Context

Day 2

Verde poked her head from out the cover of the human sized blankets that now covered her. Looking around, she saw that the human had one of those digital alarm clocks next to his bed. 5 am, well before sunrise. She had fallen asleep before Jason joined her in bed, but at that moment, she realized that Jason was not in the bed to begin with. Hoofing at the strange mosaic of sheets, she hoped to find him in the darkness, she relented when she finally figured that he was not there.

Thinking to herself, she wondered if he was already up, farm ponies got up awfully early, maybe he did too. Looking at the door that he had left slightly open, she carefully slid out of the bed and was able to open the door by shoving her snout where the crack was. Making sure to be as quiet as possible, the mare trotted down the hallway and into the living room. A sound suddenly thrust its way into the silence as the pony tensed up. It was the snore of something sleeping. Her eyes, after finally adjusting to the low light, saw Jason sleeping on the couch.

Why was he there?, the Mare asked herself. As quickly as the thought came, it was replaced by something else. The human’s hand was on the floor, open. Verde’s curiosity got the better of her and knelt down to get a closer look. She then realized that the human did not simply have dull claws, it was like he had five little pony legs attached to his arm! Looking up to see if Jason was waking, she saw that he was sound asleep and began to feel her herd mate’s micro appendages with her snout. She was surprised, soft, with some of the arms having a strange hoof like hardness at the side.

Suddenly the human snorted as his fingers suddenly starting moving to grab her. The mare jumped back before they could close in on her. Enough was enough, she thought, picking herself up. Taking a moment to compose herself, she started to move to his kitchen.

Her Mother’s herd mate taught her that every herd has members who specialize in helping out around the house, even if they were not very good at it. Some herd members exclusively cleaned the floors while others paid the bills, and whatnot. But the smaller the herd, the more responsibilities each member takes on. But when in doubt, the lead mare assigns the jobs. Verde was in doubt and realized the human who took her in might be hungry. Until I can talk to him about their what chores each of us will do, I’ll take on the role of cook, she thought to herself.

Celestia’s sun has finally started to rise, giving the mare just enough light to work with as she quietly opened the refrigerator. She asked herself, do humans like pancakes? I hope he does. She started looking for milk and eggs when her snout touched something that smelled dangerous. Peering into the area she poked, she saw something that horrified her. Meat. Cut, uncooked meat. Screaming in a mix of surprise and fear, the Mare fell back and rolled over, nearly hitting her head for the second time this week.

It was enough to wake the Human. The human let out a gasp and jumped up from the couch, seeing the fridge door open, he rushed over to see the Mare he let in staring in a mix of anger, fear, and disgust.

“YOU EAT MEAT!” she cried, staring straight up at him as if had just betrayed her.

“...yeah, a good portions of humans do.” he spoke drowsily.

“Well not in this household!” the mare punctuated.

“...Is this how you treat your Griffin buddies?” Jason replied, picking the stuff up off the floor that Verde dropped out of the fridge during her fall.

“THEY are savages!” Verde angry voiced, finally picking herself off the floor as the human put the fallen goods back into the fridge.

“I want that meat out of here no-” she was interrupted by a loud slam of the ice box door.

“No, I’m willing to let you stay here but I'm not changing my eating habits.” Jason spoke coldly.

“As Lea-” Verde said rearing up, trying to get on Jason's level even though her head only reached his mid chest.

“PLEASE!” Jason bellowed, “Do not test me this early in the morning, if you have a problem,”, Jason opened the front door, “here you go, you can send for your stuff later.”.

Verde immediately dropped on her rear. Getting the boot from two herds in two days? Her ears drooped to the side and looked down, realizing that the Human was prepared to force her out of her new home if she argued any more.

The human shuffled around the kitchen, making his own breakfast of some sort of cereal.

“Do you want something to eat?” Jason asked in a slightly agitated tone.

“No thanks...” Verde finally got up and slowly moved herself back to the bedroom.

As Verde walked, she thought, My first day in a real herd and I managed to anger my mate. Verde jumped into the tall bed, pulled up the sheets, and bit into the pillow as she started to cry.

===

Verde arose from the bed once more, she realized that she fell asleep crying. The tear stained pillow was still damp and the sun was fully out now. She did not want to move. This was not the life of being in a herd she was told about. Maybe accepting the human’s invitation was wrong. Rolling over, she realized she had heard nothing outside the door for the last few minutes. Looking around for a second, she noticed a letter on the nightstand addressed to her.

