Shadow of the Dragon Lords

D. G. D. Davidson

My Little Pony is © 2012 by Hasbro, Inc.

Chapter 7: Nightmare and Mailmare

It was that time of year again. Rainbow Dash hated it, and she wasn't alone: every farmer in the Ponyville Weather District, which happened to be W.D. 40 in Cloudsdale's official weather partitioning and monitoring database, hated it, too. It was Fair Weather Tax Collection Day.

Rainbow, as Ponyville's official weather manager, was in charge of collecting the tax. Since she couldn't get other Pegasi to help her voluntarily, she every year selected somepony by lot. This year, the lot had fallen to Fluttershy.

So far, Rainbow and Fluttershy had been cussed out by no fewer than twelve farmers, and it was only half an hour after sunrise. Fluttershy, skittish by nature, was not taking it well. As they flew to Sweet Apple Acres, she continued making the argument she'd been making all morning.

"But, Rainbow, I don't even do weather jobs! I'm not on Cloudsdale's payroll. Town Hall pays me to take care of-"

"Doesn't matter, buddy. No Pegasus is exempt."

"Oh, but my little friends in the meadow-"

"Will get along fine without you for a day."

"I guess so, but darling little Angel Bunny is so finicky, he could-"

Rainbow sighed impatiently and dropped to the ground at the Apples' gate. "Look, Fluttershy, I hate tax collection. Everypony hates taxes. That's why they call 'em 'taxes' and not 'ice cream sundaes,' okay? But, darn it, if I gotta do it, I'd rather have you along than somepony else. Besides, everypony's less likely to yell at you."

Fluttershy landed beside Rainbow and blushed. "But everypony is yelling at me."

Rainbow nodded and sighed again. "Well, yeah. That's prob'ly cuz Cloudsdale almost doubled the rate."

They knocked on the Apples' front door, and Big Macintosh opened it. When he saw Rainbow, he blinked in surprise, swallowed, stood still, and waited for her to speak.

Rainbow ducked her head and nickered. "Hey, Big Mac."

He nickered back. "Eyup."

"Um . . . sorry to bother you, but we're here to collect your fair weather tax."

"Eyup."

Rainbow nodded, trying to coax him into saying something else. She always found conversations with Big Mac awkward. "Yeah, well, it's thirty bits an acre this year, and-"

Rainbow could hear somepony galloping from somewhere deeper in the house. In a moment, Applejack pushed up beside Big Mac and cried, "Thirty whole bits an acre? Now just an apple-pickin' minute, RD, it was eighteen last year-"

Rainbow Dash reared and held up her front hooves in supplication. "I know! I know! We thought it was too much, too, but the weather bureau sets the rate-"

"But thirty bits?"

"Look, AJ, they know how many farms there are in W.D. 40, and they know how many acres those farms have. If I don't send the right amount of money to Cloudsdale, I'm in trouble."

"Those weather ponies think we're made o' money? Sweet Apple Acres is barely squeakin' by as it is."

"Oh, um, Applejack, if it's too much trouble," Fluttershy whispered, "maybe we can come back-"

"Hay no," Rainbow said, cutting her off. "There's no point. Let's get it over with. Thirty bits an acre. That comes out to . . ." She estimated the price in her head, paused in shock, and grinned sheepishly.

"That comes out to plenty more'n we got on hand, Rainbow Dash," Applejack said. "'Less Granny's got a shed full o' gold she ain't told us about, we ain't got no twenty-eight thousand bits lyin' around."

"I know, pal, but we got an installment plan."

Applejack sighed, an irritated frown on her face. "I guess it ain't yer fault. You two had breakfast?"

"No," Rainbow said.

"C'mon in, then. Mornin' chores are done, an' Granny's makin' apple flapjacks. I figger a lousy job like the one you got today could make anypony mighty hungry."

Applejack turned around and walked toward the kitchen. Rainbow drooled openly, flapped her wings, rubbed her front hooves together, and floated after. Silently, Big Mac turned and trotted along beside her. Rainbow frowned in annoyance: he was awfully close, and she was afraid she'd accidentally hit him with a wing. It probably wouldn't hurt either of them if she did, but she didn't want him ruffling her feathers.

As Rainbow flew down the hall, a warm, cozy, cinnamon-laced scent reached her nose, and she sighed. A plate stacked high with Granny Smith's homemade flapjacks laden with fresh butter and maple syrup would almost make up for the rest of the morning.

When she reached the kitchen, Rainbow dropped herself into a chair at the table while Fluttershy lingered in the kitchen doorway. Applejack walked to the back porch to check on little Apple Bloom, who was churning butter. Big Mac shuffled back and forth between his hooves for a moment, but then finally sat down at the table next to Rainbow.

She snorted. He was too close again. She inched her chair away from him.

At the range, the elderly Granny Smith was holding a cast-iron skillet in her false teeth and expertly flipping a flapjack. Because the autumn morning was nippy, a fire was crackling in the stone-lined fireplace, making the room pleasantly hot. The warm air and the heavy smell of cooking made Rainbow sleepy, and she rued the fact that she would almost certain miss her usual nap this afternoon, since she'd probably still be collecting taxes.

Granny Smith looked up. Rainbow grinned and waved a hoof at her.

