Author's Notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CYoF5u0aglkbWIuv7GFiNt55C_W4PnwrVuWX0Nc7ePo/edit

I landed in front of my house, stretching my wings. That had been the most exercise they had gotten in a while, and they were still reeling from the abuse they had taken from the night before. It was weird, having lost a week like that. Equestria lost no time while I had been gone for a week. If it had been a year or something, I would be a lot happier to be home.

Anyway, I stepped inside my home, setting my bags down on the couch to stop them from digging into my shoulders. I pulled the magazine out of the rifle and set it down as well. I never chambered a round, so I didn’t bother popping it.

With my back relieved, I walked into the kitchen to grab a nice beverage. I didn’t know where anyone was or if they were home, so I wasn’t really all that surprised to find Cadance and Doppel in the kitchen. They were staring at each other.

I knew nothing good could come from interrupting them, so I just walked to the fridge to look for something. I grabbed something worth drinking and turned around to find both of them staring at me. I turned around and started walking back to the living room.

“What did you do to your wings?” Cadance asked.

“Found a chick with a fetish,” I answered, stopping and turning back around. “Shiny sends his love, or something.”

“So he finally spoke to you?”

“Yep. You need something?”

“We need a stallion’s opinion on something.”

I turned around and waved. “See ya.” I walked on out to get my stuff.

They followed me, of course. “Come on, Nav!” Doppel said. “I know you’re not a stallion, but you can still help.”

“Look, I know there’s no way I can come out of this without getting in trouble. Just give me a break.”

They both rolled their eyes. “Which race is prettiest on average?” Cadance asked. “The females, of course.”

I sighed, plopping down on my chair. “Any race?”

“Except for humans, because we all know who you’d pick,” Doppel said.

“Cats,” I answered, taking another sip. “Dragons have the big problem of growing up. Ponies are alright and their flanks are awesome, but they have the problem of being animals where I come from. Changelings are freaky as fuck, but they have the nice corruption fetish thing going on for them. And Chrysalis’s voice is too sexy to turn down, so there’s that. I don’t really have any interest in dogs, personally. Their voices are annoying and most of them are more cruel than I’d like to deal with. I’ve only seen a single minotaur in real life, but I never spoke with him. All of the other herbivorous races have the same problem as ponies. Naga are ugly as fuck. Griffins have a lot of natural beauty, but the talons are cause for concern. Cats look relatively close to humans, they’re smaller than I am, most of them are close to my personality, they’re graceful, and they have a number of other good qualities. I don’t like the claws, though. What’s this even for, anyway?”

“Miss Equestria,” Cadance answered. “As it turns out, one of the entries this year was a changeling. I think she should have been disqualified automatically. Doppel thinks she should have been allowed to stay if she used her natural body. That got us thinking about having some kind of… world-wide contest or something like that.”

“Oh, a Miss Universe pageant. Those are boring as fuck, but they always cause a ton of scandals that are funny to watch.”

“You have something like that in your world?” Doppel asked.

“Yep. Don’t ask why.”

“But… I thought there was only one sentient race on your world?” Cadance asked.

I ignored that question. “Shouldn’t be that hard to get Celestia to set something up. Just tell her that it’s for better relations or something around the world. And I want nothing at all to do with it.” Though I suppose their answers would have to be better than “world peace,” since the world was already at peace. “Hey, either of you know where Taya or the naga is?”

“The backyard,” Doppel answered. “How does the contest work in your world?”

“I don’t know. I told you, it was boring. I didn’t care about it. Now, I got some important stuff to do. If Taya needs me, I’ll be in my office. If anyone else needs me, use polite words to tell them to fuck off. That includes Celestia and Luna.”

“What’s so important?” Cadance asked. “Is it something about these bags?” She poked at one of them.

“It’s neither important nor your business.” I hopped up and walked over to the couch, slinging the bags and the rifle back over my shoulders.

“What is that thing, anyway?” Doppel asked, pointing to my rifle.

“A new toy of mine. I’ll see you two later.” I walked on up the stairs, leaving them presumably sharing looks and shrugging behind me. I locked myself in my office and sat at my chair. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths before whispering, “Flo? I think we need to have a talk.”

“We do,” she confirmed, finally breaking her silence.

“I think you know the obvious point I want to make,” I said, feeling my hands clench.

“Navarone, I am a young elemental. I was created not long before the war. Not all of our history was given to me. I didn’t know, Nav!”

“You ‘don’t know’ that you’re a fucking robot? That you’re nothing more than a mass of machines built for some undetermined purpose? I don’t know how you expect me to believe that.”

“It’s true, Nav. I… I don’t know about any of the others, if they know. I just know that I didn’t! Please don’t make me leave, Nav… Don’t leave me alone in the darkness again…”

I don’t like being misled and I don’t like being lied to. I could deal with whether or not she was telling the truth later, though. If she was a human artifact, it was my duty to break her and the others free. And if any of them did remember, then as soon as I saved them, they would definitely be in my service.

I reached down into one of the bags next to me and pulled out the laptop. I opened it up, turned it on, reached down into another bag, pulled out the gene-locked seed box, opened it, and stuck the memory stick from it into what I was hoping was the right port on the laptop.

I spent three hours copying all the instructions that weren’t common sense for all of the plants I was about to give to Applejack. It was tedious, boring, and would hopefully pay off. When I finally finished it, I realized that I could have been listening to music that entire time. I opened some good stuff and started playing it.

That done, I opened the rifle specifications page and copied out all the details about the bullets and the magazines. I was going to give the page to the blacksmith in the hopes that he could make something fine enough to work so I wouldn’t have to mold my bolts to work.

And finally, I wrote a short letter to one Vinyl Scratch, asking her to bring herself and Octavia to my new home, under the incentive of making some serious fucking bank. When I had that done, I shut the laptop down and locked it in my desk. I grabbed the letter, the box of seeds, the instructions, the specs page, and a single bullet and walked out of my office, locking the door behind me.

