Mr. Bryant: Travels Trials and Travails of a Man in Equestria

Roadside Assistance

In spite of my initial confidence, I felt a little doubt as I approached Trixie's wagon. It was a small but solid looking wooden shack on wheels, and heavier than you might guess at first glance. The purple paintwork and off yellow trim was spattered with mud and dirt, and the small door leading to the interior had been left ajar. Inside, I could see a cozy little living space set up, along with a number of gears and levers whose function I couldn't begin to guess at.

"This is your home?" I asked, looking at the little unicorn. She nodded wordlessly, and I noticed she seemed distinctly upset at the sad state of her rolling domicile. "I like the colors," I offered lamely, not sure what else to say but she managed a small smile.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

A moment or two passed. "Right, let's get this done," I said, breaking the silence. The harness was still in place and didn't seem damaged, but it was a little too small for me to use properly. The right-side wheels were both sunk deep in the mud and I could see that they would take some work to get out. I cast around and saw a branch nearby. "That'll do."

Trixie looked on as I took the sizable limb and jammed it into the mud, wiggling and working it to try and get under the wheel. Once I was satisfied, we both levered and pushed, strained and pulled. With a loud sucking sound, the wagon began to come free, and gradually we were able to wrestle it loose from the mud and back onto the road.

I was sweating and panting by the time we were done and Trixie was in a similar state. To top it off we were both covered in mud, and the gentle cool of the morning had become the heat of midday. My jacket sat on the wagon where I had placed it once I realized how hot and messy the job was going to be, (joined shortly by Trixie's cape and hat) but the rest of my clothes were in dire need of a wash.

Of course, even if a washing machine had been present, neither of use were in any condition to do anything about it. Instead we simply sat and tried to recover. After a few minutes, Trixie managed to get back on her hooves. "Water?" she asked simply.

"Yeah," I said, "And another apple if you could spare it."

"Sure," she replied. She retreated into the newly recovered wagon and stood up myself to look out around, properly taking in my surroundings for the first time now that the exertion had cleared the last of the fog from my mind. The road ran through some of the most beautiful countryside I had ever seen. I stood at the bottom of a gently descending slope, one of the rolling hills that made up the local geography. Fences marked the borders of farmland all around us, including the one I had been leaning on when Trixie found me.

"Here you are Mr. Bryant," Trixie said behind me.

"Thank you Miss Trixie," I replied as i turned to take an apple before snatching my hand back as though I had been bitten. The apple was floating in midair, caught in a nebulous glowing field of pinkish . . . stuff. My jaw worked but all that came out was a strangled yelp of surprise and I actually fell on my rump and scuttled back, not daring take my eyes off the possessed demon-apple.

Trixie jumped a bit at the sound, and the apple dropped to the ground as the pinkish glow vanished. "What, what is it?! What's wrong?"

I looked at her in disbelief. "Are you saying you didn't see that?!" I exclaimed, pointing cautiously at the apple, lying harmlessly on the ground.

"See what?" Her expression growing more agitated.

"Floating demon-apple! Pink glowing! Right in front of you!"

Agitation became surprise, disbelief, and finally . . . laughter. "Ohhaha Mr. Bryant, Trixie thought-(hehe) thought you were in trouble- (snirk). Have you never seen magic?" As she spoke, her horn began to take on the same pinkish glow, which extended to the apple. The fruit rose once more from the ground. It swooped over to her side and wiped itself clean on her cape.

I worked my jaw again, still finding nothing clever to say, and settled for, "No."

"Hmm," she said, "You really are from far away, aren't you? Well relax, the Great and Powerful Trixie will not harm you. Here." The apple was offered once more in what I realized was a real, genuine magical aura.

"Just a dream, just a dream," I muttered, less convinced each with each repetition as I accepted the red fruit, and then a cup full of water delivered in the same manner. Trixie had the temerity to laugh again at my discomfort, but she was feeding me so I decided to let her live. This time.

Still, as I ate I continued to contemplate the nature of what I was seeing. So utterly convincing were my surroundings, that I found myself forgetting that they were impossible. So, I mentally addressed each possibility. First, of course, was a dream. From what I knew of lucid dreams, once the dreamer is lucid they should have complete control. I focused my gaze on Trixie and concentrated.

She caught me staring and shifted uncomfortably. "What?"

"Mmmh. Nothing, just a thought," I said shrugging.

"Well forget it," she quipped, looking down her muzzle in disdain, "The Great and Powerful Trixie has standards and they must be maintained."