Granny dropped the skillet on the stove with a bang and scowled. Moving slowly, her joints creaking, she pointed a withered hoof at Rainbow and said, "Pegasus! You come t' rob us of all our hard-earned money, an' now ya drop in uninvited fer grub? Ain't no Pegasus welcome in this house on tax day!"

Rainbow's stomach rumbled and her daydream of hot pancakes evaporated. "Ah, c'mon, Granny!"

Granny banged the skillet on the stove again.

Applejack and Apple Bloom walked in from the porch. "Now, holdjer horses, Granny," said Applejack. "You know that ain't right."

"Eh?"

Applejack said it louder: "That ain't right!" She turned to Big Mac. "That ain't right, is it, Big Mac?"

Big Mac glanced at Rainbow. "Nope," he said.

"Ain't right?" Granny cried. "I tell ya what ain't right! It ain't right fer some young whippersnapper t' come in here an' demand all th' money we make from workin' this 'ere soil, that's what ain't right! No Pegasus ever done a full day o' work in 'er life!"

She walked toward Rainbow. "I seen this one! Ever' afternoon, she's out nappin' in one of our trees! Lazy, good-fer-nothin' Pegasus! Makes a little weather in th' mornin' an' spends th' rest of 'er day sleepin' an' goofin' off while we Earth Ponies work! An' we work hard, too!"

"Granny, I don't set the tax!" Rainbow shouted.

"No, you just add to it, you little grafter! How else you get the money t' live in that fancy-shmancy cloud palace o' yours?"

Now Rainbow was getting angry, and she stood from the table. "I built that place with my own hooves!" She turned to Fluttershy, who was still in the doorway, but was now actually in the fetal position on the floor. "C'mon, Fluttershy, we don't have to listen to this." She grabbed Fluttershy's tail in her teeth and dragged her down the hall to the front door.

Granny yelled after them as they retreated. "Back in th' good ol' days, the Pegasi were warriors! They protected us! Now they just want our money!"

As she banged open the door, Rainbow dropped Fluttershy and yelled back over her shoulder, even though it was unlikely Granny, who was hard of hearing, would understand her from that distance: "We still bring you your rain and sunshine, Granny Smith! Don't forget that!"

Rainbow flapped her wings and flew up the path from the farmhouse to the road, fuming. Fluttershy had to gallop to keep up. Just as they reached the gate, they heard Big Mac's deep voice behind them.

"Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow turned. Big Macintosh was standing in the path. Early morning sunshine angled through the red and yellow leaves of the apple trees, dappling his red coat. The light made the freckles stand out on his cheeks, and his large, heavy hooves were chipped and dusty from his morning of work. He was thickly built; he looked heavy and slow, yet the surrounding trees with their fall leaves and the dilapidated old farmhouse behind leant him a peculiar air of rustic nobility. His expression was sad and slightly embarrassed. For a brief moment, he reminded Rainbow, absurdly, of her pet tortoise Tank.

He didn't say anything else after he said her name, but Rainbow understood his wordless presence as an apology.

"It's okay, Big Mac," she said. "Really. Go have breakfast."

He dipped his head and neighed softly. Then he turned and walked back to the house.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy headed up the road to the next farm. Normally, Rainbow would have flown there in an instant, but now she walked: in spite of her usual love of speed, she wasn't eager to get there quickly.

"I can't believe it!" she grumbled. "I thought the Apples wouldn't yell at us, at least."

"Granny Smith doesn't usually say things like that," Fluttershy whispered. "She must have a lot of stress right now."

"She's got a lot of jerk right now. Did you hear her? Smooth-mouthed old nag! Why, if she were younger, I'd-"

"Rainbow! Don't say that!"

Rainbow ran to the fence alongside the road, jumped onto it, lifted her front hooves to her mouth, and yelled into the orchard. "Old nag! Old nag!" The Apples' farmhouse was out of sight now, and it was unlikely anypony heard her.

Rainbow jumped from the fence, kicked it angrily, and walked back to the road. "You know what? Forget this. I'm not collecting any more taxes until I get some pancakes." She turned and headed for town.

"Oh," Fluttershy said, sitting down in the middle of the road. "Should I wait here? I guess I can wait here-"

"Come on, Fluttershy!" Rainbow shouted. Fluttershy quickly got up and followed.

Sometime well after sunrise, the Pegasus Derpy Hooves stumbled out of bed, brushed her blonde mane, ran into a doorpost by accident, crashed into a wall, and staggered downstairs to the kitchen where Carrot Top and little Dinky were already having breakfast. Dinky was a young Unicorn filly, Derpy's own daughter, who had inherited her dam's gray coat and yellow mane and her sire's magic horn. Carrot Top was a perpetually frazzled orange-maned Earth Pony.

"Morning, Mama!" Dinky shouted.

"Good morning," Derpy answered as she went to the refrigerator. She pulled it open and said, "We got any muffins?"

Carrot Top scowled over her bowl of Oatie-Os. "Those are mine! I need them for a picnic later, so don't touch them!"

Derpy turned from the fridge with a crumble-topped apple muffin in her hoof. She was about to bite into it when Carrot Top catapulted from her seat to snatch it away. "No, Derpy! Written Script is taking me on a picnic later and I'm bringing muffins and you can't have it!" After a short scuffle, Carrot Top managed to knock Derpy to the floor and wrestle the muffin away. Very carefully, she put it back in the fridge with the others, closed the refrigerator door, and took a deep breath to calm herself. Being Derpy's roommate required a lot of patience.

