I let out a warm groan as I leaned back, watching the green trees fling by from the bus window. "Amanda...how far?" I asked, leaning against the window. My guard had figured herself out after talking with the security, her gun was confiscated but she was still in my service. "Amanda--"

"I don't know!" She yelped, trying to turn onto a small street. "This is the first time I've even driven a bus!" She looked horrid, arms hung up around the strangely tilted steering wheel. "Oh god...I think we're on the right road."

I turned towards the aisle, Foxglove and Moon sitting quietly, trying to ignore one another. "So...you two are.... What's the deal?" I asked, shifting and moving my legs over a scrambling set of fillies. "I mean like, I know Foxglove is technically a widow remarried, but what's going on with all this?" I waggled my hand at myself and the mares. "Because I think--"

Foxglove let out a short huff. "She's my wife, she's your wife." she turned to me with a soft frown on her lips. "We're married, and she's married to us, each individually."

I rubbed my face. "This is like some old law, isn't--"

Moon pulled her mane back, out of her face. "To ensure healthy amount of succesors, laws were enacted to replace concubinage and Saddle Arabian Harems with marriage connections." She bit her lower lip. "I'm technically not even Moon Light any more."

Foxglove nodded as well. "We're technically Wesks, as are any natural children, or any of these children that will keep your name." She rubbed her chin with a hoof, causing it to roll over her soft coat rather roughly. "I never did understand day dwelling ponies' last names. They seem so random, like the commoners."

I frowned hard. "That's mean. You say commoners like it's a bad thing."

Foxglove shook her head and carefully slid off her seat. "Ben, all I'm saying is be glad you came to the noble houses first. Otherwise you'd be some mare's plaything, or in a productive marriage with about ten other mares, all trying to get that noble name as well."

I stuck my hand out, brushing Foxglove's warm back as she walked along the slow moving bus. "This is why I left. Modern men and women weren't meant to deal with early medieval shit."

Moon nodded, following Foxglove but instead taking a detour onto the seat next to me. "Be glad you're here now. Fifty years ago succession was still gavelkind. Each of your foals would have had a claim to a square acre."

I felt a coldness shoot through my body. "...Is there like a book I can consult? I really need to know every little law, and abolish them. Because seriously, this is just so fucking convoluted and messed up!"

Moon coughed softly, putting a hoof on my knee. "It's alright if I touch you now, yes?"

I stared at the once fiery mare, her form bunched up and tired. "What's wrong with you? When we met you literally attacked me, nearly kicked me in the head."

Moon withdrew her hoof. "Time...not having to work hoof to mouth. A bit of respect, and really I think most of us are just glad you're alive after what happened." She sat down, slumped forward. Her white mane covered up her grey blue eyes. "Fires have been tempered, you can see it across the county. Even Pyrrhic has his little woman friend, he's not screwing every mare in the city. The Dusk whores are actually involving themselves in other forms of art and entertainment besides hooking. I could do what my house was meant to do, we have money, we have--"

I cut her off, grabbing her hoof and planting it on my crotch. "I get it, knock it off." I hung my hand over her neck, pulling her against me. "Seriously, relax."

Moon melted against my side. "This is me relaxed.... Do you want to see me tense again?" She poked my groin with the sharpest bit of her hoof. "Push me."

I caught myself, pulling my leg up as a foal skidded around under my chair. "All I'm saying is, you're changing. Foxglove changed, like...a lot, then...we're kinda back to what we were doing in Canterlot, she's calm again, it's nice. But you, I mean, it's just different."

Amanda looked back at us. "Uh this is it right? I think this is the right address."

I squeezed Moon against me and stood up. "Uh, yeah! That's it--"

Amanda leaned to the right. "Holy crap...how big is this wall?"

I scratched my head. "Uh, like, two-hundred acres?" I mumbled, starting to rub my chin. "It's all undeveloped and junk my grandpa bought way back."

My guard slowly turned around, an annoyed look on her face. "Really? Like, you serious?"

I shrugged. "It's not my land! It's family land!"

