Iroh pondered his situation as he wandered the moonlit streets of the strange town he found himself in.

He could tell even in the low light that the architecture was like nothing he had seen before; thatched roofs and glass paned windows with shutters. Gardens in front of every house and different colored low fences completed the boundary of each home, most with a rounded box that had a small red flag nailed to the side.

Each and every house was painted with different colors, some were even customized further, following themes that made no sense at all to the old man.

An excellent example was a home just ahead which at first glance appeared to be a massive tree, only for its actual purpose to be belied by the moonlight glinting off the panes of its windows and the small telescope he could see sitting on a balcony in its upper reaches.

What manner of being were these colorful ‘ponies’?

Spirits? No, they were far too uniform of the body to be spirits, not to mention the colors here were far too vivid for there to be any chance of this place being in the spirit world where colors seemed to drain away before the mortal eye.

Animals? Ha! These ponies were far too intelligent to be mere animals, the nurse he had cowed and interrogated in the hospital spoke well enough that if he had closed his eyes, he could easily have imagined he had been speaking to another human - one that had about the same courage as a toddler, but her speech had been far more advanced than any animal capable of mimicry he had ever heard of.

Walking into an open area, he looked around at the wooden stalls that surrounded the square, marking it as a market. The signs above each stall extolling its wares with a simple image of its primary product, he spotted apples, carrots, celery and cabbage and many other fruits and vegetables from where he stood alone.

A fountain ran in the middle of the square, its water making a faint sound as it trickled down through several bowls. A quick and cautious taste test found the water to be relatively clean, several double handfuls later found it quite refreshing. Rapidly, Iroh withdrew a trio of waterskins from the side of his bag, emptying one which still had tepid, lesser quality water in it from a river he and Zuko had passed.

As he held each bag under the running water, he took the time to try and identify some of the more exotic produce pictured above the stands, or the stores the stood behind many of them. Several were easy - flowers there, the hammer and anvil of a blacksmith over to the side, - others not so easy - one store’s sign depicted a feather and what looked like a long chair, another a trio of bottles.

Having drunk his fill and replenished his water bottles, Iroh stood and carried on, searching for more clues as to exactly where he was.

At this hour, the marketplace was of course deserted as he strode through it. Iroh was just more than halfway across the market when something struck him, or more to the point it struck him that something hadn’t struck him; there was little to no smell here! No smell of ostrich-horses used to haul carts, no smell of rotting fish, meat or vegetables, no smell of unwashed bodies having passed through in the heat of the day, nothing but the smells wafting in from the nearby garden flowers.

“Dragon’s Mercy!” he breathed to himself as he thought back to what he had seen at the hospital. The desperate green one who had burst into his room had been subdued within seconds. The spike they had driven into her leg had rendered her unconscious almost immediately and with little or no visible injury!

It was entirely possible that wherever he was, the knowledge of healing techniques these ponies possessed was far beyond what he knew the Earth and Fire nations were capable of.

He shuddered as he realised the implications of such an odorless marketplace. If they were capable of bending, they might even have healing techniques that could surpass the vaunted skills of the Southern Water Tribe at the height of their power before the war. The near immaculately swept ground of the marketplace certainly suggested the attention of air benders or water benders as part of the cleaning crew for this area.

Noting a faint glint out of the corner of his eye, Iroh smiled lightly as he noticed a coin sitting slightly underneath one of the stalls.

Iroh diverted his path to snag the coin from out of its hiding place. Taking it as a small sign of fortune that he should go in that direction, he left the marketplace along the nearest street and followed the path between the increasingly randomly placed homes.

The sound of two women laughing broke the quiet of the night a little way off to his right. The window the laughter was coming from was immediately apparent as being the only one around that still had light coming from inside.

Iroh debated with himself as to whether he wanted to risk discovery by listening in, considering he was by no means as agile as Zuko.

His mind was made up for him when he made out the word human amongst the chatter. Taking care not to enter the area illuminated by the window, he crouched down and sidled along the fence of the home so that he could get nearer.

When he was happy that he was close enough, he took a quick glance over the top of the fence and into what was most likely a kitchen of some kind to get a quick look at his unsuspecting marks. The one of the left was a light cream color with dark blue hair that had a wide stripe of pink down the middle. Her hair was curly and seemed to have more volume to it than was suggested by the size of its owners head.

The other one at the table had wild spiky hair with alternating light and dark blue spikes, her fur otherwise being a similar color to her companion. As she turned her head to look off to the side a moment while her companion was telling a story of some kind to laugh again, and then settle into her seat at a different angle, Iroh noticed her eyes were a deep red, and that there was a small horn protruding from the centre of her forehead.

"... so then, there she was, reared up on her hind legs, trying to stand there with only her hind legs with trousers on them and these socks on her forelegs, except they looked like they were made for claws." The curly haired one was chuckling, hardly able to contain her laughter, her spiky haired companion grinning widely across the table from her. "She was standing there posing in the mirror, and she sees me standing at the door when she says 'Oh hey Bonbon, what do you think of my human style hand socks?'"

Bonbon brought her hoof to her mouth to attempt to stifle her laughter as her friend chuckled appreciatively at the scene that the curly haired mare evoked.

Iroh quietly sat down on the other side of the fence, out of line of sight, but well within earshot of the chattering mares. He was in a strange situation, and information, even the apparent gossip of a couple of ponies, was always good.

"So what about that human that Octy found?" the one with the spiky hair asked, "Did you manage to see it?"

"Uh uh," came the slightly disappointed reply, "I was at my stall in the marketplace when it happened. I heard a dozen rumors before I even closed up shop for the day and some of them were just plain crazy!"

"So what did you hear? I usually sleep until the crack of midday."

"'The crack of midday?'" The one called Bonbon sounded confused.

"I have to work until really late at night all the time. Occupational hazard of partying ya know?"

"Oh. Yes of course you would have to work late." Bonbon sounded a little jealous to Iroh's ears. "I heard he bounced into town on a giant ball, then somepony said he was the ball. I think the best one I heard today was that he was so ugly that Lyra took one look at him, and her mind broke! Bah ha ha hah!"

It took a bit for Iroh to restrain himself from standing up and defending his majestic countenance at that point while the mares were laughing once again.

“So what did happen to Lyra when she saw it? I bet it was wild!”

“When Octavia looked in the bush after that human had crashed into it, she remembered about Lyra always talking about these things and calling them humans. Considering it looked like a shaved yeti in clothes, she figured it was a safe bet it was one of Lyra’s humans.” Bonbon was clearly enjoying her narrative.

“So she took a quick look around the park and spotted her sitting on a bench in the same pose she uses when she plays her lyre. Of course, she called her over and told her to look into the bush.”

“And? What happened?” Bonbon’s companion asked, her voice laden with anticipation.

Bonbon’s voice was deadpan. “She looked into the bush and then just froze in place.”

“What? That’s all? She just froze up? Laaaame!”

"For hours. I heard she didn't come back to herself until it was nearly sunset."

"Wow."

“Yeah, well with a reaction like that from Lyra of all ponies, everypony else backed right off, and Octavia couldn’t get anypony to help her carry him up to the hospital to get looked at.”

“Why the hospital? Surely landing in a bush isn’t that bad? I mean we’ve just about all done something like that when we were fillies.”

“Ever see a pegasus hit a lake hard enough to bounce off the water instead of diving in?”

“OUCH! Yeah, ok, that’s a hospital trip.”

Deciding he had heard enough for the moment, it was time to take his battered dignity and find somewhere to hide out for a while to regain his strength. A little food wouldn't hurt either, now that he thought about it.

His course decided, Iroh rolled to his knees on the soft grass, and from there, half crawled a short distance until he was sure he would not be spotted by the two as he stood up again.

Another 20 minutes of random wandering found Iroh gazing upon a small shed located behind a house on the outskirts of town. Its grass was significantly longer than its neighbors, and its garden beds littered with weeds, a fair indication, he thought, of the house being unoccupied. Just in case the owner of the home was simply lazy, Iroh planned to use this shed to take a rest instead of the house. No need to take unnecessary risks.

Being careful not to make too much sound, Iroh opened the door and slipped inside of the shed, closing the door behind him..

A small ball of fire burst into life over the palm of his hand as Iroh took quick stock of the shed. An old, battered, and very dusty workbench sat against the far wall, tools arrayed on a board low along the wall next to it. The floor was plain dirt, tightly trampled down in several areas of where the owner had habitually stood.

Satisfied that he was alone, Iroh extinguished his light and sat down on the floor, leaning against one of the walls of the shed. Opening his bag, he ran practiced hands over the canisters of tea he kept in there. “Three to the left and at the front,” Iroh murmured, “a nice cup of ginseng tea or two will be excellent to help me relax.”

He pulled the canister out, also removing a mug from his pack, as well as one of his newly filled waterskins. He set the canister and mug on the floor in front of him, and re-lit his small fiery light source as he removed the cap on his waterskin with his teeth, pouring enough water for his tea into his mug carefully by fire-light.

Dismissing the fire again, he unscrewed the lid with two hands and set the canister back down, scooping his mug up by touch. Breathing in then out, very deliberately, he used his fire bending skills to heat the water in his mug, a trick he was very proud to have figured out after years for studying the techniques of water benders for useful insight into his own skills.

He shifted one hand to the handle of the mug, and used his left to carefully find and then reach into the container of ginseng powder to take up a pinch and sprinkle it into his mug. Groping to his left for the lid, he picked it up and screwed it back onto the canister while he waited for his tea to steep and cool to a drinkable temperature.

Sensing the heat was about right, Iroh brought the cup to his lips only to sputter in surprise. This was his valerian tea - a calming tea that was also a mild sedative! He wanted to relax and think a little, not go to sleep!

Placing his mug on the floor and out of the way, Iroh went through the canisters of tea one at a time, opening each one and taking a sniff of its contents.

The containers were all mixed up. It was obvious that someone had been through his bag while he had been knocked out. Checking that the rest of his things had been also been rifled through, he removed a shallow metal bowl and sprinkled some sawdust into it, igniting the sawdust with barely a second thought.

His clothes were all still here, his teas and cups present and intact. The pocket sewn into the bottom of the bag seemed to be untouched, and his papers still sealed into the waterproof pouch they were stored in. Coming to his purse, he remembered the coin he had picked up during his wanderings through the town.

Removing the coin from the fold in his obi, he examined it closely. The coin was larger than those he was familiar with, also lacking the hole in the centre that was often used to string the coins of his homeland together. On one side was the number one, the letters above it proclaiming the coin to be, ‘one bit’. The number was flanked by strands of leaves, and on the other side of the coin, there was half of a stylized sun partially overlaid by the image of a bird that had spread its wings across the other half of that side of the coin.

‘Certainly not Earth Kingdom, even though that one before called herself an Earth Pony’, Iroh thought to himself as he repacked his backpack correctly this time, with each canister of tea in its proper place.

‘There is no help for it now’, he mused, ‘first I must find out whether the locals are friendly. If they are good, I could use a break but I must also find Zuko again before that hot head does something he will regret later.’

‘If not, that could be a problem, there is a very good chance that they will be able to outrun me. I’ll just have to hope they do not possess any bending skills and work my way on from there.’

His mind on plans and counter-plans for dealing with the natives tomorrow, he reached over to his mug of tea absentmindedly and took a sip. Grimacing at its bitter taste, he reheated it slightly and proceeded to finish it off. No use letting good tea go to waste after all…

It was several hours later that Bonbon looked out of the window to see the sun had risen. She had sat up talking with Vinyl all night!

With a groan, she realised that she would have to work through the day on no sleep at all. Something she had done several times in the past, though never voluntarily, usually due to the hijinks of her roommate Lyra and one of her harebrained scheme to imitate her beloved humans in some weird and wonderful manner.

Vinyl looked out the window with her and chuckled slightly, guessing her thoughts. “Tell you what, why don’t you go and take a nap for a few hours in my room. I’ll go put a note up on your stall that you will be opening late today.”

“Oh would you?” Bonbon was relieved, a couple of hours sleep would still leave her tired, but she would at least be able to function for the rest of the day.

“No problem,” Vinyl was already levitating a quill and sheet of parchment over.

Scratching down a quick note - Opening at 12 today. Bonbon. “Here ya go, will this work for you?” Vinyl held up the parchment with a flourish, showing off her… less than stellar script.

Bonbon gave a weak smile, “That will work. Thank you so much for this, I thought I would have to work through today on no sleep, and that isn’t fun especially when you are haggling with customers.”

“It’s all good. I’ll go and stick this on your stall, you head on upstairs and crash. I’ll make sure you get up in a bit, alright.” With a grin, the DJ trotted out the kitchen, and shortly after, out the front door while the confectioner stumbled up the stairs to collapse into a bed.

The sun having just risen, Vinyl found herself the first pony in the marketplace that morning.

Glancing about the deserted square as she made her way over to the stall where Bonbon sold her candy and other tasty treats, Vinyl noted something strange amongst all the usual hoof prints and cart tracks in the dirt.

A single solitary set of prints that seemed to meander through the square that did not match any she had not seen before. Pushing the parchment onto a handy nail that was sticking out of the wooden beam, holding up the small roof that protected the goods from any stray rain, she turned to kneel and look more closely at the prints.

They were long and flat, more than double the length of the hoof print of a pony and with no central hollow section at all. Her eyes widened as she realised there was only one thing these prints could belong to. It seemed the human was up and about and was wandering about the town.

Following the tracks in one direction led her towards the exit to the market that was closest to the hospital, so it was a fair bet that he was headed in the other direction. Other ponies were starting to enter the square to set up their stalls for the day, some of them looking askance at the off-white DJ as she wandered the area with her nose pointed at the ground, a frown of concentration on her face.

“Excuse me miss,” came the voice of one the three sisters that ran the flower stall, “what are you doing?”

“Ah not much,” Vinyl said without really paying attention, “just following these human tracks...”

Author's Notes:

Thanks to Avatar of Madness for reducing the madness of my work, (and also the excellent proofreading/editing)