"Besides, Derpy," Carrot Top said, "aren't you late for work?"

"But today's Sunday!" Derpy said from the floor.

"No, Sunday was yesterday."

"It's multiple days this week."

Carrot Top closed her eyes and took another deep breath for patience. When she opened her eyes, she found Derpy in the fridge again.

"No, Derpy!"

Carrot Top grabbed Derpy's tail with her mouth and dragged her across the kitchen while explaining around clenched teeth, "Look, you didn't have to work two days ago because that was Nightmare Night. You didn't have to work yesterday because that was Sunday. Today is Monday, and you work on Mondays, don't you?"

"Ohhhh," Derpy said as she slid across the floor. "But I saw two Sundays on this week when I looked at the calendar last night."

"And that," Carrot Top said when she had let go of Derpy's tail, "is because your eyes are screwed up, dear. You see two of everything."

"That's why everything's twice as good." Derpy jumped to her feet, but getting up too quickly made her dizzy, and she fell to the floor again.

At the table, Dinky giggled. "You're funny, Mama!"

"Look," Carrot Top said, rubbing a hoof against her forehead, "just go deliver mail, will you? I'll make sure Dinky gets to school. And . . . oh, goodness, she'll be late if she doesn't go now. Dinky, scoot."

Dinky jumped from her seat and trotted toward the front door. "I'm gonna tell Miss Cheerilee we got two Sundays this week!" she shouted.

When she had gone, Carrot Top turned to Derpy with an expression of pity and said, "She really admires you, Derpy. Can't you at least try to be responsible? For her sake? It's the least you can do, seeing as how she doesn't have a sire."

"Everypony has a sire," Derpy said, still lying on the floor. "We learned that in sixth grade, I think."

"You know what I mean, Derpy!" Carrot Top yelled. She shook her head. "Look, I have to go, too. Get to work, okay?"

Carrot Top walked into the front hall. When she heard Derpy clamoring around in the kitchen, she shouted back over her shoulder, "And stay out of my muffins!"

For some reason known only to Mayor Mare, most of Ponyville's mail ponies had eye problems. Therefore, the Ponyvillains went through a daily ritual known as the Changing of the Mail, during which they visited neighbors to exchange mis-delivered letters as well as to exchange gossip and, of course, complain about the lousy mail service.

Every weekday, Derpy Hooves did her best, albeit unwittingly, to ensure that the Changing of the Mail would happen. She was unaware of what part she played in keeping all of Ponyville's citizens on such close and friendly terms with each other, though she undoubtedly would have been happy if she had known.

Nopony bothered to inform her, however. Most ponies didn't talk to her. Most ponies looked down their muzzles at her. Most ponies considered her bad for morale and bad for morals. That wasn't because she was wall-eyed, and it wasn't because her clumsiness made her a walking and flying disaster area.

It was because of Dinky.

Derpy had been little more than a filly when she met Stud Muffin, a roguish bay Unicorn stallion with a wild, spiky chestnut mane and a winning smile. She had grown up being bullied by other children because of her eyes and scolded by teachers because of her poor performance in school, but Stud Muffin had been so sweet to her; he was perhaps the first pony outside her family who had ever shown her much kindness, and she had been too naïve to understand why.

After the happiest and most thrilling three months of Derpy's life, Stud Muffin had skipped town, leaving her alone and pregnant.

Though the discovery that Derpy was unmarried and with foal began as a family crisis, it became, through a chain of events that was the fault of no one pony in particular, a public scandal that dominated conversation in Ponyville for all eleven months of her pregnancy. Although Derpy understood these matters only dimly, she nonetheless remembered feeling deeply ashamed when she walked down the street one day, heavy in foal, and heard a dam lean down to her young daughter and whisper, "See, you be a good filly or you'll end up like her."

Derpy still remembered Stud Muffin fondly. Dinky knew nothing about him. Carrot Top, who had taken Derpy in as a roommate out of charity, occasionally referred to Stud Muffin as "that philandering deadbeat."

In common speech and in Equestrian law, a filly who had foaled was a mare, an adult, and was therefore legally able to work full-time. Although Carrot Top had been willing to help out, especially in the early days, she also insisted that Derpy pay her share of the rent, buy her share of the food, and supply most of Dinky's needs. This seemed reasonable, but Derpy had a difficult time holding down a job. She worked as a mover for a while, but the boss fired her after she dropped several pieces of furniture on somepony. She managed to join the weather team, but Rainbow Dash fired her after she accidentally destroyed Town Hall while lightning-bucking during a scheduled thunderstorm. Desperate for work, Derpy went to Mayor Mare and begged when a position for mail pony opened up.

Mayor Mare took pity. Aware of Derpy's plight, and figuring Derpy couldn't be much worse than the mail ponies Ponyville already had, she hired her, and she quietly refused to fire her no matter how many complaints she received.

