to the sergeant's eyes, but at least they no longer promised imminent bloodshed. He gave a grunt, and said, ‟Yes, our Goose has very nice. . . ‘eyes’. Have caused the poor thing a bit of trouble from time to time. Some as would look at those ‘eyes’, and get all sorts of wrong ideas. I knew you’re not the sort to make such mistakes. Which is why I know you’ll see her safely home.”

‟And I’m sure my wife, having the ear of the princess, and being rather notorious in her own right, would have nothing to do with your confidence, sergeant,” Pumpernickel groused, quietly.

But not so quietly that the delicate shell-like ears of a practiced drill sergeant would miss them. ‟Could not say, sir!”

Pumpernickel gave a resigned sigh. So much for having a relaxing morning and a cuppa before bedtime. Just him and Lamina, no Princess, no sergeants, no guard duties. Ah well. ‟I’d be happy to see your sister home, sergeant. Where might I find her?”

*****************

Goose sat quietly to the side of the palace’s main entrance. She was well back from the large open doors that led out into the courtyard and from there to the street. The nocturne mare was wearing a dark shawl draped over the top of her head and back, covering her wings. The small mare was pressed back against the wall her bench was set alongside while she held her furled black umbrella tightly between her two forehooves, held it in front of her like a shield with the tip pressed firmly against the floor.

Goose was doing her best to ignore the looks she was getting from all the day ponies who were walking in and out of the palace. Seeing a nocturne in public during the day was rare, even rarer when the pony in question was a mare. Most of the Night Guard, Goose knew, flew home by exiting out of one of the upper windows. She envied them.

Goose darted a look toward the large open doors. She focused on the building opposite the entrance and slowly let her eyes rise. A sliver of deep blue sky became visible and her guts clenched tightly at the sight. Fighting down nausea she hastily averted her gaze. Even more, eyes glanced her way as she panted heavily while trying to suppress the sudden panic attack.

‟Are you okay, Miss?” a polite voice asked from a few feet away.

Startled, Goose flinched slightly and darted a look at the speaker. Her eyes widened as she recognized the nocturne Royal Guard she had seen in front of Princess Luna’s chambers. She flushed slightly and looked away. ‟I’m fine. I’m just waiting for someone,” she said, throwing the last bit out defensively as if he had implied she had no right to be where she was.

‟That would be Sergeant Shadow.” the stallion hesitated, and then added. ‟Your brother,” in a tone that indicated a certain amount of disbelief at the concept.

It wasn’t the first time Goose had seen that reaction. Shadow was nearly thirty years older than she was, having been adopted into the family at the age of ten. She didn’t get to meet very many strange stallions, but a few of her other brother’s friends had visited while they were on leave. They had all displayed rather dismayed expressions at seeing her oldest brother looming up at the huge dinner table. She nodded, looking at him with a bit of worry. ‟Is something wrong?” she asked. She wasn’t afraid for her brother. He was the sort of person who happened to others. Instead, she was a bit fearful that something might have happened in regards to her new job.

‟Nothing serious. Apparently an issue with some cadets. He didn’t go into detail. Just asked if I’d oblige him by showing you home.”

Goose’s expression froze, while inwardly she used words that would have meant an appointment with a bar of soap if her mother or aunts had heard her say them out loud. The general tone and subject had to do with what idiots young stallions were.

The slightly older, and therefore, hopefully, not such a total idiot, stallion in front of her frowned at her expression. ‟Is everything all right?” he asked carefully choosing his words with great care. Much as a pony in a minefield might tiptoe around potentially explosive traps.

Goose plastered a bright smile on her face and said. ‟Everything is fine. Just peachy. Could not be better. I love my new job. It’s going well. I get to come back tomorrow, and I got to see Princess Luna.” As she said the last bit Goose’s smile turned genuine, as her face fairly glowed with wonder and joy.

For a moment Goose merely sat still, remembering her first up close and far too brief encounter with Princess Luna. It wasn’t until the guard stallion let out a little cough that she came back to herself. ‟Oh, sorry. I don’t really need any help getting home. My family is a little . . .” She ran words through her mind trying to find one that was both accurate and could be used in polite company. Hidebound? Old fashioned? Misogynous? No, that last wasn’t really fair. They didn’t dislike females. They just had strong views on a mare’s proper place in the world, which did not include working outside the home. It most certainly did not involve joining the guard. Which is why she had been forced to sneak out of the house on the day registration was suppose to take place. She sighed at the memory of that chaotic day. It had worked out so well, until she’d found herself in the wrong line, filling out an application for the wrong job. It would have not been such a problem if her head hadn’t been so far up in the clouds she hadn’t even noticed until it was too late.

Goose was so depressed she just wanted to curl up in a comfortably dark closet somewhere and have a good cry. She brightened as she remembered an important fact. On the upside, she had gotten to meet Princess Luna, which was something she would be willing to bet none of those featherbrained young twits who signed up for guard training would ever be able to say.

Princess Luna, Goose sighed internally in reminiscence of those few memorable moments with the fabled Princess of legend. She had been every bit as magnificent as Goose had dreamed. So regal, so beautiful, so in command, so graceful, and so much faster than she had ever expected.

Pumpernickel was starting to become very conscious of the eyes that were being turned his way as the young mare in front of him seemed to shift from one extreme of emotion to another in the blink of an eye. She might not be vocalizing what was going through whatever young mares used for a brain at that age, but between her heartfelt sighs and those overly expressive eyes, she might as well have been singing an operatic aria.

Swallowing nervously, he coughed again, while nudging the tip of her umbrella with his hoof. ‟Well, best if we get going. Don’t want your old mom getting worried about you.”

Goose woke up from her Princess Luna day-dream and directed a look loaded with all the annoyance she could manage at him. ‟I don’t need any help walking home!” she repeated firmly.

Her pique bounced off harmlessly. Goose’s glare was a firefly compared to the blowtorch-like glares he'd endured from his wife, or the literally blistering intensity of Princess Luna's displeasure. ‟That’s fine. I won’t give you any help. I just happen to be heading in that direction. Shall we go? Or, do you wish to provide a bit more entertainment for the morning shift?” Pumpernickel was a bit proud of that last bit. Maybe those lessons in diplomatic speak had actually done some good.

Goose gave an exasperated sigh. She got up off the bench and gripped the handle of her umbrella between her teeth as she popped it open. The bell snapped open revealing the large size and unusually deep nature of her protective cover. The rim extended a few inches below her eye level leaving most of her head up inside the curve of the dome. She could see fairly well for about thirty feet in front of herself, but no more than that. ‟Let’s go,” she snapped. Without waiting for Pumpernickel she trotted off in a huff, her short tail twitching in annoyance.

‟We’re not flying?” Pumpernickel asked with a bit of surprise. While pegasus tended to walk while shopping in Canterlot, they did not usually do so when they were only going from one place to another with no need for sightseeing in between. Nocturne were even more inclined to fly than their feathered brethren.

‟No!” Goose said in a muffled voice around the handle of her umbrella. Despite the speech obstruction, she managed a flat tone that invited no discussion on the topic. As an old married stallion of two months duration, Pumpernickel knew when to hold his tongue.

Pumpernickel shrugged, slipped on his over-sized extra dark sunglasses and followed her out into the bright morning sun. He made a mental note to bring up the topic of sunglasses with her brother. There was no need for her to go around lugging that enormous sun shade. He didn’t really blame her for not wanting to cope with it while trying to fly.

Goose’s mouthful of umbrella gave her an excuse for not indulging in small talk. She might have regretted that if she had thought she could have kept the topic of discussion focused on Princess Luna. The large guard likely had all sorts of stories. She knew from experience that was not going to happen, however. She came from a royal guard family; her father, two uncles, three brothers, and six cousins all were, or had been, in the guard. While they were perfectly prepared to talk in generalities, they avoided specifics about the royals like the plague. If her own brothers would not talk about their experiences with Princess Luna, rare as they were, she could hardly expect a complete stranger to be any different. He’d be just like the stallions in her family. He’d try to deflect her questions by talking about her day, her experiences. How was she doing? Was she getting any better? She gave an angry snort. No, she wasn’t getting better. Did they think it was a phase she was going through, that one morning she’d wake up and the total terror she had of the wide open sky would have simply vanished?

Tears tickled the corners of her eyes and she gave a quiet sniff and a shake of her head to dispel them.

To distract herself from her own well-known limitations and the frustration inherent in them, she mused on the two idiot cadets who were likely the reason she was walking home with a strange stallion.

A few hours ago, she and Miss Grace had been cleaning the wing of the castle art gallery that extended into the Night Court. It seemed familiar to her even though she had never been inside before, and after a few minutes, she realized just why. It was 'That Gallery,' of which her relatives had spoken of in hushed tones of gleeful horror from their cadet days. Sure enough, it took only moments to spot the centerpiece mural that enjoyed the primary position of dishonor and confirmed her location beyond a doubt.

Superficially, while not exactly great art, there was nothing wrong with it. It was large, six or seven foot high, and maybe ten or twelve across. The subject matter of the mural was innocent enough at first glance. Celestia kneeling in a sun-drenched meadow while surrounded by dozens of frolicking fillies and colts, with representatives of all three types of ponies, but no Nocturne.

Not that this was any great surprise. You could count the number of significant public paintings that featured Nocturnes on one hoof, with space left over.

In addition to the foals cavorting around and above the mother figure of Celestia there were several nuzzling up against her side half-covered by her mantled wings. A bit heavy-hooved with the imagery, but that was not unusual. Where this artist had really made his mark, however, was the expression he had given Celestia. Somehow he had managed, in the tilt of Celestia’s eyebrows, the way the light hit her eyes. . . well, it was no wonder that the nickname the guards had given this particular work was ‘Molestia Among the Flowers.’ The way she was looking at those fillies in the picture had nothing motherly about it.

It could not possibly have been intentional, after all, he had lived to a ripe ripe old age outside of any prison or asylum.

Goose had been so horrified/fascinated by her first glimpse of this legendary, in guard circles, art, that she hadn’t noticed the two senior cadets who were guarding the gallery: Both a nocturne and Pegasus. They, however, had very much noticed her. The nocturne had given her an all too familiar look. The look that said, what the hay are you doing out of the kitchen, girl? Shouldn’t you be at home? Where you belong?

The pegasus had given her a very different look, that was also more familiar than she would have preferred. His eyes were running across her wings as if picturing them spread and fully exposed. There was a certain glassiness in his expression that told her she really didn’t want to know what he was thinking.

They hadn’t said anything to her, but she had a feeling that had more to do with Miss Grace than any great devotion to their duty. She had felt their eyes on her the entire time she’d spent polishing the hallway floor. Blushing furiously, she had turned around so she was faced toward them and worked down the hall backward.

Hardly a second after she and Miss Grace turned the corner, she heard a muffled comment. She was able to make out ‘wings’ and ‟I’d fly that,” before the sounds of a violent scuffle began.

Miss Grace had shaken her head and given her a pat on the shoulder. ‟It’s not you, girl. It’s them. Don’t you for one single instance think you were in any way responsible for what is going on back there.”

Goose had flushed in mingled embarrassment and anger because Miss Grace had very nearly hit the nail on the head. She had been thinking that it was her fault the two colts were trying to buck each other’s heads off. The anger helped to burn away her self loathing very effectively as she instantly rejected the very idea that she had anything to do with why those two complete idiots were going at it hammer and tongs.

************

Goose’s home was not that far from the Palace. Nothing in Canterlot was, really. She and her unwelcome escort reached her dwelling after only fifteen minutes. Her mother must have been waiting, because the door opened before she even reached the stoop and she found herself looking up at her mom and the crowd of aunties hovering behind her. Six pairs of glowing yellow eyes looked at her, and then shifted to the muscular stallion beside her and back again.

‟So, and who is this, then?” Her mother asked with a suspicious lilt in her voice. ‟And I was after thinking your brother was going to be bringing you home!”

No fool, him. Pumpernickel replied in the same manner and tone he would have used to a superior officer. One known for his questionable temper. "Pumpernickel of the Royal Guard, Optio of the Night Division, Personal Guard of the Princess reporting! Sergeant Shadow was unfortunately detained with additional duties he could not avoid, and requested that I escort Goose home as a personal favor to him!"

Goose felt a shiver run up her back as her Mom’s eyes took on a new look. ‟Ach did he now. And did he by chance, maybe promise you a wee bit of dinner for your troubles? A big colt like you. I’m sure you’d be after enjoying a good home cooked meal.”

Goose, really, really, didn’t like the way her mom was talking, or the way her eyes were shifting back and forth between the handsome stallion and herself. She had recognized Pumpernickel’s name, Goose was sure of it, so this invitation had nothing to do with maybe letting him get to know Goose in a comfortable family setting. She knew her mother’s matchmaking ways far to well to believe she was just being polite. So, she was up to something.

‟Believe me, I’d like nothing better,” said Pumpernickel nervously, obviously lying through his teeth. Apparently, his diplomacy lessons had not fully taken hold yet. "I really need to be getting back to the castle. My wife will be looking for me."

Goose watched her mom’s eyes and saw that she was about to try another direction of attack. Maybe offering to make up a basket the Optio could take home to his wife. It was clear now to Goose that her mom was angling for access to all those well-connected stallions Pumpernickel no doubt dealt with on a night to night basis. Goose had two sisters who were as yet unmarried, but she had a feeling that her mom’s end goal was herself. Which was why she hastily stepped in to deflect her mom’s attack. ‟We need to let him get back, Mom. He went out of his way to do a favor for Shadow Dash. Princess Luna might be needing him even as we speak.”

At the mention of Princess Luna, her mother’s eyes brightened while her aunties started twittering in the background. A few even commented on the need to lock Goose up at home before she wound up shaming the whole family in front of the Princess.

With her Aunties, there was only one Princess.

The majority of the female members of her family present, however, seemed impressed that Goose had met someone who saw the Princess on a daily basis so soon after starting her new job. They were all for letting her continue. That was a good thing.

What was not such a good thing was the general consensus that they’d better give Goose a crash course in ‘proper’ deportment so she didn’t shame the family when she met the princess in a more formal manner than being almost run over in the hallway.

The guard stallion who had escorted her to her door bid her goodbye and beat a hasty retreat, the coward, leaving Goose behind under the eagle-eyed scrutiny of her mother, aunts, and a few cousins who had now stuck their noses around the door and had joined the rest of the female members of her family in staring at her in judgement.

Ah, home sweet home, what would she do without it? Oh, how she would love to find out.

Ch6 Getting to know you [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 6
Getting to Know You

Curry was in a familiar situation: Sitting quietly; still and out of the way, while a group of adults decided how to deal with her and what she’d done.

Her personal best when it came to others attempting to determine her fate had been about six months before when she’d given Jess Carmichael a black eye. Jess had been two years older, a foot taller, and had a highly inflated idea of his own importance. Curry hadn’t cared about the first two points and had her own differing opinion on the last. She’d picked up a black eye and lost a tooth that had been on the verge of coming out anyway. When the teacher had pulled them apart, however, she’d been the one on top, and he’d been the one curled up in a ball calling for his momma.

That time there had been the playground monitor/teacher who had pulled her kicking and screaming away from Jess, the principal, the vice-principal, her homeroom teacher, the nurse, who was checking out their injuries, Jess’s father, and of course, Old Ben.

It had been a very satisfying day, even after she had ended up having to shovel stables at Old Man Sedgwick’s boarding stable for a month and apologize to Jess. Actually, the apology had been pretty sweet. Old Ben had stood by her while she stood at the front of Jess’s class and said how sorry she’d been to give him a black eye. The look on his face had been priceless as his friends and all the cute girls in his seventh-grade class had watched him squirm while the scrawny fifth grader brat apologized for rubbing his face in the dirt.

Ah, good times.

Curry had thought she’d never top that level of adult frustration. She’d been wrong. She watched with interest as a huddle of five multi-hued ponies debate the what, how, and why of her existence. Just like the adults in the principal’s office, they were at a near total loss in regards to how to handle her. And this time there was no old Ben around to steer the conversation and make suggestions. Various snippets of conversation floated her way ranging from, ‟What is she?” to the very amusing, ‟Do you think she eats ponies? ”

Curry’s tummy chose that moment to growl loudly. The handful of popcorn she’d had from Pinkie Pie hadn’t really gone far when it came to filling the void that was her stomach. The yellow pegasus, Fluttershy, gave a little eep, and hid behind her friends. Her inner brat caused Curry to made a scary face, much as she might to some kid she’d caught staring at her in class. She felt guilty as soon as she did so because of the look of true fear that appeared in the shy pony’s eyes. The rainbow pegasus, Rainbow Jazz? shot her a dirty look in return that completed the job of making her feel lower than worm spit for teasing such an obviously coward of a pony. Poor thing was likely mistreated when she was younger.

Pinkie Pie had declined to get involved in the discussion. She was sitting on the floor beside Curry, tossing a ball back and forth with Jake, who was sitting on his haunches in the middle of the room. He was learning how to use his new, much more dexterous hooves. Pinkie would toss Jake the ball. He would then bat at it. Sometimes it came back to Pinkie, sometimes it sailed off on a tangent. Pinkie would retrieve it and then repeat the whole thing. It took a few tries, but eventually Jake began to get the hang of gripping the ball with his hooves.

Not that learning how to hold the ball made a great deal of difference as far as the rest of the game went. Jake still had a bit of trouble throwing it back. Half the time his hoof didn’t seem to want to let go of the ball and he’d be left with a funny look on his face as he shook his leg back and forth in an effort to make the ball come loose. Try as she could, Curry could not spot any difference in his grip from when it did, or did not, stick to the ball.

All the while Pinkie Pie played with Jake, she kept up a steady stream of chatter. Some of it was incomprehensible, but parts of it were useful. Curry now knew the names of all the other ponies. Also, their birthdays, favorite kinds of cake, and professions, although the idea of a pony dress designer was a bit hard to wrap her mind around. So was trying to imagine a pony in a dress in the first place for that matter. She felt a certain amount of satisfaction on learning that Applejack was a farmer, an apple grower to be specific.

Jake was likely to go nuts if he found that out, and she wasn’t entirely sure if she was going to let him. She well remembered the day after he figured out how to work the latch on the apple bin in the barn. She ‘did not’ want a repeat of that. She’d darn near needed a gas mask to muck out his soiled stall and had settled for a wet cloth. That aside, it made her look at Applejack with even more respect than she already had. She’d known that the Stetson-wearing pony had to be a real working pony and not some show pony like the others with their outlandish colors.

‟Twilight. Are you down there?” a faint, boyish voice called from outside the room. Unconsciously Curry felt herself bristling, till she remembered her situation. This would not be a stupid boy, but likely a young colt. They tended to be silly and cute, unlike human boys, who while silly were not in the least bit cute.

The purple unicorn, who Pinkie said was a wizard(1), broke away from the debate and called out. ‟Just a moment, Spike.” A small ball of light formed on the tip of her horn and broke away, darting out the door. She called after it. ‟I’ve sent you a tracking charm. It will lead you here.”

‟Spike? What? Butch was taken?” Curry said sarcastically, in a joking tone of voice, just before the bipedal lizard walked through the door.

Curry was taking talking ponies and such in stride, for a given value of 'in stride'. After all, she had been talking with horses for as long as she had been talking to people, only people's responses always sounded dumber than the ones she made up in her mind for the horses.

But nothing in her life, outside of her movie collection, had prepared her for a walking, talking, reptile. She jumped to her feet and pressed her back tight against the wall while checking out escape routes before he could spot her. Right up to the point where the lizard spotted Jake and went all bug-eyed before racing across the floor toward her friend.

Personal fear forgotten, or at least submerged under a greater fear for her friend’s safety, Curry lunged forward, intending to tackle the thing before it could hurt Jake. Instead, she got a mouthful of poofy pink mane, and a nose full of cotton candy scent when Pinkie stepped in front of her. ‟Sorry! My Pinkie Sense told me that if I didn’t step over here right now a chain of causality would start that would bring an end to Equestria and ponykind in general.” The pink pony’s stomach rumbled and Pinkie’s face scrunched up in concentration as she added, ‟That, or I have gas.”

Normally a comment like that, given her experience with Jake would have had Curry heading for the hills. In this case, her, ‟Get out of my way,” was not intended to clear an escape avenue, but an order to Pinkie to let her through. It didn’t work. The mare stayed right where she was. Spitting out a few threads of candy floss flavored hair, Curry tried to step around the pony shaped obstacle. Pinkie moved with her, an apologetic look on her face. When she couldn’t get around Pinkie, Curry threw herself on top of the pink pony’s back, intending to slide over and off on the other side.

‟Wheee,” Pinkie cried out and started to bounce around the room.

Curry had taken second place in calf riding at the last fall fair. Out of instinct she swung herself fully astride Pinkie Pie and clamped her legs around the pony’s barrel. Compared to the calf, Pinkie was easy, but riding her wasn’t giving Curry much time to think or act. By the time Pinkie came to a stop, huffing, and puffing and pawing at the ground ferociously it was too late. The giant lizard had reached Jake. Curry stared in amazement. No biting, clawing, chewing or any other sort of mayhem. All it was doing was asking Jake questions a mile a minute.

‟I can’t believe it! Big Hoof is an Alicorn! Does that mean all those sighting and footprints are yours? Have you been roaming the mountains for centuries? Living a solitary life of contemplation? Have you come forth now to share the accumulated wisdom of centuries of solitary meditation?

Curry felt herself relax. While some of the terms he was using were strange, his manner of asking was not. How could you be scared of a nerd? No matter what he looked like.

Jake blinked slowly, He bent down to peer closely at the reptile, who looked a whole lot smaller next to Jake then he had looked to her when Curry first saw him walk into the room. He couldn’t be more than three, maybe three and a half, feet tall, which made him about one foot shorter than she was. Jake sniffed the chatterbox lizard, looked around the room at all the ponies, and Curry, who was just staring at the tableau with assorted expressions on their face, back to the lizard, and then at the ball that was still stuck to his hoof. He held this out toward the reptile and said, ‟I haze a ball.”

The lizard seemed nonplussed by that. Twilight stepped forward, giggling lightly. Rainbow Dash was having near hysterics up near the ceiling while Applejack snorted into a raised hoof. Rarity put a decorous hoof up over her mouth to hide a broad grin. Even Fluttershy was smiling a little bit.

‟Spike. I told you, there is no such thing as Big Hoof. Jake is simply very, large. Well within the normal parameters, however.”

‟For a five-year-old, Sugarcube?”

‟Well, no. But he is an Alicorn. That skews the data set. Princess Celestia is much larger than most ponies. And Nightmare Moon was just as large.”

‟Wait, wait. He’s only five?” The lizard sputtered out, trying to avoid the ball that Jake continued trying to give him. He finally took it and looked way up at Jake towering over him. ‟How much more proof do you need Twilight? If he’s this big at five, he’s going to be as big as a house once he’s fully grown.”

‟No, he might grow another half hand, but he’s pretty much as tall as he’s going to get. He’ll likely put on five hundred pounds of muscle over the next four to six years.” Curry said from her place on top of Pinkie. She was repeating nearly word for word what Old Ben had said to a bunch of first graders on a field trip a couple of months previously.

‟Yeah, right. Like anypony knows all that about the life cycle of Big Hoof,” the reptile said in a dismissive tone, turning around to look in Curry’s direction just as she slid off of Pinkie Pie’s back.

‟Now Spike. I’m sure Curry knows what she’s talking about,” Twilight said, feeling a bit of internal relief. She hadn’t really thought about the implications of Jake’s age compared to his size until Spike brought it up, but she was glad to hear continued growth was not going to be an issue. His current large dimensions were already going to cause problems, she just knew it.

Spike wasn’t listening. His lower jaw was hanging nearly six inches below his upper as he stared in slack-faced wonder at Curry. The small girl didn’t notice, having become preoccupied with trying to brush party glitter off of her black tights. Not having much luck with her bare hands, she’d snatched off her over-sized Stetson to give that a try, much as she’d seen her uncle use it to knock snow off his jacket and pants. She received a shock when she took off her hat.

A huge spill of russet-shaded blonde hair cascaded down her back. When she’d gone to sleep the night before, it had been its usual hacked-off mess with no single strand longer than six or seven inches. A lot of it much shorter. Now it fell all the way to her hips.

Curry felt the pressure as her hair fell around her shoulders and down her back. Looking down she could see it spread around her hips. Startled, not believing it could be hers, she put a hand behind her head and felt the thick mass. It was hers. The long strands were firmly attached to her head. More, they seemed to be sprouting right down the nape of her neck. Just like a . . . horse’s mane? Curry wasn’t as shocked as she might have been. After the morning’s events, this was pretty insignificant. What she was, was a little annoyed. Jake got wings and a horn, all she got was long hair. What the hay was with that?

Curry was shocked out of her annoyance by a loud cry from lizard boy.

‟Oh. MY. GOODNESS!” Spike cried out.

‟Now Spike,” Twilight tried to butt in.

‟CELESTIA!! A Human! A for real, right here in front of us, Human! Someone, anyone, quick! Get a picture for Celestia’s sake!"

‟Okey, Doki, Loki,” Pinkie said producing a camera with an over-sized flash from her backpack. ‟Say cloud cake with whipped cream and strawberries on top.” She then popped off the flash right in Spike’s face, leaving the little dragon with swirling eyes.

‟Pinkie Pie! Not me. Her!” Spike said gesturing in the general direction of Curry while trying to wipe the tears from his eyes.

‟Well, why didn’t you say so, silly? Do you mind?” Pinkie Pie asked Curry, gesturing with her camera.

Curry stopped fiddling with her new hair and shrugged her shoulders. ‟Sure, Don’t see why not. Just let me get over here alongside Jake.” Curry stepped around the still flabbergasted Spike, giving him a wide berth, and walked over to Jake. The stallion leaned over a bit to nuzzle her cheek and nibble her longer hair experimentally. Deciding it wasn’t edible, or nearly as nice smelling as Pinkie Pie’s mane, he lifted his head and sat up straight. Curry stepped in-between Jake’s sprawled out hind legs and leaned back against his belly. His long forelegs bracketed her and she was able to rest her left hand against one muscular limb. As the last step, she took off her hat again and nestled it in the crook of her right arm like she’s seen Old Ben do when getting his picture taken. ‟You doing ok, buddy?” she said out of the side of her mouth while smiling a ‘getting my picture taken grimace,’ at Pinkie who was setting the camera up on a tripod.

‟Having fun, Curry,” Jake said.

Just then Pinkie Pie pushed in beside Curry. The pony stood up on her hind legs, which made her significantly taller than the small girl next to her. She wrapped one foreleg around Curry’s shoulders while staring up with a happy smile at Jake, her muzzle just under his chin. ‟Of course you’re having fun. I mean why wouldn’t you be? This is like the most fun thing this week. Well, there was that explosion in the ice cream parlor on Maresday, but this is the best fun thing since then.”

Just then the camera went off with a loud poof and a flash that nearly blinded Curry and Jake.

‟STOP!” Spike yelled out. ‟What the matter with you? Don’t any of you get it? This! Is! A. Human! This is even bigger than finding Big Hoof! This is the ultimate! Just think of all the things she must know! All the things she can teach us! Like why they’ve been drawing those mysterious crop circles all these years.”

Applejack lifted a hoof to gather attention and said, ‟I’d sort of like to know that myself. Lost near on an acre of good prime oats last week when some varmint went and drew a whole lot of those fancy dan symbols in the north forty.”

‟What? You didn’t know?” Rainbow Dash said. ‟That was a coded message to any Pegasus cool enough to read it that there was a major rave happening in Cloudsdale.”

‟And you just went and used my field as a big old billboard.” Applejack growled at her rainbow-hued friend.

‟Hey. It wasn’t me. Besides, it wasn’t that big a sign. And it was one sweet party.”

Spike got between Applejack and Rainbow Dash. ‟Ponies, ponies. Can we focus here? Hello, a Human,” Spike said, gesturing at Curry with both hands. He stopped and looked at her for a moment, standing in front of the sitting Jake and next to the standing Pinkie Pie. He blinked and said. ‟Funny, I would have thought you’d be bigger.”

‟Well, you ain’t exactically Godzilla your own self, short stuff,” Curry said, a bit miffed. She was taller than him. She didn’t get where he got off talking about people not being big enough. She’d grow, eventually.

‟I’m not short. I’ll have you know I’m the perfect size and weight for a dragon of my age and development.”

Curry stood up straight, pushing off from Jake and Pinkie. ‟Say what, now? Y’all are a dragon?” That put a whole new complexion on things. When she’d been just a kid she’d thought dragons were giant monsters who burned stuff down and ate people unless a brave knight on his horse killed them. Now she knew better. Dragons were just misunderstood. They could be great friends if you just treated them right.

‟That’s right,” Spike replied, buffing his claws on his chest scales. ‟Pretty cool, right.” Then he remembered what he’d been upset about. ‟Oh, no. you don’t go fooling me with your clever Human Tricks. We’ve caught you so now you have to grant us a wish before we let you go.”

‟Really? A wish?” Rarity asked, her ears pricking up. ‟As it happens I’ve been trying to get my hooves on this simply splendid bit of fabric but they can only make a few yards of a year and it’s already bespoke. I don’t suppose you could . . . do something about that Spiky whiky?”

‟Your wish is my, wish,” Spike said in a dazed tone. His mouth hanging open slightly with a bit of drool trailing off his lower lip. He turned to face Curry. ‟You heard Rarity, So let's make with the wish.”

‟Spike!” Twilight yelled out. ‟Will you give it a rest!” she ordered. ‟There is no such thing as Big Hoof, and there certainly is no such thing as humans. You have got to stop reading the trash that Lyra prints up in her newsletter. Isn’t that right, Curry?” the purple Unicorn asked, turning to look at Curry.

‟Well, it’s like this. Sort of.” Curry hedged tapping her forefingers together in a nervous manner. The last thing she wanted to do was to contradict a teacher, and whatever else she might be, Twilight had all the mannerisms of a first-class hard-ass teacher.

Twilight stared at Curry, her look of expectation slowly fading away till with a sigh she dropped her head and said in a quiet, put upon voice. ‟Anndd, you are a human, aren’t you?”

‟Fraid so,” Curry said in as meek a voice as she could manage. She’d learned the hard way that you did not want to tell a teacher she was as wrong as socks on a rooster.

‟See, I told you so. Now about my wish. And, what is with those crop circles?” Spike asked turning an interrogative look on Curry and making her squirm.

Curry was starting to get a bit flustered. The little feller just would not stop talking at her. What did the movie say about getting a dragon to calm down? Oh yeah.

Curry held her arm straight out, her hand flat with the palm facing down and just above Spike’s muzzle. ‟I swear I ain’t had nothing to do with messing up any crops,” she said in the same tone of voice she’d use if she were approaching a skittish pony.

Spike’s eyes crossed slightly as he looked at Curry’s fingers just inches in front of his eyes. For a moment they actually seemed a bit glazed, but then he gave his head a good shake and glared at her. ‟Oh no, you’re not going to get out of it that easy. I know you're trying to work one of your human spells on me!” Spike said, leaning in past the palm of her hand intent on giving Curry a good grilling, of the interrogatory variety, not the incendiary. He was suddenly yanked backward by a nimbus of faint purple magic and set down in a corner of the room.

‟I think someone needs a time out,” Twilight said sternly to the fuming dragon. She turned back to Curry and plastered a smile on her face. ‟So. A human. That must be. . . interesting?”

Curry shrugged, her eyes still a bit wide from seeing Twilight float Spike across the room. ‟Not as interesting as being a Pony with magical power I’m betting.”

Twilight gave a little laugh without taking her focus off of Curry. ‟So, tell me. Curry. How did you come to be here?”

Twilight’s simple question was the pebble that started an avalanche.

The normal rule of thumb when talking to a school teacher was to say only the absolute minimum. Don’t lie, but don’t volunteer anything. Technically the pony in front of her had no authority over her. As such the only answer Curry owed her as an adult authority figure was Name, address, and phone number.

Only, for a week now Curry had been bottling up words. Words of pain, words of anger, words of sorrow. If she’d been allowed to visit Jake she would have spilled them all out in a torrent to him each night. When she’d finally gotten to see him she hadn’t dared do so. She’d need to stay calm and in control so that he, in turn, would be calm and not spooked when she took them both up the mountain.

Now, for some reason, with all those ponies looking at her with eyes that were merely curious or kind, with no sense of judgment, Twilight’s simple question caused a cascade of memories to flood through her mind. Memories that she’d been shoving deep down inside. She tried to push them away, tried to think only about this strange magical land with the strange funny colored ponies, but try as she would she could not do it.

Tears started to run down Curry’s cheeks, she swallowed, let out a little hiccup, and started to weep silently. Twilight’s eyes widened and she looked a bit frightened as she lifted a tentative hoof to offer comfort only to stop with her hoof hanging in the air, unsure of what to do with it. Unsure how to fix this.

Suddenly, Twilight was hip-checked away and the yellow pegasus with the pink mane was there, enveloping Curry in a soft hug that smelled of flowers and sunlight. Her wings wrapped around the small girl doubling the hug and supplying warmth and comfort. ‟There, there, little one. You’re safe. Nopony is going to hurt you.”

Curry turned her damp face into the soft feathers of Fluttershy’s wings. Up above both of them Jake, who had been looking over at Spike with a wistful expression, noticed Curry’s distress. He let out a little whicker of worry and lowered his head while mantling his large dark wings around her and the small yellow pegasus, cutting them off from the others. He nuzzled Curry’s longer hair, lightly nipping and tugging on a few strands. ‟Don’t cry, Curry. Don’t be sad.” Jake gave a little hiccup himself and great fat salty tears ran out of his eyes and dripped down on top of the small girl’s head and shoulders. Feeling Jake’s tears, Curry pulled herself away from Fluttershy with a small gasp. She looked up at Jake who’s tear dripped down onto her face. Guilt filled her. There was no reason for her to inflict her pain on him. He was such a happy person and he so seldom got a chance to express it. She stifled a small sob and plastered a smile on her face.

‟Oh, don’t you start too, you big ox,” Curry sniffed. She looked up at him with her tear streaked face and gave him a pat on the cheek. ‟I’m not hurt. Just got something in my eyes. You know how I get all leaky when I’m forking hay. How about you go visit the lizard.”

‟That’s the dragon!” Spike yelled out from his time out corner.

Jake seemed hesitant, but Curry pushed against his chest with the palm of her hand. With a bit of scrambling, he got his long legs under him without knocking into anyone, pony or human. He ambled over to Spike, looking back over his shoulder a few times and getting waved on by Curry. As soon as he reached the small dragon he began to ask questions, and then, without waiting for an answer, to talk about the trip up the mountain and the things they’d seen in the castle. Them a moment later he started to ask Spike questions about the things he’d just talked about. It was Spike’s turn to feel overwhelmed.

‟Spike, why don’t you take a walk outside with Jake,” Twilight suggested. She looked around at her friends.

Applejack held up a hoof. ‟I got this, Twilight.” She trotted over to Spike and Jake. ‟Come on guys. Let's go for a walk and stretch out our legs.” The three of them exited through the break in the room. Jake stepping easily over the tumbled blocks. Applejack jumped up on top of the heap of rubble and then lightly from one pile to another till she disappeared outside. Spike wove between the taller piles and scrambled over the lower. Just before he disappeared, he looked over his shoulder at Twilight and mouthed, ‘You owe me,’ before vanishing from sight. For a while, Jake’s deep voice could be heard rambling on nonstop about everything and anything that popped into the colt’s mind.

Curry watched Jake leave with the others, the tears streaming down her face increasing, she tried to dash them away with her arm, but they kept coming. She gulped, swallowing the salty fluid. A small coughing sound burbled up out of her throat as she started to gasp. Her breath started to come in pants as her face screwed up, and at last, the floodgates opened as Fluttershy wrapped her wings all the way around Curry and pulled the tiny girl up against her body while Curry wailed into her shoulder.

Curry had a lot of pain stored up and it took a while, but eventually, her cries started to taper off. Fluttershy didn’t even wince as the small girl rubbed her tear and snot streaked face against her shoulder. She’d had worse smeared across her hide. ‟How are you feeling?” Fluttershy asked in a gentle voice, all fear of the strange creature in her arms vanished as if it had never been there in the first place. She stroked Curry’s mottled face with a soft wing and found it did not look nearly as scary as it had before.

‟I’m feeling a bit better now. Miss Fluttershy,” Curry replied in a voice that was a bit weak from the strain.

A small container suddenly floated into view. ‟Have some water, dear. You must be absolutely parched. I know I am after a good cry.” Curry looked over at the kind face of the white Unicorn who was looking at her with sympathy.

‟Thank you kindly, ma’am,” she replied in her best go to Sunday dinner voice.”

‟Oh, heavens. Call me Rarity. I’m far too young to be called Madam.”

‟Just call me, Fluttershy,” Fluttershy said in a soft whisper. ‟If that’s ok?”

‟You can call me, Awesome,” The rainbow pegasus said. ‟Or just Rainbow Dash.”

‟Yeah, you are pretty awesome,” Curry said with a weak smile.

‟Yeah, I know. I’m the best.”

‟Yes, we all know, Rainbow. I’m Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia. You can call me Twilight. Spike, the small dragon, is my personal assistant, and baby brother.”

‟You must have, a right interesting family . . . Twilight,” Curry said hiccuping a bit.

Suddenly Pinkie Pie was there, shaking Curry’s hand. ‟Oh, she has the best big brother ever. And her Sister-in-law is the best sister-in-law ever. And Spike is a real sweety. And I’m Pinkie Pie, but you already knew that. I have so much stuff to tell you. I hope you have lots to tell me. Because I have so much to tell you but people get all cranky wanky if you don’t let them say anything so I hope you have lots to say because I have. Lots to,” Pinkie took a deep breath and finished with, ‟say.”

Curry blinked a bit, and then wiped her eyes with her forearm. ‟Thanks. I guess maybe I do have some stuff to say,” she said, looking around at the circle of pastel ponies who were surrounding her. All the words that she’d wanted to say to Jake for the last week were bunched up inside her mind. Crying into Fluttershy’s wings had eased her heart a bit, but she still had all those words piled up that she needed to say or burst.

‟It started about a week or so ago. I was in school and someone came to take me to the principal’s office . . .”

The words flooded out of Curry. Learning her great uncle Ben, Old Ben, because her father, who she had never known, had been Young Ben, had passed away. Being put up in the house of one of the local ladies. The social worker interviewing her, again. The funeral. All the townspeople telling her how sorry they were and how nice a guy Old Ben had been. Being taken back to her house to gather up her belongings. Finding out that she was to be taken away to live in the big city. Running away from home. The ride up the mountain. Finding the castle at the top of the mountain. The decision she’d made when she woke up this morning. That she had to take Jake home so he’d be safe. Even if it meant she’d never see him again.

All the while she talked, Fluttershy held her softly in her wings, every now and then wiping away the tears that were running down Curry’s cheeks. Rarity would offer her a drink whenever her voice started to get a bit strained.

When it was done Curry felt wrung out. Her stomach hurt where it had been knotted up in stress, but at the same time, it felt looser and more comfortable. When Rarity floated over a handkerchief and pressed it against her nose with the instructions to blow, she didn’t even hesitate, but cleared her nose and allowed the white Unicorn to use some water and another cloth to clean her dirt and tear smudged face. It was just so comfortable to surrender control. She had spent all of last week not daring to trust a single adult. Now she was surrounded by five adults she had only just met and she trusted them unreservedly. Maybe it was because they were ponies and that made it easier. Whatever the reason, she trusted them, trusted them enough to be a kid who needed her nose blown and her face wiped. Who needed a hug and a shoulder, or flank, to cry on. Trusted them enough to slowly sink into a deep sleep as her body surrendered to the need for recovery.

Twilight slowly tiptoed away from Fluttershy and the little mare who was sleeping in her wings. Even Pinkie and Dash kept quiet as they joined her in slipping out into the interior hallway. Rarity, of course, always moved in grace and silence.

‟Whatever are we going to do with her?” Rarity asked, in a tone that said very clearly that they were going to do something. ‟We certainly can not send her back to where she came from. What is there for her?”

‟Yeah. Lost her parents when she was just a foal. Lost her guardian, her only living relative, a week ago. An old witch separating her from her only friend in the world. The little filly has it tough,” Rainbow Dash said, her tone unusually serious for her.

‟I don’t think the word she used was witch, Rainbow,” Twilight said in a distracted tone.

Twilight’s mind was racing over the implications of what she had learned and deduced. Curry was one of the mythical filly tale creatures that featured in so many old stories. Sometimes as benevolent, but more often as evil. Curry’s presence and her story indicated that there might be some truth behind some of those tales. The little mare had world walked, along with Jake, to Equestria. Given what had happened to Jake when he had arrived it was clear that he belonged in this world. He had likely been drawn here because of that. As an Alicorn, his magic had been powerful enough to open the path and drag Curry, literally, along with him when he made his way here.

That created a problem. For all his size and apparent physical maturity, he was just a colt. It had not been a carefully contrived spell that had brought them here, but a flare of uncontrolled magic, much like the flare she had let out on the day she had earned her cutie mark. She was sure that at the time Jake had been desperate to get Curry somewhere safe and secure. His magic and inner nature had chosen the way and destination.

Trying to duplicate what Jake had done in reverse was almost certainly impossible, just as duplicating the exact effects Twilight had performed on that day were still far beyond her. Jake wouldn’t be able to tell them how he had done it. He likely didn’t even know he had. That was maybe for the best. Time enough to address that when he matured and could deal with his responsibility as an adult. She had enough experience with the Cutie Mark Crusaders to know that if he found out now, he would do ‘anything’ to make it right. Twilight shuddered at the thought of the sort of havoc Jake might create trying to world walk on purpose. That was magic of the absolute highest order. In fact, the only reason she knew such a spell existed was based solely on what she had just learned. There was no such thing as ‘one’ in the universe. If it had been done once, it could be done again. And in all likelihood, given the old stories, it had been done in the past.

That did nothing to solve the problem of Curry. ‟Jake has a place in this world. She doesn’t,” Twilight said quietly as she tried to think about what to do.

‟Don’t be silly, Twilight!” Rarity said with a touch of impatience at her dense friend. ‟Of course she has a place in this world. She has Jake and Fluttershy. Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie and you. And me of course. That’s far more than she had back in that simply awful place she came from.”

‟Yes, yes that might all be true,” Twilight said, not wanting to get into an argument that had no purpose. It wasn’t like she could send the little mare back where she belonged, after all. ‟But the facts remain that there is none of her kind here. Whatever is to become of her?”

The very impossibility of the situation was actually a relief. Twilight felt a certain easing in her mind. This was so far above her pay grade, she couldn’t even see the top. That meant she was not going to be expected to solve the problem. Couldn’t solve it.

She looked over at where Spike, Applejack, and Jake, had just walked around the corner. Jake chattering away a mile a minute. Applejack looking a bit pained, but Spike was now giving as good as he got.

‟Spike,” Twilight called out. ‟Take a letter.”

[1]Actually, Pinkie said Twilight was amazing stupendous magicrific.

Ch7 Tea and Conversation [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter seven
Tea and Conversation

Celestia's private office was an oasis of tranquility in a busy castle. Every day around ten in the morning, she would vanish inside with a stack of papers that needed attention, a samovar of tea, and a small mysterious box, the contents of which generated a great deal of idle speculation among the idle nobility. Only the castle confectioner knew what it contained for certain, and she would never tell. The rest of the castle staff utilized this precious downtime to carry out tasks or just take a well-deserved breather. Every member except Princess Luna, that is.

Celestia had methodically worked her way through about a third of the day’s normal correspondence, and about a gallon of tea, when an impatient Luna burst in through her office door.

‟Hast thou no word yet, Sister?” she exclaimed impatiently.

Celestia lowered her teacup in a marelike manner, dabbed her lips with a napkin, and shifted slightly on her office couch. Her expression changed only slightly as the gallon or so of tea made its presence known. With the aid of long practice, she managed to keep up an appearance of serenity. (1)

‟You must be patient, Luna.”

‟We have been most patient, Sister,” Luna said firmly, marching back and forth in front of her sister in an agitated manner. She took in her sister’s calm collected appearance with a certain amount of exasperation. ‟Are thou not concerned?”

‟I trust my student and her friends. Twilight will inform me when there is something to inform me about.” She picked up another sheaf of paperwork and started to peruse it.

‟Thou are most unreasonable, sister. This affects us most directly.”

‟Personal is not the same as important, sister,” Celestia said, levitating a cup of tea to her lips, and then having second thoughts as her shift in position reminded her of a long-ignored pressure in her nether regions which had grown to un-ignorable levels. She lowered the cup back to the table and raised herself up off the couch.

‟If you would excuse me, little sister. I have pressing matters that need to be addressed.” At that moment a sudden flare of green fire spun to life in front of her and resolved into a ribbon tied scroll. A tiny bead of sweat appeared on Celestia’s forehead, right next to her horn. Her pelvis clenched slightly and she darted a look at Luna’s gleeful face. There was no way her little sister was going to allow her to visit the little mare’s room without opening that scroll herself while her sister was gone. Unless.

‟I’ll be right back, sister,” Celestia said, snagging the scroll and slipping through her bathroom door.

For a moment Luna stood there, jaw agape, before rushing forward to pound on the suddenly magically reinforced door. ‟Sister. Thou shalt not dare to read the missive till I am present!” she yelled.

Luna scowled when the only reply she received was a mocking laugh. Her frown turned upside down, however, when she recalled a certain magical spell she had recently discovered, during her side research into ‘fun’, in a most interesting book. ‟1001 Frat Pony Pranks,” by Aitselec. This invaluable tome contained the most perfect response for this occasion. Now how did it go? Luna’s horn glimmered and her expression turned smug as she felt the little mental click that signaled a successfully completed spell.

Inside the bathroom, Celestia smirked a bit. Teasing Luna was such fun, and such good therapy as well. A win-win. She had decided some weeks previously that the worse thing she could do in regards to her sister was to treat her like a glass doll. She had made that mistake a thousand years ago when she had done everything possible to ignore Luna’s jealousy and slowly darkening nature; when what she really should have done was embark on a program of short-sheeting her bed, fiddling with the weights on her scales, surprise water balloon attacks. . . Celestia suddenly felt very damp around the hindquarters.

‟And oh yes. Cellophane under the toilet seat.” She muttered with a grimace. ‟Not funny, Luna,” She yelled at the door, while inside her inner filly brayed like a delighted donkey. The indignity was well worth the muffled laughter coming from the other side of the door.

Fifteen minutes later a much refreshed, and cleaned, Princess emerged from the royal water closet to find her younger sibling smirking at her from her position in front of Celestia’s desk with several of her favorite selections missing from an open box of chocolate. A small vein on her forehead twitched. She’d been saving those. (2)

‟You do know this means war, little sister.”

‟As our subject, Rarity might remark. Bring it, big sis,” Luna remarked through a mouthful of her latest chocolate victim. ‟Now may we peruse your student's missive?"

Celestia removed the ribbon from the scroll, allowing it to unroll. A picture fell out as it did, to be snagged by Luna before it could reach the floor.

Luna glanced at it casually at first, then stiffened, her eyes widening as she took a closer look. It was a picture of a coal black, very large, Alicorn stallion sitting on his haunches. Between his forelegs, nestled under the bulk of his body was Pinkie Pie and a strange creature, unlike anything Luna had ever seen before. ‟Sister, what is this?” Luna said in shock, levitating the picture in front of Celestia’s eyes.

The Sun Princess lifted an eyebrow, a significant reaction for one of her control. ‟Surely you’ve seen a stallion before, sister,” Celestia snarked, unable to resist, but then in a more serious tone added, ‟I was under the impression that the Alicorn you met in the Dreamscape was a young filly, not an over-sized stallion.”

‟So I thought. But the dream world can be deceiving. It is the world of everything from fond dreams to a pony's deepest fears after all,” Luna said, in a distracted tone as she continued to examine the picture. Despite her words, Luna was more than a bit disconcerted about the strange creature. When she met the Alicorn filly in the Dreamscape, she had been so real, as if she could have stepped out of the night sky covered with frost. It seemed almost inconceivable that she was actually an awkward flightless biped. If not for the involvement of the Elements, it would have been much easier to simply dismiss it all as some sort of weird practical joke. Luna had been looking forward to meeting that little mare in person, she realized. And maybe, discussing her mother’s moon worship. She shook off that last thought and turned her attention back to her sister. ‟Of more importance. What is the creature with the stallion and Pinkie Pie?”

‟It seems likely that the answer to some of your questions will be in Twilight’s letter,” said Celestia, floating a pair of reading glasses up onto her nose.(3)

Dear Princess Celestia,

Things have become very complicated. We located the Alicorn you asked us to find, but as you can see in the picture he appears to be a mature stallion. His companion, however, insists that he is only five years old. His speech pattern and mannerisms seem to support this.

‟Only five years?” Luna interjected, looking once more at the picture. We know things are very different from when last I ruled at your side, sister. But is that not a touch, unusual?” She looked at the picture and felt a touch of regret. Only five years of age, that certainly nibbled a large one. Or was that being bitten by a big one? She would have to reference that confusing guide again. (4)

While Nightmare Moon had been many things, a foalacon was not one of them. Luna was not about to change that, but mercy, look at the size of those wings. And everyone knew what that meant.

‟Let us see if Twilight expands on that,” Celestia said, carefully looking at Luna over the top of her own glasses. Her little sister looked greatly disappointed. She made a mental note to have a talk with Luna. There was no need at all for her to suffer from lack of companionship if the matter was handled discreetly. Although, thinking about it, how long had it been since she had... Celestia's eyes widened in dismay. No wonder she’d been feeling stressed lately. It looked like Luna was not the only one who was in need of a nice hard– Celestia cut that thought off before her mind completely derailed and got back to Twilight’s message.

Of more concern, however, is that his companion claims to be a human.”

‟A human? Sister. I fear that Twilight Sparkle may have eaten an unwise mushroom in the Everfree forest.”

Celestia gave Luna a quelling look over the top of her glasses,(5) before reading the next section with a special emphasis.

I know that this might sound like something from the Equestria Enquirer. If I had not encountered so much skepticism in the matter of Nightmare Moon, I might not have been prepared to consider it.

Luna huffed at that and subsided.

I feel, and the others agree, that we should not use the term human in regards to her. The term is too loaded with misconceptions. But I felt you should be aware of her claim.

The truth is, Curry, human or not, is not of Equestria. Rarity assures me that her clothes are made with fabrics and weaves that are indicative of an advanced culture, although somewhat lacking in fashion. No culture this advanced could have remained hidden from us if they existed in Equestria. Furthermore, while some of the materials in her garments could have been produced locally, there are some that Rarity has never seen before. She has no idea where they may have come from. Indeed, and I am only stating a hypothesis here, they do not seem to be organic in nature. Possibly they were created by some magical process, although it would have to be highly efficient due to the nearly-absent level of magical residue in the clothing.

To keep this as short as possible.(6) Curry claims that she and Jake, the Alicorn stallion, fled their home after Curry was orphaned and they had been threatened with separation. I believe that Jake manifested his Alicorn magic during this escape and it drew him and Curry to Equestria. This would correctly correspond with the timing of the magic flare that Princess Luna and I detected.

In all humility, Princess, I do not know what to do with them. I can’t help but think the original plan of smuggling a newborn Alicorn foal and its parents into the royal palace is now impossible. Jake would be very difficult to smuggle anywhere. He tends to stand out and has the complete lack of discretion of a young colt. The addition of Curry to the equation further complicates matters. I would greatly appreciate any advice you might have.

Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.

‟My, that must have been difficult for Twilight. She all too often perceives a request for help as a sign of failure. Her friends have been a good influence on her,” Celestia commented.

‟She was not incorrect, however. This a most difficult conundrum, sister. What shall we do.”

Celestia tapped her chin with a polished hoof, thinking. Her inward facing gaze met that of Luna across the table, not registering her sister for a moment. Then her eyes brightened and she gave her sister a smile that sent a decided shiver down Luna’s spine.

‟Twilight has already given us the answer.”

‟She has?”

‟Indeed. There is no such thing as a Human. The mare Curry is, in fact, a Moon Mare,” Celestia said with great satisfaction.

‟Sister. No. Thou can not.”

‟Will the real Moon Mares object?”

‟What? Of course not. There is no such thing.”

‟Well, there you have it then. Perfect.”

‟Putting aside all that is wrong with that statement. The mare, Curry, does not look in the least like a Pony.”

‟Pissh. She’s from the moon. Of course, she’ll look strange. Why. Within a few days, I expect we’ll see the National Equestrian announcing that all the sightings of Humans have really been Moon Mares visiting. I expect that before you know it they’ll be writing all sorts of stories about how Moon Mares have influenced history down through the ages."

Luna was getting a bit frantic. She was the ruler of the night, which included the moon and stars. She just knew that Celestia was going to saddle her with all the chaos this was going to cause.

‟And why has this Moon Mare come at this time? And how do we explain that she is not flying back to the moon once her visit is over?”

‟Again. Twilight has given us the answer. When Jake... hm, we really must find a more suitable name for him. Anyway, when he flared and transformed from a poor little-orphaned colt into a powerful Alicorn Stallion, as is perfectly normal for the male of our species, of course. He opened a road to the moon, and the poor little Moon Mare, who had been pining for her lost friend, Nightmare Moon, came galloping down the path in the hope of being reunited."

‟Sister. Thou are tired. Thou needs to lie down. Take a rest. We shall call the royal medical staff.”

Celestia ignored her sister. ‟Such a tender story. This poor little moon filly. Innocent as only a child can be, stumbled across the prison of the dreaded Nightmare Moon. But she was not struck down. Nightmare Moon, alone in her solitude could not harm this innocent who had brought the first bit of companionship into her thousand-year exile.”

‟Thou knows, Sister, that I was in deep slumber infused into the very substance of the moon itself.”

‟Pish. Don’t spoil a good story, Sister. This filly would come again and again to converse with the imprisoned Nightmare Moon. Sharing her childish treasures. String and sealing wax and other important stuff. She softened Nightmare’s black heart, allowing a glimmer of goodness to slip in. And when at last Nightmare Moon was released, there was a flaw in her perfect darkness. A little ember of goodness planted there by the pure and innocent Moon filly. While the dreaded Nightmare Moon did indeed strive against the Elements of Harmony, she could not bring herself to strike with all the force she could.”

‟Sister,” Luna repeated, this time weakly.

Celestia assumed a posture a little less maniac and smiled at her sister. ‟Do you not think I did not know, sister. That you lacked the will to truly fight against my champions?”

Luna sighed. Partly in exasperation, partly in relief. ‟Thank goodness thou was only teasing, sister.”

‟Oh, I was perfectly serious, little sister,” Celestia said. ‟I can hardly wait to see you reunited with the little filly you met on the moon.”

‟Sister!”

Celestia stifled a giggle with one well-groomed hoof. ‟You are far too easy, sister,” she chided Luna. She leaned across and gave her sister an affectionate nuzzle while enjoying her sister’s look of chagrin for a moment before adopting a more serious expression. She picked up the picture Twilight had sent them and shook her head. ‟You are too divorced from the reality of the court these days, Luna. You have not taken into account the most serious aspect of this strange circumstance. The presence of a mythic human, while intriguing, is, as the earth ponies might say, small potatoes."

Luna floated the picture out of Celestia’s grip and over in front of her eyes. She looked it over, trying to see what she had missed. ‟I don’t understand, Tia.”

‟Think how your Nocturne survived, sister.”

For a moment Luna still did not see, and then her eyes widened, and if it had been possible she might have blanched.

When Celestia had used the Elements of Harmony against Luna’s former incarnation during the War of the Sisters, Nightmare Moon had fought back, drawing on energy stolen from Luna’s earlier creations, the Nocturne ponies. The earth and unicorn nocturne ponies had been exterminated completely. Only fifty-one Nocturne pegasi colts and fillies had survived, and only because they were placed on a cloud and shoved out of range by a brave nocturne pegasus who gave his life in the effort to save his baby brother, and the other colts and fillies.

Celestia had taken those fifty-one foals under her wing after judging the innocent young free of guilt in regards to their parents' revolt and complicity with Nightmare Moon. Celestia, instead of hating them as a reminder of her sister’s fall into darkness, had treasured them as the last remnant of her sister. They were an example of her sister’s ability to create. They had nothing to do with the creature of destruction that had consumed the younger Luna. Celestia had vowed to keep them safe so they, or their descendants, would be present when Luna returned to her sister and Equestria.

Even that protection should not have been enough to preserve a race with so few members. Despite the odds against their survival they had flourished, however. Partial credit for this was due to the attraction felt by many bored aristocratic ‘day’ mares who found the nocturne stallions exotic and exciting. (7) Over the centuries, many foals of such relationships had been born 'on the wrong side of the blankets', and subsequently quietly and lovingly adopted into one or another of the Nocturne Families. That, in turn, had lead to the current situation where the fifty-one original families, descended from the survivors of that battle, had expanded into well over two hundred families spread all over Equestria.

Luna looked again at the picture in front of her. She had thought the young stallion yummy with honey on top when she had first seen him. The information about his true age had removed him from that category, for her. It was highly unlikely others would be so discriminating, and given this precious opportunity, a large number of unscrupulous noble families would go to any lengths to marry an Alicorn stallion into their House by trickery. Many of those would in all likely hood not even concern themselves with an official marriage. Merely bringing his blood into their family would be an attractive prospect.

‟We would needs have to lock him in a tower with dragons guarding his virtue twenty-four hours a day.” She whispered faintly. ‟Nay, a tower would of little use be against Pegasus. A cave, perhaps, with a most heavy and thick door, and strong locks. Such a cold prison for an unsuspecting and innocent colt.”

‟And even that would likely not be enough,” Celestia nodded. ‟Relations between a day-mare and a nocturne stallion are frowned on by society and parents in general. And yet you know how often such happens. In regards to young Jake, there would be active complicity on the parts of many of the great families to enable their wayward daughters a chance to produce a genuine royal foal, by any devious means available.”

Celestia sighed heavily, ‟If Twilight is correct, and she is more often than not these days--” She blushed slightly, remembering her mistake during Cadence’s almost disastrous, wedding," --then despite appearances he is a very young colt. To inflict that sort of life on him--” she shook her head and gave a small shudder. ‟--to be sequestered away from others, or to be abused at such a young age. We cannot allow that kind of risk to be borne by one of our kind. What sort of stallion would he grow up to be?”

‟We could leave him in Ponyville, far from court,” Luna offered tentatively.

‟Only the fact that the Element of Harmony are all mares have kept the cream of society from descending on Ponyville to savor the rustic pleasures of the countryside,” Celestia said sarcastically. ‟As they are all mares, however, and as none of the noble families are inclined to send their sons off to become farmers or dress designers, the issue has never really been raised."(8)

‟Well, that, and the widespread use of birth control spells,” Luna suggested. That was one development she had gladly embraced, eventually, about the new modern world. Though to the best of her sister’s knowledge she had yet to take advantage of that freedom.

Celestia chuckled softly, remembering the adorable initial embarrassment on Luna’s part when Celestia had made sure she was fully up to date on modern medical magic. Her first dental appointment had been quite amusing, but the gynecological appointment afterward had nearly been disastrous. Luna and Twilight had displayed almost identical reactions, in fact as she recalled, remembering her facts of life discussions with her prized student. Those two really did have a great deal in common.

‟Unfortunately there are no such measures for stallions. At least not ones that I will allow under any circumstances.” Celestia grimaced. Gelding excess sons was a custom she was glad had been relegated to the dustbin of history, though there were a few aristocrats and one Prince, in particular, she could not help but think would benefit Equestria on a whole if the procedure were still used.

Celestia felt frustrated. This was not some Equestria threatening crisis, not in the short term anyway. No matter what the various families might think, breeding true for an Alicorn was far more than simple biology. The chances that their genealogical machinations would pay off and bring an Alicorn into their family by birth was almost nonexistent. At least that was one positive note to this whole mess. If Jake had possessed the ability to pass on his attributes simply by breeding with a willing mare. . . Celestia shuddered to think of the choices she might have to make.

That elimination of that dire situation could almost make her happy that all that was truly at risk here was the happiness of one colt and his chance of a nurturing upbringing. If she were not the ethical pony she was, that is. As she was that sort of pony, she felt genuine regret and frustration that she could think of no way to give Jake the childhood he should have. If only his body matched his mind, he would be safe from predatory mares, at least for a while. Maybe a long while. Alicorn’s did not grow and age like normal ponies. If Jake had been a colt in truth, he might have retained that apparent age and mindset for dozens, if not hundreds of years, until he decided he was tired of being a child and wanted to grow up, something she was not sure Luna had ever really done at times.

‟Sister?” Luna said to get Celestia’s attention. She was sitting with a thoughtful look on her face as she tapped her teeth with one well-manicured hoof. At least she wasn’t gnawing on it, Celestia thought, it had taken ages to break her of that habit back when she had been a child of a mere few centuries.

Seeing she had her sister’s attention, Luna spoke in a considered tone, feeling out her idea even as she explained it to Celestia. ‟I recalled some information that appeared in one of Twilight’s latest scrolls, the one dealing with the mountebank who acquired the Alicorn Amulet.”

‟No! Absolutely not! Under no circumstances!” Celestia said, steel in her eye and voice. ‟Not even we can safely use one of Discord’s artifacts. I thank all the powers that he grew bored with the process after having only made three of the cursed things. It is bad enough that the Unicorn amulet has surfaced. I can only hope the earth pony and pegasus amulets remain lost forever.”

‟You misunderstand, Tia,” Luna said, shaking her head. "Twas not the loathsome amulet upon my mind. I thought some of the spells this 'Trixy' used might be of use in this situation. She may have needed Discord's foul little trinket to cast them, but between the two of us, we certainly have the power."

It was Celestia’s turn to shake her head. ‟I see where you are going with this, little sister. You are thinking of reverting Jake to a colt. You forget the downside of that spell. Not just the body regresses to an earlier age, but the mind . . .” Celestia trailed off, her eyes widening. ‟You are thinking that Jake’s mind is already that of a colt. Turning him into a one would merely match the body with the mind.”

‟Exactly, Tia.”

‟But, what if his mind was regressed an equivalent amount. You would have to reduce his age by twelve years to match his apparent age. He has not been alive so long. He might end up mindless.”

‟The spell most certainly would need to be studied. I think it is well worth the effort. What other choices do we have, Tia?”

‟There is that. I think maybe we can buy you some time to research the possibility. If Jake, and his friend, Curry, stay in Ponyville, it will take a little while for news of their presence to reach Canterlot. Most especially if they do their best to fly under the clouds for as long as possible.”

‟I will begin researching the problem at once. I seem to remember that Starswirl the Bearded did a treatise on the subject. I will start in his section of the library,” Luna declared.

Celestia looked at the clock on the wall and grimaced. ‟Sorry to lay all this on you, little sister, but morning court is about to start. The last thing we wish to do is interrupt the normal routine and raise speculation as to why." She gathered up a few folders and headed for the door. ‟As soon as I get a moment I’ll send a letter off to Twilight suggesting that she and her friends look after our problem children, possibly at Sweet Apple Acres. We will reimburse Applejack and her family, of course. Jake’s royal stipend should cover the cost easily.”

Luna was barely listening, she was deep in thought, planning her assault on the problem. Transformation magic had always been her specialty and she already had a few ideas to investigate. She gave her sister a hoof wave as she exited the room, her eyes running over the bookshelves in the room. There were some ancient grimoire present, hidden in plain sight, as it were. She could start here. After all, there were still a few interesting looking chocolates left in the box on her sister’s desk. She could call for some tea, and maybe some cake as well.

Just before the door closed, Celestia stuck her head back in and said, ‟Very clever trick with the bathroom, little sis.” As the door closed, the cloud cake that appeared out of thin air over Luna’s head dropped.

Celestia smiled evilly as she heard Luna’s shriek echo down the halls. ‟Tamper with the Royal bathroom will she?” she cackled. ‟Watch your plot, dear sister of mine. Because it belongs to me.”

*********************************************

Private Sweets of the night guard was currently doing a turn of duty on the day shift as a fill in for a guard who had just become a father. There were few on the night shift who could have replaced the new parent, as Sweets’ Nocturne friends could not work in the day without the need of special sunglasses, and in some cases sunblock. As a result, when the Officer on Duty had asked if he would mind working a swing shift, in that special way officers have of ‘asking’, he had agreed, especially when he found out that the duty would involve guarding Princess Celestia’s office. There was a strong chance that he would actually get to see Princess Celestia up close. That was more than worth a few missed hours of sleep. She always had a smile for the guards on duty, like the sun breaking through the clouds after a dreary shower.

Sweets was a large Pegasus pony, which was one of the things that had gotten him recruited into the guard in the first place. He had a pink lollipop cutie mark that looked incongruous on his large flank. He was not muscle heavy like his recently acquired friend Pumpernickel, who was a wall. His build was lighter, his legs longer, but he was a hand taller than the next largest pony in the guard, which was why he’d been drafted a month before to go to Ponyville to get measured for the new royal uniforms. He shuddered at the memory of Pumpernickel’s sisters, not to mention Princess’s Luna’s hoofmaiden, and that white unicorn fashion designer, the way they had measured every inch of his body, with no respect for personal boundaries at all. And the things they had said. His ears still flattened on occasion in a futile effort to silence those voices in his memory.

It had been Pumpernickel’s efforts to console him afterward which had struck up the friendship between them.

Sweets had recognized in Pumpernickel another powerful pony who did not see his size and strength as a license to run roughshod over others. He himself was the mildest of ponies unless somepony pushed him too far. He had been near the top of his class in all of the physical training and had been division champion in unarmed combat for his training year. The combined experience had given him the self-confidence to smile and walk away from somepony trying to start a fight, usually by making disparaging remarks about his cutie mark. It had been years since he had gotten into a fight for his own sake. That did not mean he was a floor mat; abuse a mare or foal in front of him, and you were asking for trouble.

A country boy, he had not joined the Guard with dreams of glory. He had simply wanted to get out of a life track that would have seen him spending his life as a long-haul carrier like his father, uncles, and brothers. Spending half his life looking at the sweaty flanks of some other stallion was not a life he aspired to. He had enjoyed his training and his continued life in the guard. They pushed his limits, made him do things he never dreamed he could have done. He had friends, and the mares really did love a stallion in uniform, though up till now he had not had much or a chance to take advantage of that.

As a fairly young guard, Sweets did not have a great deal of free time. But, he was going places. His current duty was proof of that. You didn’t get selected to guard Princess’s Celestia’s office if you were a screwup. His phlegmatic nature might have frustrated the hell out of some of his drill sergeants, but clearly, his superior officers felt it an advantage. Though he had been given a severe talking-to in regards of ‘do not” the primary one of which was 'Thou Shalt Not Check Out The Royal Plot', and that was the one that was currently giving him the most trouble.

Sweets was currently concentrating very hard on keeping his eyes front and center as the Diarch of the Sun skipped down the hallway like a giddy little filly. The job would have been a lot easier if she hadn’t just left the room talking about her little sister’s plot, and owning it. Sweets had nothing but admiration for Princess Luna, and the way she had stallioned up and faced the hoards of doubters when she returned from her exile. But, really, there was no comparison at all when it came to plots. Celestia won hooves down and horns up. Which was why he was currently fighting the urge to shift his head just slightly to the side in order to watch his princess’s retreating form for just a few moments longer.

That was why he felt a quite unusual feeling of gratitude to the stout greying Unicorn who was puffing down the hallway from the opposite direction. He was not running, a Stallion of his dignity would never run. But he was pacing very rapidly in counterpoint to a certain amount of bouncing bulk around his middle.

‟A moment of your time, Princess!” Counselpony Storm Warning called out in what he likely considered a bombastic tone, but which contained more than a hint of a wheeze.

‟Sorry, no time to be condescended to, today, Counselor,” Celestia called back over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner.

She even sounds like a school filly, Sweets thought, while inwardly chuckling. His last duty had involved guarding the council chambers during late night sessions, and it was there that he had become more familiar with the honorable Councilcolt than he cared for.

‟Mares!” Storm Warning, snarled, making the word an epithet.

Sweets was not surprised to hear Old Blustery use that tone. As a high ranking member of the Organization for Stallion Liberation his attitude toward mares in general, and Celestia, in particular, were well known. In a past age, he would have gotten himself gelded by his own family before he ever reached a position of authority in Government.

Sweets, as the third son of a fairly well-connected pegasus family, usually felt nothing but gratitude for the fact the practice had died out so long ago. But in the case of Old Blustery, he had to wonder if maybe the practice hadn’t had some redeeming features. As a well trained Royal Guard, he let none of that show on his face.

He also let nothing show in his expression when the door he was guarding shot open and Princess Luna stuck her head out into the hallway, looking up and down it for a moment before turning her attention on Sweets, who attempted to stand even more at attention than he already was, and nearly sprained something as a result.

‟Guard. Please send for our Hoofmaiden at once,” she ordered and started to withdraw back into the room.

‟Ah, begging your pardon, Princess,” Sweets exclaimed before he could control himself.

‟Yes?” Luna asked, directing a frosty gaze toward the stiff guard.

Oh, lord, How in Celestia does Lumpy do it, Sweets thought. He coughed, covering his mouth with a hoof in an effort to gain a few moments to gather his courage, and in the faint hope that Luna would go away. Neither event happened and he was forced to explain himself in a voice that sounded several octaves higher than his normally base tone.

‟Your hoofmaiden and Lum-- Optio Pumpernickel will have retired some time ago, Princess,” Sweets saying, wishing he could bend his knees so his eyes would drop to the point where he was not looking down at the princess. Celestia was the only pony he had ever seen, for all of thirty seconds, who he had to look up to.

‟We are aware,” Luna said, her voice cooling toward zero kelvin at a rapid rate. ‟We hardly think our Hoofmaiden or the Optio are so frail that the lack of a few hours of sleep will cause them any great discomfort.”

Where is a heart attack when you need one, Sweets thought, his face rapidly turning red through his bleached white coloration? ‟It’s just that technically, they’re still, ah, newlyweds,” he got out in a strangled voice.

Oh, sweet heavens. Just let me die now before I have to explain what newlyweds are like to Princess Luna.

‟So?” Luna asked, and the guard stallion was sure he could see frost condensing out of the air in front of her eyes. Before he was forced to elaborate, however, Luna’s eyes widened from their narrowed icy glare, and a faint, slightly cute, blush colored her muzzle. ‟Ohhh,” she exclaimed in a voice that on anyone else Sweets would have described as flustered.

Luna appeared to be trying to regain the proper countenance, her blush retreated and she drew herself up slightly. Her eyes shifted slightly to the left and fell on Councilor Storm Warning, who had been watching the entire sequence with an expression of smug superiority. ‟You there! Pony. Your princess has need of thy services.”

‟Me?” the chubby counselor blinked in surprise, before collecting himself. ‟Of course, Princess. How may I be of service?”

‟We request and require you to run across to the establishment known as Pony Joe’s Doughnuts, and pick up a large container of my Sister’s special blend.” Luna retreated into the room leaving Old Blustery starting to puff up like an angry bullfrog. He deflated like a pricked balloon when Luna stuck her head back out the door and added to her order. ‟And a dozen of those apple spice pastries. They were most tasty.”

Sweets wasn’t sure if it was possible for a pony to actually explode from indignation, but if it were, it looked like it might happen to Old Blustery. Sweets fought against the urge to place himself between Princess Luna and the outraged Councilpony. After all, while he might not actually explode, from the look in his eyes, he might try something incredibly dangerous, to himself. In the end, however, the old windbag deflated and sullenly said, ‟As my Princess commands,” before turning around and marching down the hallway, his every trot radiating his feelings over being told to go fetch coffee.

Sweets managed to keep his mouth shut till Storm Warning turned at the end of the hallway and vanished from sight. This took some time. The old pony did not move any too quickly. ‟I don’t think he’s going to be able to get your coffee, Princess Luna.”

Luna has been leaning against the doorway, her eyes closed, snoring in a very ladylike tone. Rather cute actually, though the snot bubble not so much. She snapped awake at the guard’s words. "Huh? What was it thou said? Why would the coffee blend my sister prefers be forbidden to me?" Her indignation would have been a lot more impressive if Sweets was not looking at the thin strand of drool that had managed to escape the Royal Mouth during her brief snooze and had almost touched the ground.

‟No, no, I did not mean it that way, princess,” Sweets hastily said, while once again cursing his demon mouth. What the Tartarus had come over him? Normally only Lumpy was this big an idiot. Unfortunately, he knew that he was not going to be able to stop now. He’d already jumped off the cliff, it was fly or splat time. ‟All I meant was that your sister’s coffee is strong enough to eat through the container long before it could reach here. That’s why she always drinks it in the shop.”

‟Ah, we see,” Luna said with a yawn that suddenly turned into a sniff.

"There is coffee around here somewhere, of a most delightful aroma." She leaned closer to Sweets, who fought the urge to lean away from the Royal Nose as it began to sniff up and down his armor rather too close for comfort until she stopped at his armor's flank pocket. "What manner of coffee dost thou have that fits into a pocket yet still smells so good?" A shiver ran down his back leg as Luna stuck her nose into the armor pocket and breathed in.

"My--" he squeaked and took a quick breath to grab hold of his wits. "Maybe," he continued in a calmer tone, "you would like to try some?" Inside his little voice had given up trying to talk sense to him and was busy putting on a set of bomb disposal armor.

‟These might help, Princess,” he said, while nervously extracting a crumpled paper bag from inside his armor. "My cousin works as a hauler for BKC, and he says they’re marvelous pick-me-ups.”

Luna perked up a bit at hearing BKC. She’d thoroughly grazed Tia's selection of fine chocolates down to the well-licked container and would not mind in the least a few more tidbits. But she didn’t see how they would help with her current situation. ‟We are not sure a sweet will do us much good,” she said, stifling a yawn yet again.

‟Well, these are a bit special. My cousin says a batch of them were sent in from somewhere out in the sticks by a journeymare as a masterpiece application. The panel gave them a thumbs down, but he swears they’d bring the dead back to life.” Sweets threw in the kicker. ‟He visits Pony Joe’s on a regular basis, and he swears they’re just as good for getting him through a long haul as the best take-out Joe has. Of course, he’s never tried your sister’s blend. Joe won’t sell that to anyone else for liability reasons.”

‟I see,” Luna said thoughtfully, floating the small rumpled bag out of Sweets’ hoof. ‟We will try them. Thank you.” She retreated back into Celestia’s office and closed the door.

Sweets nearly collapsed in relief. ‟You are insane,” his temporary partner hissed from his side of the entrance.

‟You don’t have to tell me,” the normally stalwart pegasus said with feeling. He held up a hoof and watched with wide eyes as it visibly vibrated. ‟I don’t know what the heck came over me. Lumpy is the insane one. I’m usually smarter than that. . .” Sweets trailed off as an awful, terrible, thought occurred to him. Those candies? Could they have been what was responsible for his current suicidal behavior?

From inside the room came a loud. ‟Whoohoooooo! That’s the stuff!”

His partner smirked and put on a tone of mock sympathy. ‟I’ll send flowers. Do you have any last words you want passed on?”

*********************************************

(1)Never let them see you sweat, could easily have been Celestia’s personal motto.

(2) Celestia demonstrated daily the restraint and emotional control that had made her a great ruler by restricting herself to only one, okay, maybe two, never more than three, of the decadent sinful, orgasmically good, ok, sometimes four or five, chocolates that were custom crafted for her by a family of expert craftponies who had been in the business for nearly five hundred years.

(3)Celestia didn’t actually need reading glasses, but everyone knows that reading glasses are cool, or so a very old acquaintance had assured her.

(4)Luna was endeavoring to familiarize herself with modern speech conventions and slang. For the present, she did her best to keep her experimentation internal.

(5)Really, they were the most wonderful props.

(6)Spike barely resisted adding 'too late', here.

(7)There is a thriving genre of romance novels devoted to lurid tales of the Ponies of the Night. The nocturne Royal Guards consider them hilarious and often read them aloud in their quarters while off duty. Well out of earshot of any easily offended royalty, of course.

(8) Bloodlines run through the maternal line in Equestria. While there could be some question as to a foal’s father, even in a land of magic there could be little doubt as to who the mother is.

Ch8 Anytime is Party Time [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter Eight
Anytime is Party Time.

****************

Most ponies, when they thought of it at all, imagined the Everfree forest as a dank forbidden place forever shrouded in gloom; nothing could be further from the truth. There were days when the sun shone down into the forest clearings like liquid gold and brought the normally muted colors to brilliant life. On a day like that, there was really only one thing to do. At least if you were Pinkie Pie.

Curry didn’t know how Pinkie Pie had done it. Using items scrounged from the ruins and forest, along with contents drawn from her saddlebags, the pink party pony had thrown a Birthday picnic for Jake, complete with a cake decorated with five candles. Pretty darn good cake at that.

Curry had been half afraid the cake would be like the specialty horse treats that the stupid rich girls bought when they wanted to throw a party for their spoiled rotten ponies. (*)

Pinkie’s treat had turned out to be a perfectly ordinary, but very delicious, cake.

Five of the ponies were, to a greater and lesser degree, enjoying the impromptu combination Birthday/Welcome Jake, and Curry, Party. With Pinkie being the greater and Rarity the lesser; or at least the more restrained. Curry had a suspicion that Rarity was enjoying herself every bit as much as Pinkie, but was just a lot less inclined to make a public spectacle of herself. All five ponies seemed to enjoy teaching Jake how to eat with his hooves instead of simply sticking his face into his food; they had quickly given up on teaching him how to hold a fork.

Rarity had tried to teach Jake how to use his horn to levitate a slice of cake to his mouth, but that had turned out even worse than the fork incident. Curry had thought she would crack a rib laughing as she watched Rainbow Dash nearly go into hysterics as Jake licked the smashed cake off her side, while holding her firmly, but gently in place with one big hoof. It sort of made Curry think of a momma cat washing a kitten, who had gotten into a batch of food coloring.

While Jake and the five ponies around him were practically sitting flank to flank, Curry had elected to stay on the sidelines of the party. She was leaning back against a tree a few feet away enjoying her slice of cake while resisting the urge to emulate Jake and drop her fork and dive face first into it. It was one heck of a good cake! The ponies had made every effort to include her, but she’d felt like a child at an adult party. Everyone else was so big. The ponies were not that large, as ponies went, eleven to twelve hands, but they out massed her by a large amount, and Jake was a crowd all by himself.

Despite the friendly nature of this particular group Curry had too many previous bad experiences with ponies to be comfortable mingling in such a mob. Almost to a beast she had found the ponies back home spoiled rotten with a nasty temperament to boot. Getting trapped in a crowd of them was just begging to have your foot stepped on, your hair grabbed, or getting nipped by strong pony teeth. As a result, it was hard to be fully comfortable mixing into a melee like the one going on around Jake at the moment.

Jake, being the elephant at the party, so to speak, had no such reservations, despite having suffered far more than Curry at the hooves and teeth of spoiled brat ponies. His attitude seemed warranted given how these particular ponies were treating him. It was good to see him so happy. Sometimes she forgot how lonely it must have been for him up at the old barn. Maybe that was one reason he tried to be so social, despite almost always having it end badly on the occasions when she took him down to the boarding stables.

Twilight Sparkle, unlike her friends, did not seem to be in a party mood. She was pacing back and forth muttering to herself. According to the others, she was waiting to hear back from the princess. Curry wasn’t sure about that. As near as she could tell, all that happened was that Spike had incinerated the letter and picture Twilight had given him to send. Everyone had assured her that it was a magical mail delivery system and that Twilight’s message would go straight to Princess Celestia.

The young Disney fanatic didn’t really care if the whole fire/mail thing worked the way they said it did. It had been beyond cool just seeing Spike breath fire. Almost as cool as finding out that there was a for real princess living in a shiny white castle, and that Curry and Jake were going to meet her, and her sister, another princess. Twilight was just waiting for the details on how that was going to happen. Curry really hoped the princesses would not decide they were too busy or just not interested in meeting a scruffy backwoods girl.

Curry had been happy to hear that there was no Queen, those were bad news, always up to something evil. But she wasn’t sure about this Princess Luna. Ruler of the Night? That just screamed bad stuff ahead. She had tried to feel out Rarity on the topic. The white unicorn seemed pretty dependable, despite being so fussy about the least little bit of dirt on her hide. Rarity had assured her that Princess Luna was a perfectly splendid princess.

Rarity’s attempts to allay Curry’s misgivings had not benefited from Pinkie throwing in an aside about how scary wonderful the princess had been a few weeks previously when Princess Luna had almost caused Pinkie to wet herself in terror.

At that point, Curry pretended to accept Rarity’s words as gospel. The small girl knew that it was useless trying to convince certain adults that another adult was evil incarnate. Look how much luck she had with that when it came to Old Man Sedgwick or that social worker. She made a private vow to keep an eye on this Princess Luna, and at the first indication of evil, bam, she’d lower the boom on her.

Curry didn’t concern herself with just how she was going to accomplish that. Something would come up. All evil bad guys had a weak spot that was revealed if you just kept your eyes and ears open.

Besides, having a discussion with Rarity had proved a mite dangerous. Curry had been the recipient of a five-minute lecture on what a crime against nature it would be for a young mare to hack off such a lovely mane. Just because Curry had asked to borrow a pair of scissors so she could get rid of her unwelcome new hair extensions. Curry hadn’t even asked her to do it for her. She had fully intended to cut it herself, just like she always had at home.

In the end Rarity, herself had cleaned up the ends of Curry’s hair, or mane. That was what all the ponies called it, and it sure felt like one. Besides, she rather liked the idea of having a mane, instead of a, gag me, hairdo. The white unicorn had ended up taking off just three or four inches of what she termed un-salvageable. That was nearly two and a half feet less than Curry had originally wanted. Rarity had then used some ribbons to tie up Curry’s hair in a controlled bundle. That at least was welcome. It stopped it from snagging on every little branch and rock she brushed against, though she still had to be a lot more careful than she was used to. Secretly, Curry rather liked the fact that her trimmed and arranged mane looked a lot like Applejack’s mane style. Too bad it wasn’t the same shade. Her mane was mostly its same old dingy straw color, with bright new threads of red and orange running through it as opposed to Applejack’s beautiful, solid blonde coloring.

‟Not much of a party person?”

The scrawny tomboy started at the unexpected question from someone she hadn’t even know was nearby. She glanced to her side and found the lizard, baby dragon, Spike, standing a couple of feet away, a plate of cake held in one hand while he used a fork to transfer some to his mouth while waiting for her reply. Curry licked her lips. Her cake was a tasty memory, all that was left now was a licked clean plate. She eyed Spike’s share with hungry eyes. He showed he had experience with such behavior by putting his body between her and that slice of heaven.

Curry sighed in resignation at his ‘no cake for you’, attitude and said, ‟I don’t mind them. Just afraid I might get squashed.”

Spike shook his head. ‟You don’t need to worry. Believe me. I’m used to being the small one.”

‟Yeah, but I don’t have scales or breath fire. I wouldn’t want to crowd you either.”

Spike wasn’t looking at her, focusing on the group around Jake. ‟You don’t have to be afraid of me either,” he said.

‟Who the heck said I was afraid of you?” Curry retorted with a bit of heat and then flinched back slightly as he turned to look at her. He quickly turned his eyes away from her and her muscles relaxed slightly. She felt flush and was angry at her reaction. Without thought, her hands curled up into fists. If Spike had been a boy she’d have lunged at him in an instant, intent on salvaging her pride and showing him that she wasn’t afraid of nobody. And, for making her feel stupid. She knew that dragons were not evil like she’d once thought. You just had to understand them and they’d be the best friend you could ask for. If a scrawny runt like Hiccup could do it, she could too.

‟Glad to hear it,” Spike said, ignoring her reaction. ‟It’s a funny thing. Most ponies are terrified of dragons. We’ve had to deal with some other dragons a couple of times. I’m just a kid. If you think Twilight and the others are a bit big, you would not believe how large the other dragons get. But, you know, despite their being afraid of dragons in general. I don’t think I’ve ever met a pony in Ponyville who was afraid of me. Not even after I...” His voice faded and he looked uncomfortable.

Clearly, he’d said more than he’d intended. Curry could sympathize, she was forever spouting off without thinking and saying stuff that she had never wanted anyone to know.

That sympathy didn’t stop her from wanting to know what he was talking about, however. Curiosity piqued, she scooted over a bit closer. ‟After you what?” she asked.

For a moment Curry didn’t think Spike was going to tell her, but then he started talking. ‟Well, Dragons are magical. We can be affected by some things. Like greed for instance. Greed has a really bad effect on dragons. I found that out the hard way. I did a lot of damage. But after Rarity talked me down I recovered and went back to being me. And you know what? All the ponies forgave me. They had every right to be afraid of me. But somehow they weren’t. That’s one reason I like living out here so much, everypony knows me, and everypony trusts me. Not like in the city. I spent most of my time there on the school grounds or at the palace and that was ok, but if I went into the city, even with Twilight, I got a lot of looks, and ponies crossing to the other side of the street. I didn’t have it as bad as the Bats, but it was pretty close.”

‟Bats?” Curry questioned him.

Spike winced slightly and made a shushing noise. ‟Darn, forget I said that. Twilight will make me write a thousand lines, ‘I will not denigrate the Nocturne with a derogatory epithet,’ and then grade me on my penmanship.

Curry sighed. Really, not only did Spike not answer her questions fully, he kept bringing up new things to ask about. ‟Ok, what all are Nocturne when they are at home?” she asked.

‟Night ponies. All of them have dark-grey hides. They also have dragon-wings and big yellow cats-eyes that can see in the dark. They don’t like the sun too much. It hurts their eyes. They sleep in the day and work at night. There are a lot of them in the Royal Guards on the night shift. A lot of day ponies are scared of them. They call them bats, on account of their wings.”

‟They don’t suck blood, do they?” Curry asked in delighted anticipation. Vampire ponies. That would be so cool.

‟No, no,” Spike said frantically, looking around to see if anyone had overheard. ‟For goodness sakes, don’t let Twilight hear you ask that. That’s even worse than using ‘bats’. We’d be in for a half hour lecture, if we’re lucky, on not perpetrating racial stereotypes.”

‟Awww, too bad,” said the girl who had grown up in a culture that had turned blood-sucking fiends into the epitome of cool.

Sitting, listening to Spike talk, Curry felt the strangeness of his very existence fading. If she closed her eyes it was easy to think of him as a regular boy. Not that this was such a positive thing. Boys were a huge pain. But she sure wasn’t afraid of them. She just had to remember that dragons were misunderstood. Well, except for the huge great big evil ones that forced smaller dragons to do bad things. Steeling her courage, she asked, ‟Can I touch you?”

Spike looked a bit startled. He ate the last bit of cake with a thoughtful expression. He put the plate down carefully, then flopped down on his belly beside her. ‟Sure, in fact, I got this itch right between the shoulders I just can’t get at. You mind?”

‟Sure, no problem,” Curry said as she reached out tentatively and touched his skin with the tip of one finger. She was surprised to find him warm, and softer than she would have thought. And not the least bit slimy. Feeling a bit bolder she pressed the tips of all her fingers against his hide and slowly ran them down the middle of his back.

‟Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff. But a bit higher and harder, please,” Spike said with an exhalation of pleasure.

Curry had strong hands from working around the house and barn, and from spending hours combing and grooming Jake, and the ponies at the Boarding stable where she picked up spare change getting some of them ready for shows. She made a whole twenty-five dollars a pony.(1)

A full-on detailing job was a lot of work, but so worth it to see the end results. Not so good when half the time the pony she’d just worked so hard on promptly went and rolled in the dirt the moment they were unharnessed. Even if their owners had no control over the bratty little beasts, it had not mattered, she still got paid. Now she pressed her fingers hard into Spike’s back and began to knead between his shoulders.

Any fear she might have retained in regards to him rapidly disappeared when he started moaning in hedonistic bliss. She couldn’t help but giggle a bit at how over the top his exclamations of delight were. ‟At last,” he groaned. ‟A friend with fingers.”

Curry found she was actually enjoying herself. But, she also knew from her experience with Jake, and other horses and ponies, that the greedy guts could never get enough. They would urge her to continue no matter how long she worked on them. So, after about ten minutes she quit scratching and rubbing and pulled her hands away from Spike, who gave such a heartfelt groan that she had to laugh at how closely he sounded like Jake at just that moment.

Curry was distracted from Spike’s begging for just five more minutes of five finger delight by the sight of Twilight pacing back and forth, muttering to herself while strands of hair seemed to spring out from the body of her mane every few seconds.

‟What’s wrong with Miss Twilight?” she asked with some concern. The purple unicorn looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack.

‟Oh, buck,” Spike exclaimed as soon as he looked over at Twilight. A fraction after the word escaped his mouth he clapped his hands over his mouth and looked at Curry with an expression of horror. ‟Please, please, don’t tell Twilight I said that in front of you. Last time I said it in front of a filly, she washed out my mouth with saddle soap.” He muttered under his breath. ‟Darn, Diamond Tiara. What a tattle tale.”

Curry was confused at first and then horrified as she understood what had Spike so upset. Lord help her. Her favorite vanilla swear word was the real thing in this place. What the heck was she going to do? Old Ben hadn’t washed her mouth out with soap back when she’d used the real thing, but he had threatened to tan her britches good if he heard her use it again. She was not eager to find out what saddle soap tasted like. Hmmm, maybe if she used the words from back home? ‟Fu . . .” she started to say, and could not get it all out. Old Ben’s aversion therapy had been a hell of effective.

‟Darn, darn, darn. We got to do something,” Spike said, his tone near frantic.

Curry saw that Spike was still staring at Twilight, and asked again. ‟What’s the matter with her?”

‟She’s idling at full speed without a governor,” Spike said in a worried tone. ‟Guys, guys,” he called out, hurrying over to the party ponies where Jake was doing his best to pop a bouncing balloon with his horn while Pinkie yelled out encouragement.

‟Whatever is the matter, Spike dear?” Rarity asked, being less enthralled with the current activity than her fellows. Mainly because Jake’s gyrations were kicking up a lot of dirt and dust.

‟Twilight is doing it again,” was Spike’s answer.

‟What do you–, oh, that pony!” Rarity said with some exasperation. ‟She’s totally ruined the lovely mane style I did for her just yesterday, and she’s working herself up into that state again.”

Curry was glancing between Spike, Rarity, and Twilight. She still wasn’t sure what was going on, though she could see that Twilight was looking more than a bit frazzled. Spike’s explanation had been as clear as mud. Curry had seen ponies that had been seriously stressed by something, however, and they behaved a little like what Twilight was doing; minus the talking to themselves and the little sparks jumping off the tip of the unicorn’s horn.

‟Do you think we should ask Pinkie for help?” Spike asked uncertainly.

‟Well, a pie in the face would distract her. But I don’t think things are quite that serious yet,” Rarity said. ‟Something, maybe, a little less drastic?” she asked.

‟How about a good brushing,” Curry suggested. That worked to sooth ponies that were just a bit skittish and not in the middle of a full-blown panic attack.

‟The very thing,” Rarity declared. ‟I know a good grooming session just wipes the stress of the day away like nothing else for me. Now, let us see, what do I have here?” Rarity mused as she began to levitate various grooming devices out of her saddlebags. Some of them were sort of familiar, not quite like what she was used to using on ponies, and not like what the various girls at school used on themselves, but somewhere in between. Still, a good hand brush was a good hand brush. Curry reached out and snagged a handless brush that looked like it would fit her hand. She felt a warm tingling as she did so.

Rarity was a bit startled by Curry’s action, but not so startled that she didn’t reach out and pull the brush away before the small girl could take more than a couple of steps toward the frazzled Twilight who was now drawing equations in the dirt while mumbling about superstring theory under her breath. (2)

‟Thank you, dear, I do appreciate the offer, but perhaps it best if you leave this to me,” Rarity said to Curry.

‟Hey, I’m good at grooming. I’ll have Miss Twilight purring like a kitten in ten minutes if you give me a chance.”

Rarity, who had been ‘aided’ by her little sister, Sweetie Belle, on more than one occasion was not about to surrender on this issue, not with Twilight heading for another mental meltdown. Before she could speak up, however, Spike got his two cents in first.

‟Want to bet?” he asked, with a sly expression.

While Rarity was looking in annoyance at Spike, Curry took the chance to snatch the brush back out of the unicorn’s magical aura and hugged it to her chest. ‟What all you got in mind, short, purple and fire breathing?” she fired back at Spike, well up on the playground rule and regulations regarding bets and dares.”

‟You say you can have Twilight purring in ten minutes. I say fat chance. I win, I get a week of back scratching,”

‟Spike, dear, I don’t really think this is the–‟ Rarity started to say but was cut off by Curry.

‟Fine, if I win, you have to talk one of your friends into taking me flying,” Curry said, visions of soaring through the air on the back of a dragon dancing in her head.”

‟You’ve got a deal,” Spike said, feeling pretty sure that if he had to he could talk Rainbow Dash into giving the little mare the ride of her life.

Curry instantly headed for Twilight, who had moved onto discussing quantum tunneling and how it might relate to a dimensional wormhole, with herself.

‟Spike, dear. I really don’t think this is wise,” Rarity said.

‟Relax, she’ll at least distract Twilight, and that’s the important thing. All we really need is for Twilight to get broken out of that mental loop she’s in. She's not going to lose it and hurt a little filly.”

The small girl sidled carefully toward the oblivious purple unicorn. ‟Ok, first thing. Don’t startle the pony who can snap your leg like a matchstick,” Curry mumbled to herself. She was a lot less sure of herself than she had let on. There had always been stable hands around to secure bad-tempered or skittish ponies before she went to work on them. Not that she thought Twilight was bad-tempered, but, well, she was sort of scary looking at the moment. What with those wide eyes, and a rather manic expression. The way strands of her hair were springing out from her mane at irregular intervals was particularly disquieting. The ponies back home never did that.

‟Miss Twilight,” Curry said in a hesitant voice, well out of kicking range.

The purple unicorn gave no indication of knowing Curry was there. Twilight was busy rubbing out some funny looking numbers on the ground while muttering, ‟No, no, idiot, how could you forget to take into account the differing quantum signatures. Of course, the numbers don’t add up. Idiot, idiot, idiot. You need to get a reading and compare it to the natural background before you can even make a start on figuring this out.”

Twilight’s head lifted and turned. Curry suddenly found herself caught like a deer in the headlights as Twilight’s manic gaze fell on her. Suddenly this did not feel like a very good idea at all. ‟Curry! Just what I need. Hold still. This will only take a minute.”

The hair on the back of Curry’s neck stood on end, and that was a lot more than fluff now. Her new hairdo arched backward in a long arc as she started to back away. She had barely made it two steps when Twilight’s horn glowed and she found herself frozen in her tracks. Twilight trotted forward, and sweat started to bead on Curry’s forehead. Only stubborn pride kept her from letting out a frightened squeal when Twilight pushed her head forward. The purple unicorn’s horn thrust in-between the skinny girl’s side and arm.

‟Now just hold still until I can get a proper reading,” Twilight ordered as she began to run her horn around Curry’s body, down her left side, up between her legs, causing Curry to try and rise up on tiptoes, and to heave a sigh of relief when things didn’t go quite that high, down the inside of her right leg and then up her right side. Curry would have fallen to her knees as Twilight released the magic that had been holding her in place. Except for a familiar warm yellow pony with a flowing light pink mane beside her. Curry draped an arm over Fluttershy’s back as the gentle pegasus nuzzled her in concern.

‟Oh, dear, Curry, are you alright,” Fluttershy said in her soft gentle voice.

‟Oh, my poor dear. Are you quite well?” Rarity exclaimed in concern as she rushed over and nuzzled the shaken girl herself.

‟Really, Rarity, how could you let her get that close to Twilight while she is having one of her... .episodes?” Fluttershy scolded the white unicorn, in a soft disappointed tone.

Curry drew a deep breath, and pressed down on the arm over Fluttershy’s neck for support and steadied herself. ‟I’m fine, Miss Rarity, Miss Fluttershy. Just give me a moment,” she said.

‟You are quite right, Fluttershy. I was terribly remiss. I can only say in my defense that I was led astray by somepony who shall remain nameless,” Rarity said, directing a quelling gaze toward Spike, who was having a good belly laugh.

Spike wiped his eyes with a foreleg and smirked at Curry while addressing Rarity. ‟Oh, come on, Rarity. There was no chance that Twilight would hurt her. Scare the heck out of her, maybe, but not hurt her.

‟I ain’t scared,” Curry retorted glaring at the small dragon.

Spike merely lifted an interrogative eyebrow and asked,” So, that’s one week of back scratching?”

‟I ain’t finished yet,” Curry said.

‟You most certainly are young mare. I do not know why I ever went along with this in the first place– ooohhhh,” Rarity cut off, her eyes going wide at the soft moan Fluttershy let out as Curry used the brush that was still in her hand to make a long slow stroke down the middle of the yellow Pegasus' back.

Curry hadn’t meant to do it, but, leaning up against Fluttershy’s soft flank, a brush in her hand, her body had simply acted out of habit. But once she was aware, Fluttershy’s reaction and her own need for something familiar, caused her to continue the measured gentle strokes of the brush. After all the comfort and care that Fluttershy had shown her Curry was ready to do anything for the shy yellow mare. Giving her travel-stained hide a good brushing out seemed the very least she could do.

‟Oooh, ahhhh,” Fluttershy almost purred as Curry ran the brush down her back and across her flanks, taking special care to press firmly at the spot between her wings where her muscles tended to get knotted up. The yellow pony was finding Curry’s efforts every bit as therapeutic as any massage she’d gotten at the spa.

Curry made a mental note of the spots that seemed to elicit the strongest reactions from the pegasus pony. You never knew when such knowledge might come in handy.

The pleasant tableau was interrupted when Twilight, a short distance away, stamped her hooves on the ground in frustration. ‟No, no, she still has too much Alicorn residue from the transference to get an accurate reading on her quantum signature. I need to bleed that off first.” The obsessed unicorn turned back toward Curry. The small girl let out a weak little squeak and ducked down behind Fluttershy, who covered her with a protective wing.

Before either Fluttershy or Rarity, could say anything, another pony barged in between them and Twilight. ‟Now that all is just about enough, Twilight Sparkle. Can’t y’all see you're scaring the bejeebers out of the poor little filly? Y’all ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Twilight stopped in her tracks as Applejack got right in her face, glaring straight into her eyes. The manic gleam in her eyes suddenly shut off, and a look of chagrin replaced it. ‟Oh no,” she exclaimed in dismay. ‟I did it again, didn’t I? Oh, Curry, Fluttershy, I’m so, so, sorry.”

‟Well, it was very bad of you, scaring a poor little filly like that, Twilight,” Fluttershy chided her while sounding apologetic for doing so at the same time.

‟I ain’t scared!” Curry repeated, loudly. Her words were belied by the way she hesitantly poked her head out from under Fluttershy’s wing and looked over the mare’s back at Twilight. Seeing what looked like genuine regret on the Unicorn’s expressive face, she stood all the way up and asked. ‟So, Y'all okay now?”

‟Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I got so involved in trying to work out the math on how you got here. And all I had were baby books for reference material and of course, those were useless, so I tried to work it out without, and I kept neglecting to take factors into account and having to start over again,” Twilight’s voice started to edge back toward the manic. Applejack took off her hat and gave her friend a good hard swat across the flank.

‟Ouch! That hurt, Applejack,” Twilight said, rubbing the sore spot.

‟And it’ll hurt again if you don’t all settle down. Look, sweetpea, I realize Y'all are going frantic trying to understand this stuff that’s done gone down here while having to wait here for the Princess to get back to all of us, but you need to take a deep breath and calm down. Okay?”

Twilight nodded her head and took a deep breath before letting it droop a bit in remorse. ‟Okay,” she said in a soft voice.

‟That’s okay, Miss Twilight. I know ponies get a bit frantic when they all get stuck in the mud or pinned between things. I guess it’s sort of the same thing for Y'all, trying to figure out what all I’m doing here,” Curry said. She’d come out from behind Fluttershy and was approaching Twilight, hesitantly it was true, but steadily.

‟Thank you, Curry. I’m so, so, sorry I scared you.”

‟Shucks, I’ve been scared worse than that. Like the time Jess dared me to run across the Old man Parson’s cow pasture, and he didn’t tell me that they’d let the bull in with the cows. Let me tell you, that big old bull was not happy I interrupted his quality time with his lady friends.”

By this time Curry had worked her way all the way up to Twilight and placed a tentative hand on her flank, spreading out her fingers and laying her palm flat against the purple unicorn’s soft hide. ‟Does it hurt much?” she asked.

‟What? Oh, no. well, not really.” Twilight winced a bit as Curry pressed down. ‟Maybe a little.” She admitted. The young girl started to gently rub the spot Applejack had whopped with her Stetson. Twilight shied a bit, but then leaned into the soft massage. ‟Ohhh, that feels nice. Fluttershy is right, you do have good hands. Mmmmm, a little to the left,” she purred.

Curry threw a triumphant look over her shoulder at Spike, who merely smirked back. *More than ten minutes,* he mouthed. Curry scowled but did not stop gently massaging Twilight’s sore flank. She started using the other hand, which still held the brush, to start grooming Twilight’s plush hide.

Slowly the other ponies went back to the party, only Rarity staying nearby, just in case. She and Fluttershy having held a silent communion to decide who would stay and who would go. Their long friendship making a few glances worth a hundred words. As Curry worked on Twilight, the white unicorn produced a long bristle brush of her own and started straightening out Twilight’s mane, standing opposite Curry with the magical pony between them.

Curry bent over and ran the brush down Twilight’s flank, brushing over the curious mark that decorated it. She was intrigued to see that the mark was integral to the hair in that area. ‟That’s the fanciest bit of dye work I’ve ever seen,” Curry commented.

‟Hmmm, what’s that, Dear?” Rarity mumbled around a mouthful of hairpins as she tried to restore Twilight’s mane to some semblance of style.

‟These marks, Y'all, have on your flanks. It must have taken hours to get the colors right. Don’t know how you kept it from bleeding from one area to another. Looks almost like a tattoo. Only, how can you tattoo pony hair?”

Rarity reared up a bit so she could hook her forelegs over Twilight’s back, which earned an annoyed grunt from the purple unicorn, which the white unicorn ignored. Rarity looked down at where Curry was stroking Twilight’s cutie mark, trying to see if the pattern went all the way to the skin. ‟Oh, goodness me, no. That’s not some crass bit of fakery. Twilight Sparkle earned her cutie mark I can assure you. She has no need to resort to trickery to pass herself off as something she is not.”

‟I don’t think that’s what she was implying, Rarity,” Twilight said, joining the conversation as she twisted her head around to look at her own flank. She sounded a lot calmer than she had a few minutes before. ‟I noticed Jake doesn’t have a cutie mark. I thought at first it was just because he was so young, but none of the ponies where you come from have them. Isn’t that right?”

‟Well, I’ve heard that racehorses get a tattoo under their lip, but I’ve seen nothing like this.”

Twilight entered lecture mode and started to expound on the topic, finding that every bit as soothing as Curry and Rarity’s grooming, which the two continued as she talked.

‟A cutie mark is a magical sign that everypony gains when they find their purpose in life. The special thing that makes them, them.” Twilight was not about to leave it at that. She’d done up an entire lecture series for the Cutie Mark Crusaders and had never been able to get them to sit still long enough to listen to it. This would be the perfect chance to try it out on somepony who knew nothing at all about Cutie marks. A chance like this didn’t come along very often and she was not about to waste it.

Curry listened to Twilight go on and on about cutie marks, giving examples of how she and her friends had gotten theirs. All the while she continued to brush out Twilight’s coat, taking great comfort in the familiar task. It was a bit strange grooming a pony who could talk. Even more disconcerting was when Twilight would occasionally break off her monologue to ask Curry to shift the brush a little bit to the left or right, or go a little harder, or softer. Curry didn’t mind. It was rather ego stroking because the one thing Twilight never asked was for her to--”

‟Stop!” Twilight cried out.

Curry snapped out of her half-aware status to see a Spike coughing like a cat with a hairball. A flair of green fire emerged from his mouth and resolved into a scroll similar to the one he had sent off a few hours before.

‟Now we’ll get some answers,” Twilight all but chortled as Spike undid the ribbon holding the scroll shut.

Dear Jake and Curry. Please allow my sister and me to welcome you most...

Spike trailed off and his eyes scanned down the scroll. ‟Oh, I see. It’s not for you, Twilight. It’s for our new arrivals.” Spike shifted so he was facing toward the picnic area instead of toward Twilight. He lifted the message in order to resume reading and then blinked when he noticed something large was missing from the picture. ‟Hey, where’s Jake?”

Pinkie Pie looked up from where she was licking the cake platter and said. ‟He went to visit the little stallion’s bush a couple of minutes ago.”

‟Oh, I hope he’s ok,” Twilight said, looking at the dark forest that ran along the old road.

‟Sure he is. What could possibly go wrong?” Pinkie asked, scrounging around the picnic blanket to see if any cupcake crumbs had slipped the other ponies attention.

********************

For a creature with the head, and beak, of a chicken, the Everfree Cockatrice was doing a pretty good impression of an evil smirk. Driven by the laughter it seemed to hear behind every bush, it had crept back to the area around the castle with some vague notion of regaining its reputation. Luck had been with it. Before it had even reached the old royal road it had stumbled across the hit-and-run pony with the bladder problem that had so badly humiliated it.

Not even the fact that the enormous black pony now sported a horn and wings was enough to discourage it. Its tiny chicken brain only had room for one thought. Vengeance!

The Cockatrice had worked its way around to just the right position and with a loud, ‘Bwaaccckk,’ it leaped out right under the nose of the clumsy equine. Glowing red eyes met startled brown ones as Jake reared up in surprise at seeing the creature jump out at him.

*********************

Curry felt a sudden sense of absolute terror while at the same time feeling a tug in her chest as if something had taken hold of her heart and yanked. She didn’t even have to think. With a cry of, ‟Jake!” She turned and ran straight into the bushes.

‟Hey, wait up, kid,” Rainbow Dash yelled, flying after her, only to be forced to pull up when she could not find an opening big enough for her wings.

Applejack was having the same trouble at ground level. The hole in the bushes Curry had jumped through was too small to allow her entry into the forest proper. In fact, she couldn't figure out how Curry, even as skinny as she was, had managed to fit through the mesh of tangled branches.

‟Let me!” Twilight cried out, her horn glowing as she bodily ripped out several large bushes by their roots. All the ponies raced through the new opening, all but Fluttershy.

Fluttershy had seen Jake leave, and instead of trying to follow after Curry, had headed for the same opening the stallion had used to enter the forest, some twenty feet away from where the small filly had made her exit. Curry was heading for Jake, Fluttershy just knew it. Find Jake and she’d find the little filly.

Curry pushed through the thick brush, unmindful of anything but the urgent need to get to Jake. The pull in her chest was like a ski tow, yanking her straight toward her friend. Her hat was the first to go, left dangling on a bare tree branch, followed by the ribbons in her mane. Brambles snagged on her skirt and tore the fabric. Twigs snatched at her black leggings and ripped rents in them. Scratches appeared on her legs and slowly leaked blood. She had her arms up in front of her face, protecting it, but they, in turn, collected their own collection of scraps and scratches. She could hear the sound of crashing behind her as the ponies ripped and tore their way after her, but it was mere background noise against the sound of her own blood pulsing in her ears as her fear and panic set her heart to racing.

The small girl burst through one last barrier and into a small clearing. She stumbled to stop and stared in horror at the rearing statue of a huge Alicorn Stallion, his wings spread wide and his horn pointing toward the sky. Jake, for it, could be no other, had a look of shocked surprise on his face.

‟Oh, Jake,” Curry moaned, falling to her knees with her mane cascading down around her head. She stared at her statuesque best friend through the veil of her own hair. Tears flooded down her cheeks and she choked as her chest seemed to lock up in pain. A strange clucking sound drew her attention, and she looked over to see the Chicken eating lizard she’d spotted the evening before. Only it wasn’t a chicken eating lizard, it was a lizard with the head of a chicken. It was looking up at Jake in what could only be described as a gloating expression. Curry stared at the creature in painful befuddlement until its head swiveled around to look at her with huge glowing red eyes and a gaping beak that contained far too many sharp teeth. Curry reared back and found herself held in place as her body refused to move. She looked down and saw with horror that her legs had turned the same shade of grey as Jake’s body.

The Cockatrice scowled. The strange creature was only half converted. It should not have been able to pull its eyes away. No doubt the ungainly mass of hair that topped its body had provided some partial shading. Well, that wouldn’t save it. It was trapped, it could not move. All the Cockatrice had to do was get up close and force it to meet its gaze.

Some instinct caused Curry to wrench her eyes away from her petrified legs and stared across the clearing at the yellow pegasus pony who had just stepped out of the surrounding bushes. ‟Run, Miss Fluttershy, Run. Don’t let it get you too,” she cried out.

Fluttershy looked at Curry, her expression full of compassion and reassurance, and then she looked at the Cockatrice and her entire demeanor changed radically. The lizard thing quailed, shrinking back as it tried to make itself as small as possible.

