Living and thriving on an unfamilliar land for (most) humans

by Hoghound

Rating: teen
Tags: Cheerilee, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Human, Mayor Mare, Lyra, Original Character, Cutie Mark Crusaders
Length: 17596

Rationality is underrated...

I was hardly prepared for this...

Even though I am an avid reader of the "human finds himself into the equine society" kind of genre, most of those stories which happened to have an average human as the main character were simply.. absurd, biased against humanity or simply illogical right off the bat, mostly picturing ludicrous approaches and results, ranging from resorting to outright socipathy for no apparent reason to instantaneous mutual affinity between two alien beings who had never met before, again, for no actual reason.

As a result, those had little to none useful advices... nothing that can aid me now on dealing with the real thing, just dumb, over-the-top, childishly written perspectives... like a supersoldier's violence-ridden one-track mind, a fanboy's squeamish and annoyingly upbeat vision, a lonely human' sugarcoated dream of making out with equines and so on...

I figure I have no choice but to carry on my own particular approach by avoiding such distorted perspectives... we'll see the results soon enough.

Published 2012-03-15 15:24:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-05-30 15:22:55 UTC

Human psyche

How did it come to this point?

Ok, I’ll be blunt... I’ve been turned into a pony. Some night that looked just like any other when I went to sleep and woke up only to find myself on a multicolored world.

I’ve always knew, always liked My Little Pony. Some would call me a brony, don’t know if it’s true or not, never cared much about labels, anyways... I’ve read numerous fics about people being brought into the magical world of Equestria. Of course, I could always spruce my coming by involving a mysterious all-powerful being with a stupid name, some morbid accident or whenever other non-relevant cause... but it would be both lies and futilities, the result is what matters in the case.

When I first set my eyes upon the way too bright world (somebody must have set it on 1080p) I was certain where I was, of course, watched the damn cartoon so much that there wasn’t any doubt. I was at the border of a calm lake, some mountains surrounding the patch of water and vegetation, the same place where two prankster ponies decided that it was best not to wet a shy pegasus.

The first thing that I do is reach the water... I need to see what has become of myself...

A dark grey fur, the same tone of the unicorn royal guards, bright brown eyes and a dark brown mane... no adornments or wings. Plus, I was damn small... I was... a colt! A damn blank-flank colt! A human who has the experience of 21 years turned into the lowest chaste of the lowest chaste of ponydom... a male earth pony colt... just my luck to have all odds stacked against me.

I was an earth pony... not what I would choose if the choice was mine, but hey, if life gives you lemons, you squirt them at her eyes and live with it.

As for the colorations, I was reasonably satisfied... I always loved grey... the color of uncertainty and doubt, for which no truth is really unquestionable. The color of my eyes, brown, to match the ones that I had as a human. I always despised those humans who valued their oh-so-rare blue or green stupid eyes, wishing to find a pair with matching eyes so that they could pass down the recessive genes that determined their coloration to their children... now on Equestria, the opposite was true. Eyes colored blue, green, purple or magenta are common as trees, while my own coloration couldn’t be found anywhere, at least I never saw it while watching any episode... and for the mane, it was alright, not something outside of the ordinary and such...

Now that’s said, let’s move on to what I should do. People would kill to reach the world I was at, at nearly every story I’ve read about human turned pony, the protagonist would run straight to Ponyville to meet the mane six and become best friends forever with them, correct?

If they really planned to do such, they were definitely moronic...

Now, let’s put things in perspective here: What would you do if you were the supreme, unquestionable ruler of a world and, by chance, you’d find out that a creature from another dimension, one that you doesn’t have any control over or influence, had been transported to your world?

Many answers sprang: banishment, imprisonment, return the damn thing back to where it belong, even kill it... this might be my human psyche speaking, but that’s what I would do.

Why expect something different for princess Celestia? Of course, the opposite could be true: upon discovering that I am a human, she could shower me with gold, turn me into an honorary prince, give me a harem of mares, carte blanche to snuggle and ship with the mane six and even give permission to produce progeny with them...

You know, there’s a piece of advice that is especially true in situations like this...

When in doubt, assuming the worst case scenario is usually the best choice.

Said such, chances are that I wasn’t the first human to be transported to Equestria, I never won any raffle or such, there was 99% chance that somebody else had already been “ponyfied”, perhaps even lived... somebody else who made contact and probably revealed his true nature, hinting that Celestia might have had contact with humans that were brought to her domains.

I wasn’t certain if she was friendly or hostile to them... but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I don’t want to die, or be sent back home for now... I want to learn, to become something...

My first goal should be “blend in”, become, in every sense of the word, a pony.

The first thing to assure that goal was the capital, essential rule that was frequently ignored by those HiE writers...

Restrain contact with the mane six to a bare minimum, PERIOD.

Of course, it would be ideal to have no contact with them whatsoever, but since they run essential services on Ponyville, one has to, eventually, deal with them.

You’d ask, why such measure? My answer is that those six ponies wield the elements of harmony, the most powerful power of Equestria, surpassing even Celestia’s now that she handed the EoH to the six ponies... why she did so, I can only guess. Thing is, she knows... she knows that there are beings that might approach the mane six and try to make them release their power against Celestia or even try to steal or drain it from them.

How do I know that she thinks like that? I don’t, simply making assumptions here... she would be pretty stupid if she didn’t knew such. Of course, she wasn’t. You don’t live two thousand years holding a monarchy without having two or three hundred tricks up your sleeves...

She would definitely be monitoring the mane six, mainly through those letters... I had to ensure that Celestia wouldn’t have any reason to give a closer look into me, I could try to keep my disguise over her gaze, but it would definitely be thousand of times harder. It was easier to simply stay away from the mane six and other important characters, if I somehow nurtured a special relationship with any of them or aided, purposely or not, them on learning a valuable lesson, one of them would certainly write a damn letter to Celestia mentioning me and, conscious as she is about the welfare of those six, would definitely keep an eye on me. Plus, if I spent too much time around them, I would be tempted to rub my knowledge on them or let something slip... something about the future (depending on which “episode” we are) or that I shouldn’t possibly know... they might be the trusting type, but few of them are actually gullible. It was too risky. Additionally, if one or more bronies had already been ponyfied they would doubtlessly head straight to the mane six. If Celestia already got them, she could conclude that the mane six are somehow a conduit to humans, and use it to her own advantage in imprisoning the “little primates”. No, lasting contacts with them was out of question.

I could always move to another town, but since I, like every pony-loving human, know Ponyville the best, it was best to stick to it and use my knowledge about the town to blend in better.

I would need to think as a pony, walk as a pony, talk as a pony... if they catch on my human vicissitudes, I’d be a sitting duck.

Now, as how to blend in as a colt... equines don’t come from nothing, the first question they would ask me would be about my parents... the answer would be dead, which wasn’t very far from truth on this dimension... I’ll decide the details when needed... they probably don’t let orphan foals run amok, with Scoots having parents of her own or foster ones... it was reasonable to assume the same destiny for myself.

This train of thoughts was interrupted by my stomach... it grumbled from starvation. I was hungry, plain as that...

Scratch “blend in” as my primary objective and switch it to secondary, my first and upmost objective is surviving, as put specifically, getting food, shelter and all the like. Just because I am living the “dream”, doesn’t mean that I’m not a living being like any other...

Deep in thought as I was, I didn’t notice another being approaching me…

“Well, what do we have here? Come little one, truancy is a nasty habit…”

And I knew exactly who it was… and because of that, I was more nervous than ever… I knew a great deal about that mare and yet, couldn’t reveal anything without blowing my cover. It was so weird…

I turned to face Cheerilee, the kind-hearted earth pony teacher. Someway, on a mad coincidence, destiny threw a new foal right on the way of the mare who knew every foal on Ponyville…

Her green eyes quickly shifted to curiosity.

“Say, I’ve never seen you before, you’re not one of my little ponies… what is your name?”

Life is nothing but a play on pastels

The mare eagerly awaited my answer, keeping her gaze onto me.

I was so nervous, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak… this is it.

She only got a confused look from me, and I’ve cocked my head sideways, adding even more confusion to my expression…

She mirrored the confused gaze, and repeated slowly, unsure if I had understood the question.

“What… is… your… name… little… colt?”

To this, I simply grinned adorably and answered her.

“I amsh Dirt Bouwder.”

Oh, the comforts that we take for granted when living on our own dimension… when you grow up and mostly “Be yourself”, only changing tiny bits here or there temporarily to appease others.

On Equestria, keeping being your human self could be the quickest way to the moon. If I had been thrown into it without any knowledge whatsoever about ponies and wished to blend in, I would need to spend a lot of time living on the borders of equine society, always on the shade, always on the run, hiding from them until I could learn their ways and how to behave “appropriately” as to not deviate too much from the norm and fit in, and while at it, I’d be living off from their scraps… a very lengthy and taxing process. Good thing that I had been on the other side of the fourth wall, I knew more than a few things about this universe.

In our society, a great deal of people fit into the so-called “stereotypes”, as in, children are generally unruly younglings, old people are either grumpy or peaceful… guess what? In Equestria, they have stereotypes pretty much as well, since it’s a universe that is somewhat based on ours. So, if you don’t fit the stereotype, chances are that you stand out… like Pinkie Pie is an exception to the one that says that earth ponies are stern, proud and hardworking ponies that live from the earth. Not saying that she isn’t proud or hardworking either, just that she didn’t fit the “iconic representation” of earth ponies. I don’t want to stand out, so, filling a stereotype will aid me on that.

In order to keep under the radar, one should seriously consider assuming a character, and most importantly, sticking to it. You don’t see fillies reciting theories of relativity, stallions chatting about fashion designs or old mares dancing ballet, so, when choosing your character, keep in mind your physiology. If you are turned into an unicorn, hold your head high and be fancy, if you are turned into an earth pony gramps, get a cane, ramble around incomprehensible stories and complain about rambunctious younglings, and if you are an adult man who somehow was turned into a filly, cope with the given circumstances and get a deep breath when somepony hit on you… I mean it; there are worse things than being rule 63'd.

It can seem like a waste of time, but a well-built character can be used advantageously… look at me, for example. A little colt…nopony would suspect me. I can get away by being ignorant about “grown pony stuff” and I have big puppy eyes with an adorable smile that would give diabeetus to the most cold-hearted pony out there… all of these hiding my human facade of skepticism and distrust. If you have any features that you can use to your favor, don’t be shy.

The mare nodded her head happily, landing a hoof on my mane and patting my head.

“Dirt Boulder, huh? That’s a nice name. Where did you came from, Boulder?”