Verde,

I've gone to work. I'll be home at about 5ish. I left some breakfast and lunch for you on the coffee table, don’t worry, its not meat. We need to talk when I get home.

-Jason

P.S Don’t throw away my meat

Verde looked over at the clock, it was 3pm. She slowly slipped from the bed and back into the floor. She was getting kinda hungry and started to move to the living room. After a good meal, she would be able to think clearly about what's going on.

Verde saw the home in full light now. Dark Blue furniture dominate the room with lilly white walls. As she moved to the coffee table, she noticed that her luggage was next to the couch, all clean. Jason cleaned my luggage, Verde thought, which made her heart jump a little. She unzipped the biggest bag, which held mementos of her foalhood. She pulled out her first painting, a gaudy piece of art, her trying to paint a seal without a reference. But as bad as it looked, it gave her her cutie mark. She discovered that day she loved drawing and painting.

Digging further, she pulled out her Darling Doo adventure books. Opening it, she took a moment to skim. Moving to just behind the book’s cover, she saw the words “From Siena, with love”. Siena had been Verde’s second mother, as her real mom was a Unicorn and Father was a Pegasus. Both of them were disappointed when she came out an Earth Pony, but not Siena. Siena was able to teach her things about Earth Ponies her Father and Mother simply did not know or care to find out. While she loved her mom, she also loved Siena very much. Then the tears returned.

With no one to hear her, she did not bother to hold back. She dropped to the ground, using her front ankles to dry her eyes, and started to review the last few days in her head.

First, I get rejected from a herd, and then I join this predator’s herd. Siena moved to Manehatten to join a new herd and I can’t go back home to my mom or dad, they were always focused on my sister, a Unicorn who gets all of her mom’s adoration. And this Human, he may even eat me if I-

Then, from the corner of her eye, she looked at the coffee table. It was a fully chocolate frosted cake. The human... baked me a cake, she thought. She saw the note right next to it

Verde,

I don't know what you were doing out in the mud and why you were bleeding, but I can guess it was nothing good. I’m sorry I snapped this morning, I had enough time to jerry rig a cake before I headed into work. It should hold you until I get home.

-Jason

P.S I'm serious, don't throw out my meat

Verde let out a giggle at the post script. The human apparently knew how to cook. He had even already sliced it for her. Pulling a slice, she gave it a shot... and it was okay, a bit dry, not great, but at least it did not have meat.

It was enough to calm her nerves. Feeling better, she started to take a good look at the living room, and noticed the human had one of those moving picture frames. While she did not know much about humans, she knew that the form of magic they practiced was accessible to everypony. So much so that some of the more Unicorn dense towns outlawed human magic, but she didn't understand why. I wonder if I can make it work, she thought. Trotting up to it, she tapped the frame with her hoof and... nothing happened.

She began to look at the other sides of the flat rectangle. She saw a bunch of buttons on the left side, with one that says power. Better not mess with that one, it might just release raw magical energy, Verde thought. Looking at the back, she saw a bunch of tubes that lead to the box the picture frame was standing on. Shoot, looks like I'll have to get my human to show me how it works, Verde sighed dejectedly. Moving away, she started to explore other parts of the room, and found a desk with a miniature moving picture frame on it. Rearing up, she saw a typewriter keyboard by itself and something else that looked like a tiny elongated dome. Bracing herself at the ledge of the desk, she moved in closer to get a better look at the dome, touching it with her snout. The picture frame sprung to life, catching her by surprise. The picture wasn't very artistically pretty... in fact it wasn't even moving. It just had two white boxes with ‘Username’ and ‘Password’ next to them on top of a simple blue background. She, once again, thought that she should just let the human show her the ropes.

Letting herself down, she noticed that he had no books, which worried her. She was worried about how she was going to pass the time, waiting for her herd mate. Then she came up with a idea, looking at the cake he had cooked for her, she would cook something for HIM, now that she was not upset anymore. Remembering to herself that he did have meat, she trotted into the kitchen and noticed again, everything was so tall. She would not be able to cook for her herd without some sort of assistance. Then she remembered that the little picture frame she accidentally activated had a chair in front of the desk it sat on.
Moving the chair was easy, she was an Earth Pony after all, not as strong as most, but she could still push and pull with ease. Getting on the chair, she found that she would have to get on the counter to open up the cabinets to look inside them. She had to be careful though, she would be on the ledge, but she felt that as long as she took her time, she would be able to open them all and start cooking.

