It's a Pony's Life for Me

It was almost midday when Book Burner trotted happily back into Apartment Light Clone, Forward Charge's place where he and Fern had been staying for the past week or so while they figured out their arrangements in Equestria.  Technically speaking, the Princesses (they knew both Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, after all) could have just talked to a pony who knew a pony and gotten them a place, but they'd felt it was more homey to figure it out themselves.  Fern had even said relying on the Princesses was almost like living in an Absorption Center apartment, and everypony knew those things sucked.

Between the two of them, they'd arrived in Canterlot and Ponyville respectively, but there was the matter of Yehoofa.  Back when Princess Celestia had first returned Book to Earth, she had, after all, promised him an Equestrian analogue of his own home terrain.  Yet on the other hoof, now all his friends lived in Canterlot, and Fern's garden from the old days stood in the foggy mountains outside the city -- with her onions thriving, actually.

Ah, the ever-perplexing questions of life, he thought, his ears perking up contentedly.  He "hummed" a neat little ditty of a spell out into the air to pour himself a glass (really more of a very wide wineglass, much easier to drink out of as a pony) of water.  There was always that special little moment when he felt space humming back in tune with his horn, and magic had practical utility.

He went through his mental checklist for the day.  First he checked off responding to the conference invitations on everyone’s behalf.  Fern, Charge, and himself would definitely be attending.  The next two things, closely related, were finding jobs and figuring out where and how to live.

Of course, ponies didn't really need jobs, per se, and they weren't really even like "jobs" back on the Old Planet.  Jobs in Equestria were really things to do with oneself, preferably involving others.  Everypony (or at least, everypony in this “shard” -- he’d never looked too deeply into that) needed something to do, or otherwise they'd feel bored, lonely, and useless.  Besides, while food could be grown from the ground easily enough, or housing obtained just by asking Princess Celestia for it, what remained scarce was the help, time, and special talents of other ponies.  Those did cost bits: even the Magic of Friendship couldn't give a pony all the time in the world.

Book gripped the bowlglass in his teeth and glugged down the cool water, feeling it refresh every limb as it flowed into him.  Aaah.

Then he looked up and turned around to see the living room, and nearly keeled over.  It felt like he'd smacked into a wall, and he couldn't tell if he just felt that way or if perhaps his magic had accidentally hardened the air just to smack him.

Speaking of growing one's own food...  The entire living room was covered in soil, watering cans, and partially potted plants.  On the balcony outside, a few finished efforts sat soaking up sunlight: a row of pots the size of buckets (actually, they might have just been buckets) sporting young, healthy shrubs with broad, prickly green leaves and the beginnings of what looked like black raspberries, come the summertime.

Fern must have decided she needed to make herself useful, and that Forward Charge's diet of late-night stir-fried carrots and breakfasting on toast with chili relish wouldn't work for her.  She'd always been wanting to grow all her own food: they had met when she was tending chickens on a collective farm where he'd been wasting a vacation weekend.  What could induce her to run off and leave this immense mess without cleaning up, though?  That just wasn't like her.

A note drifted to the ground underneath Book's hooves, and he realized there was a candle burning over in the little corner used as a dining room -- in mid-morning!  Book swooped the note up with his magic and brought it to eye level.

Hi hun!

I needed something useful to do with myself when I got out of the shower, so... plants it is!  The garden outside provided plenty of raw material, and you wouldn't believe how well Earth Pony magic works for planting.  The dirt should be easy to clean up later.  We can leave the bushes with Forward Charge or take them with us when we find our own place.  The raspberries made an easy breakfast, too.

That mare who was with you before came by to check on the two of us.  Said her name was "Lyrical Melody".  Anyway, she seems nice and she invited me to tea, so I decided to go out with her: we'll be at the Ginger Pot in the Square of Luna's Correction.  I've got all kinds of things about Equestria I want to ask her!  See you when I get back!