“This is going to bring attention to yourself, Nav,” Flo said. “No matter how careful you are, Celestia is going to find out eventually.”

“I know,” I answered as I left the house. “But as long as I’m careful and don’t make too many mistakes, by the time she finds out, it will be too late.”

“Daddy, who are you talking to?” Taya asked from her position on top of the wall where I couldn’t have seen her. The puppy was sitting right next to the wall where she was, so I should have expected it.

“The voice in my head. You want to go on a walk?” She teleported next to me and the puppy bounded over. “Let’s go, then.”

“What don’t you want who to find out?” she asked as we started walking to Applejack’s pad.

“I don’t want Celestia to know that I went back to Earth and got some things that she doesn’t need to know about.”

“…Huh.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Something about me, I guess.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, there is a lot of stuff I don’t want you to know about either.”

“Like the voices in your head?”

“Yes. Anyway, don’t tell anyone at all that I got back to Earth. Hopefully, none of the fuckers that went with me will say anything.”

“So… what happened to your wings?”

“I thought it would look cool.” I’m not about to tell my daughter I found a sexy bitch that wanted to play with me. “The dye will hopefully run off soon.” Which reminded me that I really needed a shower.

“It doesn’t really look cool at all,” she said, looking up at them.

“Well yeah, I know that now. I didn’t know it before. Not important, though.” We walked in silence for a minute or two before I asked, “What do you normally do for fun, Taya?”

“Uh… Read? And magic. The naga is teaching me all kinds of survival stuff. I also go on walks.”

“That’s really depressing. But I guess if that’s working for you, it’s working. Are you sure you don’t want to go to school?”

“Yes.” I let the silence build, wondering if she would slowly crack. When we were almost there, she said, “Well… It does get kinda boring sometimes.”

“Hmm?”

“I mean, I don’t think I really want to go to school or anything… but something else to do would be nice.”

“You should take up gardening.”

“…Why gardening?”

I shrugged. “We have a large, empty yard. Might as well fill it with pretty flowers. You see Applejack anywhere?”

We took a second to look around before deciding that we didn’t see her around the immediate area of the farmhouse. “So how do I get started on… gardening?” she asked as we walked to the door.

“I have no clue. We can stop by Rose’s shop or something when we go into town.” She’s jumpy, but she’s good at gardening. I knocked on the door and waited a minute. When there was no answer, I shrugged and started walking away.

Taya jumped to follow me. “Where are we going now?”

“Into town, of course. I need to talk to Applejack, I need to stop at the post office, I need to stop by the blacksmith’s place, and you need to visit Rose or one of the other sisters.” Not everyone in town was overly happy that I had a timber wolf pet, but they got over their jumpiness as soon as they realized he wasn’t going to attack anyone.

“So what’s in the bag?”

“Stuff I need to give AJ.”

“Oh… Did you get anything for me?”

“I got a lot more books, some music, some pens, and a few other things you might like. I couldn’t think of anything you’d want specifically for yourself, though.” Well, less that I couldn’t think of anything and more that I didn’t think about getting her anything at all. She didn’t need to know that, though.

“What’s a pen?”

“A very convenient version of a quill that doesn’t require constantly redipping the point in ink. Long story short, it’s something that will make me richer when I sell the idea. Hell, I have a lot of things on the laptop that’ll make me a load of dosh.”

“…Laptop?”

“I can show you later. It’s impossible to explain without letting you see it. Needless to say, no one needs to know about it. Especially not Twilight.”

“Okay, daddy.”

As we were nearing town, Rainbow Dash landed right next to me. “Nav, we might have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The kind of problem where Rarity doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut. She’s telling all the rich ponies in Canterlot about that anime stuff you kept talking about.”

“Son of a bitch. Is it too late to do damage control?”

She sighed, looking behind her to the mountain with Canterlot on it. “It took me a little while to find you. She started as soon as we got back into town. It might not get to the princess, but what do we do if it does?”

“We do nothing. This is my fault. If there’s fallout, it’ll hit me and me alone. Hopefully the social elite of Canterlot will side with Fancy Pants rather than Rarity, and this shit will die off instead of flourish. If it doesn’t… Maybe we can pass it off as something that I told her about instead of something that came from Earth.”

“Nav, she had a set of saddlebags full of books of that stuff. I don’t think most of those books featured ponies.”

I sighed, rubbing my face with a hand. “I can make it work. Who knows? Maybe we’re just overreacting.” I knew we weren’t, but a guy can hope. “Did you happen to see Applejack on the way in?”

She pawed at the ground, looking down. “Nav, are you sure you want to just risk this? Shouldn’t we try and stop her?”

“Dash, it’s too late. We could try to do damage control, but it would be like pissing on a forest fire. Rarity is infinitely more popular than we are, and if someone like you or me went there and told everyone to ignore her, they’d probably do what she’s doing just to spite us. We’ll have to rely on Fancy Pants and common sense to save the day.”

“So this is going to spread,” she sighed.

“Like the plague,” I confirmed. “Again, have you seen Applejack?”

“At the market,” she answered. “If we aren’t going to bother with Rarity, I’m going to go pay Pinkie a visit…”

I gave her a filthy grin. “Have fun.”

She blushed and flew off.

“What was that about?” Taya asked.

“Rarity being a stupid fucking bitch,” I answered. “So no different than normal.” I reached into one of my pockets and pulled out my coin pouch, removing a few bits. “Go on to the flower shop. You’ll be bored if you have to listen to me talk business with AJ.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, I suppose I can give it a try…” she finally said, using magic to take the bits. “I’ll see you later, daddy.”

I knelt down to hug her before walking to the blacksmith, since it was closer. Derpy bumped into me on the way there and I gave her the letter for Vinyl. Thankfully, the blacksmith said he was able to make the bullets I would need, though he said he’d have to pass the specifications for the magazines to a friend of his that did more fine stuff.

Finally, I got to the market. I found Applejack at her stall, waiting for customers. I hmm’d at that, thinking of something as I walked over. “Hey AJ, you got a few minutes to talk?” I asked.