After about an hour of painstaking opening and closing of cabinet drawers, she found all the ingredients she needed for spaghetti, but was disappointed that she would have to use the sauce she found in a jar that was slightly too big for her mouth to fit around and too close to other goods that her front ankles could not get it. Worrying, she closed her eyes and thought to herself what she was going to do. Then she remembered that Jason had a bunch of pillows, if she could get enough of them, she could just pull the jar down and let the towels softness catch the jar without breaking it! Moving from the bedroom and to the kitchen, she started moving pillows one at a time on top of the counter. Soon, after a few trips back and forth, she was ready.

Hoofing at the jar, it took her a few tries before she could get it to drop. Finally, the jar was at the edge, one more hoofing and it would fall. Placing her hoof on the lid, she pressed down and moved her hoof toward herself, moving the jar just off the ledge enough so that it could fall. For the briefest of moments, she worried that the pillows would not hold and that she would have to explain why there was tomato sauce and shards of glass in their pillows when, with a thunk, it landed. Sighing with relief, she moved back to the chair... only to lightly tap the jar with her hoof just hard enough that it rolled off the pillow, and onto the floor.

Biting her lower lip and closing her eyes, she awaited the crash and sound of sauce spreading on the floor, only to hear a THUD. Slowly opening her eyes and looking down, she saw that...the jar was just fine... just... fine.

Moving to the floor, she was astounded that the glass did not shatter. She noticed that there was a white streak on the glass where it hit the floor... is this some kind of human magic? Hoofing it with a little more pressure. She felt something strange... the glass... bent? Yes, the glass was BENDING. Maybe the humans had some sort of magic that allowed glass to bend just enough so that it could take a fall like that without shattering! But a problem now remained, getting it back UP to the counter. She tried to grasp it with her hooves, but it was too wide. Looking at the various devices in the kitchen as she sat down to rest for a second, she saw that one of them had the time on it, just like that light clock that was in the bedroom...it said 4:30.

In thirty minutes, Jason would be home. Getting back up, Verde started moving the pillows back into the bedroom and resolved to at least get the noodles boiling. If she could do that, then he could pick up the sauce from the floor with his little pony legs and help her finish the meal.

After finishing the return of the pillows to their proper place, she was able to get a pot and fill it with water, thankfully, the handle to the faucet was far more Pony friendly than anything else in the kitchen. Moving a metal pot from the faucet to the stove, she hooved the heater to about the middle and began the waiting game for the boiling to begin. She decided to see what the weather was like outside to alleviate her boredom from waiting.

Moving back out to the living room, the only window there, was one that lead to the backyard and was this huge thing of sliding glass. Poking her head past the window shades, she saw that it was drizzling. She never kept up with the town’s weather schedule, but Pegasi liked to group days of raining together. She was startled to see that his back yard lead to the local water reservoir, dug out by Earth Ponies so that the town would not flood horribly when it did rain. But from this distance, it looked like a lake to her.

Remembering that she had water boiling, she moved back to the kitchen and saw that the pot was lightly boiling. Now was the time to get the dried spaghetti into the pot. Quickly getting it in there, she wanted to go back to the drizzling lake she saw in the distance and relax before Jason came home.

Climbing down, she began to trot back to the window, when she heard the boiling suddenly spike up, turning around, she saw that the boiling pot was suddenly boiling over. Horrified, she jumped up on the chair and reached for the knob to turn down the heat, but the steam from the pot prevented her. She tried again, wincing in pain each time that she reached, but she just could not do it. She then thought that maybe a towel would cover the steam up long enough for her to reach the knob. Then she looked down.

The hot, boiling water had spilled over onto the ground, surrounding her in a light steaming puddle. Oh no, she thought to herself. She kept repeating the thought over and over again. It’s over now, if she could not clean this up and stop the water, he would kick her out for sure this time. But she was scared of getting burned, and even if she left, she would have to deal with the hot water on the ground again to try and turn off the knob. She started breathing quickly, gasping for air.

"No no no!", she said out loud, when suddenly, the front door knob made a sound, and a second later, the Human had returned.