Chapters Mayor Mare rarely summoned the citizens of Ponyville to a meeting, so naturally everypony was filling the town hall.
"We have important guests staying here on their way to Canterlot," she explained, "and as such I will allow our scholar Twilight Sparkle to elucidate."
"In public?" This quip was followed by a yelp as somepony kicked the wit.
Twilight herself ignored this repartee and stepped up to the front of the dais, bearing just a single document decorated with the royal seal. That got everypony's attention. Normally she did a little juggling act with a stack of papers. Whoever these ponies were, they were clearly Very Important Indeed.
"Yesterday," the unicorn known as the Element of Magic began, "Princess Celestia received a messenger from the Shetlands, which lie about four day's travel away on hoof, or roughly twenty hours nonstop flying in a straight line." [1]
"Twenty hours?" Rainbow Dash snorted, "I could fly that in half the time!"
Twilight looked over at her friend and Element of Loyalty. "I'm sure you could," she said dryly, causing a little ripple of laughter to spread throughout the crowd. "Anyway...
"Citizens of Ponyville!" Twilight read, "Heed unto the decree of the Royal Princesses Celestia and Luna of Equestria! In days four the newly appointed Laird of the Shetlands will arrive in Ponyville on his way unto Canterlot, to present himself and take his oath of fealty.
"It is the desire of the Princesses that all citizens welcome the Laird, and his retinue, with every and all hospitality that is due unto them, and offer the hoof of friendship in the spirit of harmony.
"Thus decree our Royal Highnesses of Equestria!"
Twilight rolled the scroll up with a snap and put it to one side. Then she braced herself for the inevitable.
"PARTY!" A pink blur of exuberance shot about nine feet into the air and crashed down right in front of Twilight, resolving itself into the Element of Laughter. "When are they coming? What's their favourite food? Do you think they'll like cupcakes? How about streamers and oh oh OH! How about –"
Twilight just rolled her eyes and ignored the hyperactive mare bouncing like a ping-pong ball around her and shaking the dais. "Relax Pinkie! We have three days to prepare before they arrive!"
"Three days?" Pinkie's eyes shone with ideas and made several of the more quiet ponies in the audience shudder.
"Apparently there's about thirty-odd ponies in the Laird's party," Twilight added, "so we'll need to... uh, is Bellhop here?"
A distinguished if slightly portly grey pony with a neatly parted mane and a waistcoat raised a forehoof. "Over here ma'am."
"Thanks... have you got room in the hotel for a party of, uh, let's say thirty-six?"
Bellhop looked thoughtful. "In three days' time? I believe so, but I'll need to check the register."
"I'll help with decorations," Rarity declared.
"I'll bring the apples," Applejack chimed in.
This started off a cascade of ponies offering their help and services, and Twilight couldn't help smiling as her adopted home town began living up to its name as the Home of Harmony.
Behind her Pinkie stopped, one ear twitching rapidly. She blinked, wondering what on earth could have set her Pinkie sense off. Then she shrugged. New ponies were coming! And that meant a party! And she had three whole days to give them the best Pinkie Pie party ever!
"Okay, okay!" Twilight called out, stamping her hooves for order. "I'm going to find out about what these Shetland ponies are like, so we can really make them feel at home!"
Twilight cantered into the library, calling for Spike. The baby dragon roused from his nap, but didn't register what the noise was until he trudged downstairs, knuckling his eyes to find Twilight waiting for him.
"Wha'sup Twi'? I was sleepin'," he mumbled, struggling to reach full wakefulness.
"Snap out of it Spike! I need all the books we have on Shetland ponies. There's a whole lot of 'em coming in three days and they'll be staying here before going to Canterlot," Twilight ordered in her 'yay study' voice, her magic already yanking books out of the S shelves. "So... Shetland: A History... Scenes from a Shetland Fling , that'll be helpful... Shetlander: There Can Be Only One ? What's that doing in here? That should be in fiction! C'mon Spike, help me here!"
The little dragon shook his head, recognising the signs of Twilight in full research mania.
About an hour later, Twilight was happily nose-deep in a book (When the Heather Blooms Among the Sickle Rocks, an account of life in a Shetland family), with two respectable stacks of sturdy books either side of her. Then again, Equestrian books, being commonly manipulated by lips and hooves, need to be sturdy, since they would disintegrate rather quickly if they were not.
Spike meanwhile had retrieved Poor Daft Ned and Other Shetland Folk Songs from her discards pile and was leafing through it, giggling slightly at some of the verses. He turned several pages at once and blinked.
"Hey Twilight, who's Epona and Ek – uh, Equus?"
"Huh?" Twilight blinked at him.
"There's a song in here that mentions them a lot, and they kinda sound like the Princesses. Making waters flow and the sun rise and stuff."
"Oh. Oh!" Now she remembered. "Epona and Equus are really old legends, as in... really old. Even before the Titans. Ponies used to worship them as gods in the old days, before the windigoes came.
"According to the legends, Epona and Equus were the first real Equestrians... no wait a minute." Twilight shook her head, trying to remember. "Epona and Equus were supposed to have brought Equestria forth from the Shadow; sired the first Equestrians; created the sun and moon; fought off Them From Outside time and again; and, well, all that legendary stuff.
"Some ponies think that the princesses are the direct line of Epona and Equus, but," and the unicorn shrugged, "nopony's able to prove that."
She decided not to mention that there were still ponies that worshipped Epona and Equus here and there, but they were few, far between, considered eccentric at best and barbaric at worst, and carefully watched. Twilight herself felt no impulse to religious observance, not when she had learnt at the hooves of Princess Celestia herself. And Celestia raised the sun every morning, and lowered it every night, and more importantly was a real pony you could see, hear, smell and touch, as opposed to beings of pure myth and legend that you only learned about third-hand from somepony's interpretation of somepony else's book which had probably been transcribed from yet another pony's oral (and no doubt garbled) retelling.
As far as Twilight was concerned, she'd rather get the answer directly from the alicorn's mouth.
"Hey wait a minute. You mean like that cult that made so much scandal?"
Twilight winced.
Years ago, some loco-in-the-coco had read his holy books a little too closely and decided that he was the reincarnation of Equus. Nothing wrong with that a little rest (with plenty of medication, counselling, and some burly ponies in white coats) couldn't fix, but somehow he'd convinced several others as well. It also brought him to Canterlot's attention, but they dismissed him and his herd as just a group of harmless kooks.
Then they discovered he was keeping a stud. [2]
Equine though they might be, Equestrians are a mostly monogamous species, and considered such harems as barbaric. Apparently this Equus-wannabe believed that any one of his mare followers would reveal herself as Epona by birthing a 'child of the gods'. Which meant no moon tea for the mares, and no plot for any stallion who wasn't the leader, and rather a lot of foals that weren't particularly well cared for since they were just foals and not the child of the gods he was expecting.
When it comes to foals, Equestrians are even less tolerant of 'barbarism'. A rather public defection was followed by the cult attempting to isolate itself from everypony else, which only served to increase the attention focussed on it.
The combination of sexual tension, too many mouths to feed and paranoia soon caused the herd to collapse spectacularly. Apparently the foals were adopted out as far away as Appleloosa...
In fact, its fall was presented to Twilight Sparkle as a textbook example of the life cycle of charismatic cults, and according to her tutor at the time, an object lesson in what happens when you get caught up in 'barbaric old ideas from antiquity'.
"Ah..." she finally said at last, "Most of them... are more sensible." Time to change the subject. "Does that book say anything about Shetland music?"
Spike blinked and showed her the cover.
"That's great Spike," she said, her magic tugging the book from the little dragon's grasp, "I can give that to Fluttershy, and this one to Rarity, and..."
In Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie Pie's head was turning back and forth so fast between the icing she was making (and testing), and the latest batch of cupcakes in the oven, that it was a wonder it didn't unscrew completely and fall off. This gave her voice a rather strange quality as she sang her latest hit.
There's Shetlanders comin'! There's Shetlanders a-comin'! All Ponyville's a-hummin' 'Cos the Shetlanders' are comin!
Do you think that they like cupcakes? Or maybe they like fudge? With pink or purple frosting? Whichever! I won't grudge!
Twilight braced herself as she pushed the door open, the bell tinkling and causing the energetic little mare to spin around and give her friend a high note at point blank range. Given that there was a dividing wall, Carrot Cake manning the counter, the counter in question, and two other long-suffering patrons in between her and Twilight, this was quite an impressive feat. Unless you were a Ponyville resident.
"Shortbread!" was the first word that managed to leave Twilight's mouth.
"Ooh..." Pinkie's neck seemed to elongate like something out of a cartoon as she stuck her head into the kitchen briefly, then turned back to Twilight again. "Nopey-dope on shortbread today, but we've got some super-fresh cupcakes comin' up any minute!"
"Two pieces of the fudge please," one of the customers asked Carrot Cake, ignoring Pinkie completely.
"No, no!" Twilight shook herself, trying to pull her thoughts back into order. "Shetlanders love shortbread. I brought you some recipes."
"Recipes?" Pinkie blinked, "Ooh, I think we've already got one for shortbread – whoop!"
For a moment she stretched into a pink blur that snapped into the kitchen like a rubber band, followed by the sound of the oven opening and closing. Oh, her cupcakes, right.
"There we are," Carrot pushed the bagged fudge towards his customer, also ignoring Pinkie completely, "Four bits please."
"Sorry 'bout that!" Twilight sighed; for no obvious reason Pinkie had looped around the bakery and come in the front door as well, somehow without ringing the bell.
"Yeah, well, I also brought recipes for sticky gingerbread loaf –"
Pinkie's delighted squeal made a tray of custard squares shudder visibly.
"Pardon me," asked the satisfied customer, bag in mouth, as he made his way past the two Elements Incarnate, otherwise ignoring them completely.
"Oatmeal cookies, oat cakes, and –" Twilight broke off as she spotted a particular item on display. "Oh great, you do sponge cake? Apparently Shetlander's love 'em!"
"YAYYY!" Several trays of produce rattled alarmingly at Pinkie's expression of delight, or maybe from her bouncing up and down. "That's great I'll get to baking some right away they're just gonna love 'em I know –"
"Can I have one of the spinach, onion and cheese pies please?" the other customer asked Carrot, ignoring Pinkie completely.
"Okay, okay!" The unicorn levitated several papers out of her saddlebags; Pinkie grabbed them in her lips and actually dangled for a moment before Twilight could release her magic. "Look, I need to see Rarity and Rainbow next, then... uh..."
"There you go, three bits," Carrot rang up the sale, ignoring Pinkie completely.
"Okey-dokey-lokey!" Pinkie mumbled around the sheets before simply bouncing into the kitchen, causing the customer to flinch slightly and Carrot to flick an ear.
"Oats, you said?" Carrot asked Twilight with an air of professional curiosity, "I'll make a note to order extra."
"Thanks Mr Cake," Twilight nodded, "Hope Pinkie hasn't been too excited."
Carrot Cake just shook his head and chuckled. "Oh, the missus and I are used to it by now. You know that. Oh – are you going to see Applejack? Because if so..."
"Cider?" Applejack blinked at Twlight. "Well, y'all are lookin' hot and bothered."
"No, no!" Twilight shook her head. "It's for when the Shetlanders arrive. It's not just that they'll be thirsty after travelling all day, but... apparently they're very fond of a stiff drink." She frowned. "Or three. Or five."
"The night stuff huh?" The earth pony nodded in understanding and turned towards the shed where the brewing was done, stroking her cheek thoughtfully. "We've got about two dozen barrels of night cider at the moment, but I'd say only fifteen're at the drinkable stage, the rest are too young, but hey, how much of that can a pony drink anyway?" [3]
Twilight frowned, trying to remember what she'd read. "Um... we're expecting drinking contests."
"Drinkin' contests? What the hay kinda folk are these Shetland types anyway?"
"Apparently they work hard and, uh, play hard too. At their festivals, there's a lot of eating, drinking, singing and, uh, showing off how tough and strong they are." Twilight decided not to mention that the singing was often the prelude to all-out brawling. Especially when the song was 'Poor Daft Ned' or 'Poor Blind Nell'. It depended on the inventiveness of the singers, how long before somepony slipped another's name into the lyrics, and how long before said pony noticed and started swinging.
"Who is it?" Rarity called as she heard somepony entering Carousel Corner.
"It's me," Twilight responded, "I've got a book of Shetland dress you might be interested in."
Rarity's face lit up. "Well of course I'm interested!" she cried, looking over at the large volume her friend was levitating, then moving several bolts of cloth aside on a table. "Bring it over here, dear, and let's have a look... Hmm, Clan Dress and Tartans of the Shetlands ..."
"Apparently the Shetlanders are grouped into large herds called clans," Twilight explained, "mostly with real old names, like Deargdyer, which means 'Red Dyer'. The head of the clan is called a Thane, and..."
Rarity, used to having things 'Twi-splained' to her, tuned her out as she devoured the pictures of Shetland ponies in their native dress.
Her first reaction was: My goodness, haven't they heard of a brush or comb – or proper grooming? Compared to her fellow Equestrians, the Shetland look seemed to favour long whiskers, rough coats, unshorn fetlocks and the 'windswept and interesting' look for their manes and tails. No wonder they were referred to as 'shaggies'!
After that came: Haven't they heard of coats or pants? The depicted ponies, along with a fine parade of long hairstyles, seemed to tend to cloaks, scarves or blankets. She lingered over one statespony-like gent in a small hat described as a 'tam-o-shanter'; it was charming in a... quaint... kind of way, but at the same time...
"What is with all these dull colours?" she asked rhetorically, "You'd think they'd have something brighter. And all these patterns of red, blue, green..."
"Uh, apparently they're more about utility and warmth," Twilight shrugged, "And each clan has its own tartan, like a sort of... um... like Old Equestrian heraldry I think."
"So much wool... maybe I can work with cotton or... perhaps I can interest them in the brighter shades... but what are these neck pouches? Is that a cutie mark on them?" She frowned at a larger picture of a Shetland sporran, which was indeed a neck pouch. The artist's skill had captured the pattern on the tartan strip on its front, which also boasted a metal badge apparently fastened by small rivets.
"I was thinking you could also get some ideas for decorations from it as well," Twilight chipped in. Rarity's only response was a mumble as she read up on the essential nature of the Shetland sporran.
Shaking her head in amusement, Twilight took herself and the book she had for Rainbow Dash out of Carousel Corner as Rarity levitated a pencil and paper to herself and began brainstorming.
--\//--
Rainbow Dash considered herself an athlete, and in her eyes that meant making sure she got plenty of rest to ensure she stayed in peak condition. You couldn't make history if you were overstressed after all, and buck whatever Applejack thought.
Her current 'power nap' in a handy tree was cut short by a twig repeatedly poking her in the ear. Flicking said appendage didn't dissuade the twig at all, and the pegasus finally opened an eye and observed the purple glow around the annoying thing. Further investigation revealed that down below, Twilight's horn also shared the glow. The two seemed to be connected.
"I was resting," Rainbow stated in a cranky tone. She most certainly didn't whine.
"Sure you were," Twilight didn't believe her for a minute. "Look, do you want to know how to knock the horseshoes off the Shetlanders when they arrive?"
Rainbow Dash couldn't just descend from the tree, she had to do a little loop along the way. "Do I want to know? Twi', I need to know! I mean, they're gonna meet me in person! The pony who made a Sonic Rainboom twice! In fact, I was just thinking of a routine –"
"Sure you were," Twilight chuckled, lifting Scenes from a Shetland Fling out of her bags, "but here's how Shetlanders play."
"Hmm..." Rainbow looked over Twilight's shoulder as she turned pages. "Dancing, races – ooh, wrestling! – tests of strength, drinking contests? Whoa, what on earth's that pony doing?"
'That pony' was a sturdy Shetland stallion, depicted as standing on his hind legs while balancing a heavy-looking log in his forehooves. This was no mean feat. While Equestrians can stand on their hind legs for a little while, they're not really built for it, so doing so is taxing. Especially when you're holding one end of a log in your forehooves that's about a hoof-and-half thick and about fourteen and a half strides long.
The rest of the sequence showed the pony breaking into a short run, then heaving the log into the air, whence two other ponies measured distances.
"Apparently that's called 'Tossing the Caber'," Twilight observed. "According to this, you're supposed to have it land pointing... oh, my."
"Huh?" Rainbow blinked at Twilight, who was staring at the next page, eyes wide and... blushing? She looked at the paragraph that her unicorn friend was gaping at, and ended up doing the same.
On occasion, the paragraph read, due to the ferocity of their exertions, a stallion competing at the caber toss may inadvertently let down; but the Shetlanders being a most earthy sort, such display is met not with censure, but by laughter and ribaldry of a most coarse manner. Fellow stallions are wont to join in the rudery also.
Fluttershy was walking into the Everfree Forest for four good reasons. Firstly, she wasn't all that good a flyer. Secondly, the foliage of the Everfree was dense enough that attempting to fly through it was a crash waiting to happen. And, thirdly, the Everfree was where Zecora lived.
Fourthly, after Twilight's visit, she felt that Zecora should be forewarned of the coming visitors.
"Who knocks outside my humble home?" Came the zebra's inquiry from inside her hut, followed by her head. "Fluttershy? Why here you roam?"
"Um..." the gentle pegasus swallowed, "We're... um, Ponyville I mean... we're playing host to a group from the Shetlands."
Zecora stared at Fluttershy in surprise, causing her to squeak nervously and attempt to hide behind her mane. "I understand your worry and fear. Why are those shaggies coming here?" [4]
Fluttershy blinked at the bitter tone in the zebra's voice. "T-the new, uh, 'leered' is going to Canterlot," she frowned, trying to remember what Twilight had said, "to swear an oath... or something."
"To bend knee at the royal court?" Zecora was astonished. "What show of power had they wrought?" She shuddered. "Don't answer that, on second thought."
"W-well..." Fluttershy was confused. "Um... you sound like you've met them."
"A cup of tea this does entail," Zecora hedged, "to wet my throat as I regale."
Pushing her potions cauldron to one side of the fire, the zebra fetched the kettle and headed for the water butt, speaking as she did so.
"After leaving far Zebrabwe
"My hooves they took me northwards
"I... heard the revelry of the Shetlands
She paused to lip the top off the tea container and transfer some leaves into the pot, replacing the lid with a bit more force than was really needed.
"I saw the savagery of the Shetlands,
An edge crept into her voice again, obviously remembering unpleasant times.
"I saw them roistering and drunken
"Oh, dear," Fluttershy groaned, "Twilight – I mean, she asked me about music, and gave me a book of songs, but... all that drinking, and..."
"They love their songs with subjects rousing, like drinking, fighting and carousing. If such song fills you with dismay, if asked again..." Zecora looked at her guest, "Just answer nay."
"I suppose I should," Fluttershy nodded, looking at the floor, "It's just that she's my friend, and the others are all doing their parts, and if I don't..."
"To say no to a friend is hard," Zecora said around a cup she was placing on the table, "But sometimes that's what you must do. Can nopony else carry a tune, or be willing to if asked by you?"
"Um..." Fluttershy blinked several times. "I suppose I could write Octavia... or that Vinyl Scratch, I guess... And I could ask Pinkie Pie where she found those instruments when... you know..."
"Glad I could show your troubled heart another way to do your part," Zecora smiled, then turned to where the kettle was starting to boil. She busied herself with pouring the tea, quietly praising herself for not uttering the verse that had crept into her mind. Fluttershy didn't need to know; besides, they were nowhere near the Shetlands.
I learned the legends of the Shetlands Set to the bagpipes' skirls and drones Where ponies close their ears and flee the lies of things 'neath standing stones.
Author's Note
[1] Ponies in this fiction use an octal counting system (four hooves, two ears, one nose and one tail). As such 10am pony time is 8am human, 14pm is our 12pm, and so forth.
Pony clocks in reality have thirty divisions for hours, traditionally with midnight at the bottom of the dial and noon at the top. Assuming a similar rotational period, the Equestrian hour has forty-eight minutes of 75 earth seconds' duration.
As such, the Shetland messenger traversed the distance between the Shetlands and Canterlot in roughly sixteen hours. Even admitting that this is mostly in a straight line, instead of following the roads around the Everfree Forest, that flight was quite the feat.
[2] 'Herd' is a general Equestrian term for any grouping of ponies. More specific terms do exist for particular types of herds.
A harem herd, for instance, was known as a 'stud'. As Equestrian culture became more monogamous, the practice of keeping a stud fell out of favour. Nowadays used as slang for infidelity or a (generally male) prostitute. Never call an Equestrian 'studdy'. Especially a Shetlander.
[3] Ponies classify brewed beverages into two types: low or no alcohol ones are termed 'day' and those with significant alcoholic content are termed 'night' – since ponykind frowns on imbibing such when there's work to do. Despite the existence of the Ponyville Dam, reticulated water is still relatively new in the area, so some ponies still accompany their breakfasts with a day cider or a day beer.
Available Earth beer and cider would definitely be defined as 'night' in the Equestrian lexicon.
[4] 'Shaggy' is a slang term for a Shetlander, referencing their long coats. Slightly derogatory as well, but good-natured, as opposed to 'fluffy'.
Normally ponies had nothing to do with the many standing stones that dotted the Shetland landscape, for the very simple reason that Princess Luna, over a thousand years ago, had recognised the menace they presented and issued an edict against approaching or touching them.
One unfortunate traveller – never mind his name, it's not important – was about to learn, in his final moments, why.
Oh, all right, we'll call him Dead Meat. Happy now? He isn't.
Travelling late, and alone, he had been easy pickings for the Muc. Unfortunately, instead of slaying, they were intent on capture - and everypony knew what that meant.
Dead Meat's terrified pleas and agonised screams delighted them as they played their dismal games; when It graced them with Its presence, those screams redoubled, briefly, as It accepted their sacrifice. Several of their number, insane with religious fervour, dashed forward to lick the fresh blood from the stone. They became the second course.
With no further meals forthcoming, It departed, and the congregation descended on the gore-soaked menhir like a horde of porcine bats, tonguing the blood where it pooled in its worn and oddly repulsive carvings. Above them, their shaman yammered something almost like a blessing, and the largest of them all strode forward, rose to his hind legs, and plucked a grisly lump from the stone's top with both fore-trotters.
The congregation froze as the huge Muc war-chief devoured Its' leftovers, all eyes waiting to see what would happen; when he merely smiled, belched, and bellowed his name, the caterwaul that followed darkened the dreams of ponies a mile around.
Grault was blessed. Worse still, he was on the march.
Which is the important thing. I told you the pony's name wasn't.
"Ho there laddie!"
Strangely enough – or maybe that's the mood your author is in, at this time – the hailed pony's name was Garden Hoe. It said so on the sign by the front gate.
"Mph?" he asked, before dropping the hoe on the ground, and turning to the stranger. He stopped and stared, one foreleg raising automatically in surprise.
Instead of one pony, there were well over two dozen he could see; hairy earth ponies and unicorns, and not far above pegasi were wheeling in lazy circles, guarding five large covered wagons. Everypony seemed to be wearing some sort of little neck bag, as well as scarves or hats with patterns of blue, red and green. Heads poking inquisitively out of some of the wagons implied they were occupied.
What really caught his attention was that several of them were holding weapons, including some sort of mouth-held thing with wickedly curved blades. Nopony ever carried weapons! Fighting was the Royal Guards' job!
The closest of the herd asked something in a thick brogue.
Garden Hoe just stared, mesmerised by the mouth weapon one of the other ponies was wielding.
"Oi! Dafty!" A hoof passed in front of his eyes, making him blink and goggle stupidly at the waver.
"I said, " that worthy repeated in a testy tone, "d'ye ken how far tae Ponyville?"
"P-Ponyville?" Garden Hoe blinked again, the glint of blades dicing his faculties. "It's... along this road..."
"Aye, we ken this be the road," the questioner rolled his eyes, "Noo, how, far, awa' , be it?" he added, speaking loudly and slowly as though to an idiot.
Garden Hoe bristled at that. "Twelve hours' travel," he snapped at last, "You might like to stop tonight at Sweetwater, that's about four hours away, then continue tomorrow around the Everfree Forest – that'll take you all day." Longer, he thought, if you sample the Sweetwater brews.
The Shetlander just sniffed. "Aye then," he finally said, "Tha's wha' we wanted tae know. Thank'ee muchly laddie!"
As he turned away to inform his fellows, Garden Hoe distinctly heard him mutter, "Gurt fluffy neddie."
The farmer, quite rightly, felt insulted.
The following morning, Garden Hoe was out just after sunrise, pulling his harvester through the back wheat field. This season was quite the bumper crop, and he'd no doubt make a big bit at the market. But first you had to halter up and haul the blades and catchers down the rows.
There was something relaxing about the rhythm of harvesting; the unrelenting build-up to the perfect speed where the blades cut clean and the stalks swept smoothly into the nets; the concentration to slow down and turn at the end of the row, the approaching, dust-covered –
Garden Hoe slid to a stop. The blades caught and tore the stalks, which snagged together in the nets. He glowered at the figure, who was clearly dressed like the herd of barbarians that had passed yesterday. I hope they stopped at Sweetwater, he thought to himself, and that they all have bucking hangovers.
The lone figure drew closer and Garden Hoe felt something cold on his spine. This shaggy pony's little neck bag was so worn and old that its metal badge was more rust than metal, its fabric worn and so discoloured it almost vanished in his coat. A single wrap of some thick fabric about his barrel and shoulder was so stained and worn its colour was lost in shades of sickly brown, matching the dusty coat and matted mane of its wearer.
It was the eyes of the young stallion that did it for Garden Hoe. Those brown orbs were much darker, sunk in shadowed sockets that suggested the pony had been travelling nonstop – no, that wasn't it. Most ponies' eyes gleamed with life. Not this pony's.
"Has tha' Laird passed this wee?" The pony's voice was as haggard as his appearance.
"Laird?" Garden Hoe looked puzzled.
"Aye, the Laird," the stranger grated, "He wa' comin' this wee, has tha' seen 'im? 'Ow far ahaid be he?"
The bit dropped. That herd of wild-looking... of course!
"Your friends are at least four hours away, heading for Ponyville," he said at last, "They're probably leaving Sweetwater now." He pointed in the general direction of that town. "They'll probably be in Ponyville this evening..."
