"Alright, so this is how this is supposed to work." Aaron began his explanation, "You'll notice that the middle pole has these discs, or blocks, rather, and that they are in a certain order."

"Large on bottom, small on top, yes? Even a pup could see."

"Good, then the goal of this exercise is to move all eight blocks, the entire stack, onto one of the other poles. You can only move one block at a time, though-"

"How this supposed to be smart challenge?"

"Ah, you're getting ahead of me. You can only move one time, but the order cannot change. Any time there is more than one block on a pole, the order must remain, from the largest on the bottom, to the smallest on the top."

All Ears looked lost in thought for a moment.

"Okay, so the first one to move their stack from one pole to the other, wins. Any questions?"

"Does matter which pole we use?"

"Nope, feel free to use any one of your three poles."

"Okay, I ready." All Ears said resolutely.

"Alright, then. Mint?"

Mint took his place on center stage. "Ready."

Aaron and All Ears took their places opposite of each other, while the crowd quieted down.

"Get set."

Both challengers gripped the top-most block.

"Go!"

Aaron thought to himself that it might be unfair to use a puzzle that he knew the solution to all along, but All Ears had seemed to grasp the basic of the puzzle with relative ease. They were both neck and neck for the first few moves, but as the game wore on into the fourth and fifth size blocks, All Ears started mixing her mental steps up. It wasn't really enough for her to lose much ground to Aaron, but constantly watching the Diamond Dog's progress was slowing down his own moves.

It was time to switch tactics.

"You're pretty good at this, aren't you?"

"Of course. I am Smartest Diamond Dog in all pack." She replied matter-of-factly.

"Oh, I know. You're miles ahead of the other diamond dogs in terms of intellect, aren't you?"

All Ears remained silent.

"It must be a pretty hard job, being the smartest Dog around though."

"What you mean?"

"Oh nothing, it's just...."

"Just what?"

"Well, I was just thinking about how, what with you being so smart and all, that it'd be pretty difficult for you." Aaron continued. "I mean, you must make all of the real decisions around here."

"That what boss does."

"Yes, and no, I think. I mean, sure, the other two help you when it comes to decisions regarding best uses of strength and speed, but you and I both know that those are not nearly enough to run a pack like this."

"But that is what Smartest in Boss is for."

"That's precisely it though. You are the smartest around, every single dog here will listen to your orders without question. Have you ever wondered why? I'm sure you have, at least in part. Even if you haven't acknowledged it, the others aren't the smartest. Not even close. The reason they follow you is because they don't know better, they can't question you because they don't know that they can, and even if they could, they wouldn't know where to go from there."

"What you trying to say?"

"Just that I pity your position is all. No dog around can even hope to understand half of the things going through your head. You could tell them, sure, but they would never be able to understand. They only follow the smartest. They follow you because you are the smartest. Everything you do, is because you're the smartest Boss. If the Fastest or the Strongest finds something new or useful, they'd probably receive praise for their little moment of genius, but not you. Every accomplishment, every discovery you ever make would never be attributed to the hard work you put into understanding the world around you. The other dogs would never look into why you where searching for something at in a particular place. Why? Because you said it yourself, 'that's what the smartest does.' Never what All Ears does, never what All Ears wants, no. Face it, All Ears, you may be in a pack, but you are truly, utterly alone."

The steady shift-clack, shift-clack of the blocks skewering themselves onto their piles was interrupted as the piece that All Ears had been holding had clattered to the floor. Aaron looked up from his own nearly-finished puzzle.

Something was wrong. None of the bravado and fearlessness that the dog had always shown were present. The only thing that Aaron could see, as All Ears ran off the stage, were the tears that replaced them.

'Christ, was she actually crying?' Aaron thought absentmindedly as he shifted the last piece into place.

A final Shift-clack resounded through the room.

He'd won.

"Great job, Aaron. We're free thanks to you!"

"Yeah, great..." Aaron said vacantly as he stared at the whole where All Ears had vacated only moments before.

"What's the matter? You beat that Boss, right? That was the last one."

Aaron turned to the pony, tears forming at the edge of his own eyes. "That's just it, Mint. I didn't just beat her, I think I broke her."

"I can't just leave it like this."

"Yes you can, Aaron, these two said they don't need her approval to follow through on our deal. Trust me, she's just getting what she deserves, is all. So let's go up to the surface and let sleeping dogs lie, or lay, or whatever it is they do."

"You go on ahead with the rest then, Mint. I'm not going to force you to help me tie up my loose ends."

"After what you did to her, do you think she'd ever want to see your face again?"

"That's precisely why it has to be me. I'm responsible for this mess, and it wouldn't feel right if I just left her like that."

"You're crazy, Aaron, you know that?" Speara Mint said as he turned to leave.

"I'm just a human." Aaron replied. "But I guess, with a sample size like that, you'd probably think crazy was a defining characteristic of the species."

"Sure whatever, just don't die, okay. With everything you've done for us, you deserve a hero's welcome back in town."

"I don't plan on it. Dying that is. I'd appreciate any welcoming committee that doesn't chain me up first, for once."

"Yeah, well, it's not you I'm worried about..."