Tales of a Germane

Chapter 4

I got up at 8 p.m. (wich apparently is a very generous time for a soldier to get up), pulled on my uniform, took a clipboard with a paper and a pen with me and went to the barrack yard. On the yard stood about 80 soldiers including the officers (Probably this was a small base). All of them wore the same golden uniform (wich seemed to be take right out of the medival time) and were ,for some reason, all white pegasi or grey unicorns who were carring spears. I walked to the commander.

"Good morning, sir."
"Good morning, Mr. Siegmann. Well, as you can see, this is the whole staff of this base."
"Ok. Well, it's nice that everybody is wearing his gala uniform, but I would like to see the troops with their actual combat equipment."
"That is the actual combat equipment. And I have to admit, the ponyville company is of the best in all of Equestria."
"So you mean you have no firearms, bulletproof jackets, wireless comunication devices, camo suits and so on?"
"No, but if I can ask a question, what are all these things you were just talking about? In fact, I've to admit that in my opinion there is now real point in all this, I mean, we got the Elements of Harmony and all that, why should we increase our military power that much? But that is only my opinion." (I have to say, in one point we had indeed the same opinion. There was really no point in this whole thing.)

I took a small not on my clipboard

Things that have to be changed

FUCKING EVERYTHING

"What are you doing, Mr. Siegmann?"
"Oh, nothing special, I just took a note, but I fear that because of you have no proper equipment, I will not be able to start my work today. I'll write a letter to the ministry of defence, tell them about the situation and order advanced equipment. Until then, I think, we have to wait."

So I went to my office, took a paper and began to write.

Dear ministry of defence,

The situation is even worse than I expected. Not that the troops have no suitable equipment, they even never heard about it. Before I don't get any proper equipment I can't continue my work.

Ponyville military advisor
Franz Siegmann

I went to the post station and gave them the letter. Now I had nothing to do. Not that I would care much about it, it didn't felt like I was lazing, more I did everything I could for now and it wasn't my fault that this was not really much.
I decided to go to the city of Ponyville, at least I would have to stay here for a quite long time (exept these soldiers would learn to use their equipment in a really short time, but I wasn't really confident about that). The city was quite nice at all. It had some stores, a market place with some booths and a bakery (or some kind of that), apparently the place where my welcome party took place, wich was called Sugarcube Corner. Because I was a little hungry, and had nothing better to do at all, I went inside.
Big mistake. I just looked directly into the face of the pink grinning devil.

"Hello Franz, nice to see you again."(At least she called me with my actual name)
"Ohoho, hey there Pinkie, what are you doing here?"
"I'm working here."(Does she always grin?)
"Oh, ehm, well then, I just wanted to look a little around in the town and well, apparently I haven't seen anything yet so, ehhmmm, see you later."
"Oky doky"

I went out of Sugarcube Corner as fast as I could without looking like I was trying to escape.
As I wandered trough the town I recognized (to my amazement) that a couple of pegasi were pushing clouds around to clear the sky. Further I recognized that one of the pegasi was Rainbow Dash wich I just met yesterday. Because I was interested in what she was doing and because I felt a little guilty for my dismissive behavior last night, I began to talk with her.

"Hey Rainbow"
"Oh, hi Franz, how are you doin?"
"Nice, thanks, tell me, what are doing here? I never saw this before."
"Well, we are puhing the clouds away from the sky so everybody has a nice day."
"That's pretty generous of you."
"In fact, it is our job."
"Really?"
"Yes, as chief of the Ponyville weather patrol it is my job to make the weather whatever the pegasi in Cloudsdale want it to be like."
"So, you control the weather?"
"Sure, you don't?"
"No, not really, mostly all of our pegasi work in the airforce....."
"What are you doing here anyway? Don't you got work to do?"
"Well, apparently the equipment here is so outdated that I can't work with it. So I have to wait until I get proper equipment wich I can work with."
"So, does this mean you have nothing to do at all?"
"No, not really."
"That's great! Now you can help me with my training! Oh, ehm, if you want, of course."
I fought with myself. On one side I didn't plan to and I didn't wanted to make me some extra work I hadn't to do. But on the other hoof I had probably plenty of time, nothing to do and I somehow, I really don't know why, I liked her.
"Well, why not."
"Really? That's SO AWESOME! I'll meet you at Sweet Apple Acres in ten minutes, ok?"
"Don't you have any work to do? I mean there are still some clouds in the sky."
"That's not a big deal. If I want I can clear the sky in ten seconds flat."
"If you say so..."