"Nae time ta' lose!" The stranger spun, revealing a hide criss-crossed with an astonishing number of old scars. "Mucmarfóir thanks 'ee!"
Garden Hoe just stood there staring as the stranger galloped down to the roadside fence, went to jump it, completely failed to clear the top rail and crashed to the ground motionless.
Mucmarfóir groaned and attempted to rise but the world started dancing a slow reel.
"Hold on there," it was the farmer he'd accosted in the field. "You're not getting up until you're completely recovered. Might be a concussion."
The Shetland pony just groaned again. Even thinking hurt, but the need to reach the Laird flew around in his brain like drunken pegasi in a Cloudsdale mosh pit.
"T' Laird..." he managed to get out, "Ha' tae get tae t' Laird..."
"I don't know about your precious Leered," Garden Hoe observed, "but I do know you're in no fit state to travel, not as exhausted as you are, and not with your brains still rattling in your skull!"
Mucmarfóir just groaned again and attempted to open his eyes, then shut them again. Evidently he was in the farmer's croft, and that worthy had enough sense to close the shutters against the now agonisingly bright sunlight.
"What happened to his tummy dad?" a young colt asked.
"I don't know," the farmer said, "and don't bother him, he's still very sick from that hit to the head."
If he could have spoken without fear of passing out or puking, Mucmarfóir would have told the lad a rare tale of loss and vengeance, of his long and holy crusade against the beasts that even today colluded with the ones under stones, and slaughtered his family, among other outrages against the children of Equus and Epona.
He would have plunged his listeners into horror and despair with the sights, sounds and smells as the farm he called home burned.
He would have described many pursuits and about as many battles against the filthy swine, hoof against tusk, teeth against trotter, to the death.
He would have spoken of how the Shetlands needed a leader ready to do war against the Muc, and drive them out of the Shetlands completely; a Laird who would also root out and destroy every last one of the standing stones and what they imprisoned.
He would have spoken of the tradition of the duel for succession. A tradition he was sure would be in his favour.
As it was, Mucmarfóir, the soon to be Laird of the Shetlands, could only groan.
"How is he?" a maternal voice asked quietly, "I'm about to serve lunch."
"Still woozy," Garden Hoe remarked, "He keeps trying to get up though, and he said something about getting to a Leered."
"He must be with those ponies that passed by yesterday," the mare observed, "Poor fellow. They'll be halfway to Ponyville by now."
Mucmarfóir's eyes popped open and his ears pricked in shock. Yesterday! Father Equus, he prayed, give me strength! I have tae catch the Laird and put him tae t' challenge afore he reaches...
He stared at the wall, which was apparently not in a dancing mood this time, then raised his head, eliciting a complaint from his neck. Probably cricked it when he hit the ground. But the world wasn't rolling any more, so he was able to take in the room.
It was evidently a bedroom, since he was lying on a bed, inside a croft made mainly from wood. Wood panelling made a dado line up to shoulder level, and above that plaster reached the timbered ceiling. The pattern of leaves and flowers that rolled along the top of the dado wasn't Shetland knotwork, but reassuring in its own way.
He looked down at himself. Beyond his flank, which bore the scars of more battles than anypony should suffer, the bed was sturdy and made for two; evidently the marriage bed of the stallion eyeing him worriedly, and the mare wearing an apron looking through the door.
The apron. "Wha' – where's ma sporran? Ma blenkit?" Frankly he was more concerned with his sporran. It was the last remaining memento he had of happier times. When Ma and Da, and his brother and sisters were...
"Sporran?" The stallion was looking at him. "You mean that bag you were wearing? Over there, on the dresser. As for that blanket of yours..."
"It took three washes to get all the dirt out," the mare chimed in, "it's on the line now."
At first his legs couldn't remember how to work, but he finally not only managed to reach the floor, but stand. Additional effort led him to totter, then walk over to the indicated furniture, where, neck twinges aside, he managed to lip the dirty strap about his neck again. The small burden of his sporran and its precious keepsakes against his breastbone made him sigh in relief.
"Ah thankee good farmer," he said quietly, "but I have tae be awa' fast. Ah must catch up tae t' Laird!"
"Well have something to eat first!" the mare bustled into the room and laid a hoof against his forehead. "You're almost skin and bone. I've just laid the table –"
"Nae time, nae time!" Mucmarfóir couldn't believe it. A day behind them! Sweet mother Epona... He hesitated in the main room, the smells of hot bread and day cider causing his stomach to war with his need to pursue the Laird. Father Equus forgive me, he gave in at last, wha's another hour on t' road? At least I'll have a full belly...
"I do hope the poor colt's all right," fretted Warmhearth to her husband later that evening, while the world was passed into the care of Princess Luna.
"He talked funny," their son observed. It was really the main lasting impression he had of the strange pony his dad had dragged into the house after falling over the fence. That and the strange pouch he had slung around his neck, not to mention his scary eyes.
"Yes he did, didn't he?" Garden Hoe nodded. "Just like the other herd that passed yesterday."
"Why's he so far behind then?"
Garden Hoe frowned. That was strange. The shaggy ponies had been travel-stained all right, but not as much as... what was his name again? Muck-ma-far?
The last sunlight withdrew from the windows, and Warmhearth went to close the shutters. As she did so, Garden Hoe watched her move around in the fire's warm light and, as he always did, offered a prayer of gratitude to the Princesses for his happy life.
Then Warmhearth stiffened, squealed and banged the last set of shutters shut, backing away a little too fast. "There's something out there!"
"What? Somepony's out there?" Garden Hoe scrambled to his hooves. "At this time of night?"
"N-not somepony!" Warmhearth's eyes were wide and ears pinned back with fear. "Something! "
"Dad?" a childish voice asked behind them, starting to quiver.
Garden Hoe didn't answer, as he was peering out through the heart-shaped cutouts in the shutters.
Luna's moon was waning tonight, which immediately put him on edge. It was too early. The almanac had a half-moon scheduled for this week, why was...
Something grunted outside. Almost like a pig, but deeper and more menacing. As his eye adjusted to the darkness he saw it.
Them.
There were at least a dozen, some inside the fence. Most were on the road, and many were standing erect. Insufficient moonlight gleamed on... teeth? And... dear sweet Celestia and Luna were they carrying weapons?
The air outside carried a smell of carrion to his nostrils, and he stumbled away too, eyes wide and grabbing the door-bar in his teeth, hauling it up and into the brackets either side of the door.
"Daddy?"
Garden Hoe fought to get his breath under control when something shoved against the door, rattling it. The ponies froze in fear as the something grunted and scrabbled. Its voice – if it was speaking – sounded foul and uncouth... and hungry.
There was a response. This voice was deeper, and even worse, like a pig underwater. And it sounded angry. The first monster snarled back, then there was a short sound none of the ponies let themselves recognise, followed by screams of pain – then more sounds that would haunt their nightmares for weeks to come.
The final noises were more of those grunt-words, barked in a threatening tone, before a chorus of voices rose, chanting a name that would also stalk them in their nightmares.
"Grauuult..."
None of the ponies slept well that night, fearing the monsters' return.
They did.
Elsewhere, Luna frowned up at the moon. "What the hay are you playing at?" she asked it irritably – more precisely, she asked its Inhabitant.
She herself had been exiled to the moon for a thousand years, which meant she knew far too well the foibles of what lived on the far side of the moon, and protected Equestria from Them from Outside. The Inhabitant wasn't actually all that bright, but it had reached an agreement with the princesses to guard them and their planet, but that actually took quite a bit of effort.
It wasn't until about two thousand years ago that Celestia and Luna had discovered why the damned thing kept trying to face Equestria and its population of tasty snacks.
Some of Them weren't so much Outside as Beneath.
Communing with the Inhabitant was not her favourite way of spending a night, and this was no exception. Most of its higher mental functions, if it had any, were incomprehensible; only its baser instincts were understandable.
Tonight it had sensed prey moving. Clenching her jaw to prevent herself throwing up, she pressed for more detail. This had better not be ponies for dinner, she muttered, squinting up at the satellite.
The Lunar Guardsmen stationed beside her were startled when she gasped and staggered backwards, eyes wide, ears back and mouth agape. Then she vomited.
"Your Highness?" one asked, "What is it? Should I get a nurse?"
Luna didn't answer at first, as she had to wait until her stomach contents had left. She'd delved too far into the Inhabitant's mind, she knew it. It took a few breaths to get her voice back.
"Wake Celestia," she finally said, "tell her, 'They are walking the earth.'"
"'They are walking the earth'?" one asked, confused.
"Do as I say, guardsman!" Luna snapped, causing the soldier to step back in shock. "She'll know what it means."
Author's Note
SWEETWATER: A brewery town roughly a day's hoof travel north from Ponyville. Renowned for its beer and spirits.
FLUFFY: A highly offensive term to anypony, casting aspersions on their intelligence, breeding, and usefulness to society. May also be an allegation of vanity. (Based on the entry at .com)
NEDDIE: Shetland slang for a fool. Apparently contemporary with the first known renditions of Poor Daft Ned.
INHABITANT OF THE MOON: [Redacted by Royal decree for your protection]
THEM FROM OUTSIDE: [Redacted by Royal decree for your protection]
THEM UNDER STONES: [Redacted by Royal decree for your protection]
MUC: A race of primitive, semi-intelligent pigs that have proven stubbornly intransigent about integration into pony society. Despite researchers not being able to find evidence of prior occupation of the region, the Muc persistently attempt to take over and wipe out the inhabitants of the Shetlands. Witness reports, however, indicate an almost certain link between Them Under Stones and the Muc's predations.
It is strongly recommended that visitors to the Shetlands do not approach either the Muc or any standing stones, nor should anypony travel on hoof alone at night.
Zecora jingled down towards Ponyville with saddlebags of various potions and palliatives for trade. While the ponies were still not completely comfortable about the rhyming hermit from Zebrabwe, they couldn't argue that her concoctions were decidedly effective.
Somehow she suspected that said concoctions were going to be in great demand tomorrow morning.
As she approached, her steps slowed as she looked at the ponies milling about with more purpose and energy than usual. There were buntings of red, blue and green spanning the main street, and to her surprise more banners adorned the lampposts in the same hues, with the white silhouette of a thistle against their patterned background.
"The town is decked in banners gay," she observed to a passing pony, "the Shetlanders arrive today?"
"Yeah, a pegasus arrived from Sweetwater this morning," the pony replied, shifting his hooves slightly. Despite proving she wasn't as evil as she was painted with her remedy for poison joke exposure, along with other helpful nostrums, there were still those ponies who saw her under a cloud.
"Then Zecora will drop her potions off," she replied, an edge creeping into her voice, "and then back to Everfree will go. For Shetland foals I've met before, to meet again? Thank you, but no."
The pony blinked at her in surprise as she trotted towards Ponyville Hospital.
Nurse Redheart was checking inventory when she heard the front door open with the sound of loaded saddlebags and muttering. "Yes?" she asked, poking an inquiring head into the reception area, "how can we – oh, Zecora!"
"It is I, indeed," Zecora replied with a snort, "with the potions you need."
"Potions?" Redheart was confused. "I don't think we... uh..."
"For these nostrums ponies will be grateful," the zebra replied, "to... cure the morning after hateful."
Redheart blinked as Zecora bent around to pull bottles and packets out of her bags and place them on the counter.
"Hangover cures... that healing salve, that's always welcome Zecora... whoa. Is all of this silphium? "
Zecora didn't look at her. "With Shetlanders, you must be receptive to the benefits of contraceptives." She pulled out even more jars of the plant in question and thumped them on the counter, not looking Redheart in the eye.
"Do you really think we'll need all of this?"
Zecora turned her head away to extract more items, but blew in annoyance on finding her saddlebags empty. "The wild ponies of the north go hard in work and hard in play. When revelling limits all are scorned." She gritted her teeth audibly. "How do I know? I will not say."
The medical mare opened her mouth to speak but Zecora cut her off.
"Your healing rounds I won't delay. Thus I bid you a pleasant day."
Nurse Redheart just stared as Zecora, jaw set, shouldered her way outside.
"It was the strangest thing," Redheart said later that afternoon to one of her friends, "she's obviously met the Shetlanders before, and she doesn't like them at all. If I didn't know any better, I'd say one of them tried to..." She shivered.
Her friend stared at her and shuddered. "Still," she replied, "they're escorting the Laird, right? They'll have to be on their best behaviour. Besides, remember what we used to think of her. These ponies probably aren't as black as she paints 'em."
They didn't notice Snappy Scoop eavesdropping and filing that titbit away for her story.
Just about everypony in town was arranged along the main street, watching the road to Sweetwater for signs of the Shetland herd. Mayor Mare was going over her welcoming speech for what probably was the thousandth time. Pinkie was, depending on where you were looking, hopping on the spot looking down the road, or going over her welcome wagon for the umpteenth time. Once Mayor Mare had given her welcoming speech, she'd pull it out and give 'em a real welcome – or maybe she'd switch things around and welcome 'em then the mayor could make her silly speech that'd be - but where are they?
A cyan shape dropped out of the sky, resolving itself into Rainbow Dash as she backwinged to a stop in front of the mayor and Twilight. "They're coming!" she cried, "looks like they're forming up into ranks or something."
"A parade?" Pinkie cried excitedly. Now she had to use the Welcome Wagon! And maybe a song... yes! The one she did for Cranky! That'd be just...
"C'mon Rainbow, get your Element on!" Twilight lifted the necklace in question. "Now hold still."
"How far away are they?" Mayor Mare asked.
"About half an hour by hoof," Rainbow shrugged as Twilight fastened the magical jewelery around her neck, "They've got five big wagons, and there's about twenty or so ponies and unicorns on the ground and ten pegasi in the air."
She didn't mention that three of the pegasi had intercepted her in the air – all stallions, and all highly suspicious.
"And wha' ye be doin', stickin' ye snout in other ponies' business?" one, a heavy-set tan chap with a darker mane had asked, tapping his forehooves together with a metallic clinking.
"Huh?" Rainbow realised she was staring at his hooves. Most ponies didn't wear shoes, except on ceremonial occasions - not that Rarity didn't try to popularise the idea. But these shoes...
...These shoes were made for fighting – well-worn iron, with accents of some sort of elaborate pattern around the edges. And sharp.
"Dinnae make me give tha' a smack," brought her back to the present. "Wha's tha doin' spyin' on us?"
"Spying? We're all waiting for you guys!" Rainbow was hurt by the allegation. "Don't you know who I am?"
"Nay," was the flat response.
"Rainbow Dash? First ever pony to perform a Sonic Rainboom – twice? " How could anypony not know of her exploits?
"Hey up, she is an' all!" One of the other pegasi was staring at her flank. "She be one o' Harmony Incarnate ye gurt gobshite! How can ye nay know t' stories?"
She was amused to see Mr Shoes blink, then finally register the truth. "My apologies, m'lady," he mumbled, "but we've been on t' road four days an'..."
"Well," Rainbow cast an eye downwards, "I'd say you're about half an hour away from Ponyville. The whole town's turned out to meet you."
"Oh aye?" Mr Shoes looked thoughtful, "Well, we'll have tae put on a wee show for t' town won't we?"
"I'll tell them you're coming," Rainbow replied, turning to leave, "but you'd better hurry before Pinkie brings the welcome wagon to you!"
"There they are now!" somepony called, indicating a small dust cloud that had entered visible range. The cloud grew several dots, which resolved themselves into three lines of ponies, all marching behind a single leader. A wing of what looked like ten pegasi flew overhead, keeping pace with the herd on the ground.
As they closed the distance, drummers in the middle of the ranks started a rapid rataflam which carried to the waiting ponies.
Then a shrill yet thunderous blast of sound slammed into Ponyville.
Those that didn't flee – or have to chase after frightened foals – would see that one of the five carts in the parade had a couple of ponies sitting in it, each one kneading a tartan bag with their hooves and blowing into a pipe attached to it. Other pipes sprawled out of the bag, and it would become clear that the... tone... the instrument made was modulated by the way the bag was squeezed.
Flanking the ranks were two pegasi, who were walking for the simple reason that it is hard to fly and work the bagpipes with your wing at the same time.
Just to add to the din, the Shetlanders began to sing, a mighty chorus:
Hark when the night is falling Hear! Hear the pipes are calling, Loudly and proudly calling, Down thro' the glen. There where the hills are sleeping, Now feel the blood a-leaping, High as the spirits of Shetland stallions.
Towering in gallant fame, Shetland my mountain hame, High may your proud standards gloriously wave, Land of my high endeavour, Land of the shining river, Land of my heart for ever, Shetland the brave.
High in the misty Shetlands, Out by the purple islands, Brave are the hearts that beat Beneath Shetland skies. Wild are the winds to meet you, Staunch are the friends that greet you, Kind as the love that shines from fair filly's eyes.
Towering in gallant fame, Shetland my mountain hame, High may your proud standards gloriously wave, Land of my high endeavour, Land of the shining river, Land of my heart for ever, Shetland the brave.
The pipes and drums fell silent; only the tramp of marching hooves accompanied a single voice that rose into the air; a young stallion's, full of passion.
Far off in sunlit places, Sad are the Shetland faces, Yearning to feel the kiss Of sweet Shetland rain. Where tropic skies are beaming, Love sets the heart a-dreaming, Longing and dreaming for the homeland again.
If the first wall of sound had been devastating enough, the second eruption of bagpipe, drum and song – this time at close range – literally shook windows.
Towering in gallant fame, Shetland my mountain hame, High may your proud standards gloriously wave! Land of my high endeavour, Land of the shining river, Land of my heart for ever, Shetland the brave!
With a final roll of the drums, not to mention a few patriotic tears in their eyes, the procession crashed to a halt, directly in front of the reception stand.
The Laird Roanald an Daergdyer gazed through blue eyes at the ponies on the welcoming stand. He was an impressive chap, a shaggy roan broad in the shoulders; his ceremonial yoke made him look more so, a large thing bearing the tartans and badges of every clan in the Shetlands and thus representing not only his country, but also the burden he bore as Laird. He stood foursquare and proud, head high, beneath a tam-o-shanter bearing a plume of pheasant feathers above a silver emblem of a thistle.
Mayor Mare, five-sixths of Harmony Incarnate, and roughly 99.7% of Ponyville's population gaped back, stunned. (The exception was Fluttershy, who on the last chorus had curled up into a tight ball with her wings over her ears.)
The silence drew out, then one of the piper pegasi behind him ambled up and recognised a face.
"Hey up there Rainbow Dash!" he cried cheerfully, "Ah tol' ye we'd be puttin' on a wee show, didna'?"
She blinked. "Y... yeah," she stuttered, "but that... was..."
"Amaaazing," Pinkie breathed, her mane hanging limply. How in all Equestria was she going to match up to that?
The Laird simply raised an eyebrow as he looked around at the piper, a faint smile crossing his lips. That smile was reflected back at him by roughly two dozen openly grinning Shetlanders.
Sensing the din was over, Fluttershy began to uncurl tentatively.
Someone in the crowd started the applause, and soon the Shetlanders were surrounded by the roar of applauding ponies. Having no hands, ponies clap by drumming their hooves on the ground, and as such can build up quite a sound. The Shetlanders basked in the adulation, several laughing openly and a few offering some choice commentary to each other.
Fluttershy immediately curled up again.
"Well..." Mayor Mare blinked as the applause died down, then shifted into official mode. "Good Shetlanders all," she began, "as mayor of Ponyville, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our fair town, home of Harmony Incarnate."
Rainbow glanced over at where Fluttershy was still curled up in a ball and nudged her with a hoof. Fluttershy peered nervously out of her mane, then realised the noise really was over and carefully uncurled.
"We offer you the key to our town, and our hospitality for tonight, and tomorrow as well, before you resume your travel to Canterlot."
"Scoots!" Sweetie Belle hissed in that foalish whisper you can hear a mile away, "that's your cue!"
"Huh?" Scootaloo was still mesmerised by the Shetlanders.
"Never mind," the unicorn filly groused as she grasped one end of the key in her mouth, "I'll dm mm!"
"Sweetie Belle!" Rarity hissed at her, not just scandalised but ignored. "No!"
"No I'll do it!" Applebloom ignored Applejack's hissed order to stay put and raced over to grab hold of the other end. "Lmm gm!"
"Hey! That's my job!" Scootaloo snapped out of it and lipped onto the middle. "Yuf tuuf lm gf! "
Mayor Mare, Rarity and Applejack winced as the ceremonial key, instead of being presented in a suitably dignified fashion, was instead half-dragged, in the same confused way ants carry a twig, to the increasingly amused Laird in the mouths of three bickering fillies.
"Ah think I'll be a-taking that off ye hooves, lassies," he said at last, " although it seems tae me that ye've already unlocked goodwill a'tween us!"
The mayor blinked again. "Ah..." She watched as the Laird plucked the key in his own lips and carefully slid it into his neck pouch... sporran... thing. "An' who be ye three then?" He asked kindly.
"Uh... I'm Scootaloo," the little pegasus quavered uncertainly, "um... and - and this is Applebloom and this is Sweetie Belle," came out in a rush as she indicated the pony and unicorn fillies respectively. They blinked up at him, while Applejack and Rarity held their breaths, hoping they wouldn't reveal themselves to be the Cutie Mark Crusaders and ruin things even more than they had.
"Weell... tae think yon key tae ye toon ha' be given by all three tribes taegether!" The fillies blinked uncomprehendingly at him as he lifted his shaggy head to address the crowd. "It may nae be wha' ye were intendin', but at hame 'tis t' way such things are done, as a show o' unity an' harmony. So on behalf o' mysael', ma' family, t' rest o' these reprobates–" he turned to mock-glare at the guardsponies, who just grinned back at him, "– 'an t' entire Shetlands, I thank 'ee for your warm welcome, an' accept your offer o' hospitality!"
Zecora, as far as she was concerned, had got as close to those Shetland oafs as she desired this morning, thank you very much. Even at her hut inside the Everfree, she had heard their chorus that afternoon as they no doubt reached Ponyville. "I hope they are together banding to make sure their town remains standing," she grumbled, then frowned at her ingredients shelves. The one herb she needed and she was out...
A little while later an irritated Zebrabwean was walking through the Everfree's undergrowth, eyes and nose seeking mint. Today, she decided, was not a good day. In all the bucking around readying the contraceptives, abortifacients and hangover cures that her neighbours would inevitably need after those... hooligans! That was the word... had been, she'd forgotten to take time out to top up the herbs for her favourite tea! That was...
She froze and her ears swivelled to catch the sounds of somepony crashing through the underbrush. From the smell, he had been travelling hard and long, but the direction was –
"Ho traveller! You sound unravelled," Zecora called, "Why do you take the road untravelled?"
There was a pause in the crashing, then the traveller emerged. Zecora felt her heart sink as she realised that she was face to face with a damnable Shetlander.
This barbarian stallion, though, looked like he'd been travelling all night. His woollen blanket was so worn, stuck with twigs and and holed with thorns as to be virtually a rag, and his sporran was rusted and rotten. They matched the matted coat and mane framing dull, dark brown eyes.
"Ponyville," he said after a half-minute's shared staring, "Where be Ponyville?"
Zecora turned and pointed a hoof. "Go that way an hour or two, and you will reach your kind. I heard them come that long ago. What made you fall so far behind?"
A light flickered in the stallion's eyes, a light that glittered disturbingly.
"T' cooward left twa days afore Ah knew," the Shetlander growled, "Ah've been runnin' hard since then, an' noo Ah have 'im."
He turned to head on, then stopped as if remembering something. "Thankee, kind mare," he said at last, as though he rarely had reason to say such things. "Twa hoors," he murmured to himself as he walked, then trotted away, "an' Ah'll be rightful..."
Zecora just stood there, foreleg raised in shock, all thought of mint gone from her head with the last word she heard.
Had that colt really said, "Ah'll be rightful Laird"?
Author's Note
SILPHIUM: A herb probably related to fennel, known for its contraceptive properties. In reality, this plant went extinct due to over-harvesting.
ZEBRABWE: The distant, southern lands where Zecora hails from.
The afternoon had passed relatively quietly, the small matters of getting the Shetland delegation housed in the Hotel Ponyville, and of preparations for the welcoming banquet, notwithstanding.
Ponyville's Town Hall had been done up to the elevens by Rarity, with thistle images and plenty of ribbons woven into tartan-like patterns. The Shetlanders, most of whom could identify them on sight, politely ignored the fact that most of said patterns didn't exist in reality.
Their attention, as they entered, had been taken up by the large wagon in the middle of the floor. Shortly thereafter, everypony found out where Pinkie Pie had got to, as the machinery (and the Laughter Incarnate waiting inside) literally exploded into her Welcome Song.
Fortunately the welcomees didn't take her surprise as an assault. Maybe her silly little dance helped.
"I've never seen ponies go through night cider so fast," Applejack said to Twilight around an enthusiastically shovelling Applebloom, "Good thing I had a word with Single Malt."
Twilight just nodded. She'd wondered why delivery ponies had been queued up behind his store. She took a swig from her own mug of day cider - she had no head for drink, and couldn't afford to let the home side down.
The noise level was rising as the number of kegs diminished, and several of the visiting lads struck up a song.
Ah was up tae me plot in t' muck, Sir, Wi' a peat contract down in t' bog When me shovel it struck something hard, Sir, That Ah thought were a rock or a log T'was a box of the finest old oak, Sir, T'was a foot long, an' four inches wide An' not giving a damn fae t' Fairies Ah took a quick shufti inside
Next to her Mayor Mare was talking to the Laird, discussing politics as played in the Shetlands. "So nopony can directly nominate themselves?" she asked in surprise. The chorus swelled up at that point and drowned her out.
Now Ah opened the lid o' this box, Sir, An' Ah swear that mah story is true T'was an ancient an' old Shetland condom A relic o' Laird Harvest Moon
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom suddenly found their sister's forehooves clapped to their ears, while those worthies glared daggers at the oblivious singers.
T'was an ancient an' old Shetland condom Three hooves long, an' made of Muc hide, Wi' a little gold tag on it's end, Sir, Wi' his name, rank, an' stud fee inscribed
"Sorry?" the Laird asked, leaning over. Mayor Mare repeated her query.
