Fulfilling the mandate of the expedition

Chapters

#1

Author's Note

It's a sequel to Home in that it is related to Home, but will not be continuing the events of that. Do you have to have read that one to understand this one? I'd say no, but I sometimes read serieseseses out of order so I can't be trusted.

I also wouldn't pay too much attention to the technical detail of the story - what they're working on is not the point. It's just an excuse for the story to happen. And I'm probably wrong about electricity or something.

1

Electricity was coming to Canterlot. And not just any electricity, wireless electricity. Very swish stuff.

The whole thing was a co-operative effort, which was kind of the point. Human visitors and ponies working together for mutual advancement and benefit, jolly cooperation, all that sort of thing. An outgrowth and actual, demonstrable result of continuing and ongoing diplomatic overtures, something that was going to exist tangibly rather than just potentially or on paper, like most of what had been agreed to be agreed upon eventually.

So a definite improvement.

The power itself came - or would be coming, soon, once everything was actually installed - from a plant that had already been set up discreetly at a safe distance away from any major population centres, currently being overseen by a reclusive and solitary Governing Intelligence named Don’t Bother Me I’m Working.

The ponies were not yet privy to the technical specifications of the plant, and its maintenance and upkeep was being generously provided by humanity, as a gift. They came in peace, after all.

What came next was the infrastructure to actually get the power to where it needed to be and get it to do what it needed to do once it was there, and this was rather more involved.

It being so involved, it also involved the ponies this time, partly because it was a question of manpower (ponypower?) but mainly just to make them feel less like they were having change foisted upon them by the interlopers.

This was about sharing, after all, and being friendly. Humanity was nothing if not friendly.

All The Colours Of The Rainbow was the name of the Governing Intelligence that was advising and assisting on this particular portion of the overall operation, the Canterlot portion, though it preferred being called ATC. Arthur, one of the two actual flesh-and-blood humans involved, saw no reason not to oblige it in this.

The plan was Canterlot first, thence to gradually roll it out further, as and when other towns, cities and so on signalled approval. Weren’t going to be ramming down anyone’s throat without permission after all, though it was hoped that seeing how simple and great it was in Canterlot would soften opinion and increase uptake.

Increased uptake represented increased cooperation, which in turn represented increased friendship. Increased friendship represented success.

And so it was that Arthur again found himself standing under alien skies in blazing sunshine, wearing his technicians’ jumpsuit and his toolbelt and his sidearm, blearily watching brightly-coloured magical horses doing stuff, wondering whether this was what he’d signed up for when he’d agreed to go on the expedition.

In fairness, he’d expected much worse and what he’d left behind was undeniably worse, all this magical frippery just came as something of a confusing shock to him, even after been here for however long he’d been in-world for.

A local crew of ponies - incongruously wielding roadworking tools, which still looked incredibly odd to Arthur, given that there was very little reason for them to have designed them the way they had - were doing the digging up of the road and would be doing the putting it back down again, once that step had been reached.

ATC’s had a dozen or so remotely operated bodies on-hand too and they were (it was?) also waiting, there to lay the cable which was there to carry the juice (as it was sometimes called) and also to handle the heavy lifting involved in setting up the actual power transmitters themselves, with Arthur right at the end waiting to hook it up and check it was working properly.

As far as divisions of labour went it was pretty good and had worked well so far. They’d already got coverage over a fair chunk of the place, nearing halfway towards completion once the present one was done with.

Of course, this did mean that while that lot were doing all that, Arthur was left to twiddle his thumbs and feel useless. He compensated by trying to look busy, checking and rechecking things he already knew were perfectly alright, ensuring that everything delicate or technical had been packed properly or was present at all. Everything was, obviously, and he already knew that, but that wasn’t really the point.

He checked his watch. Still not lunchtime. Soon, but not yet. He sighed.

“Heads up. There’s someone about to say hello to you,” ATC said. Arthur looked up to find one of ATC’s bodies stood there, head turned off to the side.

“What?” Arthur asked, turning to look himself, and seeing there one of the locals, approaching nervously. He did not recognise this one, but then again a lot of them kind of looked the same to him, colours notwithstanding.

One would have thought his time spent in-world would have knocked this inability to tell one from the other on the head, but no.

Arthur avoided development in better integration by avoiding having to interact with anyone he didn’t have to, particularly the locals, retiring to the crawler they were staying in for the duration of this project the moment work that day had ended and staying there until work started again the next. In this way and for this reason he still had trouble telling most ponies apart.

That they had unique personal logos on the side was something that had been pointed out to him, but was also something he consistently forgot to notice. Orientation had warned that insufficient contact with the locals would be likely to cause this level of unfamiliarity and - lo and behold - Arthur was living proof.

Still, none of that changed the fact that this particular pony was getting closer by the moment, nervous or not.

“Maybe she’s here to talk to you,” Arthur said, being that ATC was the one who tended to do most of the talking anyway. Though ATC’s body didn’t have a face they still managed to convey a lot of fairly obvious feeling with just a tilt of their head. The feeling in this instance was incredulity.

“She’s walked past, like, three of me to get to you. And she’s looking right at you. And most of the locals still don’t get what I am anyway. Come on, man, pay attention,” it said.

“Oh,” said Arthur. He supposed this was a good point.

By now the pony was close enough that keeping on talking about her would have been rude, so Arthur said nothing else and, not having much choice left given that she really homing in on him exclusively, turned to greet her. Or at least face her.

He saw then that she was smiling. Still nervous, yes, but mainly smiling. He did his best to smile back but in a contest between a pony smiling and a human smiling it wasn’t really worth showing up, honestly.

Arthur had a proper look at her, the discerning kind of look.

No horn, no wings, that meant...earth pony? He thought he remembered that from the briefing package. Still had the same huge eyes as all the rest of them.

And that smile.

No question who she was here for, now. She’d come to a halt basically right in front of Arthur, or at least right in front enough that she could still comfortably look up at him. He looked down at her. He wasn’t sure what was meant to happen.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” Arthur said.

Here conversational progress halted. Arthur was acutely aware of the blatant attention not only of every single one of ATC’s bodies (which he knew for a fact the Governing Intelligence did not need to do and so was doing on purpose just to be a bastard) but also the clandestine attention of the pony workcrew, too.

Arthur swallowed, the heat of the day suddenly that much more apparent as sweat trickled down his back. Damn jumpsuit. Moisture wicking indeed - wicking it right down the crack of his arse, apparently.

“Can I help you...?” he started, leaving a void he hoped to God she would fill with a name.

“Baker’s Dozen,” said the pony, and it took Arthur a second to work out that this was actually her name, and not a non-sequitur. He blinked.

“Uh, can I help you, Baker’s Dozen? I’m Arthur. Technical Speci- uh, just Arthur, actually, don’t worry about that,” he said, mangling his sentence horribly. This was why he usually let ATC do the talking.

“Just wanted to say hi. Unless you’re busy, of course. You’re not busy, are you?” She asked, suddenly worried, eyeing the list that Arthur had been checking off from for the half-dozenth time or so. He eyed the list as well and then quickly lowered it.

“No, not really. Well, a bit. But not really.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” Baker’s Dozen said, nodding.

Another halt in conversational progress. Arthur swallowed. Baker’s Dozen scratched one leg with the side of another.

“Isn’t it lunchtime for you?” She then asked, which surprised Arthur a bit. Odd question.

“Soon, I guess. Why?” He asked, checking his watch. Still soon.

Baker’s Dozen’s nervousness seemed to crest here, albeit alongside what was clearly some level of expectant excitement. Plainly this was the moment she’d been building towards.

“I see you eat the same thing every day, thought you might be bored of it so I, um, got you this,” she said.

She then rummaged around inside the bags she draped over her - saddlebags, Arthur supposed.

Somehow - despite the physics involved really not working out at all - she pulled from one of the bags an extraordinarily ornate and delicious looking cupcake which she then handed (hoofed?) to Arthur. He needed both hands to take it. It was not small.

“Wow,” he said with full sincerity before remembering his manners: “Thank you. This is - well, I didn’t expect this. Just to ask, how did you know that I, you know, ate the same thing every day?”

It did seem an odd thing for her to be aware of. She wasn’t wrong, after all.

“Oh, heh, uh, I work near here and I see you when I’m going to my lunch,” she said quickly, eyes perhaps a touch wider than they had been a second previously. Not that Arthur noticed.

“Huh. Okay,” said Arthur, who bought this. After all, it sounded reasonable.

He then stared at the cupcake some more.

He was nonplussed.

It wasn’t that Arthur didn’t trust the local food, it was just that he trusted the standard rations more. As bland as they might be he at least knew they were and always would be safe and exactly what he would expect them to be. Which was, as said, bland, but if they stopped him being hungry who cared?

The cupcake was also very nearly the size of his head.

“...thanks again,” said Arthur.

His subdued tone and look of complete bafflement she mistook for disappointment, and all at once she was overcome with the worry that she’d made some kind of mistake.

“Do you like that kind of cupcake?” She asked.

Arthur had no way of knowing what flavour it was just by looking. He guessed chocolate but really, who knew? It could have been anything. Hundreds and thousands twinkled menacingly at him while icing rose in mighty, crenulated peaks. The most formidable baked good he’d ever held. Certainly he’d had to reach deep into his vocabulary just to imagine how it might be described.

“Uh, sure,” he said.

Baker’s Dozen brightened immediately.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Course. Thank you,” he said.

The pony looked delighted, absolutely delighted. Her expression was so potent it even managed to effect Arthur, the very corners of his mouth just quirking up a little. Not too much though.