It was afraid of Fluttershy, the small girl realized in surprise. No, not just afraid, terrified. Fluttershy herself was trembling, but looking at her expression Curry saw that it wasn’t from fear, but from a fit of anger so strong that her body wasn’t large enough to contain it. ‟How dare you!” Fluttershy said, her voice, like her body, trembling with a rage that was far too huge for her normally gentle tones to express. ‟How! Dare! You!” she repeated, leaning down till her nose was inches from the monster’s fanged beak as it gave the impression that it would like nothing more than to burrow into the ground to escape her.

‟I warned you! I told you I never wanted to catch you doing this again! Now I want you to change Jake and Curry back. Right. This. Instant!” The small monster seemed to shrink even further away as it twisted its head to look at Curry. There was a sensation of freedom as her stone legs puffed into dust, leaving her normal legs behind unharmed, except for the scratches she’d picked up rushing to Jake’s side.

Next, the small chicken/lizard directed its eyes toward Jake, and the same thing happened, only this time to the stallion’s entire body. The big horse thumped down on his legs from his rearing posture and blinked as he looked around in puzzlement. He flushed as he spotted Fluttershy and Curry. ‟Curry! Don’t peek,” he said in an annoyed voice, and before his friend could do anything, he turned on his heels and went looking for a more private bush to take care of business. An enormous sense of relief filled Curry as she realized he’d been turned to stone so fast that he hadn’t had time to be terrified, or even to understand what was happening.

‟I am so, so, so, angry! I just don’t know what to do with you!” Curry heard Fluttershy tell the chicken monster, her voice still choked up in anger. The girl turned her attention from the departing Jake, who had just rushed by Twilight and the rest of the Ponies on his way to some mare-free bushes. Applejack peeled off and followed him, at a discrete distance, while the rest came to circle around Fluttershy and Curry.

The yellow pegasus paid them no notice. All her attention was on the Cockatrice, who was attempting to shield itself from her glare with its wings and not having much success. ‟I want you to leave! Now!” she said leaning down till her nose actually touched the creature.

The Cockatrice wanted nothing more than to run, and to never stop running, but its legs seemed paralyzed by the force of Fluttershy’s stare. It huddled into an even smaller mass while finding itself unable to pull its eyes away from the yellow pony's gaze. In the end, it looked too hard. Deep down in Fluttershy’s eyes, it saw a reflection of its own gleaming red eyes. There was a slight flash, and Fluttershy was looking down at a rather ugly bit of stonework. She reared back slightly. ‟Oh my. I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she said with dismay in her voice.

‟It is probably for the best,” Twilight came up and nuzzled her.

A second later a tattered blonde blur dashed by the purple unicorn and latched onto Fluttershy. Curry wrapped her arms around the Pegasus' neck, her small body trembling. The yellow mare enveloped the small filly in her wings once again and just held her till her body stopped shaking.

Notwithstanding the instance in the castle, Curry was not a crier. She didn’t cry now, but there was a distinct tremor in her voice when at last she pushed away from Fluttershy and said, ‟I thought we were goners! You saved us!”

‟Oh, I didn't really do anything. Anypony would have done the same thing.”

Curry shook her head in denial. ‟No. Not like that. You were amazing!” she looked at the shy yellow pony with eyes that gleamed with awe.

‟Oh, dear, your lovely hair is such a mess, and the rest of you is no better,” Rarity interjected as she took in the damage Curry had suffered during her headlong rush to Jake. ‟Twilight. We simply can not delay any longer. We must get these two home.”

‟You’re sending us back down the mountain?” Curry asked, her voice laced with a hurt that she tried to not to let show.

‟That terrible place? I should say not,” Rarity said, ignoring the entire, ‘down the mountain’ remark. ‟We’re taking you home. With us. Now.”

The tight band that had wrapped around Curry’s heart with Rarity’s first words disappeared. ‟Really?” she asked, hardly daring to let herself believe it.

‟Really, really,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering over top of the small girl and ruffling her mane with her hoof. ‟Spike tells me you want to go flying. How about I give you a lift back to the castle?”

Curry’s eyes gleamed at the thought, but then she turned her gaze toward Fluttershy, and she shook her head no. ‟Thanks, but I think I want to walk with the coolest pony I know. Umm, if that’s okay?”

‟Pffft, of course,” Rainbow said, brushing off her question, though to those who knew her it was obvious she was a bit chagrined. Curry didn’t notice, she placed herself firmly by Fluttershy’s side and didn’t give any indication she was going anywhere else in the foreseeable future.

*****************************

An hour later all the picnic things had been gathered up. Jake’s sledge and harness, with the exception of the horse collar, which he was now wearing, had been placed in the old castle for storage. Curry hadn’t really understood the whole not-appropriate-wear-for-a-colt business, but as Applejack had assured her that Jack would not need the harness, she had made no real objection to it being put away like that. As the last step, the ponies had tossed the picnic blanket over Jake’s body, covering his wings and securing it in place. They had been a bit vague on the why, but Curry had gotten the gist. There would be a huge commotion if other ponies saw that Jake had both a horn and wings. Apparently, that was something pretty special.

They were now well on their way home. Spike was perched on Twilight’s back. Curry had originally tried to walk alongside Fluttershy but found herself tiring very quickly as she tried to keep pace with the ponies. She had been dismayed at how weak she was compared to the ponies who surrounded her. That dismay had changed to total joy when Rarity had lifted her magically into the air and set her astride Fluttershy. She had been riding the yellow mare ever since.

‟Say, Spike. You never did finish reading that letter from Princess Celestia,” Applejack said.

‟Say, that’s right,” the small dragon said. ‟Completely slipped my mind. And another one showed up while you were rushing to save the foals.”

‟What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Twilight demanded, coming to a sudden stop and almost unseating the small dragon until she magically caught him and pushed him back up onto her back.

‟I told you, I forgot. Anyway, it just said to look after Jake and Curry until Princess Celestia and Princess Luna can arrange things for the long term. You were going to do that anyway, so no big deal.”

‟Ooh, ooh, but what about the one addressed to Jake and Curry? You need to finish reading that one,” Pinky said, bouncing along beside him and Twilight, who had started to walk again, with a slightly disgruntled look on her face.

‟Right you are,” Spike said, leaning over to rummage in Twilight’s saddle bag. ‟Here we go,” he said as he extracted the scroll in question. He unfurled it and after clearing his throat, started to read.

Dear Jake and Curry. Please allow my sister and me to welcome you most sincerely to Equestria...

The message ran on from there, but neither Jake nor Curry were paying any attention. They and the ponies stepped out of the gloomy forest into bright sunshine with an incredible vista spread out in front of them. Miles of lush green grass, just begging to be run on, perfectly shaped trees, just asking to be climbed, and far in the distance, a magical white castle hanging off the side of a mountain. The magical land of Equestria needed no formal letter to welcome them. The sight that spread out in front of them could not be condensed and expressed in mere words. It had to be seen to be appreciated. Jake and Curry looked and knew, down to their very core, that they were home.

********************

(*)Curry was good enough to gussy up their ponies for such events, but not to be invited. Not that she would have wanted to attend such a stupid thing.

(1)Which worked out to about four dollars an hour. The local clique of pony mad girls really needed to be reported to the workplace and standards agency. As well as being charged under the Child labor act.

(2) Rarity’s experience with the Cutie Mark Crusaders had left her with hair-trigger reflexes when around impulsive fillies.

Ch9 Tidbits [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter Nine
Tidbits

Princess Celestia was a master of delegation. The actual amount of paperwork that needed her personal attention might have been minuscule compared to what the government as a whole generated on a daily basis, but there were thousands of clerks handling the government’s load and only one of her. There were times when there just didn’t seem to be enough minutes in the day to go through everything. At times Celestia was tempted to keep the sun in the sky just a little bit longer. On the other hand, the thought of simply putting it off till the next day had not crossed her mind for hundreds of years.

Celestia had learned a long time ago that untended paperwork had a bad habit of breeding in the dark. The little bit you left for tomorrow would grow to consume the desk and creep out into the hallway before you knew it.

That was why she was currently walking down the hall to her office surrounded by a blizzard of paper held aloft by her magic as her personal secretary, Paper Pusher, trotted along beside her collecting each document as she signed them after a careful perusal.

Despite her preoccupation, she did not fail to graciously acknowledge Private Sweets and Private Stone at the guard position in front of the door to her private study as she swept past them. They gave her carefully controlled nods in return, while never ceasing their scanning of the hallway for potential ninja-pony assassins. In the back of her mind, Celestia noted that this pair was even stiffer than was the norm for her guards. She passed it off to their youth. They would learn how to relax while maintaining total attention and respect in time. Upon entering her office, however, she decided that there might have been more to their behavior than simple youth and inexperience.

Her office, was without too much exaggeration, trashed. There was hardly a book left on a shelf, instead, they were scattered across the floor in random stacks, each one teetering on the brink of instability. Celestia had a feeling that if she were to stamp her hoof she’d create a paper avalanche of epic proportions. Beside her, she heard Paper Pusher give out a cry that was half horror and half sob. ‟You don’t need to see this, Dear,” Celestia said in a gentle tone, shifting one of her wings to hide the devastation from her secretary.

Celestia looked across the chaos to her desk, which was ground zero. Her sister was slumped forward over the top of the hoof-carved edifice, her head twisted to the side, snoring quite audibly due to the uncomfortable position. A rather impressive spit bubble was inflating and deflating as she breathed in and out. To the side of her head was a takeout box from Pony Joe’s, large enough to contain a dozen of his premier donuts. A takeout coffee container of impressive size lay drained of its very essence and thrown casually to one side next to the empty box. Luna’s hoof was resting on a rumpled brown paper bag, no doubt containing other smuggled confections. A vein in Celestia’s forehead twitched as she spotted her empty BKC tray among the other debris.

Hovering over this scene of culinary destruction was Luna’s hoofmaiden, Laminia, who had been in the process of laying a blanket over her sleeping princess when Celestia had entered. She looked torn, unable to properly bow with her hooves full of fabric, and clearly not wanting to disturb her mistress. Celestia gestured to the door while mouthing, ‟Join me”. The Solar Diarch retreated, shooing Paper Pusher out with her as she went.

‟Oh, Princess, the horror!” Paper Pusher gasped before Celestia silenced any further hysterics with a hoof.

‟Shhhh. It will be fine. Go and gather a team of clerks. Double-overtime with weekend differential is authorized as of this minute. It’s three hours till moonrise. We’ll let Luna sleep till then.” (1) Paper Pusher turned and scurried frantically down the hallway to rally the troops, passing a rather bulky Nocturne guard coming the other way.

‟Ah, Optio Pumpernickel. When I saw your spouse inside among the chaos I was wondering when you would be joining us,” Celestia said, as she acknowledged the off-duty Nocturne Royal Guard who had approached on silent hooves and knelt to her. To one side, Private Sweets and Stone fairly twanged with nervous tension while remaining as immobile as statues.

‟Princess Celestia, my wife grew concerned when she discovered Princess Luna had not returned to her rooms. She insisted on coming to check on her, and I accompanied her. Voluntarily. Is everything to Your Highness' satisfaction?" he asked, with the smallest of sideways glances at the two nervous guards giving the unspoken implication that the answer had better be 'Yes' or certain things would be rolling downhill.

Just then the door to Celestia’s office opened slightly, and Laminia eased out through it, a crumpled paper bag in her mouth. The taller of the two guards gave a slight gasp, and swayed on his hooves. Pumpernickel barely got there in time to stop him from doing a muzzle-plant on the shiny floor. ‟Sweets! Pull yourself together, Guard!”

The tall pegasus got his gangly legs back under him and gave a salute. ‟I’m fine, sir. Your pardon, Princess.” His words were belied by the fact that he was still more than a touch wobbly and his face rather resembled someone who was expecting Divine Retribution to fall out of the sky at any moment.

Celestia’s expression firmed and she began to snap out orders in a very quiet, but firm voice. ‟Optio Pumpernickel. You would be so kind as to take Private Sweets’ post.” She turned to the other guard, who was doing his best, I’m just a statue, no one here impression. ‟Private Stone, please report to the watch commander. Tell him that a new set of guards are required for my office door for the rest of the day shift, then accompany Optio Pumpernickel to join us in the Blue Salon. Laminia, if you would be so kind, run across to Pony Joe’s and pick up three extra large to go. Black, extra strong. Private Sweets, you are with me!” With that Celestia turned and walked a few doors down the hallway before entering one of the sitting rooms used for semi-formal meetings.

********

Twenty minutes later, Pumpernickel, accompanied by an obviously reluctant Private Stone, eased through the door to the Blue Salon. The heavily built Nocturne stallion scanned the room. His wife had obviously moved quickly, Private Sweets was pursuing the bottom of his coffee with deadly intent while Princess Celestia watched with a stern expression. Clearly, she had put her hoof down in the matter of Guards eating or drinking while on duty. Having witnessed Sweets’ red-rimmed eyes and being aware he was working a swing-shift, Pumpernickel understood her reasoning.

What was far more puzzling was the fact that the love of his life was standing in the corner behind Princess Celestia, her head pressed firmly against the walls. While he would not put it past either of the Princesses, he could not think of a single reason Princess Celestia would have made Laminia stand in the corner.

‟Ah, good. Have a coffee, Optio Pumpernickel.” As it was obviously not a suggestion, Pumpernickel popped the top off of one of the containers and took a good swig of the black nectar. He didn’t really need it, he was fully capable of operating at peak efficiency for two days without the need for sleep if he had to. Still, the bitter brew did put a bit of a spring back into his step.

‟Now, to get back to the matter at hoof. Private Sweets had just gotten to the point where Princess Luna sent Councilpony Storm Warning out to get coffee and donuts."

Over in the corner, Laminia let out a loud snort, and her sides heaved with badly suppressed laughter. Pumpernickel was made of sterner stuff, or at least had the benefit of months of practice in maintaining a stoic attitude. He merely twitched a single eyelid. Inwardly, he cringed. Princess Celestia was clearly in a fey mood, while in a way that was a good thing for Private Sweets and Stone as far as their career in the Guard went, it did not bode well for their future mental health.

‟At that point, Private Sweets, you informed Princess Luna that the Coucilpony would be unable to comply with her request because our special blend does not travel well?"

Sweets nodded, his expression one of misery.

‟Setting aside the matter of you offering unsolicited culinary advice to our sister, did it occur to you that Pony Joe offers many other blends, some of them quite strong, that will not eat through their container if not ingested quickly? Do take another swallow, you are starting to look peeked again, Private.”

Sweets gulped a mouthful of hot coffee while shaking his head, resulting in minor spillage.

‟Very well. It was at this point, We understand that Princess Luna sniffed out your illicit contraband?”

Sweets winced but nodded.

Pumpernickel’s expression stiffened.

‟You have a question, Optio Pumpernickel?” Celestia asked, without needing to even look in his direction.

‟Yes, Princess Celestia. Contraband?”

‟Apparently Private Sweets brought some illicit candies on duty.”

Pumpernickel relaxed slightly. A misdemeanor that would normally not ‘be seen’ by the Officer on Duty, unless the guard in question was blatant about consuming them. Sweets could look forward to a long ‘conversation’ with the Officer on Duty, but his career was likely safe.

The Princess then turned her attention back toward the hapless Private Sweets. ‟At this point you offered our sister the untested comestibles, claiming that they were as effective as a good cup of coffee in keeping one alert?” Celestia floated a rumpled brown bag off the table beside her and into the air space between her and Sweets. It opened and two wrapped candies emerged. ‟These candies, in fact?”

Sweets nodded, drawing into himself as best he could while remaining at full attention.

Pumpernickel was watching the whole thing with the sort of fascination one might experience on seeing a small animal cornered by a predator. At any moment he half expected to see Celestia lick her chops in anticipation.

‟While the wrapper seems familiar,(2) We are not aware of any candy currently available that makes that claim. Where did you acquire them?”

‟It was a rejected masterpiece submission to BKC, Princess Celestia. My cousin was given some by the journeymare who made them,” Sweets said

‟Rejected?” In front of Celestia, one of the floating candies unwrapped itself. The Princess examined it for a moment, and then popped it into her mouth before anyone could react. She bit down and a moment later her face lit up with an expression that had Pumpernickel blushing, mainly because he’d seen a similar expression a couple of hours previously on Laminia’s face, and it had not been the result of eating a piece of candy.

‟Rejected?” Celestia repeated in an incredulous tone of voice. ‟BK must be stampeding in his grave.” Celestial floated the empty candy wrapper up in front of her face for a closer look. ‟We have seen this before. We believe that the Element of Laughter has gifted us with candies bearing a similar wrapping. The maker lives in Pinkie Pie’s home town we believe. Laminia, Pumpernickel, you’ve both been to Ponyville recently. Do you concur?” Celestia floated the empty wrapper over in front of Laminia, who had withdrawn her head from the corner. The wrapped candy she floated over in front of Pumpernickel for inspection. Both Nocturne examined the sample in front of them.

‟I’m not an expert, Princess Celestia, but it does look familiar, and it could have been Ponyville where I saw it,” Pumpernickel answered.

‟I may not be an expert either, but I am sure. This is from Bon Bon’s candy shop.” Laminia said, as she leaned forward and took a good sniff. Her eyes widened, and for a moment it looked like she was inclined toward snatching the wrapper out of the air.

Pumpernickel grinned inwardly as he thought about the wrap albums(2*) Laminia had stashed in the back of their closet. The ones she didn’t think he knew about. The ones devoted to ‘unique’ delights of the romantic variety.

‟Ah, now we are getting somewhere. Private Stone,” Celestial said, turning the full force of her gaze on the hapless private who up till now had believed himself out of the line of royal fire. ‟Does all you have heard here agree with your recollection of events?”

‟Sir, Yes Sir!” Private Stone snapped out and then went red as a beet through his bleached hide. Pumpernickel had to fight down the urge to slap his forehead in exasperation. Celestia maintained her calm, while her sparkling eyes showed her amusement. ‟Very well, you may leave, Private Stone.”

The lucky guard pony could not have vacated the premises more rapidly if his tail had been on fire.

‟And that leaves us with you, Private Sweets, and the issue of smuggling unregistered sweets into the castle, and supplying them to my little sister.”

Sweets fell to his knees, his long forelegs outstretched. ‟Please, Princess Celestia, I promise I’ll never break a rule again, ever. Don’t kick me out of the guard.”

‟Oh, do stand up, Private. You are taking all the fun out of this,” Celestia said with a giggle. ‟You are not going to be punished. But, only the four of us in this room are going to know this. To all others, we have been enraged by your careless behavior in providing our sister with an unknown and unauthorized comestible. As such we are going to summarily suspend you for one month without pay. Only the ardent defense on the part of Optio Pumpernickel prevented me from outright banishing you from Equestria.” When it looked like Sweets might very well collapse at any moment, she softened her voice and continued. ‟Do not be concerned. Once the current crisis is over you will be recalled with full back pay, and possibly a bonus if your performance pleases us.”

Celestia lowered her voice, and her horn gleamed gently. Pumpernickel did not miss the matching glimmer that coated the walls of the room. They were now insulated completely from the outside world. Only then did she continue speaking, ‟There is a situation in Ponyville. We feel it is vital that there be a guard presence there in case it is needed. At the same time the greatest need, at least for the next week, is complete secrecy. To send a detachment, or even a pair of guards openly would invite speculation that could lead to disaster. For that reason, I have a task for you. We wish you to travel to Ponyville, and order more of these chocolates.” she floated the still wrapped candy over to Private Sweets. ‟You have tasted them. Make sure the candy maker can duplicate them reliably. If she can, you are authorized to give her a royal contract to supply us personally, and by us, I'm including my darling sister, who most certainly will have words with me if I were not to share my bounty."

Private Sweets took the candy, his entire body reflecting his profound shock at the speed of events and the situation as a whole.

‟You wish everyone to believe me suspended from the Royal Guards so I can go undercover to buy you candy, My Princess?” he asked in disbelief.

‟Do not be silly, Private. I have ponies to do that sort of thing. No, I want you to go to Ponyville to provide protection for a pair of recent immigrants if it proves to be needed. The candy buyer aspect is merely your excuse for being in town.”

‟Won’t suspicions be raised by a guard so recently suspended showing up in Ponyville, looking for the candy maker whose product caused his punishment?” Pumpernickel asked, feeling that if he was to be involved, even if only peripherally, in this madness, he should take steps to make sure it did not fall apart.

Celestia seemed to think about that for a moment, not as if seeing it as a problem, but rather as if savoring the entertainment value inherent in that scenario. She shook her head, dismissing the idea, with maybe just a hint of reluctance. ‟That will not be an issue. As I said, Sweets will be traveling undercover. He will not be recognized.”

‟Setting aside his size, his bleached hide is a dead giveaway. Everyone knows it means Royal Guard.”(3) Pumpernickel said, continuing to play Discord’s advocate seeing as how Celestia seemed willing to allow it.

‟Already considered. After we are done here, Private Sweets, you will report to the Royal Theater. They have been told how to prepare you for your role. They do not know why. You will not tell them. You will not tell anyone outside this room other than Princess Luna.”

It was dawning on Pumpernickel that this was not some off-the-cuff scheme. Oh, the whole candy situation was serendipitous, but the princess knew too much about Sweets, had too much already prepared. She had intended to use the over-sized Royal Guard pony for whatever this mission was all along. He could not help wondering what other excuse had been prepared in order to justify suspending Sweets from the guard for the needed time, and which had been rendered unnecessary by the current circumstances.

‟Now, here is what is going on, and what you are going to do,” Celestia said.

***************

Pumpernickel, Laminia, and Sweets exited the meeting room, all three wearing dumbfounded expressions. ‟That is--” Sweets was cut off as both Laminia and Pumpernickel slapped a hoof over his mouth.

‟I’m sorry as all heck about this, Sweets, but Princess Celestia is in one of her moods. I’ll have to escort you to the OD. Please don’t say anything that might make her even angrier.” Pumpernickel said, both falling into his role, and dropping a not so subtle hint for Sweets to keep his mouth closed.

As her husband led the drafted private one way down the hallway, a rather shell-shocked Laminia stumbled over to Celestia’s office and passed between the two rigid guards who were making a particular effort to project an aura of Guard-like perfection. They didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, but they were taking all steps possible to avoid being downwind of the fan.

*********

A few minutes travel outside of the Everfree forest two friends were having a heartfelt goodbye. ‟You be a good boy for Applejack and listen to everything she says, you hear?” Curry mumbled into Jake’s muzzle as she hugged her arms around it.

Jake looked into her eyes with one large gentle brown orb from a few inches away, blinking away a tear. ‟I’ll be good. I promise Curry. You come and visit soon promise.”

‟You bet. Soon as I can. I’ll be over to see how you’re getting on, and to make sure you haven’t eaten every single apple at Sweet Apple Acres. You mind what I said. You don’t eat nothing they don’t offer, you hear me?”

‟I’m a good boy,” Jake protested.

‟Only when you don’t let your belly do the thinking, yuh big galoot.” Curry stepped back, keeping the palm of her hand on Jake’s nose for a moment before dropping it.

The two friends stood facing each other, neither one wanting to be the first to turn away. The tableau was finally broken when Rainbow Dash fluttered down between them, knuckling Jake in the side with one hoof while ruffling Curry’s mane with another. ‟Well, I got to go. Got to make sure my team hasn’t been sleeping on the job. Was interesting as all heck meeting you two. I’ll be around to visit soon.” With that Rainbow took off straight up, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

Curry stumbled backward, a hand over her nose as her eyes tracked the rainbow contrail streaking across the sky. ‟Whoa, is she ever fast,” she said in amazement.

‟Fastest in Equestria. But don’t ever let her know I said so,” Applejack said as she trotted up beside Jake and facing Curry.

‟I do need to get back to the library so I can start doing some research on you and Jake, Curry,” Twilight said as she trotted up and gave Jake a goodby nuzzle. ‟Spike and I’ll walk with you and Fluttershy as far as her home.”

Pinkie Pie bounced up and wrapped her front legs around Jake’s neck, having to go up on the tiptoes of her rear hooves to do it. ‟I have to get back to the Cakes. I promised to look after the twins this afternoon. And then there is so much that has to be done before the end of the week. I don’t know where I’m going to find the time. Maybe I’ll have to make some if I remember the recipe, though I did promise the Doctor I wouldn’t do that anymore, so maybe I’ll just have to rush real fast.” Pausing only to give Curry a soft pat on the head, Pinkie dashed off in a cotton candy scented cloud of dust.

Rarity trotted up and gave Jake a pair of air kisses, and a fond caress along the cheek before turning to face Curry. ‟I, for one, am coming with you to Fluttershy’s as well. We simply must arrange for some proper garments. Fluttershy, dear, do you still have those bolts that the girl’s tried to dye? The ones I gave you for nesting material?”

‟Oh yes, it was too late in the season for nesting, I was saving them for next year,” Fluttershy said, not quite meeting Rarity’s eyes.(4)

Applejack looked up at Jake and told him, ‟Come on, big guy. Let's get you up to the farm and introduced to Granny Smith and Big McIntosh so we can get you settled in.” She bumped his leg with her shoulder to get him moving.

Curry had to fight down the urge to run after Jake as he started moving away from her. Only Fluttershy’s presence beside her gave her the strength to stay put. Still, she kept her eyes on his retreating figure till he walked down over a dip in the road and vanished from sight. She hadn’t really understood why Twilight felt it better to separate them, but as a kid, she was used to having adults rearrange her life for incomprehensible reasons.

‟Come on, sweety. Let’s go home, shall we?” Fluttershy said in her gentle voice, lightly nuzzling Curry’s cheeks, and wiping away a few tears at the same time.

Curry’s felt a warm glow of pleasure and comfort at the yellow pegasus’ words. Home, she had a new home.

*******

Fluttershy’s home was amazing. Never in her wildest daydreams had Curry ever imagined anything like it. On the outside, it looked like someone had shoved a house into a hill, on the inside it was all nice clean woodwork. And the critters. There was every sort imaginable, with their own little dwellings inside the house, and small stairs and ramps winding all through the living quarters. And they were all so welcoming. It was like something out of a Disney Princess movie, right down to the friendly critters.

A bird fluttered in the air in front of Curry and she held out her hand for it. The songbird landed on her finger just as bold as could be. She felt something rubbing against her ankle and looked down to see a groundhog. A raccoon was in the kitchen washing some dishes and it carefully dried its paws and came over to shake her hand in a very genteel way.

A cute little white bunny hopped toward her and stopped a few feet away. Curry, careful not to dislodge the bird on her finger, who was chirping a cheerful tune, went down on one knee and extended a hand toward the cautious bunny. It leaned forward, whiskers twitching and sniffed her fingers. It then reared back on its hind legs while pinching its nose shut with one paw while frantically waving the other in the air as if to blow away some toxic fumes.

‟Oh, my. I’m afraid you are right Angel Bunny. But it isn’t Curry’s fault. She has been all alone in the woods for some time and hasn’t had a chance to clean up. We’ll fix that right away.” Fluttershy said in an apologetic tone.

And to Curry’s horror, the pony she had trusted above all the others betrayed her and began to drag a pony-sized bathing tub into the middle of the room.

‟And where are you going, my little pony?” asked Rarity in an amused tone as Curry started to back toward the exit. The small girl was levitated into the air, and her tattered clothing gently removed from her body. With all due care taken to keep from opening up her various scrapes and scratches. All of this was done too quick and sudden for her to make a proper protest.

‟Really, I don’t know what it is with young fillies these days. Why back when I was a filly myself I could not wait to sink into a nice relaxing bubble bath.”

‟But I don’t need a bath!” Curry cried out in anguish as she was carried over to the tub, now rapidly being filled by a bucket brigade of the little critters she had thought so cute before, with that evil, evil, bunny egging them on. ‟I’ll get you for this,” she hissed at the white demon as she floated by him. He merely stuck out his tongue and blew her a huge raspberry. Disney would so not let him into any of their pictures.

*************

Big McIntosh had put in a hard day's work and was looking forward to sluicing himself off with the hose in the barn. He was a bit too large to really get a comfortable soaking in the tub in the house, and it would ruin his stallion cred if he were to visit the spa in town for a good hot soak, so he took his luxury where he could. The high-pressure hose he’d rigged in the barn could do a first-rate job of soothing work sore muscles. Especially if you were to take the time to build up a fire in the old water boiler that fed it.

As he got close to the barn he could hear voices. His sister, Applejack, and the deep voice of what could only be a stallion. He frowned but told himself it was likely only a traveling sales pony trying to sell Applejack some doodad or other. His hard-headed sister would soon see him trotting down the road, especially if he made the usual mistake of trying to sell to her feminine side. Everypony knew that Applejack had no feminine side, he thought, with typical brotherly oblivion.

Then he heard the laughter. Applejack just didn’t laugh like that with strange stallions. That was the sort of laugh she let out when they were playing ball in the evenings with Apple Bloom, and maybe when some of her friends came around for an apple roast. His trot quickened and he hurried up to the barn.

Big Mac reached the doorway to the barn and froze in place, the ever-present strand of straw falling free of his mouth as his jaw dropped. Inside the barn his pure and innocent sister was up on her hind legs, lovingly soaping up the flanks of the biggest pegasus stallion he had ever seen. She looked over at him, and instead of looking guilt struck, smiled and said, ‟Hey there, Big Mac. Want to join us?”

*******

Pumpernickel stifled a yawn with his hoof, glad now that the Princess had insisted he drink that cup of coffee. He’d been up for better than twenty-four hours now and bedtime was looking further and further away. He checked the shadows on the floor and estimated that Private, or rather, just Sweets now, had been in the special effects and makeup department of the Royal Theater for nearly an hour. Just as he was wondering how much longer it was going to be, the door opened up and Sweets stepped through.

Even his well-trained reactions could not keep Pumpernickel from looking again to see if perhaps the tall guard was actually behind the strange tall pegasus who came striding out the door. He’d been told what they were going to do, but seeing it in the flesh was something else again. Sweets had been dyed black from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, even his wings were inky clouds of darkness, all the more obvious because he had them extended to the sides to allow the dye to dry more thoroughly. The only spot of color on his body was his lollipop cutie mark that was already burning through the black dye that had covered it.

The nocturne stallion let out a low whistle and said, ‟Impressive.”

‟I feel like a total idiot,” was Sweets sullen reply.

‟Oh, but you haven’t even put on the best part yet,” Pumpernickel said with a cruel smirk. He held up a long dark object attached to a black headband.

Sweets might have blanched. His eyes certainly looked panicked, but with the dark dye coloring his face it was impossible to say. ‟Can’t it wait till I reach Ponyville?” he asked plaintively.

‟Now, now, All Day Sucker, or should I use your nickname, Sucker Bet? If you weren’t willing to pay, you shouldn’t have made that bar bet,” Pumpernickel said while waving the oversized unicorn horn at Sweets, or rather, All Day Sucker, which was the name the Princess had selected for this little bit of media distraction.

Looking as mortified as it was possible for a stallion to look, Sweets took the fake horn from Pumpernickel and slipped the band over his head. From this close, it was obviously a fake. From a distance, with the black headband against Sweets’ dyed hide and his size as a distraction, it would be much less clear that it wasn’t real. (5)

‟I have to wear this for an entire week?” Sweets asked in a humiliated tone. Pumpernickel just gave him a totally unsympathetic smile in return.

‟Just kill me now.”

****************************

(1) Celestia could have put the room to rights in about ten minutes, in ten seconds if she didn’t mind friction burns to the shelves and books, but knew that Paper Pusher was going to need the cathartic release of making sure that every single priceless volume was inspected and properly shelved if undamaged, and sent to the rebinding facility if repairs were needed.

(2)When a candymaker gains journeyman status they are allowed to submit a design that will be unique to them and will be used on any packaging containing their particular candy. Most often the design is based on their cutie mark, though not always. After submission it would be checked against the records and if no other candy maker, past or present, had or was using the design, it would be approved and registered. (2*)

(2*)There is a thriving community of ‘wrap’ enthusiast who collect and trade candy wrappers. A BK wrapper from the period prior to him being knighted recently brought in ten thousand bits at auction.

(3)Unless you were a Nocturne. Attempts to bleach their slate grey hides had led to some truly hideous, or hilarious; depending on which side of them you were on, effects that had caused them to be exempt from the requirement.

(4)The truth was that the birds had taken one look at the haphazardly dyed fabric and refused to have anything to do with it.

(5) The horn was not something specially prepared. It was actually over-the-counter sports merchandise, marketed to fans of the Canterlot Thrusters, a local Hoofball team whose team logo was a fiercely scowling, and extremely well endowed, black unicorn. It was a fairly common bar bet between members of the Thruster’s fan club and the fans of other teams for the loser of a given bet to wear the other teams fan merchandise in public for a duration that was usually a good indicator of just how drunk the betting parties had been at the time.

Ch10 Settling In [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter Ten
Settling In

Nobody said anything about another stallion, Jake whimpered to himself.

The newly minted Alicorn was hiding under the hayloft, his huge coal-black frame shielded on the front by a heap of tumbled bales, like a foal during his first lighting storm. The over-sized colt had even mottled his new wings up over his head to better hide.

The reasons for his behavior was an angry red stallion on the other side of his shelter who was currently arguing with Applejack. Jake was scared to death of stallions. As far as he was concerned each and every one of them was bug-nut crazy! There were hardly ever any at the boarding stable. When there was one or more, he or they were always kept segregated from the mares, geldings(1) and each other. On the few occasions that Jake had visited the stables while a stallion was in residence, each and every pony of them had kicked up a huge fuss, slamming into their stalls or trying to jump over a fence to get at him, all the while screaming a challenge at the top of their lungs. They were vicious beasts and dumb as stumps to boot. Impossible to reason with.

Not that the mares or geldings back home had been any smarter, or in some cases pleasant. In the case of their nasty temperaments, however, it had more to do with personal space than the apparent desire to see him stomped into the ground. It wasn’t just that they could not talk, he couldn’t either, not then. Unlike the other ponies, however, the words had always been in his head. Maybe not so clear as they were now, but there all the same. He just hadn’t been able to get them out. The same could not be said for the mares or stallions he’d known before. He had never seen a single indication that they had any true understanding of any words beyond, dinner is served. He didn’t know why this was, but it had made his already lonely life even more solitary. He hadn’t just been separated from the other ponies and horses because of where he lived, he’d been separated by his mind as well.

Jake had felt like he’d arrived in heaven when he had met the six mares and the not scary dragon at the big stone barn. While some of them had acted a bit like the mares back home at first, what with the fighting and kicking, in the end, they had all welcomed him warmly. They even gave him a cake! A cake that had been even better than the delightful sugary sweet confection that made him drool so much when Curry snuck him out a piece on rare occasions. He could still smell it ever so slightly, from the frosting that had gotten stuck up his nose.

He had felt so comfortable and happy that he had forgotten that where there were mares, stallions would not be far behind. That point had been rudely driven home when the big red stallion had rushed into the barn just as Jake was enjoying his first ever hot shower. The stallion had yelled at Jake, calling him a Sister Seducing Sales-pony, and threatening to get his shovel if Jake didn’t clear off right this instant.

For some reason when Jake had looked over his shoulder in a panic the stallion had stopped yelling and skidded to a stop, all four hooves digging furrows in the barn’s wooden floor. Jake hadn’t wasted the chance offered. In his rush to escape, he had scrambled up and over the bales of hay directly in front of himself, only to find the overhead hayloft did not allow him room to stand up straight. With nowhere else to go he had trapped himself in the back of the barn.

Frightened and scared, and with no big sister around to save him or tell him what to do Jake had huddled into as small a space as he could manage with his big body and awkward wings.

Salvation had come in the form of Applejack, who started yelling at the stallion. Jake had felt a huge sense of comfort as he realized that a grownup was here to deal with the situation. It didn’t even cross his mind that the grownup in question was only a third his size. Curry was only a twentieth, and he had never had reason to doubt her ability to keep him safe. His ears, which had been flattened against the side of his head, pricked up as he listened to the conversation happening on the other side of his protective wall of hay.

Big McIntosh reared back slightly as his smaller, but fiercer, younger sister got up in his face. ‟What the hay do you think you’re doing, Big Mac?”

‟Saw him taking advantage,” Big Mac said, glaring toward the hay bales the cowardly stud had jumped over. ‟Not gonna stand for it,” he added, grinding his teeth and trying to ease around his innocent sister to get at the con-pony.

Big Mac had been shocked into halting his charge when he’d seen the horn the big black Pegasus had been sporting. He cursed his gullibility which had given the cad a chance to escape. Luckily the idiot had trapped himself good and proper. So as soon as he could get by his poor besotted sister, he’d be able to have a proper discussion(2) with the scoundrel. The nerve of him! Pretending to be royalty to fool foolish farm fillies. Unlike his sister, Big Mac had realized once he got over his surprise that the horn was obviously a fake. There never had been an Alicorn Stallion, and one wasn’t just going to pop out of thin air. It was clearly a trick of some sort, and given what he’d caught Applejack up to with the faker, it didn’t take any great mind to figure out what, or more specifically who, the snake-in-the-grass was trying to get.

‟Would you settle down?!” Applejack yelled up at her oblivious big brother. She reared up on her hind legs and planted her hooves against his chest, but he simply shoved forward, forcing her to twist to the side or get pushed over on her back.

‟Darn it! Big Mac! Listen to me!”Applejack swatted her big brother across the jaw with a hoof.

Big McIntosh stumbled, more from shock than the power of Applejack’s hoof-slap, though it hadn’t been a gentle pat by any measurement and could have easily knocked a lesser stallion out cold. Like any little sister, Applejack knew just how hard to push a point with her big brother.

"Sis,” he said while rubbing his jaw and giving his sister a wounded look.

‟I don’t know what the hay is running through that mind of yours', Big Mac, but I’m here to tell you that Y'all are bucking acorns and not apples,” Applejack said fiercely as she positioned herself once again between her big brother and the hay bales Jake was hiding behind.

‟You ain’t thinking straight, sis. That con-pony has you fooled. If’n you just think, Y'all will see he’s too good to be true,” Big McIntosh ran down with a gasp, having spoken more words in one go than he usually got out in a day.

Applejack closed her eyes and gave a huge sigh as if gathering strength. ‟As I just said, Y'all are bucking the wrong tree. Last night Twilight got a message from Princess Celestia telling her to go into the Everfree and gather up Jake here, and his friend. We all went along to lend a hoof. Princess Celestia, her own self asked if we’uns could put up Jake for a few days till she all can get things fixed up all right and proper like. Jake’s friend is over at Fluttershy’s place.”

Big Mac had pretty much exhausted his word quota so he settled for scowling at his little sister while casting a venomous look at the soapy brush which still had a few of Jake's hairs sticking out of the suds.

Applejack was used to carrying the brunt of conversations with her brother and had long ago learned to translate his body language into the words he didn’t say. ‟No! You know darn well the Princess didn’t go and tell me to give Jake a scrub down. He was dirty and scruffy from the Everfree forest and hadn’t used a hose his own self.”

‟Hmmmphh,”

‟I don’t care if you think it’s a ‘likely story’ it’s the honest truth.”

‟Fooled.”

‟I ain’t been played for a fool.”

‟Slicker.”

‟Oh, now you’re just catching at straws, Big Mac. Since when have I ever let a city slicker get the best of me.”

‟Flim and Flam.”

‟There, right there you see. We’uns showed them what was what.”

‟Not what I meant.”

‟Ain’t you ever going to let me forget that? Ok, I admit. I let them snooker me into making that darn foal bet. But we beat them fair and square. They didn't get our farm or our apples and they never will.”

Big Mac nodded toward the hay bales Jake was cowering behind. ‟Not after apples.”

Applejack went red. ‟How dumb do you think I am?”

Big Mac shrugged. ‟Not the first.”

Applejack had stood just about all she could stand. Big Mac might be her big brother, but there were lines. If there was a way for a pony to spit fire, Applejack could have burnt the whole barn down as she lashed into her brother. "You consarned idjit! I ain't no silly frilly city mare! Are you saying the Princess got fooled by this here innocent big lug? 'cause if you are, I'm taking that shovel away from you and knocking some sense into that rock you've got perched on yer neck! Now BACK OFF!"

Behind his concealing hay bales, Jake’s ears pricked up in curiosity. The conversation between Applejack and her brother was reminding him an awful lot of the talks he used to have with Curry before he learned to actually talk. Well, not the part about foals, but the way Applejack seemed to be supplying most of the words. True, the big red stallion could talk, but he didn’t say a whole lot. Applejack seemed to be filling in a lot of blanks, just like Curry had been inclined to do. The stallion also wasn’t foaming at the mouth and shoving Applejack aside to get at him. That was a hopeful sign. Maybe the stallions in this place were only a little crazy.

Applejack snarled when her brother gave Jake’s hiding place another pointed look. This was getting ridiculous, and the argument was taking them down a path she wasn’t interested in discussing with her big brother, and which had no bearing on the current situation at all. ‟Will you stop with the lecture. I ain’t interested in Jake like that. For corn’s sake Big Mac he’s only--”

‟What in thunderation is all the ruckus out here,” a creaky old voice hollered from outside the barn. A moment later Granny Smith wobbled into view, her face twisted up into a ferocious scowl.

Big Mac gave a relieved sigh, reinforcements for his side. He wasn’t one for carrying tales, but this was a family matter, so he only felt a twinge of guilt when he said, ‟City slicker, messing with Applejack.”

Granny Smith was just as good at translating her grandcolt’s laconic mode of speech as Applejack.

‟Some good looking slicker was putting the moves on Applejack, and she was falling for his line?”

‟It ain’t nothing like--” Applejack started to protest, but was cut off before she could make any sort of explanation.

‟Yee-haw, that’s fifty bits that Red Gala owes me,” Granny Smith cheered, but then she got a thoughtful look on her face. ‟This city slicker, he was a stallion, right?”

‟Eyup,” A slightly flustered Big McIntosh said. He had not expected this reaction.

Granny Smith did a hoof pump, and in a dismissive tone said, ‟Two wedding dresses, as if.”

That comment broke a lot of the tension in the barn and Big Mac muffled a snicker with his hoof, earning him a dirty look from his sister, who was looking a might flushed.

Applejack simmered but kept her mouth shut. The last thing they needed was to plow even further offline. They were already in danger of running the furrow in a circle as it was.

‟So, let's see the critter that finally got your attention, Applejack,” Granny Smith demanded. ‟Call him on out here so we can have a good look.”

Applejack was not in the mood to break things gently to her family, so with no attempt at explanation, she turned toward the stack of hay bales that were shaking slightly in the late afternoon sunshine. ‟Jake? Sugarcube, you can come on out now.”

‟Is the stallion tied up good? He ain’t going to hit me with a shovel, is he?” came from the other side of the bales in Jake’s basso profundo voice. As always, Applejack found it a bit hard to work her mind around the disconnect between Jake’s young speech pattern and that rumbling bass voice that seemed to draw warm shivers up her spine.

Granny Smith glared up at her large grand pony. ‟Big Mac! Do you mean to say you tried to chase off the first stallion your sister has shown an interest in? I swear, I’m near on this close to sending you down to the creek to cut a willow switch.” She turned toward the hay bales and said, ‟You don’t need to worry about Big Mac, young’un. We got him in hand. You just come on out here and let old Granny Smith get a look at you.”

Jake wasn’t so sure of that, but in the back of his mind, he could hear Curry calling him a big fat coward. The thought of what she would say if she had to come to the farm to lure him out drove him up onto his hooves to carefully stand up under the low ceiling of the hayloft. Unfortunately Jake did not take into account his brand-new horn. As he stood up, the sharp point drove through a gap between two overhead planks, trapping him as neatly as if he had been lassoed. Jake panicked and wrenched his head around. He felt a brief pain at the top of his head and heard a loud crack. A second later a pair of oak planks that had been yanked out of place bounced off him, along with several hundred pounds of hay, as his horn came free. Blushing heavily, Jake shook off the debris and carefully worked his way up and over the bales of hay that separated him from the other ponies. It was a lot harder to do when he wasn’t in a blind panic and simply diving for cover.

Granny Smith’s eyes went wide as the massive black stallion gingerly made his way out through the ruins of the hayloft. She might have been an old greyish green mare, well past acting on such foolishness, but she could not help but run appreciative eyes over his large, muscular form, not neglecting to take into account his large wingspan and the long, sharp horn jutting from his forehead, which had just demonstrated its toughness in a most graphic way. She didn’t bother herself with little things like his existence being flat out impossible. Her mind was wholly focused on the fact that this hunk had finally gotten her grandfilly interested in stallions, and that Big Mac had done his best to chase him off.

‟Big McIntosh, you head right down to the creek this instance and cut some willow switches. Nice thick ones,” Granny Smith ordered, not taking her eyes off of the vision of masculine pulchritude that had by now made his way clear of the hay and was standing nervously in front of them.

‟Yes’m,” Big Mac answered in a distracted tone of voice. He had witnessed what Jake’s entirely real horn had done to well-seasoned oak planks. All his doubts had disappeared. Hard as it was to believe, he was looking at a real live Alicorn Stallion. Much as it went against his grain, he was a loyal son of Equestria, and thus he dropped to one knee as he bowed his head forward in respect. Despite this, he vowed to himself that if this prince treated his little sister as bad as that Prince Blueblood had Rarity, there would be a shovel in his future. And they’d see just how tough that horn of his really was.

Granny Smith restricted herself to the merest suggestion of a curtsy, sore knees and back would allow no more.

Applejack smiled a bit at her relative’s reactions. But, amusing as it was after their earlier antics, it was far past time for proper introductions to be made. She looked up at the black stallion who was looming over her, ironically in an attempt to keep her between him and Big McIntosh. ‟Jake, I’d like you to meet my Granny Smith, and my brother, Big McIntosh. Granny, Big Mac, this here is Jake, he just turned five last week.”

Granny Smith and Big Mac were in the process of saying hello when they both stopped and gave Applejack a look that said they were sure she must have misspoken, or in Granny Smith’s case, misheard. ‟Say what? These old ears don’t hear like they once did. How old did you say this handsome prince was, Applejack?”

After all the comments about her lack of sense, and likely romantic interests, Applejack was enjoying herself and had a broad smile on her face as she answered her Granny. ‟Why, I said he was five. Ain’t that right, Jake?”

Jake nodded his head up and down vigorously. ‟Yep, yep. I’m five whole years old. I had a party, with cake!” he added, a note of pleased amazement in his voice. ‟I’ve never had a party before.”

‟Shhhhh!” Big Mac shushed Jake out of instinct, looking around frantically. Only when a pink party pony didn’t spring out of anywhere blowing a horn while shooting off a confetti canon did he relax. He liked his sister’s friends just fine, but Pinky Pie could be a bit nerve-wracking for a laid back fellow like him. She was best in very small doses, preferably once a year, at the most.

Granny Smith was shaking her head. ‟Someone surely is pulling your leg, Applejack. How can you believe this fine young stallion is only five? Look at him, he’s at least as old as you are.” Granny Smith added action to her words by giving Jake a long, slow look that made the black stallion hunker down behind Applejack even further than he already was.

‟I can’t believe you two have forgotten what Trixie did so soon,” Applejack replied. ‟Don’t you remember how she fiddled with Snips and Snails?”

‟You saying someone magicked Jake from a colt to this?” Granny asked, in a tone of voice that contained more than a hint of skepticism.

Applejack’s innate honesty forced her to reply, ‟Well not exactly like that. But some pretty powerful magic was involved. Twilight is sure that Jake and his friend Curry came here from another place, and back where they come from, ponies just naturally mature a whole lot faster than they do here. Well physically anyway.”

‟Horse-feathers,” Granny Smith snapped out. ‟That filly spends too much time with her nose in a book and not enough time with her hooves in the dirt.”

Big Mac nodded his agreement while giving Jake a look that said, Alicorn or no Alicorn, he would have no truck with fakers on this farm.

That was when the palomino earth pony played her trump card. ‟That party Jake had? Pinkie threw it for him. Provided the cake and everything.” Applejack paused for a moment, and then added, ‟The cake had five candles.”

Both Big Mac and Granny Smith looked like someone had hit them over the head with one of Big Mac’s larger shovels. They turned looks toward Jake that had shifted from speculative and antagonistic to sympathetic. ‟Why the poor thing. He should be out playing with his colt friends, not stuck with an adult’s body and responsibilities,” Granny said.

‟Eyup,” Big Mac put in, feeling more than a touch guilty for the way he’d been acting. The big black stallion wasn’t a lily-livered coward, after all, he was just a scared colt tossed into a world he wasn’t ready for yet.

‟Mind you. I still think your friend Twilight is bucking up the wrong tree. You wait and see, it will be some foolish Unicorn like that Trixie her own self, who’s responsible for this. But, if Pinkie Pie says he’s five, then five he is,” Granny said.

Big Mac looked over his sister at Jake, meeting his eyes. ‟Right sorry,” he said. He looked down at his sister, and over at his Granny. He wanted to say more, offer the colt a comforting shoulder for support in his situation, but he wasn’t about to embarrass Jake by having a talk like that in front of a pair of mares. ‟Go for a walk?” he asked while indicating the barn door and the yard on the other side.

Jake looked at the big red stallion with a wary eye, but at the same time, there was a bit of hope in his chest. Was it possible he could be friends with a stallion? He looked down at Applejack, his eyes filled with his doubt.

‟Go on with you. Going to take a bit of time to get dinner ready. You have a chat with Big Mac. He’ll help you wash up when you get back and bring you up to the house, all safe and sound. Won’t he?” she said in a firm voice, looking her brother square in the eye.

‟I reckon,” Big Mac drawled. He looked over at Jake and again nodded toward the door. ‟Coming?”

‟Yes,” Jake said eagerly, his doubts fled. He started to trot toward the door and then paused looking over at Big Mac, and the horse collar the big stallion was wearing around his neck. ‟I forgot,” he said, hurrying over to where he had been getting a shower earlier. He located his own horse collar where Applejack had set it out of the way. Sticking his tongue in his cheek as an aid toward concentration he focused very hard and carefully picked up the collar with one hoof while bowing his head down. He was just about to loop the heavy appliance around his neck when it slipped free of his hoof and fell to the ground.

‟Let me help you with that,” Applejack offered and started to move toward Jake, only to be brought up short by her brother who put a restraining hoof on her shoulder.

‟The colt can do it. Can’t you?” big Mac asked Jake.

Jake had been burning with embarrassed frustration, but at Big Mac’s words, his eyes brightened and he replied, ‟Course I can!” This time he slipped the collar around his neck with no fumbling and stood up triumphantly.

Big Mac gave him a nod of acknowledgment for a task well done. At the same time, there was a look of curiosity in his eyes. What in the hay was an Alicorn doing with his own horse collar? Even if their magic didn’t make such things unnecessary it was unlikely a royal ever had to lift a hoof to do manual labor. And it wasn’t some sort of affectation. The collar was well worn, and he could tell from the wear marks on it, and the faint calluses on Jake’s hide that the colt had spent a lot of time wearing it.

Big Mac, with Jake in tow, headed out of the barn and across the yard, heading for a section of the farm he hadn’t yet visited today. If he was going to go for a walk, he might as well get a bit of work done at the same time.

Jake looked back over his shoulder as he left the barn, and was given an encouraging wave from Applejack. He looked over at the large red stallion, a worried frown on his face. ‟Mr, boss, chief, Big McIntosh, sir?” he said in a questioning tone. (3)

‟Eyup. Just Big Mac is fine,” the stallion said, turning his head to look at Jake as he continued to walk.

‟Mr... Big Mac, IwontstealyourmaresIpromise,” Jake got out in one long burst.

Big Mac stumbled and turned an incredulous look toward Jake.

Jake hurried on, wanting to clear up any possible reason the red stallion might take him in dislike. ‟Curry said the reason the other stallions were always so mad was that they thought I’d steal all the mares from them. I don’t understand. Why would they want all the mares to themselves? We could have played with them together just fine. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I won’t steal Applejack or Rainbow, or Pinkie or Twilight, or Rarity, or Fluttershy, from you. Cross my heart, I promise. Only, can I still play with them sometimes, please?”

Big McIntosh was turning even redder than usual and he reminded himself that he was talking to a colt who had no idea the sort of things he was implying. ‟Don’t mind sharing,” he finally said, not really feeling up to a more involved discussion on the subject.

Jake had been strolling after Big Mac while he talked, his large hooves kicking up clods of moist earth as they crossed the barnyard. Big Mac paused, looking at the several pounds of soil that had accumulated on Jake’s hooves after only a few steps. He happily took hold of something that would divert Jake from the uncomfortable subject of ‘playing’ with mares. ‟Look here,” he said, lifting up his right leg and showing a hoof that was only a little dusty. Jake obeyed, but with a puzzled expression. Having got the colt's attention Big Mac lowered his hoof and ground it into the dirt. When he picked it up it was just as caked as Jake’s hooves. ‟Watch,” he said, and a moment later the large clods of dirt simply fell off. To drive home his point Big Mac lowered a hoof and picked up one of the clods, and then a moment later let it drop free.

Jake’s eyes widened with understanding. He picked up his left hoof and frowned. A second later the majority of the dirt clumped on it fell away. ‟Cool!” Jake enthused and repeated the process with his other four hooves.

Big Mac gave him another approving nod and resumed walking toward his designated apple orchard. Jake followed behind his head down and watching his feet intently, focusing on letting go of the dirt that tried to stick to his hooves. It gave him a mincing step that was more than a little humorous on a pony his size.

So intent was Jake on watching his own feet that it took him a few moments to realize that he was walking past trees that were just about sagging from their loads of large delicious apples. Jake had been grabbing bites of dried grasses all day, and mostly dropping them half chewed due to the taste and texture just not feeling right. As a result, he was more than a bit hungry. And even if he hadn’t been, there was always room for apples, no matter what Curry had to say on the subject. Only his promise to be good kept him from trotting over to the nearest tree and stripping it bare. That did not keep his stomach from letting out a loud gurgling rumble.

Big Mac cocked an eyebrow at the large colt with the hungry look on his face. He looked over his shoulder at where Granny and Applejack were disappearing into the house. Granny especially, tended to get a bit cranky about ponies spoiling their appetites. Seeing as how the coast was clear, he gave the nearest tree a thump with his right front hoof and then caught the two apples that fell with it. He offered Jake one, and while the colt ate the whole thing in one bite, took a chunk out of his own as he continued to stroll further into the orchard.

‟How’d you do that?” Jake asked excitedly. ‟How’d you make the apples fall like that? How you’d make only two fall? Did you mean for only two to fall?”

‟Shush,” Big Mac admonished him. ‟Watch. Think. Learn,” he said, repeating the words his own pa had said to him so often.

The two stallions came to a tree with several bushel baskets next to it, along with a cart. Big Mac placed a hoof against the tree and then gestured for Jake to do the same. Once the colt had done so he said, ‟Feel.”

Jake wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to be feeling, but he did his best. After a moment it realized it was a lot like when he was trying to pick something up with his hoof. He had to feel it with his mind before he could do it. This was the same way, he could feel the tree in his mind more than against his steel-shod hoof. No matter how hard he tried, however, he could not separate the main mass of the tree from the branches, leaves, or apples. After a few moments, Big Mac nudged him to the side and turned so his backside was to the tree. He gave the tree a good solid kick with both his rear hooves. A cascade of apples fell from the tree into the baskets arranged around the trunk, nary a one missing to fall on the ground.

‟Wow!” Jake exclaimed in amazement. ‟Can I do that?”

‟Maybe. Someday. Not now.” Big Mac brushed a forehoof over the tree where he had kicked it, drawing attention to the fact that there was no damage to the bark. Jake looked disappointed, and Big Mac relented. ‟Takes practice. Some dead trees up this way. We’ll see what you can do,” he said. He resumed his slow stroll, Jake following behind him, his eyes wide and eager to see what the stallion would show him next.

***************

Fluttershy was a big fat cheater!

Every youngster knows deep in their very being that the obsession adults have with unnecessary baths is a vast conspiracy to suck the enjoyment out of a kid’s life. It is, therefore, the duty of all kids to do everything in their power to avoid or minimize bathing wherever possible. Most importantly under no circumstances must you ever display the tiniest amount of enthusiasm for the practice, in case adults become encouraged and expect you to indulge in them even more often.

It was totally unfair on the part of Fluttershy and her friend Rarity to bring magic floating scrub brushes into the mix. Not even the stinging caused by Curry’s numerous scratches and scrapes being gently cleaned could distract her from the fascinating experience of being bathed via magic.

At least their magic healed up her scratches quickly. Despite the amount of blood streaked down her arm and legs, once she was cleaned up there was nothing under the dirt and grime except numerous fading welts.

Things didn’t improve in the least when Rarity retreated with the remains of Curry’s tattered clothing, muttering something about being forced to work with the materials at hand. This was when Fluttershy proved that there was no line she would not cross in her quest for victory by actively encourage a litter of young otter kits to dive in and share the tub with Curry. How could any kid fight against something like that? The answer. She couldn’t. Curry actually lost her battle against the bath so badly, she forgot the most cardinal rule of them all. She protested when Fluttershy held up a fluffy robe and told her it was time to get out of the water before she caught a chill.

Now sitting on a stool wrapped up in the hugely over-sized robe, she tried to gain back some of the ground she had lost by putting on a poor-pathetic-me expression as Fluttershy brushed out her damp mane and wrapped it up in a towel. Curry thought she was doing a fairly good job, right up till Fluttershy handed another towel to the otter kits and they all rolled up in one big squirming bundle right in front of her. Before the small girl could stop herself she was laughing at their antics.

***************

Rarity allowed herself a small smile around a mouthful of pins as she heard Curry laughing. Really, if you didn’t look at her you could easily believe her a normal filly. Unfortunately, the little mare wasn’t a pony. The fashion-obsessed Unicorn had been dismayed to see how little flesh the small filly sported on her bones. And her hide, so thin, with hardly the least amount of hair, except for the thick mane on top of her head for protection. She was horribly vulnerable to the simplest of injuries. The fact that Curry seemed to heal quickly, given the state of her scratches once Fluttershy and she had removed enough dirt to examine them, was beside the point. It could not have been pleasant acquiring them. No matter how faint they might be now, the amount of blood staining Curry’s old clothing proved that they had been fairly serious when she gained them.

Rarity focused on that vulnerability as she examined the fabric she had chosen for her first attempt at human garments. She needed to do that to keep from throwing up her hooves in despair. It was a bolt that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had ruined in an attempt at tie-dying. Originally it had been a soft yellow. It was now a hideous amalgamation of every color under the rainbow,except yellow, and a great many that nature would never countenance. But, and this was important, It would be soft against Curry’s delicate hide and offer protection against the elements. That was about all that could be said for it. The end result was going to be hideous beyond belief! Thank goodness no one beside herself and her friends was ever going to see it. Even that was almost more than she could stand to think of. By the time Curry had to make her bow in public Rarity would have created something much more attractive and she could burn this abomination so nopony would ever see it again. So she kept telling herself in an effort to retain the determination to continue. All Rarity needed now was some final measurements and she’d be ready to start.

‟Fluttershy, are you done with Curry?” Rarity called out as she levitated her cloth measuring tape from her saddlebag.

‟Oh my, yes. Do you need her for something, Rarity? I was just going to work on dinner,” Fluttershy replied, giving Curry a last soft nuzzle against the cheek before heading toward the kitchen area.

‟Wonderful. Curry, would you be a dear and let me get some measurements so I can get started on some new clothing for you?”

Curry had been raised by an elderly male. Her experience in regards to acquiring clothing had consisted of walking into a store, picking a few likely looking garments off the shelves, and paying for them. This had left her with a rather haphazard wardrobe, and normally little interest in fashion, but the idea that the beautiful white Unicorn was going to craft garments just for her tweaked her interest. It was almost like Rarity was her fairy godmother. The Unicorn’s magical ability only solidifying that idea. Imagining herself dressed in a beautiful princess gown produced by magic, Curry got up off her stool, gathered the voluminous robe around herself and trotted over to the white Unicorn.

Ten minutes later she was wondering if she would not have been better off running for the hills. Rarity had her standing on a stool, naked as a jaybird while she measured every single part of the small girl that could be measured. She even had Curry lift up one foot, and then the other so she could measure the length and width of them. It had been all Curry could do to keep her balance while not breaking down in giggles as the cloth tape brushed against several ticklish areas. The last thing measured was her hat size, or so Curry assumed as Rarity wrapped the tape around the top of her head.

Curry would not normally have minded standing starkers in front of a pony, but she had started to get more than a little self-conscious as Rarity kept up a steady litany of tut-tuts and, how-on-earths. The large curious group of critters who had formed an audience around them did not help matters either. Curry was ready to swear that they were discussing her shortcomings among themselves, and who was to say they weren’t in this place. At long last Rarity finished and allowed Curry to wrap herself up in Fluttershy’s over-sized robe again while she went to work with scissors and tape.

Rarity might not have been in the same league as the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella when it came to speed. She didn’t just wave her horn and clothing appeared in a swirl of magic, but in Curry’s opinion she put on a much better show. Fabric floated in the air, a pair of scissors joined them, segmenting them into neat patterns. Needles were threaded and danced back and forth through the various pieces of cloth with a speed that rivaled that of a sewing machine.

Curry lay on her belly, watching in fascination as her new clothes started to take shape in front of her. As she watched she idly ran her fingers through the soft belly fur of a full grown lynx who was sprawled on her back in front of the small girl, her furry legs sprawled out to the side, one of them in a cast. Curry had taken over this duty from a family of mice who were currently taking a break, small garden rakes laid on the floor beside them, as they played a cutthroat game of go fish with tiny playing cards.

Suddenly Curry’s nose twitched as the irresistible odor of pancakes floated through the air. Her stomach let out a loud growl and she pulled her attention away from Rarity’s magic show, and the lynx, to stare toward the kitchen. Fluttershy was balancing a large platter on her head, and heaped to overflowing on that platter were nature's perfect food: Pancakes!

‟Would you like to eat, Curry?” Fluttershy asked in her soft hesitant voice.

There was nothing hesitant about Curry. She was on her feet in an instant, and almost on her face as her feet tangled in her large robe. She gathered it up and hurried toward the table. ‟Would I ever!” she exclaimed, and then remember her manners and altered her words slightly. ‟Yes please, Miss Fluttershy. I sure would like some of those there pancakes.”

Fifteen minutes later Curry sat back from the table, her belly containing a dozen large buckwheat pancakes, a half a cup of butter, and enough maple syrup to float a small boat, as Old Ben had frequently complained. ‟Thank you, Miss Fluttershy, that was really good,” she said while licking her syrup smeared fingers.

‟No, no, no. This will never do,” Rarity said from behind Curry, her voice full of horror. A second later a damp cloth was vigorously scrubbing Curry’s face while two other smaller ones were doing similar duties on her hands. ‟We simply can not have you getting your new clothes all smeared with syrup before you even have a chance to try them on.”

Ten minutes later Curry was standing in front of a mirror examining her new wardrobe.

In the background, Rarity was all but dancing on her hooves while waiting for some sort of response from the small human filly. Rarity could not remember the last time she had been so on edge while waiting for a reaction from somepony to a garment she had just created.(4)

In her own mind, Rarity felt her worry was fully justified. The outfit she had crafted for Curry was practical to the extreme, and every bit as hideous as she had dreamed it would be. She had abandoned all hope of creating anything in the least attractive out of the material at hand given the situation, shortage of time, and an appropriate fire to throw the dreadful bolt of cloth onto. Unfortunately, unlike a pony, Curry could not run around without anything on for a few days while her clothing was prepared. For her, clothes were clearly a necessity. The small filly needed protection from the elements in a way that no other creature Rarity knew did. In addition, Curry also needed something that would help conceal her true nature, at least from a distance. Rarity was more than a bit afraid that she had tried to make the garment perform too many functions. She feared that the end result would do none of the things she had imagined for the simple reason that the young filly trying it on would refuse to have anything to do with it.

Curry had never worn anything like the outfit Rarity had sewn up for her. But she had seen something similar, in a dingy gray color rather than the wild camo type pattern of this garment. In a book called, ‟Where the Wild Things Are.” It wasn’t the princess dress she’d been half-dreading, half-hoping for. It was a pair of animal-themed footie pajamas.

The one-piece garment covered her entire body, including her feet and head. Only her hands and face had been left bare. There was a row of buttons running up from the waist to secure it in place. Something stiff had been sewn into the bottom of the feet, making them not unlike moccasin type slippers.

A hood had been sewn onto the back of the neck. Curry had pulled it up and over the top of her head with her new long, thick mane tucked through a hole in the back of her collar so it fell down the middle of her back. There were even fabric ears on the top of it, Curry idly noted in a daze. She turned herself slightly to the side and examined the fake horse’s tail dangling down from the waist nearly to her ankles. With one hand she fondled the ears on top of her head, and with the other picked up the fake tail.

There was no way, just no way. Not even on Halloween would she have worn something like this, not if she were as young as Jake. Not even with the prospect of garbage bags full of candy as an incentive.

Curry looked over at Rarity, fully intending to inform the Unicorn, thanks, but no thanks. Then she noticed how the white mare was biting her lip in anticipation of Curry’s reaction, her expression pretty clearly showing that she knew it wasn’t going to be positive. Curry remembered how generous Rarity had been when she really did not have to be. Fluttershy was off to the side, looking encouraging in a desperate sort of way. She’d been so kind, opening her home up for a weird stranger. On the floor in front of the shy yellow Pegasus, her pet, Angel Bunny, who had instigated her bath earlier was having near hysterics, lying on his back, kicking his legs in the air as he silently laughed nearly hard enough to make himself sick. Curry’s expression firmed into a steely gaze at the sight. There was no way she was going to let that carrot-eating, bath-promoting, little sneak think she was in the least bit embarrassed by this gift.

Before Rarity could react, Curry rushed over and wrapped her arms around her neck, giving her a breath denying hug. ‟Thank you! It’s the nicest thing anyone ever made me wear,”(5) Curry said, while out of the corner of her eye she watched Angel Bunny, and felt more than a little satisfaction at the look of stunned disbelief in the little stinker’s eyes.

‟Really?” Rarity said, her tone filled with skepticism. She quickly recovered, and added, ‟But of course it is, dear. I am the best dress designer in all of Equestria, after all. Just don't tell anypony I made it though, dear. It's only a preliminary design. I simply don’t have time to fill all the orders for the other ponies who would want one.”

‟It’s very... nice?” Fluttershy asked, from the sidelines, her tone making the statement more a question than a declaration of support.

‟Course it is,” Curry said, releasing her hold on Rarity. She did a few stretches, and to her own surprise found that she was able to move freely without any binding, and the soft fabric was warm and comfortable against her skin. Maybe it would not be too bad. Once again she looked at herself in the mirror and cringed. She tried to imagine herself a fierce, wild creature to no avail. Maybe if the fit was a bit tighter it wouldn’t look so much like sleepwear? No, she might as well face it, there was no getting around it. She was doomed to run around in footie pajamas. Oh well, what the hay, it wasn’t like there were any spoiled rich girls around to make her life a misery with their teasing.

**************

The Apple family homestead had a lot of room inside. It had been built to house a much larger family than the four ponies who currently lived there. There were more than a few vacant bedrooms, many with beds designed to hold two full sized farm ponies. Jake sort of draped over the sides and both ends a little, but it hadn’t kept him from falling asleep even as Applejack tucked him in as best she could. She gently brushed his mane away from his closed eyes and planted a kiss at the base of his horn before tiptoeing out of the room.

Big Mac and Granny were waiting for her in the hallway. ‟Make a good farm pony,” he said, nodding toward the closed bedroom door. There was no higher praise in his vocabulary.

‟Yeah, he would,” Applejack agreed. ‟He’s a good kid.”

"Yep," said Granny. "And I'll bet if’n I give him a task to go cut some willow switches, he'd remember it."

"Oops," said Big Mac with a blush.

"Oh, you never mind," said Granny Smith with a pat to the shoulder of the big red stallion.

Big Mac let out a relieved sigh.

"You can get 'em tomorrow.”

“Dang.”

*******************

It had been a very long day for Curry. Unlike with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, the only difficulty Fluttershy had with getting the small filly up the stairs to bed was in having to separate the slumbering little filly from the huddle of sleeping creatures in the middle of the floor. She’d had help with the task, however. Rarity had decided to spend the night to supply Fluttershy with a little moral support, despite the ever-present threat of animal hair in her pristine white coat. After all, it would be a perfectly good excuse for a spa visit.

Fluttershy gently tucked Curry in, giving her a kiss on the forehead as she hummed a lullaby. The lynx Curry had been petting thumped onto the bed beside her, agile despite her broken leg. She was followed by the otter kits and a few other critters who arranged themselves around the small filly. Soon all of them were asleep and Fluttershy withdrew from the room, a feeling of happiness filling her chest as she took one last look at the mound of slumbering critters and one little human filly.

Fluttershy was not a pony who liked surprises but finding the small lost human in the Everfree forest had turned out to be one of the better ones. Almost on a par with the day she had fallen out of Cloudsdale and discovered the wonderful world that was below it.

She happily looked forward to the new day and watching Curry make some of the same discoveries that she herself had all those years ago.

**********************

(1)Jake didn’t really understand what a gelding was. The only things Curry had to say on the topic was, “Never in a million years is it going to happen to you.” They looked like stallions, but they acted like mares, old mares mostly, and that was the way he tended to regard them.

(2) Said discussion to include a great deal of wear-and-tear on Big Mac's new shovel and the dishonest stallion’s soon to be even blacker-and-bluer hide.

(3)The last thing Jake wanted to do was offend Big Mac, so he threw in every term of respect he had ever overheard back home.

(4) It had been two days before, while the Mayor was trying on a new hat.

(5) Not technically a lie. No one had ever specifically crafted clothing for Curry before.

Ch11 Mares Rule, Stallions Drool [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 11
Mare’s rule, Stallions Drool

*****

Of all the changes that had occurred while Princess Luna spent a thousand years trapped in the moon, the one she was coming to hate the most were the various assorted spells that made the creation of reams of paperwork possible. If she had her way every copy spell and their equivalent would be banned and the books containing them locked away in the restricted section of the archives, classified as malefic magic of the first degree.

Case in point was the nearly two-inch thick folder currently sitting on her desk awaiting her perusal. It was ridiculous. All this for a simple housemaid? True, the filly would be her personal maid, part of her household. Luna was prepared to concede that certain due diligence was needed in finding just the right mare for the job, but this was ridiculous. She had more important matters to attend to than plowing through reams of useless linguistic juggling.

Just an hour ago Luna had been informed that the archivists had finally located the room where the contents of her old library and lab had been stored, behind a series of bricked up doorways. She itched to rush down to the sub-sub-basement and start digging. It would be a little while yet, however, before the closed-off area was vented and judged safe for the ponies who would be assisting her. In the meantime, she might as well try and do something constructive. With a sigh, she levitated the thick file folder to a comfortable height for reading.

She was surprised to find herself rather enjoying the document, at first. The initial few pages were a compilation of four reports generated by the four mares recently seconded to the Night Guard from the Canterlot Police Department. Clearly, someone in the chain of command was not sure what to do with them and had likely been happy to assign a suitable feminine task to them while they were undergoing basic training. Their observations were factual, and to the point, even if in the case of one of the mares, Mrs. Banehammer, where her report more closely resembled a criminal case file than an evaluation of a job applicant.

Another, Mrs. Thermal made the observation that the subject would make a first-rate sting decoy, whatever that was.

Luna could not say she knew Goose Down, the pony in question when she was finished with their report. You could never know a pony until you could look into their eyes. Truthfully, the reports told her more about the writer’s personalities than that of their subject. The one piece of data that truly caught her eye was the fact that in the judgment of Mrs. Grace, Goose suffered from Ouranophobia. She felt deep sympathy for the poor filly. What a terrible affliction for a pegasus. At the same time, she felt a sense of anticipatory pleasure. This was something she would be able to help the poor pegasus with. She was certain. Phobias were tailor-made for dream therapy and she was sure that she would be able to resolve Goose’s problems.

Luna paused in her reading to contemplate this. Despite frequent reassurance from various sources she still felt deep guilt at the existence of the Nocturne, who she had created, and then almost totally exterminated during the rise and fall of Nightmare Moon. The chance to repay some of the debt she felt she owed them, even if only to one pony, was something to be grasped firmly and with joy.

For the most part since being released from the moon, Luna had merely been going through the motions. Raising and lowering the moon and stars was her responsibility and duty, but it did not bring personal contact, well, except for Twilight. Luna felt a happy glow at the thought of the closest thing she had to a true friend beside her big sister. Helping Goose, and Jake, that poor colt stuck in an adults body, were small personal things. It had been a long time since she had looked forward with such anticipation to using her talent.

Unfortunately, after the first fifteen or so pages of the report, the practical informative section ended and the weasel words began. Luna was informed, in exhaustive detail, of the makeup of her sister’s personal staff, and how that should be mirrored in her own household taking into account the differences in their various duties. A history lesson on the evolution of the support staff was thrown in as well.

It took Luna longer than it would have her sister to realize what was going on as the writers went on and on without actually dealing with the subject at hand. She, or the department she represented, were extremely reluctant to make a decision. The history lesson proved that it had been a very long time since they had been required hire personnel support staff for a princess. Everypony working directly for Celestia came from a family who had been serving her for generations. If a pony’s parents had not worked directly for her, then their grandmother, or great grandmother, had. Not that this did not also cause problems for the rather obsessed ponies in Pony Resources. Such as the scandal involved when a member of the evening dining crew wed a member of the morning cleaning crew and totally tangled a perfectly good family tree. Celestia had regaled Luna with that story, and many more, to give her a head start on dealing with PR.

The more of the report Luna read the more obvious it became that the ponies in Pony Resources were clearly terrified of making a bad decision and hiring an unsuitable pony for the job. Indeed, from Celestia’s tales it seemed they treated the very word ‘decision’ with the care most ponies would treat poisonous insects or snakes, preferring to imprison the paper they were written on in stout containers and await their natural demise and shipment to the filing section, which might as well have tombstones on the filing cabinets.

Their fears were only escalated by the fact that while Nocturne Stallions made up the majority of the Night Guard, there was not a single instance of any Nocturne Mare entering service to the crown or, as far as PR could determine, taking any publicly visible employment outside the home at all. It didn’t help matters that a large percentage of the bureaucracy tended to walk on eggshells in regards to Luna, treating her like an unexploded bomb that could go off at the least little jar.

Given that apparent attitude, it came as no real surprise to Luna when their final recommendation was that Goose Down not be assigned to Luna’s personal staff at this time, but should continue working as general cleaning staff until such time as she should prove herself. The way they phrased it left Luna with the impression that they might, just maybe, consider Goose’s great-granddaughter for the position, if she was very diligent. If they had left it at that Luna might have been inclined to go along with their recommendation. After all, Goose did not need to be in her service for her to offer aid via dream therapy. Unfortunately for Luna’s blood pressure, but fortunately for Goose’s employment prospects, the recommendation not to assign Goose to her staff was further justified due to the pony in question suffering from mental instability. A reference was made to Goose’s Ouranophobia.

Luna became more than a little vocal, expressing herself in words that a Princess really shouldn’t have known, and that would have made the bureaucrats break out in an icy sweat once they realized they had just suggested to the former Nightmare Moon, that one of her servants should be rejected from their position because of a fear of open spaces. After all, there was an empty spot on the moon now, and many bureaucrats would fit into the space vacated by a princess.

********************************

Hideous. Deformed. Abomination. Ugly! Those were all descriptions that Lamina, Hoofmaiden to the Diarch of Equestria, Lady of the Moon, General of the Stars, etc, etc, had applied to herself in self-loathing. That was a before. Before Celestia healed her in kindness and forgiveness. Before her beloved Princess Luna took her into her household, also in forgiveness. Before her common-sense lacking mate, Pumpernickel blundered into her heart and life.

These days Lamina had a much brighter outlook on life, even if she tended to still project a rather dour expression to the world at large. She would never dream of applying such descriptors to herself. The thing draped over the slightly over-sized dressmaker’s ponyquin, that was custom-designed to match Princess Luna’s every measurement, was something else entirely.

Lamina’s hooves itched with the urge to cover the blank white, tightly woven, cotton in delicate embroidery, anything to relieve the monotony it presented. She cringed at the thought of it being draped over the lovely black hide of her mistress. She lifted a hoof toward the garment that was causing her such distress. Surely a little highlight here and there would not hurt? She let her hoof drop and averted her eyes from temptation. The princess’ orders had been clear and allowed no misunderstanding. She had wanted purely functional, and that was what she had gotten. All Lamina could hope for was that her lady would reconsider once she actually saw the tent of a garment she proposed to wear.

‟Unforgivable!” Lamina staggered slightly as she was bombarded by a sudden aural assault. The original cry of anger was followed by words that drew a blush to her face. It was not that they were particularly foul. She had heard far worse. Rather it was the fact that they were emerging from the mouth of her perfect princess that was causing her embarrassment. Lamina whirled, facing the door that led to the hallway between her sewing room and Princess Luna’s office. This had not been the Royal Canterlot voice. The princess did not use that in her private quarters, or at least not often. This had merely been the shout of a very annoyed pony. Lamina did not think twice. She was running at full speed by the time she reached the door.

When the loyal pony dashed into the office she found Princess Luna stalking back and forth, her legs stiff and her head held high, nostrils flaring. A crumpled ball of paper floating in the air in front of her. Vases and various other priceless nicknacks were vibrating on their stands and shelves from the force of her angered tread.

‟My Princess. What ails you? Should I send for the guard?”

‟Nay, good Lamina. I am well. Twas was no more than a momentary upset.” Luna assured her worried hoofmaiden, even as she levitated a form from her desk along with a quill. She affixed her signature to the document, and with a flare of magical flame sent it to the appropriate office.

Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down and then turned toward Lamina. ‟As we discussed with thee earlier, another pony is joining our household. The mare, Goose Down, who we talked of earlier. I trust you will make her welcome.” Luna hesitated for a moment and added. ‟Thou have told me that it is common for Nocturne to share a common sleeping room. At the time we insisted that the young mare should have her own quarters. We now feel that we were perhaps mistaken. Please move that which needs to be moved from those quarters to your’s.”

"Of course. I’ll do that right away. Do you know when she’ll be moving in, my lady?” Lamina said, keeping her expression tranquil while inside her, a very loud voice was screaming, "My husband! Mine! Back, you big-winged stallion-thief!" She’d brought up the shared sleeping quarters before due to a feeling of responsibility, but had been relieved when the Princess had insisted that the young filly deserved her own quarters.

In the time since Lamina had been adopted by Rusty Pin she’d grown somewhat used to sleeping on her own, and now that she was a married mare she had savored having private time with her husband without the need to find a secluded nighttime cloud as was the norm for Nocturne pegasus. Not that she had anything against aerial high jinks, but sometimes there was no time or energy for such activity.

The one thing Lamina was not worried about was that sharing a sleeping room with a young attractive filly might cause Pumpernickel’s attention to roam. The big lug was far too smart, too honorable, too scared to death she’d kick his balls up into his throat, to ever dream of letting his eyes, or any other body part he was particularly fond of, wander.

As she turned to leave, Lamina could not help but puzzle over what had happened to change the Princess’ mind. Before she had gone more than a few steps Princess Luna had added more requests to Lamina’s to do list.

"Have Optio Pumpernickel check with the archivists and report to me at his earliest convenience (1). I wish to know how long it shall be before I may inspect my misplaced belongings. The garment I requested is prepared, correct?"

Lamina winced slightly but answered in the affirmative. ‟It is ready whenever you have need of it, Ma’am.”

********

Renowned in song and verse, the click-clack of the railway track has inspired those of an artistic bent for generations to create raucous songs celebrating the romance of the rails. To a weary traveler, however, they are a soothing lullaby that can lull to sleep even the most fidgety of toddlers given enough exposure. It was no wonder that the sleep-deprived Sweet Savage(2) was asleep almost before the train to Ponyville left the Canterlot station. Sweets, as he preferred, very strongly, to be called, welcomed the warm embrace of Morpheus as an escape from a level of embarrassment that had threatened at times to cause spontaneous combustion.

As an unusually tall pegasus pony with a more than respectable wingspan, and a newly minted member of the Royal Guard, Sweets was used to attracting stares from mares. What the temporarily suspended Royal Guard was not used to were those stares being accompanied by laughter and giggles. At least, not since middle school when he was a tall gangly blank-flank who was all ears and hooves. The ridicule he was currently facing was not as blatant as it had been back then. adult ponies had much more sophisticated ways of expressing their ridicule than the young and foolish. Nonetheless, it seemed every pony he saw was hiding a smirk and a laugh behind a raised hoof as he walked by.

It was all the fault of the accursed sports novelty he had been ordered to wear without fail. The oversized artificial unicorn horn had been designed to slip over the more conventional horns of the unicorn ponies who followed the Thruster’s sports team. The variation that had been designed for the non-unicorn fans was sadly lacking in quality. The connection to the headband was not the strongest. To be fair it had never been meant to last past the day it was purchased. Constant wear, not to mention running to catch a train, had stressed the flimsy material and as a result, the hated faux horn tended to droop below eye level while swaying from side to side with every step he took. The thing was downright obscene.

Closing his eyes and causing the world to go away for a little while seemed a marvelous idea, at first. Unfortunately, sleep did not offer the solace Sweets had hoped. His restless dreams were disturbing. The worst was the one that found him back in kindergarten, trying to squeeze his adult bulk behind a foals desk, while the familiar tormentors from all those years ago pointed and laughed. Second runner up was the one where he was informed by a chortling Princess Celestia that the whole thing had been the result of a bet with her sister, and he had won her an entire ‘bit’ by parading around in unicorn drag for a week.

Sweets’ thrashing, moaning, and outbursts of demands to be left alone, soon created a large empty section in the railway car he was riding as various ponies decided that the other cars on the train were preferable to one containing an oversized mono-colored black pegasus with bizarre taste in headgear and a penchant for talking to himself. As a result, there was no one else in the car when they pulled into Ponyville to wake him with a noisy exit, and he continued to slumber fitfully as the crew went about the task of unloading the cargo car.

**************

Bon Bon was not currently a happy pony, and she was not shy about letting the train crew know it. ‟But you can’t just leave me in the lurch like this. Can’t you at least help me get it to my shop?” she stamped a hoof in frustration while her cerulean eyes flashed in anger as she gestured at the wooden packing crate that was almost as tall as she was.

‟Sorry, ma’am. We’re way behind schedule.” the conductor apologized while making a production of checking a large pocket watch. Seeing the near panic that replaced the anger in her big, suddenly moist, eyes he relented, slightly. ‟If you want, I’ll take the top off for you. Then you can transfer the contents to that hand truck,” he said, gesturing to a small heavy-duty cargo cart pushed to the side of the platform.

Bon Bon felt like screaming. There was over a half a ton of sugar and other ingredients in the crate. It would take at least a dozen trips. The sun had long since set. By the time she got everything home, it would be well past midnight, and she had planned on making an early start in the morning on preparing Pinkie Pie’s commission. She’d be lucky to have everything inspected and shelved by the time the sun came up. She could not even make a quick trip home to bring Lyra to help her, due to the adorably crazy unicorn being Celestia knows where hunting her imaginary ‘humans.’

This whole affair was threatening to turn into a disaster. Bon Bon knew she tended to get a bit high strung at times, but this situation with her delivery was just one in a string of bad luck. She had counted on having a little bit more help with the project when she’d accepted it. If only she hadn’t forgotten that her niece was spending this weekend with her friends. She had not wanted to deny her niece the enjoyment of playing with her peers and so hadn’t even mentioned the large commission she’d received to Twist. Lyra would have been happy to help, but she was in a dangerously preoccupied place at the moment with her current obsession that humans were returning to Equestria. The last thing Bon Bon needed in her candy kitchen was a distracted Lyra.

Bon Bon shuddered at the thought of the potential havoc Lyra's help might cause and in memory of the last time she had let Lyra loose in the kitchen while distracted. Her best pot was never the same, and the aftereffects of the sugar explosion and the resulting cleanup had turned into hours of, her eyes glazed a bit as she remembered lovingly licking the mess off of-- Bon Bon broke out of that train of thought with a hard shake of her head. Focus on the sugar on the loading dock, not on how nice a sugar-coated Lyra tasted, she told herself sternly.

She couldn’t even farm some of the work out to the Cakes, apparently, Pinkie Pie had commissioned an equally large order from them. Whatever party Pinkie was getting ready for, it was going to be massive, and considering some of the ponies Pinkie associated with, the guests could include anyone, up to and including the Princesses. Bon Bon’s contribution didn’t just have to be done on time, it had to be perfect.

The caper to this sequence of unforeseen roadblocks was that the usually reliable train had arrived late and the station porter was home sick, leaving no one to help her with her order.

Bon Bon was spiraling into a full blown panic attack when the loud bang of the crate’s lid falling onto the station platform startled her. ‟There you go, Miss,” the conductor called back over his shoulder as he hurried away, checking his watch once again and increasing his speed.

Bon Bon was left alone on the platform as a gust of wind scattered an abandoned newspaper so the pages fluttered past and through her legs. She once again stifled a curse as she went and got the hand cart. ‟Soonest started, soonest done,” she muttered to herself, but even her mother’s old homily didn’t do anything to lift her spirits.

*************

The conductor hurried through the various cars, making sure all was in readiness so he could signal the engineer to get underway. The unexplained delay in Canterlot had put them way behind schedule. Time Keeper prided himself on keeping meticulously on schedule and it always rendered him a bit impatient and high-strung when reality got in the way of his perfect schedules. Which was why he said a very nasty word when he trotted into the last passenger car and saw the big black pegasus sprawled out across a couch that had never been intended to contain quite so much pony.

How could he have forgotten the weird pony? It had been all the passengers had talked about during the trip. He, himself, had gone out of the way to avoid the car, excusing this behavior with the excuse of letting an obviously tired passenger catch up on his sleep. It had nothing to do with the way he’d almost gotten his head knocked off when he’d shaken the stallion at the start of the trip while asking to see his ticket.(3) The drunk hadn’t even woken up after lashing out with a huge hoof that had just barely missed the conductor’s chin, just rolled over and started snoring after mumbling something about just five more minutes, sarge.

‟Hey! Ponyville! Last stop on the line!” he called out at the top of his voice from the doorway. To his relief the big black stallion shifted, lifting his head to look around in a dazed manner as if trying to figure out where he was. ‟Unless you want to go back to Canterlot, you’d better stir your hooves, Mac,” Time Keeper said, tapping the face of his watch for emphasis, prepared to duck back into the other car and slam the door shut if the passenger objected.

*****************

Sweets stumbled out of the train onto the Ponyville platform, still trying to gather his thoughts while blinking sleep gunk out of his eyes. His meager bits of luggage was tossed out behind him. After an embarrassingly long moment, Sweets realized that his vision problems were not due to his sleep numbed eyes. It was well after sundown and the only light was from the moon overhead. He felt a touch of annoyance when he realized this meant he would be spending the night outside. Ponyville didn’t have a hotel that was open twenty-four hours. There would be no one on duty to check him in. The same went for the bed and breakfast type establishments along with a few boarding houses. It was far too late to check into any of them. He gave a sigh at the thought of bedding down in the town park, it wouldn’t be the first time, by a long shot, that he had needed to sleep outdoors without even the comfort of a campfire, but familiarity did not make the prospect anymore acceptable to the bed-loving stallion.

A thump from further down the platform informed him that he was not alone, and he twisted his head to stare in that direction. He blinked a couple of times as he tried to decipher what he was looking at. The blurry image resolved into that of a pale colored mare, or rather, the rear end of one. She was bent over the lip of a large crate as she rummaged around inside it. There was a pile of packages beside the crate, but to a pony who had grown up around cargo haulers, it was clear that she’d already removed all the contents that were an easy reach for her. She was up on the tip of her rear hooves as she tried to snag the items in the bottom of the packing crate.

In doing so she supplied him with a living version of a frequently used pose common to the calendars just about every cart repair shop in Equestria sported. The view was such as to cause a bachelor joy, and to remind him of why his fellow Royal Guard mates had nicknamed Ponyville MILB central.

Shaking his head to get rid of the prurient images it was producing, or as many as it was possible for a young stallion in the prime of life to lose, Sweets trotted down the platform toward the mare, hoping for directions to some lodgings that would still be open at this time of night.

Sweets had barely covered half the distance when a startled cry jolted him. He saw the mare teetering on the edge of the crate, her rear hooves flailing in the air as she tried to regain her equilibrium. Without thinking about it he lunged forward and grabbed hold of the base of her tail with his mouth and started to haul her back out of the crate. The unknown mare let out another surprised cry.

Sweets was oblivious to the mare's protesting neigh. The most wonderful scent he had ever smelled flooded his nose. Drool pooled in his mouth and he drew in a deep breath, sucking in a huge quantity of that alluring smell. Oh, wondrous ambrosia. Surely no mare had ever perfumed the night air with a scent half so tantalizing. It flooded his nostrils, blocking out all other smells. There was no other odor in the world except for the one worming deep into his nasal passages as he drew in deep drafts of air. His brain fogged and all rational thought fled as he mouthed the now soggy tail between his lips.

In an instant, he was transported back in his mind to his first love. A beautiful teenage filly who worked behind the candy counter at the local canteen. He had been heartbroken when she had hooked up with his cousin and had sworn he would never love again. A month later there was a new filly with a soft heart working the counter and he’d turned ten and was much more mature and worldly.

The scent of cooking sugar continued to tickle Sweets nose, along with the heady aroma of freshly mixed chocolate. Those were the strongest odors, but there were so many more flowing under the stream of those prominent scents. Cinnamon, vanilla, truffles, preserved fruit, thick cream and butter, peppermint. His drool soaked the mare’s tail, and his stomach rumbled. It had been more than a day since his last piece of candy, and he was starting to go into serious withdrawal.

‟What the hay!?” a startled and frightened voice broke him out of his scent induced euphoria. He opened up the eyes and saw, past the three wrapped candies that made up the mare’s cutie mark, her frightened gaze. Her forelegs were hooked over the edge of the crate and she was looking at him like he was some sort of monster. The fact that he was currently sucking on her tail might have had more than a little to do with that. He quickly released her and stepped back, but before he could offer an explanation, or come up with one, she bolted, her hooves drumming in a panic on the thick planks of the railroad station’s platform.

Sweet’s stared after her, his eyes wide and panic-stricken as Newspaper headlines flashed in his head.

News Flash: Royal Scandal! Disgraced Guard Assaults Innocent Mare in Tail-Sucking Incident in Ponyville. Next Stop - The Moon

Sweets' heart lurched more violently than his rumbling tummy as he sat down with a solid thud.
He was doomed, doomed. To make matters infinitely worse he had just realized that the filly he had just frightened half to death was Bon Bon, the candy maker. The pony he was supposed to approach as his cover for staying in town and keeping an eye out for trouble related to the foreign Alicorn and his Human companion. He hadn’t even made it into the town proper, and he’d blown it just about as bad as it was possible to do so.

**************

Bon Bon was halfway to her candy shop, her heart pounding in panic when she dug in her hooves and skidded to a stop. What was she doing? She’d left all her supplies back on the platform. She’d left her future back on the platform. She had to go back. She shuddered at the thought as she recalled the horrific sight that had sent her fleeing in panic. That huge black shape, the feel of his mouth sucking on her tail as his hideously deformed unicorn horn swayed back and forth just above his muzzle.

‟Yo, Bon Bon? What’s the problem?” An annoyed voice from above called out, causing the candy maker to let out a loud squeal and jump straight up, all four legs extended stiffly.

Bon Bon was just about to resume her panicked rush when she realized the voice had come from Rainbow Dash, who was laying on a small hovering cloud just a few feet above her head. From the mussed appearance of her mane and her drooping eyes, it was clear the pegasus pony had just woken up.

Bon Bon almost wept in gratitude. Rainbow Dash! She could fix this, she could save Bon Bon’s supplies and future. ‟Thank goodness, Rainbow Dash. I need your help desperately. There’s a horrible monster on the railway platform. He attacked me.”

Rainbow Dash bolted upright, her drowsy eyes growing bright with the thought of daring-do in the offing. ‟You can count on me,” she declared, ready to spring into action. She adopted what she thought of as a totally cool heroic pose, wings spread, rearing up on her hind legs, mane fluttering in the wind.

‟Oh, thank goodness. Please Rainbow Dash, can you go get Twilight Sparkle to get rid of it?”

‟You bet, just leave it to me . . . Wait? What?” Rainbow did a face-plant onto the soft cloud as she fell out of the heroic pose she had adopted. She struggled back to her feet, all trace of coolness temporarily vanished as she looked down at Bon Bon in indignation. ‟Why would you need, Twilight? You’ve got me,” she fumed, and then not waiting for a reply, she streaked into the sky, her backwash causing the cloud she’d been resting on to shred into wispy tatters.

Bon Bon danced back and forth on her hooves. Part of her wanted to run as fast as she could to Golden Oaks Library to get Twilight Sparkle, but the other part of her was terrified that Rainbow Dash would destroy her supplies while fighting that perverted monster. The rainbow-hued pegasus pony did have a bad habit of leaving a lot of insurance claims behind.

In the end concern for her ingredients, and her future outweighed her fear. Telling herself that Rainbow Dash was, after all, one of the Elements of Harmony, and would be able to handle a mere pony-shaped monster, she headed back toward the railway platform. At a very appropriate pace. Or walk. While keeping an eye out for any shadows. Of which there were many, because it was night, after all. With lots of strange noises, she had never heard before. It looked to be a very long walk.

****************

Rainbow Dash was fuming, and she muttered to herself as she rocketed up into the air. ‟What am I? Chopped carrots? I’ll show her. I can handle a monster just as well as Twilight.” Having reached a good height, Rainbow did a barrel roll and curved over in a dive toward the railway station far below, her target a black blotch in the middle of it. No need for a Sonic Rainboom, though that would be beyond cool. Her target wasn’t much bigger than a pony, a good high-speed buck would send it back to wherever it had come from.

Rainbow stuck her front hooves out in front of her and braced her body for the shock of impact, which would be coming in 5, 4, 3– ‟What the heck, Jake?” she cried out as the black blot refined into the shape of a large black Alicorn. With a huge effort, that made her feel like her wings were about to tear off, she diverted her path just enough to skim over-top of the figure on the platform, just as he reared his head at her shout.

‟No!” was that Rainbow had time to cry out as she found Jake’s horn directly in her path. She twisted frantically to the side to avoid being impaled. The gleaming black horn missed her chest, but thrust between her right leg and shoulder, just missing her neck. There was a sudden jerk, far less than she was braced for, and she was tumbling down the railway platform heading straight for a large crate, an over-sized unicorn horn clutched between her legs. She hit hard enough to rock the crate up on one side where it hovered for a moment before slamming back down onto the platform, shoving Rainbow out of the way as it did.

The pegasus pony lay against the side of the crate, her eyes whirling as her jarred brain attempted to re-boot. She was barely aware of the object she was holding between her front legs. A sudden gasp of dismay, caused her to look to the side. Bon Bon was standing there, looking twenty percent paler than normal. ‟Oh no, oh no, oh no!” the candy maker chanted as she dashed toward the fallen hero.

‟Hey, no problem. Just give me a minute to get myself together,” Rainbow said in a groggy voice as she waved a warding hoof toward Bon Bon.

The beige pony ignored her completely, rearing up to place her forelegs on the lip of the crate and peering inside. She let out a huge sigh of relief and dropped back down to all fours. ‟Thank goodness, nothing seems to be damaged,” Bon Bon said.

Any issue Rainbow might have taken with Bon Bon being more concerned about her crate then her was derailed when she caught sight of what was dangling from the hoof she’d waved at the candy maker. ‟Hey, what is this?” she questioned herself. ‟Is this? It is. A stupid Thruster’s horn!” she finished in disgust.

On the good side, that meant that Rainbow Dash hadn’t ripped Jake’s horn off his head. On the downside, that meant it wasn’t Jake. Meaning she was all alone with Bon Bon on a lonely railway platform with an over-sized mare molester. Or at least, if it had been anypony other than Rainbow Dash, that is what they might have thought. The brash pegasus had different priorities.

‟What the hay, dude?” Rainbow demanded, waving the faux horn at the big black pegasus who was sheepishly standing just a little way away, shuffling his hooves and looking a lot like he wished he was anywhere else but here.

‟What the big idea? A pegasus wearing a Thruster horn. You ought to be ashamed,” Rainbow shouted. Her annoyance was partly fueled by the scare she’d gotten when she’d thought she’d torn off Jake’s horn. Finding out she’d been fooled by some idiot of a pegasus stallion who was walking around flaunting the symbol of the hated Thrusters only added fuel to the fire in her belly.

The black stallion was paying very little attention to the fuming Rainbow Dash. Instead, he was directing a guilty look toward Bon Bon as she glared at him from behind her shipping crate. ‟Sorry, Miss Bon Bon. I didn’t mean to scare you. I came all the way from Canterlot just to meet you, after all.”

‟Yeah, yeah, a likely story. What about this?” Rainbow demanded, fluttering up to eye level with the stallion and again waving the fake horn she had just retrieved in front of his face, this time from inches away.

Sweets winced slightly and drew back a bit. ‟Lost a sports bet,” he mumbled.

Rainbow Dash paused in her rant, blinked slightly. That put a whole new complexion on things. Wearing the hated symbol of the Thrusters out of choice was one thing. Any Pegasus who did that was a traitor to her wings in Rainbow’s eyes. Losing a humiliation bet and actually being pegasus enough to abide by the stakes, even when nowhere near anypony who could call you on it, that really showed character in her book. ‟Oh, man. I bet it was that last game. I heard about that. The High Flyers were so robbed. I tell you, that ref must have been blind. You poor sucker. How long you got to do it for?”

‟A week,” Sweets answered distractedly, looking around the hovering Rainbow Dash, trying to catch Bon Bon’s eye, with little luck. Rainbow persisted in shifting herself so she was always right in front of him.

‟Is that why you were on the train? Bet that’s part of the bet. Can’t fly for a week? Man, that sucks rotten apples.”

‟Uhuh,” Sweets replied intelligently, taking a quick step to the right. Unfortunately, Bon Bon had just taken a quick step to her right, and all he saw was that wonderful smelling tail and her cutie marked flank.

Bon Bon had never felt so humiliated in her life, well, except for the time Lyra . . . Bon Bon shook off that painful remembrance as she glared at Rainbow Dash’s back as the scatter-brain pegasus actually started talking sports with the jerk who had molested her, and scared the Tartarus out of her with that whole monster-in-the-night act.

Beneath her anger, however, she was feeling a bit puzzled. Having gotten a good look at the stallion, sans horn and before Rainbow Dash stuck her big plot in Bon Bon’s face, she was troubled by a sense of familiarity. The only problem was that she was sure she had never seen him before in her life. Bon Bon had a well-trained memory She might not have been in Pinkie’s league, but she never forgot a face. Even if she’d been a total ditz, a pony that big and black was somepony that would stick in your mind, but for the life of her, she could not remember where she had seen him before.

He knew her name, he said he’d come from Canterlot to see her, but he hadn’t had time to say why. Why would a city stallion come all this way to see her? Now it had been Lyra . . . A sudden realization struck Bon Bon like a lightning bolt. Of course, his picture must have been in one of Cello’s letters to her daughter. He must be one of her matchmaking efforts, and this one had decided to take a more active role. That’s why he was looking for her. Bon Bon knew that Cello regarded her as the obstacle that was keeping her daughter from marrying a suitable stallion, meaning one she’d picked out, and carrying on the family name. She had likely made it clear to the tail sucker that he’d have to win Bon Bon’s approval if he had any hope of marrying into the Heartstring family fortune.

Well, that sure wasn’t going to happen. He could just hop on the next train to Canterlot. She took a quick step to her right, intending to get around Rainbow Dash’s hovering form and tell the molester just how high a cliff he could jump off of. Unfortunately, the over-sized lummox had also shifted to his right and all she got a good look at was his well-muscled flank and his lollipop cutie mark. That last made her pause. Not because he shared a complimentary cutie mark with her, she had long ago learned that such things were meaningless. Almost all the stallions at BKC had candy theme cutie marks, and Lyra was worth ten of them. No, her sudden interest in the Duffus's cutie mark was far more pragmatic. He wouldn’t have it if he didn’t have at least some talent in regards to candy, at this point she was willing to take anything she could get.

Bon Bon gave a little hop, and landed on Rainbow Dash’s back, forcing the pegasus mare to the ground and leaving the candy maker eye to eye with a surprised stallion. He started to open his mouth, and Bon Bon cut him off with a hoof while saying. ‟Shut it! I don’t want to hear it. I know why you’re here. There is no way you have any hope at all once I let Lyra know about how you molested me.”

Sweets had no idea who Lyra was, but he had no trouble accepting the ‘no hope’ part if she started spreading the molesting story. He was too recently out of guard training to start offering excuses or explanations for his actions. Sergeants tended to take a dim view of either. Better to let the pony in charge lay out the facts of life without interruptions. It was a lot less painful in his experience.

‟Hey, squashed pony here,” Rainbow complained from under Bon Bon but was ignored by both parties.

‟However! I might be willing to let this slide, if you can show me you’re worth it,” Bon Bon said in her best, don’t touch the candy, voice.

‟Anything,” Sweets said with great fervor.

Bon Bon gave a nod of satisfaction. She didn’t trust this pony any further than she could throw him, but she had leverage on him. If he wanted to see dime one of Lyra’s inheritance, he was going to have to make her a very happy pony. Not that she had the least intention of putting in a good word for him with Lyra. That didn’t mean she couldn’t string him along for as long as she was in need of a strong back. She wasn’t particularly proud of what she was doing, but she was desperate, and it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve a little punishment.

‟Fine. You can start by unloading that crate onto that hand truck, and helping me take these supplies to my shop. You can sleep in the yard. For the next few days, you are going to help me make candy, day and night. When we are done, if you have impressed me, maybe, I say, maybe, I’ll listen to what you have to say. Until then when I say jump, you say how high.”

Sweets was a little impressed. For such a little snip of a thing, she had the whole drill sergeant thing down to a tee. He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d found out he was here to offer her a contract with the palace, he knew there was no way she could know the real reason. Maybe Princess Celestia had arranged things? Whatever anything that did not end up with him being named a mare-molester was fine by him.

Without a word, Sweets started unloading the crate under Bon Bon’s watchful eye, after she stepped off of Rainbow Dash.

The only sour note for the disguised Royal Guard was that Rainbow made a big production of fluttering up and securing the hated horn to his head as best as could be managed. The blue pegasus moved back a few yards and examined him critically. You’d better go see Rarity tomorrow. If you have to wear that thing, at least you should try to make it look less ridiculous. If anyone can do it, Rarity can,” Rainbow Dash said in a voice that contained a fair amount of doubt.

**************

Shadow Dash had just finished dropping off his baby sister at work and was looking forward to hooking up with a few old friends in the guard room when a voice from behind him changed his plans.

‟A moment of your time Sergeant,” a familiar voice requested.

Shadow Dash paused and looked behind him, seeing the familiar large bulky shape of recruit, now Optio, Pumpernickel.

Pumpernickel focused on keeping his face as stoic as possible as he looked at his old training instructor. Opportunities like this did not come along every day, and he intended to milk it for all it was worth.

‟What can I do for you, Sir,” Shadow Dash asked as softly as someone with twenty years of experience screaming at the top of his lungs could manage.

‟The Princess would like a word with you. If you have a few minutes to spare?”

Shadow frowned at Pumpernickel’s official tone of voice. It was unlike the stocky nocturne pony. Shadow had never imagined that his new rank and position would go to Pumpernickel’s head. There had been no sign of it the day before when he’d asked his favorite ex-recruit to escort his baby sister home from the palace. That meant there was serious, official, business ahoof. I don’t suppose this is Princess Celestia we’re talking about, sir?”

‟No, sergeant,” Pumpernickel said in a flat tone, giving nothing extra away.

Shadow Dash arched an eyebrow as he followed after Pumpernickel. He had never met Princess Luna, unlike her older sister. He had also not grown up in a culture that venerated her. While he was a Nocturne, he had not been adopted into his night-pony family till he was ten years of age. He respected her, she was one of his Princesses, but he did not hold her in the same awe as his family, especially his baby sister. Goose had spent most of the last few days in near hysterical joy, obvious to those who knew her, at the prospect of working near her perfect princess. For that matter, he hadn’t even believed Luna was a real pony, until she had escaped from the moon and tried to take over Equestria.

Shadow Dash frowned internally while keeping his outward expression bland. He really hoped this meeting was not due to the interference he had engineered to keep Goose out of Guard training. Her heart would have been broken when she washed out. She would have without a doubt, likely on the first day. Her handicap would have allowed for nothing else.

Shadow was not normally one for bending the rules, but for family, he was willing to add a bit of situational to his ethics.

That same attitude had once led to his first meeting with Princess Celestia. They had both discovered the other raiding the royal pantry, Celestia pursuing a big slice of chocolate cake, Shadow purloining a jar of Zap apple preserve. Of course, Celestia, unlike Shadow, had a perfect right to raid her own pantry. (4)

It might have been the end of his career in the guard if he had not confessed the preserves were for a pregnant friend , who had developed some very specific cravings. Celestia had been more than sympathetic, in fact, she’d sent another dozen jars to his friend’s residence in Cloudsdale. Which, given the foal’s unusual colors when she was born might not have been the best idea in the world. Though the filly seemed to have taken no harm from it otherwise, quite the contrary, considering some of the things she pulled off in the last year or so.

Shadow broke out of his reverie when he noticed that Pumpernickel had led him down several flights of stairs into the sub-basement. An area used for long term storage of things that might, someday, be useful.

‟You know, trooper, I could start to think that you leading me into an old disused section of the castle might have something do with those fifty mile runs in full pack I used to send you on,” Shadow remarked in a casual tone as he looked around in interest at some of the artifacts they were passing. He couldn’t help but think that there were museums that would give their eyeteeth for a chance to display some of the dust magnets that were just so much clutter here. ‟Of course, now that I think on it, you were one of those weird recruits who actually pushed yourself harder than the instructors did. So I guess you’re not planning on beating the hay out of me somewhere nice and private.”

‟I have nothing but fond memories of you, sergeant. You have nothing to fear from me. ” Pumpernickel said in his best professional dealing with a civilian tone.

‟Oh, like that’s not ominous as all buck,” Shadow muttered to himself. His bad feeling about this situation was growing by leaps and bounds. Behind him, Pumpernickel’s lip twitched slightly.

As they progressed, other ponies began to make an appearance, dressed in smocks and with dust masks over their muzzles. One of them broke away from the group and approached them. ‟You’re going to need these,” she said, her voice muffled by the mask. She held out a similar mask to the sergeant, and one to Pumpernickel once Shadow took his.

‟Thank you, Lamina,” Pumpernickel said. ‟Is Princess Luna still in the same room?”

‟Yes. She’s sure that all the contents from her old research lab are in the one location. From the looks of things, they were just crammed in with no attempt made to categorize or sort. She has had some rather pithy things to say about the archivist who was responsible.” the masked mare answered.

‟They are long past even our Princess’ reach. Which is more than I can say for some,” Pumpernickel said in a flat tone.

Shadow Dash let out a low laugh. ‟You’re spoiling the effect, sir. One broad hint at the beginning of the trip that I’m in deep griffin shit was more than enough. You weaken the whole effect with constant not so subtle hints. Should just let my mind fill in the blanks. If you don’t mind a bit of advice from your old sergeant, sir?”

‟Not at all. I find I’m never too old to learn valuable lessons, Sarge,” Pumpernickel said in a dry tone.

‟And that’s me put in my proper place. Very well. Lead on, sir. Lead on.”

Shadow was almost cheerful as he followed his former trainee down the increasingly dusty corridor. He had no regrets over what he had done. He was confident that Goose would not suffer for his crime, and that was all that mattered in the end.

The corridor they were following went on for some length, and the old Trainer arched an eyebrow as they passed evidence that up till recently it had been sealed, not just once but six times, to go by the remains of recently removed false walls made of foot thick stone they passed. Evidence of just how spooked those ponies had been a thousand years ago when they had sealed off this section. Not a reassuring thought when you took into account that they had to have known Luna, or her alter-ego, far better than any pony in this day and age.

Eventually, the corridor opened up into a large room stuffed full of old crates and miscellaneous objects obscured under a heavy coating of dust. The limited free space was made even smaller by a unicorn powered vacuum that was sucking up the worst of the dust and a whole bevy of other ponies milling around in what looked like sheer chaos. Every pony in sight was heavily shrouded with dust cloths and masks. Despite that Princess Luna was easy to pick out. She was at the center of the chaos. A pattern soon emerged as Shadow watched her. Ponies circulated around the princess, some bringing objects for her to look at, others taking their objects to designated areas on Luna’s directions.

‟Pardon, Princess. I have Sergeant Shadow Dash here as you directed,” Pumpernickel said in good parade-yard form. All motion in the room stilled and Shadow found himself the center of attention. The majority of the looks were simple curiosity, the one from Princess Luna caused some very important bits he was quite proud of to shrivel.