Yours always,

Fern Pipette

Oh no.  But... Lyrical wouldn't.  At the very least, she had said back during their escape from that factory, just after rather insistently kissing him, that she actually did consider marriage holy and wasn't going to tear him from Fern or Fern from him.  She had said it was against her religion, through and through.  She had then proceeded to immediately kiss Forward Charge too, who was as yet unmarried but, unfortunately for Lyrical, not actually attracted to mares at that point.  Sure, this was the same Lyrical Melody who had, even later, quickly fallen in love with a total douchebag and performed with him certain acts so utterly amazing that he had volunteered to emigrate to Equestria at her first request.

That didn't completely determine she got the hots for anypony that moved.  After all, she'd gone for the douche-staffer in the embassy just after talking to Princess Celestia.  Celestia could make anypony act weird if there was a reason.

No, the sum total of evidence only made it very probable that Lyrical Melody saw herself as the kind of pony everypony should know -- in the Biblical sense.  Perhaps, in reality, she was a green Earth Pony with ruby-red hair and large eyes.  Perhaps, in reality, ponies were herbivores, and only immigrants to Equestria used predator metaphors.  Nonetheless, there could be little doubt she considered herself a lion of the affections who would lay with any lamb that caught her eye.

Despite her vows and the air she put on of being an honorable mare (in, admittedly, a very gregarious sense of the word honorable, he noted to himself), she very much appeared to have quietly, efficiently, sneakily asked Fern Pipette out on a date, to which Fern had gladly consented.  This was probably almost as weird as consenting to things involving Princess Celestia.  Book Burner quietly attempted to contain the panic running through his entire being by focusing it on his left-front hoof, which proceeded to thump the floor as if of its own will.  Book’s wife - thump - had consented - thump - to go out on a date with the omni-affectionate - thump - Lyrical Melody, and she wasn’t even wearing any clothes -- thwack.  Anything could happen, and something probably would.

This couldn't possibly be worse than the time he had actual died, he told himself.

Crack, crack, crack went the floor as his hoof sped up.

It was just sex on four hooves and a Qur'an taking his wife out on a date, after all.  If he had been loyal, she would be loyal; he knew it.  Of course, it was his mind that had just called Lyrical Melody "sex on four hooves and a Qur'an", so what would Fern be thinking, not even knowing the mare?  Additionally, Book's mind pondered whether or not he was the comic-relief character in his own life.

...

Book Burner stampeded.  This lasted for several straight minutes until his thinking returned to sufficiently normal function that he picked up a paper and a quill of his own.  He quickly scrawled out, "HELP HELP LYRICAL HAS TAKEN FERN ON A DATE. -- BOOK BURNER", and then realized he didn't even know to whom he was writing, or how he was going to send the note.

Whom?  Princess Celestia?  Absolutely not.  A pony couldn't go demanding the Princess's help in every minor aspect of his life, not after she'd helped quite a lot already.  Twilight Sparkle, who had welcomed Fern to Equestria?  She was all the way in Ponyville.  Lyrical Melody?  She was the perpetrator of this dastardly crime.  The Doctor?  Apparently quite an important pony and probably attending to somepony right this very minute.  Forward Charge?  It would have to be Forward Charge.

How?  Post it with a pegasus postal pony?  They only came in the morning and afternoon, and only really did personal packages anyway.  Find Forward Charge himself?  She could be anywhere in the skies of Mt. Pluto, lensing the air to get better images of stars; being (technically and most surprisingly to everypony who met her) an astrophysicist meant that she might need to be in the sky at any hour.  Magic?  Did he even know some communication spells yet?

Oh!  The candle on the table burned steadily, undying, with the pale green flame of dragon-fire.  Dragon-fire, anypony who'd ever been around Ponyville knew, could transport whatever you burned to its intended recipient.  He could use the candle to send the note!

