A Horse Named Smith
Chapter 2
Enroute to Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906
"'Pye'?" whispered Mister Smith, leaning over to his companion, "Seriously?"
"What was I supposed to tell her? She wanted a last name, and I don't have one. Anyway, Adam Pye was my master so I guess I'm part of his family, and that makes me a Pye, don't you think?"
"So I guess my last name is Conrad. Mr Mister Smith Conrad. Yes, that just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Strawberry, I've had enough masters in the past that I don't know whose name I ought to take."
"What's wrong with Smith? Miss Dream clearly thinks it's your last name, and it's a perfectly good one, at that. You could be ... Mr Adam Smith."
Something stirred in Mister Smith's memory. He thought he'd heard that name in a discussion once, between his last master but one and some London lawyer. "I'm not calling myself Adam Smith."
They'd dropped a few paces behind Malachite Dream on the way to Haymarket. If Malachite Dream had looked behind her, she might have observed, aside from the above exchange, her two new companions behaving rather oddly. In the simple act of pointing out the direction to Haymarket, she had shown them that she was capable of movements which neither horse had ever dreamt of doing, and led them to wonder of what they themselves were now capable. Strawberry reared up on his hind legs and attempted a few forward steps before dropping again to all fours; Mister Smith paused to explore the full articulation of his shoulder joints, including the act of shrugging which Strawberry had instinctively performed earlier. There was no question about it: in addition to the ability to recognise and notice this behaviour as curious and unusual and significant to themselves, they had gained a measure of fine dexterity that was almost human.
"We're there," called Malachite Dream from the edge of the forest, stopping the whispered conversation in its tracks. Mister Smith and Strawberry trotted up and looked out at the town, where ponies of every colour, tint and hue wandered the streets. Several sported unicorn horns, and Mister Smith wondered if perhaps they were a little hasty in assuming that Miss Dream might be royalty. She'd have mentioned her title if she were, now that he considered it. Meanwhile, there were also ponies with wings—he heard Strawberry mutter "pegasus!" while tracking the flight of one through the clouds, and made a note to question him about it later. There were no humans in evidence, anywhere at all. The ponies, however, could be seen shopping, doing chores, cooking and cleaning and otherwise behaving in ways that both Mister Smith and Strawberry considered more human than equine.
"Uh ... if you'll excuse us a moment, Miss Dream?" Mister Smith took a few steps back and pulled Strawberry over. "Strawberry, do you see what I see?"
"All the horses are humans in this place. Or all the humans are horses."
"I don't know how much human behaviour you saw with Mr Pye, but all I ever saw was the streets outside their houses. I have no idea what humans do when they're inside their houses, but I'm willing to bet these horses probably do the same, and they'll be expecting us to do the same also. We're going to look like a pair of blithering idiots if we're not careful."
"There must be humans somewhere," said Strawberry hopefully. "Miss Dream never commented on our saddles, did you notice? And some of these horses are wearing saddles, too. Where there's a saddle, there's bound to be a rider."
"I don't see a single bridle amongst them, though. What use is a saddle without a bridle?"
"Maybe we should take ours off, too."
Mister Smith glanced over to where Malachite Dream and her friend were waiting patiently, gave them an apologetic grin, and began helping his friend—they'd only just met a few hours ago, but necessity made them friends—out of his bridle.
Further down the road, Malachite Dream watched the two strange ponies struggle with their bridles. Her friend, Primrose Path, also watched, with great interest.
"I wonder if I should help them out," Malachite said. "I remember thinking that the buckles on their bridles looked a little too fine to be handled without unicorn magic, and I wondered why a pair of giant earth ponies would be wearing such a thing."
"Perhaps they have a unicorn friend help them out. Do they? A unicorn wife, perhaps? Oh, you don't suppose they might be married, do you?"
"Primrose?" Malachite turned to her friend and frowned. "Primrose, you don't know anything about these ponies."