“I reckon I do,” she said. “Business is slow.”

“Before we get started, I need your word that this is going to stay a secret.”

She shrugged. “Easy enough, though I don’t see what the big deal is. You have my word.” I reached into my bag and pulled the finely crafted box out. She blinked when she saw it. “Well I ain’t never seen nothing like that before.”

“I’d be surprised if you had. This here is a gene-locked box, made by and for humans. How I got it is not important. In this box are seeds of plants from my world, seeds to remake the world in the event of a disaster. Almost every kind of fruit, vegetable, grain, and everything else you can imagine is represented inside. Instructions for growing those that aren’t common sense are also in here. I’m giving these to you because I know you can handle this. You’re smart and have enough common sense to keep your mouth shut. The things in this box can get you enough money to quadruple the size of your farm and hire all the workers you want, if you so desire. I’m asking you right now: Are you interested?”

She definitely looked interested, if the way she was staring at the box was any indication. “What’s the catch?” she asked after about half a minute of deliberations. “I know how you work by now, Nav. You’re generous, but you always have an angle.”

“And that’s exactly why I want you to do this. The catch is that I get some of the crops when I need them. Coffee, food, stuff like that. I won’t ask enough to do any real damage to your sales. I just know that you have a green thumb that I can take advantage of, and this way everyone gets to benefit.”

“…Let me see the seeds.”

I pushed my thumb against the locking mechanism and the box clicked open, revealing the seeds inside. “I also don’t know how they’ll react in the atmosphere,” I said. “What I said was the best case scenario. It’s possible they’ll wither and die. It’s possible they’ll bloom like nothing you’ve ever seen. I would love to find out.”

She was looking in at the seeds. “This is… a mighty interestin’ proposal, Nav. Why can’t I tell nopony?”

“Because as I said, you know how not to ask questions. Anyone else would ask more questions than I’d want to answer.”

She sighed, adjusting her hat with her hoof. “I have to ask just one, then: Did ya do anything illegal to get them?”

“Nope. I bought them fair and square.” Well, as far as I was concerned it was legal, or at least it should have been. Though I suppose since we had to go to the black market to get them, it might have been illegal to someone.

“Well… Alright. I’ll see what I can do, Nav. I’ll have to break the stand down now if I want to… Hm. Are any of these winter crops?”

I shrugged. “I wasn’t paying attention as I wrote the instructions. It’s all in them, though. I also relabeled all the seeds in Equestrian.”

“Then I reckon I should go get started on reading. Thanks for this, Nav. Hope I don’t let you down.”

“If you can’t get them to grow, no real loss. I got the entire crate for a bit. You got a place to store all the seeds? The box is useless to you, but it’s gene-locked to me, so I can still get some use out of it.”

“There’s room in the stall. What’s a… gene-lock?”

I helped her empty the box as I said, “Genes are what make up every living organism. They’re our building blocks, the things that make us who we are, instead of something else. It’s hard to explain without going further into biology.”

“It sounds interesting, but I never much was one for that fancy learning. Just ain’t practical, you know?”

“Well that right there depends on what you consider practical.” I closed the box with a snap. “If you had the biology background to start crossbreeding apples, you might make a new species or something that’s worth eating. But I suppose with your good friend Nav looking out for you, that won’t be as much of a problem.”

“It does seem an awful lot like cheating…”

“It isn’t.” I slid the box off the stall and into my bag. “Good luck, Applejack. I believe in you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. I’ll try my best.”

“That’s all I can ask.” And with that, I was on my way back home, the puppy merrily following behind me. I still hadn’t thought of a name for that damn thing. I was still hoping his pack would be coming for him soon.

“They said it would be a while,” Flo told me. “You really should get used to him, Nav. And he’ll definitely prove to be useful as a guard, if his growth rate stays constant.” He had nearly doubled in size since I had found him. I was assuming the fighters were supposed to be fast growing and quick to mature, so they can easily replace losses when going after the larger prey.

“How about Joe?”

“You aren’t going to name your timberwolf Joe, Nav.”

“What’s wrong with Joe?” I had a feeling she would be giving me a glare if I could see her. “Fine. What about Hopper?”

“While I appreciate the reference, I don’t think it fits.”

“Balto?”

“Some originality would be nice, Nav.”

“Yeah, and ‘originality’ is what led to calling myself Navarone. What’s wrong with reusing names?”

“Navarone is hardly original. Now shush, we’re being followed.”

Yeah, by a puppy. “Fuck it, your name is Freki now. Congratulations, Freki.”

And then there was Pinkie. “Oooh, you finally named him? You know what this calls for?”

“Me going back home and you going about your day in a way that doesn’t involve me?”

“So… you’re saying you want to host the party?”

“I think Rainbow Dash was looking for you, Pinkie.”

“Oh, I know. But she smelled a lot like you and that’s when I remembered that I hadn’t seen you in nearly a week and then I set her up and went to find you and here you are and why are your feathers black?”

“Pinkie, I saw you just yesterday.” Well, as far as she knew.

She looked at me doubtfully and answered, “If you say so. So what happened to your wings?”

“Necrosis. It can only be cured by taking a shower within the next twenty minutes. I should hurry. Have fun with Dash.”

“But what about your party?”

“I would rather you didn’t go through all that trouble just for me. There are plenty of people out there that are more deserving.”

“But fewer that need a smile more!”

“What if your parties don’t make me smile?”

“Then I need to keep trying different themes until I find one that does! I’ve already marked off a good number of them, but I have even more left to go!”

“Look, I don’t want a party. You know me better than that by now, Pinkie. You need to look over there, because it’s a distraction.” I was pointing back the way we came.

As soon as I said it, she jerked her head that way and said, “Ooooh, what is it?”

I grabbed the wolf, spread my wings, and took off into the air. I sighed in relief when I landed in front of my house with no sign of Pinkie. After letting Freki jump down—to his reluctance—I opened the door to find Pinkie again.

