The trees of the boreal forest were sleepy and Tarnish had a hard time rousing them. Sleepy trees took forever to say anything, about the same amount of time it took for frozen maple syrup to drip from the spigot. Tarnish was, of course, still getting used to his new magics, and much of what he did confused him as he didn’t understand it very well.

Vinyl had been getting new powers as well, new magics, new spells, new abilities. She took to it readily, having a good understanding of magical theory, while Tarnish just sort of allowed things to happen and hoped that he would wing it if he had to. The one thing that Tarnish did well though, was talk to plants.

As it turned out, plants loved to talk to ponies, and had a lot to say, but most ponies couldn’t hear what was being said. Tarnish could though, and it disturbed him. Plants begging to be eaten so that their seeds could be passed through his bowels and deposited elsewhere gave Tarnish pause.

And then there were Applejack’s apple trees, which Tarnish didn’t like thinking about. Applejack’s mighty applebucking helped to spread the seeds of the apple trees and the trees viewed applebucking as a form of pleasurable sex. When one of the Apples applebucked them, the trees climaxed and released their fruit. Walking through the orchard and hearing the perverted moans of the trees had been quite unnerving for poor Tarnish.

There was magic here, raw, unstable magic, and Tarnish’s keen senses alerted him to this fact. As he walked, he brewed himself a cup of tea, he needed one, he could feel it, and he didn’t even need to look at the amulet Twilight had made for him. Fixing his tea was now like breathing for him. He conjured water from the snow all around him, placed it into his unbreakable silver teacup, (something so practical for adventuring) made it boil, and dropped in a silken tea sachet filled with his special poison joke blend.

His poison joke powers had grown exponentially with his ascension to druidhood and it was now more critical than ever to maintain his tea intake. He sniffed and his mouth watered in anticipation. Pretty much every single pony that had tried poison joke tea liked it and Tarnish knew why.

It was good for them and cleansed away magical contamination.

Ears perking, he came to an abrupt halt and focused his senses. Something approached and Tarnish could hear it. He waited where he stood, as whatever it was drew closer. A very curious white fox peered out from behind a tree at him, and Tarnish let out a sigh of relief.

“Hey, fox… know of any caves around here?” Tarnish asked.

What the fox said in reply was difficult for Tarnish to understand, he was good at talking to plants, but animals were difficult. The fox had little to say and the one thing that stood out to Tarnish was that the fox was going to be eating his corpse later. Some things still hadn’t changed, and nature still sucked. Frowning, Tarnish waved the white fox away with his hoof and decided that he would have to find a few chatty trees.

“I hope you choke on me!” Tarnish said in parting.

The trees parted, revealing something that was almost a clearing. There were many smaller trees here, and the rotted remains of evergreen giants. In the center of the clearing was a curious sight that made Tarnish feel alarmed. The bleached white bones of a dragon were scattered along the ground. Some of them appeared to have shattered on impact, and Tarnish realised that the clearing was where the dragon had crashed.

Investigating the bones revealed some curious peculiarities to Tarnish. The skull was full of holes, many of them, tiny holes about the size of a grape. Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out what had made the holes. The wing bones were broken and one front leg was quite a distance away from the rest of the skeleton. It was puzzling.

Beyond the clearing and the dragon bones, Tarnish spotted a hillock, some massive boulders all piled together, perhaps dropped here during some ice age. It looked promising, so he took off through the snow to have a better look, leaving the perplexing bones behind him.

Just as Tarnish had suspected, the hillock had a cave. It was small, had a tiny opening, and appeared to have been used as a den at some point. Maud had taught him how to spot caves and Tarnish was rather proud that he had learned so much from her. This cave had formed when two flattish boulders had come to rest against one another at an angle, and then the dirt and debris of time had packed in around them. Roots provided a natural framework, and mighty evergreens grew from the slopes of the hillock. At some point, some creature had come along and dug a den.

The ground here was rock hard and Tarnish knew that the cave would make a good shelter. It was about a half an hour or so walk from the crash site and Tarnish figured that they could make it here with some daylight to spare if they hurried. Supplies from the wreck of the Endeavour would have to be moved here tomorrow.

With ease, Tarnish climbed the hillock to have himself a better look around. In the distance, he saw other crashed ships, this place was a graveyard for ships. Tomorrow, he would have to go and have a look at them. Perhaps there were supplies or things he could salvage. There were stories to be learned, no doubt. Perhaps there might even be other survivors here. Tarnish felt hopeful that something could and would be found, either supplies or new friends.

Still a bit miffed about the rudeness of the fox, Tarnish took off to tell the others what he had found.

Upon his return, Tarnish discovered that Vinyl had rigged together a makeshift sledge to haul their supplies upon. Delighted, he smiled as he approached, feeling happy about the pleasant surprise. Chunks of the Endeavour had been gathered up and Tarnish suspected that they would become firewood. The wood all around them in the boreal forest was wet and green.

“I’ve found a cave,” Tarnish announced, and right away he had everypony’s attention. “It’s about a half an hour or so from here, which is why I was gone for almost an hour.” He grinned, and it was infectious. He was pleased to see Rainbow grinning back. “I also found a dragon skeleton right by our cave and this place is littered with ships. They’re everywhere. Tomorrow, I’m going to snoop around and see what I can scavenge.” Turning his head, Tarnish examined the sledge and wondered how much it might haul.

“Sounds like a good idea.” Daring Do eyed the sledge, then returned her gaze to Tarnish. After a moment, she looked over at Rainbow, then back at Tarnish. Blinking, she looked over at the sledge again, then back at Tarnish. “No offense”—Daring cleared her throat—“but I don’t think you’ll be able to pull that. Better leave it to me and Rainbow.”

“Good,” Tarnish replied, “you can pull me too. I’m exhausted from walking through this snow, it gets deep in places.”

For a moment, Daring Do looked as though she was about to say something stern, but then her expression softened a great deal. “You look like you could use a rest. I think out of all of us, you hit the ground the hardest. Miss Dash and I are featherweights, and Mrs. Scratch is slight of build. You are also slight of build, but you have to be two or three times our size, Mister Teapot.”

“I’ve seen Maud stand beneath him to get out of the rain.” Rainbow’s voice was a raspy squeak. “I’m really glad that Tarnish didn’t break those long legs of his, or we’d be up a creek without a paddle. We didn’t bring the leg-fixing gun.” Rubbing her neck, Rainbow turned her head from side to side, and a crackling sound could be heard. “There are two ponies I know of taller than Tarnish.”

“Two?” Tarnish sounded both indignant and incredulous. “There is only Princess Celestia!” Already, he could feel his ego taking a bruise that matched his violent impact into the ground. Tarnish took pride in his height and the fact that only one pony looked down upon him. It was a silly, foalish thing, but Tarnish took what he could get.

“There’s a pony named Trouble Shoes. He’s taller than Princess Celestia, and he’s huge too. I mean, like muscled all over.” Rainbow’s eyes glittered with excitement and she continued to gush. “I mean, he’s enormous, he has to be a good head taller than Princess Celestia and he’s a nice guy.”

Gnawing his lip, Tarnish stewed, seething over this revelation. While seething, he willed himself to grow taller, short, cramped bunks be damned. If he had to, he would go around the world shooting every pony that had ever insulted Prince Blueblood right in the ass, and then he’d have his own airship built, with large, roomy bunks. He figured he’d call it, Pistols, Plots, and Pain. Whinnying, Tarnish liked this idea, satisfying Prince Blueblood to finance an airship.

“Miss Dash, I suggest that we drop this subject and get to work.” Daring Do glanced at Tarnish, then focused a stern glare upon Rainbow Dash. “Mister Teapot is having a rough day.”

“Oh, right. We need to move. Gotcha.” Pausing, Rainbow Dash tapped her chin. “I keep hearing rumours about a giant pony named Steel Buns, he’s a wrestler…”

Huddled up in his cloak, Tarnish was enjoying being warm and comfortable. Sort of comfortable, anyhow. As he was pulled through the snow, he made himself useful, steam cooking some eggs that had somehow survived the crash. Once he had hard boiled eggs, he’d make egg salad and Vinyl could toast bread.

Never once did Tarnish think about the consequences of four ponies, two of them pegasus ponies, all sharing a cave after eating egg salad. It was one of Tarnish’s known shortcomings, his lack of forward thinking and acting in the moment. Humming to himself, Tarnish thought of those he loved and tried not to think about how short he was.

“Surrender your inferiour flesh and submit for processing.”

The mechanical voice made Tarnish’s blood run cold and he thought of the buried city where he’d found Grogar’s Crown of Corruption. The sledge stopped moving and Tarnish lifted his head as he yanked his hood down so he could see better. The rush of fear was so strong that he felt his balls shrivel and retract into his abdomen.

“If you submit now, your processing will be painless.”

Rainbow and Daring were tied to the sledge. Vinyl looked ready though, Tarnish strained to hear where the voice was coming from and every muscle in his body tensed. Already, he had a good telekinetic grip on his shield, and he was ready to do some bashing.

“Scanning. Inferior stock pegasus ponies polluted with unicorn and earth pony stock. Non-viable. Please submit for processing.”

“I beg your pardon,” Daring Do barked.

Snarling, Tarnish was tossed forwards, slingshotted and hurled through the air by Vinyl. He flew like a bullet, his ancient shield held out before him, and he trusted that Vinyl’s aim was true. The rush of cold air stung his eyes, flooding them with tears, and with blurry vision, he saw the source of the voice, a sight that froze his blood.

A centaur automaton. Tall, bipedal, skinny, and deadly.

It held its long, spindly arms up in front of its face to shield itself, but to no avail. Tarnish slammed into it shield first, colliding with a loud gong sound, bowling it over and driving it down to the ground. Raising his kite shield, he brought the hard, impervious edge down upon the automaton’s face.

“If you submit now, your processing will only be somewhat painful.”

The voice now sounded like a slowed record, it was drawn out, warped, and distorted. Tarnish raised his shield again and brought it down as the elongated, spindly arms began to flail against him, the long, terrifying fingers reaching for his tender, vulnerable flesh. Tarnish remembered all too well having his muzzle crushed, an experience that he did not wish to experience for a second time. He smashed his shield into the automaton’s head once more, then again, and then a third time.

On the third time, the construct went still as it hissed, popped, and sizzled. Tarnish lept away as the arms fell limp against the snow. Smoke rose from now ruined crystalline conduits and a smashed gemstone eye. Acrid ozone filled the air and Tarnish stared down at the mechanoid corpse with a faceful of outright loathing.

This construct was made of brass, not steel, and it glinted in what remained of the sunlight. Even more disturbing, Tarnish’s sharp eyes noticed that while the body was dinged up, scratched, and battered, there was a bright, shiny new arm and leg on the automaton, a detail that disturbed Tarnish a great deal, and caused a little trickle of piss to escape from him.

Huffing, puffing, panting, his body shuddering from piss-shivers, Tarnish managed to say a few words as he tried to control his breathing. “By Maledico’s memory, are we ever fucked...”

Author's Notes:

Back home, they call him Captain Equestria in Manehattan.