How To Train Your Batpony

by peter

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Human, Main 6, Romance, Princess Luna, Original Character, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Gilda, Slice of Life
Length: 140666

Goose Down's path to becoming a Royal Guard is a strange and twisting one.

A continuation of “Jake and the Kid”
Warning.
You really need to read that story first.

Goose Down wanted to be a Guard Pony more than anything else in her life, just like her Father, numerous uncles, and six big brothers. Unfortunately she was small, a Nocturne Mare, and, oh yes, had a phobic fear of the open sky.

Combined that with her mistake of getting in the wrong job application line at the palace and ending up a maid, things look very dim indeed in regards to realizing her dream.

On the plus side, she works for the Princess of Dreams. So maybe, with a little help from her friends, and a very different type of princess, she will manage to achieve her heart’s desire.

With a few minor modifications.

Proofed and contributed to by Georg, who also graciously allowed me to steal some of his better characters. Georg really needs a co-writer credit on this. He contributes so much during his pre-reading that the stories simply would not be the same without him.

Be sure to catch his Nocturne stories, especially Diplomacy by Other Means.

Published 2014-05-17 03:50:04 UTC
Last updated 2019-07-12 04:18:15 UTC

Chapter 2a [edited]

Warning. This chapter has spoilers for “Diplomacy by Other Means” by Georg.
It also has a small dark section, but no gore, just nasty language implying it.

***

How to Train Your Bat Pony
chapter 2

***

“Pinkie said you wanted to see me, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked as she zipped in one of Golden Oak Library's open windows.

“Rainbow Dash! Thank goodness Pinkie Pie found you. It’s Gilda.”

The pegasus pony’s ears twitched, and she gave an aggravated snort while a mingled feeling of regret and anger caused her normally good-natured countenance to sour. “What has she done now?” she asked while going over the possibilities in her mind. Pinkie Pie hadn’t mentioned Gilda, and her ex-friend certainly hadn’t sought her out. If she wasn’t just causing general chaos, that left a disturbing possibility. “She hasn’t been bullying Fluttershy, has she? Cause if she has, I’ll--”

“Hah, as if! So that’s what happened. She tried to get tough with mom, and mom messed her up good. No wonder mom was so stressed. She hates being mean, even to jerks,” a high pitched voice said in a gloating tone of voice.

Eyes wide, Rainbow snapped her head around and stared at Curry Comb, who was sitting on the floor, her legs crossed, with a massive book laid across them. Rainbow hadn’t even noticed the small snipe was there, she had been sitting so quietly she had blended into the background. Which was really weird, because even after all this time to get used to her, Rainbow still thought that Curry was one weird looking critter. Maybe the little snipe blended in so well because her current outfit matched Twilight’s coloring? Or maybe it was just a human thing?

Curry didn’t even look up from her book while these thoughts ran through Rainbow Dash’s head. She carefully turned a page as the pegasus watched her. “Hey, Griffons eat ponies! No wonder mom was so rough on her,” Curry exclaimed. Strangely she seemed to find the concept more exciting than horrific to go by the expression on her face.

Twilight Sparkle frowned as she took a close look at the book Curry was reading. A pair of glasses floated up off her desk and onto Twilight’s muzzle. Rainbow grimaced as her friend shifted into lecture mode while Spike appeared out of nowhere, pushing a chalkboard showing several drawings of ponies and Griffons in poses of peaceful cooperation. Using a hoof to push her glasses up her muzzle slightly, Twilight said, “Actually, that was a very long time in the past, and even then it was not a common thing. It was mostly practiced by the most barbaric of the Griffon tribes. Those tribes don’t exist anymore. I think that reference book is a bit out of date.”

“Yeah, like the ones that says Dragons are mindless brutes who live to collect treasure and eat maiden ponies,” Spike interjected. “They don’t eat ponies either.”

“Well, she must have done something! Or, Mom wouldn’t have messed her up,” Curry said stubbornly.

“Wait, wait! Hold on, Time out! What do you mean, Fluttershy messed her up?” Rainbow Dash yelled out, as she finally registered what Curry was talking about.

Curry placed a finger on the page to mark her place and looked up at Rainbow Dash like she was slow or something. “Just like I said. I was wondering how come something as awesome looking as that griffon got so badly mauled. But, according to this book, griffons are mean, nasty, vicious, brutes, who don’t practice proper hygiene. So she likely pushed Mom too far. What’s hygiene, Miss Twilight?”

“Well, Curry, that means the author does not think they bathe as often as they should.”

“What? And that makes them bad?” Curry said, her expression showing that the reliability of the book she had been reading had taken a serious downturn. “I bet they never ate ponies either.”

“Well--” Twilight started to say as she clearly wrestled internally between telling the truth or using a reassuring lie. Rainbow Dash knew if she didn’t stop her friend before she got going, they’d be here all afternoon as Twilight produced a whole shelf of books as references, and maybe even the dreaded and much to be feared, pie-charts.

“Hold on. Hold on! You expect me to believe that Fluttershy messed up Gilda?” Rainbow Dash looked over at Twilight. “My Gilda?”

“Sure did,” Curry said enthusiastically. Then her eyes narrowed as she asked, “What do you mean, your Gilda?”

Ignoring the little snipe, Rainbow looked over at Twilight. “Ok, enough with the jokes. What really happened?”

“Hey,” Curry protested.

“Well, I’m not sure about the how. Curry came in a little while ago with a letter for Princess Celestia. Fluttershy wanted me to have Spike send it. She said that Gilda had been badly injured, and she needed some expert medical attention, only Fluttershy didn’t think that---”

“Gilda’s hurt? For real?” Rainbow shouted, her previous annoyance vanishing like water on a hot stove-top, leaving only a residue of worry behind. She hadn’t really registered the seriousness of the situation up until then. Thinking that with Curry involved it could have simply been that Gilda had gotten a face full of mud or something even nastier from one of Fluttershy’s critters. Foal level pranking. Seriously injured? That was not foal stuff! Before either Twilight or Curry, could respond she vanished, the backwash of her departure sending papers swirling and blowing over Twilight’s chalkboard.

“Darn. I wanted to ask her for a ride back,” Curry said.

“If you wait till I hear back from Princess Celestia, I’ll give you a ride,” Twilight promised as she gathered up all the objects disturbed by Rainbow Dash’s exit.

Spike levered up the chalkboard from where it had fallen on top of him.

***

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash yelled out as she came zooming in to land on her friend’s front stoop. Throwing open the door she lunged inside, only to come to a screeching stop as she took in the sight of Gilda curled up in a big pet bed, looking like she’d just gone three rounds with a tornado. “What the heck?”

“It looks worse than it is. Is what I’d like to say,” Fluttershy’s soft voice came from behind a pile of furniture. “Only, that would be fibbing.”

Rainbow Dash’s head swiveled back and forth between the unconscious griffon and Fluttershy as the shy pony emerged from behind her makeshift barricade, wearing a cooking pot on her head and with a frying pan tied to her chest.

“Are you okay, Fluttershy?” Rainbow asked in concern, looking for any visible wounds.

“Oh. I’m okay. Mostly. I’m a little bit stressed. But. I’ll get over that. Gilda is the one I’m worried about,” Fluttershy said in a voice that was high pitched and a bit flat in tone. Not at all like her usual manner of speaking. Clearly, Gilda had traumatized her severely. If the griffon hadn’t already been unconscious and wrapped in bandages, Rainbow would have invited her up behind the clouds for a little ‘talk.

“What’s happened to her? No. Scratch that. I don’t care. She likely deserved it,” Rainbow said, even though she was fighting the urge to check out Gilda. Only the fact that Rainbow knew Fluttershy would have done a far better job of looking after Gilda than she ever could allowed her to put on a detached attitude. “Just tell me what’s wrong with her.”

Fluttershy’s voice took on a flat clinical tone that seemed eerily calm to an increasingly worried Rainbow Dash. This was so not like her friend. “I’m most worried about her neck. That’s why I immobilized it. I think she may have some pulled ligaments. But, I can’t be sure, one or more might be torn. I am sure that she has a simple break of the left front leg. I’m not as sure if she’s broken or cracked her left wing. It was swelling and I didn’t want to take any chances so I splinted it just to be safe. I think she may also have some cracked ribs, but I’m fairly certain none of them are broken. I didn’t want to compromise her breathing so I didn’t wrap her barrel, but it would be a very bad idea for her to move much. I don’t think she has any internal bleeding. Her stomach is flexible, not hard like it would be if her body cavity was filling up with blood and fluids. There is no sign of blood on her beak or the smell of blood on her breath, so I am pretty sure her lungs have not been hurt or punctured. She’s breathing easily, so she does not have a collapsed lung.”

Listening to Fluttershy’s litany of injuries, and possible injuries, caused the mercurial pegasus’ anger at Gilda to disappear. Bad as Gilda was, she hadn’t deserved this. “Who did this to her?” Rainbow Dash asked in a furious voice. “Cause whoever did it is in for a serious cloud-stomping, courtesy of your’s truly."

Fluttershy ducked her head, letting her mane fall forward to conceal her face. “I’m afraid it was all my fault,” she whispered. “I reacted without thinking, and… well, it all happened so fast. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. I’m really, really, sorry.”

A snake would have had trouble matching Rainbow Dash’s jaw drop. She recalled Curry’s insistence that Fluttershy had ‘messed’ up Gilda. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Fluttershy couldn’t be brave as a lion if her friends were in trouble. If Gilda had threatened Curry or Angel Bunny, Rainbow could easily see her giving the griffon the stare and a good talking too, but actually, physically, messing up the bigger, predatory, griffon? No way. It just couldn’t happen. Yet… Rainbow took another look at Gilda. Something really had done a number on her, and Fluttershy didn’t lie. She might not speak up if she didn’t want to reveal something, but she didn’t lie. Is this what motherhood did to a pony? Turn them twenty percent, no! two hundred percent, more scarily awesome?

“So, now what?” Rainbow asked, torn between making sure that Gilda had a chance to recover, and making sure Fluttershy didn’t end up in the clink. After all, there was a new sheriff in town for the first time since the last one was stolen by Appleloosa.

“I’ve sent for a doctor who might know something about Griffons. Doctor Steady has written some very informative essays on large predatory birds and I hear that he is the foremost expert on griffon biology in Canterlot.”

“We can’t wait that long,” Rainbow said, vibrating with the need to do ‘something.’ “Hospital! We need to get her to the hospital.”

“No!” Fluttershy said, placing a firm hoof on her friend’s shoulder. Both the “no” and the action was so out of character that Rainbow actually stopped in place, though she continued to vibrate from the need to move.

“Griffons are large predatory carnivores. Putting one in a hospital full of sick, injured ponies would be a very bad thing. There could be a panic, and ponies could get hurt.”

“Gilda wouldn’t! She’s might be a bully, a bad friend, mean, nasty, cruel, callous… wait, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. But she’s not a monster.”

“Oh no, I would never say she was,” Fluttershy said. "I’ve given it lots of thought, ever since,” she gestured toward the comatose Gilda. “Sick ponies won’t recover quickly if there is a large predator in the hospital. Even if she was in an isolation ward, they still might find out. I wouldn’t respect a doctor who would take that sort of risk with her patients.”

“You had a freaking lynx in here three weeks ago. Along with injured mice, not to mention your bunny.”

“The critters understand the rules. And they trust me,” Fluttershy said in a matter of fact tone.

“Well. Gilda isn’t a critter.”

“Yes. I know,” Fluttershy said, and while her tone of voice was still flat, Rainbow got the feeling that her friend had just insulted Gilda far worse than Rainbow had a moment before.

“So, ain’t you worried about their recovery with Gilda here?”

“Most of the critters have decided to get an early start on getting their dens ready for the winter and have moved out. All the birds are getting ready to migrate and have decided to use the outside birdhouses if they are not sleeping in the trees. So, the house is nearly empty, well, except for,” Fluttershy glanced over toward the unconscious griffon.

“I thought you said the critters trusted you,” Rainbow interrupted Fluttershy.

“Oh, They do. And I trust them. But, I’m very, very sorry to say it. I just don’t trust Gilda. I’d feel ever so much better knowing my friends are safe.”

“What about Curry?”

Fluttershy looked sad as she said, “I was hoping Applejack, or maybe Rarity, would put her up for a few weeks. Just till Gilda is better.”

“Are you going to use the Stare on Curry?”

“What? No! I’d never!”

Giving a shake of her head, Rainbow put a hoof on her friend’s shoulder, “In that case, you had better figure out how to make sure Gilda and Curry can stay in the same place safely because trust me, that squirt is not going to let you send her away. So, what can I do to help?”

Fluttershy ducked her head again, and whispered, “Well, if it’s not too much trouble. I’d understand if you can’t do it. Or if you had other, more important plans.”

“Just spit it out, Shy!” Rainbow said firmly. “You know you can ask anything. Nothing could be more important than helping you.”

Fluttershy lifted her head to reveal her eyes. As Rainbow watched the thin veneer of detachment her friend had assumed bled away, revealing a wet, pleading expression.

“Will you stay with me? And Curry? Just till Gilda is well enough to leave?” Fluttershy said in a voice that sounded just a step away from a total breakdown.

Leaning forward, Rainbow enveloped the trembling pony with her forelegs and wings. “As long as you need me,” she whispered into Fluttershy’s ear.

***

Riding Pinkie Pie was a bit like riding a carousel pony, on springs, in a bounce house. It took a little getting used to, but if your stomach wasn’t too full it could be a lot of fun. Or so Curry had discovered since coming to Ponyville. She was currently perched on the pink pony because Spike had insisted that he wanted to come along and see for himself if Fluttershy had really messed up Gilda. That would have left Curry walking as Twilight could not carry two and Spike’s short legs gave him the priority. Fortunately, Pinkie Pie had shown up at just the right time to offer a hoof, or more correctly, four of them, along with a strong back.

“So this Gilda. She’s not as bad as the book says, right?” Curry questioned Pinkie Pie.

“She’s a real grumpy pants, and bad at sharing, with a lousy sense of humor. But there is no such thing as a bad pony.”

“But, she’s a griffon.”

“Oh, riigght. I forgot. In that case, she might be a really, really, good griffon, but that might make her a very, very, bad pony. She really, really, liked Rainbow Dash, though. So I don’t think that she could be mean and nasty deep down all the way to her toesies.”

“I read a little about griffons after she came to Ponyville last time,” Twilight said.

“How many books was that?” Curry asked, having by now started to get a handle on Twilight speak.

“Well, I only had a few in the library, and most of those were like that reference book you checked out, very out of date. I borrowed a half-dozen of the most recently published from the Royal Library, and they were a bit more up to date. Then I had the Archives pull a selection of Griffon History and Mythology books, just to get some background. Oh, and I reviewed all of the Diplomatic Corps summaries of all major battles and conflicts between ponies and griffons for the last few centuries.”

“So is Gilda bad because she’s a griffon, or just bad?” Curry asked, rolling her eyes slightly as her expectations of Twilight were met and exceeded by a large margin.

“It’s not that simple. Gilda is an individual. You have to judge her on her own merits. That said---”

“Here it comes,” Spike interjected.

Twilight ignored him and continued as if he had not spoken. “Not much is known about how griffons came to be. Or, how much of their behavior is driven by primal instinct, and how much by the intellect. They seem to be a merger of lion and eagle, but whether that is simply coincidence, or some long-ago mage created them by combining the two, is not known. Discord has been given credit by some for their creation, but it has never been confirmed. Many researchers have taken the view that they do share the characteristics of those two creatures and that their behavior can be predicted based on that. The problem with that theory is that the natures of lions and eagles don’t always line up.

“Eagles mate for life and are very antagonistic toward any other eagle that invades their territory. Lion’s do stay together with their mates, but rather than one male and one female, the male lions tended to collect harems, much like male ponies did in ancient times. If a stronger male lion could drive off his rival, he took possession of the defeated lion’s harem as his own, again much like ancient pony culture. The female lions would accept the stronger lion as their new mate. Eagles cleaved for life to just one mate and very seldom sought out another if that mate perished.

“How romantic,” Pinkie Pie gushed.

Ignoring Pinkie Pie, Twilight continued as if she had not been interrupted. “Because griffons have the head of an eagle, the researchers think that means their reproductive instinct is to mate for life, and that is borne out in most of the histories we have of their race."

“Well, that’s just silly. Everypony knows that it’s the heart that controls love. And they have the heart of a lion, so they likely want lots and lots of lovers. Well, if they’re stallions anyway… What do they call a male griffon?”

“A Drake, or Tercel. A female is a Hen, but two of the authors I referenced were very adamant that it was extremely unwise to refer to a female griffon as a hen within her hearing. As to head versus heart, Griffon’s seem to mate with a single partner, but they are intelligent beings. I don’t think you can base your attitude about their likely behavior on animal instincts.”

“So, what has this all have to do with Gilda being bad or not?” Curry asked.

“Well... Nothing,” Twilight confessed.

“Oo, oo, but what if the head guys are right, and Gilda thinks like an eagle? Wouldn’t that mean she wouldn't want to share Rainbow Dash with any other pony?”

“That’s just silly. They’re not even the same genus,” Twilight said dismissively.

“What does how smart they are have to do with it?” Curry asked.

“That’s genius. Genus refers to their taxonomic classification.” Seeing the blank look on both Pinkie Pie and Curry’s face, she sighed and said, “They are not the same species.”

“Plus, they’re both girls,” Curry said, nodding her head in agreement with Twilight’s point and adding what she thought was a telling one of her own.

“Rrriight,” Twilight drawled nervously, exchanging a look with Pinkie, who looked a bit offended at the expression on Twilight’s face. She rolled her eyes and mimed zipping her lips to indicate she wasn’t stupid and knew that there were some sorts of parties that fillies and colts didn't need to know about till they were older.

“But it might work the same way with friends, right?” Curry asked. “Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara are lousy at making friends. Today at school Silver Spoon was really upset because she thought Di might be making other friends than her. Maybe Gilda is like Silver Spoon? Maybe she got all mean because she thought she was losing Rainbow Dash as a friend?”

“She was a poopy head before that,” Pinkie Pie opinioned. “But, she did get pretty upset when I kept trying to join them for some fun. Maybe you’re right,’ Pinkie rubbed her chin with a hoof, which did really weird things to her gait. “We need to show her you can have more than one friend. Yep, that’s what we should do. Throw her a great big party to show her that she doesn’t have to only have one friend. She can have lots and lots of friends.”

“That didn’t work out so well last time, Pinkie,” Spike said. “I think she’s just a jerk.”

Any further discussion came to an end as they reached Fluttershy’s cottage. “We had best be quiet,” Twilight advised. “If Gilda is injured, we don’t want to startle her.”

“We’re here! Don’t worry! We’re not going to hit you with big sticks or anything like that!” Pinkie Pie yelled at the cottage. She looked over at Twilight. “There, that should fix the problem.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and knocked on the door with a hoof. “Fluttershy?” before she even got the name all the way out the door was wrenched open and Rainbow Dash stuck her head out and hissed. “Will you be quiet! She just got to sleep.”

“Gilda?” Twilight asked.

“No, dummy. Fluttershy. She is totally wasted from dealing with Gilda. But, yeah, Gilda still hasn’t woken up yet. Have you heard back from Princess Celestia?” Rainbow asked, trying, poorly, to conceal her anxiety.

“Yes. She has arranged for the foremost expert on Griffon biology to come and check Gilda out. He’s a unicorn, so she’s going to send him in a chariot. She’s also going to send Gilda’s Wingmaster. Apparently, he was in Canterlot when Princess Celestia got Fluttershy’s letter.”

Rainbow nearly exploded, her wings snapping out as she lifted up a dozen feet. “You have got to be kidding me! That’s all we need. Do you know what Wingmaster means? It means they are the baddest of badasses, the King of the Roost. It means that he can kick the butt of every other griffon in his aerie. The only way you get the job is by beating the crap out of the last one, and they don’t pull any punches. Gilda’s Wingmaster is her dad. But that doesn’t cut her no slack. He hates ponies. He was always down on her for having me as a friend, even though we tried to keep it on the down low. And now she’s gone and let herself get hurt by a pony!

“I can’t believe Princess Celestia is letting a jerk like that come here! I hope she’s sending a whole bunch of Royal Guards to make sure the creep doesn’t decide to slice and dice Gilda for getting herself beaten by a pony. He’s just the sort of Griffon to do that.”

“Wait. Do you know that? That Gilda was beaten by a pony? Do you know what pony?”

“I told you. It was mom,” Curry said in an annoyed tone of voice as she slid off of Pinkie Pie’s back.

“Well, I sorta heard something,” Rainbow said nervously, rubbing the back of her head with one hoof and not meeting Twilight’s eyes. She glanced back over her shoulder into the open cottage. “Maybe it would be a good idea to have Fluttershy and Curry staying somewhere else when this Wingmaster shows up.”

Twilight blinked, processing the information in front of her. “You’re joking? Right? You’re not trying to tell me that Fluttershy really did attack Gilda?”

“She didn’t ‘attack’ Gilda! I think. I’m sure it was to protect Angel Bunny. Maybe Gilda threatened Curry. Look. I don’t know. But you know Fluttershy. There is no way she’d do something like that without a really good reason.”

“I know that! I’m having more trouble with her being able to do it at all!” Twilight said. “I can’t imagine Fluttershy hitting anypony, for any reason.”

"You're going to love me," said Rainbow Dash with an absolutely straight face. "Remember? The Gala? Not one of her better moments. But, I think this might be because of Curry; she’s never been a mother before. You’ve seen what she can do when her friends are in trouble. I figure you got to think ‘ten times that’ if someone threatened Curry.”

“I told you. My mom kicks ass,” Curry said smugly, as she pushed past Rainbow Dash into the cottage.

Curry spared a brief glance for the still unconscious griffon, but most of her attention was on her mom, who was sleeping on the rug. Somepony, Rainbow Dash most likely, had placed a blanket over Fluttershy, leaving only her head visible. Her expression looked weary and careworn. Curry knelt beside her and brushed her mane up off her mom’s face with a gentle stroke.

“She didn’t want to leave Gilda alone,” Rainbow Dash explained as she followed Curry into the room. “Look. I’ll stay here with Gilda and wait for this expert and the Wingmaster to show up. You and your mom can go and stay with Applejack."

“No,” Fluttershy said, lifting her head. She sent a troubled look toward Gilda and gave a sigh. “It’s my fault. It’s my responsibility. I’ll stay and take care of her.” While the words were said softly, there was a firmness under them that indicated that the yellow Pegasus was not going to be swayed on this subject. “But you should go, Curry, or you could go and stay with Rarity if you rather.”

Curry pulled a cushion off the barricade Fluttershy had created opposite Gilda and settled herself down on top of it with a stubborn tilt to her chin. “I’m not going, If you make me go, I’m just going to sneak back first chance I get.”

“Fine!” Rainbow said in exasperation. “You’re both idiots.” She dropped down on her haunches with a thump between Fluttershy and Gilda.

Twilight sighed and pulled her own cushion out of the pile with her magic, and then another one while she said, “Spike and I will stay as well. But, I’m positive Princess Celestia would not have sent the Wingmaster if she thought there would be violence. Especially as she was sending them to Fluttershy’s house. I really think you’re exaggerating the risk, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow’s only answer was a loud snort as she glared at Gilda’s comatose form. “I wish she’d wake up. I got some things I want to say to her!” she said with some heat.

“Yaayyy, sleepover!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “Where is Fluttershy hiding the chocolate and marshmallows now? Never mind. I’ll find them.” The pink pony began to sniff loudly, turning her body in a circle until she suddenly went rigid with her nose pointing one way and her tail sticking straight out behind her. Her eyes focused on a particular tin can, one labeled in big bold letters, 'Icky Medicine.'

***

“This is such an honor, Optio Pumpernickel,” Professor Steady said, as he nervously checked his saddlebags for the hundredth time to make sure that none of his monographs had blown out due to the slipstream caused by their headlong chariot flight. "Although I am the foremost expert in Griffon biology, I never thought I would be privileged enough to be called on by Princess Celestia's personal student. This is quite an honor."

Pumpernickel adjusted his sunglasses and kept his mouth closed, avoiding a sharp response that would have been far more suited to his outspoken mate. Instead, he simply silently fumed over his present 'foalsitting' job while other guards did the much more preferable task of flying the chariot. He could not even use his unique title to force a swap with one of the other drivers and get away from this yammering fool, due to direct orders not only from his wife, but his superior officer and in an act of ultimate betrayal, Princess Luna. He settled for glaring across the backs of the chariot drivers while they flew onwards to Ponyville, unwilling to suffer divine retribution for the act of stretching his wings and flying alongside for even a few minutes.

After all, he was fully healed from his little foray into Griffon politics, with a certificate from the Flight Surgeon and times in his cross-country training that was rapidly returning to his prime. He could handle the flight from Canterlot to Ponyville more easily than the unfamiliar Day guard in the traces next to Shadow Dash. It took a lot of practice for a Nocturne to keep proper synchronization with a regular pegasus, and this pegasus kept getting his feathered wings out of step with his more experienced partner and making the chariot wobble.

The scarred Nocturne could only indulge in petulance for so long before he was forced to admit what was really bothering him: worry for Gilda, and her young niece. It would be a very bad thing for Princess Sun Shines on the Misty Mountains at Dawn Through Early Morning Hazy Skies if her aunt was no longer between her and any would-be challengers to the 'throne' of their tiny aerie. He had grown very fond of the little fledgling, and the thought of her at the mercy of some would-be usurper caused him to grind his teeth together in frustrated rage.

The most galling thing was that Sunny had only been back home for a few days after spending six months in the Crystal Empire with her father, the Aerie’s Ambassador.

She had been under orders to study the kingdom’s magic, as well as the magic of friendship. It had really just been an excuse to give her some extensive contact with another, more peaceful, culture, and from all the reports that he had read, the little griffon had flung herself into the learning process beak-first. Sunny was smart, nearly Twilight Sparkle smart, in some areas. It would be criminal to waste a mind like that.

Six months in the Crystal Empire had allowed Sunny an opportunity to be educated outside of her insular clan and time for the crystal ponies to get used to their modern neighbors. He had high hopes it would help break the cultural deadlock that had trapped her aerie in the past. That particular flock of griffons was gliding over the brink of extinction despite all their protests to the contrary. The truth was, in his opinion, that it would only take one more period of typical griffon politics to push them over the edge.

Now the entire carefully constructed edifice he had almost died helping create threatened to come crashing down because Sunny’s idiotic aunt had not been able to restrain herself, and just had to come to Ponyville and open up old wounds.

And this was where he came into the equation. The Night Guard did not meddle in politics, in particular, Griffon politics, and both Princesses had been extremely lenient about his past actions, possibly because of the blood he had shed in defense of an ally, and possibly just because they did not want to look like fools. In just a little over six months, he had expected to be able to pass the title of Wingmaster onto Gilda and slide gently out of the perch of power, but Gilda getting beaten up and possibly crippled was the last thing he wanted. True, she had promised to kill him in the challenge ring in retaliation for him killing her father, but in Griffon terms, that was almost dating. Trying to apply pony principles to griffon behavior was a good way to get killed, and in this case, get a lot of other griffons and ponies killed too. As much as he wanted to uphold the honor of the Royal Guard, on this visit he was going to have to be a Wingmaster down to the beak and claws of the title.

Some might have found his attitude a bit strange, given he was almost universally feared and hated by Sunny’s aerie, after having defeated both their First Heir and Wingmaster in the challenge ring, and been giving a good show against Gilda until their 'break.' There was blood between them now, and although there was nothing he would rather do than throw the whole hated job on top of Gilda and let her reign over the squabbling pile of backstabbing griffons, the thought of what would happen to Sunny as a result restrained his urge.

He was not a Griffon, and even though he held the title of Wingmaster and was technically in the middle of a succession fight with his First Heir, Gilda, the habits of his aerie were something to be fought, not embraced. Because if he didn't pound some sense into their flat skulls with his own example and by helping Gilda mature into a worthwhile leader, the idiots were likely to do something to bring the wrath of the Royal Guard down on their aerie, and there was no doubt which side of that conflict he would be on.

Gilda herself had been very emphatic in regards to her stated intent to kill Pumpernickel in the challenge ring as revenge for him killing her father. Pumpernickel was not worthy of the title in her eyes, and the honor of the challenge only a weak fiction to excuse his actions. In this regard at least he understood Gilda perfectly. Duty and honor were harsh mistresses, held in high regard by pony and griffon, but the definition of the words varied by the race of the ones using them. If everything went perfectly, Gilda would emerge as a respected leader of a growing flock, with Sunny growing into a leader on her own eventually.

But not if Gilda was a cripple. When he had fought her father Talon in the challenge ring, he had managed to drive one steel-shod hoof into the big griffon's spine, crippling him and ending the uneven fight. Talon had died at his hooves rather than surrender as a cripple, and if Gilda was injured that badly, she would either kill herself or be killed by one of her family upon her return to her home.

Pumpernickel's introspection was interrupted by a question from the other passenger in the chariot. “Pardon me, Optio. Are we going the right way?” The professor asked in an uncertain voice as the two ponies, one pegasus, one Nocturne, pulling the chariot, bypassed Ponyville and headed toward the edge of the Everfree forest. The Night Guard looked over the side at the mostly unoccupied land underneath them. He found the view pleasant, but It was unlikely the Canterlot resident next to him had ever seen this much nature in the rough before.

“Yes!” Pumpernickel said in a clipped voice as the chariot started its descent. He could see Fluttershy’s cabin ahead of them. Many of his friends would have been surprised to see a certain amount of trepidation on his face as he contemplated their goal. But then, they had never been the recipient of one of Fluttershy’s disappointed looks. The battle-scarred Nocturne gave a shudder at the memory. She might not have normally been in Princess Luna’s class, but Fluttershy was far stronger in certain situations involving her friends than anypony who didn’t know her could believe. Something he had found out first hoof.

Once they landed, Pumpernickel and his 'guest' took a moment to stretch their legs before visiting Fluttershy's house, and the Night Guard caught a glimpse of something behind the house that made him duck out of sight of the rest of the group for a minute. There was a bloody section of fence splintered by impact and with a few feathers still scattered around that could only have been the result of Gilda's 'accident.' A series of scuff marks indicating a heavy body in a rapid uncontrolled tumble were quickly tracked back to a jumble of leonine paw prints, talon marks, hoof prints, and several of the biggest clawed paw prints he had ever seen. After a moment of thought and a rough reconstruction of the scene of the crime, he carefully walked around a few more times, taking great care to put his hooves down in the paw prints until they were unrecognizable.

After all, he didn't want Fluttershy's friend to get in trouble.

***

Pain! Gilda groaned softly as she pulled herself up out of a deep, dark blackness. Her mind fogged from a headache that was worse than the hangover from a three-day bender.

The sound of a hoof kicking at a door went through her skull like an ice-pick, and she was distantly aware that it had been that knocking that had woken her to her current hell.

A high-pitched voice that lacked the timber of a pony or the scratchy background tones in a griffon’s voice, called out, “I’ll get it.”

“Oh, good. That should be the expert,” Gilda heard a vaguely familiar voice say. The sound of it sent a shiver of dread through her for some reason. She tried to rise to her claws, and let out a gasping scream as the aching pain she’d been feeling rose to new levels of agony.

She tried to twist her head around to look at the parts of her that hurt the worse, and almost blacked out at the agony that radiated from her neck.

“Oh, you mustn't. Please stay still,” a far too familiar pony urged Gilda as she rushed to the griffon’s side. Gilda felt herself flinching backward from the sight of Rainbow’s dweeby friend, bringing on new agonies, and a fractured recollection of events. Chasing the coward, cornering her prey, Fluttershy lunging toward her, hooves laughably extended as if she thought she could fight off Gilda, and then--- Pain--- blackness---

Gilda stared at the yellow marshmallow of a pegasus as she gently pushed Gilda back down on the soft bedding. “You mustn’t move. You might injure yourself more. The doctor is here now. Everything will be okay. You’ll see.”

“Let me go, Dweeb,” Gilda said in what was supposed to be a roar of outrage, but came out like a petulant squeak from a chick. Rainbow’s friend was lying, even if she didn’t know it. Nothing was going to be okay. She had been defeated by a pony, critically injured, and not by a warrior in armor, but a cornered little mouse of a pony who was afraid of her own shadow. She was going to die, and it was all her own fault. She was an idiot a dozen times over.

“Do what she says!” another voice ordered, and Gilda endured the tortured pain that came from moving her head to look at Rainbow Dash as that pony scowled at her in anger. “I can’t believe you did this,” her former friend ranted. “I knew you were a jerk, but I never thought you’d stoop this low.”

“Umm, everyone. Frankenstein’s pony is here, and he says he wants to see Gilda,” that strange voice from before said. Gilda kept her head still but rolled her eyes enough to make out the strangest creature she had ever seen. It was as tall as a pony, but only because it was standing up on its hind legs, leaving her to wonder how long it would be before it fell on its face. It was a strange enough sight to distract her from the pain she was feeling, but something much more distracting loomed up behind the weird little creature.

“Wingmaster?” Gilda croaked out in shock. She felt shame as the thought, “I don’t want to die.” flashed into her head. She lowered her head as if from weakness, but really because she didn’t want anypony to detect the fear that was bubbling up inside her.

***

The Nocturne Royal Guard could not help but think that for a pony who was supposed to spend his life in the shadows as an unseen mysterious creature of the night, he seemed to be spending a lot of time in broad daylight having both ponies and griffons staring at him like some sort of circus oddity.

“You’re Gilda’s Wingmaster?” Rainbow Dash gave Pumpernickel a long, searching look along with a gesture indicating a certain lack of talons and a beak on the expected owner of the title. "Can't be. Gilda's dad is the biggest jerkiest jerk of a griffon I've ever seen. And you sure the buck ain’t him. What are you trying to pull?"

“You didn’t say anything about a Wingmaster being a griffon or a pony. You just said he was the meanest badass on the block. He sure looks the part to me,” the little creature called Curry Comb said in admiration as she ran her eyes over his body. There was no horror in her expression, but a lot of sympathy. Even as he watched, her eyes took in a particularly nasty knot of scars along his side and she winced slightly.

“Well, there was nothing in any of the books I read that stated a Wingmaster had to be a griffon, but I would have thought that it would be one of those things so obvious it didn’t have to be written down,” Twilight interjected with a crestfallen look of somepony who just had their best friend lie to them. “Clearly I would have been wrong. Again.”

“Oh dear. Whatever happened to you, Mr. Pumpernickel?” Fluttershy asked. Her voice did indicate horror, but he got the impression it was not at his appearance, but rather at the thought of the violence, he had gone through to get his injuries.

“Looks like he went a few rounds with the Tasmania Devil,” Curry remarked. The sympathy in her voice seemed to be shading toward being horrifically impressed as her visual inspection of his body turned up more and more evidence of recent trauma, particularly when Pumpernickel flicked his membranous wings in irritation.

"I still don't believe it," opined Rainbow Dash. "Gilda's father is the biggest, nastiest griffon I've ever seen. If you're really the Wingmaster for her aerie, you would have had to--" The pegasus took a second look at the dense patchwork of scars across the bulky Nocturne, spaced in parallel lines about the distance between a large griffon’s claws.

“That is a very long story, and right now I really need to talk to Gilda alone. Miss Fluttershy, the specialist that Princess Celestia sent is outside. Would you mind giving him the details of the situation? You might be needed to translate, Miss Sparkle,” he added wryly.

Rainbow Dash gave Pumpernickel a long assessing look before heading for the door. As she walked past him she said in a very soft voice, “Go easy on her will yah. She’s paid enough.” Before he could acknowledge her words, she yelled out. “Come on, Curry. You can go ask the guards who flew in Stitches here some questions about basic training.”

“How do you know there are guards?” Curry asked.

“You gotta learn to listen, squirt. I heard them coming a mile off. One pegasus, one nocturne, wearing half-armor,” she added, showing off. “Funny time of day for a nocturne to be on duty. Must be on account of Lumpy.”

“That’s not nice,” Curry said as she exited through the door.

“Nah, it’s hilarious,” was Rainbow’s response as she followed the snipe out the door, Twilight Sparkle and Spike had left before them with Fluttershy, so now it was just him and Gilda in the room. He looked over to make sure the door was shut, and then leaned in close so his mouth was only a few inches from her ear.

***

Gilda hunched down into herself in an unconscious effort to put as much distance between her and the terrifying apparition looming over her and whispered, “Guess I don’t get to kill you in the challenge ring after all. Go ahead. Get it over with.”

Pitching his voice so that it wouldn’t carry past Gilda’s ears, Pumpernickel spoke in a voice that was no less intense for its lack of volume. “Coward.”

“I’m not---”

“Shut your beak, coward! You don’t speak. I don’t want to hear one single puking word you have to say,” the furious, and suddenly terrifying Nocturne snarled in the same quiet voice. He lifted a heavy hoof and pushed it down on Gilda’s back just below the temporary cervical collar that Fluttershy had secured around her neck and in the exact same place that same hoof had slammed into her father's spine minutes before his death. It was a very graphic reminder of how dangerous and lethal this pony was. As if she needed such.

“I thought you were an adult. I was wrong. You’re a pulling little chick. Now you are going to listen to me. You are going to stay here. You are going to let the nice pony who bandaged you up look after you. You will not hurt her. You will do everything she says when she says it, and you will not try to kill yourself. Do you know why?”

“Because you’re a pussy. Because you don’t have the guts to do what has to be done.” Gilda croaked out in a defiant voice.

“Maybe. But I sure as dragon shit am not stupid enough to let an immature little puke like you goad me into killing your scrawny carcass just because you've got a few scratches. Your father was insane and had to be put down. You're just stupid! Stupid can be fixed; sometimes you just need a big enough stick.”

Gilda cringed further down with every word, but the big Nocturne followed until her beak was flat against the floor. She took a painful breath before responding in a near whisper, "Pathetic! You don't deserve to be my Wingmaster if you can't even follow our traditions. I'm a cripple, and cripples are killed. I can feel the bones in my wing rub together with every twitch. I'll never fly again. Do your duty as Wingmaster, pony. Kill me!”

“Okay, maybe you are too stupid to learn. Frankly, I could care less if you fly again. I don’t even care if you walk again. The only thing I care about right now is keeping what happened to your busted carcass secret until your niece and my Second Heir is safe. Did you think about Sunny even once before you went flapping off to Ponyville? Had she even been back in the aerie for a day before you ran away? Are you so afraid of a fledgling that you would abandon your nest in that way? How do you ever expect to become Wingmaster if you can't face your fears? What kind of a Wingmaster abandons her nest that way?

“I'm going to do everything in my power to keep this screw-up a secret until Sunny is safe, one way or another. Because you know what will happen if she should ‘accidentally’ fall off a cliff before she can fly? Your entire aerie will go up in flames as every single one of those stupid idiots gets dragged into the resulting power struggle. I won’t even have to hunt down the bastards myself. They won’t live through the next winter because they are all too stupid to realize that the old ways are gone, and good riddance, because the only thing of any worth in your whole stinking aerie is Sunny.”

Gilda squeezed her eyelids tightly together, squeezing tears out at the corners as she said in a voice that was half-sob, “You don’t think I don’t know that? You don’t think I don’t know how badly I’ve messed things up? You don’t think I don’t know I might as well have snapped Sunny’s neck myself? Don’t you understand? My wing is broken, maybe my neck. If it were only my leg, maybe there would be a chance. I can’t return to the aerie under my own power. I’ll be killed the moment I arrived if I let myself be carried there. The only way out for Sunny is for you to take the job you earned. You have to return to the Aerie, be Wingmaster. Watch over her until she is ready to take leadership of my aerie" Gilda was openly crying by the time she finished.

“Not going to happen,” Pumpernickel said in an implacable voice. "Listen well to my words, First Heir of the Misty Mountain Aerie, Daughter of Talon, Granddaughter of Slashing Spur! You will cooperate in all ways with the Element of Kindness! Her voice is my voice till you rise to greet the morning sun in one months time, and return to our aerie! This I do command as is my right as your Wingmaster!"

“You can’t just order me to do something impossible and expect me to do it,” Gilda protested, her words distorted due to her beak being pressed against the floor.

“Welcome to my world,” Pumpernickel said, lifting his hoof from her back and walking away without a single look back.

Author's Note

Sorry for the rather grim Gilda section. Felt the need to really shake her up in order to give her a chance at reformation.

Things get lighter in the next episode.squirt

I broke this chapter into two parts because of the size. As a reader I happen to like large chapters, but it has been suggested that smaller ones might be better. Opinions?

Sunny, Pumpernickel and Laminia are all creations of Georg who really deserves co-author credit for this chapter. He supplied a lot of material for Pumpernickel.

If you are dying of curiosity as to what happened to Pumpernickel, and how he became Wingmaster of Gilda’s aerie, check out the story. “Diplomacy by Other Means”

Chapter 2b [edited]

How to Train Your Batpony
chapter 2b

***

Pumpernickel stepped out of Fluttershy’s cottage and heaved a sigh as he shut the door behind him. Hopefully, he’d pissed Gilda off enough that she’d endure the effort to get better just to spite him. His thoughts were interrupted as he became aware of a commotion going on over by the chariot.

“No! No! Let me go!” Professor Steady was yelling. “Nopony told me they expected me to deal with a live Gryphon! I won’t go near that monster, I won't.” Spike and Rainbow Dash were attempting to keep him from clambering into the chariot, while Pinkie Pie cheered on their efforts. It actually wasn’t taking much effort on their part. The professor’s own panicked efforts were hooficapping him as much as anything they were doing. From the looks on their faces, Pumpernickel had the sneaking suspicion that their efforts were as much for the entertainment value as out of any concern for keeping him here.

“Please, Professor. I really need your help,” Fluttershy said as she fluttered on the periphery of the action.

Ignoring the conflict, Twilight had lifted the documents out of the Professor’s saddlebags and up into the air so they surrounded her in a dome of paper. Even the chaos that had broken out a few steps away did not keep her from leafing through her new hoard of information as she rotated it around herself, with the occasional 'interesting' or even 'helpful.'

“Anything useful, Miss Sparkle?” Pumpernickel asked as he stood carefully out of range of her magic, or at least out of range of a serious papercut.

“Hmmm,” Twilight said in a distracted tone. She looked over at him, and her eyes lost their distant look and came into focus. “Oh. Sorry. Yes, a few things. Not as much as Fluttershy was hoping for I’m afraid, but it’s a useful compilation. A summary of a great deal of data from a lot of sources, but nothing original. I’ve already seen most of this information in other forms. It is a very useful tool, though. No need to search through several dozen books for each pertinent bit of data.”

The scholarly unicorn’s eyes lit up as she floated a particular page in front of her eyes. “Say, did you know that a Nocturne with your name was involved in a diplomatic mission to Gilda’s aerie about two hundred years ago? You once told me it was one of the original names. Curious that you got involved with the same aerie.” She grimaced slightly, “It went badly for him, so maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“I had heard something about that. Don’t worry about mentioning it. He brought honor to the name. I can only hope to bring as much to it myself someday.”

Pumpernickel raised his voice and called out, “Rainbow Dash, Spike, let the professor back on the chariot. Twilight has all she needs, we don’t need him anymore. Has anypony noticed where the drivers went?”

***

“Aww, come on. You can tell me. I only want a few training tips,” Curry pleaded as cutely as she could. She really didn’t do cute well, she knew. Not compared to Sweetie Belle, or even Apple Bloom and Scootaloo if they were motivated. But, having noticed that stallions were suckers for it, she’d been practicing. Unfortunately, the Royal Guard Pegasus she was pleading with seemed to be immune, though she had managed to back him halfway across the yard as he attempted to avoid her wide eyes and nimble fingers.

She’d heard that guys were suckers for a girl running their fingers through his hair. At least according to television. But even twiddling her fingers in his mane wouldn’t get him talking.

If she were back home, she’d have stuck a harness on him, but she had a feeling that might not go down very well here.

Giving up on the skittish guard, she turned around and looked for his partner, the older nocturne. It took a bit of time, and when she did spot him she was surprised she’d missed him. He was standing in a pool of shadow cast by the hen-coop, and unless she really looked hard, he just seemed to fade into the shade. Which was a bit weird because while it was late afternoon, the sun was still high in the sky. The dim shadow cast by the shed should not have been able to cloak him like that.

“Cool. Magic,” Curry said to herself. A wide grin filled up her face as she rose up on tip-toes and carefully snuck up behind the dragon-winged pony. When she was close enough that she could have reached out and tugged his ear, she drawled,” Whatcha doing?” It was enormously gratifying to see the pony who had been staring intently at the activity around the chariot, give a huge start and jump that took him higher than Curry’s head into the air. His wings snapped out like ribbed sails and once again Curry was reminded of how much the nocturne’s wings reminded her of Toothless’ wings.

“Sergeant! I’m leaving. I’m counting on you to keep everypony here safe,” the Frankenpony yelled out from where he was buckling himself into the chariots harness. Inside the chariot, the pony that had come with him was huddled in a whimpering heap, his forelegs over his head.

***

Gilda wanted to scream. She wanted to smash things. She wanted to fly away from this place filled with candy-colored ponies and never come back. Anything, but be forced to accept help from the pony who held so much of Rainbow Dash’s affection that when it had come down to Gilda or the marshmallow, Dashy had chosen the marshmallow. The very pony who had somehow, against all possibilities, crippled Gilda.

She didn’t bother to lift her head when she heard the door open, letting in the soft murmur of voices outside. The door closed and a single set of hoofsteps crossed the floor toward her, coming to a stop just a step away. The pony didn’t say anything, just stood there, fidgeting.

“Don’t waste your breath,” Gilda growled out, her voice like gravel due to her injured neck. “Let me say it for you.” Gilda adopted a high pitched sugary sweet voice, “If I hurt poor Flutter---” she broke off coughing when the sarcastic tone of voice proved too much of a strain on her injured throat. The choking coughs hurt even worse. Once she got her breath back, she continued in a much quieter tone of voice. “If I hurt Fluttershy, you’ll personally break my other three legs. That about it?”

‘No!” Rainbow Dash blurted out, and then a second later she said, “Maybe.”

“Just what I thought,” Gilda said, shifting a bit to ease her leg and wincing from the discomfort.

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why’d you do it. I know you’re hard-core. I liked that about you. But jumping Fluttershy… that wasn’t cool.”

“Look, it wasn’t… Ah, buckit. Forget it. I’m a jerk. I behaved like a jerk. In a week or two, the Wingmaster will see my niece safe to the Crystal pony playground and I’ll be out of your mane, one way, or another.”

“Yeah. About that. A pony Wingmaster?”

“The bastard earned it. No fancy pony trick. He was meaner and smarter than my father. Killed him fair and square in a challenge for leadership. Bastard!"

“This the same father who said he’d bite your head off if you kept hanging out with me? The one you ignored.”

“Don’t give me any credit, dweeb. I kept my eyes and voice down anytime I was near him. I’d have broken your wing if he’d been standing there and ordered me to do it.”

“If you say so. Only… he’s gone now. Right? Pumpernickel scares the horse apples out of me, but I don’t think he’d care if you hang around with ponies.”

“I’d care. Look. Leave me alone. We got nothing to say to each other. We had fun when we were chicks, but we were barely out of our eggs. What did we know? Don’t go thinking it was ever more than it was.”

“Yeah, but---”

“I’m going to sleep. Can’t do much else. Tell the pink menace to keep it down,” Gilda said, making a show of settling her head down on the rolled lip of the pet bed.

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say,” Rainbow Dash turned her back and plodded away from her former friend. The dull thud of her hooves on the floor stopped as she paused by the doorway as if to look back, then continued as she left, closing the door behind her and leaving Gilda alone as she wanted.

***

Shadow Dash watched the chariot depart, Pumpernickel taking his place in harness. Despite a certain personal reluctance in regards to being anywhere near Ponyville, he had to admit it felt good to have meaningful work to do again. The night was coming soon. The tree that made up part of Fluttershy’s house had some good sturdy branches. He could stretch out on one of those and be very comfortable as he watched over the house. Tomorrow, he would collect his baby sister and start her formal training as an undercover guard. Maybe, if he was really good at his job, he would even get to see her fly free again someday. Seeing Goose soaring high in the air, higher than any other pony in Equestria. Now that would be a reward beyond price for a job done well.

***

With his regular companion, Fleur De Lis, off on a photo shoot, Fancy Pants, the most interesting ‘male’ unicorn in Equestria, found himself at loose ends. There were numerous mares who would have been eager to take Fleur’s place by his side, but he found he had little interest these days in acquiring some temporary hoof-candy. Fleur was far more intelligent than many ponies gave her credit for and had a subtle mischievous nature that he found amusing. There simply was not another mare of her quality in Canterlot, save two very powerful alicorns. But then, the princesses really fell into a category all of their own and it was hardly fair to hold any other mare up against them for comparison.

It was too bad Twilight Sparkle and her friend Rarity had returned to Ponyville. Life was never boring with them around. One just had to look at their most recent escapade, in which they had produced an Alicorn colt out of thin air, along with his rather appealing young companion, the Snipe, Curry Comb, or as she was known officially, Princess Moonlight Dancing on Water. She had been a rather disconcerting companion when he met her at the reception, but a refreshing change of pace for all of her habit of casually straightening his mane or tail without warning.

Fancy Pants’ current disinclination to seek out female companionship had brought him to a place he rarely visited. The Stallion Club positively forbid mares from an entrance, and there was a very discreet, but emphatic brass plate stating that fact besides the gleaming oak doors.

It was Fancy Pants’ personal belief that the board of directors lived constantly in hope that some mare would challenge their exclusionary policy so that they could fight her request for membership tooth and hoof. Sadly for their ambitions, no mare had ever shown the slightest inclination to do so.

Membership in the Stallion Club was by invitation, or legacy, only. Fancy Pants’ membership had been passed down through six generations from one of the charter members, Burlap Pants, a fierce old warrior according to the club, a lover of toys to go by the family history, and the personal collection of legendary warrior action figures that were gathering dust in the family’s curio cabinets.

Gingerly using his magic, while giving thanks that he was not an earth pony, Fancy Pants used the oversized, and artistically questionable, brass door knocker to signal his presence and desire for admittance. Really, did they have to be so emphatic in regards to the stallion motif?

The wait for somepony to answer the door was short. Almost before the last boom from the knocker finished echoing, the door swung open silently and smoothly, despite the iron-bound oak construction that could have shrugged off a battering ram.

Only the slightest twitch of his ears revealed Fancy Pants’ surprise at the sight of the impeccably dressed and groomed unicorn pony standing in the doorway. Despite his perfect appearance, he projected an air of being part of the decor rather than a pony of distinction.

“Friday Haystings, as I live and breathe. What a pleasant surprise. If the question is not too intrusive, why are you on door duty, and not taking care of your master?”

The gentlepony’s private gentlepony, brushed an invisible bit of lint from his waistcoat while nodding his head respectfully toward Fancy Pants. “Alas sir, my master is indulging in his hobby and I find myself at loose ends. I offered my service in lieu of my master’s membership dues.”

“I am fairly certain that Greeny would take issue with your description of his occupation as a hobby, Friday,” Fancy Pants chided the nondescript brown unicorn. “I am also fairly certain he would take umbrage at you maintaining his membership.”

“If not I, then the master’s pater would in all likelihood maintain the family legacy. This seemed to be the lesser of two evils, sir.”

Fancy Pants considered the argument. “It could be that you are correct in your assessment. The Baron would likely hold it over Greeny as yet another example of him neglecting his family duties.

“I would not care to speculate on the affairs of my betters, sir,” Friday said in a chiding tone.

“Of course you wouldn’t. I dare say that you have never indulged in idle speculation on the lifestyles of Princess Celestia or her sister, not even below stairs after a few glasses of hard cider,” Fancy Pants said in a teasing tone.

“Ha. Ha. Most amusing. Sir will have his little jokes,’ Friday said, neither his voice or expression indicating the slightest trace of humor. “Would Sir care to enter, or did you merely wish to admire the building’s facade?”

“Well, the former is likely the more intellectually stimulating option, but having bearded the dragon in his lobby, I might as well enter his den. Lead on, good Friday, lead on.”

***

As always, Fancy Pants was impressed by the entrance lobby and main hallway of the club. Gleaming dark wood, so perfectly fitted that the seams were invisible, paneled the walls and floor, while dark, soot-stained beams of massive dimensions crisscrossed the ceiling and concealed the fine parquet panels between them in dark shadows. If one looked closely you could make out scenes of heroic battles and conflicts against dragons, gryphons, hydras, and sundry other unlikely beasts.

Rumors had it that the expressive faces of the various monsters were modeled after those of the wives and mates of the original founders.

The hallway was lined with doors, one every two pony-lengths. Friday led Fancy Pants to a door that bore his family crest on it. “Do you require assistance, sir?” Friday asked as both he and Fancy Pants produced keys from their waistcoat pockets.

“I should be fine, Friday,” The gentlepony replied as he inserted his key into one of two keyholes, while Friday did the same with his key. They turned them simultaneously. A heavy clunk sounded inside the thick door as a bolt shifted.

“Very well, sir. I shall await you out here.”

Inside the door was a small room that seemed to be one large tribute to the cabinet makers art. Impeccably crafted drawers and small doors occupied every available space. Fancy Pants began to disrobe, removing each and every one of his garments one at a time and placing them into, and onto, individual drawers and hangers that were custom designed to receive them. Once he was bare as the day he’d been born, he opened up one of the larger doors in the wall and examined the contents carefully before making a selection.

Friday did not seem to have moved an inch when Fancy Pants emerged from his undressing room, a bottle of hundred-year-old applejack clutched in his magic field, along with several very large, very black, cigars. The door swung shut behind him with a solid thunk as the nude stallion extracted his personal key from the door and concealed it in his mane.

The two stallions proceeded down the long wooden hallway, passing dozens of doors on the way, each one bearing the crest of some prominent Equestrian family. “Anything of interest tonight?” Fancy Pants asked Friday.

“I could not say, sir.”

“Ahhh, of course. I have to admit to a certain amount of curiosity. Just the other day I received a letter telling me that it might be in my interest to visit the club in the near future. As it has been a good two years since my last visit, I wondered that anypony would think me interested.”

“Curious indeed, sir,” Friday said in a bland tone of voice.

“It's not as if I run in the same social circles as most of the membership. In fact, I’m not sure I’m personally acquainted with any of them at the moment. With the exception of you, of course, Friday.”

“Ahhh, but I am not a member, sir. Only staff, and temporary at that.”

“That is true, and everypony knows that staff would never presume to contact members outside of their duties in the club. It would be a tragic breach of decorum.”

“This is quite true, sir. We are here, sir,” Friday said. He reached out with his magic and gripped a large handle in order to swing wide the door that filled the end of the hall. “I wish you a pleasant evening, sir, and remind you that the inner door will not open till I have shut this one.”

Waiting till the door behind him closed firmly, Fancy Pants took hold of the door in front of him and pulled it open.

Loud, raucous, and out of tune music blasted through the door, causing the gentlepony to lay his ears flat.

Fancy Pants stepped out into the main hall of the Stallion Club, which took up every bit of the space on the ground floor not devoted to the entrance lobby. The way it spread out to the sides made it clear that it also extended into the buildings on either side of the official club.

Several dozen stallions were spread out through the club as they laughed, drank, smoked, farted, and in general engaged in activities frowned on by the fair sex. The din was deafening, and the smell was rank. Like Fancy Pants, none of the various stallions were wearing a stitch of clothing, although some of them could have really used a garment or two, and in some cases a tent to conceal their various flaws.

He stepped out on the rough-hewn floor, his hooves stirring up a thick layer of the traditional rushes that had covered the floors of the ancient establishment ever since the first members had discovered that they were not only more absorbent than hay, they were cheaper. Pool tables with beer and cider stained felt were numerous, and there were at least a dozen dart boards within view.

Pride of place went to the large square ring in the middle of the hall where two ponies were currently reared up on their hind legs, flailing at each other with padded front hooves. Fancy Pants curled his lips in disdain. The would-be martial ponies would not last a minute in the ring with the rawest guard recruit. He himself had collected a fine collection of bruises taking private lessons from a few guard trainers, and would never presume that he was in any way formidable, but he would wager that he could take on both of the colts currently in the ring at the same time and barely work up a sweat in the progress.

“What ho, a new member, dash me if it isn’t. Come to escape a few aunts perchance? Dreadful creatures, aunts. Always say, aunts ain’t gentleponies. Haw Haw.” The raw-boned pegasus colt who had trotted up to Fancy Pants had clearly very recently suffered a growth spurt and had not yet fleshed out his now much larger body, he was all joints and bones with more than a few thick primary feathers that just would not stick down with their fellows. His face bore an expression of amenable imbecility. “Call me Wooshter. It’s my name after all. Some pony might as well get some use out of it. Doesn’t seem to do me much good most of the time.”

Fancy Pants blinked in the face of this barrage of conversation, wishing he had his hoofkerchief as the callow young stallion’s laughter was a bit explosive. He also didn’t miss the sour expression many of the older ponies directed toward his noisy new acquaintance. Given who they were, that actually endeared Fancy Pants a bit toward the young stallion. He had always held to the opinion you could judge a pony by his friends, and enemies.

“Actually, I’m a member of longstanding. I just haven’t been by in a while. I’m Fancy Pants. Pleased to meet you,” he said, sticking out a hoof. The younger colt enthusiastically bumped hooves with him, swaying slightly as he did so. The not so faint scent of some Sweet Apple Select cider showed he had likely been celebrating his recent ascent into physical, if not mental maturity.

“Say, I’ve heard of you,” Wooshter exclaimed. “You’re the fellow my aunt is always saying I should be more like. Have to confess, there were times I wished a piano would fall on you, or at the very least you’d be caught out doing something uncouth. Dreadfully troubling always being compared to such a paragon. No offense meant of course. Sure you’re a fine pony. Just wish you weren’t; so fine that is. Don’t suppose you’d consider sneaking into Princess Luna’s bedchamber and making a spectacle of yourself? No, suppose not. Pity would have made my life a lot easier. At least till my aunt found a new paragon to hold me up against and find lacking.”

Fancy Pants was finding the half-grown stallion a very easy pony to converse with. He didn’t have to do anything at all. Wooshter did all the work for both of them as well as anypony who happened to be passing by. Still, he felt he really should contribute something, so he waited for his new ‘friend’ to draw a breath -- it took a while -- and interjected. “So, anything interesting going on tonight?”

Wooshter blinked, and Fancy Pants swore he could see the young stallion’s mind shifting gears through his wide gormless eyes. “Interesting? Hmmm. Well, there are those two would be Lotharios in the ring. They’re fighting over the mare that clerks at the candy store down the street. More fool them. She’s dating the delivery pony who brings sugar to the shop. Big strapping lad. She’s cute as can be and sweet on top of that, but I’d not take the risk. Not unless he was going to be out of town for a few weeks,” he added with another loud guffaw.

The gangly colt considered some more while muttering to himself, “Interesting. Interesting. You’re likely not interested in Cash Register drinking a whole jug of Sweet Apple Select in one go, and then walking into the wrong house. Had to bail him out of jail. Met a very cute policemare while I was at it, so wasn’t a total waste, wouldn’t give me her address, though. Pity that.” Wooshter directed an inquiring look toward Fancy Pants.

Receiving a shaken head in reply, he dropped into another bout of consideration. “Well, there is Old Blustery. You know, Storm Warning. He’s been in here every night for the last week. A bit of a laugh once he gets a few bottles in him and starts going on about how the mares keep us all under their hooves. I can sort of understand, got aunt problems myself. Did I mention that? But there are some right nice little pippins I wouldn’t mind stepping on me if they were of a mind to. He does go on about that new alicorn stallion. He was at the reception they held for the new prince awhile ago. That’s interesting I suppose. If you’re into talking about other stallions. I prefer discussing ponies that smell a bit better myself.”

“Is Storm Warning in tonight?” Fancy Pants asked. He hadn’t seen the Councilpony at the reception himself, but they didn’t exactly run in the same social circles. For one thing, he usually preferred to be surrounded by mares whenever possible while Old Blustery seemed to prefer his cronies, who were not nearly as cute as Fleur and her friends.

Wooshter reared up on his hind legs, wobbling unsteadily until Fancy Pants set a hoof against his chest. The pegasus flared his wings slightly and floated up a few feet off the floor as he looked around. “Ahh, there’s the blighter. He’s over in the corner with the mechanical griffon punching machine. Got his cronies with him. Looks like he’s working up a good head of steam. Want to go watch him explode?”

“I’ve always been fond of fireworks. Lead the way.”

***

“A disgrace! That is what it is! Princess Luna took a virile, Alicorn stallion, one who radiated quiet command and demanded respect by his very presence, and she turned him into an easy to manipulate blank flank colt.

“He should be sitting on the throne this very day, ushering in a new age of respect for Equestrian stallions. You wouldn’t see the griffons getting above themselves if we had a stallion on the throne. But where is he? I’ll tell you. Attending kindergarten in some back of beyond border town.

“Are we going to accept this? No! Never! I say we do something about this. I say we approach Princess Celestia and demand she examine her sister’s motivation, and once she had overturned the rocks of deception her sister has concealed herself under, and exposed Nightmare Moon to the cleansing rays of the sun, that she restore the new Prince to his rightful stature, and allow him to take the place of the evil mare who tried to usurp his potential.”

“Oh, I say. He is in fine form today,” Wooshter enthused. “Cracked as a box of dropped cookies, of course, but you have to give him credit for putting on a good show.”

“What about the rumor that he’s her son?” A member of Old Blustery’s audience called out.

The well-padded stallion puffed up, and declaimed, as if reading from a script, “Clearly disinformation spread by her lackeys in the press. A ploy to allow her input into his rearing, even while she attempts to infantilize this noble stallion.”

“I saw him at the reception. He seemed a perfectly nice colt if a bit large for his age. He didn’t strike me as a stallion trapped in a colt’s body.”

“And there you put your hoof on the insidious nature of her actions. I have talked to experts in magic. The very best minds in Equestria. And they assure me it is impossible to turn back time for a pony’s body without doing the same to his mind. Before the Nightmare worked her magic on him, he was a stallion of heroic proportions, and I am sure his mind was as noble as his form.

“Now I know that some ponies might be tempted to hold our dear Princess Celestia at fault for this. I tell you that you can not do this. She is only a mare, and her heart is soft. She has allowed her emotions to overrule her common sense and she can not see what her sister is doing. As true citizens of Equestria, it is OUR DUTY to step in and do all in our power to rectify this situation.”

“But what can we do?” the same stallion who asked the other questions chimed in.

Fancy Pants narrowed his eyes and took a good look at this curious stallion. He seemed familiar, but try as he might, he could not place him.

“We must see that the prince is not allowed to succumb to the bucolic nature of the farm ponies Princess Luna has foisted him off on. They are simple Ponies. Ponies of the soil. They know nothing of the higher levels of society. We must approach them, make them see reason. Our good Baron Chrysanthemum has graciously put himself forward. He is prepared to take in this poor abused Colt, and do all in his power to see that he is raised as befitting a stallion of his stature.”

Fancy Pants hissed between his teeth. He remembered now where he had seen that curious stallion before. He was the scion of a noble family who had fallen on hard times and had been in danger of needing to go into the trades to maintain a roof over his head. The Baron Chrysanthemum had taken him on as a personal secretary, saving him from that indignity.

While Fancy Pants had been musing on the situation, Storm Warning had finished his speech and was now moving among his audience, bumping shoulders and conversing in low tones. The pony about town was starting to understand the reasoning behind that letter he had received. Though what he was supposed to do about it he had no idea.

“Looks like the show is over,” Wooshter said, his expression becoming a bit woebegone.

Arching a noble eyebrow, Fancy Pants asked, “Surely you did not find Old Blustery’s speech that exciting that you are now in the doldrums because it is over?”

“Hmmm, what, what? Oh. Nothing of the sort, old chap. it is just that the night is coming to a close, and I fear that I am in a rather sticky wicket. Tomorrow I must a courting go, what ho,” Wooshter said in a melancholy voice.

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about the prospect.”

“Dash right I’m not. It’s totally intolerable. My aunt has threatened to cut me off if I don’t woo some dashed pill of a mare. At least I hope she’s a mare. My aunt was not too clear on that, and I wouldn’t put it past her to match me with a Griffon. She certainly shares the same temperament.

“It’s all pure rubbish. She hasn’t even met the dashed female in question. What is she doing telling me I must woo, or be in woe?

“If only my personal pony were here. He picked a fine time to go off to visit his sister, leaving me in the lurch like this.”

“He could have gotten you out of this situation?” Fancy Pants asked with a raised eyebrow, wondering if there might be more behind the missing valet than simply a visit to his sister. He quickly squashed the idea. He was falling under the spell of the situation and seeing conspiracy everywhere. Soon he would start thinking that Fleur De Lis’s absence was due to the same forces at work. In her case leaving him fancy-free to go haring off investigating.

Wooshter answered Fancy Pants question with a laugh while saying, “Oh, indubitably. The pony is a genius. Head positively stuffed with the old grey matter, what, what. He’d have had things right as rain in two shakes of a cat’s tail.”

The woebegone pony gave a sigh while saying, “No hope for it I guess. Can only pray that the filly, or whatever, gives me the cut direct, and my bally aunt lets me off the hook. I mean, It’s not like I can ‘make’ the chit fall for me.”

“Maybe she’ll like you.”

Wooshter gave a shudder. “I bally well hope not. Even if she’s she’s not a griffon, she must be a right mess. Likely crosseyed and swaybacked. Can’t see any other reason my aunt would think I have a hope of landing the chit. To let you in on a little secret, my aunt does not have the highest opinion of me. Tell the truth. She thinks I’m a blithering idiot.”

“Surely not,” Fancy Pants said, while inwardly thinking that Wooshter’s aunt seemed a very perceptive old lady.

“Oh, indubitably. No question at all. Can’t have a cup of tea with her without her bursting out sooner or later and saying. “Wooshter, you are a blithering idiot.” Makes it all the harder to understand why she’d be setting me off after a princess. And what was with her saying that at least she wouldn’t have to worry about me breeding now? Insulting that is. I can assure you I’ve never had any complaints, and I’m sure my swimmers are just as potent as any other ponies. Tell you the truth. That was sort of what got my mind wandering in the direction of a Griffon.”

“A princess?” Fancy Pants asked while wishing for a bit of mind bleach to remove the image Wooshter had just planted there. He had a reputation for retaining a perfectly even temperament no matter what the situation, but this was pushing it a bit. Had the colt’s batty old aunt lost it?

Unlikely as the idea of a griffon was, it was much more likely than the alternative. There were dozens of griffon princesses, every aerie had at least one. On the other hoof there were only two eligible princesses in Equestria, and picturing this green sprout of an ancient, and no doubt inbred family, pursuing them boggled the mind. Him actually doing the deed with either one of the sisters, was beyond comprehension. A corner of his lip twitched slightly. Though, come to think of it, he’d pay dearly to be there when Wooshter proposed to Princess Luna.

While Fancy Pants had been busy trying to scrub certain images out of his mind, Wooshter had continued to rattle on. “Yes, the bally female has apparently just arrived in Equestria from foreign parts. What was her name?”

If Fancy Pants had been boggled before, he was now having to exercise a level of self-control that exceeded any previous effort by a considerable margin. A princess freshly arrived in Equestria? No possibility of breeding? There was only one thing that could make the situation more surreal, and he fought to keep an incredulous note out of his voice as he asked, “It wasn’t by chance, Princess Moonlight Dancing On The Waters?”

“That’s the one. Very griffon sort of name. Bit worrisome. I say. Do you know her?”

Wooshter’s eyes went wide as Fancy Pants felt his knees giving out. “I say. Steady on old chap. Are you well? Do you need a drink? A bench to lay on?”

***

Gentlefillies do not raise their voices, no matter how provoked. So, even though the incessant knocking on her door had totally disrupted her muse and might cause her to miss her deadline, Rarity restricted the impulse to speak in an unladylike voice, and merely spoke in a very emphatic tone when she wrenched open the door. “What! Do! You! Want?”

The fact that ponies as far away as Sugarcube Corner startled in surprise was merely a coincidence, possibly an outbreak of biting flies.

Rarity blinked her eyes as the Royal Courier on her doorstep almost fell on his rump as she popped out of her door like Jack-in-the-box, complete with a scowling face. “Oh dear. Do ever forgive me,” Rarity said as she took in the stallion’s official uniform and the way he filled it out in a ‘very’ impressive manner, from his broad shoulders to his trim flanks, topped with the strongest set of wings she had seen short of Rainbow Dash. Blinking away her sudden daze and trying not to wipe her mouth in case she had drooled, Rarity continued, “I was working on a new ensemble for Sapphire Shores, and I’m afraid I was quite lost in my muse.”

As Rarity spoke her magic straightened out her mane, much mussed by having her hooves run through it so many times, the tape measure around her neck rolled up and floated back into her workroom, and her scowl was replaced by a broad smile. “I’m Rarity. Won’t you come in Mister...?”

“Sentry, Flash Sentry, ma’am. Thank you for the offer ma’am. Afraid I’m behind schedule. I have a parcel for Twilight Sparkle that must be hoof delivered and signed for. I haven’t been able to locate her, and you are listed as an acceptable substitute to take receipt of it.”

Rarity’s expression fell as the possibility of a little harmless distraction fled. Still, no point in burning such an attractive bridge. “Very well. I’ll be happy to sign for Twilight’s package.”

The courier held out a clipboard, and after Rarity signed her name, presented her with a small wrapped rectangle. He gave her a salute, and trotted away, while Rarity stood in the door and admired his ‘stride’ as he moved down the street.

Rarity gave the package she was holding a curious look. It was obviously a book, if Twilight was receiving it, most likely very old and filled with hours worth of distraction for her friend. The more intriguing part was that it had been sent by Princess Celestia. She’d have to ask Twilight if she could have the seal for Cheerilee’s collection. Giving it no further thought, as it was hardly unusual for the Princess to send Twilight a book, Rarity placed the package on her hall table and went back to work, her mind already filled with fresh ideas.

Author's Note

This chapter was split in two due to size. Opinions on that? Do you prefer large or small chapters?

Wooshter is a tribute to the P.G Wodehouse’s character, Bertie Wooster, who has a habit of finding himself entangled with females and having for one reason or another the need to escape the dire threat of matrimony. Sometimes by making sure that true loves path runs smooth, because the girl in question loves another, sometimes because the girl in question is dreadful beyond all belief. Such as having a bizarre interest in physical fitness and healthy food.

You may consider Rarity’s little section as being inspired by Marvel’s habit of dropping teasers at the end of their movies and “Agents of Shield” at least you didn’t have to sit through ten minutes of credits to see it.

Sunny, Pumpernickel and Laminia are all creations of Georg who really deserves co-author credit for this chapter. He supplied a lot of material for Pumpernickel' scenes

If you are dying of curiosity as to what happened to Pumpernickel, and how he became Wingmaster of Gilda’s aerie, check out the story. “Diplomacy by Other Means”

Chapter 3 [edited]

How to Train Your Bat Pony
chapter 3

***

“No! Out of the question!” the fiery-eyed nocturne mare shouted as she snapped at her mate, the slight swell of her belly doing nothing to handicap her efforts to take a chunk out of his flank.

“I’m sorry. There is no choice,” Pumpernickel told his mate, and the soon to be the mother of his foal, as he danced backward slightly to prevent her from breaking a tooth on his armor during the inevitable second follow-up bite. Thank the stars he had put on his armor before having this talk with her. His voice was calm and even, unfortunately, he knew that did nothing to sooth Laminia’s temper. Almost as much as he was angry at Gilda for putting Sunny at risk, he was angry at her for forcing the current argument on him.

“Damn it, Lumpy, there is always a choice. Send somepony else.”

“I’m their Wingmaster, if I delegate my duties to a regular pony it will only make an attempted attack more likely. Griffons just don’t respect anything that they’re not at least a little afraid of. You know that. I’d be asking for a revolt, and the first move of any rebellion would be to arrange for Sunny to have an accident. It already happened to Gilda’s older sister, when Duke Plummets made his power grab, and not a single one of her inbred relatives squawked in protest then.”

“I don’t care!” Laminia snarled in obvious frustration that she couldn't argue against his point. Prevented from taking her anger out on him due to the distance he was maintaining, she settled for kicking an obviously guilty pillow across the room and flouncing down on the couch with an exasperated growl. Pumpernickel took a step to one side, just in case. Ever since Laminia had become pregnant, she had an annoying habit of kicking her support shoes off when she was angry, and she had gotten far too accurate with them for his comfort.

“You know you don’t mean that. You’re as fond of her as I am,” he said in a cajoling tone.

Laminia took several deep breaths and then turned to the other pony who was in the room with them and was watching their argument like a spectator at a tennis match.

“Tell him he can’t go, Princess,” she said in a pleading tone.

Princess Luna put down the letter from Twilight she had supposedly been trying to read and gave a sigh. “I understand all too well your distress, Laminia, but I fear our Optio is correct in his assessment of the situation, surprising as that may seem.”

“He hasn’t recovered fully from the last time yet. He’s behaving even more brain-damaged than usual. How else can you explain this stupid idea.”

“Save for some unsightly scars, most of which could be removed cosmetically now that his wounds have fully healed, if only he would allow it, he is as hale as ever he was,” Luna replied.

“The foal will be here in two months; I want you with me,” Laminia said to Pumpernickel, pulling out the big guns.

“And I will be. Twilight Sparkle is sure that Fluttershy can have Gilda flying in less than a month. Griffons are incredibly tough, and while she does not acknowledge it, Fluttershy has strong natural healing abilities. If not for her handicaps she could have been one of the finest doctors in Equestria.” Pumpernickel gave a laugh, “I’d like to see one of the Royal Doctors splint a baby mouse’s leg, and have it take.”

“She is also not the only one in the household with magic,” Luna said thoughtfully.

The heavily-built stallion looked at his Princess in surprise.“You’re talking about little Curry Comb? But, didn’t you say that her magic was touch based and only effective on a subconscious level? She’d have to be in physical contact with Gilda for an extended period to have any effect on her. I can’t see Fluttershy allowing that. She might not let her own fears prevent her from treating Gilda, but there is no way she’s going to allow her brand new shiny daughter anywhere near a wounded and cranky griffon.”

Laminia glared at him. Having been married to her just under a year, Pumpernickel could tell that she had abandoned her current avenue of attack and was about to try and flank him. “Fine, if you’re insane enough to go back to that hellhole, I’m coming with you.”

“Thou art not, Hoof-maiden,” Luna said in a stern voice before Pumpernickel could put his hoof down, and possibly ending up sleeping on the couch till his next anniversary.

Laminia looked like she wanted to bite her Sovereign, but after a long, deep breath, she pulled her lips back down over her sharp teeth and growled, “I can’t just do nothing, I’ll go mad,” acknowledging with her words that she had conceded that she just wasn’t going to win this fight, with reservations. After all, Lumpy had dragged Luna in on his side, and that was cheating.

“There may be some service that I might assign to you that will be beneficial to us both,” said Luna, sounding so calm and reassuring that Pumpernickel knew something he was not going to like was going to be said in the next few moments.

“My Princess?” Pumpernickel said with a touch of panic in his eyes.

“Anything. If it will help keep Lumpy from getting any lumpier,” Laminia said, overriding her mate.

Luna paused as if to gather her thoughts, or merely for the dramatic effect. Luna did have a tendency toward the theatrical at times. “Gilda must be guarded. The future of her aerie and the relations between the Misty Mountain Kingdom and the Crystal Empire could well hang on her survival. Though I truly do not think Princess Gilda is in any great danger where she is, the consequences of any power struggle in the near vicinity to the Crystal Kingdom are dire enough that all possible precautions must be taken. Princess Sunny must reach maturity and take command from her aunt. That will never happen if Gilda does not survive her present convalescence.”

Pumpernickel hastily explained the strategy he had come up with and had not yet got around to mentioning, wanting very much to head the princess off from where he was afraid she was going, “I intend to spread the story that Gilda is personally teaching griffin culture to Prince Jake. I’m taking along a few pictures from before you reduced his age. I think they should impress the more warlike members of the aerie, particularly since they respect power so much and he made the Royal Guards in that one photo look like little colts. He was bigger than Gilda’s father, and he was the biggest griffon I have ever seen.

“I’ve also left Shadow Dash behind to watch over them,” he said almost as an afterthought.

Immediately Laminia replied, “Fluttershy will not allow him in the house. Stars, he scares the horseshoes off of Royal Guards on weekdays, just for fun, and you think meek little Fluttershy will just open her door to him? She knows me, and I'm fairly certain she trusts me more than she would any stranger.

“Thy gravid condition will be an asset in your plea. As one so recently come to a form of motherhood herself, I am certain that Fluttershy will offer you a roof over your head while thy husband galivants in dark and dangerous parts.”

***

“Say what, now?” Applejack exclaimed as she trotted toward the cowshed. The dozen cows who made it their home were all milling around outside. The normally placid ruminants were raising a ruckus, all of them talking at once.

“What’s up, Buttercup?” she asked the brown cow closest to her.

“There you are, Applejack. You just gotta fix this, don’t you know. It’s terrible. The Cowshed is haunted.”

That set the farm pony back on her heels and she cast a glance at the neatly painted shed as it stood there in the early morning sun looking just like it had every morning for as long as she could remember.

This particular herd of cows had been renting the shed from Sweet Apple Acres for longer than she’d been alive. For the most part, they’d been good tenants, their milk more than covering the upkeep of themselves and the shed, but they were prone to sudden excitement over the silliest thing, so Applejack took the idea the shed was haunted with a grain of salt.

“I’ll just go check it out,” Applejack offered while wondering if she was going to have to ask Fluttershy over to clear out whatever critter had taken up residence in the rafters yet again.

Trailed by the much bigger Buttercup, who threatened to tread on her heels, Applejack marched into the cowshed with her eyes lifted to check out the rafters, that being the most likely hiding spot for intrusive critters. With winter coming on it wasn’t unusual for a few opportunistic animals to seek out a warm place with lots of food to winter over. Applejack and the cows didn’t really have a problem with that, as long as they paid for their keep doing chores. It was the out and out freeloaders who only took without giving that burned her britches.

“See, it’s the strangest thing, don’t you know,” Buttercup said.

Applejack brought her head down from looking up into the roof to stare over at Buttercup, but as soon as she lowered her line of sight she was struck by an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. The woodwork in the barn was mostly unfinished, but given that limitation, it was in pretty much the same condition as the farmhouse kitchen the day before, glossy with polishing and the gleam of wax. The floors had been swept clean and then scrubbed till they were nearly white, and then on top of that, a coat of wax had been applied. No, on closer examination, it had to be two coats of wax. At this rate, the bees were going to have to work double shifts just to keep up. The walls and railings had likewise been cleaned and scrubbed. The only area of the shed that was not spic and span were the stalls the cows slept in.

“It was the same as always when we went to sleep, don’t you know. But when we woke up this morning it was like this,” Buttercup said with a quaver in her voice as she looked around with wide eyes. “Downright spooky it is."

Applejack heaved a sigh, caught between admiration and annoyance, with maybe just a little touch of jealousy if she was being honest with herself; and she always was.

“You needn’t fret, Buttercup. You don’t got a ghost problem, just a…” Applejack trailed off as she thought about how the prone to hysterics cows might react to the information that a nocturne Pony had spent the night cleaning the shed, at the time only a few hooves away from them.

“What’s that, Applejack?”

“Just a rogue maid looking for something to keep herself busy. I’ll have a word with her and she won’t bother you again.”

“Well now, Applejack,” Buttercup said, giving the inside of the shed a good look, “Could be that we wouldn’t mind her stopping by now and then. If she’d be willing to wear a cowbell, don’t you know. Just to let us know she’s around.”

***

“I swear, I expect to find the pigpen varnished next,” Applejack complained halfheartedly to Big Mac.

“Good worker,” Big Mac replied in a distracted tone as he watched Jake trotting down the lane with Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara as they headed out for another day at school.

“She’s making me feel guilty,” Applejack admitted grudgingly, and only because she knew that Big Mac was already aware of her feelings. “She's supposed to be a guest, she shouldn’t be doing nothing more than maybe helping clear the table, or giving Granny a hoof with the cooking. Instead, she’s doing things I’ve let slide for too long.”

“Can’t do everything. Got to decide what’s most important,” Big Mac said in his usual matter of fact way. Which might have been of more help if Applejack’s feelings were in any way based on rational objections and not on the instinctive reaction she felt toward a young, pretty mare moving in on her turf and showing her up. She wondered if Berry Punch and Cloudkicker had to deal with these sort of feelings in regard to Sneak Peek. Lyra and Bon Bon, who didn’t so much share Sweets, as folded him into their own relationship, were likely better able to deal with that situation.

“Well, it is only for a little while,” Applejack said in resignation. “I reckon I can deal with it for bit longer.”

***

There was nothing like the tired ache of well-used muscles, Goose thought as she sleepily stuck her muzzle into the large mug of hot chocolate Granny Smith had made for her. She’d been going soft working in the castle for the Princess, she conceded to herself. The last few days were the first time in weeks she’d worked up a good heavy sweat.

She flushed a little bit as the warm cocoa flowed into her belly. The rich chocolate flavor reminded her of celebrations from a much younger and much more carefree time. Of course, she’d been hiding under the kitchen table back then, less her ‘male’ relatives discovered her and shooed her away.

Her brothers, and some of her younger uncles, often exchanged tales around the dining table of how they had shadowed this, or that, norm. It was a bit of a contest between them to see who could get the closest, for the longest time.

Ponies in the street counted for little. They were so sense dead that even another norm could have shadowed them. But, a Royal Guard on sentry duty! That brought in the big points.

If you actually managed to use a magic marker to write a disparaging remark on the back of his helmet, that was worth a whole night of free drinks at the local guard hangout, with the tagged sentry paying.