Derpy performed her job, as she performed everything, with gusto, sincerity, and incompetency. After polishing off Carrot Top's entire muffin hoard, she flew to the Ponyville Post Office, a modest two-room brick building, where the sorters had been up since early that morning dividing the mail between the various routes. Derpy galloped into the back room, skidded to a stop in front of the postmaster's desk, and saluted with a hoof to her forehead. The postmaster looked up at her over his spectacles and shook his head.

"Derpy Hooves, you are late."

"Yes, sir!" Derpy proudly boomed.

The postmaster paused, nonplussed. "That's . . . not a good thing, Derpy."

"Yes, sir, General Postmaster, sir!"

"That's 'Postmaster General,' a position well above mine, and you don't have to call me sir."

"Yes, ma'am!"

The postmaster lowered his head and rubbed a hoof against his poll. Derpy regularly gave him headaches. "I'm afraid to ask, but would you care to explain why you are late?"

"Ma'am, I just don't know what went wrong, ma'am."

"No, of course you don't. That's the story of your life, isn't it, Derpy? And that's why you never learn from your mistakes. Do me and everypony else a favor and grab your mailbags and get to your route. Quickly, please."

Derpy spun around, tripped over her own hooves, and crashed to the floor.

"And carefully, too," the postmaster added with a sigh.

After smacking her face on the second doorpost of the day, Derpy managed to fly out the door, her saddlebags full of mail secure on her back.

She had, with great effort and repeated coaching from Carrot Top, successfully memorized her daily route. First, she flew to Rose's house. Derpy reached into her mailbag and, with a lot of squinting, discovered most of the letters with Rose's name on them. She stuffed them in the box. She also found a magazine advertising flower seeds; it wasn't addressed to Rose, but Derpy stuck it in the mailbox too, figuring Rose would like it.

Her next visit happened to be to her own house. None of the mail was for her, but several letters were addressed to Carrot Top. She put those in the box and then put some extra letters in, too, as a thank-you for buying all those delicious muffins.

After that, her heart started hammering in her breast because her next stop was Dr. Whooves's house.

Dr. Whooves was a clockmaker and a time-study pony. In addition to making some of the most sophisticated and precise clocks and watches in all of Equestria, he studied various machines to improve their efficiency, and he also taught workers of all kinds how to do their jobs more quickly and safely. Derpy thought he was absolutely amazing, and because of his bay coat and his deep brown, spiky mane, he also reminded her of Stud Muffin.

Dr. Whooves's house looked like a giant cuckoo clock covered in other, smaller cuckoo clocks. Dr. Whooves had constructed his own clock tower on the front of the house, and every hour on the hour, the clock face opened and two mechanical ponies wearing wedding clothes popped out of it and kissed while a third mechanical pony rang a bell. The yard was full of birdhouses designed to look like cuckoo clocks, each of which had a working clock built into it and a living space for real birds. Running through the yard was a stream with an artificial waterfall that turned a wheel powering a giant water clock. So precise was Dr. Whooves in his designs, and so fanatical was he about keeping his machines fine-tuned, that every clock in the yard or on the house showed precisely the same time, and each one ticked or tocked at exactly the same moment, so Dr. Whooves's house pulsed constantly with a rhythmic, mechanical beat.

Even the mailbox was encased in a functioning clock. Derpy was so engrossed in gazing up at Dr. Whooves's wonderful house that she smacked right into the mailbox, knocking it over. When it hit the ground, she heard something inside it make a crunching noise, and then it stopped ticking.

Derpy stared forlornly down at the broken mailbox. A few tears ran from her eyes. She pulled letters at random out of her bag and stuffed them in, hoping maybe she could make it up to Dr. Whooves for breaking his mailbox by giving him extra mail.

The front door swung open and Dr. Whooves ran out. He had learned to run on his hind legs for short distances so he could tie his bow tie as he left his home, saving himself approximately 34.3 seconds every morning. When he saw Derpy leaning over the broken mailbox and weeping as she filled it full of random letters, he was so surprised that he lost his concentration and fell forward onto his face.

Jumping back to his hooves- all four of them, this time- he ran to her, yelling.

"Derpy Hooves! What do you think you are doing, you silly filly?"

"Oh, Dr. Whooves!" Derpy cried. "I'm so sorry! I just don't know what went wrong! I broke your mail clock thingy-"

"I can see that, girl!" he shouted. He shoved her out of the way and pulled out some of the letters she had been pushing into his box. "What is this? Cherry Berry? This isn't for me. Heartstrings? This isn't for me, either. Blueberry Ice? Do I look like Blueberry Ice to you? Oh, you ridiculous mailmare. You are easily the worst mailmare this town has ever had, and that is saying something."

Sitting on the ground, Derpy sniffled and wiped at her face.

"I will have you know I already contacted the post office and had my mail stopped for this week, a fact of which you should be aware. I am traveling to Fillydelphia today to meet with Miss Inkamena Pie, a very important engineer, to see about improving some of her latest designs. I need to catch the train, and you, Miss Hooves, have already made me one minute and twenty-three seconds later than I should be. Now, I do not have time to re-deliver all this mail today, so I suggest you take all of it and make the valiant attempt, however miserably you will fail at it, to deliver it to the correct ponies. Is that really too hard for you? Can you not get this basic mail-delivery concept to lodge somewhere in that pea-sized brain? Or are you really good for nothing except cranking out illegitimate children?"

