“They,what?!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as I shot up from my desk, slamming my hands down onto it. Across from me sat Twilight Sparkle, Luna, Captain Cross, and Cortland.

Luna spoke, her voice even, not loud, but with an edge to it. “Lieutenant McDonald you will remember who you are addressing!”

It was Friday, and I had just been informed of Spoiled’s pre-trial and bond hearing. Giving a little growl in my throat I took a long inhale of breath, and exhaled slowly.

“Let me get this right. They let that child abusing cu—” I abruptly cut myself off, mostly from the unamused snort the Captain gave. “—mare out on bail, where she is now free to seek retribution on her child?”

Twilight’s ears plastered down as a look of concern and worry on her countenance took form. “Shane, there was no reason to hold her. The judge set bail and she made it. If it helps, she has a restraining order to stay out of Ponyville and at least one thousand feet from Diamond and Filthy Rich.”

I sat back down and let out a frustrated exhale of air. Rubbing my face with my hands.
“Shane,” Cortland chimed in. “We get it buddy, that is why we are all here to tell you. We feel your frustration and anger over this.”

My gaze lifted up at the captain. “Can we keep a tail on her, make sure that she isn’t trying to slip out of the city, or the country?”

Luna spoke up as Cross’s muzzle opened, only to close as he passed the floor to her. “She is being watched. However, she has taken up residence in…”

A frown curved my lips downward as she looked at Twilight, who stared right back with a glower. “Where?”

Luna exhaled. “House Dark.”

I just sat there staring at the night princess. My mouth parted and closed a few times as I was about to speak, but each time the words failed to emerge. Truth be told, a million and one thoughts went through my mind. Slowly I got up and started to walk around the desk.

“Shane?” I heard Cross speak up. I did not answer, but walked for the board across the room.

Flipping it over to show the pictures, the names, the threads attaching things to other things, I reached over to a folder and opened it up, producing Spoiled Rich’s booking picture. Placing it on an open spot on the board under the pictures of a few of the Dark clan, I dragged a string from her to the name Dark, then another from her to Grey, her lawyer. The whole time, no one else said a word as I stepped back looking at the board.

“Shane, we can’t be sure this is tied in.” Twilight said in a quiet tone.

I turned and looked at them all. “It is too perfect, Twilight.” I gestured behind me. “Someone up here is playing a game, and I can’t see the rules yet, but I am on the board too.”

Luna had been studying the board, the rest present knew it inside and out. Cross had voiced his concerns that I was too obsessed with this and the Apple attack, not a few times. She spoke up after a few moments silence in the room.

“I fear, Shane is right on this, Captain,” she strolled up to the board and tapped it. “Everything here is too perfect. Too many points connect to too many ponies. While we cannot answer what is going on, it is quite plain to see something is amiss here… and it is personal.”

That made me blink, and Twilight queried. “Personal? What do you mean Princ—Luna?”

Luna turned and looked at the others, then back to me. “I mean, Twilight, someone is playing chess, and our human friend here is the knight they are aiming to take out.” She grew strangely quiet, then fluttered her wings. “I must speak to my sister about this.”

Turning to look at me, she ordered, “Send me a copy of all of this, Lieutenant,” making it very clear it was not a request.

I gave an affirming nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded her head “Captain, our train leaves in a hour back to Canterlot. I wish to partake in some of the pink ones cupcakes before we leave”

“Yes, Your Highness,” as he escorted her out, leaving me to look at Cort and Twi.

---

It really had been a long day, and now I found myself in Berry Punch’s bar. I sat alone up on the barstool Big Macintosh had made for Berry to put in just for me. In my hand I held a shot glass with ‘S.M.’ etched and frosted in the glass, under a Canterlot Ranger badge.

That was something Cort and I had started. Anyone who earned the title of a Ranger had a shot glass on the back shelf of the bar with their cutie mark or name under the badge on it. Anyone who was support staff had a wood stine with their cutie mark burned into the side in the same way, under the Canterlot Ranger badge.

It had quickly become a tradition for us, a kind of mark that said ‘you are one of us’. I was looking over at the row of glasses and mugs. Seven shot glasses, one for each princess, and one for the three sworn Rangers. Lined up on the shelf under them, twelve wood beer steins, showing we had quite the group of supporting staff already.

