Nothing's More Important

The darkness of the night outside still showed the glow of the fires receding into the distance, lighting up the underside of the cloud of smoke above them. They weren't close, but they were still quite impressive.

Alice padded out a few minutes later, her clothing shed, and her preferred wolf form shown, clad with a simple collar about her neck, bearing a small metal tag with writing. "Perhaps a friendly competition, husband? See who can grow the most hay in a week?"

The sound of his mate's approach drew his attention quickly. "The more we grow, the better." He raised a hoof. "Let's grow all we can, for your friend, and ourselves." He wasn't being very competitive about it, but seemed eager to get right into things.

Alice nodded, willing to let the competitive angle slide. She still wanted to know for herself how they compared, but she didn’t need to be a bully about it. “The more we grow, the better,” she agreed.

A half minute later, Amelia came around the side of the house with a fairly large bag of hay seed and set it down between the couple. “You two make a cute pair,” she said with amusement. “Here’s the seeds. Use as much as you need. As I said, there won’t be any shortage of buyers in the coming weeks.”

Justin grabbed the top of the bag and began dragging it away. "I saw a good place to start, it's just here." He didn't have to move very far and half-spilled the bag. "We'll have more seeds after we start. At least the horses won't be hungry." He sounded a bit odded out by the way that was phrased, even if he was the one that said it.

Alice picked out a different spot to work, nearby but out of Justin’s way, and started digging little holes in the ground, quickly and easily with her canine digging prowess. “I hope Amelia is able to get good at making those ‘hay-burgers’ you mentioned. Though I don’t think I’ll like them much myself. I wonder if the same condiments would go good on them as we use on hamburgers.”

Justin perked an ear. "You mean like ketchup? And mustard? Those are both good! A little salt and pepper…" He started rambling a bit about things one could put on a hayburger as he got to work digging and pawing with his hooves. He made long trenches rather than a bunch of little holes, then filled them with a line of seeds and pushed the dirt over the set of them. "I never tried feeding one to a wolf before... But I never met a wolf that wanted to talk to me instead of trying to eat me."

“I don’t care for mustard, but it’s not that unpopular. Do you like pickle relish?” The talk of hamburgers resulted in a bit of drool in the seed bag as she gathered some up and distributed them in her little line, before covering them up herself. “Ketchup and relish is my usual preference. Oh, with grilled onions!”

He nodded quickly. "All of those sound good. Does your friend have all of those?" He looked around to see where that human had gone off to, then smiled at his canine companion. "It's so funny we have this to bond over. I never would have guessed it." Right on to the next row he went, industriously tending to the seeds, but no great sprouting had occurred yet.

Amelia was sitting on her front porch, watching them work with amused interest. “I’ve got all those, and a grill out back to cook them up with. Do you think we’ll have hay far enough along to make burgers tonight? I don’t know how fast you too can make ‘em grow.”

Alice took some time to whisper to the little seeds as she patrolled the row for a bit, and then started work on the next row as the first started to poke up from the ground. “Tomorrow night would be much better, I think. Plants need their sun… and a plant who lives its whole life without feeling the sun’s warmth would make me sad,” she said.

Justin kept right on going, doing row after row after row. It was only after he had five rows full of seeds that he pulled out his vial and began to splash it carefully over the planted seeds. "Go on guys. Your plant brothers and sisters want you to grow tall and strong." Fortified with the released magic of the other plants he activated, he began to be crowded in abruptly growing plants, making up for lost time all around him.

Amelia sat up straighter, and Alice paused in her work to watch the rather quick growth. Alice’s own plants were still steadily inching their way up, but nowhere near as eye catching of a change. After a quick puff of breath through her nose, Alice redoubled her efforts, digging more holes and planting faster.

With his vial emptied, he didn't have more plant-growing serum at the ready and he moved carefully to step out of his patch of vibrant green. "If you keep going, you're going to beat me, wife of mine." He didn't sound like the idea of losing bothered him greatly, and he watched her work fondly.

His words, however, were obviously encouraging to her, and she managed a good thirty percent more than him, or so, before she collapsed to the ground, panting from the effort. “Those… burgers are sounding really good right about now,” she said.

“I’ll go fire up the grill,” Amelia said hastily, moving back into the house. “I’m sure I can scrounge up something edible for our vegetarian friend here. You are a vegetarian, right?” she asked Justin.

He nodded his head. "Not vegan, though. Milk, eggs, those are both good. I've tried fish before, but it's not really my preference." He rose to his hooves and moved to Alice to gently nuzzle his tired mate, then moved to flop right onto her. "You did a very good job. I'm impressed."

Alice giggled and wagged, trapped under her stallion. “Thanks. Yours was really something too. How hard is it to make more of those vials? Did you find what you need for them in my grove? Our. Our grove?”