Then came the supremely uncomfortable realisation that everyone around him - the pony who’d provided the cupcake, the work crew who’d dug up the road, several passersby along with all of ATC’s platforms - were all now just openly staring at him, not even pretending or being subtle, just waiting to see what he’d do.

“Would you like some?” Arthur asked, proffering the cupcake back towards Baker’s Dozen. Seemed selfish - not to mention difficult - to have the whole thing to himself, but the pony demurred.

“Oh no, it’s for you!” She insisted.

“I see. Thank you,” he said.

Arthur really, really, really hoped she wasn’t expecting him to eat the whole thing on the spot. For one, having an audience was horrifying. For another, he was truly unsure that he was actually physically capable of eating even half of it in one go, let alone all of it.

“I’ll - I’ll have it at lunch. Which is soon. You don’t have to wait around here if you don’t want to,” he said, hoping against hope she would leave. To his immense and immediate relief Baker’s Dozen smiled broadly and gave a nod.

“Sure, alright!” She said. “Wouldn’t want to get in your way anyway, this all looks, uh, really complicated.”

It wasn’t, really, but then again maybe only Arthur thought it wasn’t.

“Uh, yeah,” he said.

A fly chose the moment of silence that followed to buzz on in and try it’s luck in approaching the cupcake only to have Arthur waft it away. It left, saddened, but feeling better for having at least given it a shot.

“Alright. Okay! Well, I hope you like it!” Baker’s Dozen then said, giving Arthur a wave and trotting off. Arthur, utterly baffled, gave a limp return wave to her retreating back and then watched her continue trotting off until she rounded a corner.

“Since you’re open to sharing, can I have some?” ATC asked before Arthur had much of a chance to think too much about what had just happened. Arthur looked at the remote-operated, entirely-mechanical, utterly-incapable-of-eating body sideways, decided that it would be pointless rising to this particular bait and so instead looked over to the ponies and their tools.

“How you guys getting on?” He asked, causing them all to immediately resume working as though they hadn’t spent the last five minutes not doing anything.

“Tsch. Minor delay, there. Lapse in concentration. You’d never get away with that back home,” ATC said. Again, Arthur chose to just ignore the Governing Intelligence, instead focusing on the cupcake still lying heavy in his hands.

He stared at it, and the thing was just so present and weighty that he was fairly certain that it was staring back at him somehow, in some way a lesser cupcake simply wouldn’t have been able to manage.

“Where the hell am I going to put this thing?” He said to himself.

#2

Author's Note

This worked out longer than I intended, so is now split into several uneven pieces.

Here's the second piece.

Also, it's always baking with me. Why is that?

2

Later, Arthur was back in the crawler, outside the city proper. The crawler was large.

It was large mostly because it had had to carry all of the requisite tools and equipment and such for the task for which they’d been dispatched. A lot of that had been emptied out, now, but the vehicle remained large - large enough to have its own living space, in which Arthur and Corin had been staying for the past however many weeks.

Not spacious, but comfortable.

Corin was the other human half of the operation, the other technical specialist.

While Arthur was handling the infrastructure side, Corin was handling the actual point-of-use stuff, which is to say how exactly the ponies were meant to access what they were getting and what they could use to access it.

This involved a lot of talking, a lot of being friendly and this was why it was Corin doing it and not Arthur, because their bosses were not stupid. Corin was much better at communicating than Arthur was, and enjoyed it to boot, so while Arthur was pretending to look busy or making minor technical adjustments Corin was off elsewhere in Canterlot, running seminars with names like ‘Power overwhelming! Electricity and you!’.

She hadn’t picked the name.

And after these were concluded for the day she then typically hung out a little with those friends she’d made among the locals, which was why she was typically back to the crawler later than Arthur was, as it was this time, her coming in to him already sitting down in the thing’s mess, where he was at the table staring into space.

“Ah! What a day Arthur, what a day. What a day!” She said, flopping into the seat opposite his. Arthur stopped staring into space and started instead staring vaguely in her direction.

“Go well?” He asked.

Corin briefly fiddled about to get herself a drink of tea from the machine that existed specifically for this purpose before answering.

“Of course! They’re excited! They’re really excited. You should see their little faces light up whenever I demonstrate how some of it’s going to work! Never gets old,” she said.

At this point in the conversation it might normally have been considered polite for the person in Corin’s position to ask how the person in Arthur’s position day went, but Corin knew Arthur and knew that this would be a waste of time, so skipped that part and just carried on:

“Mean, it’s all human stuff right now I’m showing them - obviously! - and some of those switches are a little fiddly for them. They manage, but it could be better. Me and one of the regular local crew are working on some, uh, pony-friendly designs but it’s a side gig and it’ll probably take a long while to convert all the stuff over anyway. It’s actually a lot more complex than I would have thought - really got to get up inside. Interesting stuff!”

“Hmm,” said Arthur.

Corin frowned at him, eyebrow arching.

“Alright, you know you could at least pretend that you’re listening to me,” she said.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry. I was!” Arthur said, blinking, trying to look casual.

“And now you’re lying to me.”

“Sorry. Just thinking.”

This was unusual, or at least unusual enough to be worthy of note to Corin.

“Oh? About?” She asked, taking a curious sip of tea. Arthur thought about what he was thinking about.

A few things. Comparing and contrasting the various other levels that the Borer had gone through on the way to here and after, the other things that they’d seen. What might be happening back home. What might happen after this particular project was done. Things like that were the things that Arthur was thinking about.

What he said instead was this:

“These guys have magic, what do they want electricity for anyway?”

“So they can have magic and electricity?” Corin asked right back with a shrug. Arthur thought about this.

“Huh,” he said. “Guess I can see that.”

Put like that he could get behind it. Still seemed a little redundant but hell, why not? Why limit yourself when someone is offering? Why not have a seance? Why not go mad?

Having dropped that outstanding bomb of clarity on Arthur, Corin radiated evident satisfaction. Standing, she drained the last of the tea and grimaced, eyeing the now-empty cup as though expecting to find something there willing to explain itself. No dice though.

“Still convinced they just sweep up whatever’s left on the factory floor for those teabags. Whelp, just going to spend a penny, back in a second.”

Arthur rubbed his temples. This had been information he had not required.

“Thanks for that,” he said.

“Thought you’d like to know.”

Corin gave a tiny mock salute and sauntered off, leaving Arthur to his own devices.

While she was gone, Arthur idly went through his things and in so doing came across the cupcake, which he had put into his bag not long after having received it - he’d quite forgotten about the thing. Which was impressive, really, as getting it to fit into his bag had not been easy.

The trip back hadn’t been especially kind to the cupcake but it hadn’t been especially unkind either - it was still eminently edible, at least by Arthur’s standards. Just a little rough around the edges, which was about as good as you might expect for a cupcake that had been shoved into a bag. Better, actually. Back home the thing would have just been so many crumbs. Here? Still recognisable.

Weird.

Taking the thing he set it on the table in front of him and stared at it. Mostly this was just because he was tired and he had a tendency to stare when he was tired. Partly though he was thinking about it and, also, about the local who’d given it to him.

Why? Odd thing to do. But then the locals were an odd bunch.

She had had a very memorable smile, he supposed. First one he’d got to see up close and personal. It was probably just that.

“What’s that?” Corin asked, returning sooner than Arthur would have suspected and taking her seat again.

Seemed kind of an odd question given that what it was was pretty obvious, but these things happened. Arthur kept on staring at the thing regardless, his brows furrowed.

“Cupcake,” he said. Corin looked at him askance but, given his rapt attention on the cupcake, he didn’t notice this.

“I figured that out myself. I meant where’d you get that? Didn’t think you bought the pony stuff,” Corin said.

Not once had Arthur availed himself of any of the local goods and-or services, at least not that she’d seen. At first she’d found this reluctance amusing. Then kind of sad. Then she’d stopped caring and moved on with her life. Still, it was odd and surprising seeing him sat there like that, with that thing.

“Don’t. Some local gave it to me,” Arthur said, finally breaking eye-contact with the cupcake and sitting back in his chair, running both hands through his hair, deep in thought or at least thought-adjacent.

That perked up Corin’s interest.

“Oh?” She asked, slipping into a seat opposite him.

“Yeah. She popped up and started talking to me when I was on my shift. Said she saw me eating the same lunch every day and thought I could do with some variety. I don’t know. Look at the size of this thing. You want some?”

“Me? Oh no. It’s yours.”

This seemed a common sentiment and Arthur did not understand it. He gritted his teeth.

“I can’t eat all this though, it’s huge. Come on, have a bit,” he said, leaning forward to inch it across the table towards her. Corin, having more energy, pushed it right back so it rested on the edge in front of him. A powermove if ever there was one.

“No no, it’s yours. She gave it to you, it’s yours,” she said.

“Don’t think she’d mind if I shared it.”

Why give something so monstrously large unless you intended it to be shared, after all? That was how Arthur was looking at it. Corin though, being a little more up on social interaction generally and definitely more up on how the locals actually ticked, had a perhaps more accurate position.

“Hmm. Wouldn’t be so sure about that…”

That she said this while smirking suggested to Arthur that Corin was slipping what she actually meant between the lines of what she was saying. He hated that.

“I feel like you’re trying to imply something here,” he said.

“Me? Oh no, never. Not me.”

Deciding to ignore Corin and her weird, smug insinuations Arthur instead frowned at the cupcake again. A thought occurred to him quite out of nowhere, though it was obvious enough that he was a little annoyed it had taken him this long to connect the dots.

“You know, her name was Baker’s Dozen. Kinda makes me think she actually made this thing. Going by what the naming convention round here generally shakes out like. Hmm.”