Luna blinked as she noticed the middle-aged pony’s expression and made some effort to moderate her current mood, or at least the outward expression of it before she scorched a hole in his hide. She’d been fuming all evening over the injustice done Goose, and some of that anger had become directed toward the young pony’s family. There had been some supplementary information that had not been included in the main report, about how Goose’s family had dealt with a transgression of hers many years ago. Reading about it had not made her happy. Nothing would be served by lashing out at the pony in front of her, however, no matter how much it would relieve the churning anger in her gut.

Princess Luna turned her head away from Shadow and stamped a couple of times on the floor. ‟Attention, please. We are most pleased with your efforts. You may take a short recess while we deal with another matter. Please avail yourself of the refreshments laid out in the cleared room at the end of the hall.” There was a general stampede of Ponies toward the exit, raising even more dust as they went until visibility was reduced to almost nothing.

The mask over Shadow’s muzzle let him breathe, but his eyes began to water as the small particles floating in the air irritated them.

Luna hissed in annoyance as her visibility was cut to next to nothing. Her temper was already riding on a razor’s edge as it was. She decided to vent a little of her current annoyance on a non-breakable target.

As Shadow tried to cope with the dust storm, he became aware that the cloud of dirt was becoming infused with a soft blue aura with small sparkles spread out through it. Slowly the dust thinned, spiraling inward to a point just a few inches in front of Princess Luna’s horn. He could feel a tugging at his hide as the dust that had coated him was drawn into the inward turning spiral. As he watched a small black ball formed in the air into which all the inward moving dirt was draining. At the same time, the air was becoming noticeably cleaner. Book pages riffled in the wind and his mane began to flap slightly. He tucked his wings tight against his body to keep them from catching the breeze.

The ball in front of Luna’s horn grew and grew till it was nearly two feet across, a roiling mass of dust, hair, and who knew what else. The air was clear, with no more dust floating in it. Despite that, the heavy layer on most of the nearby surfaces was still fairly thick, with the coating on the various books and crates being virtually untouched by the magic. This puzzled him until he realized that the princess likely did not want to risk causing damage to any of the artifacts in the room. A handy spell, and one he’d have appreciated access to on those long-ago days when he’d been assigned rug beating duties by his adopted mother.

The hard-bitten sergeant soon realized that Princess Luna was not satisfied with merely clearing the air, however.

As Shadow watched, not really understanding what he was seeing, the glow around Luna’s horn grew slightly brighter and her eyes narrowed as she focused on the object in front of her. The glow permeating the dust ball grew more intense as well. For long moments there were no apparent results, and then Shadow realized that the ball was shrinking, compressing. It was already fifty percent smaller than it had been, and still decreasing in size. It was no longer a cloud, but a solid mass of debris.

A wave of heat washed over the old trooper’s face, and his eyes widened as he realized it was coming from the ball in front of the Princess’ horn, which was flickering with red. The flammable portions of the dust were combusting. There was no other visible sign of fire. Whatever spell was compacting the dirt was also containing the smoke. The coal glow spread till the entire sphere was a dull red. It continued to shrink. The red glow shifted in color, becoming paler and paler until it was a white incandescent that caused him to advert his light-sensitive eyes.

Princess Luna let out a deep sigh, a release of breath signifying an end to her display. Shadow risked a look and was relieved to see that the much smaller ball was back to a dull shade of red that was rapidly fading. Luna’s magic faded and the small sphere dropped to the stone flagging, and shattered like glass, revealing an interior of glossy black, not unlike obsidian.

Many recruits were inclined to think that the main qualification for drill instructors was sadism and a loud voice. The truth was that a good DI had to be able to read other ponies like a book, even ones they had met only moments before. Knowing to an inch how far you could push a recruit was a mandatory requirement. The sadism and loud voice were only icings on the cake.

If Shadow Dash had been less experienced, he might have been inclined to take the display he had just seen as a, ‟look, I can squash you like a bug. Respect me or else,” move. Such an act would have had the opposite effect. Respect was earned. It was not something you could gain from intimidation. There was a big difference between fear and respect.

Because he was experienced, he looked deeper and realized that Princess Luna was seriously stressed. Her display had very little to do with intimidating him and much to do with releasing pent up emotions through physical activity. It might have been magic, but the slight sheen of sweat on her upper lip showed it had used up a fair amount of energy. Crushing a ball of dust, in this case, was no different than bucking a heavy bag for a few hours. Something he had done more than once after a particularly stressful day of trying to jam common sense into a herd of recruits.

‟Tell me about Goose Down, Sergeant,” Princess Luna suddenly asked, turning to look at him with her dark violet eyes.

Shadow Dash’s was stunned by the impact of her gaze. He had thought himself immune to her presence, unlike the other Nocturne who had been raised to worship her. He’d been wrong. He felt like a foal caught passing notes in class. Without a thought, he dropped to both front knees and bowed his head. ‟She’ll do you proud, your Majesty.”

‟That is not what I asked, sergeant. Tell me why you interfered in her attempt to sign up for guard training. Tell me about her fear.”

Shadow went still. He had expected to be called on his interference. He had not expected to explain Goose’s handicap. ‟Her difficulty would have kept her out of the guard. It will not cause a problem with her current job, Ma’am. She will serve the palace with all her heart and soul.”

Luna’s eyes flashed with anger. She was about to demand a straight answer when Pumpernickel coughed. She turned her burning gaze in his direction, and he winced slightly. ‟Your pardon, Princess. I still had some dust in my throat.”

For a moment Luna looked like she was about to snap at him, but then she once again took a deep breath and turned back to the older nocturne. ‟I have already taken your sister into my service, Sergeant. I merely wish to understand somepony I am responsible for.” She gritted her teeth, and nearly spat out the word, ‟Please.”

Shadow Dash blinked his eyes. Goose had been taken on as part of Luna’s personal household. He felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his chest. Another muffled cough from Pumpernickel recalled him to himself, and he cleared his own throat. ‟Where to start?” he said, half to himself. ‟I think if you will indulge me, Ma’am? at the beginning.”

‟We have time. I wish to understand your sister. I need to if I am . . .” Luna trailed off for a moment, before continuing, ‟Start where you feel is best, good Sergeant.”

The sergeant took her at her word, and started, as he had suggested, at the beginning. ‟Goose was born to fly. Our Mom always said that when she was pregnant with Goose, she didn’t kick, she flapped. Her wings were big for a newborn. They would have been big on a five-year-old foal.”

The hard-bitten drill instructor’s expression turned somber. ‟The older aunts, and our grandmother were not happy. Mares you see, don’t need to fly. They are to keep to hearth and home,” he said, using what was an obvious quote.

‟Except to breed,” Lamina remarked from the sidelines in a slightly bitter tone. Her face showing the remembered pain from a time when it was assumed she would never have that ability.

‟Well, yes,” Shadow Dash agreed with an uncomfortable expression on his face at having a discussion about his sister take off in that direction. He quickly returned to his story.

‟There was even some talk about clipping her wings before they caused her trouble. My adopted mother did not agree with them, loudly.” Shadow Dash paused a moment to chuckle slightly in remembrance. ‟Mother was not senior, not then, but she made the older aunts and her own mother back down on that sort of talk.

‟Not that they stopped talking about the problem. We were just lucky they didn’t find out what happened the first time Mother took Goose to the park. Goose could barely walk, but those wings of hers snapped out the first time a gust of wind blew. She was in the air before mother could blink, and thirty feet up before mother caught her. She wasn’t flapping, just riding the wind. It came naturally to her, as easy as breathing.”

‟I wasn’t there. The only ones who knew besides my mother were the twins, my youngest brothers. They’re ten years older than Goose. They were with mother that day, and she swore them to secrecy. Colts are lousy at keeping secrets from big brothers. That’s how I found out,” Shadow said with a wry smile.

‟My only reaction at the time was pride that my little sister was so gifted. I hadn’t been raised in Nocturne society. I was over ten when I was adopted. Even today I don’t always react like a Nocturne. I didn’t understand that what I saw as a magnificent gift, my mother saw as a source of potential heartbreak for Goose.”

‟It is shameful that a child’s special talent should be repressed instead of celebrated,” Princess Luna's voice was as firm as steel, and nearly without emotion.

Before Shadow could respond, Pumpernickel spoke up, ‟In this day and age, you are correct, but for so many generations the Nocturne hovered on the brink of extinction. Our mares were precious above all other treasures and we protected them fiercely. It was a necessity for so long, it has become embedded in our culture.”

Luna closed her eyes momentarily in mental pain. ‟My fault,” she murmured.

‟Nightmare Moon’s fault,” Pumpernickel snapped, his voice fierce. ‟You are not her. You are our Princess Luna, and your every action changes us for the good. Two years ago it would have been unthinkable for Goose to leave her home, to seek employment, self-sufficiency. She is only the first. There will be others,” he finished in a tone free of the least doubt.

Luna knew that Pumpernickel truly believed what he said, and that heartened her, but, he was wrong. While it was true that it had been Nightmare Moon who had decimated the night ponies, she had only existed due to Luna’s weakness, her greed, and selfishness. All of Nightmare Moon’s sins were hers. Arguing with her Optio would be futile, and a waste of time. While he was mistaken in regards to her faults, he was right in his intent that living in the past solved nothing. She had a duty to make recompense and amends. Not with some huge expression of power and/or generosity. That way would lead to frustration and the chance of backsliding. Her redemption must of necessity be a thing of small deeds, day by day, week by week, one step in front of another.

Luna lifted her head and directed her gaze toward Shadow Dash. ‟Pray. Continue.”

‟Well, Ma’am, as I was saying. My Mother was dismayed by Goose’s precocious flying ability. That did not mean she did not understand that it was important to my little sister. She said nothing to her own mother or the aunties, and certainly not to the grannies. Instead each evening she had free she would take Goose for a walk in the park, well harnessed with a long leash.”

Shadow Dash smiled broadly, his eyes distant. ‟I’ll never forget sneaking into the park and watching my mother flying Goose like a kite. Both of them laughing in glee as Goose rode the winds.”

The grizzled sergeant’s expression turned unhappy, his face clearly showing how painful it was to remember the next part. ‟It couldn’t last. I don’t know if someone carried tales, or if Aunty Drusome just happened to be in the park that night. Whatever the reason, she was, and she caught mom flying Goose. She was not happy.

‟Mother was called to account by all the aunties and grannies. I don’t know what was said. It was mare’s business, and none of the stallions were consulted. The upshot was that there was a much tighter watch placed on Mother and Goose. They were not allowed out of the house without a chaperone. It meant an end to Goose’s flying lessons. She was only six at the time, and I honestly think they did not realize she no longer needed a tether or help from an adult to fly.”

‟She snuck out to fly on her own,” Lamina said in a flat tone, no hint of a question in her words.

‟With a lot of help from the twins, and some of the younger colts who thought she was getting a raw deal,” Shadow confirmed. ‟I wasn’t around much, but even if I had been, I can’t say honestly I wouldn’t have looked the other way. Her brothers always flew with her to make sure she was safe.”

Shadow Dash’s expression, which had been showing fondness, turned regretful. ‟I can’t be sorry she got a chance to soar, but there are times when I think she would have been so much better off if she’d never had the chance to spread her wings.” He trailed off, his expression distant as he pondered, a might-have-been.

‟Her fear of the sky,” Princess Luna encouraged him to go on.

The old night stallion gave his head a shake, his mane flopping in the air, as he brought himself out of the past and back to the room. He gave a long sigh and continued his story. ‟Goose’s brothers grew up, and gained other interests. Interests where a tagalong little sister was a handicap. All perfectly normal and if Goose was hurt by their seeming rejection, she’d have gotten over it once she started to have other interests of her own. Maybe, if the twins had not met those twin mares from Cloudsdale everything could have been fine in the end.”

Luna shifted impatiently, her stance and look telling the sergeant to get on with it.

‟The twins snuck out one evening to fly to Cloudsdale to meet with their marefriends. Goose followed them. They were too busy thinking about their dates to notice. By that time Goose could out-soar any pony in the sky, but her speed was another matter. She fell behind and lost sight of them. It was early in the spring and the planting on all the farms had just been completed. The weather service had scheduled a week-long gentle soaking to give the new crops a good start. Most of Equestria was covered in low lying rain clouds. The twins had flown above them so Goose had as well. She had not paid any attention to her bearings and had no idea where she was. She couldn’t see the lights of the city through the clouds, and she had never had any formal training so had no idea of how to navigate using the stars. She was only eight, and she was lost in the sky. For three days.”

Pumpernickel sucked in a startled breath. ‟Three days?”

‟Like I said. Goose could out-soar any pony flying, even at eight. There were strong thermals and they carried her high, higher than normal pegasus fly. Even most Night Pegasus would have a hard time matching her ceiling and then only if there was some reason to do so. No one noticed one small pony high in the sky. There was a frantic search when Goose was discovered gone. A missing child is a terrible thing for a family to deal with.”

‟Did she fall?” Luna asked.

‟No, a high altitude survey crew from Cloudsdale, checking out the storm, noticed her high in the sky. She was too far up for any of them to reach her. They had to call in a specialist team to reach her and bring her down. She was near catatonic. She wasn’t even aware she’d been rescued. She fought the recovery crew and they had to subdue her.”

The hard-bitten stallion’s expression was bleak. ‟It was weeks before she started interacting with ponies again, and she’s never been able to even look at the sky without suffering panic attacks. She has constant nightmares to this day about being lost in the sky.”

‟Is that why she was segregated from the family? Given a room of her own to sleep in?” Luna asked, her tone of voice flat.

Shadow blinked in surprise at the question, his brow furrowing in thought. ‟I didn’t know she had been. I had moved out of the family home by that time and only slept over on rare occasions. Thinking back, you’re right, she didn’t sleep with the rest of the family.” His voice was troubled and he was frowning. ‟What could they have been thinking?” he asked, more to himself than any of the other three present. ‟She was traumatized in part by being lost and alone. Segregating her from the family, even if only at night when everypony is asleep, would be counter-productive.”

Luna’s expression softened slightly, and when she spoke her tone of voice was not nearly as censorious as it had been. ‟It would have the benefit of keeping her from making a public spectacle of herself if she were fearful of flying in the open sky,” she said in a leading voice.

Shadow Dash shook his head violently. ‟No. I can’t believe that even the elders would be that cruelly calculating. I have to believe it was ignorance and not malice.” Despite his words, Shadow’s face was troubled, with an undercurrent of anger flickering in his eyes. His expression promised dire consequences if his trust in this was misplaced.

Luna elected not to follow the matter any further. She glanced at Lamina and Pumpernickel and asked. ‟Do you think you’ll have any difficulty dealing with Goose Down’s problem?”

The two newlyweds exchanged looks. A silent message passed between them and they turned back toward their princess. ‟We will welcome her,” Lamina said firmly.

‟Very well then,” Luna said. ‟We are agreed. Goose shall join my household.” She turned to look at Shadow Dash, who was looking much happier. ‟You will aid her in moving?” while her statement was in the form of a question, no one in the room thought for a moment it was.

‟It will be my deepest pleasure, Ma’am,” Shadow said, performing a low bow. ‟If I may be excused, I will attend to the matter post haste, Ma’am.”

‟Please. I wish your sister moved into her new quarters as soon as possible.”

**************

(1) 'At earliest convenience' from Princess Celestia meant 'Hurry.' From Princess Luna, it meant a speed somewhat akin to 'Yesterday, at the latest.'

(2)Sweets was a big foal, and after twenty-five hours, ten minutes and forty-two seconds of labor, it was understandable that his mother was a bit blurry when the nurses asked what she was going to name her newborn son and she gave them the title of the romance novel she’d been reading when the first contraction happened. Having a moniker like that hanging over his head had shaped Sweets life to a large degree, at least up till the point where he could move far away from anyone who knew it existed.

(3)To be fair to Sweets, it had merely been a brush away motion with no intention to maim or otherwise inflict grievous bodily harm on another pony.

(4) Sometime later, once his heart has stopped trying to jump out of his chest he became aware of a vague impression that Celestia had been acting as guilty as he had felt. Which was just plain silly. Why would the supreme ruler of Equestria feel guilty over raiding her own pantry?

Author's Notes:

My Hard Drive crashed three weeks ago. No Data recoverable. Fortunately I had both back up and Google Drive so was able to recover all the chapters I've done for this story, but it left me feeling a bit phobic about my machine, fearing at any moment it will crash on me again. Sort of messed up my momentum on this story.

I had to resist the urge to trash bin this chapter. If I let myself I'd spend the next year trying to come up with a perfect chapter, and never get anything done. It was a real struggle to write, and I'm afraid it shows. I'm trying to bring my three main OC characters into the story as quickly as possible. All three of them will be interacting with Curry, and Jake, it will just take a little while to get there.

Remember to check out Georg's page to catch up on that backstory for some of the things in this chapter, including the Opening of the Guard. http://www.fimfiction.net/story/67208/a-war-of-words-the-opening-of-the-guard Well worth the read. Certainly inspired me.

Ch12 Learning Curve [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 12
Learning Curve

***

Morning in Ponyville, shimmers,
Morning in Ponyville shines.

Twilight Sparkle hummed as she levitated the contents of an over-sized picnic basket onto a checkered blanket that was spread out over the soft grass that covered the hillside. There were sandwiches, drinks, cupcakes, assorted salads, all the essentials.

‟What a wonderful morning,” she said, throwing back her head and basking in the sunlight.

‟You’re welcome,” Rainbow Dash snarked as she darted in and snatched a large daisy sandwich from the neat pile Twilight had arranged so carefully on a plate.

‟Rainbow Dash! Wait till everyone is here.”

‟You snooze, you lose,” Rainbow said with a laugh. She tossed the sandwich in the air and opened her mouth wide to receive it.

‟Exactly,” Twilight said smugly as she used her magic to snatch the snack and returned it to the plate.

‟Hey, no fair,” Rainbow protested. ‟I’ll have you know I burned off a lot of calories clearing the sky so we’d have a perfect day for our special picnic.”

‟And it sure is appreciated by all of us here,” Applejack drawled as she cantered up with Apple Bloom right behind her big sister.

‟Indeed. It is a perfectly gorgeous day,” Rarity chimed in as she trotted up the other side of the hill. The fashion-conscious unicorn was wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat on her head that was matched with an over-sized sheer shawl draped over her neck and shoulders. A jumbo-sized pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes topped off the look. Sweetie Bell laboriously trailed behind her older sister, a huge pile of assorted picnic gear piled on the cart the little filly was pulling.

‟Thank you ever so much, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said graciously, as she levitated a large beach umbrella and a lounge chair from the pile her little sister was hauling.

‟For someone out for a day in the sun, you’re not spending much time in it,” Twilight observed with a small smile.

‟Twilight, my dear, one does not stay as gorgeous as I by running around in the burning sun all day long.” Rarity pulled her sunglasses a little way down her nose and directed a teasing look toward Applejack.

‟But the sun really is very nice today,” Fluttershy said softly as she trotted up, Curry mounted on her back.

‟Yeah, it looks like a scrumptious lemon tart. Yummy,” Pinkie Pie enthused as she bounced up to the picnic.

‟And that leaves just one more,” Twilight said.

‟Leave it to me, Sugarcube. Jake! Soups on!” Applejack yodeled at the top of her lungs, loud enough to cause several small leaves to fall from a nearby tree.

Jake looked over at the group from where he was playing ball with a friend. He let the ten-ton boulder drop to the ground with a thud and waved goodbye to the Ursa Minor before trotting up the hill to join the rest of the picnic goers.

Mass quantities of food and beverages were consumed and soon everyone was spread out around the remains of the picnic, stomachs comfortably distended, while the sun’s rays warmed their stretched bellies.

‟Man, I just can’t get enough of this sun,” Rainbow enthused, spreading out her wings along the ground to catch every possible golden ray.

‟Oh, oh, I can get us more,” Jake cried out enthusiastically. His horn started to glow brightly, a huge nimbus of energy building up around the core of his unicorn spike. For a few moments Twilight could not figure out what he was directing his efforts at, and then she realized she was getting warmer, a lot warmer. In sudden realization, she stared up at the sky and saw that the sun was getting noticeably bigger.

‟Jake. Wait. Stop,” Twilight cried out, her own horn glowing with magic as she tried to disrupt Jake’s magic. To no avail.

‟I can’t stop it, Aunty Twilight,” Jake cried out, his eyes going fearfully.

All the ponies were soon huddled under Rarity’s over-sized beach umbrella like baby toads under a toadstool. Slowly the fabric charred as the grass and plants around them withered away. In a moment their fragile protection would burst into flames and there would be nothing between them and the glowing ball of raging fire in the sky.

****

‟Noooooooo!” Twilight cried out, jolting upward from her position laying across her desk drooling on the blotter. Twilight gasped for breath, her body drenched in sweat. She squinted her eyes against the baking heat of the early morning sun as it slanted in through her window to fall directly on her body. Scattered all around her, on the desk, the floor, and assorted other makeshift bookshelves were numerous volumes of arcane lore.

Twilight’s panicked breathing slowed as she realized it had only been a dream, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Her relief was only temporary. A gear clicked in her mind, and she suddenly knew why her mind had tossed out that particular nightmare, besides the sun baking her head.

‟How could I have been so foolish?” she castigated herself. ‟Jake’s mental development might only be that of a foal, but his body is fully mature. This is not good. Not good at all. There will be time for research later. I have got to get out to Applejack’s and help keep an eye on him. How could I have left him all alone with nothing but earth ponies to look after him? They’ll have no idea of what to do if he loses control of his magic.” Several strands of hair spronged out of her already disheveled mane, one dropping down over her right eye.

That warning sign caused Twilight to pause and take stock as she recognized one of her personal symptoms of an upcoming panic attack. She took a few deep centering breaths as the book recommended. ‟Control, Twilight. Don’t go off half-cocked. Applejack is a smart mare. She might not know magic, but she knows foals. She’ll likely keep him so busy he won’t even have time to think about magic."

***

‟Ooops,” Jake said. The over-sized colt hung his head to avoid the look he was sure Big Mac was giving him.

He needn’t have worried. Big Mac was too busy staring at the spot where a sixty-year-old apple tree had once stood, up till three seconds ago. All that was left of the large tree was a four-foot stump, the top half of which was a splintered mass. Behind the stump, a V-shaped debris field extended out fifty feet, with a few scattered shards of applewood twice that distance away. In the middle of the remains was the crown of the former tree, several branches shattered from the impact of falling from thirty feet up. Big Mac shifted the strand of straw he was chewing from one side of his mouth to the other.(*)

The big red stallion made a mental note to, in the future, avoid such phrases as ‟Give it all you got, Hoss,” when instructing Jake. He looked over at where the colt was trying to appear as small as possible with his shoulders hunched and his head lowered. ‟Darn good first try,” he said in a tone of voice that seemed to say he saw apple trees explode every day and it wasn't no big thing. ‟Let’s yank the stump, and then you can have another go.”

Jake perked up instantly, his eyes brightening as he turned around so his hindquarters were to the stump and waited for Big Mac to instruct him in pulling. Hopefully, it would go better than his first attempt in actively using Earth Pony magic.

***

Sneak Peek had been pulled out of his bed much too early, in his mind, by the enticing scent of fried eggs and haycon. ‟What sort of pony gets up at this unholy hour on a regular basis?” the tabloid pony mused grumpily. He squinted his eyes against the early morning sun with next to none of his usual discomfort. Contrarian to the last, he even viewed the lack of a hangover as another mark against Ponyville, which had a severe lack of late-night watering holes in his opinion. Berry Punch’s place was pretty much it, and at the moment he was avoiding it while he tried to get his head straight about how he felt about the bar’s owner and Cloud Kicker.

The truth was, and he was devoted to the truth no matter how painful it might be, he didn’t deserve even one mare as fine as those two, let alone both of them. What they saw in him, or why they’d be willing to share, was beyond him. They weren’t in love with each other, merely friends. As far as he knew neither one of them bucked that way. The only reason they were willing to set up housekeeping together as a family was to share him. That was a lot for a confirmed bachelor like him to wrap his mind around.

Just at that moment, Sneaky spotted a familiar pink party pony bouncing out of Sugarcube Corner. Shrugging his shoulders, he trailed off in her wake. There was still the mystery of what had happened last night in the Everfree forest. A good night sleep had half-convinced him that it had likely been nothing. He didn’t trust such feelings. It smacked of rationalization in order to excuse himself missing whatever the scoop had been. Besides, maybe he’d get some candid shots of Pinkie Pie horribly embarrassing some well known Canterlot pony in town for a visit. One who had come with the intent of sniffing around the Elements of Harmony.(1)

***

Pinkie Pie bounced along happily as she approached the library. She had saddlebags full of teaching aids for Jake. Lots of gooey squishy muffins for him to practice his magic on. She was on her way to meet with Twilight as they had agreed on the night before. They both would then head out to check on their world wanderers. ‟World wanderers, world wanderers, world wanderers,” Pinkie chanted out as quick as she could. ‟Yeah, those stretching exercises are working out perfectly,” she enthused as she stuck her tongue out as far as it would go and tried to lick her own forehead.

Twilight came rushing out of the library, her head craned around to the rear as she tried to make sure she had packed, Alicorns, Fact, and Fantasy, in her saddlebags. She’d memorized it years before but Applejack would likely find it helpful.

Pinkie Pie was staring cross-eyed at the tip of her own tongue when her friend came rushing out of the door. Pinkie had just enough time to think, oh, that’s what a tingling at the base of my tail means. before the collision.

The purple pony plowed into the plush pink pony before Twilight even knew Pinkie Pie was there.

The two mares went pin-wheeling across the street and ended up tangled in a ball at the hooves of Derpy, who looked down at them in her normal, walleyed manner. ‟Well, this is different,” the mail mare remarked in surprise. ‟Oohh, muffins,” she enthused as she spotted the contents of Pinkie’s saddlebags, which had spilled out across Twilight’s flanks.

‟Help yourself. They’re yummy,” Pinkie offered, leading by example. She stretched out her neck and licked the splattered remains of a lemon-cream muffin off of Twilight’s cutie mark. This action drew a startled gasp from the purple unicorn as well as a great deal of thrashing as Twilight fought to her feet, stepping on the few remaining intact muffins as she did.

Derpy looked longingly at the poor trampled muffins, their chocolaty goodness now irretrievably mixed with the earth from which their ingredients had been grown. Snuffed out without a chance to fulfill their destiny, unable to release thunderbolts of pleasure into pony minds, their deaths were a tragedy beyond pony comprehension. With a heart-rending moan, Derpy wrenched her eyes away from their poor uneaten goodness. ‟I’ll pass. Thanks for the offer, Pinkie. Mail, Twilight,” she said, handing Twilight a package, a clipboard and a pen, one after the other.

Twilight signed for her parcel in a distracted way, while trying to suppress the blush coloring her cheeks. ‟Oh. A Brief History of Time,” she cried out as she unwrapped a book that was at least three inches thick. ‟I’ve wanted to read this for so long,” Twilight enthused, flipping open the hefty volume and perusing the forward.

‟Weren’t you going somewhere? In a rush?” Pinkie asked, looking over Twilight’s shoulder at the dense text in curiosity. She got distracted by a lump of muffin that was sticking to the tip of Twilight’s ear.

‟Ahhhhhh! Pinkie Pie, what are you doing?” Twilight cried out, her head twisting to the side in reaction to her friend suddenly sucking on her ear.

‟What? Tastes good,” Pinkie Pie protested with her mouth full. She hastily released Twilight’s now damp ear, swallowed, and repeated her question. ‟Aren’t we suppose to be heading out to Applejack’s to check on Jake the hunk?”

***

Down the street, an amused Sneak Peek lowered his camera without taking a shot. During his first week in Ponyville, he would have been all over that scene and prepared to spin a whole series of stories centered on just what good ‘friends’ the Elements of Harmony were. But, after all this time he was far more blase. It was just Pinkie being Pinkie.

Besides, after all, he had suffered and put up with since coming to this hick town, he wasn’t about to waste it all on a two-bit fluff piece that would blow his cover. He was far more interested in who this ‘Jake’ might be. It wasn’t any sort of Pony name he had ever heard. That had his reporter sense tingling.(2)

***

Twilight, still blushing from Pinkie using her body as a buffet table, hastily stuffed the new book in her saddlebag. Not even bothering to chide Pinkie on how inappropriate it was to refer to a five-year-old as a hunk. Or to suck a friend’s ear in the middle of a public street, for that matter.

‟I did it again,” Twilight moaned as she started trotting down the street. Pinkie Pie bounced alongside her, sneakily checking her friend’s flanks. Just in case there might be a few more muffin chunks. ‟What is wrong with me? First I totally miss the potential disaster Jake represents, and then I let myself get distracted by a book. Okay, it is a really good book, but still.”

‟Jake isn’t a potential disaster, silly. He’s a stallion. Well, sometimes that can be the same thing. I remember these two mares. The silly things just refused to share. Hey, that rhymes. I’m a poet and didn’t know it.”

‟That is not what I meant, Pinkie. Jake is an Alicorn. A physically mature Alicorn. With the mind of a foal. He is at least twice as powerful as I am, and has the self-restraint of Sweety Belle and her friends! Worst case scenario, it gets chilly and he decides to bring the sun closer to warm everypony up.”

‟Wow, we’d need sunglasses and sunscreen for sure.”

‟Try welding helmets and SPF5000.”

‟Oh, Jake wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, maybe if it bit him on the butt.”

‟He wouldn’t do it on purpose, Pinkie! He just wouldn’t know any better. That’s why I have to get out there and keep an eye on him, to make sure his enthusiasm doesn’t outrun his control. At least until Princess Celestia can arrange proper training and supervision for him. I just hope I’m not too late. Applejack just rebuilt the barn, again.”

‟Wow, so who’s going to look after Curry? I mean, she’s a human, and everypony knows they have mysterious powers.” Pinkie reared back on her hind legs and lifted her forelegs up over her head in a menacing posture while making a scary face.”

‟Don’t be silly, Pinkie. She’s tiny and much more mature than Jake. Fluttershy should be able to keep her entertained. What possible trouble could she cause?”

***

Curry narrowed her eyes as she glared at the chickens sitting on their nests. They glared right back. The small girl removed her pecked finger from her mouth, where she’d been trying to relieve the sting. ‟Ok, ladies. This here is the deal. Fluttershy needs eggs to make the breakfast flapjacks. I sure am looking forward to those. If I can’t have any flapjacks, I might just decide to settle for some yummy, crispy, fried chicken. The way I look at it, it all comes down to you. So what’s it going to be?”

The dozen or so chickens in the coop exchanged looks, and ever so slowly backed up and off their nests, leaving the freshly laid eggs exposed.

‟Thank you, ladies. So good doing business with you,” Curry smirked as she gathered up all the eggs and placed them in the basket that was slung over her arm. Life was so much easier when the critters understood what you were saying.

Curry trotted across the chicken run, looking like a sport's mascot who’d suffered severe weight loss in her brand new multiple-hued outfit. Out of habit, her eyes picked out chores that needed to be done, like the tumbled wood pile that needed to be straightened out. Old Ben had been scathing on the topic of ‘certain small people,’ who had to be told to do everything, even when tripping over something that needed to be picked up.

Curry was pretty sure Fluttershy would not mind if she slacked off, as she was a guest and all. Which was sort of the problem? The small girl didn’t want to be a guest, she wanted to be a resident. She was bound and determined to prove herself useful. The more she could lighten Fluttershy’s workload, instead of adding to it, the more likely the yellow pegasus would be receptive to the idea of officially adopting Jake and her, once Curry figured out the best way to bring up the subject. Of course, there was no need to work herself to death. She just needed to show she could pull her weight. There were other important issues she had to address as well.

While making her bed this morning she had considered certain facts about this world, reinforced by the particular fact that several woodland critters had helped with the chore. This was a magic land. Jake had grown a horn and wings and done a little magic, not very well, but still, it had been magic.

It still rankled Curry that all that had happened to her was a case of severe hair growth that had left her with something between a human head of hair and a horse’s mane.

All the ponies seemed to have a magic of some sort or another, with Twilight and Rarity being the most obvious about it. The critters could understand Curry perfectly well, and some of them she could understand almost as well as she had Jake before coming here. It seemed impossible that she shouldn’t have a little magic of her own.

That was why Curry intended to find herself a private spot once her self-imposed chores were done, and find out what her special talent was.

***

‟I’m telling you Pinkie Pie. Curry is the very least of our worries.”

***

Despite his curiosity, Sneak Peek had hung back far enough to avoid notice, at least from normal ponies. He just hoped Pinkie Pie didn’t invite him to join them. She’d done it on other occasions. As a result, he could barely make out one word in ten of their conversation. But what he was picking up was intriguing. For one thing, he was positive he’d heard Alicorn.

***

‟That reprehensible, selfish, little monster,” a voice growled out from nearby. The familiar tones of Rarity in a snit caused both Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie to direct their gaze forward as their friend came walking around the corner. Twilight was shocked at the unicorn’s appearance. Even Pinkie looked surprised, and not in her usual, what a wonderful surprise, way. Rarity was as far from her usual fashionable self as it was possible to get short of a dose of poison joke. The normally elegant white unicorn was a mess. Her dark blue mane was in disarray with random strands sticking out in all directions. Her tail was positively frizzy, and the bags under her eyes had bags of their own.

***

Behind his telephoto lens, Sneaky’s eyes widened. If ever a Mare had looked like she been rode hard it was Rarity. The one he had labeled as most likely to when he had first come to town before he realized she was just as innocent in some ways as her friends.

The fact that the hard-used unicorn was coming into town, early in the morning, was intriguing. Just who had she been visiting with all night? Sneaky made a fervent prayer to the goddess of yellow journalism that it wasn’t some mundane tryst with a local swain like the big red stallion out at the apple farm. ‟Please, please, let this be connected to whatever they were up to last night,” he prayed under his breath.

***

Twilight took in the wreck of her friend with dismay. Combined with Rarity’s rant, she jumped to conclusions. ‟Curry did this to you?” she asked in disbelief. She could have sworn the small filly was harmless.

Rarity was startled to see her friends and mortified to be seen in this condition before the spa had a chance to put her to rights, but her embarrassment was derailed by Twilight’s silly question. ‟Curry?” Don’t be ridiculous, Twilight! Aside from her dismaying lack of any sort of fashion sense, hardly rare around here, she was a delight. Not the least bit of trouble.”

‟Besides not liking the clothing you made for her?” Twilight asked dryly.

Rarity had been stifling a yawn, and asked around it, ‟Why, whatever make’s you say that, Twilight? I’ll inform you that Curry just loved the outfit I tossed together for her.”

‟But you said her fashion sense was terrible?” Twilight said in a puzzled tone. Normally she would not allow herself to be drawn into a discussion about fashion with Rarity.(3) The little filly, Curry, was still a huge mystery, however, and Twilight felt any datum about her could turn out to be significant.

Rarity stilled, suddenly looking slightly panicked. ‟I did, didn’t I?” she asked. Her eyes darted right and left as if seeking an escape.

An expression of despair washed over the white unicorn’s features and Rarity let out a loud cry as she wrapped her forelegs around Twilight’s neck and cried into her shoulder. ‟It! Was! Hideous!” She pushed herself backward so she was staring into Twilight’s eyes from inches away, her hooves holding the purple unicorn’s face in place. ‟Promise me, Twilight! Promise me that you will not turn your back on me when you see it! That you won’t toss me aside for inflicting such an abomination on the world!”

****

Sneaky’s eyes widened. Rarity’s voice carried quite well. She was certainly making no effort to keep her tone down. What shameful thing had she done? Something so bad she feared her friends would abandon her? What did she mean about inflicting an abomination on the world?

***

‟Oh, come on, Rarity.” An embarrassed Twilight protested, finding her personal boundaries once again violated within only a few minutes of Pinkie using her for a dinner plate in public. ‟It can’t be that bad. Not compared to how badly we messed up your gala designs after you went to all the trouble of making such lovely dresses for us.”

Rarity pushed herself even closer to Twilight, till their muzzles touched. ‟It! Is! The. Worst! Thing! Ever!” she declaimed dramatically. She reared back on her back legs and wavered in place as she first darted a glance behind her, and then directed a pointed look at Pinkie Pie, who picked up her cue and dashed around so as to be in place when her friend toppled over backward in a suitably dramatic faint.

Twilight rolled her eyes, ‟Well, if that is all, I do have to be heading over to check on Jake. To make sure he has not blown the place up,” she added under her voice.

‟What was that, dear?” Rarity said, pushing herself up out of Pinkie Pie’s legs and getting to her hooves.

‟Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. Everything is just fine,” Twilight hastily assured her drama queen friend. The last thing she wanted to leave Rarity with was the idea that Jake was a potential explosion waiting to happen, not when she wasn’t going to be around to sit on her. Seeking for a distraction, she grasped at something sure to sideline Rarity, a question about her appearance.

‟So why do you look so, so, like that?” Twilight asked, fumbling for a word that would not be grossly insulting while gesturing at Rarity’s body in general.”

Rarity let out a loud sob for effect before explaining, ‟It was that little monster of Fluttershy’s. He simply could not countenance me taking his spot in her bed and kicked up such a fuss that between him and Fluttershy I got no sleep at all last night.”

From somewhere Pinkie Pie produced a pair of glasses with a weird nose and mustache attached. A large fake cigar held from one hoof, she tossed her leg over Rarity’s shoulders and waggled her fake eyebrows lecherously while saying, ‟So, Rarity, tell us all about this kinky threesome that left you looking like something the cat dragged out.”

‟What was wrong with Fluttershy? Twilight asked in concern, ignoring Pinkie Pie’s incomprehensible behavior out of long practice.

‟Oh, no need for concern, darling. She simply insisted on slipping out of bed every hour or so to check on Curry. I have no idea where that pony gets her energy. Despite hardly any sleep at all, she was up at the most unholy of hours this morning preparing breakfast for her critters.”

‟Ah, so Curry was having trouble getting settled in a new place?” Twilight deduced.

‟Slept like a log, the dear. Which is more than I can say for some,” Rarity said, stifling a yawn behind a ladylike hoof.

‟Well, you can head home and get a nap now.” Twilight sympathized.

‟Don’t be ridiculous, darling. Looking like this? I’m heading right to the spa for the works.”

‟Well, don’t fall asleep in the mud bath, again,” Twilight said with a laugh. ‟I’ll be out at Sweet Apple Acres for the next few days if you need me for anything. Spike is looking after the library. Look in on him, if you would. Make sure he found the note I left him. He’s was still sleeping when I left.” Twilight felt her conscious easing a bit. She’d been feeling a bit guilty about running off and leaving Spike behind. Sending over Rarity would make a fine peace offering.

‟Whatever, darling,” Rarity said with the weary sigh of a desert traveler who knows the oasis is just around the corner and their long terrible journey is almost over.

Twilight and Pinkie Pie left their friend behind and trotted off. ‟I’m glad everything went well with Fluttershy,” Twilight said. ‟I just hope it went as smoothly at Applejack’s”

***

Sneaky hesitated for a moment before deciding to follow Twilight and Pinkie. Rarity was clearly coming from wherever the action was. Much as he would have loved to have witnessed her encounter, that ship had sailed. On the other hand, Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie were heading straight into what could turn out to be the story of the millennium.

***

Several minutes later Twilight and Pinkie Pie came into view of Sweet Apple Acres, and the purple unicorn let out the breath she had been holding for the last few seconds out of dread of what she might discover. ‟Well, at least the barn is still standing,” she said, only half-joking.

As they strolled through the gate her expression grew worried, again, as she heard hammering coming from inside Applejack’s disaster-prone outbuilding. ‟Or is it?” she questioned as she broke into a gallop and dashed inside the barn.

Her eyes widened as she spotted Applejack teetering on a ladder as she hammered planks into place on the floor of the hayloft at the back of the building. ‟Applejack? What happened? It wasn’t Jake, was it?”

Twilight’s sudden appearance, and called out questions, startled the precariously perched palomino and she started to topple off the ladder, only to be enveloped in the glow of Twilight’s magic as the purple unicorn steadied her friend in place. ‟I got you,” she said, reassuringly

‟Thankee kindly, Twilight,” Applejack said, after spitting out the mouthful of nails she’d been holding between her lips. ‟Ain’t no reason to fret, the colt just overestimated the clearance and got his horn caught in a crack.”

Twilight reached to the side with her magic and without looking snatched away the gag glasses Pinkie was just about to slap on her face. ‟Aww, you’re no fun,” Pinkie Pie protested jokingly.

‟Jake did this with his horn? No magic?” Twilight asked in an interrogatory manner.

‟Sure did. You should have seen the look on Big Mac’s face when he did.” Applejack let out a loud laugh. ‟That idiot had got it in his head that Jake was some sort of con-pony using a fake horn to pass his own self off as an Alicorn.”

‟Now don’t go fretting,” Applejack hastily assured Twilight when she saw the worried expression that comment had caused. ‟I explained everything to Big Mac and Granny Smith. It took a while, but once they got it they took to Jake like black on a skillet.”

‟What about, Apple Bloom? You did tell her that she had to keep him a secret?”

‟No need to fret, sugarplum. Apple Bloom and her friends are having a sleepover at the tree-house this weekend. She hasn’t even met him yet, and won’t for at least another day or two.”

‟I’m glad everything is well-in-hoof. Can I see, Jake? Is he in the house?”

Applejack let out a laugh. ‟You city girls. Not all us folk can laze around in bed till all hours. That there Jake is a real farm pony. He and Big Mac headed out to the back forty soon as the sun peeked up over the horizon. I was going to run some lunch out to them in a bit if you want to tag along?”

‟Jake is all alone with Big Mac. Are you sure that’s safe?” Twilight asked, and then hurriedly added when Applejack started to frown. ‟I just meant that Jake is still so new to having magic. Will Big Mac know what to keep an eye out for?”

‟Never you fret, Twilight,” Applejack said with a slight tightness to her voice. ‟Those two ponies have a heap of work to do. Jake ain’t going to have time to think about anything but getting the job done. You should have seen him this morning. He pretty much begged Big Mac to take him along so he could show my big brother how well he can pull. That there colt has taken a mighty big shine to Big Mac. Don’t think he ever had a stallion to look up to.” Applejack let out a chuckle, ‟Course, being as big as he is, don’t reckon he’s ever had any pony he could look up to. Nope, the only magic he’s going to be using is plain boring old, safe, earth pony magic,” There was more than a touch of sarcasm in Applejack’s words, but her tone of voice flew right over Twilight’s head as the unicorn had barely been listening to her friend.

Twilight told herself it was pointless to assume the worst with no basis for worry. While it was true that Jake was potentially dangerous, that was a far cry from assuming that disaster was assured because of it. It was only prudent to keep an eye on him, but it was unfair to treat him like some monster who could suddenly start rampaging through Ponyville.

‟Applejack, would you mind terribly if I stayed over at your place? Just till Princess Celestia makes arrangements for Jake. There is so much we don’t know about him, or about what he might be capable of. I’d just feel better if I was here in case something went wrong.”

Applejack was starting to get more than a little irritated. She loved Twilight like a sister, but sometimes the mare got right up her muzzle. You’d think nopony but a Unicorn could watch over a pony with strong magic. Lot’s of unicorns had been born to Earth Ponies. Just look at the Cakes. No one suggested they couldn’t cope with raising a Unicorn foal. Despite her annoyance, Applejack knew that Twilight was honestly concerned, so she had no trouble opening her home to her friend. ‟You’re welcome for as long as you want to stay, Twilight. No need to ask. You should know that. Course, I don’t think there is any need for you to fret, but if it makes you feel better, come stay on over.”

***

Sneaky kept well back from the property line to Sweet Apple Acres, relying on his telephoto lens to spy on what was happening. When Twilight and Pinkie Pie made a mad dash for the barn and vanished inside, he grew worried that the story might be taking place inside, out of his view. He was contemplating the advisability of trying to get closer when the two mares, along with Applejack, emerged from the barn and headed over to the farmhouse. A little while later they exited the house and now Applejack was sporting bulging saddlebags, while Twilight was missing hers.

Applejack trotted out onto the road in front of the farm and began to follow it toward the Everfree Forest with her friends right behind her. For a moment Sneak Peek was afraid she was going to lead them into the forest.

There were parts of Canterlot that even the Royal Guard didn’t go unless they were in a group. Not if they wanted to get out without cherry pie stains on their nice clean uniforms.(4) Sneaky practically lived in those places. But no payday, no matter how large, was worth going into that weird forest. It was just so freaking unnatural, the way everything did for itself with no help from any pony.

Fortunately, Applejack followed the border, which also marked the edge of Sweet Apple Acres, rather than actually entering the forest. The three ponies cantered along the fringe of the forest like it was nothing to worry about. Sneaky wasn’t so sanguine. He hopped over the fence that bordered the road and followed them from the inside. He just hoped none of the cows or sheep who lived on the farm, and paid their rent in trade, spotted him.

Applejack trotted along for about a mile, and then made a turn to the left, following the road as it diverged away from the forest. She was taking a long way around to the back of the farm Sneaky realized. The distance might have been longer, but this way they did not have to weave through the orchards and planted fields, resulting in a quicker trip.

Sneak Peek heaved a sigh of relief as they left the Everfree behind them. He jumped back over the fence and crossed to the other side of the road, which was growing as wild as anything ever did in Equestria. There was lots of cover, and no risk of attracting unwanted attention. Sneaky felt smug satisfaction. He was really starting to get the hang of this country stuff.

***

Pinkie was impressed. Private Eye was getting really good at hide-and-seek. Much better than when he first came to Ponyville and his wheezing for breath and hacking cough always gave him away. Even Applejack hadn’t spotted him, and she was almost as good at hide and seek as Pinkie. Unlike Twilight, who was really bad at noticing things that were not in a book, or otherwise right in front of her nose.

It never occurred to Pinkie to inform her friends they were being followed. That would be cheating. Besides, from the sounds of things, something really interesting was happening just over the rise they were currently trotting up.

Twilight soon heard the same noise that Pinkie had, and a look of worry crossed her face. She sped up, drawing ahead of Applejack, who was maintaining a calm trot. If she had looked backward she would have seen a small self-satisfied smile on the farm filly’s face.

Applejack was feeling pretty pleased with herself. While she had on occasion tried to pull a prank on one of her friends, it had always failed due to her inability to tell a believable lie, a strong necessity for would be pranksters setting up a pony. This time, however, all she’d had to do was keep a few facts away from Twilight, who was about to get the shock of her life.

Twilight reached the crest of the hill and came to a sudden stop, her expression aghast. Ahead of her was a scene of total chaos and destruction. Everywhere she looked were uprooted apple trees. They lay scattered across the ground like so many jackstraws. Their roots yanked free of the ground with only small clumps of dirt left clinging to them. The worst was the tree nearest her that was broken in half, its trunk ending in a mass of twisted splinters. Looking over the small valley, she could make out two figures on the other side of the destruction. Both Big McIntosh and Jake were easy to recognize because of their distinct color and size.

Twilight didn’t bother trying to make her way through the tangled mass of wood in front of her. She had a line of sight and she used, it teleporting directly to both stallions, just in time to prevent Jake from bucking yet another helpless apple tree. She wrapped him in magic and sent him stumbling to the side just as he reared up on his front legs and prepared to kick back at the tree.

Applejack reached the crest of the hill just as Twilight teleported. The small smile on her face vanished as she stared in shock at the scene in front of her. She felt a sinking sensation in her belly as she realized her little joke was not so little anymore. Worse, it looked like Twilight hadn’t been totally out of line in regards to her worry about Jake. She made haste to follow after the distraught purple unicorn.

‟Jake! What are you doing?” Twilight cried out as she faced the large colt. ‟How could you do this? How could you let him do this?” the last was directed at Big Mac, who was looking at her in a perplexed manner, and with more than a touch of nervousness given the massive ball of magic that was coalescing around the unicorn’s horn.

‟Aww, I almost had it, Miss Twilight,” Jake protested. ‟Why’d you stop me?”

‟Almost had it! Almost had it!” Twilight repeated, becoming more and more shrill with each repetition. ‟Almost had what?” she finished, her eyes wide and her mane starting to stand up on end.

Applejack and Pinkie Pie came rushing up, the two earth ponies easily using the fallen trees as springboards to rapidly cross the same distance Twilight had teleported across, and almost as quickly. The palomino farm pony skidded to a stop between Jake and Twilight and yelled at the top of her lungs. "I’m sorry, Twilight!”

The sheer volume and surprise at the apology snapped the magic user out of her panic attack.

‟Why are you sorry?” Twilight asked, her voice still more than a touch shrill. ‟Look what Jake has done! He’s ruined your orchard!”

Applejack, judging that it was safe to touch her friend, moved forward and gave her a hug. ‟Just take it, easy sweet-pea. I’m right sorry I let myself get annoyed with you and played such a nasty trick on you. It was just plain wrong of me, and I’m purely sorry for it.”

‟I don’t understand,” Twilight said, looking around at the devastation. Her rear legs gave out and she sat down on the ground. ‟This is all some sort of trick?”

‟Not the way you’re thinking, Twilight. Jake and Big McIntosh didn’t do this to fool you. But me not telling you what was going on. That was mean of me.”

‟What is going on?” A befuddled Twilight asked, as Pinkie Pie bounced over and gave a very worried looking Jake a hug, or at least as much of a hug as she could given his size. She had to stand up as high as possible on the tips of her rear hooves, and even then would not have managed it if he had not lowered his head to nuzzle her back.

‟Look around you, Sugarcube. There ain’t hardly a bushel of apples on all of these trees. Truth is, they’re well over fifty years old and haven’t produced much in the last two years. Most of them were dying. We already have more apples growing than we can harvest, so we haven’t fretted too much about this grove. But it was getting past time for them to be replaced so the new trees would be bearing when the next oldest grove starts to lose production. With Jake here, seemed a good time to take care of two things at the same time.”

Twilight took a deep breath, calming her rapidly beating heart. ‟Okay, I understand. Jake and Big Mac were just clearing the orchard. So you could plant new trees?” she questioned.

‟Sure enough, Twilight. But the trees are not gone, not really. We’uns took cuttings from these trees some time back and sent them to other Apple Family members. They sent us some cuttings from their old trees in return and we grafted those onto some good rootstock. Those there trees are big enough to be planted in the holes that Jake and Big Mac just made dragging the original trees out of the ground. Before you all know it, this grove will be as productive as ever it was, with the self-same apples that always have grown here.”

‟Twilight closed her eyes and flushed slightly. ‟I feel so foolish.”

‟You got nothing to feel foolish about, sugarcube. No way you could have known. Like I said, was a right dirty trick, and I’m plum sorry for it.”

‟What was the other thing?” Twilight asked.

‟What? Oh, right. Well, that was sort of what I was all annoyed at you about. You talking about how Jake needed a unicorn to watch out so he didn’t cause a big fuss. Big Mac and I talked all about that last night, already. Only you never thought to ask if we’d thunk about it. Usually, Y'all start teaching a filly, or a colt, how to buck trees when they’s way too young to do much harm. Pretty clear from the get-go that wasn’t going to be easy with Jake. So we figured to let him practice somewhere the mistakes wouldn’t matter hardly at all.”

‟That’s actually. . . a pretty good idea,” Twilight admitted, feeling embarrassed at her unwarranted assumption that Applejack and her family would be helpless in dealing with a magic using pony.

‟And it plum worked too. Likely you didn’t notice, but the last half dozen trees hardly have a hoof mark on them,” Applejack said, gesturing at the fallen trees nearest them.

‟So, Jake, you ready to give it another go?” Applejack asked the tall colt.

‟Is it ok, Miss Twilight?” he asked Twilight, looking at her with huge limpid, dark-brown eyes.

‟No need to ask me,” Twilight said with a rueful laugh. ‟Big Mac is your teacher. He’s the one you should be asking.”

‟Eyup. Give her a go,” Big McIntosh said, gesturing at one of only a half dozen remaining trees. It had all of five runty apples hanging from its ancient branches.

Jake all but strutted as he trotted over to the tree. He took a look to make sure everyone was watching him, and then stuck his tongue in his cheek as he concentrated with all his might. He lifted a rear hoof and measured the distance between his backside and the tree. Setting his hoof down, he twisted his front hooves to grind them into the ground and give himself good traction. He took a few deep breaths, looked over once again to make sure everyone was paying attention, and then reared up on his forelegs and kicked out at the trunk.

Twilight, remembering her first sight of the shattered apple tree, winced out of reflex, but the other ponies simply watched in anticipation.

Jake’s rear hooves thunked solidly against the tree, a small strip of bark was broken free from the trunk, revealing the pale wood underneath. Up above, first one, and then all five, apples bounced, and broke free of their stems to fall to the ground.

‟Yes, yes, yes,” Jake enthused capering around the five small discolored fruit. The ground shook under his weight and a few dead twigs broke off the tree and fell across his back. He ignored the debris. Jake looked over at his audience, his eyes gleaming. ‟I did it! I did it!” he enthused.

‟Sure did, Sugarcube. You did real good,” Applejack complimented him. The small bit of damage he had done to the bark was what she’d expect any foal to do. He would learn, just like she had when she was his age.

‟Eyup,” Big Mac affirmed, once again a stallion of few words now that he was surrounded by mares.

‟Yeah, yeah,” Pinkie Pie cheered, having produced pom poms from her bottomless saddlebags. She joined Jake, and the two of them bounced around each other like foals.

Jake came to a stop and gave his big head a shake. He was fairly trembling with excitement. He carefully walked over to the fallen fruit, making sure not to step on them and leaned down and carefully picked up one of the apples between his teeth. He trotted over to a half-full bushel basket and dropped his offering in it. He repeated the action with the other four apples.

‟I’ll haul those off to Fluttershy, along with the others they collected. Her critters won’t mind they’re not perfect,” Applejack said in an aside to Twilight.

Twilight hadn’t been paying attention to things as mundane as baskets of apples, but she now saw that there were some scattered all around the fallen trees, most of them only half full.

‟I guess there isn’t any need for me to stay, after all,” Twilight said in a low voice to Applejack. ‟You and Big Mac have things well in hand.” She dropped her head and shuffled her front right hoof in the dirt, doodling. ‟I’m sorry I didn’t think you could handle looking after Jake.”

‟Are you nuts, Sweetpea?” Applejack interjected in a loud voice, and then lowered it quickly as she continued. ‟Did you see what Jake did to that first tree?” There was more than a touch of concern in her voice. You can move the whole library to Sweet Apple Acres if that’s what it takes, but I want you around.”

‟Really?” Twilight said, her expression growing much brighter. ‟I did pack a book for you. We can go over it tonight together.”

‟Ahh, sounds like a plan,” Applejack said in a less enthusiastic tone of voice.

‟Eyup,” came the surprising inclusion from Big Mac. ‟Would be pleased, if I could join, Y'all,” he said to Twilight. ‟Got lots to teach the colt. Would be nice to have a bit of warning next time.”

Twilight and Applejack’s laughter joined that of Pinkie Pie and Jake. ‟Now, who’s for lunch?” Applejack asked, nudging open the flap of her saddlebag. ‟I brought plenty for everyone.”

‟And I brought a cake to celebrate Jake’s first day of Applebucking and tree smashing,” Pinkie said.

‟There’s cake?” Jake asked, his entire huge body pointed at Pinkie Pie's saddlebags like Wynona seeing a rabbit.

“Yep, apple upside down cake,” Pinkie confirmed.

“A cake. With apples!” Jake said in an awed voice, taking a step toward Pinkie Pie, and what to him was the holy grail.

‟After lunch,” Applejack said firmly as she snapped open a picnic blanket with her mouth.

***

‟So, this is what a heart attack feels like,” Sneak Peek mused softly as he lay flat on his back, his legs in the air. He was about two miles away from the scene of utter destruction he had left behind. He felt no guilt at running like a scared colt on Nightmare Night. Maybe the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony could be casual about consorting with monsters, he was not nearly so uncaring about keeping his hide in one piece.

‟An Alicorn! A fully grown, and then some, male Alicorn!” he whispered intently.

Where had he come from? Did it matter? Hell yes.

His mind went over the facts as he knew them. Given his coloration, the Everfree Forest connection, his maturity. There was really only one conclusion to be drawn. When Nightmare Moon returned, she hadn’t come alone. She’d brought her son along with her!

You only had to look at the destroyed apple orchard to see why they'd kept him a secret. Clearly, he was a danger to the general public.

It was a pretty good guess that Celestia was not going to write off her nephew, not when she had just reconciled with her sister. Blasting Luna’s son out of existence might just sour that reconciliation. Clearly, she had assigned the Elements the task of civilizing the monster.

And equally clearly, Rarity had let herself get too close, and had suffered severe guilt over it afterward if that little scene in town was anything to go by.

This was going to be the biggest story of his career. Heck, it was going to be the biggest story ever.

Strangely, the thought that popped into Sneak Peek’s head with that thought was that while a washed-up has-been might not be worthy of the love of good mares, the most famous journalist in the history of Equestria was another matter entirely.

***********************

(*)A comparison of relative degrees of shock can be calculated by noting that unlike the day before when Big McIntosh had walked in on his little sister giving a bath to a strange stallion, he had not let his ever-present strand of straw drop.

(1)Sneaky was pretty sure by this time that all six mares were totally oblivious to the fact that there was a steady stream of would-be suitors, of the shady variety, visiting the town. It was one of his few true pleasures to document their encounters with Pinkie Pie and to make sure that they knew he had the pictures and wasn’t afraid to use them. Their sort was even less fond of the sun than he was, and unlike him, had a strong aversion to the truth, especially in how it pertained to them.

(2)He might not have been bitten by a radioactive reporter, but he had the tooth and hoof marks from more than a few of his fellows as they crowded around the latest scandal de jour.

(3)Mainly because it would be less a discussion and more a listen.

(4)You know it’s a rough neighborhood when they leave the pits in.

Ch13 Welcome to the Palace [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Ch 13
Welcome to the Palace.

***

The dark-clad pony slowly crept through the back alleys of Ponyville, keeping to the shadows and pausing anytime a pony came near. Truthfully, this was not as difficult as it seemed, because this close to dawn, the only pony out and about was the milkcolt. Dusty black cloth covered every inch of the pony’s hide, with the exception of a strange tri-lens headpiece strapped over its eyes.

The shadow in the night pushed through a border of bushes into the backyard of Bon Bon’s candy shop, and paused at the sight of a huge, jet-black Pegasus stallion slumbering on top of a thin ground level cloud in the middle of the yard, sheltered beneath his own wings. The ninja pony let out a gasp at the sight of a horn jutting from the stallion’s brow. A hoof went to its head, and it made a small adjustment to its unusual headgear. A moment later a muffled, ‟darn” was heard, and the figure backed into the shadows and worked its way around the perimeter of the yard until it could reach the back door to the sweet shop and slip inside.

***

Sweets had watched the entire performance through slitted eyes. Soundlessly he rose to his feet and spread his wings. As silent as a ghost, he glided through the air until he came to a stop beside the rear entrance. He leaned over and pressed his ear to the door. There was no real worry behind his actions. The thought that the pony might be a genuine threat never crossed his mind. In fact, from his short stay in Ponyville a couple of months before he had a pretty good idea who she was. It never hurt to be sure though.

***

‟Bon Bon? Bon Bon?” Lyra whispered, loudly, trying to attract the attention of her roommate/lover.

The journeymare candy-maker looked up from where she was checking off the last item she’d just shelved in the storage room. Her eyes were half-lidded with exhaustion. They didn’t stay that way. ‟What the hay,” she yelled out in shock, jumping stiff-legged into the air and threatening to knock over some of her carefully stacked supplies, as she found herself face to face with a bug-eyed monster dressed in a loose-fitting black garment. Her heart threatened to leap right into her throat and she was suddenly as wide awake as it was possible to get without resorting to some of her special formula candy, or an entire pot of triple mocha espresso.

Her panic subsided as she recognized the black outfit as Lyra’s, sneaking-around-looking-for-strange-things outfit, the bizarre headpiece was new, however. It seemed to consist of three lenses of different lengths that covered almost all of Lyra’s upper face. ‟What the heck are you wearing? You nearly gave me a heart attack!” she yelled at her marefriend.

‟Do you like them?” Lyra asked enthusiastically, pushing the triple lens headpiece up against her horn. ‟Pinkie Pie lent them to me. They’re night-vision goggles. I can see in the dark almost as well as a Nocturne with these. I’ll be able to spot the humans no matter how dark it is. But, that’s not what’s important right now. Who is that gorgeous stud camping out in the backyard?”

‟Don’t even think about it,” Bon Bon said firmly. ‟He’s one of your mother’s matchmaking attempts. I’ve drafted him to help with candy making for the next few days.”

‟Really? Mother sent him? Her taste is improving. He looks like a cart-Pegasus. Her picks usually look like they’d be more likely to swap fashion tips than show a mare a good time. But what’s with that freaky horn he’s wearing on his head? I thought it was the real deal till I checked him out with my night-goggles.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. ‟Don’t ask me. It’s some bizarre stallion thing. Apparently, he lost a bet and has to wear the stupid thing for a week. The important thing is, don’t flirt with him. I’ve already told him that I won’t discuss why he came to Ponyville until I get Pinkie’s order finished. Besides, he’s a pervert who has a thing for sucking on strange mare’s tails.”

Lyra’s eyes went wide, and she craned her neck around to stare at Bon Bon’s hindquarters. ‟I thought your tail was looking a bit frazzled. I’m surprised you didn’t kick him where it counts.”

‟Oh, I thought about it, believe me,” Bon Bon said, even as her face flushed in memory of how she’d run like a scared filly on Nightmare Night. ‟If Rainbow Dash hadn’t been there, I might have really messed him up.”

‟Lucky for him, then,” Lyra said with a nod of her head.

‟So, how went the human hunting?” Bon Bon asked, to get the inevitable out of the way.

Lyra looked a bit discouraged. ‟No luck yet.” Her expression brightened slightly and she added, ‟But I got a bit of help. I recruited Twist, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to keep an eye out for anything strange and to let me know.”

‟I hope you didn’t scare the girls. Camping out all alone, even if its only in their clubhouse in the orchard, is scary enough. I don’t want Twist running all the way home in the middle of the night because the little fillies got scared of some shadows.”

‟Don’t worry. Those stories about humans being pony-eating monsters are bogus. I told them about how humans used their magic to help ponies find the things they most needed.”

There was something about that statement that worried Bon Bon, but with the scare, Lyra had given her wearing off, she was too tired to think what it might be. ‟I’m going to bed to try and get a couple of hours of sleep before the sun comes up.”

Lyra let out a huge yawn, ‟I’ll join you. I have to survey the area on the other side of Sweet Apple Acres tomorrow,” she frowned and corrected herself, ‟today.” She gave her head a shake, and letting out another wide yawn, followed Bon Bon to their bedroom, so tired that she was only slightly intrigued at the idea of doing a little tail munching of her own. That big black stallion might be a pervert, but she couldn’t fault his taste in mares.

***

Sweets winged his way back to his lonely camp in the middle of the back yard. What he had overheard had given him lots to think of. He was a young healthy stallion, so one of those things was that crazy ninja-mare thought he was a gorgeous stud. To the likely surprise of a few of his friends, that was only his secondary concern. His first concern was that he wasn’t really happy about her hunting humans.

Technically Sweets was not here to guard the Alicorn stallion or his human companion. His job was to be a stalking horse, to attract and deflect attention, as well as to sow doubts in any reports of an over-sized black Alicorn stallion that might make their way to the press. It wasn’t his job to deflect Lyra from her hunting or to protect the human from her. That didn’t stop him from thinking that he should. Given his usual attitude toward mares, and her avowed appreciation of his fine flanks, one logical means of distracting her sprang readily to mind. But right on the tail of that thought an image of Bon Bon’s scowling face popping into his mind. The idea of doing anything that would cause that sweet-smelling mare to look at him with even more disdain than she already did was distasteful to the extreme.

He reassured himself that the Alicorn and the Human were under the protection of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Given their past record, that was a far more potent level of security than anything a simple guard barely two months out of the academy could offer.

In any case, he just happened to recognize the names of three of the particular ponies Lyra had mentioned. He highly doubted anypony had anything to worry about from the cute little fillies who had spent the time during his last visit to Ponyville helping out in the Library. They had been cute as buttons with how they had taken their ‘responsibilities’ so seriously. Especially the little pegasus mare who had styled herself an honorary Royal Guard in training.

Sweets nestled down on his cloud mattress and was soon fast asleep, dreaming of Bon Bon hoof feeding him one delectable chocolate after another. Each one sweeter than the last.

***

Denied the sky by her fear, Goose could have become a lonely isolated pony. The various aunts, cousins and older mares of the family would have been happy to sequester her deep in the house, away from the sun and sky. She refused such sanctuary, and with the complicity of her older brothers she escaped the comfortable darkness of her family home and ventured out in secret under the terrifying night sky every chance she had. If she could not fly, she still had her legs. Head down she ran everywhere. There were chores normally reserved for the stallions that involved carrying heavy loads, she did those, relying less and less on her natural pegasus ability to reduce the weight and mass of a load as time went on.

It was a rare day during this time period when Goose did not fall into bed a quivering mass of overworked muscles. After all, her only alternative was to suffer through night terrors which gave her a strong motivation to exhaust herself as much as possible every night. Her body grew as hard and firm as an earth pony. She laughed at the normal physical challenges life threw at her. The ten-hour cleaning shifts at the Palace were a walk in the park for her sturdy, durable body. Usually.

This past night had been anything but the usual. Dozens of ponies had been dashing back and forth, tracking dust and dirt all over her nice clean hallways and forcing her to clean the same lengths of corridor again and again. It would have had a normal maid cursing certain inconsiderate ponies who were too lazy to get their work done during proper business hours when there was a full cleaning crew to deal with their messes. Or at the very least, couldn’t they have restricted their activities to some other maid’s area of responsibility? Even the small Nocturne was feeling the burn as her shift moved to a close.

Goose hadn’t minded at all. Her head had been too full of anticipation. She had listened with rapt attention to the chattering ponies as they went about their chores. It seemed that Princess Luna herself was excavating a forgotten archive of lost lore, searching for some special magic.

Goose fairly trembled with excitement and dread at the thought she might see the Princess of the Night again. The excitement was easily understood given what a rabid fan-pony she was, the dread was that she would once again disgrace herself as she had a few nights before when she had encountered the Princess and turned into a gibbering wreck in front of the amused stare of Princess Luna’s personal guard, the notorious Pumpernickel Rye.

In the end, there had been lots of dirt, but no Princess Luna. Goose was currently frantically trying to restore her hallways to perfect order before the day shift took over. She was darned if they were going to have any reason to think she wasn’t up to the task. She ran the duster in her mouth around the base of a pony-sized vase and felt a sudden clunk as a small tattered notebook was knocked out from behind it and into view, falling open as it did so. For a moment she stared at the innocuous item, running her options through her mind. Trash was out. While tattered it was clearly not garbage. Lost and found then, she thought as she reached for it, then she spotted the special sigil of Princess Luna on the inside cover. Goose froze in shock. Trembling she picked up the precious object. She handled it with the reverence and care an object that had been touched by the sacred hoof of the Lady of the Night deserved.

She battled the urge to tuck it into her apron and pretend that she had never seen it.

***

‟A productive evening, I think,” Luna remarked to her personal hoof-maiden, Laminia, as she strolled down the hallway toward her office. She had just lowered the moon and stars and was looking forward to some intensive research into the transformation spell for young Jake before retiring for the day.

Princess Luna could not have looked more unlike her usual dark beauty, seen as how she was cloaked from horn to hoof in the dust smock that she had been wearing down in the sealed archives. The formerly plain white garment was now covered in dirt and grime, giving the Princess the look of a homeless bag mare, at least in the eyes of her mortified hoof-maiden which was a fact Luna seemed totally ignorant of. Although, if Laminia had been able to pull her eyes away from her mistress’ soiled flanks long enough to meet Luna’s eyes, she might have detected a slight twinkle there that would have indicated the princess was not as oblivious to Laminia’s feelings as she seemed.

‟As you say, my lady,” the Nocturne mare replied in a distracted manner. The sight of Luna dressed in the dirt-smeared dust smock was physically painful to her artistic soul. Her hooves itched with the urge to strip it from Luna and send it to be cleaned, and then burned, and then have the ashes thrown into the wash to be cleaned again.

Strolling past the guards on duty at the door, the two dark-hued mares entered Luna’s office. The Princess of the Night felt a glow of contentment as she took in the stacks of books that decorated her desk and most other convenient surfaces. They were all old friends she had thought lost to her forever. Merely looking at the covers brought back memories of curling up in the dark of the night, the glow from her horn illuminating the text as she chased down facts and formulated theories. Or just enjoyed a ripping good adventure yarn.

‟So many,” Laminia commented softly, her expression slightly dismayed as she contemplated the formidable task ahead for her mistress. She was remembering how wired Luna had been after the last all-night binge of research, and was not looking forward to another such incident.

‟Not so many, dear Laminia,” Luna replied. ‟There are actually only four books relevant to the task at hoof. Even then I only need them to confirm some facts I have already taken into account. I simply do not want to risk the slightest chance things will go awry. I believe that I shall be ready within a day to attempt the task my sister and I have considered.”

‟But, all of these,” Laminia replied, gesturing at the towering stacks of literature.

‟I could hardly leave such dear old friends alone in the dark once I had found them again after so many years,” Luna said in a soft distracted voice as she ran a gentle hoof over the nearest folio. ‟Why I even found Star Swirl the Bearded’s student journal. I had thought that lost long before my quarrel with Tia. Twilight Sparkle shall be most joyful when she receives her Hearth's Warming gift this year,” Luna added with an expression of anticipation on her face.

‟Would you like me to help you out of your garb, Ma’am?” Laminia asked, visions of trash cans dancing in her head. ‟You will wish to freshen up a bit before the young filly comes for her interview.”

‟Thank you, yes,” Luna replied. ‟Has maintenance refurbished the maid’s utility room yet?”

Luna’s suite of rooms, like her sister’s, contained fully functional workrooms for the various support staff a ruling Diarch required. A laundry room was adjacent to Laminia’s own dressmaking studio. There was also a large kitchen, fully capable of preparing everything from a late night snack to a full formal banquet. There was even a handyman’s workshop. Most of these rooms had been mothballed for centuries and were only now being brought up to modern standards, but as of yet were empty of the staff needed to use them.

‟Yes, they finished the other day,” Laminia replied as she helped Luna out of the filthy duster.

‟That is well. You may leave it there for Goose Down to clean.”

Laminia managed to keep her expression neutral as Luna dashed any hope she might have had of disposing of the abomination. She was not able to keep a small grimace from appearing on her muzzle when the princess added, ‟Would be best, I think if you created several more such garments. I saw many things of interest while excavating the old records. When time allows we shall explore a bit more.” Luna stopped and considered a bit. ‟Possibly Twilight Sparkle would be interested in lending a hand with the cataloging?” she said in a questioning tone that held a slight uncertainty.

‟I’m sure she would be most delighted to root around in the dust and dirt with you, Ma’am,” Laminia said in a carefully neutral tone of voice as she gingerly carried the soiled garment over to a nearby hamper. Having placed the offending garment out of sight, if not out of mind, Lamina gave a small bow to Princess Luna. ‟With your leave, Ma’am, I will go and escort the young filly here for her interview.”

‟Hmm?” Luna murmured, looking up from the book she had opened up and was perusing. ‟Ah, yes. You may leave,” she said with a distracted air, her attention turning back to the book she had floated up in front of her face.

‟Would you like me to run a bath for you before I leave, Ma’am?” Laminia asked, dropping a broad hint.

Luna jerked her attention away from the open book, just the slightest touch of red gracing her cheeks. ‟That will not be necessary,” she said in a slightly flustered voice. ‟Your most excellent cover kept most of the dust from our hide. We will freshen up and be ready when you return.”

Laminia would not dream of staring at her princess like she was a little filly putting off bath time, but neither did she make a move to leave the room till the princess closed the book she had been studying with a reluctant sigh and headed for the bathroom. Only then did the loyal hoof-maiden exit, closing the door behind her.

***

Pumpernickel Rye was standing guard outside the royal chambers, waiting for the day shift, which was due to show in a few minutes. ‟I’m leaving to collect Goose Down now, dear. I should not be long,” Laminia informed her husband before trotting down the hallway.

Pumpernickel, in official guard mode, gave no response to her information, nor did he turn his head to watch her as she walked away, her tail and hips swishing delightfully. He did, not for the first, or likely the last, time, give fervent thanks at being blessed with such excellent peripheral vision.

***

The instant Princess Luna stepped into her bathroom, her detached attitude vanished. As the door closed, sealing her inside, her eyes narrowed in concentration and a soft pulse of magic flowed out from her body, bouncing off everything in the way and reflecting back to her. Her mind analyzed the returning magic, paying special attention to the trace elements of foreign magic that it carried back to her. Earth pony magic from the maintenance workers, who had brought the room up to modern princess standards. Pegasus magic, residue from the painters who had refinished the walls and ceilings were mixed in as well. And there it was, what she was looking for. A tiny, almost invisible, trace of Tia’s magic. Luna focused and sent out a narrower pulse in the direction the reflection had come from. This led her to a pristine bar of creamy white soap sitting in its bowl beside the sink.

Luna levitated a dark-colored washcloth and, after dampening it, rubbed it against the indicated object, all while staying well clear. The hand cloth turned white as snow where it had contacted the ‘soap’. Luna smirked in satisfaction. ‟You are slipping, sister dear,” she announced to the empty room.

Having determined that there was no other active magic currently in the bathroom Luna once again concentrated. The pulse of magic that flowed out from her this time did not bounce but clung to all the outer walls, ceiling, and floor. Insulating the room from any outside magic. The spell would stay up until overwhelmed by extremely powerful external magic, or Luna popped the bubble from the inside.

Not satisfying with checking and insulating against magical attacks, Luna carefully inspected the bathroom for any further traps or tricks. Lastly, she made sure that most mundane of bathroom accessories were present. A full roll of Toilet Paper. [1]

Smirking at the thought of Tia’s coming frustration, and her own cleverness, Luna rinsed her face and sent magical fingers of energy through her mane to puff it up. It had been sadly compacted by her duster, but the garment had fulfilled its mandate and had kept her lovely ethereal mane dust free. She next made use of the facilities and was still feeling very self-satisfied when she reached for the roll of T.P. and was rewarded with a clunk as her hoof knocked against the roll of paper.

Luna stared at what seemed like a perfect fluffy roll of soft comfort in disbelief. She poked it again, and again, each time being rewarded with a small clunk as her hoof encountered what was beyond a shadow of a doubt, a piece of beautifully carved marble.

The Diarch of the Night threw back her head and screamed out, ‟Tia, thou shall pay for this most grievous of insults.”

The wards of protection around her bathroom popped like a soap bubble in the face of her wrath, and a soft pulse of magic filled the entire palace, so indistinct that only the most sensitive of Unicorns even noticed it passing. Not until it reached its intended target did it resolve into a coherent message that carried Luna’s vow of revenge.

***

Celestia paused with a cup of tea halfway to her lips. She smiled, licked her right forehoof, and drew a coup mark in the empty air, much to the puzzlement of the advisers who she was currently consulting with.

***

Pumpernickel detected motion down the hall and shifted his head a bare fraction of an inch, just enough to clearly see the oncoming pony. An eyebrow arched in surprise as he saw little Goose Down trotting down the hallway toward him, an expression that was a mix of anticipation, and outright terror on her face. She was still dressed in her black and white maid’s uniform with the white lace trimmed saddlebags that carried her basic supplies, but there was something obviously missing.

There was no sign of Laminia.

The big blocky nocturne frowned. There was no way that his wife would have sent the filly here on her own. Besides which, Goose was coming from the wrong direction, and it was far too soon. Laminia would not yet have reached the area where Shadow Dash had agreed to meet her with Goose.

The small Nocturne mare reached him and gazed up at his stoic muzzle. ‟Pardon me, sir. But I found this in the hallway. I think it might belong to Princess Luna,” she said, her voice quivering from nerves. She extracted a small tattered notebook from her saddlebag, handling it as if it were worth more than all the jewels in Equestria.

***

Goose was afraid she was going to throw up. Her stomach felt like she’d just finished five hundred crunches and her legs were as wobbly as if she’d just run fifty miles with a hundred-pound pack. It wasn’t the guard causing her distress. The stallion in front of her didn’t hold a candle to her big brother, Shadow when it came to projecting an aura of intimidation. In fact, Optio Pumpernickel looked almost kindly. Or, as kindly as his rather rough-hewn features allowed. It didn’t make a lick of difference. He might as well not even have been there for all the attention she was sparing him. The only thing filling her mind was the faint, terrifying, hope that she might actually get to hand her find to the Princess directly. She held the notebook firmly between her hooves and resisted the urge to try and peer around Pumpernickel to see if Princess Luna was in the room behind him.

‟Wait, please. The princess’ hoof-maiden will be here in a short while,” he said, staring over her head as he continued to scan the hallway.

‟Yes. Of course! I’ll just wait, right here. In this spot, here!” Goose blurted out, even as she told herself to stop babbling and shut up. She shifted slightly to the side and turned so she was standing next to the guard, on the opposite side from the entrance to Princess Luna’s office. Unconsciously she adopted the same stance as him.

Pumpernickel suppressed a grin at the earnest little mare’s actions. She was going to become part of the Princess Luna’s household, even if she did not know it yet. That made her family in a way, and he found himself experiencing the same sort of emotion he would have felt if she had been one of his younger brothers. Not one of his younger sisters. Even at Goose's age, they had been mysterious and dangerous creatures beyond his ken. No, Goose definitely projected a younger brother quality. He had noticed the same thing when he had walked her home the day before. He gave his head an internal shake in bemusement. He had never before encountered or expected to, a Nocturne Tomcolt.

The two ponies stood side by side, Pumpernickel immobile and unresponsive, Goose with quivering flanks and the occasional shuffled hoof. The small mare’s motions slowly calmed as she seemed to take strength from the stolid pony next to her. Soon, Goose was as still as Pumpernickel, except for the occasional ear twitch.

‟PUMPERNICKEL! Thy Princess requires thou!”

The booming voice from inside the office nearly knocked Goose to her knees, even as Pumpernickel whirled and dashed inside while throwing a command to, ‟Stay!” over his shoulder as he left.

Goose gulped as her former sense of nausea returned. What was going on? Was the Princess in danger? Should she run for help? She had been ordered to stay. But what if a Griffin assassin had flown in through a window and even now was tearing the guard stallion into shreds.

Not that there were any sounds coming from inside that would indicate such mayhem. She could just make out Pumpernickel’s voice and another muffled tone that sounded like the pony in question was talking through a door.

‟Yes, Understood. Without delay, Ma’am,” she heard Pumpernickel say in reply to whatever the other pony, Princess Luna? had said. Goose found her heart was racing at the mere thought that the princess might only be a few feet away.

A moment later the bulky guard walked out of the office, staring at her as if she were a gift from the heavens. ‟Do you have a spare roll of toilet paper in your saddlebags?” he asked out of the blue.

Goose blinked in surprise at the unexpected question, and actually took a step back from the rather wild expression in the big guard’s eyes. ‟No,” she stammered out. She continued to speak as a look of despair filled his eyes. His expression caused her to break her promise to keep such information from civilian, non-maid ponies.(2)

‟Each bathroom has a small concealed storage unit for spare necessities, kept fully stocked at all times with a couple of months worth of supplies.”

Goose had never been in the Princess’ private rooms before. Her duty was merely to clean the assigned general areas, but she had been assured that every single bathroom had such a storage area. At least since the last renovations, a month or so ago, had made sure of it.

Goose gave a little squeak of alarm as the stallion’s bat-wing snapped out and settled over her shoulders, barely repressing her instinctive reaction to such forward behavior from a stallion who was still mostly a stranger to her. He hustled her into the office and over to a closed door. He knocked once and announced. ‟The maid is here, Ma’am.” In an aside to Goose he said, very softly. ‟Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite.” He then turned tail and dashed back to his post, leaving a stunned Goose standing alone in front of a door that suddenly looked a lot more intimidating than it had a moment before.

The petite Nocturne felt like she was strangling. Her chest seemed to be one big ball of tension and it was difficult to breathe. She found herself staring at the door to the bathroom as if it was a portal to a nether dimension.

A voice, smooth and gentle, came from the other side of the hell portal. ‟Optio Pumpernickel is right, my little pony. We do not bite.” Goose jumped slightly and hesitantly reached for the doorknob. She must have been too slow because the voice spoke again, this time more firmly. ‟But if thou do not move thy flanks, we may choose to rethink that policy.”

The voice sounded so much like one of her older sisters in full on little sisters are such a pain mode, that Goose managed to set aside her terror temporarily. Drawing a huge breath, she plastered a wide smile on her face, opened the door, and went inside.

****

Pumpernickel heaved a sigh of relief when he spotted the day shift guards trotting down the hallway at a brisk pace. After Shadow Dash’s interview with the princess, he knew how important this first meeting between Goose and Princess Luna was. He had hated sending her in alone, but leaving the doorway unguarded simply was not an option.

The senior duty guard stomped to a halt in front of him and opened his mouth to formally announce his readiness to take over the duty. Pumpernickel beat him to the punch. ‟I am relieved, you have the duty. The Princess is interviewing her new maid. Her hoof-maiden will be here shortly. Please do not allow the princess to be disturbed by anyone else.” [3]

Pretending not to notice the deeply offended expression on his fellow guard’s face, Pumpernickel backed into Luna’s office and closed the door behind him.

At that point, the very male guard was a bit lost. He could hardly go barging into Her Royal Highness’ bathroom to offer moral support to the young filly. Yelling encouragement through the door was also not advisable. Truth was, he was even more useless than he had been standing guard, at least then he had been performing an important function. He was now very much the fifth leg. He could only hope things did not go too badly awry.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the door to the bathroom suddenly glowed with the unmistakable starry hue of Princess Luna’s magic. It swung open, and a moment later a wide-eyed, stiff-legged, Nocturne filly floated out the door and was set gently on the office floor. The magic withdrew and the door to the bathroom swung gently shut. Goose remained standing, frozen in place with her face twisted into a smiling grimace, her panic-stricken eyes wide, but unseeing.

It was as severe a case of {Extreme Royal Shock} as Pumpernickel had ever seen. The poor filly had been thrust into the most intimate encounter possible with the Ruler of the Night, her Royal Highness, Diarch of Equestria, and to the Nocturne, Mother of their Race, Princess Luna. That the Pony in question was a Nocturne only made the situation worse.

Pumpernickel usually felt a great deal of internal hilarity at ponies in this condition. Having suffered through bouts of it himself, he felt he had paid his dues and was allowed to enjoy being an observer instead of a victim. This time there was none of that. He felt nothing but sympathy for poor Goose but was quite positive he had no interest at all in applying the only known quick cure for her condition. Sympathetic he might have been, but Laminia could be back any minute looking for her wayward charge or to report that she seemed to be missing, and he was seriously trying to suppress his penchant for random bouts of suicidal behavior.

At that moment, the door to the bathroom opened and Princess Luna strolled out in full regal mode. Only someone who knew her as well as Pumpernickel would have noticed the slight tinge of a flush coloring her cheeks. She was accompanied by a small floating pile of white gravel, which she levitated over to the trash container next to her desk, and gave a snort of satisfaction as she deposited it therein.

With neck arched and spine straight as a ruler, Luna turned her attention to Goose as she declaimed in her best royal voice, ‟We thank thee for your most timely assistance. It bodes well for our future interactions.” Luna trailed off as she noticed a decided lack of attention on the part of the filly she was being magnanimous toward. She frowned, her embarrassment at her previous situation making her a bit short tempered.

Pumpernickel gave a discreet cough and asked, ‟If I may, Ma’am?”

Luna, who’s scowl had started to turn puzzled, turned her attention from the rigid form of Goose toward the large royal guard.

‟I’m afraid that young Goose has been quite overcome at the experience of meeting you.”

‟Ah, you are saying she is suffering from RSS?" Luna asked. "But, the cure of that is most easily administered,” she continued, her expressing turning fey. At that moment the resemblance between her and her sister was unmistakable.

Luna sidled up beside the immobile Goose and lowered her head till her nose brushed the tip of the filly’s ear. She extended her tongue and gave the inside of Goose’s ear a long languorous lick. The young Nocturne shivered, her eyes going from blank to startled, and muscles twitched all over her body.

***

Pumpernickel’s fear of his own strength, and inner demon, combined with a penchant for refusing to strike seriously at a sparring opponent, had led to him developing superlative defensive abilities.

A large part of defensive martial arts was reading an opponents body language and knowing what was coming from the smallest of muscle twitches.

It was this skill that had the large muscular Night Guard thrusting himself between Princess Luna and Goose before his conscious mind had time to fully register just why he was doing it.

Pumpernickel was a bulky, heavily armored, pony. He was confident that he would be able to deflect whatever half-remembered self-defense move Luna’s action had instigated. After all, Goose was half his size at best. He realized he’d been overconfident when one of the filly’s over-sized wings snapped out and under his belly, even as she folded her legs and thrust her barrel against his knees.

Too late Pumpernickel realized that Goose’s phobia against flying in the open sky had done nothing to diminish her ability to lighten loads she was in contact with. In this case, the load was himself. The room pin-wheeled in his vision as he was thrown over the smaller pony’s back. His own wings thrust out in an attempt to soften the impact, but it was too little, too late. His back slammed against the office floor hard enough to make him see stars while the breath gushed from his lungs. Even as he drew in a great gasp of air, his instincts made him continue to roll. He could only pray that this allowed him to take the finishing blow from the small Nocturne on his armored rear legs instead of something a lot softer and more delicate.

Pumpernickel could have thrust Goose up and off of himself and more than likely avoided the kick he knew was coming, but his own early childhood trauma held him firmly in check. He was totally incapable of lashing out at an innocent pony with anywhere near his true strength. As he braced himself for what was to come he stared upward into Goose’s eyes and saw life suddenly flow back into the filly’s expression. The blow she had aimed at him was pulled up short. The panic-stricken look in her eyes disappeared, to be replaced with one of puzzlement, quickly changing into outright shock, and something else.

Pumpernickel was pretty sure that he’d worn that expression of utter despair on more than one occasion himself. He was already inclined to sympathize with the startled filly but that expression and the obvious feelings behind it increased that inclination a hundredfold. [4]

The winded Night Guard, opened his mouth to speak, with the intent of reassuring Goose, who was right on the verge of a total breakdown from the looks of things. Before he could utter a syllable, the young filly let out a cry of mortification and scrambled off of the supine Pumpernickel, whose eyes suddenly bulged as she did by accident what she had almost done with intent. A high pitched squeak escaped him.

Goose looked at what she had done in terror and mortification. She had assaulted the Princess’ personal guard. She would have assaulted the Princess if he had not intervened. She had shamed herself, shamed her family. Her name would be eradicated from the family’s Book of Tradition. Her name would go on the list of names that were never to be bestowed on another pony. Her mother would lose her position as senior mare if she was not ejected from the family outright. Not that Goose would be around to see any of that. Any minute the terrible justice of the Ruler of the Night would fall on her head, and she would exit this world as a small pile of ash.

It was no more than she deserved.

Goose didn’t even attempt to meet her fate standing on four hooves with head lifted high. A wretch like her had no business presuming a right to such behavior. She huddled on the floor, her wings mantled around her body and waited for the divine hammer to fall.

***

Luna had been rather violently thrust aside by her loyal, ox-brained, Royal Guard, and had been forced to stagger backward a few steps to keep from falling on her posterior. Only her pride was bruised, but that was enough to make her feel extremely annoyed at her guard.

All her annoyance fled as she watched Pumpernickel somersault over the back of the small filly whose ear she had just licked, a filly who was a fraction his size. It happened so fast that Luna had to mentally replay the action. One of Goose’s over-sized wings had snapped out under the large guard’s stomach and lifted, while at the same time she had folded her legs and thrust her small body against his knees. Pumpernickel had stumbled forward, at which point the petite nocturne had thrust herself upright, catapulting the much larger pony into the air. Her body had twisted as her wing continued to press firmly against the much heavier stallion’s belly, accelerating his awkward descent toward the flooring in a most amusing fashion.

The entire room shuddered as Pumpernickel’s back slammed into the floor with Goose riding him in a nearly-obscene manner all the way down. Luna’s amusement abruptly fled when Goose’s rear leg lashes forward far too quick for her to stop, heading for a part of Pumpernickel’s anatomy that would cause him a great deal of pain, and make Laminia a very lonely mare for several weeks.

At the last minute, Goose pulled her kick and Luna had let out a sigh of relief. Laminia would have been most wroth with her if Pumpernickel had taken that foul blow. A second later she winced as the small filly scrambled off of the large Royal Guard, and stepped on the self-same delicate place that she had just barely avoided striking moments before.

By the time this had all happened, Luna had been able to consider the situation, and her eyes lit up with delight. Rather callously ignoring Pumpernickel’s distress, she let out a cheer. ‟Oh, Huzzah. Most excellent. And those idiots believe a mare can’t be a guard.”

Her magic reached out and gathered Goose up, dragging the small, limp, unresisting body into her embrace. ‟Thou shalt prove them most grievously wrong, young mare. The position of a maid is wasted upon a pony with such a warrior's heart. I hereby bestow on you the position of Royal Guard.”

Luna paused and waited for Goose to either exclaim in gratitude or to tell her that she was not worthy of the honor, a reaction she had noticed was quite common among her Nocturne. What she got was crickets chirping. When she held the small filly out at leg's length for a better look, Goose's head lolled back on her neck in a most disturbing way, as if she were a rag doll instead of a flesh and blood pony. Her eyes were rolled back in her head till only the whites showed and a small bit of foam was leaking from the corner of her mouth. ‟Oh, dear. We fear we may have broken her, again.” Luna said in chagrin.

‟No! Can’t just make her a guard,” came from a pained Pumpernickel who grimaced as he got to his feet. The blow had been glancing, but it was still taking all his considerable willpower to keep from disgracing himself and in the process killing the closest potted plant.

He looked through tear-clouded eyes to where a limp Goose hung from Luna’s embrace, her eyes wide and unseeing in shock. Luna didn’t even seem aware of her burden as she glared at Pumpernickel. ‟No? Explain. Quickly.”

Pumpernickel was not at his best. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that situation, because it was pretty much his normal status when dealing with Luna, even more so when she was annoyed at him. He wasn’t sure his recently learned diplomatic skills were up to the challenge. For Goose’s sake, he would try.

‟You know from our discussion with Sergeant Shadow Dash, that Goose Down’s most fervent wish is to be a Night Guard. To serve you body and soul,” Pumpernickel said.

‟And I am granting this wish,” Luna said in a stern tone.

The powerful Night Guard drew a deep breath and grimaced artistically, diplomatically milking his disability for all it was worthwhile thinking about what to say. There were numerous very practical reasons why it would be a very bad idea for Luna to unilaterally appoint an unqualified pony to the Night Guard. He could spend hours enumerating them, and he was lousy at backroom politics. He was sure there were many ponies who could make a far better case than he could, and take ten times as long to do it. In the end, he decided to keep it as simple as possible.

‟She might gain the title, but she’d never feel she deserved it. She comes from a guard family. She knows how hard it is to earn a place in the guard. She would resign within a month, and would likely retreat into her family home and never come out again.”

Luna frowned at him. ‟This is nonsense. It was common practice to appoint worthy ponies to positions in this manner.”

Pumpernickel gritted his teeth. It would be useless to point out that more than an ability to break heads was needed in this day and age. ‟You are the Princess. You can promote any pony to any position you wish. That would not change how Goose would feel about gaining her dream in that manner.”

Luna nodded her head, making the unconscious nocturne mare held in her magic limply nod along with her. ‟You do have a point. And there is the additional consideration that the guard as a whole, and the ponies in charge, would never accept her. Indeed, they might even make the base claim that the only way a mare could become a guard would be for my sister or me to appoint them. Sheer nonsense.”

The stocky guard pony in front of her blinked at this sudden switch in tactics. He had considered what Luna had just said, but had thought she would merely run roughshod over that particular argument. The guard served her and Celestia. It would darn well do what she commanded.

‟It is to be presumed that if we asked that Goose is to be admitted to the current training session, her disability would be used as an excuse to, as they put it, ‘wash her out’, even though there are many positions that do not require that talent.”

‟Yes, exactly.”

‟If only there were some way to give her the training, using some clever scheme.”

‟Well, as your personal maid, she will, of course, receive a certain amount of training, above her already impressive trick,” Pumpernickel said. "But nowhere near the amount that a guard candidate receives," he hastily added.

‟Ah, but what if we could convince the pony that will be overseeing that training to give her more than the basics. To give her, we believe these days it is called, the works. There would be no need for her to know she is working toward full guard status, till she gains it.”

‟But it would be my job to see that she is trained . . .” Pumpernickel trailed off as he looked in horror at Princess Luna, who was all but smirking at him. He had a sudden sinking suspicion that he had been played. ‟I’m not qualified to supervise that level of training,” he protested. What he really meant, and would never say, was that he did not trust himself. A drill-instructor had to be a master of applied mayhem at times, at some point it was almost a requirement that they inflict some level of grievous bodily harm, something he simply could not do, not to a normal male candidate, and doubly so in regards to a tiny little filly like Goose.

‟But is her elder brother not a fully qualified instructor? I am sure he would be happy to lend a hoof if you were to merely ask. Perhaps he would even be interested in entering our personal service. Tia has been after me to increase my personal staff.” Luna said this lightly, but underneath she felt a certain amount of trepidation. She had been reluctant to increase her personal household and the number of ponies that she was directly responsible for, as opposed to those who were merely part of the general palace staff.

During his training days, Pumpernickel was renowned for never surrendering in a fight until he had been put down for the count. He was a lot smarter now. ‟I’ll interview Shadow Dash and see if he might be interested in transferring into your personal guard.”

‟Most excellent.” Luna nodded in approval while keeping her self-doubt hidden.

Just then the limp form of Goose let out a low moan. Luna hastily settled her gently on the floor and stepped back a few feet to give her a chance to recover without inflicting further shocks on her system.

Hoof-beats sounded outside the door to the office and a moment later Laminia burst into the room. Her expression of worry turned to relief at seeing Goose, and back to worry as she took in the way the small filly was huddled into a ball on the floor. ‟Princess," she said in a firm voice while directing a quick glance at Pumpernickel that indicated the whole story would be extracted from her husband when time permitted. "Shadow Dash is waiting outside. Do I have your permission to allow him entry?"

‟No, please, no,” Goose moaned. She didn’t want her big brother to know about her disgrace, or to see her destroyed.

Her protests were ignored, and a minute later the elderly drill sergeant was kneeling on the floor beside her. He stroked her wings with a gentle hoof while crooning in a soft voice that Pumpernickel would have been the first to declare impossible for the gravel-throated pony to produce. ‟There, there, silly filly. What’s all this then, eh?” He eased her back to her hooves and placed a comforting wing over her back. ‟Now come on, my little pony. Buck up. You don’t want the princess to think you’re some sort of watering pot.”

‟You don’t understand. I attacked the princess,” Goose wailed.

‟Oh, piffle. Pumpernickel once hit us with a door,” Luna said. Off to the side, Pumpernickel winced as brother and sister directed incredulous looks his way. Goose’s expression was one of shocked disbelief. Shadow’s expression was a bit more resigned, as in, why am I not surprised? Laminia, who was standing off to the side, saw with interest that Goose shifted her body just a little bit, placing herself more firmly between the princess and Pumpernickel.

Luna had noticed the same thing even as she continued in her attempts to put the star-struck filly at ease. ‟We resisted the urge to immolate him. We are hardly going to hold something you almost did, but didn’t, against thee,” Princess Luna chided the small filly. ‟If you are to be our personal maid, thou shalt need a far stiffer spine than this. Do as your brother sayest, stand up straight and true and face your liege.”

‟Personal maid?” Goose squeaked, even as she stiffened her legs and lifted her head. She still couldn’t bring herself to look the princess in the eyes, but she was giving her liege’s chest a close examination.

‟If thou are willing,” Luna said. Despite everything she had experienced since coming back from the moon, there was a tiny part of Luna that fully expected rejection, and that part caused her stomach to roil slightly as she waited to hear Goose’s reply.

The young mare looked up at her older brother, who gave her an encouraging smile. She looked around at Optio Pumpernickel, and his wife, Princess Luna’s hoof-maiden, Laminia, who would be her companions if she agreed. She thought of her home. It was a more comfortable environment since her mother had become elder mare, but there were still more than a few female relatives who considered her a reject and an embarrassment. There was really no question as to her reply. She curtsied, perfectly for the first time, to her princess. ‟I would be honored.”

‟That’s my girl,” Shadow whispered into her ear.

‟That brings us to thee, sergeant. Our Optio is in need of a good aid-de-camp, and some pony experienced in training skilled guard ponies. We are of the belief that you would be most suitable for this task. We ask you, as we did your sister. Will you enter our service?”

It had been a very long time since Shadow Dash had been rendered speechless. Pumpernickel found himself taking more than a little pleasure in the spectacle now, and felt not one little bit of guilt at it.

****

Twilight Sparkle crept as quietly as possible into the library. She had left Sweet Apple Acres early, and even now the sun was not all the way up. She would have gone straight from the farm to her intended location, but she needed some material for her upcoming task. She selected several books from the young pony section and levitated them into her saddlebags. Still staying as silent as she could, she trotted to the outside door and eased it open, keeping her head turned toward the stairs with her eyes and ears scanning for the least little sight or sound that she had been discovered. Backing out the doorway, she carefully shut the door with only the softest of clicks.

Twilight gave a sigh, and turned around, only to stumble to a stop and blush red at the sight of Spike standing in the middle of the street, arms crossed and an accusatory look on his face. ‟Not cool, Twilight. Not cool at all,” he chided her.

‟Oh, Spike. I thought you were still sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you up,” Twilight said in a flustered voice while looking anywhere but directly into her friend’s eyes. Instead, she continued to dig the hole she was in deeper. ‟Yep, I know how you just love your sleep.”

‟Give it a rest, Twilight. I know you were sneaking out to go and see them, and you didn’t want me along. ‟That is so not cool. I’m your number one assistant. How can you leave me out of something as Equestria shattering as this?”

‟I just thought you’d be bored, Spike,” Twilight said, still avoiding Spike’s accusing glare. ‟No, really. I’m just going over to Fluttershy’s to see Curry. I wanted to prepare her.”

Twilight, at last, met Spike’s gaze as her enthusiasm for this latest project overwhelmed her embarrassment. ‟Once Princess Celestia makes arrangements for Curry and Jake, they are both going to need to attend school. Jake is still a very young foal and intellectually would be on an equal footing with his classmates in magical kindergarten.”

Spike broke in at this point with a laugh. ‟Equal footing,” he said in an incredulous tone. ‟Twilight, one of his hooves is as big as Pipsqueak.”

Twilight’s expression grew a bit thoughtful, ‟Yes, you do have a point there. But I’m sure something can be worked out. The important thing is that he will not be out of place mentally. All his classmates will have the same level of schooling as he has, which is none. Curry is going to be a completely different situation. She's older, so she'll be going to school with fillies and colts who have been going to school for years. She’ll be embarrassed and ashamed at being so far behind her classmates.”

‟How do you know she’ll be behind? She’s a human. She’s likely got out of this world knowledge and special powers. I bet she can move objects just with her mind.”

‟Spike. I can move objects with just my mind,” Twilight reminded the little dragon.

‟Not the same thing. You’re using perfectly natural unicorn magic to do that,” Spike said, brushing aside her comment as irrelevant.

Twilight had spent an hour making up a list of pro and con reasons why she should or should not take Spike with her to Fluttershy’s house to see Curry. She was now finding it was a whole lot easier to write down things like, Spike would be likely to contaminate the experiment by interjecting falsehoods into the narrative and altering Curry’s expectations of her abilities in Equestria, then it was to say it to his face.

Scrambling for a reason to keep him from coming that would not hurt his feelings worse than they already were, she did something she had not done the night before. Twilight considered why exactly she personally didn’t want Spike along. The little purple Unicorn suddenly had a very unpleasant epiphany. ‟Oh,” she exclaimed in dismay, a look of shame appearing on her face. ‟I am so sorry, Spike. I’ve been an awful friend.”

Spike, who had been about to resort to the devastating tactic of Sad-Dragon-Eyes, blinked instead and said, ‟Say what?”

‟The truth is, I was jealous,” Twilight confessed. ‟When I went to see Jake yesterday, I found out that Big McIntosh was helping Jake acclimatize far better than I ever could.”

‟Wait. Hold the ponies. Big Mac? Are we talking about the same pony? Big, red, hardly ever talks?”

‟Yes. Jake adores him. It left me feeling useless, just like the day we found Curry and Jake at the Castle. When Curry started crying, Fluttershy knew exactly what to do, and I was left standing there useless. And then Curry went to stay with Fluttershy, and Jake went to Sweet Apple Acres. I know those were the best choices given the situation, but it made me feel left out. I was so sure that Applejack would need my help desperately when I rushed over there yesterday, and she didn’t, not at all.”

Twilight gave a sigh and finally managed to look Spike in the eye. ‟I’m afraid that it will be the same with Curry. I’m sure Fluttershy is doing a fantastic job with her, but I had hoped I’d be able to help her on an intellectual level. The truth is, you were right. Jake and Curry are incredible discoveries. And I didn’t even believe in humans before we met them. But, you did. You got on so much better with Curry than I did. Truthfully, I think I scared her a little. I was jealous of you. That was wrong of me. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

‟Bah! Forget it. It was just you being you. Big sisters are always a pain in the butt to little brothers. As long as we’re cool now.”

‟Of course we are,” Twilight said happily as she enveloped Spike in a big hug.

‟Hey, stop. No mushy stuff in public. I got a reputation to maintain,” Spike protested, but he made no real effort to break free of Twilight’s embrace.

A few minutes later Twilight was trotting toward Fluttershy’s home, Spike perched on her back. ‟So, what are your plans to help Curry cope with Equestria once the quarantine is lifted?” Spike asked.

‟Well, I thought I’d help Curry cram for as many days as we have to get her ready for her first day in school. She has to stay hidden for now, so she’ll likely be happy for the distraction.”

Behind Twilight, Spike’s expression shifted to one of alarm. ‟Are you sure about this, Twilight?” he asked tentatively.

‟Of course, what filly wouldn’t love spending hours learning about a brand new culture she didn’t even know existed till a couple of days ago?”

***

A couple of miles away, Curry gave a sudden shiver. She hunched her shoulders and looked around a bit frantically. She hadn’t felt anything like this since the last week of August. She’d known then what dire fate was heading her way, but what could be causing this sudden dread here and now?

***

(1) Ever since the great T.P. disaster, housekeeping had ensured that there was always an unused roll of paper in Luna’s personal bathroom. They were not taking any chances. The princess had already assigned one royal guard to a penguin counting station, and she might decide the research facility was in need of a maid as well.

(2)The housekeeping staff was not entirely sure what would happen if the general population found out about this secret stash of supplies, but there were dark murmurs of wild parties and indiscriminate, unauthorized usage.

(3)Pumpernickel did not bother to mention Princess Celestia as an exception. While the guard did love their formality and following the rules to the letter, they were neither prone to stupidity or suicide, most of the time.

(4)Pumpernickel’s willingness to forgive and forget was helped along to a great extent by the fact that Goose had come to herself just in time to pull the kick she had been directing toward his stallionhood.

Ch14 Snipe Hunt, part one [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 14
Snipe Hunt, part one

***

Apple Bloom added another stick of wood to the campfire as she sat across from Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Twist, waiting for the remains of the previous night’s fire to grow large enough to cook breakfast over. While that was going on, she slipped into the traditional Apple storytelling mode and regaled her friends with an Apple family tale.

‟Sweet Apple Acres is ah workin’ farm. Every pony on it and every part of it is expected to be pro-duc-tive. That ain’t nearly so bad as it sounds. My great-great grandparents were pretty smart ponies. They all knew that ponies who worked all day long would soon be plum wore out and not able to do a lick of work. They also knew if their foals, and their foal’s foals, were going to love Sweet Apple Acres as much as they all did, they’d need to grow right good memories along with good crops.

‟When they first settled here, Granny Smith’s parents sectioned off this here area that had just about everything a pony could ever want. A beautiful natural field. A stream and small pond that had water year round, just perfect for swimming when it was hot and ice-skating when it was cold.

‟They up and left a border of trees around this here location when the other fields were cleared. Then, one weekend, after months of backbreaking work getting themselves homesteaded, Granny Smith, who was just a young filly at the time, and her sisters and brothers were taken to this very clearing by her parents. They showed it to her and told her. This here is your place. Look after it. Grow yourself some right good memories. And when your grown, you bring your young’uns, and tell them the same thing, and tell them to tell their young-uns, and she did, and they did, and then one day, Applejack brought us Cutie Mark Crusaders here, cause you all are like sisters to me, and she said, this here is your place, look after it and make lots of good memories.”

Scootaloo scratched her head and said, ‟I don’t remember her saying it like that.”

‟It’s what you call artistic license. Rarity says it’s the pre-og-ative, of ponies with an artistic soul,” Sweetie Belle said.

‟Sounds like a fancy way of saying they’re lying,” Scootaloo said, taking the high moral ground. ‟Rainbow Dash would never do that.”

Apple Bloom, who had just taken a drink of apple juice to lubricate her throat, did a spit take. Sweetie Belle stifled a sudden laugh, and even Twist giggled.

‟Now that’s taken art-is-tic license all the way to the trash heap. Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash is just the spirit of loyalty, not honesty, as my big sis. So it ain’t rightly her fault. But, there ain’t nothing she says that ain’t blown up twice as big as life, if not bigger.”

‟You take that back!” Scootaloo shouted, using her wings to jump over the fire-pit and onto Apple Bloom. The two small ponies rolled down the slope toward the duck pond, too busy tussling to notice where they were headed.

While her friends were releasing their excess energy, Sweetie Belle pulled out a bag of marshmallows from her saddlebags and picked up her toasting skewer from the night before.

‟Thould we thtop them?” Twist asked looking down the slope at the squabbling fillies with concern.

Sweetie Belle was pretty much ignoring her best friends as she screwed her face up in concentration, making sure that the marshmallow she was currently holding in one hoof was placed perfectly on her wooden toasting stick, all ready for roasting. While she focused on this important task she told Twist, ‟Don’t worry. They’re just getting the morning kinks out. They do it most days. They’ll cool off once they hit--"The sound of a loud splash echoed in the clear morning air-- "the water,” Sweetie Belle finished.

Twist looked a bit doubtful, but that didn’t stop her from pulling several thin bars of chocolate and some graham crackers out of her nearby saddlebags.

‟Who wants S’mores?” Sweetie Belle called out, in a musical tone of voice that carried from one side of the clearing to the other, without looking up from her exacting endeavor. A moment later her two friends, a lot soggier but with no other evidence present of their tiff, practically teleported back to their former position around the fire. The two damp fillies snagged a marshmallow each from the bag Twist held out to them and were soon roasting them over the fire. Twist blinked behind her large red glasses and decided not to mention the small green frog that was perched inside Apple Bloom’s hair ribbon.

Twist added her own marshmallow to the roast. She carefully rotated the plump bit of sugary goodness at the perfect distance from the fire, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth as she concentrated on holding the marshmallow as steady as possible. It turned a soft brown as the outer shell was caramelized and turned firm and crispy, holding the molten interior in place till she crushed it between two crackers and a bar of chocolate.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were not nearly as particular, they were too impatient and ended up with marshmallows that were charred black on one side, and barely cooked on the other. That didn’t take away from their enjoyment in the least as they manufactured their own gooey breakfast sandwiches.

In the time it had taken the three fillies to create their S’mores, Sweetie Belle had added three more marshmallows to the first one she had spitted, lining all four of them up perfectly. Satisfied, the light grey unicorn extended her spit and thrust the tip right into the heart of the fire. There was a sudden whoosh as a ball of fire expanded out from the campfire and incinerated Sweetie Belle’s marshmallows, as well as shortening her long eyelashes slightly. She let out a little cough and breathed out smoke from the soot-blackened face.

Seemingly oblivious to what had just happened, Sweetie Belle crushed the charcoal on the end of her toasting stick between her own crackers and chocolate, and to the fascinated disgust of her friends, bit into the resulting mess with every indication of delight.

The most important meal of the day taken care of, the four little ponies got down to serious matters. The first rule of order had the three blank flanks standing up and checking to make sure that one of them hadn’t gained a S’more cooking cutie mark. That taken care of, they set about discussing their plans for the day.

‟I don’t know, guyths,” Twist said. ‟I don’t think itths pothibile to make Apple thrup. You need gallonths and gallonths of thap to boil down for maple thrup, and we only got a half cup all day yethderday from that apple tree.”

‟That’s because we only tapped one small tree, yesterday,” Apple Bloom protested. ‟It didn’t have no sap to spare. I know where there are some humongous old apple trees. They don’t grow hardly no apples no more, so I bet they have a lot of sap to spare.”

‟Oh, man, I do not want to spend another day waiting for a drop of sap to fall into a bucket,” Scootaloo moaned. ‟We need to do something with a bit of action.” The little pegasus emphasized this by revving up her wings till they created a loud roar of displaced air, and scattered ashes and sparks downwind from the campfire. Fortunately for Apple Bloom, her still damp hide extinguished any sparks that landed on her with a soft hiss. That didn’t stop her from madly batting at them while directing a dirty look at a suddenly contrite Scootaloo.

