Chapter 7: STALLIONSCAPING
Ponyville woke the following morning, the Shetlanders somewhat later. The hotel cooks were kept busy cooking eggs and porridge for roughly thirty-odd hungover guests.
In the Royal Suite, Soothecup looked up as Rianblade entered the main room, where breakfast had arrived and was steaming quietly on the table. "Are ye feelin' well, Rian?" she asked solicitiously, making the stallion's eyes roll. After all, he wasn't a little colt any more.
Amhránaílore caught his eye, and rolled his own. Rianblade grinned at him. Both were grown up, and both were sure they had outgrown the need for their dam's fussing. Their dam of course would reject that notion outright.
"Ah'm fine ma," he said in a slightly embarrassed tone, "Yon Mucmarfóir laid nary a hoof on me."
"It were more than that!" Winterberry exclaimed over her porridge (which was no shade on mama's brose, as far as she was concerned.) "He bit ye, several times! An' those hooves of his, Ah saw'm cut intae ye like ye were one o' t' Muc –"
"Sister!" Rianblade stamped a hoof on the floor, causing the ponies in the room below to wince in pain. "Ah tol'ye 'twas nowt. That dafty were tired afore he barged in an' started playin' t' gobshite. Da," and he shot a longsuffering look at his father, "Do all mares insist on actin' like ye're allus t' foal?"
Roanald raised his eyebrows while munching on a mouthful of scrambled eggs. He looked thoughful, plotting a course between stroking his son's ego and avoiding getting his wife in a kicking mood. "Well," he said at last, "we be important tae 'em, aye?"
A snort came from Amhránaílore's direction. The two mares turned to him, but there was something absolutely fascinating about his plate.
Mucmarfóir woke with in much worse condition. Everything seemed to be aching, he could barely open his eyes, and the straw pallet he was laying on was...
His eyes popped open as far as they could, showing him a fuzzy image of a jail cell. Its walls bore the inevitable patina of scratched graffiti, and sturdy bars on the one window and the corridor side made it clear that he wasn't getting out any time soon. Damn it! he thought to himself, t' damn Laird bested me, I'll be takin' t' Low Road home for certain...
A face wearing a helmet peered into the cell. "You're awake already?" He sounded surprised. "Up for some breakfast?"
"B... breakfast?" The Shetlander blinked at him stupidly, then shrugged. "Eh... why not? Help weigh me down fae t' hempen jig won't it?"
"The what?" To say the guardsman was baffled would be stating the obvious. "Is that some... oh never mind. I'll push it in for you. No funny stuff."
Mucmarfóir watched him turn his tail and head back, then flopped his head onto the straw again. It'd all gone wrong. He'd travelled hard, an' nearly killed himself – for nowt. He'd simply been worn down 'til the Laird had hoofied his haid – in front o' a crowd at that!
A sigh escaped him. He knew that quite a few ponies didnae ken his intentions, which were clear as day: Get rid o' t' Muc an' Them Under Stones. But 'twas summat nae pony could do alone. But tryin' tae get your fellow Shetlanders tae ken how important this was... what was gettin' harvests in or fences mended compared to freein' bonny Shetland from those monsters?
A scraping caught his attention as did the smell of bread. The guard had returned and pushed a battered metal tray bearing a wee loaf and a cup under the door. "Push them back when you're done," he said and moved away.
Mucmarfóir looked at it, then managed to rise and approach the tray on wobbly legs. He sat on the concrete floor because he wanted tae, nay because his legs wouldnae support him already...
The bread wasn't all that fresh, but the water was welcome, and Mucmarfóir decided it would do for his undoubtedly last meal. As if to confirm his suspicions, voices heralded the Laird's arrival, flanked by two of the Royal Guardsponies assigned to Ponyville.
"Ye're nay t' Laird," Mucmarfóir said almost immediately, "Ye're nay t' one who gave me t' buck..."
"Ah am t' Laird, ye gobshite," the roan retorted, "Mah son got in afore Ah could go a reel or two on ye. An' a'course he didnae leave me a chance did he?"
Mucmarfóir just glared at the Laird. "Then mah challenge still stands. Fae t' Lairdship, tae t' death. An' when 'tis o'er, Ah'll lead all t' Shetlands tae victory o'er t' Muc an' Them Under Stones!"
