“—and this is Sonneur, my beau.” Marble gave Tarnish a shy grin and then looked at Sonneur. She fell silent, not knowing what else to say, sighing just a little and feeling flustered because Sonneur was just so handsome. Her mouth went dry as she turned to look at the stout dark maroon earth pony beside her and her heart fluttered in her chest.

“Pleased to meet you,” Tarnish said to Sonneur, who seemed just as shy as Marble. Tarnish held back a laugh. Both of them were squirming and it appeared as though Sonneur wanted to say something.

A soft squeak came out from Sonneur’s mouth, followed by a gasp, then a clearing of his throat. Sonneur lifted his head so he could look at both Tarnish and Maud. “I collect everything I find about you in the newspapers. Might I have your autograph?” Sonneur’s breathing intensified and he shifted from his right hooves to his left hooves. “I’m a big fan… I think you’re doing great work.”

Tarnish’s eyebrow arched. He knew that he and Maud were in the papers, but celebrity status? He stood watching as Sonneur’s head dove down into a saddlebag and he came back out holding a small notebook in his teeth. There was a shiny black and silver ink pen tucked into a holder on the notebook. On the front of the hardbound notebook, the word “Autographs” was emblazoned. He took the notebook from Sonneur and held it in his telekinesis.

“Sonneur…”

“Yes Maud?”

“You know me. You know us. We’re your neighbors. We’ve met. We’re acquaintances. I don’t understand this.” Maud focused her heavy stare upon the nervous colt standing beside her sister, Marble.

“You’re famous now,” Sonneur replied in a nervous whisper. “Tarnished Teapot is being called the most dangerous unicorn alive.”

“Do you really believe that?” Maud asked.

Sonneur, now silent, looked thoughtful. He shifted on his hooves again, his eyes narrowing, and he let out a little sigh. He looked at Tarnish, then shrugged. He took a step backwards, shook his head, but said nothing in reply to Maud’s question. He glanced at Marble, then at Tarnish, his eyes darting from one to the other.

The sounds of a pen scratching over fine, thick paper filled the air as Tarnish wrote his name down in the book. Sonneur’s face lit up with a nervous smile as Pinny put down a tray of cookies upon the kitchen table.

“You know, one time, Twilight might have been the most dangerous unicorn alive… she might have had a teensy weensy mental breakdown and enchanted her doll with a ‘want it need it’ spell and caused a massive brawl in Ponyville…” Pinkie Pie fell silent as several ponies and one alicorn all turned to stare at her.

Pinkie Pie’s smile changed, becoming more of a sheepish smile. “Heh… heh… that was funny… remember how funny that was? It was all a misunderstanding and Twilight really isn’t dangerous at all…” Pinkie let out a nervous chuckle. “Hey, Twi, do you remember when you switched all of our cutie marks? That was a laugh riot!”

Sitting at the kitchen table, Twilight, who was a bit miffed that Sonneur didn’t ask for her autograph, turned a withering stare upon her best friend and confidant, Pinkie Pie, party pony extraordinaire.

“Oh, wow, tough crowd,” Pinkie muttered as she shook her head and tried to recover from her flub. She sidestepped, backed away, and bumped into Applejack, who looked annoyed. “You made some very pretty dresses, Applejack.”

“Pinkie…”

“Yeah?”

Applejack shook her head, heaved a sigh, and looked at her best friend. “I think you and I should go for a walk, Pinkie Pie. This kitchen is way too crowded.”

Pinkie looked around the room, noticed Twilight’s withering stare, and then nodded. “I think you’re right, Applejack. We should get going. Let’s go and have ourselves a looksee at the covered bridge, shall we?”

“That’s a good idea, Pinkie,” Applejack replied.

“So, the plan is, we go to Manehattan, meet this secret society, have a nice time, then return home, get packed, and depart?” Tarnished Teapot looked down at Maud’s planner and gave her fine, if somewhat loopy script a second reading. Maud had ways of expressing herself and her writing was one of them. There was almost a sense of whimsy to it. Tarnish found that he enjoyed looking at it.