"Tha's right!" Roanald had swapped his yoke for a long tartan scarf which wrapped around his neck, then down one shoulder and under his barrel before rising to be once again wrapped around his flanks. The plumed tam-o-shanter stayed, however.
"Nay pony can blow his own pipes for t' Lairdship," the shaggy roan winked, "Not directly, any road." The assembled drunken choir had no such compunction about blowing their own pipes, however.
Now, Ah cast me mind back thru the ages Tae the days o' that horny old goat Wi' his wife lyin' by on t' bed, Sir, As he stood by t' fire in his coat An' Ah thought that I heard Harvest whisper As he stood in t' fire's rosy light "Well, you've had yer own way long enough, dear... 'Tis the hairy side outside, tonight!"
The song mercifully ended in a burst of laughter and clapping. Rarity and Applejack scowled, then cautiously removed their hooves from their little sisters' ears.
"What was that for?" Sweetie Belle turned around to look up at her big sister.
"That song was disgusting," Rarity shuddered, still glowering at the singers, "and it wasn't meant for foals' ears."
"So what's a condom?" Applebloom asked, at almost exactly the time Applejack decided that young fillies like her should really be in bed at this hour. Rarity agreed this was a very sensible decision and the two of them made their excuses before escorting a brace of protesting foals homeward.
"Directly?" Mayore Mare looked confused. "What do... oh!"
"Ye're a smart lass. Tha's right, there be a mile of favour-tradin' an' chummin' up tae convince yer fellow Thanes tae speak for thee, while they want ye tae speak for them, an' och, round an' round everypony goes..." the Laird shook his head. "But in t' end it all comes doon tae a secret ballot. Ah well! At least I won't be about for t' next one."
Soothecup, his wife, shook her golden head and laughed. "Aye, it was absolute bedlam! Every day some young stud bringin' wee gifties or offers of..." she gazed down the table where their sons sat guard over the budding mare that was their sister. "But ah drew t' line when they offered marriage contracts."
Twilight shook her head at that. Treating marriage as a political tool? That was something out of those really trashy historical romances that she only kept in the library because ponies might take them out and that she would never read even late at night when nopony could see honest!
Still... she looked down the table at the Laird's foals. The filly Winterberry – really, almost a mare – was almost identical to her dam, save that Soothecup's eyes were a soft grey and Winterberry's were a vibrant ruby. She seemed to glow like snow and gold between the darker pelts of her younger brothers.
Rianblade was a brown, bulky pony with a mane the colour of his sire's coat. Ice-blue eyes continually scanned the assembly as if looking for threats. He reminded Twilight of the Royal Guard.
Amhránaílore was much the same colour coat, but he had his dam's eyes and mane. His scrutiny of the hall, when he bothered to look up, was more relaxed. His slender frame suggested a life of the mind.
"Aye," Roanald's voice jolted Twilight out of her reverie, "Ah swore tae Equus and Epona that Ah wouldnae use mah filly in such a way. An' at t' Council I let 'em ken that any swine who tried wouldnae win my favour... then or ever."
"Equus and Epona?" a young voice piped up from beside Twilight's couch. Spike looked up from the half-eaten gemstone he was consuming. "Why'd you swear at them?"
Twilight and Mayor Mare cringed, but the Laird and his wife just burst out laughing. "Ah didnae swear at 'em, Ah swore tae 'em, laddie!"
"Huh?" Spike looked confused and irritated as Roanald's meaning flew over his head, hitting the wall with a plop. "Why?"
"So, t' wee dragon wants tae hear the auld tale?" Soothecup looked amused. "Do they nae ken such lore t' pass ontae their foals?"
Twilight shuffled hooves uncomfortably at the veiled rebuke. "Uh... I'm more interested in the practical aspects of magic, than... ancient legends," she mumbled uncomfortably.
"An' yet yon Elements o' Harmony were thought t' be legend, an' here they are 'round ye necks," the Laird's wife sounded amused. Twilight just blushed with embarrassment.
"Still, 'tis a tale oft told, an' well loved by our kin," the mare looked down again at Spike. "So set ye comfy an' listen tae t' story o' our forebears."
As she spoke, to Twilight's surprise, the Shetlanders gradually stopped their singing and boasting and gluttony, as a wave of silence and attention swept the hall. All eyes and ears were on the Laird's wife as she spoke, her voice slipping into an ritualistic cadence.
"Before t' beginnin' o' t' world, before e'en tae beginnin' o' time itsael', nothin' existed, nothin' but Chaos and Shadows.
"An' yon Chaos was formless an' e'er-changin', and ye Shadows were lost an' wi'out place nor direction. There were nae ground t' stand on, nae sun or moon, nae sky in which tae spread wings; nae water tae drink, nae e'en sweet grass tae eat.
"An' there were Two, who saw t' Chaos an' t' Shadows, an' they spoke tae each other, an' agreed that this couldnae stand.
"An' so they gave themsael's shapes, wi' eyes that looked afore 'em, an' strong legs an' hooves for runnin', an' so they began tae gallop."
Twilight frowned. That was the trouble with creation myths. They just didn't make sense! If there was no time, how could anypony know what had gone before, or even know they were ponies at...
She looked up in surprise. Almost every Shetlander was softly drumming their hooves in a slow tempo, accompanied by a soft chant punctuated by snorting. As though they were running.
"An' they galloped, an' galloped, an' soon when the Two looked behind 'em, lo!" Soothecup recited, "They were nae more in t' place they had been, an' so Space was made.
"An' still they galloped, an' their hooves found purchase, an' found it again, an' in their runnin' Earth were brought intae bein'.
"An' as they ran, their hooves dug intae t' Earth, an' kicked it intae high heaps, an' they became Mountains, and dug great holes, an' they became Valleys, an' the sweat poured off their flanks, an' it fell tae t' ground an' became Water an' Lakes an' Rivers an' Seas.
"An' still they galloped! Fae now they saw summat different, summat that showed 'em tae Earth they ran on, an' so they beat with their wings an' put on a mighty spurt, so hard that t' Earth spun beneath 'em, so that they were borne backward from whate'er they were chasin', an' they became tired, an' had tae rest, an' so Time began."
The Shetlanders slowed their chanting and hoof-drumming as Soothecup's voice slowed down as well.
"An' the Two were breathin' hard, in an' out, an' when they breathed out, out came the Air, an' it became t' Sky.
"An' they looked ahead, at where t' different thing waited, an' they cried in frustration as t' spinnin' Earth bore them backwards, an' stamped their hooves upon tae ground so hard, it caught Fire!"
Almost everypony jumped as the Shetlanders punctuated this with a mighty thump of hooves.
"An' they were amazed, for in t' Fire's light, they truly saw t' Earth fae the first time, but they also saw that t' Fire was burnin' t' Earth they had made, an' they wouldnae have that!
So they tried tae kick it awa', but t' Fire just landed in another spot and continued to burn t' Earth, an' in their anger t' Two found a new power, an' it grew out o' their haids and left Horns, an' it seized t' Fire an' flung it high intae t' Sky! An' so was t' first Magic done.
"An' as it were thrown, it broke intae pieces, an' t' largest became t' Sun, and the next largest t' Moon, an' all t' rest o' the wee bits became Stars, an' they cast their Light upon t' Earth, an' t' Two finally looked upon each other.
"An' they saw their Mouths, with which they had first spoken tae each other, an' their Ears, with which they had heard each other, an' they saw each other's Eyes, in each other's Haids.
"An' they saw their Horns, an' their Hooves on their Laigs; they nosed each other's Manes and Tails an' Wings, an' wondered at their Noses, an' they asked themsael's, What are we?
"An' they puzzled o'er that, an' stamped their hooves an' flicked their tails an' flapped their wings, an' realised that not only they needed Names, but all t' things they had brought into bein' needed them too. For unless ye know who an' what ye are, ye are nothin'.
"So they named t' Earth an' t' Waters, they named t' Sky an' t' Sun an' Moon an' Stars, an' finally they named themsael's.
"An' t' Name they gave themsael's both was Alicorn, an' they were content for a wee while, but soon they realised that Alicorn though they be, they were not t' same bein', fae one was a Mare and the other a Stallion, an' needed their own names.
"An' so they spake tae each other, an' t' Mare said, I am Epona. An' t' Stallion spoke, sayin' I am Equus, an' they were happy, for now they knew who they were, an' they rested as t' Earth rolled beneath the Sky, an' t' Sun was replaced by t' Moon, an' thus t' first Day ended, an' Equus an' Epona slept through t' first Night."
Laird Roanald poured some water into his wife's cup and offered it to her in an oddly reverent manner. She accepted it gracefully, wet her whistle, then resumed. Twilight closed her eyes. Was there no end to this windy myth? All these ands, ands, ands were too much!
"An' in t' first true Morning, Equus an' Epona woke, an' they named what they had done, and knew Waking and Sleep, and were refreshed.
"An' they explored the Earth, which was still all so new and bare, and they saw different things in the Earth, an' they named the many types of Rock, and Dirt, and Gems, an' played and chased each other through Caves and o'er Mountains and across Streams, an' finally Epona spread her Wings and discovered Flight, an' Equus joined her in t' Sky, an' in their joining t' first seeds o' life were scattered across the Earth, an' became tall Trees with sweet Fruit, an' lush green Grasses, an' all t' Plants o' t' world."
Twilight blinked, then fought to suppress a blush when she realised what 'joining' meant. Of course there had to be sex in a creation myth!
"An' Equus an' Epona marvelled at this, an' they alighted on t' Earth, an' discovered that t' grasses an' fruit were good tae eat, an' so they discovered Food, an' afterwards they tasted t' Water, an' found it good Drink.
"An' so they spent their days explorin' t' Earth an' Namin' its Plants, an' Epona became great with foal, an' soon Epona begat three foals.
"An' one had nay wings, but only a horn, an' they named him Unicorn; an' one had nay horn, only wings, an' they named him Pegasus; an' one had nay horn or wing, an' they named her Pony.
An' so Equus an' Epona raised their three foals, an' lo! Pegasus discovered he had power o'er t' Sky, an' could affect when it rained an' when it blew. An' lo! Unicorn discovered he had power o'er Magic, an' could bend it tae his will an' work wonders. An' lo! Pony discovered she had power o'er the Earth, an' could bid Plants tae grow or not as she saw fit. An' these were t' first Titans of Equus an' Epona.
An' so Time passed, an' they wandered t' Earth an' flew in t' Sky an' brought Plants tae all the World. An' the Titans o' t' Ponies matured, an' they saw that they were adult an' beautiful..."
Twilight bit her lip to avoid groaning. Her tutors and study had confirmed that no matter how outlandish the creation myth, sooner or later the taboos of rape and incest got involved.
"...An' so Unicorn an' Pegasus covered Pony, an' she foaled all t' Titans of t' Animals, which walked t' Earth, an' t' Birds who soared intae t' Sky, an' Fish that swam tae all t' waters o' t' World.
Oh sweet Princesses, Twilight prayed, don't let her start...
To her dismay, Soothecup chanted through a laundry list of incestuous covering, as Titans and even Epona and Equus basically covered each other and quite a few inanimate objects as well, producing every living thing (and quite a few nonliving) that existed in Equestria.
"But t' fairest o' all were those who resembled t' first Sire and Dam, an' t' first Titans Three, for they were t' first true Ponies an' Unicorns an' Pegasi, t' first tae behold t' World they had been gifted, an' so t' first Tribes gathered before their Sire an' Dam, an' they said –"
"YE WHO CALL YESAEL' LAIRD! AH CHALLENGE 'EE!"
Author's Note
ELEVENS, TO THE: Equestrian equivalent of 'to the nines'.
Obviously this is part of the worldbuilding I was going on about.
"What the hay?" Twilight gasped before she caught herself.
In the doorway stood an earth pony – a Shetlander by his coat, a brown so dark he was almost black, and his eyes were almost the same hue, but alight in a way that suggested zeal bordering on madness. His coat was not just Shetland shaggy, but matted with dirt and not a few twigs, as were the half-rotten sporran and ratty blanket he wore. Quite simply, he looked less like a pony and more like a badly made golem.
"Who be ye tae challenge t' rightful Laird?" Rianblade was on his feet almost immediately, ears back and ready to attack. "Explain yesael gobshite!"
"So ye be t' Laird then." The stranger's voice went flat. "Well nae for long, ye pampered fluffy. Shetland dinnae need some soft bugger, they need a warrior – tae lead 'em in battle 'gainst t' Muc –"
The watching ponies were divided into two camps. The Ponyville contingent were completely bewildered by what was going on and shocked by the insult the newcomer had delivered to their guest. The Shetlanders to a pony knew what was going on, knew who the gatecrasher was, and looked like they wanted to rend him limb from limb.
"Oh aye?" Rianblade sneered, slowly walking around the table and down to the centre of the hall, "An' wha' makes ye think ye're so grand fae it?"
"Aren't you going to stop this?" Twilight turned to look at Mayor Mare, who was whispering to the Laird.
"Nay," he murmured back, "We allus kenned that Mucmarfóir there was more'n a mite touched, an' my donnybrook days are o'er. Let my son teach 'm a lesson."
"Who?" Twilight asked automatically, her eyes drawn back, like almost everypony's, to the two circling stallions in the middle of the hall.
"Ah'll tell 'ee later," Roanald replied.
"'Ave I nae taken t' fight tae those snouty bastards?" Mucmarfóir was almost screaming at Rianblade. "Ah 'twas that slain t' coven by Fraoch Móinéar! An' stopped that monster Grault from attackin' Uisce Milis! Ah've sent more o' them foul things along t' Low Road than thee ever will –"
"Och," the Laird's son rolled his eyes, "get on wi' it!" And with that he reared and threw the first levade.
What followed was a display of fighting that shocked Ponyville somewhat less than the enthusiastic barracking from their Shetland guests. Both Mucmarfóir and Rianblade seemed to be – no, were – hellbent on killing each other. At first circling and attempting to line up bone-crushing kicks, the two eventually charged, raking each other with their forehooves and biting each other hard enough to draw blood. Eventually the two stallions, locked together, were just rolling on the floor, bleeding profusely, but neither willing to give up.
Rianblade's face was a cold mask, and he fought with an equally cold, clinical precision. Mucmarfóir, on the other hand, seemed to be in a frenzy, teeth snapping at any body part he could, cracked hooves tearing through skin.
Also, Rianblade was rested from the day's travels, while Mucmarfóir had been travelling almost nonstop for far longer. Despite his passion, his energy was fading fast, and soon Rianblade managed to wriggle out of Mucmarfóir's hold.
The last thing the wild pony saw that night was both of Rianblade's back hooves smacking into his skull.
The Laird's son stood bloody but with head high, breathing hard, looking directly at his sire. Around him the thunder of Shetlanders hammering their hooves in applause and cheering contrasted with the near catatonia of their hosts.
"I thank ye for lettin' mah son handle this wee interruption," the Laird said to the mayor, "Now, can we borrow one o' ye jail cells to stick that dafty in fae t' night?"
Mayor Mare gaped at him, completely stunned.
A short while later the guardsponies had been and hauled away Mucmarfóir, where he was getting some slightly rougher treatment for his wounds than Rianblade, who suffered Nurse Redheart stoically.
"So, who was that pony?" Twilight finally asked again. "And why was he challenging you?"
"His name is Mucmarfóir," Roanald an Deargdyer said grimly, "An' his tale is a grim an' bleak 'un. For years ago, afore he gained his... cutie mark... he was just a wee colt livin' in a croft near Loch Earraigh Fuar..."
Everyone settled, and the Shetlanders checked their drinks.
"If things had been different, perhaps that wee colt wouldnae ha' come home tae find t' Muc a-visitin'. And when t' Muc visit, they bring nary a plate, or wee gifties, but terror, pain, an' death, if ye be lucky.
"Alas, the wee colt found his sire dead, an' half-eaten by t' filthy bastards, an' his dam t' same, but as we all ken t' Muc have a taste for..."
He paused and looked around. His hosts were looking more than a little shocked and horrified.
"...Well, I willnae say, but every Shetlander knows what those swines do. An' worse... his sister missin', which means she were probably given tae stones..."
Every Shetlander in the hall shuddered, several whispering what sounded like prayers to Equus and Epona. Whatever being 'given tae stones' entailed, it was clearly a fate worse than death.
"So he's dedicated his life since then tae roamin' t' Shetlands, killin' every last one o' t' Muc he finds. Tha's how he got his cutie mark..."
"What was it?" Twilight asked, "I couldn't make it out."
"It's a Muc's severed head," and Twilight shuddered. Looking around, she saw almost everypony looked repulsed as well – even Shetlanders. "He's a crazed one, an' we have witnesses who say he thinks nowt of corrallin' anypony he can intae war parties. Nothin' matters tae him except slaughtering Muc.
The Laird shook his shaggy head. "He has nae clan, nae home, nae family... an' now he seems tae have nae sanity! There's nae been a duel for the Lairdship for o'er two thousand years!"
Later that night, Twilight wrote a letter to Celestia.
Dear Celestia,
The Shetlanders arrived, singing, and were welcomed. But at the banquet tonight, another pony arrived and challenged the Laird to a duel. The Laird's son fought him, and he is now being held in the Ponyville police station.
According to the Laird, this "Mucmarfoir" (I am not sure of the spelling, so I have combined words from a Shetlandic dictionary) lost his family years ago and has been hunting the Muc ever since. Presumably this is why he named himself "Pig Killer" if this dictionary is right.
What should we do? The Laird does not leave until the day after tomorrow, when his train will be ready as per your instructions. From his attitude, I suspect he might attempt to attack the Laird again.
I apologise for the bad writing, but our guests didn't really want to stop banqueting, boasting, or drinking. In fact it wasn't until what the Laird called a "wee barney" (and anypony would describe as a general brawl!) broke out that the banquet was declared over.
Your faithful (and very tired!) Student,
Twilight Sparkle
Rolling up the scroll, it trailed behind her as she sought out Spike. The baby dragon was already asleep, and Twilight felt a pang of shame before she shook him with a forehoof.
"Twi'? What?" Spike was understandably grumpy.
"I need you to send this to the princess," she explained, swinging the scroll towards him. The little dragon took it with a bad grace before flaming it into the familiar green vapour that trailed southwards to Canterlot.
Luna was in a pensive mood, and it was reflected in the tension of her guardsponies. The Inhabitant was still restive, and she now had evidence as to why.
Her eye trailed to the documents before her. Witness reports. Scene descriptions. And evidence photos that she wished she didn't have to see. A farmhouse four hours north of Sweetwater, with its front door smashed in. The interior trashed, and spattered with blood. A stallion's corpse, much of it missing, bearing a cutie mark of a garden hoe. A mare's, what was left of her face still screaming, and her belly –
Luna shuddered. The creatures – boars, unless the corpse they'd left was just another victim – had torn her open with their teeth, for buck's sake, while she was still alive, and then there was...
She squeezed her eyes shut. There had been a colt. Some of it had still been left behind.
The strange thing though was that there were two sets of pig tracks. The trotters had first arrived not long after sundown yesterday, when the boar had died. Then they had returned... but nobody knew yet whether that was before or after the family had been slaughtered.
A bustle at the entrance to the throne room turned out to be a messenger. "Your Highness," he said with a little nervousness creeping in, "I have a report from the crime laboratory..."
"Give it here," she said a little sharply, her magic snatching the document out of the messenger's hooves a little more roughly than necessary. Perusing it, her mouth thinned into a hard line.
They'd arrived before. And a singular piece of scat was found...
Her eyes widened as she stared at the photo of it, her blood turning to ice. Then a flare of green resolved itself before her, making her blink. The picture fell to the ground as she caught the newly arrived letter from Ponyville. The messenger stared at what was in that image in shock.
"Thank you," he heard, and jerked his eyes up to the icy ones of Luna, "That will be all."
She ignored the fleeing pony as she frowned at Twilight's missive. Technically she was reading Celly's mail, but she would forgive her. Besides, she needed her sleep.
Princess Celestia was roused roughly from her slumber by a highly energetic hoof. "Who in the hay... Loo, what in the world –"
"No time sister!" Luna's expression killed the reprimand Celestia was about to deliver. "They are walking the earth, and They're after the Laird! They're heading to Ponyville!"
Ponyville woke the following morning, the Shetlanders somewhat later. The hotel cooks were kept busy cooking eggs and porridge for roughly thirty-odd hungover guests.
In the Royal Suite, Soothecup looked up as Rianblade entered the main room, where breakfast had arrived and was steaming quietly on the table. "Are ye feelin' well, Rian?" she asked solicitiously, making the stallion's eyes roll. After all, he wasn't a little colt any more.
Amhránaílore caught his eye, and rolled his own. Rianblade grinned at him. Both were grown up, and both were sure they had outgrown the need for their dam's fussing. Their dam of course would reject that notion outright.
"Ah'm fine ma," he said in a slightly embarrassed tone, "Yon Mucmarfóir laid nary a hoof on me."
"It were more than that!" Winterberry exclaimed over her porridge (which was no shade on mama's brose, as far as she was concerned.) "He bit ye, several times! An' those hooves of his, Ah saw'm cut intae ye like ye were one o' t' Muc –"
"Sister!" Rianblade stamped a hoof on the floor, causing the ponies in the room below to wince in pain. "Ah tol'ye 'twas nowt. That dafty were tired afore he barged in an' started playin' t' gobshite. Da," and he shot a longsuffering look at his father, "Do all mares insist on actin' like ye're allus t' foal?"
Roanald raised his eyebrows while munching on a mouthful of scrambled eggs. He looked thoughful, plotting a course between stroking his son's ego and avoiding getting his wife in a kicking mood. "Well," he said at last, "we be important tae 'em, aye?"
A snort came from Amhránaílore's direction. The two mares turned to him, but there was something absolutely fascinating about his plate.
Mucmarfóir woke with in much worse condition. Everything seemed to be aching, he could barely open his eyes, and the straw pallet he was laying on was...
His eyes popped open as far as they could, showing him a fuzzy image of a jail cell. Its walls bore the inevitable patina of scratched graffiti, and sturdy bars on the one window and the corridor side made it clear that he wasn't getting out any time soon. Damn it! he thought to himself, t' damn Laird bested me, I'll be takin' t' Low Road home for certain...
A face wearing a helmet peered into the cell. "You're awake already?" He sounded surprised. "Up for some breakfast?"
"B... breakfast?" The Shetlander blinked at him stupidly, then shrugged. "Eh... why not? Help weigh me down fae t' hempen jig won't it?"
"The what?" To say the guardsman was baffled would be stating the obvious. "Is that some... oh never mind. I'll push it in for you. No funny stuff."
Mucmarfóir watched him turn his tail and head back, then flopped his head onto the straw again. It'd all gone wrong. He'd travelled hard, an' nearly killed himself – for nowt. He'd simply been worn down 'til the Laird had hoofied his haid – in front o' a crowd at that!
A sigh escaped him. He knew that quite a few ponies didnae ken his intentions, which were clear as day: Get rid o' t' Muc an' Them Under Stones. But 'twas summat nae pony could do alone. But tryin' tae get your fellow Shetlanders tae ken how important this was... what was gettin' harvests in or fences mended compared to freein' bonny Shetland from those monsters?
A scraping caught his attention as did the smell of bread. The guard had returned and pushed a battered metal tray bearing a wee loaf and a cup under the door. "Push them back when you're done," he said and moved away.
Mucmarfóir looked at it, then managed to rise and approach the tray on wobbly legs. He sat on the concrete floor because he wanted tae, nay because his legs wouldnae support him already...
The bread wasn't all that fresh, but the water was welcome, and Mucmarfóir decided it would do for his undoubtedly last meal. As if to confirm his suspicions, voices heralded the Laird's arrival, flanked by two of the Royal Guardsponies assigned to Ponyville.
"Ye're nay t' Laird," Mucmarfóir said almost immediately, "Ye're nay t' one who gave me t' buck..."
"Ah am t' Laird, ye gobshite," the roan retorted, "Mah son got in afore Ah could go a reel or two on ye. An' a'course he didnae leave me a chance did he?"
Mucmarfóir just glared at the Laird. "Then mah challenge still stands. Fae t' Lairdship, tae t' death. An' when 'tis o'er, Ah'll lead all t' Shetlands tae victory o'er t' Muc an' Them Under Stones!"
The Guards tensed as Mucmarfóir's voice rose and so did he, legs stiff. The Laird, on the other hand, just looked at him boredly.
"Finished, 'as thee?"
The brown pony's eyes blazed behind puffy eyelids at the dismissal, and he would have lunged except for the Guards' applying their magic, as well as his own legs still being unsteady.
"We're nae in t' Shetlands anymore, Mucmarfóir of Nae Clan," Laird Roanald an Deargdyer informed him sternly, "An' there'll be nae duellin' tae t' death or anything else here. Ah and mah family be guests here, an' we'll nae be breachin' t' peace afore we take t' train tae Canterlot. An' that includes ye, since ye're a Shetlander tae.
"An' when we board t' train, ye will return tae t' Shetlands, where ye can go about killin' Muc like ye allus yearn fae." The Guards exchanged startled glances with each other. "A'sides, somehow I dinnae think ye be up tae 'nother proper donnybrookin' from wha' I ken."
An hour or so later, Mucmarfóir was released with several dire warnings ringing in his ears, which were followed up by a mare crying, "Goodness! You look a fright!"
He turned to stare at the speaker: a white unicorn with a purple mane and tail, done up to the nines and all, with what looked like three diamonds on her flank. As she was gaping at him, he regarded himself. His coat was definitely ratty, matted and dirty, not just from the night's donnybrook but also his travels. His nose wrinkled as he sniffed.
"Well, Ah could probably do wi' a wee bath," he agreed, "ken ye point me tae t' nearest pond?"
"Pond?" Rarity's voice rose in disbelief. "Young stallion, you're not in the Shetlands anymore, and where we're going we don't need ponds!" Her horn flared and tugged on one forelimb. "Come along!"
"We?" was all Mucmarfóir was able to say as he was dragged off.
Lotus and Aloe looked up from their housekeeping when Rarity more or less hauled Mucmarfóir into the spa. "Ladies," Rarity declared, "this poor colt here needs a complete clean-up."
"Ah do?" Mucmarfóir looked bewildered at the foyer, nostrils twitching suspiciously at the commingled scents of assorted beauty products.
