“What a magnificent pair of tits,” Tarnish said to Maud as she moved to stand beside him. He gestured at what he was looking at and pointed to a photograph on the wall. “Vinyl Scratch likes to study tits in the wild. I had no idea that she was a photographer.”

“Hmm,” Maud replied as she cocked her head to one side. “Is this what you’ve been doing with your day? Looking at tits?”

Smiling, Tarnish looked at Maud. “Earlier, I was checking out Vinyl Scratch’s boobies. Before that, I made a new friend up in the greenhouse on the roof. She needed a nap though. We had an interesting conversation.”

“I see,” Maud said as she continued to stare at the pictures of tits on the wall. “You know, Tarnish, while I can appreciate the beauty of a fine pair of tits…”

“Yes, Maud?”

“I think it’s great that you’re checking out boobies and tits. It is important to have well rounded interests...” Maud leaned over, stretched out her neck, and kissed Tarnish on the cheek, straining to get her head up that high. “But as far as I’m concerned, I’m not that into birds.”

Licking his lips, Tarnish pushed away his salad bowl and looked at the mares he had shared a fine meal of arugula, dandelion greens, and marinated strawberry salad with. Tree Hugger had shown up, as promised, and the three had settled down to have a nice time together in Tree Hugger’s personal apartment.

Tree Hugger’s apartment could only be described as austere or minimalist. Plain furniture of simple design, a low kitchen table with no chairs, and just about the only thing that brought any colour or warmth to the place was a woven rug on the wall showing a depiction of the alicorn sisters raising and lowering the sun and the moon together. The rug was a masterpiece, something woven on a loom, with each thread added in with as much care and attention to detail as possible.

In one corner of the living room, there was a wooden spinning wheel and a wooden loom, along with a supply of yarn and cords. There wasn’t much else, just a battered looking sofa along with a chair, both of which were covered in quilts, probably to hide their state of disrepair.

“I’ve arranged to have an airship take you home,” Tree Hugger said as she lifted her head up from her salad bowl.

“I thought we were going to take an airship home to begin with,” Maud said in reply.

“No,” Tree Hugger gave her head a gentle shake, “allow me to explain, I was going to have an airship take you directly home. To the farm.”

“Oh.” Maud blinked. “I see.” Maud blinked again and then looked Tree Hugger in the eye. “The ponies of Rock Haven will think I’m being fancy.” Maud reached up and wiped her muzzle with her foreleg. “There, I just acted uncouth to balance everything out.”

Tree Hugger threw back her head and laughed. A second later, Tarnish did as well. Maud blinked, no doubt pleased that her dry humour had been well received. It was always nice to be around ponies who understood you.

Wiping her eyes, Tree Hugger continued to chuckle for a bit before she got herself under enough control to speak. She took a deep breath, leaned forwards, and in a low voice she said, “The Scariest Cave in Equestria is in danger. It is a unique ecosystem filled with many mysterious, magical creatures. Fluttershy and I have both studied the area around the cave. There are some oddities there that are worth learning more about.”

“Why is it in danger?” Tarnished asked, intrigued by Tree Hugger’s words.

Tree Hugger took a deep breath and then looked at Tarnish. “There is a powerful group of industrialists lobbying to use the cave itself as a dumping ground for toxic waste. They believe that since it is, in fact, the Scariest Cave in Equestria, and that since ponies are afraid of it, they should stay away from it and it should remain as an isolated location. As an isolated location, they say it is an ideal dumping ground for toxic sludge, since the high magic mutates the monsters in the cave, there will be no real consequences for the introduction of toxic goop into the environment.”

“Ew,” Tarnish said, not knowing how else to respond.

“Have any sort of scientific studies been done to determine the effects of magical toxic waste being dumped into a high magic environment?” Maud asked.

“No.” Tree Hugger folded her forelegs over her barrel and sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I’ve heard some rumours that there were some studies by the University of Manehattan, but the speculation and results were hushed up by powerful lobbyist groups and think tank influence.”

Tarnish, thoughtful, wondered if poison joke could be used to clean up toxic magical waste. It was quite a thought for him, and he sat in silence, lost within his own head, thinking about the ramifications of his internal question. He also began to wonder if he could go into places with hostile, dangerous levels of magical toxic waste. After giving it some thought, he reached the conclusion that he couldn’t. There were other factors than just dangerous magical radiation, there was also various toxins and poisons that could affect him. The volcano, which had spewed a lot more than dangerous magic, had almost ended him.

“What we need is a way to preserve the Scariest Cave in Equestria and have it be seen as more than just a scary cave. It needs to be important, a place of study, it is a unique magical place and I’ve toyed with the idea that it could be an ideal location to have a Crown sanctioned study of poison joke…”

“But?” Maud said when Tree Hugger’s words trailed off.

“Studying poison joke is not enough.” Tree Hugger glanced at Tarnish, who appeared to be lost in his own head, and then back at Maud. “We need to come up with a better, more important reason. I’ve been thinking about it for days now and I’ve come up with nothing. We need a bigger, more important reason, something that will draw and keep the public interest, and then the poison joke study could be done in the background, under the guise of something else.”

Tarnish, still in his thoughtful mood, turned his cogitation upon the subject of Tree Hugger, sensing something seemed off about her, but he couldn’t put his hoof on what it was. His brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed as he studied the strange mare with a ropey, dreadlocked mane.