“So your place or mine?” she asked. “We gotta have this party somewhere!”

“Tell you what, I’ll give you a one in ten chance.” I put both hands behind my back and held up a few fingers. “Guess the number of fingers held up and I’ll play your game.”

“How many guesses do I get?”

“One.”

She put a hoof to her chin, thinking hard. “Is it… four?” I pulled my hands forward to reveal five fingers held up. “…Did you cheat?”

“Of course not. Now run along, Pinkie. Unless you know anything about gardening, that is.”

“I know all about flour! But… well, nothing about flowers. Why not baking instead?”

“Because Taya has Cadance to teach her to do that. All I know about gardening is that you dig a hole and put a plant in it. Now why am I standing outside the door for this? And why are you still here? Shoo! I have things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like taking a shower.”

“Need somepony to wash your back?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” I finally pushed past her into my house. “Why don’t you go Pinkie somewhere else? I heard Diamond Tiara and that silver bitch are always grumpy. Put a smile on their faces, or something.”

“I’m not allowed to see them anymore… The restraining order is pretty lenient, but I can’t risk it.”

“So what you’re saying is that I should hang around those two?”

“Psh, no! Don’t be silly! Then you wouldn’t be able to be around your best friend Pinkie!”

“…Not seeing any downsides here.”

“You’d also have to deal with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.”

“Hm… Well, I’ll think about it. Anyway, out you go. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” She sighed morosely and hung her head, slowly walking out. I casually slammed the door as soon as I could, right about the time she would be looking back to give me puppy dog eyes.

I turned back around to find Doppel in her maid uniform giving me a dirty grin. “Want me to help you wash your back, master?”

“Nah. I have stuff to do, or I would. Also, please don’t go into my office for a little while. I have some stuff in there that I don’t want fucked with.”

“Yes sir.” I was relying on trust, at this point. She said she preferred me to Chrysalis. I don’t know if that was true, but I was hoping; I didn’t want either Chrysalis or Celestia to know about the information I had on me until I was ready to deal with them both. The schematics on that laptop could revolutionize the entire planet—and if used improperly, they could drown the world in fire. Again, apparently.

I finally got upstairs and headed to my room when I got stopped yet again, this time by the resident pink menace. “Nav, can you watch Skyla tomorrow?”

“Nope.” I just kept walking, because I knew this wasn’t going to end well.

“Why not?”

“You know full well how I feel about that devil spawn. Get Pinkie to do it.”

“Why not Doppel?”

I turned back to her, an incredulous look on my face. “Are you high? Do you really want a changeling to look after your foal, of all things?”

She shrugged. “Fine, fine. I thought you didn’t like Pinkie.”

“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean she’s not good with kids. I know I’ll probably regret getting the two of them together since both like to make me suffer, but that’s probably the best solution for you. Now, I need a shower. Unless you feel like helping me, we’ll have to cut this short.”

“Okay then. Do you know where I could find Pinkie?”

“She left just a minute or two ago. You might be able to catch her if you hurry.”

“Thanks, Nav.”

Finally, I was clear to take a shower. I was fully expecting the naga to be waiting in my room for something or another, but for once, I was wrong. I finally got to take a shower and get that black dye off my wings. It felt good to see the right color in my peripheral whenever I turned my head again. It was also nice to hopefully not get a ton of people asking about what I did to my wings.

When I got back downstairs, I found Taya and Cadance talking about gardening. Taya looked over to me. “It doesn’t seem that interesting,” she said, poking at a tray of flowers on the floor.

“I never said you had to do it,” I said with a shrug. “It was merely a suggestion. You have them now, though. Why not plant them, see what happens?”

“I can even help!” Cadance said, smiling. Both of us gave her a look that translated to Bitch please.

Taya turned back to me. “Where should I plant them?”

“Outside. I don’t know a thing about gardening. Didn’t Rose tell you?” She looked away and mumbled something. “…Did you ask?” She whispered something. “Did you even talk to any of the sisters?” She silently shook her head. Shoulda saw that one coming. “You know, I was like that once. Shy. Not a fan of social contact. It took coming here to bring me out of that, and even then I still fall into old habits sometimes… I get that it’s in your nature, something that you can’t just turn off. But you have to learn to get over it when you need something. You have three days to make a friend that I’ve never seen you with before I talk to Cheerilee and put you in school.” Her head jerked toward me, shock etched onto her face. “It’s for your own good. I think I’ll start counting time after you finish planting these with Cadance.”

“But… What about my magic?”

“What about it? Twilight learned well enough while in school. I trust you can manage.” I didn’t mention that Twilight was in a special magic school.

“That’s not fair!”

“Life seldom is. That said, I don’t see how it isn’t fair. Making friends is not that hard, and since you have three days, you should have plenty of time to ask anyone to help you. I believe Pinkie will be here tomorrow?” I looked to Cadance for confirmation. She was smiling brightly at this turn of events, and answered my question with a nod. I looked back to Taya. “I’m sure if you ask her, she’ll tell you all about making friends and offer to introduce you to anyone in the town you might be interested in meeting.”

Taya looked like she was on the edge of tears. I didn’t like doing something like that to her, but I knew she needed to learn to deal with other people in at least some capacity.

I knew I couldn’t just leave her like that, though. “If I thought you couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be telling you to,” I said. I opened my mouth to say something before I realized what I was about to say. You’ll thank me for this someday. I closed my mouth, remembering exactly how I felt every time anyone ever said that to me. Instead I said, “Cadance, I trust you can help her with the flowers and getting started?”

“Of course, Nav.” Her horn lit up and the tray of flowers lifted up. “Come on, Taya. Let me show you how to make a pretty garden!”

Taya mutely followed her, probably still in shock. Her entire body was hanging low, her distress and fear apparent. I wanted to just reach down and hug her, but I knew that would defeat the purpose of my ‘punishment.’ Well, it might.