Then he noticed the trio of predatory grins aimed at him, and began to feel dread.
"Has anyone seen Mucmarfóir?" Roanald asked a small knot of Shetlanders loitering around the town square.
"I've nae seen t' dafty," shrugged a heathery pegasus.
"Nor I," concurred a pale tan earth pony, "An' dinnae wish tae."
"Hey up!" called an approaching Shetlander the colour of wheat, "Ye'll nae believe wha' Ah saw happenin' tae Mucmarfóir."
"Oh? An' wha' that then?" Roanald asked.
"Got hauled off tae t' Spa place by a mare," the wheat-coated one chuckled, "unicorn wi' all bonny purple mane."
"Sounds like Rarity," Roanald observed, "Makes sense, since she's Generosity Incarnate."
Mucmarfóir was more used to bracing dips in cold lochs than hot soapy water, so to him this bath was an unheard of luxury.
It also probably explained why, upon commencing what was to be his first bath of the day, the foamy surface had turned into something closely resembling Froggy Bottom Bogg.
Lotus and Aloe had shuddered at the sight, then gone to work with brush and comb, coaxing a shocking amount of dirt out of his coat; then they'd ordered him out, exchanged the resulting slurry for clean water, and ordered him back in again before resuming the arduous process.
Soaking in hot water, with two bonny fillies fussing o'er him, was, Mucmarfóir decided, quite grand. Quite grand indeed.
Except when the comb hit yet another tangle. That was unpleasant.
"This is no good," Aloe huffed at last, "your coat is in a right state. All split ends and knots and tangles! We're going to have to shear you I'm afraid."
"Shear?"
"Shear," and Aloe pulled over a contraption that seemed to focus on something like a cross between a comb and razor. "Okay Lotus, plug it in! And as for you, out you get, and you'll feel like a new pony, I guarantee it!"
As she pulled the plug out of the bath, Mucmarfóir didn't have much choice. And he was damned if he was going to show fear in front of the mares...
...which was difficult when said mares were wielding a evilly buzzing cutter all over your flanks, sending severed hair pattering (and at points plopping) to the ground.
Rarity, Lotus and Aloe were more than a little shocked to see just how scarred the Shetlander actually was. His coat hid all but the worst or latest gouges, bites and cuts he had received, not only from Rianblade's drubbing, but from the Muc, other creatures and worse. From his breastbone to plot, his sides, legs, barrel and flanks were caught in a net made of pain.
The shearing also revealed the gruesome nature of his cutie mark. The Laird had said that Mucmarfóir's was a pig's head, but what he hadn't mentioned was that said head was torn off the body and impaled on a spear. Even in death the boar's head seemed to wear a snarl of defiance between yellowed tusks.
By the time the spa ponies had finished with their fiendish machine, Mucmarfóir closely resembled a new recruit in the Royal Guard. As well as his coat, Lotus and Aloe had unanimously (according to them) and unilaterally (according to Mucmarfóir) trimmed his mane and tail as well. Cutie mark and scarring aside, the Shetlander would not have looked out of place shivering on the parade ground before one of the Guard's drill instructors, which every cadet knew were actually ogres in disguise.
From the tub, the stallion found himself being shunted to a surprisingly comfortable couch, where the two mares set about with rasps and polish to undo what years of neglect and hard living on rocky and often frozen soil had wrought on his hooves. As it happened several entire pots of No More Cracks ("Hooves As Whole As a Newborn Foal's!") were emptied into the assorted cavities and splits and left to set. Which, Mucmarfóir couldn't help noticing, actually made standing feel much better than it had in years. He almost felt like a new pony.
"Ladies, you have outdone yourselves," Rarity declared, looking over the really quite well-formed stallion. "Now it's my turn. We'll make you the best dressed Shetlander ever! Come on! Next stop, Carousel Boutique!"
Mucmarfóir started to look panicked as Rarity's magic took hold and he was more or less dragged out of the spa. Whether it was the sparkle in Rarity's eyes, or that Lotus and Aloe broke into knowing giggles, is debatable.
"Bloody hell!"
"Is tha' ye Mucmarfóir?"
"What on earth is that cutie mark!?"
"Look at Rarity! She's on a mission! You poor sod!"
"Princesses save us! What happened to you?"
Mucmarfóir felt Rarity was taking an entirely too circuitous route to this Carousel Boutique she was speaking of. Not helping his new appearance was his increasingly anxious demeanour: head down, ears flat, and what tail survived the shearing between his legs.
"When ye clear off awa' home, fluffy, git some woolies first!"
Rarity was jerked to a stop when Mucmarfóir did. The stallion glowered at the loudmouth and stamped a hoof once, blowing loudly.
"Ah didnae hear clearly, gobshite," he growled at the smirking unicorn, "Why don't thee come say it tae mah face?"
"Don't bother about a lout like him, Mister Mucmarfóir," Rarity began.
"Ooh! 'Mister' be it noo?" The Shetland unicorn wasn't letting this entertainment go. "I 'eard yon filly call thee 'mister'. Thinkin' o' settlin' down are ye?" This statement was accompanied by a wiggled eyebrow.
"Watch your mouth!" One of the local ponies exploded. "That's Rarity Unicorn, the Element of Generosity you're talking about!"
The bravo turned from addressing "Bugger off" to the speaker back to Mucmarfóir and Rarity a little too quickly, and swayed slightly.
Mucmarfóir just blinked at her. "Are ye now?" he asked.
"Well yes," Rarity blinked back. "You mean you didn't know?"
Oddly, Mucmarfóir felt relieved. He now knew where he stood, and what to do.
"Well then, ye drunken gobshite," Mumcmarfóir addressed the loudmouth, "Ah dinnae ken, but even Ah know about Harmony Incarnate, an' ye just offered one o' them insult." He stamped again. "So, how's thee to apologise? Word? Or blood?"
"Awa' buckin' hame wi' ye," sneered the unicorn, "Ye've only got the word o' t' mare for tha', an' Ah'm nae afraid of a gurt fluffy ned like thee!"
Rarity winced as she saw violence looming. Nopony ever liked being called fluffy once, let alone twice, and the way Mucmarfóir was bristling...
"Oh aye? Then how come ye're nae comin' o'er tae settle this?"
"Now hold on a minute you two!" The voice was authoritative and came from a rapidly descending pegasus. She had a startling rainbow mane and tail, something rarely seen in the Shetlands, and the image of a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt adorned her flanks.
"Wha' the buck does thee want?" The braggart apparently didn't recognise Loyalty Incarnate when he saw her.
"If anyone's gonna hand out a bucking over, it's me!" Rainbow Dash declared, "Now what's going on?"
"Yon gobshite there as good as called Rarity studdy," Mucmarfóir managed to get in before the loudmouth could even string two syllables together.
"You what? " The pegasus' wings flared instinctively as she rounded on the loudmouth, head down and evidently braced for a charge. The fact that her chosen target weighed roughly twice as much as she did, and had more experience in brawling, was of less importance than that he'd insulted her friend and fellow heroine of Equestria. "Do you even know who you're dealing with mister?"
"Aye," the drunk declared, his Shetland blood rising as his instincts detected a wee stoush in the offing, "it be that loony o'er yonder wi' 'is hoofmaid there!"
Rainbow's face soured, partly from the offensive language and mostly from the smell of alcohol on his breath. How in the name of Harmony had he got hold of the night stuff before noon?
"You just insulted Generosity Incarnate, mister," Rainbow Dash growled, preparing to spring, "And if you want to avoid a lesson in politeness you'll take. that. insult. back."
The Shetlander just looked at her. "Awa' hame with 'ee, wench," he snorted, then went flying as Mucmarfóir shoulder-charged him, sending the pony sprawling.
"Ye've nae buckin' shame have ye? Drunk afore noon an' slandering mares – an' one o' t' Harmony Incarnate at that! Ye're nay sort of Shetlander Ah want tae know!"
The drunk scrambled to his hooves, bellowing in rage, then cyan legs wrapped around him. Squealing in surprise, then outrage, he found himself being borne aloft by an irate Rainbow Dash.
"Put me doon ye blasted ponynapper! Muc-lover! Wha' t' buckin' hell ye think ye're doin'?"
"What on earth is she doing?" Rarity stared upward. "The pond's not that way!"
"So what else is?" Mucmarfóir wondered.
As it happened, over there was Smuts, Ponyville's sanitary engineer. Which was a fancy way of saying that he was in charge of the town dump, hiring ponies for garbage collection, burning that and burying this. His current load was definitely burial material.
Latrine detail was a job so foul Smuts wouldn't dream of subjecting any other pony to it, unless requested to by the Royal Guard. While most buildings in town were already connected to the new sewage lines, there were still a few places that weren't, and that meant Smuts had to ignore his nose and fill up the honey cart.
Fortunately the honey run was getting shorter by the month. Eventually, Smuts was going to be able to set the stinking thing on fire to mark its end...
Smuts frowned at the sound of somepony yelling his head off in the distance, and he stopped to look about as much as his yoke would allow. Nopony around. And now there was an increasingly loud scream –
"Oh, shite," Mucmarfóir breathed, as quite a lot of that erupted from the distant cart.
Smuts just breathed, stunned, as a meaningful percentage of his load distributed itself on (and around) him and his cart in a fifty-hoof radius.
The drunk took a good minute to realise he really was a gobshite now.
A few minutes later, Mucmarfóir found himself being pulled into a distinctive round building that seemed to be bedecked in ribbons and bows. "Carousel Boutique," Rarity identified it as she kicked the door shut behind them. The Shetlander was a little let down that it didn't make an ominous boom as it closed.
"Now then, I'll just measure you up and we'll get to work," the unicorn declared as she levitated a measuring tape and a book towards her, "Before I do, can you tell me your clan tartan?"
Mucmarfóir just stared at her helplessly. "Clan?"
"Yes dear, your clan's tartan. I've been doing my research you know, so I am quite aware that every Shetland clan has its own tartan pattern." She floated the book over to him. "You do recognise your clan's tartan, don't you?"
Mucmarfóir's ears sagged as he stared blankly at the flipping pages. There were ponies in kilts, ponies in scarves, ponies in hats. All tartans. The text was no help, since he had barely any schooling.
"Ah..." he felt a strange hollow feeling in his breast. Everypony knew his own tartan in the Shetlands, it was like a part of his identity...
"Ah dinnae..." Rarity gave him a puzzled look as he began to shake his head, then his legs began to tremble.
"Ah dinnae remember! " He sank slowly to the floor. "Ah dinnae ken mah clan... Mother Epona forgive me, Ah cannae ken mah clan..."
He remembered his family. Da with his remaining face screaming to the sky. Ma with her eyes gouged out and her belly torn open. And his little sister, one barely fledged wing stubbornly holding on to half a rib close on to a gore-tinted ear. An...
an'
an' what?
Rarity stared, bewildered, as the Shetlander rolled onto one side and began to weep for what he'd lost.
Neither of them noticed the Shetlanders peering in around the mannequins.
"Just a minute," Rarity said, blinking as she remembered something. "You lived by 'Loch Earraigh Fuar', didn't you?"
Mucmarfóir didn't reply, he just lifted a weeping head enough to nod once. Rarity levitated the book back to herself and flipped pages.
"Well, there's a – yes! There's a map here," Rarity felt her spirits lift, "Oh – it doesn't show all the lochs. Just point out where that place is and we'll know which clan is yours!"
Mucmarfóir's head jerked up again, this time in surprise. "A map?" he asked stupidly.
"Yes, a map! Were there any large towns nearby? Any mountains? I can find those on this map, so..." Rarity's excitement was growing.
"Mountains..." Mucmarfóir warily circled around painful memories. The loch dominated his mind's eye, the body of water that mirrored the sky in summer and froze over in winter. There were crags, nameless to him, and nearby the forbidden –
"Has tha' map show t' Seven Barren Sisters?"
Rarity just blinked at him. "The who?"
"The Seven Barren Sisters! They be seven great stones in circle, in a depression where nowt grows. Da allus told me tae keep awa' from 'em, said t' Sisters were evil..."
The unicorn felt her heart melt a little bit at the hope in the Shetlander's eyes, and looked down at her map. "Oh yes, it does show stone circles... wait.." she squinted at a symbol near an L-shaped body of water. "There's one here labelled the Seven Sisters... Did the loch turn to the north on the western side?"
Mucmarfóir's heart leapt. "Aye! Aye!"
Rarity glanced at the key, then nodded and turned a page, lifting the book up and showing it to the stallion. "We've found your clan... ah, Mucmarfóir an Langstoncroft!"
Outside, one of the Shetlanders pulled away from the window and wandered off with a stunned expression and a muttered, "Och buckin' hell".
"Hey up!" the first to follow him was a Shetland unicorn, who also tugged on his mane with magic to stop him. "Wha's the big shock then?"
"Yon madpony's a Langstoncroft too!" the unfortunate exclaimed, batting his sporran with one foreleg. The tartan ribbon adorning it was indeed that of the clan of long stone houses. "Ah cannae credit it, the pig-killer a member of our clan. Every bloody ned'll be givin' us horseapples when word gets out!"
Rarity had transformed into a force of creativity that had Mucmarfóir rooted to the spot, for a very good reason. If he moved at the wrong time, Rarity's scissors might cut something crucial off.
The first sartorial incursion was simple enough, a traditional kilt, which now wrapped his hindquarters and replaced his cutie mark with the Langstoncroft colours. Shortly afterwards she had absconded with his sporran, only to return with what looked like a new one, made of slate grey leatherfish hide. "Your old one's inside dear," she explained as she levitated it around his neck.
Mucmarfóir gazed at it in the mirror. Leatherfish, not being native to the Shetlands, had to be imported, and the only alternative was to use cured Muc hides – and as such hide sporrans were only worn by notable warriors. For all the emnity the Shetlanders held them, there were few ponies who would deliberately handle or create with such materials. His old sporran was, like everypony's, a regular (if decidedly decaying) canvas pouch. The ones with the big tassels and all that were just for special occasions.
Like a-visiting the Royal Sisters, he thought to himself.
"Raise your forelegs," Rarity broke into his thoughts, "one at a time." Which was a good way of getting the woolen vest she'd just made onto his shoulders. The resultant look left the Shetlander blinking. The wool was a light grey, trimmed in more leatherfish dyed a shade of brown matching his own coat, and was cut around the shoulders such that it they looked squarer and more masculine.
"Well," Mucmarfóir said to his reflection, "if yon laddie in t' mirror be me, Ah be lookin' mighty grand!"
8: Prelude to a Shetland Fling
As Laird of the Shetlands, Roanald an Deargdyer was resigned to mandatory attendance at undesired events. A true stallion through and through, this morning he was currently suffering stoically through one such. Namely, accompanying his wife and daughter on a shopping expedition. He would have assigned this duty to Amhránaílore, but his son had been asked to speak to the local schoolfoals, and as such would probably still be fending off questions even after close on two hours. After all, part of a bard's duties was teaching Shetland lore.
Ponyville wasn't as large as Canterlot (a fact that Roanald would later embrace with relief), but its permanent shops were like one eternal market day. And it appeared that Soothecup an Deargdyer and Winterberry an Deargdyer were intent on visiting and investigating every one they could find.
The residents' attempts to decorate everything a la Shetlander weren't helping. If he saw another fribble-frabble or whim-wham done up in fake tartan, he was sure he would scream fit to be heard from the southern border.
"Ma Laird?" Roanald turned from glowering at a window display done up in red, blue and green to see one of his retinue standing there with a worried expression. "There's a Captain Stormblade wantin' t' speak with ye at t' guardhouse."
"Captain?" Roanald frowned. "Wha's he want?"
"He wouldnae say," the shaggy pony shrugged helplessly, "but he said he needed tae speak with ye right awa'."
Roanald frowned. "Ah better see what yon Neddy wants," and with a deft shrug he deposited the bags he'd been toting onto the ground. "Be a good lad an' keep watch o'er ma wife an' daughter, aye?"
The Shetlander just nodded, staring at the loaded shopping harness with dismay. It wasn't even noon yet!
Roanald an Deargdyer soon found himself in a typically soulless conference room on the third floor of the Ponyville Guardhouse, accompanied by, to his surprise, Magic Incarnate and the mayor, along with a rather rattled-looking CO. Captain Stormblade on the other hand looked grim and immutable, hardly surprising for one of the Lunar Guard.
"Close the door," he instructed, and the guardhouse's commanding officer leapt to do so.
"Right," he then began, "Last night we received evidence that confirms a serious threat to not just Ponyville, but the Shetlands as well. We first learned of it the day the, uh, Laird and his party arrived, but didn't get confirmation until late last night."
"Oh my," Mayor Mare quavered.
"Why do I get t' sense ye're not talkin' about Mucmarfóir?" Roanald asked rhetorically.
"Because the threat is trailing several hours behind him," and Stormblade shoved several documents into the middle of the table.
"To keep this short: The night before last, the farm of Garden Hoe and his family was attacked by what appeared to be a herd of boar. That would be strange enough since there aren't any known herds in the area. They appeared to have visited a few hours before, had a brief disagreement, then came back and forced entry.
"That second visit was when the Hoe family... died... but we found something else. One track that looked like that of a boar, but seriously distorted, and then some scat, which we took a picture of before it was killed with fire."
"Oh my," Mayor Mare quavered.
The photograph was of what looked like a small pile of pig dung, except that dung generally doesn't behave in a fashion requiring killing – with or without fire.
"Them!" Twilight hissed, glaring at the abomination.
"The Muc," Roanald growled, "An' one's playin' host to one o' Them."
"Oh my," Mayor Mare quavered.
"Princess Luna only received confirmation last night," Stormblade went on, ignoring the functionary going into shock, "and I was selected to head a force to defend Ponyville when they arrive. My flight group is currently scouting for any sign of the creatures, and my ground forces will arrive in about two hours. Officially, we're passing through on an exercise."
Roanald was frowning. "When that Mucmarfóir arrived, he had all twigs and leaves in his coat," he mused, "An' I recall t' road were well cleared from t' forest yonder. Yon lad must've cut straight through..."
There was a bustle at the door and a Royal guardspegasus entered. "Captain Stormblade," he saluted, "Forward scouts report that signs show a herd of boar entered the Everfree Forest about two hours out of Sweetwater. Owing to the forest canopy we have lost track of them from that point."
"I'll bet they be followin' Mucmarfóir's trail," Roanald grunted, "t' Muc have nae fondness for 'im o'er any other pony. Wha's t' forest like fae us wi' nae wings?"
"Dangerous," Twilight spoke up, "there are creatures that attempt to eat anypony that crosses their path, deep gullies, and some ruins nopony should enter." She shuddered involuntarily, remembering the showdown with Nightmare Moon.
"Tha's good then," the Laird nodded, "seein' as t' Muc prefer a fight tae sneakin' about. All goin' well, most o' t' snouty fluffies'll get eaten afore they arrive."
"Oh my," Mayor Mare quavered.
"We'll live in hope," Stormblade's grin was wry. "But remember there's one of Them along for the ride."
"Ah'll speak tae my son, Rianblade," Roanald decided, "An' he can quietly arrange for a defence tae be prepared." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "Ha'past eleven, so ye troops'll arrive about 'n hour afore noon. When's sunset set today?"
Twilight frowned. "I think the almanac said a quarter past twenty-three."
"Eight hours then," the old Shetlander nodded, "An' I doubt the snouties will be brave enough to attack during daylight hours. As long as t' lads dinna wreck 'emselves playin' hoofball or whatever we should be grand for givin' the bastards a proper welcome!"
The matching feral grins exchanged by the Laird and Captain Stormblade caused Twilight to shudder and Mayor Mare to faint.
Half an hour earlier, Cheerilee had ticked the last name off the roll. "Today we have the pleasure of a visit from, ah..." she frowned at a phonetically spelled name, "Amhránaílore of the Shetland delegation, who is going to tell us about life in his homeland..."
The Shetland bard in question looked over the class with interest. This was returned by two dozen fascinated stares.
The schoolhouse was almost stereotypical, a small red building festooned with educational posters, a frieze of the Equestrian alphabet, a well-used blackboard, and ranks of foals sitting before their desks.
Unlike some popular depictions, Equestrian school desks, like most Equestrian furniture, are only functionally identical to human ones. Rather than being forced into a bipedal posture, schoolfoals sat on thin cushions in front of low writing surfaces which also contained their school supplies. There were two reasons for this design: Firstly, it was relatively cheap, and secondly, most foals found it hard to fall off the floor.
Amhránaílore mulled over his lesson as Cheerilee introduced him; he'd talk for an hour or so, maybe one or two of the auld teachin' songs, then throw open t' floor an' brace himsael' for questions. If the wee ones ran out, well, there'd be time for another ditty or two, wouldn't there?
An' then about thirteen-o'-clock it'd be off tae where yon lads should be preppin' for a wee fling.
"But we've already covered this!" That outburst came from a foal, a yearling really if his awkward build, stretched by adolescent growth spurts, was any indication.
"Yeah," moaned his fellow yearling, whose growth hadn't spurted up, but more sideways, "We've been studying this ever since that dumb letter."
"Aye," Amhránaílore smirked at them before Cheerilee could react, "But ye've been tryin' tae ken us from auld books, am I right?"
The fat one stopped blinking first. "Uh... yeah?"
"Well, there's only so much them books can tell ye, an' since mah name means Lore-Singer in Auld Equestrian, and Ah be a bard by callin –" he lifted his sporran up with one hoof to show the symbol of a scroll and drum – "ye'll truly ken us in nae time!"
The hapless Shetlander dourly waited outside the Ponyville Clinic as his Laird's mare and filly went inside. The Laird's lasses apparently liked their shopping. Especially when they had a nice strong stallion to carry it.
"Can I help you?" Nurse Redheart was on duty this morning, and looked uncertainly at the radiant young mare and her dam. Winterberry returned the uncertain look.
"We're just after some moon tea," Soothecup declared in a friendly tone, causing her foal to blush and shoot her dam a death glare.
"Moon tea?" Redheart blinked, then sniffed in a clinical fashion. "You don't seem to be coming into estrus yet."
"Och, 'tis nae for me!" Soothecup's laugh bounced around the room. "It's fae ma lass here."
Winterberry's blush deepened to a fine shade of tomato.
Redheart sniffed the air again in that clinical fashion. "She doesn't appear to be entering estrus either?"
"Nay, nay," Soothecup trundled on, ignoring the fusillade of deadly looks her daughter was sending her, "but I dinna' like tae take risks wi' ma girl here."
Winterberry bristled with embarrassment. She was almost grown, and she didn't need her ma to be hovering over her all the time! If it wasn't her ma, it was one or the other of her brothers, or some maid, all worried about her virtue. She'd read about what 'being covered' involved, and how important moon tea was, she was no foolish foal. If she ever found the right lad, however... he better have plenty of stamina. Reading was one thing, but Winterberry was very curious about how things went in practice.
That was a mighty if though. The Shetlanders were all loyal to her da and would probably turn tail. That Mucmarfóir neddy was right out of contention. Which left the gentry of Ponyville, but they all looked soft and too damn meek for her tastes.
As ma escorted her out of the clinic, burbling away, Winterberry wished she was back home where the real stallions were.
Author's Note
MOON TEA: A herbal contraceptive, mainly composed of silphium, taken by mares to prevent pregnancy, especially during their estrus period.
YEARLING: An Equestrian in their adolescence, notable for its growth spurts and degradation of common sense. Or horse sense.
9: Scenes from a Shetland Fling
One of the many commonalities that unite sentient species is that their societies tend to develop aggression outlets; distractions where members are encouraged to invest their time and energy and generally blow off steam as opposed to each other's body parts. Equestrians are no exception.
This morning, while Mucmarfóir was receiving the riot act from the Laird, and Amhránaílore was speaking to (and fending off plenty of daft questions from) the local schoolfoals, one such outlet was being prepared by Rianblade in Ponyville Park: He, and about a dozen somewhat seedy-feeling Shetlanders, were preparing to host a reciprocal event to yesterday's welcome, what they would call 'a wee fling'.
Equestrians are rather strong on reciprocation, on the grounds that fair exchange keeps Harmony in the herd of ponykind. Having been entertained last night, it was only right to return the favour, in the eyes of the Laird.
After a reel or two to 'wake up the blood', the Shetlanders had begun work. From the carts they'd brought along, various poles and cloths emerged, and with a fair bit of shoving, pulling, and a modicum of coarse language, several marquees and standards had been raised.
"Right then," Rianblade nodded, "Time tae get t' supplies in lads! Now, we'll need tae... wha' t' buck are ye all gawpin' at?"
One raised a forehoof to the sky. A pegasus was lifting a struggling kilted figure in the air, before heading in a direction and dropping it.
"Now wha's that about?" Rianblade wondered, then started at the distant and notably un-watery splat. "Hoy!" He yelled at the distant winged figure, "What're ye about?"
The pegasus paused, then zoomed down to meet them. Rianblade blinked as he recognised Loyalty Incarnate. "What?" Rainbow Dash asked irritably.
"Wha's thee about, droppin' guests intae t' drink?" Rianblade stomped one hoof angrily.
"That friend of yours insulted Rarity," the pegasus mare retorted, "and from his breath he'd been at the straight salt as well as the night drink!"
"Hang about," somepony behind him asked, "'E looked a mite small, were 'e brown? Got 'n 'alf-gallon jar for 'is mark?"
"He's even browner now," Rainbow smirked, "I wasn't looking at his flank though."
"Little Brown Jug," Rianblade groaned, deciding two out of three characteristics were enough. "Well, on behalf o' t' lads Ah apologise for that gobshite. If Ah had my way 'e'd nae be with us. An' wha's thee mean, browner?"
"I, uh, might have dropped him in the, uh, honey wagon. I was kinda annoyed."
Silence prevailed, before the first sputterings and snorts of amusements came to pass, soon followed by giggles and finally outright peals of laughter.
"Well then," Rianblade finally managed to say, "On behalf o' t' Shetland nation please pass our apologies tae Miss Rarity! Now then lads, we 'ave a fling tae prepare!"
And what a fling it was!
The schoolfoals followed along behind Cherilee and Amhránaílore-the-Lore-Singer, goggling at the various sights.
