Lero scanned the horizon, then the sky for Pegasi. It was all clear except for Spike. “Now if anyone DOES come by, you know what to do, right?” he asked the dragon.

Spike responded with a mighty roll of his eyes, the kind he reserved for Twilight's obsessive moments and Lero's body shyness. “Yeah, yeah, don’t let them peek at you. I got it. Just go ahead and change your clothes, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Nude.” He shooed him off into the bushes.

Lero slipped into the bushes to change, mentally reviewing the previous day. He’d quit his job as a masseur, disappointing two close friends of his, waged small-scale war with all the animals that’d once belonged to Fluttershy and nearly gotten killed for it just to let Dash catch some decent sleep, and his efforts to cheer up Rarity with a pranking spree had resulted in Discord crashing into his life for a second time. Now, he was about to engage in more of the insanity. He was starting to sorely miss the sedate days before the Swap.

It was about nine in the morning, and he and Spike were just outside of Ponyville proper, on their way to Rainbow Dash’s cottage. Behind the bushes, Lero unzipped the backpack he’d brought from home. At least this time, Lero had come prepared. He’d brought supplies, tools, even a first aid kit he’d put together himself last night, from the library’s medical cabinet.

He changed into the ugly ‘Austin Powers’ outfit he’d bought from Applejack last night, and put his good clothes in the backpack. Once his visit to Rainbow Dash was over, he’d slip back into these bushes and put his good clothes back on. He slung his backpack back on, and slipped back outside.

“Gha-hah-hah-hah-haaah!”

Lero bit back the first response that came to mind. The dragon was laughing so hard that he'd fallen over, and smoke was puffing out of his nostrils in thick rings as he rocked with glee.

“Y’know, Lero, there’s a certain sort of dignity to walking around naked." Spike commented snidely, wiping tears from his eyes. "But there’s just NO dignity whatsoever in wearing a thing like THAT!”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up!” Lero huffed.

"Alright!" Spike collapsed again into epic fits of laughter, beating his fist on the ground.

Rolling his eyes, Lero waited for the dragon to settle down into giggles. "Done yet?"

He got back to his feet, holding up a single finger, indicating one moment, before the giggling subsided. "Okay, I'm good."

Side-by-side, they began walking towards the cottage again. “Man, Lero... you’d better not let Rarity see you in that!” But then a crafty smile slid up the dragon’s face. “Or then again, maybe you should.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Raising an eyebrow, he looked suspiciously at the conniving reptilian.

“Did I ever tell you why it is I agreed to help you out with this?”

Lero met Spike’s smirk with a cold stare. “Because Rainbow Dash has been a herdmate of yours for years now? Practically as much an older sister to you as Twilight is? One you would do anything to help, as any loving family member would? Especially when she’s suffering so painfully as a result of mind-altering magic?”

Spike at least had the decency to look abashed at that.

“Oh! Uh... yeah! Totally! I-I do love Dash in an older-sister way! And I’m only too glad to drop everything I’m doing to go help her!” But some of the craftiness returned to Spike’s face. “But of course... you love Dash in a different way, right, Lero? A closer way?”

“I am to assume there's a point to this line of questioning?” asked Lero, not really liking where this was going. While he genuinely liked the little dragon, his tendancy to connive and wheel and deal was one of the aspects he found less than pleasant. Dragon or no, sometimes he swore he was part snake.

“Well, it’s always been Rainbow Dash who you REALLY want, right?! You’re not even INTERESTED in Rarity like that, rrrrrright?”

That... was true, at least once. However, it was becoming increasingly difficult to sort out his feelings towards Rarity. The more time he'd spent with her; her showing him the same deep, unwavering affection Dash had, and him responding in kind... admittedly, for Dash's sake, but that hardly...

The dragon peered into the human’s eyes. "RIGHT!?"

“O-of course!” he stammered, realizing he'd been caught in self-reflection for several seconds over what should really have been a reflexive answer. The dragon snorted flatly.

“Do I detect a note of hesitation in your voice, dear herd-brother-of-mine?” Spike said, annoyance creeping into his voice.

“Look, just tell me what you’re getting at, okay?!” the human snapped, tired of the dragon dancing around the subject.

“The way I see it, the more I can keep you away from Rarity, the happier we’ll all be! So here’s the deal... the more you keep your distance from Rarity, the more I’d be willing to help you watch over Dash’s pets. Agreed?”

Spike held out a hand for Lero to shake. But he shook his head.

“I’m not agreeing to ANYTHING! Not until I at least see that you can actually handle the animals the way you say you can!”

The young dragon shrugged. “Fair enough. Today will be a freebie. A demonstration, if you will.”

They were now close to the cottage’s doorstep. And in spite of what a wheeling-dealing brat he was being, brotherly worry for Spike filled Lero’s heart.

“Listen, Spike, these animals... they’re just beyond mean. If things start getting too hairy... you might want to use your fire on them.”

These words shocked Spike. “What kind of dragon do you take me for?! I’m not gonna barbecue Fluttershy’s animals!”

“I didn’t mean THAT fire!” Lero insisted. “I meant your other fire! Your postal fire!”

Spike’s eyebrows climbed. “What? You want me to send Celestia a bunch of dogs and cats?!”

“...If Celestia can't handle a horde of angry chipmunks, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. At any rate, don’t discount it as a last resort.”

They could hear the animals’ growls and snaps as Lero knocked on the door. Stress and dismay were back in Rainbow Dash’s voice as she called out, “Who is it?!” from behind the door.

“It’s Lero!”

“Lero?!” She raced over to open the door, slamming it behind her as though starved wolves were on her tail. “Whoa. You really DID come ba..." Her eyes widened, interrupting herself as she finally took in his appearance. "What the heck are you wearing, dude?”

She was staring in disbelief, grinning at the absurdity before her. Grins from Dash were good; better than misery. He did a little shoulder bob thing, imitating a supermodel. “The latest in Applejack’s must-have, ready-to-wear spring lineup; for the human on the go!”

“What the heck are YOU wearing?” Spike asked Dash. “Is it the bottom of the ninth in there or something?”

“Ha ha ha,” said Rainbow Dash, lifting up her catcher’s mask. “I’ll have you know that this is for my protection, Spike.” Then she did a double-take. “Spike? What are you doing here?”

“I’m helping Lero help you with your animals.” He gave a bow.

And with that, Lero found a scandalized pegasus flying in his face. “You brought SPIKE? You brought Spike HERE?! The small baby dragon?! To THIS place?! WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A STITCH OF ARMOR?!”

“W-well, I...” Lero stammered.

"I do have scales, you know." Spike piped up, walking past the two.

She glared at Lero, ignoring the dragon's protest. “I oughta report you for foal endangerment!”

“Oh, hi there, Angel Bunny!” both of them heard from inside the newly-opened door.

"Oh, no!" Dash's eyes widens in alarm as she flung herself back in her cottage, and Lero following quickly after.

Angel Bunny and Spike were facing each other down: Spike with the friendliest of smiles, Angel with a flat, calculating gaze, rubbing his chin in thought. Pretty much all the other animals were packed behind the white rabbit like the gang of thugs they were; ready to dogpile Spike right when Angel gave the signal.

“No! Don’t hurt him!” Rainbow begged, bending into a bow. “He’s just a baby! I’m the one you all want! Take me instead!”

“Hey, Angel, I was thinking of making a carrot cake... do you know if Dash has the ingredients for that?” Spike continued his friendly repartee, ignoring Dash's dramatics.

At that, Angel turned his back on Spike, facing the other animals. They all watched him thump his left leg on the floor six times, his right leg seven times. All the critters simultaneously lost interest in Dash, Lero, and Spike, each creature just doing its own thing — a dog chewing on a rubber bone, a cat batting a toy mouse around, birds chirping at the top of their lungs, and such.

After a few moments of staring in disbelief, Rainbow Dash picked her jaw off the floor. “H—how did you DO that?”

Spike opened the front door, stepped outside, and motioned for the others to join him. Once they were back out and the door was closed, he said, “Huddle up, guys,” and they huddled.

“Angel and I have an understanding,” Spike explained, in a low voice.

“An understanding?” asked Dash. “When did THAT happen?”

Spike frowned at her. “You’ve had me pet-sit the entire cottage for you at times when you needed to go out, and it always worked out well enough! Don’t you remember, Dash? All the times you and Twilight and the others went off on adventures, leaving me behind to take care of pretty much everything from the pit bulls on down?”

Dash’s face registered the same few seconds of blankness which Rarity’s had, when Lero had asked who’d taught her hairdressing.

“Spike sat...? Spike... sat the animals... for... me...?”

Lero had to wonder whether or not the bewitchment was frantically pumping new ‘memories’ into her head, right on the spot. What did these ‘memory deliveries’ look like for the Swapped, anyways? Was it like filling a car with gas, or popping a disk into a computer and downloading its data?

“Oh. O-oh yeah, I did. Of course I remember, Spike!” She laughed sheepishly, after coming back to awareness. "Sorry, I-I guess I must be even more frazzled than I thought.”

“...Sure,” said Spike. Lero was sure the little dragon had caught the creepiness of her moment of blankness as well. He turned to Lero. “Anyway... Lero, since you’re new, the thing you got to know is this: if you want to get along with the animals here, you NEED to get along with Angel Bunny.”

“Angel, huh?” Even though Spike was directing this at Lero, Rainbow Dash was listening with just as much absorption as he was.

Spike turned and gave her an odd look. “Yeah. Angel’s the kingpin of this cottage, the cult of personality. If Angel Bunny doesn’t like you, none of the critters will." He paused in thought. "Dash, can you remember when it was that things started turning ugly between you and the animals?”

She sighed. “A while back, I was eating an apple as a snack. Angel came up to me: he wanted some of my apple, too. But I thought it would be better to cut up some slices for him from an all-new apple. So I finished off my apple... only to find out I had eaten the last one. Ever since then...”