So lacking the option to do anything with Taya, I went to find the naga. I didn’t want to get rusty from a week of no swordplay, after all.

The next day, I grabbed my laptop, the charger, the gun, and a few magazines and abandoned the house, considering it a lost cause all day. I knew that if Pinkie was going to be there watching Skyla, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. I also didn’t trust my laptop alone in a building with Pinkie, though I’m pretty sure if she was really that interested, it wouldn’t be safe anywhere.

I also had to avoid Rarity, because I knew that if I saw her, I would probably shoot her.

And I did have something important to do anyway. With my laptop came a few of the pens I brought with me from Earth-that-was. There was a fellow called Filthy Rich in Ponyville that was looking for stuff like this to sell, and I knew he would pay a pretty penny for the idea.

I flew over to his larger than average house, hoping he was home and that I wouldn’t have to spend hours hunting for him. It was still fairly early in the morning, so I figured I could catch him.

I landed in front of the house and knocked a few times, settling in to wait. Half a minute later his filly answered the door. Remember Diamond Tiara? One of the reasons she’s such a bitch is that her dad is rich and spends next to no time with her, or so I assume. From what I’ve seen, he tries to be a good father, but then who am I to judge?

“Can I… help you, Sir Navarone?” she asked, curiosity hidden in her voice despite her efforts to block it. There were a few reasons she made attempts to be nice to me. I’m rich, a knight, and the only thing that stopped me from being as powerful as her dad was lack of interest.

“Your dad in?” I asked.

“He’s eating.”

I shrugged and said, “I can just come back later.”

“He probably won’t mind!” Overeager much? “I’ll go ask him.” Before I could tell her not to, she was already gone.

“Now why can’t she act like that for anyone else?” Flo asked, swirling about in my brain.

No one else is interesting enough, I suppose.

I saw Filthy coming to the door. “I assume this is important, Sir Navarone?”

I grinned. “We talked about this, Richie.” He keeps calling me Sir, I start calling him Richie. Seems fair to me. He met my grin with his own. “Sorry to bother you so early. Just a simple business innovation. Should be enough to make you some nice money, if you’re interested. The usual arrangements, of course.” Namely, that I got a cut of the profits while my name was on no official documentation.

He pursed his lips, looking behind him. “This won’t take long, will it?” he asked a moment later.

I pulled a pen out of my pocket. “It’s a simple invention, easy to explain.” I twirled the pen around. “I can probably get out of here in ten minutes or so.”

He sighed. “You know the way to my office. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Whoa now, if I’m interrupting something, I can just come back. I know you don’t get much time to yourself.”

“No, I’m going to start this week off right. Hopefully that will include adding your latest innovation to the list of things I put out. Head on up. I’ll be there soon, as I said.”

“Alright…” He let me in and I walked up to his office, ignoring the trappings of success dotted about the opulent house. He wasn’t the only one that wanted this done quickly.

After a few minutes of sitting around and twirling the pen, he finally came to his office area. “Before we start, can I get you anything?” he asked, sounding extremely tired.

“I’m fine. Kinda wanna get out of your hair quickly.”

“At least some ponies still know the art of dealing with things quickly.” He took his seat on the other side of the desk. “So what do you have today, Nav?”

I pulled out a few of the pens. “Self-contained quills. All the ink is inside, locked where it can’t dry out.” I passed one across the table. “Pull the cap off and test it.” He somehow pulled the cap off the pen with his hooves, since apparently that makes sense. He looked the tip over for a second before shrugging and pulling some paper out of his desk.

He doodled something to find that the pen worked just as it was supposed to. “I trust you already have the specifications and requirements written out?” he asked, writing something on the paper. I pulled the pages out of my laptop bag and set them on the desk. “How long should it take to make these?”

“Depends on what you make them out of and the quality, of course. The ones I have are made of plastic and metal. I imagine you’ll use wood and maybe metal. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. I put on the specs how to make the clicker pens as well, if you’re interested in that and can make springs easily. I imagine if you give this to a craftsman, they can have a working copy in less than an hour. After they get the first few copies down, the rest should come easily. Make them refillable or disposable, up to you. Just remember that I want my cut.”

“Of course, though I still don’t understand why you don’t want your name anywhere on these inventions. Anypony can see they’re from you. Why not confirm it?”

“Assumptions aren’t the same as the truth. Anyway, you interested?”

“Very. I’ll see that these get put into production soon. Do you need anything else?”

“Two things. First, the name and address of someone I can get in contact with outside of Equestria that can get something big off the ground for me. And I don’t mean big as in life changing, I mean big as in era changing. Second, I need you to take the week off because you look like shit, man.”

He sighed, looking at the desk. It took me a second to realize he was looking at what he had unconsciously drawn. “That would… be nice. It isn’t easy to keep a business running if I take time off willy-nilly, though.”

“Dude, you’re fucking rich, and you own the most successful store in Ponyville. You can take some time off and not have to worry about things. I’m sure your family would appreciate it.” I waved a hand. “But anyway. You have any contacts for me?”

He shook his head. “I don’t. All of mine are in Equestria. I can put the word out that you’re looking, but it’ll attract attention.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Attention is the exact opposite of what I want. I have an idea of what I can do anyway. Thanks for your time, man.”

“No problem, Nav.” He showed me out, letting the tiredness slow his movements. I saw his daughter peeking at us from a corner as I stepped out the door. I wasted no time getting away from his house, since I didn’t particularly want to be seen leaving it.

I still had a few plans for shit to do, but most of them would have to wait a few days. Lacking anything else to do immediately, I flew over to Fluttershy’s house and stole a cloud that was looming over it. I didn’t want to bother her, but I did like listening to her sing. She refused to do it when anyone could hear, but when it was just her animals around, she didn’t have any problems.

When I got into position over her house, I didn’t hear singing. I heard what sounded like… screaming, actually. I quickly loaded my rifle and got ready to eat some bunny stew, but I stopped myself from overreacting. I swooped down and poked my head in the window and saw Fluttershy frantically flying around with a bunch of animals that were itching and scratching themselves.