‟At least we didn’t get any sap on our hides,” Sweetie Belle said, looking for the positive. ‟Rarity said if I come home one more time with a hide full of pine sap she’d shave me.”

After making sure she wasn’t on fire anywhere, Apple Bloom protested the other girls’ remarks. ‟But I’m positive if we can make some apple syrup candy, we’ll get our cutie marks in candy inventing for sure. If y’all can get something as good as maple candy from plain boring old maple trees, apple candy would be the most awesome candy ever invented! Come on, who’s with me?” Apple Bloom finished in her best pep talk manner, holding up a hoof to high-hoof her friends.

The response was not encouraging. The other three fillies traded looks and then looked back at Apple Bloom, who wilted slightly under their apologetic expressions. ‟Sorry Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo said, speaking for the other two as well as herself. ‟We only got one more day left on our camp-out. We don’t want to spend it watching a tree trying to drip.”

Apple Bloom was ready to protest, but she could see her three friends were determined. She let her head droop and said in a rather petulant tone as she kicked at the ground, ‟Fine. So what do we do instead?”

‟Well, we did promithe Aunt Lyra we’d keep an eye out for humanth. We could go hunting for one?” Twist suggested in a questioning tone, looking a bit sheepish at the suggestion.

It was Apple Bloom’s turn to exchange looks with her friends, and it was Sweetie Belle who got elected by eye-contact vote to speak.

‟We all like Lyra, Twist. She did bring us a nice big bag of candy last night, and we’re grateful and all, it’s just that, well, she’s, ah...”

‟Short a few flight feathers!” Scootaloo blurted out.

‟A few bales short of a pile!” Apple Bloom said at the same time.

‟Miththing a few thprinkleth on her donut!” Twist added and then blushed a bit when everyone looked at her. ‟Jutht becauth I love Aunt Lyra, doethn’t mean I think thes not a little thilly, thomtimeth,” Twist said in a defensive tone.

At that moment any further discussion on the topic came to an end when a rainbow-hued blur flashed by overhead, causing the campfire to flare slightly in the back-draft and scatter sparks. Fortunately this time they didn’t land on anypony.

‟It’s Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo shouted out rather redundantly. She jumped as high in the air as her young wings could push her and extended a hoof. Rainbow Dash looped over in her flight and swooped down on the frantically hovering Scootaloo. The cyan pegasus extended her own hoof and did a fast flyby high-hoof with her number one fan-pony. The impact sent the small pegasus into a spin, and she fluttered uncontrollably toward the ground, only to be caught at the last minute by her idol.

Rainbow Dash carried her honorary little sister upward in a series of twisting barrel rolls and loop the loops while the other three fillies craned their necks keeping them in sight, ooohing and ahhhing at each progressively more complicated aerial maneuver.

Rainbow Dash glowed with pleasure as Scootaloo screamed in excitement as she took the little filly on a roller coaster of a ride above the campsite. The prideful pegasus’ ego had suffered a severe bruising from Bon Bon last night, and the honest adoration of her number one fan, and honorary little sister was just what she needed to soothe that hurt pride. Plus, she’d promised Applejack that she’d drop by this morning to check up on the little monsters.

That last thought was one of affection rather than derision on her part. Rainbow Dash got a serious kick out of how Scootaloo and her little friends stirred things up.

With one last tumble through the air Rainbow Dash came to a stop and slowly lowered herself and Scootaloo to the ground. The small pegasus wobbled slightly on rubbery legs, her eyes a bit out of focus as she slowly regained her equilibrium. She staggered one way, and then the other, before finally sitting down with a plop on the ground.

Rainbow felt a brief touch of concern. ‟Hey, squirt. Did I overdo it?” she asked in a worried tone.

‟That, that, that . . . Was the most awesome thing ever!” Scootaloo yelled out, pumping her foreleg in the air. ‟Let's do it again!”

The multicolored Pegasus pony gave a sigh of relief. ‟Maybe later, half-pint,” she said, ruffling the smaller pegasus’ feathery mane with her hoof in affection. ‟What are you fillies up to?”

‟Oh, not much. Just talking about how Lyra asked us to hunt down a human,” Scootaloo said in a joking tone, expecting Rainbow Dash to get a good laugh out of the idea.

Twist was opening her mouth to say that all Lyra had really asked, was for them to keep an eye out for the human she was sure was about to appear. Before she could get a word out, Rainbow Dash reared back in surprise, her eyes going wide and her wings flaring out as if she was about to spring into the air.

‟Oh, my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Rainbow Dash shouted inside her own head. ‟Lyra has found out about Curry! What am I going to do? Got to warn Twilight! But I can’t just let the girls run around looking for Curry! Got to distract them! First, be cool, don’t let the girls know, you know, that Lyra knows. Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

‟Hunt down a human. Ha. Ha. Ha!” Rainbow Dash laughed in a loudly contrived manner. ‟You don’t want to waste your time on something crazy like that. I’m sure there’s something a whole lot cooler you could do than that.”

While Rainbow Dash talked, her eyes wouldn’t meet those of any of the fillies. They roamed the sky and the surrounding trees hoping for inspiration. She needed something, and quick. Something fun, that would keep them too busy to think about Lyra’s request. A half-remembered snippet of a conversation on the care and feeding of little sisters popped into her head.

While Rainbow Dash would never confess it to anyone, she had felt a touch inadequate in regards to being a good honorary big sister to Scootaloo. She had therefore gone out of her way to ‘casually’ bring up the topic of how to be a good big sister with all those mares, and friends, she was acquainted with who had little sisters, including Rarity and Applejack. One of those ponies, she couldn’t remember just who at the moment, only that there was no way it was Rarity, had filled her in on the long tradition of sending little sisters on snipe hunts.

‟A snipe hunt!” Rainbow Dash shouted out.

Scootaloo was instantly on board. ‟That sounds totally cool! Can’t wait to do . . . Wait? What’s a snipe?”

It was Apple Bloom’s turn to look startled. ‟A Snipe hunt!” she said in a tone of voice that indicated amazed incredulity. She quickly suppressed her reaction as her gaze switched rapidly back and forth between her friend Scootaloo, and Rainbow Dash. A happy, rather smug, smile appeared on her face.

Not that Dash noticed. She was too busy fielding questions from her number one fanfilly.

The general gist of the barrage of questions could be summed up simply as a repeated demand to be informed of just what’s a Snipe was, how big, how fast, how dangerous, etc.

Rainbow, who had been grasping at straws when she came up with this idea, was at a bit of a loss. ‟Ah, well, a Snipe is this really incredible, rare, critter. Not even Fluttershy has ever seen one close up, but she’d sure want to. All the zoos and rich people in Equestria would give just about any amount of bits to own one. And it just so happens, I spotted Snipe sign on my way over here. Yeah, that’s what I did.”

Twist and Sweetie Belle, who were standing slightly back from the two Pegasus ponies exchanged looks of uncertainty and puzzlement.

‟Why didn’t you catch it yourself?” Scootaloo asked, implying in her tone of voice that this would have been the easiest of tasks for her idol.

‟Why didn’t I catch it?”

‟That’s what Scootaloo asked,” Apple Bloom said, with a small smile.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes twisted away from Apple Bloom as she struggled for an answer. ‟Well, I didn’t actually see the Snipe, only some signs it had been there. Besides, Snipes live in the deep tight brush. Someone with wings like mine could never fit. But little fillies like you four would have no trouble at all.” The multi-chromatic pony gave a sigh of relief at dodging that question.

‟Where did you thee it,” Twist asked, her tone dripping skepticism. Apple Bloom directed a worried look her way and edged closer to her candy-making friend.

‟I Thaw, I mean, saw it . . . Let me think for a minute,” Rainbow Dash thought frantically. Jake was at Sweet Apple Acres, and Curry at Fluttershy’s cottage. She needed to send the girls as far away from those places as possible, but someplace that would be safe. ‟Ah, yeah, I remember now. It was near the Rich Mansion, that’s where it was. The snipe was likely looking for some of the fancy food that rich ponies just scatter all over the place.”

No one heard the hastily stifled gasp that came from the bushes that separated the clearing from the closest lane-way.

By now even Scootaloo was starting to look a touch puzzled by Rainbow Dash’s strange behavior and manner of talking, which was not at all like her usual ultra-cool and comfortable manner of speaking. ‟How do we catch it?” the little Pegasus asked as she ruthlessly shoved her doubts aside. This was Rainbow Dash after all. She wouldn’t lie to her honorary little sister. Would she?

‟Well... Let's see,” the thoroughly flustered adult Pegasus said as she looked around for inspiration. Her eyes fell on Twist’s overflowing saddlebags, just chock full of various sweets and treats. ‟Candy! Snipes just love Candy! And they’re curious and lonely. Oh yeah, they are sooooo lonely. On account of there hardly being any Snipes at all."

‟Oh, the poor thing,” Sweetie Belle said, her voice laced with sarcasm. She gave a slight, ‘oof’ when Apple Bloom gave her a sharp nudge in the side. She twisted her head around in surprise and Apple Bloom made a ‘zip it gesture’ with one hoof while shaking her head from side to side.

The small farm-pony mouthed the words, ‘explain later’ to her friend before turning a worried frown toward Scootaloo who was looking more and more distressed.

‟Yeah, so what you do, is find a good thick hedge, with a narrow hole through it. You set yourself in front of that, and you say, ‘Sniiipe, Sniiiipe, real low and quiet. And you eat some candy so the Snipe can smell it on your breath when you do that. If there is a Snipe anywhere nearby, she’s going to come running, thinking there is another Snipe. And when she smells that candy, she’s going to be so curious, hungry, and lonely, she’s not going to even look around before rushing into that opening. That’s when you grab her. Got that?”

Apple Bloom shoved past Scootaloo, who looked like she had no idea of how to respond, and said with every indication of the usual CMC enthusiasm. ‟You bet! We’ll go get that Snipe right now! This is going to be so great! I bet we get Cutie marks for being great Snipe hunters for sure!”

Rainbow Dash wiped the sweat from her brow, feeling relief at having sold the idea so well. But, at the same time, she was feeling a more than a bit uncool. Not a feeling she enjoyed in the least.

The truth was, Rainbow had the awful feeling she had let herself get flustered over nothing. It wasn’t like Lyra hadn’t been going on about humans ages before Curry showed up. There was no reason to suppose she knew anything at all about the small filly’s appearance. Besides, that big stud Bon Bon took home the night before was likely going to put other thoughts in Lyra’s mind. It was general knowledge around town that the two mares were on the lookout for a good colt friend. According to Derpy, they got regular packages from some sort of matchmaker. Still, it was better to have been safe than sorry, and she felt she’d earned a good afternoon nap for distracting the girls from a problematic course.

Rainbow Dash gave Apple Bloom an approving look and said, ‟Good going. I know I can trust you girls. Go get that Snipe. I’ll see you later.” With that last remark, Rainbow took off straight up and made a right-angle turn in the direction of Ponyville where a cloud with her name on it was hovering over Sugarcube Corner. Within seconds she was out of sight.

Scootaloo watched her go, her expression distressed. Once her hero was out of sight she turned so she was facing away from her friends. She kicked at the dirt and said in a despondent tone of voice. ‟Go ahead, say it, you were right, and I was wrong. Rainbow Dash is a terrible liar.”

Before any of her friends could react, a familiar and very much unwelcome voice called out from the bushes that lined the clearing. ‟Don’t even think about it, blank flanks.” There was a thrashing in the bushes, accompanied by comments about ‟stupid un-groomed plants,” and a moment later Diamond Tiara, her trademark headpiece hanging from one ear, stumbled into the club-house clearing. A moment later, Silver Spoon, taking a bit more care, moved through the break in the bushes that her friend had made.

Diamond Tiara carefully re-arranged her tiara so it was once again perfectly in place, and took what she imagined was a superior pose. One that showed off her cutie mark to the best advantage. The general consensus of those ponies facing her was that she looked slightly constipated.

The little pony princess, in her own mind, smirked at the stupid blank flanks and their dweebish friend. Oh, how she waited for this moment. Ever since they had convinced Silver Spoon that a grey painted watermelon was a Nocturne Pegasus’ egg. The memory of spending two days with that thing swaddled in her personal bedding caused her animosity to boil over. She and Silver Spoon had alternated between terror that it would hatch out a blood-sucking monster any minute, and terror that they had harmed it in some way and it would never hatch, leading the parents to seek them out for bloody and terrible vengeance.

‟Don’t even think about trespassing on my property. That Snipe belongs to my family.”

‟How do you all reckon that?” Apple Bloom protested, stepping out in front of her three friends.

Diamond Tiara appeared baffled by her question. Surely the answer was obvious. ‟Because! It’s! On! Our! Property!” she said, slowly and distinctly.

‟Don’t mean you’re going to be able to catch it. You ain’t got the patience. A couple of minutes of waiting and you all will need to go get a hoof-ie-cure or something.”

‟Humph, we’ll see about that. Come, Silver Spoon. We have a Snipe to catch,” the two high-class fillies turned in place to march away. This put Silver Spoon in the lead for a moment, before Diamond Tiara shoved her friend aside so she could properly take her rightful position, through the narrow opening in the brush. Unfortunately for her, Diamond Tiara was too busy looking over her shoulder to enjoy the dismay of her rivals to pay much attention to where she was going. She didn’t quite hit the break in the hedge dead on. There was the sound of twigs breaking and muffled curses from the small filly and then the two formerly well-groomed ponies vanished from sight, only their voices remaining.

When Sweetie Belle would have spoken up, Apple Bloom held up a hoof to keep her quiet. Diamond Tiara’s gloating monologue on showing those blank flanks who the better ponies were floated clearly into the clearing, drawing an angry snort from Scootaloo. The sound of the spoiled pony’s voice grew fainter and fainter as she drew away from them until it faded completely away.

Apple Bloom heaved a sigh and then turned toward Scootaloo with a determined expression on her face. ‟You was right. And, I was wrong,” she said firmly.

Twist and Sweetie Belle looked at Apple Bloom with disappointment, and Scootaloo looked genuinely hurt, and then the three fillies’ face’s twisted in puzzlement as they parsed Apple Bloom’s words.

‟Wait? Say what,” Scootaloo said, looking at her friend with a baffled expression.

Apple Bloom gave her head a slow shake to go along with the rueful expression on her face. ‟Anypony who is that terrible of a liar, can’t have much practice at it, at all. Rainbow Dash was almost as flustered as mah sister when she told me all about Snipe hunting on our first camping trip.”

‟Wait! Your big sister told you about Snipes?”

‟Yep. Afterward, she said it was an old Apple Family Tradition for a big sister to prank her little sister with the story.”

A look of wonder appeared on the small orange Pegasus’ face, ‟Wait! Hold on! In that case--”

‟Rainbow Dash was thinking of you as a sister,” Sweetie Belle said, coming up and giving Scootaloo a hug.

‟Yeth, but why now?” Twist asked.

‟Yeah, I was sort of wondering that my own self,” Apple Bloom said.

‟It did seem like she was trying to distract us from something,” Sweetie Belle said with a thoughtful look.

‟It was right after I said we were going to hunt a human for Lyra,” Scootaloo said. All four fillies exchanged looks.

‟You don’t thupose,” Twist said, her eyes opening wide.

‟That there really is a human!” Scootaloo said in excitement.

‟If a human did show up, mah sister and her friends would be the ones asked to look into it. Just look at all the other things they’ve all done. So Rainbow Dash would know all about it!” Apple Bloom said, getting as excited as Scoot.

‟Oh man, this will be so freaking cool!” Scootaloo said, her tiny wings buzzing so fast from the excitement that she was hovering a couple of inches off the ground.

‟Lyra said that if you can catch a human, she has to grant your wish. You know what this means, right?” Sweetie Belle said as she and her two blank flank friends moved into a huddle.

Twist put her hooves over her ears.

‟Cutie Mark Crusaders Human Hunters, Go!”

***

The wail of a tortured harmonica sent an eerie thread of music weaving across the sun-blasted ground of the corral, mingling with the gusting wind that stirred the dust into short-lived swirls. The early morning sun sent its rays slanting across the dusty ground, causing the small whirling dust-devils to sparkle with reflected light and rendering the entire scene into sepia tones.

Sheriff Curry lifted a hand and tugged the brim of her over-sized Stetson down over her eyes to shade out the dazzling sun. She squinted across the sun-baked ground at the varmints staring back at her from the other side of the corral. They’d tasted her blood once before she showed them who was boss. It looked like the lesson hadn’t taken, or someone had been whispering in their ear, getting them riled up. It was clear from the looks in their beady little eyes that they’d like nothing better than to have another go at her. She lowered the hand she’d used to adjust her headgear and left it hovering over her right hip, the fingers flexing and curling as she waited for her opponents to make their move.

Such a waste, the hard-bitten trail rider thought as she turned her head and spit into the dust, narrowly missing a scuttling bug, all the while not taking her eyes off her opponents. They’d pushed her, she’d pushed back harder. The pecking order had been settled. It had been a private confrontation. Just between them. Until ‘he’ had interfered. The troublemaking, ornery, polecat who’d gone and told the Mayor. Sheriff Curry wouldn’t have put it past him being the one that had been whispering in the varmints ears either, getting them all worked up and thinking they had a chance against her. He was the polecat that should have been under her sights, but instead, he was all snuggled up against the mayor, gloating over the trouble he’d caused.

‟Now, Curry you go ahead and say you’re sorry,” The Mayor said in her soft gentle voice.

Curry curled up her fingers into fists. She wanted to protest, but all it took was one look from those large luminous eyes and her shoulders slumped. ‟Yes ma’am,” she said in resignation. Her imagination took a step back as she looked across the chicken coop at the group of hens huddled in the corner staring at her warily.

The wailing of the harmonica increased in intensity, and Curry winced while wishing she had the ability to fold her ears down flat like Fluttershy was currently doing. The yellow Pegasus looked across the fence that surrounded the chicken coop with a chiding expression.

‟Oops, sorry,” Pinkie Pie said. She wiped her harmonica clean of spit and stowed it away in her, anything fits, saddle bags. ‟Go ahead, make nice, Curry.”

Curry once again turned toward the group of chickens, feeling really, really, glad that there were no other kids from her school to see this. Clenching her hands hard enough to dig her short nails into the palms while closing her eyes, she said as quickly as possible. ‟I’msorryIsaidI’droastyou!” Strangely, she felt rather refreshed at getting the confession out. Her lips twitched as the total absurdity of the situation hit home.

‟There now, was that so bad,” Fluttershy said. She then turned her attention to the chickens, who were looking about as smug as it was possible for a creature without lips to look. ‟And now Elisabeak, you and your sisters tell Curry you’re sorry for pecking her paws.”

Curry’s amusement fled. She really hated when someone was forced to apologize to her. Especially when she didn’t think she was properly owed an apology. She’d taken them for granted when she knew better. ‟That’s alright, Miss Fluttershy. They didn’t do anything wrong.”

The hens, who had been huddling together, making every effort to pretend that there was no one else in the yard with them, looked up in surprise. That turned out to be a mistake as this let Fluttershy gaze meet theirs. They quailed and directed a rapid sequence of clucks and bwaks toward Curry.

‟They say they are very sorry and they won’t do it again,” Fluttershy told Curry, seemingly oblivious to how uncomfortable this whole thing was making the young girl.

Unable to think anything bad about the greatest pony in the world, Curry directed her ire, and gaze, toward the small fluffy rabbit who even now was nuzzling up against Fluttershy’s foreleg, earning himself a soft nuzzle as she bent over and rubbed him with her nose.

Curry wasn’t sure how, or when, but she knew she would get the little tattle-tale back.

Fortunately for both Curry, and the hen’s, egos, the current tableau was disrupted by a called greeting from the lane-way in front of Fluttershy’s cottage.

‟Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie. Hello,” Twilight called out.

Twilight looked away from her friends and let her gaze be drawn to the strange looking creature sharing the yard with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. The creature’s coloring was almost as chaotic as Discord’s body. Just about every shade she could imagine was represented. Even standing in plain view it seemed to fade slightly into the background. In fact, its appearance was so jarring that it took her a minute to take notice of the familiar hat and to put that together with the bipedal locomotion. ‟Curry, Is that you?” she asked in surprise.

‟Curry?” Spike inquired as he leaned around Twilight’s head to look in the same direction she was gazing. ‟Curry?” He repeated again, this time in a strangled tone as he struggled to restrain his laughter. ‟What, ha, are, ha, you wearing?” he choked out.

Curry had tensed up a bit when she’d heard Twilight speak. She still found the unicorn a bit scary. She tried to relax, remembering the easy camaraderie between Twilight and the other ponies who had found her and Jake in the forest. The fondness they had displayed toward the crazy unicorn along with the way they had snapped Twilight out of her weird behavior went a long way toward easing Curry’s worries about her, if not dismissing them altogether. On the other hand, Curry felt a touch of happiness at the sight of Spike.

The small dragon was the closest thing she’d found to a peer in this strange new world. Sure he was weird, but if you didn’t think too much about the scales and tail, the slitted eyes and the fire-breathing, and well, just about everything, he was a kid just like her. His current behavior as he slipped off Twilight’s back, in what was pretty much a controlled fall to the ground, laughing all the way, only drove the point home.

This, Curry, knew how to deal with. ‟So, naked dragon boy thinks my clothes make me look funny. At least I can take them off. How are you going to fix how you look?” she asked with a broad grin. She held out a hand to help Spike up.

Spike responded with a smile of his own as he took Curry’s hand. ‟I’ll have you know that scales are all the rage these days. They go simply divinely with everything,” he said in a faux high-society voice. Once on his feet, he examined Curry’s outfit a bit more closely. ‟This is the outfit that Rarity made for you?” he asked.

‟Yeah. It might look a bit funny, but it’s pretty comfortable,” Curry replied truthfully. ‟Don’t tell Mrs. Rarity I said that. The funny looking part,” She hurriedly added.

‟Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Spike chanted. At Curry’s befuddled look, he said, ‟That’s a Pinkie promise. And you never break a promise to a friend, because that’s the quickest way to lose one--”

‟Forever,” Pinkie Pie called out over her shoulder from where she was chatting with Twilight.

‟Twilight says she has a big surprise for you, Curry,” The pink pony added a second later.

‟Well, I would not call it a ‘big’ surprise,” Twilight said self-consciously.

Despite still feeling a bit uneasy around Twilight, Curry’s curiosity was tickled. Fluttershy had given Jake a party, Fluttershy and Applejack had given them each a place to stay. Rarity had magically produced her funny looking, but comfortable and durable outfit. Twilight was supposed to be a really strong magic user. Maybe she had something to unlock Curry’s special talent? ‟What is it?” she asked, walking briskly toward the three adult ponies.

‟Well, the situation is like this,” Twilight said. ‟Once Princess Celestia arranges matters, Jake and you will need to attend school. I thought I would save everypony a bit of trouble and evaluate you so the Princess will know where you stand, education wise.”

Curry’s first reaction was to shy like a frightened pony at the mere thought of school. She was having way too much fun to want to be stuck in a stuffy room for most of the day. Her second reaction was a lot more positive. This was a magic kingdom, filled with magic ponies. It stood to reason that the school would be the sort where they taught magic. Just like Hogwarts. She was already seeing a huge looming castle, even bigger than the ruin in the forest, devoted to teaching eager magic users how to become powerful wizards. She was all for that.

‟When can we start?” Curry said enthusiastically, drawing a beaming look of approval from Twilight, who also directed a distinct, I told you so, look toward Spike, a moment after.

‟Fluttershy, may I borrow your kitchen table for the morning?” Twilight asked.

‟Oh my, of course. I have to remove Mrs. Lynx’s cast. She’s really healed remarkably quickly. But, I don’t need the table to do that. I’ll be spending a few hours looking after my friends out here after I’m finished with that. Will that be long enough?”

Twilight’s expression indicated that she’d have preferred a lot more than a few hours, but all she said was, ‟Certainly. That should be plenty of time,” while trotting toward Fluttershy’s cottage with Curry half-running to keep up.

Inside Curry sat down at the table on the booster seat Fluttershy had produced for her the night before. She watched with anticipation as Twilight unsnapped her saddlebags. She’d seen Pinkie Pie produce the most unexpected things from her bags, she couldn’t wait to see what a great wizard would draw forth.

To her disappointment, the only thing Twilight pulled out of her bag was a bunch of old books. No skulls, no wands, not even a stuffed alligator. How boring. Still, they must be magic books she told herself, drawing the closest one to her and flipping open the heavy cover. She stared the contents with puzzlement at first, which turned to dismay. It was totally incomprehensible. Line after line of symbols that she could not make heads or tails of. A feeling of dismay filled her. Why had she assumed she’d be able to read the ponies’ books? This was an entirely new world. Whatever magic let her understand their speech clearly didn’t include the written word.

Curry wasn’t a big reader, but suddenly finding herself illiterate caused her to blush in embarrassment. She didn’t want to be one of those kids the teachers had to spoon feed information to. The ones who had to attend the ‘special’ class.

‟Oh, I’m sorry, Curry,” Twilight said, levitating the book from in front of Curry and replacing it with a much slimmer volume. That book is for me. I thought I’d do a little light reading while you browsed the books I brought for you. I just got this new updated version of Magicus Mathematicus and was eager to review some of the new equations for power transference and sharing.”

Curry gingerly flipped open the book with one finger, almost afraid to look at the contents. She let out a sigh of relief when the contents proved to be understandable. Her relief was quickly tempered by the realization that she was looking at a basic math book. Very similar in some ways to her textbook from grade two. The biggest difference was that the word questions were in general pony related in some way. Like the one asking how long it would take a pegasus to fly fifty kilotrots if she were flying at sixty kilotrots an hour into a fifteen kilotrot headwind. Though the one about sharing apples among three friends could have come out of any of her old school books.

‟Is that too advanced for you?” Twilight asked worriedly as she tried to decipher Curry’s expression. The human’s face was very expressive for something so flat, but she didn’t want to make the mistake of assuming a direct correlation with normal pony expressions that looked similar. ‟It was the most basic primer I could find in the library.”

‟No, no,” Curry hastily assured Twilight. ‟I done covered this a few years ago in school.”

‟Oh, good. I was hoping that was the case,” Twilight said with pleasure. ‟How about this one?” she asked, swapping the book in front of Curry with another one.

Again, Curry checked the book and found that it was talking about concepts that she had just started to study back home. ‟This here is where I was at, at home,” she said. She looked up at Twilight with an expression of dismay. ‟Ain’t we going to study any magic?”

Twilight looked a bit uncomfortable. ‟Most pony magic is instinctive and learned from experience like walking and talking. At your age, most of the training is show and do, with the teacher walking the student through the concepts. The more advanced magic that requires study from books would not do you any good till we have evaluated just what sort of magic if any, you have. I was planning--”

‟But I must have magic!” Curry cut Twilight off. ‟I just have to!”

‟Well of course you do. Everypony has some sort of magic. As I was trying to say, I was planning on working with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna on the best way to evaluate your magic potential,” Twilight said hastily, and a bit evasively.

Twilight was telling the truth, but not the whole truth. Part of her plans for this morning along with evaluating Curry’s educational level was to do a scan of the small human to once and for all determine what her natural magic aura was like under the contamination caused by Jake’s Alicorn magic. But she didn’t want Curry to know that. The scan would be much easier if she was relaxed and unaware of what Twilight was doing.

There was a sound of scraping wood as Spike dragged a spare chair over next to Curry and clambered up onto it. ‟Don’t worry, I’ll help you with the big words,” he assured the small girl with a smirk.

‟You sure you’re big enough to handle them?” Curry retorted, giving him a nudge with her elbow. She froze for a moment as she realized she’d just jostled a fire-breathing dragon.

Spike just gave her an elbow nudge in return, and then reached for another of the books Twilight was pulling out of her saddlebags.

‟That’s likely too young, Spike,” Twilight said in a distracted tone as a seemingly endless stream of books continued to float up and out of her bags.

Curry blanched a little as the books started to form a wall between her and the purple unicorn.

‟Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Spike murmured out of the side of his mouth, as he pretended great interest in the primary school level Equestrish book in front of him. He was currently reading with apparent interest that ‘P’ stands for plowing and pulling.

‟There, now let us see,” Twilight said as she levitated the entire mass of books, including the one in Spike’s hands. They formed a large ring around her. She started rotating them around her head while she scanned the title. The books started to separate, every third or fourth was returned to the table, while the rest were packed back into her saddlebags.

Curry was so enthralled watching the magic show that it wasn’t till Twilight finished that she noticed that while the pile of books was much reduced, it was still high enough that she had to hitch herself up slightly in her seat to look over them and give Twilight a look of incredulity. ‟You want me to read all of these?” she asked in dismay.

‟Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to read them all this morning. You can finish browsing them after lunch,” Twilight said with a perfectly straight face. ‟Just skim through them for now. I’m sure Spike will be happy to answer any of your questions.” The purple unicorn then levitated her own book in front of her while plucking an apple out of the bowl of fruit Fluttershy kept filled on the table.

Curry gave the stack of books a look that might have more appropriately been reserved for inspecting a gallows that had been inscribed with her own name.

‟Don’t worry,” Spike once again interjected. ‟Twilight just tends to forget other ponies don’t regard reading as a full-contact sport.”

‟She can hear you,” Twilight said in a sing-along voice from behind her book. Spike just grinned and pulled a book off the stack in front of them. ‟Here, you might like this. The history of Hearth Warming Eve. A big holiday that’s coming up soon.”

Curry gave a resigned sigh and took the book from Spike. Silence fell over the room as almost against her will Curry found herself becoming immersed in the story of the creation of Equestria.

As she read about fantastic things like Windigoes, Curry found herself pausing every now and then as she realized that what she was reading had actually happened. It certainly made for less boring reading than a lot of the history she had been spoon-fed back home. This was about magic disasters, caused by magical creatures, solved by magic, sort of.

While Curry read, with the occasional clarification from Spike, Twilight was far from idle. She’d told a small untruth when she’d informed Curry that she’d brought her own book along to review some of the updated equations and new discoveries. The truth was that there was one particular equation that she was particularly interested in, and it was by no means a new one. It was a diagnostic spell designed to separate and analyze magical auras. A less complicated version was used forensically to determine the identity of a magical caster from the residue left behind at a crime scene or accident. This one was used in high-energy magic work and was able to scan down to ten thaums, the most basic element of magic.

Under the camouflage of the magic, she was using to hold the book in front of her face Twilight wove the highly complex and subtle spell. Tendrils of invisible magical energy insinuated themselves into the Alicorn aura that surrounded Curry. On a blank page she held beside her book, a stylized figure of Curry appeared, surrounded and infused by the magic Twilight was analyzing. As the spell cataloged the magic it found, it erased it from the image leaving the other influences more visible. Bit by bit that magic disappeared from the picture. First to go was the tiny traces of Fluttershy’s magic that clung to Curry. Next was the fairly strong magical aura that Rarity had infused into Curry’s outfit as she worked on it. Twilight frowned slightly. Intermingled with Rarity’s magic was some of Zecora’s. How had that happened? Twilight set that question aside for a later time and continued to winnow through all the magical traces surrounding Curry.

Every pony who had been in contact with the small girl over the last couple of days had left a trace, even Twilight. All those traces were analyzed and then suppressed until only the pure aura of Jake’s magic was left.

Twilight frowned to herself. Curry natural magic must be nearly nonexistent. She could not detect even a trace of it due to the interference from the large amount of magic Jake had infused into the little filly during the transfer to Equestria. Carefully, not wanting to burn out her spell by hastily interacting with too much of Jake’s magic, Twilight continued to tease at the aura surrounding Curry as the image in the book grew less and less distinct.

‟Not possible!” Twilight suddenly gasped. She shut the book with a snap, discontinuing the spell.

‟What was that, Twilight?” Spike asked, looking up from where he was nestled against Curry, reading about the importance of Winter Wrap Up along with her.

‟I just remembered something important, Spike. We need to get back to the library!”

‟But, I thought we were going to stay all day,” Spike protested.

‟Can’t be helped. I totally forgot . . .” Twilight paused, drawing a blank.

‟Yeah, I can see where you’re having trouble with your memory,” Spike said, shooting her a suspicious glare. He gave a sigh in response to the desperate look she sent his way.

By this time Curry had pulled her nose out of the book she was reading and was looking between Spike and Twilight with eyes that were a touch out of focus from all the close up reading she’d been doing. ‟What’s the matter?” she asked.

‟We need to get back to the Library. Twilight forgot to leave a window open for Owloysius, her pet owl. He’ll make an awful mess if we don’t get back in time.”

Twilight directed a scathing look at Spike, but it was too late to do anything about his chosen excuse. ‟Yes, I am so very sorry, Curry. I promise that I will be back as soon as possible. You can keep these books to look over until then.”

‟Aw, that’s too bad,” Curry said, sticking a hand behind her back and crossing all her fingers.

The small girl watched as Twilight hastily packed up and lifted Spike onto her back. Only when the unicorn pony had left did she get up from the table. She started to close the book she’d been reading and then paused. She took a napkin from the table and used it to bookmark her place.

Curry was playing with the baby otters when Fluttershy trotted back into the room. ‟Oh, did Twilight have to leave?”

‟Yeah, something about her pet owl being locked in the library.”

‟Oh, how terrible. Poor Owloysius,” Fluttershy said sympathetically. Then she frowned. ‟That’s strange, I thought Applejack put in an Owl door for Twilight.”

‟But what am I going to do now?” Fluttershy said in a worried tone. ‟I was going to escort Mrs. Lynx back to her home on the other side of Ponyville. But I can’t leave you here all alone. Oh, dear, I hope no pony sees her and makes a fuss. She’s such a sweet kitty, and she’d never hurt a foal, but someponies just don’t understand.”

‟I could go with her,” Curry volunteered, suddenly eager at the idea of seeing a lot more of this new world.

‟Oh, that would be very nice of you. But, I’d have to come along to show you the way. I’m afraid it simply isn’t possible for both of us to leave right now. I’m sorry,” Fluttershy said in a guilt-ridden voice at being so stern with the little filly. The shy pony didn’t add that Curry would likely upset any pony they encountered even more than Mrs. Lynx. The last thing she wanted was to make Curry self-conscious about her appearance.

‟I need to do some chores inside, but there is no reason you can’t go out and play with some of our friends,” Fluttershy added, hoping to distract Curry from the disappointment.

***

Curry felt a bit guilty as she looked over her shoulder at Fluttershy’s cottage in the distance. She could just barely see the small dot that was her Stetson, which she had left hanging on a fence post. She had laboriously, and with much blotting, used a quill to write a short letter which she had stuck in the brim of her hat. When Fluttershy found it she would be informed that Curry would be back in a little while, she was just taking a short walk with Mrs. Lynx.

Curry told herself it wasn’t like Fluttershy had explicitly told her she could not leave the yard. She looked in the direction she knew the apple farm was. Somehow she knew that Jake was having a lot of fun. That left her free to have a little of her own. She headed off after Mrs. Lynx, who was just vanishing over the hill. She wasn’t too worried about running into a strange pony or walking into the town. Mrs. Lynx would avoid those. She was relying on her own ears as well to tell her when she was getting to close to anything civilized before she walked right out into someone’s yard.

A feeling of anticipation filled Curry. What would a town of ponies look like? She wondered to herself. Maybe something she would see on the way, or find, would reveal her special talent. Just then Mrs. Lynx let out a low, purt, of inquiry, and Curry picked up her pace. ‟Yep, I’m coming, just let me catch up,” she called out to the wild lynx who was waiting patiently for her.

***

As Curry turned her back on Fluttershy’s cabin, the hat she had left draped over the top of the fence pole suddenly popped into the air and fell into the weeds on the other side of the fence. From the topmost fence rail, Angel Bunny looked down on the discarded headgear with great satisfaction, before turning his back on it and with a twitch of his tail hopping off the fence and toward the cottage.

****

‟I need you to send a message, Spike!” Twilight said.

Spike was sitting in the middle of the library, more than a bit exhausted. They had run all the way home from Fluttershy’s cottage. Or, rather, Twilight had run. Spike had bounced, a lot. As soon as they had arrived Twilight had turned into a whirlwind of research and had sent Spike running from one side of the library to the other gathering all the books that even touched on foalhood psychology, especially as it pertained to young unicorns. Unlike some of her more recent manic moments, Twilight was coldly focused and in her element, as her years of experience at researching stood her in good stead. The scholarly unicorn had grown more and more focused as book after book passed through her hooves.

Having exhausted the meager selection offered by the Golden Oak Library, she was clearly about to request a larger selection from Canterlot. With a groan, Spike got to his feet and pulled out a quill and scroll.

‟Okay, hit me,” the young dragon said.

‟Dear Princess Celestia. I have discovered something very troubling. It may change the entire situation here in Ponyville. I desperately need to talk to you in person. I can be on the next train to Canterlot in . . .” Twilight paused and levitated a train schedule from its nook in her desk, ‟A Half an Hour!” she said in a voice just shy of a scream.

‟Did you want me to write that last bit down?” Spike asked.

‟Yes, yes, but you can leave out the exclamation marks. Send it right away, with my name added, of course.”

While Spike did his thing, Twilight raced up the stairs and grabbed her emergency have-to-leave-right-this-instant bag.

‟Come on, Spike,” she called out, levitating him onto her back as she, carefully exited the library, looking both ways as she did so.

She was halfway to the Train Station when Spike gave out a little choke and spewed a plume of green flame. A scroll materialized in the fire and without breaking stride Twilight rolled it open in front of her and started to read.

Spike gave a frantic cry of alarm and reached forward to cup Twilight’s head with both his hands, twisting her head right and left to steer her around the various ponies out for an afternoon stroll. He was feeling pretty satisfied with his quick thinking when Twilight planted all four hooves hard into the road and skidded to a stop. Spike gave a yell as he was catapulted over Twilight’s head and toward the road. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his head, screwing up his face in anticipation of the bad case of road rash he was heading for. When there was no impact after a few seconds he opened his eyes and found himself hovering a couple of inches above the street and upside-down.

The small dragon twisted his head around till he was looking back at Twilight who was perusing the scroll in front of her. She was biting her lip in indecision while shuffling her hooves nervously. At last, she let out a sigh and turned around while levitating Spike back up onto her back. ‟Come on, Spike. Back to the library,” she said.

‟What is this all about?” Spike demanded.

‟I needed to discuss something I discovered with Princess Celestia, or I guess, Princess Luna. I didn’t want to alarm anyone prematurely till I did.”

‟A little late for that, I think,” Spike replied, gesturing at the numerous ponies who were giving Twilight worried looks as she trotted back to the library.

‟Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Twilight called out as she passed each pony. ‟False alarm.”

***

With a relieved sigh Twilight reached the library and closed the door, giving an evaluating glance at the scattered books and papers that covered the floor that Luna would tread upon in just a few short hours. Discarding the idea of just shoving everything into the closet (again), she began to pick up books and stack them where she and Princess Luna could reference them. It would be just like a study session with Princess Celestia, she thought with a sudden smile. They could sit around the table and discuss the situation logically while sipping tea and nibbling biscuits. Luna would lean in close as Twilight pointed out the pertinent references, her warm breath tickling Twilight’s ear.

The Princess of the Night would be so impressed with her work that she certainly would mention it to Celestia, maybe so impressed she would return on a regular basis.

Twilight sighed, her eyes glazing slightly. We could sit out on the balcony and talk about the stars and drink tea, just the two of us, talking about magic. I could show her the ways that magic has changed over the centuries, the theories, the newly discovered spells, and she could tell me about all the great unicorns of the past. She would be so impressed with my knowledge that she would make our visits a regular occurrence, not nightly, of course. Maybe twice a week, or even three times. Maybe she could even stay over occasionally if she is too tired to fly home. It would be just like when I used to curl up and fall asleep in Princess Celestia’s lap all those years ago when our private late night study sessions went on too long. Not that I want to curl up in Luna’s lap. Of course not. I’m a grown mare now. It would hardly be proper.

Spike paused by Twilight and waved a claw in front of her face. "Hello? Anypony home?"

Twilight snapped out of her daydream, a light flush decorating her cheeks. Quickly putting on a serious expression, she said, ‟Okay, we have a few hours till Princess Luna gets here. Let's get everything cleaned and ready for her.”

‟Princess Luna is coming here?” Spike questioned in a worried tone. While it was true that the town had grown a lot more comfortable with the Princess of the Night after the last Nightmare Night, that did not mean they’d react well to an unexpected visit.

‟Yes, the letter from Princess Celestia said that Princess Luna will get here as soon as possible. Apparently, she was already planning on coming tomorrow morning, so she is moving her schedule ahead and can be here earlier than I could get to Canterlot on the train. If Princess Luna thinks Princess Celestia is needed, she will inform her sister and the Princess will teleport here.”

With a resigned sigh, Spike picked up a broom and started to clean, while Twilight started neatly stacking the books she had pulled out for her most recent bout of research. He knew from past experience that there was no way he could convince Twilight that scrubbing the library from top to bottom wasn’t needed in a case like this. He just wished he knew what the whole fuss was about. What had Twilight seen when she scanned Curry?

***

‟What had Twilight Sparkle in such a fuss?” Sneak Peek muttered to himself as he sat in his seat waiting for the train to start its journey to Canterlot.

When he had witnessed her behavior earlier, his journalistic instincts had screamed that something big was going on. It had taken a lot of willpower to continue with his plans, travel to Canterlot, show his editor his pictures, show him his story, get a jump on every other paper in Equestria in announcing the appearance of a male Alicorn, and finally, accept the rewards his story would generate.

He had decided to downplay the entire ‘Son of Nightmare Moon’ angle. That could come out in the follow-up when the public was screaming for more information on the new prince.

That didn’t keep him from second-guessing himself. He wished the train would get going and take the choice out of his hands. To distract himself, he got out of his seat and recovered a discarded paper from where an early rider from Canterlot had left it. It was a rival publication and he knew he could wring a fair bit of entertainment out of it by taking mental shots at his counterparts’ columns. He straightened it out and flipped it over to the front page.

The headline hit him right between the eyes.

‟Male Alicorn Spotted in Downtown Canterlot”

There was even a blurry photo that looked very much like what he had seen out at Sweet Apple Acres.

Eyes bulging, a vein on his forehead throbbing, Sneak Peek scanned the story in disbelief. The discovery that the headline had been a joke, the paper poking fun at all the people who had called in reports, did little to ease his angst. Unlike the editor of this paper, he knew the truth, and how very convenient it was that at the same time he discovered the existence of a giant, black, male Alicorn, some rubbed neck clod of a Pegasus had lost a bar bet and was parading all over town during the previous evening wearing a novelty unicorn horn. A Pegasus that just happened to be of unusual size, and black as soot.

It could be a coincidence, he tried to tell himself.

‟Oh, look, it’s the stallion that’s helping out at Bon Bon’s place,” A voice said from just behind him. He twisted his head to see one of the locals looking over his shoulder at his salvaged paper.

‟Pardon?” He asked, dread causing his stomach to churn.

‟That stallion in the paper? I think he’s the same one who’s working over at Bon Bon’s candy shop. Can’t be very many pegasuses that big, that black, and wearing a stupid horn on their head.”

Just then one of the pony’s companions called out to him, and he trotted away leaving Sneak Peek slumped bonelessly in his seat. Listlessly, he got up and made his way off the train. There was no point in going to Canterlot. There wasn’t an editor in town who would publish either his pictures or story, except as a joke, not now. In a few days he was sure the truth would come out, likely via a controlled press conference, but by then it would be too late for him, his exclusive would be gone.

‟Well played, Celestia,” the broken newspony muttered to himself as he left the train station.

Despite this momentary bout of self-pity, Sneak Peek hadn’t gotten where he was today by being a quitter; although more than a few of his colleagues would have been quick to point out that where he was, was in one-bar town in the back of nowhere.

The hard-living newspony had barely stepped off the train platform when his shoulders came back, his legs stiffened and he decided that if this avenue of the attack had been cut off by his too clever opponent, he just needed to flank her position.

Now if he could just figure out how he was going to do that.

He needed a good stiff drink, or maybe a few. He was way too sober to go head to head against Celestia.

Ch15 Down on the Farm [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter Fifteen
Down on the Farm

***

It was breakfast time at the Apple home and all the ponies therein were gathered around the table enjoying the bounty of the farm, including one over-sized black Alicorn guest who was sitting directly on the floor, with one side of the table all to himself, and his head level with the next largest pony at the table who was sitting opposite him.

Jake held his plate firmly in place with a hoof on each side while carefully, and methodically, licking it to glistening whiteness. Using due diligence he made sure he removed every minuscule trace of maple syrup and flapjacks. Only when he was sure there was not a speck of flavor left did he lift his head with a sigh of regret.

There was a scraping sound, and Big Mac shoved another plate in front of him, loaded with a dozen flapjacks, this pile buried under a heaping helping of apple compote. “Pony’s got to have a good breakfast if he means to do a good day’s work,” Big Mac said, bending over and snagging a mouthful from his own large bowl of oats and apples.

For a moment Jake stared wide-eyed at the bounty in front of him, and then dove in while thinking to himself that Big Mac was the best stallion ever!

***

Maybe he should have declined that last plate of flapjacks, and the extra serving of preserved apples, and the bowl of cinnamon and apple oatmeal, and those freshly peeled carrots, Jake thought as his stomach rumbled.

The young Percheron lowered his head and peeked between his forelegs at the long porcelain trough he was currently straddling. His forehead creased with uncertainty. He had thought it a very cool idea when Big Mac had demonstrated how it worked last night. Now, faced with the reality of actually doing his business inside a small clean room which was smaller than his stall back home, he was having serious doubts. He lifted his tail and tried to relax. “You can do this, Jake,” he muttered to himself. “Big Mac does it. You can do it.”

A sudden knock on the door caused him to start nervously, but not to the extent of solving his problem, rather the reverse in fact, as everything he had been trying so hard to loosen tightened up past any hope of letting loose.

“Everything okay, Jake?” Applejack asked from the other side of the door.

“Fine, fine,” Jake squeaked out, though from him it was the sort of squeak a poorly played bass cello might make.

“Well, hurry on down when you all are finished. Big Mac is getting ready to leave.”

“Coming now,” Jake said hastily, lifting a hind leg and depressing the broad pedal at the side of the toilet. There was a sudden loud whoosh of water sluicing through the trough between his legs. He waited a few minutes for the water to stop flowing, and then taking a deep breath, he lipped the handle on the door and let himself out of the small bathroom. He would just have to wait for an opportunity to take care of things the proper way, behind a tall bush, later.

***

A half-hour later Jake knelt in the farmyard as Granny Smith secured fat saddlebags, heavily loaded with lunch, over his back. She chattered away as she worked, but Jake only listened with one ear to her words, which for the most part were on topics that left him a bit befuddled if not out and out in the dark. He was busy staring across the yard at where Applejack and Big Mac were having a conversation while Applejack helped her big brother get ready in much the same way Granny Smith was helping Jake, only Big Mac didn’t have to kneel on the ground like Jake was doing, though Applejack was using a bale of hay to boost herself slightly.

Jake was half-afraid that if he looked away, the red stallion would leave without him. The big black colt was quivering in anticipation of another day learning all sorts of neat stuff from his new mentor and wasn’t willing to take the least chance of missing out on it.

Granny Smith was oblivious to Jake’s lack of attention. It was clear from her conversation that overnight she’d either forgotten or was ignoring the fact, that Jake was just a colt in a stallion’s body.

“That Applejack sure is a fine mare. Isn’t she?” Granny Smith cackled, taking in the direction of Jake’s gaze and mistaking the focus of his attention. “I don’t have to tell you what a good a cook she is. You saw that your own self this morning at breakfast. The girl can work all day and party all night if you get what I mean. Mare has hindquarters you could bounce a bit off of too.”

“I like parties, and Applejack’s flapjacks,” Jake said, swiveling his ears a bit in Granny Smith’s direction while keeping his eyes on every move Big Mac made.

“Course you do. A fine big stallion like you. I tell you what, those ain’t the only reasons why Applejack is the mare for you,” Granny said, growing enthused, and more than a little indiscreet in her choice of topics. If Jake had been a few years older he likely would have been burning up in embarrassment, but as it was just about everything Granny said from that point on was so far over his head that only low flying birds were blushing.

***

Across the yard, Applejack was helping Big Mac hang various tools from his work harness while discussing their royal charge. “I really appreciate you taking Jake in hoof, Big Mac. I know it’s making a lot of work you’re going to have to do after he’s gone to Canterlot. Cleaning up all those kicked over trees.”

“Not that much,” Big Mac drawled while giving himself a shake to make sure everything was well attached and that no sharp edges threatened his hide. “Clearing an old orchard is messy work. Wouldn’t be much different if he’d been a full grown earth pony. Colt needed experience. Doesn’t know hardly nothin’. He’s powerful strong. But, a good pony. Not a mean bone.”

Applejack felt pleased with getting such a glowing testament from her brother. Of course, she’d known that Jake was a good pony, but hearing it from Big Mac was reassuring. She knew mares but had to confess, at least to herself, that more often than not the way a colt or stallion’s mind worked was beyond her.

There was still one thing that was bothering Applejack. “Do you think we’re taking advantage of him? Having him work so hard for we’uns? Colt his age. Shouldn’t he be out playing with friends?”

Big Mac shifted the straw in his mouth from side to side as he gave his sister’s questions serious consideration, then let a low chuckle. “Kicking over trees, pulling up stumps. He is playing. Most important type of play. Colt needs to learn how strong he is,” he said with a smile. “Having a lot of fun learning new things. Not really work for him right now. I’ll watch carefully. Colt does need time to just play, be with other ponies his own age. Apple Bloom coming home tomorrow?” he finished with what seemed an off-topic question.

“Yeah. I’m still thinking on what to tell her.”

“Truth,” Big Mac said.

“Goes without saying,” Applejack said while frowning at him. “I’m just thinking on how to make her understand how important it is that nopony finds out about him till Princess Celestia and her sister are ready for the news to come out. You know I’m not one for hiding things, but I got to admit the Princess is right. I can imagine how the mares in town would react to him, and I don’t imagine that big city mares would be a whole lot different in that there regard. Young Colt doesn’t need that sort of attention. Not at his age. No matter if he looks full grown, and then some.”

Big Mac gave a nod and then twisted his head around till he was looking toward Jake. The big colt pricked up his ears, and when Big Mac gave him a come-on gesture with a toss of his head, Jake lurched to his feet, being careful of Granny Smith, and trotted after his mentor, who headed out for the backfield without looking behind to see if the other pony was following. Jake hurried up till he was marching alongside his elder, shortening his stride till his steps matched those of Big Mac.

The big red stallion watched Jake out of the corner of his eyes, smiling gently as he saw the colt matching his pace exactly. He could remember back when he’d trot alongside his father, trying to do the exact same thing. Of course back then he’d had to take three strides for every one of his father’s.

This was nice, Big Mac though. He had never been jealous of the special bond between Applejack and Apple Bloom, but there were times when he had wished there was someone he could pass some male wisdom onto. It was too bad Jake was only here for a short time, but that just meant he had to make the most of this chance while it was here. Now, what should he pass onto Jake today? He’d made a good start on teaching him apple bucking, and the colt was a natural when it came to brute force pulling, but Jake was severely deficient in skills that most ponies, earth ponies especially, picked up before they were a year old. He still had a hard time with finer manipulations for one thing, and on focusing his earth pony magic to balance loads and stresses.

“Big Mac, does Applejack’s plot really taste that good?” Jake asked out of the blue. Big Mac stumbled and almost face planted in the road.

“Are you alright?” Jake cried out, moving to help the nearly fallen pony regain his hooves. He lowered his head till he could stick his muzzle under Big Mac’s chest and lifted, carefully.

“Fine, fine,” Big Mac reassured Jake while trying to regain his equilibrium. Where the heck had that question come from? A moments thought answered his unvoiced question. Had to be Granny, but in what context. Carefully wording his question, he asked, “Where did you hear about,” Big Mac flushed, causing his natural red coloration to darken, “Applejack’s plot?”

Jake shuffled his feet. He wasn’t exactly sure what was the matter, but the atmosphere had turned rather awkward. He was afraid he’d done something wrong but had no idea what, and it worried him. Jake lowered his head, so his eyes were below Big Mac’s while doodling in the dust with the tip of one dinner-plate sized hoof. “Granny Smith was talking about how wonderful Applejack was. How you could bounce a bit off her hindquarters, and what a great cook she was, and how she has the sweetest plot of any mare in Ponyville.”

Deduction confirmed, Big Mac rolled his eyes in the general direction of Canterlot and sent a silent prayer winging that way to preserve him from elderly mares with zero concern for the normal social niceties. This was not the sort of Stallion/Colt interaction he had wanted to indulge in. Not for a few years anyway. Unlike Granny, Mac had not forgotten that Jake was mentally prepubescent. How was he going to defuse this time-bomb Granny has stuck him with? The last thing Big Mac needed was for Jake to ask this sort of question of Princess Celestia. He hated to do it, but it looked like he was going to have to fib a bit.

Big Mac gave a laugh. “Pot, not plot, Jake. Granny must have said Applejack has the sweetest pots in all of Ponyville. It’s true. Applejack can cook anything you can think of. She’s got a pot for every recipe, big or small.”

Jake nodded, happy to see Big Mac laughing when he had been looking so strange just a moment before. “Applejack sure is a good cook. Especially her apple pie. I want to eat her pie every day,” Jake said with enthusiasm.

Big Mac almost stumbled again and told himself firmly to get his mind out of the pig trough. Taking in Jake’s totally innocent expression helped. Big Mac gave a sigh of relief over defusing the situation, and started down the road again, Jake keeping pace by his side. As they walked, the big red stallion explained to Jake that like the word ‘buck’ which the colt had shouted out the day before when he’d gotten frustrated, there were some words that stallions did not say in front of mares, plot was one of those.

Jake’s expression clearly showed that he really didn’t understand, but the older stallion knew that Jake would do his best to follow his instructions, and for now, that was good enough.

The two large stallions trotted down the road in happy harmony.

***

It was a few hours later, and Jake was starting to seriously regret not having ponied up and used the facilities back at the house. He’d been working side by side with Big Mac, and it had been great, but more and more the pressure in his belly was becoming harder and harder to ignore. He desperately wanted to find some nice thick bushes to do his business behind, without letting his mentor know he had ignored his instructions to go before they left. It wasn’t that he didn’t think that Big Mac would refuse to let him go, rather he was embarrassed to admit the need.

In the end, his own discomfort offered salvation. Big Mac had shown him how to extend his awareness of his load down the rope he was using to haul the fallen trees. The older pony made it look easy as could be, but Jake needed to focus as hard as he possibly could on the rope between his teeth and across his shoulders. A sudden near cramp in his bowels caused his focus to waver just as he dug his hooves into the soft loam and pushed hard. The rope between him and the tree snapped and whipped forward to deliver a stinging lash across his withers. Jake gave a startled whinny of distress and jolted slightly. He did not bolt or rear. As big as he was, he had learned early on to be cautious in his motion, and his normal reaction to a sudden shock was to freeze in place till he could work out what the problem and solution were.

Big Mac was there in an instant, running a gentle hoof over the welt. “All right?” he asked in a calm voice.

“Okay,” Jake said in a voice that was slightly hoarse from suppressing the tears that were tickling the back of his throat. It really hurt, but he wasn’t about to admit that. “Big Mac?”

“Yes,”

“Is it okay to say that word, when there are only Stallions?” Jake asked, his voice quivering slightly.

“Go right ahead,”

“Oh, Buck, buckkety buck, buck, oh buck, that bucking stung,” Jake said with great feeling, and found that yelling out like that made the tears retreat from his eyes and even seemed to ease the sting a bit.

“Feel better?” Big Mac asked once Jake ran down.

“A bit,” Jake said, heaving a huge sigh.

“Good boy. Wait here. I’ll go get some liniment and a new rope,” the big red stallion said.

As Big Mac trotted away, Jake wasn’t slow in realizing this was his chance.

The small valley that Jake and Big Mac were clearing was a smooth bowl, but thanks to the clearing of the trees and dragging the stumps up out of the ground, there were now lots places offering concealment, if you didn’t mind getting your knees dirty. As soon as Big Mac was some distance away, Jake ducked down so he’d be out of sight behind the mounds of earth that had shaken free of the tree roots. Walking on his knees he crept as best he could toward the side of the former orchard, where there were low bushes that would give him a little privacy.

If the sting across his backside had not been a constant reminder of his carelessness, Jake would have found the whole creeping around thing rather fun. The pressure in his bladder wasn’t exactly doing much for his sense of play, either.

The big pony might have been out of sight of Big Mac, but four other sets of eyes were watching him suspiciously from the other side of the devastated landscape.

***

Applejack, who had been mending a broken fence beside the farm’s vegetable garden, looked out at the road where a ball of dust was headed her way.

She carefully spit out the mouthful of nails she was holding in her mouth into a can on the ground before trotting toward the farm gate, a look of concern on her face. With the exception of Rainbow Dash, none of her friends traveled at that pace unless there was trouble in the air. Of course, it might not be one of her friends, but even then she didn’t think it was some town pony with a sudden urgent need for some apple products.

As the dust cloud got closer Applejack could make out the shape of a Pegasus pony flying with all her might, her hooves mere inches off the ground. Even without having a clear view, Applejack started to get a bad feeling about who the pony was. A feeling that was confirmed a few seconds later when Fluttershy came to a stop directly in front of her and grasped her around the shoulders.

“Curry is gone,” she gasped into Applejack’s face.

***

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had arrived at the old apple orchard, full of plans for how they were going to catch a human and get her to grant them their fondest wish, cutie marks all around. Their cheerful and optimistic chatter had cut off abruptly when they crested the ridge and looked out over a scene of total destruction. There was nothing left of the old orchard but a pile of fallen trees and pulled out stumps piled up on the high ground around the small valley.

“What! The! Hay?” Scootaloo said in awed amazement as she gazed out over a scene that even the CMC had never come close to equaling. Her small wings stood out rigid from her back, quivering slightly, as her eyes took in all the gorgeous earth mounds and slopped tree trunks. It was like a dream come true. The stunts she could pull in a venue like this would be awesome!!

“I don’t understand.” Apple Bloom said. “Applejack didn’t say anything about clearing the old orchard. And how the heck did they do so much, so quick.”

“Maybe Twilight Sparkle helped?” Sweetie Belle suggested in a questioning tone. “She’s strong enough to pull up trees like that.”

“Ith that Big Mac?” Twist asked, a hint of excitement in her voice, pointing with a forehoof at the other side of the valley. While Twist had been delighted at the invitation to spend a couple of days with her friends camping out at their clubhouse, it would be lying to suggest that at least part of her glee was not due to the thought of encountering Apple Bloom’s hunky big brother, just by accident.

“I think you’re right, Twist,” Sweetie Belle said, shading her eyes with one forehoof as she looked out across the valley. “He’s looking at something on the ground. I’ll give him a call,” she offered, drawing a deep breath.

“Stop,” Apple Bloom hissed, clamping a hoof over Sweetie Belle’s mouth. She’d been examining the fallen trees nearby and had just spotted something very suspicious. “Take a gander over there, Scoot,” she ordered her Pegasus friend, who had the best eyesight of any of them. “Right by that fallen tree that looks like Mayor Mare’s hairdo.”

“Where?” Scootaloo asked, shading her eyes just as Sweetie Belle had. “Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. Looks like a black Pegasus is back there behind the trees. Maybe that’s why Big Mac was able to get so much done. He had help.”

“If that varmint is helping Big Mac, why is she going to so much trouble to avoid getting spotted?” Apple Bloom asked.

‘Yeah, she does seem to be acting pretty sneaky. Like she doesn’t want to be seen,” Scootaloo mused, squinting her eyes in an effort to make out more of the vague shape.

Sweetie Belle knocked Apple Bloom’s hoof away from her mouth and spit theatrically before glaring at her friend. “Why did you do that?” she demanded.

“Because that pony is making a lot of effort to not be seen by Big Mac. If we start yelling at my brother it will warn her and she’ll get away. I bet she’s part of a gang of apple tree thieves and Big Mac stumbled on the crime before they could make off with the loot. I bet that pony is trying to sneak far enough away that she can fly off and not be seen. We’ve got to stop her from escaping.”

Twist’s expression betrayed serious uncertainty, even as Scootaloo and even Sweetie Belle quickly endorsed Apple Bloom’s idea. “Are you thure?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of thomthing like that.”

“That’s cause they are so sneaky they never got caught,” Scootaloo said. Look at how she fades into the shadow. I bet she’s a ninja pony.”

“A ninja apple tree thief?” Twist asked. Even her normally placid and easy going nature was being strained from the effort of not bopping her friends on the head and asking if they were idiots.

Despite her best efforts to be the rational one, Twist soon found herself being sucked into her friend’s scheme, overwhelmed with their enthusiasm and general refusal to let little things like reality stand in the way of a good adventure.

***

Feeling a hundred pounds lighter, Jake eased his way through a tight space between some of the piled up apple trees, keeping to his sneaky behavior just for the fun of it now. Back home he had mostly been a supporting character in Curry’s private games. A noble steed, a faithful companion. A dim-witted guard to pounce on. His most challenging effort was in not getting so distracted he missed his cue. He well remembered when he had received the silent treatment from Curry for an entire half-hour after he had gotten distracted by a cluster of succulent dead fall apples, and had failed to notice that she had sprung a death-from-above ambush from the old apple tree, till she’d been sitting on his back for a good five minutes trying to get his attention.

Curry had always gotten to be the sneaky ninja, it was his turn now. With a little concentration, Jake found he could fold his new wings in such a way that they mimicked a dark cloak, one edge held just below his eyes, lending him what he thought was an effective spooky and mysterious aura.

Jake was fully into his role of mysterious stalking pony of mystery when multiple cries of, “Get her!!” came from all around him. There was a thrashing among the branches of the fallen apple trees and four brightly colored forms lunged forward and wrapped all four of their limbs around each of his legs. The same chorus of voices now started crying, “Help, Big Mac. Come a running. Thief, thief, tree stealer.”

True to his nature and life experience, Jake froze in place, half in fear for himself, half in fear of doing harm to whatever, or whoever, had grabbed hold of him. The fact that they were talking in a way he understood only strengthened his inclination to do no harm. He looked down and blinked in surprise to see two small fillies perched on his hooves, their eyes tightly shut as they held on with all their might while hollering their lungs out. One of them was a yellow earth pony with a pinkish red mane, while the other was cream colored with a vibrant red mane and a pair of over-sized purple eyeglasses. As Jake lowered his head to get a better look, a wonderful scent of peppermint floated up from the pony wearing the glasses. He gave a snort of pleased surprised and lowered his head further while raising the hoof she was sitting on, so he could nuzzle her curly mane and see if maybe, like Pinkie, she was in the habit of concealing tasty treats in those wild tresses.

***

Twist was still not sure just how her three friends had convinced her to take part in this crazy stunt. She had sort of blanked out after the decision that they would all scream for Big Mac as soon as they had immobilized the tree-wrecking pony. From that point she had been sort of on autopilot, the only thing she could really visualize was the image in her imagination of Big Mac praising her for her bravery, and asking if she’d like to go with the weekly town-hall dance with him as a reward.

Before she’d known it, she’d been crouched in the tangled limbs of an uprooted apple tree alongside Apple Bloom waiting for the order to jump and grab. She had almost thrown up when she’d heard the heavy footsteps of the approaching Pegasus, remarkably loud for a species of pony known for their light steps in fact. Twist had only been able to see a vague outline of the other pony’s legs as she walked into Twist’s field of view. Then Apple Bloom had slapped her flank, and Twist had lunged out of her cover and latched onto the nearest leg to her. From that point Twist simply yelled as loud as she could for Big Mac and help until she felt a tugging at her mane.

Twist opened her eyes and gazed upward, into the eyes of a pony who was huge beyond all reason. Only then did she take into account just how large the leg she was clutching was, and how big the hoof she was sitting on spread. Her eyes widened as she took in the large unicorn horn jutting from his forehead.

“Do you taste good?” the monster pony asked in a voice with such a low register that Twist swore her bones were vibrating.

She fainted.

***

Jake snorted in concern when the nice smelling filly rolled backward off his hoof, he just barely managed to lower his foot so she wouldn’t have far to fall. Before he could do anything, the pony who was still perched on his other hoof said in an accusing tone. “You’re not a Pegasus. Where at’s your partner? Come on, speak up, and I won’t have to get rough.”

Jake’s eyes widened in surprise and pleasure. He knew this game. Now, what should he say in return? Before he could think up a good response, another pony was heard from.

“What are you talking about, Apple Bloom?” A musical voice asked from his left rear leg. “He’s for sure the ninja tree thief Pegasus we spotted from the hill.”

“Yeah, and she’s for sure a stallion,” another voice added sarcastically. A second later it added in a much more awed tone. “And a real big ‘un too.”

Both the small filly on his hoof and Jake leaned their heads around and looked toward Jake’s left leg where a small white Unicorn was perched. The unicorn’s eyes widened in shock as she took in the horn sprouting from Jake’s forehead. The same happened to the yellow earth pony on his front leg as she got a good look at his wings.

“No way. You’re an Alicorn.” This time the words came from the little Pegasus pony on his other rear hoof. The one who had remarked on his masculinity earlier. Jake lowered his head enough that they could look at each other from under the big horse’s belly. “That is so cool!”

Jake wasn’t paying the Pegasus very much attention. Instead, he directed a pleased look at the little unicorn. “Do I really look like a ninja?” he asked enthusiastically in his deep rumble of a voice.

***

Sweetie Belle had indulged in the sneaky reading of some of her sister’s more lurid romance novels. Which might explain why she now frantically scrambled away from her seat on the monster’s hoof, her rear digging a furrow in the ground as her hooves tossed up clods of dirt. “Ahhh, it’s the demon alicorn prince. He’s going to carry us off to his dark tower and ravage us!”

Jake frowned while thinking, no fair. He hadn’t even figured out a good response from before, and now they were changing the game on him.

“What’s ravage mean?” Scootaloo asked, leaning over on her perch to direct a questioning look at both Apple Bloom and Jake.

Jake shifted his gaze to the little pony on his right forehoof. He’d wanted to know the answer to that as well. It would help him play his part better.

Looking at her friend and the alicorn’s head in close proximity suddenly made Scootaloo aware of just how big he was. “Whoa, you’re a giant. Are you Bighoof?” she asked as she un-seated herself and bounced around till she was looking straight up at him from below his head.

Jake gave his head a shake. “Nope. Spike asked that too. What’s Bighoof?” He was starting to get dizzy. They kept changing the game before he could even start to play.

“You know Spike?” Apple Bloom asked, becoming the last of the fillies to let go of Jake and stand on her own four hooves. She'd been pretty tense and angry up to that point, but at the mention of Spike, she’d relaxed a bit.

“Are you girls’ crazy? Get away from him. Run. Run!” Sweetie Belle cried out from inside the canopy of a fallen apple tree.

“What happened?” Twist asked as she blinked back to consciousness. This drew Jake’s attention and he swiveled his head back around and moved to nuzzle the fallen pony in a comforting way.

“Ah, the monther is going to eat me!” Twist cried out, duplicating Sweetie Belle’s actions from earlier.

“I am not!” Jake said in an offended tone, before swiveling his head to look at Scootaloo and asking. What’s a monther?”

“She meant, Monster, but don’t worry about her. I bet you can fly awesome with wings that big.”

Jake shook his head, looking a bit shamefaced. “Can’t fly yet. Rainbow said she would teach me.”

“Oh no, darn it,” Apple Bloom cried out, drawing the attention of her three friends and Jake.

“Don’t you see?” she asked of her three friends while gesturing at Jake. “This is the secret she didn’t want us to find out about. That’s why she tried to send us on a wild snipe hunt to the other side of town. There never was a human. There goes another chance to get our Cutie marks, down the drain,” she said, petulantly, kicking a clod of dirt with her hoof.

“But, Curry is a--” Jake rumbled, but before he could finish his sentence a loud voice demanded.

“What in the hay is going on here?” Five sets of eyes looked up at Big Mac where he was outlined against the rising morning sun as he stood on the hillside above them.

Twist’s eyes turned dreamy, the other four sets of eyes developed varying degrees of guilty expressions.

***

Big Mac frowned at the five ponies sitting in front of him. Four small fillies in a row, and one over-sized colt sitting behind them. He directed the bulk of his frown at one particular pony. "Ah'm disappointed, Apple Bloom. You oughta know better than to bring yer friends into a dangerous area.

Apple Bloom ducked her head, looking ashamed, or at least sorry she had been caught. “Sorry, Big Mac. You all are right, I should have known better,” she said.

“But we thought Ninja ponies were stealing trees,” Scootaloo said with some heat.

Big Mac just looked at her.

“Well, we did,” the small Pegasus said in a slightly more repressed voice.

“Did you really think I was a ninja?” Jake rumbled as he repeated his earlier question, only to trail off as he caught Big Mac frowning at him. “Sorry,” he muttered and drooped his head.

Twist squirmed, ashamed at having acted like such a foal. She was tempted to throw her friends under the cart and tell Big Mac how she had tried to talk them out of it, but that would be wrong, and worse, it would likely make her look bad in the eyes of the handsome red stallion.

Sweetie Belle was hardly paying any attention at all to Big Mac. She kept glancing over her shoulders at the giant Alicorn stallion who looked like he’d stepped right off of the cover of one of her sister’s romance novels. The really steamy ones that she wasn’t even supposed to know Rarity had. He was scary handsome, she had to admit, but there was something about his posture and manner of speaking that just did not line up with the mental picture she had formed of the demon vamponies in those stories. She found her eyes roaming over his toned and muscular body until they fell on one certain spot, and she suddenly realized what had been tickling in the back of her mind all this time.

“He doesn’t have a cutie mark!” she cried out in surprise. “How can he not have a cutie mark?” she asked, and then her face took on a horrified expression. “How can a pony get that old and not have a cutie mark?”

“What? Hey, you’re right!” Scootaloo cried out, fluttering back a bit to get a better look at Jake’s flank. “He doesn’t!”

Apple Bloom jumped to her feet, confirmed what her friends were saying, and directed an accusing look at Big Mac.

Jake was a bit taken aback by the fillies loud cries of dismay over his lack of a mark on his flank. While Applejack and the other mares had mentioned cutie marks, they hadn’t made it sound like it was a big deal that he didn’t have one. Rarity had remarked that he wasn’t to worry about it, that he’d get one when he was older. Her telling him to not worry had worried him, but only for a very little while. There had been so many interesting things happening, and cake, that Jake had quite put it out of his mind, till now.

He craned his head around so he could stare closely at his own flank, just in case there was something obviously wrong with it, but there was nothing he could see. By the time he stopped looking and turned his head back around the fillies had shifted their attention from him toward Big Mac.

Apple Bloom had always had a difficult time accepting that cutie marks come when they come, but she had always assumed that while it was way, way, too far in the future to not try and hurry things, she’d have one eventually, no matter what. But to see a mature stallion without a mark! Suddenly, she was faced with the prospect that she might never, ever, never, get a Cutie Mark. It also meant that the reassurances she had received from every adult pony she knew that it would happen, had just been a pile of horse apples.

“Did you know about this? That full growed ponies sometimes don’t get cutie marks?” Apple Bloom demanded of Big Mac, who backed up a step or two in the face of her ire. The big pony did not handle outraged females well, no matter how small, or closely related.

Scootaloo and Sweety Belle joined Apple Bloom, directing their own hurt look at Big Mac. Sweetie Belle looked like she was about to weep. “Does this mean we might never get our cutie marks?” she asked, a hitch in her voice.

“Yeah, what she said!” Scootaloo said in a fierce voice, but to anyone who knew her well there was an obvious quiver in her voice under the bluster.

“Without cutie marks, we won’t ever be able to be anything. We’ll be nothing!” Apple Bloom wailed.

Behind the trio, Twist heard a gulp, and looked up, way up, craning her neck in order to look at Jake’s head, which was almost directly over her own. The big stallion’s lip was quivering, and there was an expression of dismay on his face. If he hadn’t been a full-grown stallion, Twist would have thought he was on the verge of bursting into tears, then the first fat drop slipped out of his eye and rolled down his cheek.

Twist found herself feeling very uncomfortable. If the stallion had been one of her friends at school she’d have had no difficulty in offering a comforting word along with a gentle nuzzle. She had no idea at all about how to deal with a full-grown stallion crying. She looked over at Big Mac, hoping to catch his attention and direct it toward the big Alicorn. The big farm pony was fully occupied with his sister and the other members of the CMC, however. Fortunately, hope came trotting over the lip of the shallow valley in the person of Apple Bloom’s sister, Applejack, accompanied by Fluttershy. The sight of the gentle Pegasus was a balm to Twist’s anxiety. She had full confidence that Fluttershy would be able to handle whatever was going on with the big black stallion. In her mind, the only pony who would have been better was Pinkie Pie.

***

Applejack slowed from a quick trot to a walk as she saw what was waiting for her at the bottom of the hill. Seeing Apple Bloom and her friends was a bit of a gut kick, especially with Jake sitting behind them. Her first thought was how the heck she was going to keep them from spilling the apple cart. That worry was quickly replaced as she took in Apple Bloom’s high pitched whining, and the despondent expression on Jake’s face, visible even from this distance.

“Fluttershy. Why don’t you go see what’s the matter with Jake? I’ll talk to Big Mac and see if Curry came this way.”

“Oh, but--” Fluttershy started to say, not enthused about getting up close with Jake all by herself. She was sure he was a very nice pony, but he was such a big pony, and so, so, stallioney. She’d managed to set aside her nervousness about him when she’d had Curry as a distraction. She was very unsure about interacting with him without the buffer of her friends, or the little human filly.

“I know you all are anxious about Curry, Fluttershy. But, if she hasn't been here we don’t want to worry Jake. Besides, he looks lower than a pig without a wallow. You can find out what that’s all about,” Applejack said, cutting Fluttershy off, while totally missing the reason behind her hesitation.

Applejack trotted away from the hesitant Fluttershy and toward her brother. “Big Mac, spare a moment?” she called out and had to suppress a chortle at the almost desperate look of relief he sent her way.

“Eyup,” Big Mac answered Applejack, turning away from his baby sister, who had finally fallen silent at the approach of Applejack. He trotted to meet Applejack at the half-way point.

Applejack directed a stern look toward her little sister when it looked like she and her friends might follow right on after Big Mac. “You lot go keep Jake company. I got something to thrash over with Big Mac here,” she said in a firm no-nonsense tone of voice.

“But, Applejack!” Apple Bloom said, only to cut her complaint short when her big sister gave her a stern look while stamping her hoof hard enough against the ground to cause a small tremor.

Having put her hoof down, Applejack turned as Big Mac came even with her and trotted away from the group, Big Mac matching strides with her.

“Remember Jake’s friend I mentioned last night? The one that was staying with Fluttershy?” Applejack asked her brother out of the side of her mouth as they trotted.

“Eyup,” Big Mac acknowledged, and then after a moment's hesitation asked, “His human?” His tone implied that while he didn’t doubt that Applejack thought Jake’s friend was a human, he himself wasn’t sure about the whole concept.

“Well, it seems she’s gone missing,” Applejack said in a serious tone. “Fluttershy thought she might have come to the farm to see Jake. If she did, I haven’t been able to find her. Coming all the way out here was my last hope of settling this quick. I’m going to have to round up the girls and figure out what we’re going to do. Can you keep Jake busy? Apple Bloom and her friends as well? I don’t want him worried, and I don’t want them. . . Um. . . helping."

Big Mac took a few minutes to mull this over and then said. “Eyup.”

***

While Applejack had been discussing things with her brother, Fluttershy had hesitantly approached Jake. If only he’d been something harmless like a Manticore, or a human for that matter, she told herself. But he was a pony, and they could hurt you worse than almost any critter.

Fluttershy was so busy with her own fears, that she didn’t notice the large tears slowly trickling down Jake’s cheeks till she was quite close. The sight of those caused a phase shift in her attitude as Jake suddenly went from being a huge scary stallion to a sad little foal, who just happened to be three times her size.

“Oh dear. Jake, honey, whatever is the matter?” Fluttershy asked as her creeping approach shifted to a quick walk and she hurried up to the big black colt.

“I don’t have a cutie mark,” Jake said in a voice that was rough with swallowed tears. “I’m not worth nothing.”

Unnoticed by the two larger ponies, Twist gave a slight jerk and felt the heat rise in her cheeks as she suffered a bout of guilt by association. Apple Bloom’s careless words had clearly injured the huge stallion, and while it wasn’t very adult of him to show his reaction so clearly, there could be no denying that he felt sorrow as a result of her friend’s words. As old as he was, not having a cutie mark must have been a constant source of humiliation. She couldn’t imagine how bad he must feel. She’d only been a blank flank for a few months after the other mares her age started to get their’s, and she could well remember her secret dread that it would never show up. Every morning bringing fresh disappointments as she checked closely to see if it had arrived overnight. What would it be like to suffer that disappointment day after day for years? She shuddered in empathic sympathy.

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo came up beside Twist, grumbling about deceitful ponies who led innocent little foals on. Apple Bloom directed a hard look toward the big Alicorn as if somehow this was all his fault. She was just in time to see Fluttershy wipe a tear from Jake’s cheek with a gentle wingtip.

“What the hay. Is he crying?” Apple Bloom asked, looking a bit uncomfortable.

“Yeth,” Twist said in a firm voice. “Thomone thaid not having a cutie mark meant you were uthleth.”

Apple Bloom was an admirable little filly in many ways, but she had a blind spot that at times could render her as thoughtless as her frequent tormentor, Diamond Tiara. She had locked onto the concept that she would never be a fully realized pony until she gained her Cutie Mark. This had on more than one occasion led her to actions that were in no way proper. One thing she had never done, however, was to make some other pony feel horrible because they didn’t have a cutie mark. Till now.

Unlike Diamond Tiara, Apple Bloom was sometimes able to acknowledge her mistakes without the aid of a metaphorical two-by-four upside her head. This was one of those occasions. Steeling herself, she trotted over beside Fluttershy and looked up at the big black Alicorn. “I’m sorry I made you feel bad. I’m sure you’ll get a cutie mark any day now.”

“Well, not for four or five years,” Fluttershy said, as she dabbed at Jake’s other cheek with her wing.

“Four or five years!” the CMC caroled as one.

“But that’s forever!” Jake protested.

Fluttershy had shrunk back from the vehement response her remark had caused, but she soldiered on bravely. “I know, it can seem that way,” she said in a flustered voice. “but most ponies don’t get their cutie marks till they are nine or ten. Some a little more than that.”

“Tell me about it,” Scootaloo grumbled.

“Wait a minute,” Sweetie Belle said. She’d been running Fluttershy’s words over in her mind, and something didn’t add up. “He,” she gestured at Jake in a broad motion, going up on her hind legs and waving her forelimbs in a wide arc so she could encompass all of him and make her point, “is full grown already.”

“Well, yes. He does look fully grown,” Fluttershy said. “But he isn’t really. Jake is only five.”

“No way is he five,” Apple Bloom said in disbelief.

“I am too five,” Jake said, his voice booming out and causing the fillies manes to flutter in the breeze. “I had a cake and everything, with a candle and a balloon. I got a ball.” He said the last as if that settled the argument fully.

The four fillies were set back on their haunches by Jake’s remonstration, four little rumps thumping hard enough against the ground to raise a puff of dust, while four small jaws dropped.

“It is true. He really is five,” Fluttershy confirmed. “Twilight thinks that there is some sort of unknown magic involved.”

Fluttershy didn’t like telling fibs, but she shuddered at the sort of reaction the whole truth would cause. Curry was still getting settled. The last thing she needed was to have to deal with the four overexcited little fillies with wild imaginations, and not a whole lot of common sense.

“And you really are only five?” Twist asked, her eyes wide behind her glasses.

Jake bobbed his head up and down vigorously. “Eyup!” he said with feeling if a lot less volume.

“Wow. That is so cool. I bet the grown-ups don’t treat you like a foal,” Scootaloo said. “I bet you could even go into Berry Punch’s place after dark and nopony would even look at you.”

“Well, I think they likely would look.” Sweetie Belle said. “He is an Alicorn, after all.”

“Is Berry Punch’s place a good place to go?” Jake asked curiously.”

“No! I mean, I’m sure it’s very nice,” Fluttershy quickly interjected stumbling a bit with her words as she tried to head off this topic of conversation. “You wouldn’t enjoy it very much.”

“Have you been there?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Rarity goes sometimes. But she won’t talk about what she does.”

“Oh, well, no. Rarity has asked me, but I haven’t been myself.”

“How do you know if Jake wouldn’t enjoy it then?”

“Well, I--”

“Can we go and see?” Jake asked, directing his attention toward the small fillies.

“Nope,” came the firm voice of Big Mac. The farm pony had come up unobserved while they had been talking.

“Oh, okay,” Jake said, accepting Big Mac’s word as law. Mainly because with the big farm pony back, he could have some real fun. “Can we pull some more trees now?” he asked eagerly.

“Hmmm,” Big Mac hummed to himself, running his eyes over the small valley and evaluating the current status of the project. “I think I can handle things for a bit by myself. I got another job I’d like you to do for me.”

Jake all but snapped to attention. “I’ll do it,” he said eagerly.

“I’d like you to escort Apple Bloom and her friends back to their tree house.” Before Jake, or Apple Bloom could respond to this, he turned to his little sister. “I’d like you to show Jake your clubhouse. He could stay with you four this last night of your camp-out.

Apple Bloom measured the colt with her eyes, a doubtful expression on her face. “Big Mac, I don’t rightly figure he’d fit.”

“Jake’s used to sleeping under the stars, and you have a campfire. You can teach him how to toast marshmallows,” Applejack interjected as she trotted up. “Ain’t that right, Jake.”

“I suppose,” Jake said hesitantly. A slight nudge against his knee caused him to look down at where the little filly with glasses was holding up a short round white cylinder. He leaned down and snuffled it, and then gingerly took the squashy object between his teeth and bit. Sugary goodness blasted his taste buds.

“That’th a marthmallow. They tathte even better toasted.”

“Let’s go,” Jake said eagerly, trotting quickly a few steps, before coming to a stop and looking at the four little fillies. “Which way?” he asked.

***

Applejack watched her sister and friends till they crested the hill and dipped out of sight. Turning toward Fluttershy, and her brother she said, “Okay, Jake’s settled for the night. Big Mac, can you check on them before you head home?”

“Eyup.”

“That’s fine, then. Fluttershy. Can you think of anything Curry might have said or done that would give us a hint as to where she might have gone?”

Without the distraction of a sad Jake, Fluttershy reverted to the almost frantic state she’d been in ever since she’d learned that Curry was nowhere to be found. She wracked her brains trying to think about the last time she’d talked to the little filly. “Oh! Mrs. Lynx,” she exclaimed in sudden realization. “I told Curry that I’d hoped to escort her to her home on the other side of Ponyville so no pony would get frightened seeing her. Curry offered to escort her in my place, but I told her that it wasn’t necessary.”

“You think she might have gone with her anyway?”

“I hope so,” Fluttershy, her expression becoming slightly less frantic. “Mrs. Lynx wouldn't let anything happen to Curry, and they would have skirted the town instead of walking through it.”

“Okay, then. We’ll round up whoever we can find, and do a sweep around the back of Ponyville, up toward the Rich estate. You can ask any critters we run across if they’ve seen her. They’d be sure to remember someone as funny looking as Curry.”

Plans made, the two mares trotted at a brisk pace toward Ponyville. As she trotted along beside her friend, Applejack had a niggling feeling that she’d forgotten something. For the life of her, she couldn’t quite bring it to mind. She stopped worrying about it. Sooner or later she’d remember.

***

Jake was a bit disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to spend the rest of the day hauling trees and stumps with Big Mac, but that feeling quickly faded as the four little fillies chattered and darted around him like songbirds around a feeder. It was like being in the middle of a mini-stampede. He made sure he stepped carefully, something he was well practiced at. Curry could get a bit too enthusiastic at times and it had been up to him to make sure that he didn’t walk into, or over her.

The big pony suddenly let out what could only be described as a bass giggle as the small Pegasus, Scootaloo, darted between his legs and under his belly. Her wings brushed across his stomach, causing him to suck it in and stumble slightly. “Don’t!” he protested. “That tickles.”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” an unrepentant Scootaloo laughed. “You’re just so awesomely big. I bet you never get adults telling you that you’re too young or too little.”

“Sometimes Curry says I’m too big when she is mad at me.”

“Curry? Who’s Curry,” Apple Bloom asked, just moments ahead of Sweety Belle. Both fillies trotted backward in front of Jake, looking up at him.

“Curry is my big sister,” Jake replied.

Both fillies came to a sudden stop, forcing Jake to halt as well. Twist, along with Scootaloo, moved up alongside their friends. “Your thither is bigger than you?” Twist said in disbelief, earning nods from all her friends.

“Dude, how is that even possible?” Scootaloo asked.

Jake shook his head in denial. “Curry is older, not bigger,” he explained. He lifted a leg so his hoof was about a foot or so above that of the fillies. He stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he squinted, and adjusted his hoof a little bit. “About this tall.”

The four fillies nodded in acknowledgment, picturing a mare about the size of Applejack with a variation of Jake’s coloration.

“Is she an Alicorn too?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Again, Jake shook his head. “Curry hasn’t got wings,” his eyes crossed as he looked at the long black horn jutting out of the middle of his forehead. “Or a horn.”

Again, the fillies nodded, the picture of a powerful earth pony mare forming in their minds.

“Where is she?” Apple Bloom asked.

“She’s staying with Miss Fluttershy,” Jake said, his voice turning a bit sad for a moment. He had been so busy learning all sorts of cool stuff with Big Mac that he hadn’t had time to miss Curry, but now that he had thought of her, he couldn’t help but wonder if she missed him.

“Hey, why don’t we swing by Fluttershy’s place and visit Jake’s sister?” Scootaloo suggested.

Jake’s ears pricked up at the idea, but his training kicked in. Only bad horses wandered when they’d been told to stay put. Big Mac had told him to go to the fillies’ tree house, and that was where he had to go. Besides, he was curious about just what a tree house was. “Nope. Got to go to your tree house,” Jake said.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Apple Bloom said, sharing a look with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. “Why don’t you lead the way?” she suggested to Jake.

Jake swung his head around, and then back to Apple Bloom. “I don’t know where to go,” he admitted.

“That’s okay,” Scootaloo said in a very loud tone, grinning at her friends. “It’s this way,” she added and set off.

“Wait, that’th not, ufff,” Twist started to say, only to find herself gagged by a pair of hooves, courtesy of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle working in tandem.

“Shhhh,” Sweetie Belle whispered into Twist’s ear. “Can’t you see how much poor Jake wants to see his sister?” she asked. “We should take him over to Fluttershy’s home so they can have a reunion. It’s the only proper thing to do.”

Twist let out a moan as she found herself once again being sucked into another of her friends’ crazy schemes. Oh, well, she told herself. At least this time it was something pretty innocent. What could possibly go wrong?

Ch16 Snipe Hunt, part two [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter Sixteen
Snipe Hunt, Part two

***

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon knelt on the grass beside a tall thick hedge with a rather new-looking hole in the normally neatly pruned shrub. A pair of pruning shears and some discarded hedge cuttings provided evidence as to the origin of the small hole in the greenery they were currently staring at so intently. Scattered around the two little ponies were the remains of a monumental candy binge, wrappers, and boxes scattered everywhere. The slight bulge in each of their bellies indicated where all that candy had gone as if any proof had really been needed.

Every now and then one of the fillies would, while looking more than a bit self-conscious, stick her muzzle into the hole and let out a long low cry, ‟Snnniiipppppe.”

After one such vocalization, Silver Spoon turned to her friend, and said, “This is taking too long. Why don’t we go and do something fun?”

Diamond Tiara had been feeling quite satisfied with her own cleverness and good luck. Who would have dreamed that when her father dragged her out of her comfortable bed at such a Tartarus darned early hour things would turn out so well? And to think, she had given serious thought to ignoring his order to go and play with those stupid blank flanks. If she’d done that, she'd have missed overhearing about the wonderful opportunity that they had almost stolen from her. She was therefore not exactly sympathetic to her friend’s suggestion. Not when the thought of quitting brought up the memory of being taunted by that abominable blank flank, Apple Bloom, with not having the patience to successfully complete this hunt.

‟We are staying,” Diamond Tiara said firmly. Then, to make things even clearer, she stuck a half-melted cube of chocolate covered toffee into her mouth and stuck her head up to the neck in the hole in the hedge. ‟Swwwnnooppeeett,” she gargled, focused more on trying to blow the candy scent as far as possible in order to help lure their elusive prey, then in trying to articulate the sounds correctly. She would be the one to catch the legendary Snipe, Diamond Tiara told herself with total self-confidence. It would be her picture on the front page of all the papers in Equestria as she posed with Princess Celestia and accepted her well-deserved reward. The newspapers would clamor to interview her, and when the time came for her to run for the title of Miss Equestria, she would not suffer her mother’s fate, cheated out of her rightful title and crown by some little snip of a commoner who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Really, as Diamond Tiara’s mother had frequently pointed out, if that dowdy pony hadn’t been there, some other pony would have run into the fire and saved that colt, it wasn’t like she’d done anything particularly special. And what did any of that have to do with being the most beautiful and graceful pony in Equestria, anyway?

Drawing her head out of the hole in the hedge, the stuck-up filly sent a speaking look toward her friend. With a sigh, Silver Spoon took her turn calling the Snipe, letting out a long loud yawn half-way through. It had been a long morning, the sun was warm, and her belly was stuffed to bulging with high-quality, high-calorie candy. Keeping her eyes open was becoming more and more of a challenge.

‟Stop that,” Diamond Tiara ordered Silver Spoon, fighting to repress her own cavernous yawn. She only held out for a moment before letting out her own jaw-cracker. She blinked watering eyes and gave herself a good hard shake in an effort to fight off a sudden feeling of sunny afternoon lethargy.

***

The Rich Family estate was a broad swath of property that had been landscaped to within an inch of its life. Lush green grass, carefully pruned trees, topiary bushes carved into a close resemblance of ponies in various heroic poses, with numerous water features scattered throughout. Koi ponds were linked with winding streams of water, linked to fountains with cast-cement figures gushing water from various orifices. Mixed among the greenery were ceramic statues of various fairy tale creatures lurking among the bushes and flowers.

In short, it looked more like the back-lot of a garden supply business than the home of the richest pony in Ponyville.

The natural, for a given value of natural, landscape surrounding the estate was, in contrast, a bit brown this late in the season, and the border of the grounds could clearly be determined by the change from short cropped, lush green grass to tall brown hay and brush. The exception was the well trimmed, tall, thick hedge that followed the lane-way that ran alongside the property and led to Ponyville in one direction, and to Rich’s numerous warehouses and other outbuildings in the other.

A rustling in the natural undergrowth was the only thing that gave warning a second before a bipedal creature stepped out of it, seemingly materializing in place. Even standing in plain sight it seemed to fade into the mottled background colors of the autumn fields and only became really visible when viewed against the verdant green grass of the estate.

***

Curry stared in bemusement at the small water feature just in front of her and the decorative sculptures surrounding it. A ceramic monkey? She thought it was a monkey anyway, it looked strange, but that might be the mismatched clothing it was dressed in. The figurine was sitting by the pond, a fishing pole held between its two front paws. A straw hat was pulled down over its eyes while a wisp of straw hung from its mouth. Clearly, it represented a dozing fisherman or fisher-monkey-thing in this case. Behind the slumbering monkey-thing, a small ceramic raccoon was frozen in the act of creeping away, a small ceramic fish in its mouth.

Curry was hardly tired at all, despite having walked at least five miles. Mrs. Lynx had been in no real hurry, and Curry had accompanied the feline until they had worked their way around the pony village and parted ways. That had been a couple of hours ago. The young girl likely should have headed back to Fluttershy’s home after that, but she was still fresh and was curious as could be about this new world.

Curry was well used to rambling through the mountains that had towered over her old home. The gently rolling landscape she had walked through today offered little impediment to someone used to the steep slopes and crags of her former residence. The sun was warm, but the air a bit crisp, making for just about perfect rambling weather. Without the need to keep up with the much faster pace that her new pony friends set, she’d been free to go at her own speed. Add to that a huge curiosity bump, and any urge to abandon her walk was quickly quashed. She had given into temptation and decided to wander over yonder for a bit.

The outfit that Miss Rarity had created for her proved to be much more comfortable than she would have guessed and surprisingly well suited for the sort of undercover exploration she was currently engaged in. If she’d been dressed in her old familiar clothing of jeans and flannel shirt she’d likely have been covered in burdock burrs by now and would have more than likely collected numerous scratches. Her new outfit shed seed burrs and forest litter like water off a duck’s back and was warm and cozy in the chill of the shadows. Just what you would expect from a magical garment created by a magical unicorn.

Her determination to continue exploring had paid off, leading her to discover this interesting place. The over-groomed park she was currently standing in reminded her a bit of a miniature golf course she’d gone to once with Old Ben, minus the putting lanes. She stood as still as she could be and listened hard, but heard nothing beyond the twitter of birds in the bushes and the gentle sound of wind rustling in the tall grass. Despite the overly landscaped appearance of the area there didn’t seem to be any ponies around.

Earlier, Curry had found it quite easy to avoid the town limits by simply listening for the sounds of hooves on the ground and the near-constant chatter as numerous brightly colored ponies passed the time of day with each other. She hadn’t dared get close enough to hear what they were talking about, but the near constant murmuring had made it fairly easy to keep out of sight. Confident that the area she was now in offered lots of cover, and that she’d be able to hear any ponies long before they could see her, Curry decided to explore this rather interesting looking area. In truth, she hardly gave it that much thought. There were no ponies around, and her curiosity about the inhabitants of her new home was more than enough justification in her mind to explore a bit.

The small girl first went uphill. She could see what looked like a large house up on top of the hill. As she got closer it got larger and larger. By the time she peeked out from behind a topiary bush carved into the shape of a rearing earth pony, she was awed. It was big as a hotel back home. Gleaming stone pillars marched across the front of the large dwelling which was at least three stories tall. While not a castle, it was obvious that only a very important person, or pony, would call this home.

The appearance of a pair of mares dressed in frilly maid outfits caused Curry to draw further back in the bush she was hiding inside, even as she stifled a giggle at their appearance. Much as she would have liked to take a closer look at this country palace, she knew that there would be no way she could be sure of not being spotted. With reluctance, she pulled back and with the same amount of caution as before made her way downhill from the mansion, peeking back over her shoulder every now and then as moved away. She wondered if the Princesses her new friends had talked about lived here. She supposed she’d find out soon enough if they decided they were interested in seeing her.

After about fifteen minutes of ninja-like darting from cover to cover. Curry found herself at the top of a long grass-covered slope. There was a long tall hedge at the bottom of the hill that she guessed marked the boundary of the property she was on. With no hope of being able to hide from view, and seeming at the limit of this interesting place, Curry was just about to turn back to her original starting point and make her way back to Fluttershy’s home. But, as she turned to leave, she spotted two painted ceramic sculptures nestled up beside the hedge about a hundred feet to the left of her current position. Unlike the previous ones, which followed a fantasy theme, these seemed to be simply two little fillies, legs tucked up under their bodies as they slumbered in the sun. They appeared to be brand new if the amount of packing material scattered around them were any indication. From this distance, Curry could not make out very many details, but the sun was glittering off of something attached to one figure’s head. It looked a lot like a crown of some sort. Maybe these figures were statues of the two Princesses that her new friends had told her about. If so, it would be nice to see what they looked like before she actually met them.

Except for the two maid ponies earlier, Curry hadn’t seen any other ponies all the while she’d been here. That had made her a touch overconfident. Deciding it wouldn’t hurt to take a closer look she started down the hill.

Truthfully, wanting a closer look at the pony art was only an excuse. The real attraction was the lush green slope in front of her. The hill was covered in plush unmarred grass, and what kid could resist such a pristine slope. Repressing the urge to yell out as she did so, Curry tossed herself down the hill, rolling over and over. The small girl was delighted to find that Rarity’s costume was more than slick enough to slip easily over the grass. She alternated between somersaulting head over heels and outright sliding. The only negative was having to stop herself from whooping in delight.

Thirty seconds later Curry came to a stop a bare ten feet from her targets, but not before she slid into one of the shallow boxes that were scattered around the two pieces of lawn art. Putting out a hand to stop herself, she felt something warm and gooey squish under her palm. With a decided feeling of disgust, she held up her hand, half afraid of what she might have just touched. Her worst fears seemed to be realized when she looked at the squashed brown lump sticking to her hand, but a moment later her expression changed from utter distaste to curiosity. Carefully lifting her hand toward her mouth, she gave a little sniff. Instead of the rank odor of dog poo, she sniffed the delightful aroma of sun-warmed chocolate.

Raising her head, the small girl looked more carefully at the scattered litter around her. Her eyes widened as she realized she was surrounded by large candy boxes, most of them empty, but some, like the one she had placed her hand on, still containing a few squares of over-sized, by her standards, treats.

The chunk of chocolate goodness stuck to her seemed fairly clean if she discounted the dirt smeared on her own hand. Since it had been in the box and not laying on the ground, she had no problem giving in to temptation and lifting her hand to her mouth and taking a lick. She closed her eyes in bliss as the rich sweet taste flooded her taste buds

A sudden snort caused Curry’s eyes to fly open and she watched in horror as one of the supposed painted ceramic art pieces, the one of a pony princess wearing a crown, lifted its head and looked at her through bleary eyes.

Curry froze in place, not even breathing. ‟I’m not here. I’m not here. I’m not here. This is a dream, this is only a dream,” she chanted in her head, willing with all her might for the pony in front of her to go back to sleep. Just past the princess, Curry noticed the hole that the two fillies had cut in the hedge. It looked like it might be big enough for her to slip through, but to get at it she’d have to all but crawl over the two ponies in front of her. Not an option. Curry just had to hope that some miracle would rescue her from her own foolishness.

For a moment the small ragamuffin thought she’d lucked out as the pony’s eyes drooped slightly, but that hope was dashed when the pony princess’ eyes flew open and she stared in utter shock at Curry.

Curry experienced a sudden bout of stomach-churning guilt as her foolish behavior over the last few hours suddenly came home to roost. With a typical kid’s attitude, the thought that she might actually get caught had never really registered. She had been far too busy focusing on this new and wonderful world to worry about anything as mundane as that. Now that she had been seen, she was suddenly confronted with the fact that she was in really big trouble. When the Princess, not this one, the one in the big castle, found out she’d intruded on her kinfolk, maybe even her daughter, she was going to be angry as all heck. She might banish Curry, or throw her in a deep dark dungeon where she’d never see Jake again. Worse, she might blame Fluttershy for not keeping a tight rein on Curry.

Unable to form any reasoned response to her situation, Curry settled on running like heck. It had certainly served her well the day she’d found herself alone in a field with an angry bull, and she didn’t see why it wouldn’t work here. Letting out a loud, ‟ahhhhhh!” she turned and scrambled back up the hill with all her might. To her dismay, the slope she had tumbled down in a few seconds proved much more challenging when she was trying to go the other way at speed. Her feet slipped out from under her and she only barely caught herself on her hands. Staying on all fours she awkwardly aimed for the closest garden feature, and cover.

****

Diamond Tiara had been scared out of her wits when she’d opened her eyes to find a bizarre creature staring at her from only a few hooves away. She’d have screamed if her vocal cords hadn’t been frozen along with the rest of her body. The spoiled pony had been on the verge of whimpering for mercy when the strange looking creature’s ears had folded back against its head while it let out a yell of panic and bolted away from her up the hill.

The small filly’s panic subsided, while at the same time a sudden realization filled her mind, pushing out the last remains of her own fear. ‟Sn, Sn, Snipe!” she stuttered, excitement making her trip over her own tongue.

Next to Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, who had been roused from a warm Buffalo summer day induced afternoon nap, stared blearily at her boon companion, who suddenly grabbed her firmly by the shoulders and gave her a good shake.

‟It’s the Snipe! It came. Get up! Get UP! We have to catch it before it gets away!” Diamond Tiara yelled in her friend’s face, before shoving her away and looking around frantically for the rope they had planned to use to tie up the Snipe once they caught it.

Silver Spoon was still trying to come to grips with the situation when her friend found the rope she was looking for. Grabbing the coil in her mouth Diamond Tiara raced after the escaping Snipe. Silver Spoon looked up the hill and goggled as she spotted the strange creature fleeing in front of her friend, who was rapidly gaining on the thing.

If truth were told, Silver Spoon had never expected they would manage to lure the Snipe into their clutches, if such a creature even existed. After being burned in the Nocturne egg scam she was wary of anything that originated with the CMC. To find out there really was a Snipe was so shocking that she stood in place, not sure what to do.

‟Come on, Silver Spoon!” Diamond Tiara cried over her shoulder. “We can’t let the Snipe get away. Fame and fortune wait!”

With her friend’s mouth full of rope, all Silver Spoon really heard was, “W, cnt, ipe, way. Fm, m ortun, ait,” A clear comprehension wasn’t really needed, seeing as how Diamond Tiara was suiting actions to her muffled words. Silver Spoon shoved her glasses up her muzzle and firmly into place and charged after her friend without fear, possibly because the creature was running away from them, instead of at them.

***

Curry let out a muffled curse as the princess pony thundered past her. She was used to being the fastest kid in her school, and it sucked to suddenly find that even a pampered princess pony could run circles around her, even if the pony in question was wheezing like a bellows.

Curry stopped her mad scramble for cover and stood up, or at least partially up with one leg awkwardly extended down the steep grassy slope to prevent an unwanted tumble. She looked uphill at the princess, and then downhill at her companion before letting out an involuntary giggle at the sight of the enormous pair of glasses the other pony was wearing. Truthfully, it was really hard to take either one of the small fillies as a serious threat.

The pony wearing glasses slowed and looked uphill at her with a certain wariness in her eyes. “What do we do now, DT? How do you catch a Snipe?” the pony asked, clearly addressing the princess.

The ears on top of Curry’s outfit pricked up, something she was unaware of. “Snipe?” She asked herself softly in a questioning tone.

“Sissss,” the princess replied, twisting her neck so the rope in her mouth spun in a circle above her head.

Curry looked warily at the little princess. She’d seen Applejack toss a lasso with as great a skill as she’d ever seen in a rodeo, so she did not discount the threat that rope represented. She readied herself to dart away once the pony was committed to her throw, all the while thinking about what the other little pony had said. They thought she was a Snipe? A faint smile quirked up the corners of her lips. While she had never participated in a Snipe hunt herself, from either side of the old tradition, she did know about them. If they thought she was a Snipe, then maybe everything wasn’t lost. No one would believe that the two ponies had actually seen a Snipe. If she could get away, and get back to Fluttershy’s home, all she had to do was pretend she had never been anywhere near this place and she’d be in the clear.

To cement the impression the two ponies had, Curry said, “Snipe?” in a querying tone, and then repeated herself, adding a bit of heat to her tone. “Snipe, snipe!” she said while backing up in an attempt to get out from between the two ponies.

The pony with the glasses moved with Curry. Her expression had turned from one of doubt to one of delight when she heard the vocal inquiry. Curry could tell that she was determined to not let the Snipe escape.

Curry hadn’t taken her eye off of the princess either. Her attempt to move backward had been not so much an escape attempt but a move to let her keep both ponies in her field of vision.

Both ponies moved at once. The glasses wearing pony charged uphill at her, and the princess tossed her rope, which probably would have worked better if she had held onto one end. Curry watched incredulously as the entire coil of rope went flying over her head, opening up slightly as it did so, and impacted perfectly against the legs of the other pony. Curry winced as the small filly took a nose dive, letting out a cry of distress as she did so. Her glasses went flying through the air before falling and skittering across the soft grass.

Up the slope, the princess pony was staring in shock at the havoc her attempt at roping Curry had caused. The small girl was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, or the rope, as it were. Giving a mocking laugh, she dashed downhill, and dove directly over the fallen pony, giving in to temptation and running a hand over the pony’s smooth silky hide as she did so. The pony let out a shocked cry and struggled, tangling herself even further in the rope while her head thrashed around trying to see what had touched her, her eyes wide and staring. There was nothing to see, as Curry was tumbling down the slope as fast as she could roll and jump.

Going downhill was a lot easier than going up, especially if you were not concerned about staying on your feet, or looking dignified. Curry scrambled as fast as she could, and in quick order, she had returned to the base of the hill next to the hedge where she had encountered the princess and her friend. Right in front of her was the small hole in the long hedge she had noticed before.

Behind her she heard a panicked cry, “Diamond, I can’t see,” from the tangled pony.

Curry hazarded a look back up the hill. The princess was a few yards down the hill past her companion, an expression of incredible frustration on her face. She let out a cry of exasperation and cried out, “You are so, clumsy, Silver!” She glared at Curry for a moment and then turned away with a flip of her tail and trotting regally back up the hill to the fallen pony. Even from where she was, Curry could hear her castigating her friend for ruining her chances at fame and fortune. Despite her harsh words and tone of voice, Curry noticed that she nuzzled her friend in a gentle and reassuring way as she fumbled with the glasses laying in the grass. Picking them up she placed them carefully on the other filly’s muzzle. She then loosened the rope tangled around her friend’s legs.

Only when that was all done did she leave the fallen pony and come pounding down the hill toward Curry with a look in her eyes that reminded Curry rather uncomfortably of the bull that had chased her out of a field once.

After watching the princess’ careful care of her friend, Curry was tempted to remain where she was and see if she could maybe make friends with the abrasive pony. Only the thought of the disappointed look on Fluttershy’s face if she were caught so far from home when she had been warned to stay close stopped that thought. Well that, and the simply murderous glare in the little princess’ eyes as she bore down on Curry.

The small girl turned and wiggled into the hole in the hedge. The freshly cut branches pressed hard against her side as she forced her way through, but Rarity’s magical cloth, just as Curry had known it would, protected her from splinters and abrasions. Dragging herself along with her elbows and digging her toes into the ground, she pushed ahead and popped loose of the hedge. Rolling to the middle of the road on the other side of the hedge, Curry took a deep breath in relief even while the princess, from the sound of her thundering hooves, was still only halfway down the hill.

“I’ll get you, Snipe. See if I don’t,” came a blustery threat from the other side of the wide herbivorous barrier. Curry sat up in the middle of the dusty road and grinned at the furious pony who was glaring through the hole at her. She pulled down the bottom lip of her right eye and gave the princess a red-eye, accompanied by a loud Bronx cheer, and then reached over and took hold of a nearby post to help herself to her feet.

The small girl froze in place as she looked to her right, and at the rather hairy and warm ‘post’ she was grasping. Bending her head backward, she looked up into the whiskered face of a bemused, and more than slightly glassy-eyed, chestnut unicorn wearing an incredibly ugly battered old hat.

Curry experienced a momentary mental disconnect in which the grizzled face of Old Ben was superimposed over that of the Unicorn looming above her, even though the two looked nothing alike. After all, Old Ben didn't have hooves or a horn on his head. The look of incipient nausea that was filling the pony's face at the moment was not unfamiliar, she had to concede. She’d seen that expression on more than one Saturday morning.

The small girl was jolted back to the here and now when the Unicorn snorted in her face. A fog of alcohol fumes caused Curry’s eyes to water and her hand to come up and cover her nose while she tried to wave away the stench with her free hand.

“And just what are you supposed to be?” the unicorn asked in a slurred voice. He swayed right when he turned his head to the left and left when he turned his head to the right, giving each of his eyes a chance to examine her as closely as they could, given their current bloodshot state.

“Ah. . . Snipe?” Curry suggested.

Whatever the pony said in return was drowned out by a triumphant, "Ah-HA!" and one grasping pink hoof stretched out of the hole, missing grabbing onto Curry's leg by several feet. "Come here you blasted Snipe!"

"Whosh a Snipe?" asked the older unicorn, bending down to look in the crude tunnel hacked into the hedge. The sudden change in attitude seemed to be upsetting to the drunken unicorn, as with a sudden, "Urp!" he spewed all over the hedge, the ground, the hole, and of course, the contents of the hole.

From the other side of the hedge came a scream, “Oh my, Celestia! What is it? It reeks! It burns! Get it off, GET IT OFF!” the sound of small hooves pounding on the ground sounded, retreating quickly into the distance.

“Wow,” Curry said in a delightfully grossed out tone of voice, “I didn’t know ponies could do that?”

The rather ragged looking brown unicorn sagged down onto his knees. Without really thinking about what she was doing, Curry pulled a couple of handfuls of grass out of the roadside and moved to his side, wiping the sick off his muzzle while resting a hand on the back of his neck. “Suu, suu, suu, there’s a good boy,” she murmured gently while stroking his mane. As she tended to him she noticed that he had a pair of saddlebags slung over his back that were every bit as battered as the hat on his head.

She felt him relax slightly, even lean into her touch a bit, but then his body went stiff and he pulled away. The big blocky head swung around and the unicorn glared at her from bloodshot eyes. “What the hay do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, his voice gravelly under the slurring effect of the alcohol that scented his breath. “I don’t need anypony’s help!”

