Three Friends

Hunter groans as he watches the golems hobble along, stiff-legged, and trample all the undergrowth, their dragging feet tearing up roots and plants as the veritable army of iron creatures follow behind Slendy, who is riding atop Faolon as he leads the golems.

“Man this is fun!” Slendy cheers. ”I love golems!”

Hunter nods. The sooner they’re in town, the sooner the forest can attempt to regrow. Though, given what Zecora said about the overabundance of harmony the ponies bring, it might take time for the wild-growth to become wild enough to replace what was lost. The thought bothered Hunter, but he didn’t speak up, deciding to let Slendy revel in his accomplishment. Maybe... maybe a bit of chaos returning to the environment was called for. And he knew nobody better than Slendy for that job.

Perking up at his theory’s potential result, he takes slightly larger strides so as to keep up. He knew how to contain Slendy, but if need be, he could be riled up with just as much ease.

“You think everyone will like the golems?” Slendy questioned.

Hunter nods. “I’m sure they will have a much warmer reception than we had.”

“I hope so, took a while for me to get these things spawned.” Slendy added as they came to an opening in the forest as they passed by the small cottage they were by yearlier, the one with the scared, yellow one.

The small troupe of Golems and their two keepers came to the edge of town, a muddy tract of churned earth following them. Hunter had never seen such results on the earth from Golems before; heavy as they are, they rarely damaged the ground below, save when swinging at threats to their ever-beloved Villagers.

Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all... everything had to be given in moderate doses, even things that would repair the environment.

Nevertheless, when the grass was left behind and they were once again on the dirt road that led into town, the destruction of the ground stopped, and the road behind the golems stayed intact. By the time the golems had gotten fairly close, the clanging had gotten a little irritating to Hunter.

As well, the ponies ahead of them had cleared out with gasps of surprise and terrified shouts, ducking into homes or fleeing, as the golems rounded towards a playground full of pony children at play.

The Golems, being massive iron beasts, form a curious semi-circle around half the playground, and all the adults are too terrified to make any sudden movements to rescue their offspring, unsure if this would set off a deadly tidal wave of metal.

One of the ponies, a brown colt with a sandy mane, waddles over from where he’d been sitting to the side, begins looking them over with awe. A Golem leans down, then brings up a hoof...

And proffers a bright red flower; a poppy to be exact. The colt smiles and munches it happily, and the Golem begins wandering off, the others all beginning to wander the small town on simple patrols, and a breath of relief is shared by all present.

“Everyone, it’s okay! I just brought you some golems!” Slendy announced.

Hunter, relieved that the eating of the flower was a viable response, relaxes, figuring that, at the very least, the golems won’t consider any locals a threat. Though if the golems had been fully accepted was still up in the air. It was a large town, it may take time for the word to spread that the golems are nice.

Some of the children begin playing on the golem that had come to the playground proper, where it was standing motionless. A trio of fillies were making a steady effort to climb atop the golem’s head.

At this point, Hunter was more concerned with how the adults would take it, as this is entirely new, and Hunter was quickly learning that ‘new’ was not always welcome in their society.

“Hey, Faolon, wait here, I wanna talk to some of them.” Slendy said as he jumped off of his back which wasn’t as cool as it was painful, curse his bad knee. “Ouchy…”

Soon after the timberwolf was left behind, a few ponies began heading for Slendy to inquire about the thing he was riding.

The first pony looks really concerned, a unicorn shielding a small foal. “Uhm, s-sir? Why do you have a giant Timberwolf with you?” she asks, shying back a bit when he turns towards her. She seems nervous, and trembles slightly.

“He’s my little buddy, he follows me around and protects me, he even got rid of two smaller ones earlier while I was napping.” Slendy explained as Faolon looked over to them.

The pony stares in confusion, blinking at his words. When she notices the giant timberwolf looking her over, she visibly flinches away with a whimper. “Y-you’ve got it under your control, though, right?” she asks, standing protectively over her youngster.

“Of course, look it even has a red bandana on it to signify it is tamed.” Slendy said as he motioned for Faolon to come over and Slendy began to pet the large timberwolf.

The pony shies away. “Uhm, alright, I’ll just, uh, leave you be then...” she says, and the other ponies quickly move away, not wanting to be around the giant wolf. Funny enough, a couple take refuge near an Iron Golem, the pony-like shape reassuring them.

Overall, Hunter actually found the whole scene rather amusing. It is reasonable to be afraid of the unknown of course, but were it wild, it wouldn’t be so obedient and act as such. The ponies really are very interesting people.

Slendy, meanwhile, was watching the three fillies climb atop the golem a little worried they might fall; he didn’t want this to backfire like last time.

As one, an orange pegasus, is about to fall, the golem shifts and pushes her rear up to keep her from falling, otherwise remaining utterly stoic. Slendy let out a sigh of relief, maybe this was as good idea as he thought so, maybe for once everything was going to be alright.

“Anyone else got a question?” Slendy asks the ponies.

A couple of the ponies flinch at his tone, ears going back.

“Don’t be shy. Ask away.” He says, this time a bit softer so he doesn’t discourage anyone.

Hunter chuckles. “Perhaps it’s best if you leave Faolon with them so they can get used to him?”

“Great idea! Faolon, I want you to watch over the town and protect it as if it were your own!” Slendy orders his companion.

The great wolf looks back at him and gives what Hunter could swear is a sigh of ‘this is a bad idea’, rolls its flowery eyes, and begins leaping over houses to head towards somewhere else in town, leaving a trail of screams and shouts of surprise.

“This is going to be a great, I just know it.” Slendy says quietly to himself, without a trace of irony in his voice. Looking about, he decides to walk over to the golem and watch the kids play, only to recognize one of them from the day before when he was by the farm.

“Hey, you, the one with the bow, what’s your name?” he says, pointing at the filly.

“Ah’m Applebloom, and how’d ya make these things?” comes the reply, the filly smiling.

“I spawned ‘em; don’t you recognize me?”

“No, should I?” she asks, looking confused.

“Yeah, remember the faceless thing you saw earlier? That was me.”

“What? Why do you have a face now?”

“It was a mask, wanna see it?”

“Ah guess.” she says with a shrug, but a small unicorn peers over the golem’s steely mane.

“They’re your babies?”

“No, I made them earlier, that would be weird if they were my babies...and it would’ve hurt a lot.” Slendy said.

“Yer... a girl?” Applebloom asked.

“Nope. I am a guy. Oh, and here’s the mask.” Slendy said as he revealed the mask which to the fillies just looked like a white cloth bag of some sort.

“Uh, you can’t see through a solid mask.” the orange pegasus says. “Pshh, that’s silly. How’d you know where you were going without eyeholes?” Slendy goes to answer, but she interrupts him, “And what kinda superhero were you trying to be, anyways? Nopony who’s a good gal in the comics wears a mask like that.” she says, rolling her eyes in a way that says the ‘duh!’ for her.

“Guys can be heroes too!”

“Uh, of course guys can be heroes too, but it’s really rare. And Deadpone isn’t that popular. He just says a bunch of weird things that I think are supposed to be jokes, but I think he’s just silly. Even Sweetie Belle says the words don’t mean what she thinks he’s trying to say, it’s all gibberish.” Sweetie nods in agreement.

“Fine, but here, try the mask on, you really can see through it, you can even drink through it.”

“Eww! No way, it smells like sweaty colts and old juice boxes!” she says, gagging and leaning away from the proffered.

“Fine…” Slendy sounds very put-upon, but the fillies don’t seem to notice, now getting embroiled in a conversation about which heroes are better, Scootaloo suggesting Batmane, Applebloom saying that the Power Ponies are the best, and Sweetie insisting that the Vengeance Mares are better.

“What is... a comic book?” Hunter asked, lost and confused by the term. “Is it... a catalogue of humor?”

“It’s a graphic novel, pictures in the place of words, although there are words in it but mostly pictures.” Slendy tries to explain.

This explanation, however, just leaves Hunter further lost.

“So... you read them... for what?”

“Entertainment purposes mostly.”

“Okay...” Hunter replies, unconvinced that a book that was mostly pictures could be entertaining. Most of his notes involving pictures tried to capture detail for education and better recognition. Reading for no purpose seemed a waste of time to him.

“So, Apple Bloom, what’s this town called?” Slendy asks the filly.

“Ponyville.”

“Shoulda known, kinda like how they say cancer in spanish.”

“What’s ‘Spanish’?” the unicorn asked

“It is another language spoken in a part of the world south of where we are from.” Slendy replies.

“Cabollish, you mean? Cabollena is south of us, but it’s a pretty different place. There’s also the jungles, where Daring Do collects treasure!” Scootaloo butts in.

“We aren’t from here, and Cabollish sounds pretty cool.” Slendy replies.

Hunter, losing interest in the conversation, returns to the market, hoping to find Shady Leaves. And to follow after Faolon to see what the wolf considered ‘protecting the town.’

“You think Faolon will be okay?”

Hunter shrugs as he leaves. “As long as the ponies continue their fearful distance, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Good, cause I worry about the little guy, y’know?” Slendy says looking off in the direction Faolon went.

“Hmmm.” Hunter replied wordlessly as he left earshot.

“Sorry I scared you earlier.” Slendy apologizes.

“Scared who?” Scootaloo asks, genuinely curious. None of the three had been near where Slendy was, except Applebloom, who hadn’t been scared so much as uncomfortable.

“Huh, oh well anyways, what is there to do around here that’s fun?”

“Well... There’s...” Apple Bloom starts, thinking about the usual things she does, but most of them involved specifically her friends or family. “There’s a... bowling alley?”

“Is that it? Man, guess I gotta find a hobby or something to kill some time here.” Slendy says as he looks at his cube “Maybe I could work on the cube, lord knows i need to work on my coding.”

“Granny Smith says that time wasted is time you don’t deserve... er somethin like that.” Applebloom states, warning against the vice of sloth.

“Good words to live by, so can I ask you three something?”

“Go ahead.” Sweetie says.

“Whatcha wanna know?” Scootaloo finished for her friend.

“Who is the owner of the farm on the edge of town? I walked there earlier with my mask on and got kicked out by some mare in a hat.”

“Yeah... Applejack don’t like nopony who seems off, and... what’s that place Twilight said weird-folk come from?”

“Uncanny valley!” Sweetie Belle suggests.

“Yeah, AJ hates freaks, and liars or ponies who try to hide stuff.” Scootaloo informs. “She’s nice, but not great with weird stuff.”

“Is so!” Applebloom shouts, supporting her sister.

“Oh yeah, remember when Zecora came by and she thought you got foalnapped or whatever? She was pretty angry.”

“And scared.” Sweetie chimes in. “And this guy is way weirder than Zecora.”

“Ah guess...” Applebloom relents the point, ending the mild argument. “But Applejack don’t own the whole farm, if’n ya wanna make good, pal up with mah Granny Smith, she’ll get some sense inta Applejack... still might not like you though.”

“Well I guess that could work, can you lead me there? I get lost rather easily.” Slendy admits.

Applebloom looks at Slendy, and the other fillies follow suit.

“Uh... can you see the big red thing on that hill?” Sweetie asks, indicating to a large building off in the distance.

“That’s the barn.” Scootaloo clarifies.

“Mah house is right next to it, you can find Granny there most of the time. She’s old and don’t go out much no more.” Apple Bloom finishes.

“Okay, thanks you three, I’ll head out and talk to your granny, wish me luck!” Slendy says as he walks towards the farm.

“Why would he need luck just walking somewhere?” Sweetie thinks out loud, to which the other Crusaders shrug confusedly. After a bit, the three return their attention to the ponified iron golem and begin their second attempt at scaling it.

After a little while Slendy arrives once again at the farm, this time however the mare with the hat, Applejack, the kids called her, is nowhere to be seen.

It’s a rather long trek, but he gets to the farmhouse and knocks on the door.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Yep there is, ah’m in ‘ere. What’ya need stranger?” A woman calls in from inside the house.

“I just wanted to make peace with you and Apple...Buck? I forgot her name.” Slendy admits.

“Aw pony feathers.” The woman exclaims, the sound of a rocking chair creaking following afterwards. “Well, come on in then. What’ya do ta get ‘er all ruffled about?”

“I was walking here earlier and she said I looked terrifying and told me to “git”.”

“Looked terrifyin’? Were ya actually tryin’ to scare folks?”

“No, I just was wearing my mask, it is my namesake afterall.” Slendy explains as he opens the door revealing an old pale green mare in a rocking chair.

The old mare takes a long gander at him for a moment, obviously off put by not being familiar with seeing someone like him. “Well, jus’ as ya are ah can see how you’d scare some fillies.”

“Yeah… I just wanted to be friends or atleast not have them hate me like Zecora, I just keep screwing up.” He says as he walks over to the old mare and pops a seat next to her.

“Ah can’t speak for the zebra that lives in the forest, but Applejack can be very forgivin’, she don’t hold onto grudges much.” She smirks, “An’ she has tried, it jus’ becomes too much work for ‘er to stay angry at somepony.”

“Okay thanks, wanna see the mask she said was terrifying?”

“Ah think ah’d do jus’ fine without seein’ it.” Granny waves a hoof, “But tell ya what, try apologizin’ to ‘er an’ see what she says.”

“So do I have your approval to come back to talk and stuff? I don’t wanna anger her anymore than I already have…stupid mask.”

“Did this happen today?” She asks.

“Yeah, like an hour or two ago I think, I really should get a watch.”

“Oh…” She said, tilting her head down, “How ‘bout ya wait till tomorrow then? Probably better ta give her at least some time ta cool off.”

“Okay, and thanks for talking with me.”

“Well of course!” She smiled, “Now unless ya need somethin’ else there sunny, ah gots ta finish mah nap so ah got the energy for makin’ dinner.” Granny leans back in her rocking chair and starts to close her eyes.

“Have a nice nap there, bye.” He says as he gets up and heads for the door.”Oh, also let’s pretend I was never here, don’t wanna make this worse before it gets better, ya know?”

The old mare yawns and waves a hoof, “Sure thing.”And with command block in hand Slendy leaves the house and heads back to his glass house.