Spike turned to Lero. “Well,” said the human, “I think it started when I defended Dash from him and his mob. But I think I clinched it when I bit Angel’s leg and caused him to tumble down the basement stairs. And then made a pack of dogs fall on him.”

Both Spike and Dash winced at that.

“Ooh, woooow. Yeah, that'd do it. Well, I’ll just say this: if you can both do what you can to get back into Angel’s good graces, things will go a lot better for you,” Spike told them. “And with that... I’ve pretty much said my piece. Let’s head back inside.”

Inside, Lero noticed that Dash had erected a barricade for herself in one corner of the room out of the table, couch, and chairs. It actually looked fairly defensible. Spike looked over at the empty food and water bowls, frowned slightly, and immediately went down the cellar stairs.

“This is so weird,” Dash said, looking around at all the critters. “To have them all so... so..."

"Calm?" suggested Lero.

She nodded rapidly. "And so not-attacking-me.”

He clapped his hands together. “So! What can I do to help? Maybe... clean out the cages? Help Spike feed the animals? Walk the dogs?”

“WOOF! WOOF! BARK! BARK! WOOF! YIP-YIP-YIP!!! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! ARF! ARF!”

It was like he’d cast a summoning spell. Dogs sprang off their sleeping spot on the floor, dogs scrambled down the stairs... all racing to pack around him, hopping up and down on their hind legs, grinning hopefully with open mouths and slack tongues. Seeing so many canines all at once put Lero in mind of all the dog shows his mother had loved to bring their samoyeds to. Eurynome and Iapetus had never won any of them, but Lero had always enjoyed seeing and learning about the other types of dogs.

It was entirely clear that — as with all her animals — the Fluttershy of old had valued variety in her dogs, rather than favoring any one single breed. He first recognized the sleepy old Pomeranian he’d caged the previous day. But now that all these pooches weren’t trying out to rip his throat open, he could identify an akita, two bulldogs, two pit bulls, and a pug. Plus a greyhound, an elkhound, a coonhound, an otterhound, a basset hound, a dachshund, a corgi, and a sleek-looking pharaoh hound.

The sight of the large St. Bernard, and the Jack Russell terrier gave Lero a brief moment of introspective pause, where he wondered whether these breeds had different names, here in Equestria. After all, what were the odds of any pony being named Bernard or Jack Russell? And did ponies even have canonized saints? Surely the Newfoundland had to be known by some pony-pun name.

Four saluki puppies were playing around with five schnauzer pups, all nipping at one another playfully. A speedy little chow chow had a bit of knotted rope in her mouth, playing keep-away with a larger whippet. And an adorable blackmouth cur kept running around and around Lero’s body in pure excitement.

Thirty dogs total.

“Well!” he laughed, under a barrage of lapping tongues, “Guess that answers that!”

Rainbow nodded happily. “Yeah, be glad to have THOSE mutts out of my hair for little while. And she dashed downstairs, coming up with a bunch of leashes in every color. She tried approaching a pit bull with one, but it growled at her threateningly, so she just gave up and gave them all to Lero.

“Alright! Start leashin’ them all!”

He stared at the thirty leashes now in his hand. “Wait, wait, wait, Dash... if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it sounds like you’re expecting me to walk all thirty of these dogs at the same time.”

“Well... aren’t you?” she frowned, not seeing the problem.

Lero dropped most of the leashes on the floor. “No, because this isn’t a cartoon! There’s no way I can control that many dogs at once!”

“But... but I was hoping you WOULD!” The pegasus had a pleading look on her face. “It’d go faster!”

Lero shook his head. “Haste makes waste. I know my limits. At most, I can handle one or two of the adult dogs, maybe a few of the pups. I’ll need to take several trips, back and forth, to get it all done right,” he replied firmly.

She sighed, her ears drooping slightly. "Oh, alright."

He decided to start with the whippet and the blackmouth cur, closing the door on twenty-eight disappointed dogs when he went outside. Just as he and the dogs were about to cross over the birdhouse threshold, he heard the beat of pony wings.

“WAIT! Y-y-you aren’t leaving the house, are you?!” Although she wasn’t looking back at it again, Lero could see that damnable mark twitching again. Lero experienced a sudden, vicious fantasy about having Twilight knock Rainbow Dash out with a powerful sleep spell, then burning those horrible butterflies off Dash’s body with lots and lots of bleach. He blinked violently to dispel the image.

"Of course I am, Rainbow. How else would they get a decent walk?" he asked in a reasonable tone.

“C-couldn’t you just have them run laps around the cottage?” she begged.

“If you’re going to do something, better to do it right,” answered Lero, as the cur tugged towards the open road. Dash was hesitant and uncomfortable and twitcha-twitch-twitch went the mark. And then a memory of something she said earlier replayed in Lero’s mind:

"I don't even really go into town anymore, except when I absolutely have to. To buy pet food and such."

With very scarce exceptions, the Butterfly Mark was pretty much determined to keep Rainbow Dash shut in her cottage, except on official pet care business. So maybe...

“Hey, Dash... why don’t you come with me? Come and walk these dogs with me?”

She stared at him, then at the dogs. Her mark’s twitching abated a little, but did not completely disappear. “But... if I did that... what about the rest of the animals?!”

“HEY! SPIKE!” Lero called out, cupping his hand to his mouth.

Spike opened the door. “YEAH, LERO?!”

“DASH AND I ARE GONNA GO OUT DOG-WALKING! THINK YOU CAN HANDLE THINGS HERE?”

They could see the little dragon give the thumbs-up. “SURE! I’LL BE A-OKAY!”

The dogs were getting anxious. Lero smiled at Dash. “It’s been a while since I walked dogs... I’d love to have an expert like you by my side! Someone to make sure I’m doing it right. Come on!”

He tugged on her hoof, bringing her over the threshold, and off they went!

* * *

This brought back memories. The feel of the leashes’ loops around his knuckles... two dogs, hurrying from tree to tree and bush to bush and patch of grass to patch of flowers with big canine smiles on their faces... the female cur squatting and the male whippet lifting his leg at every stop so other dogs who came this way would know that they were here too. Ah, it was like living with his parents all over again.

Rainbow Dash was still wearing her catcher’s mask and chest protector. At first, she almost seemed to be growing comfortable with being outside her house, keeping as close to the dogs as they would allow her... if she got too close, they snapped at her. But as Lero watched her, she started growing antsier and antsier, until by the time they had done about a block’s worth of walking, and were back at the bushes which Lero had changed his clothes in, she was borderline distraught.

“W-we have to go back!” she was insisting feverishly. “T-the animals... A-angel’s just luring Spike into a false sense of security! He’s all alone! They’ll gut him like a trout! We need to go back, now!” She shivered, her mark spasming visibly.

“Okay, Rainbow! Whatever you say! C’mon, girl! C’mon boy! Back this way!”

They spun around, rushing back to the cottage, the dogs barking in delight at the sprint. Rainbow flung upon the door, needing a few seconds to gaze in shock at the sight that greeted her inside.

“Oh, hi, Dash! Back so soon?”

The young dragon stood on a stool. The capuchin was swinging back and forth on Spike’s outstretched arm like a child on a monkey bar. The other animals were more or less just lounging around, eating from their bowls, or else keeping themselves passively entertained in their various fashions.

“Yep!” said Lero, over Dash’s stunned silence. “We’re just switching out dogs.”

And he removed the leashes off the whippet and the blackmouth cur, switching them out for the otterhound and the elkhound.

“C’mon, Rainbow!” And then they were off again. Lero had to keep a tight hold of the hounds; who nearly yanked free of his grip when a pair of wild squirrels scampered by. This time, they passed by the the bushes without incident. It wasn’t until they were at the threshold of Ponyville proper that Dash’s mark began to squirm.

“Uh... would it be alright if we went back home?” This time, her expression was more apologetic than anxious.

“Spidey Senses tingling again?” asked Lero, turning the dogs around.

“Kinda,” said Dash. “Didn’t know you were a fan of Spider-Mare!”

"...Let me guess, bitten by a spider exposed to magical radiation?" he guessed.

"So you have!"

"Sort of!" He laughed, "C'mon, guys!" He sprinted off with the dogs again, Rainbow giving a small smile, her wings flapping as she zipped after them... while staying close to the ground.

When they returned back to the cottage again, Spike greeted them at the door with a look of anxious relief. “Oh, Dash! Thank goodness!” the little guy breathed. “Where do you keep the food here?”

Dash frowned. “Down in the cellar. You know that.”

“Not what I meant,” said Spike, leading them into the kitchen. He opened both the fridge and the pantry; every shelf was bare. “I wasn’t talking about the kibble or the pellets or any of that. I’m talking about the real food. The pony food.”

The pegasus hung her head. “I ate through the last of my food days ago.”

“Huh?!” said Lero, looking at Dash in alarm.

“Then what’ve you been living off of all this time?” Then Spike was struck by an unpleasant little hunch. “Dash! You haven’t been...?!”

“Don’t judge me!” Rainbow snapped. “Taking care of THIS many animals is expensive enough when they’re all BEHAVING themselves! And pet chow’s so much cheaper than real food. Anywhere I can save a bit, I will!” She licked her lips. “Besides, it turns out a lot of the canned cat food’s pretty tasty! You ought to try Meowlicious’ Scrod Pâté! Or their Chunky Chum & Cheddar Feast!” Lero winced slightly; he knew Dash well enough to know that her justifications were thin; those might not be bad as the others, but he could tell from her expression they were hardly good-tasting.

Spike also grimaced, apparently on the same boat as Lero. “You eat pet food?! I thought you were going to say you ate only the grass outside!”

Rainbow Dash blinked, then grinned. “Eat grass? Spike, that’s brilliant! I’d save even MORE money that way!”

“Well, before you go do that, here’s my situation, Dash: I gave Angel Bunny a craving for carrot cake... and he’s getting really insistent that I make it for him.” Spike pointed to the bunny in question. Angel stood on a countertop holding open a cookbook to a page showing a picture of a carrot cake. He kept jabbing his forepaw at it while tapping his foot impatiently.