…Fleas? I knew that nothing good could come from offering to help, though I found myself wanting to do so anyway.

I managed to stop myself and instead flew away to find a better place to chill. Yeah, I’m a bad person, I know.

When I finally got to a comfortable and private place to sit for a while, I opened up the laptop and started looking around to see what exactly it had on it. I knew there was a lot of information, but I didn’t know just how far it went.

As it turns out, it went extremely far. Apparently Google was expecting humanity to have to reinvent the fucking wheel, and schematics for just about everything under the sun were on this thing.

If I gave this information to Celestia or Chrysalis, I could break the world… And remake it in whatever image I desire. What to do, what to do…

“Nav, it wouldn’t be smart to give anyone this knowledge,” Flo told me.

“I’m not thinking about the ponies or the changelings,” I answered, looking over more information.

“I know what you’re thinking, Nav. Giving it to the cats would be an interesting move, but you don’t even know their capabilities. They probably have no industry at all. The griffins might be a suitable choice.”

“They’re too close. Inventions start pouring out of there and Celestia will ask some questions. I don’t know much about the minotaurs or the dogs…”

“You know enough about the minotaurs to know that they don’t have much power or many people. The dogs… are an unknown.” There wasn’t even any information about them in Twilight’s library. “There’s the option of not giving this to anyone. Assuming you make good on your promise, humanity will need to have something to offer to the world to keep from being overrun immediately.”

“That is what the elementals are for. I have a decidedly more… selfish reasoning behind wanting to help you now. You are robots presumably created by humanity for some reason or another. If you’re robots, you can be repurposed. I’m sure the role of protectors wouldn’t be too much for you and your kin.”

“…I don’t think many of us would like to be slaves, Navarone.”

“And you wouldn’t be. As I said, you’d be protectors. When the time comes that humans don’t need protecting anymore, I’m sure you’ll be free.”

“You’re a fool if you believe that. And you’re even more of a fool if you don’t think they would do the same to you. I imagine that some of us could be convinced to help humanity get off its feet, but not all of us.”

“Then I rather sorely hope they have ways of protecting themselves, or that I can keep them hidden long enough. The good news is that they probably won’t be killed no matter what happens. But there are worse fates than death, as I well know.” We sat in silence for a few minutes before I spoke again. “But that doesn’t answer the question of what I do with this information. I want to wait and watch to see how the world progresses, but I don’t know how long this laptop will last. There is no way I can copy down even a thousandth of this information. It would all be lost…”

“If I may? Navarone, apparently I am a computer. I might be able to… do something to get the information.”

I thought about it for a few seconds before shaking my head. “After Vinyl and Octavia get their fill, yes. But until then, I’m not going to risk it.” I went over to the list of books and started looking through it. “What do you think we should copy next?”

“Why bother copying at all, anymore? You have more than enough money. Better to use the schematics to build useful things for the trip in your spare time. And by the way, you should consider hiring guards for both your house and your ship. If everyone that said they would think about going does end up going, you won’t need as many, but more soldiers would be good to have.”

“And it also means more mouths to feed. I will need at least one house-sitter, though. It’ll have to be someone loyal to me, not anyone else.”

“Naga?”

“I was thinking something a little more innocent. If I can get him, Smiles. If not, I’ll ask Lyra and Bon-Bon. A healthy dose of implied threats and offers of cash should get them to agree. And maybe I can get the wolves to keep out external threats. Unlikely, but who knows?”

“Fluttershy can also probably help with that.”

“Yeah.”

“Speaking of Fluttershy and your other friends… have you decided when you’ll tell them yet?”

“I won’t tell most of them. I’m going to offer to let Dash and Spike go. I’m not going to tell anyone else. I’m just going to leave for the party… and then not come back. Or at least, not for a little while.”

“Pinkie’s the kind of mare that would track you down, you know.”

“I know full well. I have plans for her.”

“…You’re going to bribe her with coffee.”

“First I’m going to see what effect it has on her. I brought a few bags of it back with me. Snagged it when no one was looking. I expect it’ll be interesting. I’ll be watching from as far away as I can get through my scope. But hopefully yes, I will be able to bribe her into leaving me alone with coffee.”

“Well, good luck with that. How do you think the others will react?”

“Indifference. Rarity and I are not on good terms. Applejack is just kinda there in the background. Hopefully Fluttershy will be over me again. I never really made much in the way of other friends…” Four years here and so little to show for it…

“And you’re just going to throw away what little you do have.”

“Not all of it. Ponyville, yeah. Equestria even, sure. But I won’t be alone and I will have Taya.”

“Unless you can convince her to stay.”

I sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Unless I can convince her to stay… I don’t think making her get friends is going to work.”

“I imagine you’re correct. She’s here to stay with you, for better or for worse.”

“Think I should bring the naga?”

“That is his choice, but you are free to welcome him. He would be useful, though I don’t think he would enjoy the heights. And he definitely would not enjoy the cold.”

“I’ll talk to him about it. Gilda?”

“Useful, but impetuous. She’d be risky, but a fast flier and a good fighter would be useful.”

“Spike?”

“Practically useless, but if you ever do need to get in contact with Celestia, he’ll prove invaluable.” Though Kumani can apparently also do it. “I know you just want to invite him to get him away from Twilight, to let him see the world. It’s admirable, but I don’t know if this is the best way to do it.”

“It’ll be his choice. Dash?”

“She’ll say no. She would be useful, though.”

“Anyone else you think I should take?”

“Mercenaries. Mercenaries that you think will stay loyal to you.”

“So no one. I do agree that more soldiers would be nice, but that raises the point of feeding them and making sure they obey my orders. I’ll keep an eye out, though. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find some people.”

“I certainly hope so…”

The next day, I found myself at the resident library. “Yo Spike, you doing anything important?”

He definitely didn’t look like he was, lounging about like he was. “Nope. What do you need?”

“Want to help me prank Pinkie?”

