At long last, I had finally found a downside to having fur.

Bathing.

Or more specifically, drying off after bathing. When I was human, I had hair on my head and it would often stick up after towel drying. Now I had fur over the entirety of my body and…well…

I had become fluffy. And there was no way in hell I was going to let everyone out there see it. Which resulted in brushing. A LOT of brushing. Suffice to say it took almost ten minutes and I really should have been brushing my fur more often because it had a lot of knots in it. Oh well. I was clean at least.

And I should be. Today was the first day of my new job after all. I needed to be nice and clean so I made a good impression. It wasn’t just my first day of work, it was my first day as an Equestrian citizen.

Yeah, you heard right. I’d managed to get through the paperwork the same way I got through high school. Bullshitting everything. Fed him a bit of basic information about my race then claimed I was part of the Khajiit tribe who lived in a desert valley called Elsweyr (honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t just use it before). My entire tribe was put to the sword when I was small, but I managed to survive by hiding in a ditch. After that I was picked up by some merchants and stayed with them until I was old enough to go off on my own.

Once the stuff about my tragic (and completely made up) past was over, we moved on to medical information followed by figuring out my tax bracket. Three hours of the most boring shit you could possibly imagine.

Once that was out we were (rudely) escorted out of the building by Tristan and came back to the Hall. I had some dinner, listened to Ren complain about how he hadn’t found Copper yet, and then went to bed mentally exhausted. And when I woke up, I was officially a citizen of Equestria.

And suddenly, thousands of bronies became jealous for reasons they didn’t understand.

Which brings us back to today, where I was walking downstairs from the third floor bathroom, clean and refreshed (but not fluffy) and ready for breakfast. There was only one person in the main room, a donkey who was reading a magazine and was eating a bowl of porridge. I ignored him for now and went into the kitchen.

I met with a strange sight. A bull (as in an actual cow this time) was standing in front of a large pot whistling a merry tune. He had a chocolate brown coat and, to be perfectly honest, looked like he could eat the entire kitchen. He stirred the contents of the pot, oblivious to me walking in. I let out a short cough so I didn’t startle the man standing around some noticeably sharp cooking implements while in range. He didn’t jump so much as turn briskly, but he put on a warm smile when he saw me.

“You must be Jack. Name’s Angus.” He paused, long enough for it to become awkward. “You’re not gonna laugh?”

“Umm…why would I?”

“A cow named Angus working in a kitchen. Perfect job right?” He sighed wearily. “I swear, I must have heard every possible beef joke there is.”

“That’s a little dark when you think about it.” After all, talking about beef to a cow would be like…well, anything talking about how good humans taste.

I suddenly wanted a burger.

“Eh, I lost all right to complain about food jokes when I became a cook.” He dipped his ladle into the pot of…either oatmeal or porridge, I’m not sure of the difference. He ladled out a bowl and held it out to me. “I assume you came down here to get some breakfast.”

“Yeah.” I grabbed the bowl, inhaling the mouthwatering scent of fresh cooked oatmeal. “I honestly just expected to find a bowl of fruit or something.”

“Not while I’m here.” He went back to his pot, stirring it with the utmost care. “You can go eat in the main room. The others should be up in an hour or two.” I thanked him for the meal and left, his whistling picking up again the second I turned away.

Angus. Horrible name for a cow. And I think I know a bit about horrible names.

When I reentered the main room, there was still only that donkey I hadn’t seen before sitting in the corner. My first inclination was to use the same strategy I used in high school, which was to sit at the table with the least amount of people. But when had that ever been productive? I was in a new body, in a new world, and under new rules. Why not try to be a little more outgoing?

Defying every survival rule four years in the education system had taught me, I took my breakfast over to the donkey’s table and sat down.

“Hi,” I said, trying my best to sound friendly. He glanced at me briefly before emitting a grunt that I supposed was a greeting and flipping a page in his magazine. An uncomfortable silence followed soon after, lasting half a minute before I broke it. “My name’s Jack,” I said lamely.

“I’m Scruffy. The janitor.”

Somehow I managed to survive the near panic attack I had at the sheer coincidence without it showing and answered.

“Do you work late at night? I’ve never seen you before.”

“I’ve never seen you before neither.”

Alright, how many T.V. shows am I in?

“So what are you reading?” He adjusted the magazine enough for me to get a look at the cover. On it was a mare in a rather provocative position wearing stockings. Scrawled across the top was the word PlayColt.

What followed was one of the most uncomfortable two minutes of silence in my young life.

“I’m just gonna go eat at another table.” He grunted again and flipped a page in the magazine. I took my breakfast three tables over and sat down with a sigh.