They’d made it sound like so much fun that Goose had not been able to resist indulging herself a bit the night before. It had a been a bit scary working in the cowshed while the huge ruminants slumbered close enough for her to touch if she’d wanted to.

Goose had never seen a cow before coming to the farm, and found them frightening, especially when they loomed so high above her rather short stature.

Despite the fear, or maybe because of it, the experience had been the most exhilarating night she’d had since she was six. No wonder her male relatives found it so much fun. And, who knew all her practice at not being noticed while she cleaned around the nose-in-the-air crowd at the palace would come in so useful. Maybe one day she’d be as good as her big brother, Shadow Dash, who had once tagged the commander of the day watch, in his office, in the middle of the day.

“Hello baby sister,” a familiar quiet voice said from just behind her left ear.

***

Granny blinked her eyes and looked up at where Goose was clinging to the rafters with all four legs. “What in tarnation are you doing up there girl? You git down here. Y’all are getting hoofmarks on the nice clean ceiling you just scrubbed last night.”

As Goose fluttered down to the floor, Granny Smith turned her attention to the Nocturne stallion standing at parade rest in the middle of her kitchen and gave him a wide smile. “Well, ain’t you just as fine as frog hair. Makes me wish I was fifty years younger. Get you a cup of tea?”

***

“What’s the matter, Curry?” Jake asked. He stretched out his neck and nibbled on a loose strand of her hair, earning himself a swat across the nose, to which he reacted to by tossing up his head and snorting snot at Curry. For her part, she sidestepped the nasal bombardment with the ease of long practice.

“Yeah, you look as down as a scared turtle,” Apple Bloom remarked.

Diamond Tiara, who had retreated beyond splatter range, gave Jake a wide berth as she edged around him and came up beside Curry. “You know that you can tell me, anything,” she said in a sympathetic voice, which didn’t quite hide the burning curiosity behind her words.

“Ah, it ain’t nothing. Mom has this really wicked cool patient, but she wouldn’t let me stay at home to help look after it,” Curry said. She gave an innocent clump of dirt a sharp kick, sending a bit of grit pattering against the nearby bushes.

“Hey, watch where you're throwing that stuff. Who knows where it’s been,” a familiar, cranky, voice called out.

Di shied back on her hind legs, while Apple Bloom simply twitched an ear and Curry all but ran toward the talking bush and gave it a big hug, upon which it faded away revealing a chestnut brown Unicorn with a battered, and much patched, fedora on his head. “Stinky!” the small girl cried out in pleasure, her former cloudy expression clearing up. “Where you been hiding?”

The chestnut unicorn took off his hat and slapped it against his flank a few times to shake out the dirt before putting it back on his head. Curry couldn’t help but think his usual grumpy expression lacked a certain amount of authenticity as he said,” Been on my honeymoon, haven’t I? Think I got nothing better to do than hanging around a bunch of runny-nosed foals?”

“Keep away from him, Curry. You might catch something,” Di said, turning up her nose as she looked at the pony, who despite a neatly groomed coat, mane, and tail, still managed to look like he’d just crawled out of a cardboard box in some dirty alley.

“Oh, Stinky’s cool,” Curry reassured her. “And what have I told you about being polite?”

Di gritted her teeth, the sound of them grinding together audible for several strides and plastering a big tooth-baring smile on her face, said,” Pardon me, Mr. Stinky.”

“You don’t happen to have an assignment for us, Private… I mean Sneak Peek. Or ain’t you a private detective no more?” Apple Bloom said, starting out excited, and then becoming less so as she finished.

“Well, as it happens. I could use a hoof from you and a few of your friends. Some press ponies from Canterlot are scheduled to show up on the train just after lunch. I was wondering if the foals on the school paper might be interested in meeting them?”

“Press from Canterlot?” Di asked, her head and ears coming up while her eyes glistened with excitement.

“I don’t know,” Apple Bloom said uncertainly. “We’d still be in class. And even if we didn’t have school, what would we ask them?”

“Oh, I might be able to come up with a few questions for you if it came to that. Or maybe we’ll do something else with them. I’m still making up my mind. Whatever happens. I can promise that one way or another It will be a real education. Do you think Miss Cheerilee might let you out early for it? I could have Berry Punch ask her if you think it would do any good.”

“A field trip you mean?” Apple Bloom asked, now showing almost as much interest as Di.

“I don’t work on the school newspaper. Could I come anyway?” Curry asked, she didn’t have any interest in asking a bunch of strange ponies questions unless they were ‘strange’ ponies, but a field trip was a field trip.

“Oh, you have to be there,” Stinky said, his voice gleeful. “I just wouldn’t be as much fun without you. I’m sure Featherweight would be only too happy to make you a reporter.”

***

Her heartbeat still racing, but with all four hooves back on the floor, Goose started to introduce her brother, “This is my oldest brother, S--”

“Shadow, just Shadow. Very pleased to meet you, Granny Smith.”

“Likewise I’m sure, young feller my lad. I take it yer come to take young Goose off to that fur-en-er tent that they went and filled up the old fairground with?”

“You take it right, Granny Smith.”

“Now then, no need to be so formal. I told Goose, and as you’re her brother, I’ll tell you, it’s just, Granny.”

“I am honored, Granny,” Shadow Dash said, in his best lady-killer tone. Much to Goose’s embarrassment he gave the elderly earth pony a bow, and then took her left front hoof and gave it a brushing kiss.

“Oh, my, you are a bad one, ain’t you. You ought to save your wiles for someone who can appreciate it,” Granny chided him, blushing a little bit despite her words.

“I only offer what is due you for taking such good care of my baby sister,” Shadow said, his voice losing its flirtatious edge and turning serious.

Turning his attention to Goose, he told her, “Pack your things, Goose and you can show me this monstrosity we’ll be living in till Princess Luna gets bored with it.” A sudden rumble from his tummy broke the serious mode, and Goose caught his eyes flicking toward the frying pan sitting on the stove, still giving off the odor of freshly cooked pancakes.

“Now, jest you hold on, young feller. Goose has put in a hard day’s… night’s work. She might not be wanting to say so, but she’s plumb tuckered, and I reckon you likely are as well. Happens we’uns got a freshly made up room in the attic, even has its own entrance for pegasus folks. You’re more than welcome to it for the day.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Shadow protested, but Goose could see the signs of weariness around his eyes even as he said it.

Letting out a huge yawn that seemed to go on and on, Goose blinked her eyes to bring a bit of wetness to them as she looked blearily at her big brother. “I am a little bit tired,” she said in a tone contrived to indicate she was about to fall over right where she stood, but that she’d struggle to stay awake if that was what her big brother wanted.

Her brother gave Goose a suspicious look that taxed her ability to maintain the facade, even though she really was bone weary, but before his knowing look could break down her resistance Granny Smith horned in with her own two bits.

“That’s settled then. Goose, you show your brother up to his room. You know the way. I’d be taking him up myself,” she said, giving Shadow an appreciative look that caused Goose’s cheeks to heat. “But, I reckon my hips ain't up to the job.” Creakily getting out her chair, she walked stiff-legged over to the stove. “While you’re doing that, I’ll cook him up a mess of vittles. Come straight back down once you’ve dropped off your kit, Shadow. You do got a kit around somewhere? Never knew a soldier pony to be without one.”

When it looked like Shadow would continue protesting, she turned and gave him a glare. “None of that from you, youngster. You listen to Granny, or I’ll be having you cutting a whole hooffull of willow switches. you see if I won’t. Get on with you. Have a good meal, a good sleep, and you can have supper with us before you head out come nightfall. Let Goose make a proper goodbye of it to everypony before you and her leave.”

Goose watched in amazement as her indomitable brother who had forged unnumbered Royal Guards out of Cadets using a combination of profanity and direct threats, folded like a cheap suit and surrendered without another word. “I have no choice it would seem. To tell the truth, I spent the entire night in a tree with no company but some amorous bats. Show me the way to my room, Kite. I can already taste Granny’s pancakes.”

Goose smiled as her brother used the nickname coined by her youngest, older brothers. By doing so he was indicating he was off duty, and more importantly, in a place, he considered a proper sanctuary where he could let his guard down.

***

“Now children, I expect written reports on your experience and what you learn from it. Remember this is a school assignment and not simply an afternoon off,” Miss Cheerilee said in a loud firm voice that competed with the constant loud whispering of excited colts and fillies making plans for their unscheduled, unsupervised, field trip.

Because it had seemed unfair to only allow those foals associated with the school newspaper time off, Miss Cheerilee had quickly divided the rest of the class into groups and given them assignments to complete. Twist would be in charge of a group touring several bakeries and her aunt’s candy shop, other older foals would be in charge of other groups that would visit businesses in Ponyville to ask questions of the adults who ran them.

There was some overlap, every group insisted that the ice cream parlor, Lickity Split, be included in their list of businesses to visit. In order to prevent a war, Miss Cheerilee decreed that all the groups would gather at Lickity Split at the end of the day to compare notes, and indulge sweet tooths. She herself would be spending the afternoon there, grading papers and making sure that the students didn’t rush through their assignments and spend the bulk of the afternoon spoiling their appetites.

The fact that her sister, Berry Punch had invited her to get together this afternoon and gossip about her new husband and honeymoon had nothing to do with her decision to send the entire school off on a mostly unsupervised field trip. Really.

***

“Sure you don’t want to come along with my group?” Curry asked Jake.

“Nuh, huh, Twist is going to take me and Pipsqueak and some other ponies to see how Bon Bon makes candy. And we’ll be able to visit with Sweets too,” Jake replied with a shake of his head.

“Well. Okay, but don't make a nuisance of yourself. And don’t eat too much candy.”

“Can’t. Never enough candy,” Jake said, exchanging low hooves with Pipsqueak.

“Someone is getting too big for his britches, I see,” Curry said as she fought to keep a stern look on her face.

Jake just blew her a raspberry and said, “You just wish you was with us,” before turning and trotting off with his group.

“They grow up so fast,” Curry said, wiping a mock tear from her eyes. She looked up to where Featherweight was hovering in the sky. “Stinky had just better be ready to spring for ice-cream to make up for us missing out on the candy shop.”

Curry had to swallow to keep from drooling. Lickity Split was almost her most favorite store in Ponyville. Unlike Bon Bon, who had quickly started making human-sized confections, Lickety continued to serve Curry pony sized ice-cream cones and sundaes. She always ended up with more than she could eat, not that she let something like that stop her from ordering large sizes, as there was always at least one young pony nearby who was more than eager to take care of her leftovers.

“Noo zeen. Whar is yo' yo'ngsters gahn this mornin?" a strangely familiar voice asked in a badly garbled speech that seemed to contain at least six different and distinct accents.

“Huh?” The entire group of foals turned as one and stared at the apparition that had popped out of nowhere to address them. A dirty, literally, gray pony stood there wearing bib-overalls and sporting a straw hat draped limply over his head that looked like he’d recently gotten hungry and taken several bites out of it. A large hay-seed cutie mark decorated his flank. He had one hoof stuck through his suspenders while he idly scratched an itch on his chest. A strand of straw nearly long enough to reach the ground dangled through a gap in his hugely prominent buck teeth, that was accompanied by a set of choppers that would have looked large on a fully grown Jake and that seemed to be trying to overflow this pony’s mouth.

As one, ever foal there took one step backward, the pegasi flapping a few strokes higher.

“Do you know him?” Curry whispered out of the corner of her mouth at Di.

“Do I look like the sort of pony who would, like, associate with something like that? Ask Apple Bloom. He’s likely a relative.”

“I ain’t never seed, I mean, seen, him before,” Apple Bloom said nervously, ignoring Diamond Tiara’s insult as she stared at the weird pony in front of them.

A flash of light announced that Featherweight had snapped a picture. “I’ll give this to the Sheriff. Maybe the poor pony escaped from a home for the nutty,” he said.

“Maybe Pinkie Pie would know him,” Sweetie Belle suggested. When that caused all her friends to stare at her, she retorted defensively. “Oh, sure, like you weren’t all thinking the same thing.”

“I em hoort und deesmeyed thet nune-a ooff yuoo ungreteffool sprets recugneeze-a me-a.”

Looking left and right, and up in the air, Curry was sort of pleased to see that every other pony seemed as uncomprehending as she was.

“Pardon me,” Sweetie Belle said, from safely behind Apple Blossom. “Do you speak Equestrian.”

“Of course ah speak it. I’ve been speakin' it puffickly clearly all this hyar time. Is yo' deef.”

Curry thought she could almost make out what he was saying. Maybe it was those huge over-sized teeth that filled his mouth to overflowing that was the problem. “Anyone here speak Dentist?” she asked jokingly.

“I speak gibberish-- I mean dentist,” the surprising answer came from the back of the crowd. The foals parted and revealed an earth pony mare with a plum-colored coat and a raspberry shaded mane. Her flank was decorated with a cutie mark consisting of a bunch of grapes and a strawberry. She was a familiar and welcome sight.

“Berry Punch,” Curry said happily. “You can understand what he’s saying?”

“Why sure. No problem,” the mare answered in a stilted voice, lifting a hoof halfway through her sentence to look at a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of it.

“Wait a second. I know you,” Di exclaimed, pointing a hoof at the weird pony. “You’re that disgusting private detective, you married the town---”

Recognizing the direction Di was going, if not the specific destination, Curry gave her trainee a sharp kick in the ankle to derail her rant, before she said something really bad.

The small girl, and every foal with her turned toward the grey pony, looking at him with varying degrees of suspicion.

“Dang. Stinky. How’d I miss that?” A chagrined Curry said after a moment. She looked sideways at Di and said, “Good eyes, Diamond Tiara.”

“It is my talent, after all,” The rich pony preened. “Accessorizing. Everything about him is just screaming wrong, wrong, wrong. The old hat he usually wears might be filthy and disgusting, but it’s perfect for him, unlike that straw monstrosity he’s wearing now.”

“Why the disguise, Sneak Peek?” Scootaloo asked. “Are you on the trail of an international crime syndicate?”

The pony lifted a hoof and extracted the overly-large pair of false teeth from his mouth. “Oh, something far more vile and evil than that,” he said. “Like I told some of you this morning, the Canterlot Press Corps is coming to town,” Looking over at Berry Punch, he smiled. “Tell Colgate that her prop teeth worked a treat. I owe her.”

“I don’t understand,” Featherweight called from overhead, snapping a picture of Sneaky with the false teeth floating in front of him. “You’re a press pony. Aren’t they the same as you?”

“Exactly,” Sneak Peek said with a feral grin that caused several foals who were not familiar with him to step back even further than when they had merely thought he was a strange, stranger.

“So what do you want us to do?” Scootaloo asked, her wings vibrating slightly in excitement. Curry smiled, the Pegasus and her had a lot in common. She had no idea what Stinky was up to, or why he was doing it, but it was bound to be a lot of fun, so she was in.

***

“No way, no how, no ever,” Curry said empathically as Stinky held up the abomination in front of her. She shrank back from the ball gown Rarity had made for her like it was a cross and she was a vampire. “I don’t know how you got your hooves on that, but I am never, ever, wearing it again. It makes me look like a wedding cake.”

“It makes you look like a princess,” Diamond Tiara disagreed, looking at the glittering jewel bestrewn dress with sparkling eyes.

“You are a princess. You need to look like one,” Sweetie Belle said at the same time in a firm voice.

The two feminine fillies exchanged startled looks from their position on either side of Curry, as they shoulder shoved her toward Sneaky and the dress. Blank flank almost touching cutie marked flank. Both realized at the same time that they had unconsciously been worked cooperatively together to herd Curry toward Sneak Peek.

A silent message passed from one set of eyes to the other, “Just this once, for the sake of fashion.”

“Look, short and noisy, these ‘colleagues’ of mine are coming to Ponyville for one reason, to get some sort of a hook on your little brother that they can spin into a front-page headline.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Scootaloo asked. “He’ll be famous.”

Stinky’s response was to make an expansive move with a hoof in the direction of Scootaloo, while saying, “All they need is a picture of you and Rainbow and the headline would be 'Flightless Blank Flank Stalks Element of Loyalty.' Would you want your friend to have to live through that, Gabby Gums?"

“What? I’m not a stalker. I just think Rainbow Dash is the coolest pony in Equestria. She’s even my honorary big sister.”

Stinky looked at Curry while gesturing at the flustered Scootaloo. “Trust me, undersized. Cute and cuddly doesn’t sell. Not as far as these ponies are concerned. They think the nastier and more cynical they act, the more it proves how hard-core they are.”

“But you’re not like that. How can you be sure they are,” Curry pointed out.

“Awww, our iddle dickens is just so cuuute and innocent,” Sneaky said, gently chucking her under the chin with a hoof. “Filly, I’m what they want to be when they grow up. Just be glad I think being on your side is more fun than the alternative.”

“No need to get nasty,” Curry scowled at him as she swatted at his hoof. “Okay. I’ll do it. But only for Jake, and not because it’s a Princess dress and all girls are supposed to love princess dresses because I don’t.”

“That’s the Snipe I love and adore. Now, let's discuss how you go about gelding a press corp. Trust me. It’ll be fun.”

Turning to the rest of the foal, Stinky addressed them. “Now some of you have worked with me before, so you know the drill. The rest of you just play along.” He pulled out some notes and handed them to the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“What about me?” Diamond Tiara demanded.

“You’re Princess Moonlight Dancing on Water’s hoofmaiden, of course. Only the second most important pony in her kingdom. Your job is to look down your nose at any pony who tries to get too close to her. Treat them like something you’d wipe off your hooves before going inside. They’ll lap it up.”

“Well, I suppose I could manage to play that part,” Diamond Tiara said with faux modesty, causing every foal in hearing range to choke back their laughter, except for the ones who didn’t bother to try.

***

There are newsponies in Equestria who will travel to the farthest reaches of the known world to find stories and bring them back to their loyal readers. Reporters like Lotus Lane, Ploughboy, Miss Quote, whose stories educate and inform.

Reporters who will crouch behind debris while a stride away from them the Elements of Harmony combat Changelings in a life or death struggle.

Reporters who will live among the griffons for a year to learn about their culture so they can give a more accurate report on their likely behavior in regard to policies created by Princess Celestia.

Reporters who actually fought with others like them to have the privilege of attending Princess Luna’s first press conference after returning to Equestria, rather than taking shelter in the nearest basement bar till the expected apocalypse was over.

Reporters who consider interviewing a five-year-old prince a puff piece of no interest at all.

Then, there are the unicorn newsponies currently riding the train to Ponyville.

Who considered investigative journalism to consist of hanging out in low bars listening to disgruntled ponies complaining about their employers.

Who regarded anything more than a half-hour trot from their particular press-room as being in the hinterlands, and not worthy of a true newsponies attention.

Who consider speculating about Princess Cadence’s possible Baby Bump the most significant news story of the decade, if not the eon, matched only by those who had a pool going in regards to which lucky, or unlucky as the case might be, stallion first had a tryst with Princess Luna.

The pool also had a few side bets regarding the likely fate of said stallion, ranging from being treated to a lifetime of luxury, to getting himself devoured for poor performance, maybe even for a good performance if Luna was feeling particularly peckish after such strenuous activity.

Who reacted to the idea of interviewing a five-year-old prince with zero experience with the press the same way sharks behave with fresh chum in the water.

Quick Quotes looked up from where he was forging an extra zero to his expense account receipts, silently cursing the motion of the train and the low probability of getting back to Canterlot before happy hour at his favorite bar. He would have much rather pieced together his article from a combination of other reporter's pieces and the official news release, after adding a few salacious tidbits and at least one "Some ponies say that..." but his editor had marched him down to the train station, forced a ticket into his mouth, and watched the train car to make sure he didn't escape before it began the horribly long trip to rustic Ponyville. The muddy white, unicorn with splashes of black decorating his hide shifted restlessly on the lounge that barely contained him. “Why do you suppose Sun Butt is hiding him all the way out in here in podunk land?” Quick Quote asked his rival, and sometimes drinking companion, Poison Pen.

“I heard she’s doesn’t want him becoming the figurehead and rallying point of some rival political faction,” the shiny, bilious green unicorn answered. His sly voice nearly as poisonous in tone as his hide in appearance.

“Word is that old Blustery is trying to start something up like that,” Headline, a yellow pony with a washed out red mane and tail, remarked.

“I hear Blustery is in Chrysanthemum’s saddle bag. Bought and paid for.” Another pony named Clipart said from across the aisle.

Poison Pen smirked. “I hear that Chrysanthemum has his eyes on the throne, also that he used to have a sister who would have inherited the title. Disappeared out of her crib when he was only four.”

“I hadn’t heard that one,” a purplish unicorn with a plum-colored mane named, Prose, said. “Is it new?”

“Got any documentation?” White Out, a grossly overweight unicorn pony with a pasty white hide and a black streaked mane asked from where he threatened to overflow his lounge. His voice was a bit raspy as his lungs protested the effort to inflate under the layers of fat marbling his sides.

There was silence for a moment, and then the entire car of ponies burst into laughter.

“Good one,” Headline said, wiping a tear from his eye.

“The family clearly covered it up, bribed the hospital staff where she was born and destroyed all documentation,” Conspiracy said from where he sat in a corner, huddled under his floor-length black duster.

“Well, obviously,’ several ponies echoed each other while passing a bottle back and forth.

“Think this prince will survive?” Quick Quote asked. “Word is, he was an adult, and her Scaredyness turned him into a colt, wiped his memory.”

“Where’d he come from, anyway?” Prose asked.

Headline shrugged. “No pony knows.”

“So, could be anywhere. Maybe even the moon,” White Out suggested.

“Maybe he’s the son of Darkness’ demon lover?” Poison Pen suggested.

“Anyone know if he has bat wings? Might be a freak Nocturne.”

“Oh, that would be good! But nah. Rosey on the Society beat said he had normal pegasus wings.”

“Too bad. What about the horn. Heard that there was some big pegasus running around with a fake horn a few weeks back.”

“Surgical implant?” somepony tossed out.

“Oh. I like that one. Have to get some quotes from some doctors who do horn enhancement surgery, see if it could be done.”

“Think he might be a plant, to stir things up, give Chrysanthemum some leverage? Or draw him out, if Sun Butt is behind it.”

“The Baron’s not stupid. He knows there is no way he or any of his cronies could ever sit on the throne. Getting control of the pony who might would the next best thing, however.”

“An alicorn patsy, in his pocket. Could have possibilities.”

“Sun Butt has been around a long time. Might be encouraged to let some fresh blood have a shot.”

“The black bitch is no threat; the entire country would revolt if she tried to rule on her own.”

“Don’t know. Hear her numbers are climbing.”

“That would stop if they found out she’s been working her way through the Night Guard.”

“Won’t work. They’re stupid loyal to the crown, you’ll never find one willing to front a tell-all story like that.”

“Think she might be doing it? For real I mean? Seeing as how they’re so loyal and all.”

“She’s got that big honking tent set up outside of this hick town. Love-nest maybe?”

“Who’s staffing it? Lots of buff Stallions by any chance?”

“Don’t know. Maybe, if it’s not too far from the train station we could give it a look see.”

“What about the pet?”

“What pet?”

“The weird looking thing dressed like a cake that came to the reception with the new prince. Sun Butt introduced her as a Princess Passing Water or something like that.”

“Oh, that thing. Got to be one of her jokes. Likely just some clever animal that can mimic pony speech.”

“Like Griffons,” Poison Pen snarked, causing another eruption of mean laughter.
The train car jolted slightly, causing the ponies inside to glance out the windows. “Look’s like we’re arriving. First thing I’m going to do is find myself a bar. Can’t believe they don’t serve anything hard on this tinker-toy,” Quick Quotes said.

***

Wooshter flapped his wings and half walked, half flew, over to the train window and peeked out the top pane at the busy platform outside as if it were filled with pegasus-eating sharks instead of disembarking reporters. Admittedly, the distinction was fairly thin. “I say, looks like we’re here,” the gangly brown Pegasus said in a morose tone. “You’re sure she’ll refuse me?” he asked Fancy Pants, for about the hundredth time.

That dapper gentlepony made a check mark on the racing form he had been perusing before looking out the window at the train platform they had pulled up to, and then over at his awkward companion. Despite his first impression, Fancy Pants had taken a bit of a shine to the colt, although he still was not quite willing to put in the years worth of work that could turn Wooshter into a gentlestallion. Or perhaps decades. There was a good heart under that gormless exterior, but the same could be said for a golden retriever, that didn’t mean you let it run loose in at a high society party.

"I say, the odds of you maintaining your treasured bachelor status are quite high, young colt. Trust me on this. She'll say no. She might even be nice about it. But, that I can’t promise.”

“I don’t mind if she’s not nice, just so long as she says no. I say it was awfully swell of you to come along with me. Moral support and all that, what,” Wooshter said.

“Not at all, dear chap. Think nothing of it. I’m at loose ends at the moment and I have a couple of friends in town I’m looking forward to seeing in more relaxed surroundings. No need to thank me. We just happened to be going in the same direction.”

“I suppose we might as well get ready to leave,” Wooshter said, looking around the train car in a vague way. “Now where did I put my bag?” he muttered.

“In the overhead rack,” Fancy Pants said, using his horn as a pointer. “No need to rush. The train will be laying over for at least a half-hour to unload. Give the crush time to subside.” As he talked, Fancy Pant twisted an ear in the direction of the car ahead of him, from which loud nasty laughter had emerged all through the train trip.

It wasn’t a concern for himself that had him delaying his exit till the reporters had cleared the platform. He personally had no fear of the Filth estate: his personal term for the segment of the press riding in the car in front of theirs. They knew to step warily around him ever since he shut the doors on the Equestrian World News by simply remarking in passing that he had cured his pet bird’s diarrhea by no longer using that particular publication to cover the bottom of the poor thing’s cage. Readership had fallen off a cliff. Not that there weren’t plenty of others of the same ilk ready to take up the slack.

No, he had nothing to personally fear from the gutter press, but he would not be responsible for focusing their attention on either Twilight or Rarity or for that matter, Princess Moonlight, by allowing them to be aware of his visit.

***

The business area of the train platform contained a large picture window, and Curry had glanced in it, or more correctly, at it, while waiting for her cue to advance out onto the platform. The image she saw reflecting back at her was wonderful. She looked like Cinderella in her ball gown. She lifted a hand to her thoroughly brushed mane, wishing she had a tiara to complete the picture. The gesture reminded her that Stinky had made her take off her headband with the big fake ears. Her head felt bare without it, and even normal noises seemed just slightly quieter with Rarity’s magical accessory removed. She reminded herself that it would be a bad idea to get too used to relying on magical tools, but she missed the fine degree of hearing she enjoyed with the headband. At least she wasn’t at home and needing its help understanding the household critters. Without it, she couldn’t even hear a mousse chitter, let alone try to figure out if he was hungry, or complaining that the badger had stepped on his tail.

“Be off with you Knave!” Diamond Tiara, who was standing alongside Curry, said quietly with a scornful sniff. “No, no, needs to be haughtier,” she muttered. “How dare you! Be off with you! Does that sound right to you, Curry?”

“Sounds perfectly natural to me,” Apple Bloom said from behind them.

From somewhere Sneaky had produced some second-hoof fedoras, one of which, with a scribbled press pass stuck in the hat band was perched on Apple Bloom’s head. It was a bit large and she had to keep using a hoof to push it back on her head each time it slid forward over her eyes.

“Why, thank you…” Di started to say in a pleased voice, only to narrow her eyes as she twisted her head around to glare at her temporary roommate. “Just what is that suppose to mean?”

“Oh yeah, you got the snotty high-falutin noble thing down perfectly,” Scootaloo said. Along with Sweetie Belle, she was wearing an identical, if slightly better fitting, fedora to the one Apple Bloom had on her head.

“Sure does come naturally to you,” Sweetie Belle agreed, nodding her head, something her horn allowed her to do with impunity as the very tip of it was sticking through a hole in her hat brim and helped keep it from sliding off her head.

“Why you little---”

“Focus Di,” Curry growled, reaching over and digging her fingers into Di’s mane. as much to steady her own nerves as to stop the bad-tempered pony from lunging at the press.

Stinky had talked up how wicked and evil these reporters were so much that she was actually feeling a bit nervous about this whole thing. All she had for backup, after all, were a bunch of foals her own age, against wicked bad adult ponies. In her mind's eye, she could see them looming over her, as tall as Jake had been, bulging with muscles and eyes gleaming like Nazgul’s steeds.

“Curry?” Di said. “Curry. That’s the signal,” Di repeated, this time sticking her head in the small of Curry’s back and shoving her around the corner of the train office and out onto the platform. Directly in the path of the Canterlot press ponies. Curry froze in place, they froze in place, and they all stared at each other in various degrees of surprise.

Pathetic Curry couldn’t think of any other word to use. Fat, scrawny, blown, swaybacked, mangy... She was looking at the biggest collection of glue factory candidates she’d seen since she arrived in Equestria. Every last bit of her nervousness disappeared, and she wasn’t acting in the least little bit when she gave them a look of total disdain. Back home she would have reported their owners to the ASPCA, but this pathetic bunch of ponies had done this to themselves. What a bunch of losers.

***

The Canterlot press ponies came to a messy halt as they were confronted by a bizarre apparition totally outside their experience. It looked like an upside down ice-cream cone, as broad as a pony’s stance at the base, tapering to a small brown nut of a face that glared at them from the top of the frothy confection that was its dress.

The press ponies being one and all avowed cynics of the highest order were, of course, aware of the cost of everything, and the value of nothing. Bloodshot and jaundiced eyes ran over the unique fashion creation in front of them, assessing the stitching, the diamond chip highlights, the jewel-encrusted hem, and collar. The frothy lace sleeves. They had no idea if the outfit was stylish, or of any artistic merit, but one and all, they came to the same conclusion: expensive, very, very expensive. An original creation of the finest workponyship. Easily worth their yearly salary plus their padded expense account.

While none of the newsponies had been on the allowed list for the recent reception that had introduced Prince Jake Apple and Princess Moonlight Dancing On Water, to the public, they had read the news report on it. They knew that the little creature had to be the mysterious Princess Moonlight. Carefully they looked around and failed to spot any guards who might step in, not to mention step ‘on’, if they got to close. As far as they could tell, she was wide-open.

With that realization, everypony of them mutually decided, that this, whatever-it-was, was opportunity knocking. Notebooks came out, pencils were licked, and a mental Rolodex of intrusive questions was leafed through.

Before any of the headline-hungry hoard could yell out a question, a flashbulb went off and a small pegasus colt zoomed into the scene, swooping around the creature and taking picture after picture. At the same time, a whole herd of foals stampeded onto the platform, swarming all around the press ponies’ hooves before spilling out to form a solid barrier between them and the gown-clad freak.

Confronted with a hoard of foals at play, the normal reaction of the newsponies would have been to sneer at the cheerful good-natured play, and if there were no witnesses, of an adult nature, present, they very likely would have taken great pleasure in disrupting the foal’s fun. This situation being what it was, they had a very strong inclination to wade into the hoard of foals, shoving and kicking them out of the way to get to their target.

Several things stopped them from taking such actions. One: just because they couldn’t see a guard, didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Some of them knew that from very painful experience. Two: the act of shoving the foals out of their way might scare off their big score. Three: Foals had a nasty habit of biting when you tried to bully them and there were a lot of them here.

Milling around the scrum of foals that separated them from Princess Moonlight, they contemplated their individual options. It never occurred to them to cooperate in any way, shape, or form, to achieve a mutually beneficial result.

Before they could come up with anything, questions began to pepper their target.

“Princess Moonlight, Princess Moonlight, Princess Moonlight,” the three fillies with press passes stuck in the brims of their hats shouted.

“How did your meeting with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna go?”

“Are you serious about insisting Ponyville is your ancestral home, and all ponies living here must become your slaves, or leave within twenty-four hours.”

“Did you agree to let the Alicorn prince free? Or are you still holding him captive in your castle.”

The large crowd of foals in back of the first three all shouted out variations of their questions.

Each and everypony of the newsponies experienced a sudden epiphany. Princess Moonlight was a curiosity. A surefire headline on a slow-news-day, and likely an ongoing source for speculative stories, but an interview, or tell-all story about an Alicorn stallion, even if only a colt. That was front page all the way.

They started to pay attention much more closely, waiting to see if they’d be able to divine the location of Prince Jake from the way Princess Moonlight answered the questions being tossed her way.

“Begone with you!” a magenta colored foal yelled as she stepped out from behind the princess. “My mistress has no time for such uncouth rabble. You don’t even have your cutie marks yet,” she said as she turned slightly and displayed the Tiara cutie mark on her flank.

“Does your mistress really think she can continue to hold the prince captive?” a foal with a yellow coat and a red mane demanded as she pushed forward till she was nose to nose with the Tiara foal.

“You have no idea how powerful my mistress is. Not even Princess Celestia or her powerful sister can penetrate the magic she has cast around her domicile. If they ever wish to see their beloved prince again they will treat with her, or suffer the consequences.”

“Treat? Does someone have treats?” came a question from the main scrum of ponies. The speaker was quickly shushed by his companions.

Quick Quote took advantage of the sudden disruption of the foal’s game to call out in what he imagined was a good-humored manner befitting an adult indulging a bunch of snot-nosed foals, “Oh, mighty Princess Moonlight, where is your domicile?”

The entire group of foals went silent and the newspony found himself the target of numerous eyes that were looking at him with varying degrees of derision.

“What a loser,” came a voice from inside the herd.

It was followed by another voice yelling out, “Let’s go someplace else.”

“Yeah, where there are no weird fat ponies.”

As one the entire herd of foals and the princess turned and fled from the platform. The princess was bracketed by the magenta foal and a blank flank filly with a light gray coat and a mulberry mane. She had her paws resting in the middle of the fillies’ backs and was using that support to help herself make long high strides as they ran away at a pace the newsponies could not hope to match.

Racing after the foals, though a more proper term, might have been limping, or staggering, not to mention wheezing, the newsponies got to the corner or the platform just in time to see the herd of foals dispersing in all directions. Of the distinctive form of the princess, there was no sign.

With no plan and no cooperation, the newsponies split up, each one taking off after one of the dispersing foals, hoping that their target would lead them to the Princess, and then the Prince.

***

Curry looked over the edge of the railway office roof as the spavined ponies waddled and limped down Manestreet. “Coast is clear,” she hissed down to where Diamond Tiara was huddled inside a barrel laying on its side, along with Curry’s ball gown. The rich little pony’s mane was disarrayed and her coat smudged with dirt, but she looked up at Curry with eyes that gleamed from excitement, and there was a smile on her face that actually looked genuine. She eased herself out of the barrel, carefully pulling Curry’s dress along and trying to avoid smudging it more than necessary, even if that meant her own coat picked up even more dust.

Once again the quick release feature Curry had insisted Rarity build into the dress had come in handy. It had been the work of moments to skin out of it, step on Di and Sweetie Belle’s backs and jump to the roof of the station.

You would have thought that in a world with Pegasi, the stupid jerks chasing them might have glanced upward at least once when they couldn’t see her in the street, she thought in disdain.

Rolling herself up the slope of the roof, in order to keep a low profile, Curry slid down the other side and eased herself over the edge. She hung from her hands for a moment before dropping to the platform with a small grunt. Feeling very satisfied with herself she stood up while brushing herself off, and came face to muzzle with a gangly brown pegasus who was looking at her with a startled expression, his eyes bulging slightly.

Before Curry could react, the pony dropped to his front knees in front of her, while muttering something under his breath. She thought she picked up ‘hope’ and ‘right’, but could not be sure. She fumbled in one of the little pouches built into her skirt for her headband, but before she could slip it over her head the pegasus blurted out, “Princess Moonlight, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

***

Halfway down the platform, Fancy Pants slapped a hoof to his forehead in exasperation. So much for arranging an appointment and calmly and clearly explaining the situation to the princess and her mother.

Well, at least there was no worry about the young Snipe accepting the proposal. He listened for the princess’ reply, the silence growing longer and longer, till at last, she spoke.

“Sure. Why not?”

A startled Fancy Pants lurched forward, and his front hoof skidded out from under him as he performed his first face plant since his early teenage growth spurt had left him uncoordinated and clumsy. Stars floated around his head as his chin slammed into the platform.

***

Curry grinned in satisfaction as the Pegasus’ face fell and a look of total disbelief and shock filled his eyes. That would teach him to play such a stupid joke on her.

“Well, let me know when the wedding is. Right now there’s an ice-cream sundae with my name on it waiting. I got to git there before it melts.” With a casual wave, she darted off the platform, after taking a quick look to make sure none of the glue-factory rejects were hanging around.

***

“Afternoon, Granny. Goose Down still sleeping?” Applejack said as she glanced into the kitchen.

“Yep,” Granny Smith looked at the clock, “But I were about to wake her up.”

“Don’t bother, I’ll see to it,” Applejack said, turning and heading for the stairs.

Granny lifted a hoof to forestall her granddaughter but paused as a mischievous expression crossed her face, and she allowed Applejack to carry on without speaking up.

Granny chuckled softly to herself as Applejack disappeared up the stairs. She’d been neglecting her duties for too long, she thought. As Matriarch of the Apple clan, it was her duty to make sure the family’s good strong bloodline continued. She’d been letting things slide, hoping Applejack would meet a nice strong feller on her own, but Applejack was almost twenty-two now, another year and she’d be an old maid on the shelf, past her best before date. Time for Granny to put her hoof down and make a few pre-emptive arrangements.

Goose was a good hard worker and her big brother looked like he was cut from the same mold. Watching the way he acted around Goose, Granny could tell he was a steady dependable pony who was good with foals and young’uns. He was likely more than ready to settle down and raise up some of his own. A sudden frown crossed her face. Unless he already had? She considered that for a moment, and then gave a shrug. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. All she could do for now was to start throwing a few stallions Applejack’s way. Not just Applejack either. Past time Big Mac stopped dilly-dallying. Especially as he had a heck of a lot more options than his sister. She started running down the list of her Granddaughter’s friends in her mind, considering which one of them might make a good match for Big Mac.

***

City folk who thought farmers were uncomplicated, even simple, never really stopped to consider the amount of time a farm pony had to think without interruption. Or if they did, it was likely with the attitude that the farmers had to be, by definition, brainless to do such work, and therefore didn’t do a lot of thinking, even if they did have lots of time to do it.

Applejack had been tending the fields and orchards of Sweet Apple Acres from the moment she could walk, more or less. The everyday tasks that filled her days were ingrained into her muscles and required only minor supervision from her conscious mind, leaving the rest of her intellect free to think about whatever might currently be on her mind. This could be a good or bad thing. Bad when her thoughts were filled with how empty their bank account was, good when it gave her time to straighten out her attitude toward her current house guest.

While it was certainly true that the farmhouse and cowshed had never looked so good, that was not an indictment against Applejack. She’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t do it all on her own. There just wasn’t enough time in the day to both look after the house and get all her other chores done. Goose wasn’t doing farm work on top of all the housecleaning she did so well. Of course, she was getting stuff done that Applejack had let slide.

Thinking about Goose had led Applejack’s thoughts down another path. Where Applejack had ‘really’ gone wrong, she had been forced to concede, was to not ask for outside help from some of her kin-folks when it started to become obvious the farm was too much for them to handle on their own, galling as that might be. Granny Smith needed help in the house, and an extra hoof or two in the fields might be the difference between success and failure in the next few years. It was time and past time to sit down and crunch some numbers. Would a hired-hoof contribute enough to the bottom line to cover the cost of his, or her, hire? What other options did she have? Well, there was one, Applejack thought with a grimace. Marriage. Foals. A husband to share life’s burdens with, to help her create a new generation of Apples.

The stubborn mare hated to admit it but could be that Granny had a point all this time. Applejack, and Big Mac, but mostly Applejack, as she was the heir, had a duty to the farm that went way past simply doing chores. Duty meant making sure there was another generation of Apples to take over one day.

Not really any different, when you thought about it, from what they were doing out at the old north orchard. Tearing out the old trees and planting new ones so that they would have a productive orchard in ten or fifteen years was just good farm management. Making sure the family continued was the same thing. Applejack paused on the stairs, a scowl on her face. That sounded so cold, hooking up with a stallion just so she’d have foals to carry on the family name by the time she was too worn out to handle it on her own.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in stallions, despite Rarity’s teasing. It was just that she wanted there to be ‘something’ there. Something special. Her mind flashed to Twilight and the glow the unicorn seemed to give off every now and then since she and the princess had spent that night alone in a tent. It usually happened when Twilight didn’t think anypony was looking. She’d get a dreamy expression on her face and lose all awareness of her surroundings until something, or somepony jolted her out of it.

Applejack didn’t see the attraction herself, but she wasn’t about to deny that there was ‘something’ real between her friend and Princess Luna. She’d never admit it to any of her friends, or family, but she’d really like to have some of that there ‘something’ her own self. She gave a sigh. She blamed Big Mac. There wasn’t a stallion who could come close to meeting the standard her big brother set. Not even Jake when he’d had his full size because he’d lacked the maturity to go with it.

***

The sound of hooves on the stairs woke Shadow Dash from a deep sleep to a semi-conscious state as he luxuriated in one of the nicest beds he’d ever slept in. The cessation of those hoof steps as the climber hesitated and stopped brought him to full wakefulness. Was someone trying to sneak up on him? His first thought was that Goose was looking for a little sisterly payback. That was dismissed as soon as it was considered, his sister hadn’t been that noisy since she was seven. An attacker? Unlikely in the extreme. He wasn’t out on a campaign or sleeping in the non-commissioned officer quarters, both hotbeds of daylight raids.

One of the house’s residents, most likely. Not the big stallion, the steps were too light. Not the little filly, steps were too heavy. He already knew that Granny couldn’t handle the stairs. Had to be Applejack, the Element of Honesty, the steps were just right.

Now the hesitation made sense. A fine looking filly like that, understandable she’d be a bit reluctant visiting a grizzled old non-com like him in his temporary quarters. After all, he was a soldier and a Night Guard and both of those had a certain reputation in regards to mares. Not entirely undeserved in a lot of cases he had to admit. He frowned slightly. Maybe that was why she was creeping up the stairs? If so, she was going to be disappointed. He hadn’t done that sort of thing in years, and it hadn’t been from lack of offers or opportunities.

Shadow considered getting out of bed and saving the mare a bit of embarrassment by meeting her at the door on his way out, but his seldom expressed sense of humor choose that moment to rear its head and so he stayed where he was, the blankets pulled up over his entire body.

A soft knock sounded on the door, and a few seconds later he heard it open and a soft voice call out, “Goose? You awake Sugarcube?”

Ahhh, so that was how it was. The cute filly thought he was Goose. For a moment he felt slightly disappointed, which he immediately chastised himself for. Had he really thought she might be sneaking up to his room for a bit of afternoon-delight? She was young enough to be his daughter, literally. He really needed to start acting his age.

Despite this self-castigating, he remained silent as he listened to her hoof-steps coming closer.

***

Applejack reached out to give Goose Down a little poke through her covering of blankets and hesitated. Nocturne were in general considered more feral than normal ponies. Maybe suddenly waking one from a deep sleep wasn’t a very good idea? She raised her voice slightly and called out, “Rise and shine, snowpea. Time to get those lazy bones out and about.” A soft indistinct mumble came from under the blanket, reassuring Applejack with how much it resembled Big Mac’s protest when she tried to wake him up after a late evening hoedown, and too much Sweet Apple Select.

Settling herself onto the mattress between the edge of the bed and the lump that was Goose, Applejack tried to get her thoughts in line. “I ain’t been a very good host,” she said.

The lump made a protesting sound.

“Oh, it’s true. I just sort of shoveled you into the house and forgot about you. I was busy, but that twernt no excuse. Could have been a mite more friendly, chatted a bit in the evening.” She gave a big sigh. “You’ve done right by us. Ain’t seen the first floor looking so nice and shiny in a coon's age. And the cowshed,” she gave a little laugh, “Tell you what, The cows think it’s supernatural, how clean you got it.

“Well, anyway. There ain’t any getting around that I got chores coming out of my as… ears, but I think I can get myself and Big Mac free this weekend. Pinkie Pie is throwing a big street party with dancing. Be pleased as punch if you’ll come along and enjoy yourself, my treat.”

“Are you asking me out on a date, little filly?” A very not-feminine voice asked as the covers slipped down and a handsome middle-aged nocturne stallion stuck his head out to look at her with eyes that seemed to bore right inside her.

***

Granny, Goose Down, and Big Mac looked up as Applejack walked into the kitchen, her face shading toward scarlet. Applejack’s eyes sought out her elder, and she rather plaintively asked, “How could you let me go and make such a plum fool of myself, Granny?”

“I didn’t think you were foolish at all,” Shadow said softly as he came into the kitchen behind Applejack on soundless hooves. The currently high-strung filly gave a startled whinny and crow-hopped to the side, the flush on her face spreading down her neck. She looked like steam was about ready to come out her ears.

“I thought it was a very thoughtful invitation, and if it is still open, Goose and I would be delighted to accompany you into Ponyville this weekend.”

“S...sure thing. We’ll have a lot of fun… I mean, not lots, some fun. Yeah. Some fun, not too much fun, just some... Oh darn. Jest remembered. Forgot to turn off the water in the barn. I’ll go do that right away.” With that, a furiously flushing Applejack galloped out of the house.

"She seems nice,” Shadow said to a befuddled Goose who was staring after Applejack with wide startled eyes. He settled in at the table and smiled at Granny, who returned his grin with one just as wide. “Good to meet you,” he greeted Big Mac, extending a hoof across the table. The big red farm pony absently bumped hooves with him, as he, like Goose, stared in the direction his sister had disappeared.

***

“Now I have you,” The bilious green pony snarled at Diamond Tiara, in between the panting and the wheezing.

The usually elegant filly was far from being at her best. Dripping with sweat, and breathing a bit heavily herself. She was still in far better shape than her opponent and had easily been outrunning him, pausing now and then when he fell too far behind, but she’d taken a wrong turn and gotten herself trapped against a fence.

Up to that point, she’d been having a surprising amount of fun, but now her heart was fluttering from fear as she stared up into the bloodshot eyes of her pursuer. This was not some indulgent stallion she could wrap around her hoof with an innocent dewy-eyed expression. This was the sort of stallion her daddy had always told her to stay away from if she should ever meet them. She didn’t know what the angry male might do to her, but that didn’t stop her from being terrified at the idea that he would do ‘things.’

The sudden buzzing sound of furiously flapping pinions filled the alley and even drowned out the poisonous green pony’s wheezing.

Looking through her captors legs Diamond Tiara felt her frantically beating heart give a leap at the sight of Scootaloo, helmet firmly on her lowered head, hooves planted firmly on her scooter base and handle, bearing down on the reporter from behind. Scootaloo reared back at just the right time, lifting the nose of her scooter to just the correct height, and hit.

The adult pony who a moment before had looked so huge as he loomed over her gave out a strangled high pitched squeak, and slowly toppled forward as he curled into a ball, his legs protectively clutching himself.

Buzzing around the hunched-over stallion, and not giving him a second look, Scootaloo skidded to a stop parallel to Diamond Tiara. Somewhere the little blank flank had acquired a pair of darkly shaded goggles, and a lollipop; the stem of which was sticking out of the side of her mouth.

The suddenly very cool looking filly extended a hoof to Di, and mumbled around her sweet, “Come with me, if you want to get there before your ice-cream melts.”

Stunned, Di extended a hoof and was swung around onto the back of Scootaloo’s scooter. She wrapped her forelegs around the small pegasus and buried her face into Scoot’s short mane as they accelerated furiously out of the dead-end alley.

Author's Note

For more on Diamond Tiara’s talent, check out. “Diamond Tiara Buys a Baby Sister.” By Georg

Don't worry about the press ponies being a long term story element. The foals are going to send them packing during this story arc.

There will be underlying plot threads, but I'm going to try to touch on a few of the episodes of Season Three in various story arcs. Sometimes front and center if it was a Foal centered episode, like Bab Seed, sometimes ignored, like Discord

Chapter 4 [edited]

How to Train Your Batpony
Chapter 4

***

“And this is the Ponyville Jail,” Sweets said while standing on the stoop facing the group of eager foals clustered in front of him and hoping very hard that it was indeed the jail and not just some random large stone building.

It was a bit embarrassing, and something he’d rather not admit, that this was the first time he had actually come to his official office since taking up his new assignment. It had simply seemed at the time that the easiest thing to do was to stay right where he had been since coming to Ponyville. It wasn’t like there was a crying need for his services after all, and everypony knew where to find him if they needed him.

Working from home meant that he could help Bon Bon with the shop and be available if anyone needed him to do any sheriffing. And, the fringe benefits of spending all his time with Lyra and Bon Bon were nothing to sneeze at. It was that time of year, and Bon Bon’s sweet, sweet, juices were some of the best he’d ever tasted, while Lyra was a total pushover when it came to giving into his heartfelt entreaties. He could wrap her around his hoof with nothing more than a hungry look. The pale green unicorn might protest, say she wasn’t that sort of pony, but in the end that didn’t stop her from using her magic to sneak him some candy from the display cabinets whenever he felt a bit peckish, and Bon Bon wasn’t looking. What more could any stallion ask for? All the frozen fruit juice he could drink, and gourmet chocolate whenever he felt the need for a snack. Life was good.

He hadn’t given a thought to his ‘physical’ office until Twist had shown up with a group of her school friends, including Prince Jake Apple, and announced that she and her little friends were on a school field trip. Their assignment from school was to visit several businesses in Ponyville and learn how they worked, including a tour of his office and the jail. It was only then that he realized he had no idea where either of those were and wound up in the embarrassing position of having to ask Lyra for directions to his own jail. The price for her silence had been two of his secondary feathers, which she had promised him, with a wink and a kiss, he would not regret sacrificing.

He’d had to spend all the time the foals were getting their tour of the candy shop under an ice-cold shower before he was ready to walk around in public.

“Do yer 'ave any diabolically devious, deadly and dastardly, right, criminals locked up?” Pipsqueak asked. As the shortest pony in the group, he was right up at the front, with Jake in the back looming over his fellow foals in much the same way he’d loomed over Sweets himself just two weeks previously.

“If you do, can we thee them?” Twist asked. She was standing beside Pipsqueak, taking her duty as group leader very seriously. She was in charge of the clipboard that had all the questions they were supposed to ask. Unfortunately, she had been a bit lax in her duties while at the candy shop and it was smeared with syrup and raspberry stains at the moment.

Sweets gave a laugh. “I only started a little while ago. I haven’t had time to lock up any villainous villains I’m afraid.”

“Not a one?” the foals chorused in disappointment.

“What a rip,” Snips said from beside his taller friend, Snails.

“Sorry about that. I’ll see if I can’t do better the next time,” Sweets said indulgently. “Why don’t we take a look inside?” Turning around he took a good look at the stout door that was mounted in a wall of field dressed stone. The fact that it was the first door in Ponyville he had seen that had a metal lock was a good sign that he was in fact in front of the correct building, as was the construction of the structure itself. It was very different from the typical post and beam construction of the majority of Ponyville houses, and was also a lot larger than he had been expecting. While not as tall as many of the buildings in Ponyville, the dressed stone walls stretched a good distance up and down the street from where he was standing.

An explanation for why a simple country jail was so large came in the form of a small brass plaque secured next to the door frame. Ponyville Jail and Emergency Storm Shelter Under the first plaque was another, smaller one, that said, and Ursa Minor Shelter, then another under that and Parasprite Shelter.

Sweets found that the door was locked when he tried it, which in retrospect, he should have expected, given the large keyhole in the heavy metal plate the doorknob was mounted in. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a key, and had no idea where he could find one.

“Excuse me,” a very faint voice said from behind Sweets in a tone that sounded like it wanted to hide under the bed, if voices could, in fact, hide under beds.

Sweets turned, along with all the foals who had been crowding up behind him.

“Hi J.B.” Pipsqueak cheerfully greeted a dusty-grey pony who was standing in the street looking at them in dismay while also giving the impression that much like his voice, he would like nothing better than to have something he could crawl under, or hide behind.

“Yer did a right cool Uncle Bob on the bloomin' teeter-totter. Scootaloo shot clear over the schoolhouse when we all jumped off the tree and onto the uvver end,” Pipsqueak continued his greeting.

“Thank you,” the pony replied in his skittery voice.

Must be the town custodian, one who really liked zebras, Sweets thought as he took in the pony’s appearance. He had the type of gray hide that looked like someone had dusted him with flour and was wearing a flat-topped round black and white striped hat on his head, which matched the black and white striped front pants with the shirt he was wearing, as well as the bar-code-like cutie mark on his flank. “Have you come to let us in?” Sweets asked.

The pony startled slightly, looking even more like he wanted to crawl under something. Looking upward and slightly to the side so he wasn’t looking Sweets straight in the eye, he eyed the pegasus left wing nervously for a moment before he said, “No…sheriff. I didn’t know anypony wanted to be let in. If I had, I would have left the key hanging on the doorknob.” While talking the pony very slowly and carefully, making no sudden moves, reached into the neck of his shirt and eased out a big old fashioned key on a string, which he held out to Sweets.

“Couldn’t you have just left the door unlocked?” Sweets asked as he used the over-sized key to unlock the door.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. The front door has to be locked at all times when there is nopony inside,” he said as he sidled past Sweets and into the room. Once inside he scurried across the floor with a gait that was as much sideways as it was forward. Reaching the other side of the room he took off his cap and hung it on a peg on the wall.

Sweets opened his mouth to point out that hanging the key on the doorknob was pretty much the same thing as leaving it unlocked, but in the end didn’t say anything. He had run across enough similar mindsets while dealing with the Royal Quartermaster's Corps to know that arguing with written regulations was a losing argument that would only leave him frazzled and uncertain if his tail was in front of him or behind him.

Leaving the custodian to his duties, Sweets looked around. What he took to be his office filled only one corner of a much large room. His space, if it was his space, came complete with a desk, two jail cells, and a weapon rack filled with willow switches, several empty pie pans, and a large, well-polished shovel for some reason. Another frame had numerous bridles, halters, and hobbles dangling from the support bars. Behind his desk was a cupboard, with two cups hanging from hooks. Thanks to the sharp vision that was his heritage as a pegasus, he could see that one was labeled, Equestria’s Best Sheriff, the other was labeled, Equestria’s Best Prisoner.

The rest of the room that did not seem to be his office was bare of any furnishing, but the walls were lined with large deep storage cabinets, each one neatly labeled as to content: Bedding, Water, First-aid, Dried Food, etc...

“So, J.B. Come to clean up have you?” Sweets casually asked as he looked back toward the strip themed pony.

Without meeting Sweets eyes, J.B. picked up a clipboard and carefully checked off something on it. He then ran a hoof along a line of text just below where he had checked, his lips moving as he read. After what seemed like forever, he looked up and said, “No. I have to inventory and oil the tack right now. I don’t clean up until after I count the bandages in the shelter section, and just before I turn the lights out for the night.”

While J.B. had been outlining his schedule, all the foals in Sweets’ group had crowded in behind the stallion and were looking around the room with bright and mischievous eyes.

“Are those stalls?” Jake asked curiously, gesturing toward the two cells that took up one wall of the office. Sweets noted with approval that their doors were opened all the way and tied securely in place to prevent accidental closing. On the other hoof, he frowned slightly as he took in the clean, fresh straw that was scattered thickly on the floor in case of another sort of accidents. That seemed a bit old fashioned. The cells in the palace had polished cement floors that sloped to a large drain, making it easy to sluice them out.

One of the cells had the straw piled thicker in one corner with neatly folded bedding on a small shelf above it. A sampler hung on the wall embroidered with the dubious legend, Cell Sweet Cell.

It was the sort of humorous decoration often put up by ponies who in fact don’t have a sense of humor.

“Those are cells, those are,” Pipsqueak declared dramatically. “That’s where Sheriff Sweets will incorporate the bloomin' vile criminals.”

Jake trotted over and stuck his head in, looking around appreciatively. “I like them. They look comfortable and warm. I bet there are no drafts.” He shuffled his hooves in the thick straw before leaning down and nibbled a few strands. “Nice,” he said.

“Cells ain't spose ter be comfortable and warm. They are sposed ter be cold enough ter wrack yor bones wivout a tidy spot ter settle yor rear,” Pipsqueak declared. He trotted over and walked right between a set of bars, only having to squeeze slightly to get his hips through. Looking around, he gave a snort of derision at the lack of un-amenities.

“Where do you cook your mealth?” Twist asked, looking around for any sort of kitchen and seeing only a hot plate with a battered kettle on it.

“The town issues vouchers redeemable at several local restaurants and food vendors,” J.B. said in a monotone, as he sidled over and shoved a clipboard in Sweets’ general direction.

“Lickety Split’s?” Snips and Snails chorused, snapping out of the sugar coma they had been into up to that point because of all the ‘free’ samples they had tried at Bon Bon’s.

“What’s this?” Sweets asked, looking at the clipboard he had just taken from J.B.

“Inventory. The new sheriff has to sign that everything on it was here, or not when he takes possession.”

This Sweets was familiar with. Juniors in the Guard spent a lot of time counting supplies, and then re-counting them because they got it wrong, according to the sergeant, the first time.

He gave the list a quick scan and paused at “Straw. Hypoallergenic. Bales of___ Looking over at the straw-covered cells, he frowned. “You still use straw? Hypoallergenic straw?”

“Regulations, sheriff. I have allergies,” J.B. slid open a drawer that was nearly as deep as the desk it was in, and with a fair bit of effort extracted a book that had to be nearly a hoof thick. Equestrian Law and Justice, Volume I, page 437, he said, flipping the book open and leafing through the well-hoofed pages until he came to the pertinent page and pointed out the entry. Listed out in detail was how often the straw in cells needed to be changed, depending on usage, the quantity, and the quality. It had been, he noticed, last revised about two hundred and fifty years ago.

Once again, Sweets’ experience with the Quartermaster’s corps came in handy. He kept his mouth shut and continued scanning down the list on his clipboard. It was all pretty predictable, and as anal as most such lists were, Pens___, Coffee Cups___, Coffee Pot___, but his brow creased when he came to the bottom and saw, Prisoner. Instead of a blank spot where he could write in a number and details, it was already filled out, with a checkbox beside each item so he could confirm it was present.

Prisoner, One.
Name, Jailbird
Wear, Minor.
Condition. Good.
Last shod. January.

Looking over at the cell with the bedding and sampler, he asked, “Did we just release a prisoner?”

J.B. looked horrified. “No!” he said in the most emphatic tone he had used so far.

“Where is he then? Do we have an exercise yard? Is he supervised…” Sweets trailed off and he took another look at the inventory sheet. “Jailbird?” He looked over at ‘J.B.’ “You?” he asked.

Jailbird nodded, his eyes still refusing to meet Sweets’ as he said, “Yes.” He then looked over at the cells and winced at the sight of the Fillies and Colts playing prisoner and jailer, scuffing straw all over the cells and out between the bars onto the immaculately waxed wooden boards of the office. “Are you going to be here long, Sheriff? Only, I usually take a nap in the afternoon.”

***

Just as roaches and other vermin have natural enemies, so to do their pony counterparts, the gutter press ‘journalist. In their case, it tends to be large muscular guard ponies rather than cats.

Both share an aversion to bright lights, however.

A whole herd of some of Canterlot’s most infamous, in their own minds, journalists stood deep in the shade of an alley, peering out at the sun-speckled length of Mane Street with a loathing that not even a Vampire Batpony could have matched. Only part of that emotion was caused by the disgustingly well-lit street.

“See. I told you they were there,” White Out hissed at Quick Quote. “The whole stinking mess of them, that freak princess and all her little friends too. Just look at them laughing at us,” he said bitterly as he pointed across the street at the Lickety Split ice-cream parlor. “I say we march over there and teach them a little respect.” He started to match actions to words, and then stopped, looking over his shoulders at his fellows in annoyance over the fact they were showing not the slightest inclination to stop his forward progress, and were even, in a couple of case, making shooing motions with their hooves, urging him to get to it.

“Fine then,” White Out huffed and turned his head back toward his target, only to hastily back up into the alley, sending several of his less heavily-built compatriots sprawling with exclamations of dismay and demands that he watch where he was shoving his big fat plot.

“Be quiet, you idiots,” he hissed while continuing to cram himself backward. His eyes focused on the tall black Pegasus who was walking down the street toward the ice-cream shop, a half dozen foals cavorting around his legs. In particular White Out took notice of the brown vest the big stallion was wearing, and the bright shiny star pinned to it. A large wide-brimmed white Stetson rested on his head, completing the gag-worthy image of a small-town sheriff interacting with the smallest of his constituents.

“Celestia’s frosty boobies. It’s the prince,” Poison Pen croaked out from where he had been squashed up against the wall by White Out’s bulk. Poison Pen’s startled remark had White Out’s eyes focusing on the Stetson the big pegasus sheriff was wearing, mentally calculating if it was large enough to conceal an Alicorn sized horn while wondering what his rival had seen that he had missed.

His fellow press ponies were having similar reactions to his if one were to judge by their whispering.

“What?”

“Let me see.”

“I thought he was turned into a colt?”

“Not the local yokel law dog, you idiots. Behind him,” Poison Pen said in exasperation, his voice muffled because his face was pressed up against one of the alley walls by White Out’s bulk.

That more precise second remark tore White Out’s gaze away from the sheriff to the black-hued colt who had just moved out from behind the larger stallion. Half again as large as his fellow foals, and twice as large as the colt he was currently arguing with, he had a pair of broad wings and the distinctive horn of an Alicorn projecting from his wide forehead. There was no doubt at all that this was the much speculated about Alicorn prince.

“Lets rush him,” Conspiracy said from way back in the alley, far behind his fellows, where he was huddled inside his oversized black duster. “The Sheriff can’t stop all of us. There’s only one of him. Some of us are sure to get close enough to ask some questions.”

The ponies in front of Conspiracy, and the ones most likely to first draw the sheriff’s attention if they charged out into the street, turned their head to glare at him before looking back out across the street. They really didn’t like the look of that Pegasus, especially the way his muscles rippled in the sun as he walked along with the foals. While more slenderly built than an earth pony, he was still disturbingly muscular for a pegasus. As one they looked back at Conspiracy again, and whispered: “You first.”

***

Sweets listened with half his attention as Jake and Pipsqueak discussed the relative merits of a law officer's coloring. The tiny pinto colt was firm in his opinion that a sheriff should have a gleaming white hide, while Jake was equally certain that black was a perfectly fine color, as long as the sheriff wore a white hat, which Sweets was, so there.

He himself had mixed feelings on the subject. His hide had been magically bleached when he had become a guard, leaving it snowy white. He had taken great pride in his appearance, not because of the color, but for what it indicated, that he was now officially a Royal Guard. Being dyed black for his assignment as a stalking horse for Prince Jake had left him feeling unmoored, far more so than the documents suspending him from the Royal Guard for a month due to conduct unbecoming. He had known those were merely part of the deception and they didn’t really seem real. Every time he looked in a mirror, however, his dyed hide reminded of his separation from the force he had fought so hard to join.

Yet, when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had asked if he would be willing to retain his darker coloration, he had said yes with only minor regrets. The boundaries of his world had been greatly expanded by his assignment to Ponyville and what color his hide was had seemed a rather silly concern after everything he had gone through.

The little kernel of worry that Bon Bon and Lyra might not find his previously bland white hide as interesting or attractive as his newer, roguish dark looks, had, of course, nothing to do with that decision.

Questions about what color his hide was aside, Sweets could not help wondering, for about the hundredth time, if he had what it took to be a good sheriff. While on the surface the job was basically the same as those of a Royal Guard, keep the peace, protect the populace, the reality was very different.

He had no partner, or anypony to share the load. He was technically on call twenty-four hours a day. Mind you, he had yet to actually deal with any sort of criminal activity other than the horribly overpriced cherries at the market, but if something did happen it would all be all on him. He was the only law Ponyville had.

Of course, that was a decided increase from what they’d had ever since the last sheriff had been hired away by Appleloosa, shortly after some incident with an Ursa Minor, whatever that was.

If only he didn’t feel like such a fish out of water. He hadn’t realized how much he had depended on his senior guards being around as examples and teachers until he no longer had them at his back.

Complicating matters was the fact that Ponyville was ‘weird.’ He didn’t know if it was something in the water or Pinkie Pie’s cooking, or even being so close the freakish Everfree Forest, but the ponies in this town continued to throw his expectations under the train on a regular basis. The recent experience with his official prisoner, Jailbird, highlighted that. No one knew why Jailbird was in jail, on what charges, or even what his sentence was. The records had been destroyed when the town hall had burned down, or at least one of the times it had burned down and Jailbird himself refused to discuss the matter past saying "Five more years" every time he was asked. He was on probation as a result, and Sweets found he did not have the heart to threaten to release him if he remained silent, particularly after the look of utter horror that had crossed Jailbird’s face when Sweets had broached the possibility that maybe his sentence was over and he was free to go.

As Sweets understood it, so long as Jailbird kept his nose clean and performed his community service with due diligence, the Major would not evict him from his nice, cozy jail cell. The town got a model prisoner for their jail, and Jailbird got his cell, which was apparently all he wanted in life. Looking at it in a sort of sideways, Ponyville way, it made sense.

And it was starting to make him a little nervous that he could see that.

***

“Sweetth, can we have some vouthherth now?” Twist asked, breaking Sweets out of his introspection.

The pegasus stallion looked down to see a half-dozen hungry faces staring up at him. Tipping his hat off his head, he held it out so each colt or filly could extract a voucher for one large ice-cream sundae, with up to four toppings.

***

“Damn it. I need a drink,” White Out growled as the over-muscled yokel with a badge followed his targets into the ice-cream shop. “Celestia’s dripping nips, I hope there’s a bar somewhere in this inbred backwater.”

***

“Well, I got to admit, this backwash of a town has at least one thing going for it,” Quick Quote said sometime later as he took a hefty draft from the large stein he was holding. “The booze isn’t watered down like that swill they serve in the Pen and Page.” His voice was slightly slurred, as well it might be given that the table he and his partners of the moment were filled to overflowing with rows of empty bottles, arranged like dead soldiers on the battlefield against sobriety.

“Sheap too,” Poison Pen said as he carefully added his empty mug to the stack of empties in front of him. “Wou, w, oud, have cost us dozen times more in Canterlot. Shtupid locals, don’t know what they got.” The drunk pony held up a large magnum bottle. “Take, take thish fer xample, premium shtuff, usually got to wear a tie where they shell it in Canterlot.” His expression turned maudlin, and tears started to run down his cheeks. “Want to go back, Canterlot got to get the shtory. Can’t go home wishout shtory. Can’t get shtory, shtupid brats. Can’t get near shutpid frince.”

“You want t' meet de priss. I mite be aggle t' help you wid dat, uh,” a garbled voice came from a table next to them. The reporters turned their heads, several of them almost turning right out of their chairs, to look at the yokel who had spoken. They blinked bleary eyes at the grey country pony with the oversized teeth and the half-eaten hat. A few moments passed, and finally Quick Quotes, in his usual insightful and cutting way said, “Huh?”

“Don’t you idiots undehstand Ekestrian. Um uh. I said I cudd help you meet de Priss.”

The drunken group looked at each other, shrugged, and turned back to their drinks. All except for Conspiracy, who fell off his stool.

“He said he could help you find the prince,” said the barmare who was clearing away their glasses while making sure to keep her backside well away from any wayward hooves. A much easier task than when the group had first shown up in the bar.

Quick Quotes looked at her warily while unconsciously rubbing the hoofmark that decorated his cheek, a gift from the same barmare a couple of hours earlier due to a completely innocent action on his part. ‘Yoush can undershtand, idiot?”

“I’ve had a lot of practice," she said, giving the yokel a glare.

“Wait. wait… wait,” Poison Pen said, waving a hoof in the air to attract attention. He blinked and asked. “What was I shaying? Oh, wait, you shay, he shay, know where frince is?”

“That’s right,” the barmaid said, taking out a cloth and wiping down the table.

The stewed reporters waited, and then waited a bit more, till White Out said, “And?”

“And, what?” The barmare asked.

“Where is the Celestia be damned Frince?” White Out shouted, his annoyance burning some of the alcoholic fumes out of his head.

“How the heck should I know?” the barmare said as she loaded the dirty mugs and glasses into the sink behind the bar, and stacked the bottles in cases to be washed and sent back to Sweet Apple Acres for refilling.

“Iyay oldtay youay entleponiesgay atthay Iyay owknay erewhay ethay incepray isyay,”

Before they could ask, the barmare gave a sigh and said. “He says, he told you he knows where the Prince is.”

“Well, pony, spit it out. Where is he?” White Out asked the yokel. The only reply the hayseed gave was to hold his hoof out, upside down.

“He wants---”

“That I understand,” White Out sneered, his world view regaining a bit of its equilibrium with this evidence that everypony, no matter who they were, only looked out for themselves. He extracted a single bit from his wallet and dropped it on the outstretched hoof. “There you go my good colt. Now, where is the prince?

The yokel lifted the bit up to his face, frowned and made a come-on motion with his hoof, indicating that White Out had better pony up if he expected to learn anything.

Before any of the reporters could say anything, the barmare spoke up, “Seeing as how it’s the last call, I’ll save you ‘gentlecolts’ a bit of my time by giving you two pieces of advice, one for free, one for not.”

“What’s the free advice?” Poison Pen asked, sobering up slightly at the horrifying words, Last Call.

“He,” the barmare said, pointing a hoof at the yokel, “doesn’t understand money. They’re just shiny bits of metal to him. He has no idea how hard they are to come by,” she said this with an accusing glance at the yokel that indicated she was speaking from experience.

“And what’s the not free advice going to cost us?

“Ten bits. And cheap at the price.” She held out her hoof, and from the expression on her face, they knew that they’d not get another word out of her until she had her ten bits.

“Outrageous,” White Out huffed, while he inwardly gloated. Ten bits? Chicken feed. He found a ten-bit coin in his wallet and handed it to the barmare. “Okay, what’s the advice.”

The barmare leaned in close and whispered in White Out’s ear while gesturing at the local yokel “He likes to play poker.”

‘So wha--Oh?

“Exactly,” the barmare said, slipping the ten bits into her apron.

Giving the bucktoothed yokel a broad grin filled with large yellow teeth, White Out slid half of his remaining bits across to the slack-jawed yokel, who took them eagerly. When he made to get up from his table, White Out hastily interjected. “No rush. No rush. Could I interest you in a little game of chance my good friend, before we set out?”

***

“I said he liked to play poker,” The barmare said as she ushered the reporters out the door. “I didn’t say he was bad at it.”

“We are not ponies you wish to have on your bad side,” Poison Pen blustered.

The barmare arched an eyebrow. “Why should I be on your bad side? I didn’t clean you out. Hayseed did. But, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. You want to find the prince, I can help you with that.”

“You said you didn’t know where he was,” Quick Quote said in an accusing voice.

“Still don’t. But Hayseed does.” She turned her head to look over at where the yokel was cheerfully playing with all the bits he had won, stacking them up, and pushing them around the table making little ‘putt putt’ sounds with his lips. “Hey, Hayseed, want to earn a drink?”

The yokel looked up quickly and gave a quick nod of his head, licking his lips in anticipation.

“Hayseed, guide these gentlecolts and me over to where the Prince is, and when we get back I’ll give you a drink, on the house. You can leave your bits here. They’ll be safe. No bit thieves in Ponyville. Or at least there won’t be in a few minutes.”

She turned and gave the press ponies a broad smile. “There you are, gentlecolts. Can’t be fairer than that.”

“You’re coming with us?” Poison Pen asked suspiciously.

“Someone has to translate and keep an eye on you ponies. Just to make sure you don’t wander off from the group you understand,” the barmare said.

Poison Pen looked over at the large pile of bits laying on the bar table, which represented all his funds, not to mention all the funds of his companions, and back at the barmare who watched him with a cynical expression that was the equal of any her Canterlot counterparts had ever directed his way.

***

“Well, now we know why the booze was so cheap,” Conspiracy muttered as the barmare closed and latched the door behind her.

His companions resolutely ignored him, while inwardly taking what comfort they could in the fact that they had all been rooked together, and thus nopony was free to spread the story for fear that his own part in it would come to light.

***

Holding her breath and focusing intently, Rarity moved the needle toward her latest and greatest creation. This one last thread would finish it, adding a tiny contrasting nearly invisible strand of color to the dress that would keep it from boring perfection. Too subtle to be detected unless you knew it was there, yet it would draw the eye and make the observers focus as they tried to figure out why it intrigued them so. It had to be placed with the utmost precision, or it would become a flaw instead of a highlight.

Just as the tip of the needle touched the fabric, somepony started pounding on her door. Rarity snatched the needle back before her lack of focus destroyed a week’s worth of work.

“I. Will. Strangle. Them!” she hissed from between clenched teeth as the knock came again. Punching the needle right up to the thread in the pin-cushion, she turned and marched toward her front door, a grim look on her face as she ruthlessly shoved the debris of her recent creative binge out of the way with her magic, piling it up against the hallway walls.

Just before she wrenched open the door, she remembered her earlier visitor and paused to calm herself. Not that there was any chance at all that the current interruption was another hot stallion from out of town. One did not get that lucky twice in a year, let alone a day. But, it might be a wealthy customer. Adopting a businesslike expression she swung open the door.

“Miss Rarii---”

Rarity slammed the door shut before her brain could override the impulse. “Fancy Pants!” she gasped in shock. her eyes took in the disarray all around her and panic overcame her naturally calm demeanor. To see was to act, her magic reached out and every bit of discarded fabric, ribbon, and any other miscellaneous bits of clutter was swept up and shoved half-way across the boutique into the room Sweetie Belle used when she stayed over. With one last shove on the door of the overstuffed room, Rarity glanced into the hallway mirror in muted horror at what she saw there. With no time to spare, she had to settle for a quick brush through her tangled mane and tail, not nearly the hundred strokes with a proper set of implements that was needed nightly for a lady's proper mane care, but every second she waited was far too long to leave Fancy Pants twiddling his hooves outside her door.

Five seconds after she had slammed the door in Fancy Pants face, Rarity whisked it back open again. “I’m sorry about that. The back door was open and a gust of wind took me by surprise. It is a wonderful surprise to find you on my stoop, Fancy Pants. Imagine you coming all the way to Ponyville just to visit little old me.”

“Rarity?” Sweetie Belle called out as she trotted up, giving Fancy Pants and the teen-age pegasus stallion who was accompanying him, a curious stare.

Not taking her eyes off of Fancy Pants, Rarity spoke through teeth clenched in a bright cheerful smile. “I’m a little bit busy here Sweetie Belle. Why don’t you go play with your friends?”

“But that’s what I came to ask. Can I go on a sleepover with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo tonight? We want to work on a school assignment.”

Surprised at the request, Rarity turned her gaze away from her visitors. “Go on a sleepover? Not have one here?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Don’t keep your dear little friends waiting. Let's get everything you need for the night and get you on your way.” Using her magic Rarity shoved her little sister into the boutique and followed after her.

“I’ll just be the quickest moment; why don’t you make yourself at home while you wait?” Rarity called over her shoulders at her unexpected, but most welcome, guest.

Five minutes later, Sweetie Belle was safely on her way, her saddlebags nearly as big as she was.

“Now, where were we?” Rarity asked Fancy Pants, fluttering her eyelashes coyly.

***

Rarity couldn’t help it. It was either hold a pillow over her face or spray spit all over Fancy Pants. Rarity choose the pillow. Pressing her muzzle into it, she laughed till tears ran down her cheeks. Her loss of control was not helped by the fact that Fancy Pants, who was standing behind the young pegasus stallion, had a hoof held to his own mouth and was clearly having difficulties of his own with the ridiculousness of the situation.

Once Rarity had gained a little control, she pulled the pillow away from her face and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I am soooo, sorry Mister Wooshter,” she said to the woebegone pegasus. “I know I shouldn’t laugh. but, but, Curry--” Rarity had to resort to the pillow again.

“That’s me. I’m the sorriest pony in all of Equestria. Go ahead, laugh at the clown. He’s just ruined his life,” said Wooshter with some really impressive melodrama. Rarity gave it a seven.

“Don’t be silly, dear Wooshter. Curry Comb isn’t even a pony. You are not engaged to her. The very idea is ridiculous.”

Fancy Pants winced as he directed an apologetic look toward Wooshter and then said to Rarity, “Actually, that’s not quite true. There is precedence. Ponies have married outside of their species before, almost, if not always, for political reasons. I’m as certain as I can be without talking to her that this was why Wooshter’s aunt ordered him to pursue Princess Moonlight.”

Rarity stared at Fancy Pants incredulously. She liked to think she was a pony of the world, but the idea that a pony might marry somepony who wasn’t actually a somepony had never crossed her mind. “But, she’s a child.”

***

Over in the library, Spike paused in his dusting of the Arcane Theology shelves as two distinct cold chills ran up his spines, but continued dusting after the moment passed. Must have been just a draft, nothing to worry about.

***

Fancy Pants gave a sigh. “Is she?” he asked, and then held up a hoof to forestall Rarity’s reply. “I’m not being facetious. Unfortunately, because Princess Moonlight is not a pony, there is no hard and fast figure we can apply to her that says she is, or is not, past the age of consent. Unless Princess Celestia and her sister are holding cards I’m not aware of, Princess Moonlight is the one and only snipe in Equestria. More so, there has never ‘been’ a snipe in Equestria. As a result of that fact, there is no precedent establishing what a marriageable age might be for the princess. Because any connection between Wooshter and the princess would be purely political, with no, ahem, physical component, the courts might very well rule that because the proposal was made and accepted in front of a licensed witness, that would be me, that it is valid. Without knowing the lady in question, I can’t say whether this was the desired outcome Wooshter’s aunt wished for, or if it is purely misfortune.

“Princess Celestia would never allow it,” Rarity protested.

“Princess Celestia is very reluctant to interfere in such matters. I think she expects us to arrange our lives ourselves. Understand me, I’m not saying she would not interfere in this case, just that I would prefer that we settle the matter ourselves and render such a petition unnecessary.”

“But, surely the fact that Curry has been legally adopted establishes a precedent that she is a child?”

Fancy Pants nodded, his eyes sparkling. “There we have hope. As she does have an official legal guardian the argument can be made that she requires that guardian’s assent to enter into a marriage. That is why we came to you.”

“But, I’m not her-- Ohhhhh, I see. You wish me to intercede with Fluttershy on Wooshter’s behalf,” Rarity exclaimed. “I can assure you. Fluttershy will utterly reject Wooshter as being totally unsuitable. No offense, Wooshter,” she said in an aside to the young stallion in question.

“Quite all right. I’ve heard worse,” he said cheerfully, happy again now that he could see daylight at the end of the tunnel of despair. “Many, many, times.”

Fancy Pants took one of Rarity’s hooves between his and looked deeply into her eyes. “You have my deepest thanks, my dear. I realize it is highly presumptuous of me to involve you in this but, I was hoping you would forgive my impertinence. The entire matter is my fault, you see. It was I who assured young Wooshter that Princess Moonlight would reject his proposal, and I feel obliged to correct the situation. I simply did not know who else to call upon. I am a stranger here, and you are one of the few here I could hope to call, friend.”

Using the pillow she was still holding to fan her heated cheeks, Rarity returned Fancy Pants grateful gaze with a heated one of her own. “You may presume on our relationship for anything,” she said in a husky voice, leaning forward till her muzzle almost touched the stallion’s.

* * *

In the library, Spike put up his feather duster and pulled the ladder over to the skylight. The darned thing was probably loose again and letting a breeze in. This was getting annoying.

* * *

“Oh, I say. That is the most marvelous thing. I can’t thank you enough. A real weight off my hooves this is. Makes me feel like a colt again.” Wooshter gushed as he snatched Rarity’s hoof from Fancy Pants and shook it vigorously. “So, can we rush right over there and get this sticky wicket cleaned up?”

It was on the tip of Rarity’s tongue to say that nothing would be simpler, but she hesitated, looking over at Fancy Pants as he stood in the middle of her parlor. The old saying, Fortune Favors the Bold. popped into her head, and before she had time to think things all the way through she asked, “Fancy Pants, Wooshter? Are you in that great a hurry?”

The elegant stallion looked surprised. “Well, as it happens, I am at loose ends at the moment. Is there a problem?”

Trying to keep her emotions internal, not one of her better skills, especially not when she wanted nothing so much as to do a wild victory dance, Rarity replied, “Not a problem, not exactly. It’s just that my very good friend Fluttershy is of a nervous disposition. This is a rather serious matter, and I’d like to break it to her gently. It could take a little time to convince her to see two strange stallions, even with me acting as an intermediary. If time is not of the essence, then I suggest a very cautious slow approach to such a delicate matter. Otherwise, we risk her locking herself and poor Curry inside her house for a month.

“Can’t deny I’d like to shed the hobbles as soon as possible,” Wooshter interjected before Fancy Pants could reply. “But, got to be honest here. Always the best policy. At least with fellows. Not always so much so with females. Would rather stay out from under my aunt’s eye for a bit. A little rusticating in the country might be just the ticket, what ho?”

Rubbing his chin, Fancy Pants considered. “I have no pressing personal obligations, and I’ve heard so much about Ponyville. It was one reason I decided to accompany Wooshter in the first place. I do not object. I suppose I had best look into acquiring some temporary lodging it would seem.”

“My dear, Fancy Pants, you may leave that in my most capable hooves. I have the perfect little place, right on the river,” Rarity said in a light voice while wondering how long she could keep Fluttershy and Fancy Pants apart. A day for certain. Did she dare try for a week? After all, this might be her one and only chance to let the elegant stallion see the real her, away from the crush of Canterlot where there were so many distractions, like Fleur.

Rarity’s conscience twinged a bit at the thought of the fashion mare. She stilled it by telling herself that Fancy Pants, unlike Prince Blueblood, was a true gentlepony. If he had a serious relationship with Fleur, he would certainly not lead her on. Right?