“You know, drinking alone isn’t a good thing, Shane.”

I smiled a bit and turned my head to find a purple princess climbing up on a barstool next to me. I gave a nod and gestured. “I haven’t taken a sip for that reason.”

Berry didn’t say a word and simply smiled as she sat Twilight’s shot glass in front of her and poured off just half the glass worth of amber liquid into it. “Shane, you sure you are alright?”

I looked down at my glass and shrugged my shoulders. “How can I keep the Apples safe if I really am the target of something, Twilight?”

A hoof touched my arm. “You have to trust they can take care of themselves, Shane, you can’t be there twenty four seven. Applejack will keep her family safe when you can’t be there, she has after all faced much bigger threats.”

I glanced over at her and gave a nod, lifting my glass, hers lifted wrapped in a purple magical aura and we gently bumped them together. “To Justice,” I said.

Twilight shook her head and smiled. “To family, both old, and new.”

I blinked at her, giving a grunt and slugging the shot down. She followed suit and, in her usual way, coughed immediately after, bringing a small chuckle out of me. “I will never understand this tradition but, it is starting to grow on me.”

She grew quiet as she recovered, then smiled. “Thank you again for the coat, Shane. Celestia told me Luna almost never takes hers off. She has been pointing her hoof at ponies and saying ‘pew’ like it was a gun.”

I blinked, only to then laugh at the mental image of it. With a big smile on my face, I gave her a nod. “I will turn you all into cowboys yet.”

She snorted. “Cowponies.”

Shaking my head I reached over and gave her a nudge with my fingers. “Shut up, Twi.”

---

Twilight ended up having a second shot with me, something she had never done before. Not in front of me, anyways. She wasn’t drunk, though she was relaxed enough that when I left, she was sitting with four of her off duty guards and three or four of the town folk, telling jokes. See, that is the kind of leader people want; one that comes down, has a drink with them, and listens to the day to day problems of the world. Twilight is going to be one hell of a princess one day.

When I got back to my room in the barn, I found AJ with dinner, the fire lit in the stove, two glasses of what looked to be an apple brandy, and an old phonograph playing some soft classical music.

I smiled and joined her on the sofa, leaning in and planting a small kiss on the nose. “Thank you, you didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

Her blush showed true as she looked up at me with her ears down. “Granny said I need to prove to you I can cook, and be the pony you want.”

I blinked and then brought my hand up to cup her chin, looking into her eyes. “Y-you already are, Jackie.” I paused as she smiled. “I know I ain’t easy to get along with, Jackie, I know I have issues, I know you are fighting a ghost from a past that you never saw. Yet you sit here now, and you keep coming back.”

Leaning in, I pressed my lips to the side of her temple and kissed, brushing my face into her mane some. “Thank you for… not giving up on me.”

She hooked a leg around me and pulled me into her tighter. “Ah never will, Shane, ah never will.”

After dinner, I helped her wash the dishes up in the little half kitchen Big Mac had helped install just recently. It was just a sink, a few drawers and such, and a spot to hang pots and pans. Cooking had to be done on the franklin stove that also served as my heater.

Relaxing back on the sofa with Jackie, I had my arm around her, and she was pressed in close to my chest. I exhaled slowly and decided it was time to ask a question that had been bothering me, well, really from my first day here.

“Jackie, I got a question I can’t really ask Twilight, but… well, it ain’t exactly easy to ask.”

She frowned and glanced up at me, lifting her head up so she could look in my eyes. “Now, y'all know darn well ya don’t have to hide nothing from me, Shane.”

I gave her a nod and I felt a blush creeping up into my cheeks. “Well, it is about, um, none of you wear clothing right, but you don’t, um, er, hang out. Why?”

She blinked, puzzled. “Hang out?”

I didn't say anything just looked at her and watched understanding come to her green eyes. They widened a bit and a blush shot across her face.

“Oh! Well, okay, ah see, um. Well, truth of it is, when a foal gets to walking age, he or she is given a little trinket. Unicorns make them, they come in all sorts of shapes and kinds,” she looked up at my face and then lifted her hoof. There, hidden in her mane was a little bead braided into the hair. “So, it does some illusion mumbo jumbo an’ keeps things um, from hanging out. I guess kinda like yer clothing does for you.”