Book dashed out, "PS -- Catch up with me on the way to the Square of Luna’s Correction" onto his note, yelled "Forward Charge!" and breezed the letter into the flame.  Lyrical was going to get it for this, he thought, as he raced outside and started the long gallop down the switchback roads into the main part of Canterlot.

Also, was there maybe some magical way of communicating across distances instantaneously?  Perhaps a magic mirror of some sort that would allow ponies to see and hear each other no matter where they were, or at least hear each other.  Mobile telephones had been a really useful thing back in the day, and he figured ponies must have some equivalent.

Book Burner was halfway down Mount Pluto and halfway through the Royal Plaza, his hooves beating a steady, distracting beat on the stone, his heartbeat surprisingly and pleasantly keeping pace with his sudden need for athleticism.  He was almost starting to enjoy running everywhere in two worlds after his wife!

Then he heard the swift, steady strokes of a pegasus's wings swooping down towards him and looked up to see Forward Charge gliding along just to his left.

"I got your letter!" screamed Forward Charge, effortlessly keeping pace with the galloping unicorn.  "Lyrical really kidnapped your wife?"

"I'm not sure about kidnapped!" huffed Book as he used his magic to springboard off a telekinetic wall and bolt through a switchback turn.

"Definitely sounded to me like the set-up for an Elopement!" said Forward Charge.  She wasn't needing to spend much effort keeping pace with a pony merely running, even with gravity on his side.  Her face, though, just showed a concerned frown.  What was that?

"You put a capital letter on that word: Elopement.  Something tells me it doesn't mean ponies running away to get married because their parents don't approve," said Book Burner, raising an eyebrow.

"Ok, so you've definitely never heard of Canterlot Elopements, then?"

The droll look Book gave her in return reminded Forward Charge of a famously nonplussed apple farmer from Ponyville.

"Nooope," Book replied, completing the impression.

Forward took a deep breath and oriented herself a couple meters ahead of her little bro so she could stop him if necessary.

"Sometimes ponies love each other, but their friends or families won't let them spend time together," she explained.  "So they do the simple and logical thing: one of them kidnaps the other and holds them hostage."  It was kinda impressive how he wasn't bugging out yet.  "It's a matter of the greatest romance, of love and honor!  The victim's friends and family then have to mount a rescue operation to redeem them.  Not everyone does it, I'll admit, it's really more of a regional custom, but it's generally a great time for everyone involved.  You can actually make quite a lot of bits, kidnapping your friends, which you're gonna need, for when you or someone else gets Eloped in return."  Still not freaking out.  Forward Charge steeled herself to brave onward.  "Oh, and the best part is, neither of you has to regret anything you might have done!  I take all my lovers this way!"

She started counting, beating her wings in time.  One... two...  Buck!

For a few frightening seconds, Book actually looked like a Pony Cannonball fired through the rooftops of Canterlot, because he had tripped over his own hooves that hard.  Luckily, she'd been awesome enough to figure he'd do that (though she'd figured on beat number six).  It was only luck they were in the sloping streets and not in the plaza-filled central areas of the city!

Luckily, it only took a quick canter through the air and a short, tight stiffening of her wings to catch him firmly on her back.

"Gotcha," Forward Charge said with a smile.

"Thanks," Book muttered, embarrassed to be holding onto Charge's neck for dear life.  "You ever think I missed the opportunity to get a cutie mark in falling over myself chasing Fern?"

"Nah," replied Forward Charge.  "That would ruin the acrobatics team we're gonna form when this is over."  She descended just enough to skim over the slopes below, beating her wings to balance the tiny thermals rising off the road's surface.  A kind of momentary peace came over the flying pair of ponies.

"So... you actually have lovers?" Book asked.  "The Mighty Forward Charge has a whole bunch of kidnapped lovers hidden in some creepy cave in the mountains somewhere?"

"Everypony's gotta get some at some point," Forward Charge answered.  "Though I actually keep them in the Everfree Forest."

