TCB: Rails and Dreams

Encounters of the Large Dragon Kind
Berry Pony

The days were growing shorter, the nights were getting cooler and the leaves were changing color. It would soon be time for the annual Running of the Leaves. Bottlecap spent a lot of time in her garden collecting the last of the summer crop. Her kitchen smelled wonderful as vegetables simmered before being canned for the winter.

I was busier than ever. Mike and Ashley were merely the first of the humans to visit. In the following weeks, more humans came through Ponyville, guided by a pony tour guide. They often stopped at Barnyard Bargins for a souvenir. While the other ponies became more accustomed to humans, I found myself most often the pony that dealt with them as they came into the store. At least, I had more bits jingling at the bottom of my saddlebags - Filthy Rich increased my paycheck.

Written Dreams and I continued our studies at Colophon's bookstore. Written was getting quite good at things like threading a needle while I was still bumping needle and thread together. I, on the other hand, was getting better at manipulating heavier items. Magic was unique to every unicorn - each of us would be better at some things than others.

Windstorm, Written Dreams' coltfriend, would attend these sessions, finding a quiet corner of the bookstore to nap in during the lesson and waking to escort Written Dreams home. After a while, they began to walk me home to the hayfarm, sparing Baritone from having to come to fetch me.

On a cold and clear evening, shortly before the annual Running of the Leaves, we had left Colophon's bookstore and were walking northwards. "Windstorm," I asked, "do you keep track of dragon sightings? In the weather patrol, I mean."

Windstorm, who had been walking ahead of me, stopped to look at me. "Yeah, we do. All dragon sightings are to be reported. Each day, areas of known dragon sightings are indicated on our flight plans and are declared a no-fly zone. Last thing we want to do is get a dragon angry at ponies."

Written Dreams beamed at her coltfriend. "Oh, sounds dangerous."

He grinned and began to walk again. "Not really. I have nothing to do with verifying dragon sightings."

We crossed the railroad tracks. The rails were shining in the moonlight but the station was dark and silent.

"The humans - the first ones I met in Ponyville - mentioned rumors of a dragon near the Everfree Forest. Any truth to that rumor?" I asked.

"The dragon was seen in the north end of the Everfree Forest," Windstorm recalled. "Close to the far north end of Froggy Bottom Bog. I wouldn't worry about it. It's a fair distance away from Ponyville. It probably won't come here."

The lights of Baritone and Bottlecap's farmhouse stood ahead of us. I thanked Windstorm and Written Dreams for escorting me and galloped home.

"Cherry," Bottlecap greeted me as she opened the door, "how'd your lesson go?"

"Fine," I replied.

"There's a package waiting for you in the parlor. It's all the way from Earth."

"Oh really? I've been waiting for it a long time." I dropped my saddlebags in the corner and went to take a look.

The package was about 16 inches by 12 inches (40 cm by 30 cm) and thick. It was wrapped with battered brown paper and tied with a string. The address label was marked and stamped with the various postal agencies trying to forward the package to the right address. Corners of the package had been ripped and torn. From the look of the package - anything fragile would have been beaten to worthless fragments.

I bit at the string. I tried to untie the knots. I pulled on the string. All to no avail. Finally, I went into the kitchen and borrowed a sharp knife. With a worried expression on her face, Bottlecap followed me out of the kitchen.

The knife made short work of the string. Turning the knife over to Bottlecap, I proceeded to remove the brown paper wrapping.

"What did you receive?" asked Bottlecap as she returned from the kitchen. "There's nothing here but newspapers. Lots of newspapers."

I grinned. "Ah, these are business newspapers. Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, Financial Times, and a few other newsletters. A few copies of the New York Times. And a letter to me."

Bottlecap looked confused. "What good are they to you here? You barely have enough bits to pay your room and board."

"We'll see. If my idea doesn't pay off, you can write this all off to unicorn madness."

The blue earth mare shook her head and walked back into her kitchen. I made a stack of the newspapers and lifting the stack with my magic, headed upstairs. Placing the stack on a chair in my room, I hopped onto my bed, lay down and
levitated the letter in front of me.

Dear Cherry Shine, the letter began. I was surprised to get your letter from deep inside Equestria. I have got my ASE certification. And I now work in a big garage. I hope to move to a place working on classic cars. Please let me know if you want more newspapers. Each bit is worth about 1,900 dollars in gold so you have plenty of money with me. I am glad to hear that you are doing well but there is no way I could give up my job or my videogames. That's all I can think of. Signed, Brandon Ford.