Just a suspicion on Arthur’s part, though Corin’s eyes did widen a little bit.

“She made it for you?” She asked.

Arthur shrugged.

“Might have done. Just a guess. Name like that, you know? Why? Would that matter?”

Corin stared at him hard a second before snorting in disgust and getting up and walking off again.

“You’re an idiot,” she said on the way out.

Arthur, stunned by this very sudden turn of events, could only blink stupidly to himself once or twice before lurching to his feet and going after her.

“What? Hey, you can’t just drop that in my lap and walk off, what are you talking about?”

Sadly, he got nothing, as Corin had already closed the door to her own compartment, leaving him alone in the corridor, confused.

“I still can’t have any, can I?” ATC asked via the crawler.

“No,” said Arthur.

#3

Author's Note

It's the shortest piece!

Probably.

3

Next morning, and time to get up and go to work.

In a rare role-reversal Corin was up, awake and fully-dressed and prepared before Arthur was, which meant when he came stumbling into the mess to try and find tea midway through getting dressed she was sat there, sipping and waiting.

“Morning,” she said brightly.

“Hmph,” Arthur grunted, nodding, shuffling around and getting himself a tiny cup of passable tea before sitting down and getting started on putting his boots on. This all happened without any further conversation.

“How was it?” Corin asked out of nowhere, thoroughly catching Arthur off-guard in the process of re-lacing one of his more stubborn boots.

“How was what?” He asked in turn.

“The cake! Cupcake, rather. It was missing a slice. You had some, didn’t you?”

Somehow he’d managed to make the thing fit into the crawler’s fridge, just about, and when Corin had looked in there - more out of force of habit than out of any hope of finding anything interesting - she’d seen it there, sans single slice.

“Oh, right. Yeah, yeah I did,” Arthur said, getting it now.

Corin waited for more, but no more came.

“And?” She prodded. Arthur shrugged.

“It was good,” he said.

This was apparently all that she was going to get.

“That’s it?”

“I really don’t know what you want from me, Corin,” Arthur said.

It had actually, probably, been among the better things Arthur could remember having ever eaten, but he lacked the capacity to express this and didn’t really know enough to even think it worth expressing.

“Mouth feel at least!” Corin said.

Arthur paused midway fumbling with his laces to look up at her, utterly baffled.

“...what?” He asked.

“Urgh, you. Honestly.”

She gave up here, clearly seeing that progress would be uphill at best and difficult even then. Instead she just idly and a fair level of detached interest watched him finish up with his boots before standing and moving onto his belt from which dangled his tools and, she idly noticed, his sidearm.

“Hey Arthur, can I ask you something?” She asked.

“Sure,” he said, having a touch more trouble with the buckle on his belt than he typically did, much to his chagrin. Clearly not his morning.

“Why do you always take your weapon with you? Do you think something’s going to happen? Here?”

“It’s regulation,” Arthur said.

“No, it’s guidelines. Ask ATC.”

“She’s not wrong,” said ATC, a voice from above, then adding: “Oh, wait. Were you supposed to ask me first? Whoops, sorry. Ask me, then I’ll answer.”

Arthur, who’d stopped in the middle of failing to buckle his belt when ATC had spoken, glanced upward, then to Corin, and then back up again.

There was no real reason to do this, but a habit a lot of humans had picked up was looking for the nearest visible visual receptor whenever talking to a Governing Intelligence. Eye-contact was always polite.

“...I was under the impression that we were all supposed to carry our weapons whenever we left the vehicle,” said Arthur.

“Nope, that’s just guidelines. It’d be regulation if we were somewhere deemed sufficiently dangerous but since we’re not it’s up to individual discretion. You did see that in the briefing package, didn’t you? This place got rated Safe, so it’s discretion. Those are the actual guidelines,” said ATC.

They actually were, too.

Arthur wasn’t sure where he could go from here.

“...no-one told me,” he said.

“You never asked,” ATC pointed out.

“That is the worst defence, just - “ Arthur started, but stopped, losing all energy for it, knowing he’d get nowhere. He sighed, gritted his teeth, took a breath and summed more calmly. Or, at least, more flatly:

“Well fine I don’t need to but I want to it’s individual discretion and I’d prefer to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Anyway the briefing package said this place wasn’t entirely safe. It got rated Safe (Conditional). They have stuff that happens.”

Safe (Conditional) was the formal designation. Informally, ‘That one with the magic horses’ was known to be ‘Safer than most’. Functionally the same thing as far as anyone on the expedition was concerned.

And this was not wholly inaccurate. There’d been a list of incidents requested and provided during opening diplomatic overtures, just to see what (if anything) there was to be expected from setting up a base here. No (known) fatalities, sure, but still. No-one ever dies until they do, and it paid to be careful.

Living back home had taught Arthur that pretty well. Had taught them all that.

“Yeah. And you’ll need a gun for any of that, I’m sure that’ll go down real well. You know most problems here get resolved through teamwork, friendship and sincerity, right? Sometimes magic too, and sometimes the magic of teamwork, friendship and sincerity. It’s pretty great,” Corin said.

“Wouldn’t want to intimidate your ladyfriend, would you Arthur?” ATC added.

Arthur frowned, entirely unclear on who it was talking about.

“My ladyf-” Then it clicked. “Nope, no, that’s it. Had enough. I’m putting this on and I’m going. I’m already late, I have work to do we all have work to do.”

He would put his belt on properly along the way, he decided, shuffling out while holding up his trousers with one hand, tea forgotten.

#4

Author's Note

You know, I don't know why I always imagine the cupcakes being huge. They're not huge.

But for some reason I always imagine they are.

4

The day got better after that, at least in Arthur’s opinion, which is just another way of saying it got quieter.

All of ATC’s bodies had been left at the site overnight on standby so the Governing Intelligence was there before Arthur was, technically, and they could get started on some of the more technical particulars before the pony workcrew arrived, at which point actual work began.

Arthur almost forgot what it was that had started his day off on such a sour note, at least up until he was just about through checking off a list when ATC came up behind him and cleared its throat to get his attention.

He knew it was ATC doing this because it always did it in the exact same way, specifically because it knew that this annoyed Arthur in a low-key way, him finding the idea of something without a throat going through the trouble of pretending to have one just to pretend to clear it irritating on some very basic level.

“Yes?” Arthur asked without looking, focusing on counting and ticking off the last few items so as not to lose his place.

“Isn’t it nearly lunchtime?” ATC asked.

Arthur stopped, pen poised over the very last box. He then checked it and turned, finding the body just standing there, innocent as anything.

“What? Why are you asking me?”

“Just thought I’d check,” ATC said, again all innocent.

“You have an internal clock, why-” Arthur said and that was about as far as he got before ATC took a sharp step sideways and revealed who had been standing behind it. Arthur’s eyes dropped down.

“Oh. Oh, hi. Hello again Baker’s Dozen. Uh...is it lunchtime?” He said, finding himself pinned to the spot by a happily smiling pony beaming up at him.

“Yes!” She said brightly, but then doubt set in. “I mean, it’s the time you usually have lunch. But if you’re still busy I can - I can come back! Or go. I don’t mind.”

“No, no you don’t have to go, it’s fine. It’s about the right time. Why, um - why are you here?” He asked, noting that she didn’t have any bags with her and so she wasn’t here to deliver another cake.

He was slightly relieved by this. As delicious as it had been (and it had been delicious) he still hadn;t finished the first one, and he was only human.

Baker’s Dozen didn’t seem to mind having her motives questioned.

“I was just passing and I thought if you were on lunch maybe you’d have time to talk?”

Arthur blinked at her. This answer was baffling.

“Um, sure. Sure. I have time, probably. Uh, ATC, how long is the maximum allowable length of time for a lunch break?” He asked, looking to the body still standing nearby.

Arthur typically ate whatever he brought in under five minutes and returned to work, so how long he was meant to take was a mystery to him.

ATC shrugged, or at least the present body did.

“You’re the boss, you can take a long lunch if you want, what am I going to do about it? I’ve got things there. Anything comes up I’ll tell you about it,” it said. Which wasn’t really an actual answer to the question that Arthur had asked, so Arthur frowned.

“Are you honestly trying to get me to skive, ATC?” He asked.

“I am trying to get you to be happier. Seriously. It’s kind of our thing. Go, go. You’re not required for this bit anyway, go. It’ll be fine,” the Governing Intelligence said, shooing Arthur off.

This still felt like rule-breaking to Arthur but, wilting beneath the attentions of both the clearly-eager Baker’s Dozen and the willing-to-cover-for-him ATC Arthur folded. If he didn’t take too long he probably wouldn’t be going over the maximum time anyway, he told himself.

“Alright,” he said, chewing on his lip and glancing down to Baker’s Dozen. “Let’s - let’s go over here.”

Not far away from where he was working was a small park. Canterlot, Arthur had seen, was lousy with such nooks and crannies and green spaces, though up until right this moment - right this moment when he was going into one such nook and/or cranny - he had never made any personal use of them.

They settled on a tucked-away bench in a quiet spot and sat a comfortable distance from one another. Arthur, mostly for something to do with his hands, actually did take his lunch out of his bag, which he’d taken with him for comfort purposes. His lunch was in a tiny pot. He took the lid off the tiny pot.

He was so used to eating his lunch on his own that he found having company kind of threw him off, and he’d entirely forgotten what it was he was meant to do. His little pot of standard nutrient slop (not it’s official name) sat on his lap, untouched. Baker’s Dozen peered at it, and her curiosity won out over her good sense.

“Can I try some?” She asked.

“What? Oh, right. Sure,” Arthur said.