"Then introduce me." Primrose had always admired larger stallions—the taller the better—and Malachite realised that, as far as Primrose Path was concerned, the appearance of Messieurs Smith and Pie meant that Hearth's Warming had come early.
"We'd ... better wait for them to be finished." Malachite glanced doubtfully at Primrose, who shuffled her hooves impatiently.
"Will they be staying long, do you know?" asked Primrose. "Or are they just passing through? If they're staying, I know Balderdash wants an extra hoof or two on the rock farm ... it's hard work, but these stallions look so strong ... oh, they'll want room and board while they're here, won't they, even if they're not staying long..."
"We'll take them to the stable as soon as they're ready." Up at the treeline, a bridle strap snapped and both ponies went tumbling head over hooves, landing in a comical sprawl on either side of the path.
Primrose stifled a giggle. "I like them. They're funny."
Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906
Dinner, with Miss Dream and Miss Path, had been an experience. For one thing: apples. Sweet, lovely apples, practically glowing with delicious goodness. Strawberry had had apples often enough, as the horse of a rural riding master, but Mister Smith had had the joy of a whole apple to himself perhaps three times in the course of his life. Both horses understood apples to be something of a treat, and here they were, a core component of a "simple" meal. They were about to dive into the apples with gusto when they saw the glow form around one of Malachite Dream's apples. It matched the glow around her horn: it was evident that she was doing this somehow, levitating the apple into the air and taking bites out of it.
Was that how things were done here? And if they could also talk, and wave their forelegs about as though they were human arms... Mister Smith closed his mouth, straightened up, and willed his meal to rise into the air.
Nothing happened.
He stared harder, ears flattening back against his skull, the whites of his eyes beginning to show. Beside him, he could hear Strawberry mutter, "up up up curse you up now". And still nothing happened.
Both Miss Dream and Miss Path were staring at them now with quizzical expressions. "Is everything all right?" said Miss Path, "the apples don't bite back, you know."
Miss Path had her apple gripped somehow in one forehoof, and was manually raising it to her mouth for each bite. Mister Smith had been so anxious to follow Miss Dream's lead that he had forgotten to observe Miss Path—a foolish error, now he thought about it, as Miss Path, unlike Miss Dream, was a relatively normal horse, sans wings and sans horn, and therefore far more likely to behave in the manner required of similarly normal horses such as Strawberry and himself.
"We're, uh, just saying grace," said Strawberry quickly. Mister Smith was unfamiliar with the concept of grace before meals, but the mares seemed to accept the explanation. Mister Smith clumsily tried to pick up an apple in one hoof, then decided that it would be easier to grip it between two; carefully, carefully, he raised it to his mouth, and, unwilling to repeat this process more than he had to, closed his lips over the whole apple.
Oh, it was delicious. Mister Smith closed his eyes and let the pleasure overtake him, chewing slowly and carefully shuffling the seeds into one cheek as he crunched down into the sweet, juicy apple flesh. Finally, with a rat-tat-tat, he spat the seeds out into his plate and opened his eyes to grab hold of another apple. And now he was aware that all three of his dining companions were watching him.
"What?" Had he done something wrong?
"That's a neat trick," said Miss Dream. "I take it you don't much like apple seeds."
"I find them a little bitter, myself," said Miss Path, "but my mother always told me it was a waste to not eat the core. I'd love to be able to do what you did."
Mister Smith shrugged and pushed the seeds to the side of his plate with one hoof. "It just seemed like the thing to do."
"I know some ponies who travel around the further borders of Equestria collecting seeds and planting them," said Miss Path. "Being able to save the seeds like that—without the bother of cutting them out first—could be a useful skill."
"I'll keep that in mind," said Mister Smith thoughtfully.
He'd been the one to bring up the difficulty of payment earlier, explaining that neither he nor Strawberry had any money. Fortunately, the owner of the so-called "stable" had been willing to cover their room and board for one night, on the understanding that they would find gainful employment the next day. At the moment, any suggestion as to appropriate avenues of employment would be cause for consideration, and though Mister Smith had no intention as yet of moving out into the "further borders of Equestria", wherever that might be, it was perhaps useful to know that such a job existed.