I returned the letter to the stack of newspapers, flicked off the light with my magic and went to sleep.

The next day was my day off. I awoke the next morning to find the entire landscape blanketed in fog. Looking out my window, I could barely make out the buildings of the hayfarm. The rest disappeared into a white mist. My map and my newspapers packed into my saddlebags, I came downstairs to find Baritone and Bottlecap eating breakfast.

"Good morning," I said. "Oh good, you have muffins."

"I baked them this morning," Bottlecap said. "You've got your saddlebags. Where are you planning to go this morning?"

I swallowed the rest of my blueberry muffin. "I was hoping to walk along the tracks north out of Ponyville. I haven't been that way before."

"You'll be careful?" Baritone said, looking over his copy of the Ponyville Express. "This fog won't lift much before noon and the newspaper says that another autumn storm is expected today or tonight."

Bottlecap looked worried. "You're not going to climb any mountains. Remember what happened the last time?"

My scrapes and scars were almost healed from sliding my way down that steep slope. "No, Bottlecap, I'm not planning to climb anywhere. I promise. Really, I'm done with mountain climbing."

This answer did not completely satisfy the blue earth pony. "Who are you going with?"

"I'm going to see if Written Dreams or Windstorm want to come along."

"Okay. You be careful out there."

Baritone took one look at me before returning to his newspaper.

Putting two banana muffins on top of my map, I closed my saddlebag and trotted out the door.

It was a strangely quiet world that I trotted through. The mist covered everything, draining the colors and muting the sounds. Trees would appear as dark shapes against the pale fog and then fade into the background as I trotted past them. The grass was heavy with mist, dripping small droplets of water. Only by following the road beneath my hooves could I find my way.

Closer to Ponyville, I could see the gray shapes of buildings appearing through the fog. Lighted windows and a few street lamps glowed yellow in the mist. I kept trotting.

At the dark and silent railroad station, I stopped. Levitating the map, I studied the layout of Ponyville and the Everfree Forest. If I started here... followed the tracks north... a bridge crosses this small creek. That creek flows into... I could follow it to Froggy Bottom Bog. Okay. This plan might work. According to my map, the northern end of the bog ended in hills and mountains. Hills that supposed to have caves. My goal. I rolled up the map and returned it to my saddlebags.

A dirt road ran along the railroad tracks, heading northeasterly. I guess it was northeasterly. Above me, the sun only gave a uniform light to the mist. I trotted along the road, hoping that the fog would burn off in the coming hours.

Hours passed. I think they did. I had no way of telling time in the fog. The road continued on, as did the mist-soaked ties and rails of the railroad.

I found the road descending slowly into a valley as the railroad continued on an embankment. As I kept on trotting, a railroad bridge loomed out of the mist. At the bottom of the shallow valley, the road crossed a small creek flowing towards Froggy Bottom Bog. As I left the road, suddenly a shrill whistle blew out of the fog and a train roared across the bridge.

When I could start breathing again, I went underneath the bridge and followed the creek. The creek bed was overgrown with young birches and tall grasses. I was forced to walk around bushes and through copses of trees, always returning to the creek to check that I was heading downstream. At least the fog was beginning to lift.

By the time I reached the large trees of the forest, the fog was almost gone. The creek had spread out, flowing lazily in several channels. I walked carefully as the ground had become soft and treacherous. The young birches and tall grasses were gone, replaced by towering old willows choked with vines. Ahead were large shallow pools of murky brown water, smelling of something unspeakable. Bubbles of foul gasses boiled from somewhere and popped.

My ears were assaulted with the constant breek-breek of frogs. When they weren't sounding off to one another, they were feasting on bugs. I don't know what the bugs usually feasted on - but today, they were feasting on me. I stamped my hooves, shook my head and swished my tail, trying to drive them off. More bugs spiralled in, drawn by the smell of fresh pink unicorn.

In between bouts of fighting the insect plague, I studied my surroundings. The northern end of the bog was where I needed to head - but which way was north? I remember reading that moss grew on the north side of trees so I started looking at trees.

The moss was growing all around the trees. The moss was growing over the rocks and everything else. The insects hopped over the moss and the frogs ate them.

I swished my tail madly to drive off the flies attached to my flanks and looked up at the skies. Through the trees' canopy, I could barely make out the sun's position.