Confusion over how she was meant to actually get at it followed. The pot was small, so just sticking her muzzle in would probably have been rude. Indeed, sticking just about any part of your body into someone’s lunch is typically rude, so no tongues and hooves were out as well. Even if her hooves might have fitted. Which they wouldn’t have.

Arthur, seeing her struggling, faffed to try and assist and the two of them fumbled awkwardly for a few seconds before, eventually, Arthur managed to settle on getting some of his lunch onto his spoon and then feeding her himself. This was a nerve-wracking experience.

“Thank you,” she said.

“S’okay,” Arthur mumbled, unsure of where to put the spoon. Baker’s Dozen meanwhile was focusing on his lunch.

She might have expected flavour or texture or any of those other things that you commonly associate with food. But that was not what Arthur’s lunch had been designed for. Arthur’s lunch was the baseline on which those things could be mounted.

Its purpose was to keep you from starving to death - everything else after that, such as making it enjoyable to consume, was up to you. Arthur just never bothered with any of that. Well, almost never. On special occasions (read: sometimes, randomly) he would crush one of the crawler's crackers into it. Just because he could. But not too often, lest he get used to such extravagence.

Baker’s Dozen was now experiencing the baseline.

“It’s...filling?” She said at length and after swallowing.

“Yes,” said Arthur.

Couldn’t really argue with that. That was, after all, the whole point.

She did not go in for seconds. Arthur, not that hungry, put the lid back on.

“Did you eat the cupcake?” Baker’s Dozen then asked. Arthur nodded.

“I did,” he said.

A positive development! At least as far as Baker’s Dozen was concerned. She perked up immediately.

“Did you like it?” She asked and against Arthur nodded.

“I liked it. I haven’t eaten all of it yet but, uh, I will. There was a lot. For me. It was good though. Really good.”

By Arthur’s standards this was positively effusive. He even managed something approximating what he remembered a smile to look like. Baker’s Dozen was, again, beaming ear-to-ear. It was quite something to see.

“Great! I could mak- could, uh, get you another, if you liked?”

“I, um, Baker’s Dozen - you really don’t have to worry about that. Really,” he said, then her near slip-up caught his brain and he thought back to what Corin had said, too, and so felt compelled to ask: “Did you really make it?”

Unwilling to straight-up lie, Baker’s Dozen squirmed a bit on the bench and for one of the first times so far failed to meet his eye.

“Well, yes…”

“For me?” Arthur pressed.

“Well, um, I-I suppose it was made with you in mind…”

Not for the first time in his interactions with her Arthur was baffled.

“Why?”

This was such an unusual question for Baker’s Dozen she wasn’t completely sure on where to start with answering it. Her turn to be baffled, apparently. To her it just seemed obvious.

“You just always look so, well, sad. And I don’t like it when anypony - er, sorry, heh - looks sad and cakes always cheer me up so, well, uh…”

Cakes were, to Baker’s Dozen, something of a universal language. There was a lot of ways to make mistakes when opening up to strangers, but opening up with a cake really narrowed down those ways, at least in her experience. And if someone rejected cake? That kind of said all that needed to be said, in which case.

So far it had never happened.

Arthur frowned, moving from baffled to bemused.

“You wanted to cheer me up?” He asked.

“Did it work?” She asked brightly, entirely knocking the wind out of him.

Couldn’t really deny it.

“...yes,” he said.

Not that he’d been feeling bad, per se, Arthur never felt bad. But he did have to admit, even to himself, that when he’d been sat in the crawler the previous night, when he’d cut out a slice of that cake and actually sat down and taken the time to eat it - when he’d done that - he had to admit…

He’d liked it.

And sitting there eating it, he’d thought about Baker’s Dozen, and how happy she’d been in giving the thing to him in the first place, and it had made him like it a lot more, somehow.

For her part, Baker’s Dozen’s face had lit up on hearing him say this.

“I’m glad!” She said.

Arthur actually had to look away her expression was so cheerful. It touched her whole face. It was kind of overwhelming.

“Thank you. I haven’t had any cake in a very long time,” he said.

The conversation faltered awkwardly here as Arthur didn’t know how to follow up what he’d said and Baker’s Dozen wasn’t sure what to say in response to it. So neither of them said anything for a bit.

“Do you like it here?” Baker’s Dozen asked, deciding to take things in a different direction, much to Arthur’s immense relief. The silence had been crushing, even if it hadn’t lasted especially long in the grand scheme of things.

For a split-second he thought she meant whether he liked it in the little nook they were sitting in and for that split-second he was quite confused why she would ask. Then it clicked that she meant it in a more general sense, and Arthur was once again reminded how out of practise he was in actually talking to people.

Corin didn’t count. She was a work associate.

“Haven’t been out a lot but what I’ve seen is - it seems nice. Quiet. Quiet is good. How do you, uh, like it here?” He asked.

This was a very silly question for him to have asked, he felt, but it had just slipped out. Thankfully Baker’s Dozen rolled with the question and answered it in probably the best way she had available:

“Canterlot took some getting used to. Much busier than where I grew up, lots more ponies around. But I like that. Makes it feel lively! Always something going on. Even before you arrived, heh,” she said, rushing to add: “Not you you, I mean, uh, but, you know, humans. But you too. You’re something that’s going on. Somepony, I mean. Er, someone. Heh.”

Arthur had actually managed, quite without noticing, to keep eye-contact with her throughout all of that. Indeed, it was likely part of the reason she’d started coming apart a bit towards the end. It was only once she’d wrapped up and capped it off with a smile that he realised, and his cheeks burned.

This was all very odd. Not unpleasant, just unusual.

“Lively is good,” he said, even if he personally didn’t agree. He could understand the appeal in theory. That, and if she thought it was good then it probably was. She seemed to know what was up. She seemed quite nice, all told.

“Should - should you get back to work?” Baker’s Dozen then asked. Arthur checked his watched but all it told him was the time.

“Um, probably,” he said.

“Right. It’s important, isn’t it? I probably shouldn’t distract you.”

“You’re not distracting me, you’re - uh - I don’t mind. It’s nice. Lunch is better this way,” he said, haltingly, making it up completely as he went along. Baker’s Dozen seemed to appreciate it at least, much to Arthur’s relief.

“See you tomorrow?” She asked, slipping off the bench.

“Yes,” Arthur blurted immediately. He then swallowed.

His stomach was far too full of butterflies to accommodate anything else at that moment.

#5

Author's Note

Opinions on stuff. I guess?

5

The rest of Arthur’s day passed in something of a blur, his mind sitting quite comfortably in a patch of fuzz while his body went through whatever motions were required. The pony workcrew was directed, equipment was maneuvered, a few bits and pieces were installed, progress towards their ultimate goal was made and everything went entirely according to plan. An unremarkable, productive day.

Arthur barely noticed that it had ended, only really floating back down to a proper awareness of his surroundings once he was back and sitting in the crawler, staring down at the table. Or, rather, at the new slice of the cake that he’d apparently got for himself entirely without noticing having done it.

“Huh,” he said.

He then ate some of it and felt not less confused, but less concerned about what an odd day he’d had. Cake, he was rapidly coming to learn, really took the edge off things.

Corin, he also noted, was sitting opposite, grinning. He decided to ignore this and just focused on the cake. Corin seemed fine with this and content to wait.

And so there she sat, still grinning at him but saying nothing.

“What?” Arthur asked eventually, unable to take it anymore.

“Did you see your ladyfriend again?” Corin asked. Arthur groaned, regretting having asked, cursing himself for not having seen this coming.

“Would you please not - please not call her that, please? It’s weird. She’s just - I don’t know. Friendly. A friendly local,” he said.

“They’re all friendly, Arthur, it’s kind of their thing. I think this ranks a step above though. I think someone liikkkess yoouuuu.”

“She doesn’t even know me,” Arthur said. This at least was undeniable.

“True. If she did she wouldn’t like you. I know you and I don’t like you,” Corin said nodding at this very fine point that Arthur had made. This would be low-key mockery. Arthur, used to this sort of thing, was unmoved.

“Hah,” he said with all the mirth of a damp towel.

“I like you, Arthur,” interjected ATC. Corin flapped a hand over her shoulder but kept her attention on Arthur.

“ATC doesn’t count, they’re a Governing Intelligence, they like all of us. I count,” she said, tapping a finger against her chest, all deadly seriousness.

Arthur groaned again, deeper this time, setting down his fork and resting his face in his hands. He would have got up to leave, but Corin was between him and the exit anyway, and he really didn’t have the energy to stand up in the first place.

“This is ridiculous,” he said into his hands.

“There was that guy who shacked up with one of the locals,” Corin pointed out.

“I heard.”

They’d all heard. He’d kept up working with the expedition for a little while after moving until the length of the trips started getting too long, at which point he’d turned in his notice. He lived here full time, apparently, doing something that varied depending on who you heard the story from.

Neither Corin nor Arthur had ever met the guy personally.

“What was his name again...something with a ‘J’ I think…” Corin said, scratching her chin in thought.

“I don’t know,” Arthur said.

“Think you’ll be following his fine example?” Corin asked.

Arthur’s face stayed in his hands, and his responses remained muffled.

“No,” he said.

“Aww, why not? I think it’d be cute!”

“Because she isn’t human.”

Arthur had given up on trying to undermine the subject completely by this now, seeing it as pointless, so was having to grapple with it on Corin’s terms. He wasn’t happy about it, either. Corin flicked him on the top of head and he gave out a muted ‘ow’ but otherwise didn’t move.

“Don’t be so close-minded!” Corin scolded.

Arthur removed his face from his hands at last and gave Corin a flat look. Then again, most of Arthur’s looks were flat, so a lot of the impact here was lost on her.