There was plenty of bunting and traditional Shetland banners waving in the breeze; there were stalls presenting genuine Shetland wares; the music of traditional Shetland song was in the air – this time at a volume not set to incapacitate.
It was certainly busy. As well as an appreciable chunk of the Ponyville population, a detachment of Royal and Lunar guardsmen had arrived on manoeuvres, and were taking the chance for some R&R while they could.
"Who wants tae Whack-a-Muc?" a unicorn was calling, waving both a long stick and a blindfold with her magic. Behind her, a sturdy if increasingly battered clay effigy of the aforementioned species of pig swung at the end of a cord. "Who'll be getting' them goodies inside?"
"What's happening here?" Cherliee and her little herd had come up to the stall in question.
"Och, 'tis a fun party game," explained the bard, "Tha sees, yon pony is given t' stick, an' blindfolded, an' then they give yon Muc a damn good whack! If you're lucky, you'll strike t' killin' blow, an' out come all yer prizes!"
The eyes of the foals all lit up at the double delight of winning things and (no doubt) making a mess. Cherilee, however, looked troubled. "Killin' – I mean, killing blow?"
"As I told ye," Amhránaílore explained, "we an' t' Muc are at odds with each other."
The teacher just blinked at him. Certainly he'd mentioned that the Shetlands were constantly having to fend off aggression from that race, but this... this was inculcating hatred from foalhood! In her mind, it seemed reasonable that somewhere, sometime, some common ground would be found between this race of pigs and ponykind, and the hoof of Friendship and Harmony would be accepted.
Smashing effigies of another race... that seemed to be a retrograde step.
Of course there was food, especially shortbread, which was being doled out by three Shetlanders and one Pinkie Pie. The kitchens of Sugarcube Corner had been full of hairy shoulders for much of the morning, and currently a kilt and tam-o'-shanter was occupied by Laughter Incarnate. Having all that help had been so fun and she'd learned some new songs too! Sure, most weren't fit for the ears of baby Cakes, but she was certain that she'd find an appreciative audience somewhere else!
Speaking of which, one had gathered around Rianblade and half-a-dozen other Shetlanders, who were performing the Warrior's Reel to the lively sounds of two pipers and one lass on the hoof-drum. It was an energetic bit of dance, starting slow before gathering speed as the dancer jumped, twisted, and kicked. To do the reel right, you literally had to be fighting fit. If you did the reel often enough, you would be fighting fit.
The young stallion stumbled in one of the more vigorous manoeuvres, grimacing as one of the wounds he'd received the night before protested at being pulled.
"Why're – you – stopping?" huffed a young voice.
Rianblade blinked and looked around. His fellow dancers had stopped and were grinning, like most of the crowd, off to one side. Apparently he'd picked up a small shadow, a gamboge pegasus filly who despite being pretty lathered was still surprisingly energetic.
He blinked for a moment as he remembered. "Aren't tha' one o' t' fillies what gave t' key t' Da yesterday?" He finally asked.
The little filly's ears flicked, then went back with embarrassment. It hadn't been her best moment. "Uh... yeah."
Rianblade tamped down a grin. "And wha' be thy name lass?"
"She's Scootaloo," another filly piped up. Rianblade immediately twigged that the three foals that had 'presented' the key to the town to Da were thick as thieves. "Hey! I'll try dancing too!"
"You can't dance, Applebloom," the third snorted – who was she? Oh aye, Sweetie Belle. Now Rianblade's grin escaped. "Shouldn't thee be off tae school?" he asked.
"We're here on a school trip," Scootaloo cocked her head, then flicked her tail in the Equestrian gesture of determination. "But now we're gonna try dancing wheels like you and see if we get our cutie marks!"
"Me too!" "Me three!" the other two fillies added before he could correct them, then with surprising volume all three foals shouted at once, "Cutie Mark Shetland Dancers GO! "
At various points about the fling, Applejack, Rarity, and Cherilee flinched.
The Shetland warrior blinked at them and shook his head to get the ringing out of his ears. Some of the others winced, the night still not out of their systems. "Oh aye?" he finally said with a faint smile, "Well then, Ah say awa' we go!"
The musicians took their cue, and Rianblade began the first relatively slow measures as the three fillies emulated him, their determined expressions almost comical. Scootaloo hardly took her eyes off Rianblade. Applebloom also watched him closely, her tongue pushed out of her mouth with concentration. Sweetie Belle kept looking down at her legs to make sure they were behaving themselves – then scrambling to catch up to what her friends were doing as opposed to Rianblade.
When their inexperience finally tackled their enthusiasm, it was Sweetie Belle first, then Applebloom, before it finally ganged up with fatigue five minutes later to bring Scootaloo crashing to the ground. Cheers and good-natured ribbing accompanied the Cutie Mark Crusaders' progressive defeat.
"Get ye breath back, lassies, an' well done young pegasus," Rianblade said at last, "An' that goes for ye as well," he addressed his fellow Shetlanders, "take a wee break and be back in ten minutes."
This, however, meant that musical instruments were left in the vicinity of three foalish fillies who knew no bounds in trying to unearth their talents worth a cutie mark.
"Momma!"
"Hungy!"
Cup Cake sighed with resigned amusement and walked to a less busy spot with all the grace of a mare besieged by two months-old foals searching for the teat.
As Pound and Pumpkin finally latched on, tails flailing in the manner of all nursing foals, she sighed again, humming an old nursery tune as the pressure in her mammary glands eased. Passers-by, seeing mother and children, just smiled indulgently. A mare nursing at a wonderful fair; a charming sight for a happy day.
An agonised scream tore through the air, killing the pleasant ambience stone dead. Most ponies froze, ears erect, then another cry, this one with unpleasant undertones of punctured lung, flailed through the air.
Pound and Pumpkin Cake, appetites decidedly spoiled, both let go and started to run, squealing with fear; Cup had to chase after them. Other ponies also had to pursue frightened foals, while guardsmen and several Shetlanders all waded through the crowds towards the noise, ready to fight.
"Stay close ye foals!" Amhránaílore informed the school herd in a voice that brooked no disobedience.
It was quite painfully clear, no pun intended, that somepony was being hideously murdered. In between his or her cries of anguish you could hear the indistinct oaths of the attacker, often immediately followed by yet another wail, until finally the hapless victim's last gasps gurgled into what should have been silence, but was instead a lesser cacophony of frightened ponies.
Cherilee counted heads, and came up three short. "Has anypony seen," and she sighed in resignation, "Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo?"
"Hoy!" Amhránaílore stopped a Shetlander who was ambling past them with an amused smirk on his face, "Wha's goin' on?"
"Go see for ye'sael'," the other chuckled, jerking his head behind him.
Amhránaílore went, and found a small circle of unimpressed guardsponies, glowering musicians, and smirking Shetlanders all regarding a tableau of three fillies and two bagpipes. The fillies had clearly taken on more than they could blow.
Sweetie Belle, her face almost clashing with her mane, managed to lift her head. "Cutie... Mark... Crus... ader... Pipers... nugghhh," she managed to gasp out before her head fell back onto one of the bagpipes.
The pipes farted in derision.
Author's Note
Given that the majority of Equestrians hardly wear clothes, and since they are equine, it made sense to me that they wouldn't have the same taboo about breastfeeding that humans do. Also, the entire scene with the pipes is inspired by Jerome K. Jerome.
SALT: Plain salt apparently acts as an intoxicant to Equestrians, possibly by dehydrating the brain. Generally salt licks and salt sellers cut pure salt with sugar or other fillers to reduce the potency. Addicts can be recognised by their profoundly irrational behaviour and extreme thirst.
Salt of a purity above 50% is considered contraband; as such most Equestrian recipes list far more salt than would be advisable in a human context.
Needless to say there is a constant problem with 'lickers' and their supporting criminal activities. (A cup of cooking-strength salt (about 5% pure) is roughly ten bits, but 'half-cut' goes, according to the most recent reports, for thirty-seven bits per teaspoon.)
Equestrians looking to get ripped generally move between 'night clubs' (which serve alcoholic drinks) and 'salt cellars' (which serve different flavoured blends of salt), hoping to not incur the wrath of the bouncers or the constabulary.
As stated earlier, Equestrians, like most sentient beings, have outlets to dissipate aggression, reinforce herd unity, and generally blow off steam. One such outlet is the festival. Another – somewhat more aggressive – is herd sport.
While most of the residents were attending the fling at Ponyville Park, Coach Pinetree was strictly business down on the pitch of the Ponyville Hoofball League Club. This made some of the team a little surly, but the burly gray pegasus didn't give a buck. The season officially started in a month, but that was no reason for the team to slack off. Especially if they wanted to beat the Manehattan Metros and make the grand final.
So he went from one member of the Ponyville Elementals to the other, barking instructions, demonstrating how to do the exercises right, blowing his whistle, dispensing motivational clichés, and generally doing what his cutie mark – a whistle and hoofball – attested he did best.
He didn't notice the small audience at first, then dismissed them at second. The third time, he stopped when he heard one remark, "Give over! Rangers'd ha' these neddies fae a wee snack."
Stung, Pinetree spun around to glare at the loudmouth. Said loudmouth was grinning openly at his friends, all of whom turned out to be Shetlanders.
"Oh, and I suppose you've played for the Rangers eh?" the pegasus snapped, emphasising his irritation by snapping his wings with a sharp clap. Several snorts and stamps around him indicated that the team was a bit narked as well.
The other Shetlanders burst out laughing at this, ribbing the speaker mercilessly. Loudmouth however was undeterred.
"Us lads could still wipe t' field wi' yon gaudies," he declared defiantly.
"Oh really?" Pinetree wasn't impressed. There were plenty of ponies who had thought that the Ponyville strip of purple and pink indicated softness. You didn't make the semis by being soft though.
"I count seven of you. You up for a friendly game, sevens rules?"
"Awa' hame," the loudmouth sneered, "We're nae afraid. We'll get the lads and make it a full 'un. Bring it on!"
Pinetree was already flipping his whistle into his mouth, so he couldn't smirk as he caught the team's attention. The assembled Elementals, however, could. The sight of a massed hoofball team all smirking at him made Béalosard an Uiscídorcha slightly nervous.
Amhránaílore was outside, looking in the direction of a rapidly departing Shetlander. "Some o' t' lads are havin' a wee hoofball game with t' local team at t' park, Ma," he said by way of greeting, "Maybe we should go support 'em?"
Soothecup and Winterberry blinked, looked at each other, then nodded. "Aye, sounds like a good idea," Soothecup said at last, "May as well see how yon lads are faring!"
Being a good son and a wise pony, Amhránaílore kept his thoughts about spectating being not shopping to himself. Instead, he relayed an amusing anecdote regarding three foals and two sets of bagpipes.
"Hey up! We're havin' a wee friendly with t' locals," one of the Shetland pegasi addressed the small knot of observers outside Carousel Corner.
"We're what?" a gentlecolt of Langstoncroft asked, relieved to think about something other than the revelation that Mucmarfóir the Mad was in his clan.
"That Béalosard ran his gob off, so yon coach challenged him tae a wee game."
"Och, now this we have tae see! Lead on!"
Inside, both Mucmarfóir and Rarity frowned at the raised voices outside.
"How long ha' those sods been peepin'?" the Shetlander wondered.
"Hmm?" Rarity had turned her back and was rooting around in a chest.
"Ah said, how long ha' those noseys..." he trailed off as Rarity slung a pink and purple scarf around her neck, and levitated a truly hideous fuzzy top hat in the same colours onto her head.
"That colt mentioned the coach," she explained, "which means they're playing the Elementals! Now this we have to see!"
"We?" Mucmarfóir managed to get out before another one of those hats dropped over his eyes and her magic grabbed his ear again.
Truth be told, he was getting a little bit tired of that.
A short while later, Mucmarfóir was lounging on one of several wooden terraces, blinking in bemusement.
The terraces served as stands for the spectators, directly opposite the HLC clubrooms, which were adorned with a scoreboard and a large doorway. In between them, the field, over seventeen hundred hooves from post to post.
Currently there was a knot of bickering Shetlanders in front of the clubrooms, some of whom were entering while others seemed to be arguing the toss. Then a familiar pony approached the herd and Mucmarfóir tensed. He recognised the neddie who'd done him a reel last night.
Rianblade, however, was more concerned with selecting a few good ponies, and besides, someone had to captain the team.
Rianblade had also tapped Béalosard an Uiscídorcha. That pony objected, but Rianblade explained that since he had lived up to his name, he could back up his words with deeds.
Pinetree decided to let the Shetlanders kick off, and promptly took wing to survey the field.
The two teams looked like chalk and cheese. The Elementals in their pink and purple strip looked athletic, sleek and were already in formation, as opposed to the comparatively scrappy-looking visitors – now with added wing and horn binders, kindly donated by the Elementals. The reserves were standing or sitting on the sidelines making remarks.
Rianblade was shouting orders to his team, trying to get the daft neddies into position.
Béalosard was trying to remember the rules: Play behind t' ball, dinnae tackle anypony wi'out t' ball, dinnae tackle above t'chest, an'... och, what ha' I forgotten?
A particularly fiery-maned (and tempered) pegasus known as Blaze simmered quietly at scrum half. He hated hoofball since he wasn't allowed to fly, and from the direction of his glare either the Elementals or Béalosard were going to pay. Or both.
Truth be told, the Shetlanders were more than a little nervous. The stands were filling, mostly with home team supporters boasting pink and purple, but here and there were knots of tartan. Looking for them was better than looking at the alarming number of legends across the centre line. Mayerhoofler, the loose forward in jersey 15. Fairfield, the 'Jolly Green Giant', jersey number 13. Hooker, one of just two ponies on the team with a hoofball-related cutie mark, jersey number 11. Twilight Wing, said limbs twitching eagerly under his binder, the winger in jersey 5. Unlike Blaze, he didn't mind crashing around on the ground; less chance of wing sprains or even breaks.
Broadback just stood, an slate-gray hulk of horned scrum-half in the number 7 jersey. Behind him, his fellow five-eighth Dusty in jersey 6. And finally, currently obscured behind a bored yawn, was a large navy centre, jersey 3: the legend known simply as Buck.
These ponies alone would have been enough to give the Shetlanders reservations, but the remaining seven on the team were just as imposing and just as obviously looking forward to running the visitors into the ground en route to the try-line – repeatedly.
"Right then," Pinetree called, then blew the signal for start of play.
Rianblade swallowed, turned, then backed up and kicked the ball into play. The home team immediately went into action, two chasing the ball and the other five falling back ready to catch the pass. The Shetlanders charged forward, Rianblade lagging slightly as he spun around from his kick.
All things considered it was a pretty good kick, the ball going slightly to the left and about a hundred and twenty hooves into Elementals territory. 'Lucky' 15, jumped for it, teeth bared, and snagged the stretchy, tough leatherfish skin the ball was encased in. The skin not only made the ball easy to seize with your mouth, it prevented excited players from puncturing it.
He was galloping even before he returned to earth. Hoofball, as mentioned, was an aggression outlet in general. The player with the ball was an aggression outlet in particular.
Three Shetlanders veered to intercept him. A big tan fellow attempted to shoulder-charge, but 15 waltzed sideways, the ball flapping from his teeth as he looked for teammates to pass to. Spotting the pink and purple out of the corner of one eye, he tossed his head and let the ball fly to the offside.
Another two Shetlanders took aim at the target: Dusty. That worthy had already planned his move and slung it almost immediately further along to Fairfield – who decided to claim some territory and put on a spurt.
Two of the Shetlanders had held back, and immediately went on the offensive. "The Jolly Green Giant" sidestepped one, but the other crashed into him in a classic tackle, pinning the unicorn to the ground. Only hours of training stopped him from gasping as the breath was knocked out of him. His nostrils flared hugely instead as he struggled for air, legs kicking as he tried to get to his feet and the shaggy oaf off him.
"Pass back play on 13!" Pinetree yelled.
The Shetlander scrabbled off as the big prop rose to his hooves and pushed the ball back to Hooker, who immediately sent it sideways to Twilight Wing who sent it on to Broadback. The third phase of Elemental possession commenced in a charge that got within two strides of the halfway line before terminating in a big gray fellow, who'd seen the writing on the wall and lagged behind.
It was a good tackle, as Broadback actually lost the ball when the wind was knocked out of him. The big grey Shetlander battened on to the ball and took the first phase of Shetland possession up to the quarter line, before being unavoidably detained under a Jolly Green Giant. The ball was kicked back to a recently arrived Blaze, who noted the imminent arrival of a brace of Elementals and immediately fired a pass to where Béalosard was yelling his head off.
No matter now assiduously you followed the Elementals, Buck always surprised with his speed. The centre in jersey number 3 made a classic intercept, put his head down, and went flat out for the try line.
Sixteen seconds later the score stood at Ponyville Elementals 4, Shetland Visitors nil.
One well-punted conversion, courtesy Twilight Wing, jacked the score to 6-0.
Anypony watching could have told you, from the blowing and looks being shot between the teams, that both sides had their blood up now.
Which was quite correct. The Elementals had been taken a little off guard by the energy of the Shetland defence, and were seeing red. The Shetlanders, on the other hand, were seeing pink and purple.
"By 'eck," Mucmarfóir gasped. He'd heard snippets about hoofball from time to time, but he'd never actually seen such a game.
Rarity poked his shoulder. "And there's still thirty-three minutes in this half to go," she informed her current project.
The brown Shetlander just stared at the freshest pile of vigorously kicking ponies on the field. The whole business had taken seven... aye, seven minutes, there was t' clock o'er on t' scoreboard... How could anypony endure an hour an' a half o' that?
About five minutes later, Béalosard the Loudmouth found himself standing before the touchline about five hooves past the 100-stride line. Either side of him, two rows of snorting, lathered sportsponies stamped impatiently. Lineout time.
After the conversion, the Shetlanders had resumed with a mighty kick that almost landed a good three hundred twenty hooves into Elemental territory.
The Shetlanders were storming forward well before the ball hit the ground, and bounced into the possession of Hooker again. It was only a botched pass that let the Shetland braggart grab the ball, realise he was about to end up on the bottom of a ruck, and attempt a side kick that led to a sideline official flicking up his flag and Pinetree whistling for a lineout.
Vaguely he remembered that you had to rear up with the ball in your forehooves and throw it that way; a recollection more or less aided by the advice being shouted at him by several team-mates. Twilight Wing was almost bouncing in place, while Blaze just waited, tense.
Equestrians can stand on their hind legs, but it's not easy. Especially when you're trying to hold something at the same time. It wasn't an expert throw, and both Blaze and Twilight Wing jumped, assisted by helpful teammates, teeth snapping and forelimbs flailing as they attempted to flick the ball to their side.
Twilight Wing was successful, and the Shetlanders were once again on the defensive as the Elementals' superior training, and formidable forwards, ground from one tackle to the next.
"C'mawn Shetlanders brave!" Winterberry yelled, caught up in the herd instinct. Despite not being all that athletic – her parents were also of the mind that hoofball was a colts' game – she still considered herself part of the team, and that her cheering was as important as the efforts of those on the field.
The cry was taken up by the other Shetlanders, and she couldn't help noticing a few of the locals were also barracking for her herd as well. Da mightn't like the fake tartans they were waving or wearing, but they were...
Her ear, then her eye, was captured by a stallion with coat and eyes the colour of loam, kilted in the colours of Langstoncroft, bellowing his support in an unmistakably Shetland accent, standing next to a unicorn who looked much like Generosity Incarnate. She puzzled at him. It wasn't a proper kilt he wore, and his coat and mane had been cropped awful short. Who the hay was he?
"Rianblade! Yes! " her Ma screamed, along with a sizable number of her herd. Winterberry looked back to the field. Her brother had the ball in his teeth and was charging back up the field!
"Go brother! Go! Gogogogo GO! " she squealed in excitement, bouncing up and down. "Go Rian – Rianblade LOOK OUT! "
You could hear the impact of Buck tackling Rianblade from one end of the field to the other. The colt actually flew two strides sideways through the air before hitting the ground.
He didn't move.
Winterberry screamed.
Mucmarfóir's head whipped round. Up the far end of the stand he could see a white mare, obviously hysterical, despite what looked like her dam attempting to calm her down.
"There come the medics," Rarity observed, "Looks like they'll have him in the blood bin to make sure he's all right."
"Wha'?" Mucmarfóir pulled his eyes back to the field, where the brown-coated Shetlander was staggering off between two white-jacketed fellows. Concussion, he suspected. That big blue neddie obviously hit hard.
"Ah thought this were a friendly game!" Béalosard gasped. If that had been him, he was sure he'd have been takin' t' Low Road home!
"Elementals don't play friendlies," someone answered behind him.
"Then why should we?" Blaze growled.
Rianblade's incapacitation seemed to turn a switch in the Shetlander team's heads, and it started when Pinetree decided to call a scrum to the visitors.
The Elementals slotted into their places with a smoothness betraying hours of practice, while the Shetlanders opted for putting their biggest lads up front. Blaze rolled the ball under one forehoof as he waited for the cue to slot it into the tunnel.
"Crouch!" Pinetree called. The two groups froze, hunching down, ready to spring.
"Touch!" Forehooves prodded the opposition's shoulders, not gently either.
"Pause!" Blaze stopped playing with the ball and lined it up a little closer to his teammates than centre.
"Engage!"
The sound of twenty-four ponies grunting as they slammed into each other was Blaze's cue to feed the ball into the scrum. For a moment the Elementals' superior skill and pack weight looked like dominating, but the Shetlanders' ire shoved them back a good stride, the ball emerging into Shetland hooves almost immediately. Then the assault started.
"Och hay," Soothecup groaned as yet another vicious tackle turned over possession. The lads seemed to have decided to just try and stampede through the Elemental line! Winterberry was still peering over to where Rianblade was being tended to, then the crowd exploded with indignation.
Twilight Wing had seized the ball and almost immediately had to jink to avoid an irate Blaze, who was attempting to give him a Shetland Hoofshake. Being concerned with not getting whacked by the crazed Shetland pegasus, he just spat the ball away without looking, but Blaze still went snarling after him. Pinetree's whistle shrilled as players, the ball forgotten, descended on the two pegasi to separate them.
"Who t' hay put that neddie on t' team?" Amhránaílore groused, "He's always mouthing off."
"Needs must," his father shrugged, "anyway he's in t' sin bin fae now."
The next ten minutes dragged on for three days, the now under strength Shetlanders still managing to keep the score down to just 15-nil, thanks to Blaze handing the home side a penalty kick; subsequently a missed conversion balanced that out. By then Rianblade had recovered and cantered back onto the field to a rousing cheer. Even Mucmarfóir supported him. Despite getting hoofied by the lad, he had to admit that the fiery stallion was a Shetlander true.
Blaze returned to the field shortly thereafter and was met with what must have been some choice remarks from Rianblade, if his limp ears and tail were any indication.
With Rianblade's return, the visiting team's morale picked up noticeably. This resulted in about six passes leading up to a spectacular charge to the tryline. After hovering around observing the heaving, snorting and swearing pile of furiously rucking ponies from all angle, Pinetree finally blew for a try. The Elementals scrambled to their hooves, revealing a rather battered-looking heather-hued Shetlander flat on the ground, snorting for breath, and triumphantly pressing the ball down with one slightly trodden-on forelimb, barely one eighth of a hoof past the line with just over a minute remaining.
The crowd, needless to say, went wild.
"What a try!" Rarity (never) shrilled, wrapping her forelimbs around an almost as excited Mucmarfóir.
The Shetlander didn't reply. He was still goggling at the fact that the heather lad was not only managing to get up, but was being helped by one of the opposition, while Blaze was lining up for a shot at goal from about ten strides out.
White caught his eye, and he realised the bonny Shetland mare he'd noticed before was looking at him again.
She had the most bonny berry-red eyes.
"Wha's thee looking at?" Soothecup nudged her daughter.
"Eh?" Winterberry blinked.
"Yon field's down there! Wha's caught thee eye?"
Winterberry thought quickly. "I couldnae ken... but 'tis! Generosity Incarnate in the daft hat! By yon brown lad, see?"
Soothecup looked. The mare was Rarity, and that hat was right daft, and she wasn't who her filly were staring at. She was about to speak but Winterberry sucked in a breath, looking down at the field as Blaze braced to kick the conversion.
All things considered it was a good kick, the ball almost sailing between the posts, but too low. With one spiteful bounce off the crossbar, the first half finished 15-4 to the Elementals.
Pinetree blew the half-time whistle, which was almost inaudible under the sound of Shetlanders cheering and stamping in applause. The Elementals retired to the changing rooms while the Shetlander team was swamped by well-wishers.
Following her ma's lead, Winterberry pushed through the crowd to where Rianblade was holding court over a team huddle.
"An' this next 'alf we'll have no goin' fae t' other players, just t' ball, has tha' got that Blaze?" his voice was barely audible. There was a sullen mumble, then her brother grunted. "Well make sure ye stay getting' it. Now then –" his head popped out of the circle. "Some o' ye gobshites go get us water – och! Hello ma!"
"Water?" Winterberry blinked. "Oh! O' course, ye're all lathered, I'll find some."
"No need love," Soothecup placed a hoof on her daughter's shoulder. "Some o' these other fluffies can do that," she added in a pointed tone while looking about, "can they no?"
When the Laird's mare made a suggestion like that, you picked up on it, and there was quite the traffic jam as shaggy ponies attempted to get and fill buckets.
Winterberry simmered a bit. She'd hoped to see that mystery pony.
Mucmarfóir could see Winterberry easily; from the terraces her white flank and merry red tail seemed to glow among the darker hides of her countryponies.
"We should go down and wish them well," Rairity said, jolting Mucmarfóir out of his thoughts. Och, what am I thinkin'? Tha's yon warrior who did the reel on me last night, he'll recognise me, an' there I'll be all alone wi' them angry neds...
"Ah dinnae ken would be a good idea," he said slowly at last. "Who's that lass with the white coat?" he added, trying to keep his upper lip under control, "Never seen her like before."
"Ah... Winterberry I think, the Laird's daughter." Och buckin' hay! Well done Mucmarfóir, ye daft fluffy neddie, tha's thinkin' wicked o' not just a Shetland mare, but o' the Laird's filly! I'd be headin' hame along t' Low Road for certain...