The Guards tensed as Mucmarfóir's voice rose and so did he, legs stiff. The Laird, on the other hand, just looked at him boredly.
"Finished, 'as thee?"
The brown pony's eyes blazed behind puffy eyelids at the dismissal, and he would have lunged except for the Guards' applying their magic, as well as his own legs still being unsteady.
"We're nae in t' Shetlands anymore, Mucmarfóir of Nae Clan," Laird Roanald an Deargdyer informed him sternly, "An' there'll be nae duellin' tae t' death or anything else here. Ah and mah family be guests here, an' we'll nae be breachin' t' peace afore we take t' train tae Canterlot. An' that includes ye, since ye're a Shetlander tae.
"An' when we board t' train, ye will return tae t' Shetlands, where ye can go about killin' Muc like ye allus yearn fae." The Guards exchanged startled glances with each other. "A'sides, somehow I dinnae think ye be up tae 'nother proper donnybrookin' from wha' I ken."
An hour or so later, Mucmarfóir was released with several dire warnings ringing in his ears, which were followed up by a mare crying, "Goodness! You look a fright!"
He turned to stare at the speaker: a white unicorn with a purple mane and tail, done up to the nines and all, with what looked like three diamonds on her flank. As she was gaping at him, he regarded himself. His coat was definitely ratty, matted and dirty, not just from the night's donnybrook but also his travels. His nose wrinkled as he sniffed.
"Well, Ah could probably do wi' a wee bath," he agreed, "ken ye point me tae t' nearest pond?"
"Pond?" Rarity's voice rose in disbelief. "Young stallion, you're not in the Shetlands anymore, and where we're going we don't need ponds!" Her horn flared and tugged on one forelimb. "Come along!"
"We?" was all Mucmarfóir was able to say as he was dragged off.
Lotus and Aloe looked up from their housekeeping when Rarity more or less hauled Mucmarfóir into the spa. "Ladies," Rarity declared, "this poor colt here needs a complete clean-up."
"Ah do?" Mucmarfóir looked bewildered at the foyer, nostrils twitching suspiciously at the commingled scents of assorted beauty products.
Then he noticed the trio of predatory grins aimed at him, and began to feel dread.
"Has anyone seen Mucmarfóir?" Roanald asked a small knot of Shetlanders loitering around the town square.
"I've nae seen t' dafty," shrugged a heathery pegasus.
"Nor I," concurred a pale tan earth pony, "An' dinnae wish tae."
"Hey up!" called an approaching Shetlander the colour of wheat, "Ye'll nae believe wha' Ah saw happenin' tae Mucmarfóir."
"Oh? An' wha' that then?" Roanald asked.
"Got hauled off tae t' Spa place by a mare," the wheat-coated one chuckled, "unicorn wi' all bonny purple mane."
"Sounds like Rarity," Roanald observed, "Makes sense, since she's Generosity Incarnate."
Mucmarfóir was more used to bracing dips in cold lochs than hot soapy water, so to him this bath was an unheard of luxury.
It also probably explained why, upon commencing what was to be his first bath of the day, the foamy surface had turned into something closely resembling Froggy Bottom Bogg.
Lotus and Aloe had shuddered at the sight, then gone to work with brush and comb, coaxing a shocking amount of dirt out of his coat; then they'd ordered him out, exchanged the resulting slurry for clean water, and ordered him back in again before resuming the arduous process.
Soaking in hot water, with two bonny fillies fussing o'er him, was, Mucmarfóir decided, quite grand. Quite grand indeed.
Except when the comb hit yet another tangle. That was unpleasant.
"This is no good," Aloe huffed at last, "your coat is in a right state. All split ends and knots and tangles! We're going to have to shear you I'm afraid."
"Shear?"
"Shear," and Aloe pulled over a contraption that seemed to focus on something like a cross between a comb and razor. "Okay Lotus, plug it in! And as for you, out you get, and you'll feel like a new pony, I guarantee it!"
As she pulled the plug out of the bath, Mucmarfóir didn't have much choice. And he was damned if he was going to show fear in front of the mares...
...which was difficult when said mares were wielding a evilly buzzing cutter all over your flanks, sending severed hair pattering (and at points plopping) to the ground.