Maybe there was a reason I always ate alone.

“Well, you’re up early.” Bright stepped up to the table, somehow managing to look relaxed and alert at the same time. I gave him a nod in place of a greeting and started eating. “You start work in six hours. You ready?”

“Probably not.” A sheepish grin showed my discomfort with the whole idea.

“It’s your first day so I’ll cut you some slack. However,” he pulled out a notepad, a pencil, and a sheet of paper. “You at least need to write legibly.” The paper (thankfully in…whatever they called English here) had a list of terms. All of them related to food.

“I take it I’m not going anywhere this morning?”

“Nope.” He handed…hoofed me the pencil. “You’re going to stay here and practice until you can write each of those words legibly. It doesn’t have to be neat; it just has to be readable.” When I saw the look on his face, I could practically hear the singing of Eduard Khil. “Have fun.”

“Yeah, sure.” There was no point in putting it off so I finished my food quickly and got to work.

I did not have fun. I wasn’t even bored. By the end of it I was mind-numbingly frustrated. Six hours sitting at a table practicing my handwriting in not something I would do again if I could avoid. Fault and Reprise came by to chat for a bit before going off to do other things and Ren stopped by to tell me he was going out again, but other than that nothing interesting happened at all.

“How’s it going?” Robin’s voice barely even registered after the mind numbing tediousness of writing the same thirty or so words hundreds of times in a row. Both she and Mica walked up to my table, back from…I guessed grocery shopping since Mica had a basket full of fruit.

“I think I’m starting to forget my own name.” I dropped the pencil and started flexing my cramped fingers. “Its Jack right?”

“Last I heard it was Mango.” I was actually kind of proud of myself for ignoring the comment. She grabbed the notepad and started absentmindedly flipped through it before passing it to Mica who did the same. “Well you’ve definitely improved, however slightly.”

“Can you read it?” Robin and Angus were the two main chefs. There were three others, but they didn’t live here so I hadn’t really met them yet.

“Yes…kind of. Can you Mica?” she asked the large, Doberman colored man beside her.

“Barely,” Mica said. “It’s pretty obvious you were right handed before. Still, people have done harder things than writing with their weak hand. You’ll get it.”

“Have you considered taking up sketching?” she asked me. “Might help you learn some dexterity in your hand.”

“You think?” I asked, taking back the notebook as I did.

“Couldn’t hurt. And you’ll probably have plenty of time to practice,” she smiled. “There’s a reason we gave you the third floor. It’s usually dead. You’ll be lucky if you get three groups a night.”

“So if I screw up…”

“Barely anyone will care,” Mica finished. He reached into the basket and pulled out a shiny red apple which he placed on the table before me. “We open in ten minutes. You should get up there.” Their message delivered, the two of them said a short goodbye and left.

“I suppose I should get going.” Robin had been nice enough to take my empty bowl to the kitchen, saying it was part of her job to help clean up anyway. I grabbed the apple that had turned into the lunch I should have eaten an hour ago and headed for the stairs, thinking about what they’d said.

It was a relief to hear that I’d pretty much gotten the easiest job. Course, from what I heard, everyone who lived here also had to do random chores whenever Bright asked them to, so I guess I was still earning my keep. And sketching…I’d never really been the artistic type, but I suppose now was a good time to start.

The third floor wasn’t really all that special save it was the ‘quiet’ floor, which just meant that the people eating here were expected to act more like they were at a restaurant instead of a bar. The only place that was fancier was the fourth floor which was reserved for private parties and the balconies that were for small groups. I’d seen what the ground floor was like on Saturday. A heaven and hell metaphor seems rather appropriate for those in my line of work.

It occurred to me then that I had a job. Not a particularly prestigious or fancy job, but one nonetheless. That meant I was already a more productive citizen on Equestria than I’d ever been on Earth.

I wonder if anyone noticed I was gone. Was I even gone? The idea of creating a clone of my consciousness and shoving it into a new body had occurred to me, but it seemed just a bit…farfetched. Still, it was a whole lot better than some of the other alternatives.

“You’re going into existentials again Jack,” I muttered to myself. Another thought occurred to me. I was completely okay with calling myself Jack. It’s not that bad of a name, but it wasn’t the name my parents had given me. I’d just cast it aside like it was nothing. I mean, it wasn’t like there was anything wrong with the name…

A loud crash from a few floors below brought me out of my introspection. I ran to the railing to inspect the damage. Apparently, Fault had come charging back because she was almost late for her shift and crashed into Crisp who had been bringing some more plates up from the cellar. And now Bright was yelling. You can probably piece together the rest.

What had I been thinking about again? Oh well, it probably wasn’t important.