"Oh dear." Rarity had come to the same conclusion. "Mind you, there is quite a crush isn't there? Can you imagine what that could do to my – er, our grooming?"
The wild Shetlander blinked at the elegant unicorn (hat notwithstanding) and realised that the way she was looking at him... it was an awful lot like when he looked at Winterberry.
Pinetree blew for full time forty minutes later, the Elementals having won by a respectably hard-fought 35-12. Rianblade had led a spectacular fight over the tryline – another four points making it ten to the visitors – and Blaze had put his anger into kicking the ball between the goalposts with seventeen minutes to go. It was one of the most loudly applauded tries of the match, and a change from The Great Elemental Scoring Machine.
"I think I'll be back tae t' hotel ma, da," Winterberry remarked, watching the herd of Shetlanders and Ponyville citizens roil around the teams in congratulation.
"All right," Soothecup remarked absently, "Amhránaílore can see ye back."
"Nae need surely! I can see ma'sael' back safe!"
Soothecup opened her mouth to say something, but Winterberry had already turned her tail. Honestly, ma seemed to think she was still a wee foal, for buck's sake! She didn't need watching all the time, she could take care of herself.
The fact that she might take a circuitous route past Carousel Corner en route was neither here nor there.
"What a great game!" Rarity sighed, "Still, I suppose I had better head back to the shop. Oh!" She looked at Mucmarfóir. "Do you have a place to sleep tonight?"
The stallion just looked at her. There was something in her eyes that made him rather nervous.
Author's Note
HOOFBALL: A popular team sport resembling rugby league with some influences from netball, and a sink for aggression. Being quadrupeds, the ball is carried in the mouth, but the rules on scrums, tackles and so forth are reasonably similar. Pegasi play a similar game called Cloudball with rules taking flight into account. Magic is expressly forbidden, and pegasus and unicorn members are required to wear 'binders' to negate any advantages their species might give them. Varieties of 'Hornball' do exist among unicorns, but so far none of them have reached anything beyond niche or experimental status.
The aim is to carry the ball either in hoof or mouth over the opposition 'try line' at the end of the field, in order to score four points and have the opportunity to kick a goal (an extra two points.) Penalty kicks are worth three.
The main source of difference is that the rules are designed for quadrupeds. As well as mouth carry, kicking games tend to be races against time before the referee calls a dead ball (or it gets turned over).
Games are played in two halves of thirty-two minutes with a ten-minute break in between.
Hoofball players tend to have very strong neck and shoulder muscles from all the passing they do, since attempting to pick up the ball, or kick it with a forehoof, can result in either penalty or temporary detention beneath the opposition.
The field is slightly longer than a human rugby field, being 1746 hooves (octal) between goalposts and 1262 hooves (also octal) wide.
For more background I strongly recommend Spiro Zavos' How to Watch a Game of Rugby, Awa Press, ISBN 9780958250931.
LEATHERFISH: Being herbivorous, Equestrians do not kill fellow herbivores if they can avoid it. Fish, for some reason, are considered fair game. Leatherfish are known for their tough skins, which are cleaned, tanned, and stitched together where leather is required. Their flesh and bones are generally used for either fertiliser or glue.
SILPHIUM: A herb probably related to fennel, known for its contraceptive properties. In reality, this plant went extinct due to over-harvesting.
Also, in posting this story here, I spotted a repeated scene of Soothecup and Winterberry in the clinic. Amhránaílore... well, I suspect he tracked his ma and sister down and got lumbered with carrying their shopping from then on.
Chapter 11: A Pony Meets a Pony
Mucmarfóir's excuse was that he needed some air after all the excitement, but he wasn't daft enough to believe himself. What he really wanted was to get away, get some time alone after being on those terraces with such a herd. After so many years alone, the sensation of being part of one was still alien to him.
For two hours, he'd managed to forget his mission to save the Shetlands from the Muc, or that he'd been thwarted the previous night by the Laird's son, and now the Laird and the local guardsponies knew who he was. Not tae mention...
He shook his head and blew in derision. That wasn't it. 'Twas the way Rarity had looked at him when she'd asked if he had a place to sleep. He'd been looked at by mares before, but something about Generosity Incarnate scared him.
His thoughts wandered back to the organised violence that had taken place on the hoofball field. That was a game for stallions , true enough! For a moment his head lifted as daydreams of charging through the opposition ranks, ball in teeth, to win the match flitted through his head. Aye, 'twould be grand wouldn't it? Mucmarfóir, captain of the Shetland team, an' after t' game I'd go hame tae my bonny red-eyed wife –
He stopped dead, looking into but not seeing a shop window. Fluffy! He thought to himself, nose crinkling with disgust. As if t' Laird would let thee have his filly's hoof in marriage!
With a shake of his head, he continued his aimless journey through Ponyville, unaware of his white shadow.
Winterberry had given Carousel Corner's windows a cursory glance: more fake Shetland tat and more ruffles and fluffy stuff than necessary. All grand for a fling but not to do the housework. However, her interest was in the close-cropped brown fellow setting a good clip away from the building.
He was worked up about summat, that were clear in the way he seemed to be muttering to himself, almost arguing. He also wasnae aware of the glances some of the mares he passed were giving him; not surprising. Her eyes tracked the athletic contours of his flanks, before she blinked hard, trying to pull her mind out of his plot. Daft nellie! We're to find out who he is, not kick it up wi' strangers!
With a toss of her head, she resumed her tailing, and trying to ignore a wicked little thought in her head that suggested she could do both. A flash of inspiration struck her as she passed a street vendor, and after a brief pause she resumed her stalk, this time with a paper bag slung around her neck. As Ma always said, the way to a colt's heart was through his stomach.
The Everfree Forest is, of course, informally forbidden, thanks to the dangerous creatures and wild nature of its terrain. However its danger and wildness are unevenly distributed, as yearlings will attest.
A stream emerged from the forest, and there was a path of beaten-down grass alongside of it. Mucmarfóir's hooves found this trail, which led to a small glade held in the crook of the running water. It was the sort of place where one could dare the Everfree and still have a clear run back home; just follow the water.
The brown Shetlander nosed at the grass here and there, poking a hoof now and then at the occasional discarded bottle; the odour of long-gone night drink clinging to their mouths. This was definitely a place where yearlings came. The glade was half in shadow, the afternoon sun sinking into the foliage over the far side of the stream. All in all, the perfect place to engage in a bout of existential angst, heavy petting, or anything else you wanted to keep private.
With a sigh, he lay on his belly beside a hollow log, which shifted when he rested his chin on it, and something inside sloshed. Curiosity pricked, Mucmarfóir got up, peered inside one end, then pulled out a whiskey jug. A wee dram sounded just fine to him, and thus at least one colt's plans for engaging in adult pleasures were ruined.
Mucmarfóir settled himself against the log again, jug by one forehoof, and tried to pick a path through the bog of confusion in his head.
“Gi' it over,” Mucmarfóir said to himself at last, “Thee's a Shetlander, not some short-haired southerner.” He snorted. He might be shorn now, but his coat would soon grow out again. And what would the summers be like here? Damn miserable, he'd bet his plot.
“An' what would yon Rarity want wi' a neddie like thee, eh?” he warmed to his topic. “Aye, she be Generosity Incarnate, but she didnae give thee t' chance to object, did she?” A sympathetic twinge came from his ear and was met with a sympathetic pull from the jug.
“What's thee tae do then?” he asked again, feeling frustration rise. He couldn't challenge the Laird again, the local guards and the Laird's own retinue would make sure of that . And he couldn't just slink awa' hame either, that would admit failure – and in his current state of dress he'd be getting' horseapples for the rest of his life, no doubt. Aye, defeat would mean nopony would do anything about Them Under Stones...
He looked down at the leatherfish sporran that held – hid – his own. His shoulders shifted with irritation under his vest. He stood and began to worry his way out of it, then stopped when he saw a white shape emerge from the trees.
“There ye are,” the mare was clearly not Rarity. Her mane, like her eyes, was a deep berry red that made her coat seem all the brighter. The Shetland accent, sporran and kilt were also dead giveaways. With a shock, Mucmarfóir recognised her as the Laird's filly. Winterberry, that was her name. What was she doing here?
“I wanted a word with thee,” the mare said, approaching him, not noticing the glance he shot over her shoulder, eyes and ears checking for vengeful brothers. This place would be ideal for hiding a body, after all. “I... where'd ye get that from?”
Mucmarfóir blinked at her, then at the jug she was eyeing. “Found it hidden in this log,” he said carefully, “Ah think this is a place yearlin's come.”
Winterberry snorted. “Sounds right,” she replied, “pass it over?” As she did so, she worried a paper bag off her neck, tearing the paper to reveal a pair of stuffed baked potatoes. “I brought summat to share.”
Mucmarfóir blinked again, utterly confused. If he was being set up for an ambush, it was a damned strange one if sharing food was involved. His stomach eventually made up his mind for him.
“Here thee are,” and he picked up the jug in his lips and brought it over to her, then lowered his head to take a bite of potato. There were baked beans in it, as well as mushrooms and cheese. Only the heat stopped him from trying to devour the whole thing at once.
Winterberry took a respectable swig, grimacing at the roughness as it went down. “Ah saw thee with Rarity at the hoofball,” she started carefully, then took a bite of her potato. From the way the lad was hoeing into his spud, he was hungry.
“Aye,” Mucmarfóir was still uncertain. She didnae seem to recognise him from last night, else she'd have stayed away, and she'd brought lunch. Perhaps this was no trick after all.
“But I dinnae ken thee from our retinue,” she added, looking thoughtfully at him. “Goodness knows I had enough time sittin' in that cart to look at everypony's face!” She grimaced. If it had been up to her, she'd have trotted along with the rest of the herd, but Ma wouldn't have it.
Mucmarfóir took a hasty bite, and juggled the hot spud in his mouth by way of stalling. Winterberry took another pull of the terrible whiskey, but the colt didn't talk.
“Now I'd remember a fine strapping colt like thee,” she finally said, attempting to ignore the faint buzzing in her head. If she'd had more of a head for drink she'd have reined herself in. “Wha's thee doin' here?”
“Umm...” Mucmarfóir hesitated. There was no bucking way he was going to tell her he was the madpony who'd challenged her Da! “I was... bringin' the Laird a... a message! Aye, a message, that were it.” He could've bitten his tongue at that. Spoken with a limp it was.
Winterberry frowned. She didnae remember no messenger! Then again, she and Ma had gone into the clinic – and she'd been played the fluffy in there! – and Da had been outside, hadn't he? Must've, they'd been talkin' about mare's matters. For all lads might discuss the plots of the ladies, they couldnae stomach what...
“What were t' message?” she asked, her Shetland accent thickened by the night drink.
“Ah... about t' threat o' Them Under Stones an' t' Muc,” he replied, his own accent somewhat heavier now. His pulls had been longer than hers. “Summat has t' be done! Lost ma family tae 'em,” he added, head drooping as memory surfaced.
“Wha' happened?” Winterberry stared at him.
Mucmarfóir looked away. “The Muc,” he said at last, “I were away roamin' the hills, an' from the Seven Barren Sisters they came a-callin', an' took...”
His voice trailed off as he remembered the devastation that grim finger of smoke had pointed to. “I could see their trail, an' I found Da's old spear, an' I followed 'em back an'...”
His eyes glazed and his ears dropped as he remembered. His sister had still been alive, he'd heard her screaming over the Muc's celebrating.
“I saw...” He began to shake. “Sweet Epona help me I saw it... I saw it! ”
“Ye saw one o' Them ,” oh, Winterberry understood now. She'd heard truly hair-raising stories of Them at Nightmare Night, or half-remembered snippets of reports carried by tight-faced ponies to her Da, heard through doors; the Laird rightly believing such things unfit for a young filly's ears.
“Ah – ah saw it eatin' – Equus help me –” Mucmarfóir's ears folded back and he began to shake as the alcohol floated him back to that ghastly night.
Winterberry just stared as the stallion shrank in on himself, the potato turning to ash in her mouth. She knew there were ponies who'd lost comrades to the snouty bastards, but she'd never really met anypony who'd lost family to them. Without thinking, she heaved herself to oddly rubbery hooves and went over to him, resting one foreleg over his shoulders and nuzzling his cheek as he began to cry.
“Dinna fret 'bout them, their pain's over,” she mumbled, “We'll know how to deal wi' all of 'em, especially the Great 'Un, one day, an' we'll...”
Mucmarfóir choked, her words sliding sideways into his ears. “Great 'Un? Wha's tha mean? I dinnae ken o' any Great 'Un.”
Winterberry pulled away, her face expressing embarrassment. “Well... sometimes Ah'd be listenin' at t' door to what were bein' said in council,” she finally explained, “when Da were chosen to be Laird. An' I heard... um... it were like when Galloper firs' met them Lilliponies.”
Mucmarfóir evidently hadn't read Galloper's Travels from his expression. “Wha's Lil'ponies?” confirmed it.
“Well...” Winterberry looked away, trying to remember. “The story goes, Galloper were shipwrecked on a far land, an' he were washed ashore,” she explained as well as her intoxication allowed, “An... while he were still uncon... uncle... unconscious, these wee tiny ponies who lived there found him, an' they were all afeared, an' they tied 'im down wi' lots o' rope an' stakes.”
She shivered against Mucmarfóir. “An' that's what them stones are like for th' Great 'Un.”
The stallion just stared, sloshing this lesson in his head. For years he'd assumed that if you destroyed the standing stones, you'd weaken Them, since the Muc wouldn't know where They were to worship. The idea that the stones were actually holding down something worse than those things that sat on stones in the night horrified him.
Winterberry shivered again, her slightly drunken brain registering that she was next to a stallion, and a warm, fine-bodied one at that. Without thinking, she absently nibbled at the nape of his neck.
Mucmarfóir's head jerked up in surprise at the sensation, his gloomy train of thought derailing spectacularly. He turned his head, bumping first noses, then lips with Winterberry. Grown bold with night drink, Winterberry pursued a kiss with this mystery stallion, who was now aware he was alone with a fine bonny young mare – from his hindquarters onwards.
As a result the amateurish yet thoroughly enjoyed gymnastics, giggles, squeals and sighs of the following half hour or so were reasonably inevitable; the same could be said of their following exhausted, soon to be rudely interrupted slumber.
Author's Note
Orbital horseapple bombardment in 3... 2...
Chapter 12: An Unwelcome Arrival
Zecora was a little grumpy as she cantered through the shadows left behind as the sun fled the Everfree. She had spent most of the day searching for various herbs, and one in particular she really wanted to find. Having lived for so many years in the forest, however, the zebra knew better than to be outside at night looking for mint, so she was preparing to retire without her usual cuppa. Better a dry throat than one chewed off.
Returning home, she shut out the deepening dark and lit the candles with a deftly lipped taper before resting; dinner could wait while she took a load off her hooves. Idly, she wondered what was happening to that Shetlander colt, and why he had been pursuing the Shetlanders and the Laird. Something wasn't right about that colt's head, she mused to herself in the quiet night, something was...
...missing.
Normally the Everfree Forest, even outside her door, was alive with nocturnal bustle. Bats, owls, hedgehogs, crickets, the odd frog. But not now. Zecora held her breath as she listened even more intently, then rose off her nest of cushions and quietly moved to the door. Opened it a crack, to smell the air.
At first she smelled the familiar odours of earth and growing things, then a breeze coaxed a radically different bouquet to her nose.
Like pigs, but stronger. A sickly smell like carrion. And something else, that made her vaguely remember tales of a place whose very name was a warning, whose lore was such she would never share it with the foals even on Nightmare Night.
"Nafasiyaminyoomauti, " she whispered unthinking, then froze as she realised her candles still gleamed in the windows.
She hurriedly pulled the door shut, then sought for the bar she normally rarely used. Several herbs were snatched up and dumped inelegantly into a bowl, followed by hot water from her kettle. The resultant fumes made her want to cough as she hurriedly doused the candles, eyes streaming, before diving for her cushion couch and pulling it over on top of her.
If she had their scent, they probably had hers – or more likely –
There was a thump. What few stars were visible through the window and her watering eye were blocked by something.
Something grunted. It sounded just wrong, like one of the Apple family's pigs, but more malignly intelligent. Zecora shivered, horrible tales unwinding themselves in her mind.
Now she heard sounds, hooves trampling the grass. A crunch, followed by a wet tearing sound that turned her spine to ice. More grunts. It was speech, but so crude and uncouth as to be unintelligible.
Then somepony – somepig – else replied. This one's voice was deeper, and far less comprehensible; a clotted, gurgling sound as though drowning. The alpha boar no doubt.
The door shook as something shoved at it, then again, the wood creaking in protest. Zecora shoved a pillow into her mouth to muffle her whimper of fear.
The loud snap as the door split caused her to wet herself.
The grunt-talk was louder now, and somepig sniffed deeply through the hole, before choking and snarling in disgust. Zecora closed her eyes in relief; masking her scent with an acrid vapour had worked!
Now another voice, coming closer and shouting in excitement. The alpha boar, angry and demanding. The newcomer squealed excitedly, repeating a phrase over and over. The alpha questioned again, and got an answer.
Then silence.
Then the alpha snarled that phrase, and the zebra nearly screamed in fright at the unearthly hate in his voice. Other voices joined in, a chorus of hate and frenzy that made Zecora bite hard on her pillow and shut her eyes tightly. So terrified was she, she didn't notice them leave, nor that she had lost control of her bowels.
She was still shaking when the voices had faded into the distance. She pressed an ear to the broken door – she couldn't stand it. She just shoved the door aside and began running along the shortest route she knew to Ponyville.
No time for hiding or being aloof! Warn all the ponies! Danger is ahoof!
For all Mucmarfóir was a warrior born, Winterberry was the first to rouse at the sound of approaching hooves.
She looked around in confusion for a moment, before it all landed on her like a ton of horseapples. She closed her eyes and groaned, but her nose reminded her: baked potatoes, cheap night drink, and sex.
Ma allus said be careful what thee wishes for, she thought to herself. Well, ah kicked it up like ah wanted and look where it's got me! Did thee guess ma? When thee insisted I take that moon tea?
The hooves were getting closer, which spurred the mare to action – namely shaking the still slumbering stallion as hard as she could. “Get up ye! Company's comin'!”
“Whuh?” was one of Mucmarfóir's statements, before she lost patience and half walked, half-staggered to the stream. Sucking up a mouthful of water, she deliberately sprayed it into his face. With a cough and splutter, the Shetland wildpony finally returned to the waking world.
“Wha' th' buck's that for? Wha's got intae thee? Wha' –” He finally took in the almost complete absence of sun, the stars peeping down, and Winterberry's distressed expression – along with the scents of – “Och hay... thee sire an' dam!” he groaned.
It were the night drink, he were sure of it. What the buck had he been thinking, sharing that jug with the Laird's daughter? He and her, all alone, an' she...
“Buck them,” she hissed urgently, “summat's comin'!” She then frowned, ears swivelling toward the damning approach. “From t' forest?”
Mucmarfóir also listened. The hoofbeats were at the gallop, but then again, perhaps some foal had been exploring too long and was just going hay for leather to get away home before Luna took reign.
The two were still trying to figure out what to do when the zebra burst out of the undergrowth and skidded to a halt, totally lathered, staring at them with wild eyes.
“Kukimbia! Kukimbia! ” the mare half-gasped, half-yelled. “Kifo anatembea usiku huu! Haraka! Kukimbia kwa ajili ya mji!”
“Wha'?” The two ponies stared at her uncomprehendingly, since neither spoke Zwahili. “Wha's got thee into a stampede?”
“Je, wewe ni viziwi? ” the zebra yelled hysterically. “Kukimbia wewe wana wao! Nguruwe watumishi wa wale hofu maandamano leo! Kukimbia! Au kufa!”
“We dinnae ken what thee's sayin!” Winterberry exclaimed in frustration.
“Wha's so grand about cucumbers?” Mucmarfóir demanded as well.
“Cu – cucumbers?”
The Equestrian word caused the Zwahili stampede in Zecora's brain to come to a crashing halt, as though they had slammed full tilt into a squash of unusual size. She gaped at the two ponies, her somewhat traumatised nose not picking up the telltale scents on them, and it's likely her mind wouldn't have cared anyway.
“Speak... I speak not of cucumbers, though that would be more fun,” she finally managed to get out. “Kukimbia is what I urge: my native tongue for run! ”
“But wha' for?” the big brown stallion asked stupidly.
“Ah'll tell thee,” the white mare answered, “because summat's spooked her, an' it must be comin this way!”
The stallion just blinked at her.
“A herd of vile boar came knocking in my door,” Zecora added urgently. “And of this I am sure: their leader is something more.”
The stallion's face went grim. “Sounds like t' Muc,” he said grimly, his stance shifting to a fighting one. “Winterberry, follow yon mare. Ah'll be behind thee in case the snouties catch up.”
Winterberry gulped, swallowed, and looked at the zebra mare. “Lead t' way,” she gasped, and Zecora was only too glad to do so. “We just follow the stream,” she called over her shoulder, “to escape this doom from nightmare dream.”
In Ponyville, Soothecup needed one of her namesakes, and Roanald wasn't too happy either. “Do thee mean t' say nopony's seen your sister since t' hoofball?”
Rianblade and Amhránaílore both looked sheepish. “No da,” they chorused.
Off to one side, Twilight, General Stormblade, and the rest of Harmony Incarnate stood awkwardly. They'd been finalising preparations until they were interrupted by a hysterical Soothecup demanding to know where Winterberry was.
“And you're sure she never came to your shop,” Twilight asked Rarity yet again.
“For the last time,” Rarity was almost in tears, “I never saw the filly! Not since the hoofball match! I asked Mucmarfóir back home afterwards, and –”
“Ooh, Rarity's got a coltfriend,” sing-songed Rainbow Dash, puckering her lips exaggeratedly and ignoring the exasperated shove Applejack gave her.
“Will you two stop that!? ” Twilight demanded in exasperation, “We've got a missing pony on our hooves!”
Rainbow blinked, then noticed that the unicorn was looking at Fluttershy as well. The two pegasi schooled their expressions to neutrality with some effort.
“As I was saying,” Rarity resumed, “After the match I offered Mucmarfóir a place to stay for the night, but he said he wanted to walk for a bit and clear his head. I never saw him, nor Winterberry, after that. Pity,” she added, “I'm absolutely certain I could make her a dress fit for the royal court...”
“Hang about,” Amhránaílore interjected, “Did thee say thee were with that mad fluffy at t' hoofball?”
“Well, yes? He seemed to enjoy it. Rooted quite loudly for Shetland too.”
“An' ye took 'im in hoof, I take it.”
“Of course! He was an absolute mess when I saw him, just ask Lotus and Aloe! We had to shear him in order to fix up his coat, then I took him home to dress him in something other than those rags of his –”
“So he looks totally different,” groaned the bard, “An' so nopony'll ken tae him, let alone – Ma? What is it?”
“That queer pony ah saw by Rarity there,” gasped Soothecup, “Winterberry was interested in 'im. Askin' who he was an' all.”
There was a large number of facehoofs and groans. “This is soundin' like some naff ballad,” Amhránaílore scowled, “But where could they be?”
“Och, mah poor wee foal,” Soothecup moaned, also sounding like somepony out of a naff ballad.
Several dozen boar with a predilection for attacking anything in their path do not move very fast. Several dozen boar led by something in what's left of a larger, more powerful boar move even less fast.
Either way they move slower than three frightened ponies who are galloping as fast as they can along a stream to the outskirts of a forest.
Starlight Vigil could attest to that. The Lunar Guard was patrolling the forest, using magically augmented vision to track where these Muck, or Mook, or however the Shetlanders pronounced it, might emerge. Normally he'd prefer to regard the million jewels of the night sky, a trait his captain had often waxed caustic on, but right now the ground was his concern.
Three ponies bursting from the forest edge at speed was something worth investigating.
Folding his wings, the pegasus dropped to intercept the fleeing trio: a brown fellow at the rear, who lagged behind due to frequently wheeling as if challenging whatever pursued them; a white mare with a red mane; and in front... wasn't that the local hermit mare? What was her name? Zeke? Or...?
Several ponies on the ground had seen them, and were coming to investigate.
Ostensibly the two Royal Guardscolts were on duty, but that hadn't stopped a pair of Shetlanders from engaging them in talking shop. Discussing fighting skills and tactics with interested parties was more interesting that watching a distant forest, so the sound of galloping hooves took them by surprise.
“Hoy there!” one called, “Halt! Who goes there?”
In the starlit darkness, it was hard to see the runners, except one had a very light coat, and they were all heading for the town.
“What makes you think that?”
“The one at the back… He keeps wheeling about, like he’s covering the plot.”
Some of the Shetlanders snickered at the crudity. The public version was ‘watching the tail’, but the hardy northern folk didn’t have such delicate sensibilities.
Others didn’t. Despite the fun of the hoofball match, the arrival of the colts from Canterlot, the fact that both Royal and Lunar Guard were represented, and the fast-spread news that all of Harmony Incarnate had been seen meeting with the Laird and the captain of the troops – the Shetlanders could tell something was ahoof and about to get violent.
Now here were three ponyfolk fleeing the Everfree as if fearing for their lives… as though the Muc were after them.
Zecora saw white coats and metal helms move to intercept her. She recognised the armour of the Royal Guard, and half-scrambled, half-skidded to a stop, gasping for breath. “Kuna… kuna hatari ya kuja,” she began, before catching herself. She wasn’t in Zebrabwe anymore. “Horror stalks the Forest there,” she began again, “All Ponyville must now prepare!”
“Horror? What horror?” one asked, “Who are you?”
“Hang on,” the other said, “she’s Zecora, the hermit who lives in the Everfree! Remember? Back when there was that poison joke going around.”
“Poison joke?” The other looked confused. “What're you talking about?”
“Dinnae know,” the white mare behind her... what had the stallion called her? ...declared in a winded voice, “An' dinnae give a buck. Muc're comin'.”
“Winterberry!” Zecora dimly recognised the shaggy outlines of several of those northern hooligans. “Where's thee been? Your ma's been goin' spare wi' worry!”
The mare groaned with annoyance, much to Zecora's surprise. “When will ma dam work out I'm nae some wee filly no more?”
The zebra looked over at Winterberry. “A mother's love is not for spurning,” she declared, “Herdward now you should be turning.”
