In the mountain capital of Canterlot, there was a large, black building with a simple sign that read ‘The Hard Saddle’, over a discreet little door that lead into the building. Just inside of this door led to a large main room that had a long catwalk, and a currently shut down light system that would put even Vinyl Scratch’s craziest raves to shame.
Standing on the end of that catwalk was a solitary earth pony, taking the view of the room for the last time. He stood there, scanning the room as his deep bass voice faded into the large space of the catwalk.
“You know... There definitely were a good many memories in here... and elsewhere. The question to ask myself is if they were interesting or if they were honest to goodness warm fuzzy ones?”
The stallion simply picked up his suitcase of his few things and left the building, saying goodbye to a rather large and successful part of his life that lead to him meeting many ponies that happened to be rather famous.
Many hours of walking later, the steel grey stallion stood on the top of a hill, flicking a messy lock of red mane out of his face to look down on a quaint little village nestled in between a large forest and an orchard of apple trees. A sign just down the road said Welcome to Ponyville, telling the stallion that he had finally reached his destination. Pulling out a paper to check and see that he was indeed at the right place, he skimmed over the contents one last time to make sure that he had read everything right, and then stuffed it back inside of his briefcase.
Trotting down into the town, the stallion receiving a bit of attention, the type one would get for being a newcomer, as he followed the paper’s instructions towards a large building with a carousel motif. Raising a hoof, the stallion knocked on the door three times politely, and waited. Not long afterwards, the stallion heard an unmistakably female voice call out from behind the door.
“The door is open, darling! Please do come right in!”
Opening the door to a little tingle of a bell, the grey stallion was greeted by that same voice, reciting, “Welcome to the Carousel Boutique how may I help-” A white unicorn mare rounded the corner, stopping in her tracks. “Why hello there, gentlecolt! How may I help you today? My name is Rarity, pleasure to meet you.”
The stallion raised an eyebrow at Rarity’s antic. He spoke up, saying, “Well, Miss Rarity, you wouldn’t have gotten a letter telling you that an earth pony by the name of Atlas was going to visit your boutique in hopes for a job as a live stallion model?”
Rarity’s face seemed to blank a bit as she remembered that particular letter, but once she did, her eyes sparkled in happiness. “Why yes, I did! I would guess that you are Atlas? I have been needing a good stallion model because all of my mannequins are in the shape of a mare. Even though I have been able to make due, I simply wouldn’t be able to make clothes of the same calibre without a stallion like you, dear.”
Atlas smiled and stuck out a hoof. “Miss Rarity, I would be more than help you with your clothes. I’ve already bought a house here, and I have next to nothing to bring into it, so I’ll be ready to work whenever you need me.”
Rarity quickly ducked behind her counter and produced a clip-board and looked at it. “Well, darling, it’s just in my luck that we do have an order for a stallion, so, could you just stay here for a few hours so that I could get the order through?”
Rarity motioned to a room filled with mannequins, mirrors, and a sewing machine. Once Atlas had taken his spot on top of a slightly raised platform right in front of three mirrors, along with a various amount of different sewing supplies, Rarity pulled out a measuring tape. Before it all started, Atlas spoke up, “Miss Rarity, is there anything that I would be able to do to help you?”
Rarity levitated a pair of red work glasses onto her snout and shook her head. “No, Atlas. You just need to stand there and look pretty...” Rarity seemed to trail off as the measuring tape levitated itself to the inseam of Atlas’s front leg, but Atlas overheard her grumble to herself, “It’s not like you have a hard time doing it just as you are...”
Atlas chuckled to himself after that comment, thinking back to his ‘old’ life, and how some things just won’t change no matter what he would do. Eventually as the measuring went on, Atlas got that feeling that someone was eyeing him up. Glancing behind him, Rarity was measuring away at his rear inseam. Atlas didn’t even think that Rarity noticed that she was noting his muscles as she went through her measurements with a professional speed. Just rolling his eyes, Atlas continued to let his mind wander as Rarity continued on with her measurements and work.
Once Rarity had completed the suit, Atlas had tried it on. It was just a simple two piece blazer and button up suit, but it looked good on him. He cocked an eyebrow at how it fit on him. Miss Rarity was quite the fashionista.
As Rarity took the suit top off of Atlas with a practiced ease, she suddenly stopped folding them up as her eyes dilated in sudden memory. “Oh, Atlas, I almost forgot, would it be too much for me to introduce you to some of my friends? I’m sure it would be a pleasant experience for all of us, and they’d be delighted to meet you.”
Atlas shrugged. His suitcase was the only thing he had to bring with him to the house, and it wasn’t all that heavy, why not? Atlas shook out his now-asleep legs as he took a step off of the small dais he was on top of. Shaking his mane out of his face, he responded, “Well, sure, why not? It’s always a pleasure meeting new friends.”
Rarity cracked a smile at Atlas and set everything down. As they set off out of the boutique, Atlas saw that they were approaching a rather large tree with a door on it. Atlas was surprised, back in the capital city of Canterlot, not many houses actually were mixed with nature, and seeing a house grafted into a tree was kind of refreshing from the drab cobblestone and brick in his old city.
Rarity opened the door into the supposed house and called out, “I am so sorry that I am late, everypony. My new assistant, Atlas showed up today, and I needed to get a stallion’s suit done before he got settled in. Speaking of, I hope that you don’t mind that I brought him over, he is simply just a dear!”
Atlas couldn’t keep a little smile from cracking his normally neutral expression as he walked into the tree-house. As he thought beforehand, some things just don’t change no matter what you do. He entered into a main room where there were just shelves of books lining the walls, along with a large table where five other ponies were, with Rarity trotting over to join the five others.
Rarity sat by the table along with the others, gesturing with a hoof at the five other ponies, introducing them by name one by one. “Well Atlas, this is Fluttershy,” Rarity pointed at a yellow pegasus with a pink mane. Atlas seemed to have a little inkling of a suspicion that he had seen her before back in his old job. The large blush that she was failing to try and hide almost convinced him of that fact. Fluttershy got a smile and a nod as Rarity moved on. “This mare right here is Twilight Sparkle,” A lavender unicorn with a striped mane waved at him with a little smile. “This is Applejack,” The orange earth pony got up and shook his hoof with a good, hearty, farm mare’s shake. Atlas smiled fully and returned it. Applejack showed off her western accent as she personally greeted her fellow earth pony.
“Well howdy, Atlas! ‘S a shame yew had to go an’ be a model fer Rarity, it looks like yew cn’ handle a good day’s work!”
Atlas kept his smile as he responded, “Well Miss Applejack, that’s the whole reason why I came down here, it was to just get away from all of the busy bustle of the city. Not enough good, honest work up there. Might take you up on an offer like that if Rarity doesn’t need to use me as a living mannequin too much.”
Applejack tipped her hat at Atlas, and returned to her seat at the table. Rarity continued after the brief little introduction from AJ. “Here’s Rainbow Dash,” The cyan pegasus in question shot Atlas a sly little grin as she boasted,
“So, Atlas, you hear about Rainbow Dash, greatest flyer in Equestria, in Canterlot? I’d guess that even Celestia herself would talk about me, being not only a worldwide hero, but also the sole creator of three sonic rainbooms to date!”
Atlas raised an eyebrow at Rainbow. In fact, he had heard of her. Not only did she win the Junior Flyers award, but she also had performed the one and only sonic rainboom for the infamous royal wedding between Princess Cadence Mi Amore and the Captain of the Guard.
“Actually Miss Dash, yes. I have heard of you. You’re somewhat of a celebrity in Canterlot, what with the sonic rainboom during the wedding and winning the Junior Flyers competition with not only another sonic rainboom, but with the rescue of three Wonderbolts and Miss Rarity over there.”
Dash’s eyes briefly sparkled with mal-contained excitement and energy that slightly broke out on Rainbow’s face, if only for just a few seconds. She casually leaned onto her table. She simply responded by saying,
“Yeah, that’s right! Rainbow Dash, the fastest and most famous flyer in Equestria!”
Atlas’s smirk got just a bit competitive, he had met more than a few mares with that type of attitude, and he had always been able to see if they were up to their talk. Of course, RD herself was a bit more backed up by the simple fact that he had not only seen the rainboom happen, but also had seen that she had won the competition on the newspaper. Rarity rolled her eyes just a bit as she moved onto the last pony sitting at the table.
“And finally, we have Pinkie Pie, our resident party mare.”
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, but you already know that! I love to throw parties! Oh, I still have to throw you a party, since you’re new in town! I always throw a party for new ponies and I bake loads of snacks and everypony always has a great time and you’ll get to meet so many new ponies and they’ll all be your friends and you’ll be super-ooper-DUPER happy!”
Suddenly, Atlas had a ball of pink fluff in his face. Quite frankly, Atlas didn’t know how to react to her, so he took a step back, recollected himself, and calmly responded with, “That sounds lovely, Miss Pie. Now, if you could go back and sit with your friends back at the table?”
“Okie Dokie Lokie!” She did as she was told, surprisingly enough.
Atlas sat down in front of the table, smiling at the entire table. “It’s such a pleasure to meet all of you, now, if I may, could I make my way home? I just want to make sure that everything is set in there before I get too settled into Ponyville.”
Twilight shot me a smile and nodded my way. As I was leaving the treehouse, I heard Twilight call out behind me, “Oh, and Atlas, this is my house. It’s also the town library, so feel free to come over whenever you want to to talk or take out a book if you want to!”
To Atlas, that last comment sounded rather desperate. Looks like this quaint little town isn’t too keen on taking out books and reading them.
Atlas plodded down the street, just taking in the natural beauty of a rural town nestled in between farmland and a forest. On the northernmost outskirts, his relatively small house waited, mainly untouched and separated by a large amount of land from his neighbors. Taking the keys out of his briefcase, he opened the door. He had already bought this house from when he was still working with his old job, on his two week notice period. It came with a bunch of pre-made furnishings, almost all of the furniture not replaced, the only two things he did actually spend more bits on were his bed and his dining room table.
The house wasn’t exactly the biggest house one could ever buy. It only had about four rooms, the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen and dining room, and finally the bathroom. All of the rooms were connected by the central living room, which in itself wasn’t exactly the biggest of rooms. It didn’t take Atlas long to figure out just what he wanted to do. IT had been a long way, and he had spent a large amount of bits to just buy the mattress he’d had his eye on for the past year. Atlas passed the finely carved mahogany table with a grin as he made his way into the bedroom, placing both himself and his briefcase on the plush, pegasus-down mattress.
“The most used and most important piece of furniture is the bed inside of the master bedroom, other than perhaps the table.”
Atlas had a stupid grin on his face as he stretched his full length over the plush bed and mused over that line in his thoughts. He really missed just being able to sprawl luxuriously over a nice, soft bed. Unfortunately, it was only six PM, and even though he’d been walking about for a good while of the day, his little visit with those six mares hadn’t left him as tired as it could have been.
Getting back up reluctantly from his mattress, Atlas calmly stretched himself out from walking all day, looking out of his windows at the fantastic view he had. Slowly raking his deep green eyes across his little slice of nature, his eyes caught on fields of wire holding up the creeper vines of grape bushes in tidy little rows. These rows and rows of grapes lead to his closest neighbor, a good couple of yards to the right of his house. It also seemed to have a specialized addition to the house, where barrels were lined up in neat little rows, presumably to be filled with something, and Atlas concluded that his new neighbor must be making their own wines.
Atlas grinned at the opportunity that had just landed in his lap. He always did feel like growing things, he just never had the opportunity or space to do so in Canterlot, not enough grass, and potted plants were almost impossible to keep watered when you had a job like his...
It looked like the perfect opportunity to take the full experience of living in the farmland.