Maud nodded as Limestone’s laughter could be heard coming from the kitchen.

“It’s bothering you, isn’t it?” Tarnish asked.

“How could it not?” Maud blinked and her ears angled forwards, her face coming dangerously close to making an expression, but just as it neared the threshold of doing so, it gave up and her usual, sleepy looking expression returned. “Saying you’re dangerous… as if.”

“Well, not just me… I was talking about us.” Tarnish lifted his head and tried to look important. “We’re famous. Good thing I’m so good looking.” Tarnish was very surprised when he heard Maud snort. He lowered his head, gave Maud a grin, and waggled his eyebrows. “What, don’t want other mares looking at your chocolate fantasy?”

Again, to his surprise, Tarnish saw Maud react. Her ears fell back a bit and her eyes widened for just a second. She was being super expressive today. Tarnish looked around Maud’s bedroom, eyeing the photographs on the wall, looking at the many rocks. He heaved a contented sigh and then looked at Maud. He extended his leg, hooked his hoof behind her fetlock, and lifted Maud’s right front leg.

Dropping his head, Tarnish began planting little kisses in a row, starting at her fetlock, and moving his way up until he reached the sleeve of her smock, much like a farmer planting a row of seeds. Tarnish’s sensitive ears picked up a definite increase in the rate of Maud’s breathing.

“You are such a weird mare,” he breathed as he moved his head down to her fetlock so he could begin again, planting another row of kisses.

“And you are a base flatterer.” Maud stood there, almost statuesque, and allowed Tarnish to keep doing what he was doing. She blinked, her eyelids and eyelashes moving with exquisite slowness.

“You are such a weird mare and there are so many places upon your body that I want to kiss right now, this very minute.” Tarnish heard a faint, sharp inhale and felt rewarded. “If you were a well, I would want to drink deep of your water.” Tarnish’s lips lingered over Maud’s foreleg and he resumed making more little kisses and pecks.

He began working his way up Maud’s neck now, nosing aside her mane, which was more than a little curly at the moment. He made a slow, teasing approach to her ear, leaving little kisses as he worked upwards, crisscrossing, and working his way back and forth.

After kissing her ear a few times, Tarnish spoke into Maud’s ear, his lips brushing up against the velvety edges, “I want to flood your canyon and leave behind sedimentary deposits deep within your cleft.” He felt Maud’s ear twitch against his lips and he continued, “I want to drill down into your crust until I hit your mantle.” He felt Maud trembling and Tarnish gave her ear a little nibble with his lips to tease her. After a moment, he stopped and then said, “That requires a lot of hard, heavy drilling into hot, geologically active areas and I—”

Tarnish was interrupted by the sound of a bell ringing. The rest of his sentence came out as an exhale of disappointment right into Maud’s ear. His ears drooped and he began to feel a real sense of dislike for the bell.

“This was just getting good,” Maud said in what had to be the most disappointed sounding monotone that ever came out of her mouth. “You can’t stop now, Tarnish. You have to drink from the well… it’s full of water.” Maud turned half closed eyes upon Tarnish and pressed her muzzle into his jaw.

“You’re right, Maud. We need to leave as soon as possible so we can have some time to ourselves,” Tarnish whispered as his whole body trembled.

Maud inhaled, held it, and then said, “I need a moment to pull myself together before going out to greet our company.” She blinked a few times, kicked out one hind leg, shook it, kicked out her other hind leg, shook it, and then gave Tarnish the most sultry stare she could muster.

She managed to look somewhat bored, a little sleepy, and totally turned off.

Squinting into the bright sunlight, Tarnish looked at their visitor. She was light green, her mane was a odd pinkish orange, almost like a ruby red grapefruit. She had dreadlocks, thick, heavy, ropy dreadlocks, and on her face there was a pleased smile.

“Tree Hugger, it’s so nice to see you again,” Twilight said.

“It’s like, great to see you too, Twilight,” Tree Hugger replied. “Keepin’ it real?”

“You know it.” Twilight exchanged a hoof bump with Tree Hugger, then pointed at Tarnish and Maud. “This is Tarnished Teapot and Maud Pie.”

The dreadlocked mare stepped away from Twilight Sparkle and looked up at Tarnish, who was quite a bit taller. Her smile vanished and she looked serious, her eyes narrowing a bit. She stepped from one side to the other, looking at Tarnish from different angles, and then, after a good long look, she began nodding.

“You have like, a very chaotic aura and your chakras are all out of alignment… but not to worry… I think you're supposed to be this way. It’s like wheels within wheels… like, wow.” Tree Hugger’s smile returned as she reached out and touched Tarnish’s foreleg with her hoof. She closed her eyes. “Chaos mixed with kindness… and like, a bit of fear.”

Tarnish stepped away and Tree Hugger’s hoof sank back down to the dirt. Something about Tree Hugger reminded him of his father, and he didn’t much care for that. Still, she seemed nice enough, and he was determined to give her a fair chance.

“I’ve upset you… I’m sorry.” Tree Hugger’s warm smile became a sincere frown. “I remind you of somepony, you don’t like, don’t I? Somepony you don’t like… like… wow, small universe.” Tree Hugger took a step backwards, blinked a few times, and focused upon Maud.

She studied Maud for a minute or two through narrowed eyes, then tilted her head and caused her dreadlocks to spill down over her face. Tree Hugger’s lips pressed together and she gave a nod. “Controlled chaos. Like, totally controlled chaos. You… you are very much like the earth… fantastic, totally terrific forces held in check by seemingly immoveable stone. You’re a force of nature ready to vent destruction if the pressure and the heat become too much.”

“Yep,” Maud replied, “that’s me, unbridled destruction encased in stone.”

Tarnish was forced to wonder if Maud was being sarcastic or not. He couldn’t tell. It was impossible to tell with Maud. He was having trouble determining if Tree Hugger was for real or not. Tree Hugger was every bit as weird as Maud was… the two could have weird contests and Tarnish wasn’t sure who would win.

As far as weird mares went, Maud was more of Tarnish’s cup of tea. Tree Hugger’s speech was a bit too much like his father’s. He wondered how she knew what she knew. How had she known that she reminded him of somepony? His tail flicked around his hind legs and he kicked at the dusty ground with his hoof.

“Both of you seem like the kinds of ponies that I look for.” Tree Hugger looked at both Maud and Tarnish, a sappy smile upon her face. “Like, I’ve heard so much about you. I read about you in the papers and then everything happened. Like, I totally want to help you, but, like, I require your help too… I need you to help me fight the good fight. There’s a lot of bad karma in the world and it’s messing everything up.”

“The world is certainly a messed up place,” Twilight said in a low voice from where she stood a short distance away.

“Come inside, we’ll talk.” Maud, being direct, pointed at the door with her hoof. “I think we can work together.”

“That’s like, totally groovy.” Tree Hugger’s head bobbed up and down. “I have a good feeling about this… like, there is a good vibe right now. But I think Tarnish is a little doubtful.”

“He’ll come around,” Maud replied as she looked at her husband. “He can always be counted on to do the right thing. It’s why I married him.”

“That’s, like, far out and stuff… he sounds like a groovy fellow.”

Choosing to stay silent, Tarnish did not reply, but chose to listen, determined to give Tree Hugger a fair chance, even if he was feeling a bit put off by her mannerisms and her speech. This seemed important to Maud, so he resigned himself to sticking it out for her. He watched as the two mares headed off towards the door together, glanced at Twilight, and saw her give him an encouraging smile.

Author's Notes:

That bell.