“Something the matter, my dear?” Fancy Pants asked.

“No, no, nothing at all. Just thinking over my strategy. Nothing for you to worry about.”

***

Applejack was throwing bales of hay on the wagon Big Mac was hitched to when Apple Bloom, Jake, and Diamond Tiara trotted up to her.

“Applejack, can--”

“And me?” Diamond Tiara cut in on Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom glared at Diamond Tiara but could read in the other filly’s expression that if she tried to leave Diamond Tiara behind she’d spill the apples. So, Apple Bloom modified her request and said. “Can Diamond Tiara and I have a sleep-over with Sweetie Belle.”

While the two fillies looked hopefully at Applejack, Jake trotted over to Big Mac and got a welcome home nuzzle from his pa, after which he started to tell Big Mac all about how the school had sent him to jail, which his pa listened to with calm interest.

Applejack paused. The word 'No' was poised on the tip of her tongue because this was going to be Goose Down’s last supper with them and she felt it was impolite to go off to visit somepony else when they had a guest at home, not when she’d be able to do it the next day. But, Applejack was so pleased to see her little sister getting along with her school friend and temporary roommate, especially after the whole dividing the room in half thing on Diamond Tiara’s second day, that she changed her mind before the words could come out. “I reckon that would be fine. Mind your manners and try not to get underhoof at Rarity’s. Don’t go making extra work for her.”

“Thanks, Applejack. I promise. Rarity won’t even see us,” Apple Bloom told her sister, while inwardly telling herself that it wasn’t really a lie.

“That’s right good. But, I tell you what, Goose Down’s big brother came by this morning. After supper, they’re going to be leaving. Before you head on out, why don’t you trot up to the house and say your howdies and your goodbyes? Granny could likely round you up a few cookies to take along to your sleep-over.”

“Thanks, Applejack. You’re the best,” Apple Bloom said enthusiastically as she trotted up to the house.

Diamond Tiara hesitated for a moment and then gave Applejack a quick head nod, and a mumbled, “Thank you.” She then bolted after Apple Bloom, a slight flush coloring her cheeks.

Applejack watched both fillies depart, a small smile on her face. “Maybe Filthy was right. Diamond Tiara’s settling in right nicely. Never would have thought it.” she said to Big Mac as she resumed loading his cart, helped, sort of, by Jake who was trying to toss bales up from the other side.

“Eeyup.”

***

“Mom?” Curry called out as she opened the door to the house, only to jump aside when a plate full of cracked corn smashed into the wall next to the door.

“Do I look like a chicken to you?” the raspy voice of the injured griffon yelled at the same time as her stomach let out a loud rumble that Curry could hear all the way across the room. She fancied that they might even have heard it in Ponyville.

The other occupant of the room was not cowed in the least by this display of temper or hunger. “Hah! I knew it! When was the last time you ate? You flew all the way here from the Misty Mountains. You must have been starving when you arrived yesterday, and you haven’t eaten since then. You’ve got to eat something!” Rainbow Dash replied at a volume equal to that of Gilda.

Curry peeked inside. Rainbow Dash was nose-to-beak with the griffon. It was a striking tableau. Curry had always admired Rainbow Dash’s fine lines, and her current posture showed off her well-toned body to its best advantage. On the other hoof, Gilda’s fluffed-up feathers might have disguised her musculature, and her injuries cause her to look twisted, but none of that kept the large avian from being an awesome sight in her anger.

Curry had always been horse mad but had never had much contact with large birds. She found that Gilda inspired a lot of the same emotions and reactions she felt when encountering a new, well put together, horse. She was tempted to say the heck with her plans for the evening and stay home. Maybe Gilda would let her brush out her feathers? How did you groom someone who was half fur and half feathers? Fluttershy had given her a few lessons on how birds liked to be stroked, mostly on the top of the head, but Gilda was a very different proposition. She was bigger than Rainbow Dash and Curry bet her wings would fill the room if she were to open them all the way.

With some reluctance Curry decided that Gilda was too agitated, not to mention hungry. It was likely a good idea to give her some time to settle down and to realize that Curry was not on the menu before broaching the subject. She looked around the room, and seeing no sign of Fluttershy, called out, “Rainbow Dash? Is mom around? I need to ask her something.”

Both the griffon and pony glanced over at her, Rainbow looked a bit flushed, while Gilda’s feathers were still bristling from anger. The Griffon’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of Curry. “So, you’re real after all. I thought I might have dreamed you. Where did the dweeb find a freak like you,” she said.

Despite the griffon’s scornful tone, Curry could see the curiosity in Gilda’s eyes. The freak comment didn’t bother her. She’d embraced her inner freak a long time ago and flew the flag proudly. “You’re a fine one to talk, seeing as how you can’t decide if you’re a cat or a bird, birdbrain. Does your top half spend all its time trying to run away from your bottom half?”

“Curry, don’t tease her,” the admonishing voice of her mother came from behind her.

“Mom,” Curry cried out happily as she turned to see Fluttershy standing on the stoop with a large basket balanced on her back. Careful not to jar her mom’s load, Curry gave her a welcome home hug which Fluttershy returned.

Walking into the house, Fluttershy scolded Rainbow Dash gently. “You mustn’t quarrel with Gilda, Rainbow. She needs to stay still and give her bones a chance to set.”

“I ain’t a hatchling fresh out of the egg,” Gilda snarled, but again her body language betrayed her as her head tucked defensively between her shoulders in reaction to Fluttershy’s presence. The cervical collar around her neck kept her head still, but the feathers on top of her head and along the sides which had been standing angrily erect flattened. A wariness appeared in her eyes, and she watched Fluttershy with the intent focus of a critter who was ready to bolt at the first sign of any threatening gesture. Curry felt immense satisfaction at the evidence that the griffon now knew how awesome her mom was, and not to mess with her.

“You need the proper nutrients if you’re going to get better. Calcium, for your bones, protein for your muscles. I know you have trouble digesting plants and vegetables. Your body doesn’t need the extra stress, so I asked Mrs. Otter to get these for me,” Fluttershy told Gilda as she set the basket down in front of her.

The basket seemed to be full of damp green grass, Curry could see droplets of water decorating them that had not yet had the chance to evaporate.

Nudging the basket with a claw, Gilda shoved it back toward Fluttershy, as she asked angrily, “What is this? Grass? You have to be kidding. I just told Rainbow Jerk here that I can’t eat bunny fo--” Gilda broke off her tirade and gave a sniff, her eyes narrowed and she flipped back the top layer of damp grass, revealing that the basket was filled with plump trout. Curry started to drool as she looked at the fish. It had been a long time since she’d had herself a mess of pan-fried fish.

The smallest fish had to be close to three pounds, the biggest was a whopper that Curry bet would tip the scales at eight, maybe even ten, pounds. She could almost hear the sound of them frying in a butter-greased pan, seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper until the tender flesh was nearly falling off the bones. Curry had to swallow to get rid of all the drool that was accumulating in her mouth.

“Not all the critters who come to me for help can eat plants,” Fluttershy explained nervously, looking down at her hooves as she drooped her head so her mane fell over her eyes. “But those that can’t, can usually eat fish.” She looked up, her expression firming slightly as she said with sincerity, “I know it might not be to your taste, but it’s the only meat I will feed you. It is good for you. I promise.”

Gilda’s beak twisted in a sneer. “Griffon’s don’t eat carrion,” she said as she poked one of the fish with a claw. The fish flipped its fins and arched its body in reaction, causing the startled Griffon to snatch her claw back for a moment. Then, as the fish continued to flop around, Gilda's eyes narrowed into fierce reddish slits. With one swift swipe of her non-splinted arm, she spitted the struggling fish on the sharp talons of one claw. It was one of the smaller fish and she shoved the head in her mouth and gulped it down whole, tilting her torso back so she could lift her head upward despite the wide medical collar around her neck. As the flipping tail disappeared inside Gilda’s beak, she gave one last convulsive swallow as a visible bulge slid down her pulsing throat and into her crop.

Fluttershy turned green and rushed out of the house, Rainbow Dash right behind her.

“What are you looking at?” Gilda snapped at Curry, her eyes predatory and still showing a red tint. The small girl licked her lips, and said,” Don’t suppose you’d let me have one of those?” she asked, pointing at the basket of fish.

The griffon gave her a startled look before dragging the basket in close and curled a protective leg around it. “Mine!” she snapped.

“Curry. You come out of there. Right now!” Fluttershy ordered from outside. A moment later she called out in a much softer voice. “Please?”

“Greedy. I didn't want your stinky old fish, anyway,” Curry said. She stuck her tongue out at the griffon who had speared another one of the fish and was lifting the struggling creature toward her beak.

***

Outside, Fluttershy, looking even greener than when she had run out of the house, gave Curry a stern, if queasy look. “I know you don’t want to hear this, dear, but you can’t stay here. Rainbow Dash will fly you up to Applejack’s house.”

“Where is Rainbow Dash?” Curry asked, not seeing the hard to miss pony. A sudden loud ‘hurk’ from behind some bushes answered her question. A moment later, the now mostly green pony fluttered into sight.

“Ready to-- urp-- go?” Rainbow asked, right before she slapped a hoof over her mouth and disappeared back behind her bush.

“Rainbow Dash doesn’t have to fly me anywhere, mom,” Curry said.

Fluttershy winced as the sound of bones snapping followed by swallowing noises came from inside the house. Gilda had clearly started in on the bigger fish. “I’m sorry, Curry. But I’m going to have to insist. This is no place for a young pony… or snipe, right now.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I was invited to a sleepover with Apple Bloom and some other foals. Can I go?”

***

“Sometimes it’s good to be me,” Luna murmured in lazy contentment as she ambled through the palace toward her sister’s room for their daily afternoon briefing. She was oblivious to the various guards and functionaries that looked askance at her. Or of what it might indicate about her current behavior. Her mind was lost in reverie and she floated along in her own little world.

This morning’s dream session with Goose had been a subtle, but successful one. As far as Goose had been aware it had simply been conversation over tea and biscuits. The small nocturne hadn’t even noticed when Luna had dismissed the room they were in, all but the floor and table, and replaced the walls and ceiling with a panoramic view from the top of the highest mountain in Equestria. Goose had continued to chatter on, oblivious to the vast stretches of space that radiated in all directions around her. Luna had been able to hold the scene for nearly ten minutes before Goose started to notice something was wrong, and in the time it took her to pull her eyes away from Luna, the Princess of Dreams had restored the dream setting back to its original state.

The session had left Luna with a feeling of progress but was not the reason for her current distracted condition and the rather silly smile on her face.

What had put that grin on her face had happened after Luna had left Goose to her own private dreams. Luna had gone wandering across the dreamscape with no particular goal in mind, simply looking for signs of that would indicate a pony in distress. As usual, at that time of the day, there were not that many ponies sleeping, and the exceptions on this day were all having innocuously pleasant dreams.

A particularly powerful dream bubble, the sign of a strong, controlled mind, that was tinted with the telltale aura of Twilight Sparkle had drawn her attention. She hadn’t been able to resist a peek inside. It had been an unlooked for, but very welcome discovery to learn that Twilight Sparkle had taken an afternoon nap, and was in the midst of a very naughty daydream, one that featuring Luna herself.

Unable to resist, Luna had slipped into the dream, replacing Twilight’s imaginary image of her with the real thing, with Twilight none the wiser. It had been a most rewarding experience. Under that shy, self-effacing surface the clever unicorn had a very vivid and well-directed imagination, as well as a surprisingly encyclopedic knowledge of certain subjects. The hobbles and bridle had only been the start of it.

Luna’s flanks twitched in memory of the many phantom caresses she had received. It had taken all of her own self-control not to give the game away and reveal herself. Such a pity that Twilight had left the dream just as things were getting really good. Luna really wanted to learn what that spell Twilight had just started to cast would have done if she hadn’t been woken before completing it.

Ah, how Luna longed for the day when Twilight would be brave enough to suggest they indulge in such games while in the flesh.

While Luna had been caught up in pleasant memories her hooves had brought her to the entrance of her sister’s office. The sound of subdued, but slightly frantic voices inside told her that something was going on even before she trotted past the two guards bracketing the entrance and into the room.

Inside the office, she spotted Celestia reclining on some cushions by the wall looking over some paperwork and drinking tea while her secretary and assistant were carefully opening drawers and checking the contents.

“What’s going on, Tia?” she asked in curiosity.

Her sister looked up from her work and gave Luna a welcoming smile. “I seem to have misplaced my seal, Luna.”

Luna gave a guilty start, and said, “Your seal?” The tone of her voice caused Tia to narrow her eyes and give her a long searching look.

“Something you have to confess, sister. Don’t tell me you were planning a prank involving my official seal, one of the most important artifacts in Equestria. At least according to Papercut,” Tia finished with a nod at her secretary, who was looking at Luna with badly suppressed indignation.

“Ah, well. It wasn't a prank, exactly. I misplaced mine and had a parcel I needed to frank a package for the Royal Courier service, so I borrowed yours. Sorry.” Turning to Papercut, she said, “Please go to my desk and retrieve the misplaced item for my sister, Mister Papercut.”

Luna watched Papercut and the assistant rush from the room and shivered as she felt a burning feeling at the back of her head. She turned to see Tia giving her a dark, speculative look.

“Misplaced? Really, Luna?”

“Haha,” Luna laughed weakly. “I think I might have accidentally packed mine in the boxes I meant to send over to my new vacation tent. I’ll have to go through them and see if that is the case.” Inside she was praying that Tia would drop it. She still hadn’t talked Twilight into allowing her to call on Twilight Velvet and ask for permission to court her daughter. Until that happened she didn’t want anypony speculating about why she had sent a special parcel to Twilight. On the other hoof, no pony would ever think anything unusual about Twilight receiving something from Tia.

Oh, how she wished she could be there when Twilight opened up that parcel and found Starswirl the Bearded’s student journal. She had meant to save it for Heartwarming Eve but was hoping such a gift would supply the push Twilight needed to get her off the fence. She gave a small inward sigh. Truly, courtship in this modern age was far too complicated.

“Accidentally misplaced? I’m surprised Laminia didn’t catch the mistake.” Before Luna could come up with a quick excuse, Tai carried on. “I suppose her current condition might account for her being a little less attentive than normal. No harm was done. Just let me know if you need to ‘borrow’ it again. Shall we go over the events of the day, now?”

Luna gave Tia a hard look. Her sister had giving in far too easily, and that meant something. At the very least, she had expected to be teased unmercifully over her scatterbrained behavior, but, calling her on it would likely only worsen any suspicion she might have. Best to let sleeping griffon’s lie. The last thing she wanted was for Tia to find out about her and Twilight. She’d either refuse to allow them to have a relationship or far, far worse, she’d be enthusiastic about the idea and actively attempt to push them together. Luna visibly shuddered at the thought.

“Catching a cold, Luna?” Tia asked solicitously. “We could put this off? There is nothing of any real importance we need to discuss this evening. Unless you know of something?”

“No, no, I’m fine, just a draft. Let us go over the events of the day and my schedule for this evening.”

Author's Note

Just to get something straight. There is no way in heck that Curry and Wooshter are legally bound. It is just a very thin plot gag, but no thinner than a lot that were actually used in the show so I feel no guilt over using the whole engagement thing to create a farce.

Any views on Rarity/Fancypants? Applejack/Shadow? No matter what, those shipping threads will never become front and center in the main story line, but if enough readers are for, or against it, could affect how those relationships progress in the background. .

Chapter 5 [edited]

How to Train Your Batpony
chapter 5

***

Twilight, the Terrible, Terror of the Seas, ran her gaze over the smooth quivering flanks of the unfortunate mare that had fallen into her clutches. “Not so high and mighty are you now, my fair Princess Luna. Do you wish to surrender? Or, do I have to convince you that you have no choice in the matter?” the Terrible Terror asked in a gloating tone while running the flat side of her crop over the silky smooth hide of the princess' flank. “I imagine you can guess which answer I prefer to hear.”

Drawing back, while staying out of the poor mare’s line of sight, she laughed lightly, and said, “But, before we begin, why don’t I slip into something a bit more comfortable. There’s a little spell I’ve just been dying to try out. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, if not as much as I will. Bwahaha---”

***

“Twilight, Twilight! Come on, wake up. You’re starting to freak me out here.”

“Huh, wha?” Twilight muttered around a tongue that seemed to be stuck to the bottom of her parched mouth. The sleep befuddled unicorn blinked blearily to clear the crud out of her eyes till the blur in front of her resolved into Spike’s concerned face. Confusion slowed her mental process, until the memory of her daydream flooded into her mind, turning her face scarlet and lifting her body up and onto her hooves in a flash. “Sorry, sorry. I dozed off for a moment.” Seeing incipient alarm in Spike’s eyes, Twilight focused on slowing her racing heart. Adopting a nonchalant air, she stretched and yawned, while inwardly she tried to shove her most recent memories under a metaphorical mental mattress, much like a teenage colt reading a copy of Play-Mare, whose mother has just knocked on his bedroom door to ask if his sheets needed to be washed.

And just like that teenager, totally failing to pull the wool over the eyes of her interrogator.

“What can I do for you, Spike?” Twilight asked, not meeting her number one assistant's eyes as she made a show of straightening out the papers on her desk.

Keeping a wary eye on Twilight, Spike said, “I just wanted to let you know that Bulk Biceps brought back that weight training book Curry was asking about.” He tilted his head slightly to the side as he gave her a quizzical look. “Have you been playing pirates with Pipsqueak and Jake?” he asked out of the blue.

“What? No. Why do you ask?” Twilight blurted out in a flustered voice while an image of herself in a fancy frock coat and wearing a broad-brimmed hat with a long plume, rose up to the top of her mental picture gallery.

“Well, you sort of sounded like them. While you were talking in your sleep. What with all the Yar har, my pretty, and the diabolical laugh just before I woke you up.”

“Oh, that was just a silly dream. The truth is, I was reading one of the storybooks Pipsqueak requested. Just to make sure they were age appropriate,” she added hastily as she pointed at a stack of books on her desk.

“Oh, were they?”

“Were they what?”

“Geez, Twilight. Listen more closely. Were they age appropriate?”

“Oh, well, the ones from the foal section were, but there were a lot of romance novels with pirates on the cover mixed in with them. Some of those are really not suitable for young foals. Especially a foal with an imagination like Pipsqueak. I think it best that they be out of sight and out of reach, so I’ll move all of them up to the top shelves, just in case,” Twilight said, flushing slightly in memory of some of the steamier scenes the book she had just reviewed had contained, and which had no doubt been responsible for her recent naughty daydream.

“So, I’ll just set aside that book for Curry, then?”

“What? NO! She’s much too young!” Twilight shouted, causing Spike to lean back slightly from the force.

“I meant the fitness book, Twilight,” he said in exasperation. He then gave her a considering look, and after looking around to make sure there were no ponies hiding behind the inkwell, he leaned in and whispered, “Say Twilight. It’s not? You know? That time of the month?”

Twilight looked at Spike blankly for a moment, before turning scarlet.

***

The front door of the Ponyville Golden Oak library slammed open and Spike came flying out to a soft, more or less, landing in the gardenia bushes. Digging himself out, he brushed himself off and glared at the closed library door, which showed the bright purple aura of a locking spell. With a shake of his head, and deciding, waste not, want not, Spike gathered up some of the scattered flowers and made them up into a bouquet before trotting off in the direction of Rarity’s boutique while muttering to himself. "We have got to get Twilight a coltfriend.”

***

Riding around town in Scootaloo’s wagon along with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle was one thing, Twist thought to herself as she hung on for dear life. The crazy pegasus had to use at least a little bit of common sense when she was coping with the weight of three fillies. Riding behind the pegasus out in the country when she was Scoot’s only passenger was a very different kettle of corn. After the second time Scoot grabbed some major wicked air, Twist had shut her eyes tight, braced all four hooves against the side of the wagon, and promised herself that she would never, ever, under any circumstances, ride with the insane filly again. Or at least not until tomorrow, when she had to go back home.

***

“You can get out now. I gotta swing by and pick up Curry, ” Scootaloo said impatiently. Twist, realizing that the only thing still moving was her stomach, opened her eyes and saw the by now familiar sight of Princess Luna’s tent rearing up above her. The wagon-sick filly tumbled off of the fiendish device and gave the ground a big hearty smack with her lips before rolling over on her back with all four legs sticking up in the air.

“Ewwww, earth ponies are so weird,” Scootaloo said in disgust. She swung onto her scooter and took off like a batpony out of Tartarus.

Twist just knew that if she tried to get to her feet she was going to end up running for the bushes. Even laying quietly on her back she could feel her abused stomach threatening revolt. Taking a few deep breaths to settle her tummy, the filly twisted her head around to look at the tent. “Can you hear me?” she asked politely. The section of the tent nearest her rippled, a wave in the fabric traveling from the ground up the wall and then back down again.

It might have just been a breeze, but Twist knew better.

“Oh, that’th good,” the nearsighted earth pony said in relief, laying her head back down on the nice safe, stable, ground. “Could you please set up the haunted house? Just like my friends and I were planning for Nightmare Night,” she asked politely.

It was hard to describe, and she had tried to do it numerous times, so she knew, but Twist always sensed something whenever she talked to the Tent, a feeling that it really did hear her, and was doing as she asked, not just because it was some sort of magical thing that had to listen to her, but because it wanted to. This time she experienced an added element, a sensation that she choose to interpret as indicating that the tent was pleased with the request and was looking forward to playing with them.

Twilight Sparkle said she was anthro-po-morph-ize-ing the tent. Projecting a personality and motive onto what was no more than a very well designed artifact.

Twilight Sparkle was wrong.

Almost from the very beginning, Twist had known, in her heart, that the tent was much more than just a bunch of fabric that a whole lot of unicorns had spelled a really long time ago. And, deep down she had been absolutely certain that It liked her. She just hadn’t been sure, why. Then, a few weeks ago at Jake’s palace reception, she had found out one very possible reason.

Despite nausea in her belly, Twist smiled a secret little smile.

***

Twist had been startled when the guard had picked her out of the crowd of foals gathered around the ice-cream sundae buffet and told her that somepony wanted to talk to her. But, not nearly as startled as when they arrived at their destination and she found out who it was that wanted to talk to her.

Walking into a small room and finding Princess Celestia waiting for her, with a pot of tea and a carafe of cocoa had been so startling that she’d almost wet herself. Fortunately the much more familiar, and a lot less frightening, Princess Luna had joined them before anything requiring soap and water had occurred.

It had turned out that Princess Celestia had caused her to be brought to her because she had heard about Twist’s ability to command Luna’s tent. Not that Twist thought of what she did in those terms. She ‘asked’, she didn’t order. In any case, Princess Celestia had done a little research, and it was to inform Twist of the results that she had been summoned.

It had been a revelation to discover that her many-times-great-grandfather had been a Saddle Arabian prince who had come to Equestria to propose to Princess Celestia.

As proof of his sincerity, he had brought the Royal Tent as a gift. If Princess Celestia had said yes to his request, all would have been well for him. Seeing as she had declined, he had ended up in a bit of a pickle.

Saddle Arabian Princes, as it turned out, competed for the position of the heir by assembling a worthy harem that was capable of running the country under their supervision. The Stallion with the most talented harem became the heir. Marrying Princess Celestia would have made the prince’s chances of becoming the next ruler a certainty, no matter what the quality of the rest of his mares.

Unfortunately for him, Princess Celestia had said no, and it had come out that he hadn’t actually gotten permission to give her the Royal Tent, or even to take it out of the country. A message had arrived hard on the hooves of the prince, from the then current sultan, demanding the return of his tent, as well as those parts of his son which made him ‘a’ son. Celestia was free to keep the leftovers, the rather impolite letter had finished.

Princess Celestia had not appreciated the tone of the ‘request.’ Besides that, she had become fond of the prince, even if not so much so that she would consider marrying him. Unlike the arrogant princes who had come to woo her in times past; every few generations some prince would ‘discover’ the same brilliant idea, the current supplicant actually had some skills beyond looking handsome and a sense of entitlement.

As it happened, the prince who had brought the tent turned out to be a first-class baker, which also helped explain why he was good deal plumper than was considered standard for Saddle Arabian princes. Royalty was supposed to be tall, lean and dour, not short, stout and cheerful.

At least when he wasn’t worried about losing important bits and pieces of himself.

Princess Luna had interrupted at that point and remarked that the prince should have tried to bribe her sister with baked goods instead of an oversized chunk of fabric, particularly since Celestia's closets were overflowing with dresses she had never worn. On the other hoof, Tia, as Luna called her sister, never seemed able to keep a good piece of pastry around for more than a few seconds.

Seeing Princess Celestia casually pick up a pillow with her magic and swat Princess Luna with it had gone a long way toward relieving any lingering trepidation Twist had felt about being so close to the Ruler of the Sun.

In the end, Princess Celestia had granted the prince sanctuary. He had gone on to start up his own business, and a family, and descendants, and eventually all of that had resulted in Twist being born.

“I think that the Tent recognizes you as a descendant of its last owner, and that is why it does as you ask,” Princess Celestia had said at the completion of her tale.

“I think it was lonely and just wanted somepony to play with,” Twist had argued without thinking. Realizing her slip of the tongue too late to stop it, Twist had hunched her shoulders a bit in expectation of derision at best, a lighting bolt of royal displeasure at worst.

After a few moments of nothing but silence, Twist had glanced up to see the two princesses looking at each other intently.

“I was not here when the Saddle Arabians created it, Tia. Is it possible? Did they have the skill?” Princess Luna asked.

“Honestly, Luna. I’m not sure. But, it is a very old, very powerful, artifact. It is possible that it has acquired self-awareness on its own.”

“If there is any chance of that at all, we have to err on the side of caution,” Luna said, her expression grim. “We can not simply pack it away in the dark for several hundred more years.”

“You did mention that you were interested in spending more time outside of Canterlot. This would provide an excuse,” Princess Celestia had muttered while looking thoughtful.

“I shall let it be known that it will be my weekend retreat. That should buy us some time,” Princess Luna said in a happy tone of voice.

Princess Celestia narrowed her eyes slightly and stared at Princess Luna in the same way that aunt Bon Bon sometimes stared at aunt Lyra when she said she was just going out for a ‘little’ walk. “What are you up to, Luna?” she asked. Which was also what aunt Bon Bon usually said, though of course she said, Lyra, not Luna.

“Why nothing, Sister. You really should try to reign in your unfounded suspicion of the younger generation. It is most unbecoming in a thoughtful ruler.”

“This is not over, Luna,” Celestia had said with a glower that the young filly had been very glad was not directed toward her. Turning to Twist Princess Celestia said, “We would appreciate it if you would keep your new friend company as much as possible. Bring your friends from town to play and explore the tent’s capabilities. See if you can get it to listen to them.”

“Is that wise, Tia? There are some parts of the tent that are-- Luna blushed ever so slightly and swished her tail-- not proper for younger ponies. Not until they are twenty-one, at least."

Twist’s head had been ping-ponging back and forth between the sisters as she tried to understand what they were talking about. Princess Luna’s last comment cleared that up, sort of. “There are placeth the tent won’t let me go,” Twist said. “No matter how nicely I athk,” she added, a little bit of frustration in her tone. “Twilight thparkle thays it’th thome thort of pre-programmed default parental control.”

Princess Celestia had seemed a bit relieved at that. “I’m pleased to hear that. As to the other matter, I take it you have no problem spending time at the tent?”

“No, Printhethth Thelethtia.”

***

“No, way,” Spike gasped, the flowers in his claws drooping like they’d been hit by his breath after a meal of arsenic garnished garnets. He stared in shock as Rarity trotted down the street toward him. The reason for his dismay was the perfectly turned out and immaculately stylish stallion walking beside her, with whom she was exchanging cheerful, nay, flirtatious, conversation. Spike’s eyes narrowed, and a feeling of total loathing for the stallion filled his breast.

Twilight had warned him to be on the lookout for fortune hunters from Canterlot once the existence of Jake and Curry became public. She had been talking about ponies aiming at causing problems for the snipe and new alicorn, not ponies targeting town ponies. That didn’t matter. Spike had never seen a more obvious villain than the smarmy smooth talker trying to charm Rarity. That pretentious monocle, the neat, super cool, little mustache, the perfectly pressed suit, and tie, the carefully trimmed and combed mane. What honest pony had the time to devote that much attention to their clothing and appearance? No honest pony, that’s who. He even came with a scuzzy idiot sidekick, Spike thought, taking in the scrawny brown pegasus walking a few steps behind the gigolo and Rarity, yet clearly with them.

Spike’s chest swelled, and his spines stiffened. It was up to him to reveal the truth of this cad to poor innocent, perfect, Rarity.

“Spike, please come and meet my friend from Canterlot,” Rarity called out, cutting through the fog of determination that was clouding Spike’s mind. “He’s going to be staying at my parent’s place while he’s in town.”

The con-pony had the nerve to act reluctant as he said, “Really, this is not necessary, my dear Rarity. As I told you. I can make my own arrangements. I really do not wish to impose on your good nature any more than I already have.”

“Please, my dear, Fancy Pants. It is no imposition at all. Remember what I told you. My friend Fluttershy is a delicate creature. It will take some time to break the ice with her. A day, maybe days, possibly even weeks. I could not stand the thought of you sleeping in some cold impersonal boarding room bed when I have an entire house just sitting empty. My parents are off on one of their frequent ‘culturally’ uplifting trips. They just adore visiting the significant ‘cultural’ high points of Equestria. Culture, culture, culture. They simply can not get enough of culture.

"With my little sister staying with me, their house is just gathering dust. It will do it good to be aired out. Trust ‘me’ you are doing ‘me’ a favor by accepting ‘my’ offer."

Rarity’s words shot through Spike’s chest like arrows, letting him stay in ‘her’ family home? Doing ‘her' a favor? Was he too late? Had the dastard gotten his claws into her heart already?

The young dragon’s emotional fall was suddenly arrested as his hand was grasped firmly by Fancy Pants’ hoof and shaken enthusiastically.

“Spike! Forgive me. I did not connect the dots right away. This is wonderful. You are ‘the’ Spike, are you not?”

“Huh. 'The' Spike? I guess. I mean, I don’t know of any other Spikes,” the young dragon stammered, unable to cope with this sudden bout of good will. He hadn’t been this enthusiastically welcomed since the first time he’d met Fluttershy.

“This is such an honor. To meet the hero of the Crystal Empire.”

“Spike’s a hero?” Rarity blurted out.

“What? Hero?” Spike’s reaction was even more startled than that of the beautiful unicorn.

Still holding Spike’s hand, Fancy Pants looked at Rarity. “That’s right, you must not have known yet. I visited the Crystal Empire last month. It’s a must-see for anypony who is anypony in Canterlot. Spike here is famous there as the hero who saved the Crystal Heart.”

“He is?”

“I am?”

“What ho, a real hero.” The gangly pegasus who had been loitering in the background exclaimed as he ambled over and looked down at Spike. “Always figured heroes would be a bit bigger,” said in a cheerful voice with not the least hint of derision in it as he held a hoof just above Spike’s head.

“Now, now, Wooshter. You know what they say. You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

“Wouldn’t know. Not much of a one for books, don’t you see. As for judging. I’m usually the one on the other side. Being judged that is. What, what? Not about to toss any ruddy stones.” He held out a hoof to Spike. “Pleased to meetcha.”

“Ah, okay. Yeah, nice to meet you too,” Spike said in a flustered voice, while inwardly he was crying out, what the heck! I can’t like the stallion who’s making Rarity act like a school filly. It’s not fair. He’s not supposed to be nice. He’s supposed to be a total jerk like Blueblood.

***

While Twist had been lost in a daydream of sharing tea and cocoa with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the tent had not been idle. The brilliant hues of its fabric had dulled until they were the dank brown shade of rotten canvas. Scabrous patterns appeared, giving the illusion of mold and mildew. The pennants dangling from the peaks tattered till they looked like rags flapping in the breeze. The entire structure took on a dilapidated look, appearing as if it was on the verge of falling in on itself. “That ith tho cool,” Twist said in awe. “I didn’t know you could do that.” She and her friends had whiled away a recent lazy afternoon discussing how they could use the tent’s talents to create the best Nightmare Night haunted house ‘ever’. All the effects they had planned had been centered around the artifact’s ability to rearrange its interior walls and decor seemingly at will. They had never imagined anything this awesome, however, and had planned on supplying their own fake spider-webs and paste on glowing eyes as well as all the other accessories that went toward making a super awesome haunted house.

“Thith is going to work even better than we planned. You are the best tent in the whole world,” she praised the fabric construct. It might have only been her imagination or a reflection from the sun which was starting to set, but Twist was sure that for a moment the moldy appearance of the tent took on a slightly rosy hue.

“Ki-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi…!” A sudden staccato screaming interrupted Twist’s thoughts. The sound grew louder and Scootaloo burst from the brush that edged the fairgrounds and headed straight toward Twist at full speed, leaving a rooster-tail of dust and leaves in her wake. Right behind the flightless pegasus, in the wagon holding on for dear life, was Curry.

Anger and concern filled Twist as she took in the way the small snipe was being tossed back and forth with each bump Scootaloo took. The candy stick maker was just warming up to give the Pegasus a piece of her mind when Curry’s yips started to resolve themselves into somewhat coherent words. “Yippee-Ki-Yi-yah you bleeper.* That. The. Fastest. You. Can. Go. My. Grandmother. Can. Go. Faster.”

*Curry had only ever seen the censored version of Die Hard.

As Twist watched in horror, Scootaloo lowered her head and the buzz of her wings went up several octaves. Curry disappeared into the cloud of dust stirred up by the tremendous draft the filly was generating with her wings as she headed straight for the tent, and Twist. Coughing came from inside the cloud of dust, followed by Curry’s choked out, “You won’t shut me up that easy, Slowpoke.”

Just as Twist was sure she was about to be run over, Scootaloo slewed to the side, her right rear hoof digging into the ground as she pivoted in place, flinging the wagon around in a circle. The centrifugal force proved too much for Curry’s fingers and she was flung in a high screaming, ‘literally,’ arc that ended with a muffled, ‘whoomph’, as she impacted the side of the tent which gave under the impact and dropped her, laughing helplessly onto the ground.

Giggling, Curry said, “Again,” and then broke into renewed laughter for some reason.

“That. Is So. Freaking. Awesome,” Scootaloo cried out, looking up at the tent.

“Well, I wouldn't go that far,” Curry said. When she saw that the Pegasus was not looking at her, she turned and stared, her mouth dropping open. “Oh, man. Twist. That is. I mean. How the heck? Oh, this is going to be so sweet.”

Flushing slightly, Twist said, “It wathn’t me. I just athked the tent to thet up our Nightmare Night haunted housth inside. It did the outthide all by itthelf.”

“Bet it wouldn’t have done it, if any other pony than you had asked,” Curry said, giving Twist’s curly mane an affectionate tussling.

Just then cries of, “Wicked,” and, “Amazing,” drew everypony’s attention and they turned to see Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara coming toward them from one side of the clearing, and Sweetie Belle, staggering under a pair of overloaded saddle bags, from the other.

Diamond Tiara was the one pony not shouting, and trying to look like she was not staring in amazement.

Flying over top of Sweetie Belle came Featherweight, who flew in to hover just over the group. “They’re coming,” he gasped. “About five minutes.” He paused a bit in thought and corrected himself. “They’re pretty slow. Might be as much as fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, yeah. Looks like it’s showtime!” Scootaloo said with glee, mimicking her hero as she rubbed her forehooves together in gleeful anticipation.

Not one of the foals stopped for one moment to consider that no matter how awesome the appearance of the tent was, it in no way matched the back-story that Sneaky had filled them in on before sending them on their way earlier in the day.

***

Shadow stared out through the bushes he was standing behind and snorted in derision. “So this is the fabulous ‘tent’ I’ve been hearing about? Just what you’d expect after sticking one of those canvas torture devices in a basement for a few hundred years.”

Standing beside him, wearing her dome-shaped blinder hat, Goose Down started to lift her head at her brother’s words, and paused for a moment, wanting to lift it high enough to see the tent and find out what her brother was talking about, but at the same time afraid of exposing herself to the sight of the late-afternoon sky. She let out a frustrated sound of anger and frustration and resumed her motion. She tilted her head back slowly until she could make out the tent across the field. but not the sky over it. Goose had meant to snap her head back down as soon as she saw the tent, but she was so surprised by its appearance that she kept tilting her head back, for once ignoring the sight of the open sky past the edges of the fabric structure. Something that would have been impossible for her a few weeks before.

“I don’t understand,” Goose all but wailed. “It wasn’t like this before. I've only been away from it for a few days, and now look at it! I've failed Princess Luna!”

Shadow hastily comforted his little sister “Hush, Kite. That’s what the evil bastards do to you. They fool you into thinking they’ll keep the weather and rain off of you, and then they let themselves get blown over in the wind, or collapse under a load of snow. Never forget, they are instruments of Tartarus, designed to give ponies a taste of what awaits them if they don’t live an honest and straightforward life. What you should be more interested in are those foals.”

Still focused on the tent and not the rapidly darkening sky, Goose glanced at the fillies in question just as Featherweight came fluttering in to join his friends. “Oh, that’s Twist and her friends. They have permission to play in the tent whenever they like.” Goose looked more closely and added, “And Princess Moonlight is with them as well. I wonder if they are planning on spending the night?”

The older pony took a look at the dilapidated tent and shuddered at the thought of it being filled with rambunctious foals. He was very glad he was going to be spending the night perched in Fluttershy’s tree with the bats. He had only intended to drop his and Goose’s kit off in the tent before they both headed out to do over-watch guard duty, but he supposed he had best check out the situation here first.

“I guess we should make sure they don’t get in any trouble,” Shadow said in a resigned tone of voice, but while he had been wrestling with his conscience, and his disinclination to get anywhere near the monstrosity he was supposed to spend his days in for the foreseeable future, Goose had already started trotting across the field, her wings held slightly out to lighten her steps over the somewhat rutted field.

***

“Oh, no. This’ll spoil everything,” Apple Bloom moaned as she spotted Goose Down galloping across the field toward them, followed at some distance by her big brother. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said while bonking her head with a forehoof. “I knew Goose was only staying at our place until some more ponies came to keep her company here. I didn’t even think when I met her big brother and Applejack said they were leaving, they’d be coming here.”

The young nocturne mare’s expression was full of concern when she reached them. She stared at the tent as she asked Twist, in a voice laced with worry. “What happened? Is it something we did?”

“We’ll tell you inside,” Curry answered for Twist, who had already vanished through the decaying entrance way. When the rest of the foals charged after her, Goose was left with little choice but to follow. She spared a glance back toward her brother and was pleased to see that he would reach them in a few seconds.

***

Goose had seen many incredible things since she had started working at the palace. The incident that would live on in her mind forever as number one, was, of course, her first ever face to face meeting with Princess Luna; even if it had consisted of her cowering on the floor. The second most incredible event had been meeting Princess Luna for the second time, and, eventually, managing to get words to come out of her mouth. The third had been walking into the palace for the first time and realizing that it wasn’t a dream. She had really gotten a job in the same place where her beloved Princess Luna lived. That last one had now been bumped down to fourth. Her new third most incredible experience was watching her normally stoic, big brother shoving a hoof in his mouth to muffle his laughter while tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Does that mean you’re going to let us pull pranks on them?” Apple Bloom asked hesitantly.

“Let you? I want a front row seat,” Shadow said, tears still running from his eyes. He turned to Goose and snapped out, “Trainee Goose! Pay attention!”

Goose was startled, but she hadn’t played ‘Royal Guard’ with her youngest older brothers for so many years for nothing. Snapping to attention she looked straight ahead and said, “Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

“These are your orders. You will keep eyes on the main enemy forces at all time! You will not allow them to see you! Do you understand these orders, trainee?”

“Yes Drill Sergeant!”

“Then follow me, Trainee,” Shadow said. Spreading his wings, he gave a leisurely flap and floated up into the shadows that were gathered above the entrance way.

Swallowing nervously, Goose looked around and shifted her body so she was standing dead center in the entrance lobby. She allowed her wings to fully unfurl, earning a gasp from both Scootaloo and Featherweight as the tips reached out, and out and out, till they brushed either side of the room. For the first time, the little ponies caught a glimpse of Goose's cutie mark, three curved white lines that looked like soaring birds in a V formation.

With the smallest of downward strokes, Goose caught air and propelled herself up the fifteen feet needed to join her big brother in the shadows.

The more difficult task was swinging herself to the side so her hooves could find purchase on the stiff fabric and then slowly easing herself up and across the ceiling till she hung upside down over the floor-bound foals.

***

“Oh, that is so freaking cool!” Curry hissed as she exhaled the breath she had been holding while staring upward at Goose.

One of the very first things Curry had noticed after her arrival in magic pony land was that Equestrian ponies, and Jake now that he was here, were far more subtle and flexible than horses on earth. Goose and Shadow’s movements took that to a whole new level. There was a sinuosity in the way they moved that only reinforced Curry’s very first impression of them. They really were dragon ponies.

“Rainbow Dash could have done it better,” Scootaloo said loyally, but in a voice with just a hint of uncertainty to it.

“No she couldn’t,” Diamond Tiara said flatly, and for once, in a totally honest, no put-down intended way, as she looked wide-eyed up into the shadows with the other fillies.

Tellingly, Scootaloo didn’t argue with her.

***

Excitement coursed through Goose, seasoned with a touch of mischief. If she was doing this right, then the only thing the foals should be able to see were her eyes. Looking down at Diamond Tiara and the other little ponies she deliberately gave a long slow blink and felt thrilled when several of the watching foals visibly shuddered. “Can you see me?” she asked, blinking her eyes closed again.

A flashbulb went off, the light penetrating her closed eyelids. “Yes,” said Featherweight from where he was hovering a few feet away to the side.

“You jerk. Now I can’t see anything at all,” Scootaloo complained, rubbing her eyes to clear away the flash-induced tears.

“Quiet now. They are coming. You foals take your places,” her brother’s calm voice said from the shadows. Even with her superior night vision, all Goose could make out was a faint outline of his body only a step away from her.

***

“Oh, this is just as creepy as all get out,” Curry muttered admiringly as she took in the doorway that had suddenly opened up in the side of the front entrance way. The edges highlighted by green glowing lace spiderwebs. She let her fingers brush against them, half expecting to feel a slimy texture, as she walked through the door. The rest of the foals followed after her, several of them taking looks back over their shoulders to see if they could spot the two Nocturne up in the ceiling.

***

Soft as owl feathers, her brother’s voice reached Goose’s ears. “Remember, stillness, silence, keep to the shadows.”

Goose felt a touch of annoyance. She wasn’t six anymore. Despite that, there was no denying how thrilled she was at hearing his instruction. Finally, after waiting so long for it, she was being officially trained, and not just indulged, by her big brother.

***

“What in Tartarus?” Sneaky swore as he walked out onto the fairgrounds, dropping out of his hick character from surprise upon seeing what had happened to the brightly festooned and colorful tent he had been expecting to see.

Fortunately for his ongoing deception, the news ponies were too exhausted and grateful at reaching their destination after spending two hours being led around by their noses in circles to pay much attention to what their idiot guide was saying.

That was the only positive part of the whole situation. He had no idea how the Crusaders had disguised the tent. All he knew was that the foals had gone seriously off script. How was Berry Punch going to ‘translate’ his gibberish, when the words she was supposed to use in no way matched what was in front of them. Calling the thing in front of them Princess Luna’s secret romantic getaway just wasn’t going to cut it. He doubted even this lot would buy into the idea that the former Nightmare Moon found something that looked like that, homey.

Confirming Sneaky’s supposition, Poison Pen pointing across the field at the tent, as if his companions might have somehow missed seeing the bedraggled monstrosity, and demanded, “By Celestia’s bouncy flanks, what the hay is that?”

While Sneaky struggled to come up with a new storyline and figuring out how to let Berry Punch know what it was, she proved once again that he wasn’t the only pony here who could think on their hooves. “Old circus tent. Couldn’t make payroll. The owner just walked away, along with all the acts.” Then, Berry Punch demonstrated why he had come to love her so much, by adding, “Well, most of the acts. Some of the clowns stuck around until they vanished one day. No pony knows what happened to them.”

“Clowns?” Quick Quote squeaked, his voice sounding as high pitched as air escaping from a balloon. Not a bad comparison considering how his over-inflated body seemed to be sagging even as Sneaky watched.

Berry Punch was really getting into her ad-libbing, despite Sneaky’s efforts to signal her to keep it simple. “Oh yeah. Mayor had to ban them from town. They were scaring all the foals and driving down property values. Haven’t seen tail or hoof of them since. They either left or… Well, you know.” Berry finished with a shrug and a ghoulish expression.

Sneaky resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead, That one line about property values, and scaring the foals, was straight out of an article he had been working on about some nouveau-riche ponies in Canterlot who were trying to get their Nocturne neighbors evicted from the neighborhood. Never mind that the Night ponies had been living in that area for several generations before it went upscale.

“I’m not surprised,” Quick Quotes said with a shudder. “Those big painted smiles, those creepy eyes. Gives me the willies just thinking about them.” He took a look at the tattered tent, his expression showing that he half expected a clown to stick its bewigged head out the entranceway and leer at him.

“They belong to Celestia’s secret spy force, you know,” Conspiracy said in a tone of voice that suggested that anyone who didn’t agree with him was lacking in intelligence. Nopony paid any attention to him.

“Are you sure the prince is in there?” Poison Pen asked, his voice quivering. He looked around nervously. Besides the collapsing tent in the middle of the clearing, there were all those huge plants surrounding them. Surely they were unnatural, those tree things. Plants just didn’t grow that big.

“Oh, sure. He and his little friends play there all the time. No other pony will come near the place. They could be getting up to anything.” A sly smile quirked the ends of her mouth, and she continued in a conspiratorial tone, “Shameful if you think about it. Some of those fillies and colts already have their cutie marks. They’re getting far too old to be playing alone and unsupervised like that. Wouldn’t surprise me if some of the fillies’ parents weren’t hoping they’ll come home with a little royal present. If you know what I mean.

Sneaky wanted to cheer as he saw the tired ponies’ eyes light up like pinball machines that had just registered a high-score. Berry Punch deserved a very special bonus for her quick thinking. He made a mental note to borrow a pair of Cloud Kicker’s feathers, Cloud Kicker still attached by preference and some chocolate syrup from Sugar Cube Corner.

***

“What is with this thing?” White Out hissed in frustration. True to form, he and his fellows had totally ignored the tattered and torn opening that marked the tent’s entrance and had gone around the side to try and slip under the back wall. Sneaky couldn’t really fault them for that. He was a little frontdooraphobic too.

However, to the dismay of the press ponies, the tent was not cooperating in the least. No matter how hard they tried they could not lift the fabric away from the ground, or in fact, detect any sort of demarcation where fabric turned into dirt.

“Looks like yo' juntleponies is a-gonna hafta use th' front intrance.”

“Oh, damn. I think I understood that” Purple Prose, a plum-colored unicorn said. “We’ve been here too long. This is a waste of time. There isn’t anypony here, and even if there is, it sure as Tartarus ain’t no bucking prince.”

Very faint giggling snorting laughter drifted through the night air, followed by the same ghostly voice saying, "He said bucking." Even knowing the source, Sneaky felt the night breeze evaporate sweat off the back of his neck and a row of goose-pimple begin to crawl up his flanks.

“You hear that?” Poison Pen asked, his voice shrill. “Clowns! They're waiting for us. We have to get out of here now!“

White Out took hold of the frantic Poison Pen by the collar to stop him from fleeing and gave him a hard hoof slap across the muzzle. “Pull yourself together, pony. Are you a stallion or a mouse? “It’s just those damn foals. Laughing up their noses at us. Again.” Turning to the other ponies who were huddled together, he snarled, “Buck this, I don’t give a damn for tradition. I’m going in the front door.”

***

Goose peered down from the darkness in barely restrained excitement as, finally, the intruders crept in through the entrance. She shifted slightly and drew a quelling look from Shadow that had her flushing in embarrassment. Freezing in place, she watched the press ponies through eyes drawn into narrow slits so that no tell-tail gleam would escape to give away her position.

The journalists were fairly easy to pick up. Her brother hadn’t described them individually, had only told her to watch for the ones who looked like the last good exercise they had gotten was before Princess Luna created the Nocturne. The first half-dozen ponies through the door matched that description perfectly, The two ponies who trailed after them were very different. The stallion tickled at her mind. There was something about him that was familiar. But, he was so distinctive in appearance that Goose was sure if she had ever seen him before she would not have forgotten. The look of disdain the mulberry-colored mare was directing toward the members of the press seemed to indicate that while she was with them, she was not ‘with’ them. As Goose watched, the strangely familiar pony who looked like he had just stepped right out of a storybook, the type that featured a brave noble unicorn, and that almost always included a comedy relief, idiot earth pony sidekick, nudged the mare toward one of the walls, being careful not to draw the attention of the ponies in front of them.

Goose barely suppressed a cry of surprise when the wall next to the two ponies opened up just long enough for them to step sideways through the gap, and then closed instantly once they had.

“Okay,” a fat unicorn said, a look of grim determination on his face. “Now that we’re here, let's find those foals. I have a few bottoms I want to spank. I’ll teach those inbred country hicks to respect their superiors.”

A slight shiver ran through the canvas under Goose’s hooves, and a cold chill ran down her spine as a cool breeze from nowhere caused the walls to flutter. She gripped harder so she wouldn’t fall while looking around for some sign of what might have caused the effects. Detecting nothing, she frowned and returned her attention to what was going on below her.

“So, how do we get to the prince?” the bilious green unicorn asked. Getting no answer he looked back over his shoulder. Thanks to her superior night vision Goose could see the whites of his eyes grow larger when he saw that the two ponies who had stepped through the wall were no longer present.

“Where’s that con-artist barmare? And the idiot?” he called out, drawing the attention of his fellows. Much babbling ensued until one of them noticed that something else was missing.

“Buck them. Where’s the exit?” The big fat white unicorn asked in a frantic voice.

Following his line of sight, Goose could see that the entrance to the tent was no longer present. Only dirty canvas marked its previous location.

There was a rush as the ponies stampeded back the way they had come and frantically pawed at the heavy material looking for a seam or flap. “There isn’t anything here. It’s vanished!” a muddy white unicorn cried out in fear.

“It has to be here! You’re just not looking hard enough, Quick Quote,” The extra fat white unicorn said.

“Buck you, White Out! I tell you, it isn’t here.”

Three of the ponies started chewing on the fabric in an effort to make a hole, but all action came to a stop as light tinkling, derisive, laughter floated through the air. Even knowing there was nothing supernatural about it, Goose still felt a twitching at the back of her neck.

“Do you see what I see, Poison Pen?” the one called Quick Quote said in a quavering voice as he pointed down a hallway that hadn’t been there a second before. Almost lost in the shadows were two small figures. Tattered cloth draped their bodies and their heads were topped by huge poofy manes that were three times as big as their heads.

“No, not that. Not clowns.” the bilious green unicorn said as he turned even greener than before.

High-pitched giggling and snorting laughter wafted toward them as the two small figures turned so they were facing the news ponies. One turned its head slightly toward its companion and asked, “Say, A.B. Do you know how many reporters it takes to light a candle?”

“Why, no, Di. I don’t reckon I do. How many Reporters does it take to light a candle?”

“None! They don’t dare get near an open flame.”

Her companion gave a loud snort of approval and stomped her hooves in delight.

“Make it stop,” Poison Pen whimpered, his ears flattening against his head.

The other shadowy figure then asked a question. “Hey, Di. What does a Canterlot Times reporter do if a fact slips into his story?”

“Oh, please. Ask me a hard one. He issues a, like, retraction. Everypony knows that pshaw.”

Groans of dismay erupted from their captive audience, some of whom tried to shove hooves in their ears to drown out the mocking laughter.

The shadowy figures turned their backs on the reporters and started to walk away while arguing.

“You stole my line?”

“Oh, please, I made it work, jerk.”

“Wait,” a dull brown Unicorn wearing a duster that dragged on the ground, called out.

The two foals only hurried more quickly away, but their shadows on the walls grew till they filled all available space and turned toward the newsponies. Shadow mouths opened in huge smiles, revealing serrated fangs as they lunged toward the pursuer.

Goose was impressed and wondered how the foals had pulled the effect off.

“Stop, Conspiracy. They’ll suck out your soul,” Poison Pen said in a gibbering voice as he restrained his companion, who shrugged him off and went galloping off after the figures just as they turned a corner and vanished from sight. The rest of the reporters, except for Poison Pen, charged after them. Finding himself left alone, he whimpered and followed, his tail tucked between his legs.

A feather-light touch against her shoulder drew Goose’s attention to Shadow. He gave a nod after the retreating reporters and began to slither along the ceiling after them. Goose followed, not as smoothly, or as quietly, but any noise she might have made was drowned out by the arguing going on at the end of the hallway.

“They’re gone, I knew it! They’re evil incarnate. We have to get out of here before they eat our souls!”

“You idiot. This is clearly some trick by the government to scare us off. They don’t want us finding out the truth about the so-called Alicorn Prince,” Conspiracy snarled, giving Poison Pen a slap across the muzzle to stop his hysterics.

“Idiots. It’s those foals from the train platform. They’re playing us for fools I tell you,” White Out wheezed, his sides heaving from the exertion of galloping twenty feet.

“If they’re foals, how did they just disappear like that? Or, make their shadows do what they did?” Poison Pen asked in a quivering tone while gesturing at the empty corridor that by all rights should have contained two small funnily dressed figures.

“Don’t be an idiot! It’s all staging. There’s a slit in the fabric they slipped through. We just have to find it and we’ll turn the tables on the brats.” Matching action to words, White Out began running his hoof over the wall as he walked down the corridor. “One of you idiots take the other side. And make sure you don’t miss anything.”

***

“I think they’re on to us,” Apple Bloom gasped as she rushed into the room they were using for staging, quivering from mingled nervousness and excitement.

“If they are, it’s because of your pathetic acting,” Diamond Tiara snarked as she gave her head a habitual toss. Instead of this gracefully flipping her mane to the side, as usual, her motion only caused the massive mound of puffed up and hair-sprayed-to-death mane to wobble back and forth like a jello mold. Like Apple Bloom, she was wearing various scraps of brightly colored fabric that had been pinned together to form a covering that in the shadows could be mistaken for the tattered remains of a clown outfit.

“This was just the opening act. We’re so lucky we heard them talking about clowns when they tried to get in through the side.” Sweetie Belle said from where she was standing next to Curry. The small snipe was in the process of fluffing up the unicorn's mane and tail into two round balls of hair, while Berry Punch was using some makeup to draw dark circles around her eyes and on her cheeks, making them look sunken and hollow. Scootaloo was receiving similar help from Twist, and Sneak Peek, who was surprisingly adept with a makeup brush.

“I don’t thee why I can’t be a clown too,” Twist complained.

“Yeah, me either. Every other pony gets to have fun. Even you and Berry Punch,” Curry said, directing a glare at Sneak Peek. “I thought I was supposed to be the one running them in circles.

“We went over this. You’re both too distinctive. There is only one snipe in Equestria, and they already know what you look like from the train platform. The old plan counted on that. Now that you foals tossed it in the dumper, we’re left with ghost clowns.” Sneaky said in a querulous tone. Looking at Curry, he added, “It’s not like putting a little makeup and some scraps of fabric on you can make you look like a pony. Even those idiots would be able to figure out who you were, no matter how we dressed you up, and Twist’s voice is unmistakable. We can’t be sure they didn’t hear her talking while they loitered outside the ice-cream parlor.”

“We’re lucky you packed all this stuff, Sweetie Belle,” Featherweight complimented the little unicorn as he snapped a picture of her in full un-dead clown regalia.

“It wasn’t me,” Sweetie Belle mumbled, keeping her mouth shut so as to not smear Berry Punch’s efforts. “Rarity just shoved everything she could into my saddlebags before pushing me out the door. There was a fancy stallion waiting to talk to her, so she wasn’t paying much attention.”

Berry Punch’s eyebrows went up. “Your sister had a gentlestallion caller? Tell me more.”

“No time,” Sneak Peek said. “Twist, are we ready?”

Twist cocked her head to one side. “Yeth, I think thhe’th finithhed thhifting the corridorth.”

“She?” Curry questioned.

Twist looked embarrassed, but said in a determined voice, “Thhe hath to be thomething. Thheth not an it.”

“Time, foals, time,” Sneaky said in exasperation. “Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, you need to get out there.”

***

Curry watched her friends rush off for another session of baiting the bad guys with a feeling of frustration. It wasn’t fair. She was the princess after all. She should be front and center. A moment later her sense of fairness asserted herself. She’d gotten to play a fun role at the train platform. Her friends deserved their turn.

Turning back to Sweetie Belle’s saddlebags, which looked like they’d thrown up, she started pawing through the contents, assembling scraps of bright fabric. Her fingers hit something hard, and she tugged out a small parcel. The wrapping was ripped and underneath she could make out an old book. Curious, she removed the torn wrapping and looked at her find before flipping it open at random, she squinted her eyes from the effort as she read the faint hand, or she guessed, mouth wrote, words there.

A spell for memory.

Warm a kettle of green tea
Add
Ginseng, two teaspoons.
Rosemary, one teaspoon
Rhodiola Rosea, three teaspoons.

Using a standard infusion spell, mingle the herbs and tea.

Steep in a clear jar exposed to the full moon for an entire evening.

Must be a clear sky. Intermittent cloud cover can disrupt proper steeping.

Use Phylium’s, universal distilent spell to reduce the liquids to a thick syrup.

The results should cling to your spoon and only drip after being held above the container for not less than twenty seconds and not more than forty.

Seal until needed. Mix one teaspoon per cup of hot water to be drunk while studying.

Do not exceed more than two cups per hour.

“Oh, my goodness. It’s a spell-book,” Curry said in low voiced excitement. She darted a hasty look at Sneak Peek and Berry Punch. Sneaky was cool, but he was still a grownup. He was likely to take the book away, telling her she was too young. Well, the heck with that. This was her chance to learn some for real magic of her very own.

Curry tucked the book back into Sweetie Belle’s saddle bags. She’d have to ask her friend about it when there were no adults around.

Truthfully, Curry wouldn’t be surprised if Sweetie Belle had no idea where it came from. Magic books were like that. They showed up when they were needed, and kids who were smart enough could have a lot of fun, as long as they didn’t let the grownups find out.

***

“No! No! No! This can’t be happening,” Poison Pen’s frantic voice came from behind the pack of ponies who were trying to find out where the foals had slipped through the walls.

“What now?” White Out said in exasperation as he looked around to see Poison Pen desperately running his hooves over the canvas that made up the end of the corridor. “What are you doing?”

“The hallway, it’s closed off behind us. We’re trapped,” Poison Pen said without ceasing his efforts to find the vanished section of the hall.

“Idiot. You just got turned around,” White Out said, pointing back the other way, where the hallway ran until the end vanished in shadow.

A sudden buzzing, like a million flies trapped in a back alley dumpster, filled the air.

“No, not again,” Poison Pen cried out, his face paling. He fell to the ground and curled into a protective ball around his vulnerable undercarriage.

Two figures, even more, horrendous than the previous two faded into view, as a chill breeze wafted over the ponies, drying the sweat on their bodies and sending a cold shiver down their spines.

“Hey, S.B. how many Inquisitor reporters does it take to find a story?"

“I don’t know, Scoot. How many?”

"We don’t know. None of them have ever found one.”

“You little Punks! Do you think you’re funny? Do you? You just wait till I get my hooves on you. I’ll stick my hoof so far up your butts you’ll taste the polish,” White Out howled. He tried to stretch out his magic to snatch at them, but it had been far too many years since he had lifted anything heavier than an extra large pitcher of beer. The distance and size of his targets made getting a good hold on them impossible. The shadows leering and gibbering at him from the walls didn’t help matters either. Despite his hard-held belief that this was all a scam, he couldn’t stop a shiver from running down his spine.

“Hey, Scooter. Did you hear about the Changelings who snuck into the press room at the inquisitor?”

“Why, no, S.B. I can’t say I had.”

“Poor things starved to death.”

“That’s not true!” Quick Quote yelled. “They only passed out from hunger.” A moment later he flushed in anger as he replayed his incriminating words in his mind. “I didn’t mean that. I meant none of it is true. Hey, come back here and listen to my retraction,” he called out as the two figures turned and faded back into the shadows just like the previous set. And, just like before, their shadows seemed to take on a life of their own, turning and leering at Quick Quotes with fang be-studded mouths, before both the spooky clowns and they, faded from sight.

Overcoming his hesitation, Quick Quote charged after their tormentors, shrugging off the efforts of his fellow ponies to stop him. This time he advanced alone as he charged, turning right, and then left, before coming out into a long hall, only to find it empty ahead of him. “Come on, we can catch them if we hurry,” he called out, looking over his shoulder, only to find that there was now a solid wall just inches from his hindquarters.

“No, this is just a trick! You can't fool me. I’m smarter than you. I know It’s all done with mirrors.” he yelled as he pawed at the fabric. The rustle of fabric snatched his attention from the wall he was trying to kick through, and he looked around and saw to his horror that the walls and ceiling were closing in around him. “No. No! Ahhhhhhh,” he cried out as the hall he was in disappeared and took him with it.

***

With White Out leading the way, the rest of the press ponies cautiously crept along the hallway, turning right, and then right again. A long hallway opened up in front of them, with no sign of their companion, or the phantom clowns he had been chasing. “Quick Quote!” Purple Prose yelled out. His own voice echoed back to him, but no response to his cry could be heard.

"Can't run. Clowns will get me! Can't hide, clowns will get me!" Poison Pen whimpered as he tried to crowd into the middle of his fellow stallions so as to have a good thick meat shield between him and any threat.

***

“Good job,” Sneaky said to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. “Is Featherweight ready?”

“Just about. Having a hard time getting his horn to stay straight,” Berry Punch said as she tried to secure Pipsqueak’s pirate sword; left behind from a previous playday to Featherweight’s head while avoiding crushing down his puffed up mane. He already had a pin cushion, sans pins, attached to his muzzle with an elastic strap around the back of his head as a stand-in for the standard clown nose.

“Don’t worry about it. He's supposed to be a clown so a crooked horn is fine. How about the wing extensions?”

“Done,” Curry said from where she had just finished securing some stiffened fabric to the end of Featherweight’s wings. “Only, he’d better not flap too hard or they’ll come off.”

Twist, using the pins taken from Featherweight’s pin-cushion nose, was busy hanging all the dark colored cloth they could scavenge from Sweetie Belle’s saddlebags around the colt’s body.

***

“Prose? Prose? Quick Quote? Conspiracy?” Poison Pen shouted as he turned around and around, but no matter how hard he shouted, or in which direction he looked, the only one still with him was White Out.

They had totally abandoned any attempt to find, or catch, the clowns, and had instead simply run as hard as they could, forgetting to stay together, only thinking about themselves. But every time they went around a corner, the pony who was furthest ahead, or had lagged the farthest behind, vanished. Poison Pen huddled as close to White Out as he could, hoping the overweight pony would either shelter him or be the more tempting target.

***

Goose hung overhead, looking down on the two ponies under her. Any inclination she might have had toward sympathy for their plight had been long since eliminated by the dire threats the fat unicorn had shouted at the foals she considered to be under her protection.

“Come out, you brats!” White Out bellowed in a voice that was more and more verging on hysteria, and less laced with anger.

Movement in the air directed Goose’s attention away from White Out, to where five foals had just slipped through an opening in the wall that closed behind them as quickly as it had opened.

As Goose watched, the small pegasus clown, who had to be Featherweight, rose up into the air with gentle flaps of his wings, the extensions attached to them made them more than double their usual size. The outer edges of his fake wings were frayed and tattered, looking diseased in the shadowy light. dark cloth fluttered all around his body, hiding his true size, while at the same time imparting a certain zombie-like appearance that went well with the tattered looking wings and the twisted horn that she could see was merely a wooden stick stuck somehow to his forehead. Even knowing who it was, Goose had to admit she got a shiver just looking at him. It was really easy to imagine that he’d just crawled out of his final resting place.

Being able to clearly see Featherweight and the other four foals, Goose still had a hard time believing deep down that the press ponies could not do the same. She reminded herself that understanding the limitations and abilities of day-ponies was critical when it came to stalking and remaining unseen, something her big brother had often told her other brothers. She shut her eyes till she was peering through her lashes and the contingent of foals almost vanished in the shadows. Was this what the press ponies saw? How could she tell? It was frustrating. She needed to get help from somepony with whom she could compare what she saw, against what they could see.

Right now, lacking any true knowledge of their limitations, she was acting on the assumption that the ponies standing under her could see as well as she could. That meant she was relying on the maximum amount of stealth and silence she could manage. Combining that effort with clinging to the ceiling for so long, meant that she was starting to feel the strain.

It was hard, harder than it would be if she really understood what she could get away with. The physical effort and intense mental focus were starting to tell on her. She could feel her legs trembling and her hide was damp with sweat. Her brother, on the other hoof, looked as relaxed and rested as if he were laying in front of the fire back home.

She really hoped this was going to be over soon before she shamed herself by falling onto one of the ponies under her.

***

“Princess Luna, Princess Luna, Princess Luna, Princess Luna” faint voices floated through the air from the four shadowy clowns who were standing on the ground. White Out flinched, and then spun to look down the hallway, his eyes squinted as he tried to penetrate the gloom.

“Tell us, Princess Luna. Is Nightmare Moon returning?”

“Of course, her return is nigh. Her loyal subjects gather, and the unbelievers will be driven from her dwelling,” the flying clown declaimed in a high pitched eerie voice.

Shadow suddenly stiffened, and Goose looked down just in time to see a wall of fabric shift across the hallway, trapping Poison Pen on one side, and White Out on this side. This was the most blatant move yet on the part of the tent. She supposed that made sense, with that one out of the way, there was only the one left. The need for sneaky was past.

Not even noticing he was all alone, White Out, yelled, “I have had it! You brats are going to pay.” He staggered toward the four foals, who for once didn’t fade back into the darkness. An expression of triumph appeared on his face, only to vanish like a snuffed out candle as he came to a sudden crashing stop nose to nose with a full grown nocturne stallion.

Goose goggled, and couldn't stop herself from glancing over at where her brother had been perched just seconds before. He was gone, of course. Somehow, without her even seeing him move, he had shifted from the ceiling to between the foals and the angry fat unicorn in the blink of an eye.

"Hello, I’m from the Church of Luna, and I was wondering if you had a few moments to sit down with me and discuss the doctrine of Eternal Night?" Shadow asked White Out in a friendly calm voice while exposing his very sharp teeth in a broad predatory smile.

White Out’s eyes rolled back up into his head, and the fat pony keeled over in a dead faint as ‘all’ his muscles went limp.

“Oh, ewwww,” Goose squealed, closing her eyes and turning her head away while wishing she could close her nose as easily.

“Yuck. Bet Goose doesn’t mind that the tent is self-cleaning now,” she heard Scootaloo say.

***

It was a shattered and dispirited group of newsponies who were marched onto the Ponyville train platform the next morning by the town sheriff. Looking wane and hung-over, their bluster and sneering condescension were nowhere in evidence. Their eyes darted here and there like scared rabbits, staring at each pool of shadow, no matter how tiny, as if something horrible was about to step out of it.

The single consolation they were taking away, was that nopony in Canterlot would ever know how they’d been made fools of by a barmare, a hick, and a bunch of foals.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here. This sure does bring back memories,” a horribly familiar voice spoke up, just as a flashbulb went off. White Out and his fellows looked around frantically, their eyes drawn to the hick hayseed they had grown far too familiar with. Hovering over him was a small pegasus foal, holding the camera that had just been used to take their pictures.

As they watched an aura of magic formed around the hick’s hat, and with a wet plop his oversized teeth popped out of his mouth. He worked his jaw a few moments and then directed a smile toward the newsponies.

“Sneak Peek,” Purple Prose gasped.

“Been a few months, fellows. How’s life treating you? Sorry, I don’t have a lot of time to chat. Have a story I need to send off to Canterlot. Won’t waste your valuable time telling you about it. You’ll be able to read all about it in the papers tomorrow.” He gave them a cheery wave and trotted down the platform toward the mail-car.

“I hear they’re hiring in Manehatten,” Conspiracy said, quicker on the uptake than his fellows.

The rest of his fellows exchanged looks. “I’ve been meaning to take a vacation for a bit,” Poison Pen said.

“Could do a little job hunting while we’re at it,” White Out added.

***

Teaser for Chapter Six:

Big Mac watched in amused silence as Jake and Apple Bloom bounced around the barn like the excited foals they were.

Apple Bloom had burst in a few minutes before, nearly exploding with the need to tell Jake, or anypony really, the great news. Apple Bloom’s excitement had proven to be contagious and Jake had joined her in her enthusiastic dance of joy.

Given the mutual enthusiasm and the seemingly endless supply of energy that foals possessed, it took a little while for the hyper younguns to calm down, but once they did, and Jake caught his breath, a puzzled frown creased the colt’s forehead. “Apple Bloom?” he asked.

“Yeah, Jake.”

“Who’s Cousin Babs?”

Author's Note

First. The jokes were supposed to be bad.^_^

Obviously, next chapter we have Babs. But of course I'm not simply going to follow the original plot. Mostly because I found out that it's really hard work trying to merge existing material in with original material in a cohesive way. Being lazy, I took the easy way out. -_-;;;

Chapter 6 [edited]

How to Train Your Batpony Chapter 6

***

With a skip to her brisk trot, Princess Luna breezed back into her bedroom after a most satisfying night’s activity. The excavation into her former quarters was proceeding on schedule, she had taken a brisk shower under the icy Canterhorn waterfall, and once they had dealt with their Royal Duties, the breakfast with her sister had been most pleasant. The kitchens had, in the quiet understated way that she was beginning to love, slipped a tray of mixed fruits onto the stand outside of her room with a flat disk of thaumaturgically created ice under it to keep the delectable bits cool all day, in the event she decided on a midday snack and did not wish to ring for a servant, or even get out of bed.

Celestia had trained them well.

She whisked the tray into the bedroom behind her, placing it on the nightstand as she shed the regalia of her position onto their holders. As usual, everything was in readiness for a peaceful day of sleep with the thick curtains drawn, the blankets turned down, Mister Snuggles peeking out from under the thick grey pillow in the middle of the bed…

Luna blinked. The stuffed teddy bear was exactly where it was supposed to be, all fluffed and clean for very appropriate princess snuggling throughout a day of blissful slumber, but the large grey pillow to one side was snoring.

It also looked familiar, and because it reminded Luna of certain recent actions she was not proud of, slightly guilt-inducing.

“Laminia?”

The snoring stopped with an abrupt snort and her hoofmaiden rolled over in a scramble of legs, taking two attempts before reaching a position where she could blink with bleary eyes at her Princess of the Night. “Whatiz… Oh. ‘m sorry, Your Highness. I just laid down for a minute.”

“Are you not supposed to presently be with the Bearer of the Element of Kindness in Ponyville?” Luna asked while trying to project the exact set of emotions that would be expected of her in this situation. Laminia’s full-body yawns did not help matters. Despite the guilt Luna was feeling, she could not help but yawn in synchronization with the pregnant Nocturne.

“Sorry, princess. It was the animals.”

“The animals?” Luna asked, feigning puzzlement.

“Yes. The foal seems to have thrown my body fully out of whack. I think it has something to do with the natural urge of a pregnant mare to eat. I can smell a pickle nearly a mile away now, but at the same time, I get nauseated at the drop of a hat. Anyway, Fluttershy’s house has all those animals. I just managed to make it to the little bridge before I threw up. Repeatedly. I don’t know if it’s the droppings or the animal hairs or what, but that’s as close as I could get without barfing up a horseshoe. I swear I saw carrots, and I haven’t eaten any of them for weeks. I’ve never felt so empty in my life.”

As much as she was trying to conceal it, the pregnant Nocturne’s nose twitch and the way she kept stealing little glances at the covered tray on Luna’s nightstand gave her away. With a sigh of regret for her untasted strawberries, especially the chocolate dipped ones that had been placed around the main serving as a decorative touch, Luna levitated the lid off the tray and gave it to Laminia, who dove in face-first.

Luna’s twinge of guilt increased at the sight. Maybe having Shadow Dash spray Fluttershy’s yard with that cheap cologne had been a bit over the top. It had been necessary, however.

Luna could have given Laminia a direct order to stay in the palace till her foal was born, but having her learn first hoof that she was going to have to respect her body’s limitations had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

And, this way she wouldn’t hold her convalescence against Luna like she would have if Luna had flat out ordered her to stay put. It was weak of her. But Luna was disinclined in this case to be the bad-pony if she could help it.

It only took a few minutes for the princess to visit the bathroom and brush her teeth before bed, and once she had properly gargled, she called out, while crossing her wings so it didn't count, “I feared the possibility might arise, Hoofmaiden, so do not fret greatly over your loss of control. There is an alternative that I might use while you are swollen with foal, and perhaps sometimes afterward you may…”

Patting her face dry with her pink towel, Luna walked back out into the bedroom and regarded the sleeping Nocturne spread out across the bed with an empty fruit plate shoved back onto the nightstand. Not even stems or a peel was left, and the plate was glistening clean as if it had been licked. It made her feel even more guilty about the necessary subterfuge she had put her suffering hoofmaiden through and caused her to wonder if Tia felt similar guilt when she helped a pony learn a valuable life lesson.

Perhaps the learning was not so one-sided as she had thought earlier.

With a sigh, the Princess of the Night, Lady of Dreams, Ruler of the Stars, curled up next to her sleeping hoofmaiden with Mister Snuggles held firmly between her hooves.

On the plus side, it turned out that Laminia made a much better and warmer sleeping partner than a stuffed bear.

***

“Get up! Come on, get up! This is the sort of thing you’re good at. Make yourself useful for once,” Apple Bloom shouted while she tugged at the blankets Diamond Tiara had cocooned herself inside. The small farm pony was wearing a mishmash of different outfits, most of them thrown on over something she was already wearing. Currently, she had three hats stacked on top of her head.

“Go away, blank flank. It’s not time to get up yet,” Diamond Tiara snarled, peering out from inside her twisted sheets like a cranky snapping turtle. The resemblance was heightened by the way she was baring her teeth at Apple Bloom. “Why do you care what you’re wearing, anyway? It’s just another one of your hick cousins coming to visit.”

“Babs is from Manehatten. And everypony knows they set store on dressing good,” Apple Bloom retorted, giving another hard tug, and ending up on her back when Diamond Tiara suddenly loosened her death grip on the covers and stood upright in bed.

“Manehatten? You didn’t say anything about her being from Manehatten,” Diamond Tiara blurted out in an accusing tone. She ran her eyes over Apple Bloom and grimaced. “Come on. You have to have something you can wear,” she stated in a less than positive tone as she hopped down off the bed and began rummaging through Apple Bloom’s wardrobe.

“Thank goodness your sister knows Rarity,” Di muttered as she held a sundress up against her own body in admiration.

***

“Apple Bloom? Ain’t you ready yet? Jake’s about ready to wear a hole in the floor,” Applejack called out as she stuck her head in the door of Apple Bloom’s bedroom. She drew up short upon taking in the chaos in front of her. Diamond Tiara was tossing clothes out of Apple Bloom’s wardrobe and toward her roommate, while the farm filly tossed them on and off just as quickly.

Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara's usual contentious interaction often left their shared room looking like a hurricane had hit it. Applejack now learned that the two of them working together left a debris field more in keeping with a twister.

“Apple Bloom. You’re just going to the train station, not a country fair. Your cousin’s not going to care about how you’re dressed.”

“She’s from Manehatten! I got to look my best,” Apple Bloom retorted.

“Exactly. Everypony knows that Manehatten is the fashion center of Equestria,” Diamond Tiara chimed in as she held a blouse up against Apple Bloom. “Too flowery,” she said, tossing it over her shoulder. She held up a simple yellow dress and tossed that one as well. “Too bland, washes out your natural coloring.”

Applejack gave an exasperated sigh and snagged Apple Bloom by the back of her current outfit, a toga-like arrangement that Rarity had come up with for sister/sister spa days. “You know what would make you look your best. Being on time to meet her,” Applejack said.

“First impressions are the most important impressions, Diamond Tiara cried out, grabbing hold of Apple Bloom’s tail and plopping a garishly decorated spring fling hat down on her head. “Too busy,” she said, snatching it off and replacing it with a simple straw bonnet.

“You don’t have to get yourself all gussied up, you already got somethin’ in common.” Applejack said, yanking Apple Bloom right out of her latest outfit.

“What’s that?” Apple Bloom asked as she and Diamond Tiara tossed parts of a dozen different outfits onto her body.

“She’s a blank flank, like you,” Applejack said.

“What? Why didn’t you say so?” Apple Bloom cried out, rushing out of the room. “I’ll meet you at the train station. I got to go get Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.”

Diamond Tiara had been right on Apple Bloom’s tail, a half dozen outfits slung over her back. But, at the mention of Scootaloo, she came to a hoof-screeching halt just before she reached the door, a mingled look of longing and rejection on her face.

“You’re welcome to come along, Di,” Applejack said.

“No, no, that’s perfectly fine. I have other, important things to do. I’ll meet the new blank... I mean your Manehatten cousin, soon enough.”

***

Wearing a shining white dinner jacket set off by a flowing black cape, the hovering pegasus held out a hoof and said, “Come with me, if you want to know the truth.” Diamond Tiara reached out to the brave pegasus who had just saved her. Di’s lips parting slightly as Scootaloo bent over, her muzzle coming closer, and closer and---

“Arrrggggg, why can’t I get that stupid blank flank out of my head,” Diamond Tiara cried out, disarranging her mane with her hooves from frustration. She was standing in the barn, next to the harvest float that the stupid blank flanks had been building for the last week. Her hide was slick with sweat and her legs were wobbly from running her morning laps around the yard.

She had thought to lose herself in the exercise, but as soon as she took a break to have a drink of water, that cursed daydream had interposed itself on her mind once again.

“She’s not cool. She isn’t. She’s just a stupid flightless blank flank. I bet she didn’t even hit that stallion on purpose.”

“Who hit what stallion?” A familiar voice asked.

Flushing red at being discovered acting like a crazy pony, Diamond Tiara looked over at the barn door, and saw, as expected given the voice, Silver Spoon standing there.

“Silver Spoon!” Diamond Tiara called out in pleasure as she trotted toward her friend.

“Hmph, surprised you remembered my name, Di!” Silver Spoon said in a biting bitter tone that Diamond Tiara had never heard before, at least not directed at her. “That is what your new friends call you, isn’t it? Di?” The well-groomed pony gave a loud sniff and crinkled her nose as if she’d smelled something bad. “I see you’re embracing your inner earth pony, Di. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sweat before. Why I can smell it all the way over here.”

“What?” the flustered pony said, trying to gather her thoughts. She’d never seen Silver Spoon like this. She was always… well... just there. Following Diamond Tiara everywhere she went. Going wherever Diamond Tiara wanted to go.

Only, she hadn’t been, not recently. Outside of school Diamond Tiara had barely seen her friend since being sentenced to farm purgatory. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not like I’ve had a choice.”

“Liar. You like it. It’s disgusting the way you follow her around like a pet.”

‘I do not follow Curry Comb around like a pet. And even if I did. She’s a princess. It’s expected that she have attendants.”

“Pshaw, who said I was talking about that stupid snipe?”

“Well, like, who else could you be talking about.”

“I could have been, like, talking about that lame blank flank pegasus.”

“What? Did you eat locoweed? How can you say something so stupid?”

“Like, no way. What is ‘stupid’ is the way you couldn’t take your eyes off of her at Lickity Split’s the other day. You didn’t even hear me when I, like, tried to talk to you.”

“Well. That was because... She looked so stupid. Trying to act all cool. Just because she hit one of those awful ponies from Canterlot who thought he’d cornered me. It wasn’t like I needed to be rescued or anything. I was getting ready to escape all on my own when she butted in.”

Silver Spoon’s expression turned surprised, then angry, and finally, very sly, as she said, “That’s not what I heard. I heard you were trapped and wet yourself like a little baby, right before she swooped in and rescued you. Just like Rainbow Dash. Or at least, that’s what she’s telling everypony who holds still for five minutes. I heard Featherweight is even going to put out a special edition of the school paper centering on it.”

Diamond Tiara felt like somepony had just bucked her right in the chest. She ‘had’ expected Scootaloo to boast about rescuing her. It was one reason she had been watching the pegasus so closely at the ice-cream parlor, or so she had told herself at the time. But, the flightless filly hadn’t even mentioned that Diamond Tiara had been cornered. All she’d boasted about was how she’d run circles around the ponies who had tried to chase her.

The spoiled little rich pony turned red with embarrassment and anger. To think, she had actually been grateful to the blank flank for not mentioning the situation she had gotten herself into. To find out Scootaloo was running around spreading lies about how Diamond Tiara had wet herself in terror, and how she, Scootaloo, had swooped in and rescued her felt like a betrayal of the worst sort.

“That dirty little liar!” Diamond Tiara cursed, missing the pleased expression that appeared on Silver Spoon’s face as she did so.

“We should totally, like, teach her a lesson,” Silver Spoon suggested.

A dozen schemes flashed through Di’s mind. In the last few weeks, she’d accumulated an entire volume of blank flank weak spots that were just crying out to be taken advantage of. She could see it in her mind, the looks of hurt and self-doubt on the faces of the three of them. The hoof pointing and laughter from all the other school ponies. It would be all the sweeter if she could make them look like little cry-babies in front of Apple Bloom’s cousin from Manehatten.

Only, the more she pictured their distress, the more her own heart hurt. There was none of the joy she’d always had before when contemplating making some other pony’s life miserable for her own enjoyment.