The two stallions opted to retire for the night immediately after dinner, much to the apparent disappointment of Miss Path; and although the company of the two mares was quite pleasant, it seemed imperative that Mister Smith and Strawberry take the time to discuss their current predicament in private.
For one thing, this stable was nothing like any stable either had ever slept in. It was in fact an inn, with rooms on an upper floor, and stairs. Neither horse felt comfortable climbing those stairs, or being shut up in an upstairs room, though they tried not to show it. Mister Smith couldn't help but feel that it was only a matter of time before the wooden planks beneath them gave way, like a flooded bridge, and sent them plummeting into the dining room below.
Once they finally got their saddles off, Strawberry trotted over to one of the beds. "I think they expect us to sleep in this thing," he said, tapping the wooden structure with his forehoof. "That's just not natural."
"No more natural than Miss Dream's table manners," grunted Mister Smith as he twisted his legs around to examine his horseshoes. "I'm going to need new horseshoes, by the way. Miss Path said her brother was a farrier, didn't she? As soon as I earn the, uh, bits for it, I'm getting myself shod, assuming I don't throw one of these slivers that used to be horseshoes first."
"I can lend you a few bits once I have some. Adam just had me reshod last week; I won't be needing new shoes for a while."
"Thanks, Strawberry."
Strawberry paced over to the other side of the bed and cocked his head at it. He reached out and gripped the corner of the blanket with his mouth and gave it a quick tug. By a stroke of good fortune, the blanket whipped around and settled smoothly over his back. Gingerly, he set one hoof, then another, on the soft mattress, and leaned his weight into it; and when the bed failed to collapse only then did he dare to bring his hind legs up onto the bed as well. He stood there for a minute, his legs splayed and locked in position, the blanket draped over his back, his ears laid back, and said, "Mister Smith, I don't think I can lie down from here."
"Try kneeling down first."
"My forehooves are too far apart for that."
"So bring them in together."
"I ..." Strawberry slowly raised his right forehoof. Predictably, his left forehoof began to press deeper into the mattress, and his weight shifted to one side. Strawberry dropped his right forehoof back down onto the mattress in alarm. "I can't do it!"
Mister Smith put aside his inspection of his shoes and eyed the other bed. "It can't possibly be that difficult, can it? Maybe this is something that needs to be done quickly." He backed up as far as he could from the bed, snorted and pawed the floor, then charged forward and leapt into the bed. He landed on the mattress hoof-first, bounced off, and landed again ... on the floor by the bed this time, upside-down with all four legs waving in the air. In spite of himself, Strawberry began to laugh. Irritated and embarrassed, Mister Smith scrambled to get up, and swatted at Strawberry's outstretched legs. Strawberry's laugh turned into a panicked whinny as both legs on one side were swept out from under him. He lost his balance and tumbled off the bed, fortunately landing on top of his friend. The blanket, momentarily thrown off his back, floated back down and settled over both horses.
Someone rapped on the door. "Everything all right in there?"
"We're fine. Don't come in."
They waited until the clip-clop of hoofbeats receded into the distance before carefully disentangling themselves. Mister Smith glared at his bed, then gripped a corner of his mattress with his teeth and pulled it off the bedframe. It was a good deal easier climbing onto it once it was on the floor, and Strawberry hastened to do the same. "We'll have to make sure to put them back up tomorrow morning," Strawberry said.
Mister Smith nodded. This bed mattress thing was much more comfortable than anything he'd ever experienced. "I'd been meaning to ask you, Strawberry, about the winged horses. I thought I heard you call them something?"
"Pegasus." Strawberry sat up on his haunches and looked off into the distance. "The winged stallion, child of the hideous monster Medusa. I remember one of Adam's students talking about him. There was also something about another monster, Chimaera. I think Pegasus fought and defeated Chimaera, or else his master did. That part wasn't entirely clear to me."
