Humoring Flum and Flom while waiting for the train was almost physically painful for Swift. She couldn’t brush them off by claiming to be busy, as she clearly hadn’t been before they showed up, she couldn’t walk away, as there wasn’t much of anywhere to go, and she wasn’t successful in ignoring them either, because they were far too persistent for a duo of wandering salespoies. With all of her usual tactics for avoiding conversation defenestrated, Swift went along with their nonsense about their garbage product.

After enduring about eighty minutes of what amounted to an interactive infomercial for literal snake oil, the train arrived. The train had fourteen cars following the engines, each painted a different yet equally vibrant color except for the last three, which were painted in mottled browns and forest greens. The engine itself was black with white detailing, which made the smoke stack look like it was actually a cloud of smoke itself despite its long and tubular design. The mechanical eyesore would be visible for miles away if some saboteur or spy so much as glanced in its direction.

Smoke and steam quickly filled up the upper reaches of the station as passengers started to get off onto the platform on the other side of the train. It took only a few minutes for everypony to disembark into the now quite warm station and for the doors on her side to open. Swift looked back at the two stallions packing up their display, her mild irritation showing in the few creases along her muzzle. “If you want to make a sale, I’d recommend starting with a product that isn’t such an obvious scam,” Swift paused, “you should probably also change your names while you’re at it.”

Her admonishment completed, Swift looked through the slowly dispersing cloud of steam to the now accessible car before her and stepped aboard. She immediately went through the passage to the car on the left, headed someplace further back on the train. It may not be private, but she could probably get at least half of a booth to herself.

A few cars later Swift slumped into a thinly padded bench and started rotating the number lock on her briefcase.

“Howdy there, mind if I sit here?” Said some yellowish earth pony.

“No.” Why is it that these ponies can’t keep well enough alone? Can’t he see that I’m not sat here working to start a conversation, that this car has so many other open seats? Whatever, maybe if I say nothing he won't either.

***

Bright Mac sat down across from the young mare fiddling with her briefcase and pulled a leftover apple out of his saddlebags to munch on. It was going to be a long ride, and he wasn’t going to let good apples go to waste.

As he ate his apple the mare pulled out some fancy looking machine and inserted several sheets of paper into it. A few more ponies tried to join them in the booth, but whenever they got close the mare would lean closer to the machine before they saw and they would shuffle off to somewhere else in the car. By the work she was doing she seemed to him like the type of pony he saw during his yearly visits to Ponyville’s town hall to pay taxes. The problem with that was that she had the physique of somepony who regularly did hard labor, or at the very least worked out quite often but not quite as often as that one crazy pegasus in town.

Now that he thought about it, there were several things off with the mare if she was a paper pusher.
From the title bit he’d seen of her she seemed to be in an eternally foul mood, but all the ponies he’d seen working desk jobs seemed to be radiant at all hours of the day, including anytime before the afternoon. Periodically she would glance up and about the cabin at the other ponies before the speed that the clacking happened at would increase for a short time. She seemed to be almost as twitchy and paranoid as the few ponies from the scout company attached to his unit in the reserves just a few years ago.

The most confounding feature of the mare though, was her cutie mark. He’d gotten a glimpse of it when he had walked over to where he was sitting now. It showed a pair of white wings but with the feathers replaced with fire. The real question he supposed, was why a pegasus with a cutie mark relating to flight was riding in the second to last passenger car of a slow train headed to Canterlot.

Canterlot, capital of Equestria, home of the Princess and the nobility, and also where he was reporting to because of the recent mobilization of the reserves. He was supposed to get three months of intensive training at the base of the castle while the commanders were brought up to speed on modern tactics in the castle. Because of course us normal folk have to live in a makeshift camp away from view while the colts of the nobility sit around in classrooms in the castle.

Bright wished he could get his mind off of his imminent separation from his family for a little while with a book or a conversation. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any real entertainment for the journey, and none seemed to be forthcoming from anypony nearby. His saddlebags had only had room for samples from the orchard and all of the quadruplicate forms that the businesses out in Manehattan wanted back from him when he was packing. So Bright got to guessing what the mare across from him really did for a living.

Could she be a farm owner, or perhaps sompepony who who works as a manager? I suppose she could also do that work in one of those new factories Manehattan is known for. That would explain the money. Maybe she owns one of those gym places. Perhaps a small but popular bakery, like Sugarcube Corner? Probably not, the Cakes are good hardworking folk but they don’t have the kind of money to go buying fancy magic bags…

Eventually Bright got bored of just guessing what the mare’s occupation was and decided to get an answer straight from the pony’s mouth. “Say, what’re ya working on? I don’t see fancy stuff like what you’ve got there all too often.”

“A report.”

“What about? You one of them university students tryin’ to become a doctor? Doctoring is good work.”

“No, I’m not writing a doctoral dissertation. The report is to my boss, about my recent work for them.”

“So what d' you do that you’d be writing a report on that fancy machine there while on this train?”

“I’m an… accountant. I hold others to their accounts”

“So you’re a banker?”

“No. I’m an accountant.”

“Well if you ‘account’ for ponies in Manehattan, what’re you doing on a train to Canterlot?”

“Visiting someo-pony I care about.”

“Where’re you goin’, then?”

“Canterlot, Ponyville, Cloudsdale.”

“You’re goin’ to Ponyville? Have you ever been before?”

“Just passing through, and no”

“Tha’s a shame, Ponyville’s a great place full of great ponies. While you’re there you should go to the local sweets shop. It’s impossible to miss.”

“I’ll consider it.”

Neither of them spoke up much for the rest of the ride up to Canterlot, and every time that they did have a conversation it would always go in the same way. Bright would ask a question of the mare, who he eventually learned was named Swift Wing, and she would respond in unsociably short sentences.

***

Hours later, and well past the moonrise, Swift stepped off the train into Canterlot station to wait for the line that her ticket called “The Friendship Express”. When the train did arrive Swift learned it was somehow even more conspicuous than the previous train she had been on. "Somehow, I'm not even surprised" Swift sighed.

Author's Note

The scope of this set of chapters changed significantly after the interlude was finished, but I am confident in the content of the next three.

Anyways, as always, have a good Night!