Before I could ask her anymore questions, she flew away.
Apparently, I didn't know where or what Sweet Apple Acres (who creates all this names?) was at all. But fortunately, it wasn't a long way to the market place. As I arrived there, I saw Applejack (wich I also met yesterday) with a market wagon and obviuosly selling apples. Because I didn't knew somepony else there I walked to her.

"Hey there, ehm, was it Applejack?"
"Howdy partner. Yes, Ah'm Applejack."
"Well, could you be so nice to tell me the way to Sweet Apple Acres? If you know it, of course."
"Of course Ah know, Ah'm livin there!"
"Oh, that's great, now tell me, what's the way?"
"In fact, Ah got a little problem here and it would be really nice from ya to help me."
"Apparently I'm a little in hurry, but what is it?"
"Well, you can see this wagon. This mornin muh brother Big Macintosh helped me to bring it here, but apparently he can't be here now cause he has to watch my sister Applebloom and Ah didn't sold as much apples as I hoped and now I fear this wagon is to heavy fo me to bring it back alone."
"So you want me to help you to bring it back?"
"Exactly partner. Of course I would give you some of the finest Apple-family-food I got as reward."
At this place I recognized how hungry I actually was. Furthermore I'm not used to refuse a mares wish.
"Ok, I'll help you"

As a pair, it took us 20 minutes to bring the wagon from Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres. Even though I was a trained soldier, I was not used to push such heavy charges. Anyhow, I had a quite interesting talk with Apllejack. I learned that she lived together with her sister, her brother and her grandmother at Sweet Apple Acres, but that she in fact had about fifty relatives in all of Equestria (Wich apparently all had names that were related to the word apple in some way. Looks like the parents in this family have to be rather creative when it's about creating names).

When we arrived at Sweet Apple Acres, a napping rainbow Dash was alrady expecting us, or better to say, me. But once I came close to her, she woke up.

"Oh, you are also here, Mr. Higspeed?"
"Is this the usual way you talk to a trainer of yours?" I asked with my well trained drill instructor voice.
"I-I didn't meant it that way" She said, as suddenly snaped to attention. (It really works with everypony)
"No problem. Well, you said I should meet you here to beginn your training, so, what next?"
"You may use the western field, we don't use it in the moment." Applejack suddenly said.
"And as I still own ya the food I promised to you I suggest I come to you in about two hours to give you all a little snack."
"Sounds nice to me." I answered.

Training with Rainbow Dash was quite fun, but since I didn't know much about flying and flying tricks and so on, Rainbow had to explain more things to me in the first place than I had to explain her. The only thing where I could help he at all were the stamina exercises.
Before I knew it, Applejack came by with an cart full of apple pie, cider, and a lot other apple dishes, one of them looking more delecious than the other. After a really tasty and long "snack", I noticed that it was already dawn.

"Excuse me, but I have to go now, somebody is may expecting me in the base, but if you want we can meet here again at the same time tomorrow, Rainbow. Until then I probably have had the possibility to learn a little more about this whole flying thing."
"Of course we can! See you then."
"Well, then, see you tomorrow."
"Cya partner."

With these words I left Sweet Aplle Acres. And I've to admit, even though this, well, happy look of everything was still unfamiliar to me, I somehow started to like this whole thing for some reason. But I definitely can't tell you why.