Sour Days, Sweet Nights

by pjabrony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Original Character, Other, Equestria Girls, Slice of Life
Length: 29086

Sour Sweet participates in an exchange program sending her to Equestria, but she has to get along with her host family.

Crystal Prep Shadowbolt Sour Sweet was there when everything went down during the Friendship Games, and even helped save people from falling through the rips into the strange world of Equestria. But now she's entering that world herself as part of an exchange program. She has a new form and some odd hosts that she has to get along with.

A Manehattan couple answered a letter in the post asking for assistance with people from the other world, hoping to help the community. But now they've got a moody teenager in their home who's not even used to her hooves and wings. They've got to show her the best time possible, since they're representing their entire world. They'll need all their friends to help.

Published 2016-04-12 13:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-08-09 22:52:17 UTC

1: Travel Day/Sleepless Night

Author's Note

Foreword

Despite how the title may sound, this is not a clopfic. Wouldn't it be a wonderful name for one, though?

What it is is a fish-out-of-water story with one of the Shadowbolts. I felt they didn't get enough of a personality in the movie, so that's something I'll be working on.

But it also features several OCs from one of my previous stories. It is not necessary to have read that story, and indeed I'm hoping that this reaches readers who haven't read it. If you recognize the names, though, please understand that this is not in the same continuity. My other story was in an alternate Equestria where magic was not, strictly speaking, real.

It is here, but this is also not canon, MLP:FIM Equestria. The ponies are what a video gamer would call "OP." They have not been nerfed. The average pegasus pony can learn to fly as fast Rainbow Dash does. The everyday Earth pony is as strong as Applejack and Big Macintosh. The unicorn you meet on the street could, if she put her mind to it, learn to teleport or levitate the way that Starlight Glimmer does.

I think that Equestria could be like this in another generation, if the ponies are savvy and put the magic of friendship to good use. But I'm impatient and I want the power now. I'm sure that you are impatient as well. So without further ado, here is Sour Days, Sweet Nights.

1: Travel Day/Sleepless Night

In the plush foyer of the Manehattan high-rise, the two ponies bowed their heads as Princess Twilight Sparkle wheeled in the horseshoe mirror. They had not expected the princess herself to come.

Twilight had to lean back as one of the ponies, a sky-blue unicorn mare with a mane the color of egg yolks, nearly slashed her with her horn. The stallion at least knew how to bow without advancing, but as he was an Earth pony, he couldn’t have hit Twilight anyway. She noticed the mottled flecks of lighter white in his beige coat. Well, she thought, maybe these ponies can start making friends with the one I’m bringing over based on both having freckles.

“Is everything ready?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the mare. “We’ve got a room for her and everything.”

“So what’s this person like, that we’re hosting?” the stallion asked.

“She’s a high-school student in the other world. Young, still learning about friendship.”

“And their world doesn’t have any magic, am I right?”

“None that’s native, but Equestrian magic is spreading, and that’s why we’re doing this program.”

The couple exchanged a look. They shared the same worries. Would Equestria’s magic be diluted by going into the other world? But there was also the realization that it was not their concern. Princess Twilight knew what she was doing. Or so they hoped. “But they change into ponies when they get here, right? So, if she’s a unicorn, will she be able to do magic?” the mare asked.

Twilight spoke in a reassuring tone. “This is all still new. It should be possible, but she may not know how any more than she knows how to walk on four hooves. In any case, that’s not what we’re doing this for. Please get to know her as a person, and show yourselves as representatives of Equestria. But it’s time now. I’ll just pop through and bring her back.” Twilight stepped toward the portal. “Oh, and please don’t get curious and step through…you probably wouldn’t like what you turned into.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it!” They stepped back further. “But I would like to know, what’s her name?”

Twilight flipped through her list. “Let’s see, I know she goes to Crystal Prep school there, and her name is…Sour Sweet.”

She disappeared in a swirl of magic. Only two ponies remained. The stallion took a deep breath. “I hope we can handle this.”

“I’m sure we can.” Both of them thought back a few weeks…

Reggie pinned down the letter that he had just brought in and tore open the envelope with his teeth. Before he could take it out, he heard the door open and raised his head to see his wife Little enter the apartment, finally home from work.

“Hello, darling,” she said. “How was your day?”

“Lazy. I didn’t get anything done short of bringing in the mail.”

Little smiled, and it was genuine. She was happy to have him be a house husband. Most of the housework was automatic anyway, run by her unicorn magic or by labor-saving devices that were also magical, and what had to be done by hoof Reggie took care of before Little complained. If anything, he was more concerned than she was with keeping a good house.

“Anything interesting in the mail at least?”

“Something from the Chamber of Commerce.”

“What was that?” she asked, easing her way onto the couch.

“I didn’t read it. It was addressed to you.”

“And yet it bears your teeth-marks.” Again she shot him a playful grin. “I shouldn’t have used my own name for the business. Well, be a dear and read it for me. Actually, pour me a drink and read it, if you please.”

He got up and went to the sidebar. Normally such a bald request would be met by a playful retort, but Little had done a hard day’s work, and Reggie perhaps felt a bit guilty.

Once she had the drink in her horn’s magic field, he looked over the letter. He was also smart enough to not read it verbatim, but to look it over and give her the gist. On rare occasions, Reggie had worked at Little’s office, helping out as a secretary and go-fer. He knew how she worked.

“It’s about the portal.” He read further. “You know, the thing in Canterlot that leads to the other world?” She flashed him a look of confusion. “Princess Twilight Sparkle visited there a couple of times, found it inhabited.”

Little’s stress-addled memory began to work. “Oh, right. Some sort of tall, gangly creature. I think I saw a picture once. If I remember correctly we have a permanent ambassador there now. Sunset…Shimmer, I think.”

“Right name, though I’m not sure what her position is there.”

“So what about it? They don’t want us to go through, do they? I hear that they don’t even have magic in that world.”

He put down the letter. “No, but they are starting up an exchange program, and they want to know if we’d be willing to host one of the people from that world.”

“Oh, sure. We’ve got plenty of space in the building.”

“Well, it’s not just that. See, when ponies go through the portal, they turn into the residents of that world…and dragons turn into dogs. I don’t understand how it all works. But they figure that anyone who comes here will turn into a pony and be completely unfamiliar with how to handle themselves, so they need caring for.”

Now Little had to think twice. She was up for it, but over the years she’d learned that, in marriage, snap decisions rarely worked out. “Hm. Well, what do you think? We need to find out how soon it would be, and for long. Then we can decide if we can reschedule things around caring for the exchange.”

“Our friends would help, so it wouldn’t be all the time. But I think it could be nice. Of course, you’d have to take time off from work.”

If, as Little thought, a good relationship required communication with the partner, it also facilitated that communication through nonverbal clues. She knew that Reggie wanted to do it, and that she should accede rather than going back and forth.

“The business can take care of itself for a while,” she said. “I set it up that way, because I knew that I would want to do things like this. I’ll write back and tell them that we’d be happy to welcome a guest from the other world.”

Now in the lobby, they both realized that it was easier to agree than to actually do it. But they arranged themselves in what they thought was the most welcoming pose and waited for Twilight to reemerge with their guest.

After a few minutes, the magic started again. the portal shimmered and glowed. A gold and rose pony stepped through, rearing on her back hooves. She seemed to buck and stumble for a few steps before landing on all fours.

“Take it easy,” Twilight said. “You’re going to find it easier to walk without keeping your hooves in the air.” As the pony stumbled around, Little and Reggie looked to what was normally the first point of introduction for a new pony and saw that, despite having just entered Equestria, she already had a cutie mark of three berries.

“Welcome to Manehattan.” Little extended her hoof, but Sour was still looking at Twilight.

“I thought you said it was called Equestria.”

“Maneheattan is the city, Equestria is the country. And the world, it’s kind of a synecdoche thing.” Little was trying to make a good first impression, but although she finally got Sour to look at her, it was with confusion at the vocabulary word. She tried to recover. “So, you’re Sour Sweet?”

“Yeah.”

“And my name’s Little Lovehorn. So we’re both alliteratives! Like the people in comic books.”

Sour’s look now combined confusion with condescension. Little was worried that she had come off as irresponsible.

Reggie had been standing closer to Princess Twilight, who was already loading the mirror back onto its transportation cart. He saw Sour looking at it like a life preserver drifting out of range. “Thank you, your highness,” he said, “but we’ll take it from here. Sour, how would you like to see the park?”

“I’d love to! A park is exactly what I came here to see.”

Little heard Sour mutter something after finishing her sentence, but she put it down to a nervous habit and started walking to the lobby doors. “It’s this way,” she said, but as soon as she turned away she heard a crash. When she looked over her shoulder, Reggie was helping Sour up off the floor.

“She’s not used to walking on four legs yet. To say nothing of how she handles her wings.” It was the first time that Little had noticed that Sour was a pegasus.

“Oh, my. All right, let’s take it slow. Sour, just watch us and step in time with us.” Reggie and Little stood on either side of Sour and slowed their gait to where she could keep up.

“Thanks, this is going to be a big help.” Again, Sour muttered under her breath. Reggie scowled.

The sun hit their eyes as soon as they passed through the glass doors, and Sour had to keep her head down to see where her companions were stepping. It was only one street they had to cross before Little said they had reached the park.

As they moved from asphalt to cobblestone, Little broke off and walked backward, leaving Reggie to mark Sour’s steps for her. She had done research, both in books and on site, knowing—or hoping—that the park would be a big attraction for her guest.

“Celestial Park has been a part of Manehattan almost since the beginning. As the city was growing, the ponies decided that they wanted to keep some part of it clear from buildings. Deep within everypony’s heart, there’s a yearning for the natural world where we started from. But rather than costing the growth of the city, it actually helped it, since the buildings surrounding the park became that much more valuable.”

The path wound around a knoll and went under a stone bridge. Once the ponies had passed under it, they were in a depression that was deep enough to conceal the outer buildings. If Sour had come through the mirror here, Little thought, she wouldn’t even know that she was in a city.

“The weather around the park is strictly controlled, much more so than in the rest of the city. They try to keep the rain mostly at night, but even that is on a tight schedule, since ponies want to use the park then too.”

“You control the weather?”

This caught Little short, so Reggie answered. “Not us, but the pegasi. They didn’t tell you about that? You might even be able to move clouds yourself if you fly up there.”

“Oh, but be careful if you do,” Little said, recovering. “We can’t be sure that you won’t fall.”

“Flying? That’s everyone’s dream! But I’ve barely learned how to walk, and you’re talking about flying? Yeah, forget that.” Sour was taking a few steps in a circle, free from guidance.

“Let’s cross the bridge up there. We come out a few blocks south of home but we can pass through a market where you can see what city life is like.”

Sour was no longer dependent on the others to keep stride with her, but she was concentrating so much on her steps that, to Little’s eye, she wasn’t enjoying any of the surroundings. Hopefully, Little thought, once she got into the market where they could stand and observe, she would get a fuller experience.

When they emerged into the avenue again, they had to wait for the traffic to cross, and it was the first chance Sour had to see the cabs and carts of Manehattan. As a checker cab stopped to let off its passengers, Sour said, “Wow, you guys really do work like horses, pulling carts and such.”

“Little can’t pull one,” Reggie said. “She’d get tired too quickly. It’s kind of an Earth Pony thing.”

This time it was both Sour and Little who mumbled a remark, but neither paid attention to the other as they reached the market. Little and Reggie knew their way around the stands well, but they bypassed the food stalls where Sour lingered. Instead they reached one where there was a gridwall full of fashion accessories.

Little was looking over the display as Sour approached. “Do you want a decoration for your mane? Since you keep it in a ponytail.”

“Thank you, but I like the one I have.”

“Just a rubber band?”

“What?! I thought I had my favorite berry clip. What happened to it?!” Sour craned her neck fruitlessly. “I can’t even see if it’s gone, and I can’t reach up to feel.”

“You do have berries, though,” said Reggie. “They’re your cutie mark.”

Now Sour moved her head a different way, toward where Reggie was pointing. “Well, that’s just weird.”

Little was still at the stand. “So do you want a different one? I can try to come close if you like, but it’ll probably vanish when you get back to your world, just as your clip vanished here.”

“No, thanks. Really. But isn’t it getting dark?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. We should have had you come through the mirror earlier. It’s almost the day wasted. Let’s get back home and we can plan for tomorrow.”

Sour refused any further help getting back to the building. Back in the lobby, though, she didn’t know where to go.

“The elevator’s back here,” Reggie said. “We moved to the top floor last year, so we don’t ever take the stairs anymore.”

“He could, just doesn’t with me. He’s got endless endurance and stamina.” Little stepped into the lift and held the door open for the other two. Once they were all in she used her magic to spin the pulley that ran the elevator cable. Sour jumped from seeing the method used. “Sorry, I guess you’re not used to elevators.”

“I’ve been on them, but I haven’t seen them pulled up by glowy magic. It’s amazing that you have all that power. And you use…” But Sour trailed off into her mutter again.

“What was that?”

Sour shook her head, and the rest of the ride went in silence.

At the top, Reggie and Little went up to the door at the far end of the hall. Sour seemed to have lost some of her walking ability as she lagged behind. Reggie turned his head just in time to hear her say, “…use it to pull a rope. Real smart, there.”

He scowled but said nothing as they entered the penthouse. The last rays of the sun darkened the apartment just as they opened the door wide, so Little turned on some of the lanterns with her magic. Sour stepped in and the door closed behind her.

*****

Sour Sweet tried to lean back against the door. Staying on her feet for long stretches as a pony—or hooves, she reminded herself—was easier than in her own body, but she still felt the need to get into a relaxing posture.

What she really wanted to do was to get a few moments alone to clear her head and think about everything. Her hosts had seemed all too happy to drag her around with no plan, but not to actually help with anything.

“So, what would you like to do now?” That was Little, about whom Sour had not developed a good first impression. The stallion was the smarter one.

“If it’s all right, I’d like to see if I can’t get to bed early. It’s been so much to wrap my mind around, and your world wears me out.”

Ever since the incidents during the Friendship Games, Sour had been trying to be more pleasant. She was made aware of her speech patterns, where she would say something tactfully only to bare her soul in the next sentence. But breaking the habit wasn’t easy, and she needed to concentrate to do it.

“Of course. We’d like to give you a tour of the place, but that’s better in the natural light anyway. Your room is this way.” Little led her down a hall to the left. She could barely see, as the only light came from the distant candles and the stars outside. But she could see the dim shape of the bed, which got the smallest bit brighter as Little turned it down with her magic. “I’ll get you some water. If you need it, the washroom is right outside the door.”

Sour legitimately was tired, but she also wanted to just get a moment to herself. She thought about what she normally did as a nightly routine before going to bed. There was something missing.

“I didn’t bring any pajamas. I don’t suppose you have a spare set.”

For the first time, her unflappable hostess seemed shaken. “Oh, I…we normally don’t wear them. Your fur coat should keep you warm enough. I—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t mind. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Somewhat cowed, Little shut the door behind her. Sour was alone. With her eyes shut, she could think at last.

In all the hullabaloo of the end of term, she had, perhaps, reacted too hastily when Dean Cadance had called her into her office. Cadance ran the school on her own now. Principal Cinch was still nominally in charge, her nameplate was still on her office door, but no one had seen her for weeks. Sour had just finished her finals and was looking forward to summer vacation when the dean had brought up the incidents at the Friendship Games.

“It’s a whole different world there, and magic as well,” she had said. “It’s up to us to make sure that we become friends. Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle—the other world’s Twilight—have offered us the olive branch, and it’s up to us to take it up. That’s why we want to send our best students, you and your friends, to see that world.”

“My friends?”

“Sugar, Lemon, Indigo, and Sunny.”

Were they her friends? Sour thought. They had teamed for the games and for other academic and athletic competitions, but friends? She was so concerned with the question that she missed Dean Cadance’s main point.

“So would you like to?”

“What? Yes. If it doesn’t—“

“Great!” Cadance jumped from her chair. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

Before Sour knew what was happening, she was being given a handout with the times and places where she would be picked up and returned, and she discovered that she was giving up three weeks of her summer vacation.

“This sounds like an amazing learning opportunity. And I don’t see why we can’t wait until next term to do it, rather than wasting my time.”

Cadance ignored the backtalk. “Because you’re still a student who can’t afford to get behind in her classes. It’s a chance to get knowledge that few other people, let alone teenagers, will have, and that will put you ahead of the curve. Soon there won’t be any more summer vacations, you know, unless you’re planning to go into education.”

Sour wasn’t sure what she wanted to do other than have the fun she was planning on. A few beach days, maybe an amusement park, and lounging around watching videos. But as she looked through the packet she found that things like cell phones didn’t even work in the place she was going to.

But that got her dander up. She always saw things from both sides. This was a challenge, and she wasn’t going to back down. The next time her parents told her that she was addicted to technology, she would show them that she could go without.

That was easier said than done, though, and now that she was actually here, in the other world, miles away from anyone she knew…no, more than that. No amount of miles would get her to anyone she knew. Although Sugar and the others were supposedly doing this too, but she didn’t know if the times were staggered of if they were coming to the same city or any way to find them.

Then there were all the problems Sour was having with her new body. Learning to walk again was embarrassing enough, but sleeping was proving to be a challenge as well. Just fluffing her pillow was difficult, as she couldn’t grab it in her hooves. When she did stretch herself up and cradle it, using her hooves like chopsticks, she found that it was lighter and less supportive than what she was used to.

Once that was done, she had another problem. Her wings, which she had ignored during the daytime and which hadn’t bothered her, now unfolded from her sides. Since Sour normally slept in the fetal position, it had the effect of jacking her midsection up. She could roll her midsection, but then her back legs were pressed against the mattress. Then she tried opening her wings entirely and letting them flare out, but she discovered that the undersides were very sensitive, and that both the sheet side and the mattress side had so much feeling that they were keeping her awake.

Sitting up in bed, she reordered the blanket and forced her wings shut. The curtains on the window were see-through, and in any event they only covered about a quarter of the window on either side. Sour could see an array of stars much denser than the ones at her home, and the moon was larger as well. Either the ponies were used to sleeping with that much light, or they all wore sleep masks.

She slammed her head down on the pillow facing away from the window and squeezed her eyelids closed before relaxing them. She tried singing songs in her head, or thinking about boring stuff like studying and getting ready for bed—another routine she’d been denied. But nothing helped. Sour had insomnia.

What made it worse was that there was nothing else she could do. At home, she could always pull her phone off the charger and see if Lemon Zest was up (she always was), or grab her portable video game and put it on silent so her parents didn’t catch her, or if all else failed, read. But here she didn’t even have a book, and she couldn’t go wandering the halls just to tire herself out, lest she be a bad guest who made her hosts get up.

So she lay there. From time to time she would drift in and out of the trancelike first stage of sleep, but she never lost any time. There was no clock that she could see in the room, but when she turned the hundredth time, the stars were fading and a dim light of morning was suffusing the sky.

At last she heard the sounds of others moving about in the hall. Sliding out of bed, she landed on her hooves and stumbled about until she got walking down again. The door to her room was left open a crack, and that was fortunate since she had no idea how to open a door. She wedged her hoof into the space and forced it open. Bleary-eyed, she exhaled. Three more weeks of this.

2: Training Day/Fly By Night

Normally Little liked to lounge in bed even after she’d woken up. But with a guest in her house she rose as soon as she was conscious and set toward the kitchen to ensure it was clean. She was mentally congratulating herself for being so foresighted as she heard Sour walking toward her. But when she looked up and saw her face, she reared back.

“Sour? Are you all right? Was there something wrong in the room?”

“The room was lovely. Just wonderful.” It seemed like genuine gratitude in her voice, but she lowered it quickly. “But I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night, thank you very much. These parts that I didn’t even have yesterday kept screwing me up.”

“Oh, you poor dear!” Little ran over and draped Sour’s neck over hers. “Come over to the couch and lie down there.”

“Thanks a lot. Don’t see how that’ll be any more comfortable, and it’s daylight now.”

Little was only half listening as she dragged Sour to the sofa. “What a bad hostess I am. I should have stayed to make sure you were sleeping. Wait here, I won’t be a moment.” She ran out and galloped down to the apartment below.

“Please let her be in…and alone.” Little said to herself as she knocked on the door. The apartment’s occupant, Moon Sailor, was Little’s best pegasus friend, and indeed the only pegasus pony who she was close enough to that she could impose so early in the morning. But she worked on long-haul deliveries, and when she was in, she often liked to invite other ponies to her place to spend the night. After just enough time for Little to get worried, she heard hooves shuffling to the door and the latch opening. “Thank Celestia, you’re here.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember I told you about hosting someone from the other world? She’s here and she’s a pegasus and she couldn’t sleep because of her wings and I don’t know what to do!”

“Calm down.” Moon extended a wing to smooth Little’s mane. “A lost night’s sleep is…nothing to lose sleep over. Let me come up and see what I can do to help. And by the way, I remembered that you were having the visitor from the other world, and arranged it to be here for you.”

“You’re a good friend.” They were already back at Little’s place when she said this, and Sour might have overheard.

Sour had not moved from her spot on the couch, and Moon took one look at her. “Little, why don’t you see what you can do about breakfast? Gar’s probably up by now, he’ll cook for us if you ask nicely. I think we’re all going to want a nice meal.” Little nodded and left. “Now, dear. What’s your name?”

“Sour Sweet.”

“And you had a bad time last night, I understand.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get to sleep at all.”

Moon nodded her head. She seemed to be thinking something over. “Well, in the meantime, let me see what I can teach you about your wings. It looks to me like you’re trying to use them like your forehooves. They’re not for grabbing things, you know.”

Sour had her wings in a kind of curl, neither open nor closed, reaching toward her head. “Then how?”

“They’re wings, you’re supposed to fly with—we’ll talk more later, here are Little and Garlic back.”

Little escorted in a burgundy red stallion with a white fringe on his mane. Sour flopped onto her feet again. “This is Reggie’s brother Garlic,” Little said, “who will make us breakfast. He’s a great cook. Garlic, this is Sour Sweet, from the other world.”

He didn’t say anything, but gave Sour a nod and went right for the kitchen. Little let Moon continue her bonding with Sour while she went to wake up Reggie. Within a few minutes, the five of them sat at the breakfast table.

“Well, it’s a little late,” said Reggie, “but now we can show off where we live. This is one of the nicest buildings in Manehattan, if I do say so myself.”

“Manehattan? Oh, because ponies have manes. What a clever bon mot!” Sour’s smile fell. “If your idea of clever is cheap puns.”

The change in her tone caused everypony to stop eating for a moment. But Little, trying to maintain bonhomie, waved her hoof toward the window. “Isn’t the park nice from up here? You can see all the way over to the hill where we were yesterday. Would you like to go back, or is there some other part of the city you’d like to see?”

“I’d love to see any part of it you’d care to show me…being that I can barely get around at all in this world full of freaky unnatural talking horses.”

Across the table, the two stallions made eye contact, nodded, and then each busted out with a bellowing belly laugh.

Moon put down her fork. “What’s so—Oh! Yeah, she’s exactly like her, only in reverse.”

“What are you all laughing at?” Sour was now getting angry with taking the time to first say something nice.

Little tried to explain, but then she too got the giggles. It was Garlic who recovered first. “Sorry, we’re not laughing at you. More that we’re laughing at an image. We have a friend who lives in Canterlot, her name’s Hoof Dame. So often she’ll say something with a sharp tongue, but then afterward mellow what she said by being extra-nice. You’re kind-of the opposite. So we’re all imagining what would happen if the two of you met and had a conversation. We’ve got to send her a letter and tell her to come out here. I think you’d like her, honestly. She’s a very proper mare, and we usually give her reason to be annoyed with us.

“I’m going to write her now. Excuse me.” Little floated her napkin to her mouth, but then galloped off to a side room.

“I’m really not trying to be a pain,” Sour said. “And I’m still getting used to not saying whatever’s on my mind regardless of who it hurts. Honestly I think that Little just made a bad first impression, and I’m having issues adjusting to this world. The rest of you aren’t so bad, for ponies.”

Reggie began clearing away the breakfast dishes, balancing them on his back. “I know what you mean. When I first met her she came across as very forward. But she does that to cover up how nervous she is. It may take you a while to figure it out, but she has some hidden depths. I think everypony does.”

“Well, I think that you’re all ignoring something important.” Moon pounded her hoof on the table. “And that’s the fact that Sour didn’t get any sleep last night. Anypony would be cranky after a bad night’s sleep. What we ought to be doing is going out of our way to keep things nice and slow for her. We’re treating her as a pony when, despite her appearance, she’s a foreigner.”

Sour gave a wan smile at Moon, who realized that she was the best choice to ease Sour into the Equestrian way of life.

“I am still very tired, but I’ll make it through the day. Maybe tonight Little can zap me with a sleep spell. She could do that as a unicorn, right?”

All the ponies stared at her. Again it was Garlic who found his voice first. “No way. She can explain it to you better—or maybe not, she really isn’t good at explaining magic—but she’s always saying that she never casts spells that affect a pony’s mind. It’s dangerous. I don’t know if a sleep spell would mean you’d never wake up, but I’m sure she won’t risk it.”

“Oh. Well, it’s good to know that there are restrictions on magic. I’m guessing there are no love spells or philtres.”

“No, love spells affect the heart, not the head. Love spells are easy. One of the princesses even specializes in them, spreading love wherever she goes. True love is one of the easiest things to create by magic.”

Sour threw up her hooves, admitting that she understood nothing about Equestria. Right at that moment Little emerged from her study, rushed outside to drop the letter she had into a mail slot, and rejoined the others.

“What’d I miss?”

“We were just telling Sour that you can’t do sleep spells.”

“Oh. Yeah, those are bad. They, just…no. When Hoof Dame gets here, she can explain it better than me.”

“Is she a unicorn too?” Sour got back onto the couch. “Maybe she knows what she’s doing.”

Little resolved not to let Sour’s words get to her. “She’s very good at magic. But there’s no way she can get here before tomorrow. So what would you like to do?”

“I don’t know, what would you normally do on a day like this?”

“I’d be working. But if I had a day off, I would probably have made plans with my friends. You weren’t here, though, so I didn’t do that.”

Sour huffed. “You’re so active! Don’t you ever just, you know, chill?”

“Of course we do.” Moon nudged Little out of the way with her wing. “Why don’t you come over to my place for a while? Reggie and Little’s balcony is higher, but mine has a chaise longue that’s just made for pegasi.”

“That sounds great. I’m sure Little won’t mind…right.” It wasn’t a question, and Sour was already making her way to the door.

“Actually, I take the direct route. Why not try gliding down with me? I’ll catch you if you have trouble.”

Sour showed fear for the first time, but she swallowed it and stuck out her chin. She followed Moon out to the terrace. “OK, how do I do this?”

“My balcony’s the one right below us.” She flew a few feet off and beckoned Sour to the ledge. “Here’s your first flying lesson. Look down.”

“Look down? I thought I was supposed to not look down.”

“No, look down.” Sour did, and the balconies of all the lower apartments gave a tunnel effect that made it appear quite far indeed. “Now look up. So you’ve looked down. And now you know what down looks like. So there’s not going to be any reason to look down again. If you’re tempted to look down, you’re going to say to yourself, ‘I don’t need to look down, because I can just remember what I saw.’ Got it?”

“Got it.”

“So you’re going to spread your wings, lean forward, give two big pumps, then turn around. Don’t try to turn with your wings yet. Just pretend you’re walking and you forgot something, so you have to go back. Remember, you’re not a bird. You’re flying by pegasus magic, not aerodynamics. So once you’ve turned, you’re going to keep your wings spread wide. Just having them out will slow your descent and give you time to adjust.”

“Don’t instruct me too much, or I won’t remember any of this.”

“That’s the pegasus spirit! Let’s go!” Moon turned three-sixty, and Sour understood that she was showing her the move. She had a moment of trepidation as she leaned over the railing, but she stared forward.

I am a Crystal Prep Shadowbolt. I represent my school and I will not show myself a failure in front of these ponies! She felt her center of gravity shift past the point of no return. One pump, two pumps. There was nothing but sky in front of her, and her instinct was to look down for visual context. Then she remembered that down was unhelpful. Time to make the turn.

Sour led with her head, snaking her body around in what she hoped was grace. Her wings met wind resistance, and she realized that in the future she would have to learn when to pull them inward for moves like this. But now she needed to finish the simple move. The building came into view, and there was Moon, landing on the balcony below and quick-turning in case she had to rescue Sour.

Doing some quick mental geometry, Sour figured that she was too far out. Moon had gone in at a forty-five degree angle, and if she did the same, her lower half would hit the rail. She could make it over, but not cleanly. Her reflexes made her stretch upward, and this did seem to give her extra height. Time to go. She leaned in.

She saw that she’d overcorrected. Her angle was shallower than Moon’s, and so now she feared bumping her head on the bottom of Little’s balcony. Although she had been told to keep her wings spread, she had to lose altitude. As soon as she made to bring them back to her body, she felt gravity take hold. She no longer had time to think. One hoof ticked the rail as the other missed it. She spun to her left, went down on all fours, and slid to a halt right before hitting the doors to Moon’s apartment.

“Nice move! You’re gonna be a great flyer. How did it feel?”

“I think I understand. This body…it wants to be in the air. It was the first time I felt like myself since I got here.”
Moon nodded. “So are you still looking to relax?”

“I’m all wired up on the adrenalin.” Sour looked at Moon and saw satisfaction. “But I still think I should take it easy.” She flopped onto the chaise and folded her wings, but one leg slipped off and bounced repeatedly on the ground.

Reading that Sour was being contrary, Moon backed off and landed in her own chaise longue. For a minute or so there was silence.

“So right now you’re on the west side of Manehattan.” Moon spoke in a monotone, which was difficult for her. “This side of the complex overlooks Celestial Park, which runs twenty blocks either way. I used to have an apartment on the other side of the building. On nice days you can see the water, but this view is much better. Actually, if you crane your neck here you can see the pond and the reservoir over to the left. The other nice thing about having the park view is that the sun sets behind you. It means it’s not in my face when I go to bed. Although usually I stay up past dark. Then it comes up over the park and wakes me gently.

“I think you get the impression that Little isn’t very compatible with you. But if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have this nice place to live. I’m just a courier, and I lucked into this building back when they didn’t realize how centrally located it was. Ponies refused to let the entire grasslands of Manehattan be overrun by buildings, so we have the park.”

She looked over at Sour, saw that her eyes were drooping.

“And then, of course, at this time of day, the sun’s overhead, If you lean back, the sunbeams dance around your eyes, you can feel the love of Celestia in the warmth, like you could become one with all of Equestria.”

“Who’s –lestia?” Sour muttered, but Moon didn’t answer. After a few more minutes she flew back up and knocked on Little’s sliding door.

“What’s going on? Is Sour all right?”

“Sour Sweet is fine, and I think we should use her full name whenever possible. She’s sleeping now, and I guess she’ll be well rested when she gets up. That’s an old pegasus trick when you’re on a long journey. If you can get a shot of adrenalin and then grab a nap, then you’ll be fully awake when you get up.”

Little fretted. “I should have had you in on this from the beginning. I’ve botched everything.”

“No you haven’t. You didn’t expect her to be a pegasus pony. I’d be just as out of place with a unicorn.”

“But now my next plan isn’t going to work either.” She thrust a piece of paper in Moon’s face. “Hoof Dame says she can’t make it out here. Too much to do in Canterlot. Maybe in a couple days, but add in travel time…”

“I see what you mean. Only one thing for it, then.”

“What’s that?”

“Road trip.”

*****

Sour came around thinking that she was still asleep. All she could see was the pale blue of the sky. She breathed deeply a few times, trying to force oxygen to her brain. The skin of her face felt like it was pasted to her skull. Finally she remembered where she was and what had happened.

She reviewed her situation. Moon was nice to her, understood her. Little did not. That wasn’t her fault; she was a flighty pony. The two stallions Sour didn’t quite understand yet. Reggie tried but he was under the thumb of his wife, or would be if she had thumbs. But his brother was a blank to her still.

From inside the house she heard voices and placed them at once. Little had a high lilt that would have been pleasant in most cases. Moon’s voice was less distinct, but her rapid-fire delivery gave her speech a cadence.