Curry once again experienced a slight dislocation as Old Ben’s voice, roughened by age and lifestyle echoed in her head. He was just as tetchy as this pony when Ben’s arthritis was acting up and she tried to be nice by picking stuff up off the ground for him. Without being aware of it, a small smile of fond remembrance spread across her face.

“What are you smirking at?” the chestnut unicorn demanded. “Get that ugly thing you call a face away from me!” He rocked to his hooves with some difficulty and then stood swaying from side to side, stumbling to the right and the left and making Curry dance a bit to avoid having her toes stepped on, even as she placed both hands against his warm side to help hold him steady.

“What part of ‘I don’t need any help’ don’t you understand?” the inebriated pony said with some heat, even as his left foreleg buckled slightly and he barely kept himself from dropping back down to the ground.

“Pretty much all of it!” Curry retorted in answer to his question. Despite her raised voice, Curry was not bothered by his apparent anger. Not much, anyway.

Before meeting Fluttershy and her friends, Curry had believed that a nasty temperament was the default state for ponies in general. You just had to deal with it. She knew better now. Or at least she knew the ponies in this place were not like that. Besides, she was not getting a mean vibe from the ragged unicorn, just a cranky one. She’d encountered both types, and she’d take cranky over mean any day of the week. Still, that did not mean she was about to let him walk all over her. The first rule when dealing with a pony was to show them who was the boss. She saw no reason to change that attitude in this case, just because this pony talked, was magic and had a horn stuck in the middle of his head.

Curry met the unicorn’s bloodshot glare with one of her own while saying in a firm voice, “ain’t seen a pony so much in need of help since I got to this place!”

“There ain’t nothing wrong with me that a little of the feather-of-the-griffin-that-bit me, won’t cure!” he retorted in turn. His head twisted rather loosely from side to side as he checked out first one saddlebag, and then the other. A sloppy smile appeared on his face. “Aha, mother’s milk,” he slurred and a second later a large bottle of some amber fluid floated up out of one of his saddlebags. The cork sealing the opening of the bottle popped off and flew out of sight. Pretty much implying the pony had no intention of putting it down till it was empty.

***

The pony thundering down the hill on the other side of the hedge bore little resemblance to the usually pristine Diamond Tiara. Her lower body was covered in sticky mud right up to her belly. Her carefully groomed mane was a matted and soggy mess, lily pads and other pondweeds decorated her hide. Only the trademark bit of bling on her head identified her with any sort of confidence, that, and the familiar form of Silver Spoon who was following after her at a slightly more cautious pace.

“No, one. No One! Does that to me and gets away with it!” Diamond Tiara ranted. Buck, cutting a hole through the hedge, she’d make a hole with her own body. That Snipe would rue the day she messed with her. Rue it!

***

Curry had never taken away Old Ben’s liquor, but she had snatched more than a few cigars from him, some right out of his mouth. She hadn’t hesitated then, and she didn’t now. Her hand reached out and snatched the bottle out of the rather cloudy white magical aura containing it. She turned and tossed it as hard as she could over the hedge. Due to the height of the bush barrier, and her own small size, she didn’t get much distance and she heard it thunk down on the ground just on the other side of the hole in the hedge. A gurgling noise followed the impact.

***

Diamond Tiara stood rigidly, staring in disbelief at the heavy glass bottle laying on the grass in front of her. she ignored the strong smelling liquid that had sprayed out of the bottle as it flew through the air, and was now soaking into her mane and coat The monster had tried to kill her! What sort of thing was it? She took a cautious step back from the hedge, her eyes looking up, fearing further bombardment. She backed up the hill, until she judged herself far enough away, and then turned tail and ran. She’d show that vicious little monster. She’d rouse the household. They’d hunt her down, and stick her into a cage where she belonged.

Poor Silver Spoon had just made it to the bottom of the hill, huffing and puffing all the way, when her friend dashed past her going in the opposite direction. With a weary sigh, she turned and started making her own way up the hill after Diamond.

***

Curry turned and glared at the Unicorn. “You’ve had more than enough of that awful stuff,” she said in a prim and proper voice, with more than a touch of self-righteous smug satisfaction.

“You little brat!” That was twenty-year-old Shetland corn whiskey you just tossed away!" The chestnut pony sniffed, tears welling up in his soft brown eyes. "Snatched away in its prime before it could even enjoy life. Probably the last bottle in this disgustingly healthy town. Lonely. Needing a friend. A loss that may never be overcome. Just who in the buck do you think you are?”

The unicorn punctuated his maudlin diatribe with a loud belch.

“Ewww, stinky,” Curry repeated in a nasal tone as she pinched her nose shut while waving the funk away with her free hand. “And I thought Jake was the champion pony when it came to stinking up the place.”

Having cleared the air, Curry showed incredible bravery by sticking her face right in front of Sneaky's nose to look him right in the eyes and saying, “Already told you. I’m a Snipe.”

“Right, a Snipe. And I’m a bucking Pink Princess of Cavillia. I know exactly what you are. As far as I’m concerned, you can go back to Canterlot and back to kissing Luna’s royal rump. Like all your kind have been doing since she returned.”

Curry stared at the swaying unicorn in puzzlement. She’d been insulted, she got that much. She just wasn’t sure about how.

“Oh, you needn’t give me that look. You lot aren’t nearly as smart as I think I am.” The pony paused for a moment, his expression befuddled. “Wait, that’s not right. . .” His eyes crossed slightly as he made a visible effort to gather his thoughts.

Curry frowned, impatient with the unicorn’s mental withdrawal. “If I ain't-a Snipe, what am I then?” she said with a bit of heat.

The chestnut gave his head a shake and instantly looked like he regretted it as he turned slightly green. He took several deep breaths, even as Curry stepped out of the possible line of fire, just in case.

Fortunately for the nearby environment, the unicorn regained control before displaying his supper from the night before. He raised a hoof and rubbed his forehead just in front of his horn. “Fine, play innocent,” he said.

Taking a deep breath, the unicorn very carefully shifted his head, drawing a short line in the air with the tip of his horn. “First, that idiot back at the candy shop. He has Celestia’s hoof-prints all over him,” he said.

Once again he paused for a moment, though this time his expression put Curry in mind of those worn by older boys when they were telling each other dirty jokes while waiting for the school bus. She had a sudden urge to kick him in the knee, and if she hadn’t been sure it would hurt her worse than him, she might have given in to the impulse.

Before Curry could go hunting for a good stout switch, or a heavy club, the unicorn came back from whatever fantasy he had visited, and drew another line in the air next to the first one. “He’s obviously a guard she’s had dyed, and stuck a fake horn on. Very low key, very deniable, very effective at doing what its suppose to do, and henceforth it must be Celestia's move in this little game.”

“Now you, on the other hand,” the unicorn said, waving a hoof in Curry’s direction, but forgetting to draw a third line in the air as he fought to maintain his balance, “are overkill. Doing a full body transformation on some dumb pony, simply to pull attention away from her illegitimate son, that screams Luna. She’s notorious for transformation magic, and her casual use of it. Plus, she has a ready supply of idiots who’d fight for the chance to do her bidding. Clearly, you’re a Nocturne she's transformed into something vaguely humananany. Many. Yeah." The unicorn’s voice adopted an accusing tone as he said this and he poked his hoof hard in Curry’s direction, maybe in the hope of goading a reaction out of her. The move might have come off better if he hadn’t slowly started to topple over in the direction of his extended leg. He had to hastily plant his hoof back on the ground to keep from falling on his face.

Curry’s stomach gave a little lurch as the pony mentioned she looked like a human, but just as quickly she felt a certain smugness rise up as she realized the mistake the unicorn had made.

The unicorn, despite his current state, clearly had no difficulty in reading Curry’s expression. Quite a feat really given the differences in their respective physiognomy. “You don’t think I can prove it, do you?” he said to Curry. “Nothing could be easier.”

The pony used his horn to draw a fourth line in the air and then made his next point. “Clearly, Celestia pointed Luna at Moondancer’s journals. It’s the only way she’d have gotten your appearance so right. But, anypony who’s actually gone to the time and effort to search them out in the depths of the Forbidden section of the Canterlot Archives, and let me tell you that was a week I never want to relive. Librarians. Brr. Colder than Wendigos. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. While Ponies can travel to the world of the humans, the reverse is not true. Humans can’t come to Equestria. Therefore, there is no possible way you can be a human,” the unicorn finished triumphantly, standing up straight and throwing his sunken chest out as far as it would go.

Curry blinked, staring slightly upward at the unicorn. His slurred pronunciation had made him a bit hard to understand, but what she had made out sounded really interesting. For one thing, he seemed to know an awful lot more about humans than Fluttershy and her friends. Even if he was way out in the left field stands, one kernel of corn short of a box of cracker jacks, catching foul balls without a mitt.

The small girl considered her options. Her gut reaction was to quarrel with him. She was human, she was here, he was obviously wrong. Normally that would be all it took for her to dig in her heels and stick to her guns. But, this was way too good to waste. If she let him continue to think he was right, it let her off the hook, she’d honestly be able to tell Fluttershy that no pony thought she was a human. “Wow, you sure are clever, mister. You got me. I’m a whatchacallit, knock-turn, and the wicked princess of the night turned me into a fake human.”

Curry waited for a response and waited some more. Frowning up at the Unicorn, she realized his eyes were shut, and he was swaying in an alarming way. “Hey, Mister. Are you alright?” she asked. She got no answer. Stepping closer she lay a hand against the pony’s shoulder. He leaned slightly in the other direction, but showed no other sign he was aware of her, or anything at all, for that matter. He gave a snort, and then a loud snore, and she realized he was out on his feet.

This was even better, she realized. If he even remembered meeting her, he’d likely think it was all a dream. She eased around the slumbering pony and started down the lane-way.

As Curry moved away, she kept an eye on the hedge, looking for some sign it was ending so she could duck off the lane and make her way back into the wild. She had hardly gone a dozen steps, however, when her pace slowed, and she came to a stop. She looked back over her shoulder at the slumbering pony. Every instinct cried out against the thought of just leaving him there, sleeping in the middle of the road. She clenched her fists at her side and told herself that she was being silly. He wasn’t some helplessly lost pony, not in this place. It didn’t do any good. She heaved a long-suffering sigh and retraced her path to the unicorn.

Curry reached the pony and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, wake up. You can’t go to sleep here,” she said in a firm tone. Getting no response from the unicorn, she drew back her hand and slapped his flank, right on top of his peeping eye cutie mark. The unicorn jerked awake, his head tossing as he stumbled away from the sting.

“Wha, where?” he slurred, looking around with wide bloodshot eyes.

“I said you can’t go to sleep here. Don’t you got someplace to go?” Curry said.

“Who, what?” the unicorn said in befuddlement, gazing at Curry. The surprise retreated from his gaze, and his face regained its slightly sour expression. “Oh, it’s you. The Snipe."

Curry grinned cheerfully at him, knowing that it would likely annoy the heck out of the pony. “That’s right. The Snipe. My name is Curry, by the way.”

“Well, Curry, By The Way, I’m Sneak Peek . . . wait, no, it’s Private Eye.”

“Wow, that’s a long name. How about I just call you Sneaky?”

The pony gave an alcohol-laced sigh, clearly surrendering a losing battle in this case. “Might as well, everypony else does, unless you’re planning on coming clean with the whole cover-up, I don’t have time for you. Leave me alone.”

“Sure thing, just as soon as I get you to the town limits, Sneaky. Shouldn’t be too far from here.”

Sneaky looked startled, and then directed a knowing look at Curry. “Ah, planning on causing a little misdirection, are you. Well, that should be entertaining at least. Let's go,” he said. Sneaky started to wobble down the pathway. He had made it about twenty trots when he noticed he was alone. Carefully turning in place he looked down the lane-way to see Curry standing there with a smirk on her face. She pointed over her shoulder while saying. “Ain’t the town this way?”

Grumbling under his breath, Sneaky reversed course, taking care not to fall over as he turned around. As soon as he passed Curry, she fell into step beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Given the difference in their respective masses, it shouldn’t really have been much of a help, but his pace did become a bit steadier afterward.

As they walked along, Sneaky would now and then shoot out a question at Curry. “How long have you been in the Guard? Were you adopted, or born into the Nocturne? Are you as much a shrimp when you’re a pony?”

All except the last Curry greeted with a smirk. “I ain’t a shrimp,” she snarled out of reflex.

Sneaky paused or rather stumbled slightly as he tried to come to a stop. He turned a smirk in her direction. “So, you’re a runt as a pony. That should help narrow things down a bit. The guard tends to go for big and bulky. Don’t imagine there are many runts in the litter.” Without waiting for Curry’s reply, he started walking again.

Curry fumed, and once again considered if she could get away with giving Sneaky a good swift kick someplace painful. Before she could come up with a suitable retaliation, the sun set.

Not like it did back home, slowly sinking over the horizon after spending the whole day crossing the sky. No, it went from well above the horizon to fully set in just a few minutes. Curry only became aware of the rapid descent when she was suddenly forced to shade her eyes against the brightness shining directly at her. Her eyes watered, and before her blurry vision cleared it was night. She paused, shrouded in deep blackness.

The sky was a featureless void over Curry’s head, and for just a moment she wondered if the evil princess of the night had made her move, maybe because she was afraid Curry would soon discover her special Evil Princess beating talent.

Then, like the curtain-raising on a school play, the moon, along with the stars, rose up into the night sky, unfolding across it in sparkling glory. The moon paused when it had ascended to a prominent altitude and seemed to rest there while the stars scurried to their places under its silvery gaze, for all the world like a mother hen watching over her chicks.

Curry stood in the middle of the road, her head tilted back as she slowly spun in a circle, absorbing the glory of the night sky. She felt like yelling and dancing, the display exceeded any fireworks she’d ever seen. Closing her eyes she imagined she could still feel the radiance from the softly glowing orb of the moon shining on her face.

“Yeah, you’re a Nocturne pony alright. Moon worshipers, the lot of them,” Sneaky said in a sour voice, that nonetheless carried an undertone that was anything but.

Curry opened her eyes to find the old unicorn standing only a few feet away, staring at her intently with an almost wistful look in his eyes.

“I’m a Snipe,” Curry said, more out of habit than any need to argue. “I’ve always liked the Moon. My Mom even...” Curry broke off as she realized she’d come within a sentence of revealing her deepest, darkest, most shameful, secret after being rattled by the quick sunset and moonrise. Sneaky didn’t seem to find anything unusual about it the whole instant night thing. That meant it was likely normal. Curry took a deep breath out of relief. A second later, her relief turned to panic as a whole new shattering revelation occurred to her.

“It’s nighttime!” she yelled at Sneaky, who took a few stumbling steps back from the force of her cry.

“I may be drunk, but I had noticed,” he said in a reproachful tone.

“You don’t understand. I thought it was still around noon. I have to get home. Miss Fluttershy is going to be so mad at me. Maybe she won’t want to look after me anymore,” Curry said. She started running down the lane, only to stumble as she tripped over a rut she hadn’t seen in the darkness.

“Didn’t even get to keep your night vision. That must really suck,” Sneaky’s voice said out of the dark. Curry could just barely make out his shape against the darkness, his chestnut coat blending into the night and making him nearly invisible until he lit his horn with a soft flickering glow that highlighted the look of concern on his face.

“No, no, I got to get home,” Curry moaned. Her eyes turned down the lane-way toward the village. There was a glow in that direction. There would be light there. Maybe she could work her way around the outskirts of the town. But she’d still have to find her way from the other side of the town to Fluttershy’s place. This wasn’t her familiar woods of back home. She would be passing through an area she had never been before, in the dark. She had really messed up. Fluttershy was going to be furious. Curry felt a sick dread in her belly at that thought.

***

Sneak Peek was still feeling more than a bit under the influence, but he had worked stories through alcoholic hazes before, and the behavior of the transformed pony in front of him was starting to trigger his reporter’s instincts. Paying attention to other pony’s emotions and figuring out their triggers was his bread and butter as a reporter, and he was really good at it. This pony wasn’t behaving in any way consistent with what he had assumed was the situation.

He could barely make out the pony’s bizarre shape in the darkness, but what he could see did not make any sense. Sneaky couldn’t imagine any Nocturne, even one who had temporarily lost his night vision, being afraid of the dark. But this pony clearly was drawing back from the darkness outside his flickering wan hornlight, and shuffling ever so closer to him. And why the frantic need to get back to Fluttershy’s place? There seemed to be a strong emotional attachment there. Had he been wrong?

“Hey, Snipe,” he called out.

The figure in front of him started slightly, and he could just barely make out the strange round head turning toward him, his eyes looking almost white in the darkness. “Yes,” came a tremulous voice.

“You’re not a pony, are you?”

“Never said I was,” came the reply, flavored with a hint of defiance that reminded Sneaky of a young reporter he had once known, now old and over the hill, reporting on fictional monsters in some tiny backwater of a town. Or maybe he was just projecting again.

Sneaky squinted his eyes shut out of a combination of frustration and annoyance at himself. Even dead drunk he should know better than to let his own bias fill in the facts. In his defense, he had reacted to the impossibility that Curry represented. It was flat out impossible that he was really what he looked like, so Sneaky had filled in the blanks and proposed a hypothesis. The fault lay in then trying to twist the facts to fit the theory even when it took a little stretching. Time to try and be a proper reporter, and find out what the buck was going on here. “True enough,” he said in answer to Curry’s statement. “Look. I know the way to Fluttershy’s place. Been there a few times at night. Would you like me to walk you home?”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then Curry said, “If you think you can make it, I’d like that.”

“So, a Snipe?” Sneak Peek asked as he started to carefully walk down the lane. Curry fell in beside him, once again placing a warm paw on his shoulder. Sneaky was not an animal lover by any means and would have normally shied away from the contact, as he had done previously, but he knew he had to gain Curry’s trust and refrained. After a few moments, his hide stopped twitching at the contact, and he found it was actually rather nice. Not as nice as when Berry Punch or Cloud Kicker lay their head across his back, but still, nice.

“Yep, I’m a Snipe,” Curry said, while his fingers kneaded at Sneaky’s hide in a rather pleasant way.

Sneaky, who had been preoccupied with the sensation of being touched by somepony that was not a good looking mare, and not hating it, took a minute to realize Curry was answering his earlier inquiry.

“And you work for Celestia?”

“Who? Oh. You mean the Princess. Never met her. Fluttershy and her friends say Jake and I will soon.”

There was a sound in the undergrowth just then and the small Snipe crowded in closer to him. Sneaky felt an unwelcome surge of protectiveness. He snarled inwardly. He was seriously losing his edge in this bucking town. First, it was feeling protective toward the mares he was trying to do an expose on, deflecting would-be fortune hunters and status seekers out to take advantage of them. Then he’d started to humor the small fillies that tagged after him from time to time, in their forlorn hope of earning cutie marks in being private eyes. Mind you, he had to admit it had been hilarious to kick two trees with one buck by siccing the overly enthusiastic little fillies on the various status-seeking bastards that came sniffing around the Elements.

Cutie Mark Crusader Romance Consultants' was just one step short of kicking the poor sots off a cliff and normally wound up with them making a trip to the train station by way of a brief hospital visit.

But, this was the limit. Now he was feeling it toward this weird creature he had only just met. He had to get out of this place before he threw out his hat and set up a business running a bucking homeless shelter for kittens or something equally disgusting.

Despite his self-recriminations, Sneaky made no attempt to stagger away from the little Snipe. Rather, he carefully paced himself so she was able to keep close to him as they made their way toward what passed as the bright lights of Ponyville.

As they made their way, he reopened his interrogation. “Never met Celestia? How about Luna? No? Then who sent you here.”

“Can’t rightly say,” Curry said.

Sneaky could feel her shifting nervously as she tried to look in every direction at once outside the weak circle of light the kept the inky darkness at bay. “Well, I can respect that. Pony has to respect his sources,” he said in a reassuring manner, although it was slightly spoiled by the belch he let out as punctuation.

“If you start doing that from the other end, I’m out of here,” Curry warned him as she gagged slightly. “How can you drink that awful stuff, anyway?”

“Practice. Lots, and lots of practice,” Sneaky said in a light cheerful tone, which was rather belied by the subtle effort he made to sniff the cloud of fumes in front of him. He winced, thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to visit the guy side of the spa and get himself deodorized before he ran into Berry or Cloud.

They walked into the warm lamplight that surrounded the village, and Sneaky felt Curry hesitate, even as he relaxed slightly now that they were out of the darkness. He looked down at the small Snipe and saw her staring wide-eyed at the brightly colored homes and businesses of Ponyville, and the equally brilliantly hued ponies that were out enjoying an evening stroll as they took it easy after a hard days work.

“Just keep close to me,” Sneaky whispered to Curry. “I’ll try to stay between you and everypony. We’ll keep to the outskirts and avoid the center of the streets. There are lots of shadows if you know where to look. We’ll have you through town in no time at all.” Sneaky was still drunk enough that the idea of sneaking Curry through the middle of town seemed like great fun, but he wasn’t so drunk that he felt the same way about the Snipe’s next action.

“Jake!” Curry cried out and bolted out from beside Sneaky and straight down the middle of the road, in front of what suddenly seemed like every pony in Ponyville. Sneaky let out a slurred curse as he lurched after her, almost tripping over his own hooves in the process. He looked ahead and saw her targeting a cluster of mares in front of the Carousel Boutique surrounding a very large, jet-black, Alicorn. It was hard to see from this distance, but the decoy he had seen in the paper had sported a ridiculous floppy facsimile of a horn. This pony sported a long proud horn that jutted out straight and true from the middle of his broad forehead.

“Oh, stars! It’s the monster from the farm,” he muttered to himself in panic. In the next moment, his mind filled with a terrifying vision of what might happen when the little Snipe rushed up to that monster, under the mistaken impression that it was his partner in deception. “Curry, get back here, right now!” he bellowed in his best, “Smile For the Camera, Prince Blueblood,” voice. And then, cursing himself as an idiot with every lurching step, he rushed after the tiny Snipe.

Ch17 Scream and Shout [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 17

When In Doubt
Run in Circles
Scream and Shout

***

Private Sweets came bursting out of the Carousel Boutique as if his tail was on fire. In his haste, his hooves got crossed as he attempted to make a turn, resulting in an awkward crow-hop, half a loop, and a skidding halt in the center of the street where he remained frozen in place, half-crouched as if to leap into the fall air. After all, he was surrounded.

All around the panicked stallion, mares watched the handsome Pegasus panting for breath in the middle of the street with mixed degrees of enthusiasm. Some paused in their afternoon shopping as if to check the young stallion for a price tag, hoping that Tall, Dark, and Handsome was on sale this week. Some of the grocery shoppers seemed to examine him as if looking for bruises and trying to figure out the best place to squeeze to see if he were ripe. Several single mares and at least one married one traced his path backward in hopes of finding perhaps a slightly saner brother in his path. Various eddies and ripples formed in the street traffic as mares began to drift with the currents, all of which met at one disguised Royal Guard who was seriously considering a career change.

“Really, what a rabbit,” Bon Bon snorted in derision as she made her way out of Rarity’s boutique in a much more decorous manner. “I guess he’s at his best sneaking up behind unsuspecting mares in the dark of the night.”

“Now, now, Bon Bon. You know you don’t mean that” Lyra said as she followed her life partner out the door. She gazed with concern toward the large dark stallion, though contrary to what might have been expected, her concern was more about the mares who were slowly making their way toward the stallion than out of any real worry about his current state of mind.

The last mare to step out of the doorway was the proprietor herself, Rarity. Standing behind her customers, she allowed a small, I-Know-A-Secret smile to cross her face as she shook her head in amusement at the jet black Pegasus in the middle of the street.

She had received quite a shock when Bon Bon and Lyra had all but dragged the reluctant male into her shop. His color, his size, the obscenely drooping horn sprouting from his forehead, had all given her a turn, for about a second, but that was how long it had taken her to look beyond the superficial and realize that the stallion looked nothing at all like young Jake.

That had left her with the puzzling question of just what was going on. After all, it could not have been a mere coincidence. She had only listened with half her attention as Lyra begged her with all her might to please do something about the awful horn that 'All Day Sucker' was sporting before she was forced to do something drastic, with a plunger and some duct tape.

Never one to refuse a challenge, Rarity had quickly removed the novelty horn from the hapless stallion’s head and after a bit of thought, and a few measurements had produced a small skullcap that conformed perfectly to his wide forehead and held the tacky plastic novelty firmly in place. During the operation, she didn’t fail to notice the familiar way the big Pegasus shied away from her measuring tape, and that his eyes kept darting toward every shadow in her shop as if he expected something terrible to emerge from them.

That attitude, combined with the knowledge that his appearance and presence in town had to be related to Jake, had given her a very good idea of what was going on. The final clue was his measurements.

Some time previous, Princess Luna had given Rarity and Lamina, Luna’s personal Hoofmaiden, the job of designing new uniforms for the Night Guard. In order to get a good grasp on the concept, they had drafted a number of Royal Guard to be carefully measured for their wide diversity of body types. Simply put, they had requested the 'est' of the Guard: fattest, tallest, smallest, thinnest…

With the aid of some Nocturne mares to assist with the project, the measurements had gone... with a bit more drama than she had anticipated. A proper mare requests a stallion to disrobe, or unarmor in the case of guards, with the greatest of tact and style. The Nocturne mares treated their volunteers more like Hearth's Warming presents that needed to be unwrapped, examined, compared, commented on, and exchanged. One or two had even taken their present home.

Possible, Rarity had to admit, the normally sequestered Nocturne mares might have gotten just a bit too enthusiastic about their task. The majority of the stallions had found the experience somewhat traumatic, the poor dears.

Rarity had a very good memory when it came to measurements, even better when they involved one of her rare male clients. Even though she’d only measured the stallion’s head this time around, that had been enough for her to identify him as one, Sweets, a royal guard trainee at the time she had last seen him, but certainly graduated by now. Clearly, somepony, or more probably some princesses, had decided he’d make a good stalking horse. The dye job that turned the white Royal Guard the deepest shade of indigo was truly first-rate and Rarity made a note to find out the artist responsible One never knew when one might wish to adopt a more striking appearance, for example, dressing as Nightmare Moon for the next Nightmare Night. Oh, that would be a treat.

The little matter of the stallion’s identity out of the way, Rarity had been free to enjoy the much more interesting drama playing out in her shop. For all the disdain Bon Bon had appeared to show ‘Tail Sucker’ as she’d labeled Sweets, and didn’t Rarity want to know all about that story, Bon Bon had seemed to spend a lot of time looking at him from beneath lowered eyelashes, at least when she didn’t think anypony was looking.

On the other hoof, Lyra had been a total flirt, constantly brushing against Sweets. She’d put Rarity in mind of a hungry Opalescence, but unlike Rarity’s cat, it was unlikely it was an extra bowl of food Lyra was angling for.

***

Sweet’s couldn’t remember ever feeling more humiliated. The last day had gone so well, and he was sure Bon Bon’s attitude toward him was softening. Now he had gone and acted like a spoiled foal on his first visit to the dentist. He was sure she must despise him even more than she had right after the tail sucking incident at the train platform.

“So, you’re the stallion who’s been helping Bon Bon at the Sweet Shop,” a soft feminine voice whispered in his ear, the comment accompanied by a moist breath of air and the sweet scent of carrots.

Sweets looked to his right and standing a few inches away was a mare with an orange mane and tail, with three carrots for a cutie mark. She was running her eyes across his cutie mark in a way that suggested she was seriously tempted to taste the lollipop imprinted on his flank.

“I’m Carrot Top. I understand you’re only helping out Bon Bon temporarily. I could use a nice strong stallion to help root out my garden,” she said in a suggestive tone. She batted her eyes at him and looked up at him from under lowered eyelashes. “I can make it well worth your time.”

The golden colored earth mare was suddenly shoved out of the way by a slightly older purple mare with three daisies for a cutie mark. “Why, hello there. I’m Cheerilee. I’m the school teacher in town. As it happens I have some work I need doing in the schoolhouse. Wouldn’t you do it for the children? I’m afraid I don’t have much of a budget. But maybe I could exchange a little education for your work. I’m sure there are all sorts of things I could teach you,” she all but purred, while leaning in and nuzzling him lightly under the chin, causing him to rear back slightly.

“Really? I thought Big Mac was going to give you a hand with that,” Carrot Top said in a catty voice. “Did he run out of wood?”

“Hay, what’s the party about?” a familiar voice said from overhead.

Sweets looked up to see Rainbow Dash blocking his aerial escape route, her eyes were bright with mischief.

An anonymous mare in the crowd that was gathering around him shouted up at her, “I think they ’re having a bachelor auction. Highest bid gets to have the big stud come and help out around the place.”

“Really?” Rainbow ran her eyes over him in a way that made him feel like the last piece of cloud cake on the plate. “What’s high bid? I’ve got a few bits set aside for a special occasion.” She leered at Sweets and added, “And seeing as how you’re into cosplay, I have this really sweet Shadowbolt costume from Nightmare Night I wouldn’t mind dusting off. If you’re into bad mares, that is.”

At that moment the village mailmare swooped by, nearly knocking Rainbow out of the sky before she back-winged enough to come to a stop nearly on top of Sweets. "Does he work for muffins?” Derpy asked. “I've got a door that needs put back up, and I'm willing to pay him with a hot muffin."

“What’s going on Rainbow?” asked a member of the Pegasus’ weather crew, who had just swooped down to join her boss.

“Great timing, Raindrops. You got any bits on you? Stud auction going on. We could share him,” Rainbow said with a mischievous lilt to her voice.

“Now wait a minute,” Sweets protested but was drowned out by a half-dozen mares suddenly offering him short-term employment, with generous, if ill-defined benefits.

***

Rarity was a bit taken aback by the reaction Sweets was getting. She could sort of understand it if they had known he was a Royal Guard, but as far as they knew, he was just some poor sucker from Canterlot. Literally. Looking at the crowd of mares she noticed that most of them were spending more time glaring at each other rather than at Sweets. The horseshoe dropped, and she smiled a superior smile. This wasn’t about getting their hooves on a good looking stallion, or at least not completely; this was about stealing him out from under, or over as the case might be, their rivals.

Then again, once she took a second look at the stallion without the detachment granted by his status as a client, perhaps they had a point. That dark hide, those wings like storm clouds, that long gleaming dark horn. He could have stepped right off the cover of any of a dozen romance novels. All he really needed was a pair of dragon-wings and a suitable outfit, which she’d happily make for him at cost, and he’d be the whole sinister evil package. Rarity flushed slightly and suddenly recalled her mad-bit stash. If this wasn’t something worth blowing it on, she didn’t know what was. She’d be the envy of every single mare in town as she promenaded up and down the street by his side. She had just the most darling naughty outfit that would be perfect for the situation. And when they found out his true status and profession, they’d all be green with envy.

“How much are you paying him?” Rarity asked Bon Bon. She had to repeat the question, slightly louder, to be heard over the bidding war that going on around Sweets.

Bon Bon was looking a bit thunderstruck, and a lot annoyed. “I’m not paying him anything. He’s working off a debt,” she snapped, not taking her attention from the mob growing around the perverted tail muncher. “Have all those fillies lost their minds?” she muttered under her breath, but not quietly enough to escape the keen ears of Lyra.

“That’s not what you were saying while we were cleaning up a little while ago,” Lyra said. “If I remember, you were very impressed with his ability to follow orders quickly and to the letter.”

Rarity gave a little cough, and her interest sharpened even further. Good at obeying orders. He just got better and better.

“It’s not like I care if he goes to work for some other pony!” Bon Bon said. “I only need him for one more day and then he can go wherever he wants!”

Bon Bon’s tone of voice did not match her words, and Rarity took a good look at the candy maker, and the rather hurt expression in her eyes as she watched the mob of mares clustering around her not-hired help. Rarity shifted her gaze to Lyra and saw how the musician was constantly looking between Bon Bon and Sweets, her expression alternately determined and worried. Last, of all, Rarity looked past Sweets’ handsome legs, toned flanks, magnificent wings, to catch the desperate looks he was directing toward Bon Bon. Looks that screamed Save Me!

“My luck holds true, but never let it be said that Rarity stood in the way of true love. Guess my bits are safe for that rainy day after all,” the dressmaker muttered to herself. She stepped up to Bon Bon and gave her a strong nudge with her shoulder. When she had the mare’s full attention, she gave her a fierce look. “Well, are you or are you not going to rescue the poor thing? He wouldn’t be in this mess if you and Lyra hadn’t insisted on dragging him down to my shop. Are you a filly, or a full-grown mare? Take responsibility. Go and save Mister, part-timer.”

“Yeah,” Lyra cheered. “Let's go save him from those harpies before they tear the poor thing to bits.”

***

Sweets very nearly cried tears of joy and relief when he saw Bon Bon and Lyra wading into the crowd of mares surrounding him. He had never realized how scary a mob of MILBs could be.

The big stallion’s ear suddenly twitched as a high piping voice cried out, “Jake!” Sweets frowned. Where had he heard that strange name before?

“Jake! Over here, Jake!” called the voice again, and Sweets’ eyes opened wide as he remembered where he had heard that name before. And who had mentioned it. A pony didn’t forget his first, and maybe only, face to face meeting with Princess Celestia. What she said on the other hoof tended to blur as a result of the sheer awesomeness of being the focus of those intense violet eyes. Fortunately, Pumpernickel had repeated Princess Celestia’s briefing word for word while they had run the necessary errands to get him ready for his assignment.

Sweets’ height allowed him to look down Mane Street to where a small figure was dashing toward him, running on its hind legs. The weird appearance of the creature caused him to shy instinctively, his protective instincts aroused by the numerous mares surrounding him. Training and the briefing he had received before leaving on this mission moderated that he respond quickly. This had to be the human filly who had accompanied the real Alicorn stallion, whose existence was the cause of his current assignment. That made her protection his charge. Sweet snapped out his wings, preparing to spring into the air over the crowd of mares surrounding him, just as a hovering Derpy shoved her muffin into his face.

"Oops, sorry! I just wanted to give you a free sample. So do you want to eat it here or take it home? While it’s still hot?"

***

When she spotted Jake, Curry had started running toward him with no thought of the consequences. Very nearly giving Sneaky a heart attack. For just a moment she had totally forgotten that the herd of mares surrounding Jake were not the dumb animals from back home, but intelligent, and magic, creatures. Her mistake was driven home when a mare, all by herself on the street, turned to look over her shoulder when she heard Curry’s footsteps.

“Ahhh! The horror! The horror!” the pony cried out, rearing up on her hind legs and draping one foreleg over her eyes in a dramatic gesture, before falling to the ground in a dead faint. It reminded Curry a bit of Miss Rarity, and how she’d behaved on seeing Jake for the first time, only a lot less well done.

The mare’s behavior did do two things. Firstly, the eyes of everypony in the street and some looking out of their houses at the commotion turned to stare at her. Secondly, Curry skidded to a stop and stood in the middle of the street like a rabbit in the headlights. She took a few steps back under the force of those looks.

“Are you crazy?” a wheezing voice said from just behind her, as Sneaky trotted up, his sides heaving and looking almost as green as he had before up-chucking all over the little princess.

“What the buck were you thinking?” he fumed, placing himself between Curry and the crowd of mares down the street.

“Sorry, sorry. I just saw Jake, and, and, I didn’t think.”

“Is Jake the decoy’s name? Sorry to tell you, but that ain’t him. Check out his horn. Your friend’s fake horn dangles all over the place. You’re looking at a real dangerous monster over there. You should have seen the way he destroyed one of Sweet Apple Acre's orchards. Ripped it all to shreds."

“But--”Curry tried to protest. There was no way Jake would have done something like that. she was cut off before she could even start.

“Never mind arguing with me,” Sneaky snapped. “Back away slowly. Maybe we can still escape while that monster is distracted by all those mares.”

Curry looked over Sneak’s back at all the wide-eyed mares staring in their direction and swallowed nervously. “I don’t think that’s going to be happening, Stinky.”

“That’s Sneaky. And, it sure as buck won’t if you don’t shift your tail.”

“Ahhhh, it’s a monster!” nearly every mare in front of them cried out, almost in sync with each other, just before their grouping exploded outward like a panic-stricken flock of brightly colored tropical birds, literally in the case of some Pegasus mares.

Ponies dashed every which way, some rushed into buildings and slammed the doors and shutters. Other raced back and forth across the street while others ran in circles. Through the maelstrom of brightly colored bodies, Curry spotted the large black shape of Jake, even though he was a little difficult to see in the moonlight. There were some white crumbs smeared over his face, that helped a bit. He was carefully and steadily marching toward her, which in the chaos made him stand out as a single red rose in a bunch of white ones. Beside him, were two strange mares, who, while they shifted nervously on their feet and stayed close to his sides, did not seem to be part of the general panic.

Curry took a hesitant step around Sneaky, meaning to move toward Jake, only to let out a sudden squawk of alarm when Sneaky’s magical field enveloped her.

“Not this time, brat,” Sneaky said in an exasperated tone.

Curry was lifted into the air and suspended over Sneaky’s back. She settled onto him, habit causing her legs to clamp around his barrel and the fingers of one hand to wind into his tangled mane. A protest at his cavalier behavior rose in her throat and was cut off when he whirled away from the approaching Jake. It would have been a cool move, if not for the staggering, and the fact he almost galloped face-first into the nearest building, even with, or perhaps because of, Curry's attempt at steering her mount.

“Hold it right there, Private Eye. What the hay are you up to?” a familiar voice demanded from overhead.

“Rainbow Dash,” Curry cried out in relief when the familiar rainbow-hued Pegasus plummeted from the sky and planted herself firmly in front of Sneaky.

Sneaky heaved a sigh of relief at being able to hand off his unwanted responsibility. “Finally! About time one of you lot showed up and did your job. Get him out of here before that monster makes a snack out of him,” he said in what he clearly thought was a commanding voice but was a bit too slurred to carry off.

Curry was in a state of confusion, but she possessed certain conditioned responses that cut through unnecessary things like being stuck in the middle of a maddened crowd of stampeding ponies. Reaching out with her free hand she caught hold of one of Sneaky’s ears and twisted. “What do you mean, Him!” she asked in her best Facing-Down-The-Stupid-Boy-Bully-In-The-Schoolyard voice. “In what way do you think I look like a boy, hmm?”

***

“Ahhhhhhh! Not the ear, not the ear.”

Bon Bon shuddered as the monstrous creature attacked the poor pony it had jumped onto. His heart-rending shriek sending shivers down her spine. She had been trying to talk All Day Sucker out of playing the fool, and to get him to back away from the thing, to no avail. What did he think he was, a member of the Royal Guard? Now she stopped trotting alongside him and grabbed his tail firmly between her teeth as he continued on. “No, you can’t,” she mumbled through a mouthful of the delicious tail, which she couldn’t help but notice because it was flavored with the sweet taste of all the ingredients Sweets had handled during the day.

Despite digging in her hooves, Bon Bon found herself dragged along as All Day plodded toward the monster, who was now roaring at Rainbow Dash, its no doubt huge fangs bared while continuing to claw at the poor unicorn it was perched on. Why didn’t Rainbow Dash do something? She was supposed to be a hero. She should be doing something heroic, so certain brain-dead stallions wouldn’t get themselves all the way dead trying to be something they were not.

“What are you doing, Bon Bon?” Lyra asked curiously as she paced alongside her friend. “Don’t you think you should save stuff like that till we get back to the shop? Bit of a crisis going on here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Idiot,” Bon Bon mumbled in an exasperated tone while trying hard not to drool.

“Curry! What on earth are you doing to that poor stallion? Stop that this instant,” Rarity cried out as she trotted past All Day in a decorous manner, while still managing to move quite quickly.

Both the unicorn stallion, who Bon Bon now recognized as Private Eye, and the strange mottled creature, who looked vaguely like one of Lyra's 'Humanworld' figures, stopped and looked slightly ashamed.

It was a perfect example of a commanding tone, and even Bon Bon could not help but drop the tasty tail she had been tugging on in response to it.

To Bon Bon’s relief, All Day paused in his progress and then heaved a sigh of relief. He turned to move away and to leave the problem to ponies better able to handle it.

“Wait a minute,” Lyra exclaimed, her tone of voice raising all sorts of warning signs in Bon Bon. She looked over at her light green marefriend and felt a shiver of trepidation run down her spine.

Lyra’s eyes were so wide and bright they were almost glowing in the dark. Sparks popped off the tip of her horn, and Bon Bon ‘knew’ that only happened when her excitable marefriend’s body could not contain the overwhelming sensations filling her up. Truthfully, under her worry, she was a bit jealous. Previously Lyra had only displayed that level of manic during their private times.

“A human!” Lyra whispered, her voice quivering, ears perked up, and tail swishing in a hypnotic pattern that in other circumstances Bon Bon might have found more than a little intriguing.

“No! I mean, that’s not likely,” Sucker said, as he tried to step into Lyra’s line of sight.

Lyra easily side-stepped the larger pony, and twitched her tail out of the way of Bon Bon’s teeth in a well-practiced, and slightly flirtatious, maneuver. She pranced over to Rarity, who was looking a bit worried.

“I can’t believe it,” Lyra said, addressing the scrawny looking creature on Private Eye’s back. “I mean, I can believe it. You’re sitting right there in front of me. I mean, I knew humans were going to come back. The signs were all there. But, I didn’t really think I’d be lucky enough to be one of the first ponies to meet you. I can meet you, can’t I?”

The little creature blinked her small eyes and looked over at Rarity nervously. “Is she related to Pinkie Pie?” she asked in a high pitched voice that could have come from any small filly. In fact, if you were to close your eyes, you could easily imagine her as being a member of the Apple family with that distinctive rustic accent.

“Is she really a human?” somepony asked breathlessly from behind Bon Bon, and she turned to see Carrot Top standing behind her, staring over her shoulder at the ‘human’ on Private Eye’s back. There was an avaricious gleam in her eyes that was explained when she said. “I’ve heard that they grant wishes.”

“Really?” several other mares asked simultaneously.

Bon Bon grew nervous as she noticed that the previously panicked ponies, had stopped their mad dashing about and were slowly converging on the area around the small human. A lot looked nervous and/or merely curious, but far too many had the same greedy look in their eyes as Carrot Top.

“She is not a human!” Private Eye shouted, in a slurred tone. Despite the speech impediment, his voice was laced with annoyance and derision. “She. Is. A. Snipe!” He enunciated with great emphasis on each word. “Humans can’t leave their world and come to Equestria. They lack any personal internal magic and so they can’t interact with the portal. Anypony who’s taken a few moments to research Moondancer’s journals would know that.”

Bon Bon had not taken her eye off the maybe-human, ready to yank Lyra out of the way if it looked like it was about to turn vicious. As a result, she was maybe the only pony to see the look of dismay that crossed the little being’s face as Private Eye made his pronouncement. A moment later the little thing’s strangely expressive features took on a puzzled look, followed by one of realization, and finally a certain amount of smug satisfaction.

Curry had been shocked when Sneaky said she had no magic, but she realized that his other point meant that was wrong. She couldn’t have come here if she didn’t have some. That showed he didn’t know nearly as much as he thought he did.

“Moondancer’s journals were lost hundreds of years ago,” Lyra shouted back at the drunk unicorn. “All we have are notes from ponies who read them shortly after they came to light just after the War of the Sisters. I’ve never heard anything about Human’s lacking magic. If anything, the stories say the opposite. They are overflowing with more magic than any pony except Celestia and Luna.”

The small - Snipe? - beamed with goodwill toward Lyra, while lightly thumping Private Eye between his ears with a closed up paw. It couldn’t have been much of a blow, because the stallion only twitched an annoyed ear in response.

“Moondancer’s journals were not lost! They were merely relegated to the back shelves in the archives and buried under subsequent storage,” Private Eye said.

“Really?” Lyra asked, her eyebrows pricking up in interest.

“What does all this have to do with getting our wishes,” several ponies cried out. The entire herd started to clamor, demanding that the Snipe/Human grant them their individual wishes. They began to crowd in closer and closer.

To Bon Bon’s dismay, Sucker pressed himself between several ponies and positioned himself between the crowd and Private Eye. Bon Bon swallowed nervously, and joined him, the hairs on her neck standing straight up as she turned her back on the creature.

“Thank you, dear, So nice to see a pony who can keep her composure when all those around her are losing theirs.” Rarity complimented her as she took up her place beside Bon Bon, her horn gleaming in the evening light.

Lyra moved into position on the other side of Sucker, her horn also glowing softly. Her lyre floated up above her head. “Back off. I have a musical instrument, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

The crowd of ponies actually drew back a few steps at that, more from puzzlement than out of any fear, but the pressure from the ponies behind them pushed them forward once again fairly quickly.

Rainbow Dash hovered into place above Sucker. Bon Bon looked up at her and was surprised to see her grinning in a very inappropriate manner given the circumstances. “I know something you don’t know,” she caroled. Or at least that is what Bon Bon thought she had said, due to the loud clamoring from the crowd of mares drowning out the brightly colored Pegasus’ words.

***

Curry perched on top of Sneaky, not feeling terribly worried about the loud crowd of ponies shouting at her. She was much more focused on the big black pony that had his back toward her and Sneaky. For one thing, she was wondering how she had ever thought he was Jake. He was slender as a reed next to Jake’s bulk and at least two or three hands shorter, but that still made him the biggest pony she had seen since she arrived in this magic world. In fact, unless she missed her guess. He was slightly over the official height limit for ponies, which topped out at fifteen hands.

This was all noted by the horse-mad part of her mind that never stopped noting down everything and anything about any pony or horse she happened to encounter. The rest of her was taking note of the fact that he was very obviously, of his own volition, placing himself, and his marefriends between the rowdy herd of mares and herself.

Curry leaned over and shouted into Rarity’s ear, that being the only way she could be sure she was heard. “Is he a friend of your’s?”

“A very good friend in this situation, darling,” Rarity replied, somehow managing to raise the volume of her voice without doing anything as gauche as actually shouting. “You can trust him implicitly if you are in need of assistance and none of us are around.”

Curry took note that the pony with the candy cutie marks on her flank turned her head to stare in surprise at Rarity.

The vocal output of the herd surrounding Curry had risen to the point where she was forced to clap her hands over her ears to muffle the roar. but even that did not help with what happened next.

A blast of sound washed over the crowd like a wave, eliminating the chaotic ranting from the herd even as it beat against her body with massive physical force, resonating in her chest and ringing her ears with words that were more felt than heard.

“Citizens of Ponyville. What is Transpiring here?”

Under Curry, Sneaky’s legs folded as he bonelessly dropped to his belly at the sheer force of that voice, bouncing once in the street before lying motionless. All around her, other ponies were similarly being pushed down, forced to bow before whoever was above them. Though, unlike Sneaky, who'd done a full collapse with all four legs, they had only bent their front legs gracefully as they lowered their heads. Come to think of it, they didn’t look like they were being forced, so much as they were paying horsey respect.

That left Curry worried about the way Sneaky had collapsed. She lay forward along his body and grabbed hold of his horn so she could lean out and look down at his face, relaxing somewhat when she saw his eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and even. He muttered something that sounded like, “Not now Berry, tired,” while his horn warmed slightly, although not enough to hurt her hand. Satisfied that Sneaky was as healthy as could be expected given his intoxicated condition, Curry released her grip on his horn and turned her attention from the comatose stallion to whoever owned that booming voice.

At first, she could not see anything in the clear night sky, and then a winged shape outlined itself against the disk of the moon. Like a living cameo broach, a dark Pegasus with wings spread wide, slowly floating down toward her. There was something familiar about the Pegasus, and as it got closer and Curry could make out the horn sprouting from her forehead, she suddenly remembered. The pony descending toward them looked just like the carving she had seen on the wall of the old ruined castle.

A shiver went down Curry’s spine. This was the Dark Princess of the Night. The big enemy, the one she needed to defeat to save Equestria.

“But I haven’t even had a chance to study how,” she moaned under her breath. She stared up at the descending Alicorn, dread churning in her stomach. Despite that fear, as the dark pony floated downward, Curry found herself drawing in a sharp, appreciative, breath. The mare’s wispy mane seemed to spread out across the sky, stars, and nebula glowing radiantly in its depths. It was impossible to say where the natural stars ended and those incorporated into her mane started. Her long flowing tail eclipsed the moon, but it didn’t shade it. Rather the ethereal beauty of the moonlight was only enhanced by shining through the glistening mass of hair.

She was gorgeous. The most beautiful creature Curry had ever seen in her life. Well, except for Fluttershy, but that was hardly a fair comparison.

With nary a sound, as soft and gentle as the first snowflake of winter, Princess Luna touched down in front of the small group of ponies who had placed themselves between Curry and the mob. As for the mob itself, at some point, while Curry had been entranced by Luna, they had moved backward, leaving more than enough space for the dark pony to settle to earth. A circle of kneeling ponies surrounded the princess, leaving Curry very conscious that she was the only one present who was not paying homage to the Ruler of the Night.

The princess’ gaze seemed to pierce right through Curry, but despite that, she saw no scorn in the beautiful pony’s eyes. Indeed, her expression was one of curiosity and goodwill. Curry had always wondered how rich people could pay millions for a horse. Looking at the Princess the answer came to her in a flash. That was all they had.

Curry found herself flushing under the princess’ gaze, as it continued for what seemed like hours. If Twilight Sparkle had made her think, Teacher, this pony had Vice-principal written all over her. She felt small and grubby in front of the magnificent creature, unworthy to even be standing on the same patch of ground. Feeling the need to appear in a better light, she swung her leg up and over Sneaky’s back, and got to her feet. Flushing, Curry awkwardly dropped to her knees, she flushed even darker when she compared her clumsy efforts to the graceful bows the ponies were giving the princess.

Behind Curry, Sneaky suddenly let out a wheezing snore, and snuffled loudly, spouting out total gibberish, then, for the final act, he broke wind. The little girl couldn’t help herself, she laughed, her self-consciousness totally gone. She wasn’t the only ugly duck in this collection of beautiful swans.

While the princess visibly flinched, just the tiniest bit, she did not turn her entrancing gaze away from Curry. She spoke in a carefully controlled voice, each word enunciated perfectly with nary a drawl to be heard. “You would be Curry Comb. We have seen the picture that our sister’s beloved student sent us, although you were not so colorfully garbed in it. Is this perchance an example of your native costume?”

Curry, still feeling every inch the grubby urchin looked down, plucking at her clothing with her fingers. “Oh, yeah, well not exactly, Miss Rarity--”

“Managed to find her some temporary covering at Fluttershy’s home,” the pony in question, hastily interrupted Curry. “At the time necessity outweighed esthetics, I’m afraid. I assure you, I am already hard at work on a proper presentation garment. I do hope you will pardon her, and I. We were not expecting you quite so soon.”

“If we recall, there was some concern about her fragility. This seems to answer many of those concerns. We find her current garment.. attractive, and practical.”

“You do?” Rarity blurted out, twisting her head to make sure that Curry was still wearing the same thing that she’d been dressed in ten seconds previously. “Well, of course, you do. And who could ever question your impeccable taste? I mean, I certainly wouldn’t.”

“Ah, Princess Luna?” Mayor Mare asked from her position near the forefront of respectful ponies, who moments before had been a rowdy mob of ardent wish seekers.

“You have leave to speak, Madam Mayor,” Luna answered with a small regal nod of her head, the tip of her horn leaving a faint glowing phosphorescent line in the darkness.

“We… um...I was wondering. To what do we owe the great pleasure of your visit? Have you come about the human?"

“Not a human. Ish, a Snipe.” Sneaky mumbled in his sleep.

Luna arched a patrician eyebrow, a look of incredulity on her face, quickly replaced by a mischievous expression. “A Snipe. How wondrous. We well remember our own futile attempts to catch one back in our foalhood. We are afraid we abandoned the quest, despite the most ardent urging of our sister to persevere. You are a most fortunate pony to have succeeded in such a hunt.” The only reply from Sneaky was a buzzing snore.

Luna blinked and looked a bit closer at the recumbent pony. Once again a delicate eyebrow arched. Luna directed a questioning look at Curry, who could only shrug sheepishly in return. Luna shifted her gaze back to Mayor Mare, “As it happens, we had another reason for gracing Ponyville with our presence. Some days ago, we had cause to converse with one of our subjects. A young Pegasus named Scootaloo.”

Most of the ponies in the crowd looked more than a little concerned over just what the notorious filly might have said to Princess Luna, a few blanched in terror.

“We discussed her camping trip,” Luna finished in a matter of fact tone of voice, her attention already moving from the Mayor back to Curry, and the ponies that made up the group she was with.

There was a collective, gasp from the crowd followed by a Wait-A-Minute-Did-She-Say, pause, while they all looked at each other.

“Her camping trip, Princess Luna?” Mayor Mare asked tentatively.

Luna frowned but remembered that these small town ponies were not used to reading the subtle signs that indicated a Royal audience was over. With some effort, Luna put on a pleasant expression. Smiling as broadly as possible she turned her attention back to the former mob. There was a visible drawing back on the part of the ponies in the face of that teeth-baring smile.

“Indeed. It sounded the most delightful diversion. We have decided that we shall have a camping trip. A contingent from the palace will be arriving momentarily to begin setting up a suitably rustic campsite for us.”

Luna’s wide smile decreased, much to the relief of the ponies facing it, as she continued to speak, “We thank you for this most generous welcome to your home, but we do not wish to impose. Please, go about your business while we converse for a moment with the. . . Snipe, and then retire to the home of my Sister’s student, Twilight Sparkle, to discuss our upcoming activities.”

This hint was more than obvious to the townsponies, and they beat a hasty retreat.

All except for Sweets, and the mares accompanying him, and of course, Sneaky, who was still snoring blissfully away.

When Sweets did make a move to leave, after making sure the mob was well and truly dispersed, Luna spoke directly to him. “Bide a moment if you will, good pony.”

Bon Bon was torn. The urge to get away from ground zero/Luna was nearly overwhelming, but Sweets was not going anywhere, and Lyra looked like it would take a rope and bridle to get her to leave, with several good strong ponies on the other end of the rope. Bon Bon stayed put, shivering from nerves. Sweets extended one of his wings, and lay it over Bon Bon’s back, offering warm comfort. Without any thought on her part, she leaned into his side while peeking out from under the edge of his wing at Luna, who seemed to be taking the whole scene in what looked like good humor.

The candy maker gave a little squeak and ducked back under Sweets’ feathers when Luna stepped up to sniff the stallion’s side. Bon Bon’s face was only inches from Luna’s horn, a formidable object nothing at all like Lyra's sexy nubbin. This was a clearly a weapon and had drawn blood in combat, perhaps even from Celestia herself. However, despite the fear that was knocking her knees together, a strong feeling of resentment flowered.

Well, small buds perhaps. Blooms at worst.

How dare the Princess act that way right in front of some other mare’s coltfriend.

Bon Bon’s mind seized up as she replayed that thought in her mind. Sweets wasn’t her and Lyra’s colt friend, she told herself firmly. He was a perverted tail sucker who was only going to be here until he made recompense for his criminal actions by supplying all the brute labor needed to finish Pinkie Pie’s commission.

Lyra on the other hand, as she would say, seemed to have no such reservations. In fact, if Sweets hadn’t pressed her firmly against his side with his other wing the instant she moved slightly forward, she might have done something foolish, like getting into Luna’s face and telling her to keep her nose out of Lyra’s business. On the other hoof, given how she instantly snuggled up against Sweets’ side, it was possible her outrage had been a mere ploy aimed at this exact outcome.

Luna was oblivious to the feelings churning inside the trio in front of her. She gave a small sigh of disappointment with one last additional sniff along Sweets’ side in the forlorn hope of the delicious scent she was seeking. “How unfortunate. We had hoped thou would have more of those delightful comestibles. Please tell me that thou have at least had the contract to supply our sister and I signed.” Unspoken, but implied in Luna’s tone was that it was the ‘I’ part of the statement she was most interested in.

Sweets shuffled nervously, and with some reluctance said, “Bon Bon had a rather large commission, and did not have time to go over the details of the contract with me until it was finished. I’m helping her with that in the hope of expediting the situation.”

Bon Bon stiffened beside her slave labor, her eyes going wide.

“Most diligent of you,” Luna said, nodding in approval. “Very well, we understand that true artistry must happen in its own time. We hope that this time shall not be too far in the future. Presumably, thou shalt be able to procure a quantity before our camping trip is complete.”

“I’m sure Bon Bon will be able to do that,” Sweets said, and then with a worried expression, asked. “How long will you be . . . camping?”

“We are not sure. It shall depend on several factors over which we have no control. Hopefully a goodly amount of time in order to allow us to partake in mass quantities of fun.” There was a particular longing in the way Luna said the word fun that aroused sympathy in the soft heart of the detached Royal Guard.

Lyra fumed, thinking dire thoughts as to just what sort of fun the princess might have in mind. Well, she could just cross Sucker off of her list of entertainment options. Lyra already had his dance card fully booked.

He just didn’t know it yet.

“I’ll be happy to assist you in any way I can during your quest for ‘fun’ Princess,” Sweets said, and then let out a grunt as a sharp knee was jammed into his belly, rather closer to where he lived than most of his sparring partners at the academy had ever managed.

“As it happens, you can render us some assistance at this very time,” Luna said, ignoring Sweets strange behavior. “I believe the young Snipe is being cared for by gentle Fluttershy. She has clearly wandered from her domicile. Would you be so kind as to escort her back?”

“I would be happy to do so, Princess,” Sweets answered, dipping his head in a bow, forgetting for a moment that he hadn’t the slightest idea where Fluttershy lived.

“Very well. We bid you a good evening, then.” Luna turned to leave, but before she did, she addressed Mayor Mare directly, and all other ponies who might have been in hearing range, which with her voice constituted a high percentage of the population of Ponyville. “We go now to consult with Twilight Sparkle. We are only to be disturbed for the most urgent reasons while sequestered with our sister’s student. Please, spread the word.”

Raindrops watched Luna trot away, a puzzled expression on her face. Rainbow Dash fluttered over beside her co-worker and asked in a whisper, “Was it just me, or was Princess Luna looking a bit flushed just now? And did you notice the way she was swishing her tail? You don’t suppose ...? Nah, no way, not in a million, million years.”

Sweets forcefully ignored the commentary coming from the Element of Loyalty overhead. Maybe she could get away with thinking, and saying such things. He happened to enjoy being a fully functioning stallion and intended to stay that way for a long time. Turned a doubtful eye toward the small creature standing beside the comatose brown Unicorn he took in her awkward shape and shortage of legs and asked, “Do you need a ride?”

Curry pulled her eyes back from where she had been watching Princess Luna leave with a mixture of relief and regret. Close proximity had done nothing to soften her initial impression of the beautiful mare, and she practically ached with the need to run after her, to run her fingers through that silky mane, to brush out that flowing tail. How could an evil princess look so wonderful?

She had to stop and gather her thoughts before she could answer the big black stallion. She looked behind her at Sneaky, who was still slumbering. “I can’t just leave him here,” she said in a stubborn tone of voice. Curry felt a strong protective urge toward the old smelly pony. He was the first pony she’d met since coming here who had needed her. Who knows what might happen to him if she just left him laying here in the street.

“Don’t worry, Curry. I’ll see that he gets home,” Rarity said, stepping up and giving Curry a nudge with her nose, pushing her toward the black stallion. “Go with All Day Sucker. He’ll make sure you get home safely.”

“Wait, just wait,” the pony with the candy cutie mark cried out, pushing her way out from under the stallion’s wing and then turning to face him head-on. “What’s all this about a contract from the Princess?”

“Sorry. I promised I wouldn’t discuss my business till your big commission was finished,” Sweets said, feeling smug.

Bon Bon kicked him in the shin. Hard.

***

“You really shouldn’t have said that,” Curry said a few minutes later as she gently rubbed the stallion’s bruised leg. “I mean, I have no idea what you all were talking about, and even I know that.”

“Thank you for your untimely advice. I sort of figured that out myself. What with her trying to break my leg and all,” Sweets answered, looking in the direction that Bon Bon had gone after giving him that kick.

“Don’t worry. She’ll cool down. Eventually. Maybe,” Lyra said, peering intently at the small creature who was tending to All Day’s leg.

“Are you sure you’re a Snipe?” she asked Curry.

“Sure as sure can be,” Curry replied cheerfully, lying without the least little regret.

“Well, let's take you home then,” Lyra said, with an implication that she was not about to walk away from this strange and wondrous creature.

After his foalish attempt at humor with Bon Bon, Sweets was not about to gainsay the scatterbrained unicorn.

He needed her to help him apologize to his candy-mare.

“I’m ready,” Curry said, a worried expression on her face as she stood up. “I hope Fluttershy isn’t too mad at--”

Curry’s words were cut off as a yellow tornado descended on her and gathered her up in a soft warm embrace. “Oh, oh, I was so worried,” Fluttershy whispered as she held the small girl tightly with her forelegs and wings. Only when Curry started gasping for breath did she push the little girl back and run her eyes up and down her body. “You’re coughing. Are you alright? Have you been hurt? Are you cold? You must be hungry. Are you hungry? We’ll go home right now. A nice warm bath, a good meal, and you’ll be right as rain after a good night’s sleep.”

A ball of tension that Curry hadn’t even been aware of unwound in her belly, and with it a warm feeling of lethargy swept over her body. It had been a very long day for her, with tons of excitement. She thought longingly about her nice warm bed at home. Already feeling the soft mattress cradling her weary body as Fluttershy tucked the heavy blankets and comforter around her, creating a cocoon of warmth and security. Her eyes drooped and she leaned into Fluttershy side, feeling the warm Pegasus’s heart beating rhythmically under her soft silky hide, more soothing than any lullaby.

“Yeowch. Stop that, I’m up, I’m up, for buck's sake,” a gravely voice yelled. Fluttershy gave out a shocked gasp and tried to cover Curry’s ears with her wings.

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll just be a minute,” Curry gasped, slipping downward out of Fluttershy’s grip.

Blinking tears of weariness from her eyes, Curry lunged across the distance between her and Sneaky and wrapped her arms in a tight hug around the cranky pony’s neck. “Thank you,” she whispered into his stubbly cheek. She broke the clinch and rushed back to Fluttershy.

Behind her Sneaky actually looked flustered, and allowed Rarity to lead him off with only a single token protest about pushy mares.

“Do you know that pony?” Fluttershy asked, concern in her voice. Just what sort of ponies had Curry been associating with since Fluttershy had carelessly allowed her to go wandering off on her own?

“Yep. He helped me when the little princess was trying to catch me,” Curry said, wisely neglecting to mention just what form that help had come in.

“Little Princess?” asked Applejack, who had just trotted up, asked.

“Yeah, she lives in that big fancy place down the way. Wears a crown and everything. Even has a crown on her flank,” Curry finished her explanation with a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Poor dear. I’ll get you home right away,” Fluttershy said while gently nuzzling Curry’s cheek.

“I will carry her for you if you like, Miss. Fluttershy,” a masculine voice offered.

Fluttershy jolted, and only stopped herself from bolting due to the fact that Curry was cuddled up tight against her side. She had been so focused on her little human charge that she hadn’t even noticed the simply enormous black Pegasus standing almost next to her. A Pegasus who she noticed had an over-sized, and plainly, from this distance, a fake horn attached to his forehead. What sort of strange male was he to run around with something like that on his head? It wasn’t even Nightmare Night. Fluttershy shuddered at the very thought of that horror of horrors.

“Who the heck are you,” Applejack demanded, getting between Fluttershy and the stranger, more for Fluttershy’s comfort than from any fear that the big pony meant the shy Pegasus any harm.

Before Sweets could say anything, Lyra spoke up, while remaining totally focused on Curry. She didn’t look at any of the other ponies as she chattered, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “He’s Bon Bon’s temporary, drafted, assistant. His name is All Day Sucker, and he’s wearing that silly horn because he lost a bet. Bon Bon thought he was one of my mom’s matchmaking efforts. Only now it turns out he was really working for the Princesses, and Bon Bon is mad because she’s embarrassed at making a mistake and treating him like a tail sucking pervert instead of a Royal emissary. Well, he did suck her tail. But, you can hardly blame him for that, because it really is so darn tasty. She’ll get over it, eventually. Princess Luna told Sucker to escort the little Snipe home to Fluttershy’s place. I know now that you’re here he doesn’t really need to, but the Princess did order him, so pretty please let him do it.” With the last little bit, Lyra turned her head and fluttered her eyelashes coyly at Applejack, making the farm pony more than a little uncomfortable.

Both Applejack and Sweets eyes had developed a slightly glazed look as Lyra ran on, and on. When he realized that Lyra was finished, Sweets blinked his, and said to Applejack, who had stepped back slightly from Lyra, “What she said.”

“Well, I reckon you can’t ignore a direct order from the Princess. So I suppose you can come along with us to Fluttershy’s cottage,” Applejack said.

“Yay,” Lyra crowed.

“Eep,” Fluttershy squeaked in distress.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right here with you, Shy,” Rainbow Dash said from overhead. She’d been hovering quietly, enjoying the show, but decided to join in before Fluttershy went into a panic attack due to her being so close to such a finely toned Pegasus stallion. Besides, it had put Dash in an excellent position to look at the way the moonlight glistened off his well-formed rear.

“Thank you,” Fluttershy whispered, folding protective wings around Curry while keeping herself and the little girl behind Applejack.

Sweets was about to repeat his offer to carry the little creature, but after seeing how skittish the yellow Pegasus was, decided to give her as much space as his orders would allow. “I’ll just follow from the air. . .” he gave a sudden oof as Lyra lifted a leg and jolted a knee into his belly. “I’ll just follow behind on the ground,” he amended his statement while wondering how he had ended up in a possible, sort of, maybe, relationship with two such violent mares. Then again, he’d never had what one could call a ‘real’ relationship before. Maybe this was normal behavior. Not that he was sure he had a relationship. Lyra seemed interested, and Bon Bon and he had harmonized very well together when Lyra had played that medley of Candy making songs.

The one about the human Candy Man had been quite catchy. Candy made out of rainbows sounded quite tasty. Did he want there to be a relationship, he asked himself.

Sweets was still mulling that question as he followed the group of mares to Fluttershy’s home. He had his thoughts all to himself, as Lyra had abandoned him right off the bat to accompany Fluttershy and her friends. The small … Snipe? … was stretched out on Fluttershy’s back, cradled in place by the mare’s wings. Her limbs draped and dangling over Fluttershy’s sides while she slumbered peacefully.

Sweets watched from the fence while Fluttershy carried her charge inside, followed by Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Lyra. A second later a high pitched shriek echoed through the air.

“Lyra!” Sweets called out in panic and dashed toward the still open door.

****

Twilight Sparkle was sitting at her desk, going over her reference material. Or she had been, till she noticed that she had been reading the same sentence over and over while glancing over toward the door every few seconds since the moon had risen. Now she sat, staring at the door, willing a knock to come. When at last it did, her heart near leaped out of her chest, even as she jumped to her feet and dashed across the floor to fling open the door.

The librarian’s breath caught in her throat as she saw Luna standing there, looking down on her from her superior height, with maybe just the slightest hint of uncertainty in her eyes.

“Greetings, Twilight Sparkle. Our sister tells us that you have urgent matters to discuss in regards to our visitors.”

Twilight took a calming breath and said, “Indeed I do, Princess Luna. Please, won’t you come in? I’ve made tea, and set out the pertinent information for you to peruse.”

“That is most kind of you Twilight Sparkle. The flight was rushed, and we admit to being parched. A beverage would be most welcome while you explain what it is that troubles you so gravely.”

Several minutes later, Luna lifted a delicate cup to her lips and sipped while examining the forensic magic-scan Twilight had performed on Curry. Lowering the cup, she delicately dabbed at her lips with a napkin, and then spoke, “I see why you are concerned.”

“Yes, I would not have thought it possible. But once you’ve eliminated all impinging magical influences, there can be no question. Curry has exactly zero personal magic.”

“That might not be the . . .” Luna started to say but was overridden by a distracted Twilight who floated a stack of books to the desk.

It was too late for Luna to stop Twilight from slipping into lecture mode, so the princess settled back down, raised a cup to her lips and prepared to enjoy the show. Twilight was so cute when she lost herself in her work like this.

The excited scholar gathered her thoughts, and began, “I have formed what I think is a valid hypothesis as to how it might be possible. If it is true, we need to handle the matter in a very delicate fashion. It would be very bad if we were to traumatize young Jake.”

Luna pondered the matter. She was in possession of information that Twilight Sparkle did not possess, which would likely make whatever conclusion the scholar had drawn null and void. On the other hoof, Twilight was living up to her last name, fairly sparkling with intellectual enthusiasm, and most importantly, was completely oblivious to the fact that she was sitting inches away from a former monster. That was something to be treasured more than precious jewels, or even Celestia’s secret stash of chocolate.

“Here, look here, and then here,” Twilight said, floating several books in front of Luna, and then leaned in so she could peruse them at the same time as the Princess.

Luna felt her face heat up as Twilight nuzzled up to her cheek to cheek, the unicorn’s attention fully on the books as she used her horn to highlight the pertinent areas.

With some difficulty, Luna focused her eyes on the research material and felt slightly startled as she discovered it involved several case studies of young unicorns and the way that their immature magic manifested.

“I was trying to understand how Curry could exist with no natural magic in her body, but somehow seemed to be filled with the magic of some other pony. That’s when I recalled an incident with Miss Smarty Pants a few months before my parents enrolled me in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. As you can see, there have been several case studies of similar incidents. Now I know in each of those cases, the manifestation involved an existing object. A beloved doll, a stuffed tiger, and other similar objects. But, you have to consider, Jake is an Alicorn. It stands to reason that he has the potential for something much more all-encompassing.”

Luna considered Twilight’s points while nibbling on one of the excellent biscuits Twilight had carefully arranged on the table in mathematically precise rows. Then the implications hit home and Luna’s eyes went wide, and she turned her head to stare at Twilight. “You think that Curry Comb is Jake’s...”

“Imaginary Friend,” Twilight crowed.

Ch18 Sleep Over [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Sleep Over
Chapter 18

***

“Wheeeeee!” Scootaloo’s high-pitched cry of glee rang through the air as the small filly hoof-surfed down the long slope in front of her. The small Pegasus’ wings were beating furiously as her hooves skimmed the grass, only barely bending the stalks. The hill was so steep that she was just short of sitting on her backside as she compensated for the downward angle. As it was the grass tickled her bottom as she rushed over it.

“Yooowwwwww!” Jake’s bass rumble of delight would have sent the birds rocketing up from the nearby trees if they had not already vacated the premises for quieter venues long ago. Like Scootaloo he was slipping down the hill, his hooves barely depressing the lush grasses he traveled over. Unlike her, he wasn’t flapping his wings, instead, he held them out to their full extent, catching the wind flowing up the hill. His broad butt skimmed just over the strands of grass while his tail fluttered out behind him.

“Yippee Ki Yay!” the three fillies perched on Jake’s back shouted out, waving their front hooves in the air as they precariously balanced on top of the big stallion, treating him like a giant black surfboard.

Jake, due to his much greater weight, arrived at the bottom of the hill ahead of Scootaloo and spun around gently several times as his forward momentum tapered off on the flat ground at the foot of the hill. He rose to his feet, careful of his three small passengers, and started back up the slope, all ready for another slide.

“Hold on, hold on guyth. It’th getting late. We won’t make it before dark if we don’t go now,” Twist said from her position behind Apple Bloom, and in front of Sweetie Belle, on Jake’s back.

“Awww. Just one more time?” Jake begged, swiveling his head around to look back at the older filly.

“Yeah, we have time,” Scootaloo said as she finished her own slide down the hill, finishing with a flurry as she spun rapidly on her right rear hoof. Her two forelegs arched over her head in a mockery of a move she had seen Diamond Tiara trying to pull off a few days previously. For all the intended parody, her version was far more graceful and successful, then the one attempted by the spoiled pony, even if she did end up staggering and falling on her rump amide much giggling.

Jake’s eyes opened as wide as he could manage, becoming glistening brown pools that threatened to suck all of Twist’s willpower away. She gave a sharp snort and wrenched her head around, breaking eye contact with the much larger colt. “Oh, no, not thith time! That look ith’nt going to work again. I let you get away with that five slidth ago. We really have to go. Now!”

“Aw, darn,” Jake sulked, lowering his head in a pout while kicking at the turf, dislodging a five-pound divot in the process.

“I guess it is getting a bit late,” Apple Bloom conceded, looking at the birds returning to their nests. “Princess Celestia will be putting the sun to bed right soon, and Princess Luna will be raising the moon.”

Apple Bloom reached forward and patted the right side of Jake’s neck. “Turn that way. If we hurry we can be there in a few minutes.”

Jake gave a resigned sigh and swiveled his body in the direction that the small farm-filly had indicated, with one last regretful look at the hill behind him. Slipping down that slope had been almost like flying. He could hardly wait till Rainbow Dash taught him how to do the real thing. Maybe he and Scoot could take lessons together? That would be so much fun.

On his back, the three fillies were whispering to each other, and Jake could just barely pick up a few of the words. “We should tell... It doesn’t matter... He’ll be happy... won’t mind...”

Jake didn’t pay their conversation much attention. He was used to people talking around him as if he wasn’t even present, and had developed a habit of just letting the words slide off his broad back. Unless, of course, the evil word vet came up. That was one of the very first words he had ever learned the meaning of. Not just the word in its entirety either, but also how it was spelled. Even a single mention of the letter ‘v’ was enough to cause him to defensively tuck his tail between his legs and back all the way into his stall until his rear was up against something solid.

Jake’s long stride carried him, and his passengers, at a good pace, and Scootaloo kept up easily thanks to her wings allowing her strides to match his. She even made a bit of a game out of it, her hooves coming off the ground altogether as she stretched out her legs in time with his ground devouring trot, sailing in long arches between contact points.

It didn’t take long for them to leave the undeveloped land and to start trotting down a lane bordered by fences and neatly groomed shrubs. Jake didn’t have to be told when they had reached their destination. He came to a stop and stared wide-eyed at the dwelling on the other side of the fence.

“So, that’s what a tree-house is,” he said in an awed voice as he took in the large dwelling that didn’t seem able to make up its mind if it was a hill, a tree, or a house, and incorporated parts of all three in its construction.

“Well, actually, no,” Apple Bloom said in a slightly guilty tone as she hopped down from Jake’s back.

“Ah, Jake, if you would. Could you crouch down a bit?” Sweetie Belle asked as she and Twist contemplated the distance to the ground as they stood on Jake’s broad back.

Agreeable to the request Jake knelt and allowed the two fillies to dismount. Once that was done he returned his attention to Apple Bloom.

“I don’t understand. Big Mac told you to take me to your tree-house. Isn’t this your tree-house?”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry!” Scootaloo butted in. We’ll get to the real tree-house soon. This was just on the way. We thought you’d like to stop by and see your big sister before going there.”

Jake’s ears pricked up at the mention of Curry, but like a dog with a bone, he wasn’t about to let go of his original point. “But this is a real tree-house. The tree is real, the house is real. This has to be a real tree-house.”

“Okay, okay, it’s a tree-house, it just isn’t our tree-house,” Scootaloo admitted. “Now can we go see your sister.”

Jake didn’t respond. Something else had caught his attention that was far more important than proper descriptive nouns. “Hey, that’s Old Ben’s hat,” Jake exclaimed while thrusting his head over the gate and looking at a worn leather Stetson that was hopping across the yard. “We need to catch it. Old Ben will be so mad if something happens to it. Curry will get into lots of trouble. She might even get yelled at.” Jake pressed forward, his upper legs pressing against the fence, which groaned under the stress.

In the bushes and the trees, hundreds of small ears pricked up.

“Wait, wait. Let me get the latch!” Sweetie Belle cried out, rushing forward before Jake took down not only the gate but both sections of fence on either side of it.

Jake backed off, just barely long enough for Sweetie Belle to undo the latch and swing open the gate. As soon as there was enough room he thundered into the yard in pursuit of the errant head-wear, which was now hopping across the bare ground at a frantic pace.

An animated hat was not the sort of thing you ignored, and all four fillies watched in fascination as Jake chased it across the yard, only to just miss snatching it with his teeth when it doubled back between his legs and he got tangled up with himself trying to switch end for end too quickly. It was as the hat passed in front of them that Apple Bloom noticed something, a familiar pair of white legs that showed up each time the hat took a bound.

A sudden horrendous vision popped into Apple Bloom’s head as Jake charged furiously after the runaway headgear. She yelled out with all her might,” Jake, don’t stomp it!”

Jake darted an incredulous look toward the little farm-filly. As if he would ever do something like that to Old Ben’s favorite hat. At the same time, the hat gave a particularly vigorous hop and a white rabbit dashed out from under it, running as if a timber-wolf was breathing down his furry little butt. He dashed across the yard and through the slightly open door into the house.

Jake gave a shout of triumph and quickly leaned over to snatch up the hat by the brim. Once done, he stood there puzzled, not sure what to do next

“We could put it inthide,” Twist suggested, gesturing toward the partly open door.

“Should we?” Sweetie Belle asked uncertainly. “Fluttershy doesn’t seem to be back yet.”

“She might be hiding under the bed,” Scootaloo suggested. “If she saw Jake thundering around her front yard it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

“If that’s the case, it would only be right to go in and let her know that there ain’t nothing to be afraid of,” Apple Bloom suggested, receiving nods of support from her compatriots for her clever rationalization.

Jake had tuned out the fillies halfway through the discussion. That was the point when he had noticed they were totally ringed on all sides by an assortment of creatures, some like the hens he was familiar with, others he had no idea at as to what they might be. They were all, to a critter, staring at him intently. He shuffled his feet, not raising them from the dust, while his wings fluttered nervously. Jake didn’t deal well with small animals. He was always afraid they’d get underhoof and he wouldn’t notice them in time. It hadn’t happened yet, but there had been close calls and a few damaged tails.

“Apple Bloom!” he said in a slightly panicked tone, his voice muffled by the Stetson between his teeth. He had to repeat himself a couple of times before the little filly noticed.

“What all’s the matter, Jake?” Apple Bloom asked, trotting up to the big stallion. She looked up into his face high above her, and then followed his worried gaze. She spotted the various critters staring at him with great intensity. “Okay, now that’s a bit spooky I got to admit,” she said.

A bird suddenly dropped out of one of the trees and winged over to perch on the lip of the hat Jake was holding. If flipped upside down and reached inside with its beak. A moment later it emerged with a small square of paper. While Jake had been staring at the bird cross-eyed, a quartet of otter kits had scrambled forward, along with their mother. The mother otter caught the bit of paper out of the air as the bird dropped it. Nimble claws unfolded the paper and smoothed it out. Holding the sheet flat, she lifted it in the air toward Jake, who lowered his head to look.

“What is it?” he asked around the brim of the hat.

“It’s a note,” Apple Bloom replied as she moved up against Jake and peered at it.

“What’s it say?” Sweetie Belle inquired as Scootaloo and Twist crowded in.

“It’s from Jake’s big sister. She’s telling Fluttershy that she is taking Mrs. Lynx home, and she’ll be back shortly.”

“So she’s not here?” Sweetie Belle asked in disappointment. She had rather been looking forward to seeing what Jake’s big sister looked like.

Jake’s ears drooped. While he was unhappy they were not following Big Mac’s instructions to go to the right tree-house, he would have been glad to see Curry. So much had happened in the last couple of days that he wanted to share with her. He wanted to show her all the new tricks that Big Mac had taught him, and listen to her chatter on about what she had been doing just like she had done almost every day back home.

“Why don’t we see if Fluttershy is here or not? We could ask her if we can wait for Jake’s sister to get back,” Scootaloo suggested.

“Yeah, good idea. I’m sure Fluttershy wouldn’t mind. It’s for a good cause after all,” Apple Bloom said. “Jake, you stay here. We’ll go and ask for permission.”

Jake held his ground as he watched his new filly friends troop through the doorway into the house. From inside he could hear them calling for Miss Fluttershy. After a few moments, Sweetie Belle stuck her head out the door and called to him, “Fluttershy is not here. You might as well come in and wait for her and your sister.

Jake directed a cautious look at the ground around his feet, and at the space between him and the door. Numerous birds were flitting here and there over his head, but of the furry contingent that had surrounded him mere moments before there was nothing but the occasional rustle in the bushes to indicate that they were still present.

Watching each step carefully Jake made his way to the door, which Sweetie Belle had nudged open all the way. Jake had to bend his legs and tuck his wings in tight, but he managed to squeeze through. Once inside he found the interior large enough to stand up comfortably and to even spread his wings if he was very careful. It never occurred to him that the dwelling seemed larger than was reasonable given the outside dimensions, he simply took it for granted.

Despite the size of the room, it was very cluttered. There seemed to be nests and birdhouses everywhere he looked, and small sleeping areas and dens devoted to numerous ground bound critters. Jake’s eyes rolled slightly and he froze in place as he noticed more and more small, easily crunched, animals flowing into the room from all directions. Quickly, before they could fill up the space under him, he settled down on all four knees and used his wings to erect a barrier around himself to the best of his ability. The motion caused his stomach to rumble in protest, the sound echoing around the room.

Reassured that he was in no imminent danger of breaking anything, or anyone, Jake turned his attention to his four new filly friends. While Twist was looking nervous and uncertain, the other three fillies were displaying a casual familiarity with the house. They roamed around without any sign of worry, peering into various nooks and crannies and helping themselves to some treats set out on the table in bowls. Jake’s tummy rumbled again as he contemplated the bowl of assorted foodstuff, a touch of saliva dripping out the corner of his mouth.

Back home Jake would have felt no shame in muscling his way past the smaller ponies and helping himself to the contents of the bowl. He had been taught better now, however. Big Mac had given him a short lecture on waiting till food was offered. It was the polite thing to do. Jake just hoped someone would offer soon.

A sudden rustling commotion brought his attention back to the crowd of small animals opposite him. Even as he watched a small mouse was ejected from the mob, rolling head over heels for a foot or so before getting back to its feet. It looked back at the group of animals with longing. They made go on gestures back at him. With every sign of reluctance, he started creeping across the floor toward Jake.

The big pony’s ear went flat and his head came up as he nervously watched the tiny creature coming toward him. He fought the inclination to crawl backward, away from the creeping mouse. Jake was used to mice scavenging for grain in the barn and even his stall. If he stood very still they tended to treat him as part of the landscape. He was used to the way they moved and how cautious they were. This mouse was acting in a way that had nothing in common with anything he was familiar with. He had no idea what it was doing.

The mouse skittered forward suddenly in a sudden burst of speed that had Jake jerking backward in reaction. The mousse stopped, dropped something, and retreated at a dead run back into the critter crowd.

Jake blinked in surprise and lowered his head to the floor to check out what the mouse had dropped. Truthfully, he would not have been surprised to find a small brown pellet.

The mouse had seemed very frightened, after all.

Instead, what Jake saw, once he twisted his head and brought one big eye within inches of the floor, was a single oat grain.

Another small creature popped out of the crowd of her fellows. This time it was a small bunny with a carrot nearly as big as she was clutched between her front paws. She hopped and waddled toward him, a determined look on her face. The situation was still very strange, but Jake was feeling less skittish, and more curious now.

Besides, that carrot looked tasty. It was no apple, mind you, but nothing to turn your nose up either.

The bunny dropped her offering and turned to scurry back. She passed two other critters, each with their own load of food.

“Girlth, what'th going on here?” Twist asked from beside Jake.

“Huh, what?” Scootaloo said in a distracted air as she rummaged through Fluttershy’s cupboards. She looked over, and her eyes widened, “Hey, dinner!”

“It ain’t for you,” Apple Bloom said firmly, getting between Scootaloo and the small pile of tasty treats.

“Why are they giving Jake food?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Maybe becauth he’th a printh?” Twist suggested in a questioning tone.

“Wait! Jake’s a prince,” Scootaloo exclaimed while looking at the big colt with renewed interest. “Do you have a big castle?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jake told the Pegasus. "I’m a prince? Are princes as cool as Ninja’s?” Jake asked Twist.

“Well, you are an Alicorn, and all the other Alicornth are Princetheth, tho you should be a printh. And printhth are very cool.”

“Prince Blueblood isn’t an Alicorn. He’s a big, fat jerk, and some other names that Rarity used that I'm not supposed to know till I’m much older,” Sweetie Belle interjected with some heat.

Scootaloo’s ears pricked up, and she made a mental note to have a chat with Sweetie Belle sometimes later.

Jerk was a word Jake knew. “I don’t want to be a jerk. Curry hates jerks,” he replied in a worried tone.

“You can be a prince without being a jerk,” Apple Bloom told Jake, but there was a touch of uncertainty in her voice. The small filly shared, to a certain extent, her sister’s dislike of falsehoods, and she didn’t know for sure that being a prince and being a jerk were mutually exclusive. Like Sweetie Belle she’d gotten an earful about Blueblood’s behavior the day after the Gala from her own sister, who had been outraged on behalf of her friend.

“Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you don’t turn into a jerk, even if you are a prince,” Scootaloo assured Jake. There was a familiar glimmer in the filly’s eyes that caused her friends’ ear to prick up.

“What are you thinking, Scoots?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Well. . . Princess Luna and Princess Celestia have all those stallions as their guards, right?”

“Yeah, everyone knows that,” Apple Bloom said.

“Well, then shouldn’t a prince have a whole lot of mare guards?”

“That makes thenth,” Twist said thoughtfully, nodding her head slowly in agreement.

“And Jake is only five. We’re all older than he is. So why can’t we become his guards? You don’t have any guards already, do you, Jake?” Scootaloo asked

“Don’t think so,” Jake said doubtfully. He wasn’t exactly sure what a guard was. Maybe he did have some? The more important question was, “Will guards keep me from being a jerk?”

“For sure. With the right guards, you would never have to worry about turning into a jerk,” Apple Bloom said, seeing where Scoots was going with this, and liking the destination.

“That would be great! Would you really be my guards?”

“You bet. I’d be your Captain of the Guards,” Scootaloo declared firmly.

“Hey, how come you get to be Captain?” both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle protested.

“Because I’m the one who’s already an honorary, probationary, guard trainee,” Scootaloo declared.

“Uh, would it be ok if I wath your candy cook inthtead?” Twist asked Jake.

“You make candy?” Jake asked in a voice that boomed in excitement. The line up of critters marching food toward him scattered to the far corners of the room in response. Jake didn’t notice. All his attention was on Twist as he fairly quivered in eagerness. “Can you make me some now?”

“Well, not make. But, I have thome here,” Twist replied. Twisting her head and sticking her muzzle in her saddlebag. A moment later she popped out with a thick peppermint stick between her lips. She held it up for Jake to take.

More than willing, Jake opened wide and leaned forward to take the tempting treat.

“Wait, don’t bite!” Sweetie Belle shouted out. “Twist’s twists are really strong. You need to suck them slowly, or it will feel like you’ve got a blizzard in your mouth.”

“Hmmm, hmmm,” Twist mumbled, nodding her head in agreement with Sweetie Belle’s instructions while looking upward in wide-eyed worry at Jake’s maw, which looked large enough to swallow her whole from this perspective.

Jake looked tempted, but trusting his new friends he closed his mouth and gently slipped his lips around the brightly colored candy stick. His mouth brushed against Twist’s and she blushed deeply. Jake was oblivious to his friend’s reaction. He closed his eyes in delight and worked the sweet back and forth in his mouth, savoring the delightful minty sweetness. This also caused the contact between him and Twist to become even more intimate. At least for her.

“Woah, hey guys, I think that’s enough!” Scootaloo said.

Twist jerked back from Jake, the candy stick slipping from her mouth and leaving a stream of drool dripping off the end. Her entire body felt like it was going to burst into flame from embarrassment. She hunched her body and directed a look toward Scoot, sure she was going to see the Pegasus filly laughing at her. Only, Scoot wasn’t paying any attention to her at all. She was looking past her toward the pile of food that the animals had been bringing Jake.

Jake opened his eyes while continuing to diligently suckle on his new treat. He located Scoot and blinked as he took in the mound of food that was now as tall as the filly standing next to it. The little creatures had been busy while he was distracted. Even now a small ferret was manfully dragging a turnip up the shifting slope of foodstuffs, striving for the peak of the pile.

“Let's dig in!” Scoot said eagerly, snatching a particularly crisp looking carrot out of the middle of the food pile. This dislodged the fragile balance and with a squeak of fear the ferret was enveloped in a food landslide. Hurriedly a raccoon and several other medium sized animals rushed forward and extracted him from his burial by food. Behind them, several other critters waited with arms full of food. The unoccupied animals directed dirty looks toward Scoot.

“Sorry,” Scootaloo mumbled around the carrot she was chewing on.

“You better tell them that ith enouth, printh Jake,” Twist whispered.

Jake nodded and addressed the crowd of small animals. “Thank you very much. It is enough.” He looked at Twist for affirmation he had done it right. She gave him a nod of approval. Even though he had mumbled his words around the candy stick he was sucking on, the critters seemed to get the message.

The various animals that still held arms full of food turned back the way they had come. The rest turned their backs on the ponies and went back to whatever they had been doing before. Several wiped the back of their paws across sweaty foreheads and settled down to take a nap.

“You don’t mind if we share the food they brought you, Prince Jake?” Sweetie Belle asked politely. Behind her Apple Bloom hastily swallowed the mouthful of grain she had just snatched up, and tried to look as if she hadn’t. Scootaloo was oblivious, she finished off the carrot she had started with and nuzzled through the mound looking for something equally as tasty. Twist’s stomach rumbled, but she waited to hear Jake’s reply to Sweetie Belle.

Jake nodded and mumbled at her to dive in. Jake’s own belly growled at him, and he looked longingly at the pile of food. The candy stick was nice, but not very filling. He wanted to swallow down something crunchy and tasty and fill the void in his stomach. Only, what was he to do about the peppermint stick? He wasn't supposed to crunch it. That would be a bad thing. He didn’t want to simply drop it either, it was too sweet and delicious to waste.

Sweetie Belle, a stalk of celery dangling from her mouth, noticed Jake’s dilemma. She quickly crunched up her food and swallowed it down, before saying, “Here, Jake. Let me put that away for you. I’ll stick it somewhere safe so you’ll have it for dessert.”

Twist startled and looked like she wanted to protest. Before she could make a move Sweetie reared up slightly and set her hooves against the front of Jake’s legs, bringing her nose right up to his. She sucked the sugar stick into her mouth, her lips pressing against Jake’s for just a moment before she drew the candy from his mouth. Twist felt her face heat up to the point where she once again felt like she might combust as Sweetie Belle dropped to all four hooves and trotted over to the dining room table where she deposited Jake’s treat in a small bowl that had formerly held fruit and other treats.

Jake watched Sweetie intently, and only when his candy was safely stashed away did he lower his head to nose through the goodies piled in front of him. To his great pleasure an apple turned up, and he happily gulped it down, noisily masticating the crunchy fruit with great relish.

Sweetie Belle trotted back over to where Jake and the other ponies were picking out treats from the pile and joined in. The five ponies munched away in contentment.

Jake soon noticed that there was no way they were going to finish all of it. At the same time, he became aware that not a few of the critters from earlier were looking their way with hungry glances. “Don’t you want some?” he asked around a mouthful of apple and strawberries.

Moments later most of the critters joined happily in the feast and the room was filled with the sound of jaws crunching crisp treats.

Jake, mindful of his manners lessons from Big Mac, ate politely and carefully, avoiding burying his face up to the eyes in the pile of food. Despite that, his intake was impressive. Foolishly, three of the fillies he was eating with tried to match him a mouthful for a mouthful.

“Oh, I can’t eat another bite,” Scootaloo moaned as she lay on her back massaging her distended tummy. She let out a loud belch.

“That was for sure one big feast,” Apple Bloom replied. She too was laying on her back like a beached whale, gently rubbing her belly where her normal inee had turned into an outee. In reply to Scootaloo's belch, she swallowed some air and then let out a prolonged reverberation that caused dust to dance in the sharply slanted sun-beams shining through the windows. She smiled and sent a mental thanks to her big sister and brother for their diligent instruction in the finer points of boon companion etiquette.

“It was pretty good,” Sweetie Belle agreed. She decorously covered her mouth with a hoof, just before letting out with a belch that could have replaced a fog-horn.

Twist, being the mature pony in the group rolled her eyes in teenage dismay, right before letting loose with a pretty respectable belch herself. She blushed furiously and dropped her head while muttering, “Thcuse me.”

Jake was not about to be outdone, and let loose the stomach gas he had been holding in all this time out of respect for the gentle company he found himself among. Shocked birds fell from the air, and small critters were sent tumbling across the floor as Jake’s belch set the rafters to trembling and caused dust to pop out from between the seams in the floor.

The CMC directed a look of awe his way that far exceeded even the one they had given him at their first meeting.

“The Winner and New Champion!” Scootaloo announced bombastically while trying, without a lot of success, to hoist Jake’s front hoof up into the air in a victory pose.

Jake looked on in curiosity as Scoot fell over backward while panting. “Too full, try later,” she gasped.

“Oh no. look outside,” Sweetie Belle cried out, drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that night had fallen while they had been busy digesting.

“Dang it,” Apple Bloom exclaimed. Part of her deal with Applejack in regards to camping out on her own with her friends was that they would not go rambling over the countryside after dark. She’d Pinkie sworn it. “We’re stuck here till morning now.”

“Just as well,” Scoot groaned. “I don’t think I could make it to the door if I tried unless somepony were to roll me.”

“We’ll have to sleep here tonight. I don’t think Fluttershy will mind,” Sweetie Belle said. “You don’t mind, do you, Jake?”

Jake had wandered over to the dinner table with Twist and retrieved his treat while the three ponies had been talking. Twist was sucking on her own sweet, not having overdone the binging like her friends and leaving room for a sweet. “Don’t mind,” Jake mumbled around the peppermint stick. He settled down on the floor like a big cat and stretched out contentedly with his head on his forelegs.

Twist gave a little shiver. Fluttershy’s home had a lot of drafts due to the various critter doors and the night air was chilly. She contemplated the merits of snagging one of the floor coverings and pulling it over herself like a blanket. It would work fine if you didn’t mind something that had seen so much animal traffic, and who knew what else. While she was glumly debating which would be more uncomfortable, doing without a covering, or using the tatty old rug, Jake gave a sigh and stretched out his wings. One of them extended out over Twist’s head. An idea popped into her head, bringing a flush to her cheeks. Feeling greatly daring, and not being one to look a feather comforter in the mouth, Twist settled down on the floor and nestled herself snugly up against Jake just as he drew his wing back to his side, covering Twist in a cocoon of warmth.

Apple Bloom and her friends had been debating their options. Scootaloo was all for heading upstairs and crawling into the same bed they had used the last time they had stayed over at Fluttershy’s. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were uncomfortable with the idea of making that free with Fluttershy’s hospitality. They were all for toughing it out till Fluttershy got home, and formerly offered them a warm bed for the night.

“Or we could do what Twist is doing,” Scoot suggested after being outvoted. She pointed toward the slumbering Jake.

“What? Hey, where is Twist?” Apple Bloom asked, looking in the direction Scootaloo indicated and failing to see anything but the large mound of a slumbering Jake.

“Check under Jake’s wing,” Scoot laughed.

“Oh, that looks warm,” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, spotting a single small hoof just barely visible under the trailing edge of Jake’s wing. “Do you think Jake would mind if we huddled up close like that?”

“Only one way to find out,” Scootaloo said confidently. She dashed across the floor and then slid the last few feet on a loose throw rug, scooting under the edge of Jake’s wing and up against both Jake and Twist.

“Ooof,” Twist grunted as Scoot shoved up hard against her, pinning her for a moment between the two Pegasus.

“Mmph,” Jake mumbled, lifting his head sleepily and stretching out his wing so he could see under it.

“Hey, you’re letting the cold in,” Scoot complained from where she was fluffing Jake’s side to her standards.

“Sorry,” Jake rumbled in a muzzy voice and tucked his wing back down over the two little fillies.

“I reckon that answers that,” Apple Bloom said to Sweetie Belle.

The girliest of the CMC made no demurral. The temperature was dropping quickly now that the sun had been put away for the night. She joined her friend in trotting around Jake and nosing their way under his other wing.

Jake didn’t wake, but his wing shifted slightly to envelop the last of his new friends in a warm embrace. The four fillies snuggled up tightly to Jake’s side and each other and soon the only sound in the room was that of the little ponies’ gentle breathing and the bigger pony’s soft rumble.

And of course, the scurry of various nocturnal critters, the soft rustling of sleeping birds and the creaking of Fluttershy’s home as the tree that made up part of its construction shifted in the wind.

***

The sound of the front door opening, and of hooves drumming on the floor, roused Jake from his slumber. He lifted his head and drowsily checked to see who it was. He came a bit more awake when he saw that Miss Fluttershy was home and that Applejack and Rainbow Dash were with her. His ears perked up and his eyes lost some of their drowsy expression. Then he spotted Fluttershy’s sleeping rider.

“Curry!” Jake bugled in joy. He lurched to his feet, and the four little fillies that had been snuggled up against his side were sent tumbling across the floor, fortunately out of the way of his hooves, as he lunged toward the adult ponies.

“Eeeeeeeee!” A shrill whinnying scream brought him up short as the pale green Unicorn who he hadn’t seen standing behind Applejack cried out, cowered back from him in fear.

Jake took a hesitant step backward, fearful he had done something bad. The thunder of large hooves suddenly filled the room as a black Pegasus pony rushed into the house.

“Lyra? What is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” the pony, who Jake now saw was a medium sized stallion, shouted out as he hovered protectively over the pony who had screamed.

Jake’s uncertainty grew. Big Mac had turned out to be wonderful, once Applejack had explained things to him, but there was no guarantee this stallion was not one of the crazy ones. Jake really wished he had a handy stack of hay bales to hide behind till things settled down, especially when the stallion looked around the room and saw him. Jake cringed, expecting the big pony to charge across the room at him.

“Jake? It’s really you,” Curry’s drowsy voice seemed to fill the room with warm joy, for all the softness with which she had spoken. Jake’s heart lightened as he saw she had slid off of Miss Fluttershy’s back and was walking toward him, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“Miss Curry. Are you sure it’s safe?” the stallion asked, hovering protectively in front of the trembling unicorn who had screamed. He moved forward slightly so he was right behind the small girl, but still between Jake and the trembling pony.

Curry scowled and looked back over her shoulder at the stallion who towered over her. Jake recognized that expression. Curry reserved it for people, and horses, who had done or said, something she found remarkably stupid. He was glad that for once it was not directed at him. Curry took a deep calming breath, and Jake realized that the stallion must be someone she was at least a little wary of spouting off at. “It’s Jake. Of course, I’m sure it’s safe,” Curry said in a voice that showed the strain of keeping a polite tone.

She turned away from the big Pegasus, and her expression turned joyful once again as she looked up into Jake’s eyes. “How you doing you big lug? You being good for Applejack?” She stepped up and wrapped her arms around his muzzle as he lowered his head to her eye level. She rested her forehead between his eyes and gave out a contented sigh. Jake sniffed loudly, drawing her comfortably familiar scent into his nose, while also checking her out for snacks.

“Well, up till now I’d reckoned he was,” Applejack spoke up, as she moved over beside Curry. “Only thing is, he ain’t suppose to be here, him, or Apple Bloom there,” Applejack nodded toward an overstuffed chair that Apple Bloom and her friends were crouched behind, just the tops of their heads and eyes visible. “You lot! Git out here now!”

“Oh. My. God. They are so, Cute!” Curry squealed as she saw the four little heads peeking around the rim of the chair. She instantly wanted to sink into the floor in pure mortification for expressing such a remark in that tone of voice. Thankfully, the ponies weren’t likely to burst their britches laughing at her over it.

A loud belly laugh from overhead caused Curry to glare up at Rainbow Dash who was doing nothing to conceal that she was the source of the loud guffaw. Somehow Rainbow managed to mimic an extremely girly swish while hovering in mid-air while smirking down at Curry, clearly enjoying her discomfort.

“Curry, these here are my little sister and her friends,” Applejack said, ignoring Rainbow Dash’s tomfoolery. “The one on the right is--”

“Wait, wait, let me guess!” Curry cut off Applejack, still flustered from her embarrassing display, and wanting to take attention away from it. She stepped right up to the fillies who looked at each other and the adults in the room in doubt as Curry approached them. She slowed her approach as she saw that the little unicorn, and the pony wearing glasses, looked like they were on the verge of fleeing.

“They’re nice,” Jake said from right behind her, nuzzling her cheek with his nose from behind, and smearing it with horse boogers. “What are you wearing?”

“Leave off,” Curry protested, rubbing her cheek clean with her forearm. “Miss Rarity made it for me. Ain’t it great. Gives me a hide almost as thick as your’n.”

The sight of Curry getting smeared with snot seemed to eliminate any worry the fillies might have had about her, and they crowded up, staring up at her with wide curious eyes.

“Hey, that’s made from the stuff we tie-dyed with the dye Zecora threw out,” Scootaloo said, in a tone implying long-delayed vindication. “I told you it was cool.”

“Rarity made it?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking the outfit over from top to bottom. It seemed impossible that her sister had even passed by the outfit without fainting in shock, let alone actually made it.

“Yeah, it’s magical as all get out,” Curry said, buffing the front of her outfit with the back of her knuckles. “Now, let me think.” Curry cast her mind back to the rather chaotic introductions Pinkie Pie had made, which had included a list of local relatives. You must be Miss Rarity’s little sister,” she pointed at Sweetie Belle and got a hesitant nod in reply. “And you just got to be, Applejack’s sister,” as she shifted her eyes to the cute little yellow filly with the red mane and tail. “I bet you’re going to be just as fine a pony as your big sister when you grow up.”

“Sure am. What are you?” Apple Bloom confirmed with nary an acknowledgment of the compliment. Instead, she bulled ahead with her own question.

“Me? Can’t you tell?” Curry asked deflecting the question and pointing a finger at Scootaloo. “Now the other two are obvious as all heck, you, not so much.” Curry struggled to remember anything Pinkie had said about a Pegasus filly and drew a blank. She took a wild guess, “Would you be... Rainbow Dash’s sister?”

“Honorary little sister,” Dash said, fluttering down beside Scootaloo and ruffling her short-shorn mane with her forehoof. The name is Scootaloo, and you should see the awesome aerials she can pull off on her scooter.”

Curry smirked a bit at the mixed expression of joy and embarrassment on the little Pegasus’s face. She turned to the last filly, the one with the large glasses and the crossed candy canes on her flank. “Sorry. Don’t know who your sister is.”

“I don’t have a thithter, but Aunt Lyra over there is my aunt. My name is Twitht.”

Curry was a bit startled at the little pony’s lisp. She’d grown so used to the impossible fact of talking ponies that it seemed strange that one would have a speech impediment. But, why the heck not, she decided, dismissing the curiosity from her mind as immaterial in the face of much more important information.

“She makes candy,” Jake editorialized, quickly getting in Twist’s paramount defining characteristic, and duplicating Curry’s line of thought. “Really good candy. She gave me some. Was that all right?” he asked, a touch of worry in his voice.

“Huh? Yeah, sure. Don’t see why not. Not if it was really good candy. It was good candy, right?” Curry asked Twist, a sly expression on her face.

“Do you want to try thome?” Twist asked, lowering her head and nuzzling through her saddlebag where it was resting on the floor. She lifted her head, a thick, striped candy stick held in her mouth.

Curry gingerly took the candy, a dubious expression on her face as she contemplated the pony spit on one end.

“Go ahead, Curry. It’s really good,” Jake urged her.

“Yeah, yeah, give me a moment here,” Curry said, using her hand to brush off the worst of the slobber, getting her fingers sticky in the process. Very conscious of being the center of attention from five pairs of eyes, she tentatively gave the none-pony contaminated end a lick. Her eyes widened in appreciation, and she took a more generous taste, still avoiding the other end. “Yum! That is good! You really made it?” she asked Twist.

“Thure did,” Twist pronounced proudly. Aunt Bon Bon taught me how, but I made thith batch all on my own.”

Curry smacked her lips, enjoying the tingle of sugar and strong peppermint, and directed a teasing look at Jake. “You’re a real playboy, ain’t you Jake? Leave you alone for two days, and you collect four nice fillies for your harem.”

Jake’s expression turned panicked. He knew from her tone and look that Curry was teasing him, but this was serious business. “Oh, no, I promised Big Mac I wouldn’t take any of his mares. Only play with them a bit. We’ve only played a bit. Isn’t that right, Twist?”

Curry blinked a bit at that information while wondering who this, Big Mac, was. From the tone of Jake’s voice, he was something special.

Scootaloo saved Twist from embarrassment caused spontaneous combustion by interjecting a question of her own, directed toward Curry, “Wait. You’re Jake’s big sister? What the heck happened to you. Did you play in some poison joke? Apple Bloom says Zecora has a cure. She can fix you right up if that’s what happened.”

“Nah, we ain’t related by blood. Jake was adopted by Old Ben and me. Don’t know what Poison Joke is, but pretty sure I ain’t stepped in any.”

Apple Bloom still wanted an answer to her previous question and asked in a firm voice. “So if you all ain’t a pony. Just what are you? I ain’t never seen a critter like you before.”

“What, you ain’t ever seen a Snipe before?”

***

Lyra couldn’t take her eyes off the scene in front of her. The human was conversing freely with Twist and her little friends, as well as the gigantic Alicorn who had terrified her so badly. Where had he come from? How had someone like him been kept secret? It must have involved a massive coverup!

Lyra had not for one instant bought the whole Snipe thing. She knew a human when she saw one. The fact that she had never actually seen one before notwithstanding.

It had always been a mystery how Bighoof’s hoofprints tended to vanish if you followed them far enough. It had been speculated that he was a Pegasus, but they were far too light boned and in general smallish, to leave such massive, heavy prints. An Alicorn stallion explained so much. It was only natural he’d be so large. Look at Celestia and Luna, far larger than the average pony. That would mean he’d been around for centuries. It must have taken extraordinary measures to keep him a secret for so long.

That thought sent a frisson of fear up her spine. It was perfectly clear that Rainbow Dash and her friends knew about the Alicorn stallion. The only surprise they had shown was that he was here, and not where he was supposed to be. It was to be expected that they’d be in on the secret. Over the last few months they, and the other three mares that made up their group, had been involved in several potential Equestria shattering events. They were likely part of the conspiracy to keep not just the Alicorn stallion a secret, but the human as well. But, what did that mean for her and All Day? Were they fated for a magical mind wipe to make them forget everything they had seen?

Lyra could not accept that. This was too big, the public had a right to know. They had to get out of here, go into hiding, spread the story to the point where it could no longer be concealed.

Lyra was shuddering as All Day moved up against her, covering her with one broad wing. “Don’t worry. He’s not going to hurt you,” he assured her.

The unicorn leaned in against the big Pegasus, drawing comfort from his warmth and presence. Taking advantage of All Day’s close proximity, Lyra whispered, “We have to get out of here. Go into hiding. Get the news out that there is an Alicorn stallion roaming Equestria.”

“We can’t do that!” Sweets cried out, dismay clear on his face and in his tone. He lowered his voice hastily and continued, "I mean, I’m sure there is a very good reason why they want to keep him a secret. We don’t have all the information.”

Lyra patted All Day on the shoulder, having to stretch a bit to do it. She shook her head in a rather condescending manner, before saying,” Poor All Day. You really are an innocent. They don’t need a reason to go to extraordinary lengths to keep secrets. Their default mode is that we can’t be trusted with anything more complex than the normal mundane detritus of everyday life. Trust me, don’t trust them. Besides, you should be particularly careful.”

Lyra could see that All Day was clearly fighting the temptation to take a few steps away from her. She was used to seeing that reaction in ponies she tried to educate on the true state of the world. It hurt a bit, but she tried not to let it bother her. He couldn’t help being uninformed. That naivete just made him all the cuter. She was really looking forward to broadening his education. Besides, he needed her if he ever expected to get back on Bon Bon’s good side, and even more important, her very naughty side. “Why should I be careful?” her hunk a hunk of potential burning love asked hesitantly.

“Well, just look at you. You’re above average in size. Don’t think about that, Lyra, Keep focused Your hide is monochromatic dark, almost unheard of, now that I think of it. You’re a Pegasus with a very respectable wingspan,” Lyra paused to wipe a touch of drool off the corner of her mouth, “and last, you’re sporting that big fake horn. Anyone who knows about him is going to think you’re mimicking him on purpose. Not that you can hardly blame them. What are the odds that you just happen to be in Ponyville . . .”Lyra trailed off, she looked over at the Alicorn, and then back at All Day, “at the exact same time as him...?”

Sweets was not liking the look in Lyra’s eyes or the way she ducked out from under his wing. There was fear in her gaze, but also a look of pain that cut Sweets like a knife.

“I’ve been blind.” Lyra whispered in a tone that was as cutting as a scream of panic. “You’re one of them. A Pony In Black! I won’t let you erase my memory and re-locate me to some small out of the way village where no one has any idea who I am. I won’t let you change my cutie mark to break all connections with my past life.”

“Lyra, it’s not like that,” Sweets protested, taking a step toward her, and then pulling his leg back when she flinched away.

“Then how is it?” Lyra asked fear and disappointment in her voice.

Sweets opened his mouth to explain, but nothing came out. He was still under orders. No matter the personal cost, he could not reveal the truth, even though Lyra had already seen just about everything he was supposed to keep secret.