Rarity, Lotus and Aloe were more than a little shocked to see just how scarred the Shetlander actually was. His coat hid all but the worst or latest gouges, bites and cuts he had received, not only from Rianblade's drubbing, but from the Muc, other creatures and worse. From his breastbone to plot, his sides, legs, barrel and flanks were caught in a net made of pain.
The shearing also revealed the gruesome nature of his cutie mark. The Laird had said that Mucmarfóir's was a pig's head, but what he hadn't mentioned was that said head was torn off the body and impaled on a spear. Even in death the boar's head seemed to wear a snarl of defiance between yellowed tusks.
By the time the spa ponies had finished with their fiendish machine, Mucmarfóir closely resembled a new recruit in the Royal Guard. As well as his coat, Lotus and Aloe had unanimously (according to them) and unilaterally (according to Mucmarfóir) trimmed his mane and tail as well. Cutie mark and scarring aside, the Shetlander would not have looked out of place shivering on the parade ground before one of the Guard's drill instructors, which every cadet knew were actually ogres in disguise.
From the tub, the stallion found himself being shunted to a surprisingly comfortable couch, where the two mares set about with rasps and polish to undo what years of neglect and hard living on rocky and often frozen soil had wrought on his hooves. As it happened several entire pots of No More Cracks ("Hooves As Whole As a Newborn Foal's!") were emptied into the assorted cavities and splits and left to set. Which, Mucmarfóir couldn't help noticing, actually made standing feel much better than it had in years. He almost felt like a new pony.
"Ladies, you have outdone yourselves," Rarity declared, looking over the really quite well-formed stallion. "Now it's my turn. We'll make you the best dressed Shetlander ever! Come on! Next stop, Carousel Boutique!"
Mucmarfóir started to look panicked as Rarity's magic took hold and he was more or less dragged out of the spa. Whether it was the sparkle in Rarity's eyes, or that Lotus and Aloe broke into knowing giggles, is debatable.
"Bloody hell!"
"Is tha' ye Mucmarfóir?"
"What on earth is that cutie mark!?"
"Look at Rarity! She's on a mission! You poor sod!"
"Princesses save us! What happened to you?"
Mucmarfóir felt Rarity was taking an entirely too circuitous route to this Carousel Boutique she was speaking of. Not helping his new appearance was his increasingly anxious demeanour: head down, ears flat, and what tail survived the shearing between his legs.
"When ye clear off awa' home, fluffy, git some woolies first!"
Rarity was jerked to a stop when Mucmarfóir did. The stallion glowered at the loudmouth and stamped a hoof once, blowing loudly.
"Ah didnae hear clearly, gobshite," he growled at the smirking unicorn, "Why don't thee come say it tae mah face?"
"Don't bother about a lout like him, Mister Mucmarfóir," Rarity began.
"Ooh! 'Mister' be it noo?" The Shetland unicorn wasn't letting this entertainment go. "I 'eard yon filly call thee 'mister'. Thinkin' o' settlin' down are ye?" This statement was accompanied by a wiggled eyebrow.
"Watch your mouth!" One of the local ponies exploded. "That's Rarity Unicorn, the Element of Generosity you're talking about!"
The bravo turned from addressing "Bugger off" to the speaker back to Mucmarfóir and Rarity a little too quickly, and swayed slightly.
Mucmarfóir just blinked at her. "Are ye now?" he asked.
"Well yes," Rarity blinked back. "You mean you didn't know?"
Oddly, Mucmarfóir felt relieved. He now knew where he stood, and what to do.
"Well then, ye drunken gobshite," Mumcmarfóir addressed the loudmouth, "Ah dinnae ken, but even Ah know about Harmony Incarnate, an' ye just offered one o' them insult." He stamped again. "So, how's thee to apologise? Word? Or blood?"
"Awa' buckin' hame wi' ye," sneered the unicorn, "Ye've only got the word o' t' mare for tha', an' Ah'm nae afraid of a gurt fluffy ned like thee!"
Rarity winced as she saw violence looming. Nopony ever liked being called fluffy once, let alone twice, and the way Mucmarfóir was bristling...
"Oh aye? Then how come ye're nae comin' o'er tae settle this?"
"Now hold on a minute you two!" The voice was authoritative and came from a rapidly descending pegasus. She had a startling rainbow mane and tail, something rarely seen in the Shetlands, and the image of a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt adorned her flanks.