“So, what’s the, like, plan?” Silver Spoon asked eagerly.

Diamond Tiara looked into her friends’ face and saw a stranger looking back. The malicious joy Silver Spoon was feeling was plain on her face, making her look ugly. Was that how Di herself looked right now? And, all those times before?

“I’ve got to think about it. I need to come up with something really big,” Di said to Silver Spoon in an effort to buy some time to think.

For a moment Silver Spoon looked disappointed, but then her expression turned even uglier. “Good. Think up something really nasty. Show those blank flanks they can’t treat you like they have. They’ve been acting like they’re just as good as you are when the truth is that you’re so much better than they are that it’s, like, not even funny.”

A small voice in the back of Diamond Tiara’s head said, “No, that’s not true. They treated you like you were as good as they were.” She whispered a retort to the voice of reason inside her head, “They were just setting me up.”

“What was that, Diamond Tiara?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just thinking out loud,” Di hastily reassured her.

***

Applejack paused in the middle of the street and addressed her little sister. “Apple Bloom, Jake and I’ll be leavin’ ya here while we go and drop these apples off at Sugar Cube Corner. You bring your cousin over from the train station and we’ll have a treat to welcome her to Ponyville.

“Sure thing, Applejack. We’ll grab Babs and be right over,” Apple Bloom said, before turning tail and heading off toward the train station.

“Awww, I wanted to meet the cousin too,” Jake protested. He looked backward at the heavily loaded saddlebags he was wearing. “Couldn’t we take the apples with us? Then we wouldn’t need to get a treat somewhere else,” he suggested in what he obviously thought was a sly tone.

Applejack just gave him a smile and started walking toward Sugar Cube Corner, knowing he would follow behind her. She did feel a bit guilty even if it wasn’t quite lying. She did need to take a load of apples to the bake shop. But, she could have done it on her own with the cart. This way, however, Babs was less likely to be overwhelmed from the moment she stepped off the train. Apple Bloom and her friends were going to be bad enough, but throwing in an alicorn prince who was always enthusiastic at the idea of making new friends, might be a touch overwhelming for the poor thing.

No need to hurt Jake’s feelings by telling him he had a tendency to come on a bit strong and might be scary to a filly who had been suffering from bullies. Jake might only be five, but he was as big as the teenagers that had been bullying Babs according to what her mother had written to Applejack.

Nope, best to let the skittish thing get used to one high-energy friendship at a time.

“Is this because I might scare Cousin Babs?” Jake asked. “Apple Bloom told me I was to mind my manners and not scare her by being too excited to see her.”

Applejack paused and gave Jake an incredulous look. “Apple Bloom said ‘you’ might act too excited?”

“Yeah,” Jake said gloomily. “Curry tells me all the time to not crowd other ponies.” He gave Applejack an earnest look. “I’m trying really hard to be good. It’s hard.”

“Well, sugarcube, sometimes that’s all you can do,” Applejack said, giving him an affectionate nuzzle. “But, we still have to get these apples to the bake shop.”

***

Her mother was an idiot, Babs Seed thought. Just when she had started to get a handle on all the best places to hide from Pearl and Tourmaline; after months when it seemed as if she could not go anywhere without the sudden appearance of her sky blue and frosted white stalkers engaging in what seemed to be their favorite activity, making her life miserable, her mother decided to send her to a brand new town to visit cousins she had never heard about. Cousins who, if her luck held, already had their cutie marks and would make her life a living heck all over again. Cousins, she would not be able to hide from because she was going to be living with them in a place she didn’t know like the back of her hoof.

Unseen by Babs, the train conductor pulled out his watch and looked between her and it with a frown on his face before he approached and said, “You’re going to have to get off, ma’am. This is your stop.” The sudden interruption of her thoughts jolted Babs out of her misery. Without any conscious thought on her part, her stubby bottle-brush tail slapped over her hip, right where her cutie mark would be if she had one. At the same time, she shrank back on her lounge, away from the middle-aged stallion with the oversized pocket-watch held in his hoof. He had already turned away, however, and she relaxed slightly and eased off of her seat.

Babs made her way reluctantly to the exit. Already she could smell the fresh air wafting in from outside. Under the comforting sooty scent of the train engine was the smell of flowers and green grass. She had nothing against those things. But, back home they were properly restricted to parks and flower boxes. They were not allowed to grow anywhere they liked, as seemed to be the case here. Looking out the window she noticed that the houses were few, and spaced well apart. Nowhere could she see anything more than a couple of stories tall. It was truly an alien world. Ah, well, at least her tormentors were all back in Manehatten. She just had to work hard to not become a target. No one knew her here. She was free to reinvent herself as anypony she wanted.

Babs had barely stepped out of the train when she was suddenly surrounded by three fillies, all talking at the same time. She flinched back in expectation of a sudden painful nip before she realized from their shouting that one of the fillies was her cousin Apple Bloom, and the other two were her friends. As it turned out they were not attacking but welcoming her. Despite that, she still felt highly uncomfortable with the way they had her penned in. It wasn’t till they backed off and gave her some room to breathe, that she was able to relax. It didn’t hurt that the other three fillies revealed they were all blank flanks. Just like her. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about any teasing from them. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad here?

“Oh, look, a convention of blank flanks, Tourmaline. And of all ponies, Babs! Is that really you?” asked a teenage unicorn with a gleaming opalescent coat and a frosted blue mane and tail. A single perfect pearl decorated her flank. “Look, Tourmaline. Little Babs is here, and she’s found herself some little blank flank friends.”

The other unicorn, who had a frosted blue coat with a platinum tail and mane along with a square cut blue gem for a cutie mark, looked over the group of younger fillies with an expression of disdain. Despite their different color schemes, it was obvious the two mares were twin sisters. Tourmaline gave a sniff and said, “Four of them now! What is the world coming to? How ridiculous. I suppose that’s what you have to expect from a bunch of farm hicks. It’s not like they really need any special talent to grub in the dirt, Pearl. But whatever are you doing here, Babs? Shouldn’t you be back home in Manehatten helping your mother clean the house?”

“I’m, I’m visiting. My cuz,” Babs stammered, while she stared in horror at the pair of twin teenage unicorns who had addressed her. “But, Toumaline, Poil! What are you doing here?” Babs cried out, trying to shrink down into herself.

“Well, we can tell you what we’re not doing here,” The unicorn named Pearl said as she lit her horn and effortlessly used her magic to sweep her long and beautifully styled mane across her shoulder in a gesture that filled Sweetie Belle with envy.

“We’re not here to look at your ugly dull brown blank flank,” her sister Tourmaline finished as she flounced up beside her sister Pearl and used her magic to sweep her mane theatrically over the shoulder opposite that of her sister.

“You know these ponies, Babs?” Apple Bloom asked nervously, not liking the looks of the two unicorns one little bit.

“Of course she knows us. Her mother works for our father. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. High Tower? Only the richest pony in all of Manehatten. Dear sweet blank flank Babs has been underhoof at our home for as long as I can remember,” Pearl said, directing a wide smile at Babs, while casually grinding one of her fore-hooves into the thick timbers of the train platform.

“So all y’all came to keep her company?” Apple Bloom asked, her brow furrowing.

Tourmaline let out a loud giggle. “Keep her company? We didn’t even know she was on the train. It’s not like we bought tickets in coach like some common pony. Our private car was hooked up in Canterlot, where our father's biggest mansion is located.

“He has a dozen or so scattered around in all of the 'great' cities, you see, but this one has a balcony on the top floor with the best view of the palace in the whole city. You can even watch Princess Celestia raise the sun through a telescope if you get up that early. Frankly, I was more impressed with Princess Luna raising the moon. It's so much more classy and at a much more reasonable time of day. Only common everyday work ponies get up that early in the morning.”

The unicorn looked down her nose at the four fillies, her face triumphant at having scored such a social victory. Babs was far too familiar with that look. The terrible twins always made sure to regale her with all the special parties they had been to, and all the celebrity ponies they had met. Frankly, she was a bit surprised they hadn’t claimed to have had a personal audience with Princess Celestia to give her fashion tips.

“So, why are you here?” Scootaloo asked, sounding less than impressed.

“Why, to meet ‘the’ prince of course. Why else would anypony of distinction come to this dreary backwater of a place?” Pearl said.

Giving a put-upon world-weary sigh, Tourmaline shook her head in bewilderment while saying, “I don’t know what Princess Celestia could have been thinking, allowing him to live here in this hick town. How is he ever going to learn how to behave among civilized ponies if he’s stuck out here?”

“Unless the rumors are true, and she’s afraid he’ll take over the throne,” her sister suggested as she directed a superior look at the foals. Frowning at their blank looks, she added, “You do know that there is an Alicorn prince living somewhere around here?”

Before they could reply, Tourmaline interjected, “I hardly think it likely ‘they’ would have seen him, Pearl. He will be living on some fine country estate, with miles and miles of land to separate him from the riff-raff. I bet they don’t let the common ponies anywhere near it. Unless it’s to deliver turnips to the back door.”

Babs noticed Scootaloo swelling up with an angry look on her face, only to deflate when Apple Bloom gave her a sharp nudge, followed by a wink, after which her expression turned almost cheerful.

Tourmaline, fully involved in her boasting, had not even noticed the exchange. “Of course, they’ll let ‘us’ in to see him. Once we show them the letter of introduction our Father gave us,” she said with a smirk.

To Babs’ surprise, her cousin and the other two foals were now exchanged amused glances instead of looking awed or intimidated, which was the usual reaction of young blank flanks in the presence of the despicable duo.

Her own, very private, never to be uttered out loud, name for the twins.

Apple Bloom looked up at the older fillies and said in a sugary-sweet tone, “Wow. It must be wonderful to know so many important ponies.” Babs started to sweat nervously. It was clear as could be that Apple Bloom was laughing up her leg at the older ponies. Babs had no idea why she just knew it was a really bad idea. Pearl and Tourmaline only thought jokes were funny when they made them.

“Apple Bloom. Shouldn’t ya be showing me the way to youh fam?” Babs asked nervously, casting frightened looks toward the twins.

“Yes, run along, little Babs. I’m sure we’ll have many chances to catch up. If we’re going to be trapped in this dreary little town, it will be nice to see a familiar face from time to time,” Tourmaline said with a nasty smirk that cause Babs’ stomach to roll up in knots.

“You there. Careful with those,” Pearl suddenly yelled in a brazen voice, totally different from the sly smooth tones she had been using while talking to the fillies. Her anger was directed at some porters who were carrying a large load of fancy looking trunks and suitcases out of the freight car. “That’s an authentic Hayvana set of luggage. It’s worth more than you’ll make in your entire pathetic life.

“Of course ‘we’ didn’t have to pay for them. Our mother ‘is’ Hayvana,” Tourmaline said to Babs’ cousin and her friends, before trotting off to join her sister in overseeing the unloading.

***

“Boy, and I thought Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were bad,” Sweetie Belle said, once they were out of earshot of the twins.

Babs almost collapsed from nervous tension. “You can’t make fun of them, cuz,” she said in a frantic whisper, anxiety causing her already distinct Manehatten accent to thicken. “All they got to do is ask, and their fatha will fiah my motha.”

“That can’t be true,” Sweetie Belle protested.

“It is. He loves fiahing ponies. He even makes a game out of it. He gathes all his manageas around a big table once a month and fiahes the one who made him the least money that month.” Babs looked over her shoulder and visibly relaxed when she didn’t spot the twins. “Thank goodness they're going to be spending all theih time with that prince. Let him deal with them.”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle exchanged worried looks, but Apple Bloom didn’t seem bothered.

“Well, I don’t think we’uns got much to worry about,” Apple Bloom said with a broad smile. Then, before Babs could react, her cousin reached up and covered her eyes. “No peeking for a minute, cuz. I’ve got a big surprise for you.”

***

When sometime later Apple Bloom’s hooves were removed from Babs’ face, they were standing just outside a sweet shop. The scent of delectable pastries had been tickling Babs’ nose for the last fifty steps or so, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. Drool pooled in her mouth as she gave a loud sniff and took in all the wonderful smells in the air. This was more like it. She could have been right outside her favorite bakery back in Manehatten.

“Is this the cousin?” A voice asked from the side. Babs turned in that direction and found herself looking up into the face of a moderately sized black unicorn. At first glance, she assumed, from how tall he was, that he was around the same age as the twins, and she shied backward slightly in reaction to his unexpected presence, her tail slapping across her hip. When he didn’t make any move or say anything nasty, she relaxed, slightly, and took a better look.

There was something strange about the stallion. He looked half-finished. If he hadn’t been so big she would have thought him a young colt with knobby knees and awkward over-sized hooves, half her age at the most. Which was ridiculous. He was clearly just a funny looking teenager. That was actually a good thing. With his looks, he likely came in for a lot of teasing. Maybe that would make him nicer. She sure hoped so.

“Hello. How are you? Cousin Babs? The older colt said in a slow distinct tone. When he finished, he looked over at a pony who ‘had’ to be related to Apple Bloom, going by her appearance, and asked. “Did I do okay, Applejack?” He looked back at Babs and continued. “I didn’t scare you, right?”

Babs could only stare at him, speechless. When the colt had turned his head to talk to Applejack, he revealed enough of his side to let her see that in addition to the horn on his head, he sported wings. Which made him— “Alicorn. You’re an Alicorn. You’re ‘the’ Alicorn.”

The impossible pony in front her looked back around so he was facing her with a frown on his face and corrected her, “No. I’m ‘the’ Apple. No. I mean. I’m an Apple. Tell her, Apple Bloom.”

***

“What do you think? I say we wreck this stupid float,” Silver Spoon said, pointing at the giant fabric pumpkin on wheels that filled up the middle of the barn. It was only the latest of a dozen mean and malicious suggestions she had put forward as a way to get back at Scootaloo and the rest of the blank flanks.

Diamond Tiara flinched slightly. She’d helped build the float. Well, she’d held the ladder while Scootaloo stretched fabric over the top, but that was helping, sort of.

“I can just picture the expression on those blank flank’s faces when they get back and find a pile of scrap,” Silver Spoon said with a mean laugh. “Serves them right for telling such nasty stories about you just to make themselves look better.”

An image of Scootaloo’s shocked, betrayed and broken expression appeared in Diamond Tiara’s mind as she contemplated the ruin of her beloved parade float. For just a moment it gave her a familiar warm and fuzzy feeling until her imagination added in a tear trickling down the pegasus’ cheek, and Di felt her gut twist to the point where she felt nausea. She looked over at Silver Spoon and found herself suddenly repulsed by the vindictiveness she saw there.

“No!” Di, blurted out and flushed a little when Silver Spoon looked at her in surprise. “I mean, that’s the sort of thing a stupid colt would do. All they know how to do is break and smash things. We don’t need to get our hooves dirty. We’re better than that. We don’t leave evidence behind.”

“So what do you think we should do?” Silver Spoon asked, looking at Diamond Tiara eagerly.

Looking at her friend’s expression and considering her question, Di experienced a sudden revelation. It was something she had never really thought about before. Why did Silver Spoon like her? Di had spent very nearly a month at the farm now, and she’d seen Apple Bloom interacting with her friends a lot without Silver Spoon around to mock that friendship. She’d participated in their games, reluctantly at first, but lately, with a certain hidden enthusiasm. She smiled in memory of the fun they’d have fooling those dreadful press ponies. She’d even started to enjoy arguing with Apple Bloom and the others in an entirely different way than she was used to. A way where they gave as good as they got, and they all rather enjoyed the squabble. That was the main reason why the revelation that they still thought of her as an enemy hurt so much.

Diamond Tiara thought about their cheerful banter and arguments. The way they could go from brawling in the dirt over some silly little thing, to laughing together over something just as silly, at a moment’s notice.

She compared her memory of their happy mutual laughter to the mean expression currently on Silver Spoon’s face, and to all the times she and Silver Spoon had giggled and laughed at the misfortune and embarrassment of other ponies. Sour bile filled her mouth, as she realized that she really, really, didn’t like the pony she had been.

With all the insights Di had gained living with Apple Bloom, she knew she could think of all sorts of awful things to do to make the Cutie Mark Crusaders feel bad about themselves. She also knew that whatever she suggested, Silver Spoon would eagerly accompany her in doing it, cheering her on the whole way. No matter what it was. No matter who might get hurt.

Diamond Tiara tried to tell herself that she should be eager to punish Scootaloo for her treachery, but the only real emotion she could work up was regret over the loss of something she clearly had never had, and maybe never deserved.

Di would have loved to have placed the blame on Silver Spoon for why she’d been such an awful pony, but she could not lie to herself, much as she would have liked to. The nausea in her belly increased as she faced the undeniable fact that she had been the principal instigator in all the mean things she and Silver Spoon had done. Silver Spoon didn’t have a clue, she was a follower, and Diamond Tiara had been only too happy to lead her.

An overwhelming need to simply be by herself, somewhere private, where nopony could witness the reaction she was just barely holding in check. Voice thick, she said, “Why don’t we just leave them to work on their silly little float all by themselves?"

“Great idea. That will show them. I bet they won’t be able to do a single thing without you here to tell them what to do,” Silver Spoon said with enthusiasm.

“Exactly. They’ll make even bigger fools of themselves,” Di said, casting a disparaging look at the big pumpkin. Inside, she was remembering how Apple Bloom and the rest had talked as if it was a done deal that Di would be riding in it with them.

“You might as well head home. I can’t leave the farm without permission.” Di told Silver Spoon suddenly, wanting to be alone before the itchy feeling behind her eyes turned into pouring tears and totally ruined her reputation.

***

“My cuz is a prince,” Babs said in a dazed tone, for about the hundredth time.

“She keeps saying that,” Jake complained to Applejack. “I’m not a prince. I'm an Apple. Tell her again.”

“No one is saying you ain’t, sweet-pea. No reason you can’t be both.”

“I’m an Apple. Rarity told me that a prince should wear nice things and not get all covered in mud. That sounds stupid. I’m not stupid. So I’m not a prince.” Jake repeated stubbornly.

“I don’t git this,” Babs said, addressing Apple Bloom while keeping a wary eye on Jake as she did so. “How can youh brother be a prince.”

“He’s not my brother, more like my nephew. Sort of.”

“Oh, like that cleas things up real fine,” Babs said, her dazed expression shifting to one of exasperation.

“My big brother, Big McIntosh, adopted Jake a few weeks ago.”

“A few weeks? Ain’t he a bit old to git adopted? He’s what, fifteen, sixteen?”

Showing that his big ears were not just for show, Jake butted in on the conversation, “I’m five and—” his face screwed up as he doodled in the dust with a hoof “—four weeks,” he finished with a pleased expression.

“Yous joking.” Babs looked at the other foals. “He’s joking, right?” Their expression supplied the answer, and Babs went back to being dazed, for about ten seconds. “How’s that possible?” she asked, even as she told herself it went a long way to explaining why he looked so weird. If you were to stand off and look at him without anything around to show how big he was, you’d never think he was anything but a five-year-old foal.

“Well, it’s a long story,” Apple Bloom told her. “Why don’t we show you around while we tell you all about it?”

***

“I can’t believe it. They haven’t even paved or cobbled the streets. What sort of a dump is this place?” Pearl complained to Tourmaline. “My hooves are getting all covered in dust.”

“I know, right. I’m not sure even a chance at a prince is worth having to come here to live,” Tourmaline said in agreement.

“Bite your tongue. He’s not just a prince. He’s an Alicorn Prince. Remember what mother said. There are only three ponies in Equestria with a higher rank or social standing. And he’s the only male. The mares who snag him are going to have it made for life. And their families as well.”

Pearl bit her lip, and for the first time in a very long time spoke with a touch of doubt in her voice. “Are you really sure we can snag him, Tourmaline? There’s going to be an awful lot of competition.”

“Hello, smoking hot rich twins here,” Tourmaline said, making a gesture that encompassed her and her sister. “No stallion in his right mind, let alone a teenage one, is going to turn down a chance at the two of us. At least not any who are interested in mares. Why do you think mother has kept us on such a tight rein since we got our cutie marks?”

Pearl rolled her eyes. “Please, I’ve heard the lecture just as often as you have.” Her voice developed a sing-song cadence as she continued, “No matter how cute the gardener is, he’ll still be there, or somepony just as studly, once you land the big fish.” She gave a wistful sigh, and added, “Though I’m not sure we’ll ever find another stallion as studly as Glitter Nexdor.” Both sisters let out long lingering sighs as their vision turned inward in contemplation of their next door neighbor’s unicorn groundskeeper.

“Pardon me, ladies. Do you need directions?” a deep masculine voice asked. Pearl and Tourmaline looked up, and then up a little bit more at the big black pegasus standing a few feet away looking down at them. He had on a brown vest with a metal star pinned to it for some reason and was wearing a broad-brimmed white hat. He was only a little older than they were but was muscled like a professional athlete.

“Only to your hous---” Pearl started to say in a breathy tone, only to get cut off as her sister lifted a leg and gave her a sharp knee to the belly.

“We are perfectly capable of finding our own way,” Tourmaline said in a haughty tone. She gestured down the street to where several ponies were pulling a heavily loaded cart. “Our luggage is being taken to our residence as we speak.”

“Your pardon, ladies. I’ll leave you to it,” the stallion said as he tipped his hat to them and ambled away. Pearl turned her head and oblivious to anypony who might be watching took in the view with great appreciation, until Tourmaline stomped on her hoof.

“Ouch, what did you do that for” Pearl complained.

“I can’t believe you. Ogling a ‘bird’ like he was a box of Black Knight Select chocolates.”

“I’ve heard that pegasi are very limber,” an unrepentant Pearl said lecherously as she moved away from her sister and returned to ogling the retreating form of the big black pegasus, in particular, his lollipop cutie mark. “Mmmm, I wouldn’t mind licking that,” she said.

“You’re disgust…” Tourmaline started to say in a scathing tone, before trailing off.

“Ehh?” Pearl said, her sister’s sudden silence drawing her attention far quicker than any denouncement of her morals could have. She discovered that her sister Tourmaline was staring down the street, a familiar dazed expression on her face. Following her sister’s line of sight, Pearl found herself looking at a huge muscular red earth pony stallion sporting a green apple for a cutie mark on his heavily muscled flank.

“Oh, momma, would I love to take a bite out of that,” Tourmaline said in a thick husky tone, all but drooling.

“I can’t believe you! You call me disgusting for enjoying a little pegasus eye-candy, and you’re all but going into heat over a muscle-bound dung-kicker.”

“Oh, lighten up, sis. You know what they say about earth ponies. They’re really good at plowing a furrow.”

“Celestia, could you be any more disgusting. If you must be, save it for the prince, sis. I’m sure you’ll be able to interest him in a little gardening soon enough.”

“I can guarantee that, sis. No stallion’s going to be able to resist what I bring to the table.”

***

“Girl’s are so boring,” Jake muttered to himself, as he trudged along after Apple Bloom and the other fillies. “All they do is talk, talk, talk, about stupid cutie marks. I could have been playing with Pipsqueak and Snips and Snails, or helping Pa haul apples into town, fun stuff.”

Jake gave a wistful sigh. Apple Bloom had made it seem so exciting that Babs was coming, but he couldn’t even get close to the cousin without the new pony trying to hide behind the other fillies. It reminded him painfully of back when he’d still been big. A lot of the ponies he tried to make friends with ran away. He thought things were supposed to be better now that he was small. He looked around the farm yard as Apple Bloom led the other fillies into the barn. Maybe there was something he could do by himself? He looked over his shoulders and spread his wings out wide. He hadn’t practice flying in a while. That could be fun, as long as he avoided the compost pile and the pigpen this time.

Galloping across the farmyard, he let his wings spread out, and mindful of Rainbow Dash’s instruction, let the air do the work. He felt the weight on his hooves decrease and the length of his strides increase till he was gliding more than he was trotting. Now, this was more like it.

Angling his wings slightly, Jake curved his path so he’d circle around the barn, his hooves only touching down every twenty strides or so. Everything went fine, till he leaned just a little bit too far, and a hoof caught the ground before he was ready. His graceful glide turned into a stumble, and he went tumbling head-over hooves, retaining just enough control to aim himself at a convenient haystack. Wearing a broad grin, he turned his stumble into a backward jump and flop into the hay.

The feel of an unexpected lump under his back and a sudden cry of surprise and distress wiped the smile off Jake’s face and he tumbled out of the haystack in haste. He nuzzled the hay aside and revealed Diamond Tiara, looking somewhat flattened. “Di! Sorry,” he hastily added while nuzzling the smaller pony in concern. His ears laid back in expectation of a lecture on looking before he leapt, and was surprised when instead of yelling at him, Di simply tucked herself into a small bundle. Leaning in, Jake saw tears trickling down her cheeks.

“Di, don’t cry. I’ll get help. I’ll get Apple Bloom.”

“No!” Diamond Tiara cried out, and then in a softer tone. “Just leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that. You’re hurt,” Jake protested, settling himself down on the straw next to her. He desperately wanted to make her feel better, to make her ouch go away, but he had no idea how to do that. If only Curry was here. “How can I make the ouch go away?” he asked.

“I just want to go home,” Di said in a voice made rough by her constricted throat and tear-filled nose.

“But. We are home?” Jake said in puzzlement.

“My home. I want to go back to my home.” Di said in the same rough choked up tone.

“This isn’t your home?” Jake asked, trying to work it out. “Don’t you like it here?”

“Who could like such a dirty run-down place?” Di, asked, some of the old familiar snap coming back into her voice.

“Nope. Not dirty,” Jake said firmly, raising his head to look around at the well-maintained farmyard and the recently painted barn and house. “Please don’t leave, Di. You’re my sister. I never had sisters before. I don’t want you to go.”

Diamond Tiara went still for a moment. She gave a loud, rather disgusting sniff-snort and looked up at Jake with red-rimmed eyes. “Sister? Do you think I’m your sister? Why would you think that?”

“Curry said so. She said you’re the grouchy teenage sister who is always annoyed at me and Apple Bloom because that’s what big sisters do. But it was all right because no matter how cranky you are, you still love us underneath. That you’d never let anypony but you bully us.” Jake looked thoughtful at that and added. “I think it would be nice if sometimes you weren’t so cranky, but I’ll still love you even if you are.”

Jake reared back slightly as Di’s eyes filled with tears that spilled down her cheeks. He hastily said, “Don’t cry. If you don’t wanna be my sister, you ain’t gotta be.” Di let out a loud wail and buried her head against Jake’s shoulder, sobbing like her heart was about to break. Jake lay helpless, without a clue as to what to do, and afraid that anything he did do would only make things worse. Still, he did extend a wing over the sobbing filly while looking around desperately for some sort of adult support.

***

“Hey, did anypony else hear that?” Scootaloo asked, her ears swiveling and twitching as she looked toward the barn door.

Sweetie Belle, who had been in the midst of selling Babs on all the wonderful benefits available to members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, looked at her blankly.

“Sort of sounded like one of the barn cats got her tail stepped on,” Apple Bloom said uncertainly.

“I think it sounded sort of like Di. Has anyone seen her?” Scootaloo said in a worried tone as she took a tentative step toward the door.

“Nope, not since I left to pick up Babs. Maybe she’s up at the house helping Granny?” Apple Bloom suggested.

“Or maybe Curry came by to work with her,” Sweetie Belle suggested.

“Who are Di and Curry?” Babs asked, and visibly winced, afraid that she might have just started another unstoppable cascade of information from the three fillies.

“Di is a friend, sorta, kinda. She’s staying at the farm with Apple Bloom. Curry is…” Sweetie Belle started to say, and then trailed off, looking over at Apple Bloom.

“Well, Curry is… sort of hard to explain,” Apple Bloom said after a bit of thought. “Maybe best we wait till you meet her.” As she said that, Apple Bloom’s expression turned mischievous and she and Sweetie Belle exchanged smiles, which made Babs very nervous. Secret smiles were not a good thing in her experience.

“I think Di is crying,” Scootaloo suddenly said from where she was standing just outside the barn door. She plucked her scooter out from where it had been leaning against a hay bale and hopped on, an instant later she disappeared in a cloud of dust.

That wiped the smiles from Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle’s faces, and they dashed off after Scootaloo, leaving Babs alone in the barn. With an uncertain expression, she followed the three friends, at a much slower pace. It went against her life experience to run toward trouble, and this sure sounded like it. On the other hoof, she was equally nervous about being left all alone in the rustic barn. Who knew when some Buffalo might stampede through the farmyard, laying waste to all in their path.

***

Jake’s cheeks were wet with sympathy tears by the time Scootaloo came dashing around the corner of the barn. Feeling immense relief that he could hoof the problem off to an older pony, he lifted the wing that wasn’t draped over the crying Di and waved it at the pegasus. “Scootaloo, help me! I can’t make Di stop,” he cried out.

Scootaloo skidded to a stop a few steps away, looking at the crying Diamond Tiara while shuffling her hooves in the dirt almost as if, like Jake, she didn’t know what to do. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle joined her, also looking confused and uncertain. Jake was starting to get annoyed. They were the grown-ups; they were supposed to fix ouchies, not just stand around doing nothing.

“What happened to her? Why is Di crying?” Scootaloo finally asked.

“I sorta jumped on her,” Jake said, suddenly shamefaced at the confession.

Diamond Tiara jerked her head out from under Jake’s wing and glared daggers at Scootaloo. “You... stupid chicken! Come to make fun of me some more? Are you happy now? You can spread more stories about what a crybaby I am. Just like you told everypony how I was crying and wetting myself and begging you to rescue me from that awful pony yesterday.”

While she had been ranting, Di had pulled her entire body out from under Jake’s wing and advanced on Scootaloo, backing the startled pony up. Scoot fluttered her wings and went up on her hind legs, only to topple over onto her back with Di straddling her.

Jake had followed behind Di and now looked down at Scootaloo with a disapproving frown. “That was mean,” he said.

“But Scootaloo didn’t do any of those things,” Apple Bloom protested.

“Yeah. Only thing Scoot said was how surprised she was about how brave you were,” Sweetie Belle chimed in.

Jake lowered his head until his nose was right alongside Di’s and asked Scootaloo in a hopeful tone, “Is true?”

Scootaloo, who looked like she was trying to shove her head in the ground to get away from Di’s glare, shifted her gaze slightly so she was looking Jake straight in the eyes and said, “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. I was real impressed with how she kept playing tag after so many of the other ponies had quit and gone to Lickety Split.”

“You were?” Di, asked, a slight flush coloring her muzzle. “You weren’t going around telling all the ponies in town about how I was so scared I wet myself?”

“I’d never do that,” Scootaloo said vehemently. “Even if it was true. Not after what happened on the camping--” Scootaloo broke off suddenly, a wash of color darkening her face.

“Not after what?” Jake asked curiously, but received no answer from anypony.

“I don’t understand,” Diamond Tiara said, much to Scootaloo’s relief. “Silver Spoon told me…” she trailed off, looking around at the ponies who were surrounding her, the slight flush that had been coloring her muzzle darkening. “She lied to me. Why would she do that?”

Hearing the distress in Di’s tone, Jake gave her a comforting nuzzle in the hope it would forestall another crying jag. He didn’t want Di to be sad. He heaved a happy sigh of relief when she returned the pressure.

“Uh, if we’re okay now. Could you get off me?” Scootaloo asked. “You’re sort of stepping on my wings.”

Di hastily scrambled backward. She turned her back on the foals and said, “You must think I’m an idiot?”

“Well, yeah,” Scootaloo said as she got to her feet and fluttered her wings to get the dust out. She let out a sudden -oof- and gave Sweetie Belle an annoyed look. “What was that for?”

“You're not supposed to say that,” Apple Bloom said.

“Why? You’re the one who’s always saying we shouldn’t listen to what Silver Spoon or Dia…” Scootaloo broke off, darting a look toward Di. “Oh, right.”

“Idiot,” Sweetie Belle said, giving Scootaloo a light hoof slap upside her head.

Apple Bloom moved over beside Diamond Tiara and cheerfully said, “I’m sure Silver Spoon was just teasing you. Y’all will have a big laugh about it later.”

“Did it hurt this bad?” Di asked in a soft voice, and then clarified her statement. “All the times Silver Spoon and I said nasty things about you. Did it hurt this bad?”

The three fillies looked uncomfortable, and wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Well… Yeah, it sort of did,” Apple Bloom said, trying to adopt an upbeat tone. “But, that’s all in the past now. Right?”

Jake looked back and forth between the four fillies and then over at the barn, where Babs could just barely be seen peeking around the corner. “Are you still sad?” he asked Di. “If you’re not sad, can we go and play with cousin Babs?”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Sweetie Belle said in a hyper-cheerful manner. “Lets all go and play with Babs.” She trotted toward the barn, Jake behind her. Apple Bloom gave Diamond Tiara a lingering look, and then followed after them.

***

Scootaloo started after her friends, but came to a stop when Diamond Tiara called out in a soft voice, “Wait… please.”

The pegasus pony shuffled her hooves slightly as Diamond Tiara approached her, head lowered. “I didn’t say it yesterday. Thank you.” Then, much to Scootaloo’s shock, she lifted her head and gave the slightly younger pony a quick peck on the cheek, before racing after Jake and the other ponies as if her tail was on fire.

Scootaloo sat down with a thump in the dust and stared after her with a boggled expression while rubbing the warm damp spot on her suddenly flushed cheek.

***

“No… No, no, NO!” Silver Spoon cried in rage from where she had hidden behind one of the smaller outbuildings.

The tag-along pony felt like her entire life had just been uprooted. Desperately her mind tried to find some rhyme or reason behind her only friend’s incredible betrayal. “Diamond Tiara would never do that! It’s not real. It has to be a trick.”

Silver Spoon’s eyes lit up. She knew what it had to be. The same thing that had turned her life upside down a month ago and started this whole thing. “It’s that ugly little snipe. She cast a spell on Diamond Tiara. That has to be it!

“I have to cure her,” Silver Spoon muttered to herself. Her mind flashed to all the possible resources she could call on, only to realize that each and everypony of them were on the side of the stupid blank flanks and would never help cure Diamond Tiara of her obvious mind-controlled condition.

Her heart in turmoil, Silver Spoon fled from the farm, knowing with every fiber of her being that she had to do something to restore her world back to the way it had been before that monster had come along and spoiled everything.

***

“Babs, this is my… friend, Diamond Tiara. She’s staying at the farm for a little while. Di, this is my cousin from Manehatten, Babs Seed,” Apple Bloom said, doing the introductions.

Diamond Tiara directed a glare at Apple Bloom for the slight pause before she used the word friend, mostly to conceal how much it meant to her. Plastering a much warmer expression on her face, she turned to look at Babs. “So, you’re from Manehatten. It must be wonderful. I’ve always wanted to go there. My daddy goes several times a year on business trips, but he’s never taken me.”

“Well. I don’t wants to brag or nuttin’, but yeah, it’s a pretty cool place,” Babs said, puffing some air out of the corner of her mouth to blow her short bangs off her eyes, which were looked off to the side instead of straight at Diamond Tiara. At the same time, she shifted her stance slightly so one flank was out of the older pony’s line of vision, while her short cropped tail flipped forward to cover the other flank.

A sudden thrill went through Diamond Tiara and she knew that all she had to do was say, “Hello Blank Flank,” in just the right tone of voice to reduce Babs to a cowering wretch.

Drawing back from that temptation was almost painful. Di forced herself to look away from the Manehatten native while drawing a deep breath. She spotted Scootaloo a few feet away, looking at her in a wary nervous manner, and the tension in Di’s chest dissolved. She gave Scootaloo a wink. The pegasus acted like Di had thrown something at her, her wings fluttered wildly while she reared up on her hind legs, almost falling back on her hindquarters again as she backpedaled.

Di turned back to Babs with a genuinely warm expression on her face. The visiting pony visibly relaxed under that welcoming smile. Inwardly Di felt a little buzz of contentment. She had just discovered that there were much more fun ways to mess with a pony than bullying them.

***

“Now this is more like it,” Pearl said to Tourmaline as she stood in the road looking up the long winding laneway that led to the mansion on top of the hill. “Why didn’t daddy rent a place like this instead of that crappy six bedroom hovel in town?”

“Well, Duh! This has to be where the prince is living. There isn’t another decent house closer than Canterlot,’ Tourmaline said derisively.

“Well… Daddy should have built one,” Pearl said with a pout. “Half the village looks like its ready to fall down anyway. We’d be doing the yokels a favor by tearing some of their hovels down and putting up a decent dwelling.”

Tourmaline gave her sister a tight smile. “Too true. We should tell him to do it. I just hope we’re not here long enough to need it. Let's go meet the prince.”

“With any luck, he’ll let us have a private meeting,” Pearl said in a suggestive tone.”

“Oh, Celestia. I hope so. I am so ready to get out of this place,” Pearl said with a roll of her eyes. She turned to look at her sister, a serious glint in her eyes that only barely masked an inner nervousness. “Remember what mother said after she saw him at the reception. He’s a teenager. And a funny looking one at that. Up till he became an Alicorn, the fillies likely crossed the street when they saw him coming. He’ll only have one thing on his mind. First chance we get, we have to let him have it. No wasting time playing hard to get. If we play around too much we might lose our chance and some other mare will land him.”

“I know. I know. Pshaw, you don’t have to keep telling me,” Tourmaline snapped. Her normal pose of total self-absorption and assurance slipping, allowing the uncertainty under her facade to show through.

Both teenagers looked up the pathway to the imposing mansion, and then at each other, their body language clearly indicating that they expected the other to take the lead. They might have stood there for minutes, if not hours if they had not been interrupted.

“You fillies planning on moving anytime soon?” an uncouth voice said from behind them. “Cause you’re blocking the way.”

“Not that we mind the view,” another voice threw in.

Both unicorns gasped and did stiff-legged hops of surprise as they whirled in place to find themselves staring at two sweat-stained earth pony stallions, of the extra large variety. A matched pair. Twins, just like them. They were both dark chestnut in coloration with surprisingly blue eyes. They were hitched up to a large freight wagon, with a load heaped high under a tightly stretched canvas tarp.

“Looks like little bro was right, Undertow. Ponyville does have some of the prettiest mares in Equestria. And twins at that. A match made in heaven.”

“You ain’t just blowing smoke, Riptide. What time do you girls get off work? Don’t suppose we could interest you fillies in a bit of dinner after we drop off our cargo and clean up?”

“How dare you,” Pearl, shouted, her voice a bit shrill. “Do we look like common shop girls to you?”

The pony called Riptide barely blinked at Pearl’s fit of temper. He looked her up and down, and did the same to Tourmaline, and then drawled out, “Well, now that you mention it. You two are a bit on the scrawny side. But we won’t hold that against you. Don’t worry, we’ll pick up the tab. Our treat. You can eat as much as you want. Can’t say fairer than that. We’ll be up by the transshipment barns if you change your mind.”

The two stallions left Pearl sputtering in outrage as they moved around the fillies and up the road. “I’m so going to get you louts fired!” she finally shouted out after them.

“Come on, Pearl. Forget about them. Let's go up to the house and introduce ourselves to our future hubby,” Tourmaline cajoled her sister, and when that didn’t work, used her magic to take hold of her twin’s ear and dragged her through the gate by main force.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch! Not so hard, Tourmaline. Are you trying to pull it off? Let go, or I swear, I’m going to tell Daddy about what really happened to his cigars.”

Tourmaline hastily let go of her sister’s ear, and keeping a wary eye on her, started toward the house while saying over her shoulder, “Then stop trying to get into fights with a pair of dung kickers. Weren’t you just telling me we had to, like, keep our eyes on the prize?”

A few moments later Pearl watched while Tourmaline used her magic to slap the heavy brass knocker against the thick timbered door. A hollow boom that they felt all the way down to their hooves echoed from inside.

Time passed, and Pearl lifted the knocker to do a bit of booming herself, when the door swung open, revealing a small elderly unicorn with a severe expression on her face and a pair of square granny glasses on her nose. The light pink pony was wearing a good sturdy black dress and had several pencils thrust into the tight bob of her mane. She sported an open ledger book on her hip for a Cutie Mark. She directed such a daunting look at the twins that they were momentarily lost for words.

Pearl recovered first, and said, “We’d like to see whoever is in charge. We have a letter of introduction from--”

“Job applications around back at the home office,” the dried up old unicorn snapped as she stepped back and slammed the door in their faces.

“What? Oh no. That did not just happen,” Tourmaline growled, her horn beginning to glow. The big knocker on the door began to vibrate, and then the entire structure, dust jetting out of minuscule cracks.

Tourmaline’s temper tantrum induced attempt at demolition came to a sudden stop as Pearl latched onto one of her ears with her teeth. “Ow, ow, ow, let go!” Tourmaline cried out as she twisted her head to ease the pain.

With obvious reluctance, Pearl let her sister loose. Smirking at having achieved some payback for the gate incident, she said, “Breaking down his front door isn’t going to make much of an impression on the prince. Let's go around to the back and see if we can find somepony to talk to who isn’t senile.”

***

“Are you out of your---!”

Pearl clapped a hoof over her sister’s mouth and gave the same elderly mare they had met at the front door her best sucking up smile.

“Forgive my sister. We’ve had a long trip. We’ll fill out the applications right away.”

The dried out old unicorn gave a sniff while running a jaundiced eye over the twins. “See that you do.” I’ll be back in a while to collect them. And you needn’t think about stealing any of the good silver. It’s all spelled with anti-theft prevention magic.”

Pearl barely kept Tourmaline under control till the prune of a mare had left the room.

“How could you let her talk to us that way?” Tourmaline demanded of her sister, as sparks of magic spit off from her horn.

“Relax would you, sis. We’ll be getting payback soon enough,” Pearl said, pulling their letter of introduction out of her mane. While at the same time she floated up a pencil and began looking the job application form over.

“You’re not seriously going to fill that out, are you?” Tourmaline asked in an incredulous voice.

Pearl didn’t bother looking at her sister as she spoke in a slightly distracted manner. “Try to think with your brain, sis. What’s going to happen when whoever’s really in charge reads our introductory letter, and finds out the prune treated us like this?”

Tourmaline paused her mouth opening and shutting a few times as her brow furrowed in thought. A wicked light started to glow in her eyes. “He, or she, is going to be terrified daddy will blame them for what that dried up old prune did to us. They’re going to want to throw somepony under the cart to make sure it doesn’t run over them.”

“Her scrawny ass will be grass, and daddy will be the lawn-mower,” Pearl said in satisfaction as she filled in a line on the form. Meanwhile. We’re going to come off as saints for putting up with her abuse. They might even offer us lodgings here to make up for it. Even if they don’t, it should give us a good chance to meet the prince.”

“Hmmm, what should I put down for past work experience?” Tourmaline asked Pearl as she floated up a pencil of her own.

***

“So, how long do you think it will be before somepony comes crawling for our forgiveness?” Tourmaline asked Pearl as they walked out the front gate of the mansion.

The twins had gotten bored with waiting for somepony to come back into the dusty office after a half-hour and had left, leaving behind their applications and reference letter.

“Daddy always reads his mail in the morning. So likely by lunch time tomorrow. That would give us time to visit a spa and make sure we’re looking our total best.” Pearl suddenly let out a gasp and turned a frightened look toward her sister. “Like. Oh my god. What if this podunk town doesn’t have a spa?”

“No! They have to have one!” Tourmaline protested. “What sort of town wouldn’t have a spa?” She paused, thinking over what she had said and looked around at all the nature that surrounded them. “OMG. I don’t think they will. What are we going to do? We fired our last maid just before we came here. Who’s going to do our hair and manes? Who’s going to give us hooficures?”

“Calm down, sis. Let's not panic. There have to be dozens of mares in town who’d love to work for us. We can fire them once we get invited to live with the prince and hire someone decent from Canterlot. We just have to make do till somepony in charge looks over those stupid forms.”

****

Clean Ledger gave a sniff of satisfaction when she came back to the home office and found that the trollops had left, leaving behind their filled out applications and so-called reference letter. As she had thought, making them sit on their overly privileged backsides for an hour had done the trick.

Really, she was getting tired of all these husbands hungry mares treating Master’s Rich’s business like it was some sort of stud market. Just because the majority of the workers up at the warehouses and stockyards were stallions they all figured they could come and work for a few weeks and land a husband, or at least a coltfriend. When they found out it wasn’t so easy, they usually quit without notice.

This last set looked like they might be of the worst sort, the type who thought they could worm their way into Master Rich’s bed with a few swishes of their carefully groomed tails.

Clean Ledger floated the applications and reference letter into the air, and straight into the trash. Which was the proper place for anything to do with those trollops.

***

“I. Can. Not. Believe this town!” Tourmaline ranted. “Don’t they understand what a privilege it is to come and work for us. How can this fall fair and Summer Wrap-up be more important than us?”

“Well, at least that pink mental-case let us know there ‘is’ a spa,” Pearl said, gesturing with her muzzle toward the building they were approaching.

“That’s all well and good, but I refuse to live in this backwater without a servant. As soon as we’ve freshened up I’m sending a message to daddy’s factor and ordering him to send somepony.”

“I don’t believe it. You’re the High Tower twins!” a voice filled with amazed shock cried out.

Pearl and Tourmaline turned to see a young grey earth pony looking at them with undisguised awe. After an entire day of disrespect, they were far less inclined to direct a scathing retort back at the silly thing than would have normally been the case.

“Why,”

“Yes,”

“We, are,” Pearl and Tourmaline said together while using their magic to artistically arrange their manes to show to the best advantage.

“I can’t believe it! Pearl and Tourmaline Tower, in Ponyville. This is incredible! I can’t wait to tell…” The grey earth pony trailed off.

“Tell who?” Pearl asked, sensing from the filly’s expression that this was a tender spot, and being only too happy to twist the knife while pretending interest.

“Nopony! Nopony at all. I’m Silver Spoon.”

“Well, hello Silver Spoon. How nice to find out that there is at least one pony in this town with culture. I’m sure we’ll be marvelous friends,” Tourmaline said in a saccharin sweet voice while giving her sister one of their special twin looks. The one that meant. “Got a sucker on the hook. Let’s reel her in.”

Silver Spoon’s eyes went wide in shock. “Friends? With you?” she squeaked.

“But of course. Very, very good friends. Tell me. How would you like to accompany us to the Spa?”

Author's Note

I have to confess this chapter kicked my ass, and it likely shows. I thought it would be easy to incorporate an actual episode into the story, but then the obvious conflicts started to show up. No way could Babs go through the same character development she had in the episode, not when Diamond Tiara was living on the farm, and was a much better pony than she was in the show.

Besides, I sort of disliked the original episode. The girls thinking they were bullies just because they tried to get a little payback against somepony who was making their life hell was one them.

While I struggled, I remembered that at its core the plot of this story was Bully Redemption. And I'd been working on that plot ever since Jake and the Kid. This seemed like a really great place to have Diamond Tiara turn the corner. She's not suddenly going to be sweetness and light. She's won't shed her thorns that easy, but as Jake has shown in this chapter, he sees right past them to the pony she could be. Or at least, he is blunt about how he feels, and Diamond Tiara has the choice of hurting him or trying the very hard task of living up to his expectations for her.

The players are all in place now, and the next chapter we get back to the principal storyline. I won't promise, but my honest intention from now on is to have the story circulate around Curry and Goose, with the other characters only appearing as they interact with those two.

Chapter 7 [edited]

How to Train Your Batpony Chapter 7

***

Objectively, Goose Down was fully aware that the life of a Royal Guard was not chock full of fighting Ninja ponies and rescuing the princess on a nightly basis from the forces of corruption who wished to ban ice-cream and all things that were good and sweet from the world.

The closest most guards⁽*⁾ came to anything like that was at the annual training camp Save the Princess Competition between the instructors and senior class.

According to Shadow, Princess Celestia was apparently rather fond of playing the damsel in distress for this. She was also, again according to Shadow, a bit of a ham. She would stand on the top of her fake tower, bravely waving a handkerchief to cheer on her brave rescuers as they faced off against the suitably garbed drill instructors and commanding officers. Afterward, she would help bandage up her would-be heroes, giving each wounded warrior a quick peck on the cheek as a reward.

More than one badly-battered trainee had been heard to exclaim, in a dreamy, spaced-out tone, “Best Day Ever.”

(*) There was a rumor that once a month, the guards had a ‘friendly competition’ with the Neighpon ambassador’s guards, where the same game was played out with a bit more serious effort. These rumors were denied by every guard, including those who wound up in the infirmary at the end of the month.

So, Goose knew that the likelihood of her having to fight off ravening gryphon hordes was pretty much nonexistent. That didn’t, however, stop her from pretending it was imminent. Imagining a ninja behind every tree and under every rock helped keep her awake. Or, it had for the first four hours.

Lifting a hoof, Goose covered her mouth as she yawned so wide her jaws creaked. She lifted bleary eyes upward, toward the tree canopy overhead, hoping her brother had returned from flying patrol.

She felt only a slight twinge of panic as raised her eyes toward the heavens above. As per Princess Luna’s instructions she had worked very hard to convince her mind that the leafy canopy overhead was a solid ceiling, despite her acute night vision being able to see the little bits of starry sky that shone through the small holes. Those were just decorative touches, a bit of glitter glued in place. Provided she was preoccupied with other tasks, the self-delusion had proved fairly effective this evening.

But, that might have only been because she was having so much trouble keeping her eyes open.

The difficulty was that while Goose was as nocturnal as any other member of her family, she was not used to enforced inactivity. It was one reason she’d spent her nights at the Apple home cleaning anything that didn’t move. And a few things that started to move after she began scrubbed them. That, and her sense of obligation to them for putting her up.

Standing guard on the ground outside Fluttershy’s house offered little in the way of mental or physical stimulation. Not even the once every half hour trot around the property helped.

Knowing that her brother, Shadow, was lying stretched out on a heavy branch over her head had helped, even if she had to maintain operational silence. Otherwise known as, Let Sleeping Princesses Slumber, or LSPS, for short. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she couldn’t cut it. But, once he’d flown off to do over-watch of not just Fluttershy’s home, but also of Sweet Apple Acres, she’d been left all alone with only herself for company.

And she was discovering that she made lousy company.

Goose wished she could fly up into the branches of the tree like her brother had while he was here. Keeping her balance and avoiding the overly friendly bats would have at least helped keep her awake, but being that high up, and the resulting reduction of the overhead cover was too likely to lead to a panic attack on her part. There was a limit to how far she could push her imagination. She wouldn’t do Fluttershy or anypony else much good if she was a quivering lump of pony flesh clinging to a high branch until somepony called the Volunteer Pegasus Rescue Squad to come and extract her.

Giving another jaw-wrenching yawn, Goose looked around for something that would keep her awake, but would not distract her from her duties. She patted the top of her hat to make sure it was sitting firmly on her head and took another stroll around the house to get her blood pumping.

Goose was walking alongside the chicken yard fence when a rustling in the grass caused her ears to flick in that direction, but that was her only reaction. Growing up with practical joke inclined brothers had ingrained the reflex in her to keep her eyes and head turned away from the sound, so as to not give away that she’d heard anything. The better to dodge the coming attack. Not that she had to worry about water balloons or blasts from an air-horn in this case. It was likely just a rabbit or badger, nothing threatening. That didn’t mean she couldn’t imagine it was something more interesting. Anything to relieve the boredom of her lonely night watch.

The noise came again, a few feet to the left of where it had come from before. Was it pirates? No, too far from the main river. They’d never get their ship up the tiny creek that ran by Fluttershy’s house.

It was a sad fact that Goose’s imagination was a little atrophied. She needed at least some foundation for her rare flights of fancy, unlike Prince Jake and his companion Pipsqueak, who could turn a four-foot length of rope into a venomous pony-eating python.

So, not a pirate. Ninja? No, that was silly. Oh, she knew. It was a dastardly reporter, intent on revealing Gilda’s injuries to the world, no matter what dire consequences such a revelation would cause. It was Goose’s sworn duty to make sure he never got the chance to cause all-out tribal warfare between the Empire and Equestria. The fate of the world rested on her young shoulders, but she was up for the task.

Goose stood up straight and threw out her chest while squinting her eyes shut to give herself a suitably dark and brooding look. When she discovered this cut her night vision down to almost nothing, she opened them up again, which caused her to look as wide-eyed as a foal in a candy store. Every muscle quivering, Goose focused all her thoughts on her ears, listening for the next incriminating noise.

“Pssst, Goose.” a voice hissed from under a bush only a single step away. The sudden injection of reality into Goose’s nightdream shocked her into a flurry of uncoordinated action. Her wings stretched out and gave a powerful downward sweep that lifted her off the ground and away from the talking bush. Her wing spread out wide on either side of her, blocking out a large section of the night sky as she was held between the huge dragon wings, her cat-like eyes glowing yellow in the dark.

It would have been an awesomely dramatic sight, if not for the chicken coop fence.

The back of Goose’s rear hooves caught on the top bar of the fence and flipped her head over tail into the chicken yard. Her head hit the ground hard enough to make her see stars and dislodge her hat. The domed shaped head-gear popped off her head and rolled away into the darkness, leaving Goose looking straight up into a clear starry sky with miles and miles of air between her and those impossibly distant gleaming dots.

Goose felt the familiar crushing pressure around her heart that marked an oncoming panic attack. She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled over onto her belly, fighting the urge to wrap her wings around her and huddle inside the protective shell of darkness. Inside her chest, her heart beat like a trip-hammer. The terrified nocturne crouched in the dirt, breathing slow and deeply while doing her best to think calming thoughts, like being shut up inside the small closet under the stairs at home. The one with barely enough room to stand, and too small to turn around in unless you stepped out of it.

“Oh, gosh. I’m so sorry, Goose. I didn’t mean to startle you,” a whispered voice came from a little distance away, mixed with the sound of restless chickens stirring in their coop, no doubt woken from a deep sleep by Goose’s clumsy acrobatics.

During her pratfall, but before her hat came off, Goose had recognized the voice that had startled her so badly. “Is that you, Curry Comb?” Goose asked from between clenched teeth, fighting to keep her breathing slow and steady.

Curry’s voice came back just as soft. “Yeah. I’m going to climb through the fence and get your hat. Don’t kick me or nothing if you feel a touch. Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t! Thank me, that is. I was dumb. I know better than to sneak up on a pony and surprise her. Just lucky you didn’t try to stomp me into the ground,” Curry added, sounding even more chagrined than Goose was currently feeling.

Despite the possibility of an incipient, panic attack, Goose found herself smiling, just a little, at the rueful tone in Curry’s voice. As she did, the tight bands around her heart eased a little bit. She essayed a small, slightly strangled, laugh, and said, “I was supposed to be on guard duty. You shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on me if I was doing my job properly, instead of playing evil reporters, to pass the time.”

“Well, maybe I’m really good at being sneaky,” Curry answered, a bit defensively given her apology of a moment before. “Besides, evil reporters is a great game. Pipsqueak promised I could be one next time.”

Goose could not help but smile a bit broader, which chased away the last of her panic.

“Okay, I’m going to set your hat on your head now,” Curry said in a soothing tone.

Goose let out a sigh of relief as she felt the familiar pressure of her security hat pressing against her ears until she twitched them into the correct holes.

A gentle touch stroked down the top of her neck in a manner that would normally be highly inappropriate from anypony who was not a very close friend or family. Despite that, Goose leaned into the pressure, as Curry’s fingers seemed to magically ease the tension in her neck and shoulders. The small snipe didn’t stop there but carefully ran her hands down each of Goose’s legs also.

There was no problem while Curry was focusing on Goose’s front legs, but when she dug her fingers into the heavy thigh muscles at the top of Goose’s back legs she brushed against the gland that produced the thick oil pegasi and nocturnes used for preening. Goose had always been a bit ticklish there. She couldn’t abide anypony besides herself touched that spot without breaking into helpless giggles. So much so that when getting help preening those hard to reach spots her mother or some other female relative usually relied on their own naturally produced oil instead. When Curry’s finger’s brushed that area Goose could not help but jump a little and shift away from the snipe with a startled, and explosive, ‘HA, ha!’

“Suu, suu, suu,” Curry crooned. “Take it, easy girl. Just making sure nothing is broken or sprain…” Curry trailed off, and then a moment later let out an exasperated, “Dang. I did it again. I’m sorry, Goose. It’s just when I get worried… Well… I sort of forget I don’t have to treat ponies like critters anymore. Did you hurt anything when you fell over the fence?”

Blushing a little, at her involuntary reaction to Curry’s touch, Goose mumbled, “Only my pride. Please don’t tell anypony.”

Meaning, please don’t tell anypony that the big bad nocturne was ticklish. And, not, don’t tell anypony I fell head over plot, which was the way Curry translated the request.

“I’d never do that,” Curry said in a tone of voice that implied she was deeply offended Goose would even think she’d carry tales.

The reaction flustered Goose. Such a request on her part had usually resulted in the question, “What’s in it for me?” from her sisters and female cousins. She wasn’t quite sure how to deal with such wholehearted compliance. Her uncertainty didn’t stop a warm feeling of affection from flowering in her chest, however.

Goose wasn’t given much time to dwell on the matter because Curry reached out a tentative hand toward Goose’s side. “Are you sure you didn’t hurt one of your wings? I’ll be happy to check for anything torn or skinned,” the little snipe spoke in such a wistful tone that Goose found herself turning to stare at the girl in surprise. The snipe was gazing longingly at Goose’s wing, her hand hovering just above it. It wasn’t the first time Goose had seen such a look directed at her wings, but in this case, she found it very unlikely that Curry was wishing she could have a pair like that. Goose flushed a bit as she realized Curry wanted to stroke her wings as if she were some sort of pet.

She should have felt indignant at the idea, but instead, Goose felt phantom tingles from her neck where Curry had stroked her earlier, and she found herself staring at the snipe’s fingers with almost as much longing as Curry was showing in her eyes.

Her over-sized wings were far too difficult for her to preen and groom on her own. The soft skin tended to crumble when she folded it in close enough to get at it with her teeth and lips. It hadn’t been a problem while she had been living at home. There had always been lots of ponies willing to lend a hoof and had never been shy about asking for aid. It was natural for family members to help with those hard to reach spots.

At the palace, Laminia had overridden Goose’s shy protest that she’d didn’t really need any help the first time she’d spent the night, and had thoroughly groomed every square inch of the membrane before allowing her husband Pumpernickel into the room.

Unfortunately, Goose hadn’t been properly groomed since she’d come to Ponyville. She’d been too shy to ask, and even if she had, the Apples were farm pony and would have had no idea where to start.

The simple embarrassing truth was, she itched, and she just knew that she was flaking. She’d managed to suppress the niggling discomfort for the last day or so, but now that Curry’s request had started her thinking about it, the niggling little itch from the day before had moved from slightly uncomfortable, to downright annoying, and if nothing was done soon, it would go to ‘grabbingastickandscratchinglikeaninsanepony,’ even though that was a very bad idea. At this point, she’d have accepted help from one of the bats fluttering around in the tree.

“You can touch it if you want. You won’t hurt me,” Goose said, in what she hoped was a nonchalant, I don’t care if you do or not, tone. Then, she hesitantly added, “I don’t think I damaged them when I fell. But I do have some itchy spots. Maybe you could look at them for me?”

Curry’s face lit up, her eyes sparkling as she reached out her hand toward the closest wing.

It was really amazing how expressive the small female’s strange little face was, Goose thought, as she carefully unfurled the wing toward Curry. As the large dragonwing temporarily blocked Curry from view, Goose reminded herself to be very careful. Curry was tiny, and a careless movement on the nocturne's part could fling the little princess across the chicken run, or break one of those extremely thin and bony limbs. Not an auspicious action for a would be royal guard.

Really, they needed to feed the poor thing more. When Goose had seen her in the big bath at the tent she’d looked like a famine victim, all skin and bones. You could even see her ribs, for Luna’s sake.

“Oh, wow. It’s so soft,” Curry cooed as her fingers brushed across the flight membrane. “And so beautiful.”

Goose flushed a bit at the compliment. She was more than slightly self-conscious about her oversized endowment and tended to avoid doing anything that would draw attention to them if she could help it. The reaction from other pegasus, night and day, tended to make her reinforce her discomfort. The other night in the tent was the first time in a long time that she had fully extended her wings in company. And, that had only been for a few seconds.

“Just like Toothless,” Curry murmured as she ran her palm lovingly across the flexible membrane.

“You’ve said that before. Who’s Toothless?” Goose asked.

The hand that was gently stroking her wing paused for a moment and Goose saw Curry’s face flush a bit. “He’s a dragon. Only not really. He’s a made-up Dragon. In a movie I liked. He broke his tail fin and couldn’t fly. But his friend Hiccup made him an artificial tail fin and a saddle. As long as Hiccup rode him and worked the tail with levers, Toothless could fly. He had wings just like you.”

“A movie? I think I’ve heard of those from my brothers. I’ve never been to one. Moving shadow pictures?”

Curry frowned, “I guess. I don’t really know how they work. I just really liked the story. I liked Toothless. Sometimes I imagined Jake had wings like Toothless and we’d fly high into the sky and visit the moon and Mars and lots of other places. I guess that sounds pretty silly.”

Thinking of all the times she’d dreamed of regaining the sky, and how often those dreams had turned into night terrors, Goose shook her head. “No. I don’t think it’s silly at all.”

Just then Curry’s randomly stroking fingers hit a particularly itchy spot, and Goose lost the thread of the conversation, “Oooohhhh! Oh, oh, yeah, right there! Harder. Faster. Don’t stop! That feels soooo, good!”

Curry let out a soft laugh as she used the tips of both fingers to massage the spot that had been troubling Goose so much, drawing a moan of pleasure from the night pony. “Yeah, I can feel it. It’s patchy and rough. Dang, sure is nice being able to ask a hoss straight out what’s bothering them. Someone should make a movie about that. Imagine what a great vet you could be if you could speak to the animals. Anyway, do you need some ointment rubbed into it? Maybe mom has some?”

“No need,” Goose assured Curry as she twisted her head and body around to where she could gather up some preening oil from the uropygial gland located at the base of her tail. There was an inconspicuous little tuft of fur there that wicked the leaking oil away from the gland and made it easy for Goose to smear some over her lips. Moving her head and wing, she tried to nibble and rub the oil into the patch Curry had located. As usual, bringing that particular section of wing close enough to reach with her mouth caused the flight membrane to fold over onto itself, making it hard to get at the itchy patch. “Dang, I can’t get it. Could you try, Curry?”

“Okay, stretch your wing all the way out. Yeah, like that. Now, where did you get that oil from? Don’t tell me it came out of your butt? That would be gross.”

“No, there should be a little tuft of oily fur just at the base of my tail. If you rub it with your fingers the oil should stick to them.”

Curry grimaced but did as the nocturne suggested, running her fingers around the base of Goose’s tail, while the small pony did her best not to break out in uncontrolled giggles at the ticklish sensation. “Okay, this must be it,” Curry said as she tugged on the tuft of oily fur, dragging it between her fingers.

“You can tug harder than that. The tugging helps promote more oil flow. Don’t worry about hurting--- Ow! Okay, maybe not quite that hard,” Goose said in a voice that was a little bit strained.

“Sorry. I think I’ve got enough for now,” Curry said and used one of her longer fingers to locate the area of patchy skin on Goose’s wing. The small girl then rubbed the spot with all her fingers, transferring a load of the thick oil they had gathered to the dry flaking spot.

Goose let out a soft moan of relief, while her entire body seemed to shiver in delight. “Thank you. That was starting to drive me crazy,” she purred as Curry massaged the oil deeply into her wing membrane.

“Am I going to have to cover all of your wings with this?” Curry asked.

“Only where the membrane has dried out. It has glands of its own, but parts of it can dry out from being folded. I’ve been neglecting my grooming lately. I didn’t feel right asking Applejack or Granny Smith to help me.”

“What about Jake?”

Goose felt like her face had lit on fire. “What? No! Jake’s a stallion. You don’t let a stallion preen you unless he’s your mate.”

“But won’t he need to know how to do this stuff?”

Her cheeks still burning, Goose said, “I’ll mention it to my brother. Maybe he could get one of the day pegasi in the guard to show Prince Jake how to preen his feathers properly.”

“I will be more than happy to instruct Prince Jake, and to enlist the aid of friends more familiar with feathers,” a voice said from the darkness.

“Acckk,” Goose squeaked in a high pitched tone. “Big brother. I didn’t hear you come back.”

“Obviously,” Shadow said dryly as he stepped out of the darkness.

The older nocturne looked over at Curry, his expression showing nothing at all as he greeted her in his best on duty tone, “Princess Moonlight Dancing On Water, I was under the impression that you were to stay at the town library with Twilight Sparkle for the duration of Princess Gilda’s stay.” The small girl flinched, and she looked away, a hoof caught in the cookie jar expression on her face.

Goose felt a wash of embarrassment, and she gave thanks that the brim of her hat let her avoid her big brother’s judgmental gaze. She’d totally forgotten that Curry was not suppose to be here. At the same time, she felt a bit guilty for being glad that for the moment the focus of her brother’s ire seemed to be on Curry, and not her.

“I’m not leaving,” Curry muttered. “I’ll sleep with the hens if I have to.”

Any response Shadow might have made was interrupted by the sound of Fluttershy’s door slamming open, and Rainbow Dash streaking out into the yard with a baseball bat held firmly between her teeth. “Who’s out here?” she demanded around her mouthful of wood.

Fluttershy poked her head out the door and said in a faint voice. “Oh. Do be careful, Rainbow Dash. We don’t know who it is. It might just be some poor little critter who needs help.”

“Or it might be somepony after Gilda,” Rainbow Dash said over her shoulder. “You stay in the house while I find out which it is.”

Goose pulled the wing she’d extended for Curry to look at back up against her body and looked toward her brother, expecting that he would handle this. To her shock, he wasn’t to be seen.

“Hey, where did your brother go?” Curry asked from where she was crouching behind Goose.

While the two girls were busy looking for the vanished stallion, Rainbow Dash had gotten close enough to make them out at least one of them in the dark. “Goose Down? Is that you? How come you’re making so much noise?”

Goose wanted to tuck her head under a wing in shame. Only Curry was already there, pressed up under the wing on the opposite side of Goose from Rainbow Dash. “Don’t tell mom I’m here,” she said in an urgent whisper.

“I can’t do that, Curry!” Goose hissed at the girl cowering under her wing, shocked at the idea of lying to a parental figure, and in particular, to a pony, she was supposed to be guarding.

A second later, Goose remembered that the funny-looking creature huddled under her wing wasn’t just an excellent wing groomer, but a princess and Goose had just refused a direct order from her. "Curry isn't here!" she blurted out. “She's... somewhere else."

“Curry? Did you say, Curry?” Fluttershy's voice was nearly cracking with concern and worry, driving a little spike of anguish into Goose's heart. “Is Curry here with you, Miss Goose?”

Faced with a direct question from Curry’s mother, Goose froze up. Who took precedence? Fluttershy wasn’t royalty, but she was the adoptive mother of the princess. She was saved from having to decide by Rainbow Dash.

“Peekaboo,” the multi-chromatic pegasus piped cheerfully as she peeked under Goose’s wing. The small nocturne felt a brief tug on her front leg a moment before Rainbow Dash dragged her head back out, her teeth firmly gripping Curry’s collar. The small girl hung limp and unresisting, a resigned look on her face. Goose was a little surprised. She’d have expected a bit more struggling on the little snipe’s part. When she felt a presence and looked up to see Fluttershy standing there, a disappointed look in her face, she understood. The yellow pegasus wasn’t even looking at her, and Goose still felt an overwhelming urge to go and stand in a corner to think over what she’d done wrong.

“Sorry, mom,” Curry said, her eyes downcast as she scuffed at the dirt with one dangling toe.

“Good for you,” Rainbow Dash mumbled around her mouthful of cloth. “Now let's go into the house and talk about this.”

Fluttering her wings, Rainbow Dash lifted off the ground, and carried Curry across the yard and into the house before Fluttershy could do more than stammer out a few, “But, but, buts,” as she dashed after her daughter and best friend.

With her big brother vanished, Goose had to make up her mind quickly. She was supposed to keep watch outside the house, but, the princess was inside, with the other princess, the one who ate raw meat. She was pretty sure her first duty was to keep the one princess from eating the other princess.

If nothing else, Goose could find a corner to stand in as she deserved for lying to a mother.

***

Inside the house, Goose found Fluttershy with Curry wrapped protectively in her wings while she glared at a rather smug Rainbow Dash. On the opposite side of the room, the gryphon, Princess Gilda, had lifted her head and was blinking at everypony with sleep-glazed eyes.

Gilda shifted painfully to look at Goose in the doorway, and let out a small curse, accompanied by a muffled wince. One of her front claws reached to the heavy collar circling her neck and tugged at it weakly.

“No. You have to be more careful,” Fluttershy cried out. “You need to let the ligaments heal. You badly overstretched them.”

“I badly overstretched them?” Gilda cried out in a hoarse tone, that broke off at the end with a rough cough. Using a more moderate tone, she continued, “You had more than a little to do with it!”

“Your own fault for messing with my mom,” Curry shouted, pulling herself free from Fluttershy’s feathers and taking a step toward Gilda, only to be snagged back into a wing hug.

“No, no, Curry. You mustn’t tease somepony who is helpless,” Fluttershy admonished her.

Goose had never heard that Gryphons could spontaneously explode, but considering the way princess Gilda’s feathers and fur suddenly fluffed out, making her look twice her normal size, she half-way expected to witness it in the next few seconds.

“Helpless,” Gilda sputtered, rising up from her bedding. The pain this caused her was clear on her face, but she showed no other sign of it as she limped toward Fluttershy. “I’ll show you helpless.”

Fluttershy gave a little ‘eep’ of distress and gathered Curry to her as she retreated into a corner.

While Goose had been very reluctant to get anywhere near a parent/child conflict, she was far more at ease dealing with an angry gryphon. Not because she didn’t consider it hazardous and likely to get her messed up, but because the choice was an absolute one with no room for doubt. She was a Royal Guard. Protecting ponies from rampaging gryphons was in the job description.

Goose bravely stepped in front of the advancing Gilda, which gave her an up-close look at Gilda’s expression. Goose blanched, her grey hide going pale.

Now that she thought of it there was no specific mention of rampaging gryphons in the guard’s training manual. And, if you came down to it, she was actually only a maid, not officially a guard, yet. Despite her second thoughts and the way her knees were knocking together, Goose made no move to get out of the way of the much bigger gryphon. Instead, she plastered what she hoped was a determined expression on her face and snapped her wings out to their full extension in the hope of looking a lot bigger than she was.

Unfortunately, Goose’s move forced Rainbow Dash, who had been moving toward Gilda, to flatten herself against the floor to keep from being smacked in the face. On the plus side, it did stop Gilda. The gryphon actually stumbled before coming to a halt, her eyes sweeping from one membranous wingtip all the considerable way to the other, with frequent pauses as if to check the reality of her obstruction. Gilda extended her own good wing and twisted her body just enough to take a look at how far the tip extended. She turned back to Goose, and the raw anger on her face had faded a little, only to be replaced by a rather sour look that Goose had received far too often from pegasus mares. She’d never considered that a female Gryphon might have the same reaction, but there was no mistaking that expression.

“Who's your plastic surgeon, little mare?" Gilda asked in a snarky tone.

Goose grimaced, her eyes narrowing. Years of keeping her head down, and her mouth shut had bottled up a lot of anger inside, and hearing the same familiar taunt from somepony who wasn’t even a pony proved to be the final straw. The terror she’d been feeling up till that moment was transformed into a misplaced rage at the injured gryphon in front of her.

“I was born this way, okay,” Goose snapped at Gilda, advancing on the gryphon, uncaring of the difference in their stature and quantity of natural weapons. The small nocturne, fairly quivering with righteous indignation, pushed her nose right up against Gilda’s beak and stared her straight in the eye. “You think I like being whistled at by louts everywhere I go? Hearing them make lewd comments behind my back?” Goose pushed forward, and Gilda actually took a step back, blinking in surprise. “Do you think I like having every pegasus mare that sees me assuming I’m some sort of a slut, just because I have these?” Goose extended her wings again, and flapped them forward, blasting a gust of air right in Gilda’s face, causing the gryphon to blink and stumble backward.

A cry of pain jolted out of Gilda, and Goose’s anger dissipated in a wash of guilt and shame. After enduring years of teasing and taunting, who did she choose to blow up at? A wounded gryphon.

A loud shout in an unfamiliar voice roared out inches from Goose’s ear. “Stop this right this instant!” Jerking to the side in surprise, Goose saw Fluttershy standing where the strange voice was coming from. Goose hadn’t had much contact with the shy pegasus, but what she did have caused her to feel shocked at Fluttershy’s body posture and expression, and at the realization that the You-Will-Obey, voice had come from the normally soft-spoken pegasus.

Fluttershy gave Goose a quelling look that had her folding her wings and hanging her head in shame. She then turned her attention on the Gryphon. “Gilda, please get back into your bed right this instant. I promised Mr. Pumpernickel that I would look after you. How can I do that if you keep hurting yourself?”

To Goose’s amazement, the gryphon meekly allowed herself to be herded back into the nest like bed on the floor. Her reaction was nothing compared to Fluttershy’s reaction when she discovered that Curry had somehow gotten next to Gilda and was doing what she could to help ease the wounded creature down into her bed.

“Curry! What are you doing?” Fluttershy cried out, the steel bleeding out of her voice and leaving nothing but fluffy concern.

“Helping,” Curry said in a firm voice that belied the look of trepidation on her face. “She’s not going to hurt me. Are you Miss Gilda?”

“I’m not going to catch something nasty from you, am I?” Gilda croaked out.

“Only if I throw it at you,” Curry said in a belligerent tone as she stared Gilda straight in the eye.

“Then we’re fine,” Gilda said, settling into her bed with ill grace. She gave Fluttershy a look that mixed anger with puzzlement. “Okay, I’m nesting. You can quit hovering,” she said.

While Gilda’s attention was on Fluttershy, Curry quickly stuck out her hand and lightly ran her fingers over the top of the griffin’s head, drawing a startled squeak from Gilda as she ducked her head and gave the small snipe a surprised look. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry. Your feathers just looked so soft that I wanted to see what they felt like. Did I hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” Gilda snorted. “As if.”

“You should let Curry work her magic on you. Those finger things of hers give the greatest neck rubs,” Rainbow Dash told Gilda. “And what she can do in ten minutes with stiff wing muscles is as good as a day at the spa.”

“No, absolutely not. Curry is not going to groom Gilda. She could get hurt,” Fluttershy said firmly, literally putting her hoof down hard for empathize.

“Aw, come on, mom. You heard her. She’s not going to hurt me. You don’t think she’s a liar, do you?”

“No. I’d never call anypony that,” a flustered Fluttershy stammered.

“Yeah, mom,” Rainbow Dash said in a teasing tone. “Besides, I’m here. I’ll keep Gilda in line.”

“You and what army?” Gilda growled at Rainbow Dash, but there was no heat in her tone.

“Like I need an army to handle you,” Dash scoffed. “And I’ll prove it, just as soon as you quit laying around like a frog on a log and get yourself better.”

“Well, I’m not--” Fluttershy started to say, only to be cut off by Curry before she could voice her concern.

“That’s great, mom. I promise I won’t make you worry,” Curry interrupted. She turned to Gilda and asked,” So, how about I brush out your tangles?” Gilda opened her beak, but before she could make a reply, Curry dashed off, shouting over her shoulder, “Great. I’ll go get my brushes.”

“Now wait for a--” This time it was Gilda's turn to try and voice a protest, only to be cut off.

“I’ll just go get you something for the pain,” Fluttershy said, uncharacteristically interrupting the gryphon. She was facing away from Gilda and Rainbow Dash when she spoke, and Goose was likely the only one who noticed the look of guilt that flashed across the pegasus’ face.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Gilda felt like her muscles had melted as she lay limp in her bedding. Even thinking about moving was more work than it was worth. As Rainbow Dash had said, Curry’s fingers really were magic. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this loose and relaxed.

The medication Fluttershy had given her had worked wonders as well, She could barely feel her various aches and pains. It was certainly more effective than the bitter willow bark tea Fluttershy had been giving her up till now.

Lolling her head to the side, and not even caring that she likely looked like a total dweeb, Gilda gazed at Rainbow Dash through the fog that seemed to have filled up the room.

The pegasus was sprawled out on a low floating cloud that she’d pushed indoors sometime during Gilda’s grooming, a look of amusement on her face. It was a good two minutes before Gilda picked up on the snarky expression the pegasus was wearing. “Go ahead, you know you want to say it,” she told her former BFF sleepily.

“What would that be?” Rainbow asked.

“You know. I told you so,” Gilda said while shifting slightly and letting out a wide yawn that only hurt her neck a little bit.

“Now would I do that?” Rainbow asked, her eyes sparkling.

“In a wing-flap,” Gilda said, but with no heat in her tone.

“Well, if you insist.” Lifting her nose up, Rainbow adjusted her wings and drew one hoof across her chest so that she looked like a pompous politician, and stated in her most authoritative voice, “I told you so.”

For a moment Gilda didn’t react, and then Rainbow’s words percolated through her mind fog causing her to frown. “Told me so what?” Gilda asked.

“Damn, that must have been some good stuff, Fluttershy gave you,” Rainbow said. “How are you feeling?”

“Feeling? Feeling wonderful,” Gilda said dreamily. “The freak — oops. Sorry. Can’t go being mean and nasty. That Curry is really good with those finger, claw, — things. Just like you said.”

“Told you so.”

“Did you? Yeah, you did. Well, you were right. Right about a lot of things.”

“Of course. I’m awesome. I’m always right.”

“You think I’m a liar?” Gilda said out of nowhere.

“What? Of course not. Well, not unless you were trying to pull a prank, or get out of trouble, or get something you really wanted…” Rainbow trailed off, realizing she wasn’t really helping.

“I was afraid of that,” Gilda sighed. She lay still, blinking her eyes every few minutes, trying to clear away the fog that kept rolling in whenever she tried to think.

“Why did you ask,” Rainbow finally asked when it became clear the gryphon wasn’t going to continue.

“Ask what?”

“Arrrrh. I swear you’re doing this on purpose. Why did you ask if I thought you were a liar?”

“Oh. Because I wanted to tell you I was sorry. But I won’t, because you won’t believe me,” Gilda said, her tone becoming melancholy. A tear leaked out of the corner of one eye and ran down her cheek.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash called out in sudden panic.

Fluttershy had been in the cooking area, preparing breakfast when Rainbow Dash yelled. She dropped everything, making a loud clatter, and flew across to her friend. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Something’s wrong with Gilda,” Rainbow Dash said frantically, gesturing at the gryphon, who now had tears streaming from both her eyes. “She’s leaking. I didn’t know gryphons could, or would, or something. I think she’s having a bad reaction to the medicine you gave her.”

“Oh, dear. Are you in pain, Gilda?” Fluttershy asked as she hovered just out of beak range.

“My heart hurts,” Gilda said in a melancholy tone. “Rainbow Dash hates me, and my heart hurts.”

“Hey, I don’t hate you.”

“Yes, you do. You think I’m a horrible gryphon. And, you want to know something? I’ll tell you a secret if you want to know something.”

Rainbow Dash waited, until, once again, it became obvious that Gilda wasn’t going to say anything else. “Man, this is really freaking me out,” she muttered, before asking in a louder voice. “What’s the secret?”

“We are horrible. No no, don’t say we aren’t. It, it is, perfectly true, gryphons are horrible creatures. I always thought you, you were so cool that you were almost as good as a gryphon. Only, I… I was wrong. You, you’re way too cool to be a gryphon, because gryphons are horrible, horrible. We’re just horrible.” Gilda paused for a moment, her face screwed up in though, and then continued. “Did I say we're horrible?”

“You might have mentioned it," Rainbow said in a carefully controlled voice. She sent a helpless look toward Fluttershy, trying to transmit her worry via eyes only.

“I, I, thought I did. You want to know another…” Gilda blanked for a moment, and then once she found the word, shouted out, “Secret.”

“Ooookay. If you want.”

“I was coming to apologize to the marshmallow,” Gilda said, gesturing in a wide arc with her healthy wing, taking in the whole side of the room Fluttershy was hovering in.

“Only, only, I got mad, and excited, because she ran away…” Gilda’s unfocused eyes fell on Rainbow Dash, and she gave the pegasus a broad silly grin. “I used to love to chase you, remember? When you ran away from me? I never flew so fast as when I was trying to grab that pretty tail of yours.”

Rainbow Dash turned an interesting shade of scarlet.

Fluttershy moved in close and slowly waved a wing tip in front of Gilda’s eyes. The gryphon’s head moved in time with the gesture, her focus on the object just inches in front of her face. “Pretty,” she murmured.

Fluttershy continued to move her wing back and forth, moving it up and down in a wavy pattern as she did so. Gilda followed it in a mesmerized fashion until her head came to rest on the lip of her bed.

“Tired. Going to sleep now,” Gilda said, her eyes closing. A moment later she started to snore.

“What the buck!” Rainbow Dash swore, moderating her tone till the last word was just a whisper lest she wake up Gilda. “Fluttershy, what’s wrong with her? Is she going to be okay?”

Fluttershy dipped her head, allowing her mane to fall over her face. “I think I overestimated her weight and may have given her a bigger dose than I should have, ” she said in a whisper. Then, clearly afraid that she might have worried Rainbow Dash, she lifted her head and reassuringly. “Don’t worry. You can’t overdose on cannabis. But, I’m afraid she’s going to be very hungry when she wakes up.”

“You drugged Gilda with happy weed?” Rainbow asked incredulously.

“I gave her some medicine to help relax her,” Fluttershy corrected her friend defensively, but with heavy guilt undertones.

Rainbow took a deep breath. “Okay. I can sort of understand why you would do that,” she said while giving Fluttershy a look of censor. “But, Fluttershy, just because you were worried about Curry, you can’t go drugging Gilda to the gills. What if she’d tried to fly with that broken wing?”