I gave her a nod as I started to understand. “So, like, everyone does this?”

Applejack nodded. “It became kind of tha thing ta’ do oh, ‘bout five hundred years ago or so. They touch on it in school history class.”

I thought on that as I held her and smiled some, leaning in. I felt like teasing her some, and I really was feeling kind of playful. Hell, you go eleven years with just yourself and see if you do better.

“So,” I whispered in her ear as I kissed the edge of it. Making it flick and move about some. “If a guy wants to get to know a gal better, he… asks her to take it off?”

I watched her blush light up across her whole face. I almost thought she was going to pass out she was blushing that hard. Taking a few hard, deep breaths, she muttered, “Well, y-yeah.”

Using my fingers to turn her head, I smiled. “I will keep that in mind, Jackie” and lost myself in a kiss with her.

---

“Winter wrap-up, winter—God damn it and that damn song!” I muttered as I caught myself once again singing it to myself. The event in question had been two days ago. I had feared for my sanity and looks like with good reason. Even I got caught up in the music and ended up on a team helping plant seeds. I had rigged up a pole with a metal spike I could drive into the ground, then Apple Bloom and Scootaloo came behind me putting seeds in and covering them up.

Laughter caught my attention and I looked up from my work. I was at the moment going through all the cabinets and outside boxes on the new caravan wagon. Doing a bit of moving around and getting it ready for use in a few days when Cort, Lightning Dust, and I would go on our first trip out to Appleloosa and back.

I could see the girls were all there, all with smiles. Fluttershy was giggling behind her hoof, Rainbow Dash was making no attempt at all to hide her smirk. Applejack had her mane in a braid that looked new, she looked good like that.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up girls, that song will be stuck in my head for months I just know it.”

“Shane,” Twilight spoke up. “We were going to have a book signing, for our journal. We were all hoping you might show up, and perhaps play a song or something for the ponies in line?” she asked, looking up at me.

I blinked, bewildered. “Book signing?”

Twilight nodded and looked around at her friends. “We published our journal, to help everypony see where our friendship came from and perhaps help them with their friendship problems.”

I had to ponder on that, and gave her a nod. “When is it?”

She perked up. “Next Friday.”

My turn to give a soft look. “Oh, I am sorry, Twi, girls. I am going to be leaving Next Monday with Cortland and Lightning. It is our first patrol out, and we want to take a week out and a week back, give it a real shakedown.”

Ears drooped, and I especially didn’t miss Applejack’s sad look knowing it would be two weeks before we would see each other again. Last night, we had said quite a bit, and things were getting a bit more serious for us. We still had not gone past kissing and some very, very light petting, though it was progressing slowly.

“We understand, Shane, you have a job to do. Just… it won’t be the same without you here.” Twilight smiled a bit.

“Oh, oh! I get to throw you a welcome-back-to-Ponyville party!” the pink menace exclaimed.

I snorted. “Pinkie, we have talked about this countless times. Me going on patrol and back isnota special occasion.”

Her poofy mane deflated a tiny bit, but she did nod understandingly. “Okay, true, but…” her eyes glanced up at me. “What are you doing February 20th?”

I blinked back at her, but I took note of something, all the other girls were silent, just watching me. “Well uh, that is over a month away, so... no clue?”

Her smile widened a bit. “Pinkie promise you will keep that date open for something special?”

Oh, I don’t like where this is going already. But, it’s Pinkie we’re talking about, so it can’t be anything too bad.

“Well... alright,” I gave her a nod. “As long as there isn’t some emergency or something I have to do that I can’t get out of.”

Suddenly she was right there in front of me with a huge grin. “Good! You get to take Applejack to the Gala!“

I looked around at all the smiles, the blush on Jackie’s cheeks, and back to the pink sith lord. Tipping my old stetson back, I shook my head. “Fair enough.”

I was wrong, it can be bad. Me, at a formal dance, among a bunch of ponies that hate me, the only thing I could think of was at least I will be with AJ the whole time.