I smiled and shrugged, not bothering to correct her. Inwardly, I scratched lucid dreaming off the list as she had conspicuously failed to transform into a scantily clad Mila Kunis holding a bottle of chocolate syrup and a catcher's mitt.

The next possibility was a drug induced hallucination, either slipped in my drink at the bar the night before or given to me during the subsequent visit with Rose to her weird dream cult's shrine. I tried to figure what the time frame was, and gave up when I realized that even if I could reasonably track the time that had passed, I had no way of knowing how long the trip might last. So it was still possible, but there was no way to test it and nothing I could do about it.

The third possibility, and I forced myself to think about it, was that I was lying in front of that damn statue bleeding out and this was my dying brain lighting up one last time, trying to play me out with something less distressing. Again, nothing I could do about that, except curse Rose to my dying breath. Come to think of it, was that even her real name? Still, I felt fine and it seemed to me that I was doing an awful lot of thinking for a dying man. Unless . . . this was the afterlife? I didn't put much stock in that but filed both thoughts under the general label, "death."

The last possibility, which was difficult to swallow, was also the one that I couldn't shake. I mean, I had to look around at what I was seeing. It was all so real, so utterly convincing. The apple, as I finished off the last few bites, was for all it's incredibly delicious qualities, utterly convincing as a true and real thing. The ground under me, the breeze that caressed my face, the coolness of the water as I took a sip. It was all so impossible, but so unnervingly there, so completely present. I idly picked a blade of grass and released it, watched it fall to the ground. No, there was no way to avoid it.

I was clearly insane.

Even as I had the thought, I was locked up in a padded cell somewhere, raving about ponies and magic and apples and possibly magic apples while men in white coats fought my thrashing to give me a sedative. I would eventually be drugged into submission, to spend my days as a drooling lunatic until I snapped out of it or died, my mind locked away in this beautiful fantasy. Or maybe I was already comatose, a vegetable with tubes shoved in various orifices to keep me ticking along in the futile hope I might one day awaken. "Either way, this beats the hell of anything I had going on before," I thought as I looked around and stood, my meal finished.

Trixie was fiddling with a series of knobs and levers cleverly hidden behind a small covering on the side of her wagon. With a loud clack, what looked to be a shower head and crank sprang out. As she turned the crank, a pump hissed and spat, then began pumping a steady flow of water. She eagerly allowed the mud to wash from her and beckoned to me, indicating it was my turn. I didn't need a second invitation.

As I let the water clean me and my clothes, at least as well as it could, she explained that the pump drew from a reservoir that collected rainwater from a catch on the wagon's roof, pushed it through a filter, and spat it out clean. Not enough for a proper bath, but a shower every few days was usually doable, and when rain was scarce she could draw from rivers and lakes if she was too far from civilization. I had to hand it to the mare, it was a clever set up and I said as much. "A minor accomplishment for the Great and Powerful Trixie," she said waving a hoof, but I could tell she was pleased by her smile and a poorly-concealed blush.

"Now then," I said, retrieving my cigarettes from my jacket, "you said Manehattan was just a couple miles down the way, yes?"

"Mhmm," she confirmed, donning her cape and hat again, "I'm going to try and raise enough bits to afford some upgrades to my wagon."

I was about to ask what kinds of upgrades she had in mind, but something stopped me in my tracks. "Hey, you spoke in the first person."

She sighed. "Yes well . . . I don't have that many friends. When I do make one . . . I try to tone it down. Usually." She paused a moment, looking suddenly nervous. "That is, if you want . . . ."

I got the feeling that "friend" was a fairly new thing for her. She seemed to expect rejection and I guess I could see how some might be put off a bit by her first impression, but then I didn't know if she was representative of her kind. I didn't think she was such a bad sort, just a little bombastic.

"It would be my pleasure, Miss Trixie," I said with a bow and flourish, earning a giggle.

"Likewise, Mr. Bryant." She looked at the sun, then down the road. "I think we have time to make it the rest of the way to town if we set out now. You don't know the area and I'd hate for you to get lost. I assume you'll be heading to Manehattan as well?"

I shrugged. "I didn't really have any plans, so I think I'm with you for the foreseeable future."

This seemed to satisfy her, as she maneuvered herself into position in front of the wagon and deftly donned the harness. "Then let us be off."

I took up position beside her, preparing to walk slowly and possibly offer to do the pulling, but she set off at a brisk pace, the wagon rolling along smoothly now that it was on the road again, and I was forced to quick step for a moment to catch up. I smiled at my own silliness. Of course she could pull the thing just fine. It was her home, she probably pulled it everywhere she went. Come to think of it . . . .