“Space is at a premium, Moon, and unless you want to fly the whole way—“

“Bells and bongos, Little!” Sour heard her swear, and was amused at the colorful way she did it. “Just because all you have is some cord to bring with you—“

“You’re going to wake up Sour.”

“No, it’s all right,” Sour said, “I was up anyway. I didn’t realize I was going to sleep the day away.”

“You needed it, dear,” said Moon.

“Yes, Sour…Sweet.” Little tacked on her surname.

“No, it’s fine, I feel refreshed. Of course, I’m going to be up all night from it. Never mind. What’s going on?”

“We’ve decided that we’re going to take a road trip across Equestria. This way you can see all the sights, not just Manehattan. I think that’s enough, but I’m biased. Plus you can meet my friend from Canterlot who I mentioned.”

“And what are you arguing about with Moon? Because whatever it is, I’m sure you’re wrong.”

“My cart is a fairly large one, but we still can’t fit in everything, especially with five ponies, and Moon’s d—“

“Oh, for Luna’s sake!” Moon put a wing in front of Little’s mouth. “Let us have one or two surprises. If we can pull it off at all given how little space there is.”

“OK, fine. You work on getting everything boxed up. Sour Sweet, would you like to see the cart?”

“Sure, why not? Nothing better to do now that the sun’s down.”

Little led her into the hall and back to the elevator. Sour noticed how the lift was controlled with a lever instead of buttons, which made sense as ponies would have trouble pushing the small buttons.

“Did you know that elevators were a key to getting tall buildings made? There used to be very few of them because only pegasi could get up high enough. Once we had elevators though then everypony could use them.”

Sour had heard something similar in her own world, minus the thing about pegasi of course. “That’s absolutely fascinating! If I didn’t already know.”

The rest of the elevator ride was silent. Little stopped them at the second floor, and they emerged into a dimly lit stone room supported only with pillars. Sour could see a few hay-carts around in marked spaces, but they barely looked big enough to hold one pony’s baggage, let alone five.

Little made a sharp turn right as they got out and went behind the elevator shaft. As Sour followed, she saw a much bigger cart. Although still made of wood, it was the size of some of the larger SUVs that Sour had seen.

The back of it had a tailgate that dropped, and Reggie was there loading up some black cases that Sour couldn’t identify.

“Hey, hon. Sour Sweet, how’s it going?”

“Hi.” Sour hoped that small talk was the same in both worlds, and she would not actually be required to answer.

“How’s it looking?” asked Little. “Don’t forget, we’ve got to get a lot of food and water and other stuff in here.”

“I’ll manage. We’ll be able to restock in Canterlot and a couple other places, if we’re going all across Equestria.”

Sour smiled as a thought hit her, how beneficial this would be. Little and Reggie were discussing the logistics of the trip, but for Sour it felt like a weight had lifted off her. She hovered a little, still wanting to use her newfound flight skills.

“Sour Sweet,” Little said, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you sure you want to do this? I think it would be interesting, but if you really just want to sit and relax, we’ll do that and smile about it.”

“No, this really is beneficial. Oh, and thanks for getting my name right finally.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re up for it.”

Reggie slammed the tailgate closed. “Wait, what did you mean, beneficial? You didn’t say fun or exciting.”

“OK, so as part of this exchange thing, I have to write an essay for Dean Cadance about my trip, and I was afraid I’d have to come up with a whole progression of what I learned over the summer. But if we’re on the road, I can just write, like, ‘We went here, we saw this, we went there, we did that’ and so on.”

“What?!” Sour jumped back, spreading her wings defensively. Reggie had gotten angry, and the only reason she could think of was that he was upset at her for finding a shortcut on her assignment. She scowled at him. Who was this pony to criticize? But then he stomped in a circle, sometimes causing little cracks in the mortar holding the stone together. “I can’t believe that they would send you on a vacation and expect you to do schoolwork on it. Are you deficient in composition or penmanship?”

“No, I—“

“Even if you were, it’s still no excuse for twisting what should be a happy time by inflicting you with the specter of an assignment to be done. If I had this dean of yours here I would give her a piece of my mind. As it is…” He stopped pacing and faced Sour straight on. “I am going to write your essay for you on our journey. You may need to copy it in your own—but no, we can just say that your penmanship changed when writing in our world.”

“I’m grateful…even if it is cheating.” Sour wasn’t sure what to think now.

“It isn’t cheating. And this discussion is closed.” Reggie stormed back to the elevator.

With the sound of the closing door echoing through the cavernous room, Sour stood alone with Little.

“Didn’t I tell you he was a great guy?” Little said. “He can be lazy, but when the time comes to take control, there’s no one who’ll work harder. Believe me, you’re going to have a great essay to give your teacher.”

“I’m grateful,” she said again.

Little stared at her with a shaky smile.

“What’s wrong?” Sour asked.

“I’m waiting for the counterpoint. You always amend every positive statement with a negative one.”

“Well, I don’t have one. Reggie is being incredibly generous. It’s a nice mentality to have, that homework on vacation is bad. I just had never heard it from an adult. Even if they agreed, they’d still have made me write the essay because it’s none of their business to help me put one over on the dean.”

“Oh, Sour Sweet, it’s everypony’s business to help.” The elevator returned and Little led her back to it. “Would you like to help us pack the cart?”

“All right.”

It wasn’t until they stepped into the hall that Sour realized that, although they had returned to the same floor that they came from, that wasn’t Little’s and Reggie’s place, but was the floor below. Little bypassed Moon’s apartment though and went further down the hall. She knocked on the next door, but let herself in without waiting for a response.

“Hey, Garlic! We’re here to get the food.”

Sour entered the apartment. Little’s had been opulently decorated, with lots of plush velvet and dark wood furniture. Moon’s was more spartan, the furniture consisting of more lines than curves. Now she saw Garlic’s and tried to gauge him. It was bare like Moon’s, but it was clearly a bachelor pad. There was no integrated sense of design. Some of the chairs were just crates.

But she could see where his effort went: to the kitchen. It was brilliantly lit, spotless as a hospital, and consisted of nothing but black, white, and silver. By taking the iPhone aesthetic and adding chrome, Garlic had been able to make a unified modern and classic room. Indeed, Sour saw that the shabbiness of the rest of the apartment only served to offset the splendor of the kitchen.

“That’s great!,” Garlic said. “You and Reggie can…oh, hi, Sour.”

Little cleared her throat aggressively.

“Right, so Little if you want to get these trays down to the cart, I’ll bring the cold stuff.”

Garlic had some foil-lined trays that Sour might have expected to see at a catered affair, and she could smell tasty things that she couldn’t identify.

“Sour Sweet can take some stuff too,” Little said.

He looked down at Sour’s hooves. “It would be really helpful if she spread fresh straw and hay on the cart floor. I’m sure there’s some in the bin.”

Sour realized that he didn’t think that she could carry the trays without dropping them, and was patronizing her to be polite. She wondered if he didn’t have a point, but who was he to make that call? Wasn’t she an athlete skilled in balance? Besides, her back was much wider as a pony, and she had seen the others carry things there.

One tray was on the counter waiting to go, so, asking no permission, she sidled over to it and swept it onto her back with her right wing.

She could feel it teetering to the right, but her wing held it in place and it wasn’t moving toward the back, which was important. Turning up her nose, she made for the elevator. Little came after, floating more trays in her magic.

Back down at the cart, Sour realized that she had no plan for getting the tray off her back, but Little moved it herself by magic on top of the others. “We should spread fresh hay here, even though…oh, but I’ll save that surprise too.” She floated some straw from a wooden bin that stood by the exit. Sour jumped in the cart and kicked it until it was fairly even.

“How’s that?”

“It’ll be fine. We’ll have pillows as well. OK, I think that’s good for now. We’ll move Moon’s stuff in the morning.” Little yawned. “I’m ready to turn in.”

“Not me. I slept all day.”

“You can go back to Moon’s. She’s a night owl anyway. You can stay up and talk or practice flying.”

Sour turned away and rolled her eyes. Well, that was the type of pony Little was. Sour didn’t mind getting a good night’s sleep, but she was a teenager. Night was the time for fun.

She took control as they entered the lift, moving the lever up to the second floor from the top and leaving Little there with no more than a wave goodnight.

In Moon’s apartment, there were many large black boxes stacked by the door. “Great! You’re back. You can help me get all this in the cart.”

“What is it all?”

“You’ll find out eventually. Here, hump some of these on your back.”

It was a refreshing change from how Garlic had treated her. The boxes were heavier, but Moon trusted her. They made two trips down and up, and the foyer looked a lot barer.

“I think we’re all set to go in the morning,” Moon said. “What now? Do you like to read? I have a few books but Garlic has more and I could borrow some.”

“Not really. If I were home and I was going out early the next day I’d just be chilling in front of the TV or on the phone with friends. But I guess you don’t have TV or phones.”

“Don’t know. What are they?”

Sour gave a brief explanation. “…and we can watch videos on the phone too.”

“Oh! You mean like recording. A while ago Twilight Sparkle figured out how to record and play back. I don’t know if Little knows how to do it, but there may be a way to freeze them and let non-unicorns use them. I’ll ask in the morning. We can take some on the cart trip so we have something to do.”

“Cool. But what’re we going to do now?”

“Night flying?”

“Sweet!”

Sour followed Moon to the window. It was fully dark now, with only the moonlight letting them see. She absorbed everything Moon could tell her. After a good hour of practice, the city was silent, as everypony had closed their lights and curtains.

The two pegasi stayed up most of the rest of the night getting to know each other. Sour did most of the talking, retelling the story of how one of her classmates had ripped portals to Equestria and she had almost fallen through, and then how that classmate had gone mad with power and needed Sunset Shimmer to save her. Dawn was breaking when they finished.

“Now I’m going to conk out again today,” Sour said at the finish. “Though I don’t feel tired like I did yesterday.”

“Maybe you will, but I think you’re getting adjusted. Ponies only need sleep for five hours or so, and we can get by on four. Once we get out of the city, you might sleep, but you won’t want to miss the trip out.”

3: Day Tripper/Night Under the Stars

Moon Sailor had a peculiar sleep pattern. If she knew that she had to get up to go to work and make a delivery, she would wake up and force herself out of bed. But if she was off or had a late shift, she would lay there for close to an hour, and even when she did get up she was groggy for a while.

When she woke up, it took her a moment to remember that Sour Sweet had slept at her place the night before, and might in fact be up already. So she swung her legs over the side of the bed, spread her wings for balance, and hit the floor.

By serendipity, Sour was walking out of the guest bedroom. Her mane was in her eyes, and she had to stop to brush it out of the way. “Morning,” she said.

“Hi. How did you sleep?”

“Good. Better than the night before. Except that I’m hungry. Any chance of breakfast?”

“I figured we’d be at Little’s for breakfast,” Moon said. “She’ll probably have everypony there just like yesterday.”

“Then we’ll get a good meal. Don’t know about the company though.”

Moon showed her how to use the bathtub. Sour had some difficulty cleaning herself, but Moon assured her that so long as she didn’t stink it would be fine. Once they got out on the road, they would be washing in rivers and lakes anyway. Then the two of them flew upwards to Reggie and Little’s place, Moon still watching to be ready to catch Sour at any time. They let themselves in through the French doors.

Garlic was already at work in the kitchen. He waved to Sour who returned the briefest of smiles. Little was setting up fresh pillows all around the low table. Sour took one nearest the window and plopped onto it.

“Eat heartily,” Little said. “We won’t have this nice a meal for a while.”

A big stack of pancakes was placed in front of Sour, and Garlic watched her eagerly to see how she would eat. He saw that she was having difficulty with the knife and fork.

“Do you want me to cut them up for you?”

Sour looked up. “That would be such a fatherly gesture! But since I’m not a child…” She wrapped her hoof around the fork, stabbed the top pancake all the way through, and folded it into her mouth.

Garlic looked over at Little, who gave a reassuring shrug. She abandoned magic to eat her own stack with knife and fork.

When everything was done, Sour wiped her mouth with the napkin and let Little float everything to the sink. “So, are we all ready to go? No one needs to use the facilities first?”

“Can we walk down to the cart?” asked Moon.

“No! I’ve been waiting for this.” Little bounced onto her pillow, still at the breakfast table. Sour was starting to get up, but Little waved her down. “I had this put in a while ago.”

Reggie and Moon rolled their eyes. Even Garlic gave a heaving breath. Only Little seemed excited as she cast a spell on the wall to Sour’s left. Although the glow started as Little’s characteristic blue color, it changed to white as the wall seemed to take on a life of its own. A panel slid away and ten long wires serpentined out toward the seated ponies.

Little watched Sour to make sure she wouldn’t fly off her pillow, but she seemed to be following along. The wires split up, two to a pony, and slipped themselves through the loops in the pillows. Once they were in place it was the pillows themselves that moved, sliding along the wires like a roller coaster. The wall had continued to iris outward, making it big enough for all the ponies to fit in the alcove that formed. Once the seated ponies were ensconced, the wall closed up again. The light was faint and artificial.

The tinkling sound of magic was all that was heard as everypony felt the force of gravity drop them. Little was still making sure Sour was OK, but she was clearly used to elevators. After a minute, the wall again opened, this time to reveal that they were at the very top of the parking garage. Again the wires extended, this time with much more speed so that nopony could see where they went. But they all sat patiently as their pillows were dragged out and the formation changed from a single line to a two-two-one pattern. Like a roller-coaster, they descended rapidly toward the cart before finally being nestled into the hay that was laid out the night before. After that, the wires receded into the darkness.

“Had your fun, now, dear?” Reggie said before turning to Sour in the back-back. “She had that put in a while back. It’s no more convenient than taking the regular lift, but Little has this idea that it’s the height of luxury because you don’t have to walk a few paces.”

“I…thought it was kind-of cool.” Sour got everypony to turn their heads to her. “We could probably rig up something like that in my world, but it would cost a lot of money. But what’s the point of putting us all in the cart if some-pony has to get out and pull?”

“No, I’ll drive until we get out of the city.” Little started her horn glowing. “It’s got a come-to-life spell on it that I can manipulate. Once we’re out on the highways, maybe Reg and Gar will pull. That’s another reason I had the wire-lift put in. Saves my magic for driving.”

“She’s got plenty of magic.” Reggie was leaning back to talk to Sour, but he was pretty sure Little could still hear. “It’s just for showing off.”

The cart started to roll. There was a canvas covering, but the sides were open and airy. Since there was no engine noise but only the sound of the wheels and the magic, it was a peaceful ride. Little led them out of the garage.

“Oh!” Everypony turned to see Sour wide-eyed. “This part is pretty.”

They had emerged into a covered courtyard. The road curved either way, and at either end light streamed in through an arch. Several stories above them, a stone roof shielded them from the sun. Where the road met the arches, they could see the symmetrical road going the other way, and a taxicab was ambling through the north arch. In the center of the circle formed by the roads were flowers in a riot of colors, bright yellows, blues, and pinks.

“What happened was,” Reggie said, “as they were building up Manehattan they had issues with traffic. The roads were all in a grid, which is nice, and downtown you have Bridleway which cuts diagonally. So then they build a set of highways girdling the whole island, and that helped ponies get to the bridges and tunnels when they’re leaving the city. But there was still traffic, especially around the train station. One thing they started to do was build flyovers and viaducts. Ninth Avenue is on the back side of our building, the other side from the park, but about twenty blocks either way there’s an exit to go up on an elevated road. Then they made this tunnel through our building and connected the elevated road through it. It goes straight up to the girdle road in the north, where we can take the bridge, and down to Bridleway in the south, where we could go to the tunnel. Normally it’s an express all the way with no turns, but since our building is here we can just get on. It’s very convenient. Of course, there’s an exit on the park side too if we have to get anywhere on the surface streets.”

“You should put that into my essay.”

“Good notion. There’s some paper and pens in the case to your right. But first, which way do you think we should go?”

They had stopped at the exit to the garage and were waiting. “What’s the difference?” Sour asked.

“The tunnel means a shorter trip, but the bridge is a nicer view.”

“I’m in no hurry.”

Reggie nodded and Little focused again, turning the wheels of the cart right and heading north.