“Aye, aye,” Winterberry snorted, and at this time the stallion emerged into the light. “Ah think we've time,” he reported in clipped tones, “Cannae see or smell 'em –”
“Mucmarfóir! ” several of the Shetlanders shouted, postures going stiff and hooves stamping meaningfully. One lilac lad pushed forward. “Wha's thee doin' wi' t' Laird's daughter?” he asked angrily, blowing like a bellows.
“Wha's tae do wi' thee?” the stallion retorted with equal ire, stomping a hoof emphatically.
“Ah, gentlecolts,” one of the guardsponies began somewhat nervously. The air seemed charged with testosterone.
“It's nowt tae do wi' ye ,” Winterberry informed the lilac Shetlander, “So if ye don't mind, I'll be awa' hame then.”
“I'll escort you to them,” declared the local guardspony, “They're at the guardhouse.”
“I'll have tae come to,” Mucmarfóir declared, “They'll need warning about yon Muc in t' forest.”
“Ye'll keep thee distance from t' Laird,” lilac lad growled, advancing a step on the brown stallion.
A dark shape interposed himself between the two stallions. “Knock it off there!” Starlight Vigil declared, “we'll escort these three to the guardhouse and make sure nopony causes trouble.” His gaze said that he felt trouble wore a lilac coat and sporran. “After all, there's a lot more guards than him. Right?”
The lilac Shetlander looked at the armoured pegasus, apparently remembering that a blow from a pegasus' wing can break bones. He stood down, grumbling.
“Right,” Starlight Vigil took command, “You and you,” a wing indicated the guardsponies, “Head and tail our little herd, show the way to the guardhouse. Now then you three, we'll get all this sorted at the guardhouse, so shall we go?”
A short while later, the bickering amongst Harmony Incarnate, the Royal Guards and the Laird was interrupted by, in order, two Royal Guardscolts, Zecora, then –
“Winterberry! ” The young mare in question was almost knocked over by her dam, who was gibbering something about being so glad she was alw'reet after all.
“Ma,” she managed to get out after a while, “canna – breathe,” followed a little later.
Soothecup registered the interesting shade her filly was going and released her from her embrace, looking her over. “Where were ye? Wha' were ye doin'? An' where's ye kilt?”
This wasn't out of propriety. Equestrians are fairly relaxed about nudity, since either one's in estrus or you're not, and moon tea is available over the counter, but Winterberry had been wearing the Deargdyer tartan on her flanks earlier in the day.
“Ah...” the young mare's mind raced. “There were this... this swimmin' hole, see, an' then...”
“These three just emerged from the Everfree Forest, sir,” Starlight Vigil was informing Captain Stormblade, “running for their lives. Ah, Zecora here claimed something dangerous was approaching Ponyville and that we should prepare. She was followed by, ah, Winterberry there, and this guy was bringing up the rear and said it was the Mook, or something like that.”
“T' Muc,” Rianblade had approached the guardspony, “So they're close. Now who's yon chap who –”
“Chap?” Soothecup had overheard them. “Chap? Wha' were thee doin' with a colt alone and unclothed, Winterberry an Deargdyer?”
Twilight and her friends just watched the drama unfold in front of them.
“We – we –” Winterberry's brain stalled. Mucmarfóir's brain was in a similar state because Rianblade was staring at him now – more precisely, at his cutie mark.
“Ye,” Rianblade said in a dangerous tone.
“Him,” Starlight Vigil confirmed helpfully.
“Ye've been covered! ”
All eyes fell on Soothecup, who was glaring at Winterberry. “An' that's – that's whiskey on ye breath!” Her nostrils flared with fury. “Now who's yon fillyfoolin' hayrakin' son o' a broodmare who...”
Harmony Incarnate flinched. Like the term stud, calling anypony a broodmare was a terrible insult to their morals and virtue.not gulp.
The brown Shetlander now found himself with nothing between him and Winterberry's enraged dam. “Ye'd better be able tae explain thysel',” she growled, approaching slowly, hooves not so much rapping as snapping on the floor.
Mucmarfóir had encountered frisky mares before, and overprotective parents besides, but here was the whole clan, and the guard besides, and... and he didnae ken what to do.
Then Winterberry screamed. She was leaning back with shock, one forehoof pointing at Mucmarfóir's flank. She staggered sideways a few steps, then keeled over fainting. This had the effect of causing Soothecup to forget about causing violence to that brown studdy gobshite and instead scramble to Winterberry's side, before freezing and looking back at him.
“Ye,” she gasped, “Roanald,” she demanded of her husband, “Ah thought ye tol' yon brown fluffy tae be awa' hame this mornin'!”
“Nay wife,” Roanald was looking upset, “Ah tol' 'im tae mind hisself until we were awa' on t' train. Wanted 'im where ah could see 'im.”
“An' a grand job ye did!” Soothecup responded angrily, “here's your daughter gone out of sight an' covered by that brown fluffy stud! ”
“Now c'mon, my love, be reasonable –” Roanald was uncomfortable with having this family dispute basically happening in public.
“Reasonable? ” Soothecup's voice was a frenzied shriek. “Oh aye Ah'll be reasonable! By buck, I'll do the reasonable thing right awa', won't Ah!”
Apparently the reasonable thing was to wheel and charge a cringing Mucmarfóir with a banshee shriek. This however was thwarted by a purple nimbus that lifted her into the air.
“Put me doon! ” the mare screamed.
“No,” Twilight's face was scowling partly from exertion and partly from irritation. “We haven't got time for this! We have to get ready, or we,” and a hoof indicated the rest of Harmony Incarnate, “will have to Call Down The Moon!”
This warning had some interesting effects. Soothecup's screeching cut off mid-curse. Fluttershy collapsed into a feebly fluttering ball. The guardsponies who'd come seeking the source of the shouting all froze. All the Shetlanders started in fear, except Winterberry and Amhránaílore – the latter having also fainted.
“Did...” Roanald started, then attempted to collect himself. “Did tha'... did thee... did thee say 'C-c-call Down T' M-m-moon?”
Twilight looked at Soothecup, then lowered her to the ground again. “'Usband,” Soothecup hurried to him, “Did she just say...”
“The Princess Luna sent instructions,” Twilight declared into the silence, “Because one of these Muc is host to one of Them, there's a chance it could hatch. And if that happens...” she looked at the message on the table before her and swallowed, “we'll have to use the Elements of Harmony for the Calling.”
“'Sides, we know where they're comin' from now,” Applejack added with forced optimism. Everypony had heard stories of horror that invariably led to Calling Down The Moon; in fact, it was a genre in itself, with some truly inventive and bloodcurdling descriptions of what the Call involved. In her mind, what was needed was something to take everypony's mind off that. “The yearling's meadow!”
“Easy! It's not far inside the Everfree, there's a stream you follow that has a swimming hole in it, and apple trees'll grow bananas if somepony hasn't stashed some night drink up there somewhere.”
“And if we get a move on, we can kill off Them before it hatches, and we won't need to...” Twilight left the rest unsaid.
“Well then.” Captain Stormblade tone indicated that he wasn't interested in anypony's opinions. “If we can avoid... that... then let's assemble our troops. You,” he addressed Starlight Vigil, “all Lunar and Royal guardsponies will assemble in the town hall. Laird Roanald, please round up your herd and have them at the town hall too. We'll give out final orders there. Then we'll teach these monsters a lesson.”
Outside, the scout led Grault and his war party to Mucmarfóir's trail, and they eagerly followed it up to the edge of the forest.
They looked at the town, larger than any they had seen so far, its lights glowing placidly before them, beyond rather more open space than what was left of the boar chieftain liked. So far Grault had been careful to skirt settlements and avoid detection. But now, they would have to enter this one and strike down...
Thought – if you could call it that – not his own directed Grault's pondering as he contemplated how best to attack.
Author's Note
This chapter was difficult to write since I had to transition from an understandably upset family to getting back to the big fight. The first and last scenes have been written for over a year, but only know could I tie them together.
13: The Battle of Ponyville
Chapter 13: The Battle of Ponyville
Any bard worth his salt would have taken one look at the herd of soldiers and Shetlanders milling and snorting impatiently in the Ponyville Town Hall, then started singing:
Oh, the donnybrook was brewing as they eyed each other off
And the tension only mounted when Snakey won the toss…
It would have been even odds if a rendition of The Featherbrain Championship would have relaxed everypony or set off a brawl.
The leading contenders for Most Likely to Re-Enact the Front-Bar Featherbrain Non-Title Fight were Rianblade and Mucmarfóir, who were exchanging looks; Rianblade ones of distrust, and Mucmarfóir ones of irritation.
"For buck's sake," the brown warrior grumbled, "Ah'm nay going t' have another go at t' Laird or anythin'."
"Says thee," Rianblade muttered back. It was bad enough that the madpony had hung around Ponyville – Da should've just sent him away home straight off – preferably in a coffin, in his opinion.
Actually, Rianblade had revised it after learning the swine had got his sister drunk and covered her: Mucmarfóir the Mad should've been sent awa' hame in a bucket .
It was a sentiment that was shared by some of the other Shetlanders, who were restively blowing and shuffling, while shooting looks at the pair. It was about now that two figures strode onto the stage, discussing something quietly.
Captain Stormblade and Laird Roanald apparently came to some agreement, nodded at each other, then moved to the front of the stage.
"Atten-SHUN! " somepony bellowed, and the assembled Royal and Lunar Guard snapped to attention.
"Wha' he said ye daft neddies," Roanald addressed to his fellow ponies in a sharp tone, "Now pay attention to Captain Stormblade."
"What he said," Stormblade added dryly. Some amusement was heard, but everypony's eyes and ears remained on the Captain.
"A few minutes ago we got first sight of the enemy," Stormblade began, "Scouts estimate at least sixty Muc, or Shetland boars, gathering at the edge of the Everfree Forest outside of town. There may be more but we cannot be certain.
"As well, be warned that their leader may be possessed by…" he took a breath, "by one of Them From Outside." He let this news sink in, then continued, "As such, all battlecorns are to locate and focus on dispatching the filthy thing as soon as possible."
"What happens if we can't?" asked a voice, less out of fear than clinical interest.
"We have a fallback plan in place, may the Princesses grant we do not need it. Pegasi, you'll be assigned by squads to ground support –"
Several of the Shetland pegasi shuffled their wings and grinned evilly. Muc, like all pigs, cannot fly, regardless of need or encouragement.
"– observation, or evac to the medicorns or the Ponyville Clinic. All earth ponies, you'll have the nice simple job –"
"Kill them all." Mucmarfóir couldn't have kept his silence if he tried. The three words came out in a flat, iron tone.
"What he said," Stormblade listened to a nervous titter stop dead. "These, ah, Muc, are not going to be open to surrendering. They will continue to fight to the death, and they don't care if they're killing soldiers or civilians. They've already murdered a family outside Sweetwater – ladies, please!"
The assorted cursing and cries for vengeance died down – eventually. While the stallions tended to do most of the heavy lifting in defending Equestria, mares aren't averse to fighting. Just ask Heatherhoof an Stonloch, one of the most famous warrior Lairds in Shetland history.
"Well, that's not going to happen here!" There was a round of cheering. "Everypony will be told off to three battle groups, which we'll draw abreast. The outer ones will funnel the Muc towards the inner group, who'll be making barricades from their corpses, got that?"
The laughter of assent that followed was chilling.
"Ah, jus' one wee thing," Roanald spoke up, "Yon Mucmarfóir's tae be in the centre group. For after all t' excitement when he arrived, Ze… Ze…"
"Zecora," somepony supplied.
"Thankee," Roanald went on, "Zecora mentioned that yon snouties kept repeatin' a name, an' it sounded like 'Grault'."
Rianblade watched as Mucmarfóir went very still. Grault , he mouthed silently, eyes hardening.
Roanald was also eyeing the wild brown warrior. "Aye," he said quietly, "for all know that yon Mucmarfóir an' Grault have some bad blood between 'em. Sorry lad, but thee's bait."
"Sounds fine by me," Mucmarfóir shrugged, shuffling his hooves.
They filed out into the night, Lunar Guard scouts occasionally flitting out of the starry sky to direct the three columns as they wended their way through Ponyville from the Town Hall to the outskirts closest to where Grault and his herd lurked.
The centre battle group had the shortest route, and the citizens of Ponyville who peered out of their windows to look at them quickly retreated. The grim expressions on the guardsponies made a counterpoint to the now wilder-looking Shetlanders, daubed as they were in electric blue woad that seemed to glow slightly. All, however, were armed.
Hooves were shod in steel affairs like crampons, adorned with spikes and blades to crush, stab or rip flesh. Mouths held the handles of Equestrian swords; curved blades that could pierce to the heart, or slice along a belly or throat, jutting either side like tusks.
And that was just the earth ponies. The battlecorns of the Royal and Lunar Guard knew all sorts of magical ways to 'neutralise' the foe. However, given the horn was their weak point, most preferred to hang back until the enemy was properly softened up. And the average military pegasus knows some clever aerobatics – and a blow from a wing large and strong enough to propel eighty-odd kilograms of equine through the air is generally best avoided.
Mucmarfóir and Rianblade led the way. The woad clashed horribly with his brown coat, but nopony cared. They would be the vanguard; they would draw out the snouties. Grault, for one, would want his brown nemesis dead.
The unicorns had gathered a strategic distance away from where the ground troops were massing under the half-moon and stars, Harmony Incarnate among them.
"What…" Twilight Sparkle swallowed and absently adjusted the tiara of the Element of Magic before she could continue with a tongue dry with tension. "What happens now?"
"Och, there'll be a wee bit o' baitin'," Laird Roanald responded in a matter-of-fact tone.
As if on cue a loud shout went up. They couldn't make out any words, but the challenging tone was clear enough.
"I dinna' like the way yon snouties are just millin' there," the Laird pointed with a forehoof. "Either they're too afraid o' Grault, or there's a shaman wi' em."
"Shaman?" Twilight asked nervously.
"Some o' t' Muc can do crude magic," the Laird replied, "an' they're usually the ones who lead their doin's at 't stones. Then again, there's nay standin' stones here, so they won't be much o' a threat… Nay, 'tis Grault they're afraid o' crossin'." He nodded for emphasis.
Now a strapping young Shetland colt reared up, grabbing the bottom of his kilt and lifting it. Twilight and her friends gasped, then burst into giggles of shocked embarrassment. The colt had let down, and was waggling it about while jeering obscenely at the still hidden enemy.
Now several angry squeals were heard, and movement seen beneath the shadows of the Everfree. They might not have spoken a civilised language, but the Muc knew a taunt when they heard one.
Now hooves started stamping. The tempo was slow, the strike hard and challenging.
"Come out, little piggies …"
The call started as a soft wheedling, then rose in volume over the maddening drum of dozens of ponies stamping a challenge.
"Come out and playyy …"
More angry pig sounds were heard. Now shapes could be seen. Somewhere behind them, something rumbled ominously.
"COME OUT, LIL' PIGGIES! " Even the guardsponies were getting caught up in the taunting. Calls of "Soo-eee! " and "Here pigpigpig!" were thrown in as well.
"COME OUT AND PLA–AYYY! "
The Muc broke. With shrieks of rage, roughly three dozen boar burst from the trees and barrelled towards the waiting troops. Above them, one of the Lunar Guard made a speck of light drift out of the sky, growing in brightness until the flare lit the scene in an evil red.
Howls of bloodlust rose from within the Shetland herd. "What's going on?" Twilight asked as half a dozen screaming ponies barged through the ranks to engage the Muc.
"Boarserkers," the Laird replied unhelpfully, "even yon Mucmarfóir's scared o' them."
Mucmarfóir bellowed then, followed by Rianblade. The woad on their bodies actually flickered, then began to glow with a blue tint matching that in their eyes. Then everypony charged.
What followed next appalled the gentler ponies. From the writing mass of bodies, screams of rage and pain arose, along with other wet sounds that would provide their nightmares with a soundtrack for months to come, despite Luna's best efforts.
A boar's head snapped back, held on solely by a few tendons and hide.
A pony, blood oozing around the sword in her mouth, repeatedly stabbed the face of the boar whose tusk was buried in her ribcage, snarling all the while.
A rock, aglow with magic, smashed a porcine head down its windpipe.
A pony, shrieking with insane rage, tore into Muc with iron hooves and teeth, caught in a boarserker rage.
The rest of the Muc broke to engage – and now the other two columns emerged. The boars were efficiently herded into a trap.
A pegasus dived, pulled up a screaming pony. One of the Muc refused to let go of the intestines spilling from his torn open belly.
Another pegasus released their cargo. The Muc screamed all the way down until it simply burst on impact.
Magical fire wrapped around a particularly large tusker's face. Its eyes ran down its cheeks as it screamed.
Another boarserker gouged its victim with all four hooves, teeth worrying its throat, ignoring the mortal wounds it had received before vanishing beneath several more of the feral pigs.
From within the Everfree Forest, something bellowed in rage, a clotted drowning sound. Now something loomed, a hulking parody of a boar.
"Grault! " Mucmarfóir broke off his dance engagement with a persistent boar about the same time he broke its spine. "Ah know ye're there, ye cowardly fluffy gobshite! Quit yer hidin' an' face me like a stallion! "
Another enraged bellow, wet and tearing, then the shape emerged into the red lights.
"Oh buck," Twilight gasped, causing her friends to gape at her in shock. Twilight Sparkle never swore. Then they saw why.
The Muc war-chief's red, mad eyes rolled in their sockets – in different directions. His head lolled about like an afterthought on a body that was still nominally that of a wild pig. But pigs tend not to be so… stretched … or asymmetrical … or generally resemble a sausage skin full of maggots.
The occasional extrusion of additional legs through the scabby crust that made up Its belly made Twilight's hopes sink to meet her rising gorge.
"It's almost hatched," the lavender unicorn groaned, "We have to kill It now! "
Fluttershy just whined from where she was curled in a quivering heap.
The battlecorns looked at Magic Incarnate, then eyed the misshapen monster, globes of magical fire forming at their horn-tips.
"Wait…" Twilight remembered. "Wait! No! That'll…"
The spell barrage was already on its way, the first rounds slamming into the horror.
"…just feed It," Twilight groaned.
True to her word, the energies splashed against the thing – and were absorbed into It. The abomination seemed to shrink slightly, then finally It shrugged off the remnants of Grault like an ill-fitting shirt.
Mucmarfóir, already charging to engage the brute, scrabbled desperately to stop. He ended up skidding on his rump a good ten feet, gaping stupefied at It, unaware of a strip of Grault's flesh landing on his nose like a gory moustache.
"Ladies!" Twilight wasn't as stunned. "C'mon! It's time!" she added in a determined voice.
May the Princesses have mercy on us all, she added silently.
Author's Note
Yep, there's a Kevin Bloody Wilson reference and one for The Warriors movie in here. Such is life, as Ned Kelly said. Then they hanged him.
14: Calling Down the Moon
Chapter 14: Calling Down the Moon
Mucmarfóir goggled stupidly at the red-lit horror that had been somehow compressed inside Grault's skin. The egg-shaped body was at least ten strides high, including the assortment of tendrils and legs that kept being extruded and re-absorbed into It. The surface was puckered with mouths and eyes, and from its top, four thick tentacles stretched another twenty strides into the air, twisting about almost idly.
Looking back, Mumcarfóir would laugh at the fact It resembled a giant killer spring onion.
But at this point in time he was frozen with fear, staring up at It, so much like the one he'd seen years ago. He could hear the yells of Muc. The crackle of flames. And above it all, the despairing, agonised screams of his sister as she was drawn into the writhing, eye-dotted dark mass.
From the battlefield, a figure came charging in a dead run, warshoes gleaming, heading straight for the transfixed Shetlander.
It finally seemed to notice the paralysed pony at Its feet. One tentacle dipped almost lazily towards the meal that obligingly failed to flee.
Mucmarfóir's vision exploded in painful white, and as the stars cleared from his eyes he realised that the reason everything was hurtling past him was because somepony had apparently grabbed him up in a firepony's carry. Sharp pains in his forelegs told him his rescuer hadn't removed their warshoes first.
Lifting his head, he turned see his rescuer. An ice-blue eye in a shaggy brown head, snout flecked with woad, looked straight ahead as he continued his gallop back to the lines.
"Ri… Rian…"
"Shup," Rianblade gasped as he barrelled between fighting ponies and battling boars towards where several unicorns were moving among shapes lying on the bloodied grass. Some moaned; others flailed in pain; others did neither, awaiting their shrouds.
A medicorn looked up as Rianblade approached. "Who you got there?"
"Mu – Mu – Mucmar – Mucmarfóir," Rianblade finally managed to get out, thoroughly lathered. "Poor – sod – got a – lookit – that thing – right close."
His knees buckled and he slumped to the ground. Running on wet soil in warshoes is hard. Doing so with another pony on your back is understandably harder.
Twilight Sparkle sank to her knees, coughing painfully. There was blood in her mouth. There are languages known to magic that, technically, aren't pronounceable with Equestrian anatomy.
Her element burned on her head, causing her friends to wince and cover their eyes. Not that she did that for long. Their elements were blindingly alight as well, giving their faces a sinister look. Only Fluttershy was exempt, and that was because she had collapsed in a dead faint.
"Did..." Her head dipped in another spasm of coughing. "Did it..."
"Work?" Applejack had pushed her hat down over her eyes. "I ain't lookin', I'll tell ya that much," she admitted in a trembling voice.
"I t-think it did," Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof upward.
In the sky above, what should have been a half-moon was waning, briskly but without any fuss. Around it, stars bent as if through a magnifying glass.
The moon was answering the call.
As it waned, it swelled, squashing the stars aside into a parody of a halo, which glinted off the towers and spires of a previously unseen, dark city.
There was, almost inevitably, something wrong with the angles of those towers. Part could have been the distortion of space between Equestria and its satellite, making those towers and buildings look dizzyingly high, but there was more to it: corners that changed direction as you looked at them, planes that flipped inside out, that sort of thing.
One spire in particular arrested attention. Distorted perspective made it seem to lunge from the cityscape like a pointing finger, and something black fluttered and flapped on it.
"It's coming," Twilight breathed. Applejack just moaned and attempted to hide in her hat. Rainbow Dash cringed with her wings over her head. Pinkie just looked up with interest.
"Do you think it's Nightmare Moon? Does she like parties? 'Cos when this is over we can throw her a party before she goes back and…"
The black thing swelled and leaped off the tower, dark wings spreading to seemingly blot out everything in a lightless void.
Both ponies and Muc screamed, grovelling on the ground, eyes shut in fear.
There was a small thump.
Somepony nuzzled Twilight.
Twilight cracked open an eye. Stars still made a cramped ring about the moon, and her element illuminated the filly who…
Filly?
Twilight blinked.
It was a little filly Nightmare Moon. Complete with armour. And looking at her curiously.
"What…" Twilight managed to ask in as intelligent a way as she could manage.
"You called me?" the impossible filly asked, "You want to play with me?"
Applejack had snuck an incredulous peek at the first piping enquiry, then dove under her hat again at the second.
"Ah… well, we could… play, I guess, but…" inspiration failed Twilight. What sort of games did this… thing like to play? And could they be survived? The questions whirled around in her head.
Nightmare Moon's attention was caught by screams. Huge green cat eyes watched as two screaming Shetlanders were caught by It before vanishing into It's mass with appalling sucking sounds.
The little not-a-filly's face lit up. "Yummy!" she squealed in delight, before pelting towards the towering abomination, little wings buzzing to compensate for a disturbingly uncoordinated gait.
"What's she doing! " Twilight cried, causing the rest of Harmony Incarnate to finally look up and stare at the apparently suicidal foal.
"Whatever it is, I'm stayin' out of it," Applejack declared.
"But she'll be killed!" Rarity wailed, then realised what diving on the ground had done to her mane and groaned.
"Girls," Rainbow remarked, "uh, is that a baby… Nightmare Moon? " Her voice rose in disbelief.
"Sure looks like it," Twilight answered absently, squinting at the little form that was now wrapped around one of It's leg-equivalents.
"Is she… is she biting it?"
"Uh… yeah…" Twilight was utterly nonplussed. "I think she… is."
"Eeewwww!" Pinkie's face contorted into a gurn of disgust. "That must taste awful – hey, do you think I should go get some cupcakes or fudge or something? Or just hold on to them for a party –"
It bent a tentacle downwards with an almost baffled air, plucking the filly up to where roughly twenty-three and a half of It's eyes puzzled at it for a moment. The filly looked back, then resumed trying to pull the end of the tentacle back up to her mouth.
A large mouth opened on It's side, and squirming and kicking, the baby Nightmare Moon was pushed into it.
The mouth closed.
The tentacle began to withdraw.
Harmony Incarnate wailed in horror.
Then It lurched as the tentacle was sucked back in.
It's other three tentacles wrapped around, attempting to pull the fourth out, but apparently it wasn't working. It actually staggered , absently crushing several Muc and ponies who didn't get out of the way in time.
"What the… hay?" was the question of the night.
Somepony threw a magical light, revealing that the tentacle was still being sucked into where the mouth had been – along with the surrounding mass.
"Ah thought that thing ate Nightmare Moon," Applejack managed to say at last.
"Looks like… like…" Twilight began, barely capable of comprehending what she was seeing.
A second tentacle was caught in the suction now. It actually screamed , a ghastly polyphonic whistle that stampeded well past the range of Equestrian ears.
"'Tis the buckin' other way 'round!" Roanald gasped.
Many of the Muc, seeing their god in danger, raced towards it, which in retrospect wasn't a good idea as they ended up being consumed or crushed. Some of the others attempted to flee, but the Equestrians weren't having any of that. Yet a third, dimly aware that the ponies had something to do with this, went on the rampage, but were quickly outnumbered and killed.
It fell over, and seemed to be deflating like a beachball with a slow leak. It's screaming was actually weaker now, Its two remaining tentacles flailing about for anything it could grab onto, whether it was rock, tree or somepig or somepony unable to get out of the way.one in but I think I know where some wafer-thin mints are or would that make her I dunno explode or something…"
"Wouldn't want to be against her in an eatin' contest," Applejack jested feebly.
The tentacles began to shrink, still flailing.
