The maned ape

Dave felt awkward as he stood in a dressing room while the horned white pony with a purple mane and three diamonds on her rump, which he had named her Blue Diamond, was levitating a measuring ribbon and wrapping it around different parts of his body.

She would softly nicker to herself as she wrote on a pad of paper with a pencil.

When the horned purple pony had brought him to the building, Dave wasn't sure what to think. In the windows there were horse mannequins that had various clothes, but the building looked like a cross between a circus tent and a merry-go-round. It was only when the purple horse brought him inside that he saw the horse mannequins with different clothing styles and Blue Diamond was sitting a sewing machine making something that he realized this was a clothing shop. This wasn't some sort of chain store, what with Blue Diamond hand-making...hoof-making?...something from a bolt of cloth that told him this was probably a high-end establishment.

Blue Diamond seemed to disapprove of Dave's impromptu clothing, what with her giving him the side-eye, clicking her tongue and shaking her head as she nickered at Purple Star. Purple Star nickered back and Blue Diamond went into a tizzy. He thought he was going to have to make a run for it, when suddenly a blue glow enveloped her horn, enveloped his clothes and pulled them off of him.

Dave stood stooped over to keep his head from hitting the top of the dressing room that Blue Diamond had shoved him in, hands covering his groin, as she took his measurements. She nudged his hands with her snout. "Uh-uh, horsey! You already got an eyeful. You don't need to see it close up." She nudged his hand again. "Buy a guy dinner first. I like to be wined and dined first before I get horsey molested."

Blue Diamond lit her horn and a blue glow surrounded Dave's left hand. It felt like a combination of ants and static electricity crawling across his skin. "What the--Stop that!" He flexed his fingers. With a popping sound the glow vanished and Blue Diamond let out a yelp.

***

Rarity staggered out of the dressing room rubbing the base of her horn with a hoof. Twilight had informed her that Big Red grew distressed when his genitals were exposed and she had put him into a dressing room in the hopes that would keep him calm. Her head throbbed and she felt magically drained.

Twilight noticing that Rarity was hurt and looking a little disoriented, hurried to her friend's side. She noticed the singe marks in the grooves of her horn. "What happened, Rarity?"

"Just a minor magical surge, darling." With Twilight's help, Rarity made her way to her desk. Puling open the drawer, she fetched out a bottle of aspirin and a small tin of magi-dose. She popped two aspirin in her mouth and chewed them up. Once she finished swallowing the aspirin, she popped the lid on the tin of magi-dose, pulled two gel-tabs out, placed them in her mouth and bit down on them. Almost immediately a nasty medicine-y taste crossed with a static crackle spread across her tastebuds. She looked over to the coffeepot on the corner of her desk and checked the temperature, it was cold as she had not made a fresh pot since early that morning.

Rarity levitated the carafe up to her mouth and swilled down the cold, dark caffeinated liquid. "Bleh!" She never liked the taste of black coffee, but it tasted better than the mixture of aspirin and magi-dose on her tongue. Returning the carafe, she looked to Twilight. "It was the weirdest thing. You told me he gets distressed when his genitals are exposed, so I thought putting him in a dressing room would help to keep him calm. I needed to get the measurements of his flanks, but his forepaws were in the way. When I tried to use my magic to gently move them out of the way, he flexed his digits and it caused a feedback. I hadn't had a surge like that since I was a filly. Do you think he has some sort of anti-magic natural defense?"

Twilight pursed her lips in thought. "I can't say for sure until I run some tests. But based on the notes from the Manehattan lab and what little I've read on five-fingered maned apes, they're magic-resistant. Could you show me what happened on an analogue?"

Rarity levitated five pencils. "I was trying to move his left paw like this..." She lined up the pencils in her magic in the rough shape of Big Red's paw and then started to move them. "Then he flexed or wiggled his digits and pop!...it felt like the first time as a filly when I tried to levitate a piece of paper and the arcs of the spell made contact, causing it to surge back into my horn." She let the pencils drop onto the desk.

Twilight winced in sympathetic pain. She remembered the first time she had suffered a feedback surge as a filly. Of course her family being magically potent meant she had spent the night in the hospital as her horn had cracked and they had to use horn-gro to mend it. "Maybe he thought you were trying to touch him in an inappropriate way and he was simply trying to defend himself?"

"I would never!"

"I know you wouldn't and you know you wouldn't. But maybe he didn't know and was simply trying to defend himself? Think about if you were in a land of maned apes, you were unable to speak the same language as them and one of them was trying to help you, but it seemed like to you that they were trying to touch you inappropriately. What would you do?"

Rarity sighed. "I see what you mean. I'll have to devise a way to convey to him that I'm trying to take a measurement and not touch him in any way that's inappropriate."

"He seems to understand pictures fairly well."

