The tree he found was a pretty great place for sitting. For one it had shade, which counted for a lot. For another, it was very quiet and very still. This also counted for a lot, as while Jack disliked being alone with this thoughts as much as the next man, sometimes you just couldn't beat some good old-fashioned solitude to calm the nerves.

It also had a lovely big root sticking up out of the ground he could perch himself on, which was just convenience itself. It was even about the right height for someone of Jack’s size. Couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d designed the thing himself.

“‘Hey! Big Mac! Kick me in the head!’ What the fuck was I thinking…” he grumbled to himself, rubbing his eyes with the heels both palms. “Idiot. Something wrong with you, man. Need to pull yourself together.”

Jack felt pretty rotten, and also felt that by dwelling on it he was just digging himself deeper into a funk. But he was in a funk anyway, so not feeling that he was in one was difficult.

Story of his life, really.

Sighing, he closed his eyes and just rested against the tree, doing his best to clear his mind. Wind rustles the leaves, the sun still shining, etcetera. Nice things, nice things.

He started snoring.

It was the sound of whispering that brought him out of his doze.

Cracking an eye he saw three little kid ponies. Foals, Jack was fairly certain he’d heard them called. Or were the girl ones called something else? He couldn’t remember, which was another thing he felt a little bit ashamed about. You’d have thought he’d have picked up the lingo by now.

“Hello,” he said.

The three of them all seemed to be trying to hide behind one another with about as much success as could be expected from this. Once they realised the trouble involved they stopped and, by silent consent, apparently settled on the one with the big red bow to be their spokesperson, much to her obvious reluctance.

“Howdy,” she said. Jack’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re related to Applejack, aren’t you?”

“I’m her sister, Apple Bloom,” said Apple Bloom, as though this should have been widely known.

“Right, right, cool,” Jack said, immediately forgetting her name and pointing two fingers at the remaining foals. “And you’re…?”

“Sweetie Belle,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Scootaloo,” said Scootaloo.

“Right, I see,” said Jack, immediately forgetting these names, too, and rubbing his face again. By the time he’d finished the three kids were still there and he sighed.

“Applejack need something? You need something? You need me to move? I can move,” he said and the one with the bow - Apple Whatever - shook her head, backed up by the other two shaking their heads as well. They didn’t actually say anything though, which did not really help clear things up.

“So you’re just here to kind of quietly stare at me?” Jack asked.

The one with the bow chewed her lip in consternation and looked back to the buddies for support. She must have got it, too, because when she turned back she seemed more resolved. Drawing herself up as much as a teeny-tiny little babby pony can draw themselves up she asked:

“Did you really eat rocks?”

Jack was taken a little off-guard about being asked this just out of nowhere, but that was kids for you. Once he got over this he groaned. He’d only mentioned the rock thing once - offhand, without thinking about it - but apparently word spread fast.

“That’s kind of a strange thing to ask someone, you know?” He asked, by way of riposte, but found himself staring down the large, eager eyes of three powerfully cute ponies. This was not a contest he could hope to win, and he had to look away, defeated.

“Not that many but yes, I did,” he said. Not much use in denying it.

The one with the bow seemed pleased with this answer but got a nudge from her buddies that seemed to suggest she had not yet asked the important question. A little less sure of herself she followed up with:

“...could you eat one now?”

Jack groaned again, longer. Kids. He’d never been able to handle kids.

By the time he’d finished groaning the three of them looked no-less expectant. Just saying no was probably an option, but it wasn’t one Jack had ever been very good at.

“Would it make you happy?” He asked.

All three of them nodded, almost as one.

A third groan, the longest yet, but Jack still looked about him for the nearest rock, finding one a little out of reach and having to lean off the root he’d perched himself upon to pick it up. The thing was maybe the size of his fist, maybe a little smaller. Weighing it in his palm he eyed it and turned it this way and that. The next part was always tricky, in his experience, at least when there were those nearby.

“Could you three, uh, stand behind that tree over there a second?” He asked, pointing to the side with his free hand, where stood a tree of indeterminate purpose.

“Why?” The one with the bow - Apple Berry? No, that wasn’t it - asked, head cocking the most the most unnecessarily adorable fashion.

“Because I need to smash this and I don’t want to blind you with bits of rock,” Jack said, miming bringing his fist down on the rock.

This explanation got them moving and once they were safely in cover Jack squinted, held the rock tightly and then brought his other hand down on it in a sharp chop. This was something he’d got quite good at, and while normally he’d have preferred to have just smashed it against another, bigger rock he had none to hand.

Ideally, he’d have found a smaller one to start with, but such was life.