He nuzzled the top of her head. "I did, but it's not the fastest growing plant, and you said to be careful, so I won't make another for a little while." His flat teeth found and nipped at her ears. "I can do it the old fashioned way."

Alice murred happily, evidently enjoying the nibbling. “Show me when we get back. I’ll make sure you don’t harvest too much. There’s a balance to such things, need to make sure it grows back as fast as you take it.”

He slid fully on top of her, hugging her from above and squeezing her gently. "We have time. The crop we've sowed needs care and attention, but we'll feed a lot of hungry ponies, myself to start."

Alice gave him a gentle nibble on his neck, squirming a bit to rub up against him. The sound of meat beginning to sizzle on the grill on the far side of the house made her blush, as she remembered where she was and toned it down.

He leaned his head back a little until she stopped. He sat up on her, then stepped free of her. "Let's not be rude guests. Cooking's a lot more fun with friends, right?" He led the way towards Amelia with a smile.

“Right,” Alice agreed, ignoring the countless times she’d been shoo’d from the kitchen by this particular friend. As she had countless times before. Her heart was still pounding and her tail wagging, making it a slight challenge to walk straight for a moment, but she managed to straighten out by the time they reached the kitchen.

Amelia was humming tunelessly to herself as she finished assembling a salad to go with the pasta salad and the burgers sizzling just beyond the back door. “Oh! Hi guys, mind staying out of my way? The table out back is where we’ll be eating, and I’ll have it set in a jiffy.”

Justin tilted his head. "I'd be glad to help, if you'd like a helping hoof." He held up one of those hooves, as dirt encrusted as farming had made it. "I don't mean to be an impolite guest, and you're not our servant, toiling away alone."

“Wash your hands first. Errr, hooves. But then you can set the table,” Amelia suggested, before pulling down various dishes from a higher cupboard. “You too, Alice. Clean paws or no burgers.”

Alice made use of a spigot on the back of the house, turning it easily and washing off her paws. There was a towel hung near it, something of a rag, but good enough for the purpose, and soon her paws were clean.

Justin took his turn after her, turning on the spigot with his mouth and working his hooves around under the flow and scrubbing them on each other until he was back to a modicum of clean. Wiping them clean with the rag did a lot to bring the shine back into them. "City ponies make fun of gardeners sometimes. You can always tell when a pony's working the land."

Amelia giggled, as she brought out the serving bowls for the sides. “We have the same troubles, sometimes, but not so much in this area. No cities worth mentioning for quite a few miles. But on the coasts… that’s another matter.”

“Cities can be dangerous for my kind, and smell bad besides, so I don’t like to spend much time there. They can be… wondrous, in their own way, though,” Alice said. “Maybe someday you’ll be able to show me one of your cities, Justin?”

Justin smiled brightly. "I'd be glad to." But he didn't move far. "The ground out here's just waiting to make my hooves dirty while they're wet. Do you have a dry towel to borrow?"

Amelia brought one out for him, handing it over before checking the burgers. Before long, dinner was served. While there was no hay burger ready this time, Amelia made him a grilled cheese sandwich, and the sides were meat free. Alice excused herself to head inside to change.

Justin watched Alice go before glancing at Amelia. "Couldn't she do that here?" Little things like nudity were foreign to the pony. He nibbled on the sandwich, found it agreeable, and chomped about half of it into a gooey mess, mmm.

“While it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen her bare skin, humans generally don’t go around naked where others can see them. We’d probably be fine, but someone could come by and spot her out here nude and give us trouble,” Amelia said. “Honestly, I’m sure it’s just force of habit, tonight. If we were worried about being seen, the talking pony is a lot harder to explain than a naked woman, and we might appreciate having her as a distraction.”

He perked an ear. "I guess that's what comes from not having fur? Do you get cold?" He looked over the human curiously, studying her. "It must be hard to hear, with…" He reached up a hoof and gently pawed at one of his long ears.

“I can hear just fine, thank you,” Amelia said with an annoyed smile. “It can get cold, but mostly it’s a sexual thing? Being naked is associated with having sex, and men especially… male humans, that is, can get easily aroused just from seeing someone naked.”

He looked after where his mate had gone, then back at her. "I don't usually think about that, but I've been with a few mares, and usually they're the ones that make the move and show they're interested, then nature takes its course and everyone… you know?" He looked a bit sheepish suddenly. Was he really discussing mating habits with an alien?

“Oh? Among humans, usually the male makes the first move, but it’s not a rule or anything, and I can’t imagine Alice holding herself back if she wants something,” Amelia was a little flushed from the subject matter herself, but tried not to let it get to her. “A lot of men are easily attracted by looks, whereas women usually need to get to know someone more before they’re interested. I don’t know about werewolves, like Alice. She’s always full of surprises, to me, and I think surprises herself sometimes. But you won’t go wrong spending time being friendly with her, you know?”