***

Dave looked at the picture that Blue Diamond drew on the pad of paper. It was a very accurate likeness of him. She then drew a second picture on another piece of paper of him with his arms and hands out of the way while a measuring ribbon was wrapped around his waist. He suddenly felt very foolish. Yes, he didn't like being naked around strangers ever since the seventh grade shower incident when those bullies...well, the less said on that, the better.

Dave pulled his arms and hands up to his chest. "Just think about baseball. Just think about baseball. Don't think about a little horse next to your junk. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America...Grandma naked in the snow. Grandma naked in the snow." He did everything in his power to will himself to not get an erection and make the situation any more awkward than it already was. When Blue Diamond wrapped the measuring ribbon around his hips, he winced slightly as the metal touched his skin. "Ooh! Cold!"

***

Rarity tapped Big Red on his thigh to let him know she was done and could cover himself back up, then left the dressing room. She picked up the sheet he was using as his makeshift toga. "My, my my! He is a brilliant one. Making clothing out of a sheet without using even so much as a needle and thread. Hmm... I'll spruce this up for him." She quickly pulled out a needle from a nearby pincushion, a spool of thread from a nearby drawer and a pair of scissors from a peg on the wall. With a snip-snip here and a snip-snip there, and a few quick stitches, she transformed the makeshift toga into a two-part ensemble. The top half was a long tunic that went past his waist and the lower part was a skirt that that attached to his waist with a cloth belt that could be tightened or loosened, very similar to the kilts that the stallions in Shetland wore, minus the whole tartan pattern.

Putting on the final touches and embroidering her own personal logo into the hems, Rarity gave the entire outfit one last look over. Grunting with pleasure, she folded them up, placed them onto her back and trotted into the dressing room. She turned sideways and tipped her head to the clothing on her back. As he picked part of it up in a paw, she quickly drew out pictures of how to put them on.

Big Red looked over the clothing then gave some chattering hoots. He scratched Rarity's neck, which made her gurgle happily. Once those scratching digits were withdrawn, she felt momentarily disappointed. "Oh my word! I now see why Fluttershy goes out of her way to get groomed by him! If I had a maned ape to groom me like that every day, I'd never let a mare or stallion under my tail."

***

Once Blue Diamond trotted out of the dressing room, Dave looked the clothes over front and back. "She made me a dress?" He paused for a minute and made a sour face. "Well I guess a toga is a sort of man-dress." He shrugged and began to get dressed.

Once Dave finished getting dressed, he looked himself over in the mirror. He twisted his hips side-to-side, making the skirt portion do a little swishy-swish. "Huh. I see now why the gals like doing this. It's kinda fun and the breeze feels nice."

Dave stepped out of the dressing room and the two little horses were letting out long whinnies as the clomped their forehooves. Blue Diamond put a hoof to her lips and whistled. "How did you...? Without fingers?"

Blue Diamond flipped a little knife switch on the wall. Lights came on in the ceiling and the floor. Dave wobbled unsteady for a second as a narrow walkway raised up from the floor, ending in a small round section at the end, lights come on around the edges of the walkway. A disco ball descended from the ceiling, causing little circles of light to dance on the wall and jazzy electronic music played from speakers. "You've got a secret runway built into the floor!?" He looked at the pair of dwarf horses who were whinnying at him. "Oh, I see. You want me to do a little turn on the catwalk."

Dave sashayed down the little catwalk, his hips and shoulders swaying. He stopped at the end of the catwalk, turned, looked over his shoulder and gave his best Blue Steel. He shook his hips and slapped his right hand onto his hip. "Uh! You like that? Of course you do!" He raked his fingers in the air like a cat. "Rawr!"

Dave got so caught up in what he was doing that he wasn't watching where he was stepping. His heel slipped off the side of catwalk and he tumbled onto the floor.

Dave lay where he had landed hard on the floor, laying there until the aching in his bad leg went down and the world stopped spinning. Blue Diamond and Purple Star rushed over, letting out chattering nickers. He quickly waved them off. "I'm okay! I'm okay! Just a little spill. Nothing to be worried--OW!" Feeling the stinging in his elbow, he quickly twisted his arm to look. "Well, that's just great!" He poked at the bleeding scrape on his elbow.

Blue Diamond quickly sprinted out of the room as Purple Star trotted up, taking his arm in her hoof. "It's nothing. Just a scrape. I've--hold on..." As Purple Star placed her hoof on his arm, it felt like a band was wrapping around his skin. He reached out with a hand to grasp her hoof. It felt weird, he could feel the hard keratin of her hoof, but there was something gripping his hand. It felt like he was sticking his hand into a pool of warm putty that was slightly constricting all around his fingers. "That feels..."

