Big Macintosh was not, as most ponies who knew him would readily attest, a pony given to anger.

This was a good thing. Good for all ponies, of course – a society of mares and stallions quick to wrath would be a fallen, broken, friendless thing, a world of spited honor and violence, tinted red around the edges and colorless everywhere else. But it was especially good that Big Mac was not hot tempered, seeing as how he massed twice as much as any other given stallion, and most of that extra mass was muscle and sinew and bone. Few ponies wanted to see Big Mac get angry. No pony in their right minds wanted to be the source of his anger. Life was precious and short enough already.

Big Mac knew all of this. From a young age he had learned to tread lightly, to speak softly, to touch carefully and blush freely and allow the general impression that he was a quiet, simple soul. To be the gentle giant that ponies wanted him to be. He wore the cloak of others’ expectations for so long that it seeped into his soul, molding him, smothering the heat and energy that raged through so many young stallions’ veins. Big Macintosh did not get angry easily.

But now? Confronted in his own barn by a trespasser who acted like she owned the place, who demanded his aid rather than simply ask, who lied to his face about her identity? And if that weren’t enough, suddenly finding another trespasser in his barn? Somepony who, by the sound of things, was sneaking around behind them, skulking through the shadows that lay between the shafts of dust-speckled sunlight piercing the barn’s slatted roof?

Yeah, Big Mac was starting to get angry.

He snorted and spun away from the pegasus mare, his eyes searching the corners and the darkness that filled the hollow barn. The wood planks let out a pained groan beneath his weight. Along the walls, dozens of implements – scythes and pitchforks and tack and chains and saws – jangled like tin bells.

“Well? Who else is there?” he called. “Might as well come out now, and—hey!”

A flash of movement, blue and low to the ground, caught his eye. He leaped toward it, ignoring the nervous voice in the back of his mind that whispered caution. He smashed through piles of hay and knocked aside crates overspilling with apples, scattered dust and bits of straw, saw the movement again – a foal, not much larger than Apple Bloom – darting away, and he pounced.

He was careful – not one but two little sisters had given him a good idea of how rough he could be when roughhousing. Indeed, in all his tussles with Applejack, he had come away with far more bruises than she. It was with that carefully calibrated sense of his own strength that he swooped down upon upon his prey, trapping it with a hoof the size of a dinner plate.

“Gotcha!” he cried. “I hope yer excuse is better than yer friend’s, or, uh, or…” He trailed off as the squirming bundle of fur and tiny limbs beneath his hoof emerged.

It wasn’t a foal, that was for certain. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen: chimerical, aquamarine and blue, with the limbs of a monkey and the head of a dog and the teeth of a shark and the tail of a… well, nothing had a tail like that, with a hand on the end of it, grasping at the empty air in a panic. But despite its mish-mash nature, nothing about the little creature seemed unnatural or deformed. It was as if nature had, from her obscure atlases, produced some perfectly formed animal, noble as any other and suited for its intended role.

The little creature wrestled ineffectively with his hoof. Its eyes, brilliant and wide and wet, like emeralds in the grass, met his, and for a moment it froze. Then it cried. Its wail, soft and pitiful, filled the barn.

Big Mac jumped away. His heart leapt into his chest, and for a horrible second he thought he might have hurt the little thing. He opened his mouth, apologies ready to spill out, when the creature vanished.

No, not vanished – it simply moved so fast it defied his senses. It streaked away, kicking up dust and bits of straw, burning a straight line across the barn floor toward the pegasus mare who’d done nothing but stand there through all this. It jumped and scurried around her barrel, finally settling onto her back between her wings. Its eyes peered at him from around her head.

“Dammit!” she hissed. She spun in a circle, trying to peer back at the creature clinging to her mane. “I told you to stay in the cart!”

“Uh…” Big Macintosh stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “What is—”

“It was scary in there!” the little creature said. Its voice was mellow and high, like a colt’s. “I thought you were leaving me.”

The mare looked like she was about to snap at it, her features twisted up in a grimace, when suddenly she slumped. Her ears sagged, lying limp against her mane, and her whole body seemed to shrink. For the first time, Big Mac noticed the lines of exhaustion etched around her bloodshot eyes, the nervous twitch in her long primary feathers, and the way her frazzled mane crept out from beneath her pith helmet. She stank of sweat and long days on the road, barely masked by the scent of dust that liberally coated her and wafted out with every movement of her limbs. She was a mare who’d been running from something for a long time, he guessed, who hadn’t stopped to rest in a long while.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was just above a whisper, and he had to lean forward to hear. She reached back with a hoof to gently brush the little creature’s fur. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Just… let me talk to the nice stallion, okay?”

“Uh,” Big Mac repeated. Even for him, it was a failure of vocabulary. “Did that thing talk?”

She nailed him with a glare. “He’s not a thing, you bumpkin. He’s a, um…” She paused, and the indignation drained out of her features, replaced by uncertainty. “He’s a… well…”

“I’m Ahuizotl,” the little thing said. It stood on its hind legs on the mare’s back with ease, its arms clenched in her mane, and it peered over her hat at him. “Who are you?”

“Er, I’m Big Macintosh,” he said. “My friends call me Big Mac, though. I live here.”

“Oh!” Ahuizotl’s little ears swung forward at this. “Do you know Applejack? Daring said this was her farm.”

“Wait, Daring? So, you’re really her?” Big Mac stepped around to the side for a better look, and sure enough, there on her flank was the compass rose cutie mark that adorned the cover of every book under her name. “The Daring Do?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, isn’t it?” She chuffed out an annoyed breath and peered around the barn’s shadows, as if expecting something to leap from them at any time. “Look, I’ll sign a book for you or whatever later, okay? But right now I really need to see Applejack. Is she here or not?”

“Ah told you, she’s out on some adventure with her friends,” Mac said. “Do you have, uh, a place to stay? She usually gets back from these in a few days, and—”

“Days?” Daring groaned. Her legs wobbled, and she collapsed onto her haunches. Ahuizotl let out a high squeak at the sudden movement and clung tight to her mane for balance. “I can’t wait days. I need her now, dammit!”

“Well, she ain’t here now, so I guess you’re gonna have to wait.” Finally, an unassailable piece of logic to rest upon. Applejack wasn’t here, and no matter how much this ‘Daring Do’ complained, there was no way to meet her until she returned.

“Okay, okay.” Daring pinched the bridge of her muzzle between her hooves. “This is okay. I just need… Hey, do you know where she went? Like, where this adventure is?”

Big Mac frowned. “Well, she don’t rightly tell me that, usually. She just tells me to, uh, watch the farm. Keep things running until she gets back.”

Daring snorted. “Great. So, she’s the brains of this operation, huh? ‘Course she doesn’t tell you where she went. Look, is there somepony maybe a little more knowledgeable I could talk to about her adventures? Maybe a mare? Then you can get back to kicking trees or whatever she has you doing when she’s not around.”

Big Mac’s heart, which had begun to slow to its normal sedate pace, began to quicken again. A hot flush filled his face at her words, and he opened his mouth to fire back a retort. “Look, you…” he began.

He never finished. Daring’s ears suddenly shot upright, and she froze. Ahuizotl chirped something unintelligible and wrapped his arms and legs and tail tight around her barrel, and a moment later her wings shot out. They were larger than Mac expected, huge, golden things, and they dazzled him in the darkness of the barn. Then she shot upward in a sudden blur, vanishing into the rafters, filling the space where she had stood with dust and swirling air and emptiness.

Silence. Outside the barn, beneath the whispers of the wind in the apple trees, he heard low voices. Stallions, two of them at least. Maybe more. The sound of hoofsteps approached and stopped at the barn. Shadows danced across the brilliant line of sunlight beneath the closed double doors. Everypony paused, and then the unseen pony pushed open the door.

If a weasel could disguise itself as an earth pony, it would look something like this stallion. His face was long and sharp-edged, with eyes so dark their irises merged perfectly with the black pupils into depthless hollows. A coat the color of wheat, with a chestnut mane. He moved with an easy grace, predatory, each step languid and soft. The image of a golden pony skull sat on his flank.

As dangerous as this stallion looked, he still froze when he saw Big Macintosh. Mac had that effect on ponies, especially when they weren’t expecting him. They stared at each other in silence, until finally the weasel ducked his head in greeting.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the stallion said. “Forgive me for intruding, but my associates and I are looking for a mare who lives around these parts. Do you know an Applejack?”

“Maybe.” Big Mac raised his head to gaze past this stallion at the door. Behind him, two more stallions lurked at the entrance. The sunlight behind them shadowed their features, turning them into dark outlines. “Who wants to know?”

“A friend,” the stallion said. He gestured with his hoof, and the two stallions at the entrance stepped in, creeping around to either side. They peered at the shadows, searching for something. “Trust me, she’ll be glad to see us. Do you know where she is?”

“Ain’t here,” Mac said. He took a step back to keep all three stallions in sight. He ought to be objecting to this intrusion, shouting at them to get out, but something about this pony did not look like it took well to being shouted at. There was danger here, lurking like a wasp among blossoms. “Maybe you should come back later.”

“Mhm.” The stallion pointed his hoof deeper into the barn, and his two associates walked fearlessly past Big Mac, nosing through the piles of hay, sniffing at the crates and barrels. “It so happens that I’m looking for another mare as well. She’s a pegasus, with a light gold coat and gray mane. You haven’t seen somepony like that around, have you?”

“‘Fraid I haven’t,” Mac said. “Now, s’much as I love guests, I’m gonna have to ask you and yer friends to get out of my barn before—”

“Hey, boss!” One of the goons shouted. Big Mac turned to see him standing by one of the old carts, his hoof raised up. From it dangled a golden feather, gleaming like treasure in the darkness. “She’s here!”

Several things happened at once.

The weasel-like stallion reached behind his back with a hoof in a quick, practiced motion, and out of somewhere produced a long, double-edged dagger with a hard brass pommel, perfect for cutting or bashing a pony’s skull. He held it easily in his hoof, like it was an extension of his leg, and took a step closer to Big Mac.

He never got closer than that step. A swirl of air teased his ears, and then a flash of gold feathers fell like a hammer onto the earth pony. Daring Do crashed straight down upon him, her hooves driving the breath from his lungs and plastering him to the floor. The dagger spun out of his grip and vanished into the shadows.

“Run, Red!” Daring shouted. She gave the stallion a rap on the back of his head with a hoof for good measure, then her wings blurred, and she blasted out the open barn door. Ahuizotl, still clinging to her mane, let out a quiet squeak as he held on for dear life.

The sudden noise and violence stunned them all. The goons, still lurking in the shadows, stared at their boss. Big Mac gawped like a fish.

Is he dead? Big Mac wondered. He’d never seen a pony get flattened like that, taken down so easily, by a pegasus mare no less. For a moment the image of Daring Do crashing down onto his own unsuspecting back played through his mind, and he wondered if he’d have broken quite so easily.

The fallen stallion groaned. He lifted his head and glared at Big Mac, then turned to the goons. “Get him, you idiots! And get after her!”

Okay, time to go then. Mac lunged for the door, his heavy hooves shaking the wood floor with each step. The metal tools on the walls shook in sympathy with his tread, and after a moment he had a full head of steam.

One of the goons, foolishly, idiotically, stepped between him and the open door. Big Mac didn’t even bother to slow down. He simply lowered his head like his papa had taught him and crashed through the poor pony, sending him flying like a ten-pin into one of the barn’s wooden support beams with a bone-shaking crunch. He fell and didn’t rise.

Big Mac noticed none of this. The sight of the dagger had finally caught up with him, and he realized something very important: these ponies want to hurt me.

He burst out of the barn into the pasture. Ahead, the farmhouse stood, empty for the day. Apple Bloom and Granny Smith were both in town, and Applejack of course was off with her friends doing Elements of Harmony things. It was just him and those goons. All of a sudden he was out of breath, gasping for air, on the edge of hyperventilating.

“Red!” He heard Daring Do call. She was there, hovering a few feet above the ground near the rows of apple trees. Ahuizotl stood on her back, his blue fur twisting with each flap of Daring’s wings. “Come on, this way!”

No time to argue. Mac charged toward her, and together they fled into the long rows of the apple trees.

Author's Notes:

Cold in Gardommentary: The first Ponemurdered story had a very... disconnected narrative. Back then I was toward the end of the pack, and I had no idea how the story started. This time I'm near the beginning, and I have no idea how it ends. Reminds me of my own stories.