Seriously, blame VDrake for this
Author's Note
For VDrake77. Happy birthday. I stress once again that this is all your fault. - NF
Seriously, blame VDrake for this
Rock the Icebox
By Nathan Fillyon
Ice Bear blinked.
Ice Bear rubbed his eyes.
Ice Bear blinked again.
It didn’t help.
“Ice Bear must have eaten bad sashimi,” he mused aloud.
All around the polar bear were horses. Not the normal horses that pulled carriages through San Francisco’s many hilly streets, but small, brightly-colored horses.
Ponies, to be exact.
There were ponies pushing shopping carts. Ponies coming and going from pony-owned restaurants. Ponies running to catch checkered carriages... pulled by other ponies, bizarrely enough. Ponies flying, ponies prancing, ponies wandering through an expansive forested park and chatting about the weather, ponies reading newspapers…
“Ice Bear is very frightened,” said Ice Bear.
Nopony gave a second thought to the polar bear standing in the middle of Manehattan on his hind legs, looking bewildered. This place was frequented by the Mane 6, after all… and where they went, odd things happened: magical disasters, giant monsters, the occasional appearance of a malevolent being bent on the destruction of Equestria. A polar bear in Manehattan? That was only a few degrees off from normal, all things considered.
It was only by chance that somepony even noticed the lost polar bear. Or rather, by chance and random accident. More specifically, somepony bumped into Ice Bear from behind.
Ice Bear whirled around and assumed a perfect hicho no kamae stance, producing a pair of nunchaku. His senses on high alert, he prepared to strike the attacker…
“Excuse me,” said a flat, monotone voice a foot below him. “But you’re standing on a remarkable example of Manehattan barred schist. Could you move, please?”
Ice Bear looked down.
Ice Bear’s eyes widened.
Below him stood the most beautiful pony he had ever imagined. Not that ponies were usually Ice Bear’s thing, but this one… there was something about her. Something special. Perhaps it was the lustrous grey sheen of her coat. Perhaps it was the dull violet of her mane and tail, styled to a remarkable, almost supernatural straightness. Or perhaps it was the half-lidded, turquoise eyes… eyes that spoke of secrets buried deep within fragrant soil, eyes that hinted of inner beauty which belied what a philistine would consider her plain outward appearance, as spectacular as the colorful crystals hidden inside the shell of a geode…
Ice Bear blushed.
“Excuse me,” said the pony again, in the exact same monotone. It might as well have been a recording. “You’re standing on a remarkable example of Manehattan barred schist. Could you move, please?”
Ice Bear moved sideways in a hurry.
“Thank you,” said the pony. She didn’t even look at him… carefully, she lowered herself to the sidewalk and poked the small, banded rock that Ice Bear had been standing on. “Excellent,” she said, in a voice no more lively than before. “Just what I was looking for.” Gently she picked up the rock in her teeth and dropped it into a pouch that hung from her side. Now she finally took a look at the polar bear, her turquoise eyes scanning him up and down.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” said the pony, in a remarkably astute observation.
“Ice Bear appears to be lost,” said Ice Bear.
“I’m Maud,” said the pony. “Maud Pie.”
“Ice Bear,” said Ice Bear, extending a paw.
Maud raised her hoof to shake it. When they touched… the connection between them, the spark… it was incredible, a surge of magma boiling up from the depths of the earth, catching two souls in a plume of molten rock and tossing them to the glorious stars…
However, to anyone else watching, it looked as if the two had momentarily forgotten how to hoofshake. Or hoof-pawshake, whichever.
They stared at each other.
Silence.
It was Maud who spoke next. “You talk funny.”
Ice Bear blushed. “... Ice Bear is sorry?”
“Don’t be. I like it. Where did you come from?”
“San Francisco.”
Maud blinked. “San Pranceisco? That’s on the other side of Equestria…”
“Ice Bear isn’t sure you have that right.”
Silence.
Maud summoned her courage. “Do you like rocks?”
Wordlessly, Ice Bear produced a stunning rhomb porphyry with an even sprinkling of rhombic phenocysts dotting its dusky terra cotta matrix.
Maud’s eyelids raised a fraction of an inch. Rhomb porphyry was only supposed to be found near around Mount Equebus in the bays of the South Pole. How in Equestria this bear had gotten hold of one when he didn’t seem to even know where he was, she didn’t know… but suddenly, she forgot all about the barred schist she came for, overcome with desire for the most beautiful piece of porphyry she had ever seen in her life…
“You can have this,” said Ice Bear, pressing it into her hoof.
“Thank you,” said Maud, sliding it into her pouch. “I’m staying in an apartment in Carneighgie Hill. Would you like to come up for coffee?”
Ice Bear smiled. “Ice Bear would love to.”
Mrs. Thimble Thread slowly climbed the stairs to her 6th floor apartment, carefully balancing the bag of groceries on her back. The trip upstairs was growing more difficult with each passing season as the arthritis in her back left hip grew worse. Thimble supposed that she would have to get it replaced one of these days, but everyone knew these Manehattan doctors were crooks, out to cheat honest, hardworking ponies out of every last bit. One of these days, Thimble would write an angry letter to the city council about it. Thimble loved writing angry letters to the city council, to the point that it was sort of a hobby, one she indulged in every week at minimum. She was blissfully unaware that the councilponies had found a variety of uses for her letters over the many years she had been sending them, including using them as fire starters and substituting them for napkins whenever the ones in the lunchroom ran out.
One by one, Thimble opened the six deadbolt locks affixed to her front door. She edged her shopping bag inside with one hoof, then did her usual scan of the hallway for any suspicious-looking types. You could never tell when one of those awful palominos would decide to jump out and mug you… lately, they were infesting the city like a swarm of parasprites, fleeing the squalor of New Herdsey across the water. Ruffians. Thimble would need to write the council about that, and demand that something should be done about them.
When she entered her small, simple apartment, it took her a moment to notice that something was wrong. At first she suspected that someone had broken in to steal her valuables, but no, every one of her beloved ceramic kitten plates was still in place on the walls, her collection was safe. No, it wasn’t something missing, it was a noise… a strange, repeating thump, thump, thump. Thimble squinted her bleary eyes. Now that she noticed it, her plates were quaking on their shelves. An earthquake? No, it was too soft, too regular for that, almost like a rhythm.
Thimble gasped and put a hoof to her wrinkled lips. Rhythm. One of those horrid palomino families must have moved in upstairs with a stereo phonograph, and now they were blasting that wretched hoof-hop music of theirs! How would she sleep with that racket? In a fuming rage, Thimble shot to her writing desk as fast as her bad hip would allow, snatched a roll of parchment with her teeth, and plucked a quill from the inkwell to begin a letter.
That was when she heard it: “Oh.” A soft voice from upstairs quite clearly said “Oh.”
Thimble paused, the tip of the quill hovering over the parchment.
The “Oh” was followed seconds later by another voice, only a bit louder, which said “Yes.”
Thimble waited, holding her breath.
She heard them again, in closer succession this time: “Oh.” “Yes.” “Oh.” “Yes.”
Thump, thump, thump. The pace of the noises was increasing.
Thimble was no fool. No matter how many times that ungrateful filly of hers insisted that she was just being paranoid, that not all of Equestria was conspiring to make her miserable, Thimble knew better. You simply couldn’t trust ponies these days. Not like when she was a filly, in those kinder, bygone days when ponyfolk were decent to each other, and everypony still knew their manners, and certain breeds weren’t allowed on public golf courses. Thimble knew what she heard, but if the council was going to hear about this (and they would, by Celestia!), she would need to make very sure that it was indeed what she thought it was.
The old mare got up from her writing desk with some difficulty and wandered into her bedroom, emerging a moment later with a battered old brass ear trumpet in tow. She climbed onto her threadbare plaid couch, inserted the thin end of the trumpet into her left ear, and pressed the mouth against the ceiling.
Now she could hear it in lurid detail: the heavy breathing, the exclamations of “Oh” and “Yes”, the lewd slapping noises, and yes, the legs of the bed thump, thump, thumping against the floorboards. Strange that neither of them seemed to be particularly enthused, but then, young ponies these days didn’t know how to do things properly.
“Ice Bear,” said the first voice.
“Maud,” said the second.
Maud? Thimble wrinkled her snout in disgust. Maud Pie was a respected geologist from an old Rockville family, very studious, and always polite during the few times they had crossed paths in the month since the younger mare moved into the vacant apartment upstairs. Thimble liked her; she didn’t poke her snout into other ponies’ business, she didn’t waste time with idle chatter (or any chatter at all, really), she kept to herself, and she rarely made a sound when she was home. Thimble had considered her a friend, a fine example of what a young pony should be.
This, however… really. For shame. Thimble thought she was better than that.
“Disgusting,” said Thimble, lowering the trumpet and shaking her head. The council would hear about this, no doubt about it. “How obscene.”
One of the floorboards let out an ominous creak, and dust rained from above. Immediately, Thimble pressed the trumpet against the ceiling again, in case she missed hearing something.
“Wow.”
“Hmm.”
“Ice Bear is… impressed.”
“So am I.”
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Do what? This?”
“No.”
“This?”
“No.”
“This?”
“Oh!”
“Oh, that. Geology class.”
“... Ice Bear thinks you’re pulling Ice Bear’s leg.”
“Really. You’d be surprised what you can learn in geology textbooks.”
“...”
“...”
“Ice Bear feels good.”
“Yeah. You know, my sister is friends with Princess Twilight. If you want, we could talk to her, and see about finding a way to get you back home.”
“You would do that for Ice Bear?”
“Of course. You’re my soulmate.”
“Ice Bear is flattered.”
“It helps that you’re cute, too. Like a big furry piece of white quartz.”
“Ice Bear takes that as a compliment.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Ice Bear should get home, but…”
“But?”
“Not right away.”
“Ah.”
“Ice Bear can stay. For a while.”
“That makes me happy.”
“Mmm.”
“Mmm.”
“Wanna go again?”
“Ice Bear can’t wait.”
END