“Only problem is... I don’t have a single ingredient to start with!”

The three of them looked over at Angel; Dash with a shiver. The expression on the cottage kingpin’s face wasn’t TOO displeased with Spike. Not YET, anyway, just a touch annoyed. The young dragon tapped his forefingers together fretfully. “Next time the two of you go out, do you think you could pick up the ingredients I’ll need?!”

“Let’s do that right now!” Dash nervously told Lero, still staring at Angel.

“Yeah. Yeah, let's,” the human agreed. Both of them could recognize how disastrous it’d be if Angel Bunny were to turn the other animals against Spike the way he’d already turned them against Rainbow Dash.

Quickly, Lero found a pencil and a scrap of mostly-blank paper torn from one of Fluttershy’s books, and copied the list of carrot cake ingredients from the cookbook Angel held open. They were about to leave when Lero stopped Dash.

“You might want to take that off and slip on some saddlebags,” he told her. “We’re not going to a baseball game.”

"Oh. Heh, right." She noded, slipping off the baseball gear and on a saddlebag, they then strode out the door, passing right by the pack of sad-faced canines with leashes in their mouths.

* * *

“Hee-hee-hee!”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...”

“Ah ha ha ho ho ho!”

“What is he — HA HA HA!!! — what is he WEARING?!”

“Must’ve — ghah hah hah! — must’ve lost a bet!”

Everywhere Lero and Dash walked throughout the marketplace, there was another pony to snicker at what Bellerophon Michaelides was wearing.

“It’s not THAT funny...” he heard Rainbow mutter under her breath, after a fresh look at him.

He pointedly ignored all the stares and mockery as he and Rainbow walked up to another merchant’s booth. He’d endured far worse in the past, just for being a human. At least they weren't running in fear or dragging their colts and fillies inside like they had at first. What was a few chuckles over a set of bad threads? Really, it was in a weird, backwards way, encouraging... they were no longer too afraid of him to risk laughing at him.

“Excuse us, miss, we’d like to buy this bottle of vegetable oil,” he told the merchant.

“That’ll... ha ha ha... that’ll be... eee-hee-hee! ...Nine bits.”

The muscles around Lero’s lips felt rather tight as he paid the money. When he’d put the oil in Dash’s saddlebag ands turned around, there was Fluttershy, looking awed.

“Oh, hi, Fluttershy,” said Dash.

“Hi, Rainbow!” the pink-maned pegasus greeted back. “And Lero! I’ve got to say, you’re the smartest pony ever!”

“Thanks!” said Lero in surprise. “What’d I do?”

Fluttershy had her own set of saddlebags on, completely packed with newly-bought pie pans.

“Everypony’s been laughing their flanks off at you this whole time, Lero! They’re in stitches!" She waved her arm around indicating the guffawing crowd. "And you didn’t even so much as crack a joke! All thanks to that marvelous clown suit you’re wearing!”

He almost would’ve been insulted over the comment... But that was... well, a pretty Pinkie thing to say. What really caught his attention, however, was her pleading. “Ohhhh, I want one too! Please, Lero, please tell me... where did you get it from? Please?”

She even gave him the puppy dog eyes. It was too much to resist. “I got this at Applejack’s,” he found himself saying. “It was a commission.”

“Applejack made this for you?” Her wings were already spread in anticipation. "Oh... oh, I hope I can afford it!”

“Go to the Carousel Boutique and tell AJ I sent you,” he told her. “Look around the store and take your pick. It’s like Applejack’s entire selection of merchandise has been made with you, specifically, in mind, Fluttershy. There ought to be something within your price range. Heck, there’s even a ballroom gown make of bathroom towels.”

“Bathroom towels?!” And she flew several feet up into the air, shouting for all the crowd to hear: “Just you wait, everypony! You’ll all be laughing at me for YEARS to come!”

And she flew off in the direction of the Boutique.

“I don’t know whether to thank you or kick you for that,” Rainbow Dash told Lero.

“I honestly don't know myself, Dash. But the way I see it, I made Fluttershy a little bit happier, and I gave AJ a bit more business,” Lero reasoned. One friend was getting desperately-needed business, and the other was fulfilling a deep-seated need she had... Though, admitedly, helping her make a laughingstock out of her didn't quite sit well with him.

“Well, then, thanks, I guess?” Rainbow Dash shrugged. Apparently, she wasn't any more sure about it than he was, but let it slide. “How about we check to see that we have everything?”

And they went over to the side, out of everypony else’s way, and opened up Dash’s saddlebags, checking what they’d bought against the recipe list:

“Let’s see... carrots, eggs, buttermilk, vegetable oil, white sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, salt, all-purpose flour, baking soda, a bag of flaked coconuts, chopped walnuts, a can of crushed pineapples, and raisins,” said Lero, carefully putting it all back in Dash’s bags. “Yeah, I think that about covers it.”

“Alright, then!” said the pegasus. Then she was distracted by another familiar face. “Hey, Pinkie Pie!” she waved with a hoof.

But Pinkie Pie did not respond. When they went up to her stall, they found her snoring lightly, her flat mane draped over her eyes. There weren’t all that many apples out for sale, but still Lero asked, “How much for five of your Red Delicious, Pinkie?!”

“Wh—wha...?!” Pinkie shook awake. “Five Red Delicious? Uh... ten bits!”

He paid the money and bagged the five best-looking apples.

“Pinkie! I’m saying this as your friend; you ought to get some rest!” Dash scolded.

Yawning sleepily, the pink pony replied, “Same ta yew, Dashie. The way ya live yer life these days...” she yawned again, “...jest ain’t healthy.”

"Nnnh. Yeah, whatever. Bye, Pinkie."

They left her stall. When Lero looked over his shoulder, he saw that Pinkie was barely keeping her eyes open. He wondered how many customers she’d missed out on by being asleep on her feet. Sighing, he rubbed one of the apples on the front of his jacket, and bit into it.

“Hey, uh... Lero? Buddy?”

Dash was licking her chops at the fresh apple in his hand, dripping with juice. “Any chance you’d be willing to share the wealth? Please?”

Not needing to be asked twice, he gave her a fresh apple, which she scarfed down in a couple quick bites.

“Aw, yeah...” she sighed happily. “That’s the stuff...”

The bliss on her face from that single apple inspired him further. Pet chow was not enough.

“Hey, Dash, what do you say we pick up some extra food for Spike? He’s been so good, handing all those animals all by himself... he deserves a reward.”

She shrugged. “Sure, dude, as long as you’re paying for it.”

Two loaves of bread, two gallons of milk, three boxes of Wonder Flakes breakfast cereal, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, canned peach halves, canned corn, canned pear slices, canned fruit cocktail, canned mandarin oranges, canned spaghetti, cans of tomato soup and potato soup... he would’ve bought more if Dash hadn’t grown antsy again.

“Dude!” she laughed as they started back home, leaving the marketplace. “This is all for SPIKE?!”

He shrugged blithely. “Kid’s a growing dragon.”

“Yeah, well, I call horse apples! The food you bought is enough to feed me for a good couple weeks!”

"Is it?" He said innocuously.

She stopped in her tracks, thinking back on those just-spoken words, and gaped at him.

“You deserve better than cat food and grass,” Lero told her, quietly.

“But... but... but...”

He continued right over her objections. “You’ll notice that I bought you a lot of canned goods. I’d have gone for fresher stuff... but I figured it’d be more difficult for your mice and your other animals to invade your private stock of food if it was all sealed up in cans. And it’d all last you longer. You do have a can opener at home, right?”

She took on a hangdog expression. “I’m not some hopeless charity case, Lero,” she said, with an equal measure of pride and shame.

“I know you aren’t. I wouldn’t be doing this if you were nothing more than a freeloader, Dash. You’ll get back on your four feet soon enough. Until then, I’ll be there to help you every step of the way. For as long as you let me.” He stated firmly, looking her in the eyes, brooking no argument.

Her mane fell over her eyes as she walked, not quite Fluttershy-like. “I’ll pay you back for all this, Lero. For everything. I swear it.”

“Well, you’re carrying all the groceries for me,” he said, with a friendly thump to her strong back. “So you’re already paying me back.”

She let out a small chuckle. "Smartass."

* * *

The fourth time Rainbow Dash and Lero set out from Dash’s cottage, they took all four of the saluki puppies. The salukis were as excitable as they were adorable, all running circles around Lero so he was constantly having to stop to disentangle himself from their leashes.

As they walked, Lero kept seeing Dash stare up longingly at the sky. “It’s so beautiful up there,” he heard her say. “I wish I could... I wish I could just fly. Everything looks so free up there in the sky.”

“You can fly,” Lero reminded her. “What’s stopping you? No pony with wings like yours ought to be ground-bound.” This was certainly an un-Fluttershylike sentiment. He recalled Rarity's own moments of fashion and beauty and artistry, shining forth through all the changes the Swap had wrought. As with Rarity, that butterfly cutie mark hadn't claimed all of Dash, and he was damned if he wasn't going to encourage the bits of the real her that remained.

She just cast a rueful look at the salukis, who were now straining at their leashes to sniff at a dead quail.

“I’ve got them handled,” he promised. “You just don’t fly too fast, and we’ll follow you. You look down, you’ll see us, we’ll look up, and we’ll see you. Capiche?”

“I don’t know what that word even means,” said Dash, but apparently it was enough, and she spread her wings and took to the skies.

Just seeing her up in the air brought back wonderful memories of how she was before the Swap. Rainbow Dash the Wonderbolt Cadet! At first, she just flew directly over them, like a balloon on an extra-long string. Then she moved onto flying circles around them, like a jogger on a track. Then she grew bolder, flying downward in sharper and sharper zigzag pattens. She did a loop-de-loop, two loop-de-loops... three!

He wished he could be up there with her, tasting the same freedom.

Then she landed in front of Lero, gasping for air, shaking from the excitement of it all... happier than he’d seen her in days. He grinned: first a sweet one at Dash, herself, then a snider one towards the mark on her flank.