"So these might be the descendants of Pegasus?"
Strawberry didn't answer. "Mister Smith?" he said at last, his voice very quiet, "do you think we're dead?"
"What? Don't be ridiculous. I'm here; you're here. Do we look dead?"
"I was thinking. The winged horses ... they could be angels. Perhaps this whole place is Paradise ... Heaven for horses, if you will."
Mister Smith shook his head. Unlike Strawberry, he had never been exposed to any talk of the afterlife, and Strawberry's comments meant nothing to him. He was aware, now, that death was that specific thing from which his sense of self-preservation preserved him: it was a thing to be avoided at all costs. To discuss it at all seemed unnecessarily morbid. Although ... if the evening's dinner of apples (apples!) were any indication, there could be a point to Strawberry's suggestion that they had just now passed on into some sort of eternal reward.
"What do you think of our chances of getting home?" he asked, hoping to move Strawberry on to less uncomfortable topics.
"If we're dead? No chance. Otherwise ... well ... no, I don't think we could find a way, not on our own power. If only we knew where the humans here live."
Mister Smith rolled his eyes. "Well, I for one am all for making a new life here. The other horses ... ah, the ponies, rather. They refer to themselves as ponies, you notice?"
"They are rather on the small side, for horses."
"Well, they seem like good sorts, is what I'm saying. And if they call themselves ponies, we should probably get used to calling ourselves ponies as well."
"It wouldn't be the first time, for me," muttered Strawberry, frowning. As a "horse for riding practice", Strawberry was a little on the small side for a horse, especially in comparison to the giant draught-horses employed by the neighbouring farmers, and he'd been called a pony on more than one occasion. It had seemed like an insult, now he thought about it, though at the time he hadn't understood enough to know what it meant.
"Another thing we should do," said Mister Smith, "is learn to read. That's one skill that apparently did not simply appear along with, well, everything else. I do remember a few words, though. 'Public house', 'tavern', 'town hall'..."
"'Cathedral', 'churchyard', 'beware of dog'..."
"'Whitechapel', 'Covent Garden', 'post no bills'..."
"'Private property', 'trespassers will be prosecuted'..."
"'Fleet Street', 'meat pies', 'barber'..."
"'Ullathorne', 'Plumstead', 'Greshamsbury'..."
Both horses—ponies—recognised the letters for "red lion", apparently the single most common public house name in England, as well as "blacksmith", "farrier" and "sadler". Strawberry said, "we should write these down. There's definitely a pattern between the sounds and the letters, and it would be easier to see what it is if we had it written down somewhere. Even if a lot of what we recognise are place names that we're never going to see again."
"We must see if we can get something to write on and something to write with, in the morning."
It had occurred to neither Strawberry nor Mister Smith that there might be any difference in the written languages of Equestria and England, and quite fortunately for them, with the exception of certain inverted letters, the two languages were in fact identical.
"We're going to have to stick together now," said Mister Smith. "You clearly know a lot of things that I don't, and I'm sure there are things I could bring to the table as well."
Strawberry admitted that the question of money had not occurred to him, so seldom was he ever privy to Adam Pye's financial negotiations; whereas Mister Smith, witness to several episodes of haggling over his own price, had a better understanding of money and its uses.
Away from their human masters, their natural instinct to form herds was reasserting itself, and both of them felt an earnest desire to fit into this new community in which they had found themselves. It seemed imperative, now, that no-one learn that they had not always been as intelligent as they were now, or that they were lacking in the knowledge of various things which the general population here took for granted. Certain things—the absence of a "cutie mark", for one, whatever that was—could not be helped; but for the rest, they would have to observe with care, learn what they needed, and remake themselves in this new image. At all costs, they would have to avoid making laughing stocks of themselves.
Contemplating these things, Strawberry and Mister Smith drifted off to sleep.