“Are you honestly, genuinely trying to get me to fuck a horse?” He asked.

“Not a horse, no, a person. And I don’t know how most your relationships go, Arthur, but typically there’s a gap between saying hello and fucking. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong. No, you idiot. I’m just saying maybe a little affection, you know?”

“You keep calling me an idiot.”

Arthur didn’t really care much about that, it was just something he’d noticed. Corin hadn’t noticed, by contrast, and having it pointed out to her was something of a jolt.

“I do? Sorry, that’s mean. I just don’t get why you’re so against this. It’s good! She clearly likes you!”

“It’s weird,” Arthur mumbled, not really knowing how to articulate it beyond that. It was one of those things you take to be so obvious that, when someone asks you why, you’re not actually able to answer the question because you never actually thought about it all that much.

“We’re on a different planet. A different planet in a whole different universe. Like, however many universes down from our universe. One of the ones we went through had talking smoke. I think your standards of weird need some adjustment,” Corin said.

Arthur opened his mouth to respond to this one but realised that she actually had a point. Corin took advantage of the opening this created in the conversation to press onward.

“And, hey, remember, part of the point of the expedition was to make friends. You have a friend beating down your door! Figuratively speaking. You literally signed up for this,” she said.

Again, she had a point. That had literally been part of the signup clause, that of assisting humanity in making friends if the expedition happened to find any. Well, these were by far the friendliest friends they’d found so-far, so if it had to happen anywhere it might as well be here, Arthur supposed.

And while it was undeniable that the locals weren’t human it was equally undeniable that they were people.

Arthur was not in the business of thinking too deeply on these sorts of quandaries (he tended to think in straight lines with definite start and end points and then never move from the end point once he’d got there) but that certainly seemed a very important distinction to him. A horse couldn’t talk back to you, Baker’s Dozen could.

She could also smile, which served as a further point of difference, at least to Arthur. And bake. And ask nicely to try some of your lunch and then say thank you afterwards. And care about your wellbeing despite not knowing you personally. A lot of points of difference, really. They were rather starting to pile up, Arthur noticed.

He could almost feel his resolve weakening.

“She does seem nice…” He conceded.

“That’s the spirit! Take a punt! Go for it!” Corin said, triumph flooding her from top to bottom.

“I don’t know what that means,” Arthur said.

“Well, etymologically speaking ‘taking a punt’ means-” Corin started, smartarse that she was, but Arthur cut her off:

“No, I know what it means, I just don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Maybe just try talking to her. Properly, I mean. Try and make a date of it or something. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She could get to know me and she could realise what a horrible mistake she’s made in approaching me in the first place,” Arthur said. In his experience this was typically the way things happened. Corin winced.

“Yeesh, even I wouldn’t go that far. Cut yourself some slack, Arthur, you’re not that bad. Besides, it might work out, it might not - if you go out of your way to shut her off that’ll just make both of you miserable and neither of you will know either way. Do it, see what happens, maybe have fun, maybe not, keep on going anyway. Life continues. Mean, once we’re done with this they’ll probably move us along somewhere else anyway, right?”

Arthur hadn’t thought of that, at least not in detail. The possibility of what the expedition might have him do next was always looming, but it was nebulous - maybe they’d keep him on this level for the next phase of this power thing, maybe they’d take him along to some other one where they needed something doing.

If the worst came to the worst and Baker’s Dozen did get to know him and find him as repugnant an individual as he was certain he was, then all he had to do was keep his head down, forget it, and before too long he’d be somewhere where it wouldn’t matter anyway.

That wouldn’t be so bad.

“Right,” he said, eventually, nodding slowly and more to himself than to Corin, taking up his fork once more.

#6

Author's Note

None of this is really about anything, really.

6

The next day, in contrast to most previous days, Arthur actually had something he had to do which wasn’t ticking off a list or overseeing other people doing other things. He himself had to physically clamber down into a hole that the ponies had dug to physically fiddle around with some of the equipment that ATC had helped set down there.

Honestly, he was happy to have something to occupy himself.

With the top part of his boilersuit unzipped and its sleeves tied about his waist he squatted in the hole, poking and prodding and fiddling. The device he was squatting over was proving recalcitrant in a way that was presenting no immediately obvious solutions. Which is to say it was not working, but why it wasn’t working was unclear.

It was such a puzzle that Arthur had had ATC dismiss the ponies for the day, seeing as how it wasn’t much use them just standing around waiting for him if he had no idea how long he was going to take. That had left just ATC’s various bodies stood around and Arthur, squatting and sweating.

He’d been at it for hours now and was so engrossed that the sound of voices just above the lip of the hole barely registered.

“He’s where?” Said one voice, the owner of which was obviously Baker’s Dozen.

“In the hole,” said the other, being ATC.

“Why’s he in the hole?”

“He’s doing his job. In the hole.”

“Oh. Should I not interrupt him?”

“He’s been doing his job - in the hole - for a long time now. I was about to tell him he was required to have a break, actually, so you showed up in the nick of time.”

“I did?”

“You did indeed. Go stick your head in the hole or over the hole or somewhere near the hole and tell him he needs to have a break as per regulations. He’ll love it.”

“What? Me violating his hole or him having to take a break?”

“Heh, I like you. Guess you’ll find out.”

A few seconds later a shadow fell across Arthur, but he just thought it was a cloud.

“Hey,” said a pleasant voice from above but he was too deeply engaged to really notice, mouthing to himself instead and frowning at something exposed and complicated. He stared at it a little more, sighed, and then closed the hatch and leant back, mopping his brow.

And when he looked up he found Baker’s Dozen there. That made him jump.

“Ah!” He said, flinching and flattening against the side of the hole.

“Sorry!”

“No, no, it’s fine. Miles away. Hello,” he said, squinting up.

There was something rather striking in having her stood there, peering down at him, haloed by the sun. He wasn’t sure what to say. Baker’s Dozen didn’t seem sure either, nudging the lip of the hole with a hoof for a moment or two.

“It’s kind of neat being the one who has to look down for a change,” she said.

“Uh...yes,” Arthur said, still not sure what to say.

“Too intimidated to speak?” Baker’s Dozen asked, standing up straighter and striking what, for a pony, probably passed as an imposing stance. The height and the lighting helped, but it was still more cute than daunting.

“Terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought,” Arthur said. It got a giggle out of her, which made Arthur feel better and so he stood up. This still left him the shorter of the two right then, even if only by a few inches now.

“Your, um, metal friend says you need to take a break,” Barker’s Dozen said, gesturing behind her to the nearest one of ATC’s bodies.

The body in question was standing well-within eavesdropping range and doing a very poor job of looking casual, having hooked its thumbs into some part of its frame (mounting brackets, Arthur assumed), rocking on its heels and also whistling while pretending to watch birds.

“Did it?” Arthur asked, and Baker’s Dozen nodded.

Arthur waved the body over, not buying ATC’s mock-surprise for a moment.

“You wanted something?” ATC asked once it had mosied on over.

“I need to take a break?”

“Can’t really speak to whether you need to, but you’ve been working long enough that you should,” ATC said.

“Is this a regulation or another guideline?” Arthur asked.

“Can’t exactly force you to take a break, though really you should have one. That said you’re the boss, Arthur, you can do what you like. Just saying, break wouldn’t hurt.”

Arthur gestured back down into his hole. Baker’s Dozen watched from the sidelines without a shred of comprehension.

“I need to sort this out. If I don’t we might lose a day,” Arthur said.

“We’re already ahead of schedule,” ATC pointed out.

“I’d like to keep it like that. Already ate my lunch down here anyway.”

ATC shrugged, folding.

“If you’re sure, Arthur. You’re the boss,” it said.

The body wandered off again, further away this time. Not out of earshot (it had pretty powerful ears) but far enough that it was a less intrusive presence than it had been. Arthur returned his attention to Baker’s Dozen.

“Busy day?” She asked, having kind of got the drift of the conversation. Arthur nodded.

“Unfortunately. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. Better luck tomorrow, I guess?” She said, doing a fine job hiding her disappointment, turning and going. Arthur watched her for maybe a second, swallowed, and then was seized some strange force that just seemed to grab him by the scruff of the neck and compel him to pipe up:

“Hey,” he said, going for breezy and casual and confident and coming out more like he was coughing. Still got her attention though. Ears pricked, she turned, looking at him expectantly.

Whatever mysterious energy had driven him to speak promptly evaporated, leaving him fumbling for what to say next.

“Um…” he said, rooted to the spot and blank in the head. “Um. Would you - I’ll probably finish in, uh, a few hours. Would you...you know…maybe like to...food...after…?”

With every word he could almost feel those big, big eyes of hers on him driving his ability to speak further and further out of his reach.

“Are you asking me out to dinner?” She asked, tail swishing. Arthur swallowed.

“Um. Uh. Just f-for food. After.”

“I’d love to!”

She was beaming, and Arthur found himself smiling too, if only out of sheer nervous relief.

“Good. I mean, ah, thank you. I can come to you, uh, after...or…”

There were numerous holes in this plan he was desperately weaving as he went along, and it was unravelling almost as fast as it was coming together. Fortunately, Baker’s Dozen stepped in:

“Well, I might finish before you or you might finish before me, so how about we meet somewhere first? I know a place - do you have something I could write with?”

He did, and proffered a marker he carried around for special occasions.

“Fhanks,” she said around a mouthful of pen, reaching out with a hoof to take his wrist and pull his hand within scribbling range so she could quickly write out the name of wherever it was she had in mind on the back of it. Arthur let this happen.

Given that she’d written using her mouth, her penmanship (penponyship?) was remarkably clear.

“Sorry, did you need that hand?” She asked, fumbling to put the cap back on the pen and only now thinking that maybe she should have asked before doing what she’d just done.

“No. Well, yes. It’s just that your writing is very good,” Arthur said. He hadn’t minded.

“Thanks,” she said again, not quite so muffled this time, handing him the pen back. He took it, then remembered that it had been in her mouth. It was kind of hard not to notice this. “Sorry,” Baker’s Dozen said sheepishly.

“It’s okay,” Arthur said, wiping the pen off and tucking it away again. Worse things had happened, and he’d had to wipe worse fluids off of things in the past.

A pause.

“Well. I’ll see you later then? Do you know where that is?” Baker’s Dozen asked, nodding to his hand. Arthur looked down briefly. He had no idea where anything in Canterlot was, obviously, but this was hardly an obstacle.

“I can find it,” he said.

“Good, cool, great. Well...see you later, then!” Baker’s Dozen repeated, smiling ear-to-ear, giving a waving and trotting gaily off. Arthur watched her until she’d disappeared around a corner, somewhat dumbfounded. Once she was out of sight he looked back at his hand again.

ATC took the opportunity to sidle over once more.

“Smooth moves there, Arthur,” it said.

Arthur continued standing in his hole, silent and shellshocked, staring at what she’d written, for a few seconds longer before finally blinking and turning to ATC.

“That was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” he said.

“Didn’t you have to dig yourself out of a collapsed building once?” ATC asked, even though it knew the answer. The answer was yes.

“Yes,” said Arthur.

Had ATC’s body possessed eyes in the conventional sense it would have used them then to look at Arthur sideways. In the event, it just leaned away from him a little bit.

“Well I guess everyone’s different. Still! Good for you, Arthur!” It said, reaching down to gingerly give Arthur a pat on the back. Arthur was standing utterly rigid now, staring intently into middle-distance. This ATC noticed. “You alright there?” It asked.

“I have no idea what to do,” said Arthur.

“What, in life or…?”

“Meeting with her, later. I have no idea what to do. About any of it.”

“Food is involved so I’d assume that going somewhere that sells food would be a start, then you go there, buy food, eat food together, talk and that’s probably about the long and the short of it,” ATC said, not wanting to come off too condescending but really not sure how else to break down the concept of just having some food with someone.

Arthur was nodding to himself again.

“I can find somewhere. Buying food, can do that. Talking. That’ll be difficult. How do I do that?”

Even an operationally-limited Governing Intelligence like ATC (which wasn’t really intended for a whole lot beyond helping out Arthur and Corin) knew enough about humans and interpersonal interaction to be a veritable font of useful information. Not that ATC felt comfortable about this.

“Governing Intelligence’s aren’t really in the business of giving out romantic advi-” it started to say, only for it to have picked quite the wrong word and so have Arthur cutting in:

“Not romantic, not romantic,” he said quickly, maybe a touch too quickly. He coughed and carried on so it didn’t seem a big deal. “I mean, maybe. Maybe? I don’t know. Just - just how to talk to someone. Normally. You know? So they don’t think you’re, uh - so they want to keep talking to you.”

Hard to tell with Arthur, but ATC could see that he was plainly bricking it with nervousness. But then ATC could read (and was reading, constantly, along with Corin’s) Arthur’s biometrics, so that was kind of cheating, really.

“I’m going to be completely honest with you here, Arthur, but while I’ve got reams of ‘information’ on this I can tell you from experience that experience is mainly what you’re going to have to be relying on. Which in your case is going to have to be experience that you’re gaining as you’re going. Talk, let her talk back, listen to what she says and then say something in response that’s related that you think she might enjoy hearing, just let it go where it goes,” ATC said, gesticulating vaguely. Arthur blinked at it.

“That doesn’t help me,” he said.

“Hey look, if nothing else she’s the one who keeps coming back to see you, so there’s that. Clearly she wants to spend time with you, so just don’t worry about it, try to relax and concentrate on making sure that the both of you have a nice time.”

“I’m just worried I’ll do something wrong. She’s really nice. I don’t know why she’s so nice but she’s really nice. Corin says they’re all like that - are they all like that?” Arthur asked.

“The locals are alright. They’re not human, but they’re alright,” ATC said, shrugging, scratching its head even though it had absolutely no need to do this. Arthur found the answer rather strange.

“Does them not being human matter?” He asked. He’d rather got over it himself, but he’d also never really seen them not being human as an obstacle to them being nice. He’d never given it a lot of thought, true, but what little thought he’d given it hadn’t seen it as an issue.

ATC shrugged again.

“To you? Depends on you. To me? Yes. But I’m me and you’re you, so you do you,” it said.

“...okay.”

“And in this instance it’s a particular kind of nice focussed wholly on you. So, like I said, try not to worry so much. Just listen, talk, listen. And don’t overthink things. Have fun. You’ll be fine, Arthur. This will be good for you. You’ll be fulfilling the mandate of the expedition.”

He did keep forgetting that, probably because he’d spent so much of the expedition avoiding anyone it was possible for him to avoid, human or otherwise.

But if he thought about it that way - that by doing this he was basically just acting in accordance with the standing orders and overall purpose of the expedition - Arthur found it easier, weirdly, and far less gut-twisting than he did when he thought he was simply doing it because it was something he wanted to do. Because he did want to do it..

He didn’t dwell on the why of any of that.

“Alright. Okay,” he said instead, squatting down again and getting back to work, doing his best to concentrate and his best also not to think about what might happen later.

#7

Author's Note

And we're done.

7

In the end, fixing the problem took less time than Arthur had expected, but more than he might have liked. Which is a clumsy way of saying he figured it out and sorted it out in roughly enough time to finish when he normally did. Something about that was deeply unsatisfying.

Still, could have been much worse. The day was pleasant and bright, the afternoon was toddling towards the evening and he had an appointment to keep. Zipping up his boilersuit and casting a last glance around to make sure everything was in place for tomorrow (it was) he set off into Canterlot proper for the first time in his life.

Arthur knew where the place he was going was because he’d asked ATC where it was, and ATC knew where just about everything was, at least in Canterlot. Actually finding it was slightly harder and involved some wandering around and a mild dose of getting lost, but only a mild dose.

That Baker’s Dozen was sat in the window of where she’d said she’d be waiting helped, as it meant that when he wandered past and glanced in the right direction she spotted him instantly and leapt up, waving energetically. That made it (and her) a bit easier to find.

He approached, and she met him outside.

“You weren’t as long as I thought you’d be!” She said, trotting up happily.

“Finished sooner,” Arthur said, shrugging.

Put kind of a hitch in the conversation, but Baker’s Dozen was getting pretty good at pushing through them, she felt, getting a better handle on how to actually talk to Arthur.

“Soooo...where’d you wanna go?” She asked.

“Anywhere is good.”

The most unhelpful possible answer when trying to work out where to go to eat, close companion of ‘I don’t mind’ and about as infuriating. Baker’s Dozen took it in her stride, rubbing her chin thoughtfully and looking at him appraisingly.

“I don’t think anywhere will have your, uh, paste? I’m not sure how to describe your lunch,” she said in a calculated probe to test Arthur’s sense of humour and make sure he actually had one and all previous indications hadn’t just been flukes. Luckily for her he did, and she seemed to have fairly direct access to it. He even chuckled, albeit briefly.

“I’ll survive. Can I tell you a secret?” He said.

This was new! Baker’s Dozen was delighted!

“Ooh, a secret! Definitely.”

“I don’t actually like the, uh, paste all that much. It’s just easier.”

One less thing to worry about in a day. Baker’s Dozen pouted at him.

“Easier’s no fun!” She said.

“Is fun good? For eating?” Arthur asked. The thought had honestly never crossed his mind.

“Well it’s better to have fun than not to, isn’t it?” Baker’s Dozen asked.

Arthur wondered whether this was a trick question. He’d always thought the point of eating was to stop being hungry, but then again his experience was limited, so who knew? He then wondered whether he was overthinking it, and so just decided to give what he hoped was the correct answer:

“...yes.”

Seemed to work.

“Right! So, hmm, let’s see…” Baker’s Dozen said, rubbing her chin some more and peering into the distance as she tried to visualise the many and varied options they had available. Canterlot was nothing if not a hip and happening place packed to the gunwales with options.

Maybe too many options.

“Uh...oh! I know. Well, maybe. You might like it. It’s fun! And not far.”

Arthur practically crackled with trepidation but followed alongside as she led the way. They didn’t talk a whole lot as they went - or at all really, in fact - but it wasn’t actually as awkward as Arthur had dreaded it might be. It was less that they weren’t talking, more that they just weren’t talking yet, and were both waiting until they were somewhere quieter and more private.

The occasional swapped smile as they went along also helped. Neither could quite believe it was happening as easily as it was, albeit not believing it for slightly different reasons. Good reasons though, on the whole. The kind good reasons that put a flutter in your step.

Some minutes later they got to where Baker’s Dozen had had in mind. Somewhere with a lot of red and white stripes. It looked garish. Arthur supposed that was a way of marking the place as ‘fun’, much as other stripes might mark an animal as poisonous.

“Here we go! Unless you want to go somewhere else?” Baker’s Dozen asked. Arthur shook his head. He was sure she knew what she was doing, certainly better than he would.

“Here is good,” he said.

And so they went in.

Humans were a lot thinner on the ground now than they had been, but weren’t so outlandish that having one wander in accompanying a pony was any real cause to stop and stare. After all, it was widely known that some were still around and about doing something.

