Iron, Wine, and American Mouths

I placed my toolbox right next to the first picket on the farm's fences.
It took a while to gather the right components, but since I was officially an Apple, it meant I had access to the family budget.

Before I got to work on this project, though, I explained to the others that I could set up a Threshold, a protective barrier, which could keep out all but the worst of fae.
And a life of living thin on the highway meant I learned how to do it on the cheap. I weren't about to go spending the money willy-nilly like some valley girl who got a hold of her rich Daddy's credit card. I'm a responsible young mare- man- mare.. Gah. I'd figure that out later.

So, there I was, about to barricade the farm from magical influence using a threshold, when I heard a set of hooves approachin'. They weren't Applejack's, not Mac's.. Apple Bloom should be at school, n' Granny napped at this hour.

I looked up, and saw Twilight standing there, looking like an eager intern who hadn't learned that he was the coffee gopher yet. Notepad and everythin'.
"Goooood morning, Bonfire!"
"Mornin'." Turned back to my preparations.

..She weren't leavin'. I looked back up and her and cocked an eyebrow. "Can I help you with somethin'?"
"Well, I couldn't help but get curious when Applejack told me you were going to spend the next few days setting up a 'magical thingamajig' around the farm to help protect it, and you know me, my cutie mark is in magic, and I'm always looking for new solutions to old--"
"You wanna shadow me so you can learn my secrets and all that jazz, don'tcha."
"... Yes," she said, a bit sheepishly.

I stared at her for a bit. I was kinda hoping to be alone today. But, then again, without my truck, I didn't have access to my tunes, which was how I kept my mind from wandering off.

Dammit, why didn't I think to grab my mixtapes while I was running for my fuckin' life?!
My supplies were in the back of the truck too, which woulda solved my whole "I don't have implements" issue beforehand.
Hindsight's 2020, or whatever.

Twilight shifted a bit awkwardly, before her eyes got all big and watery on me. "...Please?"
I swear, every mare in this country had an uncanny ability to make puppy dog eyes. It was innate or some shit.

I sighed. "Fine, be my guest, just don't expect me to be a chatterbox like Pinkie Pie."

I took the chisel and started carving runes into the fence post. Twilight looked over my shoulder at em and started writin' em down on her notepad. And knowin' her, they'd be organized. That was a problem.

"Just a warnin, don't write those runes in a sequence. Write them like doodles on your math homework, or else you're gonna activate em the next time you charge em with magic."
She looked up from her note taking with a frown. "But I like to organize things." She said.
"Well, if the runes think they're a sentence, and that sentence is gobbledygook, it's gonna explode like some kinda chaos magic bomb."

That seemed to frighten her up real quick. She erased the runes and started trying to write them as shittily as possible.

"What do you mean by 'sentence' of runes, anyways?" She asked as I started channeling a little magic into the first string.
"Do ponies not have any runic magic, like, at all?"
She made a so-so expression. "We use spell matrixes, primarily, as a way to construct the magic into a proper equation. This understanding of magic was based on the studies of great unicorns like Starswirl the Bearded."
"More math than language, huh?"
"Mhm! For all of recorded Equestrian history, spells were performed by unicorns, and thus, magic is understood via unicorn studies. Those studies were preserved in books, whereas earth ponies passed down their understanding of magic via generational teaching, and pegasi used militaristic training."

"So any amount of pegasus and earth pony history could just have been straight up lost to time, war, and deliberate erasure." I nodded thoughtfully as I carved another rune.
"Which could mean that Earth pony magic is potentially unexplored! Do you see why I'm so excited to see you literally work your magic? No earth pony has ever done unicorn magic like this before! It's phenomenal! Revolutionary! It's--!"
"Just magic."
Her smile fell. "What do you mean, 'just magic'?"

"Well.. What about Pinkie Pie?" I pointed out.
"What about Pinkie Pie?"
"Ain't her goofiness.. y'know, magic?"
"That's... different..?"
"She can fuckin' teleport, Twilight."
"Language!" Twilight frowned.
"N' what about Zecora? Her alchemy, that not magic to ya?"

That got her thinkin', her enthusiasm falling down further. "I don't.. I don't understand..?"
"And how 'bout Fluttershy, the way she can talk with critters real easy? That ain't magic neither? How about dragons, you reckon they can just blow fire like it's some chemical reaction in their gut?? And what IS the sonic rainboom if not some kinda Megaspell?"

She slumped down, a bit defeated. I sighed, then gently cupped her chin and pulled her gaze up to me. "Ey. I ain't meaning to bring you down. I'm just trying to teach ya a lesson."
That seemed to get her a bit more excited. "What lesson is that?"
"Listen." I whispered.
Her ears swiveled around. "I don't hear anything.."
"Yes you do. Tell me."
"I hear... birds, chirping?"
"Go on."
"I hear the wind blowing."
"And?"
"..My breath?"
"Yeah. Y'know what all that is?"
"...What?"
"Magic."