I’ve found a loophole, you little demons. He thought at cancerous little butterflies, hoping they had the power of telepathy. I won’t let you torture her. I won’t let you debase her. I won’t let you turn her into your prisoner.

* * *

When they finally returned to the cottage with the last of the dogs, practically ALL the animals were fast asleep. If not for how wrecked the cottage’s interior still was, it would almost look idyllic; a scene that belonged on a flower-strewn, sunshiny meadow. Even the saluki pups, after Lero had unleashed them, simply curled themselves up next to their schnauzer playmates, and slept alongside them, (they HAD done a good job wearing the puppies out.) Only Angel Bunny was up, contently polishing off a slice of delicious-looking carrot cake.

And there, reclined against the side of a nanny goat who slumbered with her legs tucked beneath her underbelly, was little Spike. He looking absolutely exhausted and throughly pleased with himself.

“Welcome home,” he greeted them tiredly.

“Y-you got them to sleep!” Dash kept her voice beneath a whisper, tiptoeing, (well, tip-hoofing, anyway) around them, as though they were living bombs that’d detonate at the slightest nudge. “You got them all to sleep!”

“Nothing to it,” he told her.

Such was Rainbow Dash's delight that she swept the little guy up with her, almost to the top of the ceiling, and peppered every inch of Spike’s cheeks with quick, grateful kisses.

“Marry me, Spike!” she said, nuzzling him. “Nah, I’m kidding... except... just tell me one thing: what WOULD it take to make you start living here with me, full time? Become MY number one assistant?”

"You'd have to fight Twilight over me!"

* * *

“I stole your girlfriend! I stole your girlfriend!” Spike jeered in a classic playground-pest’s singsong, all the way out to the tall bushes which Lero was using as a changing room. The human shot him a sour look before stepping back inside them to dress himself in his good clothes again.

“Heeeeey, Lero!” Spike called out to him, through the leafy branches, “Do you remember when we were at Dash’s house and Dash asked me to marry her?”

“Yeah,” he grunted, while removing his shoes and slipping his pants off. The fact that the childish taunting was getting to him was definite proof on how much this was wearing on him.

“I’ve been thinking it over... Dash and I have a LOT in common... and she’s quite a looker to boot! Plus, I totally got her tied around my pinky claw.”

From behind the bushes, Lero grumbled something thankfully unintelligible under his breath. He really shouldn't be responding to Spike, but dammit, all the effort he'd put in for her to go and shower Spike with praise and affection...

“Yeah, I could easily see myself spending the rest of my life with a girl like her. Maybe I’ll let you be my best man at our wedding!”

Lero stepped out of the bushes with clenched fists, practically about to bite his own lower lip off. He found himself wishing that Rainbow Dash had swapped into the Element of Laughter role instead of Fluttershy. He could’ve DEALT with a Rainbow Dash compelled to tell bad jokes all day long. With a mother like his, who’d watched her sitcoms so religiously, he’d built up an immunity to humorless humor. Within a WEEK, he could’ve gotten Dash the Joker to fall back in love with him, just by sitting and listening to her! If only they could recast that damn spell again!

His eyes widened. The gears in his head began to spin with great alacrity, for this was a notion worth exploring. Excitedly, he sprinted off towards the library.

"I might even... hey, wait up!" The startled dragon raced after him.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle heard her front door slam.

“Twilight! Twilight!” her human stallion called, as he galloped upstairs into her reading room with the bright smile of a colt discovering the Hearth’s Warming present he’d been yearning all year for underneath the Hearth’s Warming tree.

“I got it, Twilight! The answer to all our problems! The cure we’ve been looking for!”

She gave him a look of disbelief over the books she was perusing. “What?” she asked. He did seem certain of himself.

Lero pushed away some of her book piles and knelt down next to her. “You know Starswirl’s spell? My idea is to KEEP casting it!”

If Twilight Sparkle had been drinking something, she’d have done a spit take. “KEEP casting it?! As it is?! Unfinished?!”

He nodded rapidly, taking her hoof in his hand. “Again and again and again!”

“Are you out of your BUCKING MIND, LERO?!” She jerked it away, standing up.

“Hear me out!” he implored, moving over next to her side, and sliding those deft little fingers of his combing through her coat... ohhhh, how long had she been without this?

She sat down again, and leaned against him, letting him continue. "Alright, you have my attention. Go on?"

“First, for the sake of argument, let’s you and I think of Starswirl’s spell not as some dangerous bit of defective magic... but as a slot machine.” He started, his fingers working the skin under her mane in just the way he knew she liked it.

“Rrrrrrright,” she said, not quite managing her flattest monotone under his attentions.

“And our friends’ souls are the... er... the lemons which spin round and round and round.” He probably could have come up with a better metaphor, but she could hear how excited he was about this idea he wanted to get out.

Twilight sat up straighter. “...Hang on. I think I see where you’re going with this.”

“You do?” asked her human.

She nodded, shifting to look him face-to-face. “In essence, I’m guessing what your idea boils down to is this: keep on pulling the slot machine handle, again and again, until all five ‘lemons’ line up in the right rows. Am I right?”

“Yep!” said Lero. “Then it’s jackpot for us!” His glee was almost palpable.

Laughter bubbled up from Twilight’s throat.

“And the best part is, unlike a casino, we don’t even have to pay a rusty bit!” her stallion continued. “Just keep pulling the handle as many times as it takes!”

Overcome with the giggles, she hurled herself backwards on the floor. “It’d be so simple...!” she hooted.

“Right!” Lero agree. “Well... it might take a bit of time before we hit pay dirt. Maybe even as long as a month or so! But if we just keep pulling and pulling on that slot machine handle, eventually the law of averages will come out on our side!”

“...So ridiculously simple!” Twilight laughed, now rolling back and forth on the floor and on books, kicking her hind legs into the air.

“It’d even be kinda fun to watch!” he said. “Just think: Pinkie Pie the Fashionista! Fluttershy the Farmer! We could see all the different combinations as we worked our way to the Cure!”

“Yeah!” Twilight laughed. “Shame I can’t actually do it.” She sighed, her laughter coming to a stop.

“WHAT?!” Why not?!” Twilight swore his eyes were going to bug out of his head.

The lavender unicorn rose back up to her sit. Though her laughter had died away, she kept smiling.

“Let me paint you a mental picture. Imagine I agree to this mad scheme of yours. We stand in front of the Elements. I pull out Starswirl’s book and recite the incantation. There’s a great poof of magic! The smoke clears! And there stands Applejack with my cutie mark on her flank, convinced SHE’S the Element of Magic!”

“What?!” exclaimed her human stallion.

Twilight Sparkle sighed heavily. “Lero... when you get right down to it, I’m just as much an Element Bearer as my other five friends. And therefore, just as vulnerable to this spell.”

“But look at you!” he cried, putting his hand on her unchanged cutie mark. “The Swap doesn’t affect you!”

“THIS time, it didn’t. But suppose that was nothing more than a fluke? Pure dumb luck? Sure, maybe the spell avoids its caster... But who's to say it doesn't? Who’s to say that the next time this spell’s cast, my... well, ‘lemon’ won't be sucked into the slot machine’s spinner too? Maybe the SECOND time we pull the handle, it’ll be PINKIE PIE who’s skipped over, instead of me. Who knows?”

Lero Michealides was struck dumb.

“Bear this also in mind: out of my five other Element Bearing friends, four of them AREN’T unicorns. So if we recast the unfinished spell, that leaves us with a four-in-six chance of winding up with one frustrated pegasus or Earth pony who thinks magic is her life’s calling, but doesn’t even have the horn for it. And in that scenario... if the mare who’s supposed to be me can’t so much as levitate a thimble... then we really ARE stuck in a rut for good.”

Lero hung his head, and Twilight nuzzled his cheek.

“Still, it was a pretty creative idea,” she told him. “Would never have come up with it myself.”

"Yeah. Yeah, thanks for trying to cheer me up." He gave her a quick kiss, before standing up and disengaging himself from her.

And Lero left the room. Seventy-five percent of his mind was awash in disappointment. The remaining twenty-five percent was now curiously imagining how Applejack the Mage would compare against the original Twilight Sparkle in the sack. These thoughts weren’t easy to chase away.

Downstairs, a panting Spike finally opened the front door. "Man, what was that about?"

* * *

"I'm home, darlings!" Rarity announced herself as she came in for the night.

"Hey, I'm in the kitchen!" Lero replied, having busied himself with dinner in the meantime.

"And it smells delicious in here." she said, coming up to Lero and giving him an affectionate nuzzle as she did.

Lero smiled down at her. "Could you get the others? It's almost ready."

"Of course." She smiled, going off to fetch them as he started setting out the meal: four-cheese lasagna with a side of garlic bread. He'd gotten much better at emulating his home cuisine with Equestrian ingredients, even with the vegetarian handicap. Well, except for Spike, who ate anything. And Rainbow Dash — now Rarity — who enjoyed seafood just as much as he did.

Soon, the two unicorns filed in past him, followed by Spike. He gave Twilight a friendly stroke as she passed him and Rarity the same. Spike shot him a dirty scowl. Lero just shrugged, giving him a 'what-am-I-supposed-to-do?' look. He couldn't rightly start playing favorites between the two unicorns without it being obvious.

"Oh, Lero, it looks delightful as always!" Rarity exclaimed.

"Smells it, too." Twilight added, as he served them.

"So, how's the research going?" Rarity asked Twilight, as Lero took a seat, and the herd all dug into their meal.

Twilight sighed. "Well, I'm learning more about cutie marks than I thought possible."

"So you think the spell has something to do with cutie marks, then?" Rarity asked innocently.

Twilight Sparkle opened her mouth, before closing it, staring at Rarity, and forcefully reminding herself of the situation. "Yes, I think the spell has something to do with cutie marks," she at last replied in as neutral a manner as possible.

"So, can you tell us what you've found out?" Lero cut in before Rarity could ask any more awkward questions.