At least, I had a direction to head in. Slowly, I picked my way through the swamp, trying to stay on firmer ground, and avoiding the deeper parts of Froggy Bottom Bog.

Sometimes, rocks showed me where the safe footing was. Sometimes, I had to guess. More than once, I splashed into shallow swamp water. And all the time, I found myself fighting bugs in my ears, in my eyes and around my muzzle.

Jumping from one hassock of grass to another, I finally slipped and fell into the dark brown muck. Water covered me as I began to sink. In panic, I pedalled my hooves, trying to bring myself under control. My head broke the water's surface and I found my footing in the soft silt. Climbing out of the stinking water, I pulled myself onto the rotten roots of a dead willow.

Frogs kept singing their one song.

I now smelled like the rest of the swamp - a stinking miasma that made a cesspool smell sweet. A brown-greenish soup covered me from ears to tail. I swished my tail - more foul smelling water sprayed from my tail hair. A quick check of my saddlebags showed that the maps, newspapers and my two muffins had not felt the effect of my quick immersion into the swamp.

And the bugs that had been brothering me - now left me alone. They couldn't target me by my scent. I guess every cloud does have a silver lining. A very, very narrow silver lining. I decided to take a break, eat my muffins and wait for the sun to dry out my swampy coating.

The sun shone weakly in a milky-white sky. The muffins smelled and tasted like swamp water - but everything I now smelled, smelled like swamp water. Sighing, I levitated a brush from my saddlebags and tried to brush the worse of the brownish gunk off of me. Finishing, I discarded the ruined brush and continued my journey.

The ground began to rise slowly. I found myself walking fair stretches along rocky spurs. The stink of the swamp slowly fell behind me as I started to climb into the foothills of the northern mountains.

At the top of one of the hills, I turned and surveyed the landscape. Stretching out before me was the murky green of the Froggy Bottom Bog. Around me was the broken hills covered in yellowing grass and scrub bushes.

I was looking for a fairly large cave opening like I had seen before. As I studied the hills around me, looking for canyon walls and steep cliffs, I spotted a faint tendril of smoke rising in the air.

It seemed to come from a canyon a few hills over. A steep canyon with a cliff cut from the side of a hill. I could not see a cave opening from where I was standing but there were a number of crushed bushes and flattened trees in the area.

I scrambled down hills and over rocks until I stood at the canyon's mouth. The canyon floor was choked with fallen rocks and spiky trees through which a narrow stream of water trickled. Steep canyon walls rose far over my head. I began to pick my way up the canyon, jumping over stones and boulders. At a sharp bend, a widening of the canyon showed where the water had sheered off most of the hill and left a vast cliff. Smoke rose gently from an opening in the cliff face. Around the opening, there were crushed trees and scattered bones. The air smelled faint of sulphur and ashes.

From inside the cave came the gentle rumble of a dragon snoring. Smoke drifted out of the cave, eddied and collected above the opening before dissipating into the open air.

I checked my saddlebags and entered the opening. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, I slowly walked up a gentle slope to the back of the cave.

The dragon's snoring grew louder. Coiled on top of a mound of gold and gems was something about the size of a Boeing 747. Or maybe a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. The length was about 230-250 feet long (70-75 m). Orange-yellow in color, the dragon had yellow scales running down its back. Its head was larger than Baritone's barn. Its wings were unfolded and covering the heaps of gold as if guarding its hoard against sneak thieves.

I stood in awe, unable to move.

The snoring stopped. A gentle breeze pulled at my forelock and mane as the dragon's nostrils gathered in my scent - then the nostrils released a hot, humid wind that blew over me. The dragon's reddish eyes slowly opened, revealing that it featured slit pupils. The eyes flicked back and forth before spotting me.

"PONY," it said. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"Hi," I began. "My name is Cherry Shine. And I have a proposition for you."

The dragon raised its head and folded its wings. From a height of 65 feet (20 m), it looked down on me. "PONY. RUN AWAY."

I opened my saddlebags and quickly began laying out the financial newspapers that I had sent for. "What if I could tell you about a world where greed is seen as the greatest possible good? Where you could play with the lives, jobs and futures of others as if in a game?"

The dragon hesitated.

"Wall Street, London, Hong Kong. I'm talking about the great financial markets of Earth-"

"PONY," the dragon snorted. "DIE." It gathered its breath.

I was already running down the cave, abandoning my newspapers and magazines. The flames rushed down the cave tunnel, roaring and burning. I could feel the burning heat against my hindquarters and at the tip of my tail. Behind me was the ponderous tread of the dragon, rising to its feet and starting to follow me.