“Fowest, after fowest… papa and mommy zuuush bwig thing…” and my semblance turned into pure sadness. “bigshy fiwewy spew… fwom sky… roaash… papa and mama… back… towld me to go on. Turnwed back, they lied quietwy…” and I shed alligator tears. “Bwack! Bwack… fiwewy mean thing turned them bwack!

Notice my speech. I purposely emulated a colt that didn’t knew how to speak equestrian very well… for the reason that: it would give me more time to think for answers when questioned, it would be compatible with my character’s backstory of being somepony not born in Ponyville, but in some obscure, barely civilized, extremely-difficult-to-account-for, pony conglomerate, which would give me an excuse for not knowing many Ponyville and equestrian customs. Plus, it would be an adorable trait for Cheerilee, she, as a teacher on a world that represented a utopia, would be thrilled with pride after “teaching” me how to speak equestrian properly. Also, pay heed to the abstraction that “Fowest” represents: it could mean Everfree forest, Whitetail wood, or almost any area that has more than two or three trees close by! Nopony would demand specified cartographical knowledge about the surroundings of this forest to a little, traumatized colt that lost his parents.

Cheerilee rubbed her hoof softly onto my mane, cluttering it a bit.

“Oh… you poor dearie… and they sacrificed themselves to save you… poor colt. You shouldn’t be left all by yourself. Come with me, let’s talk to the mayor. She is a fair mare that knows what to do in situations like this.”

I wiped the tears and stood on my all fours… it was mildly uncomfortable for someone used to stand on two feet, but was doable… perhaps something to do with the fact that humans, at a certain point in history, stood on all their fours.

“And you? Namewy?”

The mare smiled at me. “I am Cheerilee, a teacher from Ponyville.”

I scratched my head with a hoof. “Poney-wive? Teachwer?” Feigning ignorance was a must if I needed to stay true to my character… plus, the truly wise person is the one who poses as a fool and leaves the fool to pose as a wise one, the last having to deal with the responsibilities of such image without the knowledge to back it up.

“You know, I teach the wonders of the world to little ponies like you… didn’t they had a school from where you came from?”

I nodded negatively.

“How is schoowey like?”

“Ah, it’s a marvelous building where little ones are excited to learn new things and teachers like me share those things with them.”

“I wishey had schoowey in old pwace…”

And Cheerilee smiled at the downtrodden colt that I was.

“I was heading to give classes when you came across my way, Boulder. As soon as we fix you someplace to stay, you’ll be attending classes too! I guess my students won’t mind if I keep them waiting a little longer while I take you to Mayor Mare…”

I shifted my eyes to a heart-breaking expression of sadness

“Nosh! Bouwder go schoowey with Chewywee, Mayor after… want to see schoowey…”

“My, I never saw somepony so excited to attend a class… I don’t think that my students will mind an extra one… especially one so filled with the desire to study. Alright, you win, let’s head to the school.”

And I let her lead the way, conforming myself on following the upbeat mare on the way to the schoolhouse. Having the body of an earth pony was… different. I could control many muscles that I couldn’t as a human… the hooves were very sensitive and had the potential to be nimble, the tongue could be moved in many ways, and more amazingly, the tail was prehensile…It was like finding an old muscle, one you forgot a long time ago and only recently found yourself having it. Could it be that way because of the fact that at some point of history, humans did not only walked on all fours, but had tails too?

“Chewywee… can schoowey make Bouwder speawk right? Bouwder undewstand eck… eck… eckwestrian ok, but speawk is hard. Not likesy Zebwa-tonguey used to…”

If Equestria was anyhow similar to earth, Zebras would represent the African continent, and said continent didn’t had an unified language, but multiple dialects, in my case, maybe some of them that few ponies heard of and the like… eliminating any chance that they find an actual speaker to disprove my story. My, what a complex web of lies I am building here… perhaps, in reality, there wouldn’t be any cause for that it, with Celestia being nice to newcomers and such… I’ll probably never know.

The teacher with a dual toned mane reassured me.

“Of course it can, Boulder… not only equestrian speech but history, science, mathematics…” and she trailed off numbering a vast number of subjects and their wonders, while in truth, I wasn’t interested in learning any of them… I’ve learned almost all of them in my school years back in human reality, no point in recurring into that torture.

“Schoowey teachwes all of thowse? How they can wemember evewythingsy?”

“We use books… rectangular things that contain words that remind us of what to say, and there’s notebooks, where the student makes his notes when the teacher speaks.”

“Can Bouwder has noteybook and… what namesy the thwing to make note?”

Cheerilee’s face contorted into a thoughtful expression.

“I think that’s a pencil you’re talking about…”

“Yes, pwencil! Can Bouwder has it? So, Bouwder won’t fowget what Chewywee says!”

And the mare grinned at the implied complement. A colt who valued what she said so much that he was eager to take notes… every teacher’s dream.

“Of course you can, you silly colt… I’ll lend you one and a notebook.”

I smiled back to the mare, thanking her for the gift.

Eventually, our short trip brought us to that very familiar schoolhouse, with small fillies playing on the swings, rolling on the grass, chatting happily and doing every kind of entertaining activity. I closely followed Miss Cheerilee as she entered the building, noticing two or three stares, coming from the foals, on my direction…

“Alright my little ponies, time for class!” She voiced as the school’s bell rang a few times to announce the upcoming class.

She went to her desk and I trotted away from the doorstep to allow passage. In instants, the two front rows were filled with Cheerilee’s class: from right to left, the first row had Scootaloo, Silver Spoon, Applebloom and Diamond Tiara, while the second row was composed of Sweetie Belle, Twist, that secondary unicorn filly without any defined name and lastly, that overweight colt with a fork and knife as a cutie mark. The third row was totally empty, guess I’ll sit at the back.

I went to the bottom left desk, as away as I could get from the cutie mark crusaders… and right behind that big colt that was, at the moment, chewing on a sandwich. Every other foal was busy chatting… now I could see that Cheerilee herself must have purposely set the class mapping to avoid talking during class, as in to break the cutie mark crusaders and the Spoon-Tiara duo by putting somepony between them.

“Quiet down, please… we have a very special guest today, my ponies…”

Oh no… she won’t…

“Meet your new classmate, Dirt Boulder!” And she smiled at me.

Oh yes, she did… and everypony else turned to face me, some with interest, some with contempt… Diamond Tiara was the first to mock my name, laughing at its mention…
Pretty hypocritical, considering her dad’s first name.

I faintly smiled and waved a hoof for them. What I wouldn’t give to be unnoticed…

Cheerilee approached my desk, holding a notebook and a pencil.

“Now sit quietly and listen closely to what I say. If you find it difficult to keep with the pace, just raise your hoof and I’ll slow it down for you” She said after dropping them on my desk.

I winked at her. The teacher took that as a satisfactory answer and went back to the blackboard…

“Today, my ponies, we’re learning about Clousdale! The amazing pegasus cloud city that is not only home to one of the most important weather factories, but also…”

And she kept on, and on, and on… talking nonstop about Cloudsdale. Don’t get me wrong, Cheerilee wasn’t a bad teacher, quite the opposite: She was incisive, spoke directly and used visual aid on her classes. The thing was that I already knew everything about Cloudsdale already, I had been given a tour by nopony else than Rainbow Dash herself during the “Sonic Rainboom” episode, such was it that nothing that Cheerilee spoke was new to me, and as a result, my attention on her quickly degraded.

Instead, I turned to my prize: a notebook with a hearth-themed cover and a pencil, way more than I could ever hope to get for acting dumb.

Now, I can say with confidence that the notebook and the pencil will be my most important possessions during my time on Equestria.

On an unfamiliar dimension or not, there is no weapon greater than knowledge. If you allow this humble writer an analogy, the mind could be compared with a juggler… while the memories, thoughts and other mental creations are the objects that he juggles with. He can juggle multiple objects and keep on juggling for some time at a determined pace. If you keep adding objects over and over, the chances that something bad happens are greatly increased. Not that you would entirely lose your memories, but rather, be overburdened with so many that you might overlook or forget something of importance. Besides, complex reasoning and other particularly extensive pieces of information could be both better viewed and organized on the paper.

This is why making notes is of vital importance to one’s survival, be it making a diary, drawing maps, taking notes about key events or facts, listing objectives… in sum, it allows an accurate and useful view on one’s efforts so far.

I wasted no time on listing down my objectives and perspectives about Equestria (whenever I could remember from the episodes that could be of use), I wrote that not on english (or, in this dimension, equestrian) but rather, on my own human native language. I doubt that anypony could ever make something of it…

It took way more than I expected because I wasn’t familiar with gripping the pencil with my mouth, but eventually, I started making progress. My main two objectives, survival and blending in… blending in by avoiding contact with Celestia, the mane six and other relevant characters… by acting like a pony… by staying true to my character and acting likewise.
Now on to the “survival” objective, under “shelter” and “food”: The four most basic things that I would need during my stay:

A pencil and a notebook, check

Additional pencils – after all, you never know…

A saddlebag – even in earth, I never felt complete without a backpack, it can sound like something pathetic, but having some place to store all your things so that you don’t worry carrying them with your hooves really, really gives a sense of relief.

Currency – as in, what makes Equestria go round’: BITS!

The last one would require a bit more cognition… with bits on my hooves, I could acquire everything else. How to obtain a steady flow of bits? A job, of course.

Not really much I could do, considering my limitations (as an earth pony) I would doubtlessly end with a simple, menial, and most likely, physically taxing job. Life is so much easier when you have a pronged, magically juiced, phallic enlargement over your head.

Being an earth pony was an indicator of what job I might get, but there was something else who indicated one’s job: his cutie mark.

Therefore, in order to get a source of cash, I would need to find what I was good at and get a cutie mark.

Speaking about cutie marks…

Through the class, the three crusaders were directing glances at me. Inadvertently, I turned into the most interesting thing on the entire universe for them, just because I shared classes with them and lacked a cutie mark too… I could almost hear them whispering about turning me into the fourth crusader and by doing so, increasing their chances on obtaining a cutie mark by 25%.

I had no desire in joining them, given their historic, I’d be better off on my own. Plus, with them I would have additional 120% chance of being covered with tree sap.

Of course, I could always tell them their talents… I knew them by heart, just a few words and their quest would end… but that would ruin a multitude of upcoming episodes and…

Wait a minute… another thing to add on my “blending in” list: Do not ever, ever disrupt continuity.