***

"...weird!", Twilight softly exclaimed softly. All ponies generated a localized telekinetic aura around their hooves which allowed them to grip onto the ground when strong winds buffeted them, or grasp the bark of trees so the could climb them, and even manipulate small objects. All ponies ponies could manipulate this field, but earth ponies had the greatest control over it, which allowed them to manipulate groups of small objects in close proximity to their hooves. She could feel the individual muscles in Big Red's paw through her frog and fetlock as he gripped her hoof.

As Big Red extended his digits, Twilight could feel them pushing away the localized telekinetic aura around her hoof. Several times the two gripped paw/hoof, marveling at the sensation.

Rarity returned with a first aid kit. She cleared her throat, getting Twilight and Big Red's attention. She trotted around to where Big Red was sitting. "Alright, let's see to that boo-boo."

Rarity took Big Red's forelimb in her hoof and he jerked it away with grumbling hoots. "None of that now. I know you're a big strong stallion and whatnot, but let me tend to your wound so it doesn't get infected."

Opening the first aid kit, Rarity polled out a can of disinfectant spray, a few gauze wipes, a small bottle of peroxide, a tube of antibiotic ointment and a roll of gauze bandaging. She levitated a couple of gauze wipes and the bottle of peroxide over to Big Red's arm. When she poured the peroxide on his scrape, he sucked in a hiss through his teeth and jerked his arm away. "Aw, come on you big foal. It's just a little peroxide, not alcohol. I swear stallions are all the same, they're big tough and strong until you put a little peroxide on their boo-boo, then they revert back to little colts." Using her hoof, she pulled Big Red's. Once she finished putting a little more peroxide on the scrape, she spritzed some disinfectant spray on it. She used her scissors to snip a length of gauze bandaging, applied some antibiotic ointment to it and wrapped around his forelimb.

Rarity tied off the bandage and gave it a little kiss. "There you go! Good as new! Just leave that bandage on for the rest of the day and don't poke at it." She put the things back in the first aid kit. As she turned to go put it up, she paused and turned back. "Twilight, darling, he needs some shoes."

"I was going to take him down to the barrister's."

"Oh for Ponysedao's sake! He has paws, not hooves. A griffon doesn't go to a barrister when they need shoes for their paws. Because he lacks the thick layer of protective keratin, pressing a hot shot to his paw would seriously injure him. When somepony with paws needs shoes, they come to a fashionista."

Rarity levitated a ream of paper and a piece of charcoal. Lifting Big Red's paw with her hoof, she levitated a piece of paper and rubbed the charcoal across it.

Big Red squeaked and wiggled.

"It looks like somepony's ticklish. No need to worry, darling. I promise to be quick." Rarity quickly finished making a charcoal rubbing of one of Big Red's hind paws, then quickly made a charcoal rubbing of his other hind paw. After she finished making the charcoal rubbings, she laid a pair of pieces of paper onto the floor, gently places his hind paws onto the paper and traced the outline of them. She then used a few more pieces of paper to make charcoal rubbings of the top and sides of his hind paws. "Hmm...I'll have to make something that serves double duty in protecting his paws while being fashionable." She tapped the brace on his leg. "Sooner or later this will have to come off and he'll start getting his muscle tone back, so I'll have to compensate for that. I'll make his shoes adjustable. What to use? What to use? Straps or hooks or laces? Given the flexibility of his digits, I can go with something smaller...like what a unicorn uses with their magic."

Big Red grunted as he stood back up, Twilight helped him get upright. "Uh...Rarity, if you don't need us for anything more..."

"Hmm? Oh, yes. Quite right! You must have a million things to do today. Don't let me keep you, darling. I'll have his first ensemble of clothes ready in about eight days. It's going to take a bit longer to design his shoes, given the unusual shape of his hind paws." Rarity escorted them to the front door. "I'm having Fluttershy over in a couple of days for tea and sandwiches. Would you care to join us?"

"That sounds nice, Rarity. I'll have Spike add it to my list. I'll see you then." Twilight used her magic to gently tug at the hem of Big Red's tunic.

Big Red braced a paw on the lentil of Rarity's front door as he negotiated himself out of it and ducked underneath.

Rarity planted a kiss on her hoof and blew it after the unicorn and maned ape. "If anypony asks where you got that ensemble, you tell them I made it!" She looked at the lentil and posts of her door. "If he's going to be a permanent resident of Ponyville, I'm going to have to get my door enlarged." She closed the front door and set about making Big Red's clothes.

Celestia and Luna emerged from the waking dream that the lunar princess had created.

"Fascinating!", Celestia exclaimed. "So both Dave and Suchen both have their own distinct dialects with their own phonetics."

"Indeed. Dave said the language he speaks is called een-glish, that he comes from a country called A-mare-ick-ah, and lived in a state called Call-a-rahd-o. When I demonstrated for him Suchen's language, he couldn't understant it, but said it sounded like Vee-et-nom-ease or Le-ocean." Luna paused for a moment in thought. "Sister, before my banishment, maned apes were such a rarity. After reading the history books, it appears that over the past two hundred years they've been sighted more and more. Could we be experiencing some sort of confluence, like the ones that brought the griffons and deer to our world."

"I have speculated on that long and hard, Luna. It's not a potential confluence that bothers me, but the threat that the five-fingered ones pose."

"But Dave and Suchen aren't threats."

Celestia scowled slightly. "Though the five-fingered ones seem to quickly bond with out little ponies, they are omnivorous predators and a few have hunted our ponies for sport or food."

"Surely thou can'st fault a starving being for eating a pony."

Celestia sighed. "No...no I cannot. But that's not the potential threat."

"We...I don't follow."

"Weapons, Luna. Many, many of the five-fingered ones arrive with weapons. Not like the swords, spears, pikes and halberds like soldiers from our youth, though some do show up armed with those. No, the concern is that many of them arrive with increasingly complex weapons that requires a level of industrialization our ponies just don't have. Normally they show up alone, sometimes in small groups. A small group of five-fingered ones armed with great and terrible weapons isn't much of a threat to our nation as a hard of farm ponies with pitchforks and sickles could eventually overpower them."

"That's why you've upgraded our military. You're concerned about an army of them appearing wielding weapons. All it would take is one misunderstanding, one act of unprovoked violence and the risk of a war against a technologically advanced, magically resistant species could happen."

"Yes."

"Show me these weapons."

"Are you sure, Luna?"

"Verily."

Celestia powered up her horn. In a blink of golden light the two sisters vanished. In a cave deep underground the two sisters appeared in a blink of light. Built into the walls were massive vault doors.

"This is where I have any and all weapons that are seized that the five-fingered ones use." Celestia lit her horn and opened the vault doors.

Luna marveled as she walked into the vaults. Each vault contained dozens upon dozens of different weapons. One vault held weapons made of wood, bone, stone, horn, antler or bone, very similar to what ponies during their stone age would have used. The next vault contained weapons made of copper and bronze, similar to the early metal age. The next vault contained weapons made of steel, similar to what was used during the mid-to-late metal age and the classical era. The next few vaults contained weapons that were metal tubes mounted to blocks, mostly wood, though the last grouping of weapons had the metal tube mounted to some sort of artificial, lightweight material. The last vault contained strange cylinders, rods and boxes, some of them had a nozzle or tube sticking out one end. "What?"

Celestia walked up to a rack of thunder rods and levitated a black one out. She removed a curved box from a recessed, rectangle-shaped hole and popped a brass cylinder that held a copper-coated cone. "These thunder rods all fire a lead projectile that coated in copper. The projectile rips and tears into the body, and causes death by massive hemorrhaging. These are the most advance one. They use some sort of intricate system of springs and tiny levers. The projectiles are thrown down the tube by some sort of firework powder. Many of the older ones simply use a tube that you pour a cruder version of powder down, then shove a lead ball into the top of the tube, ram the ball down with a stick, then pour a little of the powder into a small pan, then a device that hold a bit of burning string or a piece or iron pyrite or a chunk of flint to ignite the powder. Those take a long time to use between blasts, but there are the ones that use brass cylinders that are filled with a bit of powder and can fire until the last of the cylinders are expended. The more advanced ones have a detachable box that can be filled with many, many cylinders."

Celestia tapped the weapon she was levitating. "This is a very advanced one. The block that holds the tube and mechanism is made of a material that is similar to plastic, but is stronger and lighter. Our alchemists have been unable to replicate it." She put the thunder rod back in its rack. "The weapons in the last vault terrify me. They somehow harness ball lightning or light to destroy a target. They have baffled our greatest alchemists, enchanters, inventors and scientists."

Luna walked over to Celestia and ran her hoof across the rack of weapons. "If these weapons are so deadly and terrible, why not make copies of them for our armies?"

"Somehow the five-fingered ones have figured out a way to strengthen metal so it can contain the exploding fireworks powder. Whenever inventors tried to replicate it, there was always a risk of the weapon exploding in their face. Plus fireworks powder leaves behind a residue that eventually causes the weapons to jam."

"So enter alchemists and enchanters to replicate them in safer ways."

"Bingo. Now with your dreamwalking powers, I hope to build a bridge to help build an alliance with the five-fingered ones."

"You talk about my powers, but what about your expanding powers. What are they?"

"Luna, be careful. Don't bump into the lock on the weapons rack."

"Huh?" Luna turned and her flank bumped into one of the weapons racks, accidentally knocking the lock off. Thunder rods fell to the floor with a clatter. She levitated them back into the rack and secured the lock again. "How did you know I was going to bump into the lock?"

"Here's what will keep you awake for a few days...If I had said nothing, would you have still bumped into the lock?" Celestia smiled cheekily.