He felt like a total bastard for thinking it, but in a way, it was actually good Lyra was so mistaken about what was going on, it added a whole other level of misdirection. If she started ranting in the middle of town, it could only help his mission. His attempt to view the situation in a positive light didn’t work very well. His stomach, not to mention his heart, hurt at the thought of all those ponies laughing at her because of him.

“That’s what I thought,” Lyra said bitterly. “You know what you are? You’re, you’re, a total fatheaded, jerk!”

“That’s bad, very bad. Being a jerk is very bad,” a deep rumbling voice chided from behind and above her. She snapped her head around and found herself staring up at the chin and mouth of the black Alicorn. Celestia, he’s big, Lyra thought to herself, her mind going numb from the sheer enormity of the pony standing barely more than a hoof away from her.

“We won’t let him be a jerk,” the Alicorn said firmly, he swung his huge head around and glared down at All Day. “Stop being a jerk!”

“Okay,” All Day said, swallowing nervously. “I won’t be a jerk anymore. I promise.”

The oversized stallion stared intently at All Day for a moment and then nodded his head. “Good. Do you want to play with us?”

“Play?” All Day said in befuddlement. Lyra could see sweat beading on his forehead. An evil smile appeared. Of course, even if he was a Pony In Black, he couldn’t ignore an order from Royalty.

“I’m sure he’d love to play with you, Prince . . .” Lyra fumbled for his name. She was sure she’d heard it, what was it.”

“Jake. His name is Jake,” the voice of the small human said from the opposite side of Lyra. Once again she snapped her head around, experiencing a twang in her overly stressed neck muscles as she did so. Her heart gave a huge thump as she found herself looking straight into the human’s eyes from mere inches away. How could something so small fill so much of her field of view?

“Ahhh, well, as I was saying. I’m sure All Day would love to play with you, Prince Jake.” Lyra said, not taking her eyes off the human filly. She’d wanted some private time with the human from the first moment she’d seen her on Private Eye’s back. When All Day showed a lack of enthusiasm for following her suggestion. She pulled her gaze away for a moment and glared at the big Pegasus. “Wouldn’t you, All Day?”

“Yeah, come on over and spend a bit of time with the fillies and Jake,” Rainbow Dash said as she fluttered over to the other side of Sweets from Lyra. “Dude,” she whispered in his ear. “Give the girl some space to cool down. Let her have some time with Curry. Knowing Lyra, she won’t even remember what upset her in a few minutes. All she’ll have on her mind will be that she actually got to talk to a real live human. Come on now. You’ve already got one of your marefriends mad as heck at you. Don’t push your luck.”

With obvious reluctance, Sweets allowed himself to be shepherded away from Lyra and Curry by the big Alicorn and Rainbow Dash.

Lyra suppressed an urge to squeal in delight at having the human all to herself. “I can’t tell you what an honor this is, getting to meet you. All my life I’ve wanted to meet a human.”

“I’m a Snipe,” the human said, her face twisting into an expression of stubbornness.

Really, it was amazing how expressive she could be despite those small eyes, tiny mouth, and nose.

“If that’s what you want to be called, of course, I’ll call you that.”

“Want to be called Curry! It’s my name,” the little human said, not giving Lyra one inch of slack.

Lyra was starting to get a bit frantic. This was not going well at all. “Of course, Curry. There is so much I want to know. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Well, just so you know. I was never one of those girls who thought that Unicorns were the greatest thing there was.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry.”

The little human, Curry, shrugged, and quickly spouted out, “Nothing to be sorry about. Truth is, now that I’ve met a few, I got to say, they ain’t all that bad. Rarity is nice as can be. Her little sister, Sweetie Belle lives up to her name. Twilight is scary, but awesome scary, not mean scary. You ain’t all that bad either. That was really cool, the way you stood up to that big stallion and made him back up like that. Guess you Unicorns ain’t all sparkles, cotton candy, and marshmallows.”

“Well, thank you,” Lyra said, trying to work her way through the little human’s rapid-fire delivery.

“Sort of wish I could take you back home with me,” Curry mused, with a small introspective smile. Some of the girls at school would just die if I showed up with a real live Unicorn for Show-And-Tell. Bet the teacher wouldn’t tell me that you didn’t belong in a school. Still say, Jake would have been the best Show-And-Tell ever.”

Lyra all but lunged forward, her eyes wide and slightly crazed, “Please. Take me back with you! I want to see your world so bad! I’ll do anything, obey your instructions to the letter, only let me go back with you! We could go right now! Just let me tell All Day, so he can tell Bon Bon. I can travel light. I don’t even need a toothbrush or my pajamas!”

The small human shifted back quickly, a wary look in her small eyes. Lyra was instantly contrite and backed up slightly, “Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Didn’t scare me,” Curry said in an emphatic tone. “Can’t rightly take you back with me. Can’t rightly take me back. Don’t know if I’d want to go, even if’n I could. And even if’n I could, taking you back, bad idea I’m thinking.”

“No, great idea! I wouldn’t be any trouble at all. I promise.”

Curry shook her head, “you don’t get it. A real live talking unicorn. Folks would go nuts, some folks would go worse. Just like the kids from Witch Mountain, there would be rich folks who’d want to stick you in a cage, maybe to make money, maybe just to have a unicorn.”

“But, you’d protect me, surely?”

Lyra flushed at the look Curry directed at her. “Me, I’m just a kid. Who’d listen to me?”

“You’re a baby goat now?” Lyra asked, her face screwing up in confusion.”

Now it was Curry turn to look confused. “What in the heck are you talking about?”

“You said you were just a kid.”

“Yeah, so. I am.”

“So you’re saying you are a baby goat?”

“I never!”

“But you said you’re a kid.”

“I am. What has that got to do with being a goat? I’ve only been wearing this outfit for a day. I don’t smell that bad yet,” Curry said in a belligerent tone while pinching a fold of her covering and holding it up to her nose while taking a theatrical sniff.

Lyra massaged the area around her horn with a forehoof. “Fine, I get it, you’re a kid, but not a kid, kid.”

The small human smirked at her. “Ok, if you say so.”

Lyra repressed the urge to bite Curry somewhere sensitive as she realized the little human had been playing her. She twisted her head slightly to the side, and addressed the air beside Curry in a long-suffering tone of voice, “Can we get back to how dangerous it would be for me to go to the human world. Wouldn’t the guards and the princesses there protect me?”

“Ain’t no princesses where I came from. Maybe in other places. And the sheriff might help, he’s a pretty good guy, but rich people got their ways, and they’d get around him, sure as I’m standing here talking to you.”

Curry gave a smile. “Guess I never thought about how lucky I am. Fluttershy and her friends are looking after Jake and me real good. Sneaky too, and you and your friend, All Day. You all looked out for me in the village when all those other ponies went crazy.”

“He isn’t my friend. He’s a liar and a sneak.”

“Miss Rarity said I could trust him. I trust her a whole lot. If’n it’s all the same to you, and even if it’s not, I’m still gonna keep on trusting him.”

“But, he’s a Pony In Black,” Lyra protested.

Curry’s eye took on a distant look as she got into her let's pretend mindset. She'd had lots of practice at creating worlds out whole cloth. and she'd actually been thinking on how strange it had been to meet Sweets in town. She had no idea if Lyra was right, but the idea of a pony in black was cool. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing?” Curry said slowly, in a slightly questioning tone. “Men In Black keep aliens from other worlds secret. But, they are the good guys too. Maybe it’s the same with Mister All Day? He protected me in town. And think about this. He got in front of you when you thought Jake was a monster. He choose you over Jake when it was most important.

Lyra looked doubtful. She glanced across to where All Day was sitting on the floor across from the giant Alicorn, with a pile of drowsy fillies between them, clearly fighting a losing battle to keep their eyes open. All Day was talking, and Lyra moved forward to overhear what he was saying that had Jake so enthralled.

“So, there was the train, broke down at the station, and Applejack told my Uncle that they had to get to Appaloosa as soon as possible. So what do you think my Uncle did?”

“He pulled it!” Jake crowed, clearly having heard and answered this question a few times already.

“That’s right. He and five of my brother’s and uncles harnessed themselves to the front of that train, engine and all, and they pulled it all the way to Appaloosa. Didn’t even stop pulling when the train was raided by wild buffalo.”

“Yay!” Jake cheered, which turned into a huge jaw-cracking yawn. “Tell me another,” he said in a sleepy voice.

Despite herself, Lyra felt the anger, and nausea, in her belly ease. Maybe the human was right. All the tales said they were wise and seemed to only exist to give ponies on adventures advice. The tales were also explicit on what happened to those ponies who ignored the advice.

Beside Lyra, Curry yawned, and her small body seemed to get even smaller as she leaned sleepily up against Lyra.

“Oh, dear. I think if you don’t mind? Maybe? it is time for them to get to sleep? if it would not be too much of a bother?” Fluttershy interjected in a soft hesitant voice as she emerged from wherever she had been keeping herself for the last little bit, ever since she’d found her home overflowing with ponies big and small.

“I really should get Curry to bed,” Fluttershy told Lyra directly, looking her straight in the eye. She moved in and gently took the little human’s weight off of Lyra’s side.

Curry nuzzled up to Fluttershy, one arm draped over her shoulder, “Can I sleep with Jake, please? And, the others?”

“Well, I guess that would be all right. You don’t mind, Jake?”

Jake settled down on the floor, yawning again. “Nuh, uh, want that.” He extended a wing in an invitation, and Fluttershy eased the tired little human under it and against Jake’s side. Apple Bloom and Twist shifted over so they bracketed the smaller girl before pressing up against Jake themselves. Jake lowered his wing, and head, giving a gusting sigh of contentment.

“I’ll just get a blanket, or two, or three,” Fluttershy said, running her eyes over the large pile of ponies in the middle of her living room. “Maybe four or five,” she added in a doubtful tone, clearly not sure even that would be enough.

“Lyra?” All Day said hesitantly from a few feet away, his eyes pleading for understanding, while his sorrowful expression showed he didn’t expect it.

Lyra had never been one to live up to expectations, so she strolled forward and nuzzled the bottom of his chin, for all the world as if her previous blow-up had never happened. “Are you going to stay here to keep an eye on them, or can you come back home?”

“Late as it is, I might as well spend the night, get the foals back home in the morning,” Applejack said, settling herself down on the floor near the pile of ponies, while not actually being part of it. “I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

“Been a while since I slept over with Shy,” Rainbow Dash said, nuzzling up to the timid Pegasus. “Hope you got over that snoring problem,” she teased her oldest friend.

“Oh, Rainbow, you know I was only snoring because you had your flank . . .” Fluttershy trailed off, flushing red while an expression of mortification crossed her face.

Lyra could not keep from chuckling. She twisted her head around and gave All Day’s flank a small affectionate nip, causing him to dance away from her, in the direction of the door. “Come on, stud let's go home and see if Bon Bon is maybe ready to look over that contract Luna mentioned. Sounds like it might make for interesting bedtime reading. Maybe you can help us with the punctuation?”

****

Lyra left Fluttershy’s cottage with a spring in her step that was only marginally related to the handsome stallion beside her, who very likely would have suffered a seizure if he had been able to read her mind.

What fantastic luck that the first human she met was so young and inexperienced. Telling her how hazardous the human world was when right behind her was an Alicorn in the bloom of health and attitude who had to have been raised there.

She started making a mental list of what she needed to pack and carry with her at all times from now on, and especially when she returned the next day. For if there was one thing she had learned from all the tales, Humans always returned to their home. And when Curry went back, Lyra was going with her.

She was going to be ready to visit the Human world at the drop of a saddle.

A toothbrush of course, despite what she’d told Curry earlier she really needed that, and her comfortable pajamas. It was unlikely they’d have her size, or thread count, in the human world. Her mouth wash, wouldn’t want to offend. Grooming supplies, need to make a good first impression. A selection of her best gowns and her formal saddle, so she would show well at all the parties she was sure to be invited to.

Hmmm, this was going to take some thought. Maybe she could draft All Day and Bon Bon to carry some of the necessities?

Ch19 The Camping Trip. Part one [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 19
The Camping Trip, Part one

***

“Curry is Jake’s Imaginary Friend!”

Twilight paused, holding her dramatic pose with one hoof raise high as if she were waiting for the strident blare of trumpets in the background.

She had clearly been spending far too much time with Rarity and Pinkie Pie.

After a long moment of dead silence, and the absolute blankest of looks from the Princess of the Night, Twilight coughed quietly and put all of her hooves back on the ground.

Trying not to blush, and failing badly, Twilight shuffled her hooves into a more decorous pose and added, “Of course, that is only a hypothesis. Given current information. It may need to be modified once we gather more data on the energy flows and densities. I’ve done some preliminary calculations on what we should expect if Curry truly is an imaginary friend with full substance and interactivity. Um. Princess Luna?”

“Continue, Twilight Sparkle. We are interested in how you plan to test your hypothesis.”

“Oh! Yes! Well now that you are here to help, Princess, I can run some tests on Jake to see if his energy flows are close to what I predicted. If I can detect those, it will be very strong evidence for my supposition. That will allow me to upgrade it from a hypothesis to a theory.” Twilight paused, and her expression turned uncertain. “If that is not presumptuous of me, that is? I’m sure you have many royal duties that would take precedence.”

“I would aid you most gladly, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said graciously. “Only, pray to tell me. Why dost thou need my aid in such an endeavor?”

“Why? I would have thought that was obvious!” Twilight said in surprise, then flushed, and stammered out, “Not that I mean you can’t see the obvious! This is a test, right? You want me to show my work? Princess Celestia always wanted me to show how, and for what reasons, I came to my conclusions! Okay. I can do that!”

Luna opened her mouth to reply as Twilight took a much-needed breath, but before she could get a word in edgewise, Twilight was off and running again. “It has to do with power densities. I’m just a Unicorn. Even if I’m only running a scan on Jake’s energy, I still have to connect to his power to do it. I took extreme precautions and put several circuit breakers in the spell I used to scan Curry to protect me if my suspicions were right. There were some strong surges, but I handled them easily thanks to the precautions I took. Those might not be adequate if I were to try a similar scan directly on Jake, however. I was hoping that you’d act as a safety barrier, or maybe do the spell yourself. You, or Princess Celestia, would be able to handle any problems that might occur... um... without being turned into a charred cinder in case Jake’s magic should happen to spike during the examination.”

“Did you want something, Twilight?” Spike called from where he was cleaning up the kitchen, conveniently close to the conversation.

“Different spike, Spike.” Twilight turned back to look at Luna, and asked, “Could you spare the time to lend me a hoof, Princess Luna? ”

Luna was looking at Twilight strangely, but none of that showed in her smooth voice when she said, “It would be my pleasure, Twilight Sparkle. In truth, it coincides nicely with my reasons for coming to Ponyville at this time. You see, my sister and I have decided that for the good of Jake, it would be desirable that his physical form is adjusted to more closely synchronize with his mental age. This will afford him the opportunity to grow naturally into his power and birthright without suddenly having the duties and responsibilities of an adult thrust upon him.”

“Are you talking about an age-reduction spell? Aren’t most of those time spells that chronologically shift the target rather than actually reversing the aging process?”

“Yes, and thus you have deduced the principal difficulty we were faced with when we elected to investigate this problem.”

Twilight gave a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s amusing that you mention that. Purely out of curiosity, I did some calculations after my last encounter with Trixie. Just to see if it would be possible to actually accomplish a true age regression that would leave the pony’s memory and personality intact.”

Luna arched an eyebrow, and asked, “And did you arrive at a solution?”

“Why, yes!” Twilight said, a look of pleasure at the accomplishment on her face. For a moment she basked in the memory, before once again giving a gentle laugh and saying, “Of course, it is just on paper, and purely theoretical. I don’t have to tell you that sometimes trying to apply pure theory and reason to actual living ponies does not always work out well. There is always the X factor that is impossible to fully calculate.” Twilight shuddered slightly as the memory of trying to quantify Pinkie Pie flashed through her mind.

“Twilight Sparkle. I would be most interested in perusing both your calculations on the energy flows you feel would accompany your imaginary friend theory, and the ones in regard to age reduction.”

Twilight looked a bit flustered and self-conscious. “I would be happy to show them to you, Princess, but my calculations in regards to Jake and Curry are just some numbers I threw together and subjected to non-Gaussian regression testing for a few days, while the other was more in the nature of a mental exercise that I've been playing with since they arrived. I didn't write more than a few dozen pages of notes each and haven't double-checked my math again, so there's really no way they're worth being reviewed by a princess!" Twilight's voice rose to a faint squeak at the end, and she breathed in little panting gasps while examining Luna's expression for the smallest sign of displeasure.

“In other words, I should not regard them as your best work?” Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes! No! I mean...!” Twilight sucked in a breath, and carefully said, “Please, I would greatly appreciate your evaluation of my work. I think I can find a red pencil for you.”

Luna smiled, “I am not your teacher, Twilight Sparkle. The manuscripts themselves shall be more than sufficient.”

***

Luna was fully engrossed in the scroll that was unrolled in front of her and held in place by her magic. It was a fascinating piece of work, showing how Twilight Sparkle had traveled down many of the same avenues of thought as she had. It was also a source of great chagrin, as Twilight’s calculations were beyond elegant in form and function. They made her own efforts look unnecessarily complicated and convoluted in comparison, which once again forcefully reminded her that Equestria had not stood still while a thousand years had passed her by.

It had required all her focus, and the mental translation of certain formula into a form she was more familiar with, to work her way through Twilight’s notes. Despite the blow to her ego, she felt a sense of elation. Combined with her own natural talents Twilight’s calculations would be a great help in the transformation spell.

There was a certain synergy in the way the young unicorn approached the problem in a different fashion then Luna, as a mountain climber might attack a steeper slope in order to attain the summit in a more rapid fashion with less apparent chance of failure, whereas Luna's approach was more methodical and filled with fallback positions, the mark of centuries of experience. Her sister had been quite correct about placing the two of them together to face this problem, and it made the solution much more attainable.

Or it would be if Jake was also what he appeared to be.

As Luna had gathered information, she had become less and less certain that the situation was as simple as it appeared on the surface. Fortunately, Twilight had also provided the means of making that evaluation, and her own brilliant scheme to deflect suspicion would allow the opportunity to both run those tests and carry out the spells. All that was required was to bring all the involved parties together.

Luna let the scroll roll up and twisted her head from side to side to relieve the kinks in her neck. With her concentration broken, she became aware of a cool, damp spot on her right shoulder, which turned out to be a sleeping Twilight Sparkle. She apparently had dozed off while reading over Luna's shoulder and now lay nestled against her side, a trail of drool trickling out of her mouth and dampening Luna’s hide. It was both appalling and unbearably cute. She used the tip of her wing to brush aside Twilight’s mane from where it had fallen over the smaller pony’s forehead and spent a minute or so enjoying the sight of the sleeping mare. When was the last time a pony, not related to her, or under the age of two, had felt so comfortable in the presence of the former Nightmare Moon that they could drool all over her in their sleep?

A faint tinkle, like the chiming of minuscule bells, drew Luna’s attention away from Twilight, and to a small glowing ball of light about six inches in diameter that was floating about three hoof lengths above the floor. As she watched the glow resolve into a small four-inch representation of Celestia, a slight smile crossed Luna’s face at the realization that despite a thousand years apart she and her sister were still so much in sync. Once the small duplicate saw that it had Luna’s attention, it extracted a golden pocket watch nearly as large as it was from somewhere and tapped it in a meaningful way.

“Yes, yes, I know. Contrary to what some ponies might think, I did set an alarm,” Luna said in a nonchalant voice. The faux Celestia gave her a skeptical look, which turned to surprise, a second before it dissolved into twinkles of floating dust as a tiny version of Luna belted it over the head with a small glowing pillow. Luna and her small copy exchanged hoof bumps.

The former small duplicate of Celestia and the current miniature version of Luna were small chunks of their respective magic, separated from their sources and given a specific set of instructions. They weren’t actually sentient, but hundreds of years of practice had allowed Celestia and herself to become so proficient in programming the little creatures that the distinction was a razor-thin one.

It was nice to find out after all the years that their sprite spells were still unique to their alicorn magic, and had not been replaced by some complicated gadget with a manual written in Neighponese and Cowhilli.

Not wanting to disturb Twilight, and not actually needing to move from where she was to lower the moon, Luna focused her magic and grasped the forces that kept the moon in place. Before she could accomplish her sacred duty, the motes that had formerly been the Celestia-sprite coalesced back into their original form.

The miniature image of Celestia adopted a pugilistic position and gave Luna-sprite a come-on gesture. An even smaller version of the sprite pranced around the two of them waving a ‘Round 2’ sign to the sound of a tiny clanging bell. Luna-sprite shifted till she resembled Nightmare Moon more than a little, bared cute little fangs and mimicked Celestia-sprite’s aggressive posture.

The flag filly turned into a miniature glowing anvil and fell on Luna-sprite’s head with a far-too loud clang, dispelling her into numerous little glowing bits.

Luna fumed; the rules of Sprite to Sprite combat meant she was not allowed to pump any more magic into her duplicate after its initial creation. Her little copy was going to have to win this on her own. In the meantime, she had a moon to lower.

Once again Luna focused and reached out for the moon, but as she did so, the Celestia-sprite resumed her original form of a glowing orb and began to rotate in the vertical plane. Faster and faster the globe of light turned, spinning out into a shining disk. When it was as big across as one of the windows in the library, a scene appeared in it.

It only took Luna a moment to realize she was seeing an outside view of the library. Sitting and standing in the street were five or six adult ponies and something like twice that number of foals. It was a bit hard to count the foals, as they were in constant motion. In the forefront of the group, and staring raptly at the library, was the tiny colt Luna had met during Nightmare Night. The one who had declared in full sincerity that she was his favorite princess.

***

A murmur of excitement echoed in the early morning air as Princess Luna stepped out of the Library, and faced the ponies waiting in the street. “May we help you?” she asked carefully, uncertain of what the proper protocol was when confronting a mob in front of a friend’s house. In some ways, it would have been a lot easier if they’d been carrying pitchforks and torches, or even signs saying ‘Nightmare Moon Go Home.’

The older ponies looked nervous and stood shuffling their hooves in the dirt of the street, but Pipsqueak, the small Trottingham colt, practically bounced forward followed by the rest of the young foals. “We’ve come to see you lower the moon, Princess Luna!” He was wiggling so much in delight that his tail was actually wagging in a most endearing manner like some large pinto puppy.

“Why?” Luna could not stop herself from interjecting. “It is not a particularly interesting display,” she added, as much to herself as to Pipsqueak. At the same time, she glanced toward the adult ponies, expecting to see a great deal of trepidation on behalf of the young foals. Instead, they looked more embarrassed than worried. That was... different.

Pipsqueak looked surprised as if he could not understand how she could fail to grasp the why of it. “Because you’re Ponyville’s Princess!" he said. He looked back over his shoulder at his peers. “Isn’t that right, you lot?” There were murmurs of agreement, though the other colts and fillies were too shy to speak up as loudly as Pipsqueak.

“I... see,” Luna said, not really seeing at all, but all the same feeling a soft warm glow deep inside at the sentiment. “Then, observe!” she announced in a regal tone.

Princess Luna’s wings snapped out to their full extension, and she rose into the air, a soft nimbus of magic surrounding her body and expanding out until it was impossible to tell where Luna stopped and the night began. High in the night sky, the moon and stars began a stately dance toward the horizon.

***

“Princess Luna. I am so, so, sorry! I don’t know what happened to me! I have never fallen asleep in class before! Please, please, forgive me! It will never happen again! I promise, really!”

Luna, who had been returning after lowering the moon, paused in the doorway of the library while taking in the distraught Twilight Sparkle and trying not to laugh. The librarian was suffering from a severe case of bed-head. In truth, she looked like she’d been dragged backward through a knothole. Hardly a single hair in her mane and tail was aligned, while the side of her muzzle was crusted with dried drool, and her eyes were crusty with sleep.

Luna had her work cut out trying to stifle a horse laugh at the sight. With the exception of her sister, she’d never seen a Pony in such disarray, although it occurred to her that in normal circumstances, no pony would dream of appearing before her without first taking significant care of their appearance.

On the few lucky occasions when Luna had caught Celestia in this situation, she had quickly conjured up her camera. Among the many treasures she had recovered from storage, one of her favorites was a scrapbook of just such candid photos. No such reaction moved her as she considered poor Twilight Sparkle’s reaction when she saw herself in a mirror.

Luna moved toward Twilight, intending to rectify the matter. As she did, she assured the small pony that no fault accrued to her. “Twilight Sparkle. Thou are not our, my, student. There is no censure earned here. Nay, you are to be given the most fervent of accolades. Your calculations shall, I am most certain, prove to be invaluable in the task I have come to Ponyville to accomplish.”

Twilight flushed in pleasure, and then in nervousness as Luna stepped right up till her muzzle almost touched her. “What?” she stuttered out, drawing back just a fraction.

“You have a little smudge. Right here,” Luna said, licking one hoof and then using the damp appendage to rub Twilight’s reddened cheek. She used the closeness to lightly touch her horn to Twilight’s. The intimate proximity allowed for an extremely subtle spell as she sent a little housekeeping magic through the link. A rather pleasant tingle shivered her horn, and from Twilight’s expression, she was feeling the same thing. The nervous mare’s mane and tail untangled themselves and returned to their normal silky smooth appearance. “There. Much better,” Luna said in satisfaction. She found herself looking straight into Twilight’s wide eyes, and found herself reluctant to pull away now that her task was done. Indeed, she found herself giving in to a strong urge to move her head a couple of inches closer, close enough to–

“Hey, Twilight, got news ... Oh My Gosh!” Luna and Twilight jerked apart as Rainbow Dash skidded to a stop in the library, both physically and conversationally.

After a moment of stunned staring- which was probably the longest the Pegasus had been immobile in days- she laughed weakly and rubbed the back of her head while avoiding direct eye contact. “Sorry about that. I’ll just wait outside while you two get straightened out.” Dash fluttered backward out the still open door. Just before she vanished from sight, she gave Twilight a way-to-go-girl wink, and hoofs up, before catching herself and giving Luna a sheepish grin.

Twilight, her face crimson with embarrassment, moved slightly toward the door while shuffling a forehoof on the floor, “Ah, I really, should go and . . .” she trailed off, clearly not knowing how to handle the situation.

“Certes, you must go and speak with your friend. Clearly, she has news to impart. We will also require her assistance in gathering the necessary parties for our endeavor.” Luna felt her own cheeks burning and realized that she was no better off than Twilight in dealing with what had almost happened between them. She had a dreadful feeling that she had been on the verge of taking advantage of Twilight Sparkle. It was a terrible abuse of her authority, and she should feel lucky that she had been interrupted. She really should. So why didn’t she?

***

Behind Luna, the small Celestia-sprite smiled knowingly at the unsettled princess while floating forward in a straight path toward one blushing ear. But before she reached her destination, with salacious comments still unsaid, the Celestia-sprite heard a soft tinkling, much like a giggle, behind her. Looking back, her eyes had just enough time to widen in dismay before the head of a huge wooden mallet, with 100T written on the side, smashed her into a cloud of glistening motes of light. Luna-sprite dusted a few tiny golden sparkles off her favored weapon and smirked at the dissipating cloud that had been her rival.

The oversized novelty hammer dissolved slowly into a blue sparkly cloud, the effect traveling from the head down the handle to the sprite holding it and continued as the small construct joined it in dissolution. The resulting cloud of magic streamed toward Luna and vanished into her mane, unnoticed by the preoccupied princess.

***

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed in a breathless tone of awe when her friend caught up with her outside the library. “I thought Daring Do was the bravest, most awesome, pony in all of Equestria, but you’re in a class all your own! I can’t believe it! I mean I joked about it with Applejack, but to imagine, you actually got it on with Princess Luna. No one will ever believe it!”

When Rainbow Dash paused to draw a breath, Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof. “Nothing. Happened!” she said in her most serious voice, trying to ignore the broad grin that peeked out from both sides of her hoof. Repressing the urge to add another hoof to Rainbow’s mouth, she continued, “We were just going over research pertaining to Jake’s situation and the possible solutions thereof available to us.” She removed her hoof, but her posture revealed clearly she was ready to forcefully reinsert it if needed.

Rainbow’s expression grew puzzled, and Twilight could almost see her friend running that last sentence through her mind. She could also tell when Dash gave that up and focused on her denial. She sighed inwardly at the sly, knowing look that appeared on Dash’s face. “Sure, sure, I get you. Don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul. It will be our little secret.” Dash finished the last bit by laying a hoof alongside her muzzle and giving Twilight a big wink.

Twilight knew from experience that this was not an argument she was going to win anytime soon, and one she certainly was not going to have in the middle of the street. She decided to settle for getting Dash out of here before she said something incriminating in front of the Princess. Twilight shuddered at the potential contretemps. The last thing she wanted Princess Luna to think was that she was spreading salacious rumors about their relationship.

“Listen, Dash. I need you to do me a favor,” Twilight said in a no-nonsense-now, tone. “I need you to ask Fluttershy to take Curry over to Sweet Apple Acres. In fact, if Curry and Fluttershy are willing, it might be best if you flew her there yourself. You can tell Applejack to expect Princess Luna and me soon. Ask her to get Jake and Curry ready for a camping trip. If she can be spared from the farm, it would be wonderful if she could come as well . . .” Twilight trailed off when she noticed that Rainbow was shaking her head in a negative fashion while giving Twilight her patented, I-know-something-you-don’t, look.

“What?” Twilight demanded.

“Jake and the Cutie Mark Crusaders came by Fluttershy’s place last night while Shy was looking for Curry. They decided to spend the night and wait for her to come back. The whole herd headed off to Sweet Apple Acres just before I left. They’re likely all there by now.”

“The Crusaders!” Twilight said in dread, visions of the front page of the school newspaper carrying a huge expose on Jake and Curry.

Rainbow looked smug in the face of Twilight’s clear distress. She let her friend stew a bit and only relented when a strand of hair spronged free of Twilight’s surprisingly well-coiffed mane.

“You don’t have to worry about the fillies. Applejack took them back to the farm to keep them corralled for the time being. They’re so interested in Jake and Curry that you’d have to use a whole herd of stallions to drag them away.”

Twilight gave a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness! I should have known I could trust Applejack to keep a lid on things.”

“Hay, AJ ain’t the only one you can trust to keep a lid on things,” Dash protested what she saw as a personal slight.

“Oh? Like the way you kept a lid on Scootaloo’s plan to jump over Applejack’s barn on her scooter?” Twilight asked, looking at Dash from the corner of her eye in a nonchalant manner.

“Hey, that would have been awesome, and well worth the price of the ticket!” Dash protested. She then looked slightly sheepish, and added, “Besides, I caught her before she hit that manure spreader.”

“Whatever you say.” Twilight then got serious, “It’s good that both Jake and Curry are there. I suppose it would be best if we had the Cutie Mark Crusaders come along on the camping trip. Now that I think about it, it's not a problem. It's a multipurpose solution. They’ll help keep Curry and Jake occupied, let the other campers express the importance of keeping this a secret, and keeps the CMC from running around town talking about snipes. Can you come along?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dash said. “I’ll head right over their now and give AJ a heads up.”

***

The front room of Bon Bon’s candy shop was filled nearly to bursting with neatly packaged boxes of candy. Nearby the middle of the floor was occupied with the slumbering form of two mares and one dazed, but extremely happy Pegasus stallion.

When Sweets and Lyra had returned to Bon Bon’s candy shop, they had found her working like a dervish, wrapping and packaging Pinkie Pie’s order. With an icy stare and a frown impervious to apologies or explanations, she had simply pointed them to waiting trays of fresh candy with two words. “Sit. Wrap!” The two, one of them showing uncharacteristic good sense, and the other trained to follow the commands of an obviously superior officer, had obeyed. The next few hours of frantic non-stop packaging had seen the completion of Pinkie Pie’s commission.

Only when the last box was tied with a ribbon and added to the stacks lining the walls did Bon Bon face Sweets directly, and order him, “Spill it!” in a tone even Drill Instructor Chert would have been impressed with.

Sweets’ expression turned joyful as he remembered the very gratifying whinnies that Bon Bon and Lyra had let out upon learning that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna wished to give Bon Bon a contract for the exclusive procurement to the candy maker’s special Triple Espresso Swirls (With Candied Coffee Bean Topping.) While her income from that single contract would be fairly small, the fact that Bon Bon had gained an exclusive agreement to supply the Princesses would increase her reputation, and make getting her master’s certificate almost a certainty. From that point on, it would only be a matter of time before her candies becoming status symbols among all the Canterlot elite. The hugs both mares had given Sweets while squealing at the top of their lungs had been the high point of his day.

Well, it had been a little hard on the ears.

Not nearly as hard on his ears as Bon Bon’s next move, which consisted of her taking a firm grip on one of them with her strong teeth and pulling his head down till his muzzle almost rubbed the floor. Upon which she let him know in no uncertain terms his fate if he should ever pull a stunt like that again.

Once she’d made her point, however, Bon Bon and Lyra had joined together to treat him to a truly monumental make out session. It had taken a lot of willpower on his part to keep things from going too far. He was mindful that he still had one last major secret he was keeping from the girls. He wanted no secrets between them when they finally, hopefully, consummated their relationship.

To be totally honest, a good proportion of his success in resisting the girl’s charms, and them allowing him to, was down to the fact that all three of them were by that point in time totally exhausted.

Sweets looked down fondly at the two mares nestled against his sides. He wrapped his wings around them, not to cuddle, though that was a nice fringe benefit, but to keep the morning sun out of their eyes. He figured that both mares were likely to sleep away a good proportion of the day. That should give Princess Luna a chance to work in a Lyra-free environment till after lunch at least. After that, he would just have to cross his legs, both for luck, and protection, if Lyra figured out just what he had done.

***

Curry twisted the brim of her uncle’s hat between her fingers as she tucked her chin down and stared at the scuffed wooden floor. Her shoulders were hunched, and there were tear tracks down her cheeks. She was no stranger to being called on the carpet for her actions, but this time the five-minute talk she had just received had left her stomach aching and her heart feeling like a lead ball in her chest like no other lecture ever had. That was because the one-sided discussion had barely touched on her misdeeds, but instead had focused on how it had affected others, one pony in particular. She was just glad there was no audience to this well-deserved scolding.

“Look at me,” Applejack said in a firm no-nonsense voice.

Curry lifted her head till she could look the farm pony in the eyes. It was clear from Applejack’s stance that she didn’t want to be here any more than Curry, but also that she had about as much give in her as a boulder the size of a house. There would be no escaping any punishment she considered suitable.

“So, are you all sorry for what you did?”

“Yes, Miss Applejack,” Curry said in a rough whisper. “Honest. I never meant to make Miss Fluttershy worry.”

“That’s as might be, but you did! Poor Fluttershy was near on frantic with fear for you. I don’t ever want to see her like that again. I’ll be powerfully disappointed if’n you’ll make her cry again!”

Curry winced, her shoulders hunching as she tried to shrink into herself.

Applejack examined her closely, and then gave a nod of her head. “All right then. I reckon you should trot along now and meet up with Apple Bloom and her friends. Don’t go waking Jake. That colt had a right long day yesterday, and he’s still sleeping. Let him get up in his own good time."

“Yes’m,” Curry said, faintly, turning toward the room’s closed door. She wiped her forearm across her face and swallowed noisily. She started back when she opened the door and found the elderly pony she had met for a moment just before Applejack had hustled her upstairs for a talk standing there.

“Applejack, there you are. Filthy is down in the yard with that sprout of his. Wants to have a word with you.”

“Oh, Celestia, what now?” Applejack huffed. “Curry, you had best stay put here till I deal with this.”

“Yes’m,” Curry said, still clutching her hat in her hands like a security blanket.

***

Applejack paused upon spotting Filthy Rich waiting in the yard, with Diamond Tiara hanging back a few yards behind her father. The normally well groomed and confident pony with the ready smile was missing. Instead, the wealthy business pony looked a wreck, at least by his normal standards. His coat was dull with dust and his mane lacked its usual perfect grooming. She could not for the life of her recall ever meeting him in such a state. The strangeness didn’t end with his physical appearance. There was something in his eyes, a worry far greater than anything she had seen in him before, and that look of desperation brought Applejack down off the porch and across the road to his side at a quick trot. “Rich, you look like five miles of bad road! What all is ailing you, and what can I do to help?”

Filthy Rich looked a bit startled and made a visible effort to draw himself up and present a more put-together front. “Why there is not a solitary single thing the matter with me Applejack, that can’t be cured by a good nights sleep. I’m just been on the road for some time now, and the truth is that I’m going to be needing to head out again very soon. Pertaining to that, I was thinking that it might be an opportune time to carry through with that discussion we had during the last Zap Apple harvest.”

Applejack blinked at the flood of words and tried to remember what discussion Filthy Rich might be talking about. As she did, her eyes wandered over to Diamond Tiara who, if anything, looked in even rougher shape than her father. Normally the filly was even more particular about her appearance then Rarity.

Story was, she had a pony whose only job was to make sure she never left the house with a hair out of place.

You’d never know it to look at her now. Her mane looked like birds had been nesting in it. In fact, Applejack would swear there were twigs and leaves in it. Her tail was just as tangled and matted. The dust on her face sported tear tracks that went with her red eyes. Applejack was a bit careless about her appearance, to tell the truth, but even she’d never go out in public like that given a choice in the matter.

Looking at Diamond Tiara reminded Applejack about the last time the filly had been on the farm, and that in turn brought to mind just what it might be that Filthy Rich was talking about.

***

It had been during the Zap Apple preparation when Filthy Rich had firmly insisted that Diamond Tiara join in with the other fillies and colts helping Granny Smith. Rich had hung back and talked with Applejack. Their conversation had been a little disjointed, but the wealthy pony had spoken extensively about his own youthful years, and that one of the happiest periods of his life was the month he spent working at Sweet Apple Acres as a colt, getting his hooves dirty and learning all that was involved in producing produce.

Applejack remembered that well because she recalled how she’d rolled her eyes behind his back at the idea that anyone could learn even a fraction of what was needed about running a farm in a month.

As they had watched a very reluctant, and self-conscious, Diamond Tiara, Rich had suggested rather wistfully that it would be nice if his darling daughter could have such an equally wonderful experience.

***

Applejack snapped back to the present, her eyes going wide. “Y’all want Diamond Tiara to spend some time here?” she asked in a voice that was more than a touch panicked.

Filthy Rich was not oblivious to Applejack’s tone. He hastily directed a look at his daughter over his shoulder, before guiding Applejack over to the side of the house, and out of hearing of Diamond Tiara. The young filly was oblivious. She was looking around her with an attitude of disdain while giving the impression that she wished she could float a few inches above the dirt and mire of the farmyard.

“Applejack, you have to help me here!” Filthy Rich pleaded, his facade of control cracking like thin ice.

Applejack was shocked to see tears forming in the business pony’s eyes. “What the hay, Rich,” she exclaimed.

“My darling Diamond Tiara came home last night reeking of alcohol and vomit! She was nearly incoherent, ranting about some creature named a Snipe who had attacked her!”

“A Snipe!” Applejack blurted out before she could stop herself, barely keeping herself from glancing upward toward the room above them where Curry was waiting, if she had obeyed Applejack’s order.

“I know, totally ridiculous. Everyone knows there are no such things as Snipes. I don’t know where she even heard about them.”

Applejack shuffled her feet and looked at the horizon over Filthy Rich’s head as if the solution to this problem might be found in the clouds if she just looked hard enough.

Sensing Applejack’s reluctance, Filthy Rich dropped to his knees in front of the farm pony, causing her to shy backward in surprise until her hindquarters came up against the wall of the house. “Please, I’m begging you, AJ! Help me save my princess. I don’t want her to end up one of those spoiled ponies in Canterlot who never do a lick of work and getting drunk every day because their lives are empty. I want something better for her than that.”

It wasn’t in Applejack’s nature to reject such a heartfelt plea, but she could not help but wince when she thought about extending a hoof to Diamond Tiara. That was one tough row to plow, particularly in the present complicated situation. At the same time, she couldn’t help think that maybe Curry was tied up in this somehow, with all this talk of Snipes. Maybe Curry had stumbled across the filly while Diamond Tiara had been out behind her house drinking? Applejack wasn’t that fond of the stuck up little filly, but in this case, she did feel a certain amount of empathy for her.

Applejack had once, when she was young and foolish, snuck a jug of Granny’s hard cider out behind the barn. The aftermath of that experiment had left her with an aversion to the hard stuff, and a certain amount of sympathy for anyone who had experienced the same thing.

The fact that she hadn’t been able to stomach solid food for two days, or sit down comfortably for a week, had not hindered the educational process either.

All those factors combined led her to give a reluctant nod of her head, “Okay, Rich. I’ll take on the sprout. When were you thinking?”

“Now is as good a time as any!” Rich answered hurriedly. “I’ll send someone with her basic necessities.”

Before Applejack could speak up, he whirled in place and trotted over to Diamond Tiara. “Your mother and I are going to Canterlot for a month, princess. The house is going to be closed up till we get back and the servants have the month off, but Applejack is going to look after you while we’re gone. You be good for her, princess, and listen to whatever she tells you.” He planted a kiss on her forehead, and then took her tiara firmly between his teeth. “You won’t be needing this on the farm. I’ll just put it in the safe for the next month,” he mumbled, before turning and all but galloping out of the farmyard.

Diamond Tiara looked after her father in stark disbelief, before yelling, “What? Daddy! You can’t be serious! Daddy, come back!” She was so shocked that it took her a moment to comprehend his final words. A hoof went to her forehead, and for the first time, true dread appeared in her eyes. The removal of her tiara drove home the terrifying realization that daddy was really serious about this ludicrous plan. Panic-stricken, she started to run after him.

“Whoa there, youngster,” Applejack said gently as she put herself between Diamond Tiara and the gate. “Your pa has business to attend to. Don’t you fret none, we’uns will look after you right good.” Applejack kept a smile on her face, though there was a scowl underneath it at the rather cowardly way Filthy Rich had dropped this on his daughter. Poor little sprout.

“Get out of my way, you colossal hick!” Diamond Tiara snarled, trying to work her way around Applejack. The farm pony, well used to herding stubborn critters, shifted without the need to think about it, and kept the filly from running after her father. As she did so, the close proximity to the small foal brought the slightly bitter and astringent scent of vomit, overlaid with the odor of alcohol to her nose. It was sharp and quiet, but still noticeable, and proved that Rich hadn’t just been blowing smoke up her backside.

“I’m starting to see why your pa might have been a bit worried about you,” Applejack said with a noticeable lack of sympathy in her voice. “With an attitude like that you’d have a hard time selling ice in a heat wave. Now I don’t want us getting off on the wrong hoof here, but I got to warn you if you mouth off like that to Granny Smith, she’s likely to take you out behind the barn and tan your hindquarters with a willow switch regardless of who you are! Can’t say I’d blame her much, tell the truth!”

The small earth filly looked at Applejack in shock, “You wouldn’t dare! My daddy–.”

“Left you for me to look after. And I’ll tell you, girl. An Apple takes her responsibility seriously once she makes a promise. You do. Not! Want! To! Test! Me! Are we understanding each other?”

A huge amount of Diamond Tiara’s bluster evaporated under Applejack’s firm gaze, and she seemed to shrink in on herself.

“I’m not hearing you answering!” Applejack snapped out.

Diamond Tiara gave a little squeal and stumbled backward slightly. “Yes. I understand!” she blurted out.

Applejack’s expression remained unforgiving, but inside she was feeling almost as emotionally torn as Diamond Tiara. The filly was spoiled rotten, and while kindness was Applejack’s preferred method of dealing with youngsters she also knew that a firm hoof was just as important. Truthfully, she would never let Granny switch Diamond Tiara if it became necessary, she’d do it herself. Which was why she’d do just about anything, to make sure it never came to that, even if it meant scaring the horse apples out of the filly to make her mind.

***

Curry’s fabric ears pricked up as the word Snipe floated through the open window. She crept closer and peeked over the sill down into the farmyard, just barely far enough to make out Applejack and some other pony below talking. This close to the window the murmur of voices became much clearer. She quickly ducked down so she wouldn’t be seen.

The small girl listened with interest to the conversation going on below. Her eyes widened as she heard the man . . . stallion, beg Applejack to save his princess. She gave into temptation and once again peeked over the edge of the window. She let out a little gasp as she spotted the princess she had met the day before. Mind you, the beautiful princess from the day before was looking a lot mangier now. In fact, she made a fair-ground pony look pretty, and that after the pony in question has spent the entire day giving rides to dozens of kids, many of them overstuffed with junk food and more than a little queasy as a result.

Curry slipped back down and turned so she could sit on the floor with her back to the wall, while her mind whirled with thoughts.

This was the classic spoiled brat princess has to live like a commoner story. What was that going to mean for her? Should she try to make friends with the princess? Nah, she likely had ponies kissing her flank everywhere she went. She shouldn’t be mean to her, though. Fluttershy wouldn’t like that, Curry was sure of that. Best thing likely was to treat her just like any other pony.

“Ahhhhh, but I already met her at her palace,” Curry said in frustration, bumping her forehead with the palm of her hand. “So she knows that I know she’s a princess.”

“What all are you doing, Curry.”

Curry looked up to see Applejack’s little sister standing in the doorway. Once again she had to keep from rushing right over and cuddling the adorable little foal. “Oh, hi, Apple Bloom. Just trying to figure out how to act around the princess who is going to be staying here for awhile.”

“One of the Princesses are going to be staying here? Which one? Princess Celestia? No, that can’t be! Has to be her sister! But why?”

“Far as I can tell, she got drunk, and is getting sent here to dry out and to get her away from all the bad influences in some place called Canterlot.”

“Princess Luna is a drunk?” Apple Bloom cried out and then flushed as she looked around frantically to see if anypony had heard her. “That can’t be true,” she whispered, trotting up next to where Curry was sitting on the floor. Her eyes were just slightly above those of Curry as she stared down at the small human.

Curry’s eyes squinted at Apple Bloom’s words, remembering the beautiful dark pony she had met the night before. “She is? Does everyone know?” she asked, wondering how ponies felt about a drunk being half in charge of everything.

“What? I don’t know! You’re the one who said she was!” Apple Bloom accused Curry.

“What? Never did!” Curry retorted.

“Did too! You said she got drunk and was being sent here to dry out!”

“Did not. I was talking about the other princess!”

“Princess Celestia? That’s not possible,” Apple Bloom said with the vehemence that only a fan defending her favorite idol could muster.

Curry brows furrowed. She’d heard the princess’ name the day before, she was sure of it. She couldn’t remember what it was, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t Celestia. “Look, take a peek out the window and see for yourself.” Curry suited actions to her words and turned around and slid her head up high enough so she could look out into the farmyard where Applejack was nose to nose with the young princess.

Apple Bloom crowded in next to Curry, the healthy scent of young pony mixed with straw, dust, sunlight, and just a hint of apple forming a pleasant perfume. Curry had never understood how the same people who wrinkled up their noses at the smell of horse could stay in the same room with some of the good ladies of the town who practically bathed in perfume. She’d take the smell of a barnyard over being trapped in a room with one of those ‘clean’ ladies any day of the month.

“Where is she,” Apple Bloom whispered, her breath gusting against Curry’s cheek.

Curry glanced over to see where Apple Bloom was looking. To her puzzlement, as far as she could tell Apple Bloom was looking at the same place she was. There was even a sour expression on her face that could only be because of the one stranger in view. “Right there. Talking to Applejack,” Curry said.

Apple Bloom blinked, looked at Curry with her eyes brows arched high, and back out into the yard. She pointed with a hoof at her sister and the princess. “You can’t mean Diamond Tiara?” the small farm pony asked a disbelieving tone.

“Diamond Tiara. That’s right. That’s what the other pony called her,” Curry affirmed.

“You think Diamond Tiara is a princess?” Apple Bloom asked incredulously. “Heh, he, hah, hah, ha, ha!” Apple Bloom started to chortle, she stuffed her front hooves in her mouth in an effort to stifle the noise. Falling over onto her back her rear legs kicked at the air while her sides heaved as wheezing laughter escaped around her hooves. “Diamond Tiara, a princess! Oh, my sides hurt! Wait till I tell Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo!”

It didn’t take a genius to understand what was going on. Curry flushed red as she realized she’d obviously jumped to a totally ridiculous conclusion. Which she thought was a bit unfair. The filly had been in the yard of a huge mansion, surrounded by boxes and boxes of expensive chocolates, wearing a princess crown on her head. What was she supposed to think?

Watching Apple Bloom rolling back and forth on the floor in near hysterics made Curry feel very hard done by. It wasn’t fair to laugh at her for an honest mistake. “I’ll give you something to laugh about. Retribution!” Curry cried out as she launched herself at the giggling pony. Her fingers dug into Apple Bloom’s side, looking for the sweet spot. She knew she’d found it when the pony under let out a gasp and tried to buck her way free.

“No, stop, hah, don’t, hah, I can’t, hehehehehhe!” Apple Bloom yelled and cried as Curry tickled her unmercifully.

Curry’s advantage didn’t last long. Despite her rodeo experience calf roping, she didn’t have a rope, and Apple Bloom outweighed her by at least two to one. Despite her efforts, she was rolled over onto her back with Apple Bloom on top.

“Now I got you,” Apple Bloom cried out in triumph. Her hooves dug into Curry’s sides, and despite the girl’s attempt to keep her arms pinned against her body, they forced their way up into her pits, drawing howls of laughter from the small girl as Apple Bloom found Curry’s own tender spot.

Apple Bloom dug her hooves in lightly and demanded, “Surrender, Snipe!”

“Never!” Curry yelled back at her while trying futilely to squirm out from under the pony.

“Take this then!” Apple Bloom said, doing her best Nightmare Moon impression. She dug her hooves into Curry’s tender underarm area.

“Uncle, Uncle!” Curry yelled.

“Yer Uncle ain’t here to save you. Say Apple Bloom is the best pony!” She wiggled her hooves ruthlessly.

Neither Curry or Apple Bloom noticed the door to the room opening behind them as Curry cried out.

“Stop, stop, I’m going to pee myself!” Curry cried out as Apple Bloom reduced her to uncontrolled hysterics. “You got me, stop! Apple Bloom is the best pony!”

Applejack was gob-smacked at the scene that greeted her as she had opened the door to the guest room.

Not nearly as surprised as Diamond Tiara, who was right behind her.

Applejack had decided it would be best to get introductions to the strangest critter on the farm over with as quickly as possible if the spoiled little rich pony was going to be staying. So right after the confrontation in the farmyard, she had marched Diamond Tiara right up the stairs.

“What in the hay? Apple Bloom, you get up off of her right this instant. She’s a guest in our house!”

At the exact same instant, Diamond Tiara cried out. “No! You can’t! That’s my Snipe! I saw her first! You can’t have her! I won’t let you have her!” The spoiled filly stamped her hooves on the floor in frustration and then launched herself across the room to tackle Apple Bloom off of Curry. The two fillies rolled across the floor, hooves flailing, while Diamond Tiara cried out over and over again, “She’s mine, mine, mine!”

***

Curry had been sent tumbling across the floor when Apple Bloom was wrenched off of her. She quickly rolled away from the squabbling tangle a few feet away. If it had not been for the color of their coats and manes it would have been hard to tell where one pony ended and the other started.

Curry got to her feet, crouching slightly, watching warily as the two fighting fillies rolled back and forth. The collar of her body suit was suddenly grabbed and she was lifted up off her feet and swung to the side.

“You’ll want to be steering well clear of those two,” Applejack mumbled around her mouthful of cloth. She let Curry go and gave her a nudge with her head, pushing her toward the open door. You scoot. I’ll take care of these two.”

Curry was reluctant to leave Apple Bloom alone, even though she knew there was nothing she could do in a situation like this. She paused in the doorway, watching, but not inclined in the least to jump in. Only a plum idiot would try to get between two fighting mares, even if they were only foals. That didn’t stop Applejack from barreling right into the fight. Her head swooped down and hooked under Apple Bloom’s belly, tossing her across the room while at the same time her hip swung around and checked Diamond Tiara into the corner. The two fillies were looking hard rode: Apple Bloom had blood trickling from her nose and what looked like the beginning of a champion black eye, while Diamond Tiara was favoring her right hind leg, and also had a bloody nose. Both Ponies were covered in dust and grime.

“Apple Bloom. I am plumb ashamed of you, picking on a critter so much smaller than you. And what the hay were you thinking, Diamond Tiara, jumping Apple Bloom like that?”

Curry’s fabric ears lay back on hearing Apple Bloom faulted for picking on her.

“She stole my Snipe!” an unrepentant Diamond Tiara accused Apple Bloom.

“I ain’t your Snipe! I ain’t nopony’s Snipe!” Curry snapped at Diamond Tiara. She started to march back into the room but backed up at a hard look from Applejack, but that just changed the focus of her ire. “Apple Bloom wasn’t ‘picking’ on me! We all were just playing, and I were the one that started it!” She crossed her arms and stuck her bottom lip out.

Curry could see Applejack consider her words, and dismiss them in a second. “Apple Bloom should have been gentler with you. You’re just a little bit of a thing.” That set the small girl to fuming and contemplating jumping Applejack to prove she was no pushover. Good sense prevailed, but just barely.

***

“Do you think Curry would want to be a Cutie Mark Crusader?” Scootaloo asked Sweetie Belle in an overly casually manner.

Sweetie Belle looked up from where she was using her tail in a futile attempt to dust off a bale of hay. “Do Snipes even have Cutie Marks?” Sweetie Belle asked. She considered for a moment and then added, “Maybe she already has one. She covers her flanks, and pretty much everything else with that outfit that Rarity made for her.” A touch of incredulity entered into her voice as she said the last little bit. She was still having a hard time matching the thing Curry was always wearing with her sister.

“We could ask. I think she’d make a great member. She’s got those big stretched out paws that are really good for handling things. She could help us try out all sorts of new Cutie Mark experiments with them.”

The small unicorn squinted suspiciously at her friend. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Jake not being interested?”

Scootaloo flushed slightly. She’d given Jake the full sales pitch, but Jake had shown little interest after learning that there was not likely to be much heavy pulling involved. “No. Of course not!” she protested, her refusal to meet Sweetie Belle’s eyes indicating that her friend’s question had been right on the muzzle.

Sweetie just kept looking at Scootaloo till the little filly broke down and held up her hooves in protection from the penetrating gaze. “Gah, fine! Yeah. I figured if we got Curry to join, Jake would come along with her. Can you blame me? He’s so cool, and Rainbow Dash is going to teach him how to fly. We could take lessons together.”

“Git in there you three,” Applejack’s muffled voice came from outside the barn. Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo’s ears laid back flat as Diamond Tiara stumbled into the barn. They came back up as Apple Bloom, followed by a rather angry looking Curry followed her, with Applejack coming up the rear with a bucket filled with various cleaning brushes and rags held between her teeth and a stack of large fluffy towels draped over her back.

The two fillies made a wide circle around the uncharacteristically dirty and disheveled Diamond Tiara, not missing the bloody nose as they did so. The pair nuzzled up to Apple Bloom, who tellingly was also sporting a nose bleed and the beginning of a black eye. “What did she do to you?” the asked their friend while shooting dirty looks toward Diamond Tiara.

“I don’t see why I have to take a shower too,” Curry complained to Applejack while this was going on. “I had a bath at Fluttershy’s two days ago.”

This was it, Curry thought with glee. There was no Unicorn cheater around this time. Just let Applejack try to strip her down for a shower. Her eyes wandered around the barn, taking into consideration several loops of handy rope. She'd have that palomino hogtied before she knew what hit her. She’d show her who was small and helpless. Planning ahead, Curry quickly ran over the procedure in her mind for making a quick temporary hackamore from a length of rope.

“Suit yourself. You ain’t my responsibility. If you want to smell like a polecat, that’s between you and Fluttershy. Just so long as you don’t mind sleeping and eating in the barn. You can go sit over there out of the way while I get this done,” Applejack said with a shrug, nudging Apple Bloom over to a tiled section of the barn, with a shower head and hose conveniently close by. In an isolated corner, well away from anything flammable, a makeshift boiler simmered away, steam puffing out of several rags wrapped joints in the piping.

Curry watched Applejack turn away in disbelief. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. Adults didn’t let kids slide on bath time. It, it, it wasn’t playing by the rules. And she didn’t smell like a polecat! Did she? Making sure nopony was looking at her, Curry raised an arm and took a good sniff. She didn’t smell that bad. Well, she’d smelled a lot worse. Like the time she’d mistaken that manure pile for a haystack.

While Curry was checking out her personal hygiene, Applejack grabbed a hose and started sluicing down Apple Bloom with steamy warm water. “Get on over here and I’ll wet you down as well,” she told Diamond Tiara, who was standing off by herself looking horrified at the scene unfolding in front of her.

“You have got to be joking!” the spoiled pony blurted out. “Shower in these barbaric conditions! In front of everypony? The door isn’t even closed. A colt could walk right in if he wanted.”

“Heh, heh,” Applejack chuckled. “She sounds just like your big sister,” she told Sweetie Belle in an aside. Addressing both of Apple Bloom’s friends, she asked, “How about one of you give me a hoof with Apple Bloom here, and the other one helps Diamond Tiara with the hard to reach spots?” Applejack pretended not to notice Apple Bloom was nearly as red as Big Mac by this point, while on the other hoof, Diamond Tiara was looking pale, and somewhat frightened. She had backed up till her hindquarters were pressed tight against a stack of hay.

“Come near me and I’ll buck you so hard you won’t wake up till you get your cutie marks. And in case you’re too stupid to figure it out, that means never,” she threatened both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, who were looking at her with distaste.

“Want to flip a bit to see who helps her?” Scootaloo asked Sweetie Belle.

“I don’t need the help of either of you pathetic blank flanks. Why does the stupid Snipe get out of doing this and I have to!” she whined to Applejack as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo turned their back on her and moved in to help soap up their friend, ignoring her completely.

“Because she ain’t my responsibility! Apple Bloom is, and for the next month, so are you. Here, take this,” Applejack called out, tossing the end of the hose she’d been using to Diamond Tiara, who jumped back like it was a live snake, which it somewhat resembled as it twisted around on the floor due to the stream of water gushing out of it. “I’ll leave you all to it. I got other chores to look after. Apple Bloom, don’t dawdle. As soon as you’re finished head up to the house to help Granny Smith with breakfast. Make sure you wash behind your ears this time. You know Granny will check. If Jake wakes up, you send him on over here to get cleaned up.” Giving Curry a polite nod, Applejack trotted out of the barn.

Curry watched her go, mouth slack in shock. That was it. Applejack wasn’t even going to try and talk her into cleaning herself up. That was messed up. Curry sniffed herself again, and this time wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Oh, man. I can’t go home like this. Fluttershy will think I’m a pig, and not in a good, she is so cute, way.”

Curry looked over at where the three CMC were giggling and making a game out of washing down Apple Bloom. Only, it was more like the three of them were showering together, as the two friends were coming in for their share of getting soaked and soaped. That actually looked like fun. Maybe she should join in? Before she could make up her mind, the trio finished and giving her an apologetic look, trotted out of the barn after Applejack.

That left just Curry and Diamond Tiara alone together in the barn. Curry looked over at where Diamond Tiara was trying to pick up the spurting hose, without actually letting her mouth touch the floor. She wasn’t having a lot of luck. It was the tears of frustration that did Curry in. “Oh, horse apples!” she cursed under her breath and reached behind her to start undoing the fasteners for her body suit.

Curry was under no illusion that being nice to the big fat princess faker would magically turn her into a nice pony. She had encountered far too many ponies back home who would gleefully bite the hand that fed them, and then step on their toes for good measure. It didn’t matter. It just wasn’t in her to ignore a foal who was so woebegone looking. She had to be realistic, however. Given the way the filly had acted so far, it was unlikely she’d accept Curry’s help. Well, she’d just deal with the spoiled bad-tempered pony the same way she dealt with all those bad-tempered spoiled ponies back home. Curry conveniently forgot that in almost all those cases the grooms at the stable had secured those ponies before she’d gone into the stall to give them their makeovers.

***

Diamond Tiara blinked in an effort to clear her blurry vision. This was monstrous. She was being treated like a farm animal. How could they expect her to clean herself in such an exposed and public place! Could anything be more shameful? And those giggling idiots. Debasing themselves, and then acting like it was fun. What else could you expect from a bunch of blank flanks? They were foals, not a sophisticated adult mare like her. She glanced down the spurting hose on the floor, grimacing with distaste. That stupid farm pony had told her that she couldn’t come back into the house till she washed up, and while she had zero interest in entering that plebeian shack, she had even less in staying in this filthy hole of a barn. Once more peeling her lips back, she leaned down to pick up the hose, only to flinch back when it twisted away from her mouth.

“Here, let me give you all a hand,” said a voice right next to her. Diamond Tiara gave a shrill whinny of fear and tried to back right through the stack of hay bales behind her when a paw, that looked more like some sort of deformed albino spider reached into her field of view. Jerking her head up she saw it was the Snipe, who she’d completely forgotten about. The weird creature had discarded her bizarre outer covering and as a result was looking even more freakishly ugly then she had before.

Embarrassment at being startled by the cowardly creature turned to anger. It was all the Snipe’s fault that she was in this horrendous situation. It had trespassed on her family property. It had assaulted Silver Spoon when they tried to detain it. It had pelted her with toxic waste, and then to cap everything, doused her with alcohol. Her anger became a blind rage. Her life was ruined, destroyed, and it was all this smirking creatures fault. Diamond Tiara lunged forward, intending to give the stupid thing a bite she would never forget.

Ch20 The Camping Trip part two [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 20
The Camping Trip, Part two
Gathering the Troops

***

Princess Celestia was diligently going over her early morning correspondence, hoping to clear her desk enough to justify taking a small cake break before the morning audiences. For the same reason, she was also doing her best to ignore Papercut who had been dithering out in the hallway for the last five minutes. When it became obvious that her secretary was going to neither come in or go away, Celestia gave a sigh and let her quill settle down on her desk. “Do you have something to tell me, Papercut,” she asked the empty frame of her office door.

The sound of hooves shuffling in the hallway stilled, and a few seconds later her secretary crept into view. Celestia quirked an interrogatory eyebrow. Inside, she was wondering what in Equestria had her normally unflappable secretary in such a dither?

It couldn’t be anything like a Changeling invasion, or something similar. Papercut would have shown no hesitation in announcing that. And even if she did, the Royal Guards would have already filled the room with a protective detail.

No, it was likely something inconsequential, but which Papercut felt would annoy Celestia. The latest idiocy from the Senate or Prince Blueblood might normally fit the description, except her secretary had never shown such hesitation over previous incidents featuring those worthies. So, by a process of elimination. “What has Luna done?” she asked.

***

Several minutes later Princess Celestia stood in the main concourse of the palace, staring at the wall above the main entrance. A vein was visibly throbbing in her forehead.

“Princess Luna said it was a shame that so much artwork was hidden away in dusty old galleries nopony ever visited and that we should rotate them with the ones on public display that nopony ever pays any attention to because they’ve seen them a thousand times. Artwork should make a pony think,” Papercut babbled.

“I see!” said Celestia, thinking of fire. The mural was officially titled Celestia Among the Flowers, portraying the Princess of the Sun lying regally on a hillside among a number of young fillies and colts. It also, due to the artist not being very good at eyes, been very unofficially titled among ponies who would have rather died than admit it, with a rather different name. If not for her exceptional hearing, and a guard explaining the artwork to a stunned new cadet centuries ago, she would have never known its unofficial title was Molestia Among The Foals.

“Could you please arrange a meeting with the head of the Canterlot Weather Patrol, Papercut? It has come to my attention that a certain area is unusually dry for this time of year and could use a good soaking.”

As she walked back to her office the various ponies she passed did their best not to notice her mumbling to herself. “You want to rough it, Luna! I’ll show you roughing it!”

***

“But I need that!” Twilight said, attempting to project calm assurance, but flushing bright red as she heard the distinct whine in her voice.

“Really, a treatise on Saddle Arabian architecture, with an addendum detailing the development of royal desert tents?” Luna asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“I thought some information on tents would be useful on a camping trip,” Twilight said while shuffling her hoof like a school filly called up in front of the teacher.

“Hast thou ever seen a Saddle Arabian royal tent? Believe me, Twilight Sparkle. They have as much relationship to the sort of roughing it we are preparing for as Canterlot Castle has to one of your friend Applejack’s outbuildings. Meaning no insult to your friend or her building. They are both admirable and functional, as should be the gear we utilize on our camping trip.”

“How about the waffle iron, Princess Luna?” Spike asked, holding up the item in question for inspection.

Luna considered the implement. “We are supposed to be roughing it,” she hedged, but her expression showed she was reluctant to out-and-out ban the tool.

“But this is a camping waffle iron,” Spike wheedled. “You heat it in the campfire. We could garnish them with wild berries we pick ourselves and freshly ground gems. For me, I mean.”

“You make a most excellent point! Very well, we will take the waffling iron,” Luna decreed. She floated the object in question over to a very small pile to the left of where she was standing. Directly in front of her was another small pile containing the remains of what Twilight had picked out as absolutely necessary for a camping trip. To the right was a massive heap about five feet tall and ten feet across consisting of items that Luna and Spike had rejected.

Twilight could not help but let out a little whimper of dismay as she contemplated everything she was leaving behind. As Twilight’s designated pack mule, Spike had little sympathy for her disappointment. It was her own fault for attempting to pack pretty much the entire library, as well as the contents of one rapid trip through the sporting goods and camping department of Rich’s Bargain Barn emporium, with Princess Luna’s royal charge card burning a hole in her saddlebag, and a massive checklist. Truthfully, he was a little gleeful that the Princess was here to keep Twilight’s enthusiasm in check. He could get used to being treated with a little more respect, instead of like a baby all the time. Unlike Twilight, he had kept his packing to a bare minimum: some gems, a bottle of his scale polish, and his blankey.

“What about this, Princess Luna?” a voice asked from behind the small middle pile. A moment later the piebald end of a small pinto colt came into view as Pipsqueak dragged out a gleaming metal and glass construct that was half again his size.

The small colt had been a bit of a surprise to Twilight when he had shown up a little earlier with nothing but a bedroll on his back, eager to accompany Princess Luna on her camping trip.

It seemed that after Princess Luna had lowered the moon, she had extended an invitation to Pipsqueak. He had dashed off to get permission from his foster home, as well as a ground cloth and bedroll, almost before Luna had finished speaking.

“Well, this requires little thought! Such an obvious bit of decadent modern living has no place on an activity devoted to living off the land as our distant ancestors did,” Luna exclaimed, plucking the device from Pipsqueak’s hooves and levitating it toward the discard pile.

“It’s a coffee maker,” Spike said in a nonchalant manner. The small dragon casually lifted his hand and started counting down the seconds with his claws. He didn’t even get to his second claw before the floating device reversed course and moved over to the essential pile.

A few minutes later, the selection process was finished. The selected items were packed away in Luna and Twilight’s saddlebags of holding, and the party of four left the library. Twilight dragging her hooves and continuing to look back longingly at the things they were leaving behind. They had barely gone ten feet, when Twilight suddenly blurted out, “I left the tap running in the kitchen.” She made a lighting-fast dart back inside and while looking guiltily over her shoulder stuffed the Saddle Arabian book into her saddlebags, just in case.

“We shall gather up thy compatriots, Twilight Sparkle, and proceed from there to gather up our wayward foals at thy friend Applejack’s. From there we will continue on to our glorious adventure in the great out-of-doors!” Luna said as she practically pranced down the street, almost a mirror image of Pipsqueak, who was at her side, in terms of her exuberance.

***

“Truly, I would very much love to accompany you on your camping trip, Twilight, dear. But I simply must complete a new garment for Curry. Truthfully, it is simply giving me fits,” Rarity apologized. There was a manic air around the fashion maven, along with several floating measuring tapes and other tools of her trade as she bent over a piece of rapidly changing cloth. Twilight was used to standing back a pace or seven during Rarity's creative bursts, and this looked like an eight-pace day.

Twilight had no doubt that if she insisted, Rarity would accompany them, but it was not as if the fate of Equestria depended on her presence. “I understand, Rarity. I’ll miss you. I’m sure Curry will love whatever you make for her.”

“That, my dear, is the problem. You have no idea how draining it is to create for someone who has no comprehension of appearance or style. Still. One must persevere. When the time comes for Curry to meet Princess Celestia and be presented at court, she will be attired properly. This! I promise!”

“O... kay,” Twilight said, taking a step backward. “I’ll leave you to it then.” She was talking to a closed door by the time she finished, Rarity having withdrawn into her sanctum sanctorum to continue working her own personal brand of magic.

Twilight turned to leave and heard the door open up behind her. “Do have a most wonderful time, dear. I personally am not inclined in that direction myself, but I’m sure you and the Princess will be very happy together,” Rarity said, a spark of mischief in her eye.

“Oooh, that Rainbow Dash,” Twilight fumed. She turned while speaking, “The Princess and I are not...” Twilight trailed off as she realized she was again talking to a piece of wood.

A moment later, Rarity’s door opened yet again, and the fashion maven stuck her head back out like some foals toy. Only this time she wasn’t looking at Twilight, she was staring at Spike, while the fires of inspiration danced in her eyes. “Spikey Wikey, would you be willing to do me the teeniest little favor?”

Spike’s spikes stood up straight all along his spine, and he became totally focused on the gorgeous unicorn standing in front of him. “You know I’d do anything for you Rarity. Anything!” he gushed.

“Oh, you are such a dear. I am having the most dreadful time getting my mind around designing clothes for a somepony who walks around on two legs. Last time I had Curry right there for a reference, but I just can’t seem to do it without that inspiration. I’ll come up with the most fabulous idea, and then realize it only works if the model has four legs. It would be ever so much help if you could model for me.”

“But I don’t look anything like Curry!” Spike protested. “But if you think it will help I’m there for you!” he quickly added before Rarity could get the idea he was rejecting her.

“Oh, how marvelous! You don’t mind do you, Twilight?”

“We—” Twilight started to say, only to be cut off mid-word.

“Oh, thank you. You’re such a dear. Spike will be ever so much help. I promise I’ll take good care of him while he’s helping me.” Rarity enveloped Spike in her magic field and whisked him into the shop, shutting the door firmly behind him, only just barely missed catching the tip of his tail in the process.

Twilight stared in befuddlement at the door, wondering what had just happened. She didn’t believe for a minute that Rarity really needed Spike’s help as a bipedal model. This was just another blatant move to throw her and Princess Luna together. She stomped away from the Carousel Boutique, wondering just how many ponies Rainbow Dash had spread her misinformation too. The ponies she was passing in the street didn’t seem any different than normal. Maybe Rarity was the only one? What on earth was that pony thinking? She would never have pegged Rainbow as that sort of gossip. She thought she’d left those type of ponies behind in Canterlot. Twilight couldn’t help but be disappointed in her friend.

***

“I tell you Fluttershy, Twilight will thank us for this,” Rainbow reassured her oldest friend.

“I don’t know, Rainbow Dash. What if Twilight really needs our help?”

“She’s going on a camping trip. With Princess Luna! Heck, it's not even way out in the wilderness. I saw the ponies from the castle setting up over in the old campgrounds just outside town. She’s only going to be a ten-minute trot from Sugar Cube Corner. How much help could she possibly need?” Rainbow looked thoughtful for a minute, and then added with a lecherous wink, “Well, there is that sort of help, but I don’t think either of them are ready to take their relationship that far yet.”

Fluttershy blinked at her friend in puzzlement, Rainbow Dash’s innuendo going right over her head, as usual. Long practice dealing with her friend allowed Fluttershy to simply ignore her when she made those sort of comments, and soldier on with her main point. “I just don’t feel right. Telling Twilight I’m too busy to help her with something so simple. And, she’s going to have Curry with her. Curry is my responsibility.” Fluttershy’s voice became almost firm as she said the last little bit.

“Look, Fluttershy! Twilight is a nerd, a geek. She thinks way too much. She’s convinced herself that there is nothing between her and Princess Luna. If we don’t do something serious she’s going to let this chance slip right through her hooves!”

“Maybe she’s right. Maybe there isn’t anything between them,” Fluttershy whispered.

“You didn’t see the way they were looking at each other. Take it from an expert, those two have it bad.”

“But, Rainbow Dash, you don’t have a coltfriend, or a marefriend, for that matter. How did you become such an expert?”

Rainbow Dash flushed and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof as she said, “Look trust me. I know what it’s like to not go for it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she added, “I won’t let Twilight make the same mistake I did.”

“I understand,” Fluttershy said, enveloping Rainbow Dash in a warm soft hug.

The multicolored pony stiffened, a look of panic on her face for a moment, but after a second she relaxed into Fluttershy’s embrace. “You do?”

“Of course. And I just know that someday you’ll tell your ‘friend’ how you feel.”

Rainbow sagged slightly. “Yeah, someday,” she whispered.

“Okay. I’ll do it,” Fluttershy said firmly. “I’ll help you give Twilight and Princess Luna the chance to see if they really have those sort of feelings.”

***

“Wheeeeee!” Pinkie Pie cried out as she swung over Mane Street, her teeth and hooves clamped tight to a streamer of flags. Her cry of delight was cut short when her swing left her hanging in the air, her hoof a fraction of inch from her target roof. She strained with all her might, defying gravity to do so, but in the end, her effort was futile. Just as she started to swing back the way she had come a purple glow formed behind her and gave the pink pony’s plot a tiny nudge, just enough to let her swing her hind legs around and settle firmly on the rooftop. Pinkie looked over the lip of the roof, down at Twilight who was standing in the middle of the street with Luna and Pipsqueak. “Golly gee, Twilight! Thanks. Thought I was going to have to have another go at that. Fun is fun, but twenty tries is a bit much when you have so many decorations to get up.”

***

Back down at ground level, Pinkie Pie shook her head in regret. “I’d really, really, really, love to join you and Princess Luna, and Pipsqueak, on your camping trip. It will be so much fun. Toasted marshmallows are the best! Smores are yumilicious too! Cheese sandwiches grilled over the fire are so, so, so, tasty. Oh gee, there are so many wonderful things about camping! At night there are ghost stories. Those are so great and scary, especially if you have a special somepony to hug at the really, really, scary parts! I know so many really, really, scary stories. I bet I could even make Princess Luna shiver, and she’d hug you so tight you’d hardly be able to breathe. Maybe she’d have to give you muzzle to muzzle first aid! Or you could pretend that is why. But maybe it would be better if you waited till the colts and fillies were asleep before you tell those sorts of stories, and—” Pinkie Pie paused to take a long-delayed breath, only to have Twilight hastily duplicate her earlier move with Rainbow Dash and clamp a hoof over her mouth.

Blushing, and not daring to look in Princess Luna’s direction, Twilight said, “So what you’re saying is that you’d like to come, but you have too much work to do getting ready for a big party?”

Pinkie Pie nodded her head, and then made a gesture toward Twilight’s hoof, which was starting to blend into the blue hue Pinkie Pie’s face was turning.

“Sorry!” Twilight blurted out and pulled her hoof away. Pinkie gave a huge gasp, strong enough that the hairs on Twilight’s mane were pulled toward her, leaving them draped over her eyes. Twilight brushed her mane back over her forehead in time to see Pinkie Pie speaking to Princess Luna.

“Even if I’m not there, I’m sure somepony can tell a super scary story that will let you hug Twilight. So you have a really good time and make some really good memories because good memories are so nice to pull out on a rainy day! They can make you feel all warm and cuddly, even if it is cold and damp. So always be sure to make lots of warm memories. Bye!” With that, Pinkie bounced off, intent on her next bit of decorations.

“Well, I guess we’re on our own!” Twilight said in a high pitched voice. Without looking toward the princess, she gestured down the trail with a hoof. “Might as well get going! Yep, times a wasting! That campfire isn’t going to light itself!”

Princess Luna and Pipsqueak exchanged looks as Twilight trotted off. “Miss Twilight is acting funny. Is she okay?” Pipsqueak asked.

Luna shifted her gaze so she was watching the retreating unicorn. The view... was intriguing. The way Twilight’s tail bounced in time with her agitated stride was almost hypnotic. Reluctantly tearing her eyes away, she looked at her companion. “Twilight Sparkle is very much, okay, young Pipsqueak.” Luna took another quick look and licked her lips. “Very okay indeed.”

***

Fluttershy, despite having time to prepare herself for the confrontation, found herself lost for words when she answered a knock at her door and found Twilight standing there. The sound of foalish giggles drew her attention past Twilight. Over in the pet pen, Pipsqueak, who was a regular visitor, was introducing Princess Luna to the current roster of critters who were interested in becoming some pony’s pet.

The sight of Princess Luna in such an innocent setting brought a slight blush of mortification to Fluttershy’s cheeks. The princess must think her the meanest pony possible after the shameful way she’d behaved on Nightmare Night. Bad enough that she’d treated Princess Celestia’s sister like she was some sort of monster, which Fluttershy knew perfectly well she no longer was, but now it seems she was also the marefriend of one of Fluttershy’s best friends. Fluttershy’s behavior had been unforgivable.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.

The shy pony blushed as she realized that Twilight had been talking to her for several seconds and she had no idea what her friend had said. “Oh my. Oh dear. I’m so very sorry Twilight. My mind wandered. What was it you said?”

“I was telling you about Princess Luna’s plans for Curry and Jake,” Twilight said, patiently starting over again. “She plans to work a spell that will reduce Jake’s physical age till it matches his mental one.”

“It won’t hurt him, will it?” Fluttershy asked in a worried tone.

“We won’t do it if we think that is likely. We plan on doing a complete and thorough scan of his magic and will modify the spell accordingly as needed. He shouldn’t feel a thing.”

“But why do you have to do it?” Fluttershy asked apologetically. “If you don’t mind telling me, that is?”

It was Twilight’s turn to blush. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are concerned that because Jake is an Alicorn, a large number of the noble families will attempt to marry him to a mare of their household.” Twilight gave a little cough, and stammered out, “They are afraid that some of the mares might try to... seduce Jake, in a rather forceful way. They are hoping that if they turn him into a young colt, he will have a chance to mature naturally and not have to deal with that sort of situation until he is prepared.” By the time she was finished talking Twilight’s hide had shaded from lavender to deep turquoise.

Strangely, Fluttershy was only slightly embarrassed by the topic. Living more with critters than with ponies had given her a rather matter of fact attitude toward purely physical relationships. It was always the emotional connection that gave her problems. “I see. That does make a certain amount of sense. Jake is such a sweet pony, and it would be a shame if he missed out on a normal colthood because of his condition.”

“So you’ll come along and lend a hoof on the camping trip?” Twilight asked hopefully.

Fluttershy was on the verge of agreeing until she remembered her promise to Rainbow Dash. “Oh dear. I really would like to, Twilight. But, I have so much to do here. Do you really need my help?”

For a moment Fluttershy thought Twilight was going to try and convince her to come along, but in the end, her friend simply gave a sigh, and said, “No. It’s just a camping trip, and I’m sure that Applejack will be able to look after the foals while we examine Jake and prepare the spell. It’s not like we’re going off to face a dragon, or something similar.”

***

Curry took a step back as Diamond Tiara lunged at her. She’d been expecting something like that. Anyone with a lick of sense could see that the poor thing was scared near witless. Because of that, she didn’t hold the attempt to bite her against the small filly. In actuality, she felt a certain amount of sympathy for the poor thing. While the pony’s general attitude reminded her way too much of the spoiled rich girls who boarded their ponies at Old Man Sedgwick’s stable, she was, when all was said and done, still a pony and Curry was prepared to cut her a whole lot more slack than she would some stupid human girl.

Her feelings of sympathy didn’t stop Curry from bringing out the crude Jerry-rigged hackamore she had concealed behind her back up to that moment. Grasping it with her free hand she held it open and with a well-practiced move slipped it over Diamond Tiara’s overextended head, and before the shocked filly could react, she used the rope dangling from the nose-piece to cinch her firmly in place. The pony’s muzzle ended up a scant inch away from the shower wall. Despite a desperate lunge backward that caused her hooves to slip on the slick tiles and led to her falling onto her haunches, she didn’t come close to gaining her freedom. Her actions only tightened Curry’s hastily tied knotwork. Curry watched with concern as Diamond Tiara struggled against her imprisonment. In Curry’s grip, there was a length of rope leading from the side of the hackamore. With a simple pull, she could release the harness if she thought the filly was going to hurt herself struggling.

Curry thought she was ready for anything the spoiled brat would do. She was taken totally by surprise when the high-spirited foal sagged against the wall and broke into body-shuddering sobs of despair.

***

Diamond Tiara had led a charmed life; she’d always had the best home, the best toys, the best food. Her father doted on her, and her maids constantly reinforced her belief that she was in all way superior to the hicks who lived in this backwater of a town. Now in less than a day she had lost it all. Her home, her comfortable secure life. Her father had even sold her into servitude to the hickiest of the hicks. And now she was helpless in the grasp of the terrible monster who she had tried to capture the day before, and who was the instigator of all her misfortune. All her iron-clad self-assuredness had evaporated like summer dew. If she cried for help, no one would come. They’d likely laugh at her fate. She was nothing more than a helpless scared pony, who was likely going to be eaten in the next minute or so.

No pony in the history of Equestria had ever suffered such a crushing blow. Someday, all ponies would learn in school about the fate that had befallen her. She would be an example of pony’s inequity to pony. The wretched Apple family would be held up as an example of the kind of monsters that every pony should despise. Countless fillies would weep into their pillow in sympathetic sorrow for her. Diamond Tiara held onto that thought like a security blanket. She should meet her fate with a brave face that would become the stuff of legends. Her determination lasted all of five seconds before she leaned up against the wall she was tied to and dissolved into gasping sobs, her entire body shaking with the force of her bone-crushing despair.

“Aww, now come on. A pony as pretty as you shouldn’t cry like that. You’re going to ruin your good looks.” At the same time, the voice whispered in her ear, a gentle hoof stroked the back of her neck. No, not a hoof. No hoof felt like that. Gulping down a sob, she twisted her head and saw the Snipe kneeling on the tiles next to her, with the creature’s strange face wearing, what on a pony, would be a look of concern, and maybe guilt. Amazing something so ugly could fake such a look.

“Do with me what you will, monster! A Rich does not cower before such as you,” Diamond Tiara said. Her brave words might have been more effective if they had not been mixed with sobs, and if she hadn’t been cowering away from the Snipe’s touch.

“Look, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let you loose if you promise not to bite or stomp me. How about it?”

The weeping filly gulped down some tears and tried to think. Could the thing be that stupid? Did she really think that Diamond Tiara would honor her word to a monster? “Very well,” she choked out. “I’ll do it.”

“You’re not really very good at this you know. You’re an awful liar.” the Snipe said, giving a little laugh.

A flare of anger at the arrogant beast began to burn through Diamond Tiara’s self-pity. “As if I cared about the opinion of some stupid blank-flank!” she snorted, directing a glance at the things hideous hairless flank, which was bare of even the slightest hint of a cutie mark. Though her inspection did show that the creature was a mare, which was some consolation at least. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if the thing had turned out to be a stallion.

“You think that bothers me? Where I come from, having a mark like that means you’re someone’s property.” She leaned in closer and whispered in Diamond Tiara’s ear. “That! Means! A! Slave! Do you want to be my property, pretty pony?”

“You’re just trying to scare me!” Diamond Tiara said while trying to swallow a rising lump in her own throat.

The Snipe leaned back and grinned broadly. “Yeah, you’re right. Let me get this off of you,” she said, undoing the constricting harness from around Diamond Tiara’s head.

Diamond Tiara froze in place, unable to believe that she was free. She gave her head a shake, expecting to still feel the rope cutting into her head. Nothing. She got to her feet and stepped back from the wall. Still, nothing stopped her. She looked to the side where the Snipe was standing, grinning at her like a half-wit, her paws behind her back. Now she’d have her revenge. Lowering her head, she charged forward, intending to butt the foul fiend right in her belly.

“Like I said, liar,” the beast said in a perfectly calm voice while lifting her hand from behind her back and squirting Diamond Tiara right in the face with a stream of water from the hose she had been concealing. The water went into her eyes and up her nose, causing her to rear back out of pure reflex. The monster followed right after her, soaking her with the hose and driving her right back to where she had been tied down before.

“Listen here, girl. I’ve been washing and grooming ponies since I was knee-high to a toad. You ain’t got nothing I ain’t seen before. All you’ve done is prove you ain’t to be trusted. So why shouldn’t I hogtie, clean and groom you no matter what you think about it?”

Diamond Tiara stopped trying to shake the water out of her nose as she lost the battle and sneezed furiously. She squinted through the soggy mane that had been tossed over her forehead by the nasal explosion and whined, “I don’t understand! You want to groom me? Why?”

The creature actually looked surprised at her question. “Why? Because you’re gorgeous! From the very first time I saw you yesterday, I thought so. Course I thought you were a piece of pretty artwork at first. Seeing you all messed up like this ain’t right. It’s like seeing a pond full of garbage. Who wouldn’t want to clean it up and make it look pretty again?”

Diamond Tiara’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to believe the creature was tormenting her further. But, as a verbal bully herself, she just wasn’t getting that feeling. She didn’t understand it. The creature was not trying to gain her favor because her father was rich. Not with the way it had treated her up till now. It didn’t seem to care at all if Diamond Tiara liked her, or hated her. The Snipe just wanted to make her look pretty. Trying to project a nonchalant air, she tossed her head in a manner meant to cause her soggy mane to flip. “Well, I am the most beautiful mare in Ponyville. So I can understand why you would want to do that.”

“No, you ain’t. The most beautiful mare, I mean,” the creature had the temerity to say. “I saw the most beautiful mare ever last night. Even if she is an evil Princess of the Night.”

While the evil part set Diamond Tiara back, there really couldn’t be any doubt as to who the Snipe was referring to. “You saw Princess Luna last night?”

The Snipe’s eyes grew distant, and a look of remembered wonder softened her ugly features, making them almost acceptable. “Yeah, in the middle of town. She came floating down from the sky, light as a feather, and just took over. Everypony bowed down low to her. She was the most wonderful pony I’d ever seen, for an evil creature of the night, that is.”

Diamond Tiara didn’t have much of a personal opinion about Princess Luna, beyond the fact that the princess occupied a position in society that she aspired to in her more wild dreams. In certain circumstances, she would have quite happily accepted the idea that Princess Luna was evil, and was merely biding her time until she could overthrow her naive sister. Two things prevented her from accepting the Snipe’s opinion. The first was that she had spent an entire week in close proximity to a large number of Nocturne ponies, and had encountered Princess Luna several times during that period. She refused to accept that someone who had filled her, personally, with such awe could be evil. The second was that there was no way in hay she was going to agree on any topic with the ugly creature who was abusing her.

“That’s utter nonsense!” Diamond Tiara said firmly and then spoiled the effect a bit by flinching from potential retaliation, closing her eyes and tucking her chin down. When nothing happened, she peeked out from under an eyelid and saw that the nasty Snipe was not going to hit her. Relaxing slightly, she started to tell the creature how Princess Luna had merely been the victim of a demonic possession that had been eradicated by the Elements of Harmony.

Getting to lecture an inferior creature and display her worldly knowledge restored some of Diamond Tiara’s self-confidence, and she declaimed freely. She didn’t even protest when the Snipe used to hose to gently soak her mane and began to rub some apple-scented shampoo into it.

***

Applejack took her eye away from the knothole in the barn with a relieved sigh. There had been several moments there when she was sure she was going to have to rush in and break things up before Curry hurt Diamond Tiara. That had been a revelation. She’d been afraid that it would be the other way around. In fact, she’d felt more than a touch worried leaving the little human alone with Diamond Tiara. Curry was so small and frail. It had truly surprised Applejack to see how easily Curry had wrangled the stubborn little filly.

It had been a relief to see that Curry could look after herself, providing she had the proper tools handy. As someone who valued a good length of rope and was well aware of its versatility, she admired Curry's talent with it. She made a mental note to rustle up a nice length of well made and supple rope as a gift for Curry. Everypony ought to have a lasso.

Applejack was distracted from consideration of the Curry/Diamond Tiara situation as Rainbow Dash came in for a landing next to her. Her ears pricked up as she took in the expression on RD’s face. While it wasn’t something she was proud of, Applejack did enjoy a good gossip, providing it was not of the malicious variety. Isolated as she sometimes was on the farm it was the only way she got news on what was going on in town. From her friend’s expression, it looked like RD was just about ready to plum bust with something really juicy. Applejack looked around to make sure there were no small foals in the vicinity and then leaned into her friend. “So what you got? Something good?” she inquired in anticipation.

“Oh, this is good alright. You ain’t going to believe it. In fact. I’d say it’s a big mug of hot apple cider with a big plate of pancakes good.”

“Kitchen is filled with young fillies with big ears right now. But tell you what. Dish out here, and we can have that cider and pancakes afterward. I’ll even pull out a jug of Granny’s special reserve if it’s as juicy as you say.”

“Done,” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her front hooves together in glee, at both the thought of Applejack’s reaction to her news and the upcoming treat.

***

Curry smiled to herself as she lathered up the talkative pony, letting Diamond Tiara’s words go in one ear and out the other. It was just like some of the grooms at the boarding stable had told her. ‘Don’t let your ego get in the way. The important thing is that the pony does what you want, not that it thinks you’re the boss. Let the pony think it’s the boss if that’s what it takes.’

Digging her fingers into the pony’s soggy mane, Curry carefully worked out the tangles, her experienced fingers making sure that she wasn’t painfully tugging against the pony’s scalp. She held each clump of matted hair and twigs, as well as other substances she didn’t let her mind dwell on, firmly at the base of the tangle. She then used a heavy comb with wide spaced tines to ease the hair straight and get rid of the foreign matter. She hadn’t been lying when she said she thought Diamond Tiara was beautiful. Yesterday, sleeping so gently on the grass, she had been as pretty a pony as Curry had ever seen, and it had made her fingers itch to see her in her current state.

***

Sorting out Diamond Tiara’s messed up mane had taken the biggest chunk of time out of the whole process of cleaning up the pony. By the time Curry was done with it and had brushed all the dirt out of the pony’s hide, her belly was starting to rumble, reminding her that she had not yet had breakfast. Even so, she was a bit surprised at how quickly things had gone. Curry would have guessed at least two hours to restore the pony to anything close to her original glory. Instead, it had taken barely twenty minutes. The mane hairs had seemed to straighten out on their own, and the clumps of various unknown substances had pulled free with the minimum of effort on Curry’s part. She chalked it up to being just another example of pony magic and forgot about it.

At some point during the grooming Diamond Tiara had stopped lecturing, and had started leaning into Curry’s brushing. She’d even let out little expressions of pleasure, her eyes closed in the enjoyment of the sensation. Curry didn’t for one minute think that she’d tamed the nasty little pony. She’d groomed far too many ponies who had enjoyed the treatment just as much, only to try and bite her hand off moments after she made it clear she was finished pampering them. She didn’t really care; she got her satisfaction from the end results of her efforts.

Curry looked over her work and could not help but grin in appreciation of a job well done. Diamond Tiara gleamed in the sunlight streaking into the barn. Not a trace of dirt or a strand of hay marred her perfection, nor was there a single strand of hair out of place. There wasn’t anything nicer looking, in her opinion, than a well turned out horse. Curry let her mind wander for a minute. This was a world of ponies. If she wanted, she bet she could spend every day doing this. Surely there were lots of ponies who would want to look their best. She could set up her own pony beauty salon. Idly, Curry gave her butt a scratch to relieve a sudden itch. At the same time she gave her head a mental shake. It was a nice thought, but she needed to focus on finding her special magical talent. To Curry’s relief her itchy butt stopped itching and she went back to admiring her handiwork.

Only after satisfying herself that Diamond Tiara was as polished as possible did she take account of her own status. She was pleased to see that the side splash of soap and water had done an excellent job of cleaning her own nude body. Maybe not as good a job as if she’d taken an actual bath, but close enough as far as she was concerned. Best of all, technically she could count it as a victory over Applejack’s cleanliness decree because she hadn’t actually taken a shower or cleaned herself on purpose. Petty maybe, but she’d take it.

Curry stepped back from Diamond Tiara, putting some distance between her and the foal’s hooves. It wasn’t unusual for a pony or horse to strike out at a groom once they realized that there was no more brushing coming their way that day. Diamond Tiara, to her credit, did not do that. Instead, she opened her eyes, and looked over at where Curry was standing and said, “Oh, are you done?” There was a tone of disappointment in her voice, and she must have heard it herself, because her expression turned haughty and she continued by saying, “Well, I must say, it certainly took you long enough. The staff at the spa would have finished my treatment in half the time.”

“Well, Y'all were so darn cute, I maybe dragged things out a little bit,” Curry said in an apologetic tone, stifling the urge to laugh at the way her comment clearly flustered Diamond Tiara.

Diamond Tiara gave her a suspicious look, but Curry maintained her straight face, with some effort. The pony trotted over to a dusty mirror and checked herself out. Her eyes widened, and she turned her body this way and that, her expression turning from sulky boredom to pleasure as she checked out her perfectly brushed mane, tail, and hide. Curry felt a sudden affection for the pony. While most horses enjoyed being groomed, they could have cared less about their final appearance. Diamond Tiara clearly appreciated the end results of Curry’s hard work.

The filly made an obvious effort to school her expression to one of cool neutrality, but was not very successful as her face took on a sly calculating look.“Yes, well, I suppose you did an acceptable job. I’m afraid I don’t have any bits for you at the moment. But, you show promise. I might be convinced to hire you as my personal groomer if you can do something about that attitude of yours.”

“That’s mighty kind of you, Miss Diamond Tiara, but Y'all are so naturally beautiful, I don’t think there would hardly be any work for me to do most times.”

***

Once again Diamond Tiara directed a suspicious look Curry’s way, but the little Snipe was not paying any attention to her. Instead, her focus seemed to be on the sound of heavy hoofbeats coming toward the barn. A deep, deep, voice called out, “Curry, are you there?”

A look of pure joy lit up the Snipe’s face. Diamond Tiara was shocked to find that herself thinking the monster was actually sort of cute when that happened.

“Sure as shooting. You come to have a wash-up?”

Diamond Tiara’s surprise at the monster’s sudden transformation turned to annoyance. Despite the Snipe’s talk about how beautiful Diamond Tiara was, the creature had not looked anywhere near that happy at being able to touch her coat. Why should some clod of a farm horse, from the weight of those hoofbeats, elicit such a reaction?

A sudden realization as she heard the hoofbeats resume caused her to cry out in panic, “Stop! Don’t you dare come in here!”

The steps stopped, and the same voice as before called out plaintively, “Curry?”

“Hold on a second, Jake,” the Snipe said, before turning to Diamond Tiara and asking, “What’s the problem?”

“Are you crazy? I can’t let some farm stallion see me in the bath! A true lady is modest.”

“But, you’re naked all the time,” the creature, whose name seemed to be Curry, said in a confused manner.

“Well, I can’t expect someone like you, or a low-class farm pony to understand. Just take my word for it. It is not done,” Diamond Tiara said haughtily.

“So, if you were to, say, go stand over there,” Curry said, gesturing to the other side of the barn, “you wouldn’t be in the bath, and that would be okay?”

“Exactly.” Pleased that Curry understood, she gave a flounce of her tail and trotted over to the side where a stack of fluffy towels waited.

“But, that’s... Ah, who cares, Jake you can come in now.”

The warmth from the old boiler and the steamy water Curry had used to wash down the filly and herself had kept the corner of the barn where the shower was warm. Now, a sudden breeze from the door sent a shiver through Curry and drove home the fact that she was a lot more nekid than Diamond Tiara when you got down to it, not having a good thick coat of horse hair to keep out the chill. She suddenly felt extremely self-conscious about that.

“Wait, hold on Jake! Just give me a minute here,” she yelled out.

“Come on, Curry,” Jake whined in a tone like a bass cello. “Granny Smith said I have to wash up before I can have breakfast.”

“I hear you. I hear you. Just wait dang it,” Curry cried out, as she hopped up and down while trying to get her wet legs all the way into the corresponding part of Rarity’s magical outfit.

“She’s making pancakes, Curry. Apple pancakes!” Jake’s voice was becoming frantic. “If I don’t hurry, Granny says they’ll all be gone.”

Curry’s gyrations brought her around to where she was facing Diamond Tiara. The filly’s ears were pricked up high and her face bore an expression of pure unadulterated amusement at Curry’s antics. The small girl scowled, while her face turned red, even as she yanked the top of her body suit up her torso and shrugged her arms and shoulders into it. That was a downside of living in a world of intelligent ponies. Back home the horses in the stable would have been watching her with bemusement and curiosity, but not with snide amusement. It was worse than stripping down in the girl’s locker room, where half the girls she was sharing the room with had started to grow curves, and felt that this put them on a higher plane than what they called ‘ironing boards.’

“Curry!” Jake called out in his, I-got-to-go-now! voice.

“Okay, Okay. I hear you. Sheesh. Put a plug in it, will you! Come on in,” Curry called out, reaching around to fasten up the back of her body suit. The hood was still laying against the back of her neck, but at least she was decent now.

***

Diamond Tiara had watched the Snipe’s, Curry’s, actions with great amusement. It had not been lost on her that her words had altered the creature’s attitude and made her self-conscious about her bare, hairless, body. Curry had demonstrated by her actions that it was possible to manipulate her, just like it was possible to manipulate other ponies. That restored a great deal of Diamond Tiara’s own self-confidence. She might have lost the initial battles, but there was no reason she couldn’t win the war.

Curry aside, Diamond Tiara was burning up with curiosity because of the conversation she had just overheard. That voice and the weight of those steps indicated a very large pony. Maybe as big as Apple Bloom’s hick brother, Big Mac. The manner of speaking on the other hoof spoke of a very young colt. The two things simply did not fit together. And the way the Snipe had addressed him, and he had obeyed. What was their relationship? She looked toward the open barn door, squinting her eyes slightly at the bright early morning sunshine, in anticipation of the answers to at least some of her questions.

The barn suddenly became a good deal darker as a large Pegasus shaped silhouette filled the door. Diamond Tiara’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open as she took in the sheer bulk of the winged pony who was blocking out the sun. Even with his wings tucked into his sides, he was beyond big. With them spread he’d be humongous.

“Well. What are y’all waiting for? You were in such an all-fired rush before. Get over here so I can hose you down,” Curry called out, a touch of exasperation in her voice.

Clearly sun blind, the huge pony shifted his head from side to side, trying to locate Curry, upon which Diamond Tiara was able to see that besides the wings folded along his sides he sported a unicorn horn. She relaxed slightly at that sight. The gossip about the large Pegasus stallion working at the candy store had been all over town, and even the maids at her house had been talking about him, and about the ridiculous fake horn, he constantly wore. Mind you, while they had remarked on his size, they had not indicated he was freak show large, instead of just being a pony of unusual size.

The big pony stepped into the barn, and out of the sunlight. With his eyes no longer blinded by the outside glare he could clearly see, as was proven when his eyes tracked from Curry to her. For some reason, Diamond Tiara was suddenly reminded of Snips and Snails as the pony’s eyes lit up and he trotted toward her, a stupid grin on his face. At first Diamond Tiara wasn’t too worried. She expected him to pull up and say something stupidly coltish, but he kept coming. She started to panic and stumbled backward as his head loomed over her, seeming as big as her entire body. She just had time to think, ‘that’s not a fake horn’, when his face swooped down toward her, his mouth opening and his tongue lolling over his large teeth. Oh, Celestia, he’s going to kiss me, she thought. She closed her eyes and twisted her head to the side.

“You dang idgit! Don’t go messing up all my hard work,” Curry’s voice yelled out, only a few feet away. Diamond Tiara opened her eyes to see the Snipe’s long gangly legs dangling in front of her face. She looked up and saw that Curry had wrapped her slender arms around the big stallion’s muzzle and was glaring up into his wide eyes.

“Just wanted to say, hi,” the big stallion mumbled around Curry’s clothing, which was pressed into his mouth.

“Y’all can do that while I’m hosing you down!” Curry said in a commanding tone. She slid down his muzzle till her hooves — Paws? Touched the ground. She shoved against the stallion’s massive head. He moved it, there was no way Curry had forced it, so he was facing toward the shower. He strolled in that direction and as his large flanks passed in front of Diamond Tiara’s eyes, and as drool started to pool in her mouth, she blinked in shock as she realized he wasn’t sporting a cutie mark. That was such a stunning revelation that she at first barely registered Curry giving the blank flank Diamond Tiara was looking at a hard slap to hurry the pony on his way. Her jaw dropped and her eyes flickered back and forth between the huge Alicorn? and the tiny, scrawny, Snipe. Going just on size, she should be terrified he’d step on her. Instead, Curry seemed to be in total control over the massive pony. It would have been bad enough if he’d been the farm pony she first expected, but this was an Alicorn for Celestia’s sake.

An Alicorn? Diamond Tiara blinked her eyes as she cast her mind back to her school lessons. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember learning a single thing about stallion Alicorns. Nor, when she thought about it, had she ever heard a mention of them in any other gathering. Well, that was not entirely true. There had been that night she’d gone to give her daddy a goodnight kiss while he had some important stallions from Canterlot over. The room had been filled with thick clouds of cigar smoke, and stinking with the smell of hard apple cider. One of the stallions had been waving around an empty cider jug while ranting about how Equestria needed a firm hoof on the reins of power. They needed a male Alicorn, to put the sisters in their place, the kitchen, and bedroom, she recalled him saying. It was so long ago, back when she was still a blank flank, and her father had hustled her right off to bed as soon as he noticed her standing in the doorway, it was hard to remember, but she was pretty sure the drunk pony was only saying what they needed, and not what they had.

But, if nopony knew about this Alicorn, where had he come from? And why did he talk, and act for that matter, like a colt? Why was he a blank flank? Once again Diamond Tiara’s eyes were drawn to the slim figure of Curry. The Snipe was using the hose to soak down the big pony, laughing as he twisted around so she could squirt water right into his mouth.

Diamond Tiara considered the evidence. The Snipe was like no creature she had ever seen or heard of, yet it was almost as intelligent as a pony. With the Snipe was an Alicorn Stallion, who despite being, well, an Alicorn, obeyed Curry with only the most minimal of grumbling. The Alicorn also acted and talked like a young colt. Was it possible? Could the Snipe have turned a simple colt into the Prince in front of her? It seemed impossible. But, could she risk it not being true?

***

Curry felt a shiver go up her spine and shuddered inside her normally comfy body suit. She looked over her shoulder and flinched slightly as she caught Diamond Tiara staring at her in a very intense way. The pony, when she saw Curry looking, gave her a huge, disquieting, smile. “What is she up to now?” Curry mused to herself, not trusting that look at all.

“Hurry up, Curry. All the pancakes are going to be gone,” Jake complained.

“Okay, Okay, hold your horses. I’m doing it,” Curry snapped. Having thoroughly soaked Jake, Curry picked up a long handled scrub brush. Numerous teeth marks decorated the handle, showing how it was usually handled. “Lift up those wings so I can get under them,” Curry ordered Jake. The big colt shifted slightly so his wing would not knock against the wall and lifted both of them up and away from his body.

From behind her Curry heard a gasp. She looked over her shoulder and saw Diamond Tiara staring raptly at Jake, a slight blush coloring her face. Curry had seen this effect before and had been curious about how the heck it was possible. This time her mind was on other matters. She set the head of the brush on the floor and placed her hands on the butt while she stared at the pony till Diamond Tiara’s eyes shifted from Jake to her. “If it ain’t okay for Jake to see you in the shower, seems only right that it works the other way. Why don’t you scoot, before you get all over dust.”

Curry had selected her words and tone of voice on purpose. Now she watched in curiosity as Diamond Tiara’s face clouded over while the pony made a visible effort to gain control of herself. The freshly groomed pony drew a deep breath and gave Curry another one of those disconcerting smiles. “Very well, I shall see you outside when you are done.” She trotted out of the barn, her now dry tail flipping from side to side.

“She’s up to something,” Curry muttered to herself. Any speculation as to what Diamond Tiara was scheming was put on hold when Jake swung his head around and nudged her firmly in the back, causing her to stumble a few steps forward. “Okay, don’t get yer panties in a bunch,” Curry said in a distracted tone as she resumed her work.

***

“How dare she treat me like that!” Diamond Tiara raged, once she was sure she was out of the Snipe’s sight and hearing. “Reach out your hoof to a pony, or thing, and this is the thanks you get.” She started to kick out at a clod of dirt, and then paused, reluctant to get her newly polished hoof dirty. Distracted, she lifted her leg and admired the way her hoof gleamed in the morning sun. She might be ungrateful, uncouth and in general unworthy, but Diamond Tiara had to concede that Curry the Snipe certainly knew her way around a polishing cloth.

“Pssst!” somepony hissed from behind the bushes.

“Eh? Who’s there? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I’m allowed to be here,” Diamond Tiara stuttered out, wondering what new indignity was going to be visited on her.

“It’sh me,” a muffled voice said. Diamond Tiara let out a sigh of relief as Silver Spoon stepped out of the shadows, a picnic basket held in her mouth. “Ish came ash soon ash I heard,” she mumbled around the handle of the basket. She grimaced and set it down on the ground. Wetting her lips with her tongue she started over. “As soon as I heard what had happened. I rushed right over. I can’t believe your father is doing this to you.”

Silver Spoon’s expression grew conspiratorial, and she looked around carefully as she nudged the basket at her hooves toward Diamond Tiara. “I made up a care package for you. All your favorite jams and pastries. You know, to keep up your strength. Those Apples are likely going to make you sleep in the barn and eat nothing but hay ...,” Silver Spoon trailed off as she finally took note of Diamond Tiara’s polished appearance. “Wow, you look great!” she blurted out.

Normally Diamond Tiara’s reaction to such a compliment would have been to boast about her latest high-priced beauty aid, or her recent visit to the spa, where she’d gotten the works. This time she felt conflicted, and half wished Silver Spoon had shown up a little earlier when she had looked like a disaster, or Apple Bloom after a day mucking around in the dirt with her family. Thanks to the job the Snipe had done, Diamond Tiara had lost the chance to garner lots of sympathy from her friend, who would have been sure to carry the tale back to town about how brutally the Apple’s were treating her. A frown appeared in the form of a wrinkle between her eyes. ‘Could that have been the Snipe’s plan all along?’ she wondered. After a moment of thought, she decided it was impossible. There was no way such a simple creature could have fooled her.

***

Jake did not require anywhere near the amount of attention to detail that Diamond Tiara had needed, and Curry’s pride had demanded, but he also had a heck of a lot more hide to scrub.

Curry didn’t even try to do anything with his wings. She wouldn’t know where to start. She did buff his horn with a long cloth folded into a strap. Jake’s eyes had widened, and he’d hastily tossed his head up in the air, while what could only be described as bass giggles escaped from his mouth. “Tickles,” he had complained, and Curry hadn’t pushed the matter.

***

“Quit twitching,” Curry ordered as she balanced one of Jake’s massive hooves on her knee. She could only manage the trick because Jake was holding his hoof up himself, while all she was doing was bracing it while she checked the bottom for chips of stone or other foreign matter that might have gotten jammed into his frog. She used her fingers to brush away small clumps of dirt and exposing the small crevasses that stones could get caught in. “Good as gold,” she said giving Jake’s ankle a slap to let him know he could lower his hoof.

“Told you,” Jake said. “Big Mac showed me how to clean out my own hoof.”

A spike of jealousy caused Curry to snap out, “Big Mac, Big Mac. You sure do talk a lot about this Big Mac. What’s so special about Big Mac?”

“Nuttin’ much,” a baritone voice said from right behind Curry.

“Yaaah!” Curry cried out in surprise, jerking erect, and jamming her head into Jake’s belly. “Dang it,” she cried out, her neck hurting from the sudden shock. On Jake’s part, he let out a tiny grunt, more from surprise than from any physical effect, and twisted his head around to look at Curry in concern.

“What’s the big idea, you—?” Curry cut off as she spun around and found herself staring up at the broad forehead and gentle green eyes of a massive red pony.

***

When he had come in from his early morning chores for breakfast, Granny Smith had told Big McIntosh that Jake was out in the barn washing up with his little friend, Curry. In need of a quick wash himself, Big Mac had headed out to the barn, not just to get cleaned up, but to indulge his curiosity. He’d been hearing about Jake’s strange companion from Applejack and Apple Bloom, not to mention Apple Bloom’s friends, mostly though, he’d heard about her from Jake.

While Jake was woefully ignorant about Earth Pony magic, or for that matter, pony magic in general, he had demonstrated a great deal of skill when it came to shifting heavy objects. Pulling large loads was not all about brute force; there was an art involved in getting the most out of your body. Jake had shown a very high level of talent and had given the credit fully to somepony named, Old Ben and the small human, or Snipe now he guessed, Curry.