How do I best explain? There are two types of event chains that would happen: Those belonging to an episode and those which didn’t. The second could be moderately interfered, as long as no lasting or crucial changes are made. But the first shouldn’t… whenever I see an “episode” coming up, I shouldn’t do anything that would somehow interfere on its results… the events must occur as exactly as the aired episode showed them. In the case that my actions interfered on given episode, leading to a completely different outcome, the consequences could range from simple annoyances (slightly hindering my “ability to predict the future” during an episode, but returning to its tracks afterwards) to complete catastrophes (Twilight learned nothing about friendship because I cleverly averted the problems that she would get into, and just because of that, when Discord came, Celestia didn’t had any letter to send back, dooming the future of Equestria to the whims of a mad draconequus… FOREVER. [Actually… this hypothesis would make me truly shiver if the fate of Equestria laid solely on Applejack’s friendship report writing skills])

Suddenly, being turned into a pony doesn’t seem that great anymore…

The bell rang as Cheerilee finished compiling the many feats of Cloudsdale’s finest, the Wonderbolts.

“Time for a break, my students!”

Truth be told

Needless to say, the bell caused a massive turmoil in the class, as every foal raised from his seat to enjoy the interval.

I decided to await the confusion to set in before actually leaving the schoolhouse...

“Boulder, just hold a minute... I have to talk with you.”

I remained seated as Cheerilee closed by.

“So, how is everything so far?”

“Gwood, fweel happy in lwearning!”

“That’s great. But there’s something that haven’t left my mind ever since I met you.”

My answer was a curious gaze

“You said that a giant fiery thing attacked your parents, I take it’s a dragon...”

I nodded sternly

“Well, do you know that dragons never attack unless provoked, and when they do so, they prefer to land and attack physically in the case they meet small and weak victims, as to avoid pulverizing any valuables they might carry? And also that Ponyville has pegasus teams that can spot dragons and any other incoming threats up to 250 kilometers, and yet, we received no warnings about flying dragons ever since the Great Dragon Migration?”

Oh no... she couldn’t...

“But Chewyw...”

She strictly raised her hoof

“Cut the “dumb colt” act kid, you’re not fooling anypony...”

I was totally surprised and embarrassed at the same time for being caught.

“But how did you know?”

Cheerilee simply raised one of her eyebrows.

“I’m a teacher. I’m pretty sure you’re familiarized with what a teacher does. I am used to hear lies from foals in a daily basis: “A parasprite ate my homework!”, “My friend missed class today because she got cutie pox”. As a result, I can tell exactly when a foal is lying. Not that it was hard in your case; your ludicrous history has more holes than a slice of emmental cheese...

Of course she could tell a lying kid... I wanted to smack myself for being so stupid.

“If you knew all along, why did you let me keep lying?”

“A lie brings another, which brings another and so on, to the point that you can’t stop lying until you rat yourself out. I kept playing your game just to see what you intended to get from it.” Was her answer. “It turned out to be that notebook. On the entire class, you didn’t stop scribbling onto it for a long period. Mind if I take a look at it?”
I know when to assume defeat. “Go on.”

And she flipped the pages, eyeing my notes and trying to make sense out of them... boy, I was glad i didn’t wrote everything in Equestrian/English

“What does these mean?” And she pointed at the opened notebook.

“It’s a diary... I find it comforting to write down my experiences.” I answered, not lying at all.

The mare closed the notebook and sat in front of me, her eyes persecuting every move I did...

“Why have you lied to me? And, more importantly, what really happened with you? Why you were all by yourself near the lake?”

The weight of those questions, her inquisitive gaze and the guilt of doing something wrong all combined made me feel utter shame. I couldn’t hold my eyes up to hers; instead, I instinctively bowed my head. All i could see now was the ground, comforting ground that asked nothing, demanded nothing...

“Answer me.” She calmly spoke, holding the same tone.

“I... can’t.” Was all the sound that left my mouth.

“Pardon?” The teacher pressed

“I can’t tell you Cheerilee, I’m sorry, but I can’t...” What else could I say? There was no time to come up with a lie, plus, the same trick wouldn’t work twice on the same pony.

“Too bad. I’m not leaving until you give me a proper answer.”

And we stood there, the teacher whose eyes captured every motion, every time I blinked, while I couldn’t do nothing but keep staring dumbly at the ground.

My stomach rumbled again. I remembered that I hadn’t ate anything since I was a human...

“I’m hungry...” I muttered.

Cheerilee stood up and trotted to her desk, the mare opened a drawer and retrieved na object, then made her way back to me.

“You’re dismissed kid. Enjoy what is left of the break.” She spoke, disappointment dripping off her voice. “And take this with you.”

Cheerilee placed an apple over my desk, using a bit more force than it would be necessary. From her actions, I could tell that she was really, really dissatisfied with me.

“I can’t... that’s your snack. If I take it, you won’t have anything to eat.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m a teacher. My students often bring me apples, more than I could possibly ever eat. I can spend one day without the fruit.” Was her dispassionate answer.”Now, leave me alone. I need to think what to do with you.”

I didn’t need to hear it twice... I gripped the apple in my mouth and headed to the doorway, but I’ve turned back before leaving...

Cheerilee was at her desk now, the mare’s eyes on a book. I knew that she wasn’t reading it... one cough from her was my cue to leave.

The sun shined gloriously and foals happily played on the grass, yet, the vision couldn’t cheer me up.

I took a bite from the apple, the fruit filled a hole in my stomach, but given my state, it tasted like failure...
Failure because I couldn’t keep a history satisfactorily on my very first day... Cheerilee was right; IT WAS a ludicrous history... I was stupid to think that the mare believed on it.

I’d like to think there is a lesson in that... never be overconfident. In my urge to come up with a story that wouldn’t make anypony go searching for my non-existent parents, I’ve came up with an evident lie, confident that I’ve tricked Cheerilee into buying it, while in fact, she pretended to do so to rat me out once I couldn’t dig my way back...I should had seen that Cheerilee could say when a foal was lying since she was a teacher. I’ve underestimated her intelligence and paid the price, she was surely suspicious of me now.

At least it wasn’t a lost cause... she was suspicious of me, but unless I gave her a motive, suspecting that I was a human (or, for that matter, any sentient creature coming from another dimension) was a far stretch.

All that was left of the apple now was it’s core. I looked around searching for a trash bin, but none could be found.

I remembered that there was one inside the schoolhouse, near Cheerilee’s desk, but I decided against going back before the bell rings. She wasn’t exactly happy with me; the mare needed some time on her own.

Instead, I looked to the grassy, soft ground and an idea came to mind: why not bury it? It would be better than littering.

And I started to motion my hooves... specks of dirt flew as I begun digging. Besides my lack of experience, it was easy enough. It seemed like the hooves were made exactly for that purpose. The earth was warm, soft and strangely comforting to the touch... soon, a small hole and a little mound of earth were beside me. I picked the apple core and dropped it into the hole, then, I’ve placed the earth back into it. While I was at it, the bell rang.

I finished my work before heading back. Consequently, I was the only one still outside.

Trying my best not to make any noises when opening the door, I silently headed to my desk. Cheerilee was already speaking. Apparently, she paid no attention to the fact that I was missing... it was like she was purposely ignoring me.

This time, out of shame, I actually paid attention on her class, trying to resist the temptation to scribble on my notebook. She could take it the wrong way, and i would have time to scribble later if I could somehow get off the hook.

Unfortunately, my “interest” wasn’t shared by some of my classmates. Not being burdened by guild, Sweetie Belle was frequently sharing whispers with Scootaloo, and at some point, she even tried passing something to the pegasus...

“Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, would you two care to share what is so interesting?”

Sweetie Belle almost instantly flushed and seemed like she wanted to be swallowed by the earth, while the orange filly looked at his friends nervously, looking for an excuse, but Cheerilee was quicker. She got what the unicorn gave to Scootaloo: a slingshot.

“It’s not mine, honest! I don’t know where this came from.” The filly nervously said. Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara could barely conceal their glee on seeing the predicament Scootaloo got herself in.

“I have an idea about that.” Cheerilee sternly answered.

With the slingshot on her mouth, she went back to her desk, produced a key, used it to open a drawer, tossed the slingshot inside and locked the drawer again.

“May this serve as a lesson for you two. No distractions during class. I’ll give you back your slingshot as soon as your parents ask for it.”

Scootaloo’s semblance was of impotency. She knew that any parent on the world would believe that the teacher’s punishment was fair enough and her slingshot was good as dead.

The class continued normally, and after a while, the bell sounded again to signal the end of the class.

“Don’t forget your homework! See you next week!” Were Cheerilee’s words. Almost everyfoal left the class, the only one apart from me was Scootaloo, who was now pleading to Cheerilee to return her slingshot, while Sweetie Belle was waiting for her friend at the door, out of guilt. After all, she had half of the responsibility for the result.

“For the last time Scootaloo, you should have known better before bringing it to class. Not to mention that this could hurt somepony.”

“Please, Miss Cheerilee... give back my slingshot.”

“Will you use it to hit a bird?”

“No”

“Will you use it to break any windows?”

“Of course not.”

“Will you use it to hit Diamond Tiara’s flank?”

“No, miss Cheerilee.”

“Then, why in the wide, wide world of Equestria do you need the slingshot for?”

As expected, the filly couldn’t come with any answer. My guess was that she intended to master the “weapon” as a mean of attaining a cutie mark.

“No means no, Scootaloo.” The teacher spoke.”Now, if you excuse me.”

Hearing that words, the filly left the schoolhouse, not before giving me a curious look and an accomplice’s smile. She knew that I was too in a bad situation, otherwise, I’d have left already.

I limited myself to merely smile back and not say a word, lest I’d want to make things worse by not taking my situation seriously.

Cheerilee finished packing her things and came to my desk, the teacher pocketed my notebook and pencil with her stuff inside the saddlebag.

“Come with me” She said coolly.

I knew better than to argue.

Eventually (more than you think) you will find yourself in situations where you cannot directly decide or interfere with the outcome. I know how bad it is the feeling of impotency and helplessness… those are uncomfortable beyond words. My advice is, whenever you find yourself in such situations, you should, more than ever, keep your cool. If you let emotions define your actions during such events, chances are that you will behave irrationally and will, most likely, make things even worse. Resist the temptation of shouting about “how unfair” everything is and resist trying to find an easy way out. Most of the time, it doesn’t work. Know that your actions have consequences on the equestrian community and you must accept them if you wish to make part of it.

The mare led me through Ponyville, we cruised through houses, shops, gardens… all of them containing that familiar architecture that seemed to have a thing for heart-shaped ornaments. I think that I even caught a glimpse of the cupcake-shaped roof of sugarcube corner. I tried to keep my attention in examining the passers, as to identify if any of the mane six was close by. I was on luck, nothing but background ponies around going on their daily business… Ponyville was somewhat a big city, after all…

“Am I going to be banished from Ponyville?” I couldn’t help myself but to ask.

Cheerilee said nothing. I wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad omen, it could also mean that she didn’t hear the question. Well, I won’t ask it again.