"Wha' the buck does thee want?" The braggart apparently didn't recognise Loyalty Incarnate when he saw her.
"If anyone's gonna hand out a bucking over, it's me!" Rainbow Dash declared, "Now what's going on?"
"Yon gobshite there as good as called Rarity studdy," Mucmarfóir managed to get in before the loudmouth could even string two syllables together.
"You what?" The pegasus' wings flared instinctively as she rounded on the loudmouth, head down and evidently braced for a charge. The fact that her chosen target weighed roughly twice as much as she did, and had more experience in brawling, was of less importance than that he'd insulted her friend and fellow heroine of Equestria. "Do you even know who you're dealing with mister?"
"Aye," the drunk declared, his Shetland blood rising as his instincts detected a wee stoush in the offing, "it be that loony o'er yonder wi' 'is hoofmaid there!"
Rainbow's face soured, partly from the offensive language and mostly from the smell of alcohol on his breath. How in the name of Harmony had he got hold of the night stuff before noon?
"You just insulted Generosity Incarnate, mister," Rainbow Dash growled, preparing to spring, "And if you want to avoid a lesson in politeness you'll take. that. insult. back."
The Shetlander just looked at her. "Awa' hame with 'ee, wench," he snorted, then went flying as Mucmarfóir shoulder-charged him, sending the pony sprawling.
"Ye've nae buckin' shame have ye? Drunk afore noon an' slandering mares – an' one o' t' Harmony Incarnate at that! Ye're nay sort of Shetlander Ah want tae know!"
The drunk scrambled to his hooves, bellowing in rage, then cyan legs wrapped around him. Squealing in surprise, then outrage, he found himself being borne aloft by an irate Rainbow Dash.
"Put me doon ye blasted ponynapper! Muc-lover! Wha' t' buckin' hell ye think ye're doin'?"
"What on earth is she doing?" Rarity stared upward. "The pond's not that way!"
"So what else is?" Mucmarfóir wondered.
As it happened, over there was Smuts, Ponyville's sanitary engineer. Which was a fancy way of saying that he was in charge of the town dump, hiring ponies for garbage collection, burning that and burying this. His current load was definitely burial material.
Latrine detail was a job so foul Smuts wouldn't dream of subjecting any other pony to it, unless requested to by the Royal Guard. While most buildings in town were already connected to the new sewage lines, there were still a few places that weren't, and that meant Smuts had to ignore his nose and fill up the honey cart.
Fortunately the honey run was getting shorter by the month. Eventually, Smuts was going to be able to set the stinking thing on fire to mark its end...
Smuts frowned at the sound of somepony yelling his head off in the distance, and he stopped to look about as much as his yoke would allow. Nopony around. And now there was an increasingly loud scream –
"Oh, shite," Mucmarfóir breathed, as quite a lot of that erupted from the distant cart.
Smuts just breathed, stunned, as a meaningful percentage of his load distributed itself on (and around) him and his cart in a fifty-hoof radius.
The drunk took a good minute to realise he really was a gobshite now.
A few minutes later, Mucmarfóir found himself being pulled into a distinctive round building that seemed to be bedecked in ribbons and bows. "Carousel Boutique," Rarity identified it as she kicked the door shut behind them. The Shetlander was a little let down that it didn't make an ominous boom as it closed.
"Now then, I'll just measure you up and we'll get to work," the unicorn declared as she levitated a measuring tape and a book towards her, "Before I do, can you tell me your clan tartan?"
Mucmarfóir just stared at her helplessly. "Clan?"
"Yes dear, your clan's tartan. I've been doing my research you know, so I am quite aware that every Shetland clan has its own tartan pattern." She floated the book over to him. "You do recognise your clan's tartan, don't you?"
Mucmarfóir's ears sagged as he stared blankly at the flipping pages. There were ponies in kilts, ponies in scarves, ponies in hats. All tartans. The text was no help, since he had barely any schooling.
"Ah..." he felt a strange hollow feeling in his breast. Everypony knew his own tartan in the Shetlands, it was like a part of his identity...
"Ah dinnae..." Rarity gave him a puzzled look as he began to shake his head, then his legs began to tremble.
"Ah dinnae remember!" He sank slowly to the floor. "Ah dinnae ken mah clan... Mother Epona forgive me, Ah cannae ken mah clan..."