So it wasn’t just her apparent odd appearance that had roused Big Mac’s curiosity, but also her knowledge of hauling. From the way Apple Bloom and her friends described Curry, she was a very weird looking critter, but tiny. So how did she know so much about power pulling? He’d been prepared for just about anything when he’d softly stepped out of the sunlight and into the dim barn, except for what he’d found. Nothing anypony had said had prepared him for how downright adorable Curry was. She was just about the cutest little thing he’d seen since he’d run off with Twilight’s much loved, and very battered doll, Miss Smarty Pants. For just a brief moment he wondered if Fluttershy would let him adopt her as his pet, which was something he had never been inclined toward till that moment. He dismissed the idea as quickly as he thought it. Despite her appearance, she wasn’t a critter to be made a pet.

He hadn’t meant to sneak up on the little thing, but she’d been so distracted that he’d ended up peering over her shoulder as she made an excellent job of examining Jake’s hooves. He heartily approved of her technique; the number one reason for foals coming up lame was stone chips that they had not yet learned how to clean out their own selves. However, he still felt a bit guilty for not checking Jake’s hooves himself each night. The young pony’s size had fooled him into thinking it unnecessary, even though he should have known better by now.

When he heard Jake’s little friend ask in an exasperated tone of voice what was so special about him, he couldn’t help giving into his own inner foal and answering her himself. Her startled reaction and surprise at finding him nose to nose with her was funny as heck, though he did feel a little guilty over the way she’d jammed her head into Jake’s belly.

***

Horses were both very social and curious, creatures. As a result, Curry had learned that if you worked anywhere near a free-roaming horse or pony, sooner or later they’d wander over to see what you were doing to solicit a snack, or request some physical contact in their own horsey way, most probably nose-first into an unexpected bare area of skin. If you were fully involved in whatever you were doing, this could lead to a heart-jolting reaction as a head half again as big as you were was suddenly thrust over your shoulder so the pony, or horse, could get a better look at whatever chore you were engaging it. The only thing more shocking was the sudden application of a wet nose to the middle of your neck.

Screaming in fright and lambasting the poor horse with curses was frowned upon.

For one thing, you might want to use that same curiosity to lure a pony in close enough to catch her up at some future time.

It had taken a while, but eventually, Curry grew nerves of iron, developing certain ingrained reactions that bypassed her flee-or-fight reflex.

A few days in Equestria was not enough time to change a lifetime, three years actually, of experience. As a result, Curry’s surprise at Big Mac’s sudden appearance caused her to fall back on her typical reaction in such situations.

“Well, ain’t you a nice looking boy,” Curry said in an admiring, but calm, tone of voice. “Here, let me take a good look at you.” Curry moved in under Big Mac’s chin, causing him to lift his head slightly in surprise. She ran a hand over his well-muscled chest in a combination patting/petting motion. “You are one good looking hoss, I’ll tell you what. Good chest, big lungs. Good wind I bet.” Curry bent over and ran her hands down Big Mac’s legs, checking out not just his muscle tone and configuration, but feeling for hot spots that might indicate an injury. All of this in a matter of a few seconds, lasting till she reached his cutie mark.

By this point, a pony back home would have been reacting to her tone of voice and the physical contact. While reactions would vary, they would not have gone as stiff as a board with their tail stuck straight out and their mane standing on end. Curry froze as her mind caught up to her reflexive actions and she realized what she was doing. This was not some big goofy gelding, this was a full-grown, uncut stallion. More importantly, this was a person, not an animal you could just walk up to and pet. Sheer and utter mortification flooded Curry, and her face and neck came very close to matching Big Mac’s natural shade. She wanted to curl up and vanish from the face of the earth.

A hoof, bigger than her head, settled gently on her mop of a hairdo and rubbed softly. “Good girl,” Big Mac said in a kind, slow voice. Curry craned her neck so she could look up at his face from underneath his hoof. There was no nastiness in his expression, no spite or snark in his voice. There was a twinkle in his eyes, however, and his expression was downright mischievous.

Ducking out from under the huge, but surprisingly clean, hoof, Curry said, “Please to meet you, Mr. Big Mac. Don’t mind my talk. Old Ben always did say my mouth was running before my brain was engaged.”

“Eyupp,” the large pony said. Turning his head he gave Jake a nod and flicked his muzzle toward the door. “Better hurry.”

“Ahhh, Breakfast. Come on Curry, let's go,” Jake said. He lowered his head so he could push against the small of Curry’s back, nearly lifting the slight girl off her feet as he shoved her toward the door.

***

Breakfast was ... filling. It turned out that Fluttershy was experienced in creating portions suitable for the size of her guests. The portions set out on the large trestle table that Apple Bloom and her friends had helped Applejack set up in the farmyard were pony sized. Curry did her best, but only managed to eat about two-thirds of the single flapjack that had been served to her on a plate that would have counted as a platter back home. Mind you, the pint of apple preserve she’d dumped on top of it hadn’t helped matters. She’d ended up leaning back in her booster seat and pony watching while everypony else continued to chow down with enthusiasm.

Granny Smith had the place of honor at the head of the table, with Big Mac at the other end of the twenty-foot-long table. Along the side opposite Curry was Apple Bloom and her friends, along with Diamond Tiara and a surprise guest, Silver Spoon, the other pony from the day before. Twist, Curry’s new best friend in the whole world, dang could she make good candy, was placed as a buffer between the two groups of ponies who kept directing dirty looks at each other.

Curry was sitting toward the end of her side of the table, with Jake standing beside her to the right. His poor wing control meant he needed a lot of space. Rainbow Dash was to Jake’s right, hidden behind his bulk. Applejack was to her left.

With the exception of Jake, it was interesting to see how neatly the ponies managed to eat. While most of them ate directly from the plate, Diamond Tiara made a production of using the supplied implements. Silver Spoon alternated between both methods, but due to the fact that she couldn’t stop staring at Jake half the time, she ended up missing her mouth, no matter which she was using.

The sheer mass of food being consumed was amazing seen from the perspective of a human. It sure put Curry’s last Thanksgiving to shame. Half of all the food consumed was going into the belly of Jake and Big Mac, which only made sense. Applejack was no slouch when it came to wielding her eating implements either. If Curry had needed any proof about how hard the farm pony worked that would have supplied it. Not even a pony could eat that much food on a regular basis and not end up fat as a pig if she didn’t do something to burn off the calories.

“Company coming,” Granny Smith announced in her creaky voice.

Curry turned around while all around the table pony heads lifted, with the exception of Jake who was chasing a chunk of stewed apple around his plate with his tongue. She swallowed nervously as she saw the beautiful pony from the night before. She seemed somewhat diminished in the sunlight of mid-morning but was still by far the most heart-stopping lovely equine Curry had ever seen.

The news that she and Jake were to go on a camping trip, of all things, with the Princess and Twilight Sparkle had been the big news at the breakfast table. Aside from the timber camp, Curry’s experience with camping had involved accompanying Old Ben and his peers on their fishing trips. Jake’s job had been to pull the rowboat along the old timber roads to the lake, after which he and Curry had been free to walk in the woods and play Ninja, or Indians, or whatever else was inspired by Curry’s most recent favorite entertainment. The last such trip has seen Jake spending the entire weekend being referred to as Toothless, for instance. Pity he hadn’t had his wings back then.

As Curry had a hunch that pan-fried trout would not be a big feature of this trip, she wasn’t sure what a camping trip with some older ponies would entail.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had no such doubts. They already had the needed gear packed up just inside the door. Sweetie Belle and Twist had not been as enthused at first but had allowed themselves to be convinced by their friends that it would be the greatest trip ever.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, on the other hand, had been clearly appalled at the very idea of ‘roughing’ it in the great outdoors. Only the fact that Applejack had made the choice between going on the camping trip, or helping her and Big Mac in the fields had caused Diamond Tiara to at least pretend to have some interest. The fact that Princess Luna was a member of the proposed camping party had helped and likely been the factor that had inclined Silver Spoon to stand by her friend.

“Woo Hoo!” Scootaloo yodeled. “Time to go camping.” Along with Apple Bloom, she raced over to collect her gear. The other four fillies followed, their various paces indicative of their enthusiasm for the task. Silver Spoon had barely turned away from the table by the time Scootaloo returned, hauling her wagon behind her scooter. Curry wasn’t entirely sure how the pile of gear stacked haphazardly on the wagon was staying in place. The stack was higher than her head and bulged out a good two feet all around the edges of the small wagon.

“Listen up!” Applejack bellowed, causing even the Princess, who was halfway up the lane to pause. “You fillies head over to the gate. I have some things to discuss with Twilight and the Princess. Curry, you and Jake might as well stay at the table till we find out if the Princess has anything special in mind for you.”

“Huh, wazat,” Jake mumbled, having finally corralled the last little bit of food from his plate. He raised his head and looked around in bemusement at finding only Curry and himself still at the table. Following Curry’s gaze, his eyes widened with pleasure as he saw Twilight, but they grew even rounder when he spotted the pony next to her.

“Jake, no,” Curry cried out when Jake left the table and lumbered directly toward the Princess. She didn’t know what the penalty was for licking a princess against her will, but gelding came to mind. She reached out and just missed grabbing Jake’s tail, stumbling and nearly falling on her face from the effort.

***

Twilight, Applejack, and Curry all watched on in various stages of dismay as Jake charged toward the princess. Luna looked more than a little discomforted herself at the sight of the biggest pony she’d ever seen bearing down on her like the Canterlot express. His flared wings and the long sharp horn jutting from his forehead added to the effect. Only the fact that she’d been kept fully up to date on Jake’s nature, and the rather silly expression on his face, kept her from taking some sort of offensive steps. Still, she prepared to cast a soft shield in front of her that would catch and slow even a pony as large as Jake without doing him any harm.

***

Rumbling past Luna without a sideways glance, Jake skidded to a halt and lowered his head till he was nose to nose with the tiny little pinto colt who had up till now been ignored by everypony else.

“Hi, I’m Jake. Want to be friends?”

Ch21 The Camping Trip, part three [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 21
The Camping Trip, Part three

***

Jake was a single-minded sort of pony, with a tendency to concentrate on one subject to the exclusion of all else, which was a trait that Curry and Old Ben had often used to good effect by luring him into a crush stall with a bucket of apples for his annual checkup. When he saw the tiny pinto foal, all his old longing to romp in the fields with the other young colts, and which had caused him so much grief back home, returned full force. With no thought beyond meeting the little colt in his mind, he had rushed forward and introduced himself to his fellow colt, and asked if he’d be friends.

Having asked his question, Jake had to wait for an answer, and that caused an awareness of his surroundings to sink in one pony at a time. And in particular, the large adult mare right next to him, with the most peculiar look on her face, which reminded him of the reason he had never been able to play with the smaller colts before. Other than the six-foot fences, that is.

Mares took a very dim view of over-sized stallions, or colts, crowding their foals, and were not slow at expressing their displeasure, even if the stallion in question was four times their size. In the case of this particular mare, Jake could not help but notice the long sharp horn jutting from the middle her forehead, and which was currently aimed right between his eyes as she stared at him. That horn looked like it would hurt. A lot.

A feeling of dread had the hairs on the back of Jake’s neck standing up straight. He was about to bolt for safer pastures when he remembered he had options in this world he hadn’t had back home. He could explain himself, and she could understand. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he babbled. “I won’t hurt your foal. I promise. I just wanted to play with him.”

For a moment the tableau held, Jake, holding his breath and hoping for the best. The sound of coltish laughter caused him to blink and lower his gaze to where the small pinto colt was laughing.

“You think Princess Luna is my mom?” the colt burbled out between spurts of laughter. He drew himself up and looked down his nose at Jake, quite a feat given their respective heights. “Bow down before Prince Pipsqueak The First, commoner,” he declaimed.

“She’s not your mom?” Jake asked, looking back and forth between the tiny piebald earth pony and the large dark-hued mare with the sharp horn and broad wings. “Oh, yeah. I guess she isn’t,” he said sheepishly.

Jake’s eyes widened slightly and he stood up straight so that he was looking down on the mare from his full height. “Oh, I know who you are. You’re the Evil Princess Of the Night.”

The mare flinched backward slightly, and a look of hurt appeared in her eyes. A second later a stinging pain in Jake’s shin caused him to jerk his left foreleg backward and shake it. Looking down he saw that Pipsqueak had bucked him hard in the leg and was getting ready to do the same to his right leg. He quickly stepped back, shuffling his hooves in the dirt.

“You take that back!” Pipsqueak demanded. “Princess Luna is not evil! She’s the best princess in Equestria.” He advanced on Jake, and Jake backed away. Soon the large stallion was shuffling in a large circle, the tiny pinto in full pursuit, pausing only to buck at Jake whenever he felt he was in range.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, who had crept close to overhear the conversation between the two Alicorns, scrambled to get out of the way as Jake’s backside bore down on them. Diamond Tiara stumbled and almost fell. Just before she lost her balance completely Curry dashed in and gave her shoulder enough of a nudge to stabilize her. Then, to the proud filly’s total humiliation, the girl wrapped her hand in Diamond Tiara’s mane and all but dragged her to a safe distance while muttering about, “Some ponies not having the sense to get out of the way of a steam roller.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jake babbled. “I’ll be the Evil King Of The Night, and she can be the Ninja Princess who fights for Truth and Justice,” he said as a peace offering. Really, it was all the same to him, as long as he got to be part of the playgroup.

The over-sized colt continued to frantically shuffle backward, till he noticed that Pipsqueak had finally stopped pursuing him. Jake stopped moving, but he swayed back and forth, ready to bolt if it looked like the other colt would take up the chase again.

“You wanted Princess Luna to pretend to be the Evil Princess Of The Night?” Pipsqueak asked hesitantly, clearly wanting clarification.

It was Jake’s turn to look puzzled. “Of course. What else?” he asked.

“Oh,” the smaller colt said in dawning comprehension. “Well, that’s different. Princess Luna does a great Evil Creature Of The Night. You should have been here last Nightmare Night. It was the best Nightmare Night ever. Of course, it was my very first Nightmare Night, but all the other foals said it was the best one they’d ever had. You should have said you wanted to play pretend,” he accused Jake.

“Sorry,” Jake rumbled sheepishly, digging the toe of his hoof into the ground and making little circles.

“Well, if you’re really sorry. Then sure,” Pipsqueak said, trotting up so he could look straight up into Jake’s downcast eyes.

“Sure what?” Jake asked.

“I’ll be your friend, dummy,” Pipsqueak said. “Want to go camping with us?”

Before Jake could reply, Pipsqueak’s expression turned worried, and he looked over at the princess. “Is that all right Princess Luna? Can Jake come on our camping trip? He didn’t mean to be mean. He just wanted to play a game of pretending.”

“But I can’t,” Jake blurted out. “I’m already going camping with my big sister, Curry.”

‘Oh,” Pipsqueak said in a disappointed tone. His expression brightened almost instantly. “Maybe we can all go camping together?” he suggested.

Jake twisted his head until he located Curry, standing beside the new pony, Diamond Tiara. Jake felt a slight twang of jealousy when he saw how Curry’s hand was resting on the filly’s head, her fingers stroking through Diamond Tiara’s mane. The feeling was only momentary, as he had far more important things to worry about. “Can we all go camping together, Curry?” he pleaded.

At the same time, Pipsqueak was making the same plea to Princess Luna and Twilight.

Before any other pony could step in and correct the colt’s mistake, Applejack, with much more experience with foals under her saddle, stepped up and said, “I think that’s a right good idea. You all can help Apple Bloom to make sure Princess Luna has a great time on her first camping trip.”

Twilight’s bemused expression at the colt’s antics switched to dismay as she parsed Applejack’s words. “Wait. Does that mean you’re not coming with us, Applejack?”

“I’m right sorry, Twilight, but I just can’t.”

“It’s Rainbow Dash, isn’t it? She’s been gossiping about my crush on Princess Luna. I mean, I don’t have a crush! Oooo, I’m going to stomp her so bad! Where is she? Rainbow Dash! Come out here!” Twilight called out loudly, looking around and up for her tale-telling friend.

“Rainbow Dash isn’t here, Twilight,” Scootaloo said as she buzzed up on her scooter. “Cloud Kicker came by a minute ago and she had to leave. Some sort of unexpected weather emergency.” Scootaloo sounded disappointed at this news.

“Now, calm yourself down, Twilight. I ain’t bailing on your account because of anything Rainbow Dash might have said. The truth of the matter is that the first snowfall is scheduled for just a few weeks from now. Big Mac and I have our hooves full getting the last apples harvested and Sweet Apple Acres ready for winter. I just don’t got time to take off for a camping trip.”

Twilight looked contrite, “I am sorry, Applejack. Could you use some help?”

Giving a shake of her head, Applejack said, “No need. We got it well in hoof. And don’t worry. I learned my lesson that time Big Mac was out of action with a cracked rib. This time if I need help, I’ll ask my friends.”

***

The farmyard turned into a beehive of activity as all the ponies, with two exceptions, made ready for the camping trip.

One of the exceptions was Jake. He didn’t see what the fuss was about. He’d been on lots of camping trips. Sooner or later Curry would harness him up and they’d go for a long walk in the woods. Once they arrived there would be lots of fun pulling heavy logs, or more walking in the woods with Curry while Old Ben yelled at fish with his friends. He was far more interested in getting to know his new colt friend, Pipsqueak, who was the other exception.

While everypony else was busy, Jake and Pipsqueak happily cavorted around the barnyard. They said hello to some cows and sheep in a nearby pasture, who were much more interesting than the cows and sheep back home, even if their conversation was a bit limited in terms of subject matter. They had no interest in pulling at all.

When Granny Smith heard Jake’s belly rumbling, and that Pipsqueak had rushed out without breakfast, she’d whipped up some tasty brown hotcakes swimming in butter and apple preserves just for them. That distracted them quite nicely, and they happily filled their bellies and ignored the chaos behind them.

***

Twilight, from past experience, knew that she might as well try to herd cats as to organize a group of foals but felt she had to do her best for the sake of Princess Luna.

Luna for her part, quickly discovered that there was a very large difference between giving orders to well trained royal guards and castle servants, and trying to lead a bunch of young foals who were filled with sweet syrup and candy. Matters were not helped by the fact that at some point while their backs were turned, Applejack and Big Mac had headed out into the field to do their chores.

It wasn’t till Apple Bloom and Granny Smith took charge of the organizing that things got sorted out. Most of the improvement was on account of Apple Bloom’s leadership skills (still tragically un-cutie marked), while Granny Smith’s one contribution was a story about one of her camping trips. It calmed the excited little ponies down to a remarkable degree and helped them focus on their goal, with only one little bump in the road.

They had to wake Silver Spoon up.

The last chore before they set out was when Curry went off to drag Jake and Pipsqueak out of the barn, where Pipsqueak was learning the joy of jumping out of a hayloft.

In the end, it was only a few hours after the original start time that they began walking down the lane-way in a long strung out stream of ponies, with Apple Bloom proudly leading the way.

Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle were a few paces behind Apple Bloom, heads close together as they discussed the various magic formula they intended to use once they were settled at the campground.

Curry, due to having only two legs, found herself at the rump end of the group; or so she thought of it, as that was what she was mainly staring at, was puffing along at a steady jog.

Jake and Pipsqueak were loyally accompanying Curry, although a series of distractions had them moving at a less than steady pace. Every few feet it seemed they would spot an interesting flower or funny shaped rock and have to detour to examine it. And, of course, there were the small streams that simply demanded they be waded in.

The rest of the fillies floated up and down the column like leaves in a stream, each little divergence in the pathway causing eddies and shifting of the various parties. Diamond Tiara, in particular, couldn’t seem to make up her mind which end of the marching order she wanted to be a part of. Walking with the princess was, of course, the proper place for a pony of her stature, but thirty seconds of listening to Twilight and Princess Luna talk shop made her head spin. Jake was the next obvious attraction, but every time she tried to open up a conversation with him that tag-along Pipsqueak would divert him.

She barely avoided getting splashed with mud or worse, when the big colt jumped with all four hooves into a mud-puddle.

Curry was the third point of attraction, but the one time Diamond Tiara tried to start a conversation with her, she received a lecture about keeping away from mud-puddles, and that she wasn’t to expect Curry to drop everything just because she got herself splashed by not watching where she was going. It was really quite rude, and it was hardly Diamond Tiara’s fault that Curry was so hot, sweaty, and out of breath.

The small girl was jogging to keep up with the ponies. She could have gotten a ride from either Twilight, who had offered, or Jake, who wouldn’t have even noticed her weight, but she was determined to build up her stamina so she wouldn’t feel so handicapped around her four-legged friends.

“So she’s your big sister?” Pipsqueak asked Jake as they returned from their latest divergence and took up position along either side of Curry, effortlessly matching her pace, much to her annoyance.

“Eeyup.”

“Well, I sorta see now how you could think Princess Luna was my mom. Compared to your sister and you, you and I could be twins.”

“Eeyup.”

“I’m right here you know,” Curry puffed out, a bit annoyed at being talked around.

Irrepressible as always, Pipsqueak simply added her into the conversation instead of feeling abashed. “So, was your mom sick when she had you? Or, did an evil Sorceress put a spell on you?”

“No, and no. And it wasn’t Poison Joke either before you ask. Whatever the heck that is. There are lots of folks back home like me. Fact is, all folks back home are like me.”

“No ponies? That must be a really weird place.”

“There are ponies,” Curry panted, her words coming in time with her jogging stride. “They just ain’t all that smart. Jake was special. He was always smart. Just couldn’t talk.”

“Couldn’t talk? That must have been awful,” the talkative Pipsqueak said. “Did you learn sign language? I heard that mute ponies learn sign language so they can talk to other ponies with their hooves and body. For instance, if you stick one ear up like this, and the other forward like this, that means, hello, how are you,” he said, suiting actions to words.

The small colt was starting to puff a bit himself. He might have had four legs, but they were short, and he was making rather bad decisions in regards to what was more important, talking, or breathing.

“So, are you really only five years old?” Diamond Tiara asked as she trotted into line directly in front of them and looked over her shoulder at Jake. “However did you get so big and strong at such a young age?” she fluttered her eyelashes as she spoke, but the superior drawl she couldn’t keep out her voice spoiled whatever effect she was going for.

“I ate a lot,” Jake replied in a matter of fact voice.

Curry stifled a laugh as the filly stared hard at the big colt, but there was nothing in Jake’s tone of voice or expression to indicate he was being anything other than fully honest in his reply.

Before Diamond Tiara could continue the interrogation, Pipsqueak interjected himself into the conversation. “What did you eat? Do you think I’d grow as big as you if I ate the same thing?”

“I ate whatever Curry fed me,” Jake answered with a shrug of his shoulders, although there was a certain amount of grievance he couldn’t keep out of his voice. In his opinion, his diet had been decidedly less than balanced. There should have been a much larger proportion of apples for one thing.

This time it was Diamond Tiara that jumped in first. “So Curry is responsible for your amazing body. Did she give you your horn and wings too?”

“Don’t be silly,” Pipsqueak said with a laugh. You're born with wings or a horn. Or both. It's not like anypony can just give them to you or buy them from your daddy's store."

Diamond Tiara scowled at Pipsqueak, and growled out, “Listen brat—ouch!”

“Sorry,” Curry apologized to Diamond Tiara while rubbing her stinging palm on her leg. “You had a big hairy bug on your flank.” She made a face. “You better come see me in the camp so I can brush all the icky bits out of your hide.”

“Where, where,” Diamond Tiara cried out, spinning in circles as she tried to see.

“I’ll get it, DT” Silver Spoon cried out. “Ouch!” she cried out a moment later and spun to face Curry, who was rubbing her other hand against her leg this time.

“Boy, there sure are a lot of bugs out here in the woods, ain’t there?” Curry said innocently.

Whatever remarks the two ponies might, or might not, have made were effectively cut off when Apple Bloom called out from the front, “We’re here.”

Jake lifted his head so he could see over everpony in front of him, “Oooh, pretty,” he rumbled.

Next, to Jake, Pipsqueak was bouncing up and down with all his might, trying to see over the top of Diamond Tiara, who was right in front of him while calling out, “What? What is it?”

Seemingly by accident, Diamond Tiara kept shifting herself so Pipsqueak could not get around her, at least till she let out another pained cry which accompanied the sound of a bare palm smacking against her cutie mark.

“Really hope somepony brought some bug repellent,” Curry said in a nonchalant voice as Pipsqueak dashed by the distracted pony.

Jake longed to follow after his new friend, but there was no way he could duck and weave between the ponies in front of him the way Pipsqueak was doing. Not without bowling them over and shoving them into the bushes that lined the lane. He gave a sad snort and let his attention wander from the pretty thing that nearly filled the clearing up ahead to Curry. While he had been preoccupied with Pipsqueak he hadn’t noticed, but now he saw that Curry was watching Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon as well, with a clear intent in her eyes.

Jake had seen that look before. For all her grumbling about spoiled ponies, Curry always took her duties at the boarding stable seriously. This was especially true the last couple of months when she’d been entrusted with the primary care of some of the pony tenants rather than simply being an extra pair of hands. The proprietary way she was looking at the two pretty fillies now was exactly the way she had looked at the mares under her care then.

Jake found this of interest because one of the results of that behavior on Curry’s part was to include Jake in her activities, pretty much forcing the ponies to socialize with him. She had joked at the time that she was auditioning them for places in Jake’s future harem. Jake had translated the unfamiliar term into future friends and had been anticipating the results. Things had never gotten that far, but now Jake was wondering if Curry was going to train the two fillies to be his friends. He vowed to be on his best behavior around them to make Curry’s job easier.

Jake stepped off the trail and into the clearing, joining the group of ponies who were staring at what filled it. He looked up. Way, way, up. The object in front of him was well worth the first, and second, look. It was the biggest tent he had ever seen, and the most garish. The bright silk of the huge tent extended four times the height of the barn at Sweet Apple Acres and covered a correspondingly huge amount of ground. Close by he heard Princess Luna mutter a soft word he was pretty sure he didn’t want to repeat anywhere near Curry.

***

A number of highly inappropriate words needed said, possibly enough of them to blister paint and knock a few stars loose from their position in the sky, but Luna managed to restrain herself to just one, said under her breath, which luckily nopony seemed to have heard. The tent that filled the fairgrounds to overflowing was quite definitely not what she had requested from Kibbitz, and if her darling sister's hoof was not behind the swap, she would eat alfalfa. Raw.

Acres of multicolored silks and satin stretched up above the tree-line, several times the height of Honesty's barn and many times the width. Huge cables the diameter of a pony's ankles were tied to anchors buried deep within the soil in order to support the massive structure, and the flags of every past Saddle Arabian king flew proudly at each crest and peak. Or at least they were the flags of the Saddle Arabian monarchy the last time she and Celestia had visited the desert land, far too many years ago. The Grand Royal Tent was the crowning (literally, for it had put more than one king on their throne) achievement of their mystics and tentmakers, with enchantments and spells woven into the fabric that allowed the most magically gifted, meaning the Sultan and themselves, to view tales of the past. It had fascinated the two sisters for weeks during their sweaty trip. And now it, or a very, very, good copy, was here. On her camping trip.

It didn’t make any sense. It was too much. What was Tia thinking? This was like swatting a horsefly with a sledgehammer. It wasn’t merely escalation, it was Shock and Awe, and Tia wasn’t that blatant. If there was one word to describe her normal modus, it was sneaky, and a fifty piece brass brand would be sneakier than this monstrosity. Luna didn’t even know where to start with plans for retaliation.

This was going to take a prank of world-shaking proportions to top. But there would be time for that later.

“It’s a Saddle Arabian, Grand Royal Tent,” Twilight Sparkle gasped from her position next to Luna. “I didn’t think they were ever allowed out of the country. By Royal Decree, no other tent is allowed to exceed them in size or magnificence. According to my book, only two were ever constructed, the second only after the first one was lost centuries ago. This must be the legendary lost tent. How did it get here?”

“I do not know how it came to be in Equestria, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said through gritted teeth, “But, as for how it came to be here, I would think the answer obvious.” Luna turned her attention to the pony who had been waiting for them in the clearing in front of the tent. “What is the meaning of this, Goose Down?”

While Luna was not one to take her annoyance out on innocent bystanders, nowadays anyway, but she could not keep all of her emotional turmoil out of her voice. This became clear when her brand new, still shiny from the package, personal maid flattened herself against the ground as if she had been stepped on. Luna was instantly contrite. Goose Down shouldn’t even be here. Luna had only spent one night in the Nocturne’s dreams, working to untangle her deeply ingrained fear of the open sky. Her ouranophobia was so ingrained that it would take many more sessions before she would be comfortable outside in the city, let alone far out in the woods, miles from the nearest solid building to hide inside. The oversized bowl-shaped hat, which her Hoofmaiden, Laminia, had graciously made for Goose, covered her down past her nose and halfway to her chin, to block out the sky in all directions, but that was a fragile barrier with which to gamble her sanity.

She would be having words with her maid about her interpretation of Luna’s instructions. “Familiarize yourself with my quarters and belongings while I’m gone,” did not mean take yourself off to the back of beyond and help set up a monstrosity of a tent. But, that could wait for a more private time, when her temper was not quite so engaged.

“Rise, Goose Down,” Luna said in a much more gentle tone of voice. “Explain please.”

Rising to her hooves, Goose Down kept her face downcast as she said, “Forgive me, oh Divine Princess of the Night, Guardian of the Ebony Veil, Matron of Dreams, Holder of the Sacred …” Goose may not have been able to see Luna’s face, but she could see one royal hoof tapping against the sod in front of her. “Ahem. Your Sister, her most glorious Princess Celestia, Diarch of Equestria, Ruler of the Sun, sent it for your use. She said it was just some old thing that had been gathering dust in the basement since before she could remember. A gift from a Saddle Arabian Sultan who was courting her at the time.”

Luna startled slightly when Twilight Sparkle shouted out, “Nailed it!” giving a hoof pump of triumph. Realizing everypony present was now staring at her, the librarian blushed. Luna took the luxury of taking a few seconds to enjoy how cute Twilight was in her flustered state. She made a mental note to induce it again when she had the time to really enjoy it.

Princess Luna took several deep breaths, her expression shifting through a gamut of expressions and finally to a rather blank calm. “Please forgive me my previous ire, Goose Down. This was not your fault. I am merely slightly peeved that my sister chooses to ignore my request that I am allowed to ‘rough it’ for a short period of time.”

Goose Down, her face still concealed by the large hat, quivered slightly as she said, “There is no need to ask Princess Luna, you have it without question. But I fear I may have expressed the matter incorrectly. Your sister was quite specific in the way she filled your request. This is the guest tent. Your tent is over there.” The pony extended one of her proportionally over-sized wings to its full extent. She used the tip of the wing to point toward a small rickety two-wheeled cart filled with a bale of tattered canvas. “She sent this two-pony guard tent for your use, my Princess.”

Behind her, Luna heard Scootaloo let out a whistle, and then exclaim, “Niiiice.” She assumed it was in appreciation of Goose Down’s wings. Though, this was Scootaloo, who as she recalled, was rather enamored of all things related to the Royal Guard. So the little filly could have been merely reacting to the tent, although that was highly unlikely given its disreputable appearance.

As for herself, Luna felt a wave of relief as the universe tilted back onto an even keel. This was much more like the sneaky, conniving, big sister she loved.

With all once again right with her world, Luna shifted her attention to Jake. Back at the palace, exposure to Goose’s ‘attributes’, had rendered more than a few staid stallions speechless, and in more than a few cases, there had even been signs of drool. She was curious to see how Jake would react. The big colt’s eyes widened as he took in the broad stretch of dragon-wing.

“Wow. Your wings are nice. And they’re bigger than mine,” Jake said, spreading his own wings wide to illustrate his point.

He wasn’t correct. Not even close, Luna noted absently. The size was a matter of perspective. Goose was small, even for a Pegasus, and therefore her wings appeared much larger as a result than Jake’s did against his much more massive body.

The important thing was that Jake’s interest in Goose seemed to be because she was new to him, and something different from what he was used to, and not because she was built like a Cumulonimbus cloud. He was merely curious and hopeful that he had met a new friend. There was no sign at all that the fact she was an extremely well-endowed mare had any impact on him at all.

The same could not be said in reverse, however. Behind her she heard a pair of gasps as Jake flexed his wings wide, prancing slightly in his eagerness at meeting somepony new. The two older fillies, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, seemed clearly impressed and just a bit glassy-eyed by Jake’s display, unlike their peer, Twist, who didn’t seem interested in the least, and merely smiled indulgently at the big colt. Twilight Sparkle was another who seemed less than impressed by Jake’s display, Luna was pleased to note. In fact, Twilight was not paying the least attention to Jake but was instead staring at Goose with great interest. Luna frowned inside, surprised to find herself slightly jealous.

“My, what an impressive wing to body ratio,” Twilight commented. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony with such a large one.”

Luna gave a slight chuckle. That was her Twilight all over. Still smiling, Luna turned her attention back to Goose Down. She wondered how her new maid would react to Jake. While she had not been briefed on him directly, she had been present while his circumstances had been discussed. She was aware, for instance, that for all his size, he was just a young colt.

Goose’s customized hat cut off her vision just below her natural eye level, and as a result, restricted her vision to a circle about twenty feet around her. In her present position, all she would be able to see of Jake were his hooves and ankles. As Luna watched the brim of Goose’s hat tip upward, she could imagine Goose slowly scanning higher and higher, her eyes taking in more and more of Jake. She wished she could see her maid’s face as his size started to become more and more apparent.

Luna had fought with and had tea with, Dragons who could hold her in the palm of their hand. Size didn’t impress her. But, as someone who had experienced so much, lost so much, she found she could regain some of the wonders of the world vicariously, through sharing the discovery with her ponies.

Goose’s head tilted way back, and Luna got her wish. Goose’s face was fully exposed. It was everything Luna could have hoped for. Goose’s expression was absolutely priceless as Jake lowered his head to nuzzle her muzzle.

***

Curry was enthralled by the glory of the tent in front of her. This was what circus tents should look like. It was like something out of a fairy tale movie. Most certainly it was nothing at all like the tent used by the single circus that had set up for a week in town back when she was just a kid. Everywhere she looked, there was a new wonder revealed. Looking closely, she saw there were even pictures stitched into the fabric. They could only be seen if you looked at them in just the right way. She had to squint up her eyes just so, and really focus to see them. As the fabric rippled in the breeze they appeared and disappeared. Proud Arabian Stallions and mares, frolicking and romping across fields of grasses festooned with flowers of every color imaginable. Central among them was a particular Stallion, larger and more proud than the rest.

There was a story being shown Curry realized. The central Stallion traveled across the land, crossed the ocean, and met a beautiful white mare with wings and a horn, surrounded by a soft golden glow. He knelt to her and she knelt to him, and together they rose and walked off into the sunset. The breeze stilled and the images faded away.

Letting out a sigh of delight, Curry reluctantly looked away from the tent. Now that she wasn’t focused on the story-telling edifice, she realized that there was something interesting going on down at ground level. There was a rather strange looking pony wearing an over-sized hat who was standing in front of Jake. Her head was tipped up and she was nose to nose with Jake. Curry’s eyes widened in delight as she took in the huge partially extended dragon wings the pony sported instead of the typical Pegasus’s feathered variety. What really clinched the growing impression in her mind though was the pair of huge lambent yellow eyes staring upward at Jake in wonder. That clinched it for the small girl, and she let out a cry of delight, “Oh. My. God. A Toothless Pony!” drawing looks from everypony in the clearing.

***

It was strange how disasters tend to happen in slow motion when you are watching them, Luna thought. Time seems to slow down and you think you would have all the time in the world to stop it, but you can’t move, can’t speak, just stand and watch it happen.

Luna watched Goose jolt when Curry’s voice rang out. The little maid unconsciously ran her tongue over her teeth even as she broke eye contact with Jake. Her head shifted, and her pupils dilated to their full extent as she found herself staring upward into the pure blue china bowl of a cloud-free sky. Goose’s eyes watered from exposure to the bright daylight, but she didn’t squint or close them, just stood there, frozen, an expression of sheer terror twisting her face into a parody of its normal pretty appearance until her legs could no longer support her.

With a despairing moan, Goose collapsed to the ground, her wings folding over and around her body so that she looked more like a hassock than a pony.

***

Curry was oblivious to all else as she shoved past everpony and ran across the clearing toward what had to be one of the Nocturne ponies Spike had told her about. A look of concern occupied her face as she raced up to the huddled form of the clearly distressed pony. “What’d you do to her?” she said accusingly toward Jake, who was standing there looking both puzzled, and after Curry’s question, a bit guilty. It wasn’t that Curry really believed Jake was responsible, he just happened to be the nearest warm body she could vent her worry on.

“Don’t know,” Jake said in a meek tone of voice. He shuffled backward away from the mare, giving her some space.

“Do not fault Jake. This mistake is of my making,” a contrite, but firm voice said from behind Curry. She turned to see the beautiful dark mare, Princess Luna hurrying toward them. The royal pony dropped to her knees in the dirt next to the downed Nocturne mare and gently stroked her dragon wings with the tips of her own feathered ones. “I should have stepped in quicker when I realized that poor Goose Down had forgotten she was not indoors. Alas, without a ceiling above her, old terrors have overwhelmed her.”

“She’s afraid of the outside?” Curry asked in a probing tone, dropping into the professional mode that had started out as a childhood game as she mimicked visiting vets, and become something more during her three years helping out at the boarding stables.

“It is true. A childhood trauma.”

“That’s different,” Curry said thoughtfully. “Ponies being nervous or afraid of close spaces ain’t that uncommon. There was a pony at the boarding stables who had been in a horse trailer accident. She panicked anytime someone tried to put her in a trailer or a stall. It got so bad she wouldn’t even come inside the barn. The grooms had to rig a tarp out in the field so she’d at least have a little shelter. Never heard of one who was afraid of open spaces, except for...” Curry trailed off. She looked up at Jake and said. “Jake, you come over here and kneel down alongside her. Lay a wing over-top of her to block out the sky.”

As Jake gingerly lowered himself in place Curry explained her actions to Luna and the rest of the ponies who had gathered around. “Only time I ever knew of ponies being upset in an open field was when they were all alone, with no other pony to watch their back. I figure a little close company should make her feel a bit more secure, and Jake’s wings are big enough to block out the sky if she peeks out from under her own wings.” While she talked, Curry gently caressed the soft skin of the Nocturne’s wing, her fingers mingling with the feathers on the tip of Luna’s wing while the princess did the same thing.

“That’s a good idea, Nocturnes dislike solitude. They sleep in communal huddles, the entire family in one room,” Twilight said, falling back on information she had gleaned while supplying room and board to two Nocturne a few months previously, not to mention helping in the transcription of over two-hundred Nocturne family journals.

“So, the more the merrier, eh,” Curry said. She looked around and spotted Diamond Tiara hovering on the outskirts of the other fillies. “Come on over here on the other side from Jake,” Curry ordered in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

For a moment it looked like Diamond Tiara was going to refuse, but then a calculating look appeared in her eyes and she trotted over with a flip of her mane, showing that she was only doing this because she choose to do so. She nestled down beside the small Nocturne, which by happenstance slipped her between Princess Luna and the downed pony.

“Come on, Y'all, huddle in closer. Even if you can’t touch her directly, get as close as Y'all can,” Curry said, waving to all the other ponies, indiscriminately including the princess in her imperious command.

“Yeah, group hug,” Pipsqueak cried out as he wiggled in between Jake’s forelegs, laying down just under the bigger pony’s chin and resting his own muzzle on the mound that was the shivering Goose.

The rest of the ponies were uncertain and looked to Luna for instruction. In answer she gestured toward Twilight, indicating that the unicorn should take a position at her side as she herself lay flat against the ground and extended a wing so it sat over-top of the one that Jake had reached out with from the other side. This pressed her body up against Diamond Tiara who looked like she might swoon at any moment from sheer smugness.

The rest of the ponies quickly huddled as close as they could get to Goose. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle hopped up on top of Jake for lack of anywhere closer. Apple Bloom, being more daring than her fellows, wiggled her way in between Jake and Goose. She vanished from sight under his wing. Every other pony who could manage made some sort of physical contact with Goose, a hoof, a wing, a muzzle.

Curry flushed red as she looked around at the pile of ponies surrounding her and Goose, and thought about what she was going to do next. She’d never actually been allowed near a pony who was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. But, she was the smallest, least threatening person, at the stables. So, she was often allowed to sit in the stall with a pony who was recovering from an attack. It was her habit at those times to sing softly to herself and the pony. The lyrics didn’t matter, just the tone of voice and the rhythm of her words. But this pony, these ponies, were likely to be a much more critical audience. Her throat felt dry, and almost she decided that it wasn’t really needed, but then, she felt Goose trembling under her hand and her mind firmed. Maybe she’d be laughed at, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the poor terrified pony who needed help. Curry searched her mental playlist. After running through dozens of Disney songs, and discarding them, she paused as she thought of “Lesson Number One” from Mulan Two. The tune wasn’t that great, and it was about learning Kung Fu, something ponies would have zero interest in, but the words seemed right to her.

Taking a deep breath, she began to sing, trying to put her entire heart into the music.

Earth, Sky
Day, Night
Sound and Silence
Dark and Light
One Alone Is Not Enough

Luna stiffened slightly and looked at Curry intently. Curry returned the look, a hint of challenge in her expression. She hadn’t thought about how the lyrics might sound to the Dark Mare, but she was danged if she’d back down. Luna quirked an eyebrow but didn’t seem inclined to reduce Curry to dust. Much to the small girl’s relief. Inside Curry felt a bit smug. There were more ways than one to fight an Evil Princess Of The Night, especially if she was of the misunderstood variety.

You Need Both Together
Winter, Summer
Moon And Sun
Lesson Number One

A rush of something wonderful filled Curry, trickling up from the ground and running across her skin like electricity. Was this her magic? She was sure she could see it swirling in the air all around her. No. It wasn’t coming from her. She could see the strands running from the ponies to her, and from her to Goose. It wasn’t her magic. But, somehow, she was part of it. That was nearly as good. The words of the song poured out in a long, warm stream, wrapping around the frightened Nocturne with a swirl of happiness that slowly began to drive back the cold. As she sang, she could hear other voices rising to harmonize with her own, the gentle but powerful voice of Sweetie Belle, the clear soprano of Pipsqueak, the bass rumble of Jake, and even Apple Bloom enthusiastic alto, all combining into a perfectly balanced chorus. Lost in the magic, Curry didn’t even wonder how they knew the words, she just accepted it.

Like Rock
You Must Be hard!
Like An Oak
You Must Stand Firm!
Come Quick
Like My Blade
Think Fast
Unafraid

Curry reached out to stroke Jake, while between his legs Pipsqueak stood up, steady on all four legs, his chest thrust out. Scootaloo mimicked Pipsqueak’s posture on Jake’s back, her tiny wings out thrust and gently humming, the sound blending in perfectly with Sweetie Belle’s voice. From under Jake’s wing, Curry could just make out Apple Bloom’s voice joining in.

Under her hand, she felt Goose’s trembling slow, and her wings start to move. She lowered her voice and focused on putting as much feeling into the words as possible,

Like A Cloud
You Are Soft

Curry winked at Diamond Tiara, who sniffed, and turned her face away, coincidentally, right into Princess Luna’s side.

All the rest of the ponies by now were singing along with her. Even Princess Luna. Curry twisted her head around, taking in all the raised muzzles and closed eyes. She began to tremble a little bit at the powerful emotions flowing in from all around her. She put all her will into pushing that emotion into her voice, directing it at Goose.

Like Bamboo
You Bend In the Wind

Goose’s trembling had come to a complete stop and her wings started to shift. Looking down without stopping her singing Curry could see one great golden eye staring out at her, with just the smallest sign of the earlier panic present.

Creeping Slow
You're In Peace Because You Know
It’s Okay To Be Afraid

Goose’s wings parted fully, exposing her head. Her hat had tumbled away when she’d covered up with her wings, and lay on the ground between her legs. Jake and Luna’s wings lifted slightly, but remained bridged overtop of Goose, blocking out the endless blue depth of the sky.

It’s Okay To Be Afraid

Curry crooned again, letting her voice trail off as she held the note for several seconds as she reached out and picked up Goose’s hat. Holding it in both hands she placed it firmly on Goose’s head as solemnly as if she were crowning the pony Queen. She looked deep into Goose’s large eyes, and softly, just loud enough for the two of them sang the last line.

You Can Fly
You Have Begun

***

Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna stood silently, watching as Goose Down was hustled into the Tent. Only after all the little ponies, and the one very big pony, and the one, not a pony at all, were out of sight did Twilight speak. “Princess Luna...” she paused, unsure of herself.

“Let us examine my tent, Twilight Sparkle. I am most eager to begin roughing it,” Luna said in a loud voice while matching actions to words and trotting over to the rickety cart containing the weathered canvas guard tent.

While examining her overnight accommodation was merely an excuse, Luna did wonder where her sister had found it. Sergeant Chert would have gelded any private who allowed his equipment to become this neglected. Luna doubted any other sergeant in the guard would have been any more forgiving.

“You were saying, Twilight Sparkle?” Luna said softly, vocally nudging Twilight whose eyes had the faraway look she got when pondering a particularly difficult conundrum.

“Ahh, well, I’m not sure. But when Curry was singing, it seemed to me . . . Well, if she were a pony... I’d suspect she had enormous magical potential. That was as classic a display of high-level natural magic as I have ever seen. If she were a pony, that is. I checked, and as far as I could tell, there was no more energy flowing to her from Jake than from any other pony in the group. You and I contributed far more to the effect then he did.”

Twilight entire statement had been presented in a questioning tone of voice. Luna could understand why. If what they had just sensed was true, it totally destroyed Twilight’s earlier hypothesis that Curry was a creation of Jake’s young, but powerful, magic because she had no magical signature of her own. It was to Twilight Sparkle’s credit that she did not try to explain away the facts merely because they conflicted with her earlier conclusions. Clearly, however, discovering she had been mistaken had left her feeling doubtful about her present observations.

“You are correct, Twilight Sparkle. Unless there was a factor I was not aware of, Curry did indeed unconsciously expend an enormous amount of natural magic.”

Ponies possessed many and varied types of magic, some of it species dependent, some of it individually orientated. The term ‘natural’ was applied to the sort of magic that was inherent in a pony and required no training or even conscious awareness on the part of a pony for them to use it. The most visually obvious example of such magic was the ability of pegasi to walk on clouds. But, all ponies had their own special natural magic on top of such obvious manifestations. While not always, that sort of natural magic often led to the development of a pony’s special talent, the one that would cause their cutie mark to appear.

“Should we be checking for hazardous spell residue?” Twilight asked, thinking about the aftermath that had resulted from when she had first manifested her own natural potential. Which was also when she gained her cutie mark and learned her special talent was magic. It had taken Princess Celestia to clean that mess up.

“I have already done so, as soon as I became aware of what was happening,” Luna reassured Twilight. “The effect was tightly focused and directed by Curry’s desire to help Goose Down, and channeled as well by all the ponies in the group’s mutual desire in that regard. I suspect that it is difficult for Curry to externally project magic, physical contact is likely a requirement. It is unlikely she could create a chaos field such as I understand you once did.”

Luna had been speaking in a thoughtful tone, while unconsciously adopting the cadence of an instructor, the familiar turn of speech did much to sooth Twilight’s agitated mind. She took a deep breath, and asked, “Did she cure Goose Down? Of her phobia I mean.”

“I find it unlikely,” Luna said in a thoughtful voice. She considered for a moment and then continued, “I believe Curry scrubbed the chemical triggers generated by Goose Down’s panic attack from her blood, allowing her to regain her self-awareness and to mitigate her terror. Goose Down’s condition in all likelihood still exists, and will likely emerge again if she is confronted with that which she fears. In this case, the sky and heavens above.”

“That is so sad,” Twilight said, radiating sympathy at the idea of a Pegasus who was afraid of the sky.

Luna leaned down and nuzzled the smaller unicorn. “Fear not, Twilight Sparkle. I held out great hope previously that Goose Down’s condition could be alleviated. I am even more sure of that now. Indeed, I feel that Curry might just have mitigated her condition in such a way that Goose Down’s cure may come much sooner than I had originally supposed.”

“We need to scan Jake as soon as possible. This situation can’t be allowed to continue. We have to understand what we are dealing with,” Twilight said, her eyes losing their expression of uncertainty. Even as she said it she knew, right this instant was not a possibility. Twilight drew a deep breath and thought calming thoughts in order to hold off her, I-have-to-do-it-now! tendencies. Once she had control, she continued talking, “But, it would be pointless at the moment. He is far too highly agitated due to the other foals and the situation. We need him calm and relaxed while we do the scan, or we cannot be sure of the results.”

“Agreed,” Luna said with a nod. “Which is why I shall erect my dwelling for the evening and indulge in ‘camping’ activities. Would you care to join me?”

“I would be most honored to do so,” Twilight said with a smile, matching Luna’s speaking style.

The two of them extracted the canvas tent from its carrying cart with their magic and unfolded it. Luna examined the result as she and Twilight held it suspended above the ground. She looked into the cart at the random jumble of pegs and poles and asked, “Now, how does one go about erecting this?”

“I thought you knew,” Twilight said.

The two mares looked at each other, and then back at the various parts and components. For such a simple device there seemed to be an awfully large number of both and not an instruction manual in sight. “This may take a little longer than I had anticipated,” Luna said.

***

Curry hadn’t really expected elephants, but she had hoped for possibly a camel or two. Would camels be able to talk here? How about tigers? A talking tiger would be great. What they found inside the entrance to the big tent instead, was a small, relatively speaking, room about twenty feet on a side. The walls were smooth fabric and the floor made up of dozens of rugs seemingly haphazardly laid out, yet still managing to merge together as a whole to present an attractive pattern. There didn’t seem to be any way to proceed from it, however. There was no evidence of any openings in the walls.

“How do we get from here to anywhere else,” Apple Bloom asked what everypony was thinking, while she walked along the walls looking for a seam or other indication of a potential opening.

“It’s obvious, blank flank,” Diamond Tiara sneered. “You heard Twilight Sparkle. This is a magical Royal Tent. It is not about to allow commoners to track muck into it. Clearly only the most high class of ponies will be allowed to proceed. Observe.” With the familiar toss of her mane, she marched forward and bumped her muzzle into a wall that declined to get out of her way. It dimpled, and then rebounded, shoving her back onto her hindquarters and leaving her rubbing her abused nose with a hoof.

“Looks like you were right. It won’t let any low-class ponies in,” Apple Bloom teased her.

“Shut up! Clearly, it is because of your presence. You farm pony! Leave at once with your grubby friends so we may proceed.”

“Here it ith,” Twist said from where her nose was buried in an over-sized book. Looking up, she said in a firm voice, “Tent, we need some plath for our friend to lay down. Open thethame!” With a flutter of cloth, one of the walls parted as the fabric drew itself up and formed folds giving definition to a doorway.

“How’d you do that?” Scootaloo asked, her eyes wide in amazement.

“Where did you get that book?” Silver Spoon demanded while looking around for anything else she might have missed seeing.

“Mith Twilight gave it to me while you were helping Mith Gooth into the tent. It hath a thection all about the Royal Tent. There should be three corridorth leading off from the entranth.” Twist pointed at the doorway which had just opened. “That leadth to the guetht quarterth.” She pointed toward the left wall, “That leadth to the grand retheiving thalon, where the Thultan would spend the day meeting emiththarieth.” Twist looked down at the book and read out loud, “The right thide leads to his private quarterth including the harem.” Twist turned the page and the fillies who were watching noticed that the next one contained pictures, though they could not make out details. Twist blushed profusely and slapped the book shut.

“Harem?” Jake asked inquisitively. “Is that where the Sultan played with his friends? Can we go play there?”

***

“This doesn’t look right,” Twilight said, after a few seconds of silence. She and Princess Luna were examining the tent they had just set up. Twilight had tried to use what she remembered about Saddle Arabian tent architecture, but it would seem that Equestrian guard tents used a very different design. Some parts of the tent sagged, and other parts were as tight as a drum. One side had extra material laying on the ground, and on the other, there was a good six-inch gap. Looking inside the tent she had to concede that only a snake could find it comfortable. There had to be over a dozen poles holding up the roof. She wrinkled her nose at the rather musky smell of mold and mildew emanating from the canvas, much like a slice of bad cheese, or Spike’s bed when she forgot to make him clean it on wash day.

Luna had been examining the situation as well. Unlike Twilight she had actually seen a guard tent set up, though she had never done it herself. She knew what it was supposed to look like, and this was not it. She stuck her head inside the tent alongside Twilight’s and grimaced. “I believe that it is possible there were more parts in the cart than were needed,” she said.

Twilight gave a sigh. “Take it down and start over?”

“I see no other option.”

***

“Y’all going to be okay in here, sugar?” Curry asked Goose Down as she helped the Nocturne settle down on the over-sized pillow that passed for beds in the tent. The room it was in was like a small tent in its own right, with the roof rising to a point directly over the middle of the bed and the walls straight up and down but wavering slightly in an unfelt breeze. It was light and airy with a very faint fragrance perfuming the air.

“I really should be o-outside, helping Princess Luna,” Goose protested, looking down at the floor as if the tent were about to vanish above her.

“Sweetie Belle tells me you Nocturne sleep during the day, so you gotta be pretty tired right now.”

“I’m used to long hours. Really, I don’t need to rest.”

“Now you know Princess Luna ordered you to rest. You planning on disobeying a direct order?”

“No,” Goose said, ducking her head in shame.

“Can you sleep without company?” Apple Bloom asked from the entrance.

“I’m used to sleeping by myself.”

“Well, okay, if you say so,” Curry said, getting off the bed reluctantly, and unable to resist stroking one of Goose’s wings gently before leaving the room.

“You think the tent can maybe dim the light a bit?” she asked Twist who was standing in the hallway. They had discovered fairly quickly, and much to Diamond Tiara’s disgust, that the only pony the tent seemed to listen to was Twist.

Twist lifted her head slightly and addressed the section of tent over-top of the entrance to Goose’s guest room. “Tent, turn down the lightth in Gooth’th room, pleath.”

Sections of fabric folded down over the doorway even as they saw the light dimming inside.

They walked down a billowing hallway to another room, this one about ten times as large as the one Goose was in, and with a pillow/bed big enough that even Jake could bounce on it, which he was doing, along with Pipsqueak and Scootaloo. The two small ponies were making a game out of bouncing between Jake’s legs when he was in the air, and over his back when he was coming down. It looked dangerous as heck.

“Yeaha! Cannonball,” Curry cried out running forward and launching herself at the huge pillow.

***

Luna set her hoof on the hard lump under the groundsheet and pressed down. Nothing happened. “I do not understand,” she said, a touch of petulance in her voice. “We have swept the ground clean three times. How can there still be something under it?”

The problem with the floor aside, the tent itself was looking a great deal more presentable than it had seemed at first glance, but only because decades of dirt and grime had been transferred from it to something else.

Twilight rubbed her forehead with a hoof, leaving behind a smear of dirt, that matched many other such smears covering her body. Princess Luna’s normally immaculate coat was no better off. It too bore testament to their wrestling match with the heavy canvas tent.

“Why don’t we go wash up? Maybe the floor will have settled by the time we get back?” Twilight asked.

Luna examined herself with distaste. “That is a worthy idea. I certainly have no intention of spending any more time than possible in this condition. Which spa shall we use? I realize that a private spa is unlikely, but I would prefer one that is not too crowded.”

“Ahhh, about that.”

***

“I don’t believe it,” Diamond Tiara said in an awed voice.

“How can they have a bathing pool in a tent?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Who cares,” Apple Bloom cried out as she launched herself through the air and curled up in a ball just as she hit the warm soapy water. The pool was so large that the resulting splash just barely reached the side.

“Wait for me,” Twist yelled as she sprang forward, spreading her legs out in all four directions and landing on a huge pile of bubbles. An instant later there was a loud splat as she belly flopped into the underlying water. The bubbles churned and heaved for a moment, and then a faint, “ouch,” was heard.

“You okay, Twist?” Sweetie Belle called out in concern.

“Fine,” Twist replied in a voice that was just a touch breathless.

“Oooh, just right,” Diamond Tiara cooed as she lowered herself in a much more decorous manner into the steaming water. She draped a towel over her forehead and sank into the pool till only her forehead and muzzle were showing.

Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon followed quickly after her, duplicating her actions while emitting their own coos of delight.

“You’re taking a bath?” Curry said in disbelief as she walked into the room with Jake right behind her. An expression of total disgust crossed her face, though there was a certain wistfulness as she looked at Apple Bloom cavorting with Twist.

Looks fun,” Jake boomed, and before anypony could say anything launched himself into the pool on a high trajectory.

Apple Bloom and Twist had fortunately been climbing out of the pool, so they could jump back in, and thus were out of the impact zone. Nothing could save them, or any other pony in the room, from the wash of water that greeted Jake’s entrance into the pool, however.

“Oh, it is on,” Curry growled as she wiped soap bubbles from her face. Barely taking time to shuck her clothes, she dove into the pool after Jake.

***

“B-b-b-bracing” Luna said through chattering teeth as she stood up to her withers in the icy stream.

“V-v-v-very,” Twilight replied, wishing she had a set of wings she could wrap around at least part of her body.

“S-s-s-still, maybe we should vacate the s-s-stream. I f-f-fear we are disturbing the local animals.”

Frankly, Twilight thought the sounds coming from the bushes more resembled laughter. And, was that popcorn she smelled? But she wasn’t considered one of the smartest ponies in Equestria for nothing. “I a-a-agree. M-m-maybe Jake and the foals are relaxed enough that we can do a s-s-scan.”

***

“Pillow fight!” Scootaloo cried out, choosing her weapon from a very wide selection and pegging it at Jake, who stood still and let it bounce off his chest.

“You're supposed to at least try to duck,” Scootaloo cried out. “Hey, wait, don’t,” she protested as Jake leaned down and picked up a pillow that was four times bigger than the Pegasus filly. Scootaloo’s protests became muffled as Jake brought the air and feather filled pillow down on top of her with a loud, whooomphf!

“I don’t think they’re tired,” Twilight said.

“I concur,” Luna replied.

It had taken very little effort for the two of them to locate their small (and one large) charges. All they had needed to do was to follow the ear-piercing shouts of joy and laughter (as well as a few damp hoofprints).

Aside from Jake and Scootaloo’s uneven pillow fight, there was Apple Bloom and Pipsqueak seeing if they could bounce their way all around the room without actually touching the floor.

Over in a corner, Sweetie Belle was laying back on a chaise lounge, her mane wrapped in a large towel, another around her body, and cucumber slices over her eyes. She removed one so she could glare at Pipsqueak as he bounced off the end of her chaise, and then put it back on as she settled back with a sigh.

Next to her on a similar chaise, Silver Spoon lay back, wrapped in towels as well, but with an avocado pack covering her face and her glasses resting on a small table beside the lounge.

Apple Bloom scooped a dollop from the concoction on Silver Spoon’s face as she raced by and sucked it off her hoof as she pursued Pipsqueak. Silver Spoon didn’t even move.

In the middle of the room, Curry sat cross-legged on a small pillow, her body almost lost in a pony-sized towel while Diamond Tiara and Twist combed out her hair. She was making no move to escape but was making her displeasure with the procedure clear with a steady stream of vocalizations. Diamond Tiara seemed quite pleased with the results going by the smile on her face, which got wider and wider the more Curry groaned and moaned.

“I’m sure they’ll become tired soon. The room is quite warm,” Luna commented.

“Yes, it is very warm. Maybe if we wait quietly, they will settle down soon?” Twilight suggested, laying down on the soft, smooth, and oh so warm, floor.

“I think it worth the time,” Luna said, kneeling down herself with a weary sigh.

***

“Huh, whatsis,” Twilight sputtered as a hoof was laid over her mouth.

“Please be quiet, Twilight Sparkle. I have just finished raising the moon and the foals have finally settled down,” Luna whispered, her muzzle no more than an inch from Twilight’s ear. Twilight nodded in reply while wondering how she’d managed to sleep away most of the afternoon.

Walking carefully, the two magical mares approached the slumbering Jake, he was very nearly buried under a pile of pillows and foals. Twist was lying draped over his head, her legs wrapped around his horn, a beatific expression on her face. She was muttering in her sleep, and as Twilight got close enough she could make out the words. “Betht candy twitht ever.”

Luna carefully stepped over Diamond Tiara and then had to stutter step to avoid stepping on Curry who was nestled up against the filly, her face nestled in Diamond Tiara’s soft mane.

“This should be close enough,” Twilight said as she knelt down on the soft floor. Luna made no reply but knelt beside her.

Twilight spread out a set of magically infused papers and together she and Luna focused on Jake as their horns began to glow softly.”

***

Twilight and Luna huddled close together in their tent, looking at the scan papers laid out in front of them. “So now we know,” Twilight said.

There were three pages, each with a stylized image of a pony. On the left side page was an image of a Unicorn, showing a moderate magic level. It was about what you would expect from a five-year-old Unicorn of average ability. On the right-hand side, was the image of a Pegasus. It too indicated magic levels appropriate for a young colt. In the middle was an image of an earth pony, and for a colt, the magic level was phenomenal. Easily in the upper ten percentile.

All three types of pony magic represented in one pony, which on the surface was what an Alicorn was. Only that was not how it worked. Alicorns possessed a fusion of all three types of magic which blended together to form unique magic all their own. And their power levels were not merely three types of magic added together, it was magic cubed. The power of a Earth pony times the power of a Pegasus times the power of a Unicorn.

“Jake isn’t an Alicorn,” Twilight said, voicing what both she and Luna now realized. “He’s a very strong earth pony who somepony has given unicorn and Pegasus attributes.

“It seems very likely that Curry is responsible, But, now we have another mystery,” Luna said.

Twilight nodded and said, “How can somepony who has no wings, no horn, and is not, in fact, a pony at all, be an Alicorn?”

“A very worthy question. And a mystery that may take some time to solve. For now, there is something else we must address.”

“What is that, Princess Luna?”

“I believe that this is the point in our camping trip where we are supposed to engage in ‘girl’ talk.”

***

The autumn-colored Alicorn gave a snort while stamping all four hooves into the soft ground of the meadow. She lowered her head, bending her front legs at the same time, so her nose was just inches from the ground. She lifted her rear end as high as she could, and then lowered it, flexing her hind legs up and down a few times to make sure she was loose and limber. She lifted her head slightly so her horn was pointing straight at her target, a small grassy hill.

“Go!” she shouted to herself as she sprang forward with all her might, all four legs churning, while her wings snapped out and started to flap furiously. Closer and closer to the small hill she came. She focused on her wings; this time she was going to get it right. She’s seen Rainbow Dash and other Pegasi do this. Hold the wings like this, flap them like that. Unfortunately, she focused so much attention on her wings she lost track of her legs, which was not that hard to do when you were used to only having two. One foreleg crossed in front of the other and before she knew it, she made a spectacular nose dive, plowing up a long furrow of soil with her nose. “Horseapples,” she swore, swishing her tail in agitation.

“Thou art thinking too much, young one,” a familiar voice said from a few feet away. “Let your body do what is natural.”

Curry sprang to her hooves and whirled around. “Princess Luna,” she exclaimed as she spotted the familiar Alicorn standing up to her knees in the lush meadow grass. She blushed furiously at having been seen performing such an epic fail. “What are you doing here?”

“My companion was wearier than she knew. She sleeps at the moment, and I thought you and I might have a conversation, Moonlight On Water.”

“My name is Curry Comb!” Curry snapped out and then paused. “How’d you know my real name?”

“Do you not remember? You told me the last time we met here.”

Curry’s brow furrowed and both ears laid flat against her head. “I... sort of remember. Wait. This is a dream. Isn’t it?”

“I am the Princess of the Night. Dreams are part of my domain.”

“So, you’re really here? You’re not just me, dreaming you’re here?”

“As you surmise. That is indeed the case.”

“Why are you here? “Are you snoopin’ on me and Jake?” Curry asked with a stomp of one hoof and a snort.

“Tomorrow it is my intention, with the help of Twilight Sparkle, to balance your little brother’s nature. My Sister and I believe that this is necessary if he is to have a happy colthood.”

“Just what all do you mean by balance?” Curry’s tone went past suspicion and was on the verge of accusation.

“Jake is a young colt in the body of a mature stallion. We have taken steps to insulate him from the possible consequences of that. However, these measures were never meant to be more than short term solutions. We have used that time to develop a procedure which will be much more effective.”

“I still ain’t understanding just what you’re getting at.”

For the first time, Princess Luna looked uncertain, even a bit embarrassed.” Jake is an Alicorn. The culture of Equestria, due to thousands of years of ingrained tradition, assigns him a very high position in our society. In short, he is a prince. More than that, he would become the fourth most socially prominent pony in Equestria. Do you understand?”

“Well, some of it. Jake is important just because of his breed? Alicorns being top of the heap hereabouts.”

“Very true. He is also the only stallion Alicorn. That has implications,” Luna said, waffling a bit, and clearly not sure how to proceed. She reminded Curry a lot of Old Ben when he had tried to talk to her about girl stuff. That realization caused the pieces to fall into place.

“You think they’re going to want to use Jake as a stud?” A moment later her triumphant expression at figuring it out turned to one of disgust. “Oh, eeew, no way. He’s just a kid. I don’t care how big he is.”

“Then you do understand,” Luna exclaimed in obvious relief.

“I don’t understand nothing except they’d better keep their cotton-picking hands... hooves, off of Jake.”

“That is what we wish as well. And it is why we wish to balance Jake tomorrow.”

“You keep saying balance. Just what does that mean?” Curry’s eyes narrowed and she laid her ears back. “Y’all had better not be talking about cutting him,” she said in a furious tone. “I won’t have it!”

“What? No!”

Luna’s expression looked truly shocked, much like the time Old Ben caught Curry sneaking out with the baseball he kept on his desk to use it in a pick-up game. That reassured Curry more than any words could.

“Nothing at all like that. What I mean by balance is that we wish to match his body to his mind. In short, we wish to reduce the age of his body so that it is the same as his mind. He can then, hopefully, grow at a normal rate into a fine and well-balanced stallion.”

“You can do that?” Curry asked in amazement. “Well. Yeah. I guess you can. You’re a magical Princess, after all.”

“It is not quite so simple. But, yes, Twilight and I believe we can do it. We merely need your permission.”

“Why?” Curry blurted out.

“You are his big sister, and he has no parents here. Who else would we ask for permission?” Luna said in a matter of fact tone.

“Well. Okay. Sure. I guess.”

Luna disappeared from sight like a soap bubble popping.

Curry blinked. “Well, that was rude,” she muttered.

***

Twilight leaned over and examined Luna’s sleeping face. When the princess was relaxed in this fashion, she really did not look like the stern Princess of the Night, But in fact was just slightly … cute. Luna did not have an easy time of it, Twilight knew. She had so many responsibilities and felt so guilty for her past sins. Twilight wished there was some way she could ease the burdens weighing down her friend. She lifted a hoof and used it to brush Luna’s mane off of her face.

A blinding light filled the tent, followed instantly by a crash of thunder so loud the ground shook.

***

The crashing rumble of the thunder that had jolted Luna awake was still vibrating in the air as she became aware of her surroundings, and the fact that she was being strangled by something purple.

There was another crash of thunder, even louder than the one that had woken her. Twilight screamed in Luna’s ear and the legs that were wrapped around her neck tightened even further as Twilight buried her face in Luna’s mane.

***

“I’m so sorry,” Twilight apologized to Luna in a mortally embarrassed tone. “Honestly, I’m not usually afraid of thunder. I was focusing on something, and it took me by surprise.”

“There is no sin, Twilight Sparkle. I was startled as well.”

“I don’t understand,” Twilight said. “There was no rain scheduled for tonight. I checked.”

“Oh, I believe you, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said in an even tone just as a drop of water fell onto her forehead from the suddenly leaking roof. She quickly used her magic to repair the small flaw in the canvas in order to keep her and Twilight dry.

“This situation is none of thy fault. I know exactly which pony is to blame here. There shall be consequences. Many and numerous consequences.” Luna chuckled, her eyes lighting up and a manic grin began to creep onto her face. She would come up with a perfect idea, a response worthy of the prank that had triggered it. She laughed in sheer joy, throwing back her mane and proclaiming her happiness to the skies in a peal of wild laughter that echoed across the clearing and caused more than one small woodlands creature to flee in panic.

Simultaneously, there was another crash of lighting that silhouetted Luna against the open door, followed by a truly horrendous boom of thunder as the skies opened up to drop what seemed a solid wall of water on their tent.

“O...kay, then. I guess smores are out of the question?” Twilight asked from where she was backed up as far as she could go into a corner of the tent.

Author's Notes:

Join the rest of Equestria next chapter in welcoming Prince Jake and his companion, the Snipe Curry, to Equestria. There will be balloons.

Amazing, there is actually light at the end of the tunnel that is not an oncoming train. This story might actually be complete after next chapter. Though, of course, Jake and Curry's adventures in Equestria are far from over.

As well, how are two socially awkward mares going to spend a rainy night stuck in a tent?

Find out by checking out my upcoming side story. "Dancing in the Rain. Very likely going to have a mature label, though any clop if there is any, will be of the romantic vanilla sort. Because of the potential mature tag will be posted as a stand alone story. You won't be missing any important plot points concerning the main story if you don't choose to read it.

Ch22 Welcome To Equestria, part one [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 22

Welcome to Equestria

***

Applejack trotted down the lane, a worried expression on her face. "Big Mac, have you ever had days where it seems everything you say comes back to bite you in the crab-apples?"

"Eeyup." Brother and sister trotted down the lane together, with Granny Smith snoozing in the two-wheeled pony cart behind the big stallion, who occasionally had to look back to ensure she was still there. After all, sometimes Big Mac got caught up in his thinking and forget he was hauling things around the farm, once to the embarrassing extent of dragging a plow into the house at lunchtime.

"Ah mean just yesterday ah told Twilight that there was just no way I'd have time to go camping with her, and now look at me, trottin' down the road with the sun barely up all ready to go barging into their campsite without even a how-de-doo first."

"Eeyup."

"Ah mean, there's a darned tootin' good reason for it and all, 'cause you don't ignore no hoof-delivered message from Princess Celestia herself, but ah still feel guilty. You know what ah mean?"

"Eeyup."

“You too?”

Applejack looked up as Rainbow Dash glided overhead before looping around and coming in alongside Applejack. She switched from flight to trotting and matched Applejack’s pace without missing a beat. The pegasus let out a real jaw-cracker of a yawn while commenting around it, “I was just settling in when a Pegasus courier showed up with a letter telling me to get my ass over to Princess’s Luna’s campsite.”

“Come on now, Rainbow. It didn’t say no such thing,” Applejack chided her friend.

“Oh, they put in lots of pretty language in fancy handwriting, but that’s what it came down to,” Rainbow said with a flip of her tail, as she let out another yawn.

“Dang, I’m tired. I was up all night herding a whopper of a thunderstorm.”

“That was yours? I heard that all the way out to the farm. A real window-rattler. What all was that about? Tweren't nothing scheduled.”

“No idea. Word came down that the section of forest next to Twilight’s campsite needed a real gully-washer.” Rainbow gave a sigh. “Thank goodness we missed her tent. Twilight’s likely to be just a little bit upset about that prank I pulled yesterday without adding a thunderstorm on her camping trip to the list.”

Applejack came to an abrupt halt. “Wait just a darn tootin. You were pulling a prank yesterday?”

Rainbow Dash let out a braying laugh. “One of my best,” she boasted. “I bet Twilight didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I can imagine her watching Princess Luna like a hawk, trying to figure out if the princess asking Twilight if she wants to toast some marshmallows was some sort of secret sex thing.”

“Oooh, that does sound sexy,” Pinkie Pie announced as she bounced out of a nearby bush. “I’ll have to try that. What pony is doing it? I want to ask for tips.”

“That ain’t it. Rainbow ‘Jackass’ Dash was just saying as how all that hooraw yesterday about Twilight and Luna was all a prank she was pulling.”

“it was an awesome prank.” Rainbow protested. “Just wish I’d been able to watch her go nuts like I’d planned. Instead of spending the whole night wrangling clouds and trying not to get fried when Cloudkicker got carried away.”

“I don’t get it,” Pinkie Pie said in puzzlement. “Doesn’t sound very funny to me.”

“That’s what I said,” Applejack said in a no-nonsense voice. “Telling some pony some other pony is right fond of them, and maybe more when they ain’t. That’s just mean, not funny.”

“Oh, that would be horrible,” Pinkie Pie said in shock. “What pony did you tell some pony liked her?”

“The featherbrain tried to convince Twilight that she and Princess Luna had feelings for each other.”

Pinkie let out a loud laugh. “Well, that’s just plain silly. Telling some pony the truth isn’t much of a prank.”

“Well, I thought it was pretty... Wait. Say what?”

“Well. duh. Anypony just had to look at them together to know that they go together like peanut butter and potatoes.”

Before Rainbow could start arguing with Pinkie Pie, they were joined by the rest of their friends, minus Twilight.

“Ahhh, here you all are. Marvelous,” Rarity said as she trotted up to the group accompanied by Fluttershy. Spike was on Rarity’s back, carefully holding paper wrapped bundles as if they contained the crown jewels, and with a look of pure joy on his face, possibly due to the lipstick smear on his forehead. “I see that dear Fluttershy and I were not the only ponies to receive an early morning missive.”

“Yep, one showed up at the farm just as the sun was rising. Guess we all got one.”

“One what?” Pinkie Pie asked. Just then there was a loud gasp as a pony in royal livery fell through the bushes lining the path. He lay panting on the ground while extending a hoof holding an official looking letter in Pinkie Pie’s direction. “Oh, so that’s what was going on. Silly me. I thought he was playing tag.”

***

Sneak Peek wrapped both hooves around the jumbo cup of two-day-old coffee and breathed in the heavenly scent. His nose hairs curled and his eyes watered slightly as he lifted it to his mouth and took a huge slurp of the near boiling tar-like substance. “That’s the stuff,” he said, closing his eyes in rapture as various parts of his body that had been picketing for a return to bed threw up the white flag.

A muffled, slightly soggy, clump came from across the table. He opened one eye and gave a sigh. Reaching across the table, he carefully lifted Cloudkicker’s face out of her bowl of oatmeal and apple porridge, for the third time that morning. Showing that there were no lengths a stallion in love would not go, he tilted her head back and poured some of his precious brew into her upturned mouth and then pinched her jaws together and waited for the convulsions to stop.

“What the heck are you doing?” Berry Punch yelled at him as she gave him a hard whack across the back of the head. “That stuff is deadly. I don’t know why I allow it in the house.”

Berry Punch took Cloudkicker’s face between her hooves and looked into the mare’s eyes in concern. “Come on, sweety, speak to me,” she pleaded with her friend.

“I can see, everything Cloudkicker said in a wondering tone. “Did you know that there are four hundred and fifteen motes of dust floating in the air?”

“Come away from the light,” Berry Punch cried, shaking Cloudkicker’s head so hard her eyeballs rattled.

Sneak Peek rolled his eyes at Berry Punch’s theatrics and took another gulp of his elixir while rubbing the back of his head. If only he’d had some of this brew the night before, he might have managed to get out of bed to investigate the sudden appearance of some sort of giant tent out at the fairgrounds. He planned to creep out there this morning and check things out.

A sudden knocking on the door, hard enough to rattle it on its hinges and cause some dust to sift down from the overhead thatch, broke him out of his day planning.

Seeing as Berry Punch was still busy with Cloud Kicker, Sneaky rose from his place with a groan and ambled down the hallway to the door. It was most likely somepony wanting to see Berry Punch, as this was her house. He’d lay his money on it being the usual meadow-rats. They were the only ponies who were inclined to bother him this early in the morning, usually with pleas for assignments and private-eye training. On the other hoof, he had been absent from town a lot for the last few days, so it was unlikely it was one of them. He ruthlessly suppressed any inclination toward regretting that fact. It was sheer heaven not having to listen to their constant babble and questions.

He tossed open the door while growling, “Whatcha want?” Seeing who was standing on the other side of the door set him back on his heels slightly. His eyes narrowed as he drawled out, “Chert. What’s the matter, run out of young colts to abuse?”

The Royal Guard earth pony filling the doorway looked like he might have been hewn directly from his namesake mineral without a single polish afterward. Sergeant Chert was a Drill Instructor for the Royal Guard, whose mere name had terrified generations of young recruits. Now aged into semi-retirement, or some would say weathered into a higher moh scale number, his joy at trotting backward beside sweating recruits had been limited to a few days a week, dropping by the academy at random times when his acute senses detected a need for extreme shouting. Those flinty blue eyes were as cold as sapphire, able to evaluate a slacker with a single glance, which might be one reason he had taken such an interest in Sneak Peek. Or it could have been the numerous times Sneaky had avoided his guards and made his way into private gatherings. Of course, it did not always go Sneaky’s way. He had lost count of the number of times Chert had personally ejected him from a home. He did remember the three times Chert hadn’t bothered to open the door first.

He gave Sneak Peek a smile, or at least exposed his teeth, causing the hairs on the back of the newspony’s mane to stand straight up and his mind to immediately try to determine just what horrible crime he had committed in the last few weeks. With a voice that sounded like a gravel landslide, he said, “That’s Sergeant Chert to you, Sneaky, or can’t you see the shiny tin hat on the top of my head? And I’d be more polite to the pony bringing you such good news if I was you. Especially when I went out of my way to make sure I got the assignment, just so I could give you the wonderful news myself.”

“Good news. Good news is good. What’s the good news,” Cloudkicker babbled as she crowded into the hallway next to Sneaky.

“Hello, beautiful!” The rasping gravel of Chert’s voice abruptly shifted into something as smooth as silk, while the older pony swept his helmet off his head and bowed to Berry Punch and Cloudkicker. “Whatever can I do for you two lovely mares on this fine day?”

Who’s your friend, Private Eye?” Berry Punch asked from her place on Sneaky’s other side, leaving him sandwiched between the two mares, one of which was vibrating like a high-class massage chair. Normally this would have been rather delightful and might have served to distract him from his plans for the day. Right now it caused him to flush slightly at having it happen in front of his longtime nemesis.

Chert didn’t even blink on hearing Sneak Peek referred to as Private Eye. “Ladies. A true pleasure to meet my old friend Sneaky’s marefriends. It is a wonder and an amazement what the love of two such fine mares can accomplish. Why the last time I saw Sneaky he was a sodden wretch who could hardly lift his head high enough to get it over the bucket in his cell. Keep it up and in another ten years the old dirtbag may just be able to join the equine race,” he said in a jovial tone that made Sneaky’s teeth hurt.

“Good news. What’s the good news?” Cloudkicker chanted. “Has he won an all-expense paid trip to the Saddle Islands?”

“Not exactly, my fair mare,” Chert said in a friendly tone as he reached under his armor and came out with a brown envelope between his teeth.

If it had not been for his two mare friends watching intently, Sneak Peek would have slammed the door in Chert’s face and headed out the backdoor as fast as he could gallop. As it was, he had no choice but to take the ominous looking -- in his eyes -- envelope from Chert and tear it open. His heart plummeted as he extracted a laminated card on a lanyard designed to be hung around his neck tied, most probably by Chert, into a neat and tidy hangpony’s noose.

“What is it?” Berry Punch asked.

Cloud Kicker let out a loud snore as she leaned up against the wall. Even Sneaky’s special brew was not enough to keep the results of spending a night thunderstorm wrangling at bay for long.

Chert looked right past Sneaky who was staring at the card in horror. “Why, my fair mare, that is nothing less than a press pass, giving my good friend here full access to the upcoming press conference, signed by none other than Princess Celestia her own self. With this, he won’t have to sneak around the perimeter, crawl under the tent, or otherwise contrive to get himself in. He’ll be able to walk right through the front gate with nary a worry in the world.”

“You utter bastard,” Sneak Peak mouthed at the grinning Chert while plastering a pleased look on his face for the sake of Berry Punch who was looking happy for him, puzzled, but happy.

Chert merely smiled back at Sneaky, who looked to be fighting the urge to try and kick Chert’s teeth down his throat, while repeating, “Yes indeed, a wonder and an amazement. Well, as joyful as this event has been, I do have one other pony to visit. So I will bid your fair ladies adieu for the moment. I hope to see you at the gathering this afternoon.”

Sneaky, who had been planning on depositing his shiny new press pass in the nearest miden once Chert was out of sight, winced as he heard Berry Punch ask, “You mean we can come as well.”

“But of course, my fair mare. The whole town is invited to the grand announcement, and I understand there is to be a party in the town afterward as well. Sneaky’s press pass merely allows him access to the Princess and the right to ask questions.”

Sneaky’s last sight of Chert as the door closed, was of the sergeant whistling a cheery tune as he all but pranced down the street. Sneaky muttered various and sundry foul oaths under his breath.

“What was that, Dear?” Berry Punch asked.

“Just saying I’d have to do something special for the sergeant, in return for him going to the trouble of bringing me such wonderful news personally,” Sneaky said, plastering a smile on his face.

***

Private Sweets was wearing a sugar encrusted apron decorated with flying candies and chocolates when he opened the back door to Bon Bon and Lyra’s back door. He snapped into a brace and saluted, sending a cloud of icing sugar into the air as his hoof slapped against his head. “Sergeant,” he snapped out while beads of sweat collected on his forehead, quickly turning into little balls of sugary sweetness as they gathered ingredients while rolling across his hide.

“I hope you enjoyed your little vacation time, maggot because your time in paradise is over!” snapped Sergeant Chert while dropping a bundle of armor onto the ground in front of Sweets with a clang. “You have exactly ten minutes to get your valuable tin suit applied to your worthless hide and have both of them standing at attention in the fairgrounds just outside of town, so move it!” Pausing only to direct a polite smile and a nod toward Lyra and Bon Bon, who were peeking out from around Sweets, he turned and trotted off.

Sweets directed a sheepish look toward his, brand new, still fresh from the package, marefriends, and said, "Remember how I told you I had one secret left that I would tell you all about as soon as I was allowed?” he asked while starting to put on his Guard armor.

Lyra’s magical aura reached out and picked up the various pieces that were still laying on the ground. “Here, let me help you,” she said. “Your boss didn’t sound like somepony you’d want to keep waiting.”

“We are so going to have a long talk later,” Bon Bon said, as she moved in to help him do up some of the straps.

Lyra held up the various pieces of equipment against Sweets’ body, and then moved them again when he pointed out she was holding his left rear shin guard against his right front shin. After a few more corrections they were down to the very last bit, his Guard-issued helmet.

“Uh, I think we have a problem,” Lyra said.

“What? Oh,” Sweets said when he realized she was referring to the fact that the helmet, designed for a Pegasus, had no allowances for a horn. A wide grin spread across his face as he reached up and pulled the novelty horn he’d been wearing for the last week off his head and dropped it in the dirt. With great satisfaction, he buckled on his helmet in its proper place.

Thanks to the help of the girls he was only five minutes slower than his best time, but he wasn’t about to mention that to them.

“You might want to stand back, girls. I have to give everything a good shake to make sure it does not chafe or come loose.” With that Sweets jumped four feet straight up, with a little help from his wings, and came down with all four hooves held tightly together, right on top of the hated horn. Just to make sure everything was right and tight, he repeated the crow hop a half-dozen times. He was breathing a bit hard when he was done, but there was a look of pure bliss on his face.

After taking a few moments to savor his victory, Sweets said, “I’ll try and get back as soon as I can girls,” and prepared to launch himself into the sky.

Bon Bon had watched the entire episode with bemusement, but as she saw Sweets getting ready to leave her eyes widened as something clearly occurred to her. She ran back into the shop while tossing in a order to, “Stay right there,” over her shoulder to Sweets. She re-emerged a moment later with a paper bag clutched between her teeth. “For the Princess, if you get a chance,” she mumbled as she tucked it inside his armor.

Giving his two marefriends a quick buss on the lips, Sweets took to the air with a light heart, and a head that felt a dozen pounds lighter despite the heavy helmet he was wearing.

***

Applejack and her friends trotted into the old fairgrounds and came to a stop at what they saw. There was a long line of fillies (and one snipe) standing there, more-or-less, patiently in front of a gigantic gaudy tent, all of them, and it, as bright and shiny as a brand new bit. While that was surprising, it wasn’t the tent, or the fillies in front of it, that they focused on.

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Twist and Curry were each one holding one of the Elements of Harmony, and in the case of the fillies at least, looking utterly terrified at the fact. Even Curry seemed to have picked up on the vibe and was holding Fluttershy’s element as if it were a fragile egg filled with angry bees.

The five mares looked at each other, and then without any other communication needed trotted up to each filly (and snipe) who was holding their respective Element of Harmony. They bowed their heads and allowed the young ponies (and one snipe) to place them around their necks, each one of which let out a huge sigh of relief at losing the burden.

Only after the necklaces were in place did Applejack speak. “Does Twilight, or Princess Luna, think we all are going to need the Elements?” she asked.

It was Apple Bloom who spoke up. She took a deep breath and spoke in a stilted manner that indicated she had learned the words by rote. “Twilight says, I don’t think the Elements of Harmony will be needed. Princess Luna suggested, and I agree, that it is appropriate that they be here as we try to balance Jake and welcome him and Curry formally to Equestria. Besides, better safe than sorry.” Apple Bloom let out a sigh of relief at getting her lines out correctly.

“We're supposed to show you where to go, now,” Scootaloo said, addressing Rainbow Dash.

“Lead the way, Squirt. We’ll be right behind you.”

It was Twist who took the lead, however, walking side by side with a bouncing Pinkie Pie as they marched into the entrance of the tent.

Behind them a squadron of Royal Guards came in for a landing, followed by an entire herd of contractors who were hauling numerous over-sized cargo carts.

Big Mac looked back at Granny Smith slumbering in her pony cart and wondered what he was supposed to do.

“Hey, Big Mac. What all are you waiting for?” Apple Bloom called from the entrance she had just disappeared into.

Applejack’s head looked out over the top of her sister. “Get a move on, big brother. You know Jake’s going to want to know where you are.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said happily and trotted after his sisters, Granny right behind in her cart, snoring up a storm.

***

“Like, really, Open Sesame,” Silver Spoon chanted as she focused all her will into projecting as much authority into her voice as possible. This was really, like, more Diamond Tiara’s field of expertise, but they had, like, already tested that and wearing Silver Spoon’s glasses had done Diamond Tiara no good at all, and had caused her to walk into a tent pole.

The two fillies peered intently at the blank section of silk fabric in front of them. “Like, I don’t understand,” Diamond Tiara hissed in frustration. “Like, how can that little freak, Twist, like, open up the doorways? There has to be, like, something about her that the tent is responding to.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to be, like, her glasses,” Silver Spoon said removing her pair and nervously polishing the lenses.

“Maybe it’s, like, that ridiculous hairdo of hers. What if we were to, like, dye and style your hair to, like, match hers?”

“Mine? Like, why not yours?” Silver Spoon protested.

“Pshaw, like, don’t be, like, silly. What if it, like, requires bad eyes, and a bad hairdo? We would have liked, ruined my perfect coiffure for, like, nothing,” Diamond Tiara retorted, patting her fluffy mane with her hoof.

“Princeth Luna thaid we’re not to go that way,” came Twist’s voice from behind the pair, causing them to jump in the air and turn in place. They blanched slightly at seeing not just Twist, and her foolish foal friends, but the Snipe and all of the Elements of Harmony, minus Twilight.

Pinkie Pie was a common sight to any Ponyville pony, as were all the rest of her companions. Diamond Tiara was used to passing them on the street without a second look unless she was showing how cool she was, in which case she would throw in a dismissive snort as she passed them by. She experienced a very different reaction at seeing them now.

They looked, almost regal, heroic even. They seemed to stand taller, and look wiser, well, except for Pinkie Pie. Diamond Tiara felt almost small under their curious gazes. Feeling unusually flustered, she gave her mane a careless flip and sniffed at Twist. “Whatever. Like, we really cared, like, if we could see it or not.”

“Yeah, as if,” Silver Spoon chimed in.

“I believe you were going to show us the way to Twilight and Princess Luna, dear,” Rarity said to Twist, barely giving the two fillies a look, though she did note in passing that Diamond Tiara’s mane was looking unusually good. Rarity made a mental note to enquire after what conditioner the young pony was currently using when she had time.

“Right thith way, Mith Rarity.” Twist trotted to the wall opposite Diamond Tiara. “Thth ith the way to the royal audienth chamber.” Twist paused in front of the wall and, very conscious of all eyes on her, stood up straight and proud and said, “Open thethame.” The silk wall shivered, and then drew back and folded into an ornate doorway.

“It’s not fair. How does she do it?” Diamond Tiara muttered under her breath. “Wait, Silver Spoon. Where are you going?”

Silver Spoon looked back from where she was just about to follow after the row of ponies who had walked through the new opening. “I don’t want to miss this,” she told Diamond Tiara. “Are you coming?”

Diamond Tiara shuffled back and forth on her hooves as pride wrestled with curiosity. Finally, just as the doorway started to shiver in preparation to closing she cried out, “Fine,” in an exasperated voice and hurried over to join Silver Spoon.

***

“No! I don’t want to!” Jake shouted, his deep rumbling bass of a voice causing the silk walls of the large room to vibrate.

“Now, Jake. This is really for the best,” Twilight said in a reasonable voice, while inside she was fighting the urge to take a few steps back. The normally placid pony was upset, and she was discovering that from this close, an angry Jake was a scary Jake. His head was tossed up and his wings mantled so that he loomed over her like a mountain made of horseflesh.

Jake backed away from Twilight, a look of betrayal on his face. “No! No. I don’t wanna. Why do I haveta?”

The sound of ponies entering the room drew his attention and he saw Curry walking beside Fluttershy. “Curry, Curry, it’s terrible. They want to make me small. You won’t let them do that to me will you, Curry?”

Curry went up on her tiptoes as Jake lowered his head so she could wrap her arms around his muzzle. “Don’t worry, Jake,” she said in a consoling voice. “I won’t let them do anything to you, you don’t want.” He felt a sense of relief. Curry would protect him.

“But, you know. Twilight and Princess Luna only want to help you fit in better. Maybe you should think about it?”

Jake tossed his head, throwing Curry up and back a dozen feet. Fluttershy caught her in mid-air and set her gently on the ground. “Not you too,” Jake rumbled, his eyes hurt from her betrayal. He stamped his hooves on the rugs as he hovered on the verge of a full-blown temper tantrum.

“Settle,” a stern male voice commanded.

Jake whipped his head around and spotted Big Mac. At last somepony who would understand. “Big Mac. Big Mac,” Jake cried out as he galloped toward the big red farm pony. Big Mac lifted his head and gave Jake a hard quelling look that set the big colt back on his heels. “Said, settle,” he repeated, his voice hard.

He then turned and walked over to where a shocked Curry was standing with Fluttershy. “Okay?” he asked.

Jake felt instant guilt as he realized he’d tossed Curry through the air. She could have been hurt.

“Huh? Hurt? Nah, I’m not that fragile,” Curry said. “Jake didn’t mean no harm. He just doesn’t know his own strength sometimes. Besides, which. We do that move all the time when we go down to the swimming hole in the summer.”

Jake nodded his head in agreement, his guilt dissipating with Curry’s words. That was right. He hadn’t done anything bad.

Big Mac gave a nod to Curry and then turned toward Princess Luna. His determined confident air dissipated like an early morning fog on a hot day. He blushed, lowered his head and shuffled his hooves. He darted a glance toward Jake, and then back toward the princess, all the while keeping his eyes downcast.

“Big Mac would like to have a private chat with Jake. If that is okay with you Princess Luna?” Applejack translated.

“I think that might be a good idea, Princess Luna,” Twilight said. “But, Big Mac needs to know what we want to do if he’s going to talk to Jake about it.”

“I concur, Twilight Sparkle.” Luna looked around the room till her gaze settled on Twist. “Twist, would you be so kind as to open up an antechamber and escort Jake there.”

Twist’s expression was a mix of confusion and trepidation.

“Princess Luna wants you to open up one of the little waiting rooms off of this one,” Twilight explained, deducing that Twist didn’t understand the term and that she was afraid of confessing that to the princess.

“Oh. Yeth, no problem. Come on Jake. I’ll show you the way.” Twist said, leading Jake over to one of the nearby walls and whispering to it. The silk pulled aside revealing a small room furnished with large plush pillows.

“I’m not going to do it,” Jake called over his shoulder as he followed Twist inside.

“Why does the tent listen to Twist?” Twilight whispered to Luna. Big Mac twitched an ear in her direction. He knew he shouldn’t eavesdrop, but this place was downright strange. Anything that might concern it made his curiosity bump itch.

“In truth, Twilight Sparkle. I have no idea,” Luna whispered back. “My sister gave Goose Down a crystal key that is attuned to the tent, and which can accomplish many of the same things, but not nearly so easily and intuitively. I have tried giving direct commands as young Twist does, and the tent pays me no mind.”

“Ahem. Begging your pardon, Princess Luna. You all were going to explain to Big Mac what all you plan on doing,” Applejack said.

“Indeed. Pardon me. It is most simple really. Young Jake, as you know, is only five years old, despite having a mature body. What we plan …

***

“Oh, dear, are you really all right, Curry?” Fluttershy fluttered, brushing her wings over Curry’s body, checking for any injuries. “I’m sure Jake didn’t mean to do it. He’s probably just a little out of sorts. I know I’d find the idea of Twilight wanting to change my body very scary. I’m sure he won’t stay mad at you for long, so don’t feel sad.”

“Mad? That ain’t mad. You should have seen him after his last vet checkup. He wouldn’t talk or look at me for a week. I tried to tell him it was his own fault for overeating and getting all bunged up. But he wouldn’t listen to a word I said. But once his stomach settled down and his appetite came back, he was as right as rain.”

“Oh, my, I know how that is. Getting all stopped up can make one of my friends very cranky. I remember once Mr. Bear ate a whole keg of sticky cheese. I had to borrow a pair of rubber leggings from Doctor Spreader to help him get going again,” Fluttershy said in a clinical tone.

Rarity, who was standing nearby, started to look more than a little uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going and hurriedly broke in. “We should take this chance to let Curry try on her new, fabulous, outfit.”

Normally Curry would have found just about anything more interesting than trying on clothes, but the idea of getting another magical outfit from Rarity caused the ears on her hood to twitch upward eagerly, while the tail sewn on the back of her bodysuit swished in excitement. Still, her normal attitude toward trying on new clothes did cause her to confirm the most important thing. “Are these as magical as this one?” she asked.

Rarity blinked at her, almost as if Curry’s question was strange, but then her expression cleared and she quickly assured Curry. “Darling. Trust me. I didn’t have nearly enough time when I threw your current ensemble together. But, I wore my hooves down to the bone working on this new one, and I think you’ll just adore it!”

Spike, who had been standing in Rarity’s shadow coughed into his claws.

“Oh, and of course, dear Spike’s contribution was invaluable. I don’t know how I would have managed without his help,” Rarity gushed. She leaned down and gave the small dragon a peck on the forehead, right on top of the lipstick smear that was already there. Spike’s eyes went wide, and he swayed slightly on his feet as Rarity turned her attention back toward Curry.

“As I was saying, I’m flattered you think that your current outfit is special, but trust me. Your new outfit is the very epitome of magical beauty, and quite stylish too if I do say so myself. There is not another outfit in Equestria even remotely like it, yet.”

Old Ben would have been amazed at the avaricious gleam that appeared in Curry’s eyes. Not at the expression, but at the fact that it had been put there at the thought of clothing, which had always been a bit of an afterthought as far as Curry was concerned. Previously only a nice piece of tack, gleaming in a leather workers shop, had put that sort of expression on her face. She had nearly fainted with delight the previous Christmas when she had gotten her very first set of chaps and had to be very firmly told ‘no’ when she wanted to wear them to the start of school.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let's try it on,” Curry said, reaching behind herself and undoing the fasteners on the back of her outfit. This caused her to bend over slightly and she found herself looking down into a pair of soft brown, curious eyes. It was the piebald colt Jake had befriended the day before, Pipsqueak.

“Are you taking off your skin, Miss Curry? Can I watch?”

Curry froze, a flush running up her neck to her face as she struggled to think up some reaction other than telling Jake’s new friend to get his perverted ass out of here. Salvation fluttered down from above.

“Hey there Curry. Someplace you got here. Whatcha up to?” Rainbow Dash asked as she floated down from the peak of the tent some sixty feet above them.

“We were just about to go somewhere a bit more private so Curry could try on her new outfit,” Rarity said. “That means no stallions allowed, I am afraid dear,” she said to Pipsqueak. “No mare wants a stallion to see her half dressed. Spoils the grand reveal. You know how it is, I’m sure. That goes for you as well I’m afraid, Spikey Wikey.”

Both Pip and Spike puffed out their chests and stood to their full, not very significant, height, trying to look as stallion like as possible.

“Yeah, what Miss Rarity said, you two,” Curry said in relief. Inwardly she danged Diamond Tiara for putting the idea that colts were boys into her mind. Unless she got carried away with the moment again, that bath the day before might just be the last time she ever felt comfortable around Jake in her altogether. All thanks to the snooty stuck up pony. It was funny, though, that Diamond Tiara hadn’t had any trouble slipping into that giant herd-sized bath with Jake and Pipsqueak. Maybe because it was more a swimming pool than a plain old bathtub? Once again, trying to figure out the standards for pony modesty made her head hurt.

“Bore-ing,” Rainbow dash declared. “I think I’ll hunt up a nice pillow to nap on. Had a hard night last night. Speaking of which, I bet you were glad that storm didn’t come this way.”

“You bet. You should have seen Twilight and the princess when they came in this morning,” Curry said with a laugh. “I’ve seen drowned rats that looked dry compared to them. It took Goose and me near on an hour to get all the mud out of their hides and dry them off.”

“Twilight and Princess Luna were out in that storm?” Rainbow Dash squeaked, her voice going up several octaves. She darted a look toward the two mares who were discussing something with Applejack and her brother, and not so subtly moved around behind Rarity for cover. “What are we waiting on? Let's go see this new outfit Rarity whipped up for you.”

***

Big McIntosh listened with his full concentration as Princess Luna outlined the situation with Jake and their proposed solution. He was already fully aware of Jake’s real age, but the revelation that Twilight and the Princess felt Jake’s body should be altered to match his mental age had been startling. He wasn’t sure he approved. Not that his reaction was obvious to any who did not know him well. One of those rare ponies, in this case, his sister, hastily interjected before he could make his views known.

“Now, Big Mac, don’t go getting your dander up. You know that Twilight and Princess Luna wouldn’t suggest something like this unless they felt there were good and proper reasons for it.

After a few moments of thought, Big Mac conceded his sister might be correct. She knew the parties better than he did, and he trusted her, even if he didn’t share her absolute certainty about the over-educated, in his opinion, mares.

“Eeyup,” he said with a nod, but the frown didn’t leave his face There was still an important factor unaccounted for in his mind. Who was responsible for Jake, and his tiny friend Curry for that matter? They were both foals. There should be somepony who was looking out for their best interest, without all this political horse-apples.

“Kinfolk,” he remarked.

“Well, I do admit that is a very good point, Big Mac. Applejack turned to Princess Luna and gave her a polite bow. “Big Mac figures that Jake, and Curry, need somepony to speak for them as kinfolks.”

“Eeyup!” Big Mac said with great emphasis.

“What? Now hold on, Big Mac. I like Jake. He’s one fine pony, and heck of a willing worker, but he’s an Alicorn prince. I don’t think the Princesses will take kindly to a bunch of clod-kicking farm ponies thinking they’re good enough to raise a pony like that.”

Big Mac adopted a stubborn expression, but before he could get into a no-holds-barred argument with his sister, they were interrupted from an unexpected source.

“I think it is a most excellent idea. I am sure my sister would concur with me. Jake is a strange colt from another world, with power he, and most ponies cannot comprehend. Who better to raise him than good honest earth ponies who will teach him the values of the Equestrian way of life? That is, as long as you will allow him to visit Canterlot. As much as I might wish it different, that will also be part of his life and he needs some contact with the culture if only to inoculate himself against it.

“Eeyup.” This time, Big Mac’s nod was enthusiastic and without reservations.

“Well, if you say so Princess,” Applejack said. She visibly became more excited with the idea as she worked it into her mental framework. “Ain’t nothing more an Apple likes than bringing new Apple’s into the family.”

“Wish you two would get to work on doing it the normal way then,” Granny Smith grumbled as she hobbled up to the discussion, drawing a blush from Applejack and an eye roll from Big Mac “That said, Jake, will make a right fine Apple. As head of the family, I say we take him in if he’ll have us.”

“Eeyup!”

“I will expedite any paperwork,” Luna said, with a predatory smile that boded ill for any who sought to throw grit in the gears on this matter.

Giving another approving nod, Big Mac opened his mouth to make his last point, and as usual, found his sister butting in.

“So, as Jake’s family I think--”

Big Mac blocked Applejack’s mouth with a massive hoof.

“Colt’s got the right to be heard. Not like shots, or a dentist visit. Be hard on him if he stays like he is, but won’t hurt him if we take care. But, he’s got the right to have his voice heard,” Big Mac gave Applejack a slightly sour expression as he said the last bit. “We’ll walk. I’ll listen. Then I’ll decide.

Twilight exchanged looks with Luna, before stepping cautiously into what had quickly become an Apple family discussion, “There could be trouble if Jake fights the spell. It might be best if we give Big Mac some time with him.” she suggested.

“True. If he should struggle against the spell, the consequences could be...” Luna trailed off. She gave Big Mac a searching look and then turned back to Twilight. Big Mac could see the question in her eyes and he too looked at Twilight to see what she would say.

“Big Mac has done wonders already with Jake. I trust him to look out for Jake’s interest.”

“Very well. We will agree to this,” Luna said regally. “There is just one final thing. Something I am afraid I must insist on,” she said.

Big Mac eyed the princess warily, waiting for her to continue, and hoping her condition would not be something too onerous.

***

Big Mac kept his face straight as Twist stumbled over her words for the third time, and took a quick look over her shoulder at him, her face slightly flushed with embarrassment. Big Mac was not a mares-stallion, but he was not totally oblivious to some of the looks that got tossed his way from time to time. Twist was not the first young filly to crush on him, and his habit was to simply ignore it, safe in the knowledge that sooner, rather than later, their attention would shift to some other pony.

Finally, Twist managed to get the door flap to Jake’s temporary abode to lift back and out of the way. Jake stopped in the midst of pacing and before Big Mac could get a word out, he yelled, “I’m not. I’m not. I won’t let them make me small!”

While Jake shouted and stomped in a royal hissy fit, complete with a stuck-out bottom lip and a petulant whine to his normally rumbly bass voice, Big Mac simply stood in place, watching while chewing a straw. Once he was satisfied that the colt had wound down, Big Mac nodded once and shifted the straw to the other side of his mouth.

"Need to walk. Follow."

With that, he turned and headed toward the main entrance to the tent. Twist galloping to get ahead of him and open the way. He had barely gone five steps before he heard the heavy tread of Jake’s stride behind him. He didn’t look back, just continued on, secure in the knowledge that Jake would be right on his heels.

***

Curry could hardly contain herself as Goose Down used a crystal to open up a small room. So, what have you got for me? She asked Rarity as she stepped into the newly revealed alcove.

The room was tailor-made, literally, for trying on clothing. Full sized mirrors ran from rug to ceiling, and a full half-dozen wooden stands sported enough hooks to hold an entire department store worth of clothing.

“This is just perfect,” Rarity exclaimed in delight as she ignored Curry for the moment and took in the room. “This is really the most remarkable construct Princess Luna has brought. If I had known all the amenities it offered, I would have re-thought my decision to avoid… I mean, not to accompany, Twilight on her camping trip.”

“This was the sultan’s dressing room,” Goose explained.

Curry was glad to see that the dragon-pony was looking happier. After they had worked together to spruce up Twilight and the princess, she had even confided in Curry a little.

Other than helping Princess Luna this morning, Goose had found herself sadly at lost ends with nothing to occupy herself. There were no cleaning implements she could find, and even if there had been, the tent itself cleaned up any disarranged furnishings or discarded trash. She had to fight down a sense of dread that Princess Luna might find the tent’s enchantment so convenient that she would cast a similar spell on her quarters back at the castle and make Goose’s job redundant.

Curry herself couldn’t understand why the small pony with the big dragon-wings didn’t just relax and enjoy all the fun things the tent provided, she had never seen a person, or pony, who seemed to be so determined to worry about every single thing in the universe. She had even promised the little grey mare that if she did find herself out of work, Curry would be happy to take her in, although any consideration as to how she might actually accomplish this had been buried by Curry’s enthusiasm at the idea of actually having her very own dragon-pony.

Curry turned her attention from Goose and back to Rarity. She took in the paper wrapped packages that Rarity was arranging on the rug-covered floor with an anticipation she hadn’t felt since she stopped believing in Santa Claus. It was all she could do to stop herself from diving right in and ripping the wrappings to shreds.

“Oh, come on, Rarity! Quit making such a big production out of this, ” Rainbow Dash mumbled around a jaw-cracking yawn. “Open them up and let's see what you made for the squirt.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Curry seconded.

“Barbarians. I am surrounded by barbarians. Do you not have any sense of drama?” Rarity said, skewering Curry and Rainbow Dash with a look of censure. Curry’s enthusiasm waned slightly as guilt threw a wet blanket onto it. She was being selfish. It wasn’t like Miss Rarity had to make her an outfit, or was getting paid for it.

“Actually, Rarity. I’d rather like to see Curry’s outfit right away too,” Fluttershy whispered, right before cringing backward slightly, and dropping her voice another few decibels as she added, “If that’s okay?”

Curry watched in admiration as the bravest pony she knew put on a masterful act of cowering before Rarity’s possible displeasure.

“Oh, very well,” Rarity said, throwing up her hooves in exasperation. She floated the parcels up in the air and over to Curry. “Rip, tear, rend. I don’t care.”

“Don’t let her bother you,” Rainbow Dash whispered into Curry’s ear. “Trust me. She can’t wait to see your reaction.”

Curry needed no further encouragement. She dug her fingers into the brown wrapping paper and shredded it, revealing the carefully folded cloth underneath. Discarding the scraps of wrapping paper Curry took hold of the surprisingly thick fabric and shook it out.

It appeared to be a russet colored body stocking. It was, Curry saw on closer examination, the color of leaves in the fall, not one solid shade but dozens, maybe hundreds, of variations of the primary color. Threaded through the fabric were threads the color of ripe wheat. It was the exact opposite of her unruly mane of hair. So realistic were the colors that Curry almost expected the fabric to crinkle like fallen leaves under her shoes. Instead, it was as soft as Rarity’s own gleaming white coat. She held it up to her cheek and rubbed against the thick folds of fabric before burying her face in it and breathing deeply. “It smells just like a forest,”

“I packed it in a box filled with sachets containing fallen leaves and wildflowers while I worked on the accessories that go with it. I made up extra packets you can put in your closet when you hang it up after a wash. This is only one of three sets that I made. So you’ll always have something to wear. I only came with this one outfit, but I’ll see that the rest of them, and the various accessories are sent along to wherever you end up staying.”

Ignoring Rainbow Dash’s blatant staring, (Curry was darned if she was going to get all shy in front of a mare. Bad enough she was doing it in front of colts) she slipped out of her old outfit and stood naked in the room while she examined her new clothing to figure out how it went on. Unlike her old costume, this one fastened up the front. She stepped into the bottom and snugged up the legs and then pulled the top half up and over her arms and torso. The waist to neck opening closed with small metal hooks that were covered by a flap of cloth. Once they were done up the seam was all but invisible, even from close up.

Stretching her body this way and that, Curry was able to tell that while the body stocking looked uniform in the mirror, there were areas that were reinforced and thicker than the rest. Her knees, elbows, bottom, all had thicker padding. Despite the extra material, those areas stretched and shifted easily with her motions, like a brand new pair of socks, before they got all loose and floppy and tended to pool around the toes inside her work boots.

Speaking of boots, unlike her old outfit, this one left her feet bare. Even as she was noticing that Rarity opened another package and floated a pair of ankle high moccasins over to her. Mostly fabric, with thin rubber soles, the moccasins fit perfectly, and as she rocked back and forth to settle her feet in them she could feel the seams in the rugs quite easily. She bounced up and down a few times, feeling light as a feather. She felt like she could run forever in these.

Looking in the mirrors, Curry grimaced. While her new clothes were comfortable, they fit snugly around her body, and compared to the ponies around her she looked like a scrawny half-drowned cat. Her legs and arms were like sticks, and her body might as well have been a log for all the curves it had. She didn’t mind the lack of any sort of fluffy teenaged shaping so much, but she would have liked to have seen a bit more muscle on her limbs.

Rarity must have seen something in her expression because she hastily started talking like a saleslady in a store, which was not a positive image as far as Curry was concerned.

“Now, I know the basic outfit is very bland, dear, but it is really only a protective layer to make up for your lack of a thick hide and a decent coat of hair for insulation. You could think of it as giving you what all ponies are naturally born with.”

That last statement eased Curry’s mind a bit. She squinted her eyes a bit and imagined herself as a russet colored mare. It was a lot easier to imagine if she didn’t actually look at herself in the mirror, unfortunately, but at least she could get with the idea that Rarity had made her a fake pony skin to wear.

“Now most ponies don’t really need to wear clothing on a regular basis. It’s merely a decorative touch, to highlight their already spectacular good looks, or to hide their flaws. You, however, need clothing as a necessity, and it would be so boring and bland if you had to look exactly the same every single day.