There were two types of tables on this floor. Big round ones that could hold eight or more, and a smaller, square model for groups four and under. I chose one of these off near the dishes dumbwaiter and sat down. I figured this was a good spot since I was out of the way and had a good view of the exit. With my place picked out, I set my apple and my notepad down and got to the waiting.

An hour past. Then two. Some people started trickling in downstairs, but they stayed down there. Boredom set in quickly, followed by hunger. Which brought my attention to the apple. It looked fresh. Robin’s suggestion came to mind. I took a bite out of the apple, turned it away from me so it wouldn’t be visible, and for the first time since I was a little kid attempted to draw.

Bits of paper, crumpled up and tossed away in disgust, followed soon after. I was so absorbed in trying to make something that even closely resembled an apple that I almost missed it when two ponies, a griffon, and a zebra stepped into view.

“Oh shit,” I whispered to myself, panicking slightly. While I’ve definitely improved since coming to Equestria, my social skills were never really…up to par. And my knowledge of waiting tables equates to what I’ve observed from the workers at any number of chain restaurants. Be polite, act like your happy, and never say anything bad to the customers face.

Simple…right?

That realization didn’t really help with the small stone of fear that had lodged itself firmly in my gut. I managed to keep it down long enough to grab the notepad and head over to their table.

“Hello. My name is Jack and I’ll be your server,” I said, repeating the mantra that had been passed down the food service industry for generations.

“Whoa,” one of the ponies said, wide eyed. “Chips was right. There really is a cat man working here now.”

Well…can’t say I expected this.

“Are you really missing an arm?” the griffon asked, staring at me curiously.

“Well…yeah.” I tapped my wooden hand on the table, letting them hear the dull sound of wood on wood.

“Cool,” the first pony said.

“Not really.”

“Are you really in the tournament?” the second pony asked me. She was giving me a look…one the first pony didn’t seem to like that much.

“As far as I know,” I said, a little pissed off at the fact that they’d shown up just to gawk at the oddity. “How exactly do you know all of this? It’s only been two days.”

“News travels fast in Stalliongrad,” the zebra said, glaring at her friends. “And would you three quit staring. I actually came today because I thought eating would be involved.” The three of them seemed to shrink a little, any more questions they had for me thankfully dying on their lips. “Sorry about that. I’m kind of starving right now.”

“No worries. I guess I should get used to this?” Something told me that these wouldn’t be the first people who showed up to look at the weird, cat thing that showed up out of nowhere.

“Probably not. Give them two weeks and they’ll be on to something else.” She laughed a little. “Now then, shouldn’t you start us off with drinks?”

“Oh…right.” I rested the notepad on my wooden arm and got ready to take orders.

The griffon wanted fish, both ponies ordered hayburgers with fries, and the zebra asked for a daffodil sandwich. All four of them ordered some local ale which was apparently some of the best in town. I made a mental note to try some later. I managed to write each order down and asked them if they could read it. When they responded yes (after a relatively long period of time) I ripped it off, took it to one of the dumbwaiters and wheeled it down.

A few minutes later, a tray with four glasses of brown ale arrived. I took that over to the table. The four of them were talking about something. Eavesdropping didn’t seem like a good policy, so I took the tray over to the dirty dishes later and sent it down to the kitchen. I trekked back to the first elevator and waited.

Sure enough, in a short while another tray showed up filled with food. I took that back to them and dished it out (doing that with one hand was rather tricky). They ate and I went back to my table and once again attempted to sketch that apple. Unsuccessfully.

When they were done they left, leaving a small amount of bits on the table. I counted it out with the sheet of prices they’d gave me and was surprised to find they’d left a tip.

“Everything go alright?” I turned to see none other than Bright who had somehow managed to slip up here without me noticing. He even had a drink with him. “No major disasters I hope?”

“Not really. It was actually a bit easier than I thought it would be.”

“Good.” He got up and walked over to the table I was drawing at. “Fault seems to be doing okay too, though she’s always been good with people. I’m glad I don’t have to waste time looking for another pair of waiters.” He picked up one of the crumpled pieces of paper and opened it. For a few moments, he stared at it blankly. “What exactly is this supposed to be?”

“An apple,” I said shyly. He looked at me in disbelief for a few moments before chuckling.

“Needs work.” He put it down and headed for the stairs. “If anything happens or you feel overwhelmed, just let someone know.”

“Alright.” I picked up one of the bits, looking at the shiny gold pattern it had. “So…I have a job now.” I absentmindedly spun it on the table, watching it go around like a top. “I could grow to like this.”

And with that, I have finally beaten my incredible case of procrastination! Huzzah!

Now if only I could do the same thing with my homework...