His first chop didn’t quite manage it so, gritting his teeth in annoyance, he did it again. This time it worked and the rock split in half, further cracks from the stress letting him pull the rest of it apart like some especially disappointing piece of fruit and leaving him with a lapful of comparatively bite-sized chunks.

“Rocks shouldn’t work this way…” he said to himself before glancing back to the barrel, around which were peering the three foals. “Alright, you can come back now,” he said, waving them back over. They did so.

Jack picked up a piece of the rock and held it in front of him. “Rock, see? That’s a rock, right?”

He passed it around them and they each confirmed that, yes, it was rock before passing it back again. Taking it, Jack rolled his eyes, popped the chunk into his mouth and swallowed. The foals gasped appreciatively and Jack dug around the little pile of broken rock in his lap for a bigger piece. Once found, he held it up and eyed the three of them closely.

“But you wanted to see me chewing on them, I’m sure?” He asked.

They shuffled awkwardly, this indeed being something they’d wanted to see but had been too reluctant to ask, at least so bluntly. Being called out on it was uncomfortable.

“Uh…”
“Um…”
“Well, now you mention it…”

Jack sighed..

“Alright, fine. It’s not fun but sure, whatever, anything for the kids.”

And in popped the bigger chunk.

Chewing rocks was not fun. At all. These might have been weirdo fantasy-land rocks that didn’t work like how they did back home but they were still fucking rocks.

The first time Jack had tried biting into one he had been at a particularly low ebb and had fully expected to feel the shattering of teeth. To his total lack of surprise that did not happen, and instead he just learnt that eating Equestrian rocks was a lot like eating Brighton rock, only not really because it sucked and tasted underwhelming.

But really chewing on one for the benefit of the kids wasn’t the worst thing, it just wasn’t particularly nice either. The way they crunched and the way his jaw ground around while chewing were not sensations he relished, and neither was the thought that he could chew on rocks in the first place. That wasn’t meant to happen.

He swallowed again.

“All gone, there. Exciting?” He asked. The three of them just nodded dumbly, not entirely sure what to make of what they’d just seen. He dumped the rocks from his lap to the ground and dusted his trousers off as best he could, asking: “Any other tricks you feel like asking me to do?”

“Not right now,” said the one with the bow after looking to the others, who had both shaken their heads.

“That’s encouraging,” Jack said, settling back against the trunk of the tree and closing his eyes again.

“I heard you ate gems, too,” came a voice he decided was the orange one.

Jack rubbed his face.

“Who’s been telling you this?” He asked, irritated, but no answer was forthcoming. “Ugh, yes. I did. And wood. And mud sometimes. And fish that’s been in the sun too long. And apples that have gone furry. I’ve eaten lots of things you probably shouldn’t.”

He cracked an eye to see how this revelation went down. The three foals looked appropriately nauseated, which made Jack feel a little better. That’s what you get for poking too far.

“Why would you eat all of that stuff?” Asked the little white one, who looked just a touch greener in the face than she had before. The other two just had their tongues stuck out in disgust.

Jack thought about this before answering it, as simply saying the truth - that he’d done it in a deliberately and increasingly fruitless attempt to make himself ill - was probably not the sort of fun answer the kids wanted, nor something he wanted to remind himself of.

“Uh...boredom. It’s a killer,” he said instead, thinking on his feet.

“Huh,” she said, accepting this answer at face value, much to Jack’s relief.

“Did you really headbutt a dragon?” Asked the little orange pegasus one.

This Jack had mentioned more than once, figuring that if anyone headbutted a dragon they’d mention it and be expected to mention it. Unlike eating rocks, it was actually a pretty tight thing to have done. At least in his opinion. On hearing mention of it he sat up straighter.

“Damn straight I did. Got eaten by one, too,” he said.

“You did not!”

“I did! Honest!”

“How are you still around if you got eaten by a dragon?”

“Because he threw me up, obviously. I’m bad for dragons. Bad for everyone, really. They also tried to burn me, obviously.”

“You’re making this up!”

“I’m really not! You saw me before, right? Like, saw me running around the place? Back when I had a big beard and stuff?”

They had. A lot of the locals had. He’d been kind of hard to avoid for a little while, making a nuisance of himself as he had.

“Well it got burnt off, see? That’s why it’s gone. And look here! See this mark? That’s where a dragon horn went right through me.”

The three fillies could see the mark, but they didn’t really know what to make of it. Certainly he sounded convincing in the way that a lot of grown ups sound like they know what they’re talking about, but what he was saying just sounded outrageous.

Still...he was kind of a weird thing from parts unknown...maybe he had a point?