“I know. It was bad of me. I’m sorry. Please, forgive me,” Fluttershy said, giving Rainbow Dash a pleading look.

The pegasus took yet another deep breath, and then gave her friend a quick hug. “At least one good thing came out of this. We found out she was coming to apologize to you.”

Fluttershy’s expression turned sorrowful. “It’s all my fault. If only I’d been braver.”

“Hey, you’re plenty brave when you need to be,” Rainbow Dash told her sternly. Her expression shifted to a mixture of worry, with maybe just a faint touch of hope, as she turned to look at Gilda. “How much of this do you think she’ll remember?”

“It's hard to say. Some ponies don't remember anything, others recall bits and pieces, and some everything.”

Rainbow Dash gave a sigh, her eyes holding more than a hint of sadness as she stared at the sleeping gryphon.

Fluttershy followed her gaze. Her own eyes softened⁽*⁾, and she added, “You never know. Gilda might be the type that remembers everything. Don’t give up hope.”

(*) With Fluttershy it was a bit hard to tell, her normal expression was already so soft you are talking percentages here.

Out in the yard, the early morning sun was just chasing the shadows away. Goose was kneeling in the shade of the house, though she still needed her sunglasses despite that, and her hat. Her left wing was spread out as far as it would go, with a pair of small snipe feet stuck out from under one edge. A moving dimple on the top of Goose’s wing marked the spot where the little girl was rubbing oil into the underside of the membrane as if she were changing the oil on Old Ben’s 69 Chevy.

While Curry worked on one wing, Goose focused on the other. Having collected more oil from the gland under her tail, she was working it into any flaky spot she could reach.

“Hey, I need more butt oil,” Curry called out, her voice muffled by the broad wing hovering over top of her.

Goose winced at Curry’s choice of words, but at the same time felt a certain amount of comfort at hearing them. Curry had the same sense of humor as her youngest older brothers; very low only started to describe it. It was almost homey being teased like that. Her brother's had also taught her how to deal with their teasing. Knowing that complaining would only encourage them, and now Curry, Goose choose to take the high road and ignore it.

“Just a moment,” Goose said. She stretched around to gather some oil, while at the same time furling the wing that hung over Curry so the small girl was exposed where she was laying flat on her back. “Here you go,” the nocturne mumbled as she leaned over and nuzzled Curry’s outstretched fingers, transferring a thick film of oil to the nimble digits. Once that was done, she unfolded her wing and extended it back over Curry.

For a few minutes, they each attended their individual tasks. “I think that’s about it,” Curry said at last. She dug her heels in the ground and slid out from under the still extended wing. “How about you? Found any more patches you need me to look at?”

“No, I think we’ve got them all,” Goose said after flexing her wings to see if she could feel any areas of discomfort or tightness. “Thank you so much, Princess. I’m sorry I imposed on you.”

“Nah, you didn’t. I’d have paid for the chance. Your wings are so cool. Say, how’s it going with your problem? Are you getting used to the open sky? Think you might be able to go flying anytime soon?” There was a decided eagerness in Curry’s questioning that took Goose by surprise. There was more than an effort to make polite conversation implied in her tone. It was flattering that the princess took such an interest in her. That, and the familiarity a mutual preening session engendered caused her to answer the questions with a bit more detail than she normally would have.

“I’m getting a lot better. Yesterday I was able to look at the sky above the tent for almost a whole minute without having a panic attack.” A moment later, she admitted in a sheepish tone. “Of course, I was sort of focusing on the fact that the tent had turned into a wreck overnight.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Curry said cheerfully. “The important thing is you did it. You just wait and see. You’ll be flying before you know it.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Fluttershy, who called from the cottage door, “Curry, could you be a dear and do me a favor?”

“Sure, mom,” Curry said, hoping lightly to her feet and dashing over to stand in front of Fluttershy. “Do you need me to brush out Gilda again? Run an errand to town?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Fluttershy said as she ducked her head inside the cottage and emerged with a large wicker basket between her teeth. “Could you go down to the creek and ask Mrs. Otter for another batch of fish. She promised me she’d herd a school into the standing pond below the breakwater so she should have plenty when I needed some.”

“Sure thing,” Curry said, taking the basket. She looked over at the nocturne and asked. “Would you like to come with me, Goose.”

Goose shook her head. “I’d like to, Princess, but with my brother away, I’m not sure I should leave my post.”

“But he’s right up there,” Curry said, pointing up into the big tree that made up a good chunk of Fluttershy’s cottage. She tilted her head back and yelled out, “Can Goose come with me to get fish, Goose’s brother?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve met your brother, Mrs. Goose,” Fluttershy said nervously as she took a single step out of the cottage and looked up into the branches of her tree. “Where is he? I can’t see him.”

A gravely voice from up in the branches replied. “You're not supposed to be able to see me, Ma’am.”

“I can see you,” Curry pointed out. while beside her Goose carefully looked up into the branches with a hoof on her hat to make sure it did not tilt back too far.

“Yes. I’ve noticed,” the pony answered, sounding just a bit disgruntled at the fact.

“I can’t see you,” Goose said, her tone frustrated as she scanned the dappled shadows up in the tree. Not even following Curry’s gaze helped. Try as she might, she simply could not make out her brother.

“So, can Goose come with me to the creek?” Curry said, looking up into the tree with a hand shading her eyes from the morning sun.

“Yes, I suppose that would be allowable.” There was a pause, and then the voice resumed. “In fact, she should consider guarding you to be her primary duty while she’s on detached assignment here.”

“Hey, I just wanted some company. I don’t need a guard,” Curry protested.

“Tough,” was the unsympathetic reply. “You’re a princess; it’s part of the package. Suck it up, trainee.”

“Trainee? Are you talking to me, or Goose?” Curry asked.

“Aren’t you learning how to be a princess? She’s learning how to be a guard. You’re both in training.”

“I think I’d rather learn how to be a guard,” Curry said in a cajoling tone.

A huge sigh came from up in the branches, followed by a few moments of silence, before the voice from above said, “We’ll see.”

“All right!” Curry cheered. And decided to ‘get’ before a certain parental authority protested.

As the two youngsters, one not that much younger than the other, trotted off, Fluttershy heard Curry ask Goose,” Say, does your brother have a cold? He sounded funny.”

“I’m not really going to train her as a guard,” the grave voice came from above, speaking in an apologetic tone that despite sounding like it came from a rock-crusher, sounded concerned about Fluttershy’s opinion of him.

“I know,” Fluttershy said absently while looking up into the branches trying to spot the speaker. Try as she might she couldn’t manage it. Despite that, she was a bit surprised to discover that knowing he was up there somewhere, even if he was out of sight, was more reassuring than frightening. There was something inside her that said the speaker could be trusted, absolutely, and without reservations. Usually, Fluttershy only felt that way about animals, but for once she didn’t let herself second-guess herself just because the large creature lurking up in her tree was intelligent, and therefore had the potential for malice and lying.

***

“This isn’t going to bother you, is it?” Curry asked Goose as she ambled along the trail to the creek, a chunk of dead-fall in hand. Every few steps she’d flourish the stick, slashing and poking at imaginary foes.

“What’s that?” Goose asked.

“The fish. Mom and Rainbow Dash sort of freaked when Grumpy Pants chowed down on the last batch. I don’t know why. Mom was the one that brought them for her in the first place.”

“Oh! No. Somepony eating fish doesn’t bother me. One of my Grandfathers served on the border for several years and he developed a fondness for fish. Apparently, it’s a bit of a delicacy to the gryphons. The mountain streams are too fast and small to have anything large living in them. They always import some large fish especially whenever they have some sort of fancy feasts, like diplomatic parties.”

“You ever tried any?” Curry asked curiously.

“A little piece,” Goose admitted. She grimaced slightly “It didn’t taste very good, it was dry and too salty, and very expensive,” the last description seemed to be the one that weighed heaviest against the dish in Goose’s mind.

Curry’s face twisted up in a ‘yuck’ expression. “Salted fish? No wonder you didn’t like it. You’ve never had properly prepared fish,” Curry said with the total confidence only the young could manage. She smacked her lips and said in a reverent tone, “Filleted fresh from the stream, pan-fried, with butter, pepper, and lemon, rolled in corn-meal. Nothing like it.”

Goose’s facial expression showed that she had grave doubts about the whole thing, but at least she didn’t look like she was about to toss her cookies. Which Curry took as conditional consent to at least consider conspiring with her in cooking up a mess of fresh brook trout. But, it might be best to shove the topic under the rug for the time being. No need to push.

Looking around for a change in topic, Curry’s imagination spotted some sneaking ninja’s. She spent the next few minutes fighting them off with her walking stick, which metamorphosed into a razor-sharp sword for the occasion. The battle was hard fought and required her to leap around like a crazy person while decapitating dozens of fiendish ninja disguised as daisies.

Goose stumbled back a few steps and watched Curry’s antics from under the brim of her hat. An indulgent smile twitched up a corner of one lip after a few moments when she realized the snipe had not eaten loco-weed but was just venting some excess energy. Goose’s own belly choose to rumble just then as she looked at so much tasty food going to waste. She dropped her head and began to snack on the banquet bouquet laying in front of her.

Curry smiled broadly as her bloodthirsty nightmare steed gobbled down the detached heads of her former foes with every evidence of enjoyment.

Once the vicious sneak attack had been repelled, Curry transformed her sword back into a stick and resumed her walk, ignoring the frequent sideways glances Goose sent her way. “I didn’t know you were in training to become a guard pony. I thought you were just the princess’ maid.” Curry remarked. Her eyes brightened, and she asked in an enthusiastic tone, “Are you undercover? Is some dastard conspiring against Princess Luna? They gave you the job because you’re not a guard yet and the bad-guy wouldn’t know who you are, right? I bet you’re faking being scared of the sky, so you can surprise them at just the right moment.”

Goose stumbled slightly and flushed. She was glad her hat and sunglasses concealed a good portion of her face. “I am a maid,” she confessed. “But I wanted to be a guard. Princess Luna said I could be trained in hoof-to-hoof combat and be her last line of defense. And… I really am afraid of the sky,” she finished in a rush.

Curry paused, a lecture she had received the year before echoing in her head. “Just because you’re afraid does not make you weak or useless. I knew a pony who was scared to death of horse trailers and stalls. She had an awful experience when she was young. She was in an accident while traveling.” Curry scuffed at the dirt with her moccasin clad foot, and continued talking with her chin tucked into her chest and her eyes on the road. “I thought she was stupid and a pain in the butt. I didn’t know why she was afeard of so many silly things. I felt really awful when I found out the truth. I wish she’d been like the ponies here, so I could have told her I was sorry she’d had such a bad time of it, and that I’d said nasty things about her. I mean, I did that anyway. I just wish she could have understood what I was saying.”

“I’m sure she knew,” Goose said in an uncertain tone, falling back on platitudes to try and comfort the little snipe.

“But, you’re a lot braver and smarter than she was,” Curry said in a firm voice, jutting out her chin and giving Goose a look of admiration. “The grooms spent hours with her, trying to get her comfortable with being in small spaces. They never managed it. The best they could do was give her a lean-to shelter for the worst of the weather. You don’t need somepony trying to cure you. You’re doing it all on your own. I think you’re really brave.”

“Not on my own,” Goose corrected, Curry, clearly embarrassed at the unwarranted praise. “Lots of ponies are helping me. Even Princess Luna visits me in my dreams and helps keep the nightmares away.”

“Wait! Hold on! Princess Luna visits you in your dreams? She can do that?”

“She is the ruler of the night. Dreams are part of her domain.”

“Wow. That’s so cool. Do you think she’d come and visit me sometime?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how she decides who she’ll visit.”

“Maybe if I slept with you, we could share a dream?” Curry suggested.

Goose gave a light laugh. “That wouldn’t work very well. You sleep in the night, I sleep in the day.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You’re a, what’s it called, a Nocturne? You guys rule the night.”

“No, we don’t rule it. Princess Luna does that. We just live in it. The princess allows us the privilege of sharing it with her. She created us to keep her company in her lonely vigil. Before us, she had nopony to share the night with.”

“That must be why she went evil.”

“She’s not evil. She’s wonderful,” Goose snapped. Her entire attitude shifting as her ears tried to lay flat against her head, prevented by the fact they were sticking up through holes in her hat. The mild-mannered pony’s posture shifted, her stance becoming predatory. In an instant, she went from a dragon-winged pony in Curry’s eyes, to a full-on dragon. Sharp white teeth glinted behind peeled back lips. Goose’s displeasure and anger could not have been more plain if she’d been wearing a neon sign. Curry’s heart leaped into her chest, and she suddenly felt every bit of her lack of inches and pounds.

“Whoa, hold on, Sorry, sorry,” Curry said quickly, holding up her hands in a peaceful gesture while fighting the urge to turn tail and run. Far worse than the sudden bout of fear, was the gut-churning worry that she’d just alienated somepony who had rapidly been becoming a real friend.

“I didn’t mean she was still evil! I was just thinking that ponies really hate being alone with no company. She’s, like, really, really old, even if she doesn’t look like it. That’s a really long time with no one to keep you company. I think she’s the most beautiful pony in the world. I’m jealous you get to work for her. Please, don’t be mad at me, Goose!”

Curry’s voice became more and more desperate as she talked, and her expression was so contrite and full of woe that’s Goose’s anger vanished nearly as fast as it had come, and she had to resist the urge to wrap the little snipe in her wings and tell her everything was alright.

Goose took a tentative step toward Curry, and because she was no longer flashing her teeth, which for a moment there had sure looked like fangs, Curry stood her ground, with difficulty. “I’m sorry, Curry. I shouldn’t have blown up like that,” Goose said in a contrite tone, that went a long way toward easing the churning nausea in Curry’s stomach. “I don’t know what came over me. Don’t be mad at me, please.”

Curry took a deep breath and extended a hand to cup Goose’s muzzle. “Old Ben always said my mouth was disconnected from my brain half the time. “Next time, maybe just give me a whack with one of those wings, gently, when I run my mouth like that.”

“Deal,” Goose said, stepping in and laying her head over Curry’s shoulder so the small snipe could give her a hug. She brought her wings around and wrapped them around Curry in return.

After a few moments, Curry mumbled into Goose’s shoulder. “Guess we should go and get those fish. Who knows what, or who, Grumpy will eat if she doesn’t get fed.”

Author's Note

Next time, on Cooking with Curry, join as as Curry demonstrates Pan Frying Brook Trout.

Chapter 8 [edited]

How to train your Batpony, Ch 8

A strange tantalizing scent wafted across Gilda’s beak, glided into her nose and proceeded to take a sledgehammer to a very small section of her brain that normally didn’t get a lot of use. She twitched in response, struggling against enough lethargy to anchor a fleet of airships. A few more brain cells came online and the stabbing pain from her broken wing and strained neck ligaments made itself known, along with an entire list of other complaints, in descending order. For instance, something noxious had set up housekeeping inside her beak on the remains of her last fishy meal, and from the taste, it had not been house trained. She pried open gummy eyes and found herself in unfamiliar surroundings. Instead of the raw, rough, barely shaped, granite that was her bedroom, there was wood and soft floor coverings. Where? A moment later she came, more-or-less fully awake, although her mind still felt stuffed full of clouds. She was grounded, in the middle of a bunch of untouchable snacks, being babied like a fledgling by that terrified, and terrifying, little marshmallow. Renewed humiliation finished flushing the sleep toxins out of her brain.

Carefully lifting her head, Gilda stared over at the rather smoky kitchen area and observed the two figures currently in the middle of a discussion. One pony, of the nocturne variety, and the creature Rainbow Dash called a snipe, were standing next to the oven, the snipe precariously perched on a stool, from where she was poking at the contents of a huge cast-iron frying pan with a long fork. The scent that had woken Gilda was coming from that direction. There was a strong fishy component to the scent and much to her annoyance, Gilda found herself salivating. She’d been explicit; she didn’t eat carrion. Raw and wriggling was the way to go.

Which was a total fabrication. While Gilda was perfectly happy chowing down on raw fish, she was also fond of the properly cooked variety. Either occasion was fairly rare. Fish was party food, fancy, don't-sharpen-your-claws-on-the-furniture, party food. The real reason she had been so insistent on the live and wriggling part was to freak the ponies. Which had worked a treat.

***

“Is it supposed to smoke so much?” Goose asked Curry as she stared at the cornmeal battered fish fillets sizzling in the frying pan, flinching back slightly as some hot oil splattered across her nose.

“I always cooked it outdoors before,” Curry confessed. Her stomach let out a growl, and she poked at the simmering fish to see if the flesh was coming away from the bones yet. It wasn’t. She located a small portion that had fallen away from a larger fillet and snagged it on the tip of her fork. She blew on it for a few minutes and then carefully nibbled, her lips peeled back to keep from burning them. Her eyes closed in bliss. “Oh, that is so good,” she all but purred. The tail hanging down from the back of her bodysuit lifted slightly and wagged back and forth in response to her mood.

Locating another small fragment, Curry fished it out and offered it to Goose. “Here, you try some. Blow on it a bit to cool it. It’s really hot.”

“I’m don’t know,” Goose said reluctantly, looking at the offered tidbit from the corner of her eyes. “Maybe we should save it for the princess?”

“Nah, we got lots still wiggling in the creel for when she wakes up. Besides, she said she didn’t eat dead food. You should have seen her scarf down the last batch of fish. Totally gross. Gluck, gluck, gluck and down it went, she didn’t even chew the smaller ones. Just like a crane. Something this good would just be wasted on her.”

Goose, looking a bit greenish-grey from Curry’s graphic description, rallied and came back with one of her own. “Sounds a bit like Grampa Furious. He’s lost most of his teeth and has to have his food pre-chewed for him.”

Behind the two companions, a vein began to throb in Gilda’s forehead.

Curry pushed the small bit of fried fish toward Goose, causing the pony to tuck her chin in reaction. “Go on, it won’t bite you,” Curry said in a cajoling tone. “Should I make that a royal order?” she teased.

“Well, maybe just a taste,” Goose capitulated. She leaned forward, peeling her lips back like Curry had done and took the little fragment between her sharp teeth and pulled it off the fork. At the same time, she closed her eyes as she focused completely on the small chunk of food. She could taste pepper, butter, salt, and lemon, and something else as her teeth clamped down and juices trickled onto her taste buds. Every bit of her expression showed reluctance as she used her tongue to draw the bite-sized bit into her mouth. She grimaced as she chewed, and then went still. Her expression smoothed out, and her eyes opened wide as she stared at Curry in surprise. “It’s good?”

For a certain value of ‘good,’ knowing where it came from and compared to what I thought it would taste like.

“Yeah, I know, right,” Curry said. The small snipe gave a giggle. “I had the same exact look on my face the first time Old Ben fed me fried frogs legs.”

“You ate a frog?” Goose asked, her face twisting in disgust at the thought while swallowing again to make sure the little bite of fish stayed down.

“Yep, the legs from some big old bullfrogs. Just as big as chicken wings, and even tastier…” Curry trailed off as a guilty expression crossed her face. “Hey, look, you don’t need to mention that bit about the chicken wings to Mom, do you.”

“My lips are sealed,” Goose promised, making a zipper motion with her hoof across her lips while trying not to think of the color green.

“Pony’s do that? I didn’t even think you had zippers.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Goose asked, grateful that the conversation had veered away from food that swam and hopped.

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out why you wear clothes.”

Goose made a production of lifting her hoof to adjust her hat.

Curry waved the motion off, using the toasting fork like a baton. “Oh, I know why ‘you’ wear a hat. I just can’t figure out why some ponies wear fancy dresses.

“I’ve never worn a fancy dress,” Goose said in a rather wistful tone.

“It’s way overrated,” Curry said with a slight shudder. “So, do you want to try a bigger piece? I think this batch is done.”

“I’d try a piece,” an unexpected, raspy voice replied to Curry’s question.

Curry startled, causing her to wobble precariously on her small stool. She might have fallen if Goose had not extended a wing tip to steady her in place. Both young females turned to look at the gryphon in the room. Gilda had gotten up out of her cloth nest and was standing, slightly canted, halfway between them and it.

“Ah, so, you’re up,” Curry said, stating the obvious, and with just a touch of nervousness in her voice. “Mom’s out in the yard feeding the chickens. She said to yell if I needed help.” Curry put special emphasis on the last sentence as she tried her best to look calm and in control.

Gilda’s stomach rumbled loudly, and both Goose and Curry flinched a bit. Some of the sudden spurt of fear faded as Gilda blushed, slightly and averted her eyes. She used one of her good front legs to rub her tummy. “I am a bit hungry, as it happens,” she said. “So, If you have extra, I’ll try some of what you’re cooking.” There was an uncertainty in her voice and posture that had not been there before, almost as if she was embarrassed about something.

“Are you feeling okay, Princess?” Goose asked. Her tone was differentially, but she was wearing her best version of Shadow’s on-duty expression. She shifted so she was standing in front of Curry, keeping her eyes firmly on the gryphon while she waited for a reply.

“You mean besides the broken leg, the broken wing, and the sprained neck,” Gilda snarked back, some of the cranky of the previous day coming back into her voice.

“Oh, good. We thought you might be coming down with something. You almost sounded polite there for a minute,” Curry said, as she turned her back on the wounded gryphon. She started to transfer the fried fillets from the extra-large cast iron pan to a platter. “Just hold on a second and I’ll bring this right over.”

Gilda shuffled nervously in place, trying not to fidget under Goose’s gimlet gaze.

Holding the laden plate with both hands, Curry carefully stepped down from the stool. She looked from the plate to Gilda, and then over to the dining table. “Do you want to eat at the table?” she asked and paused, the words or off the floor on the tip of her tongue.

“That would be fine,” Gilda said in a wooden tone, her eyes never leaving Goose.

“I saved another piece for you, Goose,” Curry said, nodding toward the stove, as she sat Gilda’s heaped plate onto the table.

An uncomfortable look crossed Goose’s face. She swallowed nervously as she tore her eyes away from Gilda to glance at the heap of fried fish the gryphon was making a beeline for. “I’m on duty, Curry. But thank you. The little bit you gave me was enough.”

“No you ain’t,” Curry said firmly. “You said you were off duty when the sun came up. Sun’s been up for near on an hour. And you can’t go by that little piece. It was all dried out and overcooked. You got to try the real deal before you can make up your mind. Sit,” Curry said in a firm voice, gesturing to the opposite side of the table from where Gilda was eyeing the food with a certain amount of trepidation, as if suddenly unsure of what she’d let herself in for.

Gilda glanced over at Curry as the snipe busied herself slipping a single piece of fish onto a plate for Goose. The gryphon’s expression made it pretty clear that she was wondering if she dared try to eat something the peculiar creature had cooked. She glanced across at where Goose was settling herself in place, and a moment of understanding passed between them as Curry slid a plate with a single small fillet in front of the nocturne. The snipe stepped back, her arms crossed over her chest and with an expectant look that pretty much demanded some sort of response.

Gilda poked at the oddly-cooked fish with a claw, while Goose fumbled with a table knife. They exchanged looks, and each of them separated a small piece from the whole. Gilda speared her’s with a claw, while Goose set aside the knife and leaned down to gingerly pick up her piece between her teeth. She rolled her eyes to the side to see Curry watching intently, gave a sigh, and started chewing.

Gilda watched as the nocturne’s jaw stopped moving and her eyes widened. “It’s good. Really good,” Goose said, surprise in her voice. That was all Gilda needed to hear, though considering how empty her stomach felt, Goose simply not dying on the spot might have been enough. She lifted the bite-sized morsel on her claw and popped it into her beak, giving it a couple of extra bites to bring out the flavor potential, similar to the way she tended to eat the rare muffin or pastry that came her way.

It was Gilda’s turn to have her eyes go wide in surprise as a medley of tastes flooded her taste buds. Some like the fish, butter, and pepper, she was familiar with, others she’d never tried before. They all went together to make a whole far greater than the parts, and her crop gave a happy rumble when she swallowed. She speared an entire grilled fish and stuffed it into her beak, her crop growling urgently, telling her to get a move on. Despite that, she took the time to slice and dice the fish between her beak’s cutting edges in order to maximize the flavor.

In the meantime, Goose was looking down at the remaining fish on her plate, a mingled expression of hunger and guilt on her face. It was clear that while she had found her serving tasty, she wasn’t reconciled to eating something that had sported a face before being prepared for the pan. Seeing that Curry had turned back to the oven and was rolling some more fillets in a bowl of corn-meal, Goose casually slid her plate toward Gilda, who snatched the remaining fillet without even bothering to look up at Goose, although there might have been a short grunt which could have charitably been interpreted as “Thanks.”

“Done? Do you want another piece, Goose?” Curry asked from where she was laying the freshly battered fish into the pan.

Goose looked up and met Curry’s inquiring look, and despite thinking it made her a horrible pony, said, “No thanks. It was really delicious, but I’ve eaten all I possibly could.”

“How about you, Gilda?”

Gilda’s response to the inquiry was to shove her plate closer to Curry while running her tongue along her beak in order to recover every possible crumb. Only once she was sure that there were no fragments of fish left did she look up and say, “Sure. I guess. Gryphons don’t waste food.”

“Should only be a few minutes,” Curry said cheerfully. As she kept an eye on the grilling fish, she ate a portion she had set aside for herself, making little humming sounds of pleasure as she did so.

***

In the end, Gilda polished off a good twenty pounds of fried brook trout before she pushed herself away from the table with a happy sigh of repletion. She leisurely licked her claws while looking at Curry from under half-lowered eyelids as the snipe cleaned the dishes with some help from Goose. “Want a job?” she asked from out of nowhere in a lazy half-sleeping sort of tone.

“I’m in training to be a Royal Guard,” a startled Goose said.

“Not, you, Wings. The snipe, Curry. Do you want a job?” she repeated.

“Doing what?” Curry asked curiously.

“Cooking for the Wingmaster of the Misty Mountain Aerie.”

“Does Frankenpony like fish that much?” Curry asked in surprise.

“Who?” Gilda asked, her face screwing up in confusion.

“You know. That Pony who came by the other day and told you to behave yourself? The one who looked like somepony sewed him together from the parts of a bunch of ponies?”

“Oh, Lumpy,” Gilda said, the mystery solved. She gave a shake of her head. “He doesn’t matter. One way or another he’s not going to be Wingmaster for much longer. So. How about it. Want to come work for my Nest?” Gilda’s asked in a tone that was only half-joking.

“Nah, got too much work to do here. And, the commute would be a killer,’ Curry said, mimicking something she’d often heard people in town say about going to work in the big city.

“Well, you all sure are looking cozy,” Rainbow Dash remarked from the doorway. She fluttered inside and was followed by Fluttershy carrying a basket full of eggs in her mouth.

Gilda’s lethargic pose stiffened slightly. “Dashy,” she said in greeting, her eyes not quite meeting those of Rainbow Dash.

“How you doing, Gilda?” Rainbow asked, settling down beside the lounging gryphon. She gave Gilda a soft playful poke in her slightly distended crop. “If you don’t get flying soon, you’re going to be too fat to move.”

Gilda still wouldn’t meet Rainbow Dash’s eyes. “I had this weird dream last night, Dashy. I said some stuff. Personal sort of stuff.” She lifted her head and looked at the pegasus pony who was close enough for her to reach out and touch. “Was it a dream?” she asked after a moment.

Rainbow went still for a moment, and then she reached out and cupped a wing behind Gilda’s head and pulled it forward so she could lean in and bump her own forehead against that of the gryphon. “Nah. It wasn’t a dream, beak face,” she said in a soft voice while she maintained the pose, pressing her head against that of Gilda.

Curry, her eyes wide, leaned forward so as to not miss a single thing. Goose, right beside her, was watching the scene with equal interest, and a wide-eyed nocturne was a sight to behold.

“Curry, Goose, could you lend me a hand out in the yard?” Fluttershy asked out of the blue, startling the two eavesdroppers. Before Curry could either agree or demur, Fluttershy swept her up in a wing and hustled her toward the door. Goose trotted hastily after, with only a few quick looks backward before she exited.

Curry’s voice floated back into the house, “Aww, but mom, it was just getting interesting.” Any further comment from the peanut gallery was cut off when Goose closed the door after her.

“I’m not going to cut you any slack,” Rainbow said.

“Have I ever asked for any?” Gilda retorted softly.

“You mess up. I will ‘buck you up’.”

“If you can.”

“Oh, I can.”

Gilda gave a huge sigh and rubbed her head against Rainbow Dash. “I’ve missed you, Dashy. I didn’t realize how much till it all went down back home, and I realized how much I needed you at my back.”

“What, none of those, cockerels who were always sniffing around you in the spring would lend a wing?”

Gilda gave a soft bitter laugh. “Them? They could only think of one thing at a time. In mating season, it was mating, and when it wasn’t the mating season, it was themselves. That was bad enough, but they all used to wet themselves if my father even looked at them cross-eyed. None of them were ever half the gryphon you were, Dashy. What about you. How come you don’t have a string of stallions chasing your tail?”

“Because I’ve yet to meet one who could catch me. You know me, Gilda. I don’t settle for second best. You should have known that the last time you were here and dissed my friends.”

Gilda winced slightly but did not pull away. “Yeah, I should have. They wouldn’t be your friends if they weren’t something special.” Gilda paused, closing her eyes and taking as deep a breath as her injuries would allow, before continuing. “Dashy? I don’t know if I’ll ever manage another visit. After I heal up, that is. There’s a lot of things coming up. This was sort of my last chance to try and put things right.”

“Hey, now. Who do you think you’re talking to? I can get from here to the Misty Mountains in a day if I push it. Heck, I could do it backward. Don’t think I’m going to let you slip away again.”

Gilda pulled her head back and blinked her eyes quickly as if to remove an irritant. “Thank you for being my friend, Dashy. Want a fishy?”

A look of disgust crossed Rainbow’s face as she reared back slightly at the sudden shift in topic. “Don’t even suggest that,” she said, giving a laughing Gilda a light swat across the beak with her wing. “How you can eat those disgusting, slimy, wiggling things, I’ll never know.”

“You should have your little snipe cook you up one. You might be surprised,” Gilda said in a superior tone. “Unless you’re afraid?”

“Hey. Rainbow Dash isn’t afraid of anything.”

“Then it’s a date. You and I’ll have supper tonight. Fresh fried fish. I’ll let you have two of mine. Just because I’m such a good friend.”

“Hey, wait. I never said I’d eat one,” Rainbow protested.

Gilda just waved a dismissive wing at Rainbow as she limped back to her nest. “Crippled invalid here. Let me sleep. Wake me when supper is ready.”

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

Goose let out a huge yawn as she helped Curry rake the chicken yard, much to her embarrassment.

Fluttershy looked up from where she had been reassuring the chickens that the dangerous looking dragon-winged pony had no intention of eating them. “Oh, my. How bad of me to forget. You need to sleep during the day, don’t you, Miss Goose? You must be very tired. Would you like me to make you up a bed? I have lots of spare room right now with all the critters denning up for winter.”

“You don’t need to bother. I can trot back to the tent. It’s not that far,” Goose said, stifling another yawn behind a raised hoof.

“If Miss Fluttershy does not mind, you may stay here.” Shadow’s voice came from above them, and this time even Curry jumped in surprise.

Strangely, while she gave a shocked ‘eep’, Fluttershy didn’t run for the cottage in a panic. She did shift protectively toward Curry, her wings opening in a defensive manner.

“Dang it. Don’t do that,” Curry snarled, her heart racing. She peered up into the tree, wondering how she’d missed him this time. She’d checked right after she’d come out into the yard, she knew she had. Look as she could, she wasn’t able to spot the hidden pony.

***

Up in the tree, Shadow smirked from his position directly behind the thick trunk. Curry might somehow be able to see into the shadows he usually hid in, but it seemed even she couldn’t see through a solid chunk of wood. He wondered how long she’d waste staring at empty shadows before she figured out the simple trick.

***

“Is it really okay for Goose to stay?” Curry called out as she shaded her eyes with a hand and carefully checked every single pool of shade she could spot.

“That is your mother’s decision to make. But, as Goose’s commanding officer, I have no objection.”

“Mom,” Curry said, loading an entire paragraph of pleading into that one word as she turned and looked at Fluttershy with her best puppy-dog expression.

Fluttershy had an extremely low resistance to puppies, and all other things cute. So it wasn’t really fair of Curry to go right to def-cute five with nothing in between. She shot a nervous look toward the nocturne mare, but despite her obvious discomfort said, “Of course. I’ll make up a room for her right away.”

“Ahh?” Goose said to draw Fluttershy’s attention. Ducking her head slightly and pawing at the dirt with a nervous hoof, she continued, “If you have a closet with enough room for me to lie down in, that is all I need.”

Goose’s own embarrassment and discomfort seemed to ease Fluttershy’s nervousness somewhat and she adopted a thoughtful look. “Well, I do have a nook under the staircase that Hairy sometimes dens in when he stays overnight. You should be comfortable there if you don’t mind sleeping on straw.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Goose said.

“Let me show you where it is,” Fluttershy offered.

“I can do that, Mom,” Curry hurriedly said, laying a proprietary hand on Goose’s neck.

“You might want to stay out here to greet your guests,” Shadow offered from his perch.

“More visitors,” Fluttershy asked, her tone alarmed.

“Just Prince Jake and some friends,” Shadow said in a reassuring tone. “I’ll be here to look over Curry if you wish to show Goose where she can sleep.”

“Is Sweetie Belle with them?” Curry asked, looking torn.

“Unicorn foal from the press conference at the tent? Just a minute. Yes, she’s with Prince Jake. Along with three other fillies that were there, and one that I don’t recognize.”

“Will you be okay?” Curry asked a bemused Goose in a solicitous tone.

“I think I can manage with your mother’s help,” Goose answered seriously, though there was a slight quirk at the corner of her lip that might have been a smile.

With a last longing look toward Goose’s departing backside, Curry turned and hurried down the front path to the gate, and from there headed down the lane in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. She’d only gone fifty yards or so when she started to pick up the sound of the approaching ponies.

Jake's voice was the first she could pick out of the mixture of voices, much like a young goose in the midst of a flock of ducklings. Despite being reduced in size, he still maintained the erratic volume control of a young colt his actual age and tended to a tone of voice that could make your ears ache at short range when he got excited. He was talking about her to somepony, which had to be the fiily Shadow had not been able to identify.

“Curry is the best big brother ever,” Jake was saying. A moment later he said, “Curry can’t be my sister. You’re my sister. She’s not even a mare.” There was a soft murmuring of voices that Curry could not quite make out followed by Jake speaking in a querulous tone. “Well, that’s silly. Why should it matter if Curry got one or ain’t got one? Sweetie Belle has a horn. Scootaloo has wings. But you don’t try and say they is not fillies because of that.”

Curry found herself flushing a little, and hurried her steps, as Apple Bloom’s voice became clear enough to understand. “Look, just trust me on this, Jake. It makes a difference. Just because Curry is a snipe and not a pony doesn’t change the rules.” Curry imagined she could hear the embarrassment in Apple Bloom’s voice as she added, "Look, you ask Big Mac to explain how come.”

Curry rounded the corner and spotted the small herd of ponies in front of her. Because of his height, Jake stood out, but Scootaloo was actually a dozen yards ahead of the group, looking back over her shoulder when Curry first spotted her. Diamond Tiara was pacing Jake, taking two strides for every one of his. She was wearing a big smile and looked on the verge of bursting into laughter for some reason. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were on the opposite side of Jake from Di, and while Sweetie Belle looked amused, Apple Bloom looked flustered and mildly embarrassed at Jake’s stubborn insistence on re-writing basic biology. Curry could sympathize a little. While he was, in general, an easygoing cuss, Jake was prone to notions from time to time that nothing seemed able to shake. Such as anything in the apple bin was his, no matter how often you told him to stay out of it.

What Curry did not see was an unfamiliar pony. It wasn’t till a voice with a distinct New York accent spoke up from somewhere behind Jake that she was able to place the location of the new filly, even if she still could not see her.

“Youse still hasn’t told me jest whose this Curry is, and wat she is.”

Just then Scootaloo turned her head and spotted Curry. She gave the snipe a broad grin, along with a wink, and shouted over her shoulder. “As we said, Curry is a lot easier to explain once you meet her.”

Not slow on catching a hint, Curry stepped side-ways into some nearby bushes, knowing that Rarity’s magic outfit would help her blend into the foliage and shadows.

“Come on, youse gals, give a pony a break heah. Hows abouts a little hint?”

Jake and the other foals had been too involved in the discussion to spot her before she vanished from sight and they continued to follow Scootaloo, who didn’t even pause as she came abreast of where Curry had vanished into the bushes.

Curry watched curiously as the new filly came into sight. She had a faded red mane with light pink stripes that were cropped short, matching her bobbed tail. Her coat was an orangey brown, while her eyes were green. Freckles decorated her cheeks and helped increase her resemblance to a street kid from those ancient dead-end kids movies Old Ben loved. As they tended to be a bit short on acceptable — to Curry — female characters, they were not her favorites, but certain images did stick in her mind.

“Just be patient for another minute, Babs. We’re almost to Fluttershy’s cottage,” Apple Bloom told the pony. Babs swung out a bit and moved up till she was alongside Di.

Curry stepped out into the path behind the ponies, and followed on silent feet, running on her tiptoes in order to keep up with their pace. Curry was feeling very proud. It wasn’t easy to sneak up on horses. It was also a very bad idea, but she’d make sure she wasn’t in kicking range when she sprang her presence on them.

Not that she was anywhere near as sneaky as Goose and her brother had been in the tent. That had been awesome. Thinking about Shadow reminded her that he had been able to see Jake and the fillies from his perch up in the tree, that meant he could likely see her right now. This was a perfect chance to show him what she could do. She might not be any use in a fight, what with everypony being ponies, and gryphons, but with the help of Rarity’s outfits, she could be as sneaky as any pony. More she bet. There was a heck of a lot less of her to hide in the shadows. She redoubled her efforts to be sneaky, playing to her unseen audience.

It didn’t take very long for the ponies to reach Fluttershy’s cottage. They spread out into a single file to fit through the gate, Babs, looking at Fluttershy’s tree home nervously, brought up the tail end. Curry was right on Babs tail, about five feet back. Any second now, Curry knew that the ponies would start milling around the yard, and no matter how sneaky she was, they’d spot her, so if her prank was to have the maximum effect, it had to be now.

“Fee Fi Fo Fum,” Curry shouted, trying to make her voice as deep as possible. The effect was everything she could have desired. Babs jumped about three feet straight up and landed running. Sweetie Belle was near as startled, she whirled in place, lowering her head so her horn was pointing toward the shout, and with her backside protected by Jake’s bulk. Apple Bloom and Di both jumped to the side, unfortunately, toward each other. They collided and went down in a tangle of limbs. Scootaloo rolled over on her back, her legs kicking in the air, as she laughed her ass off.

Jake, after an initial start that caused him to toss his head, stood his ground, just like he’d been trained to do when there were sudden unexpected loud noises. He twisted his head around and gave Curry a sour look. “Bad Curry,” he said. He made a production of turning his back on her. Being careful to step around Apple Bloom and Di who kept tripping each other up as they tried to get to their feet, he ambled over to where Babs’ tail was sticking out from under a low hanging bush. “Don’t be scared, Babs. Curry was just being silly. She usually isn’t mean like this.”

Curry winced, the joke not seeming nearly as funny all of a sudden. Full of sudden contrition, she trotted over to Jake and crouched down so she could address Babs’ bobtail. “Yo, like, I’m totally sowy I acted like a joik. Youse all should just come on out,” Curry said in a simply awful New York accent.

“That is the wost Manehatten accent I’ve evea head!” Babs exclaimed, her voice firming up as she spoke. She started inching herself backward.

“You should hear my Canadian one, eh.” Curry joked as she reached forward to move a branch that was snagging Babs’ mane.

“I ain’t nevea head of Canadian, where at is that?”

“No place you ever heard of,” Curry said, taking a step backward as Babs pulled herself out from under the bush and turned around.

“I think she means, Caneighdian,” Sweetie Belle suggested from the side, earning her a surprised look from Curry, who missed the expression that crossed Babs’ face when she got a look at who she’d been talking to.

“Holy moly, what the heck is you?” Babs shouted, looking like she was about to dive back under the bush. Only the presence of Jake standing right next to Curry seemed to keep her calm enough to stand her ground on shivering legs.

“This is Curry. Say you’re sorry proper, Curry,” Jake demanded.

“I’m sorry I scared you, Babs. I sort of got too into the whole sneaking thing.”

“Scaed? Who was scaed? Not me. I was just, what you call it, making a tactical retreat, yous know?”

“Just look at my mane. Thanks to your prank, it’s a disaster,” Di complained as she trotted up to Curry and made a show of shaking dust and dirt out of her hide, and all over Curry, who went into a coughing fit.

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. I’ll go get my brushes and clean it out for you,” She told Di, making a hasty retreat from the cloud of dust the normally dirt phobic pony had raised.

“You should give Scootaloo a good brushing as well,” Di said. “Who knows when the last time she was curried properly.”

“Hey, are you calling me dirty,” Scootaloo blustered, marching right up to Di, and then beating a hasty retreat when Di looked her straight in the eyes and fluttered her eyelashes.

“Heavens no. I was just thinking you might find it easier to fly if you shed that ten pounds of ground in dirt you’re hauling around.”

“I’m not dirty!” Scootaloo said with some heat. “I stood under a raincloud just two days ago,” Scootaloo protested, keeping a safe distance from Di. “Briefly,” she added after a few moments of Di’s skeptical look.

Babs was ignoring the debate, in favor of intently watching the doorway, Curry had just vanished into. “Okay. I’ve seen her, now what the heck is she?” the Manehatten pony demanded.

“She’s a Snipe,” Apple Bloom said.

“And a princess,” Sweetie Belle added. “The princess of the Snipes.”

“Well, seeing as how she’s the only Snipe, she’s sort of only the princess of herself,” Apple Bloom qualified.

“She’s the one who made Jake an Alicorn,” Di said, and almost instantly looked like she wished she’d held her tongue. “Or so I heard some commoners saying. I’m sure it’s not true.”

“I’ve never heard that,” Apple Bloom said.

“And you’d do well never to tell it to anypony else,” a gravely voice over their head said sternly, drawing a shriek from Babs as she tried to dive back under her bush. Only the fact that Jake snagged her tail in his mouth kept her from doing so. All the other fillies jumped in surprise, but this time stayed on their feet.

Jake’s hide had quivered, but he stood his ground as he released Babs’ tail and looked up into the branches. “Shadow. That was mean.”

“I apologize, Prince Jake. I did not mean to scare your young fillies, but it is very important they do not go spreading false rumors about Princess Moonlight.

“Dumb, dumb, idiot,” Di muttered under her breath while wearing a look that said she’d do anything to be able to go back in time and shove a hoof into her own mouth.

“I don’t get it. What’s the big deal? Everypony knows that snipes grant wishes,” Scootaloo protested, while Jake urged Babs out from under her bush. “But it only works if you catch them. And we can’t catch Curry, because she’s not running away,” Scoot added with what she felt was impeccable logic.

“But not everypony believes that,” Shadow’s voice floated down from above. “It would be very bad if somepony, like those newspaper reporters the other day, started spreading the rumor that Princess Curry can create Alicorns at will.”

“Who’s up theah,” Babs’ asked in a quivering voice as she worked up the nerve to join the rest of the ponies in staring up into the tree.

“That’s Shadow. His sister stayed at our house for a few days, and he spent a night as well. They’re nocturne ponies,” Apple Bloom explained.

Babs turned pale and she gave her cousin a disbelieving look. “Is you telling me theah is a Bat Pony sitting up in that tree, and youse all is just standing around in the open?” She asked in a faint voice.

“Sure, Shadow and Goose are cool, “ Apple Bloom said, giving a puzzled shrug as if to say, what’s the big deal?

“They’re nice,” Jake said, giving his seal of approval.

“Shadow Dash is a Drill Instructor for the Royal Guard. He was ranked fourth overall in sparring last year with a .875 victory record and seven Technical Knockouts,” Scootaloo said in a tone that seemed to indicate Shadow’s rank was somewhere above that of anything so mundane as princesses.

“How do you know that?” Di asked from right next to Scootaloo, causing the pegasus to dance a few steps to the side.

“Trading cards,” Scootaloo answered, while looking at Di nervously, as if she half expected the other pony to explode, or do something just as startling, any minute.

“I have a trading card?” asked the bodiless voice.

“Oh yeah. I’ve got almost all of them. Shining Armor, Sergeant Chert, but yours is the coolest of them all. They didn’t have any pictures of you to put on it, so it’s just this big pool of shadow with two glowing eyes staring straight at you. If you prop it up on your nightstand it looks like the eyes follow you around the room.” Scootaloo gave a shiver of delight. “They glow in the dark, too.”

There was silence from above for a few seconds, and then the disembodied voice asked in a casual tone, “Maybe one day you could show it to me?”

“I’ll run home right now and get it,” Scootaloo cried out, turning tail with the clear intention of carrying through on her words. Di caught Scoot’s tail between her teeth and hauled her to a stop. “Not till Curry brushes out that dreadful coat of yours,” she muttered between her mouthful of rather gamey tail hair, just as Curry emerged from the house with a small battered carrying case in her hands.

Babs had gone stiff legged when Curry emerged from the house, but when the small snipe paid no attention to her and got to work brushing out Scootaloo’s hide, raising great clouds of dust in the process, she relaxed slowly and eased forward, her eyes full of wary curiosity.

“Is she really a princess?” she asked her cousin, even though Curry was only a few feet away.

It was Curry who replied, not turning her head from her work. “I ain’t a princess, not really. But Princess Celestia said I was, and Princess Luna went along with the scam, so I ain’t going to argue with them. Sometimes it’s fun. Most times it’s a pain. Like when somepony says princesses can’t wrestle in the dirt like common ruffians.” Curry shot Di a quick mischievous look as she said the last bit, putting an annoyed expression on Diamond Tiara’s face, as she gave a sniff and looked away from Curry.

Curry took hold of one of Scootaloo's wings and pulled it out so she could brush under it, drawing helpless giggles from the tomcolt. The snipe refused to let the pegasus filly loose till she was sure she’d gotten every burr and clump of dust out from under the sensitive wing. Even after she released her grip on the pony’s wing she examined it closely. Curry lightly drew one of the long flight feathers between two of her fingers. “Your feathers seem dry. Have you been preening properly?” she asked as if she’d been dealing with wings for her entire life, and not just in the last couple of hours.

Scootaloo blushed and mumbled something too soft for anypony to hear.

“What was that?” Curry asked as her fingers flicked along Scootaloo’s dirty feathers, hooking the barbicels of one feather to the one adjacent to it without really thinking about what she was doing. It was a little bit like doing up dozens of tiny little zippers.

“I said, not that long ago,” Scootaloo whispered.

“Same time as you took your last shower?” Curry teased, moving onto the next set of primary feathers and disturbing a second cloud of powdery dust.

“No! Well, the day before,” Scootaloo admitted. “It wasn’t my fault. I was busy practicing this really sick trick, and then we had the whole thing with the reporters and I just didn’t have time.”

“I bet Rainbow Dash always finds the time,” Diamond Tiara said with a sniff from where she had crept up on the other side of Scootaloo. The pegasus blushed deeply and made an aborted attempt to flee, pulled up short by Curry’s grip on her feathers.

“Oh, good. I’m almost done here. I can clean all the muck out of your coat now, Di,” Curry said in a pleased voice. Then in her best mother hen voice, learned from dozens of family movies, she asked, “Have you been brushing and picking your hooves twice a day? You know you might get hoof rot if you don’t take care of them.”

This time Diamond Tiara was the one who blushed when she had to admit she’d been negligent in proper hoof care, while Scootaloo snickered softly.

“And you were wrong about Scoot’s having ten pounds of dirt ground into her hide. It was more like eleven,” Curry said, cutting off Scootaloo’s laughter at the roots.

***

“There you go Babs,” Curry said, resisting the urge to give the nervous city pony a swat on the flank. The poor thing’s hide hadn’t stopped twitching the whole time Curry had spent brushing her down and she didn’t want to push it. Despite that, given her obvious nervousness, Curry felt Babs had stood her ground like a real trooper.

“Thanks,” Babs said, taking a few quick steps away from Curry before craning her neck around to check out her now gleaming hide. Her eyes widened in appreciation. “Hey, poetty snazzy. Yous do nice woak. Yous aught to open up a baoba shop.”

“You’re welcome,” Curry said, lacing her fingers together behind her back and stretching out the kinks she’d developed with all the bending she’d done working around the foals. It was a good sort of ache. The kind you got because you were having so much fun doing something you didn’t even notice the aches until you were finished.

Her stretching brought Sweetie Belle into her line of sight. Unlike the three ponies Curry had just groomed, her immaculate coat hadn’t even needed a touch-up, which meant she was likely staying with her sister at the moment. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were currently standing on their hind legs on either side of Jake, putting the finishing touches to his brushing. The sight reminded her of why she’d been so keen on seeing the little unicorn before she’d been distracted by Babs and the need to groom her clients.

“Sweetie Belle?” Curry asked in a soft voice as she walked over to the unicorn. Sweetie directed an inquiring look over her shoulder at Curry, who lowered her voice even more as she asked out of the side of her mouth. “Did you ask Rarity about the thing?”

Sweetie Belle looked blank for a moment, and then her eyes lit up. “Yeah. I did just like you said. I asked Rarity if she had any magic books I could study, and she said all her old school books were boxed up over at our parent’s house. She didn’t know anything about the book you found in my bags the other day.” Sweetie twisted her head around and extracted the book from somewhere inside her mane.

It made Curry’s neck hurt just to watch her do it.

“Yes!” Curry fist pumped after Sweetie Belle handed her the book. “I knew it. It’s the real deal. The type that pops up when somepony really needs it, or who are destined to have it.”

Curry paused a moment before she continued, but she’d been over this in her head last night and had promised herself she was not going to make the same mistake she had with Jake. So, giving a soft regretful sigh, she plastered an expression of happiness and congratulated her friend on her good fortune.

“You’re so lucky it picked you, Sweetie Belle. This is going to be awesome. I can’t wait to see what you can pull off with it.” Despite her regrets about the situation, Curry’s enthusiasm was genuine.

“What are you talking about, Curry?” Apple Bloom asked as she tossed her front legs over Jake’s back and pulled herself up to look at Curry and Sweetie Belle. Curry looked chagrined as she suddenly realized she’d gotten carried away in her excitement. The fillies, and Jake were fairly safe, as long as Jake didn’t blab about it to Big Mac. They were kids, even if they were ponies. It was adults you needed to keep in the dark about this sort of stuff. With that in mind, Curry glanced upward, surprised Goose’s brother hadn’t already laid down the word from above on this. For the first time that day she managed to spot Shadow. He was stretched out along a thick branch like a big old puma, only in the shade and not the sun. His eyes were closed and his breathing regular. The snot bubble inflating and deflating from one of his nostrils was pretty good proof he really was sleeping. It also sort of spoiled the whole wicked cool look he otherwise was projecting.

While Curry was checking out potential adult complications, Sweetie Belle was filling in the fillies. “Curry found a magic book in my saddlebags the other day at the tent. We think it’s one of those special books, like in the stories.”

“No way!” Scootaloo exclaimed, vibrating in excitement.

“Can you use it to cast a spell?” Di asked Curry, crowding in close, her eyes gleaming avariciously.

“Not me,” Curry replied, remembering to keep her voice low this time. “I’m not a Unicorn like the pony who wrote it, and it was in Sweetie Belle’s saddle bag, so that must mean it’s for her,” Curry replied, unable to completely keep a touch of disappointment in her voice, which faded away almost instantly as she contemplated the potential fun to be had, and her secret hope that despite her not being a unicorn, there might be something in the book Sweetie Belle could use to give her real genuine, not borrowed from somepony, magic.

“That mean’s Y'all might be able to get a magic cutie mark like Twilight Sparkle,” Apple Bloom told Sweetie Belle in a voice filled with happiness for her friend.

“And if you cast a big enough spell, maybe we’ll all get our cutie marks, just like Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom gave it to Twilight and the rest of the Elements,” Scootaloo said.

“Well, the Sonic Rainboom didn’t actually ‘give’ them their cutie marks,” Sweetie Belle said. “It sort of inspired them at just the right moment. That’s what Twilight told Rarity.”

Scootaloo answered Sweetie Belle’s argument by twisting it. “That’s what I meant. You pull off a big spell, and it’ll jump start me and Apple Bloom, oh, and Babs.”

Scootaloo held up a hoof, giving her friends a meaningful look till they joined her. “Come on Babs. Join us,” she encouraged the city pony. Once all four fillies were in position, Scootaloo led the cheer. “Cutie Mark Crusaders, Magic Casters!”

Diamond Tiara glared at the blank flanks, a bit annoyed at how oblivious they were to the reality of what was really going on here. She looked over to where Curry was leafing through the book Sweetie Belle had hoofed her, not really paying much attention to anypony else.

Diamond Tiara wasn’t fooled in the least by the line Curry had just spun. The spell book hadn’t just appeared in the unicorn’s saddle bag. Curry had placed it there. A snake of jealousy twisted in Diamond Tiara’s chest for a moment until she realized that this had to be another test Curry was giving her. How well did she deal with other ponies’ good fortune? So, Di plastered a look of happiness on her face as she stared indulgently at the celebrating blank flanks.

Curry pulled a soggy strand of hair away from her head and stared cross-eyed at the badly singed tip.

“I’m really sorry, Curry,” Sweetie Belle said in a deeply apologetic tone. Her chagrined face was blackened with soot and her soggy mane was as crispy at the tips as Curry’s hair.

“What for?” Curry asked, her eyes sparkling as she looked at the small puddle of wax that a moment before had been a two-pound candle. “Quick thinking, Apple Bloom,” Curry added, glancing at the farm-pony who was setting a red fire bucket back down by the clubhouse door. Apple Bloom simply rolled her eyes toward Sweetie Belle as if to imply it wasn’t so much quick thinking as it was routine.

“Is it safe to come out now? Have you quite finished blowing things up?” Di’s querulous voice came from the other side of a plank table, which had been set on its edge against the wall on the other side of the clubhouse. Scootaloo poked her head up over the table lip for a moment, only to have it shoved back down by Di’s hoof from below. “Idiot, are you looking to lose your head?” Di snapped.

“It’s all clear, everypony,” Apple Bloom called out, after taking a look over at Curry and Sweetie Belle to make sure. The two singed girls were oblivious to the look, being bent over the spellbook, deep in discussion as to where they had gone wrong.

“I don’t think you made a mistake,” Sweetie,” Curry said, her brow furrowed as she strained to make out the faded writing in the dimness of the clubhouse.

“Youse got to be jokin’. That wasn’t a mistake?” Babs, who had emerged, rather reluctantly from behind the table, asked, pointing a quivering hoof toward the small puddle of wax, and the circle of charred wood that surrounded it.

“Using the candle that was a mistake, not how she cast the spell. We didn’t read the page in front of it first. Turns out the wizard who wrote this had the job of lighting the Hearth’s Warming Eve bonfire. He came up with this spell to do it.”

Di stared at Curry with an expression of disbelief. “Let me get this straight, you used a spell meant to light a huge pile of wood, to try and light a candle?” Her voice grew higher in pitch as she spoke, till she was almost squealing by the time she finished.

“Six big trees,” Sweetie Belle said in an absent-minded tone as she ran her hoof across the page.

“Pardon,” Di snapped, whipping her head around from Curry to stare at the unicorn filly in shock.

“There are some fancy sort of numbers here I don’t rightly understand, but I think he was trying to figure out how many cords of wood you could get out of six big oak trees. I think that was how big the bonfire was,” Curry said in an absent-minded sort of way from where her head was pressed against Sweetie Belle’s.

Sweetie Belle and Curry exchanged looks. “There are all those trees Jake and Big Mac pulled up.” Sweetie Belle said in a tentative tone.

“We could get Jake to drag a bunch of them into a big---” Curry finished for her.

“No. I forbid it. Absolutely not,’ Di broke in. “You are not going to blow yourself up because you’re too stupid to know better.”

Curry stared at the fancy pony in surprise, for the first time taking note of how violently Diamond Tiara was shaking. “Are you okay, Di?” she asked.

“Am I all right? Am I all right? NO! I am not all right! You could have killed us! You could have killed yourself! What in Equestria were you thinking?”

“Now, calm down, Di,” Curry said in a soothing tone, holding her hand palm outward toward the agitated pony.

“I will not!” Di said, stamping her hoof hard against the floor.

“Are you okay,” Di?” Jake asked in concern, sticking his head into the clubhouse from outside.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? Am I the only one here who understands how close we came to being turned into roasted ponies?”

Off to the side, Babs tentatively raised a hoof and was ignored by everypony else.

“Is this, Di being a big sister, Curry?” Jake asked.

“Nah, just Di---” Scootaloo started to say, only to be cut off by Diamond Tiara.

“Yes. Yes, it is. This is “exactly” like being a big sister,” Di said. “I’m the oldest. I have my Cutie Mark. I totally, absolutely forbid you from using that book.”

“Well, you can’t exactly do that, Di. It’s not your book. It’s Sweetie Belle’s,” Curry said, in a tone that said she was becoming annoyed with Di’s silly behavior.

“Just watch me,” Di said, darting forward and snatching up the book before either Curry or Sweetie Belle could react. She pushed past Jake and raced down the clubhouse ramp.

“Di, you come back here right now,” Curry yelled after the departing pony, getting only a dismissive flick from Di’s tail for her trouble. “Come on, let’s get her.” Curry told the other ponies.”Scootaloo, she can’t outrun you. Get after her before she does something with Sweetie Belle’s book.”

Curry turned to run down the ramp, leading the other ponies, only to find a roadblock in the form of Jake in the way. “Get out of the way, Jake. I have to catch her.”

“No,” Jake said, planting his hooves solidly on the ramp as he used his body to block the way.

“No? What do you mean, no?” Curry said in total shock. Unable to believe that Jake was not listening to her.

“Di is a big sister. You told me so. I have to listen to you. You’re my big broth… sister. You have to listen to Di. She’s a bigger sister.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Curry said heatedly, and then moderated her tone when Jake folded his ears back and tucked his chin down. “Di isn’t my big sister.”

“Yes, she is,” Jake said stubbornly.

“Help me here, girls,” Curry turned to the fillies.

“Maybe... Diamond Tiara was right,” Sweetie Belle suggested hesitantly, glancing over at the charred circle on the floor, her eyes a bit frightened as if she had only just now realized how perilous the entire situation could have been. “If my magic hadn’t been so weak…” she started to say and then trailed off with a shudder.

Curry looked at Sweetie in shock. “But Di isn’t right. We had it all under control. You were doing great,” the small snipe protested. She looked at the other girls, and they all averted their eyes, not meeting her gaze. A deep feeling of hurt constricted her chest in reaction to their rejection of her side of the argument.

“Fine! Take her side. If you don’t want to be the greatest magician ever, see if I care.” Curry said, her eyes full of angry tears as she pushed past Jake, who tried to nuzzle her as she passed but had his muzzle shoved away with an open palm for his efforts.

Jake gave a big sad sigh as he watched Curry run across the clearing and disappear into the brush. “She’s mad,” he said.

“I’m sure she’ll get over it,” Apple Bloom said, her tone uncertain despite her positive words. Her own family were not always the most even-tempered ponies around when they didn’t have to worry about company manners. But, Curry wasn’t an Apple, Apple Bloom wasn’t sure if snipes cooled off fast or slow.

“Course she will.” Jake’s tone was still sad, but there was none of Apple Bloom’s uncertainty in it. “Last time, I stepped on her foot. She yelled, loud. She didn’t come for a week, only Old Ben. But she came back with a big white boot on her hoof. She brushed me, hard, and said bad words. But. she didn’t mean them. I could tell. After, she gave me five apples and said it wasn’t my fault.”

“Should we go after her?” Scootaloo asked.

Apple Bloom pondered the question. When she got upset at her family, she mostly just wanted to burrow into a haystack and sulk for a few hours by herself. “Maybe, best just to let her be for a bit,” she said tentatively, looking at Jake for his opinion. He just shrugged.

Rainbow and Gilda broke off their conversation as Curry stormed into the cottage, and did her best to slam the heavy front door behind her. Without even glancing their way she ran up the steps and a moment later, the sound of her bedroom door slamming floated down to them. She had a little better luck with the lighter door than she’d had with the front one, and the echo of its closing reverberated through the house for a few moments.

Rainbow looked upward uncertainly. An hour ago, a bird had brought news that the beavers were having a dispute with some Timberwolves, who had not been amused when one of the beaver’s kits had chewed through their alpha’s leg while he was dozing. Fluttershy had gone off to play referee, assuring Rainbow Dash that she’d be fine. Rainbow in turn had promised to keep an eye on Curry when she returned from playing with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and to make sure Gilda took her medicine on schedule⁽*⁾. She was now regretting her breezy assurance to Fluttershy that she’d handle everything, and not to worry.

(*) Not that Rainbow believed for one second that Fluttershy was actually heading off to mediate with a scary Timberwolf. It couldn’t have been more obvious, or so it seemed to her, that her friend had simply arranged the emergency call to give Rainbow time alone with Gilda.

“I suppose I should go up and see what’s bothering her,’ Rainbow said in a tone that indicated she very much wanted Gilda to tell her it wasn’t necessary if the look she directed at her friend was anything to go by.

‘Don’t look at me. What I know about fledglings you could write on the sharp end of a pin. All I do know is that if she doesn’t cook dinner for me, I’m going to be looking for something meaty to take a bite out of,’ Gilda said, finishing with a grin as she snapped her beak at Rainbow’s rump.

“I could cook you up something,” Rainbow suggested as she ducked away from Gilda’s feint. Gilda gave a derisive laugh at that, and the fact that Rainbow went floating up the stairs toward Curry’s room pretty much proved that not even Rainbow had taken her own offer seriously.

Once upstairs, Rainbow knocked on Curry’s door.

“Is that you, Mom?” the snipe answered the knock in a muffled voice as if her face was buried in either a pillow or her blankets.

“Sorry. It’s just me. Fluttershy had to run an errand. She’ll be back in a bit,” Rainbow said, addressing the shut door, and wondering if she should open it or not.

There was silence from the other side for a moment, and then the door opened, revealing a rather bedraggled Curry. “I guess I should cook something up for Gilda before she gets cranky,” she said. The snipe looked miserable, which made Rainbow nervous, as she didn’t have a clue as to how to find out what was bothering her, or fix it once she did.

“Gilda can wait a while,” Rainbow said while searching for words to make Curry feel better, and coming up with nothing.

“No I can’t,” Gilda called up from below, causing Curry’s lip to twitch a bit, easing Rainbow’s nerves slightly.

Feeling a bit more certain, Rainbow asked, “You want to talk about it. I’m a good listener.”

“No, she isn’t,” Gilda called up. “But I’m a poor crippled, hungry, gryphon who can’t run away. As long as you cook while you’re doing it, I’ll listen to anything you have to say.”

“Somepony seems to be feeling better,” Curry said with a weak smile as she started down the stairs. “Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m fine. Honestly. I can wait till mom gets home to talk about it.”

***

The sound of hoofsteps thundering up the stairs and her rumbling belly had awakened Goose, who had a brief moment of where-the-heck-am-I before remembering she was tucking into a nice warm cubbyhole under the stairs in Fluttershy’s cottage. She stretched, as much as her cramped quarters allowed, and worked her mouth to eliminate the dryness inside. Her belly rumbled again, reminding herself that she’d skipped supper, except for one single bite of fried fish. The memory of that succulent bit of moist on the inside, crispy on the outside, bite sent her salivary glands into overdrive. She suddenly regretted not being braver and eating the whole serving Curry had given her instead of passing most of it off to Gilda. Maybe with more delicious experience, the swimming sensation in her stomach would go away?

As Goose emerged from her bedroom/closet, she saw that Gilda had already made her way to the kitchen table and was hungrily observing Curry’s preliminary food preparations. From that angle it was a bit difficult to tell just what Gilda was salivating over: the fish fillets Curry was rolling in cornmeal or Curry herself. Goose decided, based on past performance, to give Gilda the benefit of the doubt. But, she still hurried over to place herself between the hungry predator and Curry, just in case.

“Goose,” Curry said in obvious pleasure at seeing the young nocturne, despite the rather downcast expression she had been wearing as she breaded the fish.

“Is there anything the matter, Princess?” Goose asked, giving Curry a close look. Besides the rather out of character attitude, the princess was looking a little singed around the edges.

Curry gave her head a quick shake, making her slightly frizzled mane bounce back and forth behind her, “I’m fine. Nothing…” she trailed off, her expression turning sad. “Am I a bossy bully, Goose?” she asked out of the blue. “The sort who has to have her own way, or she takes her ball and goes home?”

“Oh, sure she opens up to the scary batpony, but not to the poor wounded Gryphon,” Gilda whispered in a none too quiet voice to Rainbow Dash, who had just taken a seat opposite her at the table.

“Shush. I want to hear,” was Rainbow’s reply. Both Gryphon and Pegasus directed perfectly innocent looks over at where Goose was looking back at them with a disapproving expression. Curry appeared to ignore them both, focusing hard on what she was doing as the back of her neck flushed red.

“We could go somewhere private, if you wish, Princess. Away from prying ears,” Goose said giving both Gilda and Rainbow pointed looks. “They could prepare their own food.”

The last sentence seemed to truly alarm Gilda. Or at least, she pretended it did as she made a big production out of covering her ear tufts with her front claws. Rainbow didn’t even try to pretend to be embarrassed, only rolling her eyes at Goose’s overprotective behavior.

Curry looked over her shoulder at the “Gilda, you did something awful to Rainbow Dash, didn’t you? That’s why everyone was so mad at you. But you’ve made up now. How did you do it?”

“She didn’t do anything to me---” Rainbow said and was cut off when Gilda reached out and pinched her jaws shut with her claws, leaving Rainbow looking cross-eyed at the two inch long talons pressing down on the middle of her muzzle.

“You asked Wings if you were the sort of brat who takes her ball and goes home if she gets mad,” Gilda said to Curry, ignoring Rainbow’s attempts to gently nudge Gilda’s talons away from her nose. “I don’t know anything about you, except you cook tasty fish. But I was that sort of a brat. Sort of. I don’t know, maybe I still am. Only, I didn’t even want to share my ball in the first place. I wanted it all to myself. When some stupid pony tried to play with my ball, I tried to beat the crap out of her.”

“Uh, is this about you and Rainbow Dash?” Curry asked. “Because Mom told me a little bit about how upset you were when you came to visit last time and found that Rainbow had other friends. So, you don’t have to keep calling her a ball, you can just use her name.”

Both Gilda and Rainbow looked at Curry in befuddlement for a moment, and then both their cheeks reddened.

It was an embarrassed Rainbow who said, “What the heck? Gilda’s not talking about me. She’s talking about a real ball. You know, the type you play catch with?”

It was Curry’s turn to be embarrassed. “Oh. I thought… Well, never mind.” She looked at Gilda. “But, I don’t understand. You said you didn’t want to share your ball with anypony. But if it was the sort of ball you play catch with, how could you do that without some other pony?”

“It’s easy to understand when you know how Gryphons play catch,” Rainbow explained, and then added in a teasing tone, “They live to swoop down on helpless little critters and birds and catch them for snacks.”

“I’m a carnivore. Sue me,” Gilda replied to Rainbow’s teasing with a swat from her good wing that the pegasus pony ducked away from.

Looking back at Curry, she explained. “Young Gryphons need to learn how to catch food on the fly. What we call catch means carrying a ball up to a thousand feet or so and dropping it. The goal is to catch it again before it hits the ground.”

“It can be a lot of fun,” Rainbow broke in. “There are lots of variations. Seeing how long you can let it fall before you start chasing it, and still catch up. Seeing how close you can let it get to the ground before you catch it. Catching it on the first bounce. Before it can bounce a second time. Bouncing it off of annoying—”

“Anyway!” Gilda drawled out in a loud tone of voice that drowned out Rainbow’s efforts to continue her explanation. “I’d just gotten my flight feathers a little while before. My father was visiting Cloudsdale for a meeting about the weather patterns for the coming year. I was all on my own so I decided to practice my swooping.”

“It was hilarious. Half the time she didn’t know if she was right side up, or upside down,” Rainbow interjected with a laugh. “I just had to offer to lend a hoof.”

“I was enjoying myself, when this rude little pony dove in and stole my ball from right in front of me,” Gilda continued, ignoring Rainbow Dash, or seeming to. “She was dirty and scruffy, so of course I thought she was a thief and chased her down.”

“She tried to chase me down. I led her all over Cloudsdale and she never got close. I finally left her ball on a cloud and went home for dinner.”

“The next day I tried playing with my ball in a different place, but the dirty thief showed up again and stole it again. So the next day I just waited on a cloud for her to fly by and swooped down on her when she did.”

“She missed by a mile. In fact, I had to pull her out of the cloud that was under me at the time by her tail.”

“I managed to pull out a few of your feathers before you could get clear. That slowed you down enough that I almost caught you.”

“Only because I let you, snail,” Rainbow retorted. She looked over at Curry and continued. “A few days later she was chasing me near my house, and my mom asked my ‘friend’ if she’d like to come in for some sandwiches.”

“Asked? More like told me.” Gilda gave a shudder. “Rainbow’s mom is one scary lady. After that, we’d take a break each day to have lunch, before I’d start chasing her again. We began to schedule my attacks.”

“Gilda’s father complimented her on how much her flying had improved.”

“He told me if I kept at it I'd catch and gut that pony in no time,” Gilda replied, snicking her claws in Rainbow’s general direction.

“I was hiding on a cloud up above him. He still thinks it was a little sprinkle of rain that dampened his crest. Anyway, I think it was a few days after that we had our first sleepover.”

“Wait, hold on,” Curry broke into the conversation. “What has this to do with my question?”

“Did you notice what happened to my ball?” Gilda asked.

“Huh?” Curry’s eyes went blank for a moment as she considered the question. “I don’t know. You stopped talking about it.”

Gilda nodded her head, “Exactly. I found it stuck in the back of one of my old traveling bags a month ago. It was the first time I’d thought about it since the day I started chasing Rainbow with the serious intent of ripping her tail out one strand at a time. I didn’t need the ball to have fun, or to play with my friend. The ball didn’t matter in the end. Rainbow Dash did. I forgot that for a while. I don’t know what sort of fight you had with your friends, but trust me, whatever you were fighting about isn’t nearly as important as your friends are. Don’t take as long as I did to figure that out.”

“If they’re still my friends?” Curry said, her expression becoming downcast once again.

“You could ask the pony who’s been pacing in the front yard for the last five minutes,” Shadow’s familiar voice said from the doorway.

Curry’s startled expression turned to one of surprise at seeing the Nocturne stallion out of his tree, but that was secondary to his words. “Who is it?”

“Why don’t you go and see.”

“And then come back and cook me dinner,” Gilda called after Curry.

***

Curry’s heart was in her throat as she walked past Shadow. Her temper had cooled a great deal during her run from the tree-house to home, and she’d had time to think about her actions. She’d almost been sick as she considered what might have happened if Sweetie Belle had managed to cast the spell at its full power. The entire tree-house and the tree it was in would have gone up in flames, along with everypony in it. It was galling to admit that Di had been totally correct to snatch the book and run off with it. She, on the other hand, had behaved like a butt-head over the whole thing.

Curry paused in front of the door, and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath before stepping through it. When she opened her eyes, she saw Diamond Tiara standing in the middle of the yard. Even taking into account how often Curry had seen Di after a heavy workout in the last few weeks, the pony looked a mess. Her mane was filled with straw and twigs while her hooves and lower legs were coated with mud. Her hide, in general, was covered in foamy sweat, indicating she had been recently been engaged in some pretty intense activity. That idea was further backed up by her rather heavy breathing.

The expression on Di’s face as she looked up at Curry was a mixture of fear, mule-headed stubbornness, and exhaustion.

Hoofsteps behind her made Curry look around, to see that Goose had put on her hat and come out into the sunlit yard to join her. The presence of the nocturne mare gave her the courage to step down into the yard and approach Di, who nearly dancing on her hooves in uncertainty.

Knowing it was her responsibility, and hating it, Curry said, “Thank you, Di. I made a big mistake.”

For a moment Di looked like she was going to collapse. “It wasn’t fair,” she said after a few moments.

“What?” Curry asked, at Di’s unexpected words.

“It wasn’t fair! I wasn’t ready for a test like that.”

“Test?” Curry glanced over at Goose as if the nocturne might have some idea of what Di was talking about. Goose only shrugged her shoulders.

Di gave Curry a look of total exasperation. “Fine. Be that way,” she said in a huff. But, while she looked away from Curry to indicate she had no interest at all in anything the snipe might have to say or do, she didn’t make any move to run off, unlike Curry earlier.

“Mom keeps a bucket and scrub brush down by the stream for big critters just in from the woods,” Curry said after a moment, as a sort of peace offering. “And I was about to cook up dinner for Princess Gilda. You want to wash up and join us?”

***

“Dang, I never thought you’d do it,” Gilda said to Rainbow Dash as the pegasus pony finished off her second fillet of brook trout.

Rainbow dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and tried to look nonchalant, but there was no denying her muzzle had developed a slight greenish tinge. Despite that, she was clearly drinking in Diamond Tiara’s look of undisguised horror. That filly had the remains of some buckwheat pancakes around her muzzle, and a licked clean plate in front of her, showing that despite her expression, her own appetite had not been spoiled by sharing the table with a bunch of fish-eaters.

It turned out the only thing Curry could cook reliably was pan-fried fish and charcoal. After she’d burned the first batch of pancakes Fluttershy, who had arrived home to a house filled with smoke, had offered to take over, despite her obvious nausea caused by the nearby frying fish. Goose had stepped in and insisted in a very polite and self-deprecating manner that she would do it. In the end, only Fluttershy and Diamond Tiara enjoyed a totally fish-free meal. Everypony else, including Gilda, ate both fish and pancakes.

Shadow had retreated to his tree shortly before Fluttershy arrived, fortified with a tray containing a very small bit of fish and a giant heap of pancakes.

“They weren’t too bad,” Rainbow told Gilda.

“Got to say, I’m impressed. Great-Uncle Cloudburst once told me not even the biggest Night Guard he ever met could eat more than part of one without throwing up, and you ate two servings.”

“What can I say. I’m that awesome,” Rainbow said, buffing her hoof on her chest. The sound of her stomach rumbling punctuated her remark, causing her to shift her hoof from her chest to her mouth. “Oops, sorry. Just a little gas.”

Gilda’s expression turned a bit fey, and she continued to laud Rainbow’s accomplishment. “Yep, Great-Uncle said all the diplomatic guards he talked into trying them all looked like the fish were trying to swim back up their throats.”

*Urp!* Rainbow belched into her hoof, her complexion looking greener than it had been. “You don’t say,” she said with a brave attempt at appearing uncaring.

“That’s what Great-Uncle said. Course, he was an old mountain gryphon. Spent most of his time in the high peaks as a border guard/ranger. Lots of time they didn’t even bother starting a fire. You don’t get fish this big in those mountain streams. So they’d just swallow the little suckers down head-first, scales and guts and all, most time still wiggling. So, maybe they really were trying to swim back up those ponies’ gullets.”

“Really?” Rainbow asked in a faint tone of voice. Her stomach let out a much louder rumble and she clamped both hooves over her mouth. For one long moment, Rainbow Dash remained perfectly still, then turned into a rainbow streak that flashed through the open front door.

The sound of a stool rocking on the floor drew Curry’s eyes to where Di, had been sitting. The freshly groomed pony was no longer sitting there, but the fading rattle of fast-moving hooves and the sound of the bathroom door slamming was a fairly good indication of the direction she had headed and the intent of her trip.

Fluttershy gave the laughing Gilda a stern look. “That wasn’t very nice, Gilda. Curry, please go and see if your little friend is okay.”

Curry looked a little squeamish at the order but did not demure. She hurried off, followed by Goose, leaving Fluttershy alone with Gilda.

Gilda actually looked a little contrite. “Sorry about the filly,” she mumbled. “She didn’t eat any of the fish, so I didn’t think she’d take it like that.” She looked at Fluttershy in a speculative manner. “It didn’t look like my little story bothered you. Yesterday you couldn’t get out of here quickly enough.”

Fluttershy turned a little pale as she was reminded of the day before. “It was because I was thinking of you as a Rainbow’s friend, and not a gryphon, even though I knew better. Many of the critters I care for eat meat. Some, like the cranes, even eat it alive and whole. But when I saw you do it, it was like watching a pony do it.” Fluttershy gave a small shudder. “It was disturbing.”

“Does it bother you that Rainbow and Wings ate some? Or your fledgling?”

“Curry? She’s an omnivore. You can tell from her teeth. She needs to eat some meat. But I would have rather Rainbow and Goose had not tried any.” Fluttershy gave a very small smile along with a barely stifled giggle. “I don’t think Rainbow will again.”

“I thought I was going to throw up my tail!” the wan voice of Rainbow Dash came from the door as she half staggered, half fluttered, through the doorway before collapsing in a heap and shuddering. “So many fins…” the pegasus pony added with a level of theatricality that would have had Rarity rolling her eyes.

***

From upstairs, Goose watched as Fluttershy rushed to get Rainbow some water to drink. Behind her, she could hear Curry speaking soothingly to Diamond Tiara as she held the ponies mane behind her head and sponged her face with a cool cloth.

Goose focused on her stomach and the meal that resided inside it but detected no swimming sensation.

Seeing her big brother taking a serving with no demurral had encouraged Goose to be a bit braver in her culinary choices. It had turned out that once she took a full bite, as opposed to a small nibble, and savored the flavor and texture of her meal, a great deal of her reluctance to dine on fish had vanished. At least on fish prepared by Curry. She wasn’t ever going to dine on the raw variety.

The dark-grey pony with the cat-like eyes sucked a small fragment of fish out from between her sharp teeth and chewed on it thoughtfully. The little sliver of flesh had no flavor left, but some texture and Goose actually contemplated asking if Curry would be willing to fry her up another fillet.

Author's Note

I'm going to be going in for some hip-surgery in a few days. So I'm not sure when I'll have another chapter of this. Hopefully not long enough to warrant putting a Hiatus tag on it.

And yes, that does mean I'm an old Geezer.

Rushed the end of this chapter, and left some things for you to imagine, such as Diamond Tiara wrestling with her self-doubt over her actions.

Have to confess my muse sort of up and left me a couple of weeks ago. Few other things on my mind.

Hope everyone had a good summer.

Chapter 9 How not to marry a Prince, part one

Welcome back to the story after our brief intermission. If everybody has refilled their sodas, gotten popcorn, and returned to your seats, we can get started again. Enjoy the show, and we hope you like it.

But first an apology to my former readers, and my editors who were so much help to me back when I was working on this. I’m so very sorry I let time get away from me and I abandoned both the story and you. This chapter is me shaking the dust off, and trying to wrap up a few threads so I can get back to what should be the main focus of this story arc. Namely, training a certain batpony.

Once again, Sorry,
Peter.

How to Train Your Batpony, ch9

Or:

How not to marry a prince, part one.

Previously on, How To Train Your Batpony. Apple Bloom’s cousin Babs Seed has come to visit. Unfortunately (and to her great discomfort) she brought along the terrible teenaged Tower Twins, Pearl, and Tourmaline. Not content with bullying Babs in Manehatten, they’ve decided (despite their young age) to do a little husband hunting. In particular, they’ve set their eyes on the far-too-young Prince Jake Apple. At the same time, heart-hurt Silver Spoon, feeling abandoned by her only social equal, Diamond Tiara, has fallen under the Twin’s influence.

On another front, Curry Comb discovered a magical book incorrectly packed in Sweetie Belle’s saddle bag by her sister Rarity. After Sweetie Belle nearly burned down the CMC’s clubhouse with a spell from the book Diamond Tiara confiscated the book and hid it.

It was a fine morning in Ponyville. This was not the mundane statement it would have been anywhere else in Equestria. A pony did not simply stick her head out the window, bask in the sunlight while taking a breath of fresh air, and then declare it looked like it was going to be a fine day.

No, the first thing that a Ponyville pony did was check to see if the town hall was on fire, again. In the event that the town hall was not in the process of burning the ground, the pony in question would check the string of signal flags hanging across the front of the clock tower for potential warnings.

No rampaging monsters from the depth of Tartarus, check.
No plague of parasprites, check.
No stampedes of cows, or adorable bunnies, check.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders were separated, at home and, presumably sleeping, check.
No celestial beast from the Everfree rampaging through town, check.
The most powerful unicorn in Equestria was not having a panic attack, and/or, caught up in researching into a subject not meant for ponies to know, and/or having an epic battle for the fate of all of Equestria in town, check.

Only then did the canny citizen, in this case Carrot Top, check the blue sky, empty except for some strategically placed clouds, enjoy the warm golden glow of Celestia’s sun beaming as benevolently as its mistress, and declare that it did indeed look like a fine, fine day with little chance of ‘horrors.’

Sleepy store owners were sweeping their walks and shouting out greetings to each other. The air was full of chatter from the townsponies who were going to and fro in the street as they prepared for yet another day of work and play.

Many of the towns early risers were heading to Fro’s, home of Equestria’s famous Fresh Roasted Oats,(™) the breakfast of the working pony. Every morning, customers lined up for a steaming to-go feedbag, bringing a smile to sleepy faces and the rich scent of warm cream and brown sugar to the surrounding streets.

Battling the inward tide of hungry sleepy ponies while carefully carrying a basket in her mouth was Silver Spoon, who had been waiting outside the door, half asleep, but first in line when the cafe had opened. She stifled a yawn once she was safely out in the street, and looked around with bleary sleep-crusted eyes as she fought the mental muzzie-wuzzies in order to remember the next stop on her itinerary.

“Oh, right. Sugarcube corner.”