As Rarity was talking she opened up the second package and extracted a swatch of green fabric. She floated it toward Curry, separating it into two distinct pieces as she did so. The larger, less complicated bit she secured around Curry’s hips so that it fell to just below her knees. It was a light green skirt with a flower border around the bottom hemline. The upper section was a vest made of the same material and with the same flower highlights. both the skirt and vest were secured with yellow butterfly-shaped fasteners. They took the form of buttons on the front of the vest, and a served as a large buckle on the front of the skirt, holding it closed and snug around Curry’s waist.

About to complain that the combination was too girly, Curry was interrupted before she even started as Fluttershy exclaimed in surprise. “Isn’t that the same material and pattern you used for my Gala dress, Rarity?”

“Very good eye, Fluttershy. Indeed it is. Don’t worry. I didn’t sneak in and cut up your dress.”

“Oh, I never would have thought that.”

“Why not?” Rainbow asked with a laugh. “When Rarity gets inspired, no pony is safe.

“For your information, Rainbow Dash, I kept swatches of all the material I used to make the dresses in case some hooligan happened to damage her dress and it needed patching,” Rarity said in her best society voice, while giving her friend a quelling look, which as usual had zero effect on the pony in question.

“Well, lah-dee-dah,” Rainbow chanted, prancing through the air with her nose held high.

It was impossible not to smile at the antics of the two ponies, and Curry totally forgot her objections to the outer layer Rarity had plonked over her cool new body stocking as she let out a chortle.

Ignoring Rainbow Dash’s antics, Rarity continued as if she had not been interrupted. “I thought that it would be nice if Curry had a variety of outerwear. This one makes a fine day-to-day outfit as is the one I made using leftovers from Applejack’s gown. I used some of the material from Pinkie’s gala gown to make her a party outfit, and some from yours in the slim chance she is foalish enough to want to engage in hooliganism. Of course, I used material from my gown to make her a presentation outfit for when she meets Princess Celestia in a formal court session.”

“Oh, of course,” Rainbow said in a pompous voice. “That goes without question. Huff, huff, don’t you know.”

Despite herself, Curry was a bit intrigued, not so much at the idea of different outfits, as at the knowledge that there would be different activities to wear them too. She had really enjoyed the last party Pinkie had thrown and looked forward to another. She was especially intrigued by the idea of engaging in hooliganism, whatever that was. She did notice one filly was absent from Rarity’s list. “What about Twilight? Didn’t she have a dress?” she asked.

“Well, to tell the truth, I really could not think of any occasion where it would be suitable, except, well, maybe, a Nightmare Night costume. After all, formal wear is not really a requirement for star-gazing or other such activities.”

Giving a shrug of her shoulders to show that she accepted Rarity’s explanation, but didn’t really have an opinion on it, Curry looked at herself in the mirror. She twisted her body one way and then another, causing the dress to flare out around her legs. She bit her lower lip in thought, and then reached down and took hold of the butterfly buckle. A quick twist and a yank and the skirt pulled free easily. Curry gave a satisfied nod. No risk she’d end up tangled up and looking silly in the thing. She put it back on, and once again examined herself in the mirror. Something seemed to be missing, and she frowned trying to figure out what it might be. Her hand went to her head, and she turned to Rarity and said, “There ain’t no ears.” She turned herself around and wiggled her backside in the mirror. “No tail either.”

Rarity looked at her, nonplussed. “Well, dear. I was a bit rattled and rushed when I made your last outfit. I only added those because I had the idea they would help you blend in, make you look more natural. Not so strange, as it were.”

Rainbow Dash added her two cents. “I got to agree with Curry. I thought they were really goofy the first time I saw them, but they sort of grew on me. She looks strange without them now. I mean those little bitty things she calls ears are almost impossible to see, and whoever heard of a pony or any other critter without a tail? I sure haven’t. It just ain’t natural.”

“I think they’re cute,” Fluttershy interjected, in a very soft, apologetic tone.

“Oh, very well, I suppose I can do something. Hopefully without destroying the way the garment flows. Give me a few minutes.”

***

The fairground was surrounded by fields and trees. Under one of those trees stood two ponies taking in the bustle of activity going on in front of them. Where most ponies would see chaos, Sneak Peek saw patterns he could take advantage of. His experienced eye picked out a mobile supply cart. There would be safety vests and hard-hats inside he knew, more importantly, there was almost certainly clipboards. There was no better disguise at this point of a major setup than a hard-hat and a clipboard.

Chert might think he had neutered him, but Sneaky would teach him the error of his ways. No standing around listening to the pap dispensed at an official press-conference for him. He’d get in deep and find out the things that the official release would be trying very hard to conceal.

“Well, are we going in?” Berry Punch asked from beside him, dancing impatiently in place.

Sneaky sagged. There would be no more sneaking around for him. No more hiding under bushes or peeking over fences. He was a respectable pony now. He had two marefriends to think about. Getting himself tossed in jail for the night was no longer a mere perk and an indication of a job well done, it would reflect on them. Damn that Chert. The clever bastard had known what he was doing when he gave Sneaky that press pass right in front of the mares.

The grizzled newspony looked into Berry Punch’s bright eager eyes and heaved a big sigh. He fell into step beside his marefriends as he guided them toward the temporary command center. “Come on, Punchy let's go get me signed in,” he said in the tone of a voice a pony might use when walking up the stairs to the gallows.

“Oh. My. Stars!” Berry Punch gasped out as she stopped moving and went rigid, her head turned toward the gaudy tent that filled up the center of the fairgrounds.

Sneaky turned to look at what had drawn Berry’s attention and felt like doing a little yelling himself. Standing next to the guard assigned to the tent entrance was a black Alicorn stallion. The first impression somepony not aware of the facts might make was that they were certainly allowing tiny ponies into the Royal Guard these days. The guard looked like a colt who had just gotten his cutie mark next to the Alicorn. As did the big red stallion standing on the other side of the oversized pony. Sneaky knew the truth. The Alicorn was the monster who had single hoofed destroyed an entire apple orchard. And he was less than twenty-five yards away from Berry Punch.

“We’re going,” Sneaky growled out.

“Coming through, official press-pass here!” Berry Punch bellowed out

Sneaky made a frantic grab for Berry Punch’s tail as she took off straight at the grouping of stallions, but his teeth snapped shut inches short, making him stumble and almost go nose-first into the dirt. He got his feet under him, and without a single consideration beyond stopping his crazy marefriend getting herself kicked into a smear, took off in hot pursuit.

Berry Punch’s battle cry had drawn the attention of every pony in the clearing. A nearby guard hastily put himself in her way and held up a hoof while saying, “Halt!” Berry tried to jink around him but he moved to stay in front of her, just in time for her to slam into his legs as she ducked low.

Both Berry Punch and the guard went down in a tangle of thrashing limbs, but it was Berry Punch who got to her feet and resumed her charge, leaving behind a green-faced guard who was curled up in a ball clutching his delicate bits. The enthusiastic mare only made a few more steps before an entire group of guards descended on her and wrestled her to the ground. Sneaky came in for his own detachment, as two guards wrestled him down. Despite that, Sneaky wore a huge smile on his face as he kept his eyes on the whimpering guard a few feet away. “My marefriend did that,” he boasted with pride, even as his muzzle was pressed into the dirt.

***

Taking a walk with Jake turned out to be a far more complicated procedure than Big Mac had anticipated. On the farm, all that was involved was walking out the door and heading toward whatever field was on his list for the day. Here, there turned out to be numerous obstacles to be surmounted.

The first one they encountered was a large Royal Guard standing at the entrance to the tent. A guard, it turned out, that Jake was acquainted with. He had called out a joyful greeting to the guard, who apparently was named All Day.

It had taken several minutes for Big Mac to convince Jake that the guard was not mad at him, and was not giving him the silent treatment. He was merely on duty. In the end, he had to tell Jake that it was like plowing. A pony had to keep straight and steady while not diverging to check out every interesting thing he spotted along the way.

Even though he accepted Big Mac’s explanation, Jake directed lots of looks back over his shoulder as they walked away.

Then there was Berry Punch’s charge, followed by her coltfriend Private Eye. Big Mac had no idea what that was all about. Fortunately Jake had been more than eager to leave the area before the crazy mare and stallions started to direct their attention toward him.

Then there was the gang of construction ponies who were busy setting up various temporary structures. Jake offered to lend a hoof to a very flustered forepony who clearly didn’t know how to deal with such an offer from someone who looked like royalty, except for his gender. Clearly, he had not been briefed on what was going on. His knees kept buckling as he fought the inclination to bow to Jake and was obviously having a very hard time telling Jake to get the buck away from his job site.

Thankfully, the arrival of a gaggle of curious mares from Ponyville distracted Jake. Before Big Mac could head him off, he trotted over to say hello.

What happened next was his fault, Big Mac had to concede. If he had not been with Jake, the girls from the village would have likely been a great deal more circumspect than they were. He was a favorite ‘safe’ target for teasing and suggestive innuendo on the part of many of the mares in the village. Seeing him and Jake on such friendly terms made them bolder than they might otherwise have been. Well, most of them. There were a few mares in the group that would proposition anything with four hooves, just to stay in practice, if not with serious intent. Big Mac knew he should have broken it up, but he just wasn’t any good around non-family mares. He got all sweaty and flustered, which he knew perfectly well was the main reason they loved to tease him so much.

All it took was for one mare to rub up against Jake in an overly friendly way, and soon the entire herd of them joined in. They chatted happily back and forth, to each other more than to Jake. Jake was ecstatic at first, but it wasn’t long before he began to look nervous as the mares crowded all around him, saying things that drew huge laughs from their fellows, but left him looking uncertain and worried. It was pretty obvious from the side-lines that Jake didn’t understand a fraction of what the mares were talking about, only that they were discussing him, and that they seemed to find the topic hilarious.

It was the tears that finally did it for Big Mac. Big fat ones that slipped down Jake’s unhappy face. “Eenope!” he said firmly and forced his way through the herd surrounding Jake, not minding at all if he sent a few of the teasing mares stumbling as he did so. To his surprise, he was joined in his efforts by the guard who had been at the tent. He didn’t say anything, just interposed his not inconsiderable bulk between the mares and Jake.

It was such atypical behavior for Big Mac that most of the mares drew back and looked a bit shamefaced. Those what were inclined to push the issue quickly backed off as both he and the big black pegasus guard directed angry looks their way. Despite the unlooked-for help, he couldn’t help feeling that it was his own behavior that left them looking as shocked as if their morning meal had decided to bite them instead of the other way around.

Big Mac took advantage of the mares flustered state to gallop off, Jake in his wake. The two stallions thundered down one of the back lanes and out of sight of the fairgrounds. They kept on running till they both began to pant for breath and sweat lathered on their flanks. Big Mac was conscious that they were being followed at a discreet distance by the guard, but as he seemed to be respecting their privacy he decided to pretend he wasn’t there.

“Mares are scary,” Jake panted.

“Eeyup!” Big Mac agreed full heartedly.

The two stallions resumed their walk, moving slowly to catch their breath. Big Mac directed a calculating look toward Jake as an idea occurred to him. It wasn’t really fair; he was too young for it. But after the encounter with the mares, he had to concede that Twilight and Luna’s plan made sense.

That left him in a delicate position. Princess Luna had made herself very clear on a certain point. It was all very well and good to say that he and Applejack were going to adopt Jake into the Apple family, but families did not adopt foals, individual ponies did. Jake would be an Apple, but only if Big Mac was willing to take on the role of primary caregiver for Jake.

While Big Mac preferred to take his time making decisions, there were times on a farm where that option did not exist. This was not quite that serious a crisis, but it was also something that had been in the back of his mind ever since he had taken Jake out into the orchard that first day. It had only taken a few seconds of thought before he had nodded his head in agreement with Princess Luna’s condition.

Unless Jake rejected him in that role, as far as Big Mac was concerned, from that moment Jake was his responsibility. He had no need of official papers assigning him the job. That meant he had the option of simply telling the colt he was going to be treated by Twilight and the princess, and if it came down to it, Big Mac would do it. But, on the whole, it would be much better if it were Jake’s idea.

“So, Jake, do you know where foals come from?” he asked casually.

Jake’s expression brightened, and he cheerfully said. “Sure do.”

“You do?” Big Mac asked, startled. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as hard as he had thought.

“Sure. The vet brings them.”

On the other hoof.

End of part one.

Ch23 Welcome to Equestria, Part two [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid
Chapter 23

Welcome to Equestria
part two

***

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight Sparkle’s voice cracked like a whip, freezing the rainbow-hued pegasus in her hooves as the angry unicorn marched into the dressing room, her eyes flashing.

Curry let out a little eep at the sight and quickly placed Fluttershy between herself and the librarian. Strangely, Fluttershy simply gave a little smile at Twilight before twisting her head around and giving Curry a comforting nuzzle.

“Uh. Oh. Hi there, Twilight. How yah doin?” a flustered Rainbow babbled.

“I have a wheat stem to pick with you, Rainbow Dash. I hear you were in charge of the crew who wrangled that thunderstorm last night. After you spent all day yesterday teasing me about being in love with Princess Luna.”

“Honestly, I had nothing to do with planning that storm, Twilight. The orders came down from up top, straight from the main bureau in Cloudsdale. I didn’t even know you were out in it till I got here this morning. Honest, cross my wings and hope to never fly again.”

“Oh, but you don’t deny getting me all worked up about Princess Luna, right before I was going off on a camping trip with her. Knowing that I’d never be able to get the idea out of my head. Knowing that I’d be watching every move she made, listening to every word she said, and wondering about what she wasn’t saying. That I’d lay next to her smooth warm body, waiting for her to reach out and touch me, and wondering what I’d do if she did.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Rainbow said in a downcast tone, looking as guilty as sin. “I guess, yeah.” A moment later, she looked up with a start. “Smooth warm body?”

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Twilight squealed in joy, giving Rainbow a breath-stealing hug. “It was the most wonderful night of my life. And I owe it all to you.”

“Wait. What? Can we go back to that ‘ smooth warm body’ comment? Because--”

“Sorry. Got to go. Princess Luna invited me to check out the Harem with her. She is thinking about remodeling her bedchamber and wants my input.” Twilight bounced out of the room like a purple Pinkie Pie on a sugar bender.

“Wait. What?”

Rarity reached over and pushed Rainbow Dash’s lower jaw back into place. “My dear. I never knew you were such a wonderful matchmaker. Tell me. Do you know of any special pony who might be suitable for me?”

“Wait. What?”

“Well, do think about it, dear. I’m not going to be a fancy-free young mare forever, you know.” Come, Curry. Let us go and show off your new outfit to everypony.”

“Uh, sure,” Curry replied, walking past Rainbow Dash. She couldn’t resist giving the stunned looking pony a poke. The pegasus didn’t even blink, or move her gaze away from the door Twilight had just exited through.

Fluttershy gave Dash a worried look as she walked by, but didn’t stop. She stepped out into the audience chamber and the doorway folded shut behind her. “That was a little mean, Twilight,” she said in her soft voice as she looked over to where Luna, Twilight, and Applejack were sitting on the floor in a small circle turning a mutual pink from suppressing laughter behind their upraised hooves.

“It was no more than she deserved,” Rarity said in a severe voice.

“Come on. Admit it, Fluttershy. It was funny,” Applejack said, making no effort to keep her voice down now that the room was sealed off.

“Well. Maybe. Just a little,” Fluttershy conceded, a tiny smile tugging at her lips.

Curry’s head swiveled from one pony to the other, trying to understand what the big joke was, and what the scene in the dressing room had been all about. When no explanations looked to be forthcoming, she shrugged her shoulders and put it down to adult stuff.

“Now, dear. Let's go and show you off properly,” Rarity said, giving Curry a tug to encourage her to walk into the center of the room. Curry plastered a long-suffering look on her face but felt a glow of pleasure as her friends trotted up and complimented her new outfit.

“Oh, I like it. You did great, Rarity,” Sweetie Belle praised her sister.

“Yeah, you look pretty as a picture, Curry,” Apple Bloom chimed in.

“Hmmmph, I preferred the old one,” Scootaloo sniffed.

“Well, really, like, I don’t know where to start. The improvement is so vast it is hard to decide which to mention first,” Diamond Tiara gushed as she walked around Curry. She paused and sniffed in habitual derision. “Like, what in Equestria is that?” she asked disdainfully, pointing a hoof at Curry’s rear, where what was very definitely a ponytail projected through the back of Curry’s skirt.

“Well, duh, that’s her tail,” Scootaloo said.

“Like, she doesn’t have a tail you ignoramus,” Diamond Tiara snapped back. Just then the indicated object gave a swish and swatted the snooty pony across the nose.

“Don’t know, that sure enough looks like a for real tail to me,” Apple Bloom laughed.

“Rarity, you didn’t,” Twilight said, peering around at her friend’s backside. “I thought you said you’d never cut your tail again?”

“I only thinned it a bit, dear. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash contributed as well. We took some long strands from our manes too. You can barely notice unless you know to look. To tell the truth, I’m a bit surprised at how well it turned out.”

“We are impressed with the level of thy skill. It does look most authentic,” Luna commented. “How did thou manage to impart such a life-like motion to an artificial appendage?”

Rarity looked a bit uncertain. “I wish I could take the credit,” she said quietly to the pair of magic users. “I wove it into the material of her new body stocking, and it seemed to just take on a life of its own.”

Twilight and Luna exchanged a look, their eyes passing information without the need to speak. Twilight kept her voice just loud enough to be heard over Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara’s squabbling. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Rarity. We know nothing at all about Humans, or maybe I should say, Snipes, as that seems to be what Curry has decided to call herself. This might be perfectly ordinary for them.”

“I suppose you are right, Twilight dear. I’ve noticed the same effect with the ears I made,” Rarity said, looking over at the headband that was mostly concealed under Curry’s thick mop of hair, and the two small horse ears that peeked through her mane at the top of her head. They twitched visibly toward whichever pony was speaking. “I can’t imagine why they move that way. They’re not even connected to her real ears so it's not like they are actually helping her hear better.”

“Something to test,” Twilight commented, a touch of anticipation in her voice.

“Later,” Luna said. “For now, Twilight Sparkle, I suggest we retire and leave the foals to their bonding. You and I have decorating tips to pursue.”

Rarity gave a laugh. “Yes, do go on, Twilight. I will keep an eye on things here. Spend some time with your marefriend,” she said in a joking tone.

Twilight gave a slightly strained laugh, and said,” Yes, we wouldn’t want to let Rainbow Dash off the hook too soon, would we?”

“Indeed not,” Luna said in a slightly mischievous tone. She leaned forward and nibbled the base of Twilight’s neck, causing her to duck her head and nervously step away.

“We really should save it for when we have the ‘proper’ audience,” Twilight said nervously.

“A little rehearsal will do no harm, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna teased. “Come. I will retrieve the crystal key from Goose Down and we two may then explore the other areas of this edifice.”

Applejack stood beside Rarity, watching the two dark-hued mares as they trotted away. “Luna’s lightening up right well. I’d have never guessed she’d be the sort to join in on a joke like that.”

“What joke is that?” Pinkie Pie asked, bouncing in out of nowhere.

“Twilight and Princess Luna turned the tables on Rainbow Dash,” Applejack told her. “Twilight pretended that she and Princess Luna got romantic last night.”

Pinkie Pie looked blank for a second and then gave her head a shake. “I don’t get it,” she admitted. “I mean, if they were to pretend that they didn’t get all romantic, that would be sort of a joke. But how do you pretend to do something you really did?”

Applejack and Rarity exchanged looks. “You don’t suppose?” Applejack asked.

“Well, they do seem very fond of each other, and they compliment each other marvelously. So it does not seem beyond all reason.”

“How about we just wait till Twilight tells us her own self,” Applejack suggested. “Only reason I can think she’d not have told us is if she’s not settled in her own mind about it yet. I say we back off and let her figure it out.”

“As you say, Applejack dear. We should give her some space,” Rarity said while avoiding looking straight at Applejack.

“You ain’t fooling anyone, Rarity. I see that look in your eyes. You’re planning on throwing them together, ain’t you?”

“But, Applejack dear, it would be such a shame if they are meant to be together, and they talk themselves out of it. You know what Twilight is like. She puts up a brave front, but she is simply riddled with self-doubt when it comes to personal matters. And Princess Luna is almost as bad from what I have seen of her. They only need a little help from their friends. What harm could it do?”

***

Curry collapsed backward onto a big fluffy pillow, panting for breath. She had just finished giving her new outfit a trial run that had consisted mainly of seeing how fast and far she could bounce around the large room they had spent the night sleeping in. Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Pipsqueak had enthusiastically joined in. Curry had outdistanced the little colt, but trying to keep up with the other two foals had proven impossible in the end. She could hear then in the next room over, which had turned out to be a kitchen, trying to talk Sweetie Belle and Twist into visiting the swimming pool/giant bathtub with them.

The pillow she was laying on depressed slightly and Curry turned her head just enough to see Diamond Tiara settling carefully onto the soft surface. “Hey,” Curry greeted her. She repressed a smile as Diamond Tiara fought the superior smirk that seemed to be her natural expression and directed a patently false look of good cheer toward Curry. It was really amazing how expressive ponies were in this world, even Jake.

“So, like, I suppose your work is almost done?” the mean girl/pony said in a conspiratorial whisper.

Curry merely arched an eyebrow and said nothing.

“Oh, you don’t have to admit anything. Unlike some ponies, I, like, know what is going on.”

“Yeah, Diamond Tiara isn’t, like, fooled easy, you know,” another voice chimed in.

Curry switched eyebrows while maintaining her best poker face. She didn’t even bother to look in the direction of Silver Spoon.

“I must have read a hundred foal tales when I was, like, young. I never thought I’d be in the middle of one. LIke, a deserving young orphan colt makes a wish, and a Human, oh, excuse me, a Snipe, like, grants it.”

“Yeah, like really. We all read those, like, when we were really, really, young. We don’t read them now, or anything,” the chorus chimed in.

Curry tried to suppress her reaction, but Diamond Tiara was watching her closely and saw Curry’s eyes widen in surprise.

The pony’s expression became smug. “I knew that was what was happening,” she said in satisfaction. “But, as I said, your work must be almost done. “Jake is going to be a prince, and go to live in the palace with, like, Princess Celestia. So it must almost be time for you to fade away and leave the story.”

“Oh, like, that is so, like, sad. You must be really, bummed.”

“Who says I’m leaving,” Curry blurted, and wished instantly she could take back the words as Diamond Tiara’s face lit up.

“Pshaw, like, it’s in all the stories. The wish is granted. The poor orphan pony will live, like, happily ever after. Time for the human… Sorry. Like, I keep getting that wrong. Time for the Snipe to go on to the next deserving pony with a wish. Never to, like, play with the, like, poor orphan colt again as he moves in with his new family and doesn’t, like, need a Human… Snipe, anymore.”

“Like, sad, for real.”

“Hmph,” Curry snorted, laying back on her pillow and closing her eyes. “Joke is on you. I didn’t grant Jake’s wish. He didn’t even make a wish.”

“So you didn’t, like, set out to find him a warm welcoming home?”

Curry hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t give Diamond Tiara any leverage, but at last, she said, “Course I wanted him to have a nice place to live. If’n I’d left him where he was, he’d have been all alone, without a friend or nopony to look out for him. What of it?”

“Why nothing. Like, you did a marvelous job.”

“Yeah, really, like, great.”

“I’m just saying that, like, your job is, like, over, and it’s so sad you’re going to have to walk out of Jake’s life now. But, maybe you don’t, like, have to,” Diamond Tiara said, her expression turning even more sly. “If you were to give a wish to a deserving pony who is going to be, like, around Jake a lot, of course, you’d have to stick around till that wish was fulfilled. And maybe you could, like, grant another one after that?”

“Oh, like, that is a really a great idea. You should totally do that.”

“Why would I---”

“Shhhh, like, don’t make up your mind right away. I’m just saying think about it,” Diamond Tiara said as she got up and casually ambled away.

“Yeah, like, think. Cause it’s a really great idea,” Silver Spoon hastily said, even as she struggled to get back on her feet from the soft pillow. With a very unmarelike grunt, she managed and hurried off after Diamond Tiara.

Curry shook her head and muttered, “Crazy ponies.” Despite that, there was no denying that Diamond Tiara’s words had struck a chord. Not about the whole crazy wish thing, as if she could have given Jake his wings and horn. But her remark about Jake getting a home and family. She had wanted that for Jake, though at the time she had headed them into the mountain she had no idea how she was going to do it.

What if she had been wrong all this time? She had thought this was her story, and that Jake was her comedy relief talking animal side-kick. But Jake was the person, so to speak, here. This was a land of ponies. Curry was the strange one here. Maybe Jake was the hero of this story? But, where did that leave her? Where did it leave Jake?

***

“No! You’re kidding,” Jake protested, looking at Big Mac in disbelief. He was half smiling as if any minute he expected Big Mac to admit it was all a silly joke and they’d laugh like crazy.

“Eenope,” Big Mac said, shaking his head, his expression deadpan.

Jake stopped walking and spread his front legs, ducking his head down and looking between them for a second. There was a look of mingled hope and disgust on his face when he lifted his head back up to look at Big Mac. Part of him still clearly thinking that Big Mac would give in and admit it was a joke, while the larger part of him didn’t think he would.

“But, that’s dirty,” he protested.

“Eenope.”

“I wee from there.”

“Eeyep.”

“I’m supposed to… to a mare? That’s dirty,” he repeated.

“Eenope, it’s what grownup stallions do.”

“Have you done it?” Jake asked in horrified fascination.

It was Big Mac’s turn to look flustered. He lifted a hoof and scratched his chin thoughtfully, “Don’t have a marefriend, right now,” he prevaricated.

“You’d do that to a friend?” Jake asked incredulously. “Wouldn’t she hate you after you did?”

Big Mac couldn’t help himself. “Not if you do it right,” he said with a smile.

“So you have done it?”

Instead of answering Jake, Big Mac called out in a loud voice to the guard who was lingering someway down the laneway. “Hey, come on up here.”

Jake turned to see who Big Mac was yelling at. His eyes lit up and he trotted down the lane toward the approaching pony while calling out, “Sweets, Sweets. Big Mac is telling me whoppers. He says a stallion is supposed to...” Jake’s voice faded out in the distance as he came level with the guard, who came to a halt as Jake expounded at length. Big Mac couldn’t hear him, but knowing what the topic was, the gestures Jake was making gave a pretty good indication of what he was telling the guard, and which parts he was currently talking about. Big Mac sort of wished he was close enough to see the expression on the young guard’s face.

He started to walk slowly toward the pair, pacing himself so as to give Jake lots of time to explain.

***

Sweets was profoundly grateful for the dye that had turned his coat as black as Jake’s hide. He really hoped it was doing a good job of hiding his reaction as Jake explained in surprisingly graphic terms given his limited vocabulary, the crazy things Big Mac had been telling him. It would reflect badly on his dignity as a Royal Guard to be seen blushing like a school filly getting her first kiss.

It wasn’t that Sweets was a prude. He’d whiled away many a night on the trail with his brothers, or in the barracks, discussing mares and the things they did with them or wished they could do with them, in great and graphic detail, and that didn’t even begin to compare to the night time discussions in the barracks during basic training when they’d all been weeks without a sniff of a mare.

Jake, however, was not one of his male peers. Sweets had spent a great deal of time talking with him at Fluttershy’s home. Despite his size and voice, you only had to talk to him for a few minutes before you realized just how young he was.

As the large red stallion ambled up and joined them, Sweets gave him a censorious look, and then almost bit his tongue when Jake said, “Tell him, Sweets. Tell him you’d never do something like that to a mare.”

Sweets gritted his teeth as Big Mac gave him an amused look. At the same time his thoughts flashed to Bon Bon and Lyra, and all the things he had imagined doing with them once he could offer them full disclosure.

His hesitation, and maybe the look on his face must have given enough of his thoughts away that Jake gave him a despairing look. “Not you too,” he said in a betrayed voice.

“If’n we didn’t, there’d be no foals. No foals, no ponies. Stallion got a duty,” Big Mac said in a matter of fact way.

“No way. I won’t. I don’t want to,” Jake repeated vehemently.

“Colts don’t have to,” Big Mac said in the same tone of voice.

That made Jake’s eyes light up for a moment, but then a look of unhappiness crossed his face. “But if I’m not big, no pony will like me.”

Sweets blinked and gave Jake a closer look. The colt sort of had a point. His size did tend to overwhelm all other impressions and Sweets could certainly see it attracting some ponies to him. But it wasn’t all he had going for him. He was a good colt. Anypony who spent time with him would soon realize that. Besides, he’d still have wings and a horn no matter what size he was. He’d not lack for ponies wanting to get close to him. That wasn’t actually a good thing, now that Sweets thought of it. Jake was going to need guards, even more than the princesses because they were more than able to look after themselves when you came right down to it. That thought sent his mind down avenues that a few days ago would have been unthinkable.

“Eenope,” Big Mac said firmly. “I’ll like you. Apple Bloom and her friends like you. Applejack and her friends like you. Granny Smith might not notice, but she’ll like you if’n she does. That’s a lot of ponies.” Implied in his statement, but going right over Jake’s head, was that anypony who didn’t like Jake after he was changed wasn’t worth knowing in the first place.

“I’ll like you no matter what size you are,” Sweets put in his two bits for what they might be worth.

“Really? But I won’t be able to pull so much,” Jake said to Big Mac.

“Maybe, but you’ll grow,” Big Mac said. He gave Jake a serious look and gave him a shoulder bump. “Be a colt. Time enough to be a stallion later.”

“Do you think I should?” Jake asked in a resigned voice, all traces of his earlier temper tantrum gone.

“Eeyup!” Big Mac said firmly with not a hint of hesitation in his reply.

Jake closed his eyes and thought for a bit, he then gave a big sigh, and said, “Okay.”

Big Mac let out a huge sigh of relief, and yet, at the same time, felt his stomach clench up from tension. He hadn’t wanted to bring this up till Jake had decided on his own, now that he had, it was time to bite the bit and take it between his teeth. “One last thing then,” he said solemnly. "Applejack and I, we asked Princess Luna if we all could adopt you into the Apple Family.”

Jake’s head came up, his eyes wide. “You did? Did she say yes?”

“She did, if’n I was prepared to be your Pa. I told her I’d be honored. If you didn’t mind?”

The big colt shivered, his ears going up as a great gasp escaped from his mouth, he sucked in his breath and tried several times to speak before finally getting the words out. “Yes!,” he shouted, his voice booming off the landscape. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“I think he likes the idea,” Sweets said, folding his ears tight in an effort to preserve his hearing.

***

It took a little while to round up all the ponies who had scattered during the unplanned intermission. Eventually, all the required ponies were accounted for, except for Twilight and the princess.

Twist had opened up the door to the harem, and Rarity, with a certain ladylike reluctance to go inside, had called out to Princess Luna and Twilight that Jake was back, and willing to go through with the spell.

Princess Luna had emerged from the harem with a relaxed, almost sleepy look of contentment in her eyes, and a coat and mane that gleamed. Twilight on the other hoof, Twilight looked a little bit rumpled but shared the same look of contentment as Princess Luna.

Rainbow Dash had taken in the scene with her emotions plain on her face. She quite clearly wasn’t sure if she was being played, or if Twilight and Princess Luna had spent the last two hours playing. It was also pretty clear that she wasn’t about to ask.

All the ponies convened once again in the grand audience chamber in the middle of the vast tent. The non-essential ponies, all those who would in no way at all be involved in the magic, were instructed to line up along the walls. All the foals and Curry were in this group, along with Big Mac and Granny Smith. Surprisingly enough, so was Princess Luna.

Jake, as would be expected, was standing dead center in the room, looking nervous as he shuffled his hooves on the thick rugs. Every now and then a big fat spark of static electricity would jump from his heavy iron horseshoes.

Twilight was facing Jake head on, about ten feet away. She was wearing the Element of Magic on her head. The other Bearers were spaced equal distance around Jake.

“Now, Jake, I want you to try and think about when you were young and hadn’t yet grown up,” Twilight told the big colt.

***

Twilight was very nearly vibrating with anticipation, and worry. This would be one of the most delicate and powerful spells she had ever worked. She had suggested that it was properly Luna’s right to cast it, what with her being the elder more powerful and skilled spell caster.

Twilight’s mind darted off on a tangent for a moment as she used the princess’s bare name in her thoughts. She was still grappling with the feelings she, they, had discovered they had for each other, and it still felt a little disrespectful to not include Luna’s title, even in her own private thoughts. Of course, if you wanted to talk about disrespectful, not using Luna’s title in the privacy of her own mind was pretty insignificant compared to some of the other things she had imagined doing with the beautiful dark-hued mare.

Shaking off such inappropriate thoughts, Twilight brought her focus back on the issue at hand. Luna had insisted Twilight had the ability to do this spell, and that she was not going to hold Twilight’s hoof for her. There had been confidence in her words, and also a challenge.

The talented unicorn was not going to let the princess down.

“Nothing matters but the spell,” Twilight muttered to herself, calling up visions of the patterns of magic she needed to shape. “Don’t let your mind wander. Focus only on the necessary, let everything else fade.” She controlled her breathing, drawing it deep into her lungs in a calming rhythm, her heartbeat normalized and her emotions faded into the background until nothing filled her mind except the bright promise of the spell she held there.

“We’re ready, Princess Luna,” Twilight said in a calm, confident voice.

***

Luna took a quick glance around the room to make sure no inquisitive foal, or adult, had strayed from their assigned spot. Only then did she cast her own prepared spell. A dome popped into existence around the group of ponies in the center of the room. It shimmered with the hue of Luna’s signature magic and would block any outside distraction or magical effect that might interfere with the delicate casting Twilight was about to perform.

***

Jake looked around him nervously at all the serious ponies surrounding him and flinched slightly when the translucent purple dome popped into place around all of them. He turned his eyes toward Big Mac, who was outside the glowing thing, but still easily visible. The stallion gave him a supportive nod that calmed Jake. A little bit.

Twilight’s horn started to glow with the familiar aura of her personal magic. Slowly it built in volume and intensity, wavering slightly as it reached a size comparable to half her entire body and spit a few sparks. Twilight’s brow furrowed and sweat beaded on her face until the visible component of her magic stabilized and a matching phantom glow formed around Jake.

The light radiating from Twilight’s horn caught Jake’s eye and drew his gaze. Twilight’s eyes were glowing a perfect white without a hint of a pupil. That would normally have freaked Jake out, but he found himself observing the sight in a detached manner. He didn’t even notice when the golden collars around each of the other five mare’s necks began to glow as well. A sense of warm comfort permeated Jake’s body and caused his eyelids to droop sleepily. Remembering how Twilight had told him to think about when he had been a young colt, he called up his most favorite memory of all.

***

“I want that one, Old Ben,” a childish voice demanded.

Jake blinked his eyes and looked through the bars of the rail fence. On the other side was a small girl and an old man. Jake thrust his head between the fence rails, stretching his neck out as far as he could in an attempt to snuffle the two humans.

“See, he likes me,” Curry said as she stroked Jake’s nose.

“I don’t know Curry. He might be only pony sized now, but he’s a Percheron. He’s gonna grow up to be a big fella. Too big for you to ride. Percheron are workhorses. They were bred to pull things. Not for riding.”

“Nuh, huh. Mr. Sedgwick said they were bred to carry knights.”

“Oh, he did, did he. That as may be. But, you’re no knight. You know I told you that if you wanted a pony, you’d have to look after him. Looking after a horse that’s going to get as big as this fellow is going to be a lot of work. You won’t have time for anything else.”

“I don’t care. I like him. I want him.”

“Well, it would be nice to have a horse that could help bring in the winter wood.”

“See, you want him too. He’ll get lotsa big and be able to do lotsa work.”

“Well, if you’re sure?”

The tiny child threw her arms around Jake’s muzzle and hugged him as hard as her small arms could manage. “I want him. I don’t need a stupid little pony.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll talk to Sedgwick.”

“Yay,” Curry cheered. She pressed her forehead against Jake’s face. “You hear that, boy. You and me. We’re going to be BFF. That’s Best Friends Forever. You’re going to need to know lots of stuff. Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. You’re going to get big and strong and we’ll fight dragons and pirates and rescue princesses. You just wait and see.”

Jake gave her face a huge lick, tasting the residue of sugar on her sticky features.

“Oh, yuck. You got awful breath. “Here, eat this. It’ll make you smell better,” she held up a shiny apple she had dragged out of an overstuffed pocket. It was bruised and battered with a small bite already taken out of it, but when Jake crunched it between his teeth, it was the best thing he had ever tasted.

“Good right? You be a good boy and I’ll give you lots of apples.”

***

Eyes wide, unblinking in case she missed anything, Curry stood staring through the filmy surface of Princess Luna’s protective shield at Jake. Beside her, Diamond Tiara was looking like she was seriously regretting shoving Pipsqueak aside to gain her current spot as Curry’s fingers curled tightly in her mane, pulling hard enough to bring tears to the pony’s eyes.

In Curry’s mind was a memory of Jake that first day they had met. An oversized colt, all legs and head it seemed. He had towered over her small form back then just as much as he did now that she was all big and grown up. She flexed the fingers that were not tangled in Diamond Tiara’s mane, feeling the phantom impression of Jake’s lips in her memory as he took an apple from her hand. To her eyes, he had been the most wonderful creature under the sun, and the idea that she might possibly prefer some other, cuter, more suitable, pony to him had been unthinkable. She was proud of Jake. Proud of his size, his strength, his intelligence, but even it all those disappeared, she’d still love him just as much. He was her horse, her friend, her BFF.

This was a magical story, Curry told herself. Jake’s magical story. Everything was going to be all right, she just knew it. That didn’t stop a thread of dread from worming its way into her mind, which was why she refused to look away as Twilight’s magic, along with that of her friends, wrapped Jake in a cocoon of light so bright it made her eyes water. The bubble of light surrounding Jake was made up of shifting colors that flowed over the surface in a vaguely hypnotic way. Despite being made entirely of light, it looked as solid as a boulder. As she watched, it grew smaller, taking on an egg shape. Diamond Tiara whimpered as Curry’s fingers tightened in her mane. Curry was on the verge of screaming out to Twilight to stop, that she was going to crush Jake, and then, the magical glowing egg cracked.

A gasp from the observers echoed around the tent, and they all stepped back from the blinding light except for Princess Luna. She leaned forward in anticipation, lost in the play of magic as a ray of pure brilliance burst out of the crack. Something dark and pointed thrust forward from inside the egg, widening the hole and causing more cracks to spread.

Both squinting and shading her eyes with one hand, Curry could just barely make out Jake's horn as it withdrew for another thrust. There was no question in her mind that it was Jake’s horn despite being noticeably shorter, and stubbier than it had been. The horn may have been smaller, but the second impact showed it was just as strong as before, making even more cracks zigzag out from the impact point and crazing the entire top of the magical construct. Just when it seemed that Curry's heart was going to hammer itself to pieces, Jake smashed into the egg a third time and the air was filled with hundreds of small fragments that seemed to float independently of each other in the air before they all burst at the same time in silent explosions of sparkling light. Princess Luna's barrier darkened, shielding the audience from the worst of the blinding light. When it cleared, a shadowy shape could be seen struggling to stand. The shape, which had to be Jake, reared up with a shrill whinny, wings spread wide to bring his front hooves down on the final fragments imprisoning him. Jake pawed the air with his front legs, kicking out at what was left of the magical egg. The remaining shards fell away from him, fading into nothing just like the earlier fragments had done.

The light that had escaped through Princess Luna’s shield faded, leaving only afterimages in Curry’s eyes that slowly resolved into the figure of a black alicorn colt standing in the middle of the circle formed by Twilight and her friends. A considerably smaller figure than the one which had stood there mere minutes before.

“Jake,” Curry cried out. She broke away from all the other ponies and rushed forward as Luna dropped her shield. She reached her friend and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his mane as she hugged him as hard as she could. “You’re all right,” she mumbled into his thick hair.

***

Jake leaned into Curry, enjoying the fact that he could do so without shoving her away. He savored the feel of her arms around his neck, her warm breath in his ear. It took him back to his first days in his new home. Those days had been short. He had quickly grown far too large to be cuddled in such a manner and had to settle for being brushed and pampered in a less direct way.

“Do you feel okay, Jake?” Twilight asked. He looked up to see her standing a few feet away, her eyes slightly above the level of his own. She looked so big. They all looked so big, he thought, looking around at all the other ponies.

“Jake?” Twilight repeated.

“Huh? Oh. Yes. I’m fine.” That was not the complete truth. He didn’t feel bad, but he did feel strange. He felt light as if he might float away if he didn’t keep his feet planted firmly on the rugs.

“Wow, you’re still so big,” Pipsqueak exclaimed from below his line of sight. He looked down to find that the small pinto whose head had barely come to his knees before was now at almost chest level.

“Boy, no wonder you were so big before if this is how big you are as a colt,” Apple Bloom remarked as she looked up at him.

“Spread your wings. Did they shrink?” Scootaloo encouraged him.

Jake looked back over his shoulder as he extended his wings. They looked the same to him.

“Too bad,” Scootaloo said. “If they’d stayed as big as they were before, you’d have been just like Goose Down. You could have flown forever.”

“I think they look perfectly fine,” Fluttershy said as she came up beside Curry and gave Jake a nuzzle.

“Indeed he is. A most excellent bit of spell casting, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna complimented. Jake found himself looking up at the tall dark mare. It was an unusual sensation seeing a pony who was taller than he was, but he found he didn’t mind it.

“Looks good,” a deep voice added, and Jake quickly snapped his head around to look at Big Mac. The solidly built earth pony loomed over him. Jake took a step forward and almost tripped. He looked down and found all four of his hooves were nestled inside his former steel horseshoes, his much smaller hooves nested comfortably inside their circumference while the bent and twisted nails that once held them onto his hooves were scattered like charred matchsticks across the rug.

“We’ll have to set those aside for when you grow back into them,” the always frugal Applejack remarked, nosing one of the heavy shoes and arching an eyebrow at the weight.

Jake didn’t really care. As soon as he got his feet clear of his former shoes, he stepped forward and nestled his head up against Big Mac’s shoulder. In return, the big red pony lay his head across Jake’s neck in a pony hug.

“You don’t mind me being smaller,” asked Jake said in a very small voice, swallowing once before adding, “Pa.”

“Eenope,” Big Mac said, giving Jake an affectionate, and gentle, shoulder bump. “Son.”

“Bawwww,” Pinkie Pie sobbed, gushing tears. “I’m so happy.” An instant later the tears stopped and her eyes gleamed with excitement. “Do you know what this means?” she asked.

"Why, yes," pronounced Luna with a regal wave. "It is time for a party of truly monumental size and scope to introduce Jake and Curry to our Equestria. No normal party will do; it must be larger and more impressive than any other party ever thrown in the history of parties, something that shall be immortalized in the ages as--" Luna paused, watching Pinkie out of the corner of her eye "--awesome."

Pinkie remained frozen in place as everypony who knew her dove behind the firmest pillows they could find while wishing for some good solid rocks or trees. A high-pitched noise began to echo around the area, starting quiet and building as the pink party pony began to vibrate up and down, finally rocketing straight up in the air with a cry of "Yipieee!"

Displaying a rather disturbing level of self-awareness, the tent fabric above Pinkie Pie folded hastily back out of the way to give her a clear avenue.

Twilight Sparkle stepped up to Princess Luna, looking up into the bright blue sky that had been revealed when the tent folded open. She cooed appreciatively as fireworks began to explode above them. "Good altitude, Princess.”

"Thank you, Twilight," said Luna, looking up at where a pink parachute was slowly descending toward them, spewing confetti and streamers as it floated down. "Your advice seems to be very effective."

"Then I think you should take a few deep breaths now, Princess, because when Pinkie lands, she's going to hug the stuffing out of you."

***

“Here you go, Big Mac,” Twist stammered as she opened up a flap in the back of the royal tent.

“Thankee,” Big Mac said, feeling a bit guilty over taking advantage of the young filly’s crush this way, but the alternative had been to stand up on a platform beside a princess, in front of the entire population of Ponyville. Eenope, not happening. As partial recompense, he gave Twist a pat on the top of the head that nearly reduced her to a happy puddle of jelly. He looked back over his shoulder at where Jake was standing. “Softly now. Don’t want no pony hearing.”

The large and small escapees had barely stepped out into the sunlight when they found themselves confronted by a large and medium-sized obstacle.

“Going somewhere, big brother, nephew?” Applejack asked, trying very hard to suppress a knowing smirk.

“I think they took a wrong turn, Miss Applejack,” Sweets suggested, making no effort to hide his own smirk. “Why don’t we show them the way to the presentation stage.”

***

Princess Luna walked to the front of the hastily constructed stage and looked out over what seemed to be the entire population of Ponyville. With a feeling of satisfaction at not having to hold back, she used her Canterlot Royal Voice and announced.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts of Ponyville. It gives me immense satisfaction and pleasure to introduce Equestria’s newest prince, Prince Jake Apple, and his companion, the Snipe, Curry Comb. Please welcome them to our land.”

A thunderous roar filled the air as all the ponies present cheered. At the same time the ground shook from the impact of a thousand and more hooves stamping the ground.

The curtain behind Luna thrashed, as both Jake with Big Mac were unceremoniously shoved and onto the stage. Hidden in the shadows behind them Sweets and Applejack bumped hooves.

Both Jake and Big Mac looked around in wide-eyed panic as if searching for an exit route. Jake, taking advantage of his new, smaller, size, slid in behind Big Mac, only enough of his face visible to keep an eye on the crowd. It was easy to tell when he spotted a familiar face, his ears pricked up and his eyes lost some of their wild expression.

“Look, there’s Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo and Twist, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Even Bon Bon and Lyra. Everypony is here,” Jake exclaimed. He eased out from behind Big Mac, his wings, which had been pressed tight against his flanks, relaxed and spread slightly as he gave his friends a wave. The crowd in front of him roared even louder, but seeing his friends at the front shouting along let Jake know that all these ponies were happy to see him. His head came up, his horn highlighted against Big Mac’s red hide as his new father stood behind him. He pranced in place, shouting out to the crowd in response to their cheers. “Hi. Howdy. I’m Jake. Do you all want to be my friends?”

***

If anyone had ever told Curry that she’d be afraid of a herd of ponies, no matter how large, she would have, depending on age and gender, either laughed in their face or given them a punch in the nose. Despite that, this was the very situation she found herself in. The unending tide of sound coming from outside was causing the fabric ears attached to her hairband to lay flat against her skull, which was only one indicator of her mood in general.

Her experience being mobbed in Ponyville the day before had left her with certain insecurities. After all, she was the only one of her kind in this world. There were no full-grown humans around to chivy overly inquisitive ponies away, or to rescue her from her own foolishness.

On top of that, thanks to Diamond Tiara’s words, she was starting to wonder if she really belonged here. This was Jake’s place. He had a Pa now, and a family as well. What did she have? Who did she have?

“You don’t have to. If you don’t want to, that is. Of course, you can if you want to,” Fluttershy said in her usual soft hesitant voice from behind Curry.

Curry flushed a little bit at behaving like such a coward in front of a pony as brave as Fluttershy. It wasn’t like she was expected to get right down in the middle of all those yelling and stamping ponies. “I’m fine. Didn’t want to upstage Jake is all,” she said with a weak laugh while rubbing the back of her head.

“Oh. Well. Okay. When you are ready.”

“Yeah. I’ll just give them a bit of time.” Curry hesitated, and then mumbled, “Would you like to come out with me?”

“Me? Oh. I don’t know,” Fluttershy stammered, her gaze flickering from the exit to the reviewing stand to Curry.

Curry’s spirits plummeted as her whole body seemed to sag slightly. A moment later Fluttershy crowded into her space, her wing wrapping Curry in a hug as she whispered into the little girl’s ear,” I’d love to go out with you.”

***

“Here she is at last, the final one of our new citizens. Please give a big hoof for Curry Comb!”

Princess Luna boomed out, glancing over at Twilight to get a big hoof up for managing to avoid archaic terminology.

***

Luna carefully withdrew from the reviewing stand, leaving center stage to Jake and Curry, along with their guardians. Sweets was waiting for her inside the entrance. “This way, Princess,” he said, bowing her down the hallway. He fell in behind her as she trotted in the indicated direction.

Luna came to a sudden stop, her nose wrinkling as she sniffed loudly. She turned in place and directed a hungry look towards Sweets. The guard pony in question was positive that if he did not act quickly, word would somehow get back to his new marefriends about how Princess Luna had been shoving her nose in all sort of inappropriate areas of his body. With almost magical haste, Sweets dug the crumbled bag of candy out from his armor and held it loosely in his mouth, just a little afraid of what was going to happen next.

“I almost forgot. Bon Bon sent these for you to sample. She’d---”

He got no further as Luna greedily snatched the bag out of his mouth with her magic. A carefully wrapped candy floated out of the bag. Luna barely took the time to unwrap the delicacy before she popped it into her mouth. Her eyes closed in sheer bliss and she stood there shivering in delight for a moment. She swallowed and opened her eyes. "M-must save s-some for T-twilight," she stammered under her breath, lifting her head and firming her expression into a face of pure concentration. The bag floated slowly back over to Sweets while the Princess looked away, the smallest tremble twitching on her flanks.

“I charge you to protect these with thy life,” she said, her voice containing not one iota of humor. “Whilst breath remains in your body, let no pony rip you asunder from your charge.”

Sweets did the only thing he could do. “As you command, Princess, so will it be,” he said while tucking the innocuous bag back into place under his armor, feeling much as if he were concealing a caffeinated bomb against his fragile skin.

Once Luna had regained her composure, she took a deep breath and trotted through a doorway that had been kept open by the simple expedient of stationing two royal guards inside it. They shifted to the side, pressing against the fabric to leave enough room for Luna to pass between them.

“Greetings, members of the press,” Luna said as she took a position behind a podium set up on one side of the room and looked out at the ponies gathered in front of her.

Sneak Peek looked over at Featherweight, a scrawny young pegasus school colt with an outsized camera held in place around his neck with a bracket. He also had a press pass identical to the one around Sneaky’s neck hanging just under his camera. The, no longer so grizzled, press pony then looked back up at Luna. With the exception of Sweets who was standing off to the side, they were the only ponies in the room.

“You’re joking?”

“Not at all. Next question.” Luna said, a mischievous glint in her eye, though she maintained a perfect poker face otherwise.

“Ok, then is---”

“I believe it is the other member of the press’s turn,” Luna said in a quelling tone. She turned her attention to Featherweight. “That’s you, dear.”

“Uh, me. I usually only take pictures,” the young colt said nervously. He illustrated his point by raising his camera and snapping a shot of Luna, who went from staid public figure to flirtatious mare in a fraction of a second, and then back again.

“I’ll take all the copies of that, please. You can send them to me care of Twilight at the library,” she said to Featherweight. “As to the other, you must have questions. I have noticed that the one things all foals never lack for are questions.”

“Hmmm. Well. I did hear the girls at school wondering who does your grooming.”

“What? Now come on,’ Sneaky protested. “She trots out a brand new prince, and that’s all you can think to ask her about?”

“Don’t make me give you a time out,” Luna said sternly to Sneaky. “He can ask whatever question he wants. The answer to that one is that up till recently I have relied on my Hoofmaiden to aid me in my toilet, more recently I have taken young Goose Down into my service.”

Featherweight nodded and then started looking for something to write this down on, and something to write it down with. Sneak Peek gave a sigh and handed over a spare pencil and notebook.

“My turn now?” Sneak Peek asked sarcastically.

“It was,” Luna said with a smirk. “What is your next question, Featherweight?”

“till recently I have…” Featherweight muttered to himself as he wrote laboriously in his notebook.

“Oh, give me that,” Sneaky said, snatching the notebook back and quickly scribbling down Luna’s words with well-practiced ease. “You ask the questions. I’ll do the writing.”

“Oh. Well,” Featherweight hesitated, his eyes averted from Luna. Then, obviously working up his nerve, he asked Sneaky, “Couldn’t I just take the pictures and you ask the questions?” It was suddenly clear that the main reason the colt had been taking so long, and so much care, in writing down Luna’s words was to avoid having to think up questions that were worthy of the situation.

Sneaky shifted his head to meet Luna’s eyes, and a bit of mutual understanding flowed between them. “That would be perfectly fine,” Luna assured Featherweight. She then looked expectantly at Sneak Peek as Featherweight fluttered up into the air and began to take pictures of everything in sight.

Wishing he had his missing hat so he could adjust it theatrically, Sneaky squared his shoulders and asked. “Did you meet Jake’s father before you were sent to the moon? Or while you were there?”

Luna took a moment to ponder the question, and then said, “No.”

Featherweight lowered his camera and directed a look toward Sneaky that clearly stated he could have written that answer down perfectly fine on his own.

Meanwhile, Sneaky was fuming inside at giving the princess such an easy pitch. He’d gone soft here in Ponyville. If he’s asked something like that of any mare in town he would have gotten a good half-hour response without the need to ask another question, he’d forgotten the primary rule when questioning a politician. Never allow them an opening to weasel out of giving a straight answer.

“Is Jake your son?” he asked flatly.

“No,” Luna said in a voice that gave nothing away, but her eyes lost a little of their fey quality and Sneaky flattered himself to think that despite another one word answer she was starting to regard him a little more seriously.

“Do you know his father?”

“No.”

“His mother?”

“No.”

“Do you know where he came from?

Luna’s eyes lit up, and Sneaky abruptly started to wish that she would take him a little less seriously and suppressed a sudden urge to turn and run.

“That is a very interesting question. Recently I have been wondering if you might possibly be able to answer it better than I can. Tell me about Moondancer, Mr. Sneak Peek.”

His ears went back in surprise and it took Sneaky a moment to realign his thought processes. Once he had, his first response was not an answer to Luna’s request, but a flat statement. “You heard what I said last night. That’s the only reason you’d be asking me to tell you about Moondancer. But, I’ll tell you right now, there is no way that it’s possible that the brat is a human.”

“And yet, events and circumstances have led me to ask you, who would appear to be an expert on the topic, for this information. Enlighten me.”

A refusal was on Sneaky’s lips, but he paused, and not just because Luna could burn him down to his horseshoes if he annoyed her badly enough. All he had learned back in his misspent youth when he had been a diligent head-in-the-clouds journalism major at the university told him that what Luna was suggesting was flat-out impossible. But what if it wasn’t? That would be a story that would rock the very foundation of Equestria. And all under his byline.

“How long do we have?” he asked Princess Luna.

“As long as it takes. This is important.”

“In that case,” Sneaky turned to Featherweight. “You don’t want to miss the party, brat. You’ve got all the pictures you’re going to need of Princess Luna. Why don’t you go get some pictures of the guests of honor, and enjoy yourself at the same time?”

“Go along,” Luna gave permission when the young colt looked at her.

Featherweight wasted no time obeying that order. The worried expression on his face shifted to gleeful anticipation as he flew out of the room.

Once Featherweight was gone, Sneaky settled himself down on the rug without asking permission. “The story starts with an abandoned townhouse right after you and your sister had your... quarrel. The initial and long-held belief was that the inhabitants were members of your coalition and that they perished during the conflict. Or went into hiding.”

“You do not need to spare my feelings,” Luna said, her expression bleak. “They were counted among the many ponies I extinguished when I drew on the life-force of my followers in my desperate bid to defeat my sister.”

Sneaky felt an uncharacteristic sensation of sympathy for Luna. Princess Celestia had made it clear that her sister had not been responsible for the actions of Nightmare Moon, but despite that, he could tell from her expression that Luna felt differently, “In this case, I believe that the ponies in question had no connection to either you or your sister save that of blood. The head of the household was a very distant great, great, aunt of Prince Blueblood. In fact, I believe her family was the primary line of inheritance for the title. Prince Blueblood is descended from a cadet branch of the main family, which died out many generations ago.

“I don’t know how long the house was vacant, but eventually it was searched. One of the ponies involved found a series of highly detailed journals that somehow they ended up at a publishing house, where an unknown ghostwriter used them as the basis for the very first human story.”

“You mentioned finding the original journals in the royal archives?”

Taken back to his days as a student due to the subject material. Sneaky’s hard-earned gritty newspony persona sloughed away as he unconsciously dropped into earnest student mode. “That’s right. I chose to research the origin of human stories as my journalism thesis while I was at university. I wanted to trace the stories back to their original roots and show how time and frequent retellings had altered the original source material. The point I was trying to make was about how long-lasting news cycles could warp the original narrative structure. I thought the research would end with verbal folklore. To be honest, I never really expected to find a single originating source. I was shocked to find that every single human story could be traced back to Moondancer’s journals. There was not a single mention of humans prior to the discovery of those documents.

“The strange thing is, Moondancer’s journals were not fiction, they were an anthropological treatise on the human race.”

“Which does not exist according to you,” Luna interjected.

“I never said they didn’t exist,” Sneaky retorted. “They just didn’t, and can’t, exist in our reality. They are magical nulls. The world they live in has so little magic that it might as well not exist at all. They lack the capacity or ability to channel or cope with magic. If a human were to actually come to Equestria, they would have no defense at all against the natural background magic. They would not be able to resist being altered. It would either kill them or change them into something other than human. Something more suitable for this world. The one thing that would not happen is that they would remain as they were.”

Luna's eyes widened fractionally. “They would be altered by the natural magic field of Equestria?” she asked, her tone a hair tenser than it had been.

Sneaky was a student of pony nature. He didn’t miss Luna’s reactions. He gave no sign that he had, however. He merely filed the information away to be used at some other time as he answered her question. “If they came here, yes. But that’s impossible. It simply could not happen. The path from here to there, and back again, is magical. Without magic, they could no more cross the magical bridge between our worlds than an earth pony could stroll around on a cloud.”

Luna seemed relieved at Sneaky’s answer and continued to question him. “But Moondancer knew about Humans? Did she study them? If so clearly she could go to their world, or at least see it.”

“She and her assistants had magic, both their own and the natural magic of our world. With it, they could walk the path to the human world and return on multiple occasions. They called it ‘The Moon Path' but I couldn't make ears or tails out of how they opened it. Maybe somewhere there is a record of how it was constructed, but the only thing the journals I found were concerned with was the humans and their world. The last entry in those journals was written just two days before Nightmare Moon was sealed in the moon.”

The princess made a slight hissing sound between her teeth as she sucked in her breath. Her eyes were sorrowful as she said, “She was trapped on the other side.”

“If the story is true, it seems the most likely answer,” Sneaky nodded in agreement.

“You think it is, do you not?”

“I do. My thesis advisor did not. He felt the whole thing was a work of fiction, written up by a rich unicorn with too much time on her hooves and too little ability in constructing a decent narrative.” There was a decided bitterness in Sneaky’s tone as he said this.

“Would she, and her guards, have survived on the other side?”

“I don’t know. She did say in her last volume that she was working on a transfiguration spell that would allow her to interact freely with the humans she had been studying. Maybe if she performed the spell she would have been able to live out her life there. It’s sort of sad if you think about it. If she survived whatever closed the moon path, she likely spent the rest of her life waiting for it to open again so she could come home.”

“Maybe she did,” Luna mused softly to herself. “In a way.” She looked at Sneaky intently. “Tell me about this Transfiguration spell.”

***

“Paaarrrtttyyy,” Pinkie Pie caroled as she swung over Ponyville’s Mane Street on a streamer of pennants. A half dozen foals shared her improvised swing, all of them squealing in delight.

Underneath the daring ponies on the flying streamer, the street was a seething mass of partying ponies. Bursts of confetti erupted randomly, shooting high in the air, often lofted up even higher by unicorns. Overhead, pegasus ponies swooped and dove, each one trying to outdo their fellows while dragging long multicolored ribbons behind them that curled and twisted into various interesting shapes. Some of the more talented pegasi could actually work together to form crude images of various ponies and landmarks.

Other pegasi were not so keen on the idea.

“Oh, come on, Fluttershy. Let's show these ponies some real flying,” Rainbow Dash coaxed her shy friend, tugging on her forelegs in an effort to get her up into the air.

“I’d really like to. Only… I need to find Curry. She must be so frightened, all these strange ponies crowding her,” Fluttershy said as she tried to hide inside her own wings and hair.

“You don’t have to be worried about Curry. She’s likely helping Applejack sell pies or is with Big Mac and Jake. She’ll be fine. Come and fly with me. It will be fun.”

“Well. Okay. Maybe just for a little bit.”

***

On the ground, ponies caroused as they ate and drank with abandon. Every single food cart in Ponyville was doing a booming business despite the fact that there was plenty of free candy and refreshments to go around.

“There, that’s the last piece of apple pie we had. Can I go join the party now?” Apple Bloom demanded of Applejack.

“Sure can, sugarcube. Take Diamond Tiara with you as well,’ Applejack replied. She nodded toward the filly in question, who was wearing a foam apple pie on her head while leaning up against the food cart, her eyes glazed with either exhaustion or her version of sophisticated despair.

“Aw, do I have to?” Apple Bloom asked. “She looks too tired to walk.”

“What? We’re done? I can go?” Diamond Tiara cried out, life coming back into her eyes as she snatched off her novelty headgear and tossed it into the food cart. “Do you, like, know where poor, sweet Curry Comb is?” she asked, looking around as if the girl in question would suddenly pop out of thin air.

“She’s likely with Fluttershy?” Applejack remarked. “Either that or with Big Mac and Jake. They were giving cart rides to the foals last I heard.”

“Prince Jake is pulling a hay-cart?” Diamond Tiara asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, and having a fine old time of it. Big Mac found one just his size. That’s a whole lot easier now than it was before,” Applejack said with a laugh.

***

Jake was hot and sweaty, and his legs were trembling slightly from the strain of pulling a cartload of hay and foals for the last hour. It was wonderful. His only regret was that it had come to an end. Two earth pony stallions had taken over cart duty, leaving Big Mac and him free to wander around the street party. His disgruntlement only lasted to the first cotton candy concession, at which point he was prepared to admit that there might be fun things to do at a fair that did not involve pulling a large heavy cart.

While tasting his first candy apple, and trying to get the sweet coating out from between his teeth, Jake and Big Mac were hailed by Twilight Sparkle. The unicorn was at a ring-toss booth, watching as Princess Luna endeavored to win a cheap prize by tossing a small ring over the top of a wide-necked bottle.

“Are you two enjoying the party?” Twilight shouted to make herself heard over the background noise of the crowd.

“Yes,” Jake answered enthusiastically around a mouthful of candy apple.

Big Mac just nodded.

“So have you seen Curry?” Twilight asked.

Before either of the males could answer, Princess Luna let out several loud Huzzas and did a little victory dance. “In thy face,” she told the booth attendants with the red and white striped manes as one of them handed over a small Twilight Sparkle doll wearing the Element of Magic.

Behind the counter, the two booth attendants puzzled over the ring around the bottleneck. A few surreptitious tugs failed to free the ring, which was no real surprise to the booth owners, as the ring was at least one size too small to fit over the neck of the bottle under normal circumstances. After one last futile tug, they stuck the bottle under the shelf and produced somewhat larger rings for the next set of eager customers, just in case.

“Only took her forty bits,” Twilight said softly to Big Mac, an affectionate smile on her face.

“One can not put a value on victory,” Luna said in a haughty tone while hugging her prize to her chest protectively and darting glares at all the ponies around them as if they were all on the verge of snatching her prize away.

“You could have bought a dozen of them for what you spent to get just one,” Twilight argued, unable to let the incongruity go.

Luna gave a sigh. “Thou needs to loosen up, Twilight Sparkle.” Luna called out, “Candy me!” Sweets stepped out of the crowd, a brown paper bag in his mouth. Before Twilight could react, the princess extracted a single candy from the bag, unwrapped it with a theatrical flourish, and promptly popped it into Twilight’s mouth just as she opened it to ask a question, likely about the candy.

Twilight instinctively crunched down. A second later her eyes went wide and then rolled slightly up in her head as her body began to shiver. Pulses of magic began to ripple around the unicorn.

Big Mac and Jake backed up hastily, as did Sweets. The townsponies, who had been living with Twilight for over a year, quickly cleared an area around her.

Now standing alone with Twilight in the middle of an ever-growing clearing, Luna nervously said, “Perhaps I should have started her with only half a portion?”

“Maybe you should have, vixen,” Twilight growled, her eyes solid white as she stared hungrily at Princess Luna. Slowly Twilight began to stalk toward the princess, moving more like a feral cat than a bookish, slightly out of shape, unicorn.

“Perhaps a good run in the fresh air would do us both some good,” Luna stammered, before turning tail and fleeing with Twilight hot on her hooves.

Just before she vanished into the crowd, Twilight looked back over her shoulder, her eyes back to their normal color. “I’ll see you fellows later,” she said brightly to Jake and Big Mac. Then, her eyes once again turning bright with internal magic, she turned and pursued a giggling Luna, the wise ponies of Ponyville parting before them like the sea parting before some legendary wizard of yore.

Sweets galloped after the two mares, thinking that maybe pulling guard duty on a pony who hadn’t actually hit puberty might not be such a bad assignment.

In the chaos, Twilight’s question about Curry slipped everypony’s mind.

***

Angel Bunny rolled over in his basket and pulled his ears tight against his head to block out the annoying ‘scritch, scratch,’ of pencil on paper. Bad enough that ugly interloper had pushed her way into his happy home; now she seemed determined to interrupt his precious sleep time. Even more annoying than the sound of writing was the occasional sniff and the sound of cloth wiping across a running nose. It was totally aggravating. He couldn’t wait till Fluttershy sent this one on her way.

The antagonistic Leporidae heaved a sigh of relief when the annoying sounds coming from the kitchen table ceased, only to growl in aggravation at the sound of steps approaching his bed. If she dared try to pet him, he’d bite her fingers off.

“Look. You don’t like me. I ain’t any too fond of your fluffy butt either,” the thing said in a thick voice. “But you like Miss Fluttershy. I don’t think you want to see her sad. So I want you to give this to her tomorrow. I don’t want her to worry about me.”

Angel felt something being slipped into his bed. He ignored it, just as he refused to play into the female’s drama. That was his act and he wasn’t going to fall for some other creatures poor attempt. Only after he heard the front door open and close, and the faint sound of steps on the outside path, did he give in to curiosity and sit up in bed. He looked down at the folded piece of paper tucked into his bedding. What was with her and her notes? He was half inclined to bury it in the compost pile.

Curiosity got the better of the belligerent bunny, and he opened the folded piece of paper. The scrawls inside meant nothing to him, other than the fact they were much messier than Fluttershy’s neat penponyship. The damp blotches that festooned the paper were another matter. He lay one paw on one such wet spot even as the salty scent of tears filled his nose.

Angel Bunny was a selfish self-centered creature, but try as he would, he was often unable to conceal that underneath his antagonistic attitude he did have a heart. That organ lurched painfully in his chest, as he had a sudden vision of Fluttershy’s tears joining those that already decorated the page he was holding.

***

“I thought Curry was with you,” Fluttershy said in a guilt-laced voice.

“And I thought she was with you all, or with Big Mac,” Applejack said soothingly, while clearly trying to hold down her own worry.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy!” Twilight Sparkle cried out, surprisingly from above them. The entire group of ponies looked upward to see her floating in the air, held aloft by Princess Luna’s forelegs wrapped around her body. Both ponies looked thoroughly mussed, with Princess Luna’s normally exquisite mane filled with old leaves and twigs. Twilight didn’t look much neater, but her friends were used to her looking a bit frayed around the edges.

The royal taxi service lowered the unicorn to the ground in front of her friends and Twilight used her magic to lift a small white form off her back and over to Fluttershy.

“It’s Angel Bunny. Princess Luna and I were, er, moon-gazing, and we spotted him trying to get through the crowds of ponies. I don’t think he’s hurt, just exhausted.”

Her beloved pet lay limply in Fluttershy’s hooves, panting heavily. Laboriously he reached upward and extracted a folded piece of paper from where he had been holding it in place with his long ears. He held it out to Fluttershy, giving every impression of being on his last gasp.

“Ham,” muttered Rainbow Dash even as she circled around her friend so she could read the note over Fluttershy’s shoulder.

***

Dear Fluttershy

Thank you for looking after me. I’m writing this letter so you dont worry.

Jake has a home now. So it is time for me to go home I reckon.

Say hey to all the other ponies and thank you for me.

I want to tell
I really
you been

I never knew my mom.

I used to try and think what she’d be like if she was still alive around.

Id see a mom on tv or in the store and think what if she were my mom? Never felt right

Don’t have to wonder no more I know what my mom would be like Shed be like you

I wish I were a pony.

But I aint So best I go home. Maybe ifn Im lucky I will meet a mom like you.

Dont blame angel.

I told him to not give you this till tomorrow.

If he didnt give it to you, and you found it in the trash then you can go ahead and blame him.

Your friend

Curry Comb

Moonlight Dancing On Water. my real name. Don’t tell nopony.

ps
You can tell if you want. Maybe theyll get a right good laugh about it.

Ch24 Home Is Where The Heart Is [edited]

View Online

Jake and the Kid ch24
Home is Where the Heart Is.

***

The streets of Ponyville were clogged with the entire population of the village and the surrounding farms and businesses, all getting down and partying their hooves off. All but one small section of the street where seven mares stood in a small eddy of stillness. The party flowed around them. The ponies who were giving the mares a wide berth gave no sign of awareness that they were doing so. They simply stepped aside a clearly defined area as if some obstacle were in their way. It was all the more remarkable in that one of the mares standing in the clearing in question was Princess Luna, Ruler of the Night, Diarch of Equestria. She was not a pony to get lost in the crowd. Clearly, something was diverting the attention of the party ponies. The softly glowing horns of Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna supplied a hint as to what that might be.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Fluttershy murmured in a soft regretful voice. While her words and outward reaction indicated mild regret, to those who knew the gentle pegasus the best it was clear her sorrow was anything but mild. The dull shade of her eyes, normally bright even in the midst of a shyness attack was only the most obvious sign.

Rainbow Dash’s heart could have been ripped out of her chest and it still wouldn't have hurt as much as seeing her oldest friend locking down her emotional pain. It was an all too familiar sight to the pony who had grown up with Fluttershy in Cloudsdale where the shy pony had often hidden her sadness behind a facade of resigned acceptance of situations she could do nothing about. It was the first time Dash had seen this shuttering of emotions since Fluttershy had fallen, literally, out of her home, and into the Ponyville countryside.

More than anything the multi-hued pony wished she could stomp the cause of Fluttershy’s pain into the dirt. Unfortunately, the letter Fluttershy had just read and which was the cause of her distress, left little doubt that the writer was suffering from sorrow every bit as strong as the shy pegasus.

“Argggg! This is so stupid!” Rainbow yelled. “So what if Curry isn’t a pony. She was happy. Anypony with eyes could see that. Why did she have to spoil things?”

“Maybe she didn’t think she had a choice?’ Applejack asked, directing her question toward Twilight. “We all don’t know how she and Jake got here in the first place. Maybe she figured it out, and knew she had to go back?”

“It is possible she might think that,” Twilight conceded. “What do you think, Princess Luna? Princess Luna? Where did she go?” Twilight called out as she whirled in place, looking for the mare who had been standing right next to her just a second before.

“I shall see that no harm comes to young Moonlight,” A voice called from above. The six mares looked up to see Princess Luna hovering in the night sky just above them. The princess directed her gaze toward Fluttershy, “Thou must decide what it is you wish.” With that bit of obtuse advice, she soared into the night sky and vanished into the stars.

Tearing her eyes away from where Luna had vanished Rainbow Dash looked over at Fluttershy. She was the first of the friends to see the veil of pain lift from Fluttershy’s eyes, to be replaced by first a gleam of hope, then with terror, followed by iron determination.

“We have to go to the Everfree forest, now!” Fluttershy called out to her friends in what for her was a yell. The sound only barely traveling beyond their group. “Curry is there all by herself.”

“I do beg your pardon, Fluttershy. How can you possibly know that?” Rarity asked, even as she joined her friend as the normally self-effacing pony uncharacteristically forced her way through the crowd, only apologizing to every second pony she pushed out of her way.

“I get it,” Applejack called out, as she jumped ahead of Fluttershy and lent her farmer’s strength to clear a path.

“Yes. That’s the route she came by to get here. It makes sense she would think the path to her home starts there,” Twilight called out, joining in with her magic to lift a few, till that moment, oblivious ponies out of the way, much to their outrage.

“Clear the way, folks!” Rainbow shouted from ahead, whirling her wings to stir up a cloud of dust and blow an assortment of hats off the heads of the ponies standing in Fluttershy’s path.

“Look, everypony. They’re giving away free candy,” Pinkie Pie shouted out, firing off her party cannon in the direction of Bon Bon’s sweet shop, where the earth pony was standing behind a table that was fairly groaning from the sweet content piled on top of it. A good portion of the crowd surged in that direction.

Working in concert, the six friends reached the outskirts of town in a surprisingly short amount of time and began to run with all their might toward the forest.

“Just asking, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said as she flew overhead. “You’ve got wings. You could have just flown over the crowd.”

“Oh, I couldn’t leave my friends behind. I might need help in the forest. I can’t take the chance of having Curry left all alone because I rushed in without thinking and was badly hurt,” Fluttershy said between puffs of air.

***

“Like, that idiot!” Diamond Tiara shouted to herself as she crawled out from under an overturned booth, having made sure first that she was no longer in any danger of being stomped into the street. She tried futilely to brush off the various bits of over-buttered popcorn and cotton candy that were adhered to her hide, to no avail, which did not improve her mood in the least.

“Like, I told her I’d be happy to become her next project so she didn’t have to leave. But did she, like, listen? I can’t believe her. Doesn’t she care about poor Prince Jake? Is she planning on leaving him, like, all alone, with nothing but those yokels to see to his rearing? I have to do something about this.”

She looked in the direction the adults had departed and thought about their destination. The yucky Everfree Forest. The mere thought of that horrid unnatural place sent a shiver of dread up her spine. If it hadn’t been plastered down with some spilled soda, her mane would have stood up straight along the back of her neck. “Like, it would be stupid of me to go by myself,” Diamond Tiara said to herself, her tone indicating she was trying to justify her inclinations. “The stupid brat didn’t listen to me before. Like, I bet she’d listen to Prince Jake. That’s the ticket. Those blank-flank Cutie Mark Crusaders can make themselves useful for once. They can escort Prince Jake into the forest to talk that stupid Snipe out of going.”

Her plan of action in place, she set out to locate her suckers.

***

When she wanted to, Princess Luna could literally become the night. Her essence merging into the soft stillness of the evening, fading from the sight of mortal ponies. In this state, she could walk the forests and fields, invisible to all unless she choose differently. As a result, she took no precautions against discovery as she wafted down into the ruined courtyard of the palace she had shared a thousand years previously with her sister.

A few strides away from Princess Luna was the small human, Curry Comb, huddled inside a large bulky, quilted red garment. Her arms were wrapped around her body as she paced back and forth. Luna’s heart went out to the girl when Curry’s walking brought her close enough that Luna could see the tear streaks on her cheeks. Luna had to fight the urge to make herself visible and offer comfort. Her job was to simply keep Curry safe till the proper pony got here to talk some sense into her.

“What are you doing here?” Curry demanded in an angry tone, looking straight at Luna.

The princess was so surprised at being discovered she completely failed to notice the pony walking up behind her till the mare trotted right through her ethereal substance, sending an uncomfortable sensation through both their bodies.

***

Completely ignoring Curry’s angry attitude, Lyra gave a relieved sigh as she shrugged off the huge backpack she was lugging. “I told you. I’m going to the human world with you,” she told Curry in a matter of fact tone as she stretched to work the kinks out of her back and sides. She had experienced a strong twinge just as Curry noticed her, and was afraid she might have pulled a muscle.

***

“I remember you asking me if I’d take you. I said no, as I recall,” Curry said, trying to channel Old Ben at his sternest. Despite her words and tone, Curry found herself glad of Lyra’s presence. The old ruined castle was downright spooky at night without company. At the same time, however, she flushed in embarrassment. Over the last half-hour, she had come to the realization that she had once again made a damn fool of herself, and Lyra’s expectations of Curry only highlighted the situation.

The truth was that Curry didn’t have the least idea about how to find the path back home. She had been asleep when Jake had dragged her into this courtyard barely a week ago. She had assumed it would be an easy matter to discover the correct path to take in order to go home. Such was not the case. Try as she might, she could find no trace of any trail Jake might have used to get to the castle. The heavy sledge should have broken down plants and gouged the soil. The same went for Jake himself. There should have been deep hoofmarks she could backtrack to take herself back the way they had come. There was nothing. The only evidence she could find was white scoring on the stones where the steel runners on the sledge had scratched them, but following them back to the edge of the forest had been useless. They simply appeared at the beginning of the stone flagstones with no sign of any disturbance to the forest litter just inches away from their first appearance. It was if Jake had walked out of thin air, which after some thought she had to reluctantly concede was very likely the truth. How else did you get to a magic land, except by magic?

That left Curry up a creek without a paddle. She had no magic of her own, and she already knew that Jake had no idea how he had opened the pathway. All her angst over not belonging and coming to the decision that she needed to go back to her own world had been in vain. She had just about decided to bite the bullet and return to Fluttershy’s place to retrieve her letter before anypony found it when Lyra showed up.

Stubborn pride kept Curry from confessing to Lyra that she couldn’t take the pony to the human world because she couldn’t take her, or herself. Instead, she attacked Lyra’s motivation. “Why would you want to leave here and go to my world?” Curry asked.

“Why do you?” Lyra countered while nosing through her pack for a scarf to fight the intrusive chill of the shadowy forest.

“Because it’s where I belong. You belong here.”

“You talk like I was going to leave and never come back. I”m going to be just like Princess Moondancer. I’m going to study humans, and then come back and tell everypony all about them.”

“What does my mom have to do with this?” Curry asked in surprise.

“Your mother? I didn’t say anything about her.”

“Yes, you did. Just now. You said you were going to be just like Moondancer,” Curry retorted.

Lyra blinked in surprise. “I was talking about a pony, not your mother.”

Lyra kept talking, but she might as well have been silent. Curry didn’t hear one word Lyra said after she confessed she was talking about a pony. An explosion of internal monologue inside Curry’s head drowned out the world. A pony princess had traveled to Curry’s world? A pony with the same name as her mother? It was all so clear. Her mom had used magic to turn into a human. Maybe she had fallen in love with a prince and made a bargain with some evil witch? That meant Curry was really a pony. Or at least a half-a-pony, just like Melody was half-a-mermaid. Curry did belong here, because she was really a pony, just like all the other ponies.

All of this took mere seconds for the Disney/kid-lit obsessive to deduce. It took even less time for her to give herself a firm mental shake and disperse the rosy-colored dream. She wasn’t going to give in to fantasy again. This fairy tale was all about Jake; she was just the comedy relief sidekick.

“Curry, Curry. Are you listening?” Lyra shouted at her.

The small girl blinked her eyes and looked at the unicorn who was staring her right in the face. “Sorry, was thinking of something. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that there can’t be any connection between your mom and Princess Moondancer. Because she discovered humans thousands and thousands of years ago. Besides, it’s not like her name is unique. I attended school with a Moon Dancer. I think Twilight knew her too.”

“Yeah, that’s about what I figured,” Curry said sadly. Even if she had come to the conclusion on her own, it was disheartening to find out there was no possibility of a connection.

“Anyway. What are we waiting for? Do the stars and moon have to line up just perfectly for the gate to your world to open?”

“Of course!” Curry shouted as she realized that a magic gate would need special requirements. Her enthusiasm dimmed as she remembered that she still had no idea what might be needed. Before she had time to speculate, a stern voice spoke up from behind her.

“Young lady, I am very, very disappointed in you.”

Curry whirled in place to see Fluttershy standing just inside the courtyard, breathing heavily and dappled with sweat. There was a grim expression on her face that the small girl had never seen before. Curry suddenly wished Old Ben’s coat was a dozen sizes bigger, so she could crawl inside it and hide. That feeling only grew as Fluttershy’s five friends walked out of the forest to stand just behind them. They were all looking at her with varying degrees of censure, from Applejack who was looking positively dire to Pinkie Pie who merely looked disappointed and a little sad, with her typically curly mane lacking a lot of its usual bounce.

***

Behind Curry, Lyra muttered, “Oh, great, the party poopers are here.”

“No, they’re not. Pound and Pumpkin don’t have their potty-training party till next week.” Pinkie Pie said from right behind Lyra, causing the pony in question to whirl in place, and then back to look at where sad Pinkie had been an instant before. “How?” she gasped.

“It’s a secret,” Pinkie Pie whispered, holding a hoof to her mouth in a shushing gesture.

***

Looking at Curry’s poor little face as it peeped out of the collar of her oversized coat made Fluttershy want to hug the poor thing till the guilty/sad look on her face disappeared. She fully intended to do that, but not right away.

Big Mac stepping forward to adopt Jake as his son had caused Fluttershy to think a lot about the situation between her and Curry. The things Princess Luna had told him at the time, that Jake needed a father, not just a place to live, even more so. The small human was not just some random critter she had brought home to care for till it got its feet under itself and could go back into the wild. From the first time she had tucked Curry into bed, surrounded by a host of critters, an empty place in her heart she hadn’t even known was there had been filled. Getting Curry’s letter, and thinking she had lost that feeling forever, had forced her to confront her fear of rejection. No matter how much it hurt, not asking would, in the end, hurt far, far worse.

Fluttershy dropped down on her knees in front of Curry. Looking straight at the little girl, she said, “It was very bad of you to run away like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Curry mumbled.

“I know I don’t really have any right to be annoyed. I’m not your parent or guardian,” Fluttershy said in a soft voice, ducking her head slightly.

Curry visibly flinched and her head drew even deeper into the collar of her coat.

Fluttershy reached forward and brushed some hair away from Curry’s eyes, pushing the hood of her coat back at the same time. “I would like to change that. If it is okay with you?” she said.

Curry’s puzzlement over Fluttershy’s words was clear on her face, but deep in the back of her eyes was a gleam that might be hope.

It was Fluttershy’s turn to duck her head so her mane draped over her eyes. “If you don’t mind. I’d like to adopt you. I want you to be my daughter.”

“For real?” Curry asked, her voice quivering.

“Really, real. If that is okay with you?” Fluttershy lifted her head and tossing her mane back so she had an unobstructed view of Curry’s face. The shy pegasus trembled in mingled dread and hope. All around them her friends held their breath, waiting for Curry to answer.

***

It was a dream come true for Curry. Everything she had hoped for. A home, and the bravest pony in the world as her mom. But, she had been disappointed so many times in the last few days that she cowered away from the idea as her mind thought up reasons why it wouldn’t actually happen.

***

Curry shook her head, and said, “I’m not a pony.” Despite her objection, the longing in Curry’s eyes was plainly visible.

Fluttershy wasn’t worried by Curry’s quibbling. She could already see the answer in the little girl’s eyes. She just had to give Curry time to realize it. “I don’t care. I love you the way you are.”

“I’m weak and scrawny. I’d never be able to pull my weight. I’d be nothing but a burden.”

“The only thing I need you to lift is my heart, and you do that just by being you.”

Applejack whispered to Rarity, “When did Fluttershy get so good with words?”

“I suspect she always was. This is just the first time she’s used words we can understand,” Rarity whispered back as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

Curry looked at Fluttershy as if she were a fresh baked apple pie, and she hadn’t eaten for a week. Still, she visibly vacillated. “I can’t fly. I can’t do magic. I can’t pull worth a darn compared to a pony. All I know how to do is train ponies, but you sure as heck don’t need me to do that.”

Any reply Fluttershy might have made in reply to that was cut short when a stampede of foals raced into the forecourt.

“Curry, Curry. Don’t go. Don’t leave me,” Jake panted as he slid to a stop, surrounded by all the young foals he and Curry had met over the last week. He was panting and gasping and covered in sweat while all the friends around him were merely slightly winded. The reason for that seemed to be the large pile of trash that he had for some reason draped over his back.

***

With a groan, Diamond Tiara slid off of Jake and onto the ground. With a supreme effort, she managed to get to her hooves, but she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to stay there. Her legs felt like wet noodles and her thigh muscles burned like the fires of Tartarus. She had been an idiot to let herself get dragged into the headlong charge to rescue the brat. Prince Jake had simply assumed she was going to accompany them after she brought word that Curry had run away, and she had found no way to duck out of the headlong charge. In fact, she was positive that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had deliberately bracketed her so she couldn’t.

Not even collapsing from exhaustion had saved her, as Jake had volunteered to carry her the rest of the way.

While she had often dreamed of being carried over the threshold by her prince in shining armor, that fantasy had not included being slung over the prince’s back like a bag of grain, while his uncoordinated gait bounced her up and down like a ship in a storm.

Even worse than the horrid ride, she hadn’t had a chance to brush out her coat and it seemed like every loose leaf in the forest had found some way to adhere to her sticky hide. She looked like a perambulating compost heap.

“What the holy heck happened to you?” a voice demanded.

Diamond Tiara looked up to see the stupid Snipe glaring at her from beside Fluttershy. She didn’t know what Curry was so upset about. She was the one who had been betrayed, without care for anypony hearing, she yelled back at Curry. “I’m trying to stop you from being, like, a total idiot. I told you and told you. I’d be your next project so you didn’t have to leave. But, like, did you listen to me. No, you just had to run off and leave all your friends behind.”

***

Curry looked at the little filly who was doing a darn good imitation of a leaf pile. The tension in her belly eased as her mouth quivered, the corners turning up. “You know what. I think you’re right. If there were ever any pony who needed my help, you’re the one.” Curry drew herself up straight and declared loud and clear. “I will stay.”

It was hard to make out through Diamond Tiara’s matted mane, but it looked like her eyes widened in shock. “Well, like, okay. That’s good. I’m like, glad you came to your senses.”

“Course, I have to get permission from my Mother.” Curry turned, and looked at Fluttershy, hope and fear plain on her face as she asked, “Is it okay if I help Diamond Tiara be a better pony… Mom?”

“Wait, a better pony? Like, just what do you mean by that?”

The spoiled mare might as well have saved her breath. Curry was fully enveloped in a hug from Fluttershy, and all the other ponies and foals were raising a huge hullabaloo as they crowded in around the pair.

***

“Owwww, not so hard,” Diamond Tiara whined.

“Don’t be such a big baby,” Curry chided her as she worked her fingers deep into the filly’s soapy mane. “If’n you hadn’t gone rolling around in the dirt you wouldn’t have gotten to be such a mess.”

“I was not rolling around in the dirt,” Diamond Tiara gasped in outrage.

“Sure could have fooled me. You’re just lucky Applejack has this shower in the barn. And that Mom decided to visit with Applejack so I’d have the time to wash you down.” Curry closed her eyes and said, mom, a few times in her own mind. She couldn’t believe it. She had a real live mom. Maybe this adventure wasn’t all about Jake after all.

“How much longer?”

Brought back to the present by Diamond’s complaining, Curry pulled her fingers out of the filly’s sodden mane and stepped back while saying, “Hold still while I rinse you off.”

A few minutes later she used one of the extra large towels Apple Bloom had brought out to her to dry off the cleaned and brushed pony. As she did she dug her fingers into Diamond Tiara’s shoulders and thighs, much to that pony’s displeasure. Her words didn’t improve the spoiled pony’s mood.

“You all are as soft as a marshmallow. We sure got our work cut out for us if we all are going to turn you into the best pony you can be.”

Diamond Tiara didn’t like the sound of that. “Can’t you just wiggle your fingers or something? Cast a spell?”

“Naw. You gotta earn it, girl,” Curry said, giving the freshly washed pony a good hard slap on her rump out of habit. Back home that would have sent the pony in question running out to the corral, most likely to have a good role in the dirt. Here all it did was cause Diamond Tiara to give a little yelp and direct an accusing look at her abuser, which Curry ignored.

“You might as well run up to the house, and I do mean run, I don’t want to see you walking anywhere. You got to go across a room, you run. Now you go do that while I discuss something with Applejack out behind the woodshed,” Curry said, keeping her voice light despite the tension in her stomach.

A few minutes later Curry was standing by the creek, contemplating willow shoots. Applejack’s words echoing in her mind.

“Be right sure you pick a good thick one. Cause if it breaks we’ll be starting over from scratch.”

Telling herself that she deserved this for making Fluttershy... Mom, cry for a second time, Curry selected her switch and cut it off at ground level. She just hoped that Applejack would remember that this human lacked good thick horsehide and was just a little, helpless, thin-skinned, girl.

The walk to the woodshed seemed to both last forever, and to be over way too soon. Applejack was waiting there, a determined expression on her face.

Swallowing nervously, Curry held the switch out to the farm pony.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “What all am I supposed to do with that? I sure as shooting ain’t going to take your punishment for you.” She gestured to a large area of raked earth and said. “You’ll write, “I will not make Fluttershy sad” one hundred times, and you’ll do a good job of it, or you’ll do it all over again till I’m happy with it. You got it?”

***

One week later

***

“Curry, straighten my tie,” Jake demanded as he pushed through his throng of admirers and well-wishers to get to her.

“Pardon me, Mr. Fancypants,” Curry told the well dressed, and superbly groomed, pony she had been talking to, still having to fight with herself to prevent an outburst of laughter at his name. Her control was helped a lot by the knowledge that he had graciously allowed Rarity and Applejack, who had been taking their turn as crowd buffers for Curry, to go enjoy the party while he took over their duty of making sure she didn’t get accidentally stepped on.

As annoying as Curry found being treated like she’d break if some pony breathed too hard on her, in this crush of large equines, she was sort of thankful she had someone looking out for her. Not that she’d ever admit it.

“Quite all right, my dear. It has been my pleasure,” the gentlepony with the vaguely English accent replied, before turning and giving Curry and Jake a semblance of privacy as she led the big colt over to a nearby alcove set into the side of the huge ballroom. Jake moved easily, the ponies respectfully giving him room as he walked through the crowd. Curry had a harder time of it. Not just because she was being crowded, but because the full-body presentation dress Rarity had made up for her made it impossible for her to stride. She was restricted to very short, almost shuffling, steps by the heavy fabric that billowed out around her legs.

“Why don’t I just take this off,” Curry said, gesturing so as to take in Jake’s brand new waistcoat and tie. She still couldn’t get past thinking that sticking clothes on a pony was silly. She wasn’t about to say that in public again, however, not after the long lecture she got from Miss Rarity the last time she did.

“No!” Jake said firmly, tucking his chin down in case Curry tried to remove his new finery.

“Aw, you’ll be more comfortable, and you hardly need it no more. We’ve already been presented to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. That was stupid. We’d already met Princess Luna. Why couldn’t we just meet her sister the same way?”

“Pa said I look as fine as frog’s hair,” Jake said stubbornly, ignoring Curry’s question.

“Some things are best done in full view, young Moonlight,” an amused voice said from behind and just over the small girl’s shoulder. A warm breath, smelling of freshly cut grass in warm sunlight wafted into her nose. “It helps keep rumor and wild speculation to a minimum, such as the one that you’re not actually a Snipe, but a Human.”

Only the heavy dress she was wearing kept Curry from jumping a foot in the air. She did jolt forward into Jake as she turned as quickly as the full dress allowed to find Princess Celestia looming over her. Behind the Princess was an open door, which told Curry how the Princess had managed to sneak up on her.

Princess Luna’s sister looked a lot bigger from this close, Curry couldn’t help noticing. She might not have been as tall, or as heavy, as Jake before his transformation, but she more than made up for that in terms of sheer presence. Too bad she had that washed out coat. If she’d had the same color scheme as her sister she’d have been just about the most perfect mare Curry could imagine.

The chattering of the nearby ponies ebbed and Curry turned her head to see a widening circle of ponies kneeling in the direction of Princess Celestia.

“Thank you, my little ponies, but please, do not let me interrupt you,” the princess said in a rather bland tone of voice as if she had said those words a million times.

“You’re pretty,” Jake said, pushing in beside Curry and looking upward at the gleaming white alicorn. “Do you want to play pirates? Pipsqueak says we need somepony to be the princess so we can rescue her.”

For just a moment Curry thought she saw temptation in the white mare’s eyes. Her opinion of the princess went up more than a few notches as Princess Celestia said, with what sounded like genuine regret, “I’m afraid I can’t at the moment. I will be coming to visit my Sister’s new vacation abode when I get a chance. Maybe we can have some time together then.”

“Abode?” Jake asked, his tone indicating he was worried the Princess had just said no, in a fancy way.

“She means the tent,” Curry said.

“Oh. Good.” Jake’s eyes lit up. “You’ll like the tent. It’s fun. There are lots of pillows. You can sleep on them. Jump on them. Even throw them at other ponies.”

“Really. All the more reason for me to come and visit. Now, I wonder. Would you mind if I borrowed Princess Moonlight On The Water.”

“Who?”

“She means me, dummy,” Curry said. “You heard them call me that when they announced us earlier.” She felt her face heat up from the memory of hearing her real name announced to what had seemed like thousands of ponies. Only the pleasure of being called a princess had ameliorated the embarrassment, that, and the fact not a single pony had laughed at her.

“Are you going to give her back?” Jake asked the princess in a suspicious tone.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” The princess rattled off without a single hesitation.

“Okay then. Have fun, Curry,” Jake said as he turned and cantered back into the middle of the crowd, his head high as he searched for familiar faces.

“Please. Come inside,” Princess Celestia said to Curry, as she turned and walked into the room she had emerged from.

Curry followed right after, admiring the princess’s well-proportioned flanks. A little soft, but a lot of potential power if she were exercised right. She’d never be a puller, but she might make a heck of a jumper.

Such speculation was best kept to herself. Miss Rarity had not reacted well to the suggestion that the slightly pudgy fashion-designer could benefit from a good training program. Just as well. Curry had her hands full with Diamond Tiara. That pony was a heck of a project, but Curry had high hopes that she’d be something special. Eventually. Someday.

Any further speculation on a potential training program for Princess Celestia was derailed when Curry saw the two ponies waiting for her in the room. “Stinky!” she cried out in pleasure. Rushing across the room, she wrapped her arms around the cranky brown pony, who was looking much more polished than the last time she had seen him. He was still sporting a sour expression on his face, however.

“Take it easy, brat. Some of us need to breathe,” Sneaky said in his best cantankerous tone. Despite his words, he gave Curry’s cheek a small nuzzle as she let loose of his neck.

Turning to the other pony, Curry narrowed her eyes, wondering how you hugged a pony in full armor. In the end, she settled for simply scratching him under the chin while cupping and stroking his nose. “How are you, Sweets? Are Lyra and Bon Bon here?”

The embarrassed royal guard looked over at the princess, and getting an approving nod, Sweets replied, “She and Bon Bon are mingling until I’m off duty. I’m doing fine, Princess.” The stern ‘Royal Guard’ look he was wearing twitched a little as Curry’s clever fingers found a particularly good spot to scratch. Taking advantage of his slight loss of composure, she decided to chase some answers.

“What is with this princess business?” Curry asked in the hope she’d finally get an answer to that question. Not that she had anything against being a princess. It would be nice to know ‘why’ she was one and if there were any towers and battlements planned for her future.

“Custom,” Princess Celestia answered. “While the titles may vary, each of the intelligent races in Equestria and the adjacent countries has a representative leader. Their power and authority vary. You are the ruler of the Snipes. Thus, Princess Moonlight On The Water.”

“But I’m the only Snipe.”

“Which made it rather easy to discover who the Princess of the Snipes is,” Princess Celestia said with a twinkle in her eye. A moment later her expression became more serious, though there was still a hint of good humor in it.

Princess Celestia eased herself down onto some comfortable cushions and gestured for Curry to join her.

Curry looked down at her confection of a dress and then gave a broad smile. Grabbing hold of the fabric, she pulled outward hard and the dress split right down the front. Curry, wearing only a russet colored body-stocking, stepped out of the dress, which remained standing behind as the top fell into the bottom. It looked more like a wedding cake than ever. “Ohhh, that feels so good,” Curry all but purred, scratching her sides and then doing several stretches.

Noticing the stares the three ponies in the room were giving her, she said, “Rainbow Dash told me about when Twilight’s brother got married. I told Miss Rarity I wouldn’t wear that dress if I couldn’t get out of it in seconds.”

Sneaky chortled, and Curry was pretty sure Sweets’ lip twitched. The princess maintained her placid expression, but on the other hoof she didn’t look outraged, so Curry decided to count that as a win.

Curry settled down cross-legged in front of the princess her elbows on her knees and hands cupping her chin as she put on her best, listening intently, expression.

“You and Jake have created quite a stir. I’ve already received delegations demanding to know why I allowed him to be adopted by common farm ponies.”

“What the heck gives them the right to demand anything about Jake. Jake loves Big Mac and all his new kinfolk.”

“They have the right to demand,” Celestia said.

Curry could tell by the small furrow between Princess Celestia’s eyes that she was wondering if she should try to explain her reasons to Curry. She decided to save the princess the trouble. “Just cause they demand stuff, don’t mean you got to give it to them. Just like a kid in a candy store.”

Princess Celestia considered this, and then nodded her head. “Close enough,” she said. “As it turns out, their tantrums are useful to us. It gives me an excuse to set up some protection for you.”

The small girl bit back her instant retort that she did not need protection when Celestia held up a hoof, clearly asking Curry to give her a moment.

“I’m not worried about Jake. He is a pony, and I trust his new family to look after him. You are a different matter. I do not wish to insult you, but there are ponies who would be inclined to think of you as nothing more than a clever pet.”

Her first reaction was outrage, but Curry’s honesty forced her to concede that she wasn’t actually innocent in that regard her own self. She just had to look at how she’d judged Princess Celestia’s rear end just a minute ago. She shrugged, and said, “Can’t rightly complain if they feel that way. I have the same problem my ownself.”

“That’s understanding of you.”

“I just spent two weeks getting my face rubbed in it,” Curry said with a grimace.

“While that attitude is annoying, I am more concerned that there are certain unscrupulous ponies who are convinced you are one of those mythical humans and some who are calculating your value to them in other ways.”

Curry hadn’t really had a good reason to continue the Snipe masquerade, just a certain amount of mule-headedness. She was pretty sure that Princess Celestia knew the real truth, but try as she might, Curry could tell nothing from the bland expression the princess had adopted while making her statement. She made a silent vow to never play poker with the princess.

Princess Celestia continued with her lecture. “Those that see you as a clever animal might have the desire to possess a rare specimen, but our laws and common decency should keep the honest ones at bay. Those that believe you are human on the other hoof could see you as a powerful magical artifact and be tempted to steal you away just for the possibility of an unimaginable reward.”

“Lyra’s not like that,” Curry said firmly, glancing toward Sweets and giving him a reassuring look. “She believes with all her heart that I’m human, she’s just burning up with curiosity worse than a cat and wants to know things about the land of humans. She always treats me right.” Curry said the last very firmly.

“More like bribes you with chocolate,” Sweets muttered just on the edge of Curry’s hearing. She sent him an unrepentant grin.

“I am confident that your friend is a good pony. I highly doubt Private Sweets would associate with her if she were not.”

“He might. He’s a guy, and Lyra’s a pretty pony,” Curry said, condemning the entire gender with no reservations at all.

“Yes, but you think of her as a friend.”

“Good point,” Curry nodded in agreement.

“After consultation with my sister, and then with Private Sweets, I have decided to appoint him to the post of Sheriff of Ponyville.”

“Sheriff? Cool. Do you get a six-gun?”

“'Fraid not,” Sweets said, with perhaps just a touch of regret in his voice and a strange quirk to one eyebrow as he seemed to consider the device mentioned.

“A gun should not be necessary. Ponyville should not offer any challenges greater than one of my Royal Guard can handle on his own. Or perhaps with friends. While the position of sheriff is very real, his principal duties will consist of keeping an eye out for potential hazards to you, and Prince Jake. He’ll be able to call on my student, Twilight Sparkle, and her friends if he has need of help.”

“Hopefully, my second appointee will be able to head off potential trouble before it can become real trouble. Sneak Peek has agreed to take on the job of Press Secretary to Prince Jake and yourself.”

“Wow. Press Secretary. You must be really happy about that,” Curry congratulated Sneaky.

“Oh, yeah. Just delighted,” the grizzled news pony said sarcastically.

Curry looked at him through slitted eyes. “You don’t sound too happy about it. Why’d you take the job?”

“Princess Luna made Berry Punch and Cloudkicker an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he said sourly.

Curry closed one eye and squinted at him through the other. “You don’t fool me. You’re happy,” she said in an accusatory tone, pointing a finger between his eyes, causing him to go cross-eyed.

“There’s just one thing I need to know,” Curry said.

“What’s that?”

“What’s a press secretary?”

***

“Mom, are you here?” Curry called out in a low voice as she walked down a flower-lined path in the royal garden.

“Over here, dear,” her mother’s soft voice called from behind some bushes. “If you follow the path it turns around and--- Oh, or you could just jump over the bushes.”

“Ooops, sorry, mom,” Curry apologized as the crowd of animals around Fluttershy scattered.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to run away. Curry won’t hurt you,” Fluttershy called after the assorted squirrels, rabbits and a lone raccoon. The animals paused on the fringe of the clearing, directing skeptical looks toward the small girl.

“I’d never hurt you. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Curry, Pinkie swore to the flighty critters. She settled down next to Fluttershy, leaning up against her as the animals slowly crept back.

“I guess they accepted your apology,” Curry said as she pulled up some tufts of grass and offered them to a rabbit.

“Oh my yes. They were most gracious and forgiving of the way I behaved during the Grand Galloping Gala. Are you having a good time?”

“It's been fun. Most of the ponies seem pretty nice. I really liked Fancypants. He’s a lot nicer than you’d think with a name like that. Too bad he already has a marefriend,” Curry said in a teasing tone as she snuggled up against Fluttershy’s warm side. Her mom extended a wing to give her a little protection against the cool night air.

“I’m sure he’s a very nice pony,” Fluttershy said, the pair sat in companionable silence as the animals crowded around, their early fear dissipated.

“Do you want a father?” Fluttershy asked tentatively.

“What? Oh, what I said about Fancypants. I was just teasing, mom.” “Unless,” Curry paused, and then hesitantly asked, “Is there a stallion you like?”

Shaking her head, Fluttershy said, “There are some stallions I like, but not in that way.”

“How about Big Mac? He seems really nice.”

“Oh, well. I suppose. He fixes things around the house sometimes. But he’s so… big.”

“Ahh, gotcha,” Curry nodded, trying to appear knowledgeable, but not really getting it. Big Mac being big seemed like his biggest selling point to her. That, and the fact that he was now Jake’s pa.

That sort of stuff could wait for another day. Curry thought as she gave a yawn and snuggled up against her mom, closing her eyes and enjoying the silence and smells of the gardens. After all, she had lots and lots of days now. Days and days, and days.

***

Princess Celestia looked up from her reading as her sister cantered into her study.

“Still up, Tia? Thee should not neglect thy beauty sleep at your advanced age, dear sister,” Luna teased, driving the conversational ball deep into Celestia’s court.

“You’re only five years younger than me, Luna,” Celestia returned serve.

“Ah, but I spent a thousand years bathing in the revitalizing rays of my moon, while thou endured the same period baking under the harsh unforgiving rays of your sun.”

Celestia quirked an eyebrow. “You do have a point there, sister. Perhaps I should make use of the spell you devised for young Jake and restore myself to pristine youth.”

Luna cocked an eyebrow at her sister. “Tia, please. Not even in jest could you consider such an act.”

Celestia rolled her own eyes and raised an eyebrow in return. “And here I thought you would enjoy being the older sister for a few centuries,” she teased.

"I certainly would not take the risk of casting the spell on you, and I know you're smart enough not to cast it on yourself." Luna shuddered and looked away before continuing in a softer voice. "Only a fool or one driven insane would chance to transform their own self."

Celestia touched shoulders with her sister, placing one wing over her back with the lightest of touches. "I was jesting, my beloved little sister. One time through puberty was quite enough, thank you very much. She took a sip of tea, her eyes thoughtful. She gestured toward the book she had been reading, a tattered notebook, one of a set to go by the other similar ones sitting on her desk. “But, the idea does raise a question in my mind in regard to your theory that Moonlight Dancing On Water is Moondancer’s descendant.”

“Those are Moondancer’s journals?” Luna questioned.

“Indeed, I had them removed from the archives.” Celestia gave her head a shake. “I wish I had paid more attention to Moondancer back then. According to her books, she must have been one of the most powerful unicorns of her generation.”

“Strange that I do not remember her. Did she brag of her prowess?”

“Not at all. She was much like our modest young Twilight Sparkle. She gave little thought to her power level or potential, but the spells she worked, not least of which was creating the moon path to young Moonlight’s home, indicate a most puissant mage.”

“And what question does this raise in your mind? Would it be in regards to how she managed a transformation so complete she was able to interbreed with the native race?”

“There is that, but I was thinking along a slightly different line. What if her transformation was not so complete as to allow that? That complete a transfiguration require an extremely complex spell you must admit. And it seems a bit unlikely when you consider that she meant only to use it to move among the humans freely.”

“I would think that young Curry Comb is evidence enough that she did in fact attempt and complete such a spell, sister.”

“Is it?” Celestia asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“You believe otherwise?” Luna said, frowning in thought. The dark princess’ eyes suddenly widened. “You began this talk with reference to the youth spell Twilight Sparkle and I used on young Jake. You could not possibly think that Moondancer would have been foolish enough to use such a spell on herself?”

“There is no way to be certain, but you must admit that it is an intriguing thought. Without the safeguards, you and Twilight developed, the failure of such a spell could have easily stripped her of all memories of her adult self. For all intents and purposes she would have been every bit the child she appeared, maybe even the babe, if she went so far back as that. While that seems a dire risk to you and me, it might have actually been her intent from the start.”

“But, why? Why would a pony surrender all that makes her, her? And with so little hope of success. What Twilight Sparkle did with Jake required great focus and constant adjustment. It is why we had the Elements of Harmony as backup. Even with all our careful preparation, something could still have gone wrong. To do such a thing solo, and on oneself when she would know that she could easily lose all control once it began to take effect...” Luna shuddered at the thought of the consequences.

Celestia ran a hoof along her ethereal mane, watching the flow of colors that came with her heavy responsibilities.“You and I, Luna, are not unique in our ageless state. All through history, there have been others, powerful unicorns for the most part, who have achieved a similar effect by way of a constantly renewed spell to hold them at a particular age in the stead of our own nature which does much the same without effort. As well, our natural longevity seems to insulate us not just physically, but mentally, from the toll of ages. The same does not seem to hold true for other ponies.

While some who took that path succumbed to misfortune, many simply stopped maintaining themselves after a few centuries. The burden of the years and the loss of so many loved ones proved too much to bear, and they allowed themselves to fade away.”

“You are presuming that Moondancer choose a different path.”

Celestia shook her head in disagreement. “I’m not saying that she did or did not. I am only speculating on one option she might have chosen. We can safely assume she waited and watched for the pathway to Equestria to open again. If she was able to extend her life, and I think she would have had the ability, it would be natural she would do so in the hope that the next week, the next year, the next century, it would open.

“But it was a thousand years, Luna. A thousand years of solitude. Her guards would not have survived for even a fraction of that time. A thousand years of never knowing if the path would ever open again. A thousand years of never knowing if she would ever come home. Her soul must have been weary beyond belief. As I said, we can only theorize. There is no way to know for sure. But I find myself intrigued by the notion that she might have made use of regenerative magic, and willingly suffered the downside of such a spell simply on the chance that it might allow her to finally, come home.”

Celestia closed the book she had been holding and carefully set it with its fellows on her desk. She looked across at Luna and said. “It will be interesting in the years to come to see what happens as Curry Comb matures. Will she remember? Is there anything for her to remember? Maybe all that is needed to solve the final mystery of Moondancer and Moonlight Dancing on Water is time.”

***

“Are you coming, Curry? Is something wrong?” Fluttershy called out to her daughter, who was standing in the laneway just outside the gate to the yard staring at the house as if it were a chocolate cloud cake.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mom,” Curry said, stepping through the gate and running up to Fluttershy. “I was just thinking about how nice it is to be home.”

Jake and the kid

by peter

Ch1 beginnings [edited]

Ch2 Alicorn Alarm [edited]

Ch3 Dream a Little Dream [edited]

Ch4 And so They Met [edited]

Ch5 Walking Goose Home [edited]

Ch6 Getting to know you [edited]

Ch7 Tea and Conversation [edited]

Ch8 Anytime is Party Time [edited]

Ch9 Tidbits [edited]

Ch10 Settling In [edited]

Ch11 Mares Rule, Stallions Drool [edited]

Ch12 Learning Curve [edited]

Ch13 Welcome to the Palace [edited]

Ch14 Snipe Hunt, part one [edited]

Ch15 Down on the Farm [edited]

Ch16 Snipe Hunt, part two [edited]

Ch17 Scream and Shout [edited]

Ch18 Sleep Over [edited]

Ch19 The Camping Trip. Part one [edited]

Ch20 The Camping Trip part two [edited]

Ch21 The Camping Trip, part three [edited]

Ch22 Welcome To Equestria, part one [edited]

Ch23 Welcome to Equestria, Part two [edited]

Ch24 Home Is Where The Heart Is [edited]