The streets were bleached gray by the long years, but they were still in good repair, and they sailed smoothly uptown. The sun reflected off the buildings to their left and the breeze kissed them gently from the park on the right. At the north end of the park there was another few blocks of high-rises, and then the sunlight streamed through, peaking around corners. The skyline descended in steps, now to the combination stores and residences, now to simple houses that had been there for years. The smell of the water mixed with the air and told them they were getting close.

For the ponies, they took this journey often, any time they wanted to get out of the city and see some green. But they rarely had a guest with them, let alone someone unfamiliar with their world. Little slackened the pace of the cart as they passed 150th street. The cabs and carts were getting thicker and they had to weave in and out of traffic, but soon they reached the encircling highway.

Manehattan was a flat island for the most part, but the building of ports at the ends obscured the view sometimes. So it was not until a block later that they saw the bridge. Massive towers, made to look all the taller by their isolation, held a single great span that curved convex to the water. Sparkles flashed and twinkled on the steel of the towers and the sails of boats.

When they reached the bridge, they had no frame of references other than the metal trusses and cables. Even the water couldn’t be seen unless they craned their neck.

“I’m surprised that you could build something like this.” Sour was still looking out the window as she said it. “It’s quite impressive.”

“What do you mean, Sour Sweet?” Moon scowled at her. She could understand the culture shock, but now it was just being contradictory.

“Because you all seem so…provincial.”

“Yeah, well, we ain’t. We can do some pretty amazing things if you give us a chance.”

“Don’t let’s quarrel.” Little turned to look at them. “Not until we get over the bridge.”

“Yes, but look at the road!” Sour saw a cart to the right speeding up to get in their lane.

“Huh? Oh, don’t worry. As part of driving the cart I’m sensing everypony else on the road magically. I could do it with my eyes closed if I wanted to. But I like the view.”

They had passed the crest of the bridge and now were on the down slope, picking up speed. Once they hit land the road split off into half a dozen directions. Little slowed them down to let everyone make turns or switch lanes, then proceeded down the southwestern road. By the time the bridge was behind them, the argument was forgotten.

The contrast couldn’t have been greater. Instead of the buildings all around them and the well-paved roads, they were in a forest path with no sign of civilization other than the ruts of their wheels. With the open top of the cart, a cool breeze mixed with the sounds of birds chirping and leaves rustling. But it only lasted for an hour or so before they came to a clearing and, at the base of a descent, saw a town.

“We’ll stop there and stretch our legs,” Reggie said, and Little nodded. She steered off the path that ran along the edge and found a hotel.

“I find that hotels have accommodations for travelers, even if they’re not staying over.” Little said. Everypony split up to use the facilities, and Little went to the little shop attached to the hotel. She bought a snowcone and waited for Sour to emerge. “Here you go. Try not to get it on the hay please.”

“Thank you.” Concentrating on balance, Sour took it between her two front hooves and licked it. Once all the others were out she was racing through the cone.

“Don’t rush. It’ll be a while before we head back out. We’re going to rig the cart so that Reggie and Garlic can pull us for a while.”

The mares all stood to the side while the stallions helped each other rig two harnesses to the cart. There was a lot to do for the rigging, and Sour had time to finish her snowcone and wash her hooves again before it was time to climb back in. Little still took the spot in the front, but Moon sat next to her now, leaving the entire second row free. Sour flew in and sat sideways, leaning over the left side like it was a bar top.

“You ladies good back there?” Reggie asked. “We’re going to go all out.”

They didn’t, not until they cleared the town and were back on the highway. The trees were thinner now, it was open grassland, and sometimes they had to cut across hayfields to pick up the road. But the ride was even smoother than when Little was driving, and the thump of the drivers’ hooves gave a relaxing backbeat.

Despite the irregular cadence, the wheels moved steadily, like a train pulled by a powerful engine. Little and Moon leaned on each other as they were carried along. For Sour, it was enough to watch some landmark come into view, pass by their side, and then fade out. It was a feeling of progress.

They passed a few more towns and villages, and spend a few hours scaling and descending the Foal Mountains. The stallions didn’t want to stop for any more breaks, but as they approached Saddle Rock, Little insisted.

“Now we have a decision to make,” she said when they were finished. “Should we stay in town or keep going until the light fades and camp out?”

“I’m for camping!” Moon shouted. Sour smiled, as she tended to agree with her fellow pegasus.

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Garlic. “I can out-cook anything they have in a place like this.”

Little and Reggie exchanged one of their semi-psychic glances. “So, unless Sour Sweet has any objections?” Reggie asked.

“We’ll go camping,” she replied. “Seems I’m outvoted anyway.”

Little drove them a few miles out of town. “In case there’s something we desperately need, we can go back for it,” she said, pulling the cart a little ways off the road. It would be likely that other ponies would drive by, or even stop to join them. But as the sun went down, they dropped the tailgate of the cart, chocked the wheels, and settled in for the night.

*****

It was unlike any camping trip that Sour was familiar with. Rather than set up tents and bedrolls, the ponies took it slow, gathering wood for a fire but not making any move to start it. There didn’t seem to be much of any work done, least of all by Moon, who flopped onto the ground near the wood and stretched her wings. Sour knelt next to her, but still kept an eye out for anything to do.

Garlic took out one of the boxes from the cart. With tender care, he removed a cast iron pot, blacker than the night that was falling, and strung it over the wood. Looking the setup over, he nodded and said, “Fire and water, please, whenever you’re ready.”

Sour still checked around to see if he was asking her, but it was Little who stepped up. She cast a spell that arced into the pot, and Sour could hear that water was filling it up. Then with a shower of sparkles that became real sparks, Little turned the pile of twigs into a raging blaze.

It was already a warm night, so Sour thought, but the fire made sure that any breeze that blew by didn’t chill her. Rolling onto her side away from the campfire, she spread her wings as Moon had to enjoy the warmth on the sensitive undersides.

But with the light behind her, it gave her a clearer view of the path ahead. The stars were out, much more than she could see in the light-polluted town where she lived. Something was off, though. On the horizon, the stars were cut off by a shape of nothingness.

“What’s that?” she asked. Reggie walked over and stared where she was pointing.

“What’s what?”

Moon sat up. “Let a pegasus’s eyes see. What is it you’re pointing at, Sour Sweet dear?”

“The…the black.”

“Oh! Mountains in the distance. That is Canterlot, our destination tomorrow.”

“Where Little’s friend lives?”

“She’s all of our friend, but yes. That is the capital of Equestria. Most of the residents will say it’s the best city there is, but most of the residents of Manehattan would say the same about there. Of course, I work in one and live in the other, so I’m objective.”

“And which is better?”

Garlic had come back into earshot, so Moon said, “Manehattan, of course.”

He smiled a knowing grin and got to work on the pot, mixing spices and vegetables that he pulled out of a sack that had been taken off the cart. Already it was starting to boil, making tantalizing fragrances that mixed with the heady scent of the burning wood.

Sour thought of it as a kind of mulligatawny, a spicy stew or soup that she had eaten before. The ponies seemed to have only two ways they did meals: quick and on the go or with all the trimmings. Or maybe, she thought, they were fortunate to have with them a good cook.

Garlic served the stew on tin plates. Sour still had trouble eating in this way, but she could use the fork to stab chunks of food out of the stew. When she was down to bits too small to grab this way, she threw decorum out, lifted the bowl to her mouth, and slurped it all down. Moon looked at her, smiled, and did the same.

Unsure of what to do with the empty plate, she was pleased to see that Little took it from her magically. Putting them all on the ground, she focused and cast a spell. After a flash of light, all the plates and the cooking pot were clean as though they were new.

“Now that’s a useful bit of magic,” she said. “Only…” she trailed off, not wanting to qualify it.

There was a slight slope to the area they were camped on, so they could lean back and look up at the sky without being completely supine. Sour wasn’t very tired, but then she hadn’t done any of the driving. Still, if the ponies were going to sleep, she preferred to set everything up first.

“Nice night,” Reggie said.

“It is, but I’m still not comfortable just sleeping out on the ground with nothing under me or above me. I know you said that this body can handle it, but psychologically, I can’t sleep without it. I guess that’s a security blanket, huh?”

“Do you want to go to bed now, though?”

Sour held up her hooves. “No, no! I just wanted to make sure because it seemed like all of you were ready to crash.”

That brought laughter from the others. “Just because we’re relaxing doesn’t mean we’re sleeping,” Moon said. “Wait until tomorrow, then you’ll see how we really like to spend our nights.”

Little got up and approached the cart. She took off a gray case and flipped open the latches. There were pillows and blankets there. “You can wrap yourself in a blanket and it should do a good job of simulating a sleeping bag.” Then she took down a flat black case. “And as for the nights, why wait until tomorrow?”

“No,” Moon said, kicking herself off the ground and flying over to where Little was, slamming the case closed before Little could finish opening it. “We’re not going ahead with just the four of us, and I’m certainly not going to get all my stuff out only to pack it up in the morning.”

“You’ll have to do that tomorrow anyway.”

“I won’t, because Hoof Dame will be here to help us.” Sour perked up her ears. Whoever this other pony was, she thought, she must be awfully special for the four of her companions to be so needful of her. She also was curious as to what was in the boxes that was so fabulous, but she wasn’t going to let on to the ponies that she was eager.

“Fine,” said Little, not without a bit of a huff. “What are we doing tonight, then?”

“We could just talk.”

That seemed to mollify Little. “Yes, we could.”

It was Garlic who began the conversation, talking about his work. Sour was never much interested in cooking, so she only half listened. Then he mentioned something about some pony who had said hi to Reggie, and Reggie asked after his wife, and now Sour could tune out completely.

She was used to this. Circles of friends always had their own topics of conversation that they liked to stick to, and when any outsider happened to be present, they never realized how excluding it was. Sour herself solved this problem by not getting too close to anyone. Her friends like Sunny and Lemon would talk to her about what was going on at Crystal Prep, but if someone else showed up, she would drop that and talk about the news or a television show or something that they all could discuss. At least, she hoped she would. There wasn’t much opportunity.

The ponies laughed at some joke or anecdote, and it broke Sour out of her own thoughts. She smiled with them, even though she had missed what was said and likely wouldn’t have understood anyway.

Just as she tuned out, Moon said, “Hey, Sour, why don’t you tell us more about yourself? You probably don’t want to hear about all our friends that you don’t know.”

That was refreshing. The ponies widened their circle and let her in. “So most of my life is taken up by what I have to do at school. Crystal Prep is the school to go to if you want to get into a good college, and my folks say that I have to get into the best. Which I totally will. But then the Friendship games happened. I’ll tell you, I always took that as just a name, where it was a rival team to defeat, but ever since the magic started happening, we all figure there has to be something to this, right?”

The ponies had heard conflicting versions of what actually happened, so Sour was able to give them a firsthand account. It let her talk instead of just listening, which was fine by her. From there the conversation drifted into talking about Principal Cinch and how much of a villain she really was. The ponies regaled Sour with tales of some of the monsters and evil creatures that assailed Equestria, and what they had to do to stay safe.

Sour realized that she did not have a watch or any way to tell time. She wondered if the ponies did it automatically by the stars. It had to be very late. Garlic excused himself from the conversation and stretched out with his head on his hoof. After that, they spoke in hushed tones. Sour would have been fine if they could talk until the sun came up, but she remembered that she was on a trip, and they had to cover some ground the next day.

The other ponies just collapsed on the ground and settled to sleep, but Sour couldn’t do that. Her blanket and pillow were set up, but she wasn’t ready for them. After giving the others five minutes or so to relax, she got up and flew away.

“Huh? Sour Sweet?” Little rolled over and looked at her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not sleepy yet. Going to take a walk or flight until I get tired.”

“Don’t go too far. Make sure you stay within sight of the wagon.”

Sour showed fear for only a moment. “Is it dangerous or are you just worried about me getting lost?”

“If you’re on or near the path, you’re fine. But the Everfree Forest is just to our southwest. You don’t want to be there.”

“I wouldn’t go into a forest, to be sure.”

Little pulled herself up until she was resting on one hoof. “It’s not just that. Even if you were to fly over it, you could have problems. The weather there is completely uncontrolled. It could rain without warning or anything. There are monsters too.”

“I’ll stay close. Even though I think I could handle them.” Sour realized that she had lapsed into her old ways, slipping in the snarky remark.

She made lazy circles in the air above the camp, wondering if she wasn’t being helpful by keeping watch. But if what Little said was true, then there was no need for a watch, as close to the path as they were. She let her thoughts drift.

It was important to Sour to use this time to sort things out, be prepared for what she was doing the next day, and that she understood everything that had happened that day. She was getting to know the ponies better. When she thought about it, if they were in her world, not transformed into her form, they could easily take over.

Reggie and Garlic had spent all day galloping at full speed. Even the best marathon runners couldn’t do that. Little’s magic was something special. And of course, no one in her world could fly. She should probably feel better about that than she did.

Was it that she was worried about making a good impression on the ponies? That was important. There would be some people—Principal Cinch was the archetype—who would react out of fear and would anger the ponies. Sour did not want to see what would happen if they ever got angry.

But, she reminded herself, the ponies weren’t perfect. They weren’t godly beings. They had their issues. It was just as much on her to understand those. Now she had an idea of what she had to learn on this trip, and figuring out the right question was as important as getting the right answer.

Skittering to a landing, Sour figured that she had probably kept everypony up, but they were too polite to say anything.

The fire was still going, keeping the heat, but Sour could turn away and barely see any of the glow. She snuggled her head into the pillow they’d given her and curled up in the blanket. It still didn’t feel right, laying out on the bare ground, but it certainly didn’t pain her as much as doing so would have in her usual form.

What she couldn’t do was be completely free of the dirt. Some had gotten into the blanket, since one side of it was completely open to the elements. That was bothersome. There were definitely no shower facilities that they had brought along with them, but perhaps the next day, when they reached the city, she could stop in a hotel or something and clean up. For all Sour knew, the ponies went in for communal bathing.

Or, would it be possible for her to fly into a cloud and clean off that way? She would have to ask Moon about that in the morning. For that matter, if she could figure a way to keep her wings going all night, she could sleep in the air, and that would keep the dirt off. Sour wasn’t really sure as to what the abilities and limits of being a pony were all about. And her new companions couldn’t explain it to her easily because it was the only way they had ever been.

With her head poking out, she could see the edge of the forest she had been forbidden from entering. It didn’t look that scary, and part of her wanted to see some of the monsters. She wondered if they were truly dangerous, or if they were on the same order as not being able to get exactly what weather you wanted.

She let her gaze drift away from the forest to the city. In the dim of the night, each was a shadow, identical. But the next day they would bypass the dangerous one for the safe and civilized one. She was eager for the sun to rise so that she could see the city that the ponies had built up so high to her. She had only seen a few parts of Manehattan, but the viaduct and the bridge had been impressive enough. If Canterlot was as good as that, well, then if nothing else it would be a vision.

With all those thoughts running through her head, Sour Sweet closed her eyes.

4: Vacation Day/Night Music

“How’s she doing it?”

“I don’t know. There’s no way I wouldn’t be up now.”

Moon and Little were looking over Sour’s prone form, the sun’s light dancing on her eyes. They weren’t even bothering to whisper anymore.

Reggie and Garlic had finished packing up all the rest of the camp supplies and had just latched the tailgate of the cart, slamming it shut. They joined in the amazement. Nopony they knew could sleep so soundly outdoors with that much light and noise going on.

“Should we wake her?” asked Reggie. “I mean, is she all right? Maybe she’s not feeling well.”

“I know I always prefer to be allowed to sleep until I get up naturally, even more so if I’m ill,” Little said. Everypony looked at her and nodded. “On the other hoof, though, we do have something of a schedule for the next few hours. We want to get into Canterlot in good time.”

They all stared, hoping that the effect of watching would wake her up, as so often happened. It was known that ponies had a sense for when someone was looking at them, even if they couldn’t see or hear them. But Sour Sweet evidently lacked it.

“What if we started cooking breakfast?” Moon asked.

“I was planning to wait until we got to Canterlot. We really don’t have enough for a full breakfast. I was counting on stocking up.” Garlic was apologetic, but he stomped his hoof. “Do you think we can get her in the cart while she’s still sleeping?”

Everypony looked at Little. “I’ll give it a try.”

It took a few seconds of hard focus before the glow of Little’s horn was matched by one around Sour’s body. She strained as she lifted her head, but Sour did lift off the ground high enough to reach the cart. Halfway there, though, she stirred and snorted.

“I lost her!”Little cried, and Sour fumbled in the air, trying to spread her wings before collapsing, stumbling on her hooves, then falling on her face. “Sorry! Are you all right?”

Sour was trying to brush the dirt off her face, and finding her hooves ill-suited to the task. “Yeah, I’m not hurt, just a few scrapes. But what do you think you were trying to do?!”

“You should have lifted her higher.” Moon was already helping her up. “She nearly landed cleanly.”

Now fully awake, the ponies brought Sour up to speed on what had happened.

“Really? Just wake me up next time, OK!”

“I didn’t want to,” Little muttered.

“It’s not a big deal. My alarm clock wakes me up every day.” Sour mounted up into the cart. Despite her protests of being awake, she stretched her legs sideways across the back seat, and had to pull them in when Garlic and Reggie got in the middle. “You guys aren’t driving?”

Moon flew in next to her. “We won’t be more than a half hour into Canterlot.”

“And the stallions can’t control the cart like unicorn magic can.”

“Not quite. They could, if they kept it slow. But, well…”

The cart was starting to move under Little’s direction. “Well, what?” asked Sour.

“Manehattan’s a mixed city. In fact, it’s the Earth ponies who are the plurality. But Canterlot has an outright majority of unicorns. And when you get that many together, there’s a certain kind of class structure, it’s, um…”

Little turned around, taking her eyes off the road, and shouted over two rows. “You can say it without offending me. They’re full-on snobs.”

“Yeah, they kinda are. And I shouldn’t worry, because Little’s not like them at all. Point is, if they see a unicorn riding in a cart with two Earth pony stallions pulling it, they’re going to assume that Garlic and Reggie are servants.”

The ride into the city was uneventful, though the ponies couldn’t describe the landmarks as they could leaving Manehattan. The ponies noted how Sour marveled at the great mountain and explained that they could have never approached the city from the east. They pulled up to the right side of the castle where stabling was available for the cart. Little pulled a couple of bits out of her saddlebag and paid an attendant to park for them.

“Is it OK to just walk into the castle like this?” asked Sour.

“Sure, why not?” Garlic replied. “But you all go on. I’m going to hit some of the boulangeries and delicatessens so that we have good food for a long time.”

Little reached into one of her saddlebags and pulled out a purse, from which she extracted a few gold coins that caught Sour’s eye. “Take some bits. Anything you want more than this, let me know and I’ll pay you back.”

Garlic walked off, and they all entered the palace.

“The Day Court should be well underway by now,” said Reggie, and, on seeing Sour’s confusion, continued. “That’s when Princess Celestia hears petitions and supplications from anypony who cares to make the trip. It’s held most days unless she’s out of town. And if she is, then Night Court is held by Princess Luna. But if Hoof Dame is working, then it’s got to be Day Court. She’s in service to Celestia herself, not the castle.”

He kept eye contact to see if she had understood, but he had no chance to explain further, as they had reached the auditorium just inside the entrance.

The room was divided in three sections, and a guard explained that if they were waiting to speak to Princess Celestia, they should keep to one of the wings, but if they were simply in audience, they could take the center section. Very few ponies were in the middle, and the four of them reached the third row before they slid into the bench.

The princess, towering over everypony else, was reading a scroll while some petitioner went over her own copy. It was apparently some fine legal point they were discussing, and not particularly interesting. Guards in polished metal uniforms stood to either side of the table, and facing the side, dressed in a demure black outfit was an orange unicorn with an indigo mane. As Celestia reached for a teacup and sipped from it, the unicorn removed the cup and walked over to the side.

She held the cup under a tap, brought up a few leaves of tea in her magic field, dried the cup with a towel, and diverted the stream of water to form its own ball that hung in the air next to the tea. Stepping back and focusing, she caused the water to boil in midair before colliding it with the tea, then funneled the entirety through an invisible stream back into the cup. It had taken no more than a few seconds, but it had the grace and elegance of a dance.

So there was a point of contrast when she turned back to the table, spotted Little waving to her from the seats, and dropped the teacup nearly a foot before she recovered and held it with her magic again. A few drops spilled onto the carpet.

The tinkling of the cup prompted Celestia to raise her head. With a smile, she turned back to her business and slashed a signature on a document. “There, that is good enough to begin on. Come see me again if you cannot work out the details.” The ponies were dismissed with a wave of her hoof, then she turned back to her attendant. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all, Your Royal Highness. Excuse me.”

“No excuse necessary, it’s just the first time you’ve made a misstep at court in ten years.”

“It shan’t happen again, Ma’am.” Her orange coat couldn’t hide the deeper shade of red she was turning.

“I expect it won’t, because of your own perfectionism. But come, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing of your concern, Ma’am.” She clearly would have preferred to leave it at that, but a question from the princess warranted a full answer. “I noticed some friends of mine I hadn’t expected to see.”

“Are they those in the observation gallery?” Pointing to Little and the others, Celestia said, “Have them come here please.”

A guard lifted the barrier to the gallery and the ponies walked up. Moon saw that Sour seemed reluctant to join them, but since she had been seated in the middle, they pushed her up to the princess.

It took but a moment for Little to explain why they had come to Canterlot, and that made Celestia’s smile only grow wider. She beckoned the orange unicorn to come closer.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Hoof Dame,” Celestia said, “why didn’t you ask me for leave to visit your friends, given that they had invited you?”

“My duties to Your Royal Highness come first.”

“Dear sweet Hoof Dame, you do your job as well as anypony could ask. You should balance that with spending time with friends as well.”

Hoof Dame bristled before the princess. “But Ma’am—“

“I have come to a decision.” Pulling herself up to her full height, Celestia spoke with the projection and clarity that she used for speaking at court. “Hoof Dame, I dismiss you from my service for a period of two weeks. A severance of one month’s pay shall be issued to you in recognition of a long and faithful employment.” Back in her low voice she said, “In other words, go take a vacation.”

“But who shall care for you, Ma’am?”

“There are other hoofmaidens in the castle. I shall borrow from my sister or try out somepony new. Now, will you be on your way, or should I make it three weeks?”

Coming to the conclusion that she could not balk her mistress, Hoof Dame took a deep breath, regained her composure, and bowed. “I take my leave, Ma’am.”

As prim as though she were on parade, Hoof Dame led her visitors out of the court area and into a side hall. Little, Garlic, Sour, and Reggie quickly got lost with the number of turns they made and flights of stairs they took, but Hoof Dame knew the castle down to every room, and Moon had a good sense of direction anyway.

They entered a room with sparse furniture, but that immaculate and tasteful, and Hoof Dame shut the door behind her. She turned toward Little, and all the ponies witnessed the veins in her neck and forehead swell. Leaping half a meter into the air, she extended her hoof and brought it crashing down upon the crown of Little’s head, just to the right of her horn. Yet even this violent maneuver had been executed with grace.

“You got me suspended! It’s going to take me ages to rebuild my rapport with the princess! Couldn’t you have waited a few days for me to figure out how to get around to seeing you? You always do this!”

Her pent-up rage spent, Hoof Dame turned away from Little. “So very nice to see you all,” she said. The one she did not greet was Sour, and they realized that she wasn’t going to address her until formally introduced, so concerned was Hoof Dame with protocol.

Moon took the lead. “Hoof Dame, this is Sour Sweet, visitor from the other world. Sour Sweet, this is our friend Hoof Dame.”

Everypony watched the two of them to see if they would have the humorous interaction hoped for.

“A pleasure to meet you.”

“Charmed.”

They all stood in silence for a few seconds. “My apologies for my outburst just now. Little sometimes grates on my nerves,” Hoof Dame said. But I do love her in my own way.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I’ve come to make her acquaintanceship myself. And I want to bop her one now and again as well.”

Perhaps because they were discussing her, Little got back on her hooves, a lump forming under her mane and her eyes spinning in her head. “Ooh, ugh. I don’t mind if you get upset, but please don’t hit me. That hurts me far more than it does you.”

“See, this is why I hit you,” Hoof Dame replied. “You’re supposed to say that the other way. ‘I don’t mind if you hit me, but don’t be mad.’ But let’s not relive it. What are our plans?”

“Road trip,” Reggie got Hoof Dame’s attention for the first time. “Head out west, see Equestria.”

“All right, I’ll pack.”

Sour raised her eyebrows. “Just like that? I thought you wouldn’t be interested since we sprung it on you.”

“Since I’m not going to be staying around the castle, and since all my friends will be on this road trip, it stands to reason that I want to be there too.” She floated down a suitcase and loaded it up with essentials.

Hoof Dame’s packing was as efficient as everything else she did, so it wasn’t long before she was heading for the door. But as she was set to leave, Little cleared her throat for attention.

“Bring your strings too, please.”

“But we’re going west, not back to Manehattan, or so Reggie said. Unless…how tightly packed is your cart?”

Little stammered over her response, so Moon said, “We’ll make it work. Bring them anyway.”

Rolling her eyes, Hoof Dame went into her closet and levitated down a triangular case of black lacquered wood. She led them out a much shorter route to the lot where the cart was. But when she saw the state it was in, she shook her head.

Garlic had loaded the rear with packages of breads and cheeses that would keep for a long time. But it took several lashings and cords to ensure that nothing would fall out, and there was that much less room for seating.

“This will not be very comfortable,” Hoof Dame said, taking up the remainder of the space with her baggage. “And I suppose that we’re camping out without all the accoutrements. Moon, dear, you couldn’t have packed half of what you need.”

“As I said, we’ll make it work.” But as she took her seat, Moon kept her wings spread so she was half hovering over the cart. Hoof Dame sat where Sour had been traveling the whole time, but Sour shrugged and moved up one row, taking a pose halfway between Moon’s holding pattern and Hoof Dame’s prim upright stance. Only Little seemed calm as she occupied her usual place.

The stallions were forced to ignore appearances and pull them out of Canterlot. It was a slow trot at first, but the cobblestones of the streets made for a pleasant drumbeat. Soon they were able to pick up speed as they found the western road.

Even on the road they couldn’t go at full gallop. The tower of luggage that loomed even above the ponies’ heads threatened to fall over the cart. When they looked behind them, Garlic and Reggie could see deep ruts in the road from the overloaded back end. But they put their heads down and soldiered on.

It was a conversation-free journey. At one point they stopped to eat lunch, finishing all of the fresh food they’d brought. Over the miles they trekked, until even the highest spires of Canterlot Castle were no longer visible in the distance, and the only sign of that city was Celestia’s magic lowering the sun in front of them.

*****

It amazed Sour how much her emotions had changed over the four days. The slow pace at which the ponies did everything, and the fact that she was asked to do so little, gave her a sense of going back to her childhood.

In particular, the addition of Hoof Dame to their traveling party had lifted her spirits. Even though it might not be in the spirit of friendship, she had classified the ponies in her head as “winners” and “losers,” with Moon and Reggie falling into the former category and Garlic and, especially, Little in the latter, but Hoof Dame had broken the tie to the winners, and so Sour was prepared to accept ponies as a group. As they’d covered the long distance she had opened up to Hoof Dame, and Sour found she enjoyed the classy pony’s mode of proper speech and intelligent conversation.

As they set up camp, this night they were isolated, with no sign of civilization in any direction. But Little assured her that they would be protected by magical wards, and Sour’s confidence was bolstered when she saw that it was Hoof Dame who was casting them.

From the cart the boxes of food were pulled down, but also all of the hard-edged boxes that the ponies had been keeping from Sour. “So, am I finally going to find out what all this extra stuff is?”

“Absolutely! This is our favorite thing to do when we all get together,” Little said, but Sour was already looking at Reggie opening the case marked with his name in yellow script letters. She could see that it contained a series of wind instruments, from a flute to a clarinet or oboe to something that could have been a trumpet or trombone, or even a small euphonium.

“You guys play music?”

“Do we ever! And everypony else was right last night, it was best to wait for Hoof Dame.”

Moon drifted over to her. “Sour Sweet, would you mind helping me unpack? I’ve got the most here.”

What emerged from Moon’s boxes was a percussion section. They tackled a few that were still lashed together and proved to contain a drum set. But there were others that had cymbals and chimes and tubular bells, as well as a xylophone.

Sour wasn’t sure where they should all go, but Moon was content with her pulling everything out and setting them up. She was getting used to maneuvering with hooves. Besides, she wanted to sneak looks at what everypony else had.

Garlic’s case had instruments similar to his brother’s, but they were larger in size and, Sour reasoned, lower in tone. He had what could only be called a tuba, not a baritone or similar. What she thought of as a saxophone was also meant for the low brass. She found this odd, since Garlic had the higher voice, Reggie’s coming well from the basement in low rumbles.

The two unicorns had the smallest cases, and what they pulled from them Sour couldn’t identify at first. They were wide triangles of dark wood with pegs on two sides. Then she remembered that references had been made to “strings” and placed them as the frames of pianos. But the boxes were empty and there was no way they had any material to play them.

Nevertheless, out of the same case came piano wire that Little and Hoof Dame strung on the pegs with their magic. Although Moon had more setup to do, she was the first to produce sound, idly beating time on a snare drum with her hoof. It seemed to spur everypony to work faster.

It threw Sour for a loop when Moon opened a bag full of drumsticks and pulled out eight at once. Sour watched her hold three between the feathers of each wing and one in each of her front hooves. Nestling herself in the middle of the drum set, Moon started hammering out a rocking drum solo that blasted Sour’s eardrums, the drumbeats hitting machine-gun fast.

In between the drumming, she heard the thin rise of a bass note, and she turned to see that Reggie was blowing it on his horn, and had been for a while. Sour counted the seconds until she hit thirty, and she wondered if he wasn’t using that circular breathing that she’d heard of.

She was more curious to hear how the unicorns’ instruments would sound, so she flew over to where they had finished stringing.

Hoof Dame set the board in front of her and focused. Sparks appeared at different points on the strings, and as though they were hammer strikes, the sound of the piano came forth. Sour was about to compliment her on how she had made such a large instrument portable, but then she looked to Little. With an almost identical device, she was producing the sound of a violin. Then she altered her stance and it became an acoustic guitar, before changing again to a fully electric.

“Wait—how are you doing that?!“

Little looked up, confusion on her face. “I mark off the sections of a string with magic, then vibrate the part between them. With more than one I make chords.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be able to change instruments like that. It’s not just vibrating strings that make particular sounds, it’s what you surround them with.”

“Oh, that’s just magic.”

“’Oh, that’s just magic’,” Sour said, aping Little. “But it’s still impossible!”

“No more than levitation.” Hoof Dame put down her own strings and came over. “Being able to make the strings speak in different voices is one of those instinctual things that any unicorn can learn to do. Actually making music with them, knowing the notes and the timing, that takes training. And actually, none of the types of playing were invented by unicorns. Anything we can do with the strings is in imitation of instruments created by Earth ponies. Some advanced unicorns, like Princess Twilight, can also make wind music, but that hasn’t spread down to the rest of us.”

“Incredible.”

“Oh, she also told us of a fantastic instrument from your world, one you also play without touching. She called it a theremin, and described the sound, but as yet no unicorn has been able to reproduce it. At some point I hope to import one.”

Little looked up. “You didn’t happen to bring one with, did you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Hoof Dame responded before Sour could. “You would have seen if she had. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. Let’s start the music.”

Not responding to Hoof Dame’s insult, Little agreed, and they all got close to each other. Moon sat in the back, the two stallions to her left, Hoof Dame to her right, and Little in front. But they all took turns being the focus. The style of song ranged from melodic to dance to disco to surf music.

No one pony sang two songs in a row, but they weren’t rotating. Moon sang the least, having a raspy voice that didn’t always fit. Sometimes Reggie and Little would duet, her high lilt countering his low voice delightfully. Hoof Dame had a smoky alto, but Sour got the feeling that she was holding back. And Garlic did most of the male vocals, being the only tenor.

As they sang into the night, it also became a dance. Reggie and Garlic bounced to the music, Moon drummed while in hover, only Hoof Dame kept still and stoic. But the real show was Little. She kicked and bucked in time, made elaborate gestures where she held one end of a string down with her hoof while the other was held in magic, modulated the color of her magic to match a key change, and made lights appear in the air in the shape of a repeat or a coda symbol. She even used the mark tree sound from her own magic to accompany the songs, which was normally suppressed.

They went on like this for some two hours, and Sour realized at some point that they weren’t playing for her, not to entertain, but for the simple joy of hearing familiar tunes and getting to be a part of making them. At Crystal Prep, they were educated in music as they were in so many other disciplines, but it was never the same. The ponies did it for friendship, and even if she were not there, they would still have been at it.

Sour could have stayed up listening all night, but voices, hooves, wings, and horns were getting tired, and so the ponies decided to call it a night, promising that they would play more songs the next time they camped.

“Rather than that,” she said, “you guys should play at towns and have the other ponies put you up in exchange.”

In the middle of packing away, everypony stopped and looked at her with blank stares. “We’re not that good,” said Little. It’s not like we’re professionals. Maybe Hoof Dame could pull that off, but I don’t think she would play for money.”

She shot them a skeptical look, but went back to helping Moon put away her drums.

Before they all bedded down for the night, they established that, unlike that morning, everypony could sleep in, and they would take their time getting ready. Garlic had loaded the cart with supplies enough to make a good breakfast, and they had no pressing need to be anywhere in particular. Sour, pleased with this, decided that she would stay up a few more minutes.

Again she was having trouble sleeping, but this time it was from excitement rather than nerves. She saw that Hoof Dame laid down and camped with the others, which belied the haughty pony’s usual comportment. But she kept her body straight and poised in sleep, as if she gave the place her dignity, rather than deriving it from a fancy setting.

She had been the final decision maker for Sour, the one pony that they had needed to win her over. There was nothing that Sour respected more than competence, and Hoof Dame had it. Once the music started, though, it became clear that everypony had their own special abilities.

It did not take long for her to decide to lie down with everyone else, rather than pacing the ground and taking practice flights to nowhere. Being in the air was fun, but it wasn’t something she felt a need for. Besides, she wanted Moon with her, both as a spotter and a companion, but clearly Moon was exhausted from playing the drums all night.

She stared up at the stars and still couldn’t sleep. Now there was a new kind of pressure on her. She was their guest, but she still wanted to impress them and make a good name for her world. The last thing she needed was for Equestrians to get the idea that her species needed to be babied.

What could she do? If they were in her world, it would be they who had the troubles, bereft of their magic and flight. Actually, the one who might best adapt was Reggie, Sour thought. He was the best at keeping things simple. But she was digressing. They were not in her world, and she had to deal with this awkward new body. No one could be expected to show off in a body they weren’t familiar with, right?

But Sour’s mind had not changed, and to her that meant she was still herself. She was one of the top students at one of the best schools. She had won the spelling bee during the academic decathlon, and she could have handled that geometry problem as well, although that Twilight girl had the top grades and had earned her chance.

Again her mind was wandering, as it so often did before sleep. The point was that if they had to engineer or calculate something, she was the person for the job, and the ponies would surely be impressed with her. Except that they didn’t need to engineer or calculate. They just used magic in one form or another.

She was still getting distracted. No, worse, she was lying to herself. What Sour really wanted to do was to be in with the rest of them making music. But even to learn the dexterity that Moon had on the drums would take her years, not weeks. To say nothing of then actually learning the songs. She could sing, especially in chorus with others, but none of the songs were familiar to her.

Perhaps she could join in and sing a song that she knew, and the ponies could figure out how to accompany her. But that didn’t actually solve her problem. Sour was trying to get the ponies to be impressed with her, not to let them show how quickly they could adapt.

It was too much to think about. She decided to relax and sleep on it. This was a technique she had been taught many years before, to think as hard as she could about a conundrum and then get a good night’s rest. Often she found inspiration in the morning. She hadn’t used the technique in many years, since at Crystal Prep analysis was always preferred to inspiration.

Slowing her breathing, she rolled over the phrase “impress the ponies, impress the ponies,” a hundred times before it wouldn’t stick, and she fell into unconsciousness.

At one point during the night, Sour awoke with a start. It seemed to her that someone had called her name, softly and a little creepily. “Sour Sweeeet…” Raising her head, she looked around and pointed her ears in all directions, but she couldn’t see anyone. All the other ponies were asleep, not faking it to be sure. It might have just been a dream, and she put it out of her mind.

5: Make it Through the Day/The Night's Magic

Different ponies needed varying levels of sleep. Garlic was one who could happily get by on three hours a night if he needed to, and as a chef it was often necessary, since he had to rise early to get to market. So that morning he got up with the sun and found a nearby spring for water. The fire that Hoof Dame had made the prior night had burned low, but the embers were still glowing, and he coaxed them back into flame, and put the first kettle on.

He was pleased to see that Sour Sweet was the second one awake, rather than the last. He watched her shake off her blanket and stretch her wings, then he put an egg into the water.

“Would you like some tea?” he asked in a low murmur, hoping that Sour would pick up his cue and not wake the others.”

“Thank you, I don’t really drink it, though.”

Garlic picked up in her tone a touch of the two-faced, but he put it down to the earliness of the hour. Shrugging, he put on a second kettle for his own tea, added and coddled more eggs, and slapped a griddle on one of the pots to heat up.

The sounds and smells roused the other ponies. Hoof Dame inquired where the spring was before trotting off for some ablutions. The others just brushed themselves off and declared themselves ready to eat.

It was a bountiful breakfast, as Garlic was whipping the flour into biscuits, pancakes, toast, anything that anypony could ask for. And with the eggs and fruit, everypony ate beyond their fill.

“Sign me up for that every day,” said Moon as she picked her teeth. “You want to get married and cook for me all the time?”

“Yes to the second, no to the first,” Garlic replied. “I’m holding out for an alicorn princess.”

Reggie leaned over to Sour. “They’re both joking, just in case you can’t tell.” But she shrugged and gave no indication that she could, or that she cared.

“In any case, forget about every day. We’re going to need more stuff if we want to have anything good tomorrow.”

Little raised her head. “I thought we just stocked up at Canterlot.”

“We don’t have the room we need on the cart, so it means lots of stops. Or eating off the land.”

She leaned over to Sour. “Don’t worry, we won’t let it come to that.”

With so much of their stock eaten, everypony was able to fit in the cart as Little drove them to the next town.

As they came upon it, Moon took a deep breath and smiled. “There’s Rainbow Falls. Now, isn’t that pretty?”

It might have been rhetorical, but Sour answered. “It is pretty. But if I lived here I’d get sick of those rainbows awfully quick.”

After an awkward silence, Hoof Dame turned around. “You know, I see the value of looking at both sides of things, but just being contrary for its own sake is no good.”

“You should have drunk the tea,” said Garlic. “I think you’re suffering from a theine deficiency.”

Sour stared blankly.

“It’s the same stuff as caffeine, but in tea,” Little explained. “Garlic’s just trying to be fancy.”

Hoof Dame brushed the incident aside. “In any case, if you did live here, you could avoid looking at the rainbows by moving to Upper Rainbow Falls. A growing community.”

“Is that near this town?” Sour looked around, hovering off the ground.

“As the name implies, it as above it. A cloud city, you understand.”

“I do not.”

Moon came over. “Cloud cities are just what the name says, cities made of cloud. Pegasi can walk there naturally, but the other types of ponies need to have magic spells if they don’t want to fall through the clouds. Many of the cloud cities are close to a ground-based city, and they interact. So Cloudsdale is associated with Ponyville, and Upper Rainbow Falls is associated with Rainbow Falls. Pegasi might live in one and commute to the other, and the ground city gets the benefit of tight weather control.”

“Interesting. My world wouldn’t put up with a segregated place like that. But I’m not in my world. So, do you think we could visit?”

“Do you really want to leave everypony else behind?”

Sour didn’t answer immediately, and Moon pawed at the ground. She understood that Sour wanted some alone time with her, to fly and to be with other pegasi. Even she herself longed for that sometimes. But this trip was supposed to be about all of them.

“Why don’t we see if we can stop by on the way back?”

The only answer was for Sour to hop in the cart and lean over. Everypony else got in and they made for Rainbow Falls.

Garlic took the cart to load up, and Hoof Dame, Little, and Moon wanted to browse the shops. Only Sour and Reggie were content to sit at a café and relax. “What Moon was telling me about cloud cities was interesting,” Sour said, “and it would be a good item to put into my essay. You haven’t forgotten about that, have you?”

“I haven’t, though I’m not thinking of it all the time. Do you want me to put in a few lines about cloud cities?”

“Yes, but more than that, I want to know about the different types of ponies in general.”

Taking a deep breath, Reggie seemed to recite from memory. “Pegasi fly, of course, and the unicorns do magic—“

“Wait. I have a feeling that everyone’s going to have those basics. Plus we know some of that already. I want to know about the cultural differences.”

“How do you mean?”

Sour bit her tongue. “Well, ok, there are cloud cities, but do they do things differently there? Are there different jobs or what?”

“You want an economics lecture?”

“I…sure, that’s a good place to start.”

Leaning back in his chair, sipping his coffee, Reggie collected his thoughts. Then, not looking directly at Sour but shifting his gaze as though he were a lecturing professor, he began:

Before I start this, let me qualify it by saying that everything I tell you has exceptions. A pony is free to do whatever they want, even if it’s atypical of their race. I can give you examples of how that works, but let me give you the idea first before I start talking about the exceptions.

Most Earth ponies have extensive families, and they keep in regular contact with them even if they don’t live in the same area. Many of them enjoy genealogy and create extensive family trees. They are also the most frequent breeders of the three races, and their positive qualities have been reinforced over the generations.

Because of all this, they are the hardiest of the races and in many ways the most productive. Certainly they understand the economics of the staples of existence the best. The interactions among Earth ponies therefore follows strict traditions and family guides. Most families will have a matriarch or patriarch or who directs the distribution of the production.

But basically there are three types of interaction for Earth ponies. Within the same family, everything is shared. If my brother needs my hammer, he goes ahead and takes it, and it’s understood that he has permission. Disputes are rare, settled by arbitration of the family leader, forgotten immediately afterward, and never discussed with outsiders.

Between different Earth pony families, there can be more of an adversarial position. If one family specializes in, say, oats, and another in wheat, they will still reach a barter agreement, but each side will try to get as much as it can. I stress that this is only when no tie of relation can be found. It’s happened more than once that in the middle of a barter session a genealogist will find a long-lost link or two of the opposing sides will get married, and the dynamic of the trade completely changes.

Then of course come the interactions with the other races which have to be carried out with bits and contracts and all the trappings of a modern economy. The only difference is that Earth pony families are pseudo-corporate entities. If you go to a farm stand and buy a bunch of grapes, you may give your bits to the pony at the stand, but it’s likely that they then belong to the entire Grape family, and the necessities are purchased first.

What that amounts to is that the individual Earth pony never has to worry about where their next meal is coming from or about having a roof over their head. There are places that will take them in. But it also means that luxury and recreation tends to come last. That doesn’t mean that Earth ponies don’t have any fun. To the contrary, for parties and celebrations hoedowns and hootenannies, you can’t beat an Earth pony bash. But you can’t decide that you’re going to take out a few thousand bits and go on vacation, or buy yourself something fancy without consulting a bunch of other ponies.

Most pegasi work for the Crown. Certainly all of them receive a stipend sufficient for them to survive on, but they’re expected to perform civil service to get it, and they can work their way up the pay grades if they have a taste for luxury. In some cases this is a matter of necessity. Only pegasi can manipulate the weather on a grand scale, and you really couldn’t run a postal service without air transport.

So a pegasus pony splits their work between local and collective. There’s one well-known pegasus who cares for animals, and only joins in the weather team during times of absolute need. But she also must be very careful and budget her money well. Conversely, you have ponies like the Wonderbolts, who are famous and wealthy from performing stunt shows, but who can also be pressed into military service at any time by the will of the princesses.

Now, I said that they work for the Crown, but in fact there is a large council of pegasus ponies who do nothing but arrange for what work gets done where and when and by whom. The princesses have authority over the council, but they limit it to choosing the members and occasionally dressing down or replacing one who has taken too much control or is not operating efficiently. The council members themselves are rewarded handsomely.

But I said that they are paid by the Crown, which means that if the treasury happens to run low in a given year, it’s the pegasi who suffer the most. Or at least the soonest. There have been lean years where even the best of pegasi only get the basic-need payment, even though they did much more work.

One way they have dealt with problems like that is through cloud cities. Obviously nopony else can go there, so with a pegasus-only location, they can engage in community living similar to what the Earth ponies do. Pegasi can be assigned dormitories that have plain living for very few bits. They do not, as far as I know, go to the full-on barter system as Earth ponies do. Pegasi trade mostly in bits.

At this point I should also say something about the banking system here in Equestria. We do not have banks that are privately held and run as businesses. It would not be illegal to make one, but the princesses have made it clear that they do not care to have such things, and as such there aren’t enough ponies who would use one to make it worth the effort.

What we do have, though, are banks that are collectively owned by the depositors in proportion to the money they keep. Interest is still charged on loans, but that is more of an insurance premium on default rather than a payment of time. We have seen predatory and usurious charges that are levied by the privately held banks in the griffon kingdom, and we have seen that it makes people too concerned with money.

Then there are the unicorns. They are the most independent of the three races. A unicorn virtually never barters, but deals always in bits. Most of the artisans and creative types are unicorns, so it stands to reason that they would trade with other ponies on a one-to-one or one-to-many basis. That is not to say that there aren’t any unicorn conglomerates, but where there are there’s likely to be a rank order, as opposed to the pegasi and Earth ponies where the best pony for the job takes the lead.

Many unicorns have grown wealthy, and their wealth is theirs to keep or to distribute as they see fit. The rich and the heirs of the rich flock to Canterlot. Initially the rush there was to attempt to buy favors of Princess Celestia. But she proved rather shrewd. She happily accepted any donations to the treasury, and she endorsed any charity foundations a wealthy unicorn wanted to found. But when she was asked for a quid pro quo, she would go public in a show of faux naiveté, letting everypony know what special privilege the unicorn asked for. Usually they were too embarrassed to press the issue.

“Go on, I’m sure the princess will want to hear all of this.”

Reggie had been so deep into what he was talking about that he hadn’t noticed everypony else returning and sitting back down. He looked over at Sour, who clearly had, but was either too engaged in the lecture or wanted to see how far he could go.

He looked over at Hoof Dame, who had interrupted, and said, “I wasn’t saying anything against her.”

“I know, but she always wants to know what anypony thinks of her.”

It took a few moments for the red to drain out of his face. “Come on, let’s get out of this town and put some miles behind us. I’m tired of all this talking anyway. I’ll just get a drink and we’ll be off.”

The others let him go, but Sour said, “Hear, hear!”

“Are you that eager to leave, Sour Sweet?” Garlic asked.

“Well, kind of. I want to get all the traveling over with so that we can set up camp again and I can hear more of the music. Honestly, it’s the highlight of the trip for me so far.”

Everypony else now blushed, although it was hard to see on Garlic’s and Hoof Dame’s faces.

Reggie retuned, wiping the excess water off his muzzle. “What’s going on?” No one responded. “Then let’s stop standing around here. C’mon, Gar.” They strapped into the cart, which was too full for everyone to ride. A few minutes later, Rainbow Falls was behind them, and the vast expanse lay ahead.

*****

Although the setting sun had been ahead of them for the entire day, leading Sour Sweet to conclude that they had kept going westward, she had no real inkling of where they were, even looking at Reggie’s map. “I’m too used to GPS,” she muttered to herself, thinking that she should be able to figure out her location by landmarks.

They were in a remote area. Mountains lined the northern horizon, but without distinctive peaks, she couldn’t tell which ones they were. It was pleasant enough country, with grass and flower fields all around and rolling hills and valleys. They had set up camp near the base of one hill so that they could lean against it for shade and comfort.

Part of her issue was that she had dozed again during the trip. Not deeply enough that she lost any time, but she wasn’t paying attention to where they had left the road. But she was fresh now. She put away the map and took comfort in the fact that the ponies seemed to know where they were going. Or, if they didn’t, then Moon could fly up until she could identify their position.

The instruments were coming out again, and that was what Sour was really looking forward to. Little took out her strings and laid them down, with Sour noticing a sharp look from Hoof Dame. She treated her own with care, keeping it floating in midair as she oiled the strings themselves. The stallions polished their horns while Moon took her time setting up the drums. It gave Sour a chance to speak with her hostess.

“So,” Little said, “are things getting any better? I know we didn’t make the best first impression—“

“They are. I’m glad that you brought me out here. Seeing the country is…refreshing. Although, I see what you were going for initially, and if your original plan of inviting Hoof Dame out to Manehattan had come to fruition, I think I would have liked that, even a little better.”

“Oh?”

Sour waved her hoof at the open spaces. “All this area would be great to listen to the music to, if we had a whole bunch of people here. But if it’s in close, I bet it would sound better in the acoustics of your apartment. And, meaning no disrespect, but that’s what I’m going to remember when I get home, is the music.”

“I’m glad that you like it. Do you play music where you come from?”

“Oh, sure, I do chorus and such. Music is a required class at Crystal Prep. But I’m not up to the performance level like you guys. Especially you.”

It seemed like Little was only half listening, but she turned back at Sour’s last words. “How do you mean?”

“Well, all the others just play their instruments, but when you do it, it’s almost like a stage show. The way you move your hooves and put in little sparks of your magic, it’s a whole separate entertainment.”

“Those things aren’t anything to be proud of. It just shows off how amateur I am. Everypony else can play without doing all that, but I need to move my magic and my hooves to keep time. In some cases the chord is too difficult for me so I have to use my hoof to stop one end of the string. If I were a professional musician, or even called to play at court like Hoof Dame, they’d laugh at me.”

Giving her a skeptical look, Sour said, “I still think that you’re the best musician here.”

“Hey, Hoof Dame!” Little waved the other unicorn over. “Sour Sweet here thinks I’m a better musician than you.”

“What?! No! I didn’t say that!” Sour flashed red, but Little was laughing as she said it, and Hoof Dame had a rare smile.

“I’m glad you have a fan,” she said.

“I don’t get the joke.”

Little still had a grin on her face. “She’s trying to be courteous in her pride, because she knows how far ahead of me she is.”

Everypony seemed ready, so Hoof Dame said, “Maybe you can get better. Let’s try that slow beat song.”

“Wha?! See, there you go. You know I can’t do that one, it’s got a time shift.”

“And you need to learn those. Go ahead.”

Thinking back to the previous night, Sour said, “I’ve heard you shifting time signatures in the middle of songs before.”

Little was confused for a moment, but then she said, “No, not a change in the time signature. It’s a thing where you sing…a note…only…”

Hoof Dame sat down next to them. “Sometimes in music, you have one phrase that ends after the next one begins. For example, there’s a song that goes, ‘My little pony, I used to wonder what friendship could be,’ with the ‘be’ landing on the downbeat of the next bar. But then it repeats, so that the ‘My’ is on the same downbeat.

“When we want to sing a song like that, what we do is to finish the first line and start the next one, but send the first note back in time by one beat so that they sound simultaneous.”

“What do you mean, ‘back in time’?” Sour asked, but that flummoxed even Hoof Dame. “You mean, actually back in time? Like, time travel? You can do that?”

“It’s just with a bit of sound.”

“Yes, but it’s time travel. It breaks the laws of causality!”

“It’s just magic.”

Sour was gritting her teeth, but she couldn’t make the ponies understand how momentous it was. “All right, how about this? If you can send music back in time, why have more than one singer at all? Why not just have one pony do everything and send it all back to be an ensemble?”

It was Little who answered. “What fun is there in that? It’s much better to play with friends. All right, let’s go. I’ll try the slow song.”

They got through the song without incident. Sour was listening for the time shift that Little had mentioned, but couldn’t detect it and concluded that that meant that it had been done correctly. After Garlic and Reggie each had a turn, Hoof Dame cleared her throat to sing.

After the first bar, Sour realized that she couldn’t understand the lyrics, and that Hoof Dame was singing in a foreign language. It was pleasant enough to listen to though, and even if she didn’t know what was being said, the sounds were pretty in themselves. When it ended, she held up her hoof.

“What was that?”

“Hoof Dame was singing in Old Equestrian,” said Moon.

“It was the language of our ancestors.” Hoof Dame put down her strings and assumed a lecturing tone. “Thousands of years ago, long before Princess Celestia and Princess Luna civilized the ponies, we were true beasts of the earth, living as wild animals do. Our language was limited to the sounds our mouths could make, which is why you hear no plosives in Old Equestrian.”

“Sorry, what’s a plosive?”

“The letters b, p, t, d, k, and hard g.”

“Ah,” said Sour, “Got it. That’s why you sounded like, well, a horse.” Everypony was silent for a moment. “Sorry! That’s probably offensive. I didn’t mean it. Really, I didn’t. My people evolved up too, from something similar to the chimpanzee. And we didn’t even have language then, so you’re ahead of us there. I’m sorry, I’m rambling, but I wasn’t trying to do my thing.”

“It’s all right,” Moon picked up her drumsticks and started beating out time for the next song.

They did not go as late into the night as they had the previous evening, but nopony was fatigued. Rather, they were exhausting their A-list set of songs, and did not want to move to the inferior ones. As they started to break down the instruments, Sour cornered Little, who as usual was the first one to finish.

“Hoof Dame’s Old Equestrian singing was fairly impressive. Can you sing in it too?”

“A few songs, and half of the words I only know phonetically. Even when I do, Hoof Dame says I sing it with a Manehattan accent, and she finds it amusing. She can speak it like a native, though, and when she wants to say something to Princess Celestia without anypony else understanding, they use the language.”

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Sour said with a deep breath, “I still think you’re the better singer to watch. I know that you said that she’s doing more difficult things, and that she can sing in another language, but it’s all about preferences, and I prefer you.”

Little smiled wide and looked to the heavens. “Oh, dear. Hoof Dame, dear? How about you show Sour Sweet how good you really are?”

Sour watched the reactions of the ponies, seeing the hope in their eyes. She watched to see what would happen.

“Well…she is a guest, and I suppose.” Hoof Dame’s reluctance came through, but since she acceded, everypony gave a cheer and Garlic kicked his hooves up. Then they got serious and sat down to listen. “What shall it be, then? The Blue Sky song or the one about Tears at Morning?”

“Ooh, Tears at Morning, do that one,” said Moon.

“All right. Reggiano, friend, may I borrow your flute?” Hoof Dame was more serious than Sour had seen her, and that was serious indeed. She barely noticed that she had learned Reggie’s full name.

Hoof Dame took a long time looking over the flute and magically inspecting it. She double checked her own strings as she returned them to the ground. With her eyes closed, she held the flute to her lips and started up a magical glow on the strings. Everypony else held their breath for silence.

From the strings came only the sound of a piano. It was a simple song, a call-and-response with the flute, and Sour Sweet could picture two lovers both playing one part to each other. It was slower than she usually liked her songs, and though Hoof Dame was playing masterfully, she found nothing remarkable at first.

Once Hoof Dame had passed the first few bars, though, the glow of her horn increased. Sour looked to the strings, but it wasn’t there. Instead it surrounded Hoof Dame’s entire body, and she rose in the air, her rear hooves dangling below her body as she hovered. There was a burst of light, but no accompanying sound, and Hoof Dame was nowhere to be seen.

Sour Sweet’s first reaction was to cry out, but she had neither the ability nor, after a moment, the desire. The song was still going on, flute and piano, but instead of coming from a few feet ahead of her, Sour could hear the song from all directions, as though the air itself were playing the music. No other sound was possible. More than that, the music was coming from her. And from Moon and from Little and everypony else and the grass and the trees and the stars. When Sour opened her mouth, she could feel her breath escape as though she was blowing into the flute herself, and she could also feel the strings vibrating in her hooves and under her wings.

The song lasted less than two minutes, and as the final rising notes of the piano faded out, Hoof Dame popped back into existence and all magical light faded. She collapsed to one side, but not so fast that Reggie couldn’t leap over to catch her.

“Thank you for the flute, and for a pleasant evening, everypony.” Hoof Dame passed the flute back to Reggie, still using only her hooves. “Good night.”

“I’ll put your strings away for you,” Little said. “I’ll do it right and take my time, just as you’d want me to.”

Moon and Garlic were helping her to bed, and it became clear to Sour that whatever magic had been done had drained Hoof Dame to exhaustion.

“What—“, she began, but the question was understood.

“It is a variation of something called Haycartes’ Method.” Little was speaking in a low murmur. “He was a scholar who figured out how to learn more by entering a book. It was later adapted so that ponies could enter music. When she was playing, Hoof Dame was the song, and the melody, and the music.

“I could not hope to learn that, not in five hundred years. But Hoof Dame learned it, because she is sometimes called on to sing or entertain at court, and anything she does she puts her entire self into until she does it superlatively.”

Sour was still agog, but she managed to get out, “But what’s the range?”

“Range?”

“How far did her music, or her magic or whatever, how far did it carry?”

Little looked at her with confusion, then, in the manner of speaking the obvious to a child, said, “It’s not about distance or anything like that. She was playing for us. Her friends.”

She turned her attention to the delicate task of putting away Hoof Dame’s instrument, and Sour Sweet was left alone with the music still ringing in her mind. She quickly fell into a deep sleep.

***

“Yes?” Sour Sweet sat up. It took her a moment to realize where she was. She could not tell what time it was, except that it was still deep in the night with no sign of the sun. She was certain that someone had spoken to her, that she was having a conversation of great importance. Grasping for memories that were flowing from her head like water, she had a picture in her head of a bright land with no trees, and someone giving her a task…or were they asking for help? It wouldn’t stick. Fully awake, she flew over to the cart and took a drink of water from one of the skins.

As she lay back down and closed her eyes she thought back to the previous night. Now that she thought about it, it was the same dream, and that bothered her, since normally Sour didn’t even remember her dreams. Was dreaming different in Equestria? She decided to ask her friends in the morning, if she remembered.

The last thought she had before falling asleep again was that she had thought of the other ponies as her friends.

6: Workday/Own the Night

For once, everypony had gotten up at more or less the same time, shuffling around while cleaning up camp. Garlic was busy pounding flour into sourdough biscuits, and he saw that Sour Sweet had made quick work of her morning routine, throwing her mane back into a ponytail and sashaying over.

Feeling the need to make conversation, he said, “So a few days ago we started to talk about what you’re doing when you’re not a pony, but then we fell into talking about the incident where our worlds almost got merged. So you never got to answer the question. What’s Sour Sweet really all about?”

Smacking her tongue to get rid of morning breath, Sour sat down on her haunches. “We did get distracted. Well, like I was saying, Crystal Prep is a top-notch school for good students, and I’m right up there with the best. Not quite as high as Twilight Sparkle on grades, but—“

“Wait, what?”

“Oh, right. No, not the Twilight Sparkle you know, we have a student with the same name. Had, I should say. She just transferred out. Which means that I’ll have a shot this year at top marks, at least in some subjects. But Twilight always kept to herself. And she neglected athletics. When we were together in the archery contest—“

Again Garlic interrupted. “Archery?”

“Yeah, you know, bow and arrows? Or, maybe you don’t know, because you probably wouldn’t have that sort of thing here.”

“We do. Actually, we have ice archery, which has a special element of danger, and one time at the Equestria Games…but I’m going off on a tangent again. You shoot?”

Sour looked at him, and Garlic wondered if she was going to probe deeper into his digression. But she said, “Yes. Without engaging in false modesty, I can say that I was top archer in the school. I can hit what I aim at. But that’s when I’m in my usual body.” She went through the motions of taking a shot.

“Good for you. I like sports. I like to see everypony building up their skills to do things that not just anypony can. I go to a lot of games in the park and the ball fields further up Manehattan. I used to try things like that myself, before I found my true calling.” He had finished rolling out the dough and was separating it for cooking. “Get out the butter, please, would you?”

With Sour helping to get breakfast ready, Garlic sought out his brother, who had returned first from washing up while the mares still lingered. “What’s going on?” Reggie asked.

“I’ve been thinking that we should do something nice for Sour Sweet. I was talking with her about her home life. Do you know that they still have archery in her world?”

“Ice archery?”

“No, just the regular kind. And I don’t think they do it with standing bows. The way she mimed it, I think they hold the bow in their hooves.”

Reggie shook his head. “Not hooves. Hands. Amazing. Must be much more difficult to aim.”

“Right, well, anyway, I had the idea that we could make one for her. With arrows, of course, wouldn’t be much use any other way. I think there’s some linen thread in the cart for a string, and with plenty of trees around we should be able to find some oak or maple even if we can’t find yew. Chipping rocks for arrowheads we can do too.”

“Yes, but I do see one problem, and that’s in fletching. The only feathers I see around here are going to be difficult to get away from their owners.”

Grimacing, Garlic said, “Hrm, you’ve got a point there. None of us are good enough with animals to convince a bird to give up some, and asking a pegasus to lose a feather is…well, it can’t be good. There may be some fine tree bark that would be flexible enough to use instead. In any case, you’ve convinced me that there’s something to this project. The hard part will be keeping it a secret. Although, we might let the girls in on it. Let’s see what we can gather before we get on the road.”

Hoping and predicting that the mares would take more time to get ready, the two of them trotted toward a nearby wood that was not big enough to be called a forest. With Reggie keeping one eye back to the cart, Garlic scoured the ground for a good branch. When he came back, Reggie asked, “Any luck?”

“This was the best I could find.” Garlic showed his brother the branch he had found. “It needs a lot of knife work to smooth the knots, but it’s got spring.”

“I’ve had better luck with shorter sticks for arrows. We can get maybe a dozen. But I don’t have anything to make a quiver with.”

“Well, it’s something. Maybe we can buy one of those in town. Come on, let’s stow these away in the cart before all the mares see them.”

In short order the cart was on the road again, heading west, with the materials for Garlic’s project hidden under some blankets near the front. An hour later, Garlic found an outcropping of stone and stopped the cart, pleading that he wanted to examine it. He came back with the start of a couple of arrowheads secreted away. Before noon, Reggie pulled over near a lake to drink his fill. Similar stone was found nearby. On the way back, Little stepped away from the cart.

“You never need a drink this early. You’re up to something,” she said.

“Of course I am.”

“You want to let me in on it?”

“Not particularly, but if it comes to it I might need your help. It’s really Gar’s project, something he can do for Sour Sweet.”

Little pondered. “All right. I’ll hold off for now, see how it goes. I like surprises too.”

Garlic caught their conversation, but stayed out of it. Strapping himself back into harness, he stopped focusing on completing his self-assigned task and started thinking about its success. Trotting along with the cart strapped to his back was the best way for him to fall into peaceful daydreaming. He liked pulling, but had little occasion to do so in Manehattan.

If Sour Sweet detected any of their machinations, she gave no indication of it. She seemed content to lounge in the back of the cart, almost as if she was in the same kind of reverie as Garlic was while pulling. She didn’t even say anything when they stopped, which they did frequently.

The towns were getting smaller as they made their way west, but more homey and inviting than they were in the East. Although Sour claimed to be from an area in their world called Canterlot, Garlic had gotten the impression that it was no more than a suburb. Where the other world’s princesses—or whatever royalty they had, he corrected himself—lived remained a mystery. But it was Reggie who was writing the paper, not him.

In any case, Garlic was pleased that everypony accepted seeing the towns and admiring the rustic charm. It was only a few touches, such as a more elaborate and baroque fence where a simple one would do, but it had its appeal. Even Hoof Dame, who Garlic considered a bit stuck-up despite their close friendship, described the bucolic areas with poetic praise.

What was important was that they gave him time to work. By midday he had all the burrs and knots off of the branch he had chosen, and was working it into flexibility. He found the string that he remembered being in the cart and measured a good length for holding the bow bent. Once he had the measure, he snipped several others to serve as spares. Garlic had not kept up with his archery for many years, but he knew that having spare bowstrings was essential.

Reggie had done good work as well at the cost of his own relaxation. He had the bark stripped from the arrows and had chipped twelve good arrowheads, sharpening them against his own hoof. As afternoon came to a close, with their backs to the rest of the party they made quick work of forcing the heads onto the shafts.

“I’ve got some different materials that might work for fletching,” Reggie muttered. “Tree bark seems good, but it’s hard to get properly flat. I’ve got some leaves of pine needles that look like they have the right shape, if they have enough air resistance.”