"So mares pursue stallions here?" he asked quizzically.

"Well, pursue, that's mostly just that one mare we shall remain from naming for the moment.  But really - " Charge tossed her mane, waving her blue dreadlocks against the clear sky, " - mere gender is no limit at all for the truly determined!"

"Hence my sister acting like a brother?"

"Watch it!  I could have been an Earth Pony too, you know."

Forward Charge was nearly skidding her hooves over the road, at the kind of plummeting angle normally tackled via stairs, enchanted carts, and/or extreme daring.  Her eyes dashed and sped down the road ahead to verify the distance until the next necessary turn.  "Ready to hit the roads of Canterlot again?" she asked.

"On your mark!" Book grinned and propped himself off to one side.

"Get set!" Forward Charge held him mere inches above the ground, rock and grass blurring past underneath his hooves.

"Go!"  Back in the saddle!  His hooves struck chips in the pavement’s soft, tanned stone as he let gravity aid his speed.

Instead of angling himself for the turn, though, Book just brought himself up to galloping speed and gallivanted straight through the oncoming intersection.  Sure, a sign in the crossing had said Luna's Plaza was this way, but...

"Bro!" Forward Charge whispered in his ear, smirking.  "This is kinda a pegasi-only route, you know?  The cross-bars are just for cargo, not for ponies.  You'll end up with a pretty hefty hospital bill if you try to hang on one."  As she had said, the street just ended in a safety fence protecting ponies from running off the sheer cliff, with a bare structure of age-hardened wood marking the top of a red cable used by travelling pegasi to ferry their cargo down the flight route.  A few cross-bars leaned against the right end of the safety fence, simple bars with bars on their ends and hooks in the middle.

Book Burner smirked right back at her and tensed his magic to a steady hum: he fitted a cross-bar onto the red cable at a healthy hanging distance and kept it there, holding the specific telekinetic balance he'd need to stand up on it without losing his balance.  He adjusted his speed so he'd be able to jump the fence to the rope in one go and motored himself through the dead end at the end of the street.  Luna's Square was firmly in sight, a terracotta teapot-shaped shop huddling far below in the distance, just where he'd be able to bend the air to swing his cross-bar into the jump to the open window.

"Have you and I ever done anything that wasn't totally crazy?" he asked, and leaped, clear mountain air streaming through his mane, his horn ablaze.

Fern Pipette sipped her tea and contemplated several things, among which were religion and her next move at checkers.  She was playing red, it was late in the game, and Lyrical Melody had a couple queens.  Of course, Fern had four queens, but there weren't many pieces remaining on the board, and Lyrical definitely seemed to have an edge to her mind.

The tea was Velvet Cake Mint Roibos, and it was delicious: smooth, dark, sweet and invigorating -- practically color-coded for a game of checkers, too.

"You know," she said, and moved a pawn forward by a square, "I'm really not sure how a rational, atheistic pony such as myself should respond to living in a world where there really is a god.  I mean, just consider meta-ethics: what actual authority does even a real god have to tell me right from wrong?  What does a Divine Command theory actually mean?"

Fern could see well in the grassy mare's big, soft eyes that she was managing to unbalance her opponent.  Lyrical (she had insisted on being called by her first name) had spent the entire game attempting to earnestly explain her religion, which was frankly quite rude, but also extremely interesting.  It was the first religion she had ever heard to be logically coherent, even if it apparently did drive its followers to wear hexagonal rubies around their necks styled on the Elements of Harmony.  Bit of a loud fashion choice on a pony, as compared to a tiny gold cross or star on a human, but oh well.

Besides, watching the enemy's ears twitch every other move was just too much fun.  If Lyrical had wanted to introduce herself, make friends, play a game, and then preach religion, well, the game was afoot!

The move being made, Fern watched Lyrical Melody perk her ears up and consider her next play.  What was that look Lyrical was giving her when their eyes crossed paths?  It was like being hit with a vast wave of... avarice.  She reached out a hoof and moved one of her queens.

"Thanks for another pawn, love," Lyrical said, and clicked another red checker onto her ziggurat of captured pieces.  Well, really, her tone of voice was so low as to be almost a purr, but with the two ponies separated only by a little tea table, Fern could still hear it.

She hadn't had any choice but to leave that pawn undefended.  It had died nobly.

"Indeed," breathed Lyrical Melody, leaning over the board towards Fern.  "Your pawn died as a shahid, martyring itself for its cruel and uncaring commander.  Imagine what justice I will have to exact when you're left undefended against my army of ash-Shams, who bids war only when friendship requires it."

"How did you know?" Fern asked.

"Your eyes followed it," Lyrical answered.

"You're watching my eyes?" Fern asked nervously.  What was it with this mare?

"How could I take my gaze away from such jewels?" Lyrical said, flicking an ear for humor.  Well, two could play at the freak-each-other-out game, Fern thought.  She picked up her remaining pawn to move, seeing a way opened by Lyrical's last move.

"To speak of jewels, could you tell me all about that beautiful ruby you're wearing while you queen me?"  Fern smiled quietly to herself, utterly satisfied in her latest victory.

Unfortunately, she never got to enjoy that victory because the northern window caved in, spraying glass and clay-dust everywhere.  Time seemed to slow down as the shards flew around the shop and ponies began to run.  Fern and her opponent both leaped to their hooves, but there wasn't enough time.

Fern's adrenaline-addled mind wondered why she hadn't been cut by the glass.  Was it sugar glass, manufactured by some health-unconscious Earth Pony?  No, and the gusting winds of the cave-in were continuing well past when they should have stopped, whole seconds ticking by at a snail's pace, gathering all the dust and glass to into a central spinning cloud to obscure the two enraged ponies who had physically crashed through the window.

"Across the mountains and through the air!" announced the pegasus of the pair, seemingly mare-shaped.

"Oh, no, please tell me they're not..." Lyrical Melody muttered, jaw nearly dislocated it had dropped so far.

"Across lives, continents, and worlds!" proclaimed the unicorn (probably a stallion) controlling the now-swirling vortex of dust, the glass shards apparently having neatly piled themselves in a corner.  Wasn't telekinesis neat for wrecking other ponies' shops?

"Yeah, they are," muttered Fern Pipette back.

"Always asking the same question!" the two ponies in the cloud of dust continued.

"Just who the hay do you think I am!?" the pegasus roared, tossing her mane.

"Lyrical Melody: where. is. my. wife?" the unicorn finished.

Fern stared into the telekinetically suspended dust cloud with everypony else, wondering whether she should run away or break down laughing.  She knew the voices well enough, after all.  Why in the wide, wide world of Equestria had they done this, though?

Then Fern Pipette felt a mountain rise up next to her, her Earth Pony magic slamming a stone spire skywards in the middle of a tea shop.  Lyrical Melody now stood atop what her magic had correctly detected, glaring evilly down at her (former?) friends.

Just how advanced do I have to get in Earth Pony magic to do THAT!? Fern thought.

Lyrical Melody blazed like a summer sunset, orange and crimson spangling themselves across her mint-leaf fur.  Her mane, rusted red, had its ponytail undone and waved freely in the air, turned to nothing but light.  Her eyes shone like twin orbs of pure white light as she held her ruby necklace up in a hoof, the source of her shining halo.  Several of the ponies around Fern had bowed almost instinctively.

Well, Fern, Lyrical's voice chimed softly in Fern's mind, carried by the earth of Equestria, You wanted to know of my religion?

"Existence is joy!" her voice rang.  "Joy is attained through the satisfaction of values!  Values are satisfied through friendship!  Friendship is achieved through the principles of the Elements of Harmony!

"These are the truths of this world!  One and all ponies, submit to those truths, children of ash-Shams!"