Four minutes later, It was nothing more than a blobby mass about a stride across, with a small armoured head poking out the top and gobbling away.
Less than a minute later, there was a large space of barren earth, the lights of flares and the twisted stars revealing a small alicorn filly in armour that was now noticeably tight around the middle.
Nightmare Moon licked its lips, blinked, and then emitted a thoroughly anticlimactic hiccup.
Harmony Incarnate just stared at the thing that wasn't a filly, stunned.
The filly sauntered up to them with that wing-assisted gait that didn't reward looking at closely.
"All gone!" Nightmare Moon reported brightly, "Can we play now?"
The six mares all blinked rapidly. None were particularly interested in finding out what games cosmic horrors liked to play.
"Uh…" Twilight's brain attempted to think in several different tangents at once before tripping over its own hooves.
"Well, lassie," a paternal and avuncular voice broke in, "Ah think yon ladies are a little busy right now, but you see yon piggies?"
Roanald pointed a hoof at one of the closer Muc, who was snorting in a wary fashion. The porker had seen what had happened to It, and couldn't decide whether to attack or flee.
"We've been playin' with 'em, but we need tae be awa' hame now," the Laird went on with aplomb, "I know! You could take 'em tae your home, an' play wi' them on the moon!"
Nightmare Moon's eyes went as huge as her smile, and she actually bounced a stride and a half into the air, clapping hooves together. "Playmates! "
The Muc's eyes darted around looking for an escape route.
Now the filly that (almost definitely) wasn't a filly began jumping into the air, higher and higher, as she began to repeat a very old nursery rhyme over and over.
Fillies and colts come out to play
The shadows weren't obvious at first.
The moon doth shine as bright as day
The Muc began backing away nervously.
Leave your supper and leave your sleep
Rainbow Dash was the first to notice the night brightening, and looked up for a moment, before burying her head under her wings again.
And come with your playfoals into the street
It was almost comical to watch first one, then another of the Muc frantically trying to run as they slowly ascended in the too-bright moonlight. Its colour left a feeling like somepony had smeared half-congealed cooking oil on your eyeballs. Or maybe that was because of the terrified pigs emptying their bowels from a great height.
Come with a whoop! Come with a call! Come with a good will or come not at all!
The massed pegasi apparently didn't have a good will. They were quitting the sky as fast as the hapless boars relentlessly rose into it, following in the wake of their tormentor – a little armoured filly with wings that seemed to span the sky.
Up the ladder and down the wall
Nightmare Moon landed on earth again, and licked Roanald's nose, before leaping into the air once more.
A one-bitty loaf will serve us all…
There was a clap, like the beating of giant wings, and for a moment the sight of the bloated moon, and its black city now aglow with windows that were not windows, was blotted out.
Then the sky returned.
The half-moon smiled down. Around it, the stars twinkled indifferently.
"You find milk, and I'll find flour, and we'll have a pudding in half an hour…"
The members of Harmony Incarnate blinked, no longer blinded by their elements, then realised the shaky voice was Twilight's.
"But when the loaf's gone, what will you do? For those who would eat must work, 'tis true…"
"Twi'?" Rainbow went over to the shaking unicorn and shook her gently. "I think it's over. She's gone now."
"You sure?" said a voice from under a hat.
"Ah'd say so," Roanald replied, "now if ye lassies'll excuse me, there's summat I need t'do."
"Huh?" Rarity looked at him.
"Do what?" Applejack peered out from under her brim, observed no evil foals, and lifted her head to look at the Laird as well.
"This," and he promptly fainted.
Author's Note
"Boys and girls come out to play" is a very old rhyme first recorded in 1744. They didn't have child labour laws back then.
I've had the image of the colthulhu ex machina looking like a filly Luna or Nightmare Moon for ages. Originally it would have been a direct crib off a Tumblr that I can't find now (it had a Luna that communicated with a GameBoy).
I know, I should have set this up as a crossover with the Colthulhu Mythos. But I didn't know where it was going. Oh well.
Chapter 15: Lest We Forget
A not particularly small herd gathered in front of Ponyville's newest memorial.
It was a simple thing, an obelisk of granite on a round base. Inset into the sides were marble panels, engraved with text and surmounted by the symbol of two alicorns protectively encircling a Shetland thistle.
Garden beds had been planted in heather and thistles. The general consensus in Ponyville was that the heather was lovely, but the thistles were a pain, especially when it came to weeding them out of other gardens.
Anypony approaching from the town would find themselves informed of the following:
On this spot did Shetlanders brave and Royal Guardsponies of Canterlot true confront the forces of evil and triumph. This stone stands in memory of the twenty-seven who sacrificed their lives to protect home, herd and Equestria.
On the adjacent sides were two lists: the names of the fallen. Some had died in battle, some later from mortal wounds, and some... their coffins went home empty.
The opposite side bore a poem that was currently being recited (accompanied by a small voice repeatedly asking, sotto voce , why the brown pony kept talking all the time) by the representative from the Shetlands, one that had been scored into the memories of most of the audience a year ago by the voice of Princess Celestia.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young. Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; They sleep beyond Equestria's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; As the stars are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end they remain.
Silence fell, lasting a full minute. Finally the shaggy, brown-coated stallion spoke again.
“Lest we forget,” he said formally.
“We will remember them,” came the traditional response.
Another Shetlander placed the reed of his bagpipes into his mouth and the audience braced themselves. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Applebloom glanced at him, then ostentatiously looked away from the instrument of their downfall.
Elsewhere in the crowd a small voice desperately wanted to know why the other pony was making all that noise.
As the pipes lamented, Mucmarfóir picked up a wreath in his mouth and gently placed it at the foot of the memorial, then backed up several paces, eyes shining, holding his head high until the last notes died away.
Now he turned, and spoke with a more relaxed tone.
“When I look back on that day now, all I can think is,” he shook his head, “what a great fluffy gobshite I was!”
An embarrassed giggle ran through the crowd, and one heavily pregnant mare, white of coat with a vivid red mane, approached and clouted him affectionately on the shoulder. A year ago the brown Shetlander wouldn't have known what to do; now he just rolled with it.
“Anyway, as I've been told, yon townsfolk have laid on a wee feast for us...”
There were a pair of snorts from Pinkie Pie and Applejack. The two earth ponies had been knocking themselves out preparing a party for a herd of thirty families – nearly a hundred ponies in all – families of the fallen.
“So we'd best not turn down their hospitality, should we?”
There was some laughter at that, then in pairs and triplets, the herd repaired to a nearby marquee, voices low, except for a small frustrated voice demanding to know why the pony kept talking funny all the time.
“I mean, there I be, slobbed in a hospital bed, knowin' that it were my fault all these ponies were dead or dyin', for if 'twere not for me Grault wouldnae have menaced us all, aye?”
Mucmarfóir was holding court to Harmony Incarnate. Rarity had decided to decorate in green and heather colours this time, after some discussion with the Shetland contingent. (“I thought those colours were awfully dull , but when I saw how they brought out the colours of those Shetland banners, well, they do look good after all!”)
He shook his head ruefully. “Well, imagine me in that bed gettin' a proper talkin'-to by not just one iníonacha ionúin Epona , but both of 'em!” He chuckled and shook his head again. “It opened my eyes, let me tell 'ee.
“Tha' sees, my family lived mighty remote from anywhere, so most I knew were the tales of yore of the Shetlands, an' bein' a wee colt, my favourite ones were those of grand battles and duels for honour. An' then...”
His head-shake was not as amused, instead it was one of sadness. “Well, after that I went mad wi' grief. Where were t' thanes an' t' Laird to stop all that?”
Twilight's eyes widened in understanding. Unnoticed by her, Rainbow Dash nudged Applejack and rolled her eyes.
“Loch... Loch... Earache?” Fluttershy asked quietly, trying to remember a name heard a year back.
“Loch Erraigh Fuar,” Mucmarfóir nodded, “Well north of Neighdinburgh. All t' news I learned after that day, I learned those times I were in a town, an' the crier was there, so when I heard that a new Laird was travellin' to Canterlot, awa' south I went, fast as my legs'd go.
“Now, in ma haste, I cut through those lands that Grault an' his herd would ravage. An' there yon, ah, Princesses set me straight. For I thought nowt of it at t' time, but not a single snout nor tusk did I see – not one! For Grault hates... hated my guts, an' once he ken I were about, he'd normally go for me."
“So this Grault was already heading south!” Applejack exclaimed.
“Aye. An' there I was, makin' all speed tae catch t' Laird, I must've overtook 'im!” Mucmarfóir shook his head. “An' accordin' to t' Princesses, that probably saved Ponyville...”
“Huh?” Applejack looked confused.
“He cut through the Everfree,” Fluttershy explained, “and probably left a lot of angry monsters in his path.”
The earth pony frowned, then eyes widened in understanding.
“Wha' they told me, was that before Grault picked up ma scent an' gave chase, his herd were more'n a hundred strong.”
“But wouldn't that... that thing have tried to...” Twilight stuttered.
“Grault hated me, hated me wi' a passion. An' back then, he'd have still been in control o' hisself, an' that thing hadnae hatched, after all.”
“Ohhh,” Twilight shivered and let the subject drop.
“Anywa', after that, well, ye know about the ceremony, an' I were one of the carters takin' our... our lads back,” he paused. Somepony had managed to stick a glass of punch into his hoof without him noticing.
“Well, yon Winterberry here were drivin' her family daft by constantly hangin' about me, talkin' away, they couldna' ken it! An' then one night, she's finally had a gutsful, and up she stands to her ma an' –”
“An' I gave her what for!” Winterberry butted in, sounding amused. “Because he was the first colt to look at me as a mare, an' not t' Laird's filly. Now then,” she addressed her husband, “did thee tell 'em about what 'appened when we got back to Neighdinburgh?”
“Ah... I havenae got that far yet!”
“So what happened?” Twilight asked, slightly exasperated.
“The Gawp,” Winterberry snorted. “Dinna ask 'his name, as far as I care, 'e's The Gawp. Some daft fluffy son of a thane from up north, got it in his heid that he'd end up a-weddin' me.” She made a face, her accent thickening. “Damn scunner allus sendin' me gifties I didnae want, tryin' tae corner me every chance he got, an' dinna' get me started on his love sonnets .” Her ears flattened.
“Uh...” Fluttershy asked, “Bad?”
“Dinna' ask,” Mucmarfóir shuddered, “I caught a wee snatch after t' welcome hame that night. Ye've heard of bards that could coax the birds from the trees?”
The pegasus nodded.
“That gobshite jus' made 'em keel over from horror. Anyway, poor 'Berry was lookin' cornered, an' that slimy sod wasnae noticin' nor carin', so I took matters in hoof.”
Winterberry just beamed with happy remembrance. “He picked up that Gawp an' tossed 'im out,” she said in a dreamy voice. “Jus' grabbed 'im from behind, rose to his hind legs an' tossed 'im like a caber.”
“An' that sealed ma fate,” Mucmarfóir agreed, “since nopony else'd lift a hoof to stop 'im.” He shrugged. “Politics or summat.”
“Wonder if he let down doing that,” Rainbow Dash snickered in a low tone to Applejack, who just grimaced.
“Sorry?” The brown Shetlander looked at the pegasus.
Rainbow flushed and shook her head with embarrassment. Applejack committed the incident for later blackmail – a good day's apple-bucking at least.
“And so that... led to you...” Twilight gestured somewhat helplessly at the gilt bangle adorning Winterberrys' left forehoof just above the ankle.
“Aye,” Winterberry took over the story, lifting the limb proudly to show it off, “we started steppin' out together, an' wi' a little bit o' groomin' –”
Rarity kept her thoughts on what Shetlanders could do with their coats and manes to herself. She got the slightly jealous impression that Winterberry wasn't talking about that sort of grooming.
“– I found ma'self with a right decent 'usband!” The look she bestowed on Mucmarfóir was both proud and proprietary. The husband in question ostentatiously flicked an ear and tried his best to look dignified.
“And soon with a darlin' wee filly,” he declared.
“How'd thee know? Could be a colt.” Winterberry's tone was that of playful argument.
“It'll be a bonny little filly, like her ma was,” insisted Mucmarfoir, gently placing a forehoof against his wife's belly. “An' she'll be called Heather, eh? How d'ye like that name, ma girl?”
Winterberry winced, and Mucmarfóir jerked his hoof away. To judge by the sharp movement in the mare's belly, the foal did not care for that name at all.
“Tol' ye,” she said at last, “'tis a colt.”
Dear Twilight Sparkle,
You are right about Snappy Scoop's article and pictures being published all across Equestria. They were very moving, I must agree.
From what you write, it's clear that Mucmarfóir has grown up a great deal, thanks in part to Winterberry. However, given the nuggety nature of Shetlanders, I would not agree that their foal will be a colt. From memory, it could well be a mare!
As to your request. It is denied. Do not ask again.
Your loving teacher,
Princess Celestia
Author's Note
Remember that Equestrians count in octal. ‘Ten’ is a decimal eight.
The poem is ‘To The Fallen’ by Lawrence Binyon. I finally cracked this chapter on ANZAC Day, so it seemed appropriate.
Next chapter: The glossary. Then this bucking thing is over.
GLOSSARY
BLANK FLANK: The state of not having found your calling (and thus your cutie mark). Used as a mild insult, implying the target hasn't grown up yet, or has no direction in life.
BOARSERKER: Shetland version of a berserker. Terrifying to go up against and fight alongside.
CIDER, DAY AND NIGHT: Ponies classify brewed beverages into two types: low or no alcohol ones are termed 'day' and those with significant alcoholic content are termed 'night' – since ponykind frowns on imbibing such when there's work to do. Despite the existence of the Ponyville Dam, reticulated water is still relatively new in the area, so some ponies still accompany their breakfasts with a day cider or a day beer.
CLAN: A Shetland herd bounded by geographical region, comprising several families and ruled by a single leader known as a Thane.
EQUESTRIAN: A member of the Equestrian race; a pony of Equestria. Technically you could argue that cattle and bison are also Equestrians, but normally it refers solely to the pony species.
EQUUS AND EPONA: The original god and goddess figures of the Equestrian 'old religion'. These beings formed themselves, then everything else, from the primal Chaos, as well as waging battles against Them.
Equestrian religious systems are very much a blank slate in canon, but it makes sense to assume that beings comprehensible to us will share impulses we can recognise, such as the spiritual one. This despite effectively being ruled by two 'living goddesses'.
There is a small cult that considers the Royal Princesses to be the descendants of Equus and Epona, but it is not prevalent or taken seriously.
FLANK: Hindquarters. Equestrian equivalent of buttocks.
FLUFFY: A highly offensive term to anypony, casting aspersions on their intelligence, breeding, and usefulness to society. May also be an allegation of vanity. (Based on the entry at http://mlpfanart.wikia.com/wiki/Fluffy_Ponies )
FOURTEEN O'CLOCK: Noon. Ponies in this fiction use an octal counting system (four hooves, two ears, one nose and one tail). As such 10am pony time is 8am human, 14pm is our 12pm, and so forth.
Pony clocks in reality have thirty divisions for hours, traditionally with midnight at the bottom of the dial and noon at the top. Assuming a similar rotational period, the Equestrian hour has forty-eight minutes of 75 earth seconds' duration.
GELD: Offensive term slandering a stallion's virility. The female form is 'barren'.
GOBSHITE: How a Shetlander tells you that you would be best advised to reflect more carefully on your statements before sharing them; also, that continuing to air such sentiments may result in you being hung by the tail from a tree with hoofmarks all over your head.
GREAT ONE, THE: An extremely dangerous (and large) member of Them From Outside imprisoned under the Shetlands. According to hearsay, the entire array of standing stones, dolmens, and circles comprise a magical net or cage to keep this being transfixed. For reasons best known to themselves, the Royal Princesses keep the known facts about this and possibly other beings secret.
HAME, AWAY: Shetlander expression of incredulity or cynicism. Equivalent to 'Get out of here!'
HARMONY INCARNATE: The sextet of ponies who embody the Elements of Harmony. More of a formal term, but still used interchangeably with Elements references. As such Twilight is Magic Incarnate, Fluttershy is Kindness Incarnate, and so forth.
HERD: General Equestrian term for any grouping of ponies. More specific terms do exist for particular types of herds.
HOOF: The baseline unit of measurement, about four inches. These are grouped into units of four, called a 'stride' or 'fourhoof' (as opposed to a 'threehoof', or one human foot). As such, ponies tend to use a "hoofstick" of four strides, or in human measurements 5'4" (or 1.626m). A typical adult Equestrian, judging by fanmade imagery, stands between three and four hooves at the shoulder.
Given that ponies have no digits and are quadrupedal, a base four numbering system makes sense; however if they included ears, nose and tail, it could be base eight. (In this fiction, ponies use an octal counting system. See FOURTEEN O'CLOCK.)
It is possible that pegasi can count in base ten, and unicorns in base nine, but that is not explored here.
HOOFBALL: A popular team sport resembling rugby league with some influences from netball, and a sink for aggression. Being quafrupeds, the ball is carried in the mouth, but the rules on scrums, tackles and so forth are reasonably similar. Pegasi play a similar game called Cloudball with rules taking flight into account. Magic is expressly forbidden, and pegasus and unicorn members are required to wear 'binders' to negate any advantages their species might give them. Varieties of 'Hornball' do exist, but so far none of them have reached anything beyond niche or experimental status.
The main source of difference is that the rules are designed for quadrupeds. As well as mouth carry, kicking games tend to be races against time before the referee calls a dead ball (or it gets turned over).
Hoofball players tend to have very strong neck and shoulder muscles from all the passing they do, since attempting to pick up the ball, or kick it with a forehoof, can result in either penalty or temporary detention beneath the opposition.
The field is slightly longer than a human rugby field, being 1746 hooves (octal) between goalposts and 1262 hooves (also octal) wide.
INHABITANT OF THE MOON: Equestria's primary defence against Them From Outside. Not particularly intelligent, Luna's main duty is to prevent the Inhabitant from rotating its prison so that it can browse the surface of Equestria.
LAIRD: The highest position of Shetland society, this pony effectively leads the entire Shetlands as a herd, and has the absolute power of veto over decisions made at the Council of Thanes. Typically a Laird once chosen rules either until death, or stepping down due to disgrace, illness or old age.
LEATHERFISH: Being herbivorous, Equestrians do not kill fellow herbivores if they can avoid it. Fish, for some reason, are considered fair game. Leatherfish are known for their tough skins, which are cleaned, tanned, and stitched together where leather is required. Their flesh and bones are generally used for either fertiliser or glue.
MOON TEA: A herbal contraceptive, mainly composed of silphium, taken by mares to prevent pregnancy, especially during their estrus period.
MUC: A race of primitive, semi-intelligent pigs that have proven stubbornly intransigent about integration into pony society. Despite researchers not being able to find evidence of prior occupation of the region, the Muc persistently attempt to take over and wipe out the inhabitants of the Shetlands. Witness reports, however, indicate an almost certain link between Them Under Stones and the Muc's predations.
PLOT: Erogenous zones. Generally an Equestrian's genito-anal area. Generally obscured by their tails, and it is considered rude to stare should it become visible.
SALT: Plain salt apparently acts as an intoxicant to Equestrians, possibly by dehydrating the brain. Generally salt licks and salt sellers cut pure salt with sugar or other fillers to reduce the potency. Addicts can be recognised by their profoundly irrational behaviour and extreme thirst.
Salt of a purity above 50% is considered contraband; as such most Equestrian recipes list far more salt than would be advisable in a human context.
Needless to say there is a constant problem with 'lickers' and their supporting criminal activities. (A cup of cooking-strength salt is roughly ten bits, but 'half-cut' goes, according to the most recent reports, for thirty-seven bits per teaspoon.)
SHAGGY: Slang term for a Shetlander.
SHETLANDS, THE: A region several days' hoof travel north of Ponyville, composed of terrain similar to that of Scotland, featuring numerous lakes ('lochs'), mountains, large numbers of standing stones, and often bitterly cold weather. Chief exports are wool, distilled spirits, oats, and the most terrifying hoofball teams known to ponykind.
Names in the Shetlands are a portmanteau of Scottish and Irish Gaelic translations, and the accent ranges from Scotland to Ireland by way of England as well.
STUD: A harem herd. As Equestrian culture became more monogamous, the practice of keeping a stud fell out of favour. Nowadays used as slang for infidelity or a (generally male) prostitute.
SWEETWATER: A brewery town roughly a day's hoof travel north from Ponyville. Renowned for its beer and spirits.
SILPHIUM: A herb probably related to fennel, known for its contraceptive properties. In reality, this plant went extinct due to over-harvesting.
SWORD: A double-bladed weapon held in the mouth. See also WARSHOE.
THANE: Leader of a Shetland clan herd, also one of the ruling council of the Shetlands. This council is known as the Council of Thanes, who convene once a month to discuss matters of the Shetlands, as well as in extraordinary circumstances to select the next Laird.
THEM FROM OUTSIDE: Classically, the denizens of the Chaos from which Equestria has to be protected. Legends suggest that they wait 'beyond the stars', but it is also known by certain defence groups that some of Them are imprisoned underground (e.g. Them Under Stones in the Shetlands.) Basically a Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos reference.
THEM UNDER STONES: A subset of Them From Outside currently transfixed beneath the Shetlands by means of enchanted standing stones.
WARSHOE: A metal covering that fits over the hoof and partway up the lower leg, generally featuring an array of spikes and blades to crush and wound the foe. Equestrians are not human, and it makes sense that not only their architecture and furniture, but also weaponry would conform to the most comfortable posture of a quadruped.
Being kicked by somepony wearing warshoes is not recommended.
ZEBRABWE: The distant, southern lands where Zecora hails from.
ZWAHILI: According to my research, “Zecora chants and speaks in an approximation of the Eastern African Swahili language; the crew did not have time or resources to hire a Swahili translator, so they asked Brenda Crichlow to improvise.” The passages in this story were constructed via Google Translate.
Author's Note
That's it. It's over. Nearly two years to complete NaNoWriMo 2012. OVER. Now if you'll excuse me I need to recategorise this hairy highland train wreck.
Princess Celestia, the Alicorn of Day and Keeper of the Sun, regarded the grovelling pegasus with interest. This regard was not shared as said pegasus kept his gaze firmly fixed on the floor.
The pony in question had a shaggy coat the colour of weak tea, made even milkier with fear; his unruly dirty blonde mane was darker by comparison. Against this, the blue, green and red of the patterned wool scarf he wore stood out quite starkly.
He had been heralded as a messenger, but it was becoming clear that Celestia wasn't going to get the message unless she put him at his ease. She considered her words, then spoke carefully.
"Rise, good messenger," she intoned, "and deliver your tidings without fear." As she did she carefully pushed a gentle brush of calming magic across his brow. It wasn't something she normally did, but this was different. She wasn't used to ponies being almost catatonic with fear of her.
"A– a– as ye wish, iníonacha ionúin Epona ," the stallion stuttered, rising slowly to his hooves. Celestia raised an eyebrow briefly. He still follows the old faith? That explains a lot.
The messenger blinked nervous blue eyes at her, swallowed, and cleared his throat. "I... I bring news from t' Council o' Thanes o' t' Shetlands," he recited, growing in confidence and brogue as he did so, "as required by our oaths. The Laird is dead; long live Laird Deargdyer!"
From his neck hung a small canvas pouch with his clan tartan and cutie mark on it – a sporran, Celestia remembered. One end of a scroll poked out, and the pegasus bent his head down and lipped it out. "Here as per ye ancient commands be t' banns o' t' Council," he declared, placing the scroll on the floor before him, "decreeing their decision untae all t' Clans o'..."
A terrible look crossed the messenger's face as the rest of the speech eluded him.
He blinked frantically to remember, then froze as Celestia's horn flared dimly, levitating the scroll toward her face. She unrolled the document and read it, seemingly unaware of the messenger's growing panic.
"You have flown far, have you not," she observed more than asked, "without pause?"
The pegasus blinked again, seemingly needing to do so in order to digest her words. "Aye?" he quavered, "T' Council charged me tae bring yon banns t' ye an' no dallying on t' way..."
He trailed off as the iníonacha gave him a thoughtful look. Epona forgive me, he prayed, I buggered it up I'm sorry dinnae send me home along t' Low Road...
"And you have done your duty, good Shetlander," she said kindly, "But I now have a task for you."
While still levitating the scroll, the iníonacha lifted a little bell and rang it – at the same time – without looking! The pegasus stared as a young mare in some sort of black and lace uniform – a hoofmaid? – entered and genuflected. "Yes, Your Highness?" she asked without any fear whatsoever.
"This messenger has flown far," Celestia indicated him with a forehoof, "and is tired and no doubt hungry. Make sure he is rested and fed when we call on him to deliver our summons."
Author's Note
SHETLANDER: A denizen of the Shetlands.
Shetlanders are noticeably shaggier than regular ponies, with distinct whiskers, moustaches, beards, muttonchops and unshorn fetlocks. Manes and tails also tend to the 'windswept and interesting' look, but some of the landed gentry and many of the mares get theirs braided. Dreadlocks may also be seen.
Hide colours are usually muted or pastel shades of brown, roan, black . Eyes are usually brown, grey or blue.
Cutie marks are often partially obscured beneath hair. The Shetlander response has been the sporran.
SHETLANDS, THE: A region several days' hoof travel north of Ponyville, composed of terrain similar to that of Scotland, featuring numerous lakes ('lochs'), mountains, large numbers of standing stones, and often bitterly cold weather. Chief exports are wool, distilled spirits, oats, and the most terrifying hoofball teams known to ponykind.
Names in the Shetlands are a portmanteau of Scottish and Irish Gaelic translations, and the accent ranges from Scotland to Ireland by way of England as well.
CLAN: A Shetland herd bounded by geographical region, comprising several families and ruled by a single leader known as a Thane.
THANE: Leader of a Shetland clan herd, also one of the ruling council of the Shetlands. This council is known as the Council of Thanes, who convene once a month to discuss matters of the Shetlands, as well as in extraordinary circumstances to select the next Laird.
LAIRD: The highest position of Shetland society, this pony effectively leads the entire Shetlands as a herd, and has the absolute power of veto over decisions made at the Council of Thanes. Typically a Laird once chosen rules either until death, or stepping down due to disgrace, illness or old age.