The bakery was every bit as crowded as Fro’s, but Silver Spoon took advantage of her smaller stature to weave between the legs of the adults till she reached the counter where her pre-order from the day before was waiting for her.

Thankfully, there were no interruptions while Mrs. Cake loaded the half-dozen premiums muffins into the second level of Silver Spoon’s Manehatten-made special take-out basket.

“Keeps the hot things hot, and the cold things cold, and looks fabulous in the process”

Once she was back out in the street, Silver Spoon heaved a sigh of relief at having dodged a Pinkie Pie encounter, and then almost had her heart stop when that exact pony bounced into view from what seemed like thin air.

“Silver Spoon! Just the pony I wanted to see. Tell me, tell me, tell me! Did your friends enjoy their welcome to Ponyville party? I hope so. It’s so hard to party plan for identical twins. Do you go for the identical part, and make everything the same? Orrrrr, do you try to find what’s unique about each one and make sure there are special touches just for each of them? So did I hit it out of the park? Strike it on the nose? Nail it?”

It was far too early on any normal morning for Silver Spoon to cope with Pinkie on her first sugar rush of the day, and doubly so this day. Mumbling around the handle of her basket she said, “They said they’d never been to a party like it.”

“They did? Oh, that’s such a relief.” Pinkie said, giving a huge sigh and wiping imaginary sweat from her brow. She looked over her shoulder where a pony jam had formed in the doorway to the shop. She jumped into the fray, putting shoulder to plot, and shoved while shouting over her shoulder, “Have a good morning, Silver Spoon. Tell Pearl and Tourmaline hi from me.”

“Sure will,” Silver Spoon replied, and then in a much softer voice finished, “not.”

As she trotted back toward the Tower Twin’s rental house, Silver Spoon could not help feeling, once again, her lack of true culture. She’d been sure in her superiority and sophistication over all her Ponyville peers. But after three days shadowing the twins, she was now fully aware of just what a total hick she was in comparison to true elites. Pinkie and her parties were a prime example. The twins had given every indication of enjoying the party, but on the way home, they had regaled each other with tales of the lame ponies they had spotted at the lame party, thrown by the lame party pony. It had been a real eye-opener for Silver Spoon who could have sworn that the two Manehattanites had the time of their life at the party, especially Pearl who had spent more than a little time in the storage closet with one of the local teenage colts.

As she neared her destination, Silver Spoon glanced up the road toward the Rich estate with a bitter ache in her heart. The place where she had spent so much of her foalhood seemed so distant like it had happened to another pony. Where had her precious Diamond Tiara gone? That pony had been so cool, so superior. Now she was just another dirty, dirt grubbing, clod kicking, sweaty, farm pony. Silver Spoon wouldn’t be surprised at all if one of these days Diamond Tiara’s Cutie Mark vanished because she had betrayed all of the class and sophistication that made her so special. Worse of all, Diamond Tiara had turned her back on her oldest dearest friend.

Her.

For a moment, anger at her friend’s betrayal filled her heart but was quickly quashed. This was not Diamond Tiara’s fault. That sneaky untrustworthy scrawny snipe had tricked her. It had dangled the promise of princesshood in front of her, then turned around to do the exact opposite and Diamond Tiara, bless her heart, was too kind, caring, and soft-hearted to realize how badly she was being betrayed. Banished to a dirty farm by her own father, surrounded by hicks and blank flanks, she couldn’t see what was so obvious to Silver Spoon. As a true friend, it was Silver Spoon’s duty to separate her best friend and only social equal in town from the corrupting influence of all those lame ponies.

But where was she going to get a sack, a polo mallet, and three bags of Cheez-its?

Once again, Silver’s Spoon’s gaze shifted to the Rich estate, and an idea sprang to mind. Maybe that was the solution to her problem. Keeping that thought at the top of her mind, Silver Spoon broke into a quick trot. She would have to be quick. She didn’t want the twins thinking she was incompetent by bringing their breakfast late and cold.

***

Ten minutes later, an out-of-breath Silver Spoon leaned gasping against a rather large and ugly lawn ornament in the middle of the Rich’s carefully groomed estate. The expensive ceramic abomination was supposed to represent some historic guardspony diligently keeping watch over the begonias and tulip beds. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had often joked that he looked more like he was in desperate need of a bathroom break.

Long ago, an accident with a hard-kicked hoofball had broken a chunk off the statue. The two fillies had scrounged supplies from the handypony’s shed and with some fabric and glue they had managed to – sort of – repair it. Halfway through the repair, Diamond Tiara had realized that if they only secured one side of the broken piece, they could swing it open whenever they wanted and use the hollow inside of the statue as their own secret personal private vault. The treasures within had gone from Yo-Yos, toy tops, to costume jewelry and purloined makeup and eventually a ribbon-wrapped bundle of unsent love letters written by both Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara to various studly carthorses who worked for the Rich Emporium. None of those were Silver Spoon’s target. What she was after was Diamond Tiara’s ultra-secret, never to be shown to anypony, private journal.

Silver Spoon pulled open the fabric-hinged chunk of ceramic and swung it out of her way before shoving her hoof inside. While she did so she twisted her head back and forth, looking all around the yard for as far as she could see. Even though she knew it was the right thing to do, she couldn’t keep from feeling guilty at violating Diamond Tiara’s trust. She was sure that at any moment some pony would pop out of nowhere and ask her what the hay she thought she was doing.

Feeling around inside the statue, Silver Spoon finally touched the journal. Hastily yanking it out, she stuffed it into her basket without looking. She barely took the time to close the hatch before sprinting from the estate, as if at any moment dogs would be released and set baying on her trail.

But, despite her panicked gallop, she was satisfied. All she had to do was slip the journal into the room Diamond Tiara shared with that blank flank Apple Bloom, someplace the hick could not miss finding it, and Diamond Tiara would be saved. Once Apple Bloom and her friends read the contents, they’d ostracize Diamond Tiara, and her friend would believe the blank flanks had stolen it from its hiding spot. With no pony else extending the hoof of friendship, she’d return to her one true friend, Silver Spoon.

***

When Silver Spoon pulled open the rental house’s door, she heard Pearl’s cultured voice in full exasperation mode. “Really, is it too much to ask for one competent servant?”

“What can you expect in a place like this, sister mine?” Tourmaline replied in a tone of languid ennui.

Out of sight of the twins, Silver Spoon nodded in agreement. Her own family’s maid treated her as if she was still a child, and thought nothing of sitting down at the dining table with the family once she had served them. So Silver Spoon could sympathize fully with Pearl. The servant situation in Ponyville was dreadful.

Pearl’s complaints had only begun. “And these low bred ponies all seem to think we’re idiots. If I have to listen to one more hay-chewing yokel try to tell me that the prince is living on some common earth pony farm, I swear I will scream. Like, did they all have a meeting and decide that would be the joke of the week?”

Silver Spoon winced. She couldn’t really blame the twins. If somepony had told her that story, she would have had the same reaction. She knew for a fact that it was true and she still had a hard time believing it. Far be it from her to tell Princess Celestia how to run the country, but the elder ruler must be going senile to have let Prince Jake be adopted by that dumb pony, Big Mac. Sure, the big red hayseed was the biggest stud in Ponyville, but getting him to string two words together was next to impossible. There were so many other ponies who would have been much more suitable a parental figure. For a moment she thought of Filthy Rich, but that thought led to Spoiled Rich. Silver Spoon shuddered. So maybe the Apples weren’t the worst choice, but there had to have been better ones.

Butting the door with her head, Silver Spoon bounced it open and stepped into the room. Two heads swiveled as one, and Pearl exclaimed, “At last! I’m so famished even the slop they pass off as food in this village will taste palatable.”

While her sister was talking, Tourmaline reached out with her magic and took the basket from Silver Spoon. The lovely pony really must have been famished, because she nearly took out a few of Silver Spoon’s teeth when she snatched the container. So fast in fact that Silver Spoon didn’t have time to retrieve Diamond Tiara’s journal from the basket before it was out of her reach. “Um, Tourmaline—?”

Pearl huffed, “Yes, yes, we’re oh so very grateful for your efforts, Pewter. Now run along and do whatever it is you do around here.”

“Um, it’s Silver—” Once again, the young filly was cut off, this time by Tourmaline’s magic shoving her out the door and shutting it in her face. “I’ll just be going then?” Silver Spoon said to the closed door, before backing out of the room and then the house.

Standing on the street, her belly roiled in discomfort, Silver Spoon shuffled her hooves while trying not to cry. What was she going to do? She didn’t know what would be worse: if the twins were to read Diamond Tiara’s journal, or if they were to simply toss it in the garbage as trash. If they read it and then talked about parts of it in public, Diamond Tiara would be humiliated beyond measure. It might even drive her further into the grip of that evil snipe. If they tossed it in the trash, sooner or later Diamond Tiara would discover it was missing and would know who had taken it. Admitting that she could not return the precious document would scuttle their friendship even worse than it already was. Was any pony as unfortunate as her?

***

“Worst! Friend! Ever!” Rarity declaimed as she continued to turn the Carousel Boutique upside down. All the brick-a-brack she had shoveled into Sweetie Belle’s room the day before lay scattered all over her main floor, along with all the rest of the contents of the room, including Sweetie Belle’s bed. But no matter how hard Rarity looked, she could not find the missing item.

“Twilight will be devastated!” Rarity moaned. “I can’t find Princess Celestia’s book anywhere. She’s never going to forgive me. I don’t deserve forgiveness! How could I be such a terrible friend?”

“That isn’t true. You’re a great friend.” The draconic voice seemed to come from thin air, but a lump moving around one of the piles of fabric revealed the source. “I’m sure you just misplaced it. We’ll find it. Sooner or later.” Spike was doing his usual job of presenting an optimistic front for Rarity, but there might have been a touch of doubt present in that last statement. Still, out of all of her friends, Rarity considered the young dragon to be the most comforting in her times of panic.

A knock on the door caused Rarity to twitch like a rabbit that had just heard a twig break behind it. Dreading that it would be Twilight, or even worse, Princess Celestia, Rarity reached out with her magic and opened the door, keeping herself well clear of the potential blast zone.

She heaved a visible sigh of relief at seeing the two stallions on the other side. “Oh, it’s only you. Fancy Pants. Wooshter. Did we have an appointment? I’m afraid my thoughts are scattered at the moment and if we did it has totally slipped my mind. If we did, I am so very sorry. I’m having a bit of a personal crisis at the moment and will not be able to keep it.”

“Anything we can do to help, m’lady?” Fancy Pants offered at once, although the gangley stallion at his side was only a few words behind.

“What ho!” offered Wooshterwith a confident swagger. “A damsel in distress. Always ready to lend a hoof to a frazzled filly in need. Just point us at your dragon and I’ll happily slay it for you.”

“I heard that!” The mound of cloth and scattered items shifted as Spike popped into view and directed a disdainful look at the two stallions. “Rarity has all the help she needs,” he informed them with a haughty air. Turning to Rarity he shifted his expression to one of adoration while nearly purring, “Sorry, Rarity. No sign of it in that pile. Can you think of anywhere else to look?”

With the easy habit of someone who was well acquainted with the taste of his own hoof, Wooshter gave a loud guffaw. “That’s me, stepping in it as usual. Terribly sorry, old bean.”

Fancy Pants stepped forward with a brief nod of assurance. “Wooshter’s faux pas aside, we are quite pleased to offer whatever assistance you need during this troubled time. You are a dear friend and Wooshter–” Fancy Pants hesitated “–is Wooshter.”

“Darling, that is most kind of you, I’m sure. But I’m afraid this is a disaster of my own making, and it is one I must solve by myself.” There was a cough behind her, and Rarity shifted her verbal gears instantly as she added. “Assisted by my faithful Spike, of course.”

“That’s right, assisted by me. No other pony need apply,” Spike said aggressively as he strutted up to the doorway and looked at Fancy Pants with his chest thrust out. The effect was slightly spoiled by the fact that from this close up, Spike had to bend his head all the way back just to see up the dapper pony’s nose.

“We will leave you to it then. But in the event that we can be of any assistance, you need only ask.”

Fancy Pants turned to leave, but Wooshter stopped him before they could get off the doorstep. “Wot ho, there old chum. Hold a moment. We had a question. If I can remember what it was” Wooshter tapped his nose with one hoof as he entered what was — for him — deep thought, but before Fancy Pants could jump-start his erratic speech processes, there was a nearly audible spark and his mouth sprang back into motion.

“Ah, Ha! I remember now. Sorry the young lady has a problem and all that, and we’re happy to assist, but this was a very important question. To me, anyway. Maybe not so much to anypony else. And dash it all, I’ve forgotten it again.” Looking directly at Rarity for all of two seconds before his gaze shifted away from her red-rimmed and frankly slightly incandescent gaze, Wooshter gave a cough before asking, “Was wondering if you’d had a chance to break the ice with the chit’s mother. Only, I feel like there is a bally sword of Damocles hanging over my neck. Already got one letter from my aunt asking if I’d done the deed, and saying she has an appointment with her lawyer next week. Dash inconvenient if I were to be cut off. I might have to find a job.” Wooshter gave a shudder at the last bit, his skin shivering as if a thousand biting horse flies had suddenly landed on him.

Rarity’s In-Front-Of-Handsome-And-Eligible-Stallion manners were starting to fray, so before she lost all decorum she said with as much control as she could manage, “Talk to Pinkie Pie. You may find her at Sugarcube Corner. If not there, Mrs. Cake will be able to direct you further. That is if Pinkie Pie doesn’t find you first. She is excellent at breaking the ice between strangers. Now, I am most sorry, but I really can not delay my search.”

Shutting the door firmly in the muzzles of the two stallions, Rarity turned to face her disorganized room. Almost before the echo of the door had finished sounding, a touch of magic had her detectiving slouch hat floated through the air and onto her head. If Curry had been witness to the scene, it would have confirmed her belief that Rarity’s creations had magical qualities. As soon as the hat settled onto Rarity’s head, her face grew determined and all signs of the helpless damsel vanished, to be replaced by the fashionable and glamorous Detective Rarity. Using a nearby swatch of fabric, she cleaned the running mascara from her face and adopted a firm posture. Carefully arranging her special hat so it was cocked at just the right angle to give her a look of mystery, she then extracted two items from the pile in the middle of the room and floated them over to Spike.

“Come, my faithful associate. The game is ahoof. We have a purloined epistle to hunt down.”

“Are you channeling Twilight?” Spike asked as he examined his gifts with pleasure. “You could have just said book.”

***

Wooshter was left rubbing his nose while standing on Rarity’s doorstep, although Fancy Pants was far enough back that he merely blinked in surprise.

The well-dressed stallion could not remember the last time a mare had shut a door in his face, which made a smile twitch at the corner of his lip. He had grown afraid that his initial impression of Miss Rarity Belle over the last few months had been mistaken, and that she was simply another status-starved mare. But any lady as attractive and intriguing as Rarity, who could dismiss him as if he were an annoying door to door salespony, might prove to have unseen depths worth exploring.

Author's Note

Once again, sorry it took so long to update. But good news. If you are reading this then the entire story arc featuring the twins and their attempts at Husband Hunting is finished and will be posted at least once a week. Eight chapters in total, at least.

Thanks go out to Georg, Tek, and S Well Born, for encouragement and help, Georg especially really deserves a co-writer credit. Be sure to check out his stories if you haven't already.

Now I have to do a bit of begging. If you liked Jake and the Kid and this story, think about giving them a like if you think it is deserved. A little motivation will go a long way toward avoiding another five-year hiatus and keep my nose to the grindstone as I work on the next story arc after this one.

Chapter 10 How not to marry a Prince part two

How to Train Your Batpony, ch10

Or:

How not to marry a prince, part 2

On both Equestria and Earth, a farm was a wonderful place for children. There were animals to play with, haylofts to jump out of, trees to climb and manure piles to add spice to death-defying scooter jumps. But currently the young foals, and one snipe, in the Sweet Apple Acres farmyard had other things on their minds than seeing how thick a layer of mud they could accumulate before the inevitable forced bath sluiced off all their hard-won muck.

“So you see, that’s why we need to take that spell book to Twilight,” Curry explained to the whole group of young ponies. She had been afraid that Sweetie Belle would just flat out refuse to consider the idea if it was just her. Adding the rest of the Crusaders, along with Di and Babs, supplied Curry with backup if she needed it. Jake and Pipsqueak were only physically present, because they were more interested in the tortoise that was slowly making its way across the barnyard than in listening to the older ponies. At least once they decided that there were no explosions forthcoming.

“And you decided this all on your own?” Apple Bloom asked, giving Diamond Tiara a jaundiced look.

Curry hunched her head down between her shoulders, The artificial tail, made with real pony hair, hanging off the backside of her magical footie pajamas drooped dispiritedly while the fabric ears on the top of the hood lay flat. “Nope. I wanted to keep trying spells. I was so excited I didn’t stop to think that somepony could have been hurt badly with the last one. Di convinced me I was barking up the wrong tree.”

“So! It was all Diamond Tiara’s idea?” Apple Bloom demanded. While things had gotten better between the two earth pony fillies, there was still a lot of leftover animosity on both sides.

“And what if it was?” Di stepped forward from where she had been standing beside Curry Comb. “You lot were being idiots playing with a loaded crossbow. You already take lessons from Twilight Sparkle, Celestia only knows why she puts up with you. She’ll be happy to teach you how to use the book safely if it can be used. Or don’t you trust her?”

Diamond Tiara was doing everything in her power to argue from a position of maturity. She was very mindful that Curry Comb had bestowed the title of annoying, but wiser, older sister on her, and while she was not happy with the annoying part of that description, she was determined to live up to the rest of it.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Scootaloo chimed in. “You can’t use the book. None of us can except Sweetie Belle. She’s the one who should have the final say over what we do with the book. After all, Curry found it in Sweetie Belle’s backpack. So it belongs to her.”

“Jake could use it,” Curry felt compelled to point out. That gained her looks from everypony, even the ones who had been arguing for keeping the books.

Jake’s ears had pricked up at the mention of his name. Temporarily abandoning the tortoise he and Pipsqueak had been, very slowly, following he looked over at the group. “What could I use? Is it the new plow? Big Mac said I’d have to wait till I practiced some more on the old one before I could give it a try. Did he change his mind?”

“We’re just talking about a book, Jake,” Apple Bloom told him.

Jake’s face twisted in disgust. “Oh. Boring.” He went back to watching the tortoise as it slowly lifted one leg and advanced a couple of inches.

“Yeah, forget I mentioned Jake,” Curry conceded. “Please.”

“I agree with Diamond Tiara.”

The barnyard went so quiet that everypony could hear the shuffling sound as the tortoise took his next step. All eyes – or at least those who were not engaged in intense tortoise watching – turned toward Sweetie Belle.

“What? I’m the one who cast that spell. I felt it wanting to burn the whole tree. The one with our clubhouse in it. The clubhouse we were inside of, remember? I think giving it to Twilight and letting her teach me, and any other pony who wants, how to do the spells in it the right way is a really good idea.”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo could hardly argue with that, though Apple Bloom looked like she wanted to just on general principals.

“To the Library,” they all chorused.

Well. Almost all.

“No, to my Daddy’s estate,” Di countered. “That’s where I hid the spell book, duh. Then to the library.”

***

Babs had stayed out of the discussion. It really had nothing to do with her, but she could not help but think about how sure she’d been that living on her cousin’s farm for a month would be the most boring vacation she had ever had. If she could, she would slap her past self silly for jinxing her. Then she went and did it again by muttering to herself, “My cousins have got tuh have de strangest life in Equestria. Could de day get any more weird?”

***

“Oh, my stars. This is so good!” Pearl moaned. Fragments of muffin decorated her dainty muzzle, and she had actually gone to the extreme of using her hoof to make sure no fragment escaped as she licked her chops in a most unmarelike manner.

Her sister Tourmaline had her head stuck in the food basket, vacuuming up every last crumb as she mumbled in ecstasy, “I know, right! If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d swear they used Zap Apple jam as filling.”

“Please, even if you could find a muffin like that in Canterlot it would cost a hoof and a hock to buy. Daddy keeps his jars locked up in the vault.” There was a bit of a pout in her last statement. She and her sister only got a taste of the jam that foodies ranked at number ten⁽¹⁾ on the list of most desirable foods in Equestria on very special days, and their birthday didn’t count.

⁽¹⁾Zap Apple Jam was originally number eleven on the list when it was first created. But the publisher of Great Equestrian Foods’ magazine had a bit more sense than the creator of the list and removed the number one entry, A bottle of mare’s milk, expressed directly from Princess Celestia, moving Zap Apple Jam to the number ten spot.

Dabbing at her cheek with a damp hoof to get the last fragment of muffin, Pearl’s expression turned speculative. “They must have figured out some way to mimic the taste. If we could get that recipe, we could make a fortune selling these in Canterlot as mock Zap Apple Muffins.”

“Forget the mock! No pony would be able to tell the difference. I mean you and I can’t, and we are as refined as they come. I say sell them at fifty bits a pop. We wouldn’t be able to keep them on the shelves.”

A sour expression crossed Pearl’s muzzle. “But wouldn’t that mean going into trade?” She shuddered at the thought.

“Don’t be silly. We’d just rent the recipe to somepony like Pony Joe, and let him do the scut work. Of course, we would let it get out that we invented the recipe. I bet we could get ennobled for it.”

“For inventing a muffin recipe?”

“Princess Celestia’s sweet tooth is legendary. Her seneschal Kibitz actively headhunts the best pastry chefs in Equestria for the royal kitchen. I heard once that half the noble houses in Equestria are descended from former chefs and candy makers.”

Pearl stopped rummaging through the food basket for any remnants of their meal and looked at her sister with wide eyes. “We have to get that recipe!”

“You don’t suppose it could be in this?” Tourmaline levitated a tatty old notebook that had been inside the basket along with their breakfast, fortunately with a napkin between it and their food. “Maybe the cook left it in there by mistake?”

“No. I don’t know what an earth pony clod was doing with it, but it’s some nerd’s magic school journal.” Pearl picked it up in her magic and leafed through it. “I don’t recognize half of these spells, but the ones I do are so old and out of date that only some unicorn in the back of beyond would think they were worth writing down. I bet they’re like a hundred years old, and the back pages are empty so they didn’t even finish it.”

“Hmph! Guess that would have been too good to be true.” Tourmaline took the book from her sister and floated it in front of her muzzle. Idly, she leafed through it and saw that her sister had been right. The spells she knew were so old they creaked. She was about to toss the thing aside when her idle leafing was interrupted. “There are a couple of pages stuck together. Think there is anything interesting on them?”

“Ewww. I don’t even want to think of what the nerd was doing to stick them together.”

“Oh, grow up. It was likely just a jam sandwich dribbling onto the page. As it happens, I learned a spell for that after I spilled honey all over daddy’s household account book.”

What Tourmaline didn’t say was that it was the first time she ever fully applied herself to her studies. It had taken nearly two days of non-stop swotting through every book and set of notes she had in order to learn what she needed. It was worth it, but she’d slept for a solid day and a half afterward. Even two years later, she shuddered at the thought of what her daddy would have done if he had discovered her accident.

The spell was not difficult, just finicky. You didn’t want to destroy the pages or contaminate what was written on them. Five minutes of intense focus did the trick and left Tourmaline staring at a pair of pristine pages, and the spell written on them. “Now this is something special. It seems our nerd had hidden talents. He came up with an original love spell.”

“Those are illegal! Like, lock you up and throw away the key, illegal! Like, get our plots banished to the outlands illegal!” Tourmaline’s twin said in a raised voice, actually looking worried.

Tourmaline laughed cynically. “True. But this isn’t technically a love spell. The creator just called it that. But from the notes and memos, he included it’s clear that it’s a virility spell. And those are a bit a dozen. Half the marriages in Equestria would fail if they didn’t exist.”⁽²⁾

⁽²⁾Tourmaline actually ‘borrowed’ the quote from something she heard her Daddy say to a bunch of his cronies when she had been sneaking down to the kitchen. She wasn’t actually sure why the old stallions found it so funny.

“That might be interesting for when we land the prince. But what good does it do us now?”

“It helps, my dear sister, because this is a really, really, strong one if his notes are to be believed. According to them, the jock who commissioned it had to be tied up and stuck under a glacier-fed waterfall for two days before he could control himself. Now, what do you suppose would happen if we cast it on the prince someplace where we were the only mares available?”

Pearl’s eyes went wide. “Oooh, interesting. We’d have to make sure there are no witnesses. Can’t have anypony knowing we cast the spell.”

Silently, in her own mind, Pearl made a note to be elsewhere when the spell was tried, both to avoid being a witness and so she would not have to see the icky deed. According to her mother, there was nothing more disgusting than a rutting stallion. Thank goodness Tourmaline was so stallion crazy. Pearl could leave the nasty parts to her.

“If there are no witnesses, how will we prove he did the deed?”

“Well, duh, Tourmaline! Once the foal pops out in a month or two, there is no way he’s going to be able to deny what he did. He won’t even try. Even if he’s not smart enough to know, we’ll have proof positive. Eventually, the princesses will know the game is up. They won’t risk the scandal or the health of an Alicorn foal. But I don’t get why we need the spell. We’re hot, and he’s a teenager. One thing goes into the other, or at least so mother says.”

Tourmaline gave an internal shudder and silent thanks that her twin was so stallion crazy. She could safely leave it to Pearl to take care of the distasteful aspect of their scheme to enter the upper echelons of society. With any luck, she’d never have to deal with that aspect of their mutual marriage. The tricky part would be fooling Pearl. The teasing would never end if her sister found out that she was scared to death of actually doing the deed with a stallion, whatever that deed entailed.

“Duh! Right back at you. Of course, we don’t need the spell to get him interested. We might need it to give him the nerve. Like you said, he’s a teenager. We’ll be lucky if he can even look us in the eyes, let alone other parts. With this spell, he won’t care about anything else but doing it.” Here at least Tourmaline was on solid ground. She’d had far more than her fair share of propositions from young stallions who could barely get a word out of their mouth unmangled.

Pearl mused on her sister’s words for a few seconds. Maybe she should say something to maintain her cred as an experienced mare? Tourmaline seemed to think that it was a big deal that the spell lasted for so long. Maybe mention that? Giving her twin a much-practiced look, she drawled, “You said it took two days to cool down the jock? Everything else aside, you convinced me with that. If this works out we’re going to want to patent that spell. In the long run, it might be worth more than the fake Zap Apple Jam.”

***

It went almost without saying that Curry’s mission to retrieve the spell book and turn it over to Twilight did not start quickly. The big obstacle was Jake, who insisted on coming along.

Much to Curry’s annoyance, her authority over the big colt had been seriously undermined by Jake’s new father. Big Mac had told Jake that today was a play day, and he was to spend it having fun with his friends. As far as Jake was concerned, that settled the matter. He and Pipsqueak would be accompanying Curry and the older fillies on their newest adventure.

Having wasted time trying to talk the mule-stubborn colt out of coming along, they next had to deal with him carefully carrying the tortoise safely across the barnyard to the nearest orchard and then hunting up his brand new horse collar, his old one being far too large for his current frame. There was no telling how long this would have gone on, but Pipsqueak had finally put his hoof down when Jake wanted to oil his new collar before they left and told Jake that if they kept this up they wouldn’t be able to fit any adventures into what was left of the day.

Finally, they set out. Curry had her hand tangled in Apple Bloom’s mane so she could keep pace with the trotting ponies, and Pipsqueak was mounted on Jake’s back. The small pinto had his rear hooves resting in the middle of Jake’s back, while his front hooves were positioned on the horse collar. “Tally Ho!” he cried out while pointing one hoof in the direction of town. It made for an interesting parade as they trotted down the road. One that drew attention as they entered the town on their way to wherever Di had hidden the magic book.

“Curry!” Lyra yelled out from where she was sharing a table outside the ice-cream parlor with Bon Bon and Sweets. She hopped off her chair and dashed across the street to the collection of youngsters. “I’m so glad to see you. I have a whole new list of questions I wrote down after our last talk.” She pulled out a scroll that unfurled halfway back to Bon Bon and Sweets. “Do you really think they’d send me to a secret lab when I go to your world? Are there really black-clad human men whose job is to make unicorns vanish?”

While Lyra worked her way down her list, Jake with Pipsqueak on his back trotted over to greet his second favorite stallion, and Bon Bon too, who very frequently had free samples to hoof out.

Rarity, who had been providing transportation for Spike, came to Curry’s rescue. She gave Lyra a not so delicate nudge to separate her from the young snipe so the poor foal had room to breathe. “Darling, can’t you see she’s exhausted?”

“I’m fine, Miss Rarity,” Curry panted. And she really was. She was pleased and proud she was only a bit winded. Using Apple Bloom as a tow pony had been a big help. She was getting better. Soon she bet she’d be able to make the trip easily, even without pony-powered assistance.

Catching her breath, she examined Rarity and her companion. “What are you supposed to be?” she asked the small dragon sitting on Rarity’s back

Spike smirked as he shrugged his trenchcoat more comfortably onto his shoulders while tweaking the brim of his fedora with a pair of claws. “I’m Sam Scales. Can’t you tell? And me and my moll are hot on the trail of an international mail thief.”

Rarity gave Spike a jaundiced look over her shoulder. “Spike, dear. We have spoken about this. I am most certainly not a moll. Or a dame. Or a floozy, for certain. I will possibly accede to being called a femme fatale if you are willing to take the risk.”

Spike gave a weak laugh. “Heh heh. Sorry. Got a bit too into my character.”

“But Spike is not altogether wrong. We are investigating a purloined parcel. Sweetie Belle, I need you to think very carefully. When you had your little sleepover at the princess’ summer tent, did you happen to find a package in your saddlebags? One about the size of a small book? It is very important.”

A sudden stillness came over the foals. They exchanged quick, and to Rarity, very familiar guilty looks. Sweetie Belle shuffled her hooves and would not quite meet her sister’s eyes. “Maybe.”

Curry gave a cough as she shuffled a toe in the dust. Like Sweetie Belle she could not meet Rarity’s gaze. “I did find a notebook in Sweetie Belle’s saddlebag, and some ripped paper. It might have been the package you’re talking about.”

Rarity gave a gasp of relief. “Thank the heavens! You have no idea how worried I’ve been. It’s a shame the wrapping was torn, but let me have the notebook and I’ll get it to Twilight right away.”

Curry’s eyes widened as she took note of Rarity’s body language. Up until that instant, she had not for one second questioned her and Sweetie Belle’s right to the spell book. The realization that this was not the case, and that somepony else had a much more justified claim hit her like a brick in the gut.

Even worse, it was Rarity's book. Curry loved Fluttershy. After all, she had given Curry a mother, a home, and was the best pony in all of Equestria, bar none. But there was no question in her mind about who came in at number two on her list of best ponies. She owed Rarity more than she would ever be able to repay. Without the unicorn’s magical outfits, there was no way Curry would have been able to live in pony-land in anything like a normal way. She was too small, too weak, and had no magic of her own. Her magical clothes leveled the playing field, and the only reason she had them was because Rarity had gone out of her way to make them for her.

Rarity gave a startled ‘oof’ as she suddenly found herself being hugged fiercely by a certain snipe.

“I’m sorry! I love you so much.”

“Oh, well, thank you. I’m very fond of you as well, Cur—” Rarity cut off suddenly, her eyes going wide, and then narrowing in suspicion. The last time she’d been the recipient of an unexpected love attack from a young filly, Sweetie Belle had tried to make her breakfast in bed, and had launched a preemptive love declaration in an attempt to mitigate Rarity’s reaction when she found out she no longer had a kitchen. Given the current topic of conversation, it was not that strange that she came to an unfortunate conclusion.

“I thought she was supposed tuh be smart,” Babs said as the rest of the fillies face hoofed at Curry’s actions.

The exception was Sweetie Belle who knew her sister very well. Getting right into Rarity’s muzzle, she yelled out. “Diamond Tiara put the book someplace safe! We didn’t lose it! Or burn it, either! Very much. Hardly singed.” At that point, Sweetie Belle trailed off as she realized she might not be improving her case.

Rarity, who was well on her way to a panic attack, drew a big breath, and then let it out slowly. “Really?”

“Really, really,” Sweetie Belle confirmed. “We were just on our way to get it so we could give it to Twilight.”

“Praise be. We can’t waste any more time, darling. We must recover it at once.” Rarity nuzzled Curry affectionately. “I’m very fond of you as well, dear. But I’m having a teeny tiny problem breathing at the moment. So if you could release me, we can go and recover Twilight’s book.”

Curry released Rarity with a sheepish look on her face before turning and bellowing, “Jake! We’re going!”

A ten-minute trot brought them to the Rich estate, and a particularly ugly nearly lifesized ceramic pony.

Puzzled, Apple Bloom looked around, trying to spot where Diamond Tiara might have hidden the spell book. “Where is it?”

“Arrrhhh, where be the treasure, wench,” Pip chimed in as he attempted to strike an appropriately piratical pose on Jake’s back.

“Treasure? Is it apples? Or apple cake?” Jake moved closer, his eyes lit up in interest.

Diamond Tiara was a pony who enjoyed being the center of attention, so she made a bit of a production of strolling up to the ceramic statue, pausing for a moment to make sure everypony was looking. Only then did she push upward on the stallion’s tail, causing it to swing up and out of the way, revealing a hole into which she shoved her hoof and foreleg.

“That is wrong on so many levels,” Sweetie Belle observed, averting her eyes.

Babs disagreed. “Are you kidding? Dat’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s awesome,” Scootaloo chimed in.

There was a startled whinny, and the thunder of hooves as Jake whirled in place and raced away from the abomination he had just witnessed. On his back, Pipsqueak yelled out in excitement while holding on for dear life.

“Bad experience,” Curry explained in a deadpan voice, before dissolving into helpless laughter. Curry loved Jake, and his distress was more often than not her distress as well, but some things were just too funny not to bust a gut over. It wasn’t like Jake was in any real danger. He was heading straight for Ponyville, where not a pony there would wish harm to him.

“It’s not here!” A despairing wail pulled all attention away from the retreating pony and to Diamond Tiara who had given up feeling around inside the statue and had shoved her head into the odd storage location, making a sight that was going to stick in Curry’s mind far too long.

Author's Note

As you may have noticed, I'm posting in shorter chapters. Which is one reason why I'm waiting till I have a full story arc finished. I didn't want people thinking they'd have to wait another five years for a little shorty of a chapter and not even bother to read.

Side Note concerning Dancing in the Rain.

I have decided that while the character interaction between Luna and Twilight, and spending the night in the old tent is canon, the BDSM sexual suggestions are not. I was considering re-writing it and eliminating those aspects, but a lot of people have enjoyed it as is and I don't want to take it away from them.

So, just to be clear. in canon, Luna and Twilight had a good heart to heart and bonded while Luna indulged in 'roughing' it. Twilight did not reveal a latent dominatrix side to her personality.:facehoof:

Chapter 11 How not to marry a Prince part three

How to Train Your Batpony, ch11

Or:

How not to marry a prince, part 3

As far as Jake was concerned, vets were the personification of evil. Sure, they might act nice, tickling that sweet spot behind your ears and complimenting how quickly you were growing and how strong you were going to be when you grew up, all the while feeding your fruit and sugar cubes. But just get into one bin of apples and their true nature came out.

Sure, maybe he’d had a bit of a tummy ache, and lots and lots of gas, but that was no excuse to do that to a poor innocent horse. Just remembering it was enough to make Jake’s hindquarters clench while he tucked his tail as tightly as possible between his legs. He had thought Equestria was free of the scourge of vets. His Pop had taken him to a nice pony who did most of the things a vet did. But the ‘doctor’ hadn’t committed the terrible indignity that the dreaded vet had done, and he gave his patients a lollipop afterwards. Jake had been so wrong. No way Di could have learned how to do that if there were not vets lurking in the dark, just waiting for some poor innocent pony to get a little tummy ache.

Having seen proof positive that there were evil vets in his new happy home, Jake had bolted. It was a conditioned reflex, but once he calmed down enough to think, and noticed Pipsqueak holding onto one of his ears with his teeth, he realized he’d embarrassed himself. Again. It hadn’t been a real pony, and Diamond Tiara wasn’t a vet. He just knew that back there Curry was laughing at him.

Jake loved Curry, but sometimes she could be mean. Like the time he’d stuck his head through the gate to get a nice bit of clover and gotten stuck. When Curry had come home and found him hiding in the corner of the barnyard, she’d laughed forever and ever before getting Old Ben to help her remove the gate from around his neck. For that reason, he was in no hurry to return the way he had come.

By the time his admittedly slow mind had worked all the way through those thoughts, Jake had arrived at Ponyville. Suddenly conscious of all the ponies who were looking at him, he experienced an atypical bout of shyness. The ponies in town tended to act weird. They were always bowing to him, and calling him Prince Jake no matter how often he told them his name wasn’t Prince. Did he look like a dog?

Jake spotted one of the few exceptions to the unwelcome attention just coming out of the town jail. Sheriff Sweets was accompanied by the town’s sole prisoner, Jailbird,⁽¹⁾ who was wearing his colorful orange ‘probation’ belt and was most probably headed out for a day of community service. Service for the prisoner, of course, not Sheriff Sweets, who was perfectly content to allow Jailbird his traditional semi-freedom provided he was back in his cell by bedtime. Now that he was an old married stallion, Sheriff Sweets liked to get home at regular hours.

⁽¹⁾No pony was sure why Jailbird was in jail. His records had vanished in one of the several fires that had destroyed city hall, and he wasn’t talking. He had reacted so badly to the idea of parole that it was quickly dropped. His community service more than paid for the expense of his keep. So after a certain amount of thought from Mayor Mare, he had been given access to his cell’s key, and the freedom to come and go from his various jobs.

One thing Jake knew for certain because he had been told by everypony he knew: If you’re ever in trouble, Sweets will protect you.

Admittedly, Jake was not currently in trouble, but the longer he could stay away from the location of the disturbing guard statue, the longer he could put off hearing Curry laugh at him. Even if he deserved it. Plus, sometimes the friendly stallion had candy. Bon Bon never let Sweets out of the house without a bag of treats to see him through his day, and he was always willing to share.

***

Sweets looked up with a smile when he saw Jake trotting toward him. As the younger brother in a large family, he enjoyed the opportunity of being able to fill the role of big-brother/uncle. Then he frowned as he noticed Jake was alone except for Pipsqueak, who was draped over Jack’s back like a lumpy pinto rug. That was unusual. Jake was not the sort of pony to wander without an older pony accompanying him, which was a great comfort to those responsible for guarding him. He wondered if either Shadow Dash or Goose Down were hiding somewhere nearby. He looked, but could see neither, which proved absolutely nothing in regards to that sneaky pair.

“Is everything okay, Jake, Pip?”

Pip looked up with a glazed expression and one last swallow to keep down his lunch. It took him a few minutes to make eye contact with Sweets. “Tell me crew I went down with the ship.”

“We came to visit. We’re not trying to hide at all,” was Jake’s contribution.

The ability to keep a straight face no matter what the circumstances was drummed into Royal Guards from their first day of basic training. Sweets might have failed in that regard when it came to dealing with Princess Luna and Celestia, but his pleasant smile didn’t shift a fraction at Jake’s words. “Well, I am certainly glad to hear that. Hiding from trouble only makes it worse in the end. I am glad you’re too smart for that.”

Jake’s ears lay flat and he looked like a kicked puppy, or as much like one as a gangly colt of his remarkable size could. Sweets tried his best not to show that he had noticed as he asked, “How would you colts like some ice-cream?”

Jake’s ears pricked up as he tossed his head in excitement. Pipsqueak’s lethargy vanished just as quickly. With a bound the smaller pony bounced off of Jake’s back and onto the ground where he trotted eagerly in place. “Ice-cream!” they both shouted in excitement.

Sweets smiled. Colts were so easy to please and distract at this age. He vowed to enjoy it while he could. He had a feeling the two would be holy terrors once they got older.

“I want apple ice-cream!”

“Cookie and cream is the best!”

“Nuh, huh. Apple!”

“Cookie and cream!”

“I’m fond of Licorice myself.”

“Blech!” both colts grimaced, their incipient quarrel nipped in the bud by the horror of adult taste buds.

Sweets just laughed at their disgusted expressions.

After carefully locking the door to the jail/sheriff's office/shelter, Sweets tried the knob to make sure it was locked. And then hung the key on the hook to one side.⁽²⁾

⁽²⁾To a bureaucrat, Sweets' actions made perfect sense. As an emergency shelter, his office/jail had to be available all day, every day. As a jail/sheriff’s office, it was by law required to be locked when not occupied by an official, though the law made no mention as to where the key should be kept. Most Ponyville residents would not have minded if the door were just left wide open. The exception was Jailbird, the only prisoner in the jail. The one time Sweets had forgotten to lock the door behind him, his ‘Best Sheriff in Equestria’ coffee mug mysteriously vanished, only returning when Sweets had reliably returned to the proper procedure for a week.

***

“No, no, no, no, no!” Diamond Tiara chanted frantically as she ran her hooves through the shattered remains of a former ceramic garden ornament. “It has to be here! It just has to be!”

Curry had stayed out of the way of the initial statue destruction and now danced in place as her inclination to rush in and comfort her friend warred with reality. Diamond Tiara outweighed her by better than three to one. No matter how well Rarity’s mysterious magical outfit protected her fragile human body, getting up close to the frantic earth pony right now would be pushing it. Thankfully, the need to act was taken out of her hands.

“Darling. Stop! You’re going to hurt yourself!” Rarity cried out as she wrapped her magic around Di and floated her away from the shattered statue and the shards of sharp ceramic she was stomping on.

“But it was here. I put it here!” Di cried out, tears running down her cheeks as she flailed in place, struggling to resume her frantic search. At last, giving up in the face of Rarity’s magic, she turned an imploring look toward the older mare. “You believe me, don’t you?” She turned to the other fillies and pled, “Tell her I wouldn’t do this!”

Strangely, it was her chief rival and reluctant roommate, Apple Bloom who spoke up.

“I believe you.”

“We all believe you”, Sweetie Belle chimed in, joined by the rest of the fillies. Even Babs Seed joined the chorus, though if it was more to go with the crowd than from any understanding of the situation.

“Yeah, no way are you that good an actress,” Scootaloo added, earning a sharp nudge to the ribs from Sweetie Belle for her efforts. “What? It’s the truth. She’s a lousy actress.” That earned her an even sharper nudge.

Rarity set Di down gently on the ground, and from somewhere produced a length of cloth that she used to bandage the cuts on Di’s forelegs. With the pony under control, Curry dashed forward and lent her fingers to the task of cleaning the cuts and wrapping the cloth around Di’s legs. Thankfully, they were only slight nicks with no deeper gashes.

Leaving the medical treatment to Curry, Rarity gently questioned the distraught filly. “Do you know who might have taken it? Anypony else who knew about your hiding place?”

Diamond Tiara stilled. She gave a huge sniff to clear her nose of snot and wiped her a newly bandaged leg across her muzzle. Averting her gaze from Rarity, she said, “I don’t know.”

“Now, see! That’s you lying.” Scootaloo said cheerfully as she skipped to the side to avoid Sweetie Belle’s hoof.

“We know it had to be Silver Spoon, Di,” Apple Bloom said, for the first time using the short version of Diamond Tiara’s name that Curry preferred.

“It can’t be. She wouldn’t do that to me.” Diamond Tiara clutched a thin red book titled ‘My Diary’ to her chest while sniffling. We made a Pinkie promise that we’d never tell anypony about our secret hiding place.”

“Nopony is saying she told somepony. But would she take it?”

“I... don't know. She was mad at me. Maybe…?”

“Then you have to find her and ask,” Rarity told the distressed pony.

“We’ll help you find her,” Curry told her.

“No! I have to talk to her first,” Di said frantically.

Curry shrugged. “So, we find where she’s at, and then let you know. Then you can talk to her all private like.”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders, Pony trackers!” Scootaloo yelled out as she raised a hoof. “What?” she looked around at her friends who were rolling their eyes at her.

Rarity floated Spike onto her back. There was a determined look on her face as she announced, “As for me, I am going to do what I should have done in the first place.”

“Find us a nice deep cave to hide in?” Spike suggested.

Rarity gave a brittle laugh at Spike’s effort to lighten the mood. “Thank you for that, darling. No, I simply must screw my nerves to the sticking point and have you send a letter to Princess Celestia for me. With any luck, there was nothing unique about the book she sent and she can send another copy. If not, well, it was my responsibility and I will shoulder the results.” Rarity assumed an appropriately brave and noble appearance that said she was ready to suffer anything for the sake of doing the right thing. She really wished there was a photo-pony nearby

“I can’t let you do that. I was the one who lost it,” Di said, with more than a slight tremble in her voice.

Curry protested that suggestion, “The heck you will. I was the one who messed this up right from the get go. If I hadn’t done what I done when I found it, we wouldn’t be in this here situation right now.”

With a suitably brave voice Rarity corrected them. “No!” She shook her head slowly from side to side. “As I am the adult. This situation arose because I did not take my responsibilities as a friend seriously. I am so very proud of all of you, but I will handle it. You all should focus on finding Silver Spoon. This is the most important thing you can do. Hopefully, she will have the book and we can put this all behind us.”

***

The Tower Twins strolled down the main avenue of Ponyville casting condescending looks at the ponies and shops they passed while talking quietly to each other.

“Are you sure you’ve got the spell down?”

“Chillax, Tourmaline. I’ve got it down better than you.”

“Maybe you should take another look?” Tourmaline floated the old notebook out of her designer saddlebag and opened it in front of her sister’s face.

Pearl batted away the musty pages with a forehoof. “I told you I had it! Like, why are you tripping?”

“Like. Why aren’t you? This could be our big break. We’ll be set for life if we pull this off. No more having to sit through mother’s lectures, or listen to daddy boast about his latest scheme. No pony will be able to look down their noses at us ever again.”

“Except for the princesses.”

Tourmaline shuddered. “I’m not planning on living anywhere near those two. Talk about fun killers. Mother is bad enough. Can you imagine how dried up and boring a pair of thousand-year-old spinsters must be?”

“You have got to be kidding me!”

“What? You can’t seriously think they’re secretly party ponies!”

“No, you idiot! Look over there. It’s the prince.”

“What? Where? Oh my! By Fleur’s perfect tail, you’re right!”

The two twins stared in amazement at the sight of the most eligible bachelor in Equestria shoving his muzzle into a large bowl of ice-cream, while the hick sheriff they had run into on their first day looked on with an amused expression. They barely took note of the miniature pinto earth pony who was sitting in a booster chair nearly up to his eyebrows in his own bowl of frozen goodness.

Pearl felt a familiar tingle and snapped a horrified look at her sister, whose horn had the telltale glowing of spell casting. Tourmaline’s expression was both determined, and terrified. “Are you insane?” Pearl hiss-yelled at her sister. She snapped her teeth around the closest ear and dragged her startled sister out of sight between two buildings.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Let me go, Pearl! What are you doing? I almost had him.”

“You are insane!” Pearl hissed into her sister’s face, the previous question now turned into a statement of fact. “I can’t believe you were about to cast a lust spell on the prince in the middle of town. And in front of the town sheriff!”

“We have to do it. The sheriff will be escorting him back to his mansion and we might never get another chance,” Tourmaline hissed back while rubbing her violated ear with a hoof and checked for tooth holes.

“In the middle of town? I can’t believe you’re being this stupid. Virility spells might not technically be illegal, but casting one on an unexpecting stallion sure as buck is. Not only won’t we get to marry him, they’ll toss our plots across the border so quick you won’t even have time to pack a bag.”

“But if one of us is carrying his foal they won’t be able to?” There was a big question mark in that statement, showing that Tourmaline was not nearly as confident as she’d been a few seconds ago.

Pearl rolled her eyes in disgust. “You seriously think the sheriff is just going to sit there and enjoy the show? Besides, what makes you think he’d pick one of us? In case you missed it, there are a whole town of mares who would give up their right hoof for a chance at the prince. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t already have the hots for some shoppony who’s been leading him on ever since he moved to this place.”

It was Tourmaline’s turn to roll her eyes, in an as if manner. “He’s a prince. He’s not going to be interested in one of these plebeian mares.”

“You idiot. He’s a teenager. Mother says teenaged colts are interested in anything between eighteen and eighty that flips a tail in their direction. Of course he’s going to be interested.”

“So what’s your brilliant plan?”

“There is no brilliant plan. We have to wait for the right opportunity.” Pearl pointed a hoof at the prince, who was currently in the middle of a cross-eyed attempt at licking a smear of ice-cream off of his nose. “We need him alone for a minute. Let’s follow him and hope the oversized sheriff has to visit the bushes or something, leaving him alone for a minute. That would be all it takes. That maid, Easy Virtue, is always complaining that teenagers are too quick to be fun.” Pearl considered the unknowns and added, “All it should take is a minute. I think.”

“You think! You don’t know?” There was a certain amount of hysteria in Tourmaline’s words, showing that the stress of being this close to carrying out their plans had her on the verge of a meltdown.

“Of course I don’t know…” Pearl broke off as she realized she was just about to reveal her lack of experience to her far more experienced sister. With barely a stutter she continued. “I’m only interested in mature stallions. Surely you know the difference?”

“What! Of course! Everypony knows that mature stallions are the only ones worth the effort. Teenagers are, are, well, teenagers. Anyway, what about the miniature twerp next to him?”

“What colt? Oh, that pinto Squeaker. He doesn’t matter. Even if he sees us cast the spell, he’s just an earth pony. If he says we cast a spell, we’ll just say we cast if after the prince lunged at us. We’ll say it was in shelf defiance.”

Tourmaline ignored her sister’s assault on the language. Pearl tended to turn into a verbal klutz when the pressure was really on. To her, slight, credit, Tourmaline was honestly concerned that they might do some harm to the young colt. It wasn’t that long ago that she and Pearl been dedicated foalsitters, after all. Before she’d gotten old enough to have other interests.

“What if he’s affected by the spell too?”

“There was something in the notes about that, let me think.” Pearl chewed on her bottom lip as she tried to remember and in the process regained her casual confidence. “I think it wouldn’t affect colts who haven’t gone through puberty, or was it have little effect? Anyway, no worries there in either case. Even if they are standing right next to one another, the only one who will really be affected will be the prince. In fact, maybe it would be a good thing if he is there. He’d never be able to stop the prince, and while he’s not qualified to judge a spell as an earth pony, but I’m sure he’ll be able to give a very good account about how we were ravaged brutally by the prince.”

“Ravaged?” Tourmaline could not keep a squeak out of her voice as she added, “Brutally?”

“It is a virility spell, sister. Did you think there would be tea and crumpets and him asking if he could sign our dance card?” Despite her attempt at sounding sophisticated, Pearl’s voice slowly edged upward until she was sounding as shrill as possible, given they were still whispering.

“Of course not. I knew that. I’m quite looking forward to it in fact. I’m sure it will be quite thrilling.”⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾Showing that mutuality of thought that twins were prone to, both sisters were remembering the old saying: You don’t have to be faster than the bear or in this case the prince. Just faster than your friends, or in this case, your sister.

***

Sweets was fully aware that there was no point in talking to the two young colts until they had finished their ice-cream and licked the bowls clean of every last trace of creamy goodness. In the meantime, he licked his own cone while he kept the outer edge of his peripheral vision on the space where he had seen one of the Tower Twins drag her sister by the ear. Every minute or so, one of them would peek around the corner, then just as quickly jerk their head back.

He was well aware they had been asking after Jake ever since they had arrived, and as far as he knew, this was the first time they had ever laid eyes on him. It might not mean anything. The best-case scenario was that they were starstruck and too shy to come up and talk to the famous local celebrity. He didn’t believe that for a second. He had heard too many tales in Canterlot. Not about them specifically, but about aggressive young mares in their social class. They were really too young to be hunting stallions, but that’s what they certainly seemed to be doing, and one very special young colt in particular. He didn’t doubt for one instant that they had come to Ponyville in order to pursue Jake. The fact that they still seemed intent on their foolish endeavor told him that they had yet to realize Jake’s true age. It was a foregone conclusion that they didn’t accept that they themselves were far too young to be going after game this big.

Sweets was very tempted to allow the two to make fools of themselves, but that would most likely involve putting Jake in an uncomfortable and maybe scary, to a young colt, situation. He needed to get the foolish fillies somewhere private, where he could inform them on the facts of the situation. Too bad. If any two fillies needed a hard life lesson, it was those two.

Only, how exactly was he going to do that? Explaining the facts of life to two teenage, high-society, ponies had never been covered during basic training. The very idea caused his guts to curdle. It would be worse than being interviewed by Princess Celestia, in a very different, but still horrific way. During basic training, the Royal Guard drill instructors had been more concerned about keeping impressionable young colts away from misguided teenaged fillies. Approaching it from the other side was a brand-new experience. Shadow Dash’s lessons during Sweets training had really been insufficient...

Sweets’ eyes brightened as a terrible, awful, wicked thought popped into his head. Shadow Dash had let him down! He had clearly failed to impart this most important bit of knowledge to his eager young cadets. What could be more reasonable than to dump this whole situation into the old Drill Instructor’s lap, and allow him to demonstrate the proper method of handling it? That settled, Sweets decided it was time to investigate what had gotten Jake in such a dither.

“So, what are Curry and the other fillies up to?” he asked the colts.

Jake looked disgusted. “They’re playing vet with Miss Rarity.”

For a moment this sounded innocent enough until he remembered that to Jake the difference between vet and doctor was poorly understood. It had taken both himself, Big Mac, and a lot of talk, to get Jake into the medical clinic for his first checkup. Thoughts he was ashamed of thinking flashed through his mind before common sense prevailed. With Fluttershy as a mother, it wasn’t too surprising that Curry would play vet. He just hoped they didn’t traumatize any poor helpless animal, like say a Manticore. Hopefully, Rarity would be able to rein them in a bit. But he was at a loss as to how that could have scared Jake so much. The colt was prone to misunderstanding things, though. Sweets had some good times with Big Mac laughing over some of the things Jake had innocently said. Out of the hearing of any mares, mind you.

“No, they’re not,” Pipsqueak objected. “They’re playing doctor. Diamond Tiara shoved her hoof right up that stallion’s butt.”

Sweets choked, and then gave a violent sneeze, spraying ice-cream out of his nose.

Chapter 12 How not to marry a Prince part four

How to Train Your Batpony, ch12

Or:

How not to marry a prince, part 4

“Buck it!” Applejack swore viciously as she saw the slight bark damage on the tree she had just harvested. She shook her head violently to get her sweat-soaked mane out of her eyes, and to clear her head. This was plum foolish. The last time she’d been so clumsy as to damage a tree had been when she’d stubbornly worked herself into a walking coma trying to do both her and Big Mac’s farm chores. She blamed Granny Smith. Well, Granny, and a certain handsome older nocturne stallion she had not been able to get out of her mind since he’d surprised her in the guest bedroom. Both of them together were making her back half constantly think thoughts that her front half had decided to put off until later.

Applejack prided herself on being a down to the earth mare who didn’t have time for frippery and froth or to be mooning after stallions with hindquarters you could bounce a bit off and get change. But try as she might she simply could not get the blasted stallion out of her mind, and all because Granny Smith had gone and put notions into her head that she didn’t have time for. Yes, she knew she had a duty to the farm and the family to eventually produce the next generation of Apples, but that was a problem for future Applejack.

If she was honest with herself, and Applejack always was, it wasn’t a distasteful thought. But she didn’t have time right now. She wasn’t ready. She was still young. She still had time. But even as she thought that she couldn’t help but think that while she might have loads of time, Shadow Dash, while not on his last legs by any means, didn’t. If he was going to be a vital part of their foal’s lives into their own maturity, they’d have to start soon.

“And there I go again,” Applejack groaned as she rested her overheated head against the cool trunk of the tree. “The stallion teases me and I turn into a school filly who can’t stop imagining what our foals will look like.”

“Enough is enough!” She orientated herself and set out a trot for a certain spring-fed pond that was notorious for its icy waters. She was going to wash that stud right out of her mind, even if she had to freeze off her niblets to do it.

***

“Damn bugs,” Shadow Dash swore as his ears twitched violently. “Somepony must be talking about me,” he muttered to himself, thinking about the old mares tale about itchy ears.

“Are you okay Shado— I mean, Drill Instructor?” Goose Down asked respectfully.

“Nothing that getting out of this flea-ridden monstrosity couldn’t cure.” All around the pair of Nocturne, the fabric walls of their little training hall rippled ominously.

Goose Down’s ear laid down flat and she fought the urge to wrap her wings around herself. She’d seen first hand what the tent could do, and the last thing she wanted was to have its ire aimed in her direction.

“Come on then, if you think you’re hard enough!” Shadow Dash taunted the fabric walls. He spread his wings defensively, revealing the glint of wingblades along the outermost tips.

The fabric around the doorway fluttered violently, making a very rude sound before going slack.

Shadow Dash gave a disgusted “Humph,” Giving the fabric walls a hard look he slipped off his wingblades and very carefully placed them into a small custom-designed case, which he set aside. Only when his lethal weaponry was safely stowed did he turn his attention back toward Goose Down. “I hear you dumped Optio Pumpernickel on his ass during your first day on the job. Impressed Princess Luna all to Tartarus.”

Goose’s mind promptly tried to go in two different directions. She felt proud that she’d gotten the best of a much more experienced guard, and in doing so had made a considerably favorable impression on Princess Luna. The problem was that she could not help but think how close she had been to employing the exact same maneuver on Princess Luna.

She had trained and practiced with her brothers and cousins so often that the reactions to certain attacks were more instinct than decisions. She had read the Royal Guard Manual cover to cover until her copy was shedding pages, and the frustration she had over her mental condition had been channeled into physical conditioning for so long that she had caught some of her cousins teasingly looking under her, as if to suggest that she was really a colt pretending to be a filly in order to toss them around the practice mat.

“Let me see how you did it,” Shadow Dash said before charging across the room at Goose.

Seeing her older brother charging at her just like all her practice sessions triggered her muscle memory and she effortlessly shifted into the counter she had used on Optio Pumpernickel. She took the step back, flowed into the twisting motion and—

The room spun like a whirligig at the fair, and the floor of the tent smashed into her back like some giant padded club. Thankfully the tent had a good thick layer of carpet at her impact zone, or she would have been doing more than gasping for breath while flat on her back. The same impact on bare ground or the marble floors of the castle could have broken bones or at least hurt like blazes.

Shadow Dash’s smirking face swam into her field of vision, looking down at her with a slow shake of his head and the faintest hint of an unprecedented smile if she was not just imagining it in her current dazed state. Even the tent wall behind Shadow Dash seemed to have been stunned by the abrupt reversal, and from the way it was slowly twitching, Goose was afraid it might be about to take pre-emptive action. She weakly waved it off with a wing and it subsided, but it continued to ripple in discontent.

“Here’s the thing, Kite,” he started. “Lumpy got his nickname because he doesn’t like hurting other ponies. He’d rather take his lumps until they’re too exhausted to fight any more. All he wanted to do was to stop you from tossing Her Royal Highness, Our Dread Sovereign, across the floor and mussing her mane. If that meant taking his lumps, he would have let you throw him around all day. That won’t be the case with a real threat.”

Shadow Dash held out a hoof and helped a chagrined Goose back onto her hooves. “Now, don’t get me wrong, Kite. Pound for pound, you’re the strongest non-earth pony I know. And you’ve got a solid grounding in basic applied mayhem. But, the average male guard is at least twice your weight, and has years of experience sparring. You’re going to have to work hard, and learn how to use your unique advantages to the maximum.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” said Goose quietly. “But, okay. I can do this.”

“That was never in doubt.” Shadow Dash said, just before he knocked her legs out from under her with a wing sweep that was too fast to be seen. “I was just apologizing in advance for the rest of the day.”

Other ponies might have quailed at the implications of her brother’s words. Goose just grinned.

***

Silver Spoon was a hunted pony. All over town, Diamond Tiara and her blank flank friends were shoving their muzzles into all her favorite haunts and asking if anypony had seen her. She had been forced to leave town and hide in the untamed wilderness where no real civilized pony ever dared set hoof.

A nearby scream caused her to jump, her heart pounding. Eyes wide, Silver Spoon scanned her surroundings, peeking out from inside the dilapidated structure she’d taken shelter in, only to discover it was just the Cake twins enjoying the play park with their foalsitter, Pinkie Pie. Her nerves shattered, she crawled into the darkest corner of the Ponyville Park Playhouse and Observation Platform and shivered in fear and guilt. All she had wanted was for Diamond Tiara to come back to her. How had everything gone so wrong?

***

Pinkie Pie held a hoof up to her mouth, “Shrishhh, Pink Pony here, crissshhhh, target spotted, shrishhh, old playpark, crisshhhh, top the P-pop, crisssshhh, over.” Pinkie looked up into the tree she was sitting under. “You get all that, Featherweight?”

Featherweight finished scribbling in his notebook and gave the party pony a hoofs up. “Got it, Pinkie Pie. I’ll get this right to Diamond Tiara.”

“Just one more thing.” Featherweight paused to listen to the suddenly serious Pinkie Pie, his wings fluttering in the air. “Breaking a promise is the best way to lose a friend. Forever!”

***

Silver Spoon was spooked out of her internal panic by the sound of grunting and groaning coming from the foal-sized tunnel leading into her refuge. Backing into a corner, she tried to make herself as small as possible. She held her breath and kept as quiet as possible while she hoped that it would just be a random foal passing through on their way to the slide.

It wasn’t.

“How in Celestia’s name did you make it up here?” Diamond Tiara grunted as she squeezed her way into the room with Silver Spoon. Her conditioning regime had improved her strength and flexibility, but it hadn’t shrunk her.

Looking a bit stunned by Diamond Tiara’s sudden appearance, Silver Spoon answered out of reflex, “I came up the cargo net.”

Diamond Tiara looked a bit flummoxed, but she was not the sort of pony to let a little embarrassment get in the way of a good rant. “What the buck do you think you’re doing, Silver?”

“Nice language.” Silver Spoon looked away from her ex-friend and considered the interesting qualities of a leaf fragment that had landed on the rail around the platform’s edge. “Did you learn that from your new friends? It’s the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from an ignorant farm pony.”

“Give it a rest, Silver Spoon. I was there when you stubbed your hoof last week. If your mother had heard you say those words she’d have washed out your mouth with saddle soap. Now give it back!”

Out of pure habit, earned by many a confrontation with her parental units, Silver Spoon blurted out, “What?”

“Don’t make me tell everyone about your crush on a certain pool pegasus who works for my daddy.”

“That’s low,” growled Silver Spoon. “I never would have thought you’d do that to me.”

“And I never thought you’d steal from our personal security stash. How could you?” There was real anguish in that question, and Silver Spoon cowered in the face of it.

“I had to take it. You refused to see reason, and it was the only thing I could think of to bring you around.”

“How in Equestria could you think stealing that old magic book would make me see reason?”

Silver Spoon’s brain tried to keep up with the sudden shift in expectations, but all it could come up with was, “I did what now?” ⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾Credit where credit is due. This was inspired by the hilarious Chapter 17 of Magic School Days.

***

The playground was filled with every single student from the school, who were all waiting eagerly to see the end results of their pony hunting afternoon. They gave a loud cheer as Diamond Tiara emerged and began scrambling down the cargo net, only to suck in a loud breath of anticipation when she stumbled and nearly fell off, winding up dangling by one leg and tangled in the ropes.

“She’s doomed!” called out one of the watchers. “Doomed I say!”

“Knock it off, you idiots!” called out Di as she swung back and forth from her trapped position.

“Come on,” encouraged Curry. “Let’s get her out of there before she falls.”

“She can touch the ground from where she is,” observed Scootaloo to nopony in particular as Curry began to scramble up the cargo net from the bottom, roughly at the same time Silver Spoon began to pick her way down from the top.

Silver Spoon gave Curry a venomous look as the two met in the middle and set about freeing the tangled filly. “Don’t think I’m going to let you get away with using Diamond Tiara as some type of pet, Snipe.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything else,” Curry replied cheerfully as she struggled to get some slack in the heavy ropes around Di’s leg.

Not deterred by her situation, Diamond Tiara looked upside down and backward at the crowd to shout, “We are so bucked! The Tower Twins have the book!”

***

Sweetie Belle burst into the Carousel Boutique – where every garment is chic, unique, and magnifique – panting for breath from getting there at a dead run. “Rarity, don’t—!” she yelled as loud as she could given her lack of wind, only to cut off at the flare of green flame, and the sight of a scroll turning to smoke and wafting away on the wind. “Dang. Missed it by that much,” she gasped.

***

Princess Celestia had been around for a long⁽*⁾ time. She was wise and gifted with a keen, well-honed intellect. When her long lost sister had been restored to her, she’d spent a lot of time imagining all the things that both she and Luna would have to deal with. Her record was very good. She had anticipated many of the difficulties that Luna had encountered, and taken preemptive steps to mitigate them. What she had not anticipated, not even in her worse case scenarios, was Luna channeling a hormonal teenage filly, flush with her first crush.

(*) Considered to be a much more delicate way of referring to her age than anything with numbers in it. Or commas.

It wasn’t that Celestia was unhappy with Luna’s choice of a potential herd sister. She couldn’t be more delighted. Twilight Sparkle was one of the very few ponies in Equestria who could stand on equal intellectual ground with Luna, and if Celestia’s hopes proved true, she would soon be even more so. It was a bit of a problem that both Luna and Twilight tended to extremes, mentally and physically. Hopefully, they would be able to find a stallion who was grounded enough, with a strong enough self-image, to cope with the pair of mercurial mares. No, Celestia couldn’t have been happier for two of her favorite ponies.

But, Luna’s mood swings were upsetting the entire castle routine.

Four days ago, Luna was literally dancing in the hallways, smiling at everypony she met and offering cheery greetings to one and all. Frankly, it had scared the Tartarus out of most of the staff. When Luna had literally waltzed her moon across the night sky Celestia had been forced to have a talk with her. Luna had moderated her behavior slightly but had still been prone to spontaneous giggles for no apparent reason. The staff was starting to look haunted. Poor Kibitz had dropped his clipboard when a maid had set a tray down a touch too loudly behind him just this morning. She had to have the poor stallion put to bed with a hot cup of cocoa and the full staff budgetary report (with optional appendices for the last five years) to soothe his frazzled nerves.⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾Unicorn servants liked a little light reading to wind down. Kibitz had his own definition of 'light.’

Luna had also started to spend an inordinate amount of time around Celestia. It wasn’t that Celestia minded her sister’s company. She welcomed it, but it didn’t seem like Luna was all that interested in Celestia so much as the messages she received. She’d be sitting quietly when she wasn’t fidgeting, only to come to a state of quivering alertness when the mail for the day was delivered. She would hover like a dog at the dinner table until Celestia had checked every last missive, and then retreat from the office with a heavy tread, only to come bouncing back into the room for the next postal call.

It would have taken somepony a lot less aware than Princess Celestia to not put two and two together. Luna was waiting for a message from Twilight, and it wasn’t coming.

Two days ago, Luna had gone into a decline. Her imitation of a filly on a sugar rush had shifted to one who had partied far too hard the night before, and then a day ago she had vanished into her bedchambers and had not been seen since.

A flare of green fire and the arrival of a scroll within it only warranted a slightly raised eyebrow from Princess Celestia. She’d had a lot of practice in not reacting to such messages. Despite her bland exterior, she was feeling happy anticipation. Messages from Twilight and her friends were her favorite way to end a long boring day of listening to ponies explain why she should abandon her policies of the last hundred years for ones that were more favorable to the pony in question. This was all the more true given the present circumstances. She really needed some good news and very much hoped that this would shed some light on the situation with her sister.

The contents of this message warranted a full fifteen-degree eyebrow lift. The very first thing she did after reading it was to slide open a magically locked drawer in her desk and make sure the contents were still present. Giving a relieved sigh that all was as it should be, she rolled up the scroll and idly tapped her nose with it. This explained so much, starting with the mystery of why Luna had seen fit to borrow her personal seal a few days ago, and why she had been so eager for the post ever since. With a slight tug of her magic, Celestia pulled out a large portfolio of some of Luna’s best nighttime skies from the shelf.

Sitting on the ledge behind the book was Luna’s sprite. The mischievous construct had first shown up in her office three days previously after her mistress had retired to her bed. It had gleefully danced here and there, up and down, always just on the edge of Celestia’s vision. It had led her own sprite a merry chase but had never engaged in actual interaction with either of them. It was as if its main goal had simply been to spy on Celestia while creating a certain amount of heightened anticipation. Celestia had at first felt it was a prelude to some sort of prank that would embarrass her, but with no idea when or if the sword would fall. But, barely a day after it first showed up, the sprite’s high spirits had dimmed, until as it was doing now, it simply sat in place, a woebegone expression on its tiny face as tears nearly as large as its head ran down its cheeks to splash in a tiny pool that had gathered around its hooves. Despite the size of the teardrops, the pool never increased in size or decreased for that matter.

Celestia scooped up the despondent sprite and set out for her sister’s bedroom. Enough was enough.

For the past day, and night, Luna had been sequestered in her room, buried under a mound of blankets and pillows and even going so far as to raise and lower her moon from the fabric ramparts she had created. She had refused any effort from her staff to cajole her out of her room and had declined to explain to her sister what was bothering her. Not that any explanation was needed. All but the dimmest of the castle inhabitants—meaning the nobles—were well aware that Luna was in love, if not with who. But how could Celestia tell Luna she was being an idiot to doubt Twilight if Luna didn’t first confess?

Celestia had been debating the best way to evict her sister from her fortress of flannel, but the arrival of the scroll had solved the mystery and offered a potential solution.

“I just received a very interesting letter from Rarity in Ponyville.”

The bundle of blankets heaved slightly, and a night-black horn poked out through the folds for all the world like the nose of an inquisitive mouse sniffing for danger. “Really?” could barely be heard through the many layers of cloth. Despite the muffled tones, there was a touch of hope in that word, but just a touch, as if Luna was afraid to get her hopes up yet again, only to have them dashed.

“Yes. It seems that a few days ago she signed for a parcel from me. The only problem was it went astray before she could direct it to the proper recipient, Twilight.”

Like a breaching whale, Luna surfaced. “Twilight never received my gift! She doesn’t think I am being too forward and is avoiding me?”

“You are an idiot! – Oh, thank goodness. I’ve been wanting to say that for days – Luna. Twilight would never cut off contact with you. She might agonize over how to broach the subject if she felt you were going too fast, but she would never, ever, just leave you hanging.”

“I thought I had scared her away,” Luna said in a miserable voice.

“The only thing Twilight fear would be that she might hurt your feelings. Now, what did you send her? And do you have another copy?”

“Starswirl’s student journal.”

“Ouch!” Celestia winced. While the notebook had no intrinsic value, the sentimental and historical value was enormous. Rarity was going to be devastated, and Twilight’s funk was going to make Luna’s recent behavior look like a toddler’s pout.

“How did it go missing?” Luna asked, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

Celestia took in her sister’s martial attitude and gave thanks that she had the perfect means of derailing it. “Before we get into that. I take it that Twilight has had no word from you since you sent your present?”

For a moment Luna looked blank as her mind shifted gears. Then, her eyes went wide and her ears stood straight up in alarm. “She’ll think I have, what is the word, kicked her to the curb, after having my way with her!” Luna said in a panic.

“I would not have put it quite so extreme, but yes, I’m sure Twilight is wondering if anything is wrong.”

“Sister! I am heading for Ponyville!” Luna dashed from the room. Celestia counted backward from ten and had reached four by the time Luna dashed back into the room and began looking frantically for her shoes, which she eventually discovered in four different locations, one of which was embedded in the wall.

Author's Note

The sprites are open source. All I ask is that you use them you give a shout out to the story. Now I'm likely going to be embarrassed when someone points out all the other authors who have used them or something like them. ^_^

Tek gave me a link to a fan-song that works very well for Shadow Dash. At least when he's not training his baby sister.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4XkP-wT3xI

Chapter 13 How not to marry a Prince, part five

How to Train Your Batpony, ch13

Or:

How not to marry a prince, part six

Hasty explanations were made on the fly as Rarity and Sweetie Belle trotted down the main street. “It just had to be those two,” Rarity said in exasperation.

Normally, Rarity welcomed the arrival of native Manehattanites to her store. They had bits, of course, and were much more likely to appreciate the quality and style of her work. The ponies in Ponyville had a habit of taking both for granted and not thinking that there was anything special about them. In the case of the Tower Twins, she had more than a suspicion that they had never purchased their own clothing but instead had it chosen for them by some other pony, either their mother or a fashion consultant/personal buyer. That hadn’t stopped them from having very firm views on what constituted high fashion, which were complete nonsense. They had walked out of her store with ensembles that were a terrible match for their colors and body style. And they had paid ten times as much for them as Rarity had been asking.⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾Rarity had tried to discourage the twins from their selections by way of eloquent reasoning and price inflation. Reasoning failed abjectly, and Rarity was forced to abandon her pricing ploy when she realized how it was just making the twins more determined. Admittedly, she had been tempted to keep going...

It didn’t take very long to determine where the Twins were. Apparently, Sheriff Sweets had been entertaining Prince Jake and his friend, Pipsqueak, all afternoon. And trailing behind them as obvious as a greedy dragon in a jewelry store had been the twins. The gossip floating around town in their wake was that they had their eyes on Sweets, who was one hunka, hunka, Pegasus. Rarity could understand the attraction but doubted that the older stallion was their true target. After all he worked for a living.

There had been many references to the prince during the twin’s time in her store. Not to her personally, but between themselves, as if Rarity were merely one of the dressmaker dummies scattered around the boutique. It had quickly become clear they were obsessed with catching Jake’s eye. After the debacle of trying to explain proper fashion sense to the twins, Rarity was not even going to try and explain how they were wasting their time pursuing a colt who was currently more interested in how heavy a load he could pull. She would leave that to Applejack, who didn’t have a bottom line that could be affected by their displeasure, and the personality and motivation to take a switch to their shiny posteriors if reason did not work.

As it turned out, Rarity and Sweetie Belle were just a little too late. The last reported sighting of the twins had them following Sweets and the colts out of town in the direction of Fluttershy’s home. That was a relief. Rarity would be able to confront them away from prying eyes and ears, as she retrieved Twilight’s well-traveled parcel.

***

Tourmaline stumbled and frantically shook her left hind leg as she hobbled in the wake of her sister. “Oh, ewww. I think I stepped in something.”

Pearl was less than sympathetic. “Hurry up. We’re going to lose them.”

Tourmaline was not finished. Her next whine was, “My hooves hurt.”

“You think mine don’t? It can’t be much longer.”

“It’s been hours already!”

“Exactly. One way or another, it can’t be much longer. If we give up now we’ll still be hoof sore, but we won’t have anything to show for it. Just keep reminding yourself that we’ll never have to lift a hoof for ourselves again once we marry the prince.”

***

Sweets hadn’t even bothered to hide the fact they were being followed from the two young colts. In fact, it had been impossible to keep them from noticing the two mares trailing in their wake. Their tailing skills were pathetic. It had been Pipsqueak who had first picked up on the fact they were being shadowed. It helped that he was able to sit on Jake’s back and watch their backtrail. Sweets hadn’t even had to offer an explanation since the colts had assumed that the teens, like, Sneak Peek, enjoyed a rousing game of mobile hide and seek. Sweets supposed in a way it was a game. It was just a game that neither one of the colts was ready to play yet, or the twins in his opinion as a freshly minted married stallion of all of a few weeks.

Jake giggled and asked, “Are they still back there, Pipsqueak?”

In the broad Trotenham accent he favored for games involving skullduggery and piracy, Pip replied, “Arrhhh, they still be back thar sure enough, huffin' an' puffin' an' limpin' t'beat th' ban'”

Pipsqueak had been tutoring Jake in proper language usage for flights of fancy, and the big colt replied to him with his best attempt to date, “We've sho'nuff led them a merry chase.”

Sweets only contribution to the deception was that the colts not let on that they had seen the mares. They didn’t want to hurt their feelings by revealing how bad they were at the game, did they?

***

“Do you know why Sneak Peek is laughing his ass off in the living room?” Cloudkicker asked Berry Punch as she strolled into the kitchen, having just gotten off work.

“I don’t know. He got a letter from a friend in Canterlot. He said something about getting the scoop on Tower’s current financial situation, but he started laughing when he read it and I haven’t been able to understand anything he’s said since.”

***

Twilight Sparkle, with a constellation of books and papers floating around her head, strolled toward Fluttershy’s house.

She’d needed something to distract her from the fact that Princess Luna had not messaged her in four days. She was deeply afraid she’d done something to offend the princess but was hoping it was simply a matter of Princess Luna’s duty getting in the way.

Her lessons in friendship helped. Her friends all had their own lives and responsibilities and it was unfair of her to even think their lives should revolve around her.

Twilight needed a distraction and the answer was obvious. Research. Each and every piece of paper currently circling her head had something to do with relationships, more specifically the relationship between herd sisters and the responsibilities therein. She didn’t know if Princess Luna had a stallion in mind already. As the senior, by a large margin, it seemed logical it would be her choice. But she was so busy with her duties, and out of place in this time. So maybe Luna expected Twilight to take the lead? Was it her duty to research prospective husbands and present the choices to Luna? Twilight had never really dwelt on the concept of marriage previously. She’d known that at some point she’d get married and have foals. She just hadn’t given much thought to the steps in between her current lifestyle and that one. Now she had to do so for Princess Luna’s sake and she was determined to do a good job. Fortunately, there were numerous books devoted to the practice of husband hunting. If only they didn’t almost universally disagree with each other.

Of course, she had started her own list as practice but had run out of ideas fairly quickly. Honest, generous, kind... the first part practically wrote itself. The second half of the list sounded a little odd, and worthy of some friendly advice to see if she was on the right track. Intelligent had been a given, as well as educated, strong, good with foals, witty, and... furry. Honestly, that was the entry giving her the most trouble, and she had written it in and crossed it off several times. She liked shaggy manes and furry fetlocks. They were cuddleable, although difficult to keep tidy.

Fluttershy would know. She was an expert in cuddleablity.

One little tidbit in one of the more historical books had been the revelation that buying a mare from her father had been a real thing a thousand and more years ago. So Luna hadn’t just been teasing, but deadly serious when she had mentioned approaching Twilight’s father with a suitable bride price. It might have been a totally inappropriate act in this day and age, but it still gave her a warm case of the fuzzies. For just a moment all the papers around Twilight whirled in a happy dance that mimicked Twilight’s prancing. But only for a moment, then Twilight settled down and got back to the serious job of learning how to hunt, capture, and dress, a husband.

***

Fancy Pants had taken Rarity’s advice and had approached Pinkie Pie. He had not, however, asked her for a direct introduction to Fluttershy. He had asked if she’d mind showing him and Wooshter around Ponyville and the surrounding countryside, with a visit to Princess Curry at the end of the day.

His reasons had been two-fold. Firstly, Wooshter had been in a state of high agitation and Fancy Pants had honestly feared he would make matters even worse than they already were if they were to go directly to Fluttershy. From his, admittedly limited, contact with Pinkie Pie, he was sure if any pony could relax and distract the pegasus it would be her. His supposition had been correct, and Wooshter was currently laughing and flirting outrageously with the pink party pony, while Fancy Pants trailed along in their wake.

Fancy Pants’ second reason had to do with Fluttershy herself. He made it a point to keep himself abreast of the movers and shakers of Equestria, and while the Element holders might not view themselves in that light, to call them shakers of the status far understated their effect. ‘Social earthquakes,’ was a far more accurate term.

What Fancy Pants had concluded was that with the exception of Fluttershy, the other five mares were very simple and straightforward. Like Princess Celestia, it was easy to predict their reactions to any given situation and have a good chance of being correct. This was not the case with Fluttershy. On the surface, she seemed like a pony suffering from near pathological shyness, but time after time she did things that simply did not fit that pigeon-hole. His sources were good, far better than most ponies who did not have Princess in their title. Fluttershy had done things that would have daunted many a legendary hero. Facing down a fully mature dragon, matching a cockatrice eye for eye and destroying the monster, beating a griffon to a pulp and then taking it into her home to nurse back to health, and finally, adopting a strange visitor from another planet with powers far beyond the ken of mortal ponies, Oh, and high fashion model, which really totally flew in the face of her default shyness.

No, Fluttershy was not the sort of pony Fancy Pants wanted to startle, and there were few ponies more startling than Wooshter on a first meeting. Far better to allow Pinkie Pie to distract him and send his flighty mind down other paths. By the time they did get to Fluttershy’s home, Fancy Pants would be surprised if Wooshter even remembered the reason for their visit.

Or so Fancy Pants had thought. In a very short while, he’d get to find out how well he’d planned. Hopefully, he’d survive.

***

“Wait. Hold up. Give me a chance to catch my breath,” Curry begged the herd of her school mates as she stopped in the middle of the trail to her home with her hands resting on her knees as she tried to regain her wind.

“Darling, you must learn to pace yourself,” Rarity said as she and Sweetie Belle trotted up. “I assume you too are in pursuit of the Tower Twins. Do let me give you a lift.” Her magic enveloped the exhausted little girl and lifted her up onto her back while shifting Spike onto Apple Bloom’s back.

Neither the dragon or the filly looked the least bit happy with this solution, but neither protested. Despite her size, Apple Bloom was more than strong enough to trot the rest of the way to Fluttershy’s with Spike on her back, and Spike wouldn’t say boo to Rarity no matter what the circumstances.

Curry gratefully clamped her legs around Rarity’s barrel and leaned forward so she could tangle her fingers in her luxurious mane. Her face slowly lost its reddish appearance as she regained her breath. “Thankee kindly, Miss Rarity.”

With the short legged and the tired legged taken care of, the crowd of ponies resumed their trot.