Then everypony broke down laughing.

"So," Book Burner repeated to his (still) friend Lyrical Melody, "You were absolutely definitely not trying to Elope with Fern?"

"I can't take even a merely friendly interest in my friend-in-law?" Lyrical whined.  "After all, a friend-in-law is a friend in deed."

"Nice one!" Fern crowed.  She hip-bumped the other pony, just to mess with the stallions in the room.  "What?  We went and played checkers at a tea shop.  I attempted to drink tea.  It was attemptedly tasty.  What's wrong?"

Lyrical Melody coughed politely a couple of times.  "Well, I do admit, Elopements are in fact a thing which exist here in Equestria.  I hadn't realized I would need to explain about such an assuredly minor - " she ground her teeth together " - social custom.  My intentions were completely and totally innocent, because violating a marriage is against my religion."

"Sure it is, sure it is," said Forward Charge as she dragged a filtration broom through the air to pick up the dust.  "And all Harmonites are such friendshippy ponies that they always follow the commands of the major and minor Princesses, in the last details, all the time.  Al-laden certainly never made off with a stolen magic carpet and an adolescent alicorn filly that one time.  They don't ever do like all other regular ponies and decide to just kidnap somepony and make sweet love to them at all.  Ever."

"I wasn't aware I'd been kidnapped.  I was out for tea and checkers," objected Fern Pipette.  "'Tis perfectly normal, tea and checkers, like a Perfectly Normal Beast.  Do we have those in Equestria?"

"Book, do you know what she's talking about with beasts?" asked Forward Charge.

"Fern, dear, wouldn't those just be called buffalo?  Also, are you usually aware you've been kidnapped?  If you're usually not, and this time you also weren't, despite being taken out on a date by a strange mare with a reputation for going after ponies, maybe you're just mis-estimating the probability you've been kidnapped," Book Burner said.

He felt a few pairs of eyes on him.

"You gotta phrase things right for some ponies," he shrugged.

"You're just lucky that attempted rescue from an Elopement constitutes an exception to the normal damages laws," Lyrical quipped.

"Fine then," Fern Pipette concluded, putting her hoof down (on a piece of sharp clay that could cut somepony if no-one swept it up).  "We can head out of here.  Lyrical?  I grandly enjoyed myself getting to know you, and we should do it again sometime, minus the window imploding and my husband showing up."

The two mares gave a quick hug and went to kiss each-other's cheeks... only for Lyrical Melody to find her lips gracefully parted and enveloped by those of Fern Pipette.

"Was that your game, that whole time?" Fern whispered in her ear.

"Dabuck?" Book Burner asked.

"Simple experimental test," Fern said as she trudged to her husband's side and nuzzled him.  "Does the reality of living in Equestria 'Satisfy values through friendship and ponies', and what does that mean?  What does it indicate about whether we live inside or outside the simulation?  With this, I have made a start: it certainly does appear that such a thing being the governing law of our world, enacted by the local deity, means that I cannot seem to sin."

"Great, that makes one wonder what other previously harmful acts are legal and encouraged here," Book Burner said with very little enthusiasm and a very great roll of the eyes.

Fern threw a foreleg around his neck.

"Just for once, my dear, stop trying to be the same pony as ever and grow up a bit, will you?  While I admit to preferring less broken glass and ritualized bad speeches, this is our life now.  Relax: the time has come for the joy."

"A surprisingly wise comment for somepony I'd thought an opponent," Lyrical Melody smiled.

Together the four friends cleaned up what they could, and then left the shop for the afternoon.  Lyrical and Charge went their separate ways so the couple could go beat each-other over the heads with little teapots someplace.  As with all fights among couples, nopony could bring themselves to decide who was a bigger, sillier idiot, nor could either of the two ponies stop laughing.

For all the trouble, in a tiny but satisfying way, they were back together again, and life was moving on.