Ten minutes later, I was eight hundred yards away on a cloud using my rifle scope to watch Spike give a steamy cup of sugary and milky espresso to a bemused Pinkie. She took the cup with the barest hint of a glance in my direction.

That was my first hint that I had made a horrible mistake.

The second hint was the horrific feeling of something tearing when she took a sip of the drink. I imagine that if I could see her better, I would have seen her eyes defocus. In a flash, the rest of the coffee was instantly gone. I could see a blinding flash in my scope and pulled my eyes away from it to find a white pegasus with a blond mane right in front of me.

I jerked back from what looked like a copy of Pinkie in shock. I heard a voice say, as though from several mouths at once, “I have only yet begun to party!”

The next thing I knew, I was standing in a supermassive field, surrounded by thousands of similarly confused ponies. Then the music started.

That day went down in the history books as the day the party never died.

I resolved to hide the rest of the coffee as well as I possibly could.

A day after my unwanted encounter with Super Pinkie—nicknamed Surprise by those that didn’t know any better—Taya brought someone by for my ‘approval.’ I was expecting either another filly or someone at least a little older than she was—not that that meant much to me, since I still didn’t know anyone’s age—but instead, she brought by a somewhat familiar little colt.

“Featherweight?” I asked, looking down at the spindly little colt.

“Yes sir…” He sounded very uncertain to be talking to me. I had two guesses to what had happened. The first is that Taya bullied this poor kid and dragged him over here to pretend for a day to be her friend. I was hoping my other guess was more accurate, since it involved her actually making a friend.

I shrugged. “Well, I’ve never seen you with her before. I trust you two will behave?” I mean, he did satisfy the arrangement I had with her, until we were in private and I could deliver part two, of course.

“Of course, daddy!” Taya sounded too happy. I knew something was up.

I nodded and left them to their devices while I went up to my hidden safe to pull out my magic key. I knew I would need it to get her to tell me the truth. She may be relatively obedient, but she was also very smart. She had to know what a lie would get her if she was caught in it.

By the time I got back downstairs, the two of them were gone and the mail was here. I sorted through the numerous letters and things that proved that even in Equestria, home ownership was a bitch. To my surprise, I found a reply from Vinyl. “So soon?” I whispered, cutting the letter open and quickly scanning it. “Tomorrow? That was fucking fast.” Still, it’s good news for me. I wanted to get the stuff to them as soon as possible, so I could let Flo attempt her magic. Well, I suppose it’s not magic anymore, is it?

Anyway, that gave me something else to do while I waited for Taya to get back. I needed to get some extra food and prep the guest rooms. Or I should rather say, Cadance needed to prep the guest rooms while Doppel went to get more food.

It’s nice to be able to order a princess around. It’s not like she had much else to do anyway; she spent most of her time pestering someone in the house, reading, or cleaning things that were already sparkling clean. Let me tell you, after a few weeks of living with her and getting over her oddities, I found that she would probably be the perfect wife. I probably never would have considered marrying her, but if you were normal and looking for something nice, she would be it.

When I had a grumpy Doppel and a frumpy Cadance working on their projects, the naga and I went to the yard to beat the shit out of each other. Or at least, he got to beat me across the yard. I was definitely getting better, but swordplay isn’t something you can learn overnight.

After a few hours of practicing, I dragged my sore ass into town. I still needed to apologize to Spike for putting him on Ground Zero and I also needed to see if the blacksmith had gotten anything done on my order or heard word back yet from his friend who could make the magazines.

My planned apology to Spike would be pretty easy. I just upgraded from my crossbow and now had an old weapon lying around that I didn’t need. He had no ranged capability past his fire breath and he knew how to shoot my crossbow. To that end, I brought my rifle, the crossbow, and two quivers into town with me. I also brought a pen as a gift for Twilight.

I brought the rifle so I could test fire the rounds the blacksmith made. I wouldn’t give the crossbow to Spike unless the new rounds worked as well as the old. I was hoping I could easily get them into the mags I had and that they would shoot just fine.

Thankfully, the blacksmith did have a few test rounds finished. Doubly thankfully, a quick testing proved that they worked just fine. Not so thankfully, the blacksmith’s friend was not as quick to reply as Vinyl. He didn’t have word yet on the magazines.

When I got finished there, I went on to the library. Twilight was there floating some papers around and taking notes on multiple pages at a time while reading from some thick tome. I didn’t see Spike anywhere in the main room, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in the library.

“Sup, Twilight?” I asked, stepping inside.

It seems I broke her rhythm, because all of the floating pages and writing quills immediately ground to a halt as she jerked her head up. “Oh. Hi, Nav. I never noticed how much free time I had before that ghost thing showed up and all of it disappeared. Now that it’s gone again, I have so much time to do whatever I want!”

And yet you spend it here, copying notes from some old book. “Glad to hear it’s not bothering you anymore, then. You interested in something I finally made from home?”

She immediately abandoned her position in front of the book and bounded at me. “What is it? Is it that thing over your shoulder?” Meaning the rifle, probably.

“No, that’s not for you.” I reached down to my pocket and pulled out the pen. “This here’s a writing utensil. It’s like a quill, but so much easier to use. You never have to dip it since all the ink is self-contained.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the pen was ripped from my hands. “How does it work?” she asked as she brought it close to her face, examining it front and back for any kind of hint to its function.

“See that little thing on one end? Gently push it in.” She clicked the end of the pen, getting the writing part to pop out. “Put the pointy end to paper and just write.” She used magic to pull one of her note pages over and started writing on it.

“Sweet Celestia! Nav, this can revolutionize writing as we know it! Do you know how much easier notes will be to take now?!”

“Yes, I do. That’s why I already have Filthy Rich working on making more. That pen right there is for you to keep and use, one of the originals. Just know that it’ll run out of ink eventually.”

“…Why didn’t you make any of these sooner?”

I shrugged. “Didn’t think about it. Just don’t tell anyone that these pens came from me, alright? I don’t want that kind of attention.”