He remembered his family. Da with his remaining face screaming to the sky. Ma with her eyes gouged out and her belly torn open. And his little sister, one barely fledged wing stubbornly holding on to half a rib close on to a gore-tinted ear. An...
an'
an' what?
Rarity stared, bewildered, as the Shetlander rolled onto one side and began to weep for what he'd lost.
Neither of them noticed the Shetlanders peering in around the mannequins.
"Just a minute," Rarity said, blinking as she remembered something. "You lived by 'Loch Earraigh Fuar', didn't you?"
Mucmarfóir didn't reply, he just lifted a weeping head enough to nod once. Rarity levitated the book back to herself and flipped pages.
"Well, there's a – yes! There's a map here," Rarity felt her spirits lift, "Oh – it doesn't show all the lochs. Just point out where that place is and we'll know which clan is yours!"
Mucmarfóir's head jerked up again, this time in surprise. "A map?" he asked stupidly.
"Yes, a map! Were there any large towns nearby? Any mountains? I can find those on this map, so..." Rarity's excitement was growing.
"Mountains..." Mucmarfóir warily circled around painful memories. The loch dominated his mind's eye, the body of water that mirrored the sky in summer and froze over in winter. There were crags, nameless to him, and nearby the forbidden –
"Has tha' map show t' Seven Barren Sisters?"
Rarity just blinked at him. "The who?"
"The Seven Barren Sisters! They be seven great stones in circle, in a depression where nowt grows. Da allus told me tae keep awa' from 'em, said t' Sisters were evil..."
The unicorn felt her heart melt a little bit at the hope in the Shetlander's eyes, and looked down at her map. "Oh yes, it does show stone circles... wait.." she squinted at a symbol near an L-shaped body of water. "There's one here labelled the Seven Sisters... Did the loch turn to the north on the western side?"
Mucmarfóir's heart leapt. "Aye! Aye!"
Rarity glanced at the key, then nodded and turned a page, lifting the book up and showing it to the stallion. "We've found your clan... ah, Mucmarfóir an Langstoncroft!"
Outside, one of the Shetlanders pulled away from the window and wandered off with a stunned expression and a muttered, "Och buckin' hell".
"Hey up!" the first to follow him was a Shetland unicorn, who also tugged on his mane with magic to stop him. "Wha's the big shock then?"
"Yon madpony's a Langstoncroft too!" the unfortunate exclaimed, batting his sporran with one foreleg. The tartan ribbon adorning it was indeed that of the clan of long stone houses. "Ah cannae credit it, the pig-killer a member of our clan. Every bloody ned'll be givin' us horseapples when word gets out!"
Rarity had transformed into a force of creativity that had Mucmarfóir rooted to the spot, for a very good reason. If he moved at the wrong time, Rarity's scissors might cut something crucial off.
The first sartorial incursion was simple enough, a traditional kilt, which now wrapped his hindquarters and replaced his cutie mark with the Langstoncroft colours. Shortly afterwards she had absconded with his sporran, only to return with what looked like a new one, made of slate grey leatherfish hide. "Your old one's inside dear," she explained as she levitated it around his neck.
Mucmarfóir gazed at it in the mirror. Leatherfish, not being native to the Shetlands, had to be imported, and the only alternative was to use cured Muc hides – and as such hide sporrans were only worn by notable warriors. For all the emnity the Shetlanders held them, there were few ponies who would deliberately handle or create with such materials. His old sporran was, like everypony's, a regular (if decidedly decaying) canvas pouch. The ones with the big tassels and all that were just for special occasions.
Like a-visiting the Royal Sisters, he thought to himself.
"Raise your forelegs," Rarity broke into his thoughts, "one at a time." Which was a good way of getting the woolen vest she'd just made onto his shoulders. The resultant look left the Shetlander blinking. The wool was a light grey, trimmed in more leatherfish dyed a shade of brown matching his own coat, and was cut around the shoulders such that it they looked squarer and more masculine.
"Well," Mucmarfóir said to his reflection, "if yon laddie in t' mirror be me, Ah be lookin' mighty grand!"
A/N: Well, from here on in, it's time to start writing this again. I've got some vignettes, including the Cutie Mark Pipers, to thrash out.