“This is where we need the pegasi to help, but of course that would spoil the surprise.” Garlic looked back to the cart, but for once they were free to speak in other than hushed tones.

They were parked outside of the largest town they had seen all day, and the ladies had gone in to have lunch. Garlic and Reggie had pled lack of hunger, and Garlic promised his brother that he would more than make up for this at supper that night.

“Let’s fletch them as best we can, and if anything Sour Sweet can correct our mistakes.”

“I agree,” Garlic said, “but leave one or two. I’m still hoping that Moon will let us use some of her feathers.”

“You ask her. I like keeping my flank un-kicked.”

“I think that we’re just about ready to present these to her. Like I said, she’s probably going to have to help finish them off, and I want to see if she likes them.”

They waited until the four mares returned from their late lunch. Garlic looked at Reggie as though expecting him to take the lead, but when nothing was said, he took a deep breath.

“Sour Sweet, we know that, however you feel about our country, you’ve got to still be missing your home a little. Of course, we can’t send you back until it’s time, but Reggie and I wanted to give you some taste of your old life. We were talking about this this morning, so here you go.”

From behind his back he pulled out the bow and the arrows. He could see in her eyes that there was an element of confusion, and he realized that by not having re-strung the bow or quivered the arrows, it didn’t look very impressive. Something along the lines of, “You got me sticks. How lovely,” was probably coming up in Sour’s throat. So to show what it was, he bent the bow and put one of the arrows across it. But realization was already dawning on her face.

“You…made me a bow and arrow? Just because I mentioned archery this morning? That’s…impressive. Good thing it wasn’t Sugarcoat who was your guest. She was on the motocross team at the Friendship Games.” Garlic didn’t understand everything she was saying, but he hadn’t heard anything bad yet. “You went through all this trouble? I’m sure one of the towns that we passed would have had—oh, but you probably wanted to make it a personal gift. Thank you.”

That was something of a shot, but the gratitude was there, and Sour showed happiness. Garlic was content.

“Actually, this may have been the perfect thing for me. Honestly, the one thing that’s been bugging me more than anything, and I’m not sure I realized this until now, is that I don’t have anything to work on. Relaxation is good, but I like spending time improving my skills. I’m glad that Reggie is helping me with my school assignment, because truth be told I’m already good at writing essays. No, correct that, I’m great at writing essays. And I’m a crack shot archer as well. But I’ve always had fingers.” She trotted up, took the bow from Garlic and strung it to his bend. Then she notched an arrow and reared on her back legs. Letting it go in a safe direction, the arrow flew maybe five meters and landed backward. “Yeah, I can definitely practice with this.”

“Great. Tonight we’ll find a camp where we can set up some targets on trees or something similar.”

“You’ve got two of the arrows that aren’t finished though.”

Garlic scratched the back of his neck. “I was thinking that maybe we could fletch them with pegasus feathers.”

Moon made herself known with a sharp intake of breath through her teeth. “Yeah, that’s…”

“That would make for a nice connection,” Sour said. “Can we just pluck them out of my wings?”

“We’ll talk about that later, pegasus to pegasus. Let’s get back on the road.”

Garlic and Reggie strapped themselves into their harnesses and pulled the cart out. Immediately they noticed that it was heavily laden.

“You ladies did a lot of shopping in town?” asked Reggie.

“We had to replenish the stock of food, since you two were busy with your project,” Little replied. “But don’t worry. Hoof Dame took charge of what we should get and picked out stuff she thought you could work with.”

Garlic was blushing redder than his usual coat color, thinking of how neglectful he’d been. “Don’t worry about it. Coming this far west, you’re not going to get the same quality as we’d have in and around Manehattan and Canterlot. Was that all you got though? It feels—“

“Ah, ah, ah! Don’t say anything more, if you please.”

He clammed up. Garlic had a good idea of where food would be packed on the cart, and as he dragged it over the dusty road, he could tell that the normally crowded back seat was even more tightly packed. He figured that the mares had a surprise of their own, and he would let it be shown in time.

It was getting easier to find desolate places where nopony would stop by. Not that they particularly minded, but their circle of friendship was mostly closed. The trees were also getting thinner, but Garlic was able to spot a place where a maple, perhaps having won the lottery of plant food, water, and sunshine, grew thick and tall at the head of a small stand.

“We’ll have good shade here for tomorrow morning,” he said. “It’ll be hotter in the day as we get farther from water. In the meantime, Sour Sweet can use the big tree to practice, if she likes.”

Garlic got to work on making supper, finding no fault in the ingredients he’d been given. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he watched Sour Sweet, using her wings to balance, aiming at the tree. When he saw that she was getting low on arrows, he galloped into the forest to retrieve the ones that had gone wide. Delivering them back, he got a muttered, “Thank you,” that was for more than just passing the arrows. Content, he went back to his cooking as the sun waned.

***

In Crystal Prep high school, most of the friendship cliques were unisex. Or, if they weren’t, it was specifically for young men and women seeking romantic or sexual relations. Sour Sweet had no particular time for that sort of thing, and so her own group was all-girl. When she had come to Equestria and found that two of the ponies she’d be traveling with were stallions, it had thrown her off for a while. She hadn’t said anything, and she’d gotten used to it, since after all they were older than her. Still, it was refreshing to be able to spend the day in town with the other mares.

And then when they had returned and Garlic had given her a present, it had been a cap on a good day. The ponies were good at planning out surprises, and Sour had become dimly aware that Little and Moon had their own surprise, having stowed away a long canvas package into the cart when they came back from town.

In their camp surrounded by trees, Sour felt something of the cover and walls that she was used to sleeping with, but it was still not time for bed. The moon had waxed to almost full and the stars backlit the campsite.

Once again the instruments came down and off the cart, but Sour, despite the laziness of the day—or perhaps because of it—didn’t want to stay up all night listening. She was also physically worn from practicing her archery. So she took her bedroll and stuck it between her wings to prop herself up.

She was starting to wish that she could contribute more. Regrettably, music was one area that she had neglected at Crystal Prep, being nothing more than a member of the chorus who had never soloed. She didn’t know any of the Equestrian songs and couldn’t join in as they played their music. Or, she thought, if her own people were on an expedition like this, her archery skills could have come in useful in hunting, but she’d been strictly instructed not to harm any animals while in Equestria.

But Sour was not so socially unaware that she could not read the ponies’ generosity. They were quite prepared to treat her as a guest and let her be idle. And yet she wanted to do something. Perhaps in the morning she’d get up early and fetch the water for Garlic’s breakfast or wash the dishes afterwards. Probably he would tell her not to, but she’d do it anyway.

Oh no, Sour thought. I’m growing up. Stop that immediately.

She got up and flew over to the cart to get her new bow. Her practice was done for the night, but she just wanted to feel it in her hooves. At the same time, Little was removing the canvas bag that they had bought in town. “I think you’re going to like this,” she said, and Sour nodded, half listening. Returning to her relaxed position, she was ready for one more night of song.

It started off lightly enough, but what Sour realized was that they weren’t stopping and resetting for each song. It was a medley, or perhaps a jam session. At the very least, Moon was keeping the drumbeat going, and when she was the only one playing, it was more than a simple beat but a riddling of snares and basses. Soon enough Hoof Dame would come in with a bass sound or Reggie would grab a saxophone and they would start right in on something else.

But that didn’t limit them to upbeat songs. The ponies moved from swing to jazz to ballad to dirge and back. They weren’t even looking at Sour most of the time, just at each other or at the sky or at nothing at all.

Then came a moment when Little left the group for a minute or two. This didn’t stop the music by any means. If anything, having Hoof Dame on the string melody made the whole sound crisper. But soon enough Little returned, winked to Sour, and took her position.

The music quelled to its lowest ebb, then began to rise with the beginning of a new melody. Although it was in Old Equestrian, Sour almost felt she could understand it. It was telling a story of a great loss and failure. But then her eye was drawn upwards as she finally realized what Little and her companions had brought.

The first fireworks streaked across the sky soundlessly, or perhaps just creating a wind behind them. But soon enough they were bursting with a blast of sound that came in time with the song, each one meant to be taken as its own star of color and light. As if in an effort to compete with the pyrotechnics, Moon began drumming harder and faster, looking like each stroke would break through the skin of the drums and render them useless.

They settled down into the bridge, and so too did the fireworks, changing over to bottle rockets and screamers, and for the first time Sour noticed that Little was not playing as much as she usually did but was setting off each of the rockets with her magic, sometimes holding them in midair to only go off when needed. The pale glow mixed with the light of the fire. Then all went dark for a single beat.

Note by note the melody was rebuilt, and with each one a spot of light, bright like a star, flashed and faded. Sour couldn’t tell if they were from unicorn magic or from more fireworks. Then Garlic came back in with a bass rhythm. Hoof Dame brought forth an electric guitar sound and between the spots of light came a deep and dark glow, as though the night sky itself were alive.

And then all five ponies exploded into full volume and clarity. Reggie and Garlic were pouring breath through their horns and Moon pounded the drums and cymbals and Hoof Dame uncharacteristically rose and moved with the music as she kept the magic going on the strings and Little began to belt out lyrics.

Above all this, the fireworks were going off more rapidly, no longer keeping time but acting as a cacophonous countermelody, and for a moment they made the night sky as bright as the noonday sun.

Sour still found that she could understand, and whether this was because she had picked up enough words of Old Equestrian to fill in the gaps or because the message of the song transcended language, she was given the impression of a great loss, but of life carrying on, with the promise of future renaissance.

With a final crash, the music came to a halt, and all that was left was an echo of cymbals and piano, and the smoke from the fireworks rising in the firelight.

It was Sour who felt exhausted at the end of the performance. The ponies smiled at each other, nodded, and without another word put away the instruments. The moon had not yet risen fully, and there would be plenty of time for sleep.

Using her wings to generate lift but not quite get off the ground, Sour Sweet maneuvered her bedroll from its position as a bolster to surrounding her as a sleeping bag. Right before she closed her eyes, Little came over to her. “Another day, maybe two if we take our time, and we’ll be in Las Pegasus. That’s really the last thing to see going west, so we can start turning around and heading back after that.”

Sour Sweet nodded. That was about how much more travel she was in the mood for.

“We could even take the train back if you wanted to spend some time in Manehattan,” Little continued.

“But how would you bring back your cart and all your stuff?

“We’ll have the boxes shipped and the cart brought later, or loaded onto the train if there’s room. But we can make plans tomorrow. Have a good night.”

Within a few minutes, Sour was out cold.

She looked around, shielding her eyes from the light with her hoof. Something was wrong. She felt dry and thirsty, hot and blinded. There was also a feeling that someone was trying to get her attention. It was someone she’d heard before…but she couldn’t place it. She turned around, two full turns before catching a shadow out of the corner of her eye, a shadow of blue against the sandy yellow. But as she tried to face it, it kept escaping.

Squeezing her eyes closed, she shook her head and looked again. There! It was coming toward her. A pony, now she could see clearly, of dark blue, much darker than the sky blue of Little. The pony’s mane seemed to sparkle with stars like when the fireworks were going off.

“Sour Sweet…”

The pony spoke, and Sour put it together that this was the same thing she’d experienced the prior two nights, but now she could see it. In a moment she understood.

“I’m dreaming.”

As she realized this, Sour figured that as a dream, she could control it or even force it to end.

“No! I prithee! Do not collapse the dream! I have an...ortant…for you…” The pony was cutting out and Sour couldn’t see her as clearly as she could a moment before. She was curious as to what the pony wanted from her, but at the same time, she didn’t know how to stay in or leave a dream. And besides, she…

Sour opened her eyes, breathing deep. Had she been talking in her sleep?

Again she looked around, but this time she was certain that she was awake. But she experienced a moment where she realized that waking up looking at her hooves and feeling her wings felt normal.

But at this point, Little and Moon were stirring and opening their eyes. “Wh-what’s going on? Again?” Little rubbed her eyes.

“Again, I think,” Moon turned to Sour. “What did you see?”

“Nothing. I just had a bad dream. Not even a bad dream, really, just a weird dream. Never mind, just go back to sleep.”

“No, tell me, what did you see?”

“I saw a strange pony, but that was it.”

Moon was fully up now and looking right in Sour’s eyes. “No, listen, this could be really important. Describe the pony.”

“She was blue…tall…”

“Was she an alicorn?”

“A what?” asked Sour.

“A pegasus-unicorn. Horn and wings.”

“Now that you mention it, I think she was.”

“You’ve seen Princess Luna,” Moon took off and flew back and forth. “What could it mean?”

“Who’s Princess Luna?”

“Wait,” said Little. “Let’s wake everypony up so that we don’t have to go over this more than once.”

It took a few minutes, and clearly nopony wanted to get up in the middle of the night, but soon Garlic had the campfire back up high and bright, and they were all gathered round it. Sour used the time to get her thoughts together and try not to lose the dream. Then she recited as much as she could remember.

“Certainly it was Princess Luna,” Hoof Dame said, “But why?”

“I still don’t know who she is.”

“Sour Sweet, Princess Luna is Princess Celestia’s younger sister who, among other duties, watches over the dreams of ponies.”

“How can someone enter dreams?” All the native ponies looked at her. “All right, magic, got it. But why?”

“That’s what we’re asking,” Reggie said, the rasp of sleep still in his voice.

“Excuse me,” Hoof Dame said, “I think there’s some confusion here. What Sour Sweet is asking is why Princess Luna enters anypony’s dream. To which the answer is that she does so to guide us to things we need to do, usually as a means to helping us grow and learn. Reggie is asking why Princess Luna chose to enter your particular dream tonight. And over the past two nights, if I understand correctly.”

Moon nodded. “Yeah, why not any of ours? We would have known to stay in the dream and listen to what she said. No offense, Sour Sweet.”

“I’m not offended, there’s no reason that I would know.”

“But as you said,” Garlic said, looking at Hoof Dame, “Princess Luna enters our dreams to guide us to something we need personally. I haven’t seen her since I was a little colt. It’s possible that she found a particular need to speak to Sour Sweet because of something she needs to do.”

“I dunno,” Moon replied. “But it seems that we’re missing something important here.”

“How do you mean?”

“Sour Sweet couldn’t really tell us the dream. She doesn’t remember anypony she met or where she was or what she was doing. Those are the things that would normally give us clues on what to do. I wonder if dreams in your world are different from those in Equestria. Maybe Princess Luna can’t communicate the way she could with us.”

Hoof Dame reared back, as if the idea that one of the princesses could fail struck her as blasphemous, but it was Little who responded. “Well, ok, we don’t have all the facts. But we’ve still got to make a decision. We could head back toward Canterlot to speak to the princess herself. Or keep going west toward Las Pegasus, where we could wait and send a letter. Or we could try to see if Sour Sweet or any one of us will have another dream to give us more information.”

“Staying here and sleeping doesn’t appeal to me at all,” said Moon. “We probably have a job to do, a mission to accomplish.”

Reggie had finally awoken fully and said, “But going back to Canterlot seems a waste if we need to be here.”

“How do we even know that here is where we need to be?” Garlic replied. “Going to Canterlot might be right."

“There should be adequate communication facilities in Las Pegasus. I would say that we should proceed there, contact the princesses, and wait for more information,” said Hoof Dame.

Little sighed. “Well, that doesn’t get us any closer to a decision.”

“I beg your pardon, but you haven’t asked everypony what they think.”

It took a second for her to realize what Hoof Dame was implying, and then Little turned red before bowing her head. “I’m sorry, Sour Sweet. I didn’t even think about what you wanted. It was your dream after all. What do you think?”

Sour watched the whole thing play out. She wasn’t sure if she did need to be asked. They were the experts here. But still, if there was a decision to be made, then it was incumbent on her to make the right one. “I don’t know your princess as well as all you do, but I think that the best thing to do would be to stick to our plan. Let’s go to this Las Pegasus city. If you want to send a letter or whatever, that’s fine, but then we’ll talk over staying or going without necessarily waiting for a response. If Princess Luna is as powerful as you say, she can find us.”

The other ponies didn’t like the jab at their princess, but since Sour’s answer worked along the lines of Hoof Dame’s and had a sense of logic to it, they came to agree. Everypony returned to bed, but Sour had no more dreams that night.