Shooting out of the cave opening, I stopped, ripped off my saddlebags, tossed them up the box canyon with my magic, and headed in the other direction. I raced down the treacherous canyon floor, leaping over boulders and diving around gnarled trees. I still smelled my hair burning.

My misdirection won me a few seconds of time as the dragon stopped to nose my discarded saddlebags. I was out of the canyon and racing toward the trees of Froggy Bottom Bog before I heard the dragon start to follow me again. The dragon's heavy footsteps thundered as it crashed through the rocks and trees on the canyon floor.

I galloped among the twisted old willows. My hooves were throwing up muddy splashes of water. The dragon, having left the narrow canyon, spread its enormous wings and with a mighty heave, took to the air.

The foul waters grew deeper, the old willows larger and more twisted and the miasma of the swamp stronger as I ran deeper into Froggy Bottom Bog. I skirted the edge of a large pond, splashed past a huge fallen willow, tripped over a submerged root and fell into a deep pool of stinking green water.

I yelped, got a mouthful of foul smelling muck, fought to clear my horn of clingy vines, pushed my head to the surface and spat out my mouthful of water. My hooves touched the side of the old willow tree. But before I could climb out of my unwanted bath, something overhead made me stop.

The dragon flew over the large pond. It seemed to hang in the sky, so huge that the mind refused to believe that something that large could actually be airborne. Wings that stretched forever, slowly beat as the dragon flew past. It reminded me of B-52 flyovers - majestic, slow and deadly. I ducked back into my watery foxhole.

Within a few moments, the dragon was out of sight. I pulled myself out of my cesspool refuge and shook off my latest green-brownish coat. That smell of burning hair was gone, replaced by a general swamp stink. There was a funny taste in my mouth which no amount of spitting could clear.

I needed clean water. Both to wash out my mouth and to rinse myself of the brownish-green slime. Out on the pond, a few bubbles of swamp gas rose from the bottom and popped. A fresh smell of miasma poured across the swampy terrain.

By dead reckoning, I figured I was somewhere on the northern fringes of the Froggy Bottom Bog. Hills rose to the north of me. From where I was standing, I could see glimpses of the hills. So if I oriented myself, I should be able to head easterly out of the swamps. If I got a look further north, I should be able to see a distant Canterlot clinging to the mountain.

Using my horn, I scratched an 'X' into the bark of the willow tree. Then I took sight on another tree in the direction I wanted to go. I worked my way to that tree, scratched another 'X' and lining up the two trees, picked a third tree as a new destination. As I walked, I kept an eye out for the return of the dragon. But it had not yet made another flyover.

The swamp ended in low scrub bushes and tall grass. As I guessed, Canterlot could be seen in the distance. But dark storm clouds were gathering. The sun shone weakly through a veil of uniform gray skies. It gave no warmth to dry my wet coat and soaked mane. And my tail - that dragon's flame had burned most of my tail hairs, leaving only the fleshy part of the tail.

I looked again up at the threatening skies. No dragon. But I decided to stay within the edges of the swamp as I traveled closer to Ponyville. Less chances of an unplanned dragon encounter.

A while later - there was no way of telling time - I was working my way around another willow tree choked with moss and vines when I heard somepony whistling a tune.

I changed my direction and followed the sound of whistling. Stepping between a rotten stump and the trunk of a willow tree, I discovered an old earth pony digging in the moss. He had a faded brown coat with a sea gray mane and a grey wisp of a tail. As I watched, he took a knife with his mouth and cut out a square of moss. He then rose to his hindlegs, picked up a spade and lifted the square of moss on a piece of brown wrapping paper. His cart was next to him, piled high with carefully cut and wrapped flats of moss. As I approached, he looked up from his work.

"Hallo," the earth pony said. "What'cha doin' way out here?"

"Hello," I replied. "I'm Cherry. Cherry Shine."

"Ah'm Cabbage." The faded brown pony looked at me and my burned off tail. "Hmm... Ya been botherin' old Malinostra, ain't ya? Peuwww! Kindly stand downwindish, missy. Ya reek strong enuf ta frighten off a polecat."

I circled him and stopped. "Malinostra? That thing has a name?"

"Yep. Ah an' her gotsa 'greement. Ah give her a small gift regular-like an' she don't bother me none when I'm cuttin' moss fer ma garden."

"You deal with that monster?"