"Miss Trixie," I asked, "How did your wagon end up in the ditch?"

She blushed and looked away. "I stopped near to top of the last hill to camp for the night. I must have forgotten to set the brakes and at some point it started rolling while I was asleep. The first thing I knew about it was being thrown out of my bed. It scared me half to death, but nothing was damaged so I went back to sleep, thinking I'd deal with it in the morning, but when I woke up it had sunk into the mud. I was going to walk to the city for help, and then I found you."

"Ah. Well, I'm glad you did. Find me that is, not the getting stuck part."

"Me too."

The trek to Manehattan took several hours. At about the halfway mark, just as the city was coming into view, I offered to take over pulling the wagon. She agreed, looking at the hill ahead of us. Of course, I first had to acknowledge that the Great and Powerful Trixie would be perfectly capable of getting all the way there, of course, and with no difficulty naturally, but as her newest friend I, the Tall and Ruggedly Handsome James, must pull my weight as it were, and seeing as she had already fed me twice but I had only pulled a wagon out a ditch the one time I still owed her one.

Of course as we switched places, this became a commentary on the possible implications for the wagon-pulling and apple-eating economy, as ponies haggled over the proper number of apples eaten to wagons pulled and whether a one-to-one ratio was even remotely sustainable in the long term, which I reckoned it was based on the apples in Equestria being the best thing ever which she thought sounded a bit silly, saying I reminded her of someone named "Applejack," apparently the one that had originally sourced the apples.

As we crested the last hill, I was treated to my first sight of a pony city. The best description I could offer would have to be "abrupt." It simply rose quite suddenly, a metropolitan city center interrupting the countryside as the dirt roads became cobblestone and everywhere I looked I saw them filled with carts and wagons pulled along every which way, pulled along by ponies in a bewildering variety of color combinations. To the west I saw a train pulling into the city.

I became distracted by a sudden flurry of shadows and looked to the skies, only to gape in astonishment as ponies flew over us in tight formations, borne upon bird-like wings as they approached a nearby cloud, and proceeded to literally beat it into non-existence with their hooves.

Trixie observed my reactions. "You really are new to Equestria, Mr. Bryant. Never seen pegasi before?"

I didn't look away from the spectacle above, taking it in as they dived and swooped, performing mid-air acrobatics that defied explanation. I might not be especially educated in the field, but I was pretty sure the aerodynamics at work should have been impossible.

Suddenly the cart behind was shoved rudely forward by a push from behind. "Hey there, move it up!" a gruff voice addressed us, it's owner clearly the one that had shoved me, "Some of us got places to be! I ain't got time for a couple of bumpkins staring at the clouds!"

That was fair enough, I guess, we were blocking the road, but Trixie was having none of it. She rounded on the speaker with an indignant snort. "Who dares to address the Great and Powerful Trixie so rudely?!"

The sound of a cart being unhitched and stomping hooves announced the approach of a large pony. I still couldn't see him around the wagon, but I could guess by his voice he was on the big side.

"Big Britches, of Big Britches Pants and Pantaloons Emporium! And I've heard of you, Trixie Lulamoon." The hoofsteps grew closer as he approached, and Trixie stepped back, suddenly unsure of herself. "You're a two-bit showpony with a chip on your shoulder. But let me tell you something, little miss pain-in-the-flank I ain't-ACK!" His tirade ended as he rounded the corner of the wagon and finally got a good look at me.

The stallion that had appeared had neither horn nor wings. He did however have a pair of jeans on that were straining against the considerable girth of his barrel. He was a tan-brown shade, with a slightly darker brown mane. He was also quite short. Taller than Trixie, maybe, but he did have to tilt his head back to look me in the eye.

I leaned down closer to him. "Hi there," I said, smiling.

"He-he-hello," Big Britches stuttered.

"I'm sorry for holding you up," I said, "I'm new here, and I didn't mean to inconvenience you. But when you insulted my friend Trixie, you might have bitten off a bit more than you could chew."

He gulped and nodded.

"How about you go back to your cart, and we'll be out of your way in a moment."

Another nod.

"Go. Now." He scampered out of sight. Trixie looked at me skeptically. "What?"

"Bit off more than you could chew?" She said, using her hooves to make little air quotes, "That's the best you could come up with?"

"Well what would you have said?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes with the patient attitude of a long-suffering teacher with a particularly slow student. "I would have told him not to get too big for his britches."

I watched her turn to continue on, my jaw working silently for a moment. "Dammit she's right," I muttered, "That actually would have been really good."