In his indignation, Dr. Whooves reared up onto his hind legs and promptly tied his bow tie in 2.44 seconds, a personal best. Nodding in satisfaction at his own virtuosity and casting another frown in Derpy's direction, he walked away, leaving her sitting by his ruined mailbox, crying.

Workponies were already fixing the front door of Sugarcube Corner, and Pinkie, under stern orders from Mrs. Cake, had been up all night cleaning. It was a little worse for wear, but Sugarcube Corner was open for business at sunrise as usual, though all the ponies who took their breakfast or brunch there had to put up with the hammering from the repair work on the door.

Luna had sent Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer away, as Severin wished to speak to Spike and the princess alone, so the two students now sat at a table in Sugarcube Corner where they drank lattes, ate from plates loaded with eggs, haybrowns, and corned corn, and stared daggers at each other.

They fumbled as they ate: like most Unicorns, they were accustomed to using levitation spells to manipulate small objects such as coffee cups or utensils, but Luna still hadn't removed the magic shields from their horns. Therefore, they had to eat Earth Pony-style, with the result that they spilled frequently and ended up wearing large portions of their meals.

Moondancer stared forlornly down at her latte. She wanted to magick the cup to her lips, and she couldn't figure out how to get her hoof into the fine china handle, so she had to drink by grabbing the cup rim with her teeth and tipping her head back. About a quarter of the coffee went into her mouth and another quarter ran into her nose while the rest spilled onto her breast and heartgirth.

She put the cup down and sighed. "Oddly enough, I think this is giving me more respect for Earth Ponies."

Pinkie Pie was working the counter this morning, but she was having trouble doing her job because Twilight and Moondancer's attempts at eating kept sending her to the floor in paroxysms of snorts and giggles. After seeing Moondancer spill, Pinkie bounced over to the table and, with a huge grin, said, "Oh, Moondancer? Can I get you another coffee? Please tell me you want another coffee!" She collapsed, laughing.

Moondancer, though splattered with her latte, tossed her head and smiled. "Of course I'd like another, Pinkie Pie. After all, I wasn't able to drink most of the last one."

Pinkie snorted and giggled again as she bounced and skipped and turned a cartwheel on her way to the kitchen. Moondancer watched her every move.

Twilight found a better method: instead of trying to pick up the cup with her mouth, she leaned back in her chair, grasped the sides of the cup between her front hooves, and lifted it to her lips. Unfortunately, she leaned back too far and the chair tipped. Twilight ended up on the floor with all of her latte on her face.

Pinkie, expertly balancing a new cup of coffee on one of her own front hooves, bounded out of the kitchen and, seeing Twilight, burst into a new fit of laughter. "I want to play, too!" she cried, and dumped the contents of the cup over her own head.

"I'm not paying for that," said Moondancer.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy made their way around the workponies reconstructing the door and walked into the shop. "Pinkie Pie!" Rainbow shouted. "I need pancakes. Please tell me you have pancakes!"

Pinkie sat down on the floor with the cup on her head and coffee dripping down her mane. "Hmm . . . no. But I have cinnamon rolls."

"Okay, I'll take those."

Pinkie spun like a miniature tornado, using the inertia to rise to her feet. When she had stopped spinning, her mane was dry. She flipped over in the air and sprang into the kitchen.

Rainbow looked down at Twilight, who was still lying on the floor with her cup on her face. "Oh, hey, Twilight. Drinking problem?"

"Don't ask," Twilight answered.

Rainbow pulled another chair up to the table and glanced back and forth from Moondancer to Twilight Sparkle. "So, you two have a food fight or what? I mean, that's awesome and all, but I never figured Twilight for the food-fighting type."

"I'm sorry," Moondancer said with a smile that had grown increasingly fragile as the morning had worn on, "but I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Moondancer."

Rainbow gave her a friendly slap of the hoof. "I'm Rainbow Dash. You may have heard of me. Best flier out of Cloudsdale, world-class athlete, winner of the Best Young Fliers Competition, and, of course, all-around-"

"Braggart?" Moondancer asked.

"Brag- wait, what?"

Moondancer snorted and slurped an egg from her plate.

Twilight groaned in exasperation and picked herself up from the floor. She set her chair upright and climbed back into it. "Maybe you could give the mean mouth a rest, Moondancer. If you want to insult me, fine, but you can leave my friends-"

"Oh, this is one of your friends," Moondancer said, her grin growing wider and a shade nastier. "I was so curious to know what quality of company you keep . . . or what quality of company is willing to keep you, rather. Hm, Rainbow Dash, was it? I think I did see you at the reception last night. So nice to meet you. And your mane is such an interesting fashion statement."

"Hey, I'm not the one wearing coffee," Rainbow answered.

Moondancer's grin broke slightly.

"Yo, Pinkie!" Rainbow yelled toward the back. "Let's have those cinnamon rolls! And bring another of whatever Moondancer is wearing!"

Wild laughter came from the kitchen.

"Fluttershy," Rainbow said, "don't be a stranger. Come meet Twilight's old school chum."

Fluttershy had been hanging back, inspecting a set of lollypops on display near the counter, hoping the others would ignore her.

"C'mon, Fluttershy."

Reluctantly, Fluttershy walked over, afraid to meet Moondancer's eye, afraid to be the object of Moondancer's withering scorn.

Moondancer looked Fluttershy up and down and wrote her off. So these were Twilight Sparkle's friends: a jock and a wimp.

. . . And Pinkie Pie. Moondancer still wanted to believe this pink pony with the absurd antics was a Chaoticist, but she knew she would need more observation to be sure.

Moondancer moved her gaze back to Twilight Sparkle, wondering if it were possible that Twilight really didn't know what Pinkie was, or could be. Of course, Moondancer had made eldritch lore her specialty, Chaoticists were obscure, and most folkloric authorities dismissed them as an old mare's tale. It was entirely possible Twilight simply hadn't run across any references to them, or hadn't given those references credence.

But then another possibility struck her: Twilight claimed Celestia had sent her to Ponyville to study friendship, but perhaps she had really sent her for another reason. Perhaps Celestia had sent her specifically to study the Chaoticist. After all, the claim that Twilight was supposed to be goofing off with friends for academic purposes was hard to swallow, but if one of those friends was a creature with uncontrollable powers, then this study of the so-called "magic of friendship" could be a cover for Twilight's real purpose.

The possibility immediately ruined Moondancer's appetite. Last night, she had believed she finally had the chance to surpass Twilight Sparkle, but now it appeared likely that Twilight had beaten her once again, and once again it was because Twilight received unfair favors from the princess.

She had only one option that she could see: blow Twilight's cover and ruin her research.

Moondancer leaned her chin on a front hoof and affected innocence. "So, Twilight, this pink friend of yours-"

"Pinkie Pie?"

"Quite energetic, isn't she?"

Twilight sighed, but then laughed. "Yes, you could say that. I hope Ambassador Severin doesn't have any hard feelings about last night."

"Let Princess Luna deal with that."

"I will. Yes, Pinkie's a real bundle of energy."

Moondancer cleared her throat. "Have you by any chance noticed evidence that she's precognitive?"

Twilight blinked. "Well, actually-"

Pinkie leapt from the kitchen with a tray of cinnamon rolls balanced on one hoof and a cup of coffee balanced on the other. She landed on her hind legs, went down onto her hocks, and slid right up to the table where she put the food down in front of Rainbow Dash, who started drooling again.

"Finally," Rainbow said. "You have no idea how awful it is to take ponies' money on an empty stomach. Fluttershy, dig in." Rainbow grabbed up a sticky, iced cinnamon roll in one hoof and opened her mouth to take a bite.

Pinkie Pie's tail twitched. "Whoa! Pinkie Sense!" she shouted. "Pinkie Sense!"

Twilight and Rainbow both looked up at the ceiling in alarm. Fluttershy reached across the table for a cinnamon roll and accidentally knocked the new cup of coffee onto Rainbow's abdomen.

Rainbow yelped, leapt backwards, and fell over the back of her chair, slapping the cinnamon roll she was holding into her own face.

"Oh! Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy cried. "I'm so sorry."

"Well," said Moondancer, "I'm glad to see Twilight and I aren't the only ponies who've taken to wearing coffee."

"It's stopped!" Pinkie cried cheerfully. "I guess it was Dashie's coffee that was supposed to fall . . . or Dashie. Either way, it stopped!"

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Moondancer demanded.

"My Pinkie Sense," Pinkie said. "My tail twitches when something's about to fall." She skipped toward the back. "I'm gonna bring you another coffee. The coffee today is hilarious."

Trembling with excitement, Moondancer rose from her seat. "Chaoticist," she gasped.

Twilight stood up as well, staring hard at Moondancer. "What did you say?"

They were interrupted when Derpy, her head hung in sorrow, walked through the front door. Pinkie whirled around and waved. "Hiya, Derpy! You here for your morning muffin break?"

"Yeah," Derpy said quietly.

Pinkie ran to Derpy, placed a hoof under Derpy's chin, and raised her head.

Pinkie gasped. "A frown! No frowns allowed! C'mon, Derpy, let's see that smile." She grabbed Derpy's lips and stretched them out and up.

"I can't smile right now, sorry," Derpy said after she had regained control of her lips.

Pinkie tossed Derpy onto her back and walked toward the kitchen. "I have a special batch of banana muffins made up," Pinkie said, "and you can tell your auntie Pinkie Pie all about it."

Derpy raised her head so quickly her eyes spun. "You're my aunt? Pinkie, I never knew!"

Pinkie and Derpy disappeared into the kitchen. Rainbow Dash shook her head, rolled her eyes, and made a second attempt to bite a cinnamon roll.

She was interrupted when Pinky angrily stomped back out of the kitchen, marched up to her, and pointed a hoof in her face. "Rainbow Dashie," Pinkie demanded, "how come you fired Derpy Hooves from the weather team?"

Rainbow blinked. "Um . . . because she's a hazard to public health and safety?" Again, she opened her mouth to take a bite, but Pinkie swiped the cinnamon roll away from her.

"Ah, what gives, Pinkie?"

Pinkie leaned into Rainbow's space, glaring fiercely into her eyes. Rainbow returned the stare with a confused, nervous grin.

Pinkie stuck out her tongue and licked Rainbow's cheek.

"Yeaaagh!" Rainbow catapulted backwards over the table, knocking the food, as well as Twilight and Moondancer, to the floor. She backed up against the wall as if fending off an attack. "What was that?"

"You had icing on your face," Pinkie explained. "But that's not the point. I wanna know why you fired Derpy!"

"I told you."

"Well, if you hadn't fired her, she wouldn't be a mailmare and Dr. Whooves wouldn't have yelled at her this morning!"

"Doctor who?"

"Dr. Whooves!"

Rainbow took a breath, calmed down, and nodded her head. "You know what?" She spun around and gave a powerful kick with her hind legs, knocking the table across the room, where it smashed into the display counter and shattered it.

"That's what," she said.

"Rainbow!" Twilight cried in shock.

Rainbow shoved Pinkie in the breast with a hoof. "I am sick and tired of everypony yelling at me today! It is not my fault Cloudsdale raised the tax, and it is not my fault Derpy can't buck lightning, and, darn it, I just want some pancakes!"

She walked to the front door and knocked over two of the workponies who had been fixing the door.

"Come on, Fluttershy!" Rainbow yelled.

"Um, no," Fluttershy said quietly.

Rainbow looked over her shoulder. Fluttershy stood quietly in the middle of the shop, her expression resolute.

"Fine," Rainbow said. "Whatever." She spread her wings and took off.

Luna galloped through the Everfree Forest, Severin on her back. Luna wore an intricately carved black leather saddle with silver trappings, but she wore neither bit nor bridle, so Severin was obliged to hold onto her long mane: it was like grasping the night itself, like wrapping his hands around a cold wind, and the stars glittering in her misty hair tingled against his skin.

She was extremely fast, but the ride was nonetheless remarkably smooth. She ran with precision and grace, but with such power that her ornate silver bell boots shattered tree roots and smashed rocks to powder wherever they landed. She leapt shrubs and fallen trees and bounded lightly over streams, and Severin was often obliged to duck when she slipped under low branches.

Half buried in her hair, he leaned low over her neck and laughed.

"Severin," she said with annoyance, "thou art trying to steer."

"Forgive me, Your Highness. I know you're no dressage horse, but I've ridden so much, it's become instinctive. Just ignore whatever I'm doing."

"We would, but it's distracting."

"I notice you have excellent impulsion even at a full gallop. You're a fair runner."

"And thou art a fair rider," Luna admitted.

"When I first saw you, I thought you were built for running."

"That's not all we're built for." Luna put on a fresh burst of speed. The forest opened up and the ground dropped suddenly away. Luna leapt, spread her wings wide, and shot up into the air.

Severin laughed again, louder this time.

"Hast thou flown before?"

"Once, on a Dactyloid, but it was nothing like riding a Pegasus."

"We are no Pegasus, Severin. We are a princess!" She corkscrewed through the air, threatening to dislodge him from her back. She burst through a cloudbank, sending a shock of cold across both their bodies and leaving them coated in a thin mist.

Luna dropped onto the cloud and cantered across it. "Do not try to dismount. The clouds will not support thee."

"I'm well aware."

She raised her gait to a gallop again, flapped her wings, and rose. She increased her speed and shot upward until the air was so thin, Severin gasped.

Aware that he would be unable to breathe if she went much higher, she folded her wings to her sides and dropped like a stone. They shot down through the same clouds, leaving behind themselves a stream of white.

Sensing an upswell, Luna opened her wings again and arrested her descent, shooting suddenly upward. Holding her wings open and allowing herself to coast, she made wide circles, spiraling gradually toward the ground.

Spotting a flower-speckled meadow, Luna headed for it and swooped low, the toes of her hooves just brushing the tips of the grass. Still a few inches from the ground, she began moving her legs at a gait matching her speed. Then she touched down, landing in a gallop, but quickly dropping to a canter, a trot, and at last a walk. When she reached the middle of the meadow, she stopped and lay down.

Severin rolled from her back and spread-eagled on the grass, staring up at the sky, struggling to catch his breath.

Luna was breathing hard as well, and her coat was now damp with sweat. "Thy visit hath been good for us. We have not run nor flown like that in a long while."

Gazing at her, he reached out a hand and laid it against her muzzle. She snorted and pulled her head away.

He grinned. "Are you headshy? How do you fence that way?"

She rose to her hooves and turned away from him. "Thou hast grown too familiar, Severin."

"You're the one who started calling me by my name, Your Highness."

She snorted again. Moving a few feet from him, she sat on the grass again and magicked a set of divination cards from her saddlebag. With her front hooves, she lay several cards out on the ground and began turning them over.

"I certainly hope you're not telling my fortune," Severin said, rising to his feet.

"Not without thy permission, Ambassador."

"Ah, I'm back to 'Ambassador,' then. Whose fortune is it? That student of yours?"

"Thou art perceptive," Luna said, keeping her eyes on her cards.

"I've been trained so. She's an ambitious one, I think. She watches your every move, not like a pupil trying to learn from a master, but more like a predator tracking prey."

"She is an excellent student."

"I don't doubt it."

"But the very traits that lead her to excel in the classroom could destroy her under our tutelage. We may have made a mistake." Luna turned the last of her cards, looking over it carefully. "Last night, we charted her horoscope, and, we confess, we looked into her dreams."

"Rather intrusive for a teacher, isn't it?"

"It is."

"Remind me never to sleep again when you're in the vicinity."

Luna laughed. "When is thy birthdate, Ambassador?"

"I would never tell you, and now I feel lucky that I don't actually know it myself. I don't believe the stars determine my destiny, and I don't want you telling me otherwise."

"Then we shall not," Luna answered, still staring at the cards.

"What do you see in the future of this Moondancer of yours?"

"The same things we saw in her horoscope and in her dreams."

"And those are?"

"Fire and blood."

Severin paused. "Brought about by what?"

"That we could not say."

"Not a typical destiny for anyone- how do you say it?- 'anypony' in Equestria, is it?"

"We could not say."

Severin stretched out his arms and gazed up into the sky. "Couldn't you? Here in the peaceable kingdom where the undying princesses reign, where the lion lies down with the lamb- ?"

"You would find our lions and lambs are as antagonistic as anywhere else, Severin. In fact, the sheep have been requesting more protections, as they are often harassed by manticores."

"There was a man of my race many years ago whose name is forgotten, though legend has it he was fleet of foot, and he wrote a whimsical story of a man's travels in imaginary lands, each of which was, apparently, a satirical take on the land in which he himself lived. Toward the end of his book, he wrote of a race of peaceable and gentle people who had no word for wrongdoing, living in a perfect society knowing nothing of war. I have always found it amusing and perhaps prescient that, with no knowledge of Equestria, he nonetheless depicted these imaginary perfect people as resembling horses."

"Seemeth our land so pleasant to thine eyes?" Luna asked. "Look closer. Thou mayest find, as thine ancient author intended thee to find when he described the Houyhnhnm, that it hath much wrong with it."

Severin turned to her in astonishment.

"We have studied your lore," she said simply.

"So you have. I should have known better. But let me show you something, and you may understand why I speak as I do."

Severin removed his cloak and breastplate, unbuttoned his vest, and pulled his shirt over his head. He was wiry, hardbitten, and pale. He turned his back to her.

"Look," he said. "I don't mean the bruises; one of your own ponies did that, and not on purpose. I mean, look."

Luna did, and she was able with her eyes to trace a series of thick scars crossing each other back and forth over Severin's tautly muscled back.

"Do you see them?" he asked. "The little 'love marks' of my master, Lord Foulsbereth? These were not for punishment, Your Highness, for I did not displease him. Quite the opposite. This is a normal part of the training of a male of my species. As children, we are forced to fight each other, to fight wild animals, to take hard beatings and hard whippings, to suffer cold and heat and fasting. We never feel the warmth of a mother's closeness, though on the cusp of adolescence, the dragons do allow us wenches to sate our appalling appetites. Do you know what a boy raised on nothing but beatings is capable of when he gets his hands on a wench? I won't tell you. But I will tell you that because these are not couplings officially condoned by the dragons' breeding program, we are forced, as a further part of our training, to strangle our own offspring shortly after they are born. The dragons do everything they can to remove from us every last speck of love, of compassion, of pity. And once they have stripped from us the higher sentiments, they seek to remove even the baser ones- every desire for comfort or pleasure- until at last through this rigorous conditioning, we become what they want: puppets, playthings, clockworks made of meat."

Luna remained where she was, lying on the grass with a hoof over her magical cards. Her eyes bored silently into Severin as he spoke.

His muscled stomach rising up and down with his breath, he turned to her with a harsh grin on his face. "They have failed," he said flatly. "And the monsters cannot understand that they have failed." He laughed, and his laugh held in it a slight touch of mania. "Look how they trust me to do their bidding! That everything they have attempted to drive from me might somehow remain does not occur to them. It cannot. Their minds don't work that way. All the things they try to drive out, we learn to bury deep where they cannot see it." He tapped a hand to his breast. "There is something, something here, that Foulsbereth cannot touch, no matter how many beatings he gives me. He could shatter me into a thousand pieces and burn me to ashes, and still he could not touch it."

He sat down cross-legged in front of her. "We have preserved stories, every story we can, and we whisper them to each other in the middle of the night in the blackness of the slave trenches. This is not permitted, but we do it anyway. We save everything we can of the memories of our past, of the time when we were free. We have religions, too. A few of them, even, though the dragons would never allow it if they knew. I admit my own tastes don't run in that direction, but I would appreciate the theological opinion of a living goddess."

"I'm listening," Luna said.

"One of these religions claims the key to eternal happiness is to strip away all desires. It teaches that we are born and reborn many times until we get it right, and when we truly have no desires left, our existence simply and quietly ends. Another, however, teaches not that we should rid ourselves of all desire, but that we should desire the right things, and most of all desire the ultimate good. Furthermore- and this is the amusing part- it claims this ultimate good wants to help us out, that we can pray to it, and at the end of time, it will come down and save us, appearing as- you're going to love it, Luna!- a rider on a white horse! What do you think of that, eh?"

"I think I pity you," said Luna quietly.

"That would be a first for a Houyhnhnm." He rose to his feet, picked up his clothes, and got dressed. "As I said, I am not a religious man. But if I had to choose between the two, I would choose the former rather than the latter. If we humans are to be saved, we must save ourselves. There will be no white horses coming down from the sky to free us."

Luna put away her cards and rose to her hooves. "Come, Severin," she said. "We must return to Ponyville."

Next: Gathering Shadows