That said, it wasn’t every day one showed up, so it was Arthur who got most of the attention from the waitress who came bounding up to greet them.

“Hi there! Gosh, you’re a tall one!” She said, leaning back and making a magnificent show of shielding her eyes to peer up at the lofty heights of his face. Unsure whether this was a joke or an honest observation Arthur floundered.

“Yes,” he said.

“What can I do for you? Here to eat?” The waitress asked without missing a beat.

Seemed kind of obvious to Arthur, but he was far outside his comfort zone. Perhaps this was restaurant humour? Perhaps it was grade-A restaurant humour and he was engaged in a horrendous faux pas by not bursting into laughter immediately?

Or maybe he was overthinking again. He never usually had this problem.

“Um, two. Please,” he said, holding up two fingers in just to be clear.

“Table for two? Sure thing! Right this way,” the waitress chirped, grabbing two menus in her mouth and gaily clip-clopping off through the tables to the one she apparently felt suited the two of them best. Arthur followed dumbly, and Baker’s Dozen kept pace beside.

“You haven’t been to eat out in a while, have you?” She hissed up at him.

“Ever, uh, actually,” he said and she swung and hip and bumped into his side.

“I think you’re doing very well,” she said.

He doubted this, but it was nice that she felt the need to say it. Certainly made him feel better. She usually made him feel better, come to think of it, whenever she showed up. Odd thing to realise and gave him something of a jolt, but it was true.

The waitress led them to what turned out to be a booth of sorts, right in the back. Why she did this was unclear given that the place was basically empty, but she did, setting the menus down, briefly taking a drinks order (water for Arthur, something more interesting than water for Baker’s Dozen) and then trotting off to give them some time to browse what was on offer.

“Cosy, isn’t it?” Baker’s Dozen asked, quite snug in the booth, menu laid out in front of her. Arthur nodded. He found that the sheer amount of stuff nailed to the walls was kind of a bit much, but assumed that was an intentional aesthetic choice. And the booth was at least comfy. Kind of horseshoe-shaped, appropriately.

The menu though was a daunting and overwhelming array of options that he had no context for. He looked and just saw a lot of stuff. He had no idea where he was even meant to start. Starters? Would make sense, but they all looked so daunting. And why was there something before the starters? Shouldn’t those be the starters?

He dreaded doing something wrong.

In the end, when the waitress returned and the time came to make a decision, he just decided to forfeit responsibility:

“I’ll have what she’s having,” he said, Baker’s Dozen having ordered first.

Again, easier.

“You know…” Baker’s Dozen said once the waitress had disappeared, taking their menus and their orders with her. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you what it is you’re actually doing. With all the holes in the ground, I mean, and all the...stuff…”

She wasn’t sure how best to describe all of the equipment she always saw him standing around and frowning at. It looked expensive, whatever it was. And big and shiny and exotic.

“Oh, um, well…” Arthur said, wrongfooted.

He then gave a rather faltering, laconic run-down of what he was doing. He didn’t know the full extent of whatever various agreements the expedition had made with the locals so he stuck to just outlining the bit about wireless power, what he was personally doing and also bringing up Corin and her efforts to better explain the practical, day-to-day side of things.

Baker’s Dozen hung on his every word (not that there were many) and her earnest attention made Arthur’s face heat up alarmingly.

He wrapped up pretty quickly as a result.

“So yeah. That. It’s good to help. I hope it helps,” he said, looking at his hands laid flat on the table.

“I’m sure it will. It sounds exciting! I’ll have to, uh, see if I can find one of those things your friend runs!” Baker’s Dozen said.

Corin was more a colleague than a friend, but Arthur wasn’t going to correct her.

Baker’s Dozen, on something of a roll, continued:

“I heard that humans went to lots of places before they got here, do you do that everywhere you go? Set things up for who you meet? To help them out?”

Not that she had a full grasp of it but, from what he’d said, she had to say she quite liked the idea. Imagine just setting off to whole other worlds to meet new friends and help them out! If that’s what it was, well, that did sound super.

Arthur assumed that with this question she meant humanity in general rather than him personally.

“Not everywhere. Some places we try not to stay in too long,” he said.

“Oh? Why’s that? I heard it was dangerous, but that’s just a rumour, really,” Baker’s Dozen said breezily, as one might say something you don’t really believe and are just passing on.

It was the sort of thing you heard from somepony who heard from somepony who swore they’d overheard somepony else talking about what they’d learnt from this or that human who’d come in that one time and said that one thing. Baker’s Dozen didn’t believe any part of it individually, but all of it did kind of add up to a vague picture she’d built in her head.

“It is dangerous,” Arthur said, nodding.

She hadn’t actually expected him to say that. Kind of expected those parts of those rumours to just be hyperbole - playing up the exotic and dangerous places that humans apparently came through on their way to here (and then beyond). Maybe they still were?

“Not, uh - not too dangerous though, right?” She asked.

“Sometimes. Better than home though, I think,” Arthur said.

This was a fantastic opportunity to change the subject.

“What’s your home like?” She asked.

Home was improving, honestly, but it really wasn’t something Arthur wanted to get into. He already felt like he’d talked about himself too much. He much preferred the sound of Baker’s Dozen’s voice over his.

“It’s fine. Haven’t been there in a while. Uh, I’d really - I’d much rather hear about you, though. And this place. I’ve been here a while but I haven’t...done much. Or been anywhere. Or talked to anyone…”

“You’re talking to me,” Baker’s Dozen pointed out.

Arthur couldn’t really deny this and gave her something of a lopsided smile across the table. She smiled back. A thoroughly encouraging sight to see.

“You’re the first,” he said.

“Have to start somewhere. But me? I’m not that interesting…” Baker’s Dozen said, digging at a knot in the wood of the table with her hoof, unsure how exactly the life of somepony who made cakes was meant to compare to someone from a whole other universe.

Wrongly, really.

Typically, everyone thought they weren’t that interesting. It was how things went. Whatever you did was familiar and the familiar isn’t interesting. Everyone was interesting to someone else, but fairly certain they themselves weren’t. Someone who is confident that they are interesting is rather like that person at the party who is confident they’re the only sober one.

But that’s by-the-by.

“I’m interested in you. I mean, I’m interested. I’ve never met a baker before,” Arthur said, biting his tongue briefly.

This was true though, what he’d said. Both parts.

“Not many human bakers?” Baker’s Dozen asked, looking up from the knot to see Arthur nodding again.

“Human bakers are exotic,” he said, which got a giggle out of her, which was, as it had been the last time it had happened, delightful.

Human bakers actually were rather exotic back home. There were a lot less of them now than there used to be. There was a lot less of everybody now than there used to be, according to what he’d heard, but Arthur didn’t feel like mentioning that.

“Well, if you’re sure. But stop me if I get boring!” Baker’s Dozen warned, pointing at him very seriously indeed.

“I will,” Arthur said.

He did not stop her, because as far as he was concerned she did not get boring. While what she described (basically her early life, what led her to come to Canterlot and what an average day for her was) came across as very tedious and low-key to her, to Arthur it was so alien to his own experiences as to be utterly fascinating.

As one of the many people who’d signed up for the expedition specifically to get away from home, the idea of explicitly moving from one place to another place entirely and only because you wanted to be in the place you were moving to was unusual. Not incomprehensible, just rare back home where there just wasn’t a lot of cause for it to happen.

Arthur had spent most of his youth moving away from things (sometimes at great speed, typically because being slow would have resulted in death). Picking something to go towards had never really been an option. It had been about leaving things behind. Baker’s Dozen had wanted to be in a certain place, doing a certain thing. So she’d done that, and was still doing that. And Arthur was amazed. He doubted he could ever have done that, even if he’d been able to.

And, really, the way she stopped being so self-conscious when she talked about her job was a delight, too. The obvious passion, coupled with her knowing what it was she was talking about top-to-bottom. Someone in love with their work and in full flow of explaining why. At least until she noticed him staring intently, at which point she went bright red and sputtered to a halt in embarrassment for having got so carried away.

He felt bad about that. Shouldn’t have been staring so hard.

Food arrived. There was an alarming amount of it as apparently it was standard operating procedures here to bring out all courses barring dessert all at once, and most of the table was hidden from view. Arthur was, appropriately enough, alarmed.

“I think the portions got bigger…” Baker’s Dozen said, fairly certain that the last time she’d been here what she’d ordered hadn’t amounted to this much. Then again, it had been a while ago.

“Wow,” Arthur said, at a loss.

“Uh...dig in!” Baker’s Dozen said, doing so herself.

Being as how he was human they’d brought cutlery with Arthur’s meal (something they’d learnt) so if nothing else he wasn’t going to have to eat with his hands, which was something. For a second or so he just watched Baker’s Dozen happily eating in the most direct way possible.

A strange thing to do, perhaps, but there was just something so delightfully unreserved in it. Suggested she felt comfortable around him, he felt. Not that he could guess why.

He then looked at his own (considerable) amount of food. It had been so long since he’d had such a meal he couldn’t for a moment or two remember how you were even supposed to go about it. He started at the left and worked his way right. It just seemed the thing to do.

“Better than the paste?” Baker’s Dozen asked once he and she both had cleared enough out of the way to be able to more easily see one another across the table.

Using his experience with Corin, Arthur guessed that this was a joke at his expense.

“Oh. Much,” he said.

“Told you!” She said gleefully, immediately getting stuck back in.

Arthur had to admit that she was very cute. The locals were all cute by default, of course, even he could see that, but Baker’s Dozen was another level of cute on top of that. And not just because of the big, arresting eyes and swishy tail and all that. It was in the way she was, and how she spoke, and what she spoke about, and what she did. It was her that was cute. And nice. And quite lovely.

