Steamrails, Train Conductor.

It had been a very long ride from the Crystal Empire for the now-slumbering yellow unicorn mare. Her grass-green mane was all mussed up and it fuzzed out all over her face. Despite the infrequent twitch of scuffed hooves, the unicorn seemed relativley peaceful lying there across the old worn maroon seat. She was just peaceful enough that the teal earth pony conductor didn’t really want to wake her, but her stop was coming up.

The conductor- a smoke-maned dirty-green earth pony, fittingly named Steamrails- had conversed with the polite yellow unicorn earlier while she was eating her dinner in the dining car. She had been sitting alone, so Steamrails had decided to sit with her to keep her company- his wife often commented on him not being social enough. After talking amicably about the weather and train-food, Steamrails asked the unicorn about her time in the Crystal Empire and she had regaled him with tales of extreme cold, giant white bears, and a yeti. It had been quite a tale, especially the part about her meeting a yeti, and Steamrails would have passed it off as a "nice story" had it not been for the large yellowed fang that the yellow unicorn pulled from her saddlebags. It had a ribbon strung through a hole in the side and looked like it could be worn around the neck much like a medal won from a competition, but in this case the medal was a tooth and the competition had been a yeti.

Upon seeing the tooth for the first time, Steamrails had been concerned that the unicorn had fought the yeti to obtain such a prize, and so Steamrails had voiced his concern to her. The unicorn had laughed merrily in reply and promptly told him that she had beat the yeti in a game of checkers, winning the tooth as a prize. She had gone on to tell Steamrails that the yeti was a long-time pen-pal of hers, since her first year at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. She had graduated from the prestigious magic school just two weeks prior, just before the annual Summer Sun Celebration. Steamrails and the yellow unicorn had talked a little bit more about trains and the wonders of snowshoes before he had to excuse himself to go check on the other train cars and their passengers.

Now it was pretty late at night, and the train was all but empty. Most of the passengers had gotten off at the Canterlot station, and the few that remained had left on the stops between Canterlot and the next stop, Ponyville. Unless somepony had an invisibility cloak, The yellow unicorn was the last passenger on the train. Steamrails took a second to think and then decided that it would be for the best if he woke the friendly unicorn before the train arrived at her stop so that she wouldn’t have to rush to take care of her luggage. And then he could go home and see his wife and kids for a while before he had to go back to work. Steamrails sighed quietly to himself before stepping over to the slumbering unicorn's side. Steamrails was reaching over to gently shake the unicorn awake when suddenly the passenger car hit a hard bump which caused the sleeping unicorn to fall off of her seat and onto poor Steamrails, who almost fell over from the sudden addition of weight. After regaining his balance, Steamrails stood there with the unicorn across his back for a few seconds, feeling very awkward.

"You can put me down now, umm... Steamrails. Your name is Steamrails, right?" said the unicorn, causing Steamrails to first jump a little.

"I'm sorry, uhmm..." squeaked Steamrails.

"Lemonade. Don't worry, you didn't forget my name because I had forgotten to tell you earlier. Sorry." said Lemonade as Steamrails bent down so she could get off. "And it looks like we're just about to Ponyville, so thank you for wakkng me."

As if on cue, the train's whistle blew twice, signaling that the next stop was coming up in a few minutes.

"Hey, Steamrails." said Lemonade casually, using a green field of magic to pull her saddlebags off of the storage shelf above her seat. "If I give you my new address, will you write me?"

Steamrails was stunned into silence, as he had not expected this question. He was tired, so he took a moment to process the question. After checking the time quickly, Steamrails turned to Lemonade and gave her an answer.

"Uhh... sure?"

Lemonade gave him a friendly smile in return. "Is that a sure as in maybe or a sure as in you have no clue?"

Again, poor Steamrails was at a loss for words, probably as a result of the sheer absurdity of Lemonade's request, but she seemed to take it as apprehension.

"Hey, if you don't want to be my forty-ninth penpal, that's ok. Just never had a train conductor as a penpal before." Lemonade said a bit sadly.

"Forty-nine?" said Steamrails, taking a seat on a nearby bench. He thought forty-nine was a very large number of penpals for one pony to have. How would a single pony even write to that many other ponies?

"Yeah, well, right now I have only forty-eight, including the yeti, but my goal is to beat the current record of fifty-four." Lemonade said as she unzipped her saddlebags with her magic and stuck her head inside, presumably to look for something.

"Fifty four?" asked Steamrails, as fifty four was a significantly larger number than forty-eight or forty-nine.

Her voice muffled by having her head partially in a bag, Lemonade replied "Held by one Quilliam Inkwell, in Canterlot. I was his fifty-fourth and he was my first. That's what got me started on having pen-pals anyway."

While Steamrails sat and pondered this, Lemonade continued her search, eventually pulling her head out of her bag with a triumphant-sounding grunt. In her mouth was a slip of paper, which she quickly grabbed with her telekinesis and held out to Steamrails.

"Here's my card. Isn't it cool? I just made them before my trip up north!" Lemonade said proudly.

"Wow, uhm, thanks! I will try to write to you." Steamrails said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I think I'd enjoy that."

There was a slight jerk as the train came to a full stop, and the passenger car doors opened automatically.

"Thanks Steamrails!" said Lemonade as she stepped out the door.

Steamrails watched her get off the train with a smile on his face. When Lemonade turned around to wave at him, he noticed a piece of paper on her flank, right over Lemonade's cutie mark. It seemed to be held in place with tape, and it had writing on it that said... that said 'nothing to see here.' Huh. Steamrails dismissed the odd note in favor of more important thoughts, like a late dinner. He gave his new pen-pal a quick wave goodbye as the train car's doors closed and then he sat back down in one of the worn passenger car's seats with a sigh. Maybe when he got home, his wife would have some leftover pasta for him.

||--||--||--||--||--||--||--||--||

Lemonade, Tired Unicorn.

The sheet of paper on my flank fluttered in the wind when I got off of the train. I turned around and gave a quick wave to my new friend Steamrails before heading towards the ticket booth at the front of the train station. There weren't many sources of illumination in the dark of the Ponyville Train Station other than the light coming out of the ticket booth window of the Ponyville train station so I lit my horn with a light-green glow. Despite the fact that the train station belonged to a small town, the brick flooring did not look worn at all in the glow from my horn. On a hunch I cast a magic detection spell and sure enough the bricks beneath my hooves glowed a faint gold for a second. I stopped walking and snorted once. I was standing about halfway to the ticket booth. I concentrated for a second before casting a semi-complicated version of the spell-me so that I could see all of the enchantments on the bricks. Light green words formed in front of my face naming each layer of enchantment. First there was a simple no-break spell that was probably placed by the bricklayer, followed by a water-wicker spell that would send rain beneath the bricks so they weren't slippery. The last enchantment confused me, as it was a "General Magical Aura Lv. 4." A level one GMA would be normal, but level four is alicorn-level, which meant...

I shook my head with a small smile as I dismissed the spell-me. I had forgotten that Princess Twilight Sparkle lived in Ponyville, most likely because it was very late and I was very tired. With this in mind, I continued over to the ticket booth to find out where 42 Main Street was so I could get some sleep.

Hopefully.

Author's Notes:

A new story, with new characters. Heyo heya don't be a naysaya!