“What about that?” The white one asked, pointing out another mark. Jack peered down at himself. He had a fair amount of interesting personal geography now, thanks to his life choices, and sometimes it was hard to keep track.

“That? I think that was...hmm, you know? I’m not sure?”

He stretched his skin out to have a better look but this told him nothing.

“I got a couple ideas about what might have caused it, if you want to hear those?”

They did, an dso Jack told them.

This became, by turns, something of an extended storytime as one anecdote of unlikely - through true - dangerous nonsense led into another, and Jack gave the kids a fairly length rundown on his various scrapes, lacerations, flips, falls and other escapades.

Initially skeptical, the three soon became enraptured in the way that children having grisly stories explained to them often are. They particularly liked the story about tying the hydra into knots, though Jack swore them to secrecy over that one. He was - in an official capacity - still denying having done that.

The time that passed during this only really became obvious when the light started fading, at which point all of them realised they should probably stop hanging around under a tree so far from everything. Standing, Jack walked with the kids back to the farm whereupon they dashed off to do something playful, no doubt. He watched them go.

He then remembered his ponco-thing. Looking around he located what he thought was the fence he’d rested it on and walked up its length until he found it. The poncho-thing was, thankfully, right where Jack had left it. Picking it up and gave it a quick dust off. He was about to put it on, too, when he turned and bumped right into Applejack, very nearly knocking her over.

“Whoa, you move quiet when you want to, you know that?” He said, steadying her and stepping back. Applejack adjusted her hat.

“Ah have my moments,” she said.

Conversation did not flow naturally from there. Jack felt awkward, and in feeling awkward made it worse by staying silent. This could not stand though, so he bit the bullet.

“Uh, so, how’s Mac?” He asked.

“He’s fine. More worried about you.”

Jack frowned.

“Not sure why he would be.”

“Because he kicked you in the head.”

“That still doesn’t seem like a good reason to me. I got impaled and walked that off. Did you know that?”

“Twilight did mention it, yes.”

Jack wasn’t wholly clear on how Twilight could have slipped that particular tidbit into any kind of conversation, but there you go. He fingered the material of the poncho-thing and looked out across the rapidly-darkening landscape around them.

“Still though, I hope he’s okay. Kind of forced his hand to do something there. Hoof. Whatever. What a dumb fucking thing to do…”

“You kinda need to stop being this hard on yourself. Sure, it was dumb - powerful dumb - but it was a mistake and you said sorry.”

Applejack could kind of tell she wasn’t getting through. She sighed, and carried on:

“Jack, a few days ago you were living alone in a cave and riling dragons up enough that they’re probably happy to see the back of you, at least the way Twilight tells it. I think anyone would have to take some time getting back into the swing of life, you know, not in a cave with dragons.”

“...I suppose…”

“Just take things a step at a time, you’ll get it. Thanks for your help today, too. Really saved us some time.”

“No, no, don’t say that. Well, I’m glad I could help but don’t thank me. I was a bastard before and I need to make it up and - wait, me throwing your thanks back in your face kind of undermines me trying to mend fences, doesn’t it?” He asked, noticing the very reserved, aggressively flat look Applejack had acquired.

“Yup,” she said in tones that conveyed far more than a polysyllabic answer ever could.

“Probably goes back onto being too hard on myself, too? Ah, this is difficult! Alright, hang on: I’m glad I could help you guys out. Anything else you need doing just say the word. You know where I live. I want to be helpful, want to be handy to have around.”

“Might take you up on that. Big Mac said you were a real hard worker.”

“That’s laying it on a little thick. I did my best.”

“Your best was pretty good, from what I saw.”

This sort of unabashed flattery made Jack intensely uncomfortable, but he knew continuing to reject it would be rude, so he just sucked it up while continuing to know - deep down - that his best was anything but pretty good. He fingered the poncho-thing some more.

“Guess I had to start somewhere.”

“Got to start somewhere to get somewhere,” Applejack said and Jack snorted.

“You and your folksy wisdom! Ah, you’ve got me there. Ah, I’ll stop moping. You need my help you know where to find me. I should probably be getting back.”

“Probably a good idea,” Applejack said.

He waved her goodbye, slung the poncho-thing over his shoulder and started walking his way off the property and back towards Ponyville proper, trudging along in the gathering darkness.

His mind continued to churn as he walked, just sort of going over and over the same things he’d been worrying about for most of the day now, turning up nothing new and dragging his mood down further.

“Hey, hold up,” Jack said out loud and out of nowhere, coming to a dead halt on the darkened path. There wasn’t anyone else around. Jack sighed.

“You know all this self-pitying nonsense is getting kind of tiring, right?” He said to himself.