We continued the rest of the silent trip, finally reaching the center of Ponyville: the enormous pavilion building that was used both as a town hall and to hold events of importance, such as the summer sun celebration. The interior was magnificent, with huge impressive banners, nice ornamental columns and space to boot. There was no question why that particular building was always chosen for indoor events.

The teacher guided me through a set of doors that revealed the “heart” of the building: the small, almost cramped offices where the magic of bureaucracy happens. We trotted along a corridor with many doors that led to rooms where I could see a politician or monarchy functionary performing his functions whenever we crossed a room whose door wasn’t closed.

On the very end of that corridor was the mayor’s office. Cheerilee unceremoniously made her way in, and so did I with her. The room was simply a reception for those wishing to speak with the mayor, with a few couches and a desk where a secretary should be. Instead, there was a small sign with the saying “Gone to lunch”, strange if you mind the fact that it was late afternoon already. Another door was near the desk, one that would lead to the mayor’s office per se.

“Sit down and wait here” The teacher said to me. “This shouldn’t take long.”

I took a seat at one of the couches,(like ponies usually sit, no point trying to sit upright, slouching uncomfortably like a certain mint pony did.) it was reasonably comfortable. From my spot, I saw Cheerilee entering the mayor’s office, no doubt to discuss about me and my future.

I only hope that things turn out for the best.

==============================[><]=============================

“So, let’s recap... this colt appeared out of the blue, just like that?”

Cheerilee looked back into Mayor Mare’s eyes. The teacher was used to the mayor’s peculiar style of advising, in which she would fragment the problem in several tiny pieces and attempt to understand one by one, proceeding to put them together as they went through.

“He was near the lake, all by himself... I thought it was one of my students, only when I approached the foal I could tell that he wasn’t one. Then, I asked him where did he come from, and things went downhill from that moment...”

“You mean, when he lied to you? You could tell straight away that he was lying to you?”

“Truth be told, what tipped me off in that direction was that he was forcing an accent, it didn’t sounded natural. I understand linguistics enough to know the difference. I was certain that he was lying when he told me his story, a bunch of hooey about a dragon attack...”

“A foal lying to a stranger? That’s a first in Equestia’s history…” The Mayor wisecracked at Cheerilee.

At first, Cheerilee gave a censuring look to the mare, then she understood why Mayor Mare mentioned that.

“It wasn’t much because he lied to me, I’m used to hear lies all the time from my students... but theirs are to cover trivial petty problems, not something like this colt did. It’s the fact that he didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth of something that essential, about his parents! I would accept if he told me they had a fight or something, but no... even after he admitted his lies, he refused to tell me the truth.”

“Well, you didn’t exactly acted honorably too, purposely fooling him and letting the colt lie his way until you found out why he did such... which didn’t helped much.”

“I really believed that this... “Diary”, as he named it, could give us an answer.”

“Ah, this notebook...” The mayor disinterestedly looked at it; she already had opened it and read the notes for a while, with little results...

“Seems like it’s written on a code or a foreign language, plus, his calligraphy really doesn’t help. However, I could make out the words “Equestria”, “Ponyville” and “Bits”… there’s also some crossed out items… I can only assume that he plans to start a new life in our town.”

The teacher nodded softly. “But what I don’t get it is why he would believe that deceit would aid him in doing such.”

Mayor Mare’s eyes blinked twice. “You tell me; after all, foal psychology was the theme of your CCW, if I remember correctly…”

Yes, foal psychology was indeed the theme of Cheerilee’s completion of course work… The teacher’s mind was overflowed with memories of her university times at the Mayor’s mention. The two were friends even back then, the tanned mare was attending law school and Cheerilee herself was into the teacher training course… those were the days when “free love” was the motto uttered by an entire generation and the most dazzling hipster mane cuts were the latest fashion in Equestria. The teacher still had a few photos and very fond memories of that time… ever since then, she never forgot the main reason why she always wanted to be a teacher: to help her little students blossom by nurturing them with knowledge. Though why did she have gotten a highly symbolical cutie mark instead of say, a blackboard or two pencils, was beyond her… nopony had real control over the shape of their cutie marks.

The mare thought back on what she had learned about foal psychology. She had delved on the subject to find new ways to motivate and encourage her students into learning, being hooked by the topic and deciding to write her CCW about it. But that was way back in time, psychology had evolved as society did, and Cheerilee wasn’t exactly up to date on the subject, she was busy enough preparing classes and such. Still, it was worth a shot.

“A lie is a natural response from a subject when he is faced with something or someone that, for a reason, gives him discomfort. Could be fear of being embarrassed, hurt or having to face an unpleasant experience.”

“Meaning that…?” Mayor mare asked, clearly enjoying spectating Cheerilee’s efforts to build a complex line of reasoning.

“It could mean a lot of things…all that we know is that he is not going to say the truth. Could be because he is afraid of it, or that he doesn’t trust us enough to do so, which opens a wide fan of assumptions, the worse being that he is an abandoned child or having suffered some kind of grave abuse, to the tamer ones that include the one that he simply had a fight with his parents over a trivial thing and ran away from home. Could mean too that he simply doesn’t trust me, plain and square, having nothing wrong with his parents, but with me. Point is, we could be laying out hypothetical explanations all day long, but they wouldn’t help us a bit in the problem. There is really no way to know the problem, if there is one, unless he talks about it.”

“And so, the best way to make him talk about is…?” The smirking Mayor asked for the second time.

“To convince the colt that he is on a friendly environment, by making bonds with him and encouraging the kid to make friends. Nopony is an island… he will eventually feel happy and comfortable enough to confide the truth to somepony. Only after knowing the truth, we can act accordingly to his problem.”

The mayor nodded to Cheerilee’s response. “And, by Celestia, what have you done so far to earn his trust?”

“I’ve taken him into my class and done nothing reproachable.”

Mayor Mare simply gave an unconvinced look to Cheerilee.

“Okay, I might have been a bit harsh on the kid after I’ve exposed him.” The mare admitted.

“I understand your scruples about somepony lying, especially about something like this… but keep in mind that he is just a foal, he couldn’t know better.”

Cheerilee nodded again. After all, he was only a child…

“Do you know if he has somepony to stay with or anything?” Mayor Mare asked

“Not likely, or he would have gone to it instead of simply staying near the lake or mentioned it to me after being caught…”

“Say Cheerilee, why don’t you take him in?”

“Me?” the teacher looked confused. “I mean, I’m sympathetic to the little colt’s plea and everything, but I’d feel uncomfortable living with a stranger, even a child like him…
”
“Nonsense… it could mean a great deal to earn his trust, and I can’t think of somepony more appropriate to take in a kid. Besides, it’s only temporary, until we sort out this situation and solve it.”

“If that’s so, I guess I could try…” Cheerilee nervously said, still not entirely convinced but unable to think of an alternative.

“You do that. In the meantime, I’m going to research the Ponyville census and make contact with my acquaintances from the equestrian census… this way, we can find this colt’s parents and have a little talk with them, this shall bring a light to the situation if he doesn’t speak about it until then.”

Cheerilee nodded and opened a big grin.

“Thank you for your help, Mayor Mare…”

The Mayor returned Cheerilee’s smile with one of her own.

“Oh, it’s nothing… it’s always a pleasure helping somepony, especially an old friend…”

==============================[><]=============================

After what seemed an eternity (my jitters made the wait even worse, plus, the secretary didn’t returned… I guess she took the day off.) Cheerilee appeared back from the office.

There was a noticeable change in the mare’s demeanor. Whenever she had talked with Mayor Mare, it eased Cheerilee.

She was only thoughtful now, not holding a grudge against me anymore.

“Tired yet? Come on, let’s go.”

I rose from the couch, teeming with curiosity.

“So, how did it go? Can I stay in Ponyville?”

The mare looked at me and smile awkwardly.

“Sorry I’ve been a little rough with you, Boulder… I’ve overreacted a bit.”

She was apologizing to me? I suppose that’s a yes…

“It’s ok Cheerilee… nopony likes being tricked; I should have come clean as soon as possible.”

“Boulder, do you have somepony in Ponyville that you could stay with?”

I shook my head negatively. Cheerilee seemed resigned all of a sudden.

“Come, you can stay in my house for a few days…” She spoke on a monotone.

“Really? I’d love to… I mean, if that’s not a burden for you…” I couldn’t believe my luck: shelter, and possibly food, fell from the heavens right on my hooves!

“It’s alright… but I have one condition.”

So, there’s a catch… I should have guessed it.

“Name it.”

“Promise that you won’t lie ever again. I mean it, that’s not nice.” The teacher spoke with a very stern tone, she was serious as a heart attack.

“Ok, I promisse not to lie to you anymore, Miss Cheerilee, as long as you understand that there are some things that I do not wish to speak about… for now.”

“You know, the longer you refuse to tell us what is wrong, the longer you hinder us from helping you.” She calmly said.

I doubt that speaking what really happened would do something besides screw things even further, that is, in the nearly impossible hypothesis that Cheerilee actually believes on the truth…

I simply nodded my acknowledgement.

“It has been a long day, let’s go home.” The teacher said. “We both deserve a rest.”

I couldn’t agree more. Things didn’t ended so bad after all… I guess I should be grateful for my luck so far…

Death, taxes and... Pinkie Pie

It took a while to my usual morning stupor fade off… I stayed on the bed for a little while, enjoying the warm blanket and comfy pillow.

Man, what a dream… I’ve been watching way too much pony…

After around ten minutes, I raised from the bed. It was still a bit dark, but sunlight was already pouring through the closed blinds.

On the moment I tried to get on my feet, I lost balance, hitting the cold ground… I couldn’t walk at all! No matter how much effort I put onto it, my two legs couldn’t support the rest of body, regardless of my numerous attempts at it!

Stricken with anxiety, I rubbed my hand across my face… only to find that I didn’t have a hand at all! No digits, just my palm!

It wasn’t a dream, it really had happened – was happening right now, or I definitely lost it. No such luck on waking up from it, so it seems…

After a while, I was able to stand on all my fours… it was just like riding a bike… everything comes back to you.

I reached out to open the blinds.

The light coming from Celestia’s star almost instantly flooded the room, making me instinctively avert my sight. I was on a simple bedroom… it had a lone bed, a desk, an empty bookshelf and a cabinet… nothing apart form the usual you’d find on an average bedroom… yet, the way it was crafted, with ponykin’s distinctive style ,set them apart from their human counterparts.

Hearing sounds from outside, I directed my gaze towards the window.

Various equines running their daily lives, the city bustled with activity and laughter.