Twilight snorted. "My breathing isn't magic!"
"Yes it IS! Wanna know why??"
She flinched back, confused, and I kept goin. "How many planets out there are nothin' but massive chunks of desolate rock or huge balls of GAS?"
"A lot? There's approximately-"
"Yea! A lot!" I interrupted her, didn't need her goin off on a tangent. "So many planets out there, where there's NOTHIN'! Planets like this one are a statistical fuckin' anomaly!" Her eyes darted left n right, reckon I was gettin a bit manic with it, so I took a sigh to settle my nerves. "By all rights? We shouldn't exist. and yet we do. Grass grows, birds fly, and you are breathin', because there is magic here! Sister, we are alive! There is magic in EVERYONE, everyTHING! Magic, everywhere, for those with the ears to hear it!"
I stopped to catch my breath. "Listen again."
She let her ears relax this time. We stood in that field.

Stood there for a good while. I could see that massive brain workin' overtime, trying to figure out what I was trying to tell her.

Her eyes snapped open. Brain blast.
"You're not casting earth pony magic." She breathed, "You're just casting magic. Because every creature has magic. They just use it differently..!"
I grinned. "NOW yer gettin' it, girl." I ruffled her mane with a hoof and turned back to my work.
Her ear flicked, and she brushed her mane back down to acceptable flatness with a hoof. "Well, still," she replied, "this is something we can teach to other ponies, and it'll revolutionize everything Equestria knows about magic, because this means we've been teaching it wrong for.. eons!"
"I'm fine with that, so long as y'all don't specify it as anythin' other'n just magic." I got back to carving, shaking my coat a bit to get the jitters out.
"Mhhm!" Twilight said, "So, again, what do you mean by strings?"

"I literally mean like, stringin along a sentence. Askin' magic t'do something. So dependin' on the string of 'words' I'm trying to tell the magic, I gotta say it with the runes." I explained my sequence to her.

"Like enchanting an object!" Twilight beamed.
"Yeah, 'Xactly. There's a whole bunch of em out there, and dependin' on which god or belief you follow, a particular language of runes might work for you better. Me, I was kind of a jack of all faiths, zealot of none, never made any real connection to any while I was under the fae. But here? Seems like it's a case of anythin' goes. Which is why you got symbols like this one mixing up with this one."

"∆★Ω🔆" said the runes.
"What's it mean, roughly translated?"
"..There's something wonderful here." I said quietly.

And that's how it was for a few days.
Twilight would come find me at some point while I built the threshold for the farm, she'd shoot the breeze with me, then head on back to wherever she had to be next on her docket.

"May I ask why you're carving protective runes into the fence posts?"
"Well, the Apples pretty much done adopted me-"
"Aww, that's sweet!"
"Yeah.." I looked off to the side, blushin' a bit, the little soft brown spot on my snout getting a touch red. "It is. But I ain't got a clean track record, folks is gonna be after me, n' I ain't letting them fuckers touch my fa-"
I stopped.

I'd only known these people for like, two months or so now.
Life really does come atcha fast.

Twilight looked up at me with an earnest smile. "It's alright, you can say it."
I snorted. "This don't leave your lips."
She made a little zippin' illusion with her magic.
I sighed, "..I ain't letting em touch my family. I ain't had a family in.. shit, since I was fifteen. I ain't aboutta go n' lose this one too."
"What.. what happened..?" Twilight stopped taking her notes, putting on a sympathetic voice.

I put my guard up.
"Why you asking?"
"Because Princess Celestia has me here in Ponyville to study friendship! So helping out any friend of mine is priority one!" She said proudly.
"You gettin' paid for this?" I said incredulously.
She made a so-so gesture. "Nnnooot exactly. I get paid by the crown for being Princess Celestia's personal student, and I also get paid for running the Golden Oaks library."
"Huh. Damn, aight, you probably penciled out some time for these visits, then."
"I did, actually! I have to be back at the library by four to help Spike get dinner ready."
"Well, don't let me stop you, I'm gonna be doing this till it's all done."
"..Soooo?"
"So what?"
"What happened to your previous family?"

My eyes went back a decade. I saw my Pa and Gramma's souls slowly come out their body, and I realized I was still in mine. My horrific, sinful, disgustin human body. My mind done raced with thoughts, what was the sin? What did I do wrong?!

Everyone in the pews around me floated up like gravity'd been shut off, then the souls around me let go, one by one, the flesh being left behind with audible thuds, the backin rhythm to the holy chorus of my despair.
I saw Gramma and Pa holding onto each other, and they saw me, helplessly stayin' stuck right in my own dirty, unworthy flesh.
"God has other plans for you, son." Pa said.
"We'll wait for you to come home." Gramma smiled through tears in her eyes. "But don't you ever forget, no matter what, that we love you, Ke-"

I tasted salt. I heard sobbing.

Oh. It was me who was blubberin'.

Was an ancient pain, one I didn't feel in years, but Twi done poked at it the right way and it all came rushin' back. She held me close as I kept sobbin' on the ground.
I missed em so much.
"They were just normal men," I hiccuped, "Jus' innocent men.."

I finished work early that day.

"Morning, Bonfire. Feeling better, after yesterday?" Twilight said, approachin' me with a soft smile and a few pastries from Sugarcube Corner. I took a treat and chowed down on it.
"I'll be fine. Just don't wanna talk about it now."

She nodded, gave me a nuzzling on the underside of my head.
As far as I understood it, nuzzles in this world was the halfway point between a hug and a kiss, depending on how close to the mouth you got. I saw Twilight use it a lot during visits to Applejack, and I reckoned she saw me as a dear friend.

Shit, I guess I did too. She's good at this friendship stuff. Might have a bad case of the ol' 'tism, but if there's someone alive out there who ain't at least a little fucked in the head, I've yet to meet em.

I nuzzled her back.

"I could help you today, if you like?" She offered.
"How d'ya mean?"
"Well, I did as much studying of runes as I could without blowing myself up," she giggled, "and I'm feeling confident enough to lend you a helping hoof!"
"... Y'know what? Sure, why not."

From there, we worked together, catching up on the lost time and getting work done real quick.

"Y'know I did a bit of reading up on the history of this place m'self."
"Oh?'
"Apparently a human bein' showed up here once. Name was Me-"
"Oh! Meegan! Yes, she helped the first pony civilizations despite being from another world!"
".. You're pronouncin' it wrong. It's Megan."
"No it's not!"
I cocked my eyebrow. "I'm likely from the same country Megan was from, n' it's pronounced Megan."
"I highly doubt that to be verifiable information."
"Well, I hear she died on equestrian soil, so we could perform a seance and ask her."
"..Isn't that dark magic?"
"Of a sort. Minor necromancy to bring a soul back to ask it some questions."
"... I'm not doing that."
"Suit yerself."

After that, we fell into a quiet, comfortable routine of carving out the paragraph of magic along the fence post. My mind began to wander without conversation, and I looked at my surroundings.
The farm, Twilight, who was dutifully pourin' magic into her runes, the scent of apples, the laser dot dancing around on the back of her head..

..Laser dot?

Huh.. Ain't seen one of those in a while.

LASER DOT.
I tackled Twilight, she squawked. "What the hay!?"
A crack shot off in the distance, and a split second later, a bullet splintered up the fence post, right where Twilight had been standing.
"Look alive girl, we're gettin' attacked!"
"What?!"

I tried to run some quick ballistics.

Nah, I didn't know shit. I momentarily lit the ground on fire to make a smoke screen, and moved Twilight into some more robust cover. I kicked over a wagon onto its side and dove us both behind it

"Who's attacking us!?"
"Like I said yesterday, I don' have a clean track record. Made a lotta enemies! Could be a lone gunman, could be a squad of bastards, I aint sure!"

Twilight spotted a piece of metal a few meters away, and floated it back to us.

"Bonfire, what is this?"
"It's a bullet! Imagine, like, an arrow, but smaller, as fast as Rainbow Dash on a good day, n' deadlier. Do not stick your head out."
She instead lit up her horn, and an illusionary Twilight emerged from her, took a deep breath, and poked her fake head out instead.

Crack! ShhhTHNK! The illusion took the bullet and allowed Twilight to catch it and study it, holding it in her magic as the illusion "died," falling behind our cover.
I didn't like that the illusion had visible blood, but hey, damn good decoy.

"This is a bullet, huh? It came at my illusion from roughly a two-hundred sixty degree angle, and the time between the crack and the bullet hitting the decoy was about point two seconds, which.."

She was writing mathematical calculations in the dirt like nobody's business.
"..given the relatively small length of this bullet, we can superimpose its length over the distance ..approximately nine hundred seventy eight meters per second.. convert that by point two seconds, and..!"

I couldn't keep up! Her brain was too goddamn fast!
"Our assailant is approximately two hundred meters away in that direction!"
I just kept on staring at her, slack jawed.
Good god! She's autistic as hell!

Then, I saw her horn light up. Aw, hell!
I felt reality warp all round me as Twilight sent us through spacetime, popping us right behind the bastard!
He looked up from his gun, and before I could do anything, Twilight fired off a spell of her own, knocking the bastard out.

Which gave us an all new problem. We had a knocked out human on our hooves.
No military patches, but I recognized the fucker as one of them lone ranger types that loved to hunt the mythical beasts that roamed America now.
Ever since... that day, the woods got a whole lot more deadly. Which meant it was all the more impressive when you came round the hunting lodge carrying a direwolf in the truck.

Unfortunately, this was a problem. If we let this human go, he'd tell other folks about the magical land of unicorns just ripe for the huntin'. A human invasion would mean death for Ponyville.

I looked over at Twilight, n she was sketching out the form of the human, trying to get his anatomy right.

"I think we're gonna have to kill this guy, Twi."
She looked up at me like I just said we was gonna have to kill someone.

We didn't kill him. The puppy dog eyes won out.
Instead, I had Twi fetch rope from the farmhouse, and we tied him up.
"Lemme do the talkin' when he wakes up. American men ain't usually.. polite."
He eventually came too, and when he found he couldn't move, his first decision was to yell.

"Lemme go, you weird horse freaks!"
"Boy, you ever seen a horse kick someone?" I said to him. Twilight looked confused at use of the word horse.
"Yeah."
"Imagine if I did that to you, multiple times, going right for the nuts cuz I know where they is on you."

That made him stop.
"Good. Now answer my questions. Where the hell you come from?"
"I'm from the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!" He shouted indignantly.
"I ain't talkin' about your homeland, shit for brains, I'm askin' how you got here!!"
"..This ain't America?"
"No."
"..Then why do you have an American accent-"
I placed a hoof on his chest and leaned on it, making him wince a little. "Answer the question, or I'm introducing my friends to the testy festy."
That got him real good, he went pale.

"There.. I heard that the Highwayman betrayed the fae and died for it, and his stuff is likely worth thousands. Good money. So I found the mountain pass where his truck fell off the road, and I nabbed his stuff. Then I noticed a set of tracks and followed them. I saw a portal. Went through it with my stuff. Made camp."
"Y'all're gonna lead us to it. And on the way, you're gonna tell me why you thought it was a good idea to try and shoot my friend. Twilight, could you hoist this feller onto my back."

He kept freaking the fuck out as she magically lifted him.
"Jesus fuckin Christ, I was right, she is a unicorn!"
"Yeah, and?"
"Y'know how much a stuffed and mounted unicorn would go for in America? I'd never have to hunt again!!"

Twilight bristled up, looking like she was reconsidering the whole killing thing.

Eventually, we found the camp, and the portal. Big shimmery looking thing with a purple in-line and a rainbow of colors for an outline. I saw my hoofprints go from one side to the other.
Wack. No wonder the fae found my ass.

I dropped the man on his nearby folding chair, the cheap plastic-canvas kind you find at rock festivals.
"What are you gonna do with me?" He asked, afraid, looking at the unicorn powerful enough to lift him like he was cargo.
"Ain't decided yet. Personally, I wanted to kill you, but the fine lady over there had standards."

I turned to face him.
"But I don't. If she gives the okay, your ass is grass. So play nice. Anyone else with you?"
"No, sir."

Sir? Hot damn, that felt real weird to hear. Still, he likely respected men a lot more than women, he was an American, after all. So I kept up the facade.
"Anyone else know you're here?"
"No. Couldn't risk anyone else finding the fella's stuff."
"Where is it?"
"Uh.. they're in the cooler, there."
I opened them up. Beer, cigs, a few sandwiches, and..

My mixtapes!
"Yeah, those are mine, I reckon I'll be takin' em back."
"Like hell they are! They belonged to the Faerie's Flame! They're the only thing that survived after His truck was smashed! The Wild Hunt probably got him, son, you can't be him!"
"What kinda hooves them tracks look like?"
"...Horse hooves, I guess, but that doesn't-"

I stomped my hoof right next to the track. "You got eyes, boy?!"
"Y-yes!"
I lifted my hoof up. "Look at them tracks and look at the one I just made!"
"They're the.. same.
"Yeah. They're mine."
"They're not! The bastards dead!! He's dead!!"

"I said those are MINE, BOY!" I set myself ablaze for a sec, and began approachin' him. "Ten years of workin' for the fae didn't kill me, what makes you think I'd die that easy from leavin' them, huh?! HUH?!"

His jaw dropped as he recognized the firey rage in my eyes.
"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!"
"You're.. you're the..!"
"I'M! THE HIGHWAYMAN!"
Then he jumped out of the chair and made a run through the portal.
I looked down and saw that my fire burnt the ropes apart. Melted some of the chair, too.

Twilight was deadpanning at me as I watched the bastard run deeper into America.

Shit.
Mighta gone too far.