A pause, an intentional one, to better break up the flow of what he was saying.

“Well, yeah, but I did feel bad,” he said only to then sigh in exasperation.

“Of course you felt bad! But just pick yourself up and keep going! Like Applejack said, man, you were out in the wilderness for a while, of course you’re not going to be able to just slip right back into polite society! So just take it one step at a time, alright? And don’t fucking crucify yourself over every little mistake. You’ll just make it worse.”

“Alright, alright. Fuck. From here on out I’ll be a bastion of self-assurance. Better?”

“Much. Also maybe stop talking to yourself, people will start to think you’re crazy.”

“Yeah yeah yeah…”

He then resumed walking, and made no further comment, returning to the Castle of Friendship with no further issue.

It was quiet when he arrived, with no-one apparent. Kind of wanting to find Twilight to check in and make it clear that he hadn’t scarpered he started going through the various places she was likely to be, finding her asleep sprawled across a desk in a small study room off of one of the castle’s numerous libraries.

Jack had often suspected that Twilight had had any available space filled with books just in case she found herself seized by the need for one, making sure that no matter where in the castle she might be there’d always be some within range. But this was just a suspicion on his part.

He’d stopped dead on seeing her there sleeping. Or rather hearing her there sleeping, as her light snoring was what had got his attention in the first place. Leaning against the frame of the door to the study room he just kind of looked over her, smiling a little when he saw her drooling over some of the notes she’d clearly been looking through before nodding off.

The notes, Jack couldn’t help but see, concerned him, at least as far as he could tell from his limited understanding of written Mareain. The picture of him kind of made it more obvious, really, and was what had tipped him off.

Briefly jack considered waking her up, or maybe just carrying her to bed. Both ideas had validity, but he decided against them. If he did wake her up she’d probably just insisting on keeping working - he knew how she got - and carrying her to bed might have been nice but he had the distinct impression that she would wake up in his arms or something equally awkward.

Instead, he settled on something else.

Giving the poncho-thing another quick brush off he crept forward and, gently, laid it over her as best he could. On him the thing had seemed roomy, on her it was vast. Twilight stirred a little and snuffled, mumbling something incoherent, and Jack froze, but she did not wake. Relieved, he moved back to the doorway to observe her again.

Fuck was she cute. Adorable. So Goddamn adorable.

And smart and kind and lovely. Not that you could see those by looking. But Jack just knew.

“Hello, Jack,” someone said and Jack jumped. Whirling around he found, smirking up at him, Starlight. He’d quite forgotten about her.

“Hello Starlight,” he said, turning back again to Twilight.

“She’s very peaceful looking when she’s sleeping, isn’t she?” Starlight asked and Jack gave her the side eye.

“Can’t say I’ve noticed but if you say so,” he said.

Starlight just nodded, looking very pleased with herself, still watching over Twilight. Jack kind of felt that now might be the time to slink away, being as how just standing in the doorway of a room where someone was snoozing for this extended length of time was a bit weird, but he also had an inkling that this conversation with Starlight hadn’t ended yet.

It hadn’t, and a few seconds later she added, certain as anything:

“You should totally cuddle her.”

Jack gave her more side eye but it was as useless the second time as it had been the first time.

“She’s asleep,” he said, pointing to Twilight in case Starlight had missed this detail.

“Exactly!”

What there was about this state of affairs that made ‘Exactly!’ make sense was unclear to Jack. He imagined that he and Starlight were approaching this from entirely opposite directions. Meanwhile, the poncho-thing slipped off of one of Twilight’s shoulders and her sleepy mumblings became somewhat more unhappy.

“No, I’m not cuddling her. She’s fine. It’d be creepy,” he said.

“Oh she wouldn’t mind, I’m sure,” Starlight said lightly, waving a hoof like it wasn’t a big deal.

“And I’m sure she would.”

“Would you mind if you woke up with her cuddling you?”

“You got issues, you know that?” Jack asked, expertly avoiding actually answering the question, something which Starlight noted with absolute delight.

“At least pull the blanket up for her.”

Jack was quiet. He then pulled the poncho-thing up over Twilight properly. Twilight, smiling in her sleep, grumbled and shifted and got more comfortable. It was the cutest fucking thing Jack had seen all day, though he was probably a little biased.

“Go on,” hissed Starlight. “You both want it, I know you do.”

For a blissful second while just watching Twilight, Jack had quite forgotten that Starlight was there. Her leaning in to add this last comment had broken that particular spell.

“Jesus Christ, woman! Get a hobby!”

“Oh, I have one,” she said.

“Urgh. Another one!”

Author's Notes:

It just never ends, does it?