He was staring again and didn’t know why, and this annoyed him. He concentrated on his food.

In defiance of moderation and against all good sense the pair of them managed to finish off every single they’d ordered. Though not without cost.

“That was significant,” Arthur said, leaning back in the booth and wincing, a hand on his belly. Baker’s Dozen did the same, though while looking more comically rotund than Arthur did.

“You’re telling me,” she said, only to rock forward and add with a grin: “Hope you left room for dessert!”

Arthur winced even more. Even the mere suggestion was uncomfortable.

“If the dessert portions are anything like the other portions we might not be walking out. Might need a wheelbarrow,” Arthur said in an unusual moment of levity. Being stuffed near to bursting did that to people. It got harder to stay reserved.

The line about the wheelbarrow got another giggle out of Baker’s Dozen, too.

“We could share one. A dessert I mean, not a wheelbarrow. Ooh, how about sharing an ice cream! I think you’d like it. Ice cream is kind of like a paste. Only better, really. In every way.”

Arthur, weighed down by food so not really able to respond with his whole body, rolled his eyes over to her.

“You’re really not letting the paste go, are you?” He asked and she hid her face behind the dessert menu she’d tortuously leant up to grab.

“Sorry! It’s just the more I think back to it the worse it gets! Just the texture and the, well, I’d say flavour but that bit was missing. You really eat that every day?” She asked, with what sounded like genuine concern.

Arthur actually laughed, and not just because he assumed he was supposed to. It just crept up on him. He didn’t even know why.

“Kind of feel like I should maybe broaden my horizons a bit, now,” he said.

Baker’s Dozen lowered the menu and waved a hoof at him.

“Good! I think that’s good. Even if you never want to see me again after this I can at least be happy knowing that you’re having something better for lunch, even a little bit better. I can live with that. I’ll sleep better!” She said, grinning, but Arthur was looking at her oddly.

“Why wouldn’t I want to see you after this?” He asked.

That brought her up short.

“Uh, oh, well, you know, I just...didn’t wanna...assume…”

She trailed off into mumbles, but this still didn’t really answer anything for Arthur.

“Aren’t you having a good time?” He asked, worry uncoiling in his gut. No matter how full of food someone might be, there was always room for uncoiling worry. Baker’s Dozen sat bolt upright, despite the belly.

“No! I mean, yes, I am! Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Good! Good then. That’s good. Um, ice cream. Yes. Uh, guessing you don’t know what sort you’d like?” She asked, getting things back on track, browsing the menu again.

“Whatever your cake was. That flavour. If that comes as ice cream. Does it come as ice cream?” Arthur asked, realising almost as soon as he’d said it what a dumb question it was.

Chocolate ice cream was known to exist, after all.

“I think it can be arranged…” Baker’s Dozen said, grinning at him.

When the waitress returned to collect plates and ask how great everything had been, an order was placed for one ice cream and two spoons. Not long after this, the ice cream arrived.

The Earth Pony approach to eating ice cream was, as with most other Earth Pony approaches to eating, direct, and not especially conducive to sharing. Baker’s Dozen knew this, which was why she was fumbling about trying to use a spoon. She could use one if she had to, she knew, she just hadn’t had to for a while and was severely out of practise.

Which was why she dropped it.

“Fiddlesticks,” she said, trying with limited success to pick it back up from the table again. Arthur, watching this, took up his own spoon with the kind of ease that only truly came from having hands, scooped up some ice cream and then leant across the table towards her, proffering it.

He didn’t have to lean very far for this, incidentally, as at some point while waiting for dessert to arrive Baker’s Dozen had shifted further around the booth so she was closer to him. Useful, as it turned out.

“Time to put that practise with the paste to good use,” Arthur said, holding the spoon towards her.

“See? You’re making jokes about it now, too!” She said, moving in and opening her mouth.

Arthur’s spoon-hand then ‘slipped’ and a good amount of the ice cream that he’d had on the spoon somehow ended up on the tip of Baker’s Dozen’s nose. She did not look impressed.

“You did that on purpose,” she said.

“Not true at all,” Arthur said.

It was true, but Arthur’s poker face was such that for a split-second she actually believed him.

“And here was me thinking you didn’t know how to have fun…” she said, eyeing him closely as she went in for a second try. This time she actually got it, sitting back after to wipe her nose with a napkin while Arthur purloined her dropped spoon for his own use. He dual-wielded the things and continued doling out ice cream to her then to himself by turns, and in this way they whittled it down to nothing.

Worked rather well, all things considered.

“Better than-” Baker’s Dozen started, but Arthur, thoroughly comfortable with her now and dangerously close to enjoying himself openly, saw where this was going and cut her off:

“We’re past the paste now, thank you.”

She stuck her tongue out.

“Spoilsport.”

Dessert was then cleared away and, a moment later, the bill brought over. Both of them reached for it, but Arthur was the one who got there first.

“I’ll get this,” he said.

“No it’s okay, really,” Baker’s Dozen said, trying to swipe it from him and failing, feeling that (somehow) this whole thing had been her idea even though it hadn’t been, really.

“I have a stipend. Haven’t used it for anything. Might as well. Thank you for the cake.”

Arthur had been carrying around a bag of incongruously big golden coins for the entire duration of his time in Equestria (as the expedition guidelines stipulated he should) and had not once spent a single one of them. He was just like that.

“We could split it?” Baker’s Dozen ventured.

“No, honestly. I have nothing else to do with the money,” Arthur said. This actually was true. Baker’s Dozen did her best not to pout, so the pout that did slip out was only a small one.

“If you’re sure,” she said, though she herself was plainly unsure. To compensate she said: “I’ll get the next one!”

“If you insist,” Arthur said.

“I do!”

That was that settled, then.

The bill was paid, the eternally-chirpy waitress tipped (quite handsomely - Arthur really did have nothing else to do with that money) and Arthur and Baker’s Dozen then waddled out into the cooler sunshine of the evening.

“That was nice,” Arthur said once back outside. Unclear who he was saying it to, but he said it anyway. Baker’s Dozen beamed up at him.

“It was,” she said.

“I have a question though,” Arthur said as a follow up, which dimmed her beam somewhat.

“Oh?”

“Why did you come and talk to me the other day? And bring - make, even - the cake? I know you said it was because I looked sad but I can’t be the only sad-looking person you’ve seen. Do you spend a lot of time giving out cake?” He asked.

This had been nagging at him, and while in his head a voice was yelling the obvious answer at him (in the voice of Corin, appropriately enough) he felt that he should really up and ask. It had just been a question of building up the courage to do so, and it had taken a huge meal and a few jokes to get to that point.

Baker’s Dozen was caught off-guard. He’d got her there.

“Not...a lot of time…” She said, falteringly.

“Why me, then?” Arthur pressed.

Baker’s Dozen thought about this a second. She’d thought about it at greater length on her own before, in her quiet moments, but hadn’t thought about what to say to him and now, put on the spot, she wasn’t sure how best to sum up her motivations.

In the end she went with:

“You have a kind face.”

Which left Arthur completely baffled.

“I do?” He asked.

“Well I think so,” Baker’s Dozen said, shrugging, sheepish.

A very awkward pause, here, as Arthur’s brain struggled to make sense of this and Baker’s Dozen just felt very exposed. Arthur cleared his throat.

“You...too...also...have a kind...face…” he said, every word a Herculean effort. “And are also nice. And pick nice places to eat. Good cake too. Thank you.” He added in a blurt afterwards, a packet of thoughts rushing to catch up with the rest and coming in just under the wire - the conversational equivalent of a bold archeologist sliding in underneath the descending stone door.

Or something like that.

Baker’s Dozen felt considerably less exposed and embarrassed thanks to his well-meaning, bungled mess of an answer and smiled up at him, head held a little at an angle.

“Are you going to keep thanking me for that forever?” She asked.

“Yes,” Arthur said bluntly, which made her laugh.

“Guess I can’t complain,” she said, then gesturing for him to come closer. He wasn’t sure how to do this, really, so just clumsily sunk down onto one knee in the middle of the street, wondering what it was she might have in mind.

A hug, as it turns out.

She stood up on her back legs the better to wrap her front ones around him (and even then not getting all the way around) and gave him a squeeze. Arthur was frozen completely rock-solid by this and did not hug back, but she wasn’t hugely surprised.

It only lasted a moment or two anyway.

“So, see you tomorrow maybe?” She asked once it had broken and she’d stepped away again.

“Yes,” Arthur said.

“Maybe - if you can remember where you met me - you can come meet me for lunch? I usually got there, usually around the same time you have yours,” she said, not-so-subtly nudging him in a particular direction. Arthur picked up on this.

“Yes. Definitely,” he said.

Again she smiled. Oh, the smile. Arthur was getting quite reliant on it.

“Great. See you tomorrow, then,” she said.

And off she went. Arthur, rising to standing, watched her go, waving when she paused to turn and wave on a corner before disappearing off wherever it was she was going, leaving Arthur stood with his hand still mid-wave, utterly at a loss.

Some seconds later he lowered his hand and fished about in the pockets of his boilersuit for his small, pen-shaped terminal, bringing it up and pressing a button on it.

“ATC?” He asked.

“Yes Arthur?” Came the reply, thin and tinny from the tiny little device.

“...do I have a kind face?” Arthur asked.

“Oh, the kindest!” ATC replied without hesitation.

Not that Arthur had expected a negative answer, really, but still. He pocketed the terminal again, looked up and down the street and then headed in a direction opposite to the crawler, feeling in the mood to go for a wander.

It wasn’t so bad here, really.