"Then it is your land!" Moon shouted over a loud whirl in the back of the bus. "Look up the laws!"

"Vermont!" I shouted back, "Not mine, family, my dad's, my mom's, my family--"

"We're technically your family!" she shouted again, her raspy voice starting to grate. "Honestly...accept it, you're a privileged person despite the murder plots."

I laughed loudly. "I never said I wasn't! I only said dealing with a town full of homicidal nutcases is hard." I hung my hand, letting Moon slid under my fingers as she stepped towards the front of the bus. "Don't act like it's not."

Moon shook her head. "I'm not, I--"

A heavy thud on the roof snapped us out of our chat. "What the fuck?" I asked, ducking down. "Why!?"

A peach pegasus with a brown pair of shorts hopped down from the top of the bus and started tapping on the door. "Ben Wesk?"

I forced the doors open, reaching across Amanda's lap to undo the lock. "Uh...UPS?" I asked, recognizing the mare's uniform. "This- wait, I have mail?"

The mare nodded. "Emergency letter from Canterlot, signatures like crazy, really looks like they rushed this out." The mare pulled a wax covered letter from her bags and handed it to me, never actually stepping into the bus. "I'm supposed to wait for you to send something back, so if you could read--"

I ripped the wax seals off and flipped the crude letter open. "What the hell? Ben, there was a peasant revolt, a military coup, and I'm being held in the dungeon until you return. Signed, Pyrrhic Av Crag." Along the bottom of the letter were a bunch of other signatures, Feros, a few Bian, Hurk Light, and a strange one. "Um...does anyone here know someone named Clark?" I looked around the bus, getting blank stares from my mates and my guard. "No? I- wait...a coup and a revolt?! What the hell, I leave for five minutes! This didn't happen when Foxglove was there!"

Foxglove lumbered through the crowd of bouncing foals, nearly getting dragged down as they latched onto her. "Wait, what happened?" She asked, her husky voice just a bit tired. "Coup?"

I crumpled the letter in my fist. "God damn it! I just- I try to leave, I try to die, and it just keeps pulling me back in!" I stepped out of the bus, onto the damp asphalt road. I looked around the bustling night time woods I'd grown up in, trees full of night dwelling birds, my eyes pulling in light from the glittering moon and showing me worlds I'd never seen before. "God damn it...." I turned back to the door of the bus. "You guys, head on in, I'm gonna go take care of this and I'll be back by New Years."

Moon and Foxglove both leaned out of the bus, looking past me at my family as they started to walk through the driveway. "Um...Ben, it's February."

I frowned hard. "...That makes me sad." My gut grumbled softly as the metal gate to my family's land slowly creaked open. I turned around, quickly waving to my blood family. "Uh...hey mom, hey dad." They both nodded and said their hellos. "Uh I gotta go use your phone, is it alright if everyone stays here for a while?"

My mother cheered softly and walked past me and onto the bus. My dad walked up to me and looked me in the eyes. "Ben, you're a grown man. You can't just dump off your family on us."

"I wasn't going to!" I held my arms out. "I told you I was visiting, I told you who I was bringing!"

My dad nodded past me, at Foxglove and Moon, who softly waved their hooves. "True, but you can't just leave right after--"

"They're about to kill my employees and burn down my city! I kind of need to go fix this!" I pointed to the road. "...Transylmania, I mean. Not the road."

My dad rubbed his eyes. "I know Ben, I'm old, not stupid."

I let out a long huff. "It's been a long day alright. Now I gotta go get a taxi and save some pony ass."

My dad shook his head even harder. "Phrasing, son, phrasing."

"I know what I said! God, after everything I've done for those shlubs, fixed the roads, fixed the houses, installed all those public restrooms, one would think they could keep from overthrowing the government while I'm going to relax!"

My dad just stared at me, unblinking. "Should have been a history teacher."

I stared back at him, my stomach rumbling loudly. "I'm just gonna go use your phone--" Wayne hopped onto my back, no doubt flying from a window or the open door. "So is he I guess--"

"Yes!"