“So…” Maud began in a flat voice that sounded as though she might expire from disinterest in this conversation at any moment, “what I’m getting from you is, you want Tarnish and I to find something at the Scariest Cave in Equestria that might gain the public attention or the public fascination, use our budding celebrity status, and then get ponies to pay attention to whatever we find, and while they are distracted by whatever that is, Tarnish begins a Crown sanctioned study of poison joke while I get to live the life of a rock star geologist and study all of the endlessly fascinating rocks in the area.”

Tree Hugger nodded, shrugged, and then threw out both forelegs to her sides. “Yeah, more or less.”

Tarnish, who had heard very little of what Maud had said, realised what was off about Tree Hugger. She wasn’t talking like the scatterbrained mare that she made herself out to be. His eyes narrowed even more as he came to understand just how clever and intelligent she was.

“Maud Pie, if you can somehow pull that off, I will have a museum built to house every single fascinating rock you find,” Tree Hugger said as she leaned forwards with a shrewd grin on her face.

“Oh my… are you sure about that? Because I can find a lot of interesting and fascinating rocks…”

Standing on a balcony, Tarnish looked down on the city of Manehattan. The sun was setting and the city appeared to be coming to life. In the gaslamp district, the gas lights were now flickering to life. The theatre district glowed with warm, inviting light, trying to entice ponies to come and see a show. The glow of neon signs as bright as the sun replaced the natural light of day.

The wind was warm and salty as it blew in off of the ocean. Out in the harbour, ships blew their horns. This was a city filled with sound and light. Tarnish wasn’t sure if he liked it. He doubted that he would be able to see the stars with all of the light pollution. Even if all of the lights were out for whatever reason, Tarnish doubted he would be able to see the stars even then—the city was smoggy from all the coal burned to provide power for all of the many lights.

Manehattan was a city of excess, a city of wealth, it was a place of technology run rampant. It stood out in sharp contrast to Dodge City Junction, which was almost the opposite. Having been in both places, Tarnish felt as though he had traveled forward into the future here in Manehattan, or had gone back into the past when visiting Dodge City Junction. He was amazed that both cities existed in the same Equestria.

Tarnish’s mind tried to understand the disparity, but it was beyond his comprehension. Ponyville somehow felt even more backwards than ever, with the thatched roof cottages, water wells that required a bucket, or hoof cranked pumps. Manehattan existed at the expense of other cities; this city clearly had so much and took so many of the available resources to continue to function, while places like Ponyville or Dodge City Junction remained downright backwards… and what could be said about Rock Haven?

Below him, thousands upon thousands of wagons, coaches, carriages, and cabs filled the streets, all made out of wood. How many forests, how many trees, how much of nature had been plundered to fill the streets with so many vehicles? For Tarnish, the thought was mind boggling.

Manehattan was filled with fountains; they were indeed, everywhere, decorating many public spaces. Tarnish suspected that the fountains here squirted out more water every day than there was available in Ponyville’s public water supply, the water that poured out of every faucet, every showerhead, that flushed every toilet, and watered every lawn or garden.

How much of that water simply evapourated into the air and became part of the city’s humidity problem? Tarnish didn’t know and he didn’t like thinking about it. All of this, it troubled him, and he wondered how long ponies could keep going, living with this kind of excess. He began to wonder what might happen when resources became scarce.

“You’re quiet,” Maud said as she scooted a little closer to Tarnish.

Tarnish nodded, remaining quiet.

“What’s on your mind?” Maud asked.

“This city,” Tarnish replied, gesturing out at the city below them with his hoof. “All of this… excess… it bothers me.”

“Las Pegasus is even worse.” Maud moved a little closer and pressed up against Tarnish. “All those neon signs along the strip take so much electricity. And Applewood… you don’t even want to know how the movie stars in Applewood live, Tarnished Teapot.”

Tarnish’s ears drooped down to the sides of his face and he snorted as a sour expression crept over his face. “I suppose you know about Las Pegasus because you went to school there.”

Reaching out her foreleg, Maud wrapped it around Tarnish’s foreleg, and held on to him. She rubbed her cheek against his neck and was thankful to have him beside her. A super observant pony like Pinkie Pie might have seen the bliss that was evident upon Maud’s face, but it was lost upon everypony else.

“We have a big job ahead of us,” Maud said to her husband in a dull monotone. “We’re gonna save some rocks. That’s just about the most important job that ponies can do.”

In spite of how he was feeling, Tarnish laughed and his ears stood up.

“Tonight, I’m going to take you to bed early, I’m going to work the dud out of your system, and then I’m just going to work you over. I need you to get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow… we dance. This means a lot to me, Tarnish. This is a big deal. I’m real excited about it.” Maud’s voice contained no trace of excitement. “I need you to be well rested, so let’s go to bed, Tarnish.”

Lowering his head, Tarnish kissed the mare beside him and nodded. “I’m sick of looking at the city. I’d rather look at you. Or be looking up at you while you’re looking down at me, with your mane spilling all around your face while you make those little whinnies that you make.”

There was a sharp inhale, a gasp from Maud.

“Let’s go to bed, Maud…”

Author's Notes:

A fine pair of tits...

And some magnificent boobies.