"Arriving in Ponyville!" The voice announces.
A few other ponies around me reach above their seats for their luggage. But I have nothing with me. I stand up. I walk to the door. When I am almost there, a fat mare steps into the aisle in front of me with her suitcase. I do not mind. So I stand patiently.
Really, it is nothing. The train stops, she walks to the door and out, and I do the same.
It seems about noon. There are a few wispy clouds but they move away from the sun. It is pretty hot.
A young couple sits on a bench here; a pony with sunglasses and a fedora stands over there. Wait, a fedora? Ponies wear those things?
Anyway, I walk down the wooden platform toward a dark gray building. What is in there? I like to find these things out by seeing for myself. No hurry to go anywhere.
There is a puddle of mud in front of me on the ground next to the platform. Seriously? When did it last rain? Whatever. I take a few steps back, trot toward the edge, and casually jump over the mud. Now I walk onto the brown stone (weird color)... porch... thing of the building.
So what exactly is it? Well, I poke my head in front of the big window on the front wall.
I am looking into an office... I think? There is a desk, a stallion with a slicked mane and glasses sitting at it and glaring at some papers, and a pudgy stallion with a beard standing in front of the desk and talking. Glasses furrows his brow even more. He stands up, slams his hoof on the desk, and interrupts Beard.
"twenty years" is the only thing I can make out before he suddenly quiets down. He turns from Beard to... me.
The moment I realize he notices me is the moment I realize I was listening to something I should never have heard. Even though all I heard were two words. I jerk my head away from the window. Before I can listen for more sounds inside, I am off.
I go around to the back of the building. Then I gallop as fast as I can away from the station, toward the thickest group of buildings I see. A few houses pass by. No ponies are in sight... yet. But after a few hundred more paces, I hear chatter ahead. More voices join the noise. Sounds like a market.
So I slow down. Take some deep breaths. It is a public space. If Glasses and Beard did not want me hearing their conversation, then they will not want to be seen picking a stranger out of a crowd. Right? Right.
As casually as I can, I canter between two buildings and out into a circle of market stalls. I think I have full control over my breathing now, though I am still breathing heavily. Just make it to the other end of the market, then look back and see if anyone is following. Glance at a few produce tables to look like a shopper. Easy enough.
One stall past. No one seems to care. Two stalls.
"Care to try some toffee?"
I smile politely at the mare at the table with assorted paper cups and shake my head. "Thanks, but I'm allergic." Well, not really, but it was easy to get out in one breath.
Maybe I should not make eye contact with anyone else.
Three stalls. Good idea. Four stalls. More stalls.
Soon enough, I reach a building with a bizarre frosted gingerbread roof. Now I think I can turn around.
Dozens of ponies mulling around, but none with glasses or a beard.
I can finally relax my breathing. How long have I been this thirsty? Hopefully this... cupcake shop?... has something good to drink.
I trot up the steps and through the door. Smells like cake batter. Now I am thirsty and hungry.
A big blue cupcake with pink frosting notices me. She smiles and goes to the counter.
"Hey there, what can I getcha?"
A talking cupcake!
I mean, "Hi," I smile back, "what do you have to drink?"
"Well, we have tea, juice, lemonade, and smoothies. I recommend a pineapple smoothie; we just got fresh pineapples today."
Pineapples? My favorite fruit.
"I'd like one of those, then. What sizes do you have?"
She points to a shelf with four cups of different sizes. Right.
"I'll have a medium," I say.
"Sounds good; can I get you anything else?"
"That's it for me."
She nods and walks through the door behind the counter. I find an empty two-seater table in a corner and sit down at it. At the table across from me, an earth pony with a hat, a pegasus with a rainbow mane, and a filly with a giant curly mane break out into giggles.
"You knew how to handle that situation," Hat remarks.
"But really," Curly asks, "on a scale of 'impaired judgment' to 'go home', how much cider had you had?"
"I'd say pretty close 'go home', only the home I ended up going to wasn't mine!" Rainbow says almost proudly, and Curly gasps and stifles a giggle.
"Wait," Hat smirks, "so you actually went inside some poor bloke's house in that state? What did they say?"
Rainbow shakes her head. "No one was home. I went straight for the bedroom and lied down in the bed. I couldn't see in the dark, but when I lied down, I realized it was twice the size it should have been."
The three of them break out into even louder laughter.
A few more one-liners and guffaws, and Rainbow finishes her story. I see Cupcake in the corner of my vision. She walks around the counter and heads toward my table with a big yellow smoothie.
By Celestia, that looks delicious.
She sets it on my table, smiles, and looks behind me at the front door.
"Be with you in a sec," she says.
I turn around and look in the same direction. Not even ten feet from me are two stallions, one with glasses and one with a beard.