I couldn’t help but feel a little envy towards them… they had no worries, no secrets to hide… they lived in harmony with each other in a perfect, almost utopian society… a society in which I was displaced. I knew that no matter how good I could pose as a pony, no matter how long I could deceive them, deep inside, I’d always remember exactly what I am…

A human… moreover, a being living a lie, posing as something he isn’t… I knew that I would never truly belong on this world. Somewhat, I was all alone in that regard… forced to spread lies to sustain my continued existence… what’s worse, there was nobody I could confide the truth, the only moments I could be completely honest with my feelings was in solitude, inside my own mind…

I felt I tight pang on my heart, loneliness gripping my thoughts… I suddenly felt immensely homesick… while earth was by no means perfect, it was my home… that fact alone made it worth so much for me…for it was where I truly belonged.

Shoving those thoughts to the back of my mind, I pushed myself away from the window. I shouldn’t – couldn’t – let emotions dictate my actions; after all, my survival is on stake. There was little hope on treading down that path, just an irrational waste of energy spent of self-pitying and viewing the wrong aspects of the situation.

You ever noticed that, on some movies, when the protagonist is facing an impending choice with potential to cause severe implications to his future and the future of his world, there is always somebody dear to him who advises said hero to “listen to/follow his heart”? In truth, that’s a very lousy piece of advice. Literally so because, as many of you may know, the heart’s function lies solely on pumping blood to the rest of the body, not on deciding matters of life and death… that’s the brain function. And metaphorically so because basing your actions solely on emotions only works on poorly-written fictional stories… in reality, such actions would almost surely land you into a disastrous or in some way, disadvantageous scenario. Under the guise of emotions, we can’t have a clear view of the situation, being impelled by them to act before we can properly assess the situation.

In my case, as much as I desired to go home, there was nothing I could do about it right now… I had no idea of what – or who – had brought me here on the first place, or if said thing could bring me back. I would need to acquire more resources in order to properly pursue that goal in due time.

Instead, I trotted across the room and neared the desk.

Upon the furniture, my notebook. Cheerilee returned it yesterday, as an act of “good faith”… she was probably trying to make up for her emotion-ridden actions, even though I’ve already forgiven her.

I flipped over the pages, taking comfort on seeing my own atrocious calligraphy… on those pages laid a whole world, my world… a set of thoughts and opinions intrinsic to my own mind, perfectly ordained… everything had its place and function, every detail summing up to the big picture.

On the last pages, the graphite marks were still fresh… great thing I’ve remembered to write down the events that occurred yesterday before I went to bed, while they were still clear on my mind.

That notebook was invaluable, irreplaceable to me… without it; I would be barely able to keep track of my records and general progress on my current situation, having to rely on my pathetic, bias-ridden, unreliable mind for that important task. Even more, it was psychologically comforting to read my diary… putting in perspective my rationale and obtaining new results by antagonizing and questioning it later… it was almost like carrying a conversation with my past self, understanding the whole reasoning and adding up where it was flawed , shallow or incomplete.

I carefully closed the notebook and stored it inside one of the empty drawers on the desk along with the pencil. See you two later.

Getting past the door, I trotted along a small corridor.

Sounds could be heard downstairs… Cheerilee was awoken too, most certainly fixing breakfast.

I’d best do the same as well, but before that…

I tried a few doors until I found the bathroom. There, I washed my face and hooves; also, I’ve satisfied less mentionable physiological needs.

Then, I eyed the mirror. A blank-faced grey colt stared back.

I’ll never get used to that… displacement feeling, looking at the eyes of a stranger, more so, a sentient creature that wasn’t even supposed to exist on the real world… and realize that said creature is just a frail husk, if ponies could see my true self, they’d feel the very same unfamiliarity, shift on the natural order of things, that I’ve felt… after all, by their standards, I was the mythical creature… there’s no telling on what they would do if they come to know the truth…
I blinked a few times, just for the kicks of seeing the colt mirroring my motion… then; I opened my mouth and eyeballed the tongue and the pristine arch of white teeth.

I’d better keep my teeth that way, seeing how much I will use them to grip things for now on…

Returning to the small corridor, I trotted to the stairs and shouted downwards.

“Cheerilee, you have any spare toothbrushes?”

The answer followed almost instantly.

“Check the counter under the sink!”

And I did so, finding a green toothbrush. Without thinking twice, I squeezed some toothpaste over it and started brushing my teeth… brushie, brushie, brushie… I brushed my teeth around six or seven times before I even noticed what I was doing…

I stopped and gave a good glance to my hoof, realizing the logical impossibility that laid right there… I didn’t had any fingers, there was absolutely no way I could hold a toothbrush like I was doing, and yet, I held it just like a human would do, regardless of a total lack of thumbs for the operation, opposable or not.

Of course, I knew that such detail was portrayed on the show every now and then, but experiencing it on my own… I felt a bit frustrated at it, from the sole fact I couldn’t elaborate at all on logically explaining the phenomena, it was almost like… magic. Ironically so, keeping in mind where I was, that would be a reasonable hypothesis.

I never really liked answers on that style, one-dimensional and simplistic explanations that were somewhat beyond our comprehension, because that’s what they are essentially, the “shut-up-and-accept-it-forever” kind of answers used for more than one complex question.

But being unable to provide an answer on my own, I had no choice but to cope with the “M” answer for now… I made a mental note to write it down on my notebook later, in order to mull over it.

After I’ve finished brushing my teeth and my mane, I trotted downstairs to the kitchen, finding Cheerilee already having some toast… she was intercalating between chewing her food and browsing the newspaper. Just as I approached the table, she put the newspaper away and spoke to me.

“I didn’t take you for an early bird…” she commented. “Most foals don’t wake up early on a Saturday.”

“Saturday?” I questioned as her mention, again, my own ignorance coming back to sting me… I don’t even know in which day of the week we are. “This means no school today, right?”

Wrong question, but I couldn’t help asking it… her eyes shifted uncomfortably at me. “Normally no…” she begun, quickly recomposing herself as she took a sip from a mug of coffee “You’ve gotten yourself a day off, perhaps you should take a tour around Ponyville, go sightseeing, make friends or such… whatever enjoyable activity kids do these days.” She rested her mug upon the table. “But before that, help yourself of some breakfast.”

The table was filled with various dishes: toast, eggs, pancakes, juice, hay…

Wait a minute… did Cheerilee just…?

Yes, she just did… she brought up the “F” word, I knew that was bound to happen sooner or later, took her long enough. I’ll never figure out the strange reason why motherly figures (either real or fictional ones) obsessed over on sending their protégées towards making friends with others… almost like it was something mystical that would solve every mundane issue and problem… to me, that notion was akin to an undecipherable, dead language: I’ve understood the concept, yet, the concrete worldly applications are something entirely alien to my perspective.

Friendship… I simply knew better of it, it didn’t worked this way on earth. Of course that this is an idealized world populated my magical talking equines where even abstract feelings and virtues such as “laughter” , “loyalty” and “honesty” had physical manifestations under certain circumstances, but still… that could only work out for ponies.

Anyways, my bias about Cheerilee’s suggestion was the possibility of becoming a bit too…involved with other equines, raising the risks of blowing my cover sooner or later.

Cheerilee’s voice broke my trance

“Boulder aren’t you going to eat something…?”

“Huh? Ah, sure thing!” I voiced, laying eyes on the breakfast table before me.

The first thing I served myself from was the hay. Unsurprisingly, I never had eaten hay on my entire human existence. But as a pony, it’s a different story… I am supposed to eat – no, even more: enjoy eating – hay. With that in mind, I’d better endure the flavor now, on a friendly environment, to get used to it and better convince other ponies of my ponysona’s genuineness.

I picked up a small portion of it and placed it inside my muzzle… it was like chewing a weathered boot, had the possible taste of one too. I fought the urge to spit it out at once and swallowed it. Surprisingly, it went down smoothly enough, even sating some of my hunger… I can probably credit that to my new equine physiology and stomach specialized on digesting that kind of food… I can only assume that the “bad taste” is merely a psychological effect of being used with human food.

The next two servings were slightly better, now that the initial shock had been dealt with. But I would still need a while to get used to that… I moved on to the other dishes, having some eggs, a few toasts, three or four pancakes and some juice. At least, I was familiarized with those.

Everything – except the hay – was delicious and finely cooked… who knew that Cheerilee was a rather decent cook after all?

The least I could do in turn was complement the mare.

“Thanks Miss Cheerilee, everything was much tasty, very delightfully so.”

“Well, glad you liked it.” She smiled at me. “Say Boulder, on what you were thinking back then?” Cheerilee unpretentiously asked as she retrieved the empty plates.

“Stuff.” Was the first word my mouth produced, followed by an awkward smile. “I mean, taking a stroll around Ponyville seems a pleasant idea… I was just wondering if you could point out the city’s main attractions for me.”

“Now, just let me see…” The teacher held her hoof thoughtfully. “There’s the Ponyville clock tower, the dam, a bowling court, the street market… it’s always crowded on the weekends, the Ponyville library if you’re into reading and…” The mare’s face twisted onto another smile. “Sugarcube Corner, yes, you should definitely start by heading to Sugarcube Corner, the sweet shop is run by the Cakes, they make and bake the most delectable sweet-flavored delicacies of Equestria, plus, there’s Pinkie…” Cheerilee cut her sentence short, pondering on what to say. “I should probably give you a heads up about Pinkie Pie…”

I raised one of my eyebrows… I knew exactly what she was going to say about Ponyville’s premiere party pony.

“What about it?”I feigned curiosity

Cheerilee delayed a whole minute or two before reaching an answer.

“Nevermind… she is a lovely mare and you two will get along just fine.”

Seems legit… good thing I already made up my mind about meeting with any of the six, especially one as rand…

My train of thought derailed at that point, I realized that this time, Cheerilee was right… I should meet Pinkie Pie as soon as could, despise the fact she is one of the elements of harmony.

The reason was that it simply couldn’t be helped at all. If I didn’t… let’s put it this way: nopony in Ponyville would mind if they didn’t get to meet and befriend a new arrival on their city, nopony but Pinkie.

The Party-loving mare prided herself on making friends with just about everypony in Ponyville, the only way to escape such fate was not being into the town at all or not being a friendly sentient being, like a diamond dog or such…

Of course, I could just keep trying to avoid her whenever possible… but that would be like trying to put out a forest fire with a medicine dropper; a futile, almost pathetic effort. I knew enough about Pinkie to expect just about anything from her, she would relentlessly hunt me and harass her way to my friendship… impossible feats were nothing but daily achievements to that mare, she’d outrun me, find me whenever I was, would even go through my stuff… In sum, she would go way, way, way, way out of her way in her efforts to befriend somepony she just met.