Trailing far behind the herd was Babs Seed, who did not look at all like a pony who was about to see her bullies get their comeuppance. Instead, she looked like somepony who had eaten too many green apples and was regretting it greatly.

***

Rainbow Dash shook her head in resignation. “Not a good idea, Gilda.”

“Shut it, Dashy. If you’re not going to help, then buck you.” Gilda’s voice was muffled by the wads of cotton stuffing her beak as she worked at removing the constricting bandages and supports from her injured wing.

“Look. If any pony knows what you’re going through, it’s me. You just have to give it time to heal properly. Take it easy.”

“How? By reading a book about what idiots Griffons are?”

“Okay, maybe ‘Daring Do in the Griffon’s Aerie,’ was not the best choice. I admit it.”

“You think!” Gilda snapped, her sarcasm dial turned all the way to eleven.

“There!” the injured griffon said triumphantly as her sharp beak severed a critical winding and the hated bandages fell free of her wing.

***

Drill Instructors don't sleep. They wait.

Shadow Dash might have admitted to waiting fairly hard on his comfortable branch tucked into the top of a well-fluffed willow tree. An alert observer may have been able to detect the slightest noise, which an uninformed fool might think was actually a snore. Many Royal Guard Cadets knew it was actually an indicator of future tossing about the sparring ring or twenty-mile hikes in full weights. Thirty miles if some poor fool disturbed Shadow's waiting.

There was a quiet two-toned noise that Shadow was beginning to loathe, and a gentle tap on his nose.

He opened one eye, took a long look at the Celestia-Sprite sitting patiently on his branch, and closed his eye again. Most ponies would have been awestruck over being visited by a manifestation of their ruler. Shadow Dash? Not so much.

"G'way," he muttered. "Meditating."

The gentle tapping on his nose repeated, and he opened his eye again, only to see the Celestia-Sprite was now holding a sledgehammer nearly as large as the tiny magical creature and was hefting it menacingly. Once she saw Shadow's eye was remaining open, she tucked the hammer impossibly away, got out a small notepad and quill, and put on that infuriating peaceful tranquil smile that Celestia did so well.

Giving way to the inevitable, Shadow Dash opened his other eye, yawned, and regarded the proxy Celestia with at least the semblance of a respectful posture. "I take it you want to know the sit-rep?"

The sprite nodded and lifted a dripping quill to the page.

“In regards to Goose?

The sprite nodded again and made a get on with it motion with her hoof.

"Fine," said Shadow, and put his head back down, although he continued to watch the sprite through narrowed eyelids, and sat back up when the creature got out a huge trumpet. "Awright, you want more.” He sat up, took a breath, and began.

“Goose Down's training has been proceeding well. She has nearly every standard move and counter in the Royal Guard training down, and a few nasty little things my relatives have been teaching her also. She's fast, eager, and determined. That's the good news. The bad news is twofold.

“She just isn't hitting as hard as she can. That I can train out of her by pairing her with Lumpy for sparring. She's going to have to sweat gallstones to hit him hard enough to make an impact. And secondly, she has difficulties shifting into a combat mindset. She's been around friends and relatives so long that she can't understand what it's like when somepony is really trying to hurt her. That..." Shadow bit his bottom lip and thought. "It will take time and a lot of lumps. My lumps, not hers. Sweet heavens, I was only training with her for a day and I feel like I've been run over by an entire cadet herd out jogging. Then when I said we were done, she pops out the door, fresh as a daisy, to meet with her friends. I may be able to get you a Night Guard out of this one, but it might kill me."

The Celestia-Sprite looked up from her notebook and produced a pair of paddles that had the odd crackle of lightning between them, then tucked them away and made a few last notes. Turning into a ball of golden dust, the creature then darted away into the distance and was lost to sight in a few seconds, leaving Shadow to settle back down on his branch.

"My mothers are going to kill me," he muttered.

Shadow Dash had barely gotten a couple of hours of waiting hard when the sound of approaching hoofbeats caused him to twitch an ear toward the sound, but not to open an eye. Prince Jake had very distinctive hoofsteps, as did the newly minted Sheriff Sweets. No need for him to stop waiting for them. Or so he thought until his well-trained ear made out the noise of dozens of hoofsteps, all headed toward his location.

“Oh, for bucks sake!” Shadow Dash cursed under his breath.⁽¹⁾ He opened ‘both’ eyes and sat up on his comfortable branch.

⁽¹⁾A rare thing for the drill instructor who was much more used to screaming his curses at the top of his lungs. But there were delicate ears present, and he did not want a repeat of the school field trip incident.

The reason for his curse was the veritable circus traveling down the various paths leading to the clearing under his tree. First were a pair of unicorn fillies that just screamed trouble to his well-honed instincts, and then just coming into view down the path from them were the three foals, and friends, of the apocalypse, as he had named the CMC and their frequent companions.

Any hope he had that the coming circus would bypass him ended when Sweets arrived. At first, Shadow thought he was going to be able to just ignore the whole upcoming disaster and watch how Sweets handled it. But the experienced Royal Guard looked up into the tree, saluted and called out, “Private Sweets, requesting assistance, Sergeant!”

“I don’t suppose it would do any good if I said there was no pony of that name here, private? I am retired, you know?”

Before Sweets could reply to his former instructor, the cry of a raptor in extreme distress roared from inside of Fluttershy’s house. Sweets ears went flat, as Pipsqueak and Jake acted on hardwired instinct and raced for the shelter of the tree.

“Go. Sweets!” snapped Shadow Dash, all traces of levity gone from his voice. “I’ve got the prince and his friend.”

***

It had been a very busy but satisfying day for Fluttershy. It had taken the whole morning and part of the afternoon to get almost all of her little friends settled in for their winter naps. But now she was looking forward to getting home and having some quality time with Curry Comb.

The sudden scream of a creature in pain jolted Fluttershy out of her warm and fuzzy thoughts. Even though she had never heard a griffon scream, Fluttershy knew instantly who had cried out. All fear she might hold in regards to Gilda vanished before the imperative of going as quickly as possible to a creature in need. Leaping into the air, the shy pegasus showed that when motivated, she could rival her friend Rainbow Dash in the art of getting from here to there in the least amount of time.

***

The scream of something monstrous had the twins on the verge of fleeing in terror until Pearl spotted the hick Sheriff dashing into the ramshackle hovel in the middle of the clearing, leaving the galloping prince all alone except for the insignificant foal. Despite her panic, or maybe because of it, she lept into action.

“This is our chance, Tourmaline. It’s now or never.”

Tourmaline’s mind had shut down at the sound of an apex predator’s scream, and she defaulted to herd instinct. Follow the one who seemed to know what she was doing.

The twins galloped forward into the clearing, their horns lit in preparation of casting the critical spell.

***

“Oooooh, this is going to be a doozy!” Pinkie Pie shouted out while vibrating in place. “Come on. We don’t want to miss the big expose,” she told Fancy Pants and Wooshter as she set out for Fluttershy's at speed, making use of her trademarked pronking mode of travel which covered ground deceptively fast.

“What Ho! An adventure!,” Wooshter cried out in excitement and raced after the pronking Pinkie. Fancy Pants couldn’t help but notice that Wooshter’s focus was not on the road, or the way they were going, but on Pinkie Pie’s waving tail.

Shrugging and giving way to the inevitable, Fancy Pants trotted in a dignified and stately way, after the two younger ponies. As he moved, he used his magic to strip his tie from around his neck and wrapped it around his forehead like a fashionable sweatband, which secured his mane in place for any upcoming action. After all, one always should strive to dress for the occasion.

***

Despite the strong breeze at their attitude, Princess Celestia caught the scroll that puffed into existence in front of her and unrolled it with a brisk snap. “It seems the book has been located. Rarity is on her way to retrieve it.”

“Huzzah! That is most excellent!” Luna enthused, doing a hoof pump as she flew alongside her sister.

“I believe that is the Lady Rarity below us, Princesses,” a huffing pegasus guard pony panted out, pointing a hoof downward at a crowd of foals and the unicorn in question.

“They appear to be headed for Fluttershy’s home. We shall rendezvous with them and discover who absconded with my present.” The glint in Luna’s eyes did not bode well for the parcel purloiners.

Every head in their flock suddenly switched focus at the sound of a Griffon in pain. Unlike the other ponies who had heard that cry, the ones in their group knew exactly what the sound was, and how dire it was that they were hearing it.

“Change of plan, everypony!” Celestia snapped out as she whirled in place and dove toward the location the cry most likely originated from.

***

Curry’s head jerked upward, the ears on top of her hood coming to full attention and swiveling in the direction of her home. “That’s Gilda! Something’s happened to her!” She started to slide off of Rarity’s back in order to dash the last couple of hundred yards to the source of that cry.

Rarity’s magic caught the small snipe before she could come close to leaving her back. “Don’t be silly, darling. I can get us there much quicker,” Rarity said as she gritted her teeth and broke into a gallop. To buck with getting all sweaty and disheveled. Rainbow Dash’s friend sounded like she was in agony. It was imperative that she lend whatever aid was possible.

***

“What’s the situation!” Sweets demanded as he rushed into Fluttershy’s house, seeing Gilda flopping around on the floor with Rainbow Dash standing off to one side, out of immediate talon and beak range.

“The idiot pushed her wing too soon and got a wing-cramp,” Rainbow Dash answered without a great deal of sympathy.

“Oh, no, you really shouldn’t have!” Fluttershy cried out, in a quiet whisper, as she flew in through an open window. Displaying none of her usual anxiety toward Gilda, and ignoring the talons that were ripping splinters out of her floor, the shy pony landed beside the griffon and brutally slapped a select group of muscles at the base of the injured wing, causing another screaming squawk of pain, that cut off a second later as Gilda flexed her wing slightly and looked at it in amazement.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she exclaimed in surprise and moved to stretch it some more, only to be halted by Fluttershy hitting another group of muscles and causing her outstretched wing to go limp as a noodle.

“None of that now!” Fluttershy said in a firm whisper. “You may have already pulled your tendons. You need to let it relax for a little bit, then we can look at doing some physical therapy.”

“Not like I have much choice,” Gilda said faintly as she wiggled her shoulders and watched her wing flap like a flag in the breeze.

“That was, AWESOME, Fluttershy! Do it again,” added Rainbow Dash, earning herself a dirty look from Gilda.

There was a sudden scream of an outraged stallion from outside, causing all heads to whip around and stare at the door. Well, almost all heads. Gilda suddenly found a trembling pony huddled under her good wing, Fluttershy’s rapidly beating heart thundering against the griffon’s side. Without thinking, Gilda folded her wing protectively around the pony who a couple of weeks previously had made a good go at breaking every bone in her body.

***

How had it gone so wrong so quickly, Pearl thought to herself as she looked around herself in horror. She and Tourmaline had each thrown the spell, perfectly executed, at the prince, and missed. A huge bat-pony had popped up out of nowhere and slid in front of their target an instant before the spell would have hit the alicorn. The nocturne’s entire body had been enveloped in light as he reared up and extended his wings to make sure not a single trace of their spell reached either of the two ponies cowering behind him.

Then, as if their spell had summoned them, ponies trampled into the yard from all directions. The unicorn from the pretentious clothing store accompanied by a hoard of rug-rats had been the first, but far from the last.

Down yet another trail came a unicorn orbited by an entire planetary system of books and papers.

The next to arrive from the other side of the clearing had been the pink pony who had thrown that ridiculous excuse for a party, with the delicious muffins. Trailing her was some gangly stallion they had never seen before. Beyond all belief, the party pony had been accompanied by Fancy Pants.

Pearl and her sister had never personally met the pony who stood at the top of Canterlot’s social structure, but any pony who was any pony knew who he was. What she didn’t know was what in Equestria he was doing in this place, at the worst possible of all times. Normally his presence would have overshadowed all other considerations, but he was only the aperitif for what was coming.

The final straw, an image that momentarily convinced her it was all a bad dream, was Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, accompanied by a whole phalanx of royal guards, who set down beside Fancy Pants.

And each and every pony in the clearing, who had appeared as if by magic, was staring at her and her sister. Well, not every pony. The paper pushing unicorn who had wandered into the clearing as if she were out for a morning stroll only had eyes for the papers circling around her head.

Strangely, Princess Luna also was not paying them any mind. She could not seem to take her eyes off of of the nerd. Maybe she was outraged that the unicorn had not acknowledged, or even noticed, her or Princess Celestia? Not that the twins were of a mind to wonder about that. Not with the realization that they had just cast a borderline, potentially, illegal spell, on one of the Princess Luna’s personal guard ponies. Because he could be nothing else.

It was then that the bat-pony their spell had hit let out a scream of pure unadulterated lust as his glowing golden eyes fixed on her and Tourmaline with an expression of raw hunger.

***

A startled Twilight looked up from her research to find herself surrounded by ponies. She only had eyes for one, however. “Princess Luna! When did you get here?” A moment later her eyes went wider than they already were as she remembered just what she had been researching. There was a backward explosion as all the paper constellation around Twilight was sucked into her saddlebags with a noticeable slurping sound.

“Fancy meeting you here of all places,” Twilight said with a weak laugh as she tried, and failed, to act nonchalant.

“Greetings, Twilight Sparkle. We are most gratified that happy happenstance has caused our paths to cross this day. Though the circumstances are not currently conducive to conversation I hope you can bide a while. There are serious matters my sister and I must address.”

“Oh, certainly. I understand. Umm, what matters?” Any reply Luna might have made was interrupted by a loud shout from Curry Comb.

***

“Stop, stop, stop!” Curry screamed. She dug her heels into Rarity’s side while hauling back on her horn with all her might, causing Rarity to rear upward on her rear hooves in a most undignified posture.

Curry slid off the rearing Unicorn and stumbled in front of her as she waved her arms in the air in front of the herd of foals. “Back, back!” She shouted as she tried to make herself bigger than her scant seventy-five pounds while glancing over her shoulder at Shadow Dash in fear. “Horny Stallion alert!” Glaring over at the twins, she included them in her arm waving as she stamped her feet on the ground in the direction of the wide-eyed fillies. “Shoo, shoo. Git out of here yu dang idjits.”

Turning back to her primary concern, she found all the foals, and Rarity looking at her with bemused expressions. Except for Silver Spoon. Her expression was one of disgust.

Curry realized she’d done it again. She’d fallen into old habits and treated the ponies as if they were animals and not people. Her face turned red and she found it impossible to look her friends in the eye. That is until Diamond Tiara gave an unladylike snort of laughter.

“Horny Stallion? I can’t believe you said that out loud,” Di snickered, and was quickly joined by the rest of the foals. Even Rarity smiled behind a raised hoof.

***

There was only so much a pony could take, and the twins had already exceeded their quota by a wide margin. Being laughed at was the last straw and broke any slight inclination they might have had to brazen it out. Letting out shrill whinnies of fear, they charged away from the crowd of ponies in the only direction that was free of obstruction, the lane leading to Sweet Apple Acres.

Shadow Dash sprang after the fleeing fillies, only to pull up short just before running into a magical restraint field cast by Princess Luna. He looked over at his princess, and the half-crazed expression on his face turned sly, though his wings were still well extended. He gave the princess a wink. “Permission to teach two foolish fillies a life lesson they will never forget, my Princess?”

The worry in Luna’s expression turned to match the look on Shadow’s Dash’s face, but before she could answer him, her sister touched her lightly on the shoulder with a wing tip in a, if I may interject gesture. Luna gave Celestia a nod and the senior sister turned to face Shadow Dash.

“Are you in control, Drill Instructor Shadow? Truthfully, please.”

Shadow Dash paused in the middle of formulating a flippant reply, and after a moment of introspection, answered. “Mostly, Princess. My grounding runes handled the bulk of the spell. I won’t say I’m not feeling a bit…itchy, but I’ve coped with worse. I am in control.”

“Very well then. Luna. I believe you were about to give your guard instructions?”

“Indeed I was sister. Drill Instructor Shadow Dash, are you ready for your orders?

“Always, my princess.”

“Very well, Drill Instructor. Good hunting.”

Shadow Dash seemed to turn into his namesake as he flowed across the ground and into the forest paralleling the trail the twins had galloped down.

“Grounding Runes, sister?” Luna asked with a questioning tilt of an eyebrow. But it was not her sister who answered but Twilight Sparkle who had nervously sidled up to the two princesses.

“Oh yes. Shining Armor told me all about those. It’s very common for Drill Instructors —especially those who are not unicorns— to have runes tattooed directly onto their skin. They have to shave their hair to have it done, and when it grows back they are invisible. It helps ground any magic designed to influence their mental state. It seems that in times past, there were incidents of Unicorn trainees using spells to influence their instructors to go easier on them, or in revenge. It’s very interesting. I have some books back at the library if you’re interested?”

“They sound most interesting, Twilight Sparkle. Do they have before and after images?” Luna asked. You could almost see her imagining Shadow Dash looking like some rich mare’s pet poodle.

“Ain’t nopony worried about Shadow Dash, or what he might do to those fillies if he catches them?” Curry demanded as she shoved her way between Twilight and Luna.

“Shadow Dash is fine. He won’t hurt the fillies. Only scare them, a little bit.” Luna said with a laugh way too evil for a good princess, matched by a distant feral screech somewhere out in the forest.

“Are your fears over this coming from some incidents on your old world, Curry? Did you have a bad experience?” Twilight had a blank scroll and quill held in her magic as she waited for Curry’s answer.

Curry didn’t really want to answer Twilight’s question. The truth was that she had no terrible experience with stallions, other than hearing them scream and thrash in their stalls when they got like that. But there had been no shortage of horror stories from the adult grooms who had delighted in filling her head with a wide variety. According to those stories, horny stallions would trample anything between them and the mare they wanted. ‘Leaving nothing but a smear on the ground,’ was a popular finishing line to many of those stories.

“Has anyone seen my cousin, Babs?” Apple Bloom shouted out, drawing Curry’s attention away from Twilight’s embarrassing question and saving her from having to answer it and reveal that she had for a moment forgotten that ponies were not animals, again.

“I think she went thataway.” Pipsqueak pointed toward Pinkie Pie, who was holding up a sign shaped like a finger that said, She went thataway.

Apple Bloom looked incredulous. “She followed them! What was she thinking?”

“That she wanted to see her bullies humiliated?” Scootaloo suggested.

Apple Bloom protested. “That ain’t right. She’s better than that. We got to catch up to her.”

“Heck yeah. I want to be there when Shadow Dash catches them,” Scootaloo enthused, totally missing Apple Bloom’s point. “Come on, Curry. Let’s go.”

“I can’t.” Curry looked toward the door of her home. “That was Gilda earlier. I got to make sure she’s alright. She’s my friend.”

“Do I look like a weak pathetic pony?” Gilda’s asked in her usual acerbic manner. She was standing just outside of the door, with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy on either side of her looking worried. She used her bad wing to ruffle Fluttershy’s mane, leaving it looking windblown. “See. didn’t I tell you the chick would be alright? Now, how about you fix me something to eat? I’ve still got a lot of healing to do.”

Standing inside the doorway, a respectful distance back, Sweets gave Curry a nod, and made a gesture that indicated he’d keep an eye on Jake and Pipsqueak.

Giving Gilda a, doubtful, backward look Curry hurried after her friends who were heading down the lane to Sweet Apple Acres, The most obvious exception to the general stamped was the two Princesses and their guards, and Twilight Sparkle. But, Fancy Pants and his companion stayed as well. Though the magical glow around the Pegasus indicated that his staying put was not his own idea.

The reason why the Princesses had not joined the stampede was revealed as the bobbing forms of their individual sprites, looking unbearably smug, approached while carrying an old tattered book between themselves.

“Yes!” Luna hoof-pumped before relieving the sprites of the burden they really weren’t designed to carry. They both wiped hooves across their foreheads, removing imaginary sweat, and then dissolved into glitter that was drawn into their corresponding creator’s horns.

Luna floated the book toward Twilight, looking suddenly bashful. “For you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight had been looking at the sprites in awe. The level of magic and skill required to craft them blew her mind just thinking of the equations. But then Princess Luna waved a ‘shiny’ object in front of her and all else was forgotten. “A book? For me?” Twilight’s magic took hold of the old thing with the utmost delicacy. Carefully opening it she examined the first page. “This, this,” she said in a wheezing voice. “This is Starswirl’s journal. His very first student journal. I’ve heard of it. I mean, what pony hasn’t. It’s legendary. But it was lost. You found it? You found it and you’re giving it to me? I can’t. It should be in a Starswirl’s museum where every pony can see it…” Twilight trailed off to breathe heavily into the paper bag that Princess Celestia floated into her face.

“I think she likes it, Luna,” Celestia remarked to her sister as Twilight dealt with her hyperventilation.

“I knew she would, sister,” Luna gave the impression that if it were not for their audience she’d have been pronking like a foal, or Pinkie Pie. “Are you recovered, Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight gave a couple of more deep breaths into her paper bag before removing it from her muzzle. “Yes, thank you, Princess. Is this really for me?”

“Indeed it is, my faithful student. More importantly, we’d like you to examine this spell,” Celestia answered Twilight while using her magic to shuffle the pages in the journal to the pages containing the spell cast by the twins. “I trust you can trot and study at the same time.”

“Of course. Just watch me.” Twilight replied with complete confidence, her nose already buried in the journal.

With that, the princesses and their train followed in the wake of the rest of the stampede.

***

The rumble of hooves on the ground faded into the distance. “Ow, ow, ow. Stupid, stupid,” Gilda groaned in pain as she threatened to collapse where she stood. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash quickly moved in and extended a wing under her chest taking her weight off her legs.

“That was very foolish, but kind,” Fluttershy whispered. “Curry was very worried about you.”

“You think I did it for the chick? Noway. I did it for me. If she’d thought I was hurting, she’d have been all over me. ‘Can I fluff your pillow, Gilda? Can I brush out your fur, Gilda? Can I help you preen your feathers, Gilda?’ She is so annoying.”

“Hey. If any pony is going to preen your feathers it’s going to me.” Rainbow Dash said as she helped turn Gilda so she and Fluttershy could get the stubborn bird back to her sick bed.

“Say what!”

“And I still think you were kind,” Fluttershy remarked as she gave Gilda a peck on the cheek, silencing the brash Griffon.

Author's Note

A partial list of Twilight's reference books, as supplied by Tek

"Husband hunting for the young mare"
"husband hunting with live bait"
"Husband hunting for the older mare"
"Husband hunting for mothers"
"The path to a stallions heart is through their stomach"
"The path to a stallions heart is a clean house"
"What a stallion looks for in a mare"
"What a mare should look for in a stallion"
"Princess Cadance's tips on love"
"Princess Cadance's guide to a happy marriage"
"So your looking for love, here are the right places"
"101 dating tips"
"herding for idiots"
"so you want to start a herd"
"traditional herding rules"
"new age herding and you"
"How to serve a stallion"
"proper husband care and feeding"

Chapter 14 How not to marry a Prince, part six

How to Train Your Batpony, ch14

Or:

How not to marry a prince, part six

Why was she doing this? Babs Seed wondered to herself as she raced down the dirt road in pursuit of a scary beyond all reason, night pony, who had passed her as if she was standing still a few moments before, and the twins who had made her life a misery for the last year. Surely they had forfeited any right to her concern long since.

But, no matter how hard Babs tried to talk herself out of her current actions, her legs kept pumping and her heart ached with fear at the thought of what might happen to the twins. They were all alone now. They had totally alienated not just the townsponies, but the princesses as well. There was no pony left with any interest in saving them, except for her.

***

Gentle fillies do not gallop. Or so Pearl and Tourmaline had been told since they had been old enough to do so. And if in recent years they had at times forgotten that, there had been peers and role models aplenty to reinforce that dictum.

Gentle Fillies also do not sweat. At the most, they might perspire, say after a workout at the spa/gym. That was another of their mother’s dictums. If you are doing something that made you sweat like a farm pony than that is de facto proof you should not be doing whatever it was.

Their mother would be appalled if she could see them now.

The twins were currently galloping as if their lives depended on it, and they weren’t just sweating, they were dripping. Their carefully coiffed manes were lank with sweat and dust, and their flanks were lathered with foam. Every time they started to slow down there would be a thrashing in the bushes and that horrible night pony would show up, paralleling the laneway while staring at them with his hungry gleaming yellow eyes. Only the fact that they were still in full sunlight had prevented the beast from ravaging them mercilessly.

Hope was in sight for the twins, however. Ahead of them, the trees were thinning out and there were sunkissed fields. They would be protected there, and as long as they could find some sort of shelter that they could barricade themselves behind before nightfall fell. They would be safe. They burst out of the trees and almost sobbed in relief as they spotted the quaint farm buildings in the distance. An hour ago, their skin would have crawled at the idea of entering one of those bucolic dwellings; now they practically glowed in the sunlight and promised sanctuary from the dark beast who raced hot on their plots.

***

As a drill instructor, Shadow Dash was intimately familiar with the maxim that sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind. Going soft on recruits would harm them more than help them. At the same time, you had to understand your trainees. The same level of applied maliciousness might toughen up one recruit, and break another beyond any hope of rebuilding them. You could easily destroy a recruit with enormous potential by making a mistake on when to push, and when to pull. Or in Lumpy’s case, when to pound him just as hard as possible.

He had to remind himself from time to time that the two fillies he was harassing were not raw recruits. Even if they shared the temperament of many of the noble-born officer cadets who he had dealt with on more occasions than he cared to remember.

It was difficult because his current situation was a pretty close mirror in some ways to the first day of basic training. Put the fear of him into the recruits, and then run them till they puked. That would allow him to assess their potential with surprising accuracy. Until a few minutes ago Shadow would have classified the twins as likely pathetic washouts. His opinion was shifting. Their speed up to this point, their endurance despite a pandered upbringing, and most of all the sheer force of the spell they had cast on him showed real power and control. There was some serious potential there if it could be harnessed.

But, the twins were not recruits. They were two foolish fillies who had committed an indictable offense right in from of the princesses. Unless it could be demonstrated that they had been properly punished, Princess Celestia would have to take steps, and he knew how much she hated being forced into that position. For her sake, he was prepared to give it his all to both provide a valuable life lesson and suitable chastisement all in one. But he was suffering a bit of a quandary now.

Shadow Dash had not been entirely honest with Princess Celestia. While it was true his protective runes had grounded a great deal of the spell the twins had cast, the spell had been extraordinarily potent in more ways than one, and the twins had revealed themselves to have a surprisingly deep magic well. If they had been recruits, he would have recommended that the SMC, Special Magic Service, kept an eye on them, and would have made a note to the effect on their performance evaluation.

In short, he wasn’t. For the first time in twenty years his little soldier had left the guard post without orders. He knew he should bite the arrow and continue with the mission. If anything, his current state would just add to the twins terror. And they were responsible for it, after all, so he felt no guilt over scarring their delicate little minds. The whole purpose of this exercise was to teach them that actions had consequences. But he could not help but think that this was not how he had imagined his next encounter going with Applejack⁽¹⁾ He already had a strike, or two, against him from being a ruggedly handsome creature of the night. He didn’t want to add yet another reason for her to give him a wide berth. So, he hid in the shadows—like a coward—and watched as the twins galloped for the shelter of the Apple’s farmhouse.

⁽¹⁾Applejack might not currently be present, but Shadow Dash knew exactly how long that would last if he were to gallop out in the middle of Sweet Apple Acres in his current condition. A picosecond at the most.

***

Granny Smith was a prideful pony. Normally, having a pony who wasn’t family coming into her house and proceed to do all the cleaning, and a lot of the cooking, would have gotten her dander up something fierce. But somehow she just couldn’t work up a good snit in regards to Goose Down. It was clear as fine moonshine that the poor pony desperately needed to be needed. Goose was not the pony giving charity, it was Granny Smith who was giving the petite nocturne with the big assets a purpose. Plus, she listened raptly and without a single eye-roll to all of Granny’s stories.

“So, how is that fine stud of a brother of your’n getting along with that uppity tent?”

Goose paused in her dish drying, which was quite a sight with towels draped over both her forelegs and wingtips, going after the wet dishes like some terrycloth octopus on a mission. “I’m not sure. They both act like they despise each other, but I think they enjoy their quarrel a great deal.”

“He he,” Granny cackled. “I’ve known a few of that sort in my time. They ain’t happy unless they’re a feudin and a fightin. Why I recollect my great-nephew on my sister, Apple Betty’s side—”

Goose’s ear lifted and swiveled toward the door. She held up a hoof, cutting off Granny. Normally the deferential pony would never dream of interrupting an elder in mid-life-lesson, but what she was hearing sounded serious. “Somepony is coming, fast and, scared. Two of them.”

“Do I need my bat?” Granny Smith asked in all seriousness as she tried to leverage herself up out of her rocker with a grunt and then gave it up as a bad idea. She nodded toward her old softball bat that was gathering dust beside the door. “I reckon I still got what it takes to knock a few balls out of the park if need be.”

Goose cocked an ear, then shook her head as she gestured at herself. “Why would you need that bat, when you have this bat. Besides, from the sound of their panting and the way they run, I’m pretty sure they’re young mares.” Goose’s ears twitched, and she added. “Very out of shape mares.”

“That so? Well, if’n that be the case, maybe do that thing you do? With the lurking and the hiding? No need to go giving them fillies anymore of a fright then it sounds they already got.” Granny suggested.

Goose smiled, Granny gave her a grin back and then watched as Goose bounced halfway up the stairs, turned and, twisting her body in a way that made Granny’s back spasm just watching, jumped up into the stairwell, vanishing from sight.

Just in time, as the outside door slammed open. Two bedraggled and sweat-soaked unicorn fillies that Granny had seen running about Ponyville causing all sorts of trouble and strife, hurtled inside, and after slamming the door, used their magic to shove anything portable up against it. Exhausted and frightened, there was no subtlety to their magic. They were just grabbing anything in reach and basically hurling it at the door.

Despite her Goose early warning system, Granny was surprised enough that it wasn’t until her favorite rocker, with her in it, floated into the air that she said anything. “What in tarnation are you two flibbertigibbets doing?”

Speaking in eerie synchronicity the two mares answered with pauses to gasp for breath.
“We’re being chased by a rabid batpony!”
“He’s been chasing us for hours!”
“He’ll do terrible perverted things to us if he catches us!”
“For two days!”
“Maybe for four days. He was hit twice with the spell!”

Then in harmony so perfect their individual voices were indistinguishable, they pointed at each other and yelled, “It’s her fault!”

A sudden gust of wind swept through the house as if a door had suddenly been opened, or an agitated nocturne upstairs had partially unfurled her wings in shock.

“Settle down, girl. Settle down. If you can’t keep still, best git out.” There was total silence from upstairs and Granny nodded in approval.

The already panicked ponies became frantic as they fell to their knees and beseeched Granny.

“We can’t! If we go out he’ll get us for sure!”

“Please, we’ll do anything.”

“I wasn’t talking to you’uns. I was talking to the family haunt. Now, about this batpony you say is chasing. Old and crippled is he?”

“No! He’s a monster.”
“He’s huge!”
“No mare could possibly handle him.”

“And y’all say he’s been chasing you’uns for hours?”

“That’s right.
“For hours and hours.”

“Fiddle Faddle and balderdash. Ain't no batpony worth his name who wouldn’t catch you up in five minutes if he really wanted to.”

“Maybe it wasn’t hours,” Pearl, said uncertainly.

“We kept in the sunlight. Everypony knows batponies can’t stand the sun.” Tourmaline added.

Granny put a thoughtful look on her face as she stroked her chin with a hoof. Inside she was wondering what the hay was going on. The nonsense the two fillies were spouting didn’t make a lick of sense, particularly since she had once seen Goose Down basking in a sunbeam like a snoring cat. But, something had, sure as green apples turn red, scared the crabapples out of them.

“I have to tell you the truth. I’m suspicious as can be. Why was this so-called batpony chasing two skinny things like you when there are many a fine mare who’d be happy to have him fly through their window? The truth now. Old Granny will know if you fib. I ain’t so old I can’t take a switch to the two of you. Or maybe I’ll just kick you out the front door and let that there batpony you say is chasing you take care of the punishment.”

The twins were worn to a frazzle, mentally shattered by their circumstances. They had run away from the terrifying stallion, but deep in their hearts, they knew there was no running away from the consequences of their actions. All they needed was an excuse to express what had gone wrong with their lives. Even if it was to a crazy old earth pony.

“We just wanted Lady Trend Setter and Dame Tiffany Shade to stop teasing us!” Tourmaline blurted out, all trace of the haughty pony persona she had been projecting since coming to Ponyville absent.

“If we married the prince as mother wanted, they’d have to stop putting us down and insulting us every time we meet,” Pearl explained.

“We can’t help it if our daddy is richer than their daddies and they don’t like the way he talks.”

“We can’t help it that we’re not nobles.”

“We tried everything to fit in. We bought the fanciest clothes. Mother hired tutors to teach us how proper high society ponies talk and act, and who to talk to.”

“That’s right. Who you talk to and how you talk to them is as important as how you talk.”

“All we wanted to do was meet the prince. We were sure he’d fall for us.”

“But we couldn’t even get to see him.”

“Then we found that spell book.”

“Like, it just dropped into our laps.”

“It had to be fate.”

“All we had to do was cast the spell on him and let nature take its course. Once Tourmaline was pregnant he’d have to marry us.”

“Wait! After I’m pregnant? You’re the one who was going to, you know, do it. You’re the one who’d have the foal.”

“You have to be joking! I don’t know the first thing about stallions. How could I be the one? You’re the one who knows all about stallions and how to handle them.”

“I know about stallions?” Tourmaline shouted at her sister in shock. “You’re the one who knows all about that sort of thing!”

“I’m not the one who snuck off at the party and spent all that time in the closet with the stallion!”

“I did not! That stallion wanted me to, but I didn’t. The pink party pony rescued me from him and took me in the back to introduce me to the babies. They were the cutest little things. They reminded me of Babs when she was that age.”

The twins were so caught up in their argument that they totally missed the way Granny Smith’s eyes had narrowed or the dangerous glint that had appeared in them. “So you’uns were going to cast a spell on the prince?” She asked in a flat tone.

“It wouldn’t have hurt him. He’d have enjoyed it. Pearl—”

“You!” Tourmaline snapped out.

“As if! You’re the stallion crazy one. If only that blasted batpony hadn’t jumped in front of our spell you’d have a foal in your belly and we’d be set for life.”

Pearl looked like she was about to bite her sister’s ear off when the twin’s argument was interrupted.

“Y’all tried to cast a lust spell at my five year old great grandson!” Granny Smith said in a low dangerous tone that would have sent Big Mac and Applejack scrambling for the hills with their tails covering as much of their posteriors as possible. The old mare’s ears lay flat against her head and if she’d had fangs she gave the impression she would have been baring them.

“No!”
“We’d never!”
“How can you think we’d target a foal!”
“We never even mentioned a foal.”
“The spell had a safety.”
“It can’t affect a foal.”
“Well, not much, maybe.”
“So even if a foal had been in the line of fire.”
“They wouldn’t have been affected.”
“Maybe.”
“But no foal was.”
“We wouldn’t have risked it.”
“Even with the safeties.”

Granny’s ears lifted, a very little bit. In all honesty, if the twins had aimed their spell at Big Mac she would have been more amused than outraged. They’d hardly have been the first mare to go to extreme measures to try to lure him into the hayloft. But they hadn’t, they had targeted her innocent, if not so little, great-grandson. So her anger only moderated slightly at the revelation that the two fillies had not been so callous as to knowingly cast such a spell on a foal too young to understand.

“Y’all aimed it at Prince Jake Apple. My great-grandson. Who’s only five years old.” Granny growled. “He’s way big for his age,” she added out of a sense of honesty, fairness, and family pride.

***

Both Pearl and Tourmaline felt a moment of increased panic, hard as it was to believe. Both of them were perfectly aware how every single villager had told them that the prince was living on a farm. They dismissed the thought in perfect tandem, moving onto the next point. There was no way the prince they had tracked all day long was only five years old. His immature behavior was clearly him humoring the tiny foal who had accompanied him all day. They had often done the same thing when playing with infants, before they’d become sophisticated enough to understand how uncool it was. The crazy old lady was just trying to frighten them and make them feel guilty. After being chased for miles and miles by a lust-crazed batpony it would take a lot more than some wrinkly old earth pony to scare them.

***

As if she had read their minds, Granny Smith spoke up just as the twins were mutually coming to the conclusion that they had nothing to fear from her. “Course, I can understand how mares can get all heated up over a handsome stallion. So I don’t hold it agin you. Now she might feel a bit different.” Granny gestured upward with a hoof.

Both of the unicorns looked over at Granny Smith, and they followed the direction of her pointed hoof. Their eyes widened as they spotted the batpony clinging to the ceiling just above their heads.

In a flat tone that was no less deadly for it, the pony with the glowing golden eyes hissed. “My name is Goose Down. You spelled my brother. Prepare to die.”

Subtlety went out the window, and so did the twins, along with a good chunk of the window frame, and several items too close to their mutual blasting spell. Bits of the farmhouse shot out into the yard as if propelled by Pinkie Pie's biggest party cannon. The debris had not even finished falling to the ground before the twins rocketed out of the house in a colorful streak, complete with screams fading away into the fields.

Goose’s wings unfurled slightly as she prepared to give chase.

“Hold up!”

Goose looked over at Granny, with an unusual for her, mulish look.

“You’ve given them there fillies a good scare, and I ain’t saying they don’t deserve more, but I got an important job for you.”

“It’s not enough. They would have cast a spell on the prince if Big Brother hadn’t been there to stop them. They need to pay.”

“That as well may be. I know it’s past your bedtime, but I’d surely appreciate it if you’d trot out to the north forty and ask Big Mac if he’d run on in. Don’t go telling him why. No point in getting the colt all het up before it’s needed.”

Goose glared at the hole in the house’s wall. Then turned her eyes back to Granny Smith and took a long, deep breath. “Are you sure?”

“At my age, I’m always sure.” Granny cackled. “I might not be right. But I’m always sure. Now go on, git. Them two will wait. Ain’t like there any place they can run that somepony can’t ketch them. Not if they did what they said they did. Trust this old creaky mare. They ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“Of course, Granny. I’ll go out the back door.” She had barely snatched her broad sombrero from the stand in the hallway before Granny stopped her with a question.

“Prepare to die?” Granny asked with a quirk of one hairy grey eyebrow.

“Too much? It’s from a story about pirates and princesses that Curry has been telling us. It is great fun.”

“You don’t seem to be too upset at them casting a spell on your brother?”

“Pfft! Those lightweights. Big Brother would have them for lunch if he wanted.” Goose said with the unshakable confidence of an adoring little sister. “Besides, Big Brother would never… um…” Sweat beaded on Goose’s forehead and her cheeks took on a rosy glow. “I mean he’s not the kind of stallion who… um… I don’t think he’s ever… I’ll just go get and get Big Mac now I think.”

There was a swirl of air and Goose was gone. And a moment later Goose was back, looking abashed. “I’m sorry about the window. I’ll fix it as soon as I’m able.” Then she was gone again, this time for real.

***

Pearl and Tourmaline’s first inclination was to head for the tree line, but then they remembered that there was a batpony lurking in the brush, just waiting to pounce. Their next thought was the barn, but if there were batponies in the farmhouse, there was no assurance that there would not be a whole colony of them in the barn. They looked around frantically and spotted a large haystack. Having read many a tale in which the heroine had sought refuge in one of those, they broke into a dead run toward it. They’d lay low until nightfall, and then under cover of darkness, make their way back to town. It never occurred to them that for every novel where the heroine hides out successfully in a haystack, there were a dozen where said haystack became a romantic hideaway for illicit love.

Of course, if the Twin’s ever stopped to think about the logical inconsistencies of their course of actions, they would not currently be fleeing from Nocturne ponies that considered the night their domain. Despite their frantic fleeing, they continued to bicker even while running as fast as their hooves would carry them. Though with a certain breathlessness to their voices, not to mention weezing and the occasional gasping for air.

“Why was there a batpony in the farmhouse?”

“How the buck would I know, Tourmaline?”

“You don’t suppose that the prince really lives there and he was a guard pony, Pearl?”

“It was a mare, not a stallion. So no, she can't be. Everypony knows that the batponies don’t let their mares out in public. There’s no way she was a guard. Now shut up and run. We have to get under cover before all those real royal guards that were with the princesses get here.”

“Why were the princesses there, anyway?”

“For bucks sake, Tourmaline. Why do you keep asking me? I don’t know! A clandestine meeting away from the town. You heard the rumors that the prince is Princess Luna’s secret son the same as I did. Now shut it, or hiding in that haystack isn’t going to do us any good.”

“Pearl. I don’t think that’s a haystack.”

Grabbing her sister in her magic when it looked like Tourmaline was about to balk at diving into the sheltering mound of hay, Pearl dove forward dragging her twin behind her even as she split her magic to make a hole in front of them.

***

“Impressive use of her magic given their state of mind. It is a rare unicorn who can cast that well when under such duress.” Princess Celestia observed from within the sheltering shade at the edge of one of the farm’s orchards, along with numerous other ponies including her sister. Twilight was far too occupied with her newest ‘precious’ to pay any attention to anything else.

‘Indeed, sister. It is a pity their morals are so lacking.”

“Do you wish us to retrieve them, Your Highnesses?” the guard in charge of the detachment that had accompanied the two sisters asked.

“You really don’t want to do that,” a voice said from the vicinity of Luna’s knees.

Curry seconded the remark with a smirk. “Yeah, trust us. Scootaloo knows what she’s talking about from first-hand experience.”

“And why is that, my little ponies?” Celestia asked the snipe and pegasus pony, who along with their friends had worked their way to the front of the crowd so they’d have a good view of the action. Scootaloo was a bit disappointed that Shadow Dash had vanished from the scene. She’d been looking forward to seeing him give the two bullies their just desserts.

Just then there was a terrible shriek from the direction of the mound the twins had disappeared into. Once again the two fillies burst out of their place of concealment as if rocket-propelled. This time they were covered in muck and mire of a very organic nature.

“Cause that ain’t no haystack,” Curry Comb offered unnecessarily. “It’s used hay from the pigpens. Those two are going to need a real good hose down before I get anywhere near them with a brush.”

“Sergeant. I think this sideshow has gone on long enough. If you and your men could round up our wayward ponies and get them cleaned up before bringing them before us it would be appreciated.”

“So soon, Sister? They have not yet tried to hide in the pigpen itself.”

“After a certain amount of time, comedy becomes pathos, Luna. I find myself disinclined to feel sympathy for those two.”

Luna gestured toward the field. “I think, sister, as the saying goes, that ship has sailed.”

The twins were kneeling on the ground in a posture of complete surrender. They had their forelegs wrapped around each other’s neck. Their attitude seemed to indicate that they expected the world to fall on them at any moment, and there was nothing that they could do to avoid or withstand it.

The same could not be said for the young filly standing between them and the royal guards who were attempting to approach the pair. She had a fallen branch clenched between her teeth and she was brandishing it at any guard who got too close. As all of them were pegasus, any option other than physically laying hooves on the crazy foal was off the table. From the looks being exchanged and the general demeanor of said guards, it was clear that none of them wanted to be the big strong stallion who subdued the brave, if foolish, filly.

“What? Oh, me! As if this situation was not already troubling enough.”

Apple Bloom reared up in an effort to see what was going on. Her jaw dropped as she cried out, “Is that Babs? It is Babs! What is she doing?”

“You still want to handle this, sister?” Luna asked Celestia with a teasing tone.

“I think I will let Ponyville’s princess handle it, sister. You did tell me you had gained that title did you not? Far be it for me to usurp your prerogative.”

Showing that a smart mouth in no way indicated wisdom, Curry could not help but chime in. “Wow, those are some right fancy words. Do they mean it’s up to Princess Luna to beat up a little filly because the guards can’t handle her?”

A dead silence followed Curry’s words. She looked around and saw every pony in earshot looking at her with an incredulous expression. She started to think that butting into the middle of a conversation between the two princesses might not have been a good idea.

The only exception to the general disbelief were the two princesses themselves. Luna looked over at Celestia and remarked. “Sister, a thought occurs to me. While it is unequivocally true, as stated in the Ponyville Free Press, that I am Ponyville’s princess, it is also true that I am not a full-time resident.”

“I think I understand. Maybe it would be best if the princess who is a full-time resident and is familiar to the filly in question, were to step in and handle the matter. Wouldn’t you say so, Princess Moonlight Dancing On Water?”

“What? Who? Me?”

“I know you can handle it, Curry,” Celestia stepped forward and enveloped Curry in a warm wing hug while she whispered a few words of assurance into her ears before stepping back.

Apple Bloom shoved Curry slightly to the side as she stepped up beside her. “She’ll be happy to help.”

“And us Royal Guards in training will be happy to accompany her,” Scootaloo chimed in as she nudged Sweetie Belle forward to join Apple Bloom and Curry.

Curry didn’t really mind being given the task. In fact, she’d been fighting the urge to dash out onto the field and get into the excitement. The words Princess Celestia had whispered into her ear only made her more eager. But as a kid, she had a duty to act put-upon when given an unexpected job by an adult. Still, no pony was fooled by her long sigh and slumped shoulders as stepped out of the crowd toward Babs. She had only taken a few steps however, when she turned and asked, “You want to come, Silver Spoon?”

Author's Note

Tek suggested this exemplifies Shadow Dash's personality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4XkP-wT3xI

If you enjoyed Jake and the Kid and it brought you here, think about giving it a like if you haven't already. I'd really love to get it featured. And of course, likes for How to Train Your Batpony will be a huge motivator to keep my hoofs to the grindstone and churn out lots more material.

Chapter 15 How not to marry a Prince, part seven

How to Train Your Batpony, ch15

Or:

How not to marry a prince, part seven

“You want to come, Silver Spoon?”

Those words caused waves of anxiety to wash through the pony in question.

Silver Spoon had been in shock, her body numb, ever since she’d realized that the Twins had used the book she had provided them, inadvertently, to cast a dangerous spell at Prince Jake. There was no hiding the fact they had done it, or that she had supplied the means. Besides herself, there had been a huge crowd of witnesses, including the princesses. As she watched the twins’ tribulations and listened to the shocking comments, she knew it was only a matter of time till the snipe or one of the blank flanks revealed her part in the disaster.

That is why, when Curry Comb called out to her, an icy claw ran up her spine, and her belly threatened to rebel right there in front of the princesses and everypony else. This was it, this was where her involvement was exposed and she joined the twins in whatever punishment they were to receive. Then her mind processed Curry’s words. “You want me to come with you?” she asked as she tried to figure out the trap. Did the fiendish creature think she’d join that idiotic blank flank in facing down the royal guards? What in Equestria did that silly out of towner think she was doing anyway?

“Well yeah. According to Di, you’ve got friendly with them. I’m thinking they could use a familiar face. Might stop them from panicking and hurting themselves more than they already have.”

Silver Spoon winced and tried to draw into herself as the snipe blatantly broadcast her relationship with the twins to everypony in hearing distance. Why didn’t she have Pinkie throw a party while she was at it?

“How about you big dark and lurking? Are you coming.” The snipe asked, staring up into one of the trees. Silver Spoon had no idea why, until a deep gravelly voice replied.

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that. I do have a reputation you know, and you’re spoiling it.”

“I’m afraid the drill instructor is unable to accompany you, Curry. He is feeling a bit stiff at the moment,” Princess Luna told the impossible creature, chuckling at her own wit as she did so.

Currie nodded in understanding. “Yeah, not surprised. An old pony like him trying to keep up with two young mares. I’m not surprised he’s all stiff and sore.”

There was a strangled sound from the tree above them, and several of the pegasus guards recently graduated from training, hid their smirking muzzles behind their wingtips.

If Silver Spoon hadn’t been terrified out of her mind, she might have rolled her eyes at Princess Luna’s dad joke. Humor that seemed to fly right over the head of the stupid snipe who clearly had no understanding of what either the princess or herself had said.

“Go on, Silver Spoon,” Diamond Tiara hissed in her ear. “This is your chance to shine in front of the princesses.”

Silver Spoon would have given her friend an incredulous look, but again, terrified beyond all rational thought. Her legs seem to move on their own as her best friend nudged her rump with her shoulder and urged her to step forward. Unable to stop herself, or voice any sort of denial, she found herself walking out into the field and toward the ridiculous scene in front of her. The silly blank flank from Manehatten was whirling in place. The large chunk of wood between her teeth had to weigh nearly as much as she did so it was hard to say which was spinning whom. From this distance, Silver Spoon could see that her eyes were closed. What she hoped to accomplish was beyond comprehension. All she was doing was making a ridiculous spectacle of herself. She had expected better from a pony who was a resident of the most sophisticated city in Equestria. If she hadn’t already known it, this alone would have made it clear that the crop-tailed filly was an Apple.

The only scant comfort Silver Spoon had was that Diamond Tiara had not abandoned her after shoving her into the middle of this disaster. She was walking right next to her as the stupid snipe strolled toward the royal guards as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Which is why it was such a surprise when the weird little creature whispered in a voice just loud enough for their small group to hear. “I am so glad that you were there for us, Di. If you hadn’t taken that book, it might have been me and Sweetie Belle laying in the field covered in muck waiting to be arrested. And who knows how many ponies we might have hurt before that.”

Sweetie Belle stumbled as a horrified expression appeared on her face. At the same time, Diamond Tiara seemed to grow an inch or two as she stood up straight with her head high and her ears perked up. Silver Spoon wanted to yell at her to not fall for the creature’s tricks and empty flattery, but the weight of all the eyes on her depressed her normal arrogance and self-confidence and kept her silent even as she burned with frustration internally.

Their group paused just outside the ring of guards that circled the twins and the blank flank. One of the guards turned his head to look at them, an eyebrow quirked in inquiry as he glanced over their heads toward the princesses. Whatever he saw seemed to reassure him because, much to Silver Spoon discontent, he didn’t order them away. He even addressed the creature as if she were the pony in charge and not some freak. “What can I do for you, Princess Moonlight?”

Before the snipe could deliver whatever ridiculous explanation she had in mind, Scootaloo stepped forward. Snapping off a sharp crisp wing salute to her fellow pegasus she said, “Assistant Trainee Royal Guard Scootaloo, sir. On orders from Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Princess Moonlight will handle this.”

The guard seemed both amused and relieved as he addressed his fellow guards. “Fall back, soldiers. Let Princess Moonlight handle this.”

Silver Spoon could not help but notice that the snipe flinched every time she was addressed as Princess Moonlight. She wasn’t surprised. There was no way that deformed creature was a real princess. And what sort of a name was, Moonlight Dancing on Water? Something so pretentious had to be fake.

Giving out a huge sigh, the snipe approached to about four pony lengths from the whirling foal. Silver Spoon had been looking forward to seeing the scrawny creature jump around like a bug as she tried to avoid the blindly bashing blank flank. Only, instead of that, the snipe settled down onto the ground for all the world like she was at a picnic, crossing her ungainly long stick like lower limbs as she did so. “So, Apple Bloom. Any idea what’s gotten into Babs? I would have thought she’d be using that club on the twins, not protecting them with it.”

Looking puzzled, but apparently willing to follow the snipe’s lead, more fool her, the farm pony sat down next to her. “Danged if I know. Last I knew, she didn’t want to get within a country mile of those two.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want the royal guard taking them prisoner before she has a chance to mess them up?” Scootaloo suggested in a questioning tone.

Silver Spoon had to break in. “The twins aren’t monsters. They are the highest of high society. I’m sure the blank flank had her feelings hurt because they treated her like the low-class pony she is. That is hardly their fault.”

“Yes, it is!” Came an angry shout. Silver Spoon realized that at some point during the conversation the Manehatten blank flank had stopped her blind thrashing about and dropped her silly weapon.

“They’ve been acting like total jerks! They never say anything nice about any other pony except for their stupid friends, who laugh at them behind their backs. When that stupid unicorn Cartier called me a dirty little earth pony, they laughed and told me to go find a mud puddle to play in!”

Silver Spoon rolled her eyes as the silly filly ranted. She wasn’t even talking to any of them anymore, she was just yelling at the world in general. But, even as she watched her fellow earth pony make a fool of herself, she couldn’t help but think about how dismissive the twins had been about everypony in Ponyville they met. Except herself of course. They were happy that she was there to act as a buffer between them and the townsponies. They even had a pet name for her, Pewter. But, there was no denying that they had little time for the common pony in the street. Well, why should they? If they paid attention to every pony who fawned over them they’d have no time for themselves.

“See. I told you that she just wanted to save them so she could whomp them herself,” Scootaloo spoke over the fools ranting.

“I do not! I just… I don’t…”

The snipe spoke up, putting words in Babs’ mouth. “You remember what they used to be like. You thought they were your friends and you wish they still were. You don’t want to say it because they hurt you so bad and you think you should hate them.”

All eyes snapped over to where Curry was sitting on the ground, stroking her chin with her spider-like paw. It made Silver Spoon shudder just looking at the pale wiggly thing.

Babs sputtered out a protest, “What? Of course not! How can you say that?”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you mad. I was just trying to figure out why you were acting like you’d gotten into the locoweed. Seemed the best bet. You used to be friends, right?”

The filly didn’t look like she wanted to say anything, then she glanced over at the twins, who hadn’t even looked in their direction, or even moved, other than their heaving sides, for that matter. “They used to look after me while my mom was busy with their father. They played games and took me for walks and read to me. I thought we were friends. But then their real friends started laughing at their pet earth pony. And then they started teasing and laughing at me too, and playing mean pranks on me in front of their friends, and then even when their friends weren’t there.”

The snipe winced. “Yeah. I was going to say I knew someone I thought was a friend, but he turned out to be a low down skunk, and it really hurt something awful, but I still wanted to go back to the way it had been. But he weren’t nearly as bad as these two. He might have been a polecat, but I knew he’d never really hurt Jake. Never hurt any pony for that matter.”

Apple Bloom gave Curry a questioning look. “Why ain’t you getting into the line to whomp them your ownself? I know I would purely love to get a few licks in after they almost put a spell on Jake.”

Silver Spoon had been wondering that herself. Why hadn’t the vicious little monster taken revenge on the twins for daring to target her protege? Her eyes suddenly widened as realization struck her. The little monster didn’t have to take her vengeance because she already had. All the trials and tribulations the poor twins had suffered were the results of the vindictive snipe cursing them with bad luck.

Curry shrugged her shoulders as she answered Apple Bloom. “Well, that’s just silly. They didn’t hurt no pony worse than themselves. I just mostly feel sorry for them, I guess. Silver Spoon?”

Silver jerked at being addressed by the creature she now knew was far more dangerous than she had previously thought. She looked at the snipe in dread. What was she going to ask of her?

“Now that barbarian Babs has settled down, you want to see to yer friends?” the snipe suggested.

Silver Spoon fumed at the blatant manipulation of the cursed creature. The very last thing she wanted to do was to take suggestions from the snipe. That was how the fiendish creature had lured poor Diamond Tiara into her clutches. But there was no arguing with the fact that the twins badly needed help and a friend. And, just maybe, the wicked creature telling Silver Spoon to help meant that she had gotten her fill of their misery? Or did it mean that she wanted to get all three of them together in one easily targeted group?

“Oh, and you’d better mention to them that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna ain’t falling for their act. So they can stop pretending.” The snipe’s voice had risen above her earlier quiet tone, and Silver Spoon saw the twin’s ears, which had been laying flat, twitch upward and swivel to catch every word. Perhaps the most disquieting thing was how their blank staring eyes suddenly became aware.

Silver Spoon looked at the snipe in renewed fear as she realized just how perceptive the creature was. The snipe had to be aware of just how deeply Silver despised her. And how determined Silver Spoon was to break her hold on Diamond Tiara. Was it only a matter of time before the snipe targeted her?

***

“I don’t know if I should be appalled, or impressed, with those two,” Celestia said quietly to her sister.

“Did thou not already suspect when you sent Curry?”

“Not really, no. Suggesting she call them on their subterfuge was merely a shot in the dark. Covering all the bases as it were.”

Out of the blue Luna suddenly announced, “I want them, sister!”

“I beg your pardon, Luna!”

Luna ignored her sister as she addressed the shadows above them. “Shadow Dash! Your assessment if you will. Do they have potential?”

“As positive or negative examples? ”There was a brief pause, then Shadow Dash continued slowly as if carefully choosing his words with care. “They certainly seem to have a lot of potential. I’m just not certain which way they’re going to bounce when dropped. They could wind up some of the most influential ponies of their time, but I’m just not sure how that influence will play out. If you allow them to skate free of their actions now, you could end up creating a serious next generation problem. But you already know that, Highness. I assume we are both considering the same solution if you are asking me my opinion.”

Celestia looked gravel. “Is the risk worth it?”

“I simply don’t know them well enough,” Shadow Dash growled. “ Right now I’d say I’ve seen recruits just as messed up as them who became fine guards, but I’ve seen others who were nowhere near as bad, who ended up getting banished, and good riddance to bad rubbish. But, having said all that, there is no better way to discover what a pony is made of then to put them through basic training.”

Luna interjected. “You can not fool me, sister. Even now I can see your mind struggling to find some way to punish them, while at the same time turning them into productive ponies you can take pride in.”

Celestia sighed in resignation. “I can only argue with the ‘you’ part of your statement. Rather I would say, that ‘we’ can take pride in. You know me too well, Luna. Very well, you may have them.”

“Huzzah! This shall be so much fun!”

***

Out in the field, the twins felt an icy shiver run up and down their spines. And it had nothing to do with the cold cloying muck that coated their formerly pristine coats and pulled at their hides with every twitch of their muscles. Bad enough to be under the eye of the princesses for inappropriate behavior, but to look like they’d just finished rolling around in filth on top of that was beyond humiliating. They just gave thanks that there were no camera or press nearby. The newspaper editors in Canterlot would give up their first born for a picture of them in this condition.

A sudden flash of light announced the presence of a small spindly pegasus foal floating overhead with a camera nearly as big as he was.

If they had not been afraid of smearing even more unmentionable muck over their faces, and maybe getting some of it in their mouths, the twins would have face-hoofed.

In the midst of their mutual misery the twins became aware of their maidservant attempting to coerce them up and onto their hooves.

“Please, you have to get up and go to the princesses,” the silly maid pled.

That was ridiculous. They didn’t have to do anything. Least of all something a mere maid had suggested. They were the Tower Twins. They didn’t do anything they didn’t want to do. A sudden whip-crack caused the twin’s ears to twitch and swivel in the direction of the shockingly loud sound, but it was what followed that truly motivated them.

“Ow!” Pearl let out a startled whinny and jumped to her hooves as a lash of fire seared across her rump. Tourmaline was right behind her as she let out her own cry of startled pain. Both ponies twisted to look at their abused cutie marks, expecting to see a livid welt it hurt so much, but their cutie marks were concealed under a layer of muck, and the only evidence to be seen was a long depression in the disgusting stuff. The lack of visible physical trauma somehow made the pain seem even worse.

Whirling in place they both spotted the weird creature they had seen here and there in Ponyville, and who had just recently approached them along with the maid and a bunch of other locals. The creature that had called them out on their mostly, pretend distress. She was spinning a length of rope in one of her paws while a coil of the same rope was held in her other strangely shaped claws. They both realized simultaneously that the spinning rope and this creature were responsible for their painful posteriors.

“Why you little monster,” Tourmaline snarled as she set herself to charge the creature, only to rear back when the tail end of the rope snapped in front of her muzzle with a loud crack.

Lashing the rope from one side to the other the creature produced a steady stream of cracks as she advanced on them. They backed nervously away, their eyes never leaving the spinning blur or rope.

“Stop! You can’t do this to the Tower Twins. Don’t you know who they are?” Pearl and Tourmaline blinked in surprise at their local maid jumped in front of them and faced down the creature.

“I know they’re the ponies who attacked Jake in front of the princesses. I know that the longer they run away the angrier the princesses are going to get. I know if I have to I’ll wrap a rope around each of their pretty necks and have the guards drag them in front of the princesses.” The creature answered back with a low, but very intense and angry, tone.

“No, you won’t,” Pearl snarled as she reached out with her magic to grab the twirling rope and dragged it toward her. Her eyes went wide with shock and horror as the evil thing simply pulled the rope out of her magic as if it wasn’t even there.

***

Princess Luna arched a surprised eyebrow. “Now that is interesting.”

Rarity offered, “It’s not the first time she’s done something like that. She has pulled things out of my magic on several occasions.”

“Even more interesting,” Princess Celestia remarked.

Celestia turned to ask Twilight for her opinion and let the words go unsaid. Twilight was fully engrossed in Starswirl’s student journal. The princess knew the expression Twilight was currently sporting all too well. Catching her attention and explaining why she had done so would be far more trouble than it was worth as many a prior experience had taught her. Unless there was some overriding need to do so, it was best to just let Twilight’s current obsession run its course.

***

Showing great daring, and an atypical disregard for her personal appearance, Silver Spoon rushed forward even as the twins continued to try and yank Curry’s rope away from her. Wrapping her legs around Pearl’s neck, while her entire body shivered in loathing at being smeared with the muck covering the high-society pony, she hissed into the rich filly’s ear. “You have to surrender. She’s already used her magic to punish you for trying to cast a spell on Prince Jake. If you don’t stop resisting she might turn you and your sister into lizards or something worse.”

Tourmaline was close enough to hear Silver Spoon, and she and her sister turned despair-filled eyes toward her. “But we can’t. Look at us. How can we go in front of the princess looking like this?”

The rope whirling in Curry’s hand slowed and then went limp as she looked at the two muck covered fillies in consternation. “You mean the only reason you two was playing possum, and refusing to surrender was because you didn’t want to stand in front of the princesses looking like you was drawn through a knothole backward?”

Curry’s tone of voice added the unspoken. You idiots.

Author's Note

and we come down to the finish line. Only one last, big double sized chapter left after this one to draw this story arc to a conclusion and free me up to try and get back to the basics of a girl and her batpony.

Chapter 16 How not to marry a Prince, finished

How to Train Your Batpony, ch9

Or:

How not to marry a prince.

“You’re first, Silver Spoon,” Curry announced as she stood inside the Apple’s barn with a hose in her hand.

Tourmaline and her sister protested. “Wait! What? We should be first in line.”

“Yes, they should go first,” Silver Spoon agreed, even as she struggled to avoid touching any part of her body with any other part. All while wrinkling her muzzle tight in an effort to block out the smell wafting from her hide.

“Bullcrap! And I don’t mean the stuff smeared all over you. They got that way running away after doing something bad. You got this way trying to help them. Far as I’m concerned, you come first, and I ain’t backing down.”

Curry was well aware that any of the ponies in the barn could stomp her into the dirt if they were so inclined. But she was darned if she’d back off or show any fear. Caution, of course, was another matter. She’d never let herself forget how fragile she was compared to the much heavier ponies. So when she grabbed Silver Spoon by the mane and pulled, she was using more moral suasion than strength as she steered the pony toward the shower area, she was careful as to where she stood in relations to the filly and made sure to not cause any actual pain that would make Silver lash out. She had the moral high ground here, and she needed to act like it. And she wasn’t in the least reluctant about using Silver Spoon’s wariness about her against the pony, or her heartfelt desire to get the muck off of herself, for that matter. And there was meaning behind her madness. Silver Spoon might not like her, but she knew her. The twins on the other hand. Well, the twins needed to see her in action before she got as close to them as washing their muck incrusted hides required.

Despite her outward appearance of brash confidence, Curry was glad she had her guards keeping a close eye on things to make sure no pony got out of line, and that the genuine for real royal guards were just outside the barn door, only a hoot and holler away. Mind you, the nocturne pony hiding up above them among the roof beams did wonders for her confidence as well.

In a very short amount of time, Curry had the snooty earth pony lathered up and was using a short-bristled brush to work the lightly apple-scented – what else – body wash deep into Silver Spoon’s hide and mane. The young mare gave a low moan of thankfulness as Curry’s strong hands dug through her mane and her fingers winnowed out the muck. Silver Spoon pressed into the pressure, and then gave a shiver and jerked back slightly as if she just realized what she was doing. But it wasn’t long before she began to press against Curry’s hands again. And this time she didn’t pull away after a few seconds.

As usual, Curry found the work of cleaning a pony went far faster here in Equestria than it ever had at home. The soap she was using had to be magical, or just way better than the stuff she had at home because the dirt sloughed off of Silver Spoon’s hide as if her hair was made of Teflon. The tangles in her mane and tail likewise were unusually cooperative and seemed to straighten and untangle by themselves. It was barely fifteen minutes before Curry was able to rinse down the pony and dry her off with some of the big fluffy towels that Big Mac and Applejack had taken to leaving in the barn. When Curry was finished she whipped the towels away and stepped back to revealed Silver Spoon’s sparkling clean hide and neatly groomed tail and mane to the watching ponies. Which unexpectedly suddenly grew by one as Jake stumbled into the barn. His wings were cupped around in front of him so the primary feathers covered his eyes. “Curry? Are you here?”

Curry looked at her best friend and little brother in surprise as she shooed Silver Spoon, indicating she should leave the wash-up area. “Jake, what are you doing in here?”

Silver Spoon, now that she was clean and pleasant smelling, was disinclined to follow any directions from Curry and resisted being shoved around.

Diamond Tiara, on the other hoof, darted forward and dragged Silver Spoon out of the shower area by her tail. “Prince Jake!” she admonished him in a mumbling voice. “You know you shouldn’t walk in on a filly when she bathing.”

“I’m not peeking, Di. Honestly. Princess Luna said because I’m a prince I had to come up with a punishment for the ponies who egrashially attacked me.”

“Do you mean, egregiously, Jake?” Sweetie Belle asked with a wrinkled forehead as she parsed Jake’s words and made the best suggestion she could think of.

“What you said,” Jake agreed with equanimity.

“Uh huh, and what did you come up with?” Curry asked as she gestured at the two muddy messes, identifiable as unicorns only by the horn poking out on top, and managed to get one of the twins to hesitantly step forward under the pouring water. It was going to be impossible to tell which one she was rinsing until a good layer of the mud could be washed off. And it had nothing to do with them being twins. In the same condition, Curry would have had a hard time telling the difference between Pinkie Pie and Applejack.

In a tentative voice, Jake suggested, “Do you think two weeks without apples is too nasty?” He shuffled his hooves in the dust and then asked, “Is that too much? Should I only make it one week? Or maybe a day, a day sounds fair. Is a day too much?”

Curry shook her head as she hosed down what she was finally able to identify as Pearl when the pony’s cutie mark was revealed. “I think two weeks without apples is perfectly fair. Is that the only punishment they are going to get?” Her tone of voice implied that it had better not be.

“I don’t know. Princess Luna said that once I had punished them, she’d make sure they stayed good.”

“Ooohhh, sucks to be you two,” Curry told the twins, unable to resist twisting the knife. The pair of ponies looked like they wanted to collapse to their knees once more.

Having rinsed off as much loose muck as she could, Curry used her hands and the back of the brush to remove all the larger clumps.⁽¹⁾ She ignored the way Pearl’s hide twitched under her hands, or the way her head tossed and her eyes rolled. She didn’t ignore the pony’s nervous shuffling hooves and made sure her feet were never underneath one of those toe stompers. Rarity’s magic on her moccasins had to have some limits and Curry was not of a mind to test what they were.

Once Curry had rubbed a half a jug of apple-scented soap into Pearl’s hide and started working it in with her fingers, the pony’s nervous twitches subsided greatly, and eventually, things reached the point that she was leaning into Curry’s fingers like Silver Spoon had before her.

⁽¹⁾A couple of years of grooming the horses on her world, not to mention shoveling out stalls and raking barnyards had left Curry pretty much desensitized to plain old manure. It was just a different type of dirt to her. She just had to remember not to bite her nails afterward. She was never going to make that mistake again.

It was only when Curry shifted around to the other side of Pearl that she noticed that Jake had not yet left the barn and was still nervously shuffling his hooves. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion at this highly telling behavior. No matter what Di might say on the subject, there was no way he was trying to peek, so it had to be for some other reason. “Something else you need to say, Jake?”

“Your mom told me, to tell you, ‘you’retooyoungtogetmarried’.”

Curry's hands automatically continued kneading the soap into Pearl’s hide while she mentally translated Jake’s verbal bomb. It took about three seconds. “What! Where the buck did that come from?” She then hastily looked around for any adults. “You didn’t hear me say that! And I don’t want to ever hear you say that,” she told Jake firmly.

A whimper from Pearl drew her attention to the fact that her fingers were tightly entwined in the pony’s mane. “Sorry,” she apologized as she carefully freed herself from the tangles while giving Jake a look that demanded more information.

“Have you been eating strange plants again, Jake?”

“Nope, nope, nope,” Jake shook his head in denial. “The Woosher said you agreed to marry him, and your mom said you were too young and you couldn’t.”

“Who the bu— heck, is The Woosher?”

“He’s a funny pony. I met when everypony ran off after Shadow Dash. He talks funny..” There was a hint of accusation in Jake’s tone as he gave Curry a reproachful look. “You never said you was getting married.”

Curry ignored the ridiculous remark and focused on keeping Jake on topic. “And he said I agreed to marry him?”

“Yep, at the train station.”

If her hands had not been covered in soapy muck Curry would have facepalmed. “He’s pulling your leg, Jake. He was trying to tease me and I called him on it.”

“Uh, uh,” Jake shook his head vigorously in denial. “The pony who doesn’t wear fancy pants told your mom that The Woosher was sorry he didn’t ask her first before asking you.”

“Hold on, hold on. The pony who doesn’t wear fancy pants? Do you mean Fancy Pants? He was there too? And that spavined swaybacked glue factory candidate wanted to ask Mom to marry him! No way, no how!”

“No!” As much of Jake’s face as was visible behind his wings looked frustrated at Curry’s dumbness. “He was supposed to ask your mom if he could marry you. That’s right, that’s what I meant. The Woosher was afeard because his mean old aunt told him he’d be cut off if he didn’t marry you. He really, really, didn’t want to get cut off.”

Pearl let out a snort and muttered, “No surprise,” and then flinched away from Curry as if expecting consequences for speaking out of turn.

“You know, The Woosher?” Curry asked, wondering if the stallion was in cahoots with Pearl and her sister.

Instead of Pearl, Tourmaline answered, in a surprisingly deferential voice. The way she was looking at her mostly clean sister with envy helped explain her suddenly meek behavior. Very clearly she was not going to do anything that jeopardized her access to the wash area. “His name is Wooshter, not The Woosher. And no, we never met him. But we heard about him. He belongs to the same stallion club as our daddy. Daddy said he was the single greatest example in Equestria of why gelding is necessary.”

Curry’s mind flashed back in time to the train platform and the clumsy gangly cute stallion, with the little tuft of mane that stood straight up on the back of his neck, who she had barely noticed until he had asked her to marry him out of the blue. Thanks to a little mental editing, what she had taken for teasing now looked a lot like the act of a desperate stallion frantically trying to stay a stallion. And just like that, she knew she had to save him. Forgotten were her disparaging words and suspicions of just a few seconds earlier.

Of course, she couldn’t marry a horse. That was a bad joke. She was too young.⁽¹⁾ But, she had two mares here who were in deep, deep, doo doo. “So, I guess if I could get you out of trouble with Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, you’d be willing to do just about anything,” she asked the twins with a smile that caused their manes to stand up straight as a shiver ran down their backs. Well, Pearl’s stood up. It would have taken a crane to lift Tourmaline’s matted mane.

⁽¹⁾Curry’s background left her more familiar that most girls her age in regards of the mechanism of breeding, but being raised by a confirmed bachelor had left her pretty much ignorant of certain details of the state of matrimony.

***

Pearl was hustled out of the cleanup area to make room for an eager Tourmaline, who practically hip checked her sister out of the way as she rushed into the shower area. The now clean, if not fully groomed and dried, pony stopped at the edge of the rough-tiled area and said in a soft voice that contained equal amounts disbelief mixed with mild nausea.“You can’t expect us to believe he’s really only five?” she asked while looking at Jake. The young colt was still hiding his eyes behind his wings.

“Yep,” Curry answered as she soaked down Tourmaline, who shivered under the stream from the hose, the hot water having run out, but the sodden pony made no effort to back away from it. The water might be cold, but so was the disgusting muck that coated her beautiful hide. “I met him just a little bit after he was born. All hooves and head, but he was still nursing. I swear he gained five pounds by the next day, and he didn’t stop growing for the next five years after that. You should have seen him before Princess Luna and Twilight cast their spell to give him a body that matched his age.” Curry stood up on tiptoes and raised her hand as high as it would go to indicate Jake’s previous size. “Pinkie took a picture. We can show it to you later if you like.”

Curry continued grooming Tourmaline even as she talked. The ultimate indignity for the pony was when a mentally distracted Curry grabbed the mare’s tail and wrenched it out of the way so she could make sure of getting every bit of the mortally embarrassed pony clean. It said a lot about Tourmaline’s current mental state that other than a startled whinny at the unexpected cold wash of water, she made no effort to retaliate. Though that didn’t mean Curry wasn’t watching for such an attempt.

“But you’re…” Pearl stared at Curry as her eyes got larger. “He’s really five?” she added in a much smaller voice.”

“He’s much too big to be five,” Tourmaline interjected, but in a voice that dripped with doubt. She clearly was trying to convince herself more than any other pony present. “If he’s only five, he’ll be bigger than Celestia when he’s all the way…” her voice shrank to a near squeak that came close to matching the sound she’d made when Curry had directed the cold water at a delicate area. “Grown up?”

“You betcha,” Curry said. Carefully not using the V word she added, “Doctor back home said he could hit over a two thousand five hundred pounds. That’s over a thousand kilo in pony pounds. He was only two thousand pounds when Princess Luna de-aged him.”

Surprisingly the twins didn’t disbelieve Curry’s outlandish claim. They had both overheard their father ranting about how Princess Luna had turned a viable male candidate for the throne, a veritable giant of a stallion, into a foal, without mentioning names. They had just never put his ranting together with her mother’s news about the new prince in Ponyville.

The Twins might not have been nearly as knowledgeable about stallions as they pretended, but they knew enough to break out in a cold sweat as they imagined being married to a stallion that big. They both shot horrified glances at Jake who was still standing meekly in place with his eyes still hidden.

Without taking her eyes off of Jake, half afraid he might return to his former monstrous dimensions – which her imagination was all too eager to picture – if she looked away for even a moment, Tourmaline asked in a very quiet and subdued voice. “You can really help us?”

Curry kept her voice low as she finished rinsing the worst of the muck off of the pony and upended the rest of the jug of soap over her back. “Don’t know. I’ll try. But, get this straight. I ain’t doing this for you. Just so happens I might be able to save a poor pony from a horrible fate with your help. That’s all there is to it.”

***

Goose Down glared at the scene below her from her position in the barn’s rafters, specifically at the two pretty unicorns below her. She wished she had talons like a griffon instead of hooves so she could have the satisfaction of clawing gouges in the beams she was standing on. It would be such a lovely substitute for what she really wanted to do. Despite her aches and pains from her training session with her older brother, she wanted nothing more than to glide down and… do something terrible to the two twits. The more time she’d had to think about them casting a lust spell on her brother, the angrier she got. It was a constant struggle to remind herself that personal was not the same as important, as her older male family members often said. Mostly in the process of venting about some ‘personal’ event at work, to be sure. She found herself hoping the twins would at least make some sort of violent action toward Curry, or Prince Jake. All she needed was an excuse, even if her mind kept reminding her of things like ‘proportionality’ and ‘restraint’ which were very important words to live by if she wanted to become a Royal Guard.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the point of view, the young batpony had help retaining her self-control. Perched on opposite shoulders were two small magical duplicates of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna who were avidly watching the scene as well, but with a lot less rancor in their hearts. They were munching on illusionary, but very real smelling, popcorn, while now and then tossing kernels at the twins as they mimed booing and hissing. The tossed popcorn faded from view as soon as it was more than a few inches from the sprites, but that didn’t seem to discourage them. In between eating kernels of popped corns that were as big as their heads, the sprites jotted down notes in oversized, to them, notebooks, while trying to sneak peeks at what the other one was writing.

There was nothing like having the most important pony in your life looking over your shoulder, literally, to keep you on the straight and narrow path. Even if it did make one question their sanity at times.

***

On the front porch of the Apple farmhouse, the real Princess Luna and Celestia were having a quenching cup of fresh-squeezed apple cider while gazing off into the distance in a distracted manner. The house was surrounded by royal guards, minus two, who were busy patching up the window the twins had blown out of the side of the house. There were a few ponies inside the perimeter with the princesses. One of those was the Element of Honesty, her handsome brother, Big Mac, Granny Smith, and Fancy Pants. It was a fairly restrained group. All of whom were relaxed and quiet, except for Big Mac. He was his usual silent self, but his subdued thunderous expression was anything but peaceful. Strangely, once Applejack heard the whole story and determined that Jake had suffered no harm. Thanks to the efforts of Shadow Dash – who had thrown his own body into the path of the attack – she had become distracted, as if her mind was far away, lending her an air of calm and detachment.

Celestia distant look shifted as she lost her thousand celestia stare. “Interesting. Tell me, Luna. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I believe so, sister. But where will Curry get a thousand gallons of maple syrup? The feather’s will, of course, come from the chicken coop.”

Celestia gave Luna’s deadpan expression a long lingering look before shaking her head in an I’m not even going to ask motion. After a moment, she turned to direct a question at Fancy Pants who was sitting nearby.⁽¹⁾ “Do you have any idea as to the likely identity of a poor pony facing dire circumstances whom Princess Moonlight might be concerned about?”

⁽¹⁾At the perfect distance, of course. Close enough to be of use, but not so close as to intrude.

“Other than the twins, I’m assuming?”

Celestia expression remained as flat as her voice. “You assume correctly.”

Fancy Pants’ calm expression didn’t shift on iota, but he also didn’t waste any more time before answering his princess. “It could be any number of ponies, but based on your criteria and the fact that Prince Jake has been in the barn for some time with her, I would hazard it might be Wooshter. Though I’m not sure ‘dire circumstances’ is an accurate expression of his situation. He was ordered by the family matriarch to marry Princess Moonlight, or have his allowance cut off.”

Luna snorted in derision. “Leaving him with the need to work for his living. Dire circumstances indeed for his sort.”

“Accurate I’m afraid.” Fancy Pants shook his head. “Ah, youth.”

“I can’t see Curry Comb going out of her way to help such a pony,” Celestia remarked thoughtfully. Then her expression shifted as she continued, “Attempting to reform and improve such a pony on the other hoof would be just like her. She shows a destressing inclination to meddle with older ponies. A habit that could lead to misfortune for her if she puts her trust in the wrong being. What sort of pony is he? Beyond the stereotype of a young noble, that is. Is he likely to take advantage of her naivety?”

“That idiot?” Fancy Pants said flatly. “I can’t sugarcoat it. He’s as dense as a crate of anvils. But, to be fair, he is also a decent pony with a good heart who always tries to do the right thing. Often with disastrous results, I will admit. It would never even occur to him to take advantage of a young child. Well… with a caveat. I can see him rather shamelessly playing up to a young filly or colt in an effort to impress an attractive mare. From my limited experience, he interacts very well with young foals. In many ways, he is a child at heart himself. So, that might explain the chemistry there.

“That is a bit troublesome. The Tower Twins are far too attractive and intelligent for their own good. The combination has led to many a ruined life before this, and not just that of the victims. Far too often it has caused a mare to abuse the power that such a combination gives her. A stallion such as you describe would be putty in their hooves.”

“Not to mention being identical twins. The effect is therefore doubled. Huzzah! As the stallions might express it,” Luna contributed, and then grew defensive at the scathing look her sister gave her. “Unlike young Curry, I am not naive, sister. I can certainly see how the fact they are twins would be very attractive to most stallions.”

Fancy Pants chimed in. “Much worse is the fact you pointed out, they are brilliant fools, a combination which can cause far more trouble than one would expect. Education can help, if applied with a large enough hammer to get through their thick skulls. I believe it would be best for Equestria if their future careers were guided, indeed strongly encouraged, along more productive directions by training and mentoring.

Celestia quirked an eyebrow, “You think they have potential, F.”

“Potential?” Fancy Pants snorted. “In the same way a raw thunderhead has potential. The rain it brings can help crops, but the lightning can destroy, and the thunder frighten. But, just as pegasus shape a thunderhead, so too the twin's potential will depend on how they are shaped going forward."

“I feel I am missing details, Sister. Potential for what exactly? And it is unlike you to apply diminutives to stallions. I believe you once told me that it was unfair to the poor dears to give them false hope by such informality.”

Fancy Pants coughed, to cover up his sudden snort of laughter at Luna’s blunt words.

“Ah, I had forgotten. Sister, please be known to Agent F, one of our most highly effective security operatives. He is suggesting that the twins be trained in his profession.”

“I protest, sister. You said I could have them.”

“The two things are not mutually exclusive, Luna. Your staff is small and admirable, but they lack the sort of subtly needed to monitor the upper echelons of Equestria society as one, or in this case as two, of their own.”

Luna looked skeptical. “Are the nobles so dangerous to Equestria then, Sister? Frankly, I am sometimes surprised that they remember to get up in the morning.”

Celestia smiled and shook her head in denial. “While individually there are many fine members of the nobility, the noble houses themselves tend toward mischief if not carefully monitored. Even then they are most dangerous to themselves. There is, in general, a buffer of competent minions between them and the common little ponies. Some competition between them is all well and good, but keeping them from destroying each other in their constant games of one-upmanship is a never-ending battle of behind the scenes manipulation.” She took a sip of iced tea and added with a fey smile, “It’s rather fun, frankly.”

“Look forbidding, sister. They are coming.” Luna warned, nodding toward the barn where the wide doors had been thrown open to reveal a crowd of young ponies, along with the much taller Jake. At the forefront was the young earth pony, Silver Spoon, who had helped Curry settle down the high strung and terrified twins. Her silver-gray hide gleamed in the sunlight and her pure white mane and tail gleamed like spun silver while floating almost as ethereal as Celestia and Luna’s own.