“Of course, Nav. But anypony that knows you and anything about the humans will probably know that this is from you. You humans always seem to have such interesting, pragmatic ideas… Why did we never think of this?” I just shrugged as she continued to study the pen. “Say, what are these markings?”

“Hmm?” She floated the pen back over my way and rotated it until the ‘markings’ were facing me. “That says Google—Gentlemen’s Club. You can’t read it?”

“Those are words? Nav, they look like cave drawings to me.”

…That’s a problem I hadn’t foreseen. “Huh. Well, it’s not really that im—”

“What’s a Google?”

“A googol is a very large number. I think it’s a one with a hundred zeros. Again, not impo—”

“Why does your pen have cave drawings that I can’t read but you can that say something about a large number and a gentlestallion’s club?”

“Because reasons. Look, is Spike here? I want to talk to him.”

“He’s still a little sore from the Pinkie incident. It’s a good thing he’s a dragon and very resilient. He should be upstairs. But I want to know more about this pen and its writings. Nav, is this a different language where you’re from?”

“Yes. It’s Spanish.” No it’s not. “That’s probably why you can’t read it and why it doesn’t translate to anything you’re familiar with.”

“…Then why were you surprised that I couldn’t read it?”

“Hey, you guys know what English is. Maybe you could also read Spanish.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she nodded after a second. “Okay. So what’s that over your shoulder?”

“A crossbow. I know you’ve seen it before.” I started walking to the stairs, tired of her questions and wanting to avoid the one I knew was coming.

“That other thing isn’t a crossbow,” she said, looking dead at it.

“Twilight, you need to get your eyes checked.” I didn’t even stop walking.

“Then can I look at it closer?”

“Nope.” I was finally to the stairs and headed up them. I thought I might be about home free when I heard the pop of teleportation and found her standing in front of me, a curious and slightly manic look on her face.

“Celestia told me you were making more things from your world, Nav. Things like weapons. Is that one of them?”

“Nope.” I used my wings to jump over her, but she teleported in front of me again.

“Then why are you trying to hide it?”

“I’m not.” And then I was in Spike’s room, which had previously been my room. I saw him lying on the bed in the dark room, attempting to curl up. When I poked my head in, he groaned. “Spike, you up?” I saw one of his head spines twitch and I knew he heard me. I walked on inside. Twilight was unhappy about being ignored, I’m sure, and I knew I would be getting it when I tried leaving. “Sorry about making Pinkie do that right in front of you, man. I had no idea what would happen.”

He groaned again, more spines twitching.

“I don’t speak Groanese, sorry. I’m going to assume you just said, ‘Don’t worry about it, bro. It happens.’” He twitched again and groaned some more. “Yeah, you’ll be fine.” I kicked the door shut so Twilight wouldn’t listen in. “I got two more things to say before I leave. First, I don’t need my crossbow anymore. It’s yours if you want it, along with most or all of the bolts I have for it. I’ll leave it in the closet so Twilight doesn’t see it right off the bat.”

He actually tried rolling over and sitting up to look at me for that one. He got to the rolling over part before seemingly giving up. By the time I saw that, the crossbow was already in the closet along with the two quivers.

“The second thing is an offer of sorts. I don’t want to make the offer without you being able to talk, though. Whenever you don’t feel like shit anymore, come find me.” He grunted again and I figured he got the message. “Also, I pissed off Twilight, so I’m going out the window. You look like you need some fresh air anyway.”

He sighed as I walked over to the little balcony in the room. It was completely curtained at the moment, letting no light at all in.

I pushed the curtains open and came face to face with an angry Twilight. “Going somewhere?” she asked through the window.

I grinned. “Just getting some air for Spike. He doesn’t need to be cooped up like this when unwell.” Shit, she’s gotten good. I opened the balcony door to let some air in, as I had said I would.

“So what’s that over your shoulder?” she asked before she realized something. “…And where’s your crossbow?”

“I didn’t even bring a crossbow, Twilight. Are you seeing things?”

“But you—And I… Navarone, what is that over your shoulder?”

“I don’t have anything over my shoulder, Twilight… Are you feeling okay?”

“I CAN SEE IT RIGHT THERE!”

“Dude, don’t yell in front of Spike! He’s not feeling well.” I waited for her eyes to flick to him and for him to let off a well-timed groan before continuing, “And you obviously aren’t either, if you think there’s something over my shoulder.”

I dove for cover as Twilight exploded in rage.

When I had successfully fled from the library, I tried going straight home. I didn’t quite make it: Rarity intercepted me just outside of town. “Ah, Navar—What are you—UNHOOF ME YOU BRUTE!”

I’m sure Big Mac was quite surprised to find me giving Rarity the fiercest spanking of her life. His normally red face grew even redder when he pushed his head into the little bush I had dragged her into.

“Having fun yet?” I demanded right as his head poked in, probably drawn in by her screams of indignation.

“…What’re y’all doin’?” he drawled, his eyes like saucers.

Rarity was a little bit busy sniffling and moaning to answer, so I said, “This naughty mare has a certain fetish. As the resident expert with hands, I was helping her out. Keep quiet about it, yeah?”

His face grew even redder and he quickly pulled his head out of the bush with a loud “Nope!” He kept repeating that as he galloped off into the distance.

This is the second time he’s found me like this, I thought as I gave Rarity a few more spanks.

“See, this is what happens when you don’t keep things a fucking secret like I told you to,” I said as I finally pulled away from her, surveying my work. Somehow, the white fur on her flank had red handprints over it from where I had been spanking her. I figured that was enough to teach her a lesson without me having to do anything else.

“You violent monster…” she whispered, still sniffling.

“You were just asking for it. That squishy, spankable flank. The way you constantly beg for attention. How you always do whatever you can to make me suffer. For some reason thinking I was gay and wanted to be a cross dresser. Raping me. I keep saying that I need to slap your shit and I finally did.” That one time in the Google bunker doesn’t count. “Now why were you looking for me?”

She just hmