Author's Notes:

There's more to Old Sim and his past than meets the eye, but he refuses to divulge any details. Talib's camp is allowing him more time to work on his experiments, but the unseen prowler is still making his rest uneasy.

For a few nights after discovering the snare, Talib had slept in his lean-to, and uneasily; the one-eyed sleep of a prey animal in the territory of a predator. Equestria was for the most part devoid of large carnivores, and whenever ponies did encounter such unwelcome animals they inspired unease and mistrust. He now wished he’d had more thought for security and bought some heavy bolts for his makeshift “door”, even though he doubted they’d be effective in such a ramshackle construction. But, for all his nerves, there was no further sign of the hunter – whoever they were.

The camp in the forest had, at least, fulfilled its role and drastically reduced his commute to Old Sim’s cottage. Instead of a brisk half-trot of around an hour from Sugarcane Farm, he now only had to stroll for less than half that time through pleasant Forest trails. At work, yawning and stupid from tense half-sleep the morning after his discovery, Talib was informed they would spend the week felling trees in the Everfree Forest. Though tempted to further reduce his travelling and suggest Old Sim meet him in the Forest every morning, Talib thought it prudent not to reveal his changed lodgings just yet – he’d no idea how the old pony would take it. He seemed to value family remarkably highly, for a bachelor stallion. Talib supposed it was a case of advice being easier to give than to follow.

So, on that first morning of the new week, Old Sim marched him with determination into the trees, their burdens surprisingly light. No saws or axes, no heavy carts or sleds slowed their advance; only victuals stocked their saddlebags, except Talib had brought his “Everfree Forest Edibles”, as yet unread, on the off chance he got some time to forage for wild food. To these negligible loads Old Sim had added only, for each pony, some kind of long flat tool with a wooden handle sticking out of a canvas scabbard. On hefting it Talib surmised, from long familiarity cutting sugarcane, they were large machetes, though their use in this unfamiliar context he could not guess. Certainly no tree of useful size would fall to their blows. But as they walked further from the open, sunny clearing where Old Sim had his cottage, the lumber-pony became uncharacteristically talkative.

“Now listen up, colt. You handled the timber-processing alright,” he looked Talib up and down, sideways, as they walked, “for an academic. But now comes the hard part. You’ll be learning at this for as long as you’re practicing silviculture, mark my words. I still am.”

“Silviculture?” Talib had not heard the phrase before.

“Aye. Simple meaning of it is, you can’t just cut down any tree you please.”

The younger pony nodded in agreement. “OK, that’s pretty obvious, otherwise there’d be no difference between this and clear-felling. But... why, exactly, if that’s not too obvious a question? And how do you know which trees to cut?”

Old Sim considered for a while before replying, “Well, to the second question, I’ll just say; watch and learn. We’ll cruise the area today, marking trees for felling, and just you mind what kind of trees we choose.” The machetes suddenly made sense to Talib – he supposed chalk might run off in the rain, and anyway it would just have been another consumable to replace. “As for why, that’s deeper. We want to fell the right trees to maintain a steady supply of similar trees over the years, and without placing too strong a mark on the Forest. Different animals and trees interact with each other in different ways, so for example if we take too many of one type, it’ll hurt the critters and such that rely on them most. And then there’s flow-on effects from that. Best to tread lightly.”

Talib felt he might be overstating his influence. “But you take so little, surely it doesn’t make all that much difference?” The grizzled old stallion looked at him sharply, and then away up into the canopy as they walked, his sure hooves never once faltering. His apprentice was reminded how long Old Sim had lived and worked here - several of Talib’s lifetimes.

“You still don’t really know the Forest, for all your reading and traipsing about. Everything affects everything, even in some small, distant way. Whenever something changes, something else will exploit the new situation. Those effects become more noticeable when they stretch through space – and time. I might not have been taking much, but I’ve been doing it since before your time, or your father’s. And though the amount may be tiny compared to the overall size of the Everfree Forest, remember any community, however large, is still made up of individuals. There’s been many, many individual animals and plants who’ve been advantaged, and disadvantaged, by the trees I’ve taken.”

Old Sim sounded grave, like he bore the weight of every single life he’d harmed. Talib was transfixed. The transformation from no-nonsense working pony to hoary old sage was natural and convincing – so which was the real Sim Timber? And where in Equestria had this version come from? Talib hadn’t had the courage to ask much about Old Sim’s history, except to learn that his father, Spruce “Pappy” Timber, had been the one who had taught his son the trade. Had Pappy Timber been some kind of mystic?

Old Sim wasn’t done. “It’s not the same Forest it would have been without me. Nopony may cross the same river twice.”

Talib shook his head uncertainly. “I’ve never heard that phrase before.”

“Some famous dead pony said it,” Old Sim waved a forehoof in characteristic irreverence for authority, “means to say that, moment to moment, the river is not really the same river, not in the way we think. The water is different, differently distributed, having come from somewhere else – we construct the river in our minds, and say it is the same thing which we perceived a moment ago, but can’t reconcile ourselves with the fundamental changeability which is the nature of things. Including the Forest. When I cut down a tree this is, in a very important sense, no longer the same forest.”

Talib nodded dumbly, not quite comprehending. Such metaphysics had, so far, held little interest for him. Old Sim had completely ambushed him with it.

“I hadn’t realised logging was such a philosophical activity,” he said with levity.

Old Sim regarded him carefully, alert to any signs of mockery. Talib, however, projected nothing but innocent humour, clearly intended to disarm a conversation he was not following. Old Sim shook his head, despairing a little of his student.

“Everything worth doing is, once you scratch the surface. Or should be, if you’re bothered to do it right.”

They fell silent as they walked, Talib considering this oblique rebuke. Clearly Old Sim thought the subject was a serious one, for all that it seemed to Talib like overly conceptual hoof-waving. Talib was used to more solid lines of thought – this is observed, which can be explained by this underlying mechanism. The abstract nature of Old Sim’s musings was quite alien to his analytical mind but he struggled valiantly nonetheless. This occupied him so thoroughly he barely noticed when they walked into a middling-sized clearing and Old Sim stopped, pulling out a rough hoof-drawn map and began tracing their week on it.

This would be their staging ground, it seemed. The experienced lumberpony, protégé in tow, would apparently “cruise” the area he had demarcated on the paper, marking with their machetes the most suitable trees for felling. That accomplished, they’d return with axes, saws and low, flat-trayed carts and begin felling, “skimming” the fallen trees to the staging ground and stacking them in the large carts. At the end of each day they’d return to Old Sim’s workshop and unload. Eventually, this would result in a log pile like the one they’d processed the preceding week.

The first couple of days, however, were exclusively dedicated to cruising and marking trees. Talib slowly got a feel for the eligible types; there were considerations of size, age, and straightness of trunk, but more difficult to grasp were the contextual considerations. The amount of canopy removed, the presence of local species able to exploit the space created, and the local species abundance of a potential mark needed to be assessed. It required extensive knowledge and experience which, for all his ramblings, he’d not yet accrued. Talib had no time to glance at Everfree Forest Edibles as he’d hoped.

In the evenings he’d return to his hut and use the time, as well as his pre-dawn lantern-light routine, to prepare the ground for his cabin and experiments. Continuing the pretence of furniture-making practise, Talib regularly lifted dry planks and beams from the warehouse for the construction. To ease his conscience, he reasoned that, whether he made a wardrobe or a cabin, he was still getting the basic carpentry experience which Old Sim had suggested, so he was following the spirit of his mentor’s words, if not the precise meaning. And indeed, as the foundations took shape, he was improving – his joins were now tolerably square and some introductory books on the subject were very helpful. On the second evening he returned to Old Sim’s workshop with the old lumberpony and asked to restart his furniture-making practise; with his mentor looking on, providing instruction and answering his questions, the secret, nascent cabin had a chance of becoming almost comfortable. Before heading back to his camp, Talib also made it a habit to noodle away at his woodworking for a while so they’d have another selection to sell come market day.

Preparations for his experiments, too, were coming along nicely. He’d taken some crop seeds, which would not be missed, from Sugarcane Farm and begun transplanting them into a few plots he’d managed to set up in the environments around his Forest shanty. Similarly, he found time to plant Forest seeds or seedlings into a couple of plots at Sugarcane Farm. He imagined his parents’ growing bafflement at the increasing takeover of their unused corners of land. Probably he could explain it as some kind of agricultural experiment – another half-truth. As one plot matured and he collected results, he’d strip out the growth and re-plant with the next treatment in his regime. Every day he’d plant a couple of new plots, hoping to have a full cohort established before Autumn began in earnest. Surveying his notes, the task ahead seemed daunting, but taking it one day at a time should see him make the steady progress he’d sketched in his experimental timeline.

His preparations gave him one concerning experience, however. One evening while out quietly sitting near one of his experimental plots, writing notes and thinking, Talib had been treated to a very rare sight indeed – a Greater Everfree Warbler. The odd-looking, jowly bird had perched in some trees across from him, just for a moment, before it had sensed his presence, perhaps hearing his sharp intake of breath. The chronically-shy species had dived off deeper into the Forest and vanished. After recovering from his surprise, Talib grew worried – to his knowledge the bird was never, never seen in this part of the Forest, but was confined to a range far to the East; towards Progress’s logging camp. It would not generally travel this far into unfamiliar territory, away from the Honeysuckle Orchid whose nectar it drank, unless... unless driven out, he though, one way or another. Talib’s brow furrowed.

After a couple of days, enough trees had been marked for them to begin felling. Swinging an axe or dragging a saw through the wood, pulling alternately as a team, four cuts – top, bottom, back and felling – were made in a trunk to remove a wedge from each side, which nearly met in the middle. Old Sim, well-practised after decades of toil, could apparently make a tree fall wherever he pleased, whereas Talib had to look lively and be ready to leap out of the way if the tons of solid oak or yew began to tip menacingly in his direction. The cry of Timber! which Talib had imagined to be just stereotype was, Old Sim assured him, deadly serious business, and never neglected. The old stallion’s usually level voice was raised to an impressive volume. After the echoes of the stupendous crash had died away, they’d approach and strip the small branches and slice everything else up into manageable lengths, before ponyhandling them onto the cart and returning to the staging ground. Every evening an unbelievably heavy cartload of logs would be dragged, the two ponies hitched side by side and panting with effort, back to the workshop and unloaded.

The work was exhausting. Although Talib’s body had begun to adjust to the cutting and stacking of lumber over the previous week, he was now pulling much heavier loads and, it seemed, torturing an entirely new collection of muscles. The sauna continued to be a balm and a comfort, the steam exerting an almost magical healing influence over his pained flesh. Mornings were difficult, but Talib forced himself to rise by lantern-light day after day, before dawn, as his experiments and cabin slowly continued to take shape. For the latter, he’d levelled off an area at the top of the little hillock in his secret glade and put down sturdy timber sleepers for the foundations. The soil on the elevated hillock seemed well-drained, so Talib reasoned that damp rot wouldn’t be a problem. On top of these were slightly less massive beams, fitted crosswise into place, which would support the floating floorboards he’d ultimately install.

First, though, hopefully in the next week or two, the four skeletal walls would be going up; a grid of solid beams similar to the floor supports, reinforced with diagonal lengths. Boards would be nailed in place on top of these, angled and overlapped slightly to allow rain to run off. The timber-shingled roof was certainly going to be a challenge, but Talib had high hopes of getting it on before the first serious downpour. If persistent rain threatened to damp and spoil the interior he could always cart in a load of straw thatching from Sugarcane Farm as a stopgap – once he had the roof beams up. Some days the project seemed absurdly ambitious, but piece by piece the cabin began to come together.

Talib worked with sense of urgency beyond his concern for mere weather, however. Despite his fatigue he did not spare himself a single moment, not even to read the Edibles. Since discovering the snare nearby he had very real concerns that its owner, passing nearby to check it, could hardly fail to notice his little camp. If he could help it, Talib had no desire to leave himself exposed to... carnivores, he thought, the hairs of his nape standing rigidly upright. While wandering between experimental plots he often felt a tingling on the back of his head, and he could not be sure if it was mere paranoia or some crude version of Pinkie Sense telling him he was being watched. Once or twice when checking an experiment in the Forest he’d come across some odd scuff-marks on the ground nearby. They didn’t appear to be a trail per se, since they did not arrive from or lead anywhere, but something had definitely disturbed the ground nearby and then... obscured its footprints? Talib wouldn’t have noticed them at all if he hadn’t been paying close attention to the environment in which he was situating his experiments, to ensure the replicates were in similar locations. Unsure what to make of it and seeing no way of investigating, all he could do was ignore them for the present, and keep his ears up.

With a couple of days of work left until market day, Old Sim told him to pack some overnight gear as they’d be camping in the Forest – though he didn’t say why. Talib did so, slightly annoyed at being kept away from his cabin and experiments, but there was no way he could either sneak off or come clean to the old lumberpony. Talib wasn’t sure how Old Sim would interpret his side-projects; he wasn’t going to take the risk that his employer would decide Talib had too much time on his hands and give him more work.

That day, their routine was different; as well as the one large logging sled, Old Sim loaded up a smaller cart and filled it with the offcuts from timber-making. Without needing to ask, understanding dawned on Talib: they were going to make charcoal. On their now-familiar route to the staging ground, Old Sim explained the arcane procedure; how aerated, fiercely-burning fuel was used to heat other wood, starved of oxygen, over several days until it formed charcoal. When they reached the clearing, a little before mid-morning, they piled the offcuts into a sizeable dome, with a cylindrical gap forming a sort of chimney right down the middle. Talib helped Old Sim load well-consolidated turf in a thick layer over the top, and the old stallion then climbed right over the thing and dropped a fiercely-burning brand down the chimney. The spry old hoof leapt nimbly onto the ground and began circling the pile, removing a few clods of soil around the base to permit air to be sucked through into the chimney.

There followed a delicate dance of adding and removing turf to control the combustion; too cold, and charcoal would not form at all, too hot and most of the wood simply became ash. After observing and fiddling for a couple of hours Sim finally seemed satisfied and they went off felling more trees. Every time they dragged a fresh log to the staging ground Old Sim would check the charcoal pyre with concern, making adjustments as necessary. Like a fussing mare with a foal, Talib thought to himself; and indeed the pyre needed almost as much attention, as he discovered that night when told they’d be sleeping in shifts, taking turns to mind the combustion.

Not previously having had much opportunity, Talib tried to stay awake during his shifts, in between tending the charcoal, by finally flipping through Everfree Forest Edibles. It proved to be a well-written guide, and Talib mentally chided himself for not thinking to broaden his reading before now. For each entry, ordered by a simple morphological classification, the author provided quality drawings, a list of common and scientific names, where and when it might be found, which bits were edible and with what preparation, and finally a guide to similar-looking but inedible or poisonous species. There was an impressive amount of information; doubtless the result of a lifetime’s dedicated study, and Talib wondered why the apparently eminent botanist had not chosen to put their name to their work.

The palatability of some entries was common knowledge, like the watercress he habitually gathered; a few more, Talib knew about from his more extended reading on Forest plants. Most of the book, however, was filled with plants he either didn’t know were edible, or didn’t know at all. Fungi were another matter, being more difficult to identify and to distinguish the food species from the poisonous. Talib studied the volume closely, taking notes by firelight on the paper he generally carried, and tentatively identified a few species he’d seen growing near his shack. He then rose and rooted around the undergrowth surrounding the clearing, discovering a type of grass called ropeweed which he’d never tried. He tasted a few blades - they weren’t as sweet as meadowgrass, but had a slight sour note which was not altogether unpleasant.

His shift had trickled away while reading, and he gratefully went to wake Old Sim, placing the book nearby. His employer was fast asleep and snoring uproariously in a way which reminded Talib of their sawing earlier in the day. The old lumberpony fought hard against wakefulness, but determined prods with Talib’s forehoof finally roused him and, snorting and yawning, he rose from his sleeping roll to take his shift. His bleary, wrinkled eyes, casting around as if looking for something to blame for being forced open, instead lit upon the book lying nearby. They widened in surprise.

“Well clip my mane and call me Bristly. Where in Equestria did you dig up that old thing?”

Talib was surprised. “Uh, Golden Oak Library… you know it?”

“Ought to. My pappy wrote it. Never much cared for wild food, myself.”

If he’d been surprised before, Talib was downright shocked now. His imagined reclusive but erudite botanist was Spruce “Pappy” Timber? How could that be?

“But… but there’s a lifetime – or several – of scholarship gone into that book! How could your pappy possibly have found the time for all that research, when he had to work full-time?”

“Heh. And look after two growing colts. Well, he may have had some help.”

“Help? From who? Who knows that much about the Forest? And why did they publish anonymously?”

Old Sim’s expression shut down suddenly at Talib’s probing. “Never you mind. Go to sleep, I’ll wake you at morning.”

Reluctantly, Talib did so. His mind was alive with questions and sleep did not come easily, but he knew better than to push Old Sim. If he didn’t want to talk, continuing to press the tight-lipped stallion would not end well. The last scene Talib saw that night was Old Sim, sitting quietly by the pyre and leafing through the Edibles, alternately smiling faintly and staring off into the trees, wistfully.

Next morning it was Talib’s turn to attempt to ignore the hoof pawing at his shoulder. But Old Sim, not famed for his patience, quickly escalated to half-serious kicks and Talib climbed the last few levels of consciousness rapidly, before the muscly old stallion really put his back into it. After a quick breakfast from his pannier, supplemented with some ropeweed, they left the pyre to mind itself and went back to felling. A little before lunch, Talib and Old Sim were just approaching a marked tree when they were diverted by a frantic scurrying in the underbrush. The noise was not unusual – small, flighty animals were often heard fleeing as the ponies stomped about – but this thrashing, rather than retreating rapidly away from them, was going nowhere. Quietly, they went to investigate.

Nearing the noise, Old Sim gestured for Talib to push aside the ferns, and he did so with trepidation. The two ponies caught their breath in shock. A small ferret of some kind Talib was unfamiliar with was struggling, unsuccessfully, to free itself from a snare like the one Talib had seen near his cabin. Lacking Fluttershy’s famous skill of animal communication, Old Sim immobilised the piteous creature gently but firmly with a practiced hoof. Deprived of any opportunity for struggle or escape, the ferret went completely limp, allowing Talib to work at untying the loop of cord which had tightened about its middle. A visible depression was left in the animal’s flank but no serious or lasting harm appeared done. At a nod from his protégé, Old Sim released it and watched it sprint off frantically through the undergrowth. He turned, expression dark, to Talib.

“Do you know what that was?” he said.

“You mean the ferrety thing, or the snare?”

“Both. You can recognise a snare, I see. The ‘ferrety thing’ were an Eastern Grey Ferret, and he was a long way from home.”

Talib thought he knew where this was going.

“Let me guess, they’re never found this far West? Usually found around where Progress Group have their logging zone?”

Old Sim nodded, and Talib read the question in his expression. He explained about the displaced Greater Warbler he’d seen earlier and shared his concerns about it being seen outside its home range. Old Sim nodded slowly, unhappy to be right this once.

“I knew it. There’s no way Progress Group’s logging within regulations, just like I told those darned Councillors.” He then recounted to Talib his adventures in the wondrous land of Ponyville bureaucracy on the preceding rest day and shook his head in disgust. “There’s just no talking sense into them.”

Talib had never seen his employer at a loss. The effect was jarring, like seeing a train take a sharp left off the tracks.

“We could go out to the logging camp ourselves, snoop around, take some photos for evidence?” he suggested. But Old Sim shook his head.

“It’s too darn dangerous to short-cut through the Forest, and a long journey to go around. I’ve done the math, and we can’t spare the labour. With Progress Group undercutting me on prices, we can’t afford to lose darn near a month of production – I’d be lucky to make the fee for my next permit, and then we’d both be out of a job.”

“Well then,” persisted Talib, “maybe all we can do is keep trying to convince the Council to send back the inspectors.”

Old Sim looked highly sceptical, but Talib persevered, the threat to the Forest making him uncharacteristically forthright.

“There’s more and more evidence Progress is logging far in excess of the sustainable yield, maybe even clearfelling. We can’t just stand by and let that happen. It’s the Council’s job to investigate and enforce these laws – all we have to do is give them reason to follow up,” he smiled humourlessly, “with vigour. You should write that report.”

“I can’t turn a phrase to save my life,” said the rough-talking old salt, “and anyhow, they weren’t genuinely interested. They just said that to get my pain-in-the-rump self out the door.”

Talib thought he saw an opening, there. “Well, they had some success, then.”

Old Sim’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at this back-talk, then lowered into a glower, not entirely directed at Talib. Hah, thought the young colt, had a feeling there was a button there. Telling Old Sim he’d let the Council get the better of him was a trigger only slightly less obvious than the sun in the sky. Old Sim’s fierce expression eventually turned thoughtful as he processed the new perspective.

“Maybe you’re right, colt. Maybe I wanted to be rid of them just as bad…” he turned to Talib, smiling gleefully, and slugged him on the shoulder with jubilant violence. “Hah! You’re right. They wanted a report, we’ll give them a report, oh yes! We’ll give them the worst darned pain-in-the-rump report they ever did read.”

“…we?” Talib asked with concern. He hoped against hope that Old Sim was using the royal “we”.

“You’re neck-deep in this too now, colt, and you’re going to have to hold your nose and swim just like me,” barked Old Sim, giving Talib a sudden, horrible image of doing his breath-holding practise in something rather less pure than forest water, “I have all the figures and such up here,” he tapped his skull with a hoof, “but when I try to pull it out my noggin I just don’t talk the same language as them committee types. You know, book-learned and house-trained.” He spat expertly and squared off against the younger pony. “But you, you’re just the kind of over-educated son of a mare as could get through to them, maybe. When I read your letter of application I had flashbacks to some Council correspondence, and no mistake. I’ll give you the arguments, you just make them sound fancy,” he instructed as optimism and cynicism passed over his face, “and maybe, just maybe, we might get through to the bureaucrats.”

Talib fought down the urge to gallop into the trees and hide, his determination evaporating as the circle of responsibility widened to include himself.

“But… I’m just some nopony who was in the wrong place! I don’t know the first thing about local government!”

Old Sim’s expression had hardened into something flinty and sharp, and it was pointed right at him.

“Well, who else, then? You’re here, and you know what’s at stake, and that’s a small club right now. Like it or not,” he continued sternly, losing patience with his timid young charge, “that means you’re involved – worse, you’re responsible. You’re faced with a problem you couldn’t have foreseen, the stakes are high, and so what if you don’t have the ideal skill set to solve it? How many ponies throughout history did, do you think?”

Talib had shrunk back a little at this onslaught. Yet another surprise from Old Sim – a bit parental lecture, a bit drill-sergeant, and totally unexpected. Previously, Talib had thought Old Sim was just a social misfit like himself, living in disgruntled hermitude because he was too abrasive to make his way with other ponies. Now he doubted the solitude could be anything other than a seriously-considered choice, but what might have led him to it, Talib could not guess.

Seeing he’d shocked the younger pony, Old Sim softened his gaze and changed tack. “Those Council ponies mostly have no idea what they’re doing either, you know. They just muddle through, somehow. Our enemy isn’t all that wily.”

Talib shook his head, gathering his wits again. “Our enemy, if we have one, is surely Progress Miller, not the Council. And he doesn’t seem like somepony who just muddles though.”

“You’re right there, colt,” said Old Sim thoughtfully, “we’ll push the Council on this but we better keep our eyes skinned and our lips sealed. Progress Group won’t be well pleased if they scent us on the breeze.”

“You think they could be dangerous?”

“I don’t trust that darned unicorn as far as I can spit,” although, Talib reflected, from what he’d seen, that was a fair distance, “I know the type – he’s the Pony with the Plan, and Celestia help anyone who gets in his way. He’d probably go after my logging permit, or try to, as a first step. We just better watch our backs.”

The snare was another matter. Talib mentioned the other one he’d seen, days before, which had shocked him so.

“And when have you been spending all this time in the Forest, eh?” Old Sim peered at him perceptively.

Talib tried to look innocent and ignored the question, countering with one of his own.

“Who could have set those snares?”

“Well, no pony is like to be setting them and that’s for sure, being herbivores and all. Once in a blue moon we get griffon trappers passing through on their way somewhere or other, catching what food they can as they travel. Since we’ve only seen snares in the last few days, that’s my bet.” Old Sim spat again, more viciously this time. “Griffons. That’s all we need right now. If’n I was on the Council, I’d round up a militia and run those darned…” he trailed off into a mutter, full of dark imprecations and curses. It seemed Old Sim was even less kindly disposed towards griffons than were most ponies.

A griffon! That could explain the scuffmarks near some of his experimental plots – a griffon wouldn’t leave tracks leading up and away, they’d just land somewhere and then fly off. Talib looked around nervously. Griffons were supposedly quite civilised and reasonable, but they were still omnivorous predators and gave ponies the creeps. When they visited Equestria, they were not generally… warmly received, despite the cordial-but-cautious relationship between Equestria and the Griffon Empire. The distances being what they were, however, such visits were generally rare and not many ponies had actually seen one, as it were, in the flesh. Talib resolved to reinforce the “doors” of his lean-to that evening, and continue to avoid sleeping in the open for a while.

They got on with their work, Talib now even more subdued than usual and his eyes and ears flicking frequently to the surrounding trees. But the next couple of days passed without incident, and finally they dismantled the spent charcoal pyre and hauled everything back to the warehouse, taking several trips. That night, after gratefully yielding himself to the ministrations of the sauna, Talib returned at last to his neglected cabin and did a little work before turning in, including adding a few more sturdy planks to the two wooden walls of his hovel. For all the good it’d do, he thought grimly.