I had absolutely no hope of outsourcing Pinkie in any feasible way, and using reason and logic with said being would be asking for those shallow notions to be mocked and bested in face of her very peculiar… talents. In fact, I suspected that I was already pushing my luck too far for being able to go through a whole day without stumbling into her… trying to do that for a second day would most likely be nearly impossible.

Indeed, much alike death and taxes, attempting to avoid Pinkie would make things much worse. It was a case where the poison is the best antidote. The quicker I become Pinkie’s friend, the quicker she will lose interest on me and move on to pursuing another stubborn schmuck.

“Can you come with me, Miss Cheerilee? I’d feel much less nervous about meeting new ponies if you were around… so we can leave if I… you know… do something stupid.”

For a moment, I though I saw a shade of concern moving on her eyes…

“Well… I have some chores to do on the schoolhouse today” The teacher replied “I guess there’s no harm on sparing some time to visit Sugarcube Corner first”

Thanks Celestia! A quick way out in the possibility that things get out of hoof. It shouldn’t get to that, but better safe than sorry.

“Alright Boulder” She cheerfully voiced as she picked up her readied saddlebag. “Come with me.” And she trotted outside while I contented myself on following along.

So, I have to become friends with Pinkie… shouldn’t be so hard, she’s the friendliest pony around… what possibly could go wrong with that?

==========================[><]========================

“Welcome, welcome, welcome, a fine welcome to you! Welcome, welcome, welcome…”

I kept observing as the pink mare did several over-the-top pirouettes around Sugarcube Corner, a big smile plastered around her face… as always, it seemed like she had an endless source of energy.

The muscles on my face were getting stiff… I have never kept a smile for so long… at least this was slightly less annoying than being bombarded by that confetti barrage again.

For the first time Pinkie sang her welcoming song, it was amusing… yet, the following twelve encores, on each gradually raising the volume, not so much. Don’t get me wrong, I like Pinkie as much as the next brony, provided she is on the other side of the fourth wall. On person, her main qualities formed a dreaded combination to my poor eardrums: A high-pitched voice, a tendency to sing random, highly repetitive, upbeat songs out of nowhere, a total lack of regards for personal space (for Celestia’s sake… she was almost sticking her head inside my ear) and the uncanny ability to use the song cues to bring out loud musical instruments which she played with extreme prejudice for my hearing.

Now, the earth pony was playing some bagpipes! Good god, I need to find some way to distract her before I get deaf!

“Pinkie…” I was barely able to speak over her cacophony. “Can we do something else? Like play a game or…”

“Why didn’t you said before? I love games!” She giggled, and next thing I saw, she somehow crawled under me unnoticed and I was over her mane “We can pin the tail on the pony, that’s my favorite! Or bob apples, or raise piñatas, or…” and she kept on naming a large amount of various entertaining activities while bouncing around. I did my best to keep steady over the tottering mare.

“What about a nice, calm game of shhh?” I asked at the first break. “Who can be quiet the longest wins!”

“I’ve heard about that game before!” Pinkie stopped, allowing me to descend. As soon as I did so, she pierced me with those lively blue eyes of hers. “Fluttershy tried to teach it to me, but I couldn’t understand the rules right… I mean, are you allowed to make noises other than speaking? And what about using other objects to make noise? Technically, the noise wouldn’t be coming from you, and…”

Just my luck, just my damn luck…

“She also told me she was the world champ of that game… I can only imagine how competitive this game must be internationally, I bet that she was on the verge of sleeping once or twice while defending her title! Well, I, for myself, could never…”

I was barely able to keep up with her ceaseless yapping… I need to find something to distract her from me, lest I’d be suffocated by this much love. I knew she wouldn’t stop on her own…

I scanned the room for something that could aid me. Miss Cheerilee was near the counter, chatting with Mrs. Cake. They seemed to be having a good time… I couldn’t bear to ruin it straight away by begging to leave, at least not now. Instead, my gaze drifted to the opposite side of Sugarcube Corner, where stood a big table filled with trays and more trays of tasty sweets: cakes, candies, cupcakes and the like…

Pinkie wouldn’t be able to either speak or sing (or at least, wouldn’t be able to do so loudly…) if her mouth was busy chewing…

“Say, Pinkie… those treats seem delicious…” I started. “I have never seen finer sweets… I bet they must taste incredible.”

“You betcha they do!” The mare cheerfully interjected as we approached the table. “They are the most deliciou-tastic treats you’ll ever find around! I know because I hoof baked them myself!” She added. “Take a bite, its sure to beat anything you tasted before, both in richness and flavor!”

Well, if she says so… I picked up a cupcake, opening my muzzle to taste it…

That’s when she unrolled her kilometrical tongue and placed it under a dozen of other cupcakes, like a snake constricting its prey, lifting the entire row intact and conserving them still wrapped and upright inside her open mouth.

Still with the untouched cupcakes inside her maw, she flooded it with an entire bottle of hot sauce before chewing the whole thing down, leaving a lot of crumbs on her wake… it was mesmerizing.

“Hey, are you going to eat that?”

I swear, if I had moved my hoof a split-second later, she would have snapped it on a single bite along with the baked good!

By the looks of it, this is going to be a very long visit… I wonder if Pinkie always acted like this with just about everypony she met… does she never get enough of such… exuberance?

==========================[><]========================

“Oh Cheerilee… she used to be way more flashy than that… she’d throw a big party and invite just about everypony in town, it was just until recently that I convinced Pinkie to pipe down her welcoming parties… now she knows that not everypony feels comfortable with crowds. I remember when we told her she was hired…” Mrs. Cake smiled “After that party, it was almost impossible to find insurance that would be willing to cover us.”

The teacher nodded to Mrs. Cake answer. For the past minutes, Cheerilee had been watching over Boulder, the colt was now having some cake he’d just accepted from Pinkie… perhaps it was just her mind, but it seemed that the kid was purposely taking his time on each bite of it…

“So, nowadays she just sets up a little get-to-know to welcome her newest friends, though she still needs to work on her…”

“Discretion” Cheerilee completed. It was easy enough to spot that little flaw on Pinkie Pie. “But its really no big deal, Boulder seems to be enjoying it.”

“Yes, he does… its kinda weird that he lasted his long, though… most of the foals tire off from Pinkie’s antics in much less time.” The baker commented.

“And yet, she never tires in turn?” The teacher laughed. “It must get exhausting sometimes to live every single day like a big, endless party…”

“Its not so bad, she isn’t usually like this.” Mrs. Cake replied “Pinkie just gets this hyper when first meeting somepony new, give her a day or two and she will tone it down back to her usual self.”

The teacher merely nodded and glanced towards the impromptu duo, Pinkie and Boulder.

“He is your nephew or something, Cheerilee?”

“Oh…” The mare blushed. “It’s a long story, really…” Cheerilee smiled nervously. “Perhaps some other…”

That’s when she was interrupted by a certain intruding, whining child.

==========================[><]========================

“Please, please, please Cheerilee, can we leave now? I can’t take it anymore!”

The mare just gave me a quizzical look as I explained myself.
“She has given me EIGHT slices of cake already, EIGHT!” I voiced, and then I turned to Mrs. Cake “No offense Mrs. Cake, it was delicious and everything, but I am simply not used to this much cake… or love, all at once.”

“You can try saying no… that works pretty well.” Cheerilee amusedly said, exchanging a look with Mrs. Cake and breaking in laughter with her, all to my confusion.

“Yes, but I was afraid to, you know… she seemed so happy to…” It was hard to admit that I cared a bit about the mare’s feelings…

Mrs. Cake reached out and ruffled my mane. “Isn’t he the sweetest little thing? Look Boulder, Pinkie is a big girl… she understands that not everypony likes to party as much as her… you should had just spoken with her on the first place.”

Now that she said it… it seemed the obvious thing to do, stupidly so. Besides her childish attitude, Pinkie was, after all, an adult mare, able to carry on a frank conversation and understand my awkwardness, saving me from a ton of embarrassment had I spoken frankly with her before… I felt embarrassed… why I overlooked this little detail? Now that it was revealed to me, it seemed as obvious as the fact that placing a hoof after another enables you to trot…

“I guess we should go, anyway…” Cheerilee looked through the window, eyeing the big clock tower. “Its almost noon and we still have to make a quick stop on the schoolhouse.”

I almost started skipping from happiness.

“Bye Pinkie” the teacher kindly voiced as she made her way out. “Goodbye Mrs. Cake, it was lovely to meet you again.”

“Bye Mrs. Cake, see you later Pinkie!” I politely spoke while trotting to the exit.

“Wait, wait, wait! Don’t you want another slice of cake? You know, one for the road!” The pink equine interjected, pushing the plate containing the cake only an inch from my mouth.

“No more cake!” I voiced, a bit more loudly than I expected.

Everything fell silent… everypony, Mrs. Cake, Cheerilee, the customers… even Pinkie… they all fell silent and looked at me.

That very familiar, far recognizable, feeling: awkwardness.

“I mean…” I feebly smiled. “I need to save some space for lunch.”

To which Pinkie’s semblance shifted back to her usual smile.

“Okie dokie lokie!” She was more than happy to swallow the cake herself.

After I waved apologies to Mrs. Cake for my rather unfortunate outburst, I trotted after Cheerilee outside of Sugarcube Corner.

“Well… that was quite…” The teacher broke the ice after a while, then, in the middle of the sentence, fell silent for several minutes. She was clearly searching for a proper adjective…

“I’d go with interesting” I completed as I shook my mane, observing another batch of confetti falling from it. I was literally leaving a trail of them behind me… I had no idea how so many of those got caught on my mane during Pinkie’s merciless bombardment. “I’ve never met anypony like her.”

“Just give her a day to settle down her attitude” The mare smiled. “At first, Pinkie may seem a bit intrusive and overly outgoing, but in truth, she does it because she cares… because she takes her friendships a little too serious.”

“It’s alright…” I spoke in turn, shaking off more confetti from my mane “Ended up being a nice, distractive change of pace on my stay, so far.”

Cheerilee shrugged and we cleared the rest of the distance between the sweet shop and the schoolhouse without any more sounds, except the one of hair being shook… those blasted confetti don’t untangle easily, I tell ya…

“This won’t take long” The teacher spoke as she unlocked the door, using her hooves to wield her key ring… just like everypony else inexplicably used their hooves as usual human hands “I just need to dispose of the junk” She swiftly added.

The mare went directly to her desk and used the keyring to open the very same drawer from yesterday. She started to pull out all the kinds of impounded items from it: Comics, prank materials like the invisible ink, a slingshot, a knife…

“Why would anypony bring a knife to the classroom?” I questioned. “Don’t they get scissors for their crafts classes?”

“One of the foals thought it would be hilarious to carve… certain words on his desk” A hint of censure could be picked on Cheerilee’s tome. “They never hear me… somepony could get hurt with this kind of thing…”

So, ponykin wasn’t completely strange to the notion of violence and harm… all the more reason not to indulge on such.

While I understood why some of my fellow human beings would be so eager to resort to it in my situation, due to their own historic/society/conditioning/personality reasons, it wasn’t by any means justifiable… I know this may ring as obvious for some of you, but violence should only be used as a last, desperate, life-dependant resort… which should amount around 1% of the situations a human would face in a reasonably peaceful world like Equestria. Out of that very quaint, narrow and almost nonexistent situation, the cons far outweigh the benefits: you’d be marked as a criminal who deserves an one-way ticket to the moon, it won’t earn any sympathy towards your cause or objective (whenever it may be, aside from the propagation of the heinous act itself) and it’s a sure way to contribute to consolidate a caricatured, negative, stereotypic portrayal of humanity as a whole by the eyes of ponykin, in the event you’re discovered (by which they’d believe we are as attracted to violence as flies are to a slab of rotten meat)

“That’s everything” The teacher spoke after dumping everything on her desk. “A whole drawer filled with junk…”

Indeed… most of the contents seemed old, broken, dusty, or in some other way, rendered unusable… but standing out on that mess, I spotted something of interest.

A dusty pair of brown saddlebags! From the moment I set my eyes upon it, I knew for sure: I wanted those.

“Cheerilee, what are you going to do with all of this stuff?” I asked innocently.

“I don’t know Boulder…” The mare spoke frankly. “Until yesterday, I’ve been piling up everything into the drawer, but now that it’s full, I should get rid of these things… nopony ever comes to reclaim them anyways…” The teacher began pushing the items into her own saddlebags. “I’m thinking about burning or burying them altogether…”

“Can I keep those saddlebags instead?” I cut directly to the point. “That’s if nopony is going to use them…” I asked, my saucer eyes pleading for it.

“This old thing?” Cheerilee blew the dust off from the foal saddlebags. “Ah, I almost forgot about these… these saddlebags belonged to one of my early students, a little filly… just about your age, a very gifted student.” The teacher’s voice was filled of nostalgia.

My curiosity got the best of me.

“What she did to have her bag impounded?”

“She did nothing, in fact, she was one of my best students… her bag wasn’t impounded… in truth these saddlebags, her saddlebags, were vandalized.” And the mare lifted it from the desk, so I could get a better look at it.

Adorning the side of each saddlebag, a big picture of Daring Do… if I had to guess, she was the filly’s favorite heroine. However, the word “daring” was crossed out and replaced with “dweeb”, also, Daring Do’s already protuberant plot had been… well, enlarged… comically so. I had no idea how that could be done by foals, probably a special kind of prank magic used to mess with pictures.

“Woah… I hope everything ended up alright for her…” I commented.

“Eventually, it did.” Cheerilee continued. “Being a more stellar student than the rest of the class, she got picked a lot… foals of this age can be especially mean… inconsequentially so. But on the end, the culprits on this case ended up serving detention and had to pay for a new pair of saddlebags.”

“So, she won’t mind if I use it, will she?”

“No, she won’t” Cheerilee smiled to me. “But on this particular condition, these bags are hardly… appropriate” She carefully phrased. “Daring Do is still a huge fad amongst foals, using these saddlebags might send a wrong message about your opinion about it.”

She had a point. As long as those defaced images permeated the saddlebags, I wouldn’t get any love from Daring Do’ fans.

However, there was an alternative.

“And what if we cut off the fabric, take off the pictures and sew another clean slab of fabric on its place?” I questioned, keeping my hopes high.

“It just might work…” Cheerilee spoke thoughtfully, lifting the saddlebags and examining them from side to side. “But I’d say that’s a lot of effort for this old thing…”

Indeed, those saddlebags had seen a lot of love, but yet, even being secondhoofed, I liked them. They lasted this long and were still reasonably sturdy, I can deduct they’d be resilient enough for my own usage.

“You were going to discard it anyway…” I voiced. “Let me have it, please.”

“Alright, alright…” And the mare laid the saddlebags on her desk. “Just help me by holding them steady.”

I approached the desk and used my hooves to pin the bags down against the wooden furniture. Cheerilee gripped the knife with her mouth and used her own experience in such dexterous maneuver to deftly move it against the fabric, cutting off a perfect square on each of the bags.

Afterwards, she packed the knife and the discarded pictures along with the rest of stuff into her saddlebags, giving me the temporarily useless saddlebags.

“Now to sew the fabric on these gaps…” I begun, expectantly eyeing Cheerilee.

“Sorry kid, that’s not my field of expertise.” She dismissively waved her hoof. “You’d best bring these to a tailor or something…”

My heart sank almost immediately… I already knew to whom exactly that line of conversation would lead me to, but I asked anyway to keep appearances.

“And I presume you could indicate one for me, correct?”

“I’d say Rarity” She confirmed my guess. “Of course there are more tailors on Ponyville, but Rarity is one of the few professional tailors that opens on Saturdays… I bet she could fix that saddlebag of yours in a jiffy.”

Having to meet two elements of harmony on the same day… I’m just lucky, aren’t I?

“Where I can find this Rarity you speak of?” I sighed… I assume I should just go on with it today already than postpone it and risk something worse… like stumbling on the whole mane six when visiting her boutique.

“Just head east, after the town hall pavilion…. It’s a big building shaped like a carrousel, name is Carrousel Boutique, you can’t miss it.”

“Thanks Cheerilee.” I took a few steps to the door. “I’m off to there.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Boulder?”

I stopped to mentally check if I was… still carrying the saddlebag, I needed nothing more than that. “Nope, I have everything.”

The teacher just laughed and dug her saddlebag for a small pouch, which she opened, revealing several bits. “You simply can’t rely forever on your childish charms and astonishing good looks for getting free stuff.” She joked

I instantly blushed. Of course, money… not only as a pony, I’m lousy as a human as well, for forgetting about it on the first place.

Cheerilee dumped the cash into her saddlebags, saving two bits into the pouch and hoofing it to me.

“That should be enough to cover for her services and material expenses” Cheerilee voiced as I placed the pouch upon my mane. “Also, keep the pouch…”

“Aren’t you going to miss it? Seriously Cheerilee, I don’t want to take it if you’re…”

“Just accept it” She deadpanned. “I can always buy another one.”

“In this case, much appreciated… see you later, Cheerilee!” I voiced as I trotted away.

“Don’t be late! You still haven’t lunched yet!”

==========================[><]========================

After an eventless trot across the almost deserted town – after all, it was a Saturday afternoon… ponies were probably resting home or enjoying a picnic at a park or something… - I was before Carrousel Boutique.

It was an imposing and classy, yet feminine and overly ornamented, delicate structure… much alike its owner.

I reached the doorbell and stood on the tip of my hooves to ring it.

That familiar sequence of chimes ringed… I don’t know if it’s just my taste or anything, but that doorbell always sounded incredibly tacky.

A few minutes later, the door opened, revealing a small white unicorn.

“I’m sorry, but my sist…” Sweetie Belle begun, breaking off her phrase when she saw to who she was speaking to. “Hey, I know you.” She said. “You’re than new guy… Boulder, isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh” I smiled. “And you’re…er… sorry, I didn’t catch your name back during Cheerilee’s class… “

“Oh…” She nudged her head. “I am Sweetie Belle.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Sweetie Belle.” I voiced. “I am looking for Rarity…”

“She is my sister.” The filly joyfully informed. “But she isn’t home right now… she went out to have lunch with her friends.”

“Then, I’d best come back later…”

“Wait just a second…” The filly trotted closer and her eyes went directly to my saddlebags. “Don’t tell me you need those repaired.”

“Yep.” I found myself answering to her. “Too bad your sister isn’t home…”

“Tell you what…” A mischievous grin crept upon her face. “Why don’t you let me handle it? I am as almost as good as her.”

“Do you really think that’s a good…” And before I could complete it, she withdrew my saddlebags and darted inside.

Not having a say on the matter, I simply resigned myself on following her into the second floor of the boutique.

Yes, I know that Sweetie Belle had no future as a professional fashionista like her sister was, but the filly was able to patch up the cutie mark crusaders capes, and the costumes for that talent show… besides, she simply had to sew fabric upon the saddlebag’ gaps… how bad can anypony mess with that?

As I entered Rarity’s atelier on the top floor, Sweetie Belle busied herself searching cabinets and shelves, pulling out a number of needles, threads and other tailoring materials on her search.

“Don’t worry, I did this a million times before.” The filly proudly spoke as she finished scavenging materials.

“I bet you did…” I half-heartedly grumbled. “I just need you to…”

“To sew brand new fabric upon these gaps… I can do it.” Sweetie Belle smiled, then, she eyed the messy room. “Now, if I can just find the…”

And her eyes gleamed.

“Perfect!” She interjected, running to a mannequin attired on a very fancy gown… it was a sight to behold, the fabric was dual-toned as to mimic the night itself… it even had small glistening dots, stars… just a cursory glance told me that the making of that thing probably had given Rarity a lot of headaches…

And a certain filly would have no qualms on serving herself from a generous slab of fabric…
“Er, Sweetie Belle…” I timidly interrupted as she was taking measurements. “The color is nice and everything… I especially like the brilliant white dots, but that particular fabric seems rather…” And I searched for an appropriate term. “Flimsy.”

“Flimsy?” And she instantly let go the measuring tape. “But it fits perfectly! It clashes magnificently with the brown coloration of your saddlebags and everything! Trust me, I have a good eye for these things.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do.” I commented. “But I need fabric that can withstand dust, rain, dirt… you know… this one simply doesn’t look… well, practical enough.”

“I see…” The filly disappointedly mumbled. “Then, what kind of fabric would fit your needs?”

After eyeing the sea of miscellaneous materials and stuff that Rarity insisted on calling an atelier, my eyes sat upon some boxes, seemingly forgotten under a shelf…

I ducked and moved the front box from under the shelf, proceeding to open it.

That box was filled to the top with streamers… nothing we could use.

Then, I followed on to retrieving a second box…

It was labeled… a very delicate and fancy calligraphy indicated: “Scrap materials.” Bingo!
I dragged it to a nearby table.

“Are you sure?” Sweetie Belle’s semblance was of doubt. “Looks like this box had been sitting there for a million years or even more…”

To which I just rolled my eyes and opened the box anyway.

The cardboard box contained the unsorted remains of five different dresses… a crimson cape with a thundering cloud, blue overalls and galoshes, a green tutu with empty balloons, a giant cupcake hat, a purple blanket with numerous constellations stitched upon it, an overly flowery gown…

So, this was the fate of the girls’ “favorite” dresses after the events of “Art of the dress”… to rot in a dusty box. Most of the dresses weren’t complete anymore… I could clearly see that they were ravaged by a savvy fashonista here and there, cutting whenever sections where she could salvage valuable fabric.

I guess Rarity won’t mind if we use these…

Still under Sweetie Belle’s intrigued gaze, I sorted out AJ’s overalls and Twilight’s gown.

“Those seem nice enough.” I indicated. “Cut the overalls so that the pocket ends up on the center of the resulting square, and cut the purple dress along here.” I place my hoof over the smiling sun on Twilight’s former dress. “So that the image of the sun ends up on the center as well.”

The filly shrugged. “Not my taste, but hey… the client is always right.”

And so, I sat upon a stool while she used a pair of scissors to cut where I asked… she ended up doing a good job at that, looks like Cheerilee’s craft classes and the CMC hearts and hooves day’ projects have paid off…

She lifted two perfect squares: one azure with a small pocket on its center, and the other, a deep purple one with a happy shining sun incrusted on the middle.

I smiled and nodded approvingly. Those would do just fine. The picture of Celestia’s star would no doubt be a nice homage to her and a great way to dissipate ill assumptions about my nature, while having an external pocket for my saddlebags would be very practical. Of course I would end up having a mishmash of clashing colors, but I cared little about being trendy.

“Now you just have to sew them.” And I nudged towards the sewing machine. “You know how to operate those, right?”

“Sure I do.” The filly voiced. “I’ll have it done in no time!”

I giggled a bit at her excitement. Even knowing that she had second intentions by helping me (attempting to acquire a cutie mark, clearly so.), it was amusing enough.

“Just take your time” I observed as she took the fabric and the saddlebags, placing them on the sewing machine’s table. “There’s no need to rush, keep calm and take how long you need to do the job alright.”

“Gotcha!” And she started the sewing machine, threading the fabric and the saddlebag into a single item.

After a little while, I saw that there was something wrong… she was sewing too loose, giving way too much thread. The fabric would end up floppy, hanging up from the saddlebags, only held precariously by the thread and leaving the interior exposed.

Instead of breaking her concentration to point out her mistake, I simply waited through it. Arguing with someone while they are in the middle of something just adds unnecessary pressure to the procedure, which could risk ruining it altogether…I knew how well Sweetie Belle fared under pressure, when even placing a small garnish on a plate can be a real challenge.

“And done.” She said as the machine’s noise died.

“Let me try it” I asked, trotting closer to her workstation.

Having a quick nod for a response, I dressed the saddlebags. As expected, the most recent additions hanged loose by far too much thread.

“Ooops…” the filly offered me and apologetic smile. “Looks like I’ve messed up with the machine’s sewing settings.”

“It’s alright. Everypony makes an honest mistake every now and then.” I nodded and hoofed the saddlebags back to her. “You can always try again.”

“I guess…” She said, a hint of newfound doubt in her tone. “One more try will set it right.” The filly added, returning to her usual state of enthusiasm.

And then, she unraveled the thread and started over, this time overseeing her work fervently.

Sweetie Belle was so focused on tightening the thread that she missed threading the whole surface of the fabric… somewhat, she skipped entire portions of the fabric.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes… must remember… patience, discipline, self-restraint…

Attempting to stifle my own impatience, I decided it would be a good idea to set my eyes away from the working filly… observing her while knowing exactly what she was doing wrong was tempting me to either perch over her workstation and mercilessly point over her mistakes one by one, or go over there and take over the sewing machine to do it myself.

Both alternatives which wouldn’t do any good at all… I was no tailor, and Sweetie Belle didn’t knew better, it wasn’t her fault… while the flaws were obvious to me, they probably weren’t so to the filly’s perspective… I should understand that and be comprehensive with her shortcomings… after all, I’ve been on the other side of this kind of situation a few times before…

I shifted away from the window as I’ve heard a sharp ripping sound…

The filly was blushing faintly now. My saddlebags laid one her hooves, they had a recent, straight cut along the area she was sewing the fabric which came from Twilight’s gown.

To Sweetie Belle’s credit, I can personally attest that she is skilled on a lot of different things… however, tailoring in particular, wasn’t among such skills.

Keeping a straight face, I went towards the box again and retrieved what was left of Rainbow Dash’s red cape.

“Sew this under the cut…” I hoofed over the fabric. “You can do it, just keep trying.”

This time, she didn’t said anything… the filly merely nodded and started over. I could tell she was beginning to get frustrated with her own work…

Eventually, she did it… after three more unsuccessful tries, she gave me the saddlebags again.

Sweetie Belle was a tad downtrodden now… I guess she was already expecting another flaw on her work.

I trotted to the mirror and eyed over the result. Now the thread was properly tightened up and covering the whole patched area… Sweetie Belle’s sewing was crude and rough-edged, but I didn’t mind it… the only mistake this time was on the external pocket: having accidentally cut it down on her last try, the filly sewed it back… only that now it wasn’t upright anymore, but rather, rotated diagonally 45 degrees to the right, somewhat defeating its purpose. Apart from that, everything was fine… the structure was quite strong and sturdy enough. I sighed. Sometimes we all have to accept subpar results… nobody is perfect.

“Sweetie Belle…” I begun. “This is…”

“Terrible, I know…” She dropped her head. “I shouldn’t have offered to fill my sister’s horseshoes…”

“Come on…” I added a smile to my semblance.”It isn’t so bad… in fact, this is good enough for me.”

“Really?” She lightened up a little, then bit her own lip. “You’re just saying that to cheer me up, don’t you?” She groaned. “I am never getting a cutie mark on tailoring, it took me five tries to come up with something barely decent…”

“Do you really believe that tailors always get their work right straight on their first tries?” I asked.

“Is it that obvious?” Hooves covered her face. “That I was just pumping my bubble back there?” She set her gaze on the floor. “Yes, it’s true… I am hardly an amateur tailor…”

“We all have to start from somewhere…” I commented. “Before you worked on my saddlebags, id you had any idea on how to fix one?”

“No, I didn’t.” Sweetie Belle lifted her eyes back to me. “What’s your point?”

“That you didn’t know how to do it, but now… you do.” I spoke softly. “If somepony else presents you a saddlebag for now on, you will know how to sew it…won’t you?”

“I see…” She thoughtfully commented.

“You learned something through trial and error, Sweetie Belle! If you keep going on that path, you will gradually get better and better at it. That’s how everypony masters something, even grownups!”

“You’re right. I can see where I went wrong with my sewing and avoid doing it twice.” Her eyes glowed again with enthusiasm. “Do you think I can still get a cutie mark on tailoring? After all, in the end, I’ve repaired your saddlebag and everything…”

“Perhaps… who knows?” An abstract answer was the only way of balancing things without bursting her dreams. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t bet all my coins on just one horse… your special talent might be what you least expect it to be…” I smiled. “I hope on finding mine eventually as well…”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She kindly retorted. “Good luck on finding yours.”

“Thanks Sweetie Belle…” A quick glance towards the window revealed me that the afternoon was almost over… Cheerilee wouldn’t be happy at me if I stick around for too long…

“I should really be going…” I directed myself to the stairs, but a small shuffling sound reminded me of something.

I stopped and pulled the pouch from over my mane, retrieving the two bits and storing the pouch into my newly repaired patchwork saddlebags.

“Here’s a little something for the materials and your troubles.” And I gave over the two bits to the filly.

“No, please… I’d feel a bit embarrassed to accept your money, especially after how you’ve been so cool me wasting time on remediating my failed attempts and everything…” She smiled awkwardly.

“I can’t help it.” I mirrored a smile of my own in retort. “I have issues on accepting gifts without giving at least something back. Take it, you deserve it… a fair payment for a fair job.”

“Then… thanks.” And her smile warmed up.

“See you around, Sweetie Belle…” And I turned to leave.

“Catch you later, Boulder.” She voiced back as I trotted downstairs.

Finally… A saddlebag to call my own!

==========================[><]========================

“ And then, a branch gave way and spilled sap all over us! That’s like the fourth time this week.”

Rarity merely grumbled in response, most of her focus directed upon sewing a dress…

Sweetie Belle either didn’t noticed or didn’t minded her sister’s half-hearted answers… the filly was used to it. Every time the fashionista had a load of work to do, she couldn’t afford to detract too much attention from it.

Though that never stopped Sweetie Belle from attempting to carry on a conversation.

“So,uh…how was your day?” She hopefully asked.

“It was absolutely delightful… we had a lovely picnic, and afterwards, I treated the girls to a session at the spa! You wouldn’t believe how much tension I was carrying on my back… Oh, aloe has magical hooves, that one.” The unicorn happily remarked. “When I noticed, it was already five o’ clock. Time surely flies when you’re having fun.”

“That’s nice. While you were out, I’ve met one of my classmates.”

“Good to hear that the girls dropped by to see you, little sister.” Rarity commented as she threaded her way through the dress.

“It wasn’t them this time. The one that came today was a new colt on my class… Boulder, I don’t think you know him yet.” Sweetie Belle remarked. “He asked for a tailoring service of yours.” She added.

“I suppose you told him to come tomorrow when I’d be home…”

“Actually, I took care of it with my own hooves, sis!” The filly proudly announced. “Simple thing, really… I just had to sew some fabric upon his damaged saddlebags.”

“Nice fabric?” Rarity gulped and stopped her work, dashing upstairs to her atelier…

What was her surprise when she noticed that the gown she was making especially for Luna was… intact. It was so unlikely of what she expected.

“What’s the matter, sister?” Sweetie Belle asked as she entered the room.

“Oh, nothing.” The fashionista nervously smiled. “So, everything went well with that service?”

“Yep, I used the fabric we’ve found on that box.” And Sweetie Belle pointed to the opened cardboard box containing the ruined dresses that Rarity hadn’t seen in a long time. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Those old things? Not at all.” Rarity released a breath of relief. “But still, it’s so strange to me, you carrying tailoring orders in my place…”

“Why it is so difficult to believe that I was able to complete that order successfully?” Sweetie Belle inquired, a bit of annoyance permeating her tone of voice.

Because my boutique is still in one piece – was the first answer that crossed Rarity’s mind, but she knew better than to say it. “I’m sorry Sweetie Belle… it’s just that you’re growing up so fast…” And she embraced her sister. “Your first satisfied customer…”

All of a sudden, Sweetie Belle Cheered up.

“Can I get a cutie mark for growing up?”

Rarity released her sister and giggled a bit. Sweetie Belle might be getting more responsible with some things, but in other ways, she was still her little sister… as she would always be. Nothing could ever change that…