"Sure! There's lots of interesting details. I could practically write a paper on it, now."

"Do go on?" Rarity prompted, she and Lero turning their full attention to the mare.

"Well, I'd really have to organize my notes to get in to much detail, but from what my research is showing, The idea of what a cutie mark represents and how it's gained wasn't settled on until after the founding of Equestria!" she exclaimed, eagerly sliding into her lecture mode.

Rarity paused, scrunching up her nose in thought. "I can follow the first bit on not agreeing on what a cutie mark represents... but... did our ancestors really not understand how a cutie mark is acquired? I mean, since cuties marks are a property of ponies’ nature, shouldn't that stay consistent?"

"That's the thing! My research implies it's not, and it might even shift depending on the culture of the ponies that gain them."

"Huh. Weird." Spike commented, around a bite of lasagna.

"For example, the only ones that came close to the modern ideal of 'Earning' their marks were Pegasi. They gained theirs from acts of Valor, Bravery, Honor, or Cunning in battle, nothing to do with a 'talent.'"

“So cooks and artists and manual laborers just went unmarked?” Rarity asked.

To her surprise, Twilight nodded. “A Pegasus could go her entire life without earning a mark... which wasn't even stigmatized. Rather, those that DID earn their marks were considered heroes and champions."

"Huh. Not unlike Scarification amongst some warlike people back on Earth," commented Lero.

Twilight's ears perked up. "Yes?"

Lero couldn't help but smile: exchanging the history and culture of their respective worlds was something he and Twilight had done for as long as they'd known each other, long before the idea of being in a relationship ever came up. It felt familiar, comfortable, something he really needed as of late.

"Some warrior cultures revered scars that were received in battle. They tended to be viewed as symbols of skill, bravery, prowess, or being just to damn tough to die. Some cultures also celebrated valor in battle with deliberate scarification or tattooing," Lero explained.

Twilight nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting. Anyhow, the culture closest to having a ‘Special Talent’ as we understand it in the modern day, was the Earth ponies. However, it generally wouldn’t be your personal talents, but rather that of your clan. Earth Ponies families tended to be known for a specific craft, and young ponies or outsiders joining a clan, tended to get their marks when they became journeymares."

"So, say, for example, if a family was known for apple farming, they might get, oh, say, apple-related marks?" Rarity asked impishly.

Spike laughed. "Sounds kinda like some ponies we know, doesn't it?"

The rest of them also joined in the laughter. "Yeah, oddly so." Twilight agreed, glancing over to Lero. "Any insights to add?"

"Not particularly. It does faintly remind me of the Guild Systems that started developing when larger cities formed, and production of specialized goods became possible." Lero responded.

"Oh! Yes, that reminds me, there's some speculation it led to the foundation of the Guilds in Trottingham!" She nodded.

"Oh, well, there you go!" chuckled Lero. "What about the unicorns?"

"Well, that's interesting, too. For unicorns, cutie marks generally showed one's social status, position, and family line... rather than talent.

"Huh. Sort of like Heraldry for noble families in feudal civilizations." Lero commented.

"Ah! Yes, in fact, many noble-families' crests are based on those marks." Twilight nodded.

"Huh. Heh, once again we've stumbled across things that are startlingly similar, yet incredibly different." Lero commented.

Twilight nodded. "Funny how that keeps happening."

"So, how about my two boys? How did your days go?" Rarity inquired.

"It went pretty well," Lero said. "I actually managed to get Dash out of her cottage and did some shopping with her."

Spike chuckled. "Not going to tell what happened next?" Lero shot him a look, which the dragon ignored, continuing. "She was so happy with the job I did, she asked to marry me!"

Rarity laughed at that. "Oh, my, Spikey-wikey, you adorable little mare-killer!" She rubbed his cheek affectionately, reminded Lero of his elderly Aunt Ellen pinching his cheek and declaring how adorable he was every Christmas since as long as he could remember. "Have you set a date yet?" She teased playfully.

Twilight, however, had been studying Lero for quite some time, observing his jaw setting in annoyance. "Anyhow..." Twilight started, attempting to head the situation off. "Any news on your end, Rarity?"

"Oh, yes. I've been working with my weather team to formulate a new schedule. We needed to because there's been so many... disruptions lately." Blushing, she lowered her ears, Lero reaching out to give her a comforting touch. Spike shot the human a look while doing the same on Rarity’s opposite side.

"And... well, tomorrow we're going to be working on rainfall for Sweet Apple Acres. Their trees are looking a bit... wilted, so I figured I might as well help out Pinkie some."

Lero paused thoughtfully. On occasion, he'd gone out to watch Rainbow and her weather team at work. It was remarkable how skillfully she'd always been able to coordinate the various Pegasi into a well-oiled team. How well would Rarity be able to fill her shoes as a manager?

As a fashionista, she’d always worked solo. And as an Element Bearer, Rarity had always acted as one of the teammates, but never the leader. (At least, according to Dash and Twilight’s stories.) It was a complete unknown...

"Say, Rarity...?" he began.

"Yes, my prince?" she asked, rubbing her cheek against the hand still resting on her.

"Might I tag along with you when you go to Sweet Apple Acres? It's been a while since I saw you weathermaking with your team."

She lapsed into a thoughtful pause. "I'm not sure, Lero, I, ah, with my performance lately, I could do without distractions. Wouldn't want you to become disruptive."

Inwardly, Lero reflected on the irony of Rarity worrying he might be a disruptive influence on the weather. Then again, in all fairness, he definitely HAD played a part in that incident with Discord yesterday...

"Please? I swear I'll just watch. I promise not be a distraction. Besides... I saw Pinkie Pie in the market today, and she wasn't looking too well. I'd kind of like to check up on her, besides!"

Rarity hesitated. “Are you THAT determined to go to Sweet Apple Acres tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Yes. One way or another.”

“Then I suppose I'll let you come with me.”

Lero smiled back. "Thanks, Rarity." He could see Spike shooting him a 'what the hell are you doing!?' look at him over Rarity's head, but he didn't respond.

"But what about you and Spike helping out Dash?" She inquired.

"We’ll drop by her cottage afterwards. I won’t take ALL day."

"Well, I need to get back to studying. See you all later, alright?" Twilight said, rising from her finished meal.

"Yeah, since we're almost done, I'll start cleaning up. Want to help, Lero?" Spike asked, pointedly.

Lero shrugged. "Sure."

"I need to finish up some paperwork myself," Rarity said, planting a quick peck on Lero’s cheek before leaving the table. “I’ll keep the bed warm for you, my prince.”

As Spike and Lero piled dirty dishes into the sink, Spike practically hissed, "What are you doing, Lero!? I asked you to spend less time with her, not make a date!"

"Look, Spike, I can't have you freaking out every second I spend with Rarity. This is more curiosity than anything romantic.”

“Curiosity?” asked the dragon, mixing soap into the water.

“Yeah. Curiosity. I want to see how she's managing as a Weathermare... and maybe see how if I can help out. Or do you relish the idea of our house being blown down by an artistic hurricane?"

"No, but..." Spike started, unsure.

"Look, I appreciate your help with the animals. I really do. But I will not sacrifice Rainbow Dash's emotional wellbeing for the sake of your crush. Or Rarity's."

Spike fumed, torn between being angry and guilty. "But that's not..."

"Fair? None of this is, Spike. Look, I'll do my best to keep the romance toned down as much as I reasonably can, with the understanding it might not be possible... the same way I'll overlook how you attempted to use the wellbeing of someone who's family to manipulate me into it. Deal?"

"Sure, fine, whatever," the dragon agreed, dunking a large plate under the soapy water.

Lero was pretty sure that wouldn't be the last of it.

* * *

The next morning passed uneventfully. He showered alone, idly determining to himself that today marked the sixteenth day of the Swapped Five’s being Swapped. For breakfast, he just buttered some bagels without even toasting them, and swigged down some coffee. Then he suddenly noted that Rarity was outside the window; she’d slipped out without him noticing. Startled, he ran outside.

"Your chariot awaits, my prince." Rarity smiled, astride a fluffy cloud, low to the ground. She’d actually shaped the front and sides of the cloud somewhat like a wheelless chariot. He grinned and she gave an aristocratic sort of bow.

"I thought it might be nice for me to take you in a bit of style. Growing up in Cloudsdale, I learned cloudwalking... well, as soon as I could walk!"

Lero blushed. "I'd thought you'd left without me for a second."

“Tish. Dear, we've established that if you really want to come along with me, I can't really stop you. You'll either show up on your own, or make me feel guilty enough to come back looking for you. So..." She smiled, leaning forward, her horn glowing as she cast the spell... the now-familiar sensation of the cloudwalking spell enveloping him.

As he stepped aboard the cloud, he wondered again about Rarity's sudden magical proficiency in all things weather-related.

She'd never displayed such climatological talents before. And while her ‘current’ job made it make rational sense, false memories didn't mean competency.

Furthermore, it was worth noting that Rarity’s issue was slightly different than that of the other girls. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Applejack were simply bad at their new jobs. But Rarity was a weather-making dynamo. Her issue was control over her creative urges. Had she always been so powerful and concealed it? Perhaps deemed it inappropriate or unbecoming of a fashionista? Or... was it possible that Starswirl’s unfinished spell had seen fit to bestow Rarity with an array of new powers and abilities she had no rightful business having? Was that even a thing it could do?

He horn glowed again, and the cloud was off like a shot. "Whoa!" he put his hands out to steady himself, ending up with one arm around her. She giggled slightly, and leaned against him, Ponyville receding below them as they reached altitude, heading south towards Sweet Apple Acres. Rarity had been right; the trees did look a bit wilted. Just sixteen days... how had Pinkie managed it?

As they approached, he noted that they had escorts flying alongside them. He recognized Flitter and Cloudchaser, two of Rainbow Dash's better Weathermares. He waved at them. Flitter eagerly, almost hyperactively, waved back... whereas Cloudchaser favored first Rarity, then Lero with a flirtatious wink, swooping one side to the other to do each. They continued their descent down to meet the two Earth Ponies waiting for them: Apple Bloom and Pinkie Pie.

"Howdy, Lero!" The grinning filly practically hopped over to greet them, the way Pinkie used to.

Lero smiled. Growing up as a big brother to several siblings had, surprisingly, led him to rather liking kids. Sure, they could be brats, but most of the time they were creative, clever, curious and eager; which was pretty fun to be around if you were patient.

"Hey, Bloom!" He got off the cloud, giving her a friendly scritch. While fillies and colts were generally less judgmental of him than their parents, the reputation of the 'big bad carnivore' tended to frighten off the more skittish ones, while most others had been forbidden by their parents. So his early interactions with most foals had been them fleeing or daring each other to do things like touch him or whatever.

The Crusaders had been an exception. Two of them were related to the very Elements of Harmony, and had sought to befriend him in defiance of what the rest of the town thought. Scootaloo’s guardians... (were they ponies he’d already met? Perhaps those flower ponies; Daisy, Rose, and Lily Valley? Or a set of reclusive, antisocial strangers?) ...whoever they were, apparently didn't care what she did, so Scootaloo had just gone with what her friends were doing.

All three of them had almost immediately taken to him, Apple Bloom especially. "Ah ain't gonna be afraid a' someone jes cus he's differen', or any dumb grown-up stuff lahk that." Was how she'd put it.

They'd asked him constant questions about himself, humans, and Earth, which he happily answered... well, except for the ones that they were really too young for. How did they know about such grown-up things, when they didn’t even have TV and the Internet?

Heck, one day they'd taken up a 'Crusade' on his behalf, trying to find a way home for him. He’d tagged along with to keep them out of trouble once he realized they'd go looking for a portal to Earth with or without him. While nothing had come of it — no way home or cutie marks — it'd had been an amusing way to spend a day.

Pinkie, on the other hand... Lero again found himself silently measuring Pinkie against how Rainbow Dash had looked, on the day he'd quit the spa and Dash had first begun letting him help with her animals.

First of all, Pinkie was clearly well-fed: no cans of Scrod Pâté on the Apple family's menu! Against all his expectations, Lero could see that Pinkie hadn't completely given up on sleep and hygiene, the way Rainbow Dash had. Yes, she was a grubby and grungy sight... but this was only a single day's worth of dirt and grime clinging to her, the result of good, honest farm labor! (Granny Smith, bless her, had raised her grandkids with an adequate appreciation for cleanliness.) The circles under her eyes were not NEARLY as inky-black as Dash's, (her eyes weren't even bloodshot!) All the same, in contrast to Apple Bloom, Pinkie Pie looked practically dead on her feet.

"Hey, thanks ya, Rare, fer makin' the trip out heah, the farm is needin' it somethin' powerful." she sighed. "Ah jes' don't know what's goin' wrong."

Apple Bloom muttered quietly, "Ah could tell you whut, it's pink an' got four legs."

"Oh, you're quite welcome, Pink..." Rarity started.

"WHUT DID YEW SAY!?" Lero cursed inwardly. Either Pinkie's hearing was better than Applejack's, or Apple Bloom had simply misjudged her volume.

Apple Bloom shot Pinkie a resentful look. Lero guessed that Pinkie's casual verbal abuse of the filly hadn't let up since he'd last saw them, and she'd just had about her fill of it. "Gee, Sis, don't tell me yer goin' deaf, too."

Lero winced, Rarity let out a gasp, Flitter gives a look of shock.... and Cloudchaser snickered.

"That's it! Go to your room! Raight now!" Pinkie practically snarled.

"Yew can't make me! Yer not mah Ma!" Apple Bloom snapped back.

Pinkie's eyes practically blazed with anger, as she stomped the ground dangerously close to Apple Bloom’s own hooves. Lero had to resist the urge to pull her away to safety.

"MA’S DEAD,” she pointed out. “AH’VE pretty much BEEN Ma for ya, in case yew’ve fergotten everythang since yew were in diapers. So yew'll do what Ah say! So git! We got grown-up bizness to do, and we don' need lil' fillies who’re as useless as a glass sledgehammer, an inflatable dartboard, and a wax skillet all at once!”

For a moment, Apple Bloom looked ready to snap back, but finally slumped her shoulders. "Fine," she said, slouching towards the farmhouse.

Pinkie inhaled deeply, rubbing her forehead, seeming to calm down. "Sorreh 'bout that, guys. Ah'dve not had her out here at all, but Bloomy insisted on gettin' ta see ya when y'all got here."

"It's... alright." Rarity replied hesitantly, as Flitter and Cloudchaser stepped back from the great pink grump. "Is everything alright?"

Lero had to strongly push down the urge to stare daggers at Pinkie, instead he settled at aiming his daggers at her cutie mark instead.

"Peachy," Pinkie replied. "Now, if'n yew don't mind, ladies... and Lero... Ah'm gonna get to work, so ya’ll best go do the same."

"Uh, we are gonna start making it rain,” Cloudchaser warned. “You sure you don’t want to be inside, miss?” Cloudchaser asked.

"Chores ain't gonna do themselves." Pinkie replied, waving at them offhandedly as she walked off.

"Well, then, girls." Rarity stepped up to her team. "Let's get started, shall we? Flitter, have the rest of the teams gotten their assignments?"

Flitter saluted. "Yes, ma'am!"

"Kiss-up," Cloudchaser smirked.

Flitter just stuck her tongue out at her.

Rarity was amused by it all. "Alright, then, we should get started..."

"Before you do..." Lero looked of the odd trio of weathermares; the unicorn standing out like a sore thumb. "...Can I ask you all something?"

Flitter nodded. "Of course, Boss!" Flitter had started calling Lero that after she'd learned about his relationship with Rainbow Dash. When Dash had asked, Flitter had explained that while Dash was in charge of her, Dash clearly now answered to someone else. ‘My boss’ Boss is MY Boss, as well,’ was how she put it. Dash had laughed, agreed, and the nickname stuck. Apparently, that'd managed to carry over to Rarity.

"Well... Weather is an exclusively pegasus thing, right?"

"Yup!" Cloudchaser agreed, thumping her chest with a hoof.

"Right in one, Boss!" Flitter concluded, with a hearty nod.

"Absolutely exclusive!" Rarity asserted. He clearly heard the selfsame ‘pegasus pride’ in Rarity’s voice as the actual two pegasus mares, and had to stop himself from laughing.

"And...?" He prompted, wondering if they'd put two and two together.

They looked at each other. "And what, dear?" Rarity inquired.

Huh. Apparently not. "Uhm, I don't know if it's rude for me to point out, but... Rarity, you're a unicorn."

He was expecting to see the spell's now trademark 'Blank-Zombie-Stare-While-I-Figure-This-Out.’ However, Rarity just laughed in good humor.

"No, not rude at all, dear."

"She's a weather unicorn." Cloudchaser told him, as if that explained everything.

Seeing the confusion on Lero’s face, Flitter explained; "They're really rare, but they're honorary pegasi."

“Honorary... pegasi.” Lero repeated slowly.

"Yes, indeed, dear." Rarity told him. "I grew up in Cloudsdale. Born of pegasus parents and raised among the clouds. I understand and get along well with pegasi; for they are my people."

She smiled at the other two, who nodded in a firm show of pegasus camaraderie.

Lero closed his mouth into an appreciative, gentlemanly smile. “Thank you, ladies, for clarifying that for me. I promise I won’t hold you up any longer.”

“Not at all, darling,” Rarity said, before turning to her assistants. "Anyhow, let's get started. Chaser, head southwest, I want you watching out for anything out of Everfree... we're a lot closer than normal and any unexpected weather fronts out of there could seriously foul things up. Flitter, you're going to be watching the Northeast side- careful not to let anything get away from us! We don't want any more... unscheduled weather drifting into Ponyville. I'll head to the center of the Orchard and start summoning up the clouds."

She hopped back up on the cloud they’d arrived in. "Lero? Are you going to be alright down here? It's going to be a rather... steady storm."

He held up his umbrella, which he'd grabbed just before leaving the house. "Still got this."

She laughed. "Alright. But if something happens, don't hesitate to call out to me or my girls. I know you don't intend to be a distraction, but I don't want my stallion getting sick."

She gave him an intense look.

"Don't worry, Rarity. I know where 'being a pest' ends and 'self-endangerment' begins."

"You’d better." She blew him a kiss and a wink.

"What, none for me?" Cloudchaser teased. Rarity laughed, blew her a kiss and a wink, and waved her off.

As Rarity and Cloudchaser flew off, Flitter lingered behind, watched them leave, before turning to Lero. "Hey, Boss, got a minute?"

Surprised, Lero nodded. "Sure, Flitter, what's up?"

"Mind if I ask... what happened to you two? In Bramblewood? I mean, I heard Rarity's story, but... I'm wondering if we're missing something... I mean, don't get me wrong, she's messed up a few times in the past... like that time she accidentally made that sleet storm..."

Lero recognized what she was talking about; a few months back a sudden cold front from Everfree turned a gentle shower into freezing sleet. the town had been covered in ice before the weather team could stop it, which caused all sorts of problems and minor accidents. He recalled Rainbow complaining how the schedule had been thrown off for weeks due to the amount of sunny days needed to melt the ice. Was Flitter attributing accidents and misfortunes suffered by Rainbow's team to Rarity losing control?

"...But it's never been like this! Ever since she came back from that vacation with you, her magic's been going wrong constantly. I'm starting to worry there might be something serious at hoof."

Lero studied Flitter’s earnest, anxious-to-help face for a good, long while. She was bewitched, just like all the rest. It wasn’t like she remembered Rainbow Dash. And yet... all the same... Lero got a powerful sense that Flitter had a stronger awareness than all the others that something was gravely amiss. To see that level of awareness was an unimaginable relief, especially coming from a pony who’d be on his side.

But as with all of the Bewitched, he’d need to word his answers very carefully. If Flitter started... even good-intentionally... interfering too greatly with Rarity’s weather duties, it would get... messy.

"Well... we both went through a lot,” he said. “Do know you everything about what happened to us in Bramblewood?”

Flitter nodded. “Last time we met her, Rarity gave a full-out reenactment of how you were cocooned by that giant spider, and she killed it to save you. Fun story!” Her brow furrowed. “It wasn’t JUST a story, though, was it?”

“Every word of it was true,” he assured her.

“Whoa.”

“But now, back to the matter at hand. I... can’t say what’s the matter with her, myself. Maybe the experience of it traumatized her a little... I did almost die. Or possibly... did she tell you that the spider bit her? Maybe its venom could’ve had a lingering effect. But the doctors gave her a clean bill of health, so I dunno.” He met her eyes. “But if I figure anything out, or need help, I'll come to you about it. Okay, Flitter?"

She saluted, with a big smile. "Anytime, Boss! I gotta get in position now, see ya!"

With that, she was off like a shot.

He started walking about the farm. Above him, he heard the weather team calling to each other. One thing he'd noted about Pegasi: they were extraordinarily good at projecting their voices, moreso than other ponies. Useful for communicating over the long distances involved in flight, he supposed. Which, of course, made Fluttershy that much more of an oddball among the members of her race.

"Alright girls, ready?" For her part, Rarity was also blessed with a powerful, carrying voice.

"Ready!"

"Ready!"

"Here it comes!" There was a loud crackle as clouds formed out of nothingness... out of the hydrogen and oxygen molecules hanging in the air! It seemed this was one of the primary advantages of having a Weather Unicorn: Weather magicked up on the spot! No need for Flitter and Cloudchaser to chase stray clouds and bunch them together, or have them shipped from Cloudsdale or some other major cloud city.

"Nnnnnngh...!" Lero glanced up, startled, at the sound of one of Rarity's ‘Artistic Outbursts.‘ Golden tendrils of cloud starting to form out from the storm. Admittedly, they were quite pretty, but they put him uncomfortably in mind of some... living, tentacled creature, reaching towards the ground. He hoped they weren't solid enough to do damage.

"Chaser! Break them up!" He heard Flitter shout.

"Already on it!" He saw the two weather Pegasi zoom into the emerging tendrils, and, with devastating kicks, break them apart, dissipating them into golden mist that faded away.

"Thank you, girls," He heard Rarity breath. "Now let's get back to..."

Lero's concentration on the sky was broken as he tripped over something. He cursed, righted himself, and looked at what he'd tripped over.

A large plow, half-buried in the ground.

An unsteady, wavering trail of plowing led up to the plow’s current location. It seemed to have hit a hard spot, and gotten stuck. Multiple hoof prints were all around the plow — an obvious attempting to free it — but he suspected the pony they belonged to must’ve given up around the point where the wooden handle had cracked.

He gave a small start, at the thunderous cracks of harlequin-patterned lightning. Putting up his umbrella, he continued touring the place, to take the rest of the farmstead in. As the rain fell at a light patter, he noticed more and more problems; some subtle, some obvious. Wilting trees was only the beginning.

For instance, there were many broken spots along the farms’ fences that had either been repaired shoddily... or not at all. Some of the irrigation channels hadn't been properly completed, or were blocked by debris, so the water poured out in inefficient puddles where no crops grew. More worryingly, while the crops were looking sickly, the weeds were thriving remarkably.

He spotted Pinkie Pie pulling a cart full of chicken cages, back up from the gardens. He remembered how Applejack had usually let the chickens out in the garden to help fertilize it, so Pinkie must be returning them to their coop. However, the rain was making the pathway slick...

CRASH!

"Awww, dangit!"

The cart overturned, scattering flapping, clucking chickens everywhere.

"Hey, Pinkie, can I...?"

"No taime, no taime!" Pinkie waved him off, attempting to round up the chickens.

Sighing, he shut his umbrella to help her, chasing after a rooster for about five minutes in the pouring rain, before noticing she'd disappeared. He looked left, looked right, heard the creak of metal, and then looked upwards.

Now she was struggling with a broken rain gutter on the barn’s roof, which was spraying water in an arc onto the path, rather than into the collection barrel.

"No matter whut ah try, ah cannot fix this bastard water spout!" She snarled, before the entire thing gave way, crashing to the ground. Pinkie burst out into a storm of creative swearing Lero would otherwise not think her capable of. Lero headed over to help her up, before a chicken ran by, and she was off like a shot after it.

Lero was starting to grasp why things were in such lousy shape: not only was Pinkie bad at farming, but she was easily distracted, switching between one unfinished task to the next at the blink of an eye.

Lacking much else to do, he entered the barn. It appeared that many of the tools were in need of sharpening and repair. The farm tools had been laid out neatly on a worktable, next to a whetstone and a tool repair kit... still dull, still broken, and with a light coat of dust. He also saw mounds of hay, half-finished in being baled and stacked, and...

He stared towards the canner. Almost all the cans of apple preserves around it were clearly swollen, apparently not properly cooked before being improperly sealed. One was cracked, and the smell coming off of it was out-and-out poisonous, and this was no hyperbole.

"Jesus." he murmured, taking the cans and racing them out to the garbage heap, before Pinkie could actually bring them to market. As he walked back, something struck him as deeply, intensely wrong.

Where the hell was Big Macintosh in all this?

While he was a stallion of few words, Big Mac was a good friend of his, maybe even more so than Applejack. Not saying hi would make sense if he was busy with chores... but he'd not seen any sign of him. At all. Just Pinkie and her frantic, frustrated failures.

All by herself.

This made no sense.

"Lero! Darling! We're breaking for lunch! Care to join us?" Rarity called from above, descending down towards him on her cloud chariot.

"Sure, but... Can you see Pinkie from up there?" He called. He spotted her scanning around, before locking her gaze in the distance.

"Yes, I see her down over in an orchard."

"Can you take me to her? Please?"

Rarity tilted her head. "Of course, my prince, but what's this about?"

"I need a word with her. It's important."

Rarity took in Lero's look of determination. "Alright, my love. I'll get you right over. Come aboard?"

Lero climbed up on the chariot with a single step, and within moments they were at Pinkie's side. She was bucking trees, slightly more effectually now, but nowhere near Applejack's skill. The apples kept beaning her on the head.

"Hey, Pinkie!" Lero called to her.

She looked up, annoyed. "Whut!?"

He stepped off the chariot as they got close. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Make it snappy! Questions distract me from mah farm chores!"

He looked her square in the eye. "Where’s Big Mac?"

Several emotions flickered through her eyes, gone before he could name them. "Where’s Big Mac?" She mimicked, her voice suddenly strained.

Lero nodded vigorously. "Yeah! Where’s he at? I've not seen him around anywhere since we got back from Bramblewood! Not in town, and not on this farm!" He pressed her shoulder, this wasn't something he was going to let her get a pass on.

Apple Bloom was one thing. If Lero were to stretch his sympathy for this curmudgeonly crabapple to its absolute limit... he could sorta understand why Pinkie Pie would be so short with her. After all, Pinkie was hapless enough on her own without adding a second clumsy, accident-prone sister.

But Mac was another story. Big Macintosh was every bit the workaholic workhorse which Pinkie had now become, only his work bore fruit. Lots of fruit. And even at her absolute grouchiest, the Applejack of old had treasured her big brother, through and through. The Elements of Harmony might’ve all been best friends and allies, but here on this farm, Applejack and Big Mac were partners; the left and right hands of Sweet Apple Acres. If even just half of Applejack’s respect, love and honor for him had transferred over to Pinkie Pie’s heart... there’d be no way she’d have done anything to drive Big Macintosh off these fields.

Pinkie suddenly shuddered, closing her eyes. "Ah... Ah never told yew?" she blinked at him. "Bloomy never told yew?" The rain made it hard to tell if she was crying, but... "Nopony never told yew?" ...the tone in her voice and her posture made him strongly suspect.

Fear struck his heart. He couldn't be... dead? No, someone would have mentioned that! "Told me what? ...Pinkie, what happened to Mac?"

Pinkie’s shivers were definitely not due to the rain. "'Bout a day after yew ‘n’ Rarity flew out from Ponyville... a monster from the Everfree Forest snuck into our pigpen and ate up all our pigs. Big Mac heard it happenin’ and tried to put a stop to it, but the monster... it very near done him in."

Lero snorted in disbelief. "I can’t imagine ANY forest animal getting the drop on Big Mac."

Pinkie looked sadly at him. "Lero, sugarcube... with the Everfree, there are monsters, which are jest gussied-up critters... and there are MONSTERS. Thangs that look lahk they crawled out o' yer nightmares. This thang was a MONSTER. Ah had to set the pigpen on fire, jest ta scare it away. That’s the only reason mah brother ain’t... ain’t..."

Her voice cracked with emotion, unable to finish the sentence. She suddenly pushed past it, and burst out with words.

"He’s in Ponyville Hospital now! And it’s bad, Lero, really bad! Nearly took off all four of his legs! All four! He can’t walk! Can’t work!"

Lero was agog at the concept. Big Mac, crippled? He could hardly imagine a worse fate for the proud stallion. "The doctors can heal him, right?!"

Pinkie managed to put on a weak, shaky smile. "Yeah. Yeah, Gotta be grateful fer that. But they think it’ll take a while." She shivered again. "An entire season. Maybe two! Ah’m all on mah own!"

Finally the dam burst, and the Pink mare sobbed outright. Lero reached out to her, and she hugged him fiercely, sobbing into his shoulder.

Rarity had been watching politely from a distance, but this caught her attention. She stepped off the chariot, walking toward them. "Lero? Pinkie?"

"Ssssh, give us a moment, Rarity." Pinkie's sobs grew into a loud wail.

"Ohhhh, Macky, Macky... Ah shoulda ran faster! Ah shoulda ran faster! These legs a’mine are the most WORTHLESS THANGS EVER!"

* * *

Lero peered into the hospital room at his farmer friend, waiting for Rarity to come back from the mares’ restroom, close by. Big Macintosh hadn’t noticed that he was standing there yet. Never had the human seen the gentle red giant of Sweet Apple Acres look so dismally bored; alternating between staring out through the window, staring at the wall, staring at himself, and sighing the sigh of a pony who’d run out of things to think about.

It was almost a crime that they didn’t have TV shows for the patients to watch. How weird Equestrian technology was! Almost disjointed, at times! They had movies at the movie theater... but no television sets, not even old-time black and white ones! The movies were in COLOR too!

Lero felt the side of Rarity’s body brush against his own, and she looked up at him expectantly. He nodded at her, and knocked on the already-open door.

“Mr. Macintosh? You have visitors,” he called in.

Big Macintosh turned towards them. He smiled in gladness as they entered in. “Howdy.”

“Howdy, yourself!” said Lero.

“It’s very good to see you, Macintosh,” greeted Rarity, with honesty and grace. “We just heard about what happened to you from Pinkie. Are you feeling well?”

Big Macintosh was never one to burden others with his problems, so he merely gave a noncommittal grunt, then asked,

“Those for me?” The stallion was eyeing the bouquets of get-well-soon flowers, that Lero and Rarity were carrying. Both of them nodded. “Lero, ya got yers off Sweet Apple Acres, right?”

“Sure did,” the human said. Lero had picked twelve sunflower heads off from the farm’s sunflower fields. “Just a little reminder of the homestead, Mac. They all miss you there.”

“Mine are from our outside garden,” said Rarity, showing him her own array of dahlias and zinnias. “Spike does most of the garden-work, but I water them all personally.”

Big Macintosh smiled at how fresh and pretty they were. “May Ah have yours first, Lero?”

“Absolutely,” said Lero, and held them out within range of Macintosh’s mouth. The farmer leaned forward, bit down on a sunflower and pulled it into his mouth, chewing happily.

Here was yet another thing that differentiated stallions from human men: stallions tended to be far more receptive to getting flowers as gifts, especially when they could eat them like grapes. They were less "Pretty" than "Snacks that stay fresh when you put them in water." Lero set the rest of the sunflower bouquet by Big Mac’s head, in easy reach, while Rarity set hers atop a small wheeled table.

“Much obliged,” said his friend. With his limbs in the condition they were in, he couldn’t shift around in bed. All four of his legs were in casts which smelled heavily of potent medicine.

His family had signed their names and left messages on his casts:

From Apple Bloom: “Please get better soon!”

From Granny Smith: “Granny loves you.”

From Pinkie Pie: “I’m so, so, so, so SO sorry I wasn’t faster! I love you, Macky.”

Big Macintosh motioned his head invitingly towards a black permanent marker on the table. Lero took it and wrote: STAY STRONG, MAC!! — LERO, onto his left foreleg’s cast.

“Hey, Mac,” asked Lero, while writing. “Do you read books? Like, for fun?”

“Eeyup.”

“What’s your favorite genre?”

“Courtroom dramas,” the stallion told him.

That brought the image of terse, taciturn Big Macintosh in the role of Phoenix Wright into Lero’s mind, and he smiled, wondering who the pony equivalent of John Grisham was. “If you like I can pick up a few of those courtroom dramas for you and let you borrow them. I live in a library, after all.”

The scarlet stallion shook his head with a regretful smile. “How’m Ah gonna read it?”

"You can..." He started.

Lero almost said: Just use your hoof to...

Then he almost said: Just call a nurse and have her...

But he didn’t. Because Lero remembered his own hospital stay; being unable to move his limbs. Even if Mac were to use his mouth to turn the pages... it’d probably be real difficult without full mobility.

"...Well, I'll try to figure something out." He finished.

He cast a look at Rarity, and suddenly felt a little spoiled. On one hand, he hadn’t even been able to speak the way Big Macintosh could... but Mac didn’t even have anyone to speak TO. At least he’d had Rarity with him to provide him with mental stimulation. She’d read him all those books, and made sure that all the visitors who wanted a look at him were good people. She’d kept out the bad eggs.

He passed the marker over to Rarity, who wrote: Wishing you a speedy recovery, Rarity. Her calligraphy was fancy enough to serve for a wedding invitation.

“So what exactly happened, Macintosh?” she asked him.

“Thought Pinkie told ya,” said Big Mac.

“Pinkie basically told us a summary,” Lero said. “She said that some kind of big monster from the Everfree overpowered you, and she had to burn the pigpen down to scare it off.”

Big Macintosh’s face darkened with the memory of what had brought him to this hospital room. “Weren’t jest ‘sum kinda big monster.’ No, sir. What did this ta me was a glufferflork.”

Lero felt his lips quirk in an odd direction. “Gluffer... what?”

“A glufferflork? Are you quite sure?” Rarity asked, intently. “Glufferflorks haven’t been seen in the Everfree for decades.”

“Ah saw what attacked me, Miss Rarity,” the farmer insisted. “Ah knows a flork when Ah sees it.”

“Gluffer... flork,” repeated Lero, with a bemused shake of his head. “What, did Roald Dahl make up that name? Or Lewis Carroll? Or maybe Dahl came up with the first bit and Carroll cooked up the second?”

Both the ponies passed him puzzled frowns.

“Sorry. Human humor,” said Lero. “Would one of you mind telling me what a... ‘flork’ is? I’m pretty sure they don’t exist back on Earth.”

“Then Earth is quite a lucky world,” Rarity told him. “Glufferflorks are a sort of slime monster. They’re said to be very predatory, they’re capable of growing to enormous sizes, and their bodies are highly acidic. That’s how they eat prey.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac drew a long breath in. “Night was late. Pig squeals woke me. Squealing like they was bein’ knifed. Ah ran over. Flork was eatin’ them. Awful sight. Awful. Ah was dumb. Tried buckin’ the thang. Mah legs went straight through its body. Like kickin’ swamp muck. Burned like hell. Flork slid over mah front legs too when Ah fell over. Ah screamed. Pinkie came quick. Pull me outta the flork by herself. Must've been a heck of an adrenaline kick, there. Left me on the grass. Such a good sister. Flork didn’t chase me. It had an entire pigpen left to eat. Pinkie ran into our home. Ran back out with a burning log and ten bottles o’ hooch on Apple Bloom’s little toy wagon. Threw the hooch on all over the pigpen walls and the flork, itself. Set the pigpen on fire. Flork skedaddled.”

“Wow,” said Lero. “You’re lucky to be alive!”

“Eeyup.”

“Are you still in pain?” asked Rarity, patting his shoulder with telekinesis.

“How bad’s the damage?” Lero also piped in.

“Docs have me on painkillers. ‘Profound damage to the tissues’... that’s how the docs put it.” The red stallion tried flexing a back leg, and let out a wordless groan. “Reckon Ah’m gonna be here a while yet.”

“Mac... if there’s anything I can do, just name it!” Lero offered.

“Tell me how things’re goin’ at the farm,” asked Big Mac. “Bloom’s too young, Granny’s too old, and Pinkie’s too busy to stop by and visit. Are things goin’ well there?”

“Oh!” said Rarity, with a smile. “Well, Pinkie’s running the farm... efficiently enough. Efficiently as she always does! I was there today, providing rain for your crops!”

Lero turned towards the white unicorn. His initial thought was that this must be the bewitchment at play again. But no... he could see it in her eyes, in the falseness of her smile.

“It’s like you never even left!” she told Big Mac.

This time, Rarity didn’t actually believe the words coming out of her mouth. This time, she was flat-out, deliberately lying. And knew it.

“Thanks, Miz Rarity. Ah’m glad to hear that.”

The smile on the big stallion’s face was so full of relief. Lero couldn’t really hold it again Rarity for wanting to fib to him. Being bedridden, and unable to move any of his legs... the poor guy NEEDED some good news to keep him smiling throughout the long, empty days of recuperation which were to follow.

But he thought of all the care and hard work Big Mac had always put into the farm. He thought of Apple Bloom, so horribly bullied and disdained by Pinkie Pie.

“...Rarity, I can't do this. It's not right. I’m very sorry, Big Mac,” Lero said, pulling up a chair next to his bed. “But... I have quite a different story to tell about how things are going at Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Lero, don’t!” Rarity pleaded.

“Don’t what?” asked Big Mac, with a growing frown. “What’s going on?”

And he told Big Macintosh everything. He told him about the trees that Pinkie Pie couldn’t buck right, day after day. He told him about the damaged fences and the widespread weeds. At first, Big Macintosh was laughing his story off as a joke... but the laughter died away, especially because Rarity wasn’t laughing along. In fact, the unicorn kept looking down at her hooves, shamefaced.

He told him about their chickens running loose, the plow half-buried in the mud, the tools left blunt and unfixed, Pinkie’s inability to buckle down and finish a single chore all the way through to completion. Big Macintosh went still as a tomb as Lero quoted the conversations he’d heard between Pinkie Pie and Apple Bloom. Rarity was hiding her face in a hoof.

“...And the cans of apple preserves I found in the barn... they were giving off just this POISONOUS smell!”

“Poisonous?” The stallion was absolutely aghast.

“Well... when I say ‘poisonous,’ I don’t mean to imply that Pinkie was mixing arsenic into the apple preserves, or anything. But she just wasn’t canning your cans the right way at all. To me, it looked like they’d been exposed to the open air for days... maybe even a week or so. They were giving off this sickly-sweet smell... they'd gotten a visit from Sam 'n' Ella, if you catch my drift. I knew that if anyone actually ate it, they’d be violently sick for days.”

Hard steel set into Big Macintosh’s eyes. It didn’t matter one bit that he was an invalid. A sleeping giant had been rudely awakened.

“Lero... Rarity... Ah want yew two ta bring mah sister Pinkie here. NOW.”

Author's Note

Major thanks to Rikmach, especially for writing the scene with Cloudchaser and Flitter!

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