"She ain't no monster. Ya treat her right and she'll ignore ya."

I closed my eyes. "How do you," I asked, "treat a dragon?"

Cabbage looked at the sky. "Missy, dragons are people like any other. Ya flatter 'em, ya gotta smell nice - not like ya swimmin' inna sewer -, ya bring 'em jewels ta eat. Dragons vain 'n proud, dragons are. Ya gotta show 'em respect, ya know. Dragons like that."

"So... if I went back to Ponyville, got myself cleaned up, got these jewels you speak of and went back to... Malinostra, do you think I could talk to her?

"Nah missy, ya blew it," Cabbage spat. "She knows ya now. She'll likely jus kill ya."

I looked at my tail - short and stubby with the tail hairs burnt off. "She clearly was trying to kill me already."

"Sees, Malinostra's jus tryin' to chase ya off. If'n she wanted ya dead, ya be dead." He gathered his spade and knife and put them in the cart. "Time ta be headin' home. His head pointed out the shafts of the cart. "Mind helpin' me out a bit? It's a long way home."

I stepped between the shafts and harnessed myself up. Cabbage reached into a box on the cart and pulled out two traces and another harness. He buckled himself into another harness and attached the traces to the shafts. With the old earth pony in the lead, we pulled the cart out of the swamp and across the rough ground. I recognized the hitchup as a tandem and as the wheelhorse, naturally, I was doing most of the work.

The cart pulled a lot easier once we hit the dirt road running along the railroad tracks. "Cabbage," I asked, once we had been travelling for a bit, "you seem to know a fair bit about dragons but in Ponyville, they say that ponies don't know much about dragons. How is that?"

Trotting in the lead, Cabbage spoke without looking back. "Dat's 'cause - an' beggin' yar pardon, missy - unicorns don't know everythin'. Dey never ask us ponies dat have ta live wit dragons."

"So you bribe dragons to get them to leave you alone," I mused. "Where can you get these jewels to bribe a dragon with?"

In front, Cabbage was enjoying the view. "Ask Diamond Dogs 'bout jewels. Diamond Dogs know their jewels. Why ya wanna talk ta dragons anyhew, missy?"

My own view was limited to Cabbage's short shaving brush of a tail. I sighed and explained about my dream of bringing a modern railroad to Equestria. To do that, I needed capital. Lots of it. I could not access the cash in Canterlot's monied society. As a newfoal with no money of my own and no cutie mark, I lacked the influence and contacts to raise money.

Dragons had lots of capital. They sleep on it. All I needed to do is find one that would listen, explain to them the financial dealings of Earth and let him go to work among the Wall Street financial institutions. With a dragon's hoard as a starting point and Wall Street's greed - that dragon would make a financial killing. And in return, I just needed a bit of that hoard as my starting capital.

Cabbage stopped short. I stopped. The cart rolled into my hindquarters, giving me a little push. The old earth pony turned his head to look at me. "Missy, ya crazy. Ah guess dat all unicorns are crazy but dis don't beat 'em all."

Once we got the cart rolling again, Cabbage spoke no more. As we followed the railroad tracks down to Ponyville, the sky grew darker. Crossing the tracks at the Ponyville station, Cabbage stopped the cart, thanked me for my aid and helped me out of the cart harness. Putting my harness back into the cart's box, the old earth pony said, "Missy, leave 'em dragons alone. Ain't no good gonna come outta awakin' their greed. Ah kin take da cart from here - ya be gettin' home now. Storms acomin' and time fer ponies ta be gettin' under cover."

I left Cabbage stepping in between the shafts of his cart and trotted up the road to the hayfarm. At the hayfarm, Bottlecap was standing at the farmhouse door. "Welcome home, Cherry. We were worried about you what with the storm - Celestia's beard! What is that foul stench?"

"I... err..."

"You're not coming into my house, smelling like that, young lady! Off to the barn with you!" Bottlecap turned and yelled for Baritone. "Boil up some hot water, dear. And bring the industrial strength cleanser." Then she looked at me. "Your tail! What's happened to your tail? Baritone, we'll need brushes and a tail comb too!"

I spent that night in the barn after being thoroughly soaped and bathed. My mane was untangled and my poor tail was trimmed and made somewhat presentable. Baritone brought out some extra blankets and a lantern, made up a bed with loose straw and wished me a good night. The storm hit after dark, drumming on the roof and blowing around the barnyard.

With the storm, autumn had finally arrived.