“I really must bring Fleur to Ponyville for a treatment from the young princess. She’ll need an even bigger club than usual to beat off the stallions.”

“Still playing stallionfriend for your cousin, F? You’ll never get a mare of your own that way,” Celestia remarked idly. A tiny smile caused her lip to twitch as the twins emerged bracketed between Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Unlike the Silver Spoon, the twins looked like they’d just annoyed a crew of weather pegasus. While they were certainly much cleaner than they had been, that was where any resemblance to Silver Spoon ended. Their manes and tails hung wet and lank as if they’d just been inundated by a malicious cloudburst.

Luna snickered. “I’m relieved to see that our youngest niece is capable of being spiteful. I was beginning to fear she did not think ponies were worthy of her bile.”

Fancy Pants arched a finely sculpted eyebrow. “So it’s true. Young Curry has alicorn magic?”

“Young Curry is a snipe. Her magic is indeterminate and is being researched by the best magical minds in Equestria. Luna is fond of her and used niece as a term of endearment. It is in no way indicative of a potential latent alicorn manifestation. And that is what I will tell any member of the press who asks,” Celestia said firmly as she directed a chastising look at her chagrined sister. And an even more quelling one at an inoffensive bush growing at the edge of the porch.

As if it had been withered by Princess Celestia’s stare, the bush turned to dust, leaving behind a mahogany unicorn with an unrepentant grin on his face. Sitting down on his haunches he held out his forelegs and said. “It’s a fair cop, Princess. Throw on the hobbles and lock me up in durance-vile to wail and weep over my misdeeds.”

Princess Celestia took a dainty sip of her chilled cider. She then politely wiped her mouth with a napkin. Only then did she speak. “Hello, Sneak Peek. Do you have any opinions on the salvageability of the Tower Twins?”

“You’re no fun. Do you know how long it’s been since I spent a night in jail? I’m going to lose all credibility.” He gave a long-suffering sigh and suggested. “How about a trade? You answer old No Pants question, and I’ll answer yours?”

“Methinks he really does wish to spend a night in durance-vile, sister. I would hazard the only possible punishment for his effrontery is to give him a straight answer.”

A look of dismay crossed Sneaky’s muzzle. “Now hold on. You can’t just go and give me the truth. It’s no fun if I don’t winnow it out myself from the chaff.” His look of dismay deepened. “Oh crap. Did I just use a rural simile? It may be too late for me. Run away, No Pants. Before it happens to you.”

Princess Celestia once again dabbed at her muzzle, this time to hide the slight quirk of her lip.

Celestia shrugged. She looked over at where the crowd of ponies was being held back until she or Luna gave permission for them to approach. Deciding it would do the Tower Twins good to stew in their own juices for a bit, she told Sneak Peek. “Very well. We will take your trade. The truth about Curry is... We do not know. She is a mystery wrapped in an enigma and stuck inside a puzzle box. We can merely watch and observe and under no circumstances project any expectations onto her.”

“You don’t know?” Sneak Peek let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you! For a moment there I thought you really were going to give me a straight answer. As for my part of the trade. Honestly, and you have no idea how saying that out loud burns my withered little soul, I really don’t know anything about the Twins that any pony in Ponyville couldn’t tell you. But I do have an interesting tidbit that you’ll likely be getting briefed on when you return to the castle.”

Two of the three ponies listening to them dropped their nonchalant pose, at least to somepony who knew them well, even if the tell was only a quirked eyebrow. Applejack continued to stare off into the distance while chewing the inside of her cheek in deep thought.

As if he were dictating a story, Sneak Peek declaimed, “Tower Industries was hit by a crooked accountant who siphoned off a vast chunk of their assets over the last few years. Thankfully for the market, it escaped collapse last night when an Angel investor bought up all their debt in return for a fifty-one percent stake in the company. The new chief financial officer, Mrs. Seeds, who detected the theft, has been appointed CEO by said Angel Investor. She’s frozen the company’s assets pending a full review of the books. For all intent and purposes, Tallest Tower is broke. At least by the standards of the richest of the rich. Needless to say, this also means that the Twins don’t have a bit to their name, at least until the company assets are unfrozen.”

Big Mac and Granny Smith both winced. The farm had spent far too long skating on the edge of financial solvency for them to not feel sympathy for somepony who had their assets yanked out from under them. No matter who they might be. Big Mac heaved a huge sigh, and visibly relaxed as he leaned down and snatched up a wisp of hay to chew on. It was clear that this revelation, combined with all the other circumstances regarding the twins had led him to, not exactly forgiving, but accepting, that the twins had been sufficiently punished.

***

Fancy Pants gave a subtle eyebrow twitch in Luna's direction while everypony else was busy, and in a few moments, found himself in a very quiet conference with Her Highness behind the scenes, as it could be considered.

“Princess Luna, if I may be so bold. I believe one of my problems and two of your problems can be solved with a single action." He gave a quick glance to where Sneak Peek and Celestia were still talking and hastened his words under Luna's dark and silent gaze. "The Tower Twins will be a danger to any male in their vicinity during and after their training unless they are suitably restrained. My associate, Wooshter is in danger of being cut off from his funds if he is not engaged."

"So you would have Us marry the miscreants off to your stallion friend?" Luna's noble brow furrowed in thought. "It seems an odd punishment."

"The three of them will be under the gimlet glare of Wooshter's formidable aunts," began Fancy. "I daresay few jailers would be so stern. It could bring some responsibility to the lad, and perhaps some of their intelligence will rub off on him. Hopefully," Fancy added. "In addition, the twins will be faced with the responsibility of taking care of a husband with very little sense of his own. It will be good for them all around."

"I see," mused Luna. "But didn't you say this Wooshter was reluctant to wed? We can sentence the twins to the bonds of matrimony due to their crimes, but my sister frowns on such things for simple nobility. They complain so."

"Leave it to me, Your Highness," said Fancy Pants with a short bow. "I shall go speak with him forthwith."

***

“Wooshter?” Fancy Pants caught the eye of the gangly stallion and made a subtle head motion to a place a short distance away, where they could talk privately. “Sorry to take you away from the excitement, old bean.”

“Think nothing of it,” scoffed Wooshter with the flip of a forehoof. “Rather too many things going on for me to keep track of, so I was just biding time until it's all over, and I can ask somepony to explain it. What can I do for you?”

“Actually…” Fancy Pants paused, then shook his head. “I find myself needing a favor, but I did not think things through before asking you. Think nothing of it.”

“Needing a solid, then? Why I’ve heard my aunts say there’s nobody as dense as myself!” declared Wooshter. “Any friend of mine in trouble should be ready for a Wooshter to dash to their aid. So how may I dash for you?”

“Well…” Fancy Pants licked his lips, looked off into the distance, and shook his head again. “Dash it, Wooshter! I can’t. A chum of mine has some mare problems, and I know how your aunts get when you’re around any young mares.”

“Young mares?” Wooshter glanced to either direction with a sharp scowl. “You sound just like my aunt when she’s wheedling me to wed some slab-faced battleax with a shrill voice and buck teeth. I swear some of them are as old as she is.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem,” countered Fancy Pants with a low chuckle. “These mares are quite young. In fact, I believe they crossed the age of consent only a few months ago. But if you don’t want to help out the twins—”

“Twins?” asked Wooshter. Ears promptly perked up, and his eyes sparkled with interest. “And you say they’re above the age of consent? Both of them?”

“Y…es,” admitted Fancy. “They’re in desperate trouble, and I thought it would keep your aunt placiated for a time if you were to provide them assistance. After all, they are damsels in distress, and a Wooshter is always available to lend a hoof to help a frazzled filly in need, as you say.”

“Wat ho, indeed,” said Wooshter with a bit of a swagger, although he still appeared cautious. “Who are these poor waifs who are in need of my help?”

“The Tower Twins.” Fancy shook his head again and let out a sigh. “Then again, they’re probably too rich for your blood. I suppose I could find the son of an earl or viscount—”

“I’ll have you know Wooshter blood is rich as anything,” he blustered. “Why our corpuscles have other corpuscles to go shop for them, after all. We have great assets in the blood bank of the Wooshters.”

“Are you certain?” Fancy put on his best pensive expression. “There are two of them, after all. Keeping them out of trouble could leave you quite busy.”

“The noble House of Wooshter shall rise to the occasion,” declared Wooshter. “We could never leave a poor young filly out in the cold.”

“I knew I should have trusted you,” said Fancy Pants, clapping Wooshter on a shoulder. “I’ll pass the good news on to my chum and… Oh, wait.”

“Wait? What?” asked Wooshter.

“Well, I know your word is as good as a golden bit,” started Fancy Pants slowly. “My chum, however, doesn’t know that you can be trusted. Doesn’t have the keen sense of character analysis that I have. Might go looking for another young chap to saddle these two beautiful young fillies with, and wind up with some cad who would take advantage of them.”

“I can see that could be a problem,” admitted Wooshter with a frown of unaccustomed thought. “Lots of disreputable lads out there, after all. Young fillies are no help in that regard. No sense like us.”

“They move fast, also,” admitted Fancy Pants. “A pair of sweet young things like these will attract the worst sort of reprobate. Some of your school chums come to mind.”

“Like Bunkie?” Wooshter gave out a shudder. “Bloody idiot, if you ask me. No sense at all with mares. We’d need something to scare the blighters off.”

“Like… a written contract, perhaps? Something that establishes quite firmly that you are the stallion in charge of these poor mares, and that any others should just bugger off.” Fancy Pants dug around in his saddlebags for a minute. “I think I can work up something legal enough to stand up in court if you’re willing to sign.”

“Show me the line,” proclaimed Wooshter.

***

Pearl and Tourmaline had lived a great deal of their lives in fear of social stigma. There could be nothing worse, in their minds, then being ostracized by those they thought of as their peers. But, other than that singular fear, they had gone through their lives blithely unaware or concerned at all about the consequences of their actions.

As they were shepherded toward the princesses by the strange little snipe and her friends, they were learning that the censor of their friends was as nothing compared to being judged by Princess Celestia. For the first time in their lives, they were experiencing real gut-wrenching terror. Their fear was only exasperated by the sick guilt they were both feeling over how close they had come to casting a lust spell on an innocent foal, who happened to be a prince of the realm. Telling themselves that the spell would have had no effect on the prince due to his age did nothing to alleviate their feelings of guilt. They were no longer self-assured enough to believe their own excuses.

It took all of their little remaining courage and self-confidence, to keep from falling to their knees when they were finally face to face with Princess Celestia. The supreme ruler of all of Equestria stood on the crude wooden porch as if it were the finest inlaid marble and looked down her muzzle at them with an expression that took them back to their foalhood, an incident involving a very expensive cake, and the slippery nature of tablecloths. Cook had not been pleased to see two days work turned into a foal wrestling venue.

Princess Celestia arched her neck, the better to look down on the twins while flaring her wings outward to their full extent. “I am very disappointed in you, my little ponies. You have displayed a level of selfishness that I find most distressing. I am only grateful that your attitude and behavior has been exposed before you had a chance to walk so far down your misguided path that there was no hope left for your salvation, forcing me to sentence you to Tartarus.

Celestia paused to let her words sink into the two mares’ minds.

“Before I pass judgment, do you have anything to say in your defense?”

Curry Comb gave Pearl a sudden slap on the cutie mark, causing her to jerk forward ahead of her sister. Fighting the urge to kick back at the creature, she cleared her throat several times and then said in a stilted voice as if reading from a script. “My sister and I were overcome by our need for a stallion in our lives.” Pearl paused, her face twisted in distaste until a not so subtle nudge from behind caused her to continue. “It was unforgivable, but thanks to Princess Moonlight we have found a stallion to fill the hole in our hearts and we will be good ponies from now on.”

Tourmaline jerked in time with the sound of another wet slap to her rump and hurriedly contributed to her sister’s story. “That is right! We were terrible ponies. But now we have a stallion and will be good ponies.”

The dreadful little creature stepped up between them and looked at Princess Celestia with wide eyes and a pleading expression on its flat face. “That sure is good news. I bet they’ll be so busy making foals with their new stallion, and looking after those foals, that they won’t have time to do any more fussing or feuding. So if they promise to not go casting magic around all careless like do you think you could maybe let them off, your princesship?”

Princess Celestia had been doing what she did for a very long time. As such, she was able to keep a perfectly straight face – unlike Sneak Peek who had stuck his head under the porch while his sides heaved with laughter – when she answered Curry.

“I wish I could be sure of that, Princess Moonlight, but I’m afraid not even the noblest of stallions could keep these two out of mischief. However, my sister, Princess Luna, has asked that these two be remitted into her care. If they are willing and capable of doing so, they will be enrolled in the Royal Academy and undergo the most rigorous training possible. In the event they survi... I mean, pass, they will enter Princess Luna’s service, and be granted a pardon. As their stallion is blameless in all of this, he will be allowed to reside in the area of the castle set aside for members of the night court.”

Celestia nodded to the chief of the royal guard present. “Please take them into custody and arrange their transport back to Canterlot.”

“As you command, Princess,” The guard snapped out while giving her a picture perfect wing salute. Two guards, forewarned, stepped forward and slipped suppression rings on the twin’s horns.

Just before the two shattered ponies were led away, Celestia addressed them directly. “Take this opportunity my sister and Princess Moonlight have given you. If you fail in your training, make no mistake about it, I will have no choice but to sentence you to either banishment or Tartarus.”

***

Silver Spoon stood frozen in place as the twins were led off. Slowly her eyes shifted till she was looking at Curry Comb. Somehow the creature had totally destroyed two of the most influential ponies in Equestria in the space of a single day. She shuddered as she remembered how she had planned to drive a wedge between Diamond Tiara, the snipe, and her filly friends. It could have been her being led off to a fate worse than death. Her legs quivered and she slowly folded into a kneeling position on the ground, her eyes wide as her heart raced like a trip hammer.

The snipe was the first to notice. “Hey, wait! Everyone, Somethings wrong with Silver Spoon!”

Diamond Tiara rushed to her side. “Silver Spoon! What is it? What’s wrong with you?”

“Maybe she caught a chill from that shower I gave her. Quick, someone get a nice warm blanket.”

“She’s a monster. A monster,” Silver Spoon whispered.

“What was that? Do you need anything?”

Silver Spoon turned her head to look at the snipe. “No! I mean... No. I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.” She struggled to her feet and plastered a smile on her face as she looked into Curry’s worried face. It was scary how good the creature was at pretending concern. “Everything is going to be alright,” she assured all the ponies gathered around her.

***

Epilogue (1)

Wooshter had never had any difficulty in admitting that he was a pony of very little intellect. And even if he had, his aunt would never have allowed him to keep the delusion that he was not as thick as two planks. Therefore he thought it dashed unsporting for Curry Comb to drop such a bombshell for his poor thin grey matter to deal with.

He looked around Fluttershy’s home, hoping to draw a clue from the handsome Griffon lady or the two Pegasi mares that he had just been flirting with. Fluttershy, in particular, was lovely when she blushed. “Blast it! I don’t understand why Princess Luna is ordering me to marry the Tower Twins. They’re barely out of leading strings, dash it! I know I sighed the bally document promising that I'd look out for them, but I don't recall any mention of marriage in it.” Of course, he had to acknowledge, he hadn't actually read the dratted thing. Just signed on the dotted line.

“Well, she doesn’t expect you to marry them right away. They have to finish basic guard training, the lucky ducks.” Curry muttered.

“Ducks? Now there are ducks! Where is a gentlepony’s gentlepony when he’d most needed. I’ll tell you. Laying on a beach soaking up the sun when he should be here dealing with this sort of thing.”

“And besides, Princess Luna isn’t ordering you to do it.”

“She isn’t!” A look of intense relief crossed Wooshter’s face. He didn’t deny that the Tower Twins were dashed attractive, but besides being dashed young they were also dashed clever. He didn’t get along well with clever ponies. Sooner or later, no matter how well a conversation was going they started to look at him in that way.

Sort of the way that young Curry was looking at him now as she said, “Well, no. You don’t have to. But I figured anything would be better than being gelded.”

Fluttershy had been sipping tea, while Gilda and Rainbow Dash each had a glass of juice. The spray went everywhere.

As for Wooshter, his poor brain had been strained far beyond its rated capacity and gave up the ghost.

Curry stared down at the comatose pony. “I knew he’d be relieved that he wasn’t going to get cut, but I didn’t think he’d be that relieved.”

Looking over at her mom, Curry asked. “Mom, could you pack a lunch for Shadow Dash? He might not be able to come home for a few days if Miss. Twilight can’t figure out a way to help him.”

***

Epilogue (2)

Applejack trotted down the middle of the laneway, Curry Comb on her back with a large wicker basket cradled in front of her. As her body moved in time to Applejack’s motion, Curry’s eyes scanned the trees. “Wait, there he is!” she shouted out, pointing up into a massive old oak tree.

“I really, really, wish you’d stop doing that, Princess,” Shadow Dash said from the shadows in an aggrieved tone.

Curry smiled unrepentantly and held up the basket. “Mom packed you a meal. All your favorites. I even snuck some of Gilda’s fish and fried them up as a treat for you.”

There was silence for a minute while Applejack did her best to see the nocturne stallion. It wasn’t till she placed a hoof on the trunk of the tree that she smiled broadly and silently mouthed, ‘There you are.’

“Thank you. Tell your mother I appreciate it. You can leave it on the ground. I’ll get it when I’m hungry.”

Curry slipped off of Applejack, leaving the basket of goodies on her back before running down the lane while shouting over her shoulder. “Make sure he eats it all.”

“Count on it, sugarcube,” Applejack called after Curry before turning back to the tree with Shadow Dash in it. “So, sweetpea. Jest how long are you planning on perching in the trees like a baby bird that’s afraid to fly?”

“I’m an old pony, and I’m feeling a bit stiff. Once things loosen up again I’ll be coming down.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “I know about the spell, jackass. But if you ain’t into plain speaking, I’ll give you a little. Twilight examined that there spell, and took a guess as to how it would work with your protections.”

“Those are need-to-know, spells.” Shadow Dash objected

“And the Captain of the Royal Guards has a very smart, very curious, baby sister. Your point?”

“Point. So what did the very clever Twilight Sparkle determine?”

“Twilight figured that your runes absorbed the spell like you said. Thing is, you got hit by two of them, and it has to trickle the magic back out in smaller, less-dangerous doses over time.” Applejack twitched nervously. “So you’re dangerous as the dickens for a week or two. She showed me the math. Gave me a heck of a headache.”

“A week or two!” Shadow Dash could not keep a certain amount of dismay out of his voice.

Applejack smiled up into the leaves. “Yep, sure nuff. She did figure out a few ways to deal with it, however.”

Up in the tree, Shadow Dash could not help but think that Applejack had a very nice smile. And if he’d been twenty years younger, and not currently dealing with a potent virility spell he might have liked exploring various ways of seeing it more often. But, alas, he wasn’t and he was. So all he said was. “You’re smiling. I don’t like that smile. What did the Captain’s clever baby sister come up with?”

“She can give you a potion that will make you sleep,” Applejack gave a cough, “until, and these here are her words, not mine. The swelling goes down.”

“Unacceptable. I can’t abandon my post for that long.”

“Or you could hook up with your marefriend. Twi and Princess Luna ran the math and figure twenty-four hours at the most would be enough to bleed off the effect. If you work right hard at it. Princess Luna also suggested that your marefriend should bring a friend or two to help. Her and Twilight had a right interesting discussion concerning how ‘hard’ you’d have to work. Didn’t understand most any of it, but I did get the general gist, and Princess Luna isn’t far off being right if you’re talking about spindly little unicorns or pegasus. But, I’d say one strapping earth pony mare would be up to the challenge.”

Shadow Dash made a choking sound before saying, in a rather thready voice, “That’s no good. I don’t have a marefriend. With or without a friend. As you well know.”

Applejack had been carefully examining the tree Shadow Dash was perched in while she was conversing with him. She suddenly spun in place and slammed her rear hooves into it.

There was a sharp crack, a cry of surprise and then a large branch came crashing to the ground, followed by a fluttering nocturne stallion, Shadow Dash hastily cupped his wings around his lower body, but he was fairly certain Applejack had gotten a good peek despite his efforts.

“Hallelujah, it’s raining stallions.” Applejack smirked at the huddled pony. “You want to rethink that last bit?” Despite her brash and forthright behavior, Applejack was blushing like a schoolgirl who’d just spotted her first stallion malfunction.

“I’m old enough to be your father! I’ve got a daughter your age! Damn!” Shadow Dash bit his tongue and wished he could take back that last sentence.

“Daughter? I’m guessing there was a wife once upon a time. I’m sorry she ain’t around no more.”

“How do you know that?”

“Cause there ain’t no way you’d mention your daughter and not your wife. Not unless you ain’t the pony I think you are.”

“We were never married. I was young and stupid, my daughter was born a feathered pegasus pony, and her mother never really wanted to admit to my--visit, so she stayed with her family.” Shadow Dash ducked his head sorrowfully. “Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I’d been part of her life.”

“Wouldn’t expect any less from you,” said Applejack. “Always had you pegged for the fatherly type.”

“So you see why you and I can’t—” Shadow Dash cut off as the loop of Applejack’s lasso settled loosely over his head and around his neck. “Wait!” he protested.

“Not listening,” Applejack sang from around the rope in her mouth. “Asides, you ain’t putting up much of a fight. I happen to know of a right nice and pretty little clearing surrounded by apple trees just a little ways off. Lots of privacy.”

Shadow Dash had several options. He was a captive, after all, even if the rope was loose around his neck. He really did not want to fight Applejack, for more than a few good reasons, but as a Royal Guard, he had been trained to never retreat. Surrender, however...

Remembering his old drill instructor’s advice about never arguing with a mare with the bit between her teeth, he followed Applejack, resigned to his fate. And the slight spring in his step was purely him working the kinks out of his legs after laying so long on a tree branch.

Or so he told himself.

“Oh, and once we get there, I got a nice bottle of Sweet Apple Select laid down by my Grandpap. Twilight is pretty sure alcohol will neutralize the effects. Likely why that there spell never became popular.”

Shadow Dash stopped trotting, at least until the rope around his neck started to tighten. He had never wanted to spank a mare more than he did right now, if not for the possibility… No, bad idea. Way bad idea. Indignation. Yes, that would do. “That’s a rather dirty trick Miss Applejack. Playing on the expectations of a poor vulnerable Stallion.”

Applejack looked back over her shoulder, her cheeks crimson. “I’m the Element of Honesty, sugar. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep. Or drag no stallion out into the bushes without his most sincere and honest approval.”

Shadow Dash blinked a few times while parsing her words, then he smiled broadly and said, “Ahh, well, in that case, I withdraw my accusation.”

She really did have a very nice smile.

***

Epilogue (3)

Silver Spoon sat in her bedroom writing a letter, chewing on the quill in concentration. The floor around her was covered in windrows of balled up paper demonstrating the difficulty she was having in getting the words just right.

Dear Pearl and Tourmaline.

I beg of you not to tear this letter up until after you have read it. I know that I’m likely the very last pony you want to hear from. If it had not been for my careless handling of the magic book you would not be in so much trouble now.

I’m sorry it took me a week to get up the nerve to write, and I’m not even sure you’re going to get this letter. I’ve been told that you can not receive outside mail until you have completed your basic training. I’m sure you will do it quicker than any pony in the history of Equestria. But, I am writing this to you now because I do not know how much longer it will be before my mind is clouded like so many in Ponyville. There are things you need to know.

The spellbook? Did you know that that it appeared as if out of nowhere in the saddlebag of a dimwitted unicorn blank-flank? And that the one who discovered it was the snipe who orchestrated so much of your humiliation. I can trace the path her manipulations took and they lead directly to you ending up with that book. I tried to warn you at the time, but I fear you did not truly understand the insidious nature of this creature. The bravest, smartest, and strongest willed pony I knew has been turned into a common earth pony who asks how high when the snipe tells her to jump.

You might think I exaggerate the danger, but I just recently learned that the pony who stole your father’s company right out from under you is Diamond Tiara’s father. That is the pony I told you about, who has been brainwashed by the snipe.

And the connection does not end there. The little tag-along stalker who made you look so bad, Babs Seed? She is related by adoption to the prince the snipe created, and it was her mother who is now running your rightful inheritance. No doubt she will loot it to the bare ground and you will be left with nothing.

At first, I had no idea why she targeted two innocent mares like yourselves. You did not warrant such treatment. The only thing I can think of is that somehow you posed a threat to her plans for Prince Jake, who she created. Maybe she was afraid that your natural charm and beauty would draw Prince Jake’s interest, and cause her to lose influence with him?

They tell me that once you complete your training, you will be taken into Princess Luna’s service. There is no question in my mind that you will pass with the highest possible scores.

Once you do, I beg of you, the future of Equestria rests on your shoulders. You have experienced first hand the evil of this creature. You will not be fooled. You must thwart her vile schemes. Gain the trust of Princess Luna, advise her, warn her of the danger represented by this vile creature.

Your Friend, though I am not worthy of the title,

Silver ‘Pewter’ Spoon.

Author's Note

And that is this story arc finished.

The next story arc is well underway, but it may be a month or two before it is ready for posting. Which is way better than five years you have to admit.

It's winter in Equestria, and Curry is amazed at how similar it is to Christmas. No Santa, but decorations, presents, even a tree. Heck, there is even a Grinch. Wait! What?

Comments are appreciated and helpful, and likes will show the story is appreciated and are great motivators. And there are times I really need to know that people appreciate my efforts and enjoy my stories.

Chapter 1 [edited]

***

How to Train Your Batpony, chapter 1

***

“Could you run that by me just one more time, Lumpy?” Shadow Dash, a hard-bitten Nocturne ‘retired’ drill instructor stood a few inches away from Optio Pumpernickel's nose while scratching absently at one stumpy ear with the tip of a wing. “I must have wax in my ear. I could have sworn you said that Princess Luna intends to establish a vacation residence in the back of beyond, in a tent." The semi-retired Drill Instructor twitched an interrogatory ear toward the pony he was talking to. Well, most of an ear. The rest of it had disappeared down the gullet of a griffon years before. The rest of his body showed visible evidence of that, and similar encounters, each scar and cross-grained patch of hair telling a story of unflinching fortitude in the face of adversity, as well as one brief encounter with the Equestrian Revenue Service.

Despite being less than half of the D.I.'s age, the bulky Nocturne pony that Shadow Dash was at present haranguing looked no less hard-bitten, and considerably more hard-clawed than his elder. In fact, more than one foal -- and several gullible recent recruits -- had fully bought into the barrack’s tale that Princess Luna herself had sewn his body together from the remnants of several slain Night Guards in some bizarre recycling project. The story was, of course, nonsense. But, the raw recruits could perhaps be forgiven for buying into the tall-tale, considering the patchwork of thin white scars that covered nearly all of Pumpernickel’s body like some demented jigsaw puzzle with more than a few pieces roughly encouraged into places they did not really belong. All mementos of his recent foray into the Diplomatic Service, and a posting to a Griffon kingdom.

Despite what an outside witness might assume, Shadow Dash’s use of the nickname, Lumpy, did not, in fact, indicate a lack of sensitivity, or that the D.I. was a colossal jerk. In truth, 'Lumpy' had acquired his distasteful nickname years before his encounter with Griffon politics, and had given up on any attempt to change it afterward.

“Tent might be a bit of a misnomer--” Pumpernickel Rye took a quick look at Shadow Dash to make absolutely certain he was not wearing his Drill Instructor hat, and therefore was entitled to the title he hated so much "--sir." Trying not to grin at the resulting twitch from his former trainer, Pumpernickel continued, “Comparing the Princess’ new vacation domicile to a common tent is a bit like comparing Canterlot Castle to a fourth story walk-up flat. It would be more appropriate to call it a cloth castle, or even a palace. This ‘tent’ has been lost in the castle’s sub-basement since before Nightmare Moon, and now that Princess Luna has it set up, she wants to play with it for a while. Give her a year or two and she'll tire of it, and we can put it back into storage.

“Still, a tent,” Shadow Dash said with a shudder and the sour tone of a pony who had spent far too many winters huddled inside one of the insidious torture devices, along with a dozen other ponies huddled together in order to share body heat.

It was actually only one winter, but that was one winter too many as anypony who had been there would agree.

Pumpernickel shook his head, and said, "Personally, I think the theater is a bit much, particularly with an orchestra pit of that size, but it was built for the richest sultan in Saddle Arabia. And you have to see the grand ballroom to believe it.

Shadow Dash gave his former trainee a derisive look, and growled, “Horse apples. It's a tent. It's over a thousand years old and probably has ten thousand holes.

“Just the planetarium.”

“I'm bringing a sleeping bag and a cot. I thought you learned in basic that you can’t pull the wool over my eyes.”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.” The younger stallion grinned, wishing he could be there to see Shadow Dash’s face when he walked into the tent’s grand reception hall or the pool-sized bath.

Letting off on teasing the irascible middle-aged pony, Pumpernickel said, “You’ll be joining your little sister in the next day or so, depending on how quickly Princess Luna can get Princess Celestia to accept her decision.” Pumpernickel didn’t bother to mention that Princess Luna’s sister was likely to milk the maximum teasing potential out of the situation before giving in.

“You don’t think that Princess Celestia might put her hoof down on the whole idea?” Shadow Dash asked with a degree of hope that Pumpernickel was only too happy to quash.

“I’m sure she will, if only for the fun of arguing with her sister. I’m also sure it won’t make a speck of difference. In any battle of alicorn willpower, I know who I’d put my bits on. You’ve never really seen Princess Luna when she latches onto an idea with all four hooves, and for some reason, she is more determined than usual on this course of action.”

“When will you be moving the guard detail?”

Pumpernickel’s expression shifted from the mischievous one he had worn while bantering with his old D.I. Looking both annoyed and, very happy at the same time, he said, “I won’t be. Princess Luna has ordered Laiminia to take medical leave due to her delicate condition and put me back on conditional leave until the foal is born.

“Princess Luna’s little sanctuary from the stress and strife of big city living -- Her Highness’ words, not mine -- is to have an absolute minimum of staff, including security. I was lucky to get you in, and that was only because you're Goose's brother, and even then I had to remind her that it would be more than a little difficult for you to train Goose while several hours flight away.

“The princess tends to forget at times that the trip is not as easy for us mere mortals as it is for her.”

The older Nocturne settled deeper into his habitual scowl, looking more like a bulldog than ever. “So, who is there with Goose now?”

“No one at the moment.”

Shadow Dash went very still, and in a carefully controlled voice that sent shivers down Pumpernickel’s back, asked, “Goose is all alone? In a tent? By herself?”

“No, no, and no,” Pumpernickel hastily added in rapid succession. “She is not staying at the Summer Palace at the moment. She is boarding at the Apple’s house till you arrive.”

Shadow Dash let out a sigh of relief and seemed to deflate about two sizes. “That’s good.” A second later, his eyes widened while his pupils shrank. “Apple? You mean Princess Luna has set up this dog and cat show in Ponyville? That Ponyville? Is she cra--" Shadow bit off the next word with a sharp snap and swallowed while looking at Pumpernickel nod his head slowly.

“Well, yes. Where else? There isn’t a problem, is there, sir?”

“No! I mean, no.” Taking a deep breath, Shadow continued in a horribly unconvincing tone of calm and tranquility. "Of course not. I'm sure there won’t be any problem at all."

Pumpernickel frowned and considered pushing the issue, but decided that if whatever was bothering Shadow affected the old D.I.’s ability to perform his duty, he would not conceal it from his superior officer.

Even if just two years previously the D.I. had Pumpernickel flying laps till he puked.

The patchwork guard gave Shadow Dash a reassuring smile and said, "In any case, you don’t have to worry about your sister. Her only problem will be keeping her weight under control. The Apples tend to stick food and hospitality in the same category. She’s likely having a nice peaceful time of it on the Apples’ farm. Just lazing around, relaxing and being waited on mouth and hoof.”

***

The sun was just rising when there arose a terrible clatter in the Apples' kitchen. “Yeah! It’s finally here. My first day of school.” Jake yelled out as he galloped into the kitchen, his wings just barely avoiding sweeping the nearby shelves clean of knickknacks and dry-goods.

“Now, you all settle down, young Jake. No running in the house. Sun ain’t even properly risen yet,” Granny Smith chided him in her creaky voice. She lifted a large mug of tea between her hooves and took a long slurp.

“Would you like a refill, Mrs. Granny? Can I get you something, Prince Jake?” Goose Down mumbled in a soft quiet voice as she eased into the kitchen carrying a bucket full of cleaning supplies. She kept her head lowered and avoided looking anywhere near Jake.

“Listen here, young filly, my girl. I’ve told you to call me Granny. No need to be sticking Missus on the front of it. Might make a mare think you didn’t like her or something. And don’t you go princeing young Jake either. He’s an Apple now, and that’s a sight more important than being a prince. Ain’t that right, young Jake?”

“Yep. I’m an Apple,” Jake said proudly. “Can I have some extra apples in my oatmeal, Miss Goose?”

“Hehehe,” Granny Smith chuckled. “Don’t you mean less oatmeal in your apples, youngster?”

“Right away, Your Highness,” Goose said to Jake, her voice clearer as she set down her bucket.

“Jake! Shame on you,” Applejack chided her new nephew as she and Big Mac wandered into the kitchen. She stifled a yawn behind an upraised hoof. “Goose Down is a guest. You can just wait till I cook up a---” Applejack cut off as she got a good look at the kitchen. “What the hay,” she exclaimed as she swiveled her head from side to side, taking in the entire room from the freshly pressed curtains hanging over the window in the door to the large steaming pot of oatmeal on the stove.

The Apple homestead was not a dump, no matter what certain ponies might happen to say. But it had never been a candidate for Better Homes and Stables either. There was just too much work on the farm, and too few ponies to do it, to give the interior of the house much more than a lick and a promise now and then. Applejack tried for clean but usually settled for it being a little bit shabby during the busy season, which was pretty much always. About the only time she could give the interior of the house the treatment it deserved were the one or two weeks during the year when they got snowed in.

Such was not the case anymore. The scent of beeswax and lemon perfumed the air, and every bit of visible wood gleamed golden in the light of the rising sun. The stove top had been freshly blacked and the copper pots shone from where they hung neatly organized from hooks screwed into the overhead beams. It had been so many years since Applejack had seen the room so spit and polished that she half expected her ma and pa to come walking in the door.

Goose clearly took Applejack’s stunned reaction as disapproval of her actions. She ducked her head and said, “I couldn’t fall asleep last night. I thought that I might as well do something useful instead of just tossing and turning. I’m sorry if I touched things I wasn't supposed to.”

“Enope,” Big Mac drawled as he wandered over to the big steaming pot on the stove and took an appreciative sniff. “Smells mighty fine.”

Jake moved up beside his new Pa and checked out the pot as well. “Apples and cinnamon,” he sighed in pleasure.

“I just followed Mrs… Granny’s instructions,” Goose said, darting a glance at the old pony as if afraid she’d be called to task for taking credit she didn’t deserve.

Meanwhile, Applejack craned her neck and looked down the back hallway. The old wood floor and paneled walls gleamed just as brightly as the kitchen and even the ceiling light fixtures that only Big Mac could reach without a ladder shone free of their normal thin coat of dust. “There weren’t no need of you to do all this,” she said, her voice rather vague due to an avalanche of childhood memories cascading through her mind. She looked up at the top of the cupboards and idly wondered if they were now dust free for the first time since the family was snowed in last winter.

The choice had come down to cleaning, or board games. As the aftermath of family board games usually entailed extensive cleaning, not to mention repairs, they had decided to cut out the middle stage.

Amazing as the transformation was, what really baked Applejack’s biscuits was the fact that the small pony had done all this without waking the household. Applejack wasn’t a light sleeper, but she wasn’t Rainbow Dash either, who could sleep through a thunderstorm, or more properly stated, sleep on top of one. Despite that, she hadn’t heard a thing.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” Goose Down whispered, and Applejack realized her expression might have been a bit severe.

“Now, now. You don’t have nothing, no how, to be sorry about, sugarplum. You did a plumb good job. For a city girl,” Applejack quickly qualified.

The farm pony’s attention was drawn to where Big Mac was ladling oatmeal into Jake’s bowl. The wonderful smell of warm cereal mixed with her favorite fruit and spice floated across the room, and without even thinking about it, she drifted forward with her nose leading the way. It wasn’t till Jake set his bowl on the table with a clatter that she snapped out her daze, and she said, “Jake, you run upstairs and tell Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara that breakfast is ready.”

The black colt laid his ears back, and at the same time hunched his shoulders defensively. “She threw the clock at me last time,” he protested. With the possible exception of Goose Down, no one in the kitchen had any question as to who ‘she’ was.

“That might have been on account of you trying to wake the girls up at four in the morning,” Applejack said firmly, no give in her expression.

“Apple Bloom promised to show me around the town so she could try for her Tour Guide cutie mark. She said she wanted to get an early start,” Jake said defensively. Applejack just made a shooing motion in the direction of the stairs.

With extreme reluctance, Jake left his bowl on the table and headed for the girl’s room.

“Just be sure to duck if she does it again,” Granny called after Jake.

***

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. So went Diamond Tiara’s thoughts as she did her best to delicately eat a bowl of hot cereal without burning her nose. She was handicapped by a lack of proper hoof utensils and the ravenous beast who had taken up residence in her belly and demanded constant subsistence. Near constant exercise of one sort or another had left her with an aching hollow in the pit of her stomach and the rumbling demands it was prone to let loose were not at all in keeping with her status as a gentle filly. Waiting till her cereal cooled was not an option. She could barely stop herself from emulating Prince Jake and burying her entire muzzle in the deep bowl.

Blowing on her cereal to cool the top layer a bit, Diamond Tiara considered the day ahead of her. It would be the first time in a few weeks where she would have some control over her actions. If only a little. In just a little while she was going to be walking into the schoolyard in the company of Prince Jake Apple, the first male alicorn in the history of Equestria.

At least Diamond Tiara thought he was the first. She hadn’t spent a lot of time paying attention to all that dry dusty history Miss Cheerilee was constantly droning on about.

Unfortunately, she would be sharing that distinction with Apple Bloom. Even worse, thanks to Princess Celestia totally losing her mind, Apple Bloom was, on paper anyway, Prince Jake’s aunt. Like, really. If he needed to be adopted, her daddy would have been a far superior choice. For just a moment she lost herself in the daydream of having the oversized colt as her own baby brother. That idiot Apple Bloom hadn’t even realized that if her nephew was a prince, she must be a princess. That was not a mistake Diamond Tiara would have made.

If only her Daddy hadn’t lost his own mind. Abandoning her here among the yokels, Diamond Tiara thought. Well, yes, it had allowed her to meet a magic Snipe, and become Princess Moonlight’s new magical project. Unfortunately, up till now all that involved had been a lot of running and jumping and not nearly enough magic wishes being fulfilled. And yes, she had gotten to go to Canterlot Castle as part of Prince Jake and Princess Moonlight's entourage, but she’d been so tired she’d fallen asleep before the ball had started and she missed her chance to dance with and impress, the elite ponies that would have been in attendance.

She had learned to her horror, thanks to a gleeful Scootaloo, that Big McIntosh had ended up carrying her up to bed like she was a little foal.

“Hey, Jake,” Apple Bloom called out, and Diamond Tiara glanced over as Jake swung his head around to look at the bane of her existence.

“What?” the big colt asked, cereal dribbling out of the sides of his mouth. His thick tongue darted out and sucked it back in. Diamond Tiara gave a little shudder.

“Got your horn,” Apple Bloom laughed as with a quick movement she impaled an apple on Jake’s jet-black unicorn horn, leaving the colt looking cross-eyed at the tempting fruit just inches in front of his face.

Diamond Tiara fought the urge to scream in outrage as Prince Jake flipped his head, trying to fling the apple into the air so he could catch it in his mouth. She just couldn’t let Apple Bloom introduce Jake to the fillies and colts at school. She’d have him doing stupid tricks like he was some sort of trained pet. She had to keep that from happening. Prince Jake was the most important pony in Ponyville. Somepony had to protect his consequences. A memory of an overheard snippet of conversation floated up in the spoiled pony’s mind.

Putting on her best fake sympathetic expression, Diamond Tiara said, “I do hope you’re, like, feeling better, Apple Bloom. You were coughing and sneezing so badly last night.”

Apple Bloom had taken pity on Jake, and removed the apple from his horn, taking a bite out of it at the same time. Diamond Tiara’s blatant falsehood caught her with her mouth full. Her gasp of outrage caused fragments of apple to go down the wrong way and she had a violent coughing fit, spraying half-chewed bits all over the table.

Goose hastily interposed a plate between Granny Smith and the shower of spit and fruit, sacrificing her own pristine coat in the process.

Before the small farm filly could catch her breath her big sister was right in front of her, pressing her forehead up against that of her little sister. “Dang, you do feel a bit feverish. Come along, I’ll take your temperature right quick and make sure. Granny, I’d surely appreciate it if you would fetch some tonic.”

“What? No!” Apple Bloom protested, flushing deeply in embarrassment. Her protests were to no avail as Applejack dragged her out of the room. Diamond Tiara visibly stifled a smile while clearly, she was internally dancing in glee. The task of concealing her true feelings grew even more obviously difficult for the conniving pony when Applejack’s exasperated voice floated into the kitchen, “Dang it, Apple Bloom. Lift your tail so I can check to see if you’re running a fever.”

Granny Smith tottered back into the room, a dusty dark, rather evil looking, bottle clutched between her false teeth. She set it on the table and popped her teeth back in her mouth, after rinsing them in her water glass, just as Applejack returned to get the tonic. Applejack slipped a pair of heavy gloves over her hooves before picking up the bottle, and then looked across at Diamond Tiara, an uncertain expression on her face, which resolved into determination. “I promised your Pa I’d look out for you. You’d better come along and let me check your temperature and tonic you as well, just to be safe.”

“What? No way! Like, I’m not sick!”

“You’re sharing a room with Apple Bloom. Younguns tend to share colds and whatnot at the best of times. Sticking two of them in a room together makes it pretty darn a sure thing. Better safe than sorry. Come along no. No fussing,” Applejack said firmly, as she herded the protesting filly out of the room. “Was that one drop or two in a large glass of water?” she asked Granny over her shoulder.

“One should do for Apple Bloom jes fine, but best make it two for our guest. Don’t reckon her constitution is any too strong. It needs all the help it kin git,” Granny Smith said, a sly look in her old eyes.

Jake blinked his eyes, looking concerned. “Who’s going to show me the way to school? Will you take me, Pa?” he asked Big Mac.

Big Mac looked visibly torn. One could almost see him tallying up the chores he’d fall behind escorting Jake to school. On the other hoof, it was equally clear that he would like nothing more than to escort his new son to his first day of school.

“I can walk with Prince Jake,” Goose Down offered, ducking her head slightly as she did. “I explored the area while you and your friends accompanied the prince and princesses to the presentation ceremony.”

“Yeah! Let's go,” Jake shouted out while heading for the door.

“Whoa,” Big Mac said in a firm voice. The big stallion started to stack dirty dishes. “Clear the table and lend a hoof. You got a bit of time,” he flicked an ear toward the bathroom where Diamond Tiara had just let out a shrill squeal of total outrage, he gave a sympathetic wince. “Going to take Applejack a bit to convince herself the fillies are healthy.”

“I can do that,” Goose said hastily, moving forward to start clearing the table. “Whoa!” Big Mac said emphatically, he moderated his tone when the small Nocturne shied back from him. “Help is appreciated. Colt needs to do his chores as well. You can wash. Jake can rinse. I’ll dry.”

***

As she examined her current outfit in the living room mirror, Princess Moonlight Dancing on the Water knew she was seriously compromising her kid credentials, but she couldn't help it. She was going to a pony school. How cool was that?

It was disgusting how much she was actually looking forward to learning all about her new world. At the very least she should be faking reluctance, just for form’s sake. She twisted a bit to the side, twitching her hips to make her semi-skirt swirl around her legs. She had been tempted to wear her Rainbow Dash skirt, as a form of silent rebellion, but in the end, she had pulled her never before worn Twilight Sparkle outfit from the wardrobe. She liked that it wasn’t overly girly, but wasn’t so happy at what it represented: her commitment to getting a good education.

“Are you ready to go, Curry?” her mom asked from where she was standing by the door, a packed lunch basket held between her teeth.

“I guess,” Curry Comb answered Fluttershy, trying her best to project a sense of resigned resignation, but the smile that was causing her cheeks to ache ruined the effect. She took her lunch bucket and received a nuzzle in return. Setting her load down on the floor she gave her mom a big hug.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? I could give you a ride?” Fluttershy suggested in a questioning tone, her sweet breath ruffling the hair on the nap of Curry’s neck.

As riding Fluttershy was way near the top of her favorite things to do, Curry demurred with some reluctance. “I don’t want all the foals and colts to think I’m a little kid who needs her mom to give her a lift to school. Besides, don’t you have a massage appointment with Mr. Hairy this morning? You said he wanted to be all loose and limber before he went into hibernation this year so his neck wouldn’t be so stiff when he wakes up next spring.”

“That is true,” Fluttershy replied thoughtfully. She wrapped Curry in a big wing hug and held her close. “You be good and listen to Miss Cheerilee.”

“You bet,” Curry replied, taking a deep breath in order to draw in enough of her mom’s scent to tide her over till school was over. “I’ll come right home and help you draw the migration maps for the birds, I promise.”

***

Was there anything in the world harder than saying you were sorry to a pair of dweebs?

Princess Gilded Clouds Raising Gloriously Into The Dawn Sky Signifying Upcoming Storms, really, really, really, didn’t want to do it. But recent events had caused her to re-evaluate her attitude toward ponies who were not Rainbow Dash, and on the top of that rather long list of ponies were Dashie’s friends, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. She’d have rather avoided it. She was going to lose some serious cool points doing it. She’d have happily put it off forever. But, she had to personally deliver a report to her new Wingmaster, and her flight path from her home to Canterlot was right overtop of Ponyville. There simply was no good excuse that she could think of that her personal sense of pride and honor would find acceptable for putting off the apology she owed the dweebs.

Not that she wouldn’t be just as happy if it turned out both of them were out of town for the week.

***

Fluttershy hadn’t been able to go back into the house after Curry had left for school. Her eyes kept turning toward the curve in the path her daughter had disappeared around, and her hooves nearly itched with the urge to trot down that path after Curry. So, even though she was not expecting Hairy Bear for a little while, she occupied herself by using her wings to rake clean the patch of grass where she intended to realigned his spine. She didn’t want any twigs or rocks bruising his sensitive skin.

The shy pony was fully focussing on the ground when an ominous winged shadow passed across the grass in front of her.

Not even for an instant did Fluttershy think that the shadow was cast by an overflying pegasus. Inherited instincts from generations of ponies who had run away to run away another day kicked in, her adrenaline spiked and she sprinted for her cottage door.

***

Gilda had been disappointed but resigned when she had spotted the dweebiest dweeb of them all sweeping the grass outside her house. She circled around and then scowled in annoyance when she saw the coward running toward shelter. But that wasn’t her only reaction, her heart hammered in her chest and her crop instinctively grumbled in hunger at the sight of running prey, even though Griffons had not actually hunted ponies for generations. A smirk twisted her bill as she began her sharp descent. She might be here to apologize, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t accidentally scare the horse apples out of the scaredy-pony while trying to do it.

***

“Stop right there!” a horribly familiar figure shouted, coming in for an almost crash landing between Fluttershy and safety.

Fluttershy planted all four hooves and flapped her wings wildly, blowing dust into the griffon’s face before, coming to a skidding stop, her nose inches from Gilda’s beak. “Um, no,’ she squeaked as she whirled and bolted in the opposite direction.

“Stop acting like prey, you dweeb!” Gilda’s exasperated, and slightly excited voice ordered from just behind her. Fluttershy just tucked her head down and ran even harder. A stiff wind ruffled her feathers and fur as Gilda passed overhead close enough to run her claws through Fluttershy’s mane before performing a wing-over and coming to rest hovering just over the ground, directly in front of the terrified pony. The frightened pony’s eyes opened even wider when a huge hairy shadow suddenly loomed behind the griffon. Fluttershy’s heart leaped in her chest as she bolted forward, much to the obvious shock of Gilda.

In the end, Fluttershy was too slow. Just before her outthrust hooves could push the startled griffon out of the way, a huge meat-hook of a paw contacted the side of Gilda’s head.

When Fluttershy realized she was going to be too late she squeezed her eyes shut tightly to avoid seeing what was about to happen. It was really too bad that could not close her ears as easily, though she did flatten them down as much as possible. A terrifying sound of a paw on head impact coincided with a very brief squawk of outrage, that became scrambled as it combined with the sound of a body skidding and bouncing across the yard.

Then there was a crash.

The sound of nails pulling out of wood.

A few rocks rolling away.

The stentorian cracking and tearing of a structure falling to the ground.

Fluttershy carefully lowered her hooves from her eyes. The first thing she saw was Hairy Bear looking very satisfied with himself as he stared at something behind her. Afraid of what she was going to see, the timid pony slowly turned her head and gave a dismayed gasp as she saw the terrifying monster she had been fleeing from just moments before lying in a tangled bundle of wings and bloody feathers with a section of shattered fence laying on top of her.

As so often happened to her in the presence of a badly wounded critter, Fluttershy’s fear fled to the back of her mind and cowered as she placed it firmly, but gently, under lock and key. The mental exercise was made much easier by the current situation. Gilda no longer looked like a terrifying pony-eating monster, but a poor shattered wreck who was in desperate need of help.

It wouldn’t last. Fluttershy could put off the shakes and shivers for only so long. Eventually, she would have to pay for her present calm, likely by hiding under the bed for a day and hugging Angel Bunny until her heartbeat slowed from its current hummingbird rate. But, for now, she could deal.

It only took her a moment of thought to discard the idea of running for the doctor. That would leave Gilda bleeding, helpless and alone, and suffering from who knew what invisible wounds. The griffon needed to be treated ‘now’. It was imperative that she be stabilized before Fluttershy sought medical help.

Besides, Fluttershy was worried that the doctor might not know any more about treating a griffon than he had a dragon. She likely knew more about treating trauma to large felines and predatory birds than the doctor.

“First, make sure the area is safe,” Fluttershy muttered to herself. Turning to Hairy Bear, Fluttershy considered him for a moment. He was no danger to her, but she wasn’t sure how he’d react if Gilda thrashed while Fluttershy was treating her.

She truly did not blame the big bear for his actions. He had only been acting in her defense. If anypony was to blame, it was her for being such a scairdypony and making him think she needed his help. That said, it might be best if he were to make himself scarce for a while. There were already a lot of ponies who were nervous about him being so close to Ponyville, and their foals. “Thank you ever so much for your help, Hairy,” she said while rubbing his tubby tummy, thick with stored fat for the coming winter. “But, I’m afraid some ponies might not understand. I think it would be best if you headed back to your den. I’ll come and work on your back as soon as I can. I promise.”

Not even waiting to see the bear retreat, Fluttershy turned back to Gilda. Moving closer to the downed flyer, she used her eyes carefully, not attempting to touch or move the downed flyer. The broken wing was obvious. She thought Gilda’s left front leg might be broken as well. She wouldn’t know until she could get a better look. The griffon’s head was twisted badly, but Fluttershy didn’t think it was broken. Birds had very flexible necks. But, she wouldn’t be surprised if the ligaments had been badly strained. She was going to need a good sized rolled blanket to act as a collar. Later she could borrow Rainbow Dash’s cervical collar. Fluttershy grimaced slightly. She was going to have to tell her friend about Gilda, and while she wasn’t sure how Rainbow would react, it was bound to be extreme.

Mentally making a list of the supplies she would need, Fluttershy knelt and ran her wings lightly over Gilda’s body, checking for injuries she might have missed during her visual inspection.

***

“Jake! Apple Bloom, Di,” Curry yelled out while waving her arm in the air as her friends came into sight from where she was waiting at the crossroads.

Jake galloped at full speed toward her, while Apple Bloom broke into a canter. Curry’s expression grew concerned when she noticed that Diamond Tiara seemed to be holding back. She wondered if the pony was sulking over Curry using a diminutive when calling her. Not that Curry was going to stop. Diamond Tiara was too big a mouthful to be using every time she wanted to talk to the pony. Curry’s annoyance faded quickly when she noticed that there was a slight hitch in the pale pink pony’s stride as if her rear legs were not moving properly.

In addition, Di’s tail was tucked tightly between her hind-quarters and she was looking everywhere but directly toward Curry. As she got closer, the small girl made out a slightly green tinge to the plump pony’s complexion. Checking more closely, Curry noticed that Apple Bloom also seemed to be carrying her tail tighter than normal, though her stride was not as compromised as Diamond Tiara’s. She also seemed to be in a much more cheerful mood as she kept glancing toward her roommate with a huge grin on her face.

“What’s wrong with them?” Curry questioned Jake as he caracoled next to her, too excited to stand still.

“I don’t know. They’ve been like that ever since Applejack took their temperature this morning.”

Curry swallowed nervously, suddenly glad she had not given into expectations and faked a cold this morning. She’d seen the thing the vet used on Jake, and the memory was enough to send a hand sliding protectively backward before she caught herself. She made a silent vow that she was never going to get sick again in her life.

***

As it turned out, Curry’s enthusiasm for her new school waned in direct proportion to her proximity to it. By the time she could make out the little red schoolhouse on the top of its small hill she was even rethinking her aversion to pony medicine.

Unfortunately, there was no known treatment in existence for new-kid-at-schoolites.

The small girl paused, her feet frozen in place, a cold sweat dampening her forehead. What if the ponies at the school thought she was a freak? What if they laughed at her? What if they wouldn’t let her play any pony games?

“Jake, you’re here!” a shrill piping voice called out as a brown and white blur dashed past Curry and resolved into the form of Pipsqueak as he tried to dart between Jake’s legs. An effort that ended with an “oof” from Jake and Pipsqueak bouncing back onto his haunches where he shook his head to get rid of the stars he was seeing. “Sorry, forgot,” he said as he got to his feet and took a few wobbly steps that ended with him leaning up against one of Jake’s front legs while the big colt nuzzled him in concern. “Don’t worry about me. It will take more than a bump to lay low the Dread Pirate Pipsqueak,” the pinto colt assured his friend.

Laughter filled the air, and Curry was surprised to find it was coming from her.

A bright flash caught her by surprise and she blinked to clear the tears from her eyes as a voice a few feet above her head said, “Welcome to our school, Princess Moonlight.”

“Featherweight, you idiot. Like, you were supposed to wait till Diamond Tiara was in the shot!” Silver Spoon castigated the scrawny pegasus who was fluttering in front of Curry, an old fashioned camera nearly as big as his head clutched between his front hooves. He was wearing a hat on his head with a large ‘press’ tag stuck in the brim.

“Get into the frame, Diamond Tiara,” the light gray pony urged her friend. “Featherweight wants the first issue of the school paper to pop. And nothing will have more pop than pictures of you with royalty.”

“I do?” the skinny Pegasus asked, but was ignored by the two, would be, high society equines.

“Oh no. I wouldn’t want to intrude on their first day at school. This is all about them, not me,” Diamond Tiara protested, even as she moved forward and nestled herself snugly up against Curry.

“Then why did you send a message saying I’d better be here to take your picture with them, or else?” Featherweight asked, looking up from his viewfinder.

Before either Diamond or Silver could reply, Curry joined the conversation.“Oh, you’ve got to get a picture of Di, all by herself,” she said firmly, with only a hint of a giggle in her voice. She chivied the protesting pony into the middle of the laneway and shooed everypony else out of the way while Featherweight took Di’s picture.

All of Diamond Tiara’s protests vanished instants before the snap of the shutter, as she adopted what she obviously thought was a glamor pose, but looked a lot more like she’d pulled a muscle in a sensitive place. The fact that Apple Bloom yelled out, “Thermometer," causing Diamond’s tail to tuck itself firmly back between her hindquarters, didn’t help the composition much either.

“Perfect ‘before’ picture,” Curry enthused. “You print me up a nice big one of those,” she demanded, as was her habit when dealing with schoolboys. She figured it would work just as well on schoolcolts.

“We’ll hang it in the barn and you can look at it for inspiration while we train,” the small girl told Diamond Tiara. “Before you know it, all those bulges of fat around your belly will melt right away, along with your oversized plot.”

“Diamond Tiara’s plot is not oversized. It’s pure perfection!” Silver Spoon told Curry in a loud emphatic voice that brought a rosy blush to Diamond Tiara’s cheeks -- the ones on her face -- and a loud “Woooooo,” from a pair of funny looking colts who had ambled over to see what the fuss was about.

“Shut up!” Diamond Tiara hissed at her friend while everypony was distracted by the new arrivals.

Silver Spoon stared dumbfounded for a moment, or, at least as long as it took her to replay her words in her mind, at which point she blushed even brighter than her friend.

“Hey. What’s the weird looking thing?” the colt with the long neck and the snail for a cutie mark, asked in a voice that cracked halfway through his sentence.

“Sure is a funny looking thing,” added his tubby companion with the pair of snips on his flank.

“You’re calling me weird and funny looking?” Curry asked, putting as much incredulity into her voice as possible as she raked the two unicorn colts with a scathing look. “You’re a fine pair to talk.”

“Wow. It can talk, Snips.”

“Cool. Does it do other tricks?” The overweight colt asked Diamond Tiara, totally ignoring the content of Curry’s words, and her look of disdain.

Snails suddenly noticed Jake, and yelled out in his cracking voice, “Hey, wait a second. I recognize you. You’re that new pony from the fairgrounds. You’re an Alicorn. That is so cool. Does the weird thing belong to you?”

“I belong to my own self, thank you very much,” Curry said firmly.

Snails got right up into Curry’s face and tried to stare up into her mouth, “So cool. Are you using magic to throw your voice?” he asked a puzzled Jake.

“How about I throw you?” Curry asked as she made a production of pretending to roll up her sleeves. The small girl was not about to let any boy treat her like this, even if he was a colt and not technically a boy. Although, both colts and boys shared certain things in common, and she knew right where to kick a boy if they got too big for their britches. Unfortunately, she had more than a sneaking suspicion that starting her first day of school by sending Snails to the nurse, or vet, or whatever, would be a bad idea.

In honesty, she also tended to preserve the nuclear option for males who had really, really, pissed her off, say by tying tin cans to a dog or cat’s tail. Annoying twerps usually only warranted a sock in the snoot, but this was a golden opportunity to practice her calf-tying. All she needed was a calf, or a colt would do, and a short hunk of rope, which she conveniently had in a back pocket.

“Children, children. Class will be starting soon. Please get to the schoolyard as quickly as you can,” a cheerful, but authoritative voice said from behind them.

“Yes, Miss Cheerilee,” all the ponies but Jake chorused together. Jake caught on and added his own “Yes, Miss Cheerilee,” a second or two after the others had finished.

Curry was still fuming and declined to join the chorus.

“Curry Comb?” Mrs. Cheerilee asked tentatively and smiled in relief when Curry turned her head toward her. “Or do you prefer, Princess Moonlight.”

“Curry!” she snapped, her face twisting into a reflexive grimace. “Just Curry is fine. Miss Cheerilee,” she added a beat later when she realized it might not be smart being so curt with a teacher who was about to have Curry in her total power, and with access to the dreaded permanent record.

“Curry it is then. Would you like to come have a little talk with me before school starts?”

Curry knew this one. It might have sounded like a question, but it wasn’t. On the other hand, the mare was not grinding her teeth together or shredding a notebook between her hooves. Those were good signs. “Sure, I guess. Where?”

“The classroom will be fine. The children tend to avoid it till the bell rings.”

Curry followed after her new teacher, taking a bit of comfort in the three smiling daisies decorating Cheerilee’s flank. Curry was starting to get the hang of reading cutie marks, and the teacher’s seemed like a good indication that she’d be one of the good ones.

***

“Please, have a seat, Curry,” Cheerilee said, gesturing toward a small desk that stood out from the other ones in the room. Smaller than those used by the fillies and colts, it was shaped to accommodate her newest student’s strange body.

Princess Celestia, according to Twilight Sparkle, had arranged for it personally. Cheerilee, who was a bit of a royalphile had only barely resisted the urge to take it home and put it in protective custody before her darling students got their grubby little hooves all over it.

She watched with a certain amount of fascination as the small mare folded herself into the convoluted device while trying not to be too obvious about her interest, or to check and make sure that Curry’s ‘paws?’ were clean.

“Now, Curry, I’ve gone over your results with Twilight Sparkle. Naturally, you have very little knowledge of our world, but your math and reading comprehension is more than acceptable for your age group. Fortunately, we are a very small school, and all ages attend class together, so I don’t need to have you alternating between classrooms. I’m sure the other students will be delighted to help you catch up to the rest in those subjects you are weak in. However, there was one thing I really wanted to ask you in private before we started.”

Cheerilee paused for a moment, and checked that there were no little pony ears nearby, and then leaned in close while whispering, “You see, I have this bet with my sister, Berry Punch, and I just have to ask. Is Twilight Sparkle really dating Princess Luna?”

***

“Huh? Watsis? Who’s all there?” Granny Smith sputtered as she woke up in her favorite over-stuffed lounger. Blinking sleep crusted eyes she looked around, taking note of where she was, and the angle of the sun on the floor. “Bout mid-morning. Best get up before I sleep the whole darn dang gum day away.” Getting out of her chair, she stretched out her body, filling the air with a veritable snap-crackle-and-pop of joints.

Idly scratching her side she wandered into the brightly lit and gleaming kitchen. “Born farm girl that mare,” she commented as her eyes wandered over to the small closed door that led to her ground-floor bedroom. A few years previously, she moved downstairs from the bedroom she had slept in for almost all her life. The stairs were just too much for her bad hip when it wasn’t really necessary. Applejack and Big Mac had modified the large pantry to make her a bedroom. With only four ponies in the house, they really hadn’t needed it to store supplies.

Being careful to keep the noise down, Granny cracked opened the door and peered inside. A small dresser and a neatly made bed that filled almost all the available space greeted her eyes. A closer look revealed just the hint of the tip of a bat-wing projecting out from under the bed. Listening closely Granny made out slow and even breathing. She nodded in satisfaction and carefully closed the door.

Granny Smith had experienced mixed feelings when she’d learned that a Nocturne was going to be staying with them for a few days. Nocturne Stallions had a reputation of being the sort of ponies your mother warned you about while giving you the feeling that mother knew much more about them than she was saying. The part of her that loved trashy romance novels was intrigued at the idea of actually meeting one of the bad-ponies that so often had a starring role in those books. On the other hoof, the part of her that was fiercely protective of her kinfolks had not been happy at the thought of one of them sharing the same house as Applejack and Apple Bloom.

The surprising revelation that their new guest was a mare was therefore both a bit comforting, and disappointing. She would have liked to have learned more about their new guest at the time but Applejack had hustled the very tired pony up to the guest room they had aired out for her as soon as she had arrived.

One of Granny’s many nieces had been a pegasus. Back in the day they had built a room for her in the attic, with a large gable on the back of the roof and a small deck framed in door-width shutters so she would be able to fly in and out without the need to come into the house and up three flights of stairs every time she came home.

They had already decided that Jake would have the room once he mastered his wings, but for now, it was vacant and seemed a perfect place to house their guest.

Granny had shared that opinion until she walked into the kitchen in the middle of the day to find the small pony cowering under the kitchen table, barely visible behind the table cloth. She didn’t really understand the how or why of the situations, but she had eased enough foals through night-terrors to recognize what she was seeing. Even though the filly was a teenager and not a foal, Granny invited Goose to sleep in her bed while she took her afternoon nap. She’d woken to find the small mare had crawled out from under the covers sometime during the day and taken refuge ‘under’ Granny’s bed, slumbering away with no sign of the terrors that had driven her away from the upstairs bedroom.

Granny saw no reason to inform Applejack of the situation. So far she was the only one who knew that Goose didn’t spend her days sleeping in her large airy room, but rather stuffed under Granny’s bed in the former pantry. If that was what it took to make the little mare comfortable, she wasn’t going to argue, and if the young’uns gave her any lip, she had more than enough embarrassing stories of their own youthful nighttime activities to shut 'em up good.

***

“Did you know that there are stars in the rock, Goose Down?” asked Luna, as she knelt in the low ceilinged cave, her horn just barely below the roof.

“No Princess Luna,” Goose answered, looking up at the comforting solid rock just inches above her head. “I can’t see any.”

“You just have to look in the right light,” Luna said as her horn began to glow softly. Little flecks of gold and silver in the granite ceiling sparkled as they reflected the light from Luna’s horn.

“Oh, I see them now,” Goose said in wonder as the little flecks grew more and more distinct, while the darker substrate around them seemed to fade into the shadows. “They’re beautiful.”

“If you look closely, and use your imagination, you can make out shapes. Sometimes I like to make up stories about them. Can you see anything?”

Goose stared intently at the little glimmers of light, fascinated with how some seemed to be deep inside the rock, while others floated above the surface. Her eyes picked out patterns, places where the little sparkly bits seemed to line up. She relaxed her mind and let it wander the way she used to while staring at the grain in the wood walls of her little closet of a bedroom back home.

There! Those bright spots that seemed to zig-zag looked like the back edge of a pony’s wings when she spread them out wide. And that straight line would be her back. A faint cloud of very tiny little sparkles would be her mane and tail. “I see you, flying in the sky,” Goose said with the excitement of discovery. “It looks so real," she said dreamily. "Like real stars. They seem to go on and on forever,” her voice became a bit uncertain, and a furrow grew between her eyes as she shifted restlessly on the cavern floor.

“Ah, how disappointing,” Princess Luna said suddenly, breaking Goose out of her reverie as the light from Luna’s horn dimmed. “I am sorry, Goose Down. I must leave you for now. Duty calls to me.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me, Princess. I’m only a---” Goose protested. Her words were cut off as Luna leaned forward and nuzzled her forehead affectionately.

“No pony is ‘only’ anything, dear Goose Down. Each is special and unique. I must go now, but you may stay and look at the stars in the rock as long as you like,” Luna said as she faded from sight leaving Goose alone in the small cavern.

Goose gave a sigh of happiness, her forehead tingling slightly from where the princess had touched her. She lifted a hoof and gently rubbed the area, a contented expression on her face. She settled back down and tried to pick out the little gleams of light, not so clear now that the light the princess had brought had gone, but if she looked really, really, closely, she could still see some of them glittering away here and there in the solid rock ceiling.

***

A thunderous wave of screaming foals crested in the doorway of the schoolhouse, the small opening catching them up and causing them to hang up slightly before the tidal wave of ponies came crashing into the yard.

The individual colts and fillies dashed off, filled with the exuberance of prisoners set free from their chains, at least until lunch was over. The young ponies headed for their favorite pieces of playground equipment in a headlong rush. Those that were a little slow formed into groups and started impromptu games of tag, four-square, or simply continued to dash around while working off excessive energy.

The last figure to emerge from the class was Curry, a decided change of pace for a girl who had in times past not been beyond bribery or threats to gain the desk closest to the exit. Her eyes swept over the chaos of the schoolyard wistfully, suddenly realizing how the kids with a limb in a cast back home had felt about not being able to join in.

Stepping down into that maelstrom of equine forms was just begging to get kicked and stomped, Curry decided. Just because it would be accidental, with no malice intended, wouldn’t make it hurt any less. She was pretty sure that Rarity’s bodystocking would protect her, but there didn’t seem any point in taking chances.

A pool of stillness in the general chaos of the recess yard caught Curry’s eyes. A pair of ponies were kneeling in companionable comfort on a grass slope that rose slightly above the hard packed earth of the schoolyard. The two familiar fillies were delicately eating sandwiches from an oversized, ornate lunchbox, while a plain paper bag lay discarded off to the side.

Even from where she was, Curry could see Di casting quick wistful eyes toward that bag.

Skirting the localized stampede that was the playground, Curry made her way around to the reclining ponies. “So, your hindquarters still giving you trouble?” she said in a derisive tone and smirked when Di hastily scrambled to her feet, leaving Silver Spoon still kneeling, a sandwich dangling from her mouth as she looked up at her friend in consternation.

Curry could see that Di looked a bit nonplussed herself, and more than a little annoyed at her reaction. So she wasn’t surprised to see the pony’s shoulder stiffen, or to hear her complain, “Wait, Like, this is school. I’m not training right now.”

“You are if you want to be all that you can be,” Curry snapped back, using words she had stolen from a commercial, and which she found seemed to work well when it came to motivating the rather lazy pony.

“You’ve been at your desk all morning. You need to stretch those muscles and work them a bit before going back into class.”

Stepping up beside Diamond Tiara, and ignoring the filly’s obvious embarrassment, Curry kneaded the pony’s major muscle groups. “Yep, tight as can be. Come on, you know the drill. Front legs one step forward, back legs one step back, and, arch that back, I want to see your belly brush the grass, and your eyes on the sky.

Curry was not idle as she shouted at her trainee. She sat down on the grass and spread her own legs into as wide an angle as possible before reaching forward and grabbing her left foot with both hands. “I’m waiting,” she said in a strained voice as she pulled hard on her foot.

Exercise for the sake of exercise had never been part of Curry’s day. She was an eleven-year-old girl with a pet Percheron stallion and a guardian who believed in responsibility and self-reliance. Her normal daily list of chores would have left most of the so-called-athletes at her junior high begging for relief. The last thing she had ever needed was extra exercise.

That was then, this was now.

The only ponies Curry could compete against in purely physical terms here were mostly still wearing diapers, and one evening helping Pinkie Pie with the Cake twins had put even that qualifier into question. There were times when she told herself that she should simply let Rarity’s magic clothing make up the difference… in the same way that they already offered her protection against scrapes and scratches and general bumps and bruises. Tempting as the idea was, and at times it was very tempting, she didn’t want to become reliant on her magical clothing. Everyone knew that if you relied too much on a magic object, it would let you down when you most needed it… so you could learn that all you ever needed all along was your own ability.

The obstinate girl meant to be more than ready for when that happened.

Curry switched her hold to her other foot and snapped at Diamond Tiara who was barely exerting herself. Instead, she was using the opportunity to pose for several colts who were admiring her figure.

“You ain’t doing this to give them a show. This is for you. You want me to bring the lunge line to school to encourage you?” Curry asked. To her satisfaction, a blushing Diamond Tiara started to put more of an effort into her warm-up stretches.

Curry had been really surprised to discover a lunge line in the Apples’ barn. Until Applejack had told her that it was actually a foal harness that she’d used on Apple Bloom back when she’d needed to take her baby sister out into the orchard with her, while she and Big Mac worked.

Not really thinking about the implications, Curry had added a few bits of strapping to the harness so it would fit Diamond Tiara. She’d only used it once, and upon noticing how horribly embarrassed Di had been over the whole thing, had felt guilty as heck about it. She’d been so desperate to do a good job training Di, that she’d totally forgotten that all she had to do was tell the pony what she wanted her to do, unlike the ponies at home who needed firm direction in the form of a lunge whip to go along with the lunge line when they were just starting out or had picked up bad habits.

Still, even though it was very bad of her, but Curry couldn’t help but feel a certain satisfaction with how things had worked out. Di had shown a decided lack of motivation up till the time Curry had strapped the lunge line to her. The young girl hadn’t had any problems with Di in that regard since then.

She soothed her guilty conscience by telling herself that if she was prepared to run till she puked in order to improve herself, the pony could at the very least be diligent about her stretches and exercises. It wasn’t like Curry was demanding more of the spoiled pony than she could give. Even Sweetie Bell and Twist were in better shape than the spoiled rotten pony, and Apple Bloom and Scootaloo made Di look like she was ready for the nursing home. If Di couldn’t stick to the basics, how was she going to handle things when the real training began? Of course, Curry was going to have to figure out what real training consisted of. She hadn’t been allowed to do much more than exercise the ponies back home while following the orders given to her by the actual trainers.

Curry had quizzed Applejack and Big Mac on the topic. That was where she’d gotten the basic stretches she had Di doing right now. She was looking forward to the day she could start using some of Applejack’s rodeo training methods with Di and had already decided that she’d be adding a saddle, for weight training. Purely for Diamond Tiara’s benefit, of course, and not because she really wanted to give barrel racing a try, and some of the other events she’d never been able to try because Jake wasn’t built for them.

The young girl crossed her fingers that come the spring she’d be able to talk Applejack into allowing her to provide a little resistance training to go along with the farm pony’s workout as she prepared for the rodeo competitions they had here.

As interesting as doing some real riding and roping was, what had really intrigued her were some remarks Applejack had made about how Big Mac had almost signed up for the Royal Guard when he was a teenager. She’d watched enough war movies with Old Ben to have picked up pretty good ideas about how army basic training worked for people. She wasn’t sure how that would apply to ponies. Maybe she’d get a chance to talk to an actual guard sometime. Rainbow Dash said they came to Ponyville whenever the Princesses visited and were always ready to chat with the locals.

Fortunately for Diamond Tiara, the older grooms back home had really pounded home the point to Curry about not over exercising a pony, especially a young one. They could easily strain ligaments if their muscles got overworked, and there was a risk of joint damage which could ruin a horse for life. Curry was going to have to slowly build Di up over the next couple of years before hitting her with the really hard stuff, but when Curry was finished with her, the overweight, comfort-loving, downright lazy, pony was going to be a champion. It was just too bad Curry would never be able to show her in a real competition.

Keeping an eye on Di to make sure she didn’t slack off, Curry finished her own stretches and got to her feet. “Now we can eat,” she told the blushing pony who had attracted quite an audience over the last few minutes as she contorted her body in ways that a lot of the older colts found very interesting.

Diamond Tiara gave Curry a wary look as if expecting some sort of trick, “Like, that’s it? You’re not going to make me jog around the yard for the rest of lunch?”

“Course not. You need proper fuel if you’re going to build up that flabby body,” Curry said. She cast a derisive look at the fancy lunch box Silver Spoon had brought, filled with dainty little old lady sandwiches that looked like they had all the nutrition of a chunk of cloud. “What’s wrong with the lunch the Apples packed for you?”

“Like, you must be joking,” Silver Spoon interjected. “It’s bad enough that poor, poor, Diamond Tiara has to eat that slop at all. At least I can give her some decent food when she’s away from that mud hole.”

Poor, poor, Diamond Tiara looked an awful lot like she would have liked to buck her best friend upside the head, thought Curry as she saw the pony cast a hungry look toward the plain brown paper bag that was laying on the ground a couple of feet away from Silver Spoon’s fancy lunch box.

“It would be, like, rude of me to throw it in the garbage,” Diamond Tiara said in a tentative voice.

“Sure would,” Curry said in a distracted tone as she opened up her own lunch bucket with an anticipatory expression. It was filled with sweet carrot sticks, whole field mushrooms dipped into spiced batter and deep-fried, along with the main course, several sandwiches made from big thick slabs of buttered honey-oatmeal bread filled with sliced portabella mushrooms and cheese.

“It is only right to encourage the lower classes when they make an attempt at proper behavior,” Diamond Tiara suggested.

“But, you might destroy your taste buds,” Silver Spoon protested, interposing herself between her friend and the no doubt toxic contents of the dirty old paper bag. When Diamond Tiara looked like she might move around her, Silver Spoon took a step backward and ‘accidentally’ stepped on the bag. “Oh. How sad. All of the Apples' hard work, destroyed,” she said insincerely.

Getting a good look at Diamond Tiara’s expression, Curry decided she’d better do something before Silver Spoon ended up being black and blue. Or, with a bite taken out of her. Looking over at where Jake was attempting, without a lot of success, but a great deal of enthusiasm, to play tetherball, she let out a yell. “Soup’s on, Jake. Git your lunch and git over here. Di, do you want one of my sandwiches?” Curry asked, holding the object in question up. It took both her hands to grip enough of it to keep the contents from spilling out. “Mom packed a bit more than I can eat. If you don’t want it, I’m sure Jake will take it.”

Ignoring the look Silver Spoon shot toward her, Diamond Tiara said, “Well, it would be rude to refuse.” She leaned forward and took a huge bite. She gave a little shudder of delight and closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed.

Curry took a bite from the other side of the sandwich and happily masticated in time with Di. When the pony finished her mouthful and looked hungrily at the rest of the sandwich, Curry handed it to her, snatching her fingers back quickly.

Old habits died hard, but, given how quickly Di snatched and then scarfed down the remains, they were not totally out of line.

Reaching into the bucket, Curry took one of the remaining half-dozen sandwiches out, just as Jake trotted up, his own lunch bucket swinging from his mouth. Pipsqueak trotting beside him with his own cute little paper-bag lunch.

Apple Bloom and the rest of their friends soon joined them, and they brought friends, who brought friends, until the entire student body were clustered around the small group in the central, all chattering happily away while trading food. Curry leaned back on the grass, her belly full, and her heart soothed. The school was pretty cool, she decided.

***

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Curry said as she walked down the lane beside Jake. Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara were dawdling behind while engaged in some sort of quiet argument that seemed to focus on who’s fault it was an alarm clock was broken.

“I had fun. I learned how to spell my name. Miss Cheerilee posted it on our side of the room,” Jake said.

“I saw. Pretty impressive,” Curry said honestly, remembering the old joke about the dancing bear. It didn’t matter that Jake’s scrawl was impossible to read, the amazing thing was that he’d managed it at all, and had only bitten three pencils in half in the attempt. Pretty impressive, considering that his previous scholastic achievement had been conning her out of extra apples at Old Ben's with nothing but a soulful look.

They came to the crossroads where they had to part ways and Curry gave Jake a big hug.

“Can’t you come to the farm for a bit?” Jake asked.

“Yes. I, like, hardly got any training at all today,” Diamond Tiara said as she came and pushed herself between Jake and Curry.

“Oh, I can take care of that,” Apple Bloom said. “Applejack wants us to sweep out the barn this evening. That should give you a really good workout.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Curry said quickly before the storm clouds brewing up in Diamond Tiara’s eyes burst. She turned to Jake and said, “I’d love to come and visit for a bit, but I promised mom I’d help her draw some migration maps.” She held up her hands and wiggled her fingers. “These things are pretty useful for stuff like that.”

Leaning down a bit, Curry gave a surprised Diamond Tiara a big hug. “You did really good today,” she whispered in the pony’s ear. “I know that was hard for you to do that in front of everypony at school. It will be worth it in the end, you just wait and see.”

“Well. Like. Of course,” the flustered pony babbled, and Curry gave herself high marks for remembering that well-timed rewards were a very important part of training.

“Well, see you all tomorrow,” Curry told the three ponies as she started to walk toward home.

“Oh, no. You don’t get off that easy,” Apple Bloom said. Before Curry could react, the farm filly stood up on her hind legs and gave the small girl a hug and a nuzzle. Curry flushed slightly, as a warm feeling grew in her chest.

“Well, okay then,” Curry said with a cough, as she tugged affectionately on one of Apple Bloom’s ears to encourage the filly to let her go.

***

“Mom. I’m home,” Curry called out as she banged through the front door. It was cheesy, but she’d been looking forward to yelling out those words for the last five minutes of her walk home. She imagined Fluttershy giving her a big hug, and all the critters, except for ‘him’ welcoming her home after an exhausting day at school.

The reception she did get was a ‘little’ bit different. For one thing, all the furniture on the left side of the room had been shoved over to the right side and piled up against the wall. The only thing in the clear space was Fluttershy’s largest pet bed, and sleeping in that bed was a creature out of legend.

“Oh, wow. A hippogriff,” Curry whispered in awe.

“Griffon,” a faint, familiar voice said from behind the pile of furniture, rugs, and pillows.

“Mom? Is that you?” Curry asked, staring closely at the pile of belongings. Several upside-down pots that Curry had thought were sitting on top of the overturned sofa lifted up slightly, revealing the faces of Angel Bunny, and several of the other critters who frequented the house. They were all brandishing various kitchen implements. The largest pot of all lifted just a little, and Curry could see Fluttershy’s eyes peeking out from under the rim.

“Mom?” Curry repeated.

“Mommy has had a rather stressful day,” Fluttershy whispered.

Curry looked over at the heavily bandaged creature in the big pet bed. “I can see. Are there lots of Hippogriffs in Equestria?

“She’s a Griffon, and no, not a lot. They live up in the mountains.”

“Griffon,” Curry said, tasting the name on her voice. Looking closer she could see that while there was a certain resemblance, the Griffon didn’t look anything like Buckbeak. Made sense. That was only a movie, this was real life.

“Curry. Could you do me a very big favor?” Fluttershy whispered.

“Of course. What do you need?”

“There are two letters on the stove. Could you run them over to Twilight’s house, please? One of them is for Twilight, asking if she could please have Spike send the other to Princess Celestia.”

“No problem,” Curry said, with perhaps not as much enthusiasm as before. She really wanted to stick around and learn a lot more about her mom’s newest patient. She stared hard at the ‘griffon’ as she made her way around its bedding, noticing the thick collar made out of a large towel around its neck, the intricate splint around one wing, and a thick cast on the left front leg. “She sure got messed up good,” Curry commented to herself as she located the letters Fluttershy had mentioned. “Wonder what could be nasty enough to do that to something like her?”

Curry retraced her steps to the door, but before she exited she turned and gave the griffon another look before turning to face the pot her mom was wearing on her head, the rest of her being out of sight. “Mom, you remember how you said I could have a pet?” she asked, anticipation in her voice.

“No, Curry.”

“But, Mom.”

“Very, very, no, Curry.”

“Well, darn,” the disappointed girl pouted, kicking at the floor with the toe of her moccasin. With one last look at the marvelous griffon, she left the cottage on her mission to Twilight’s library.

Author's Note

And so I start another story in my usual rambling way. Remember, if you want to influence the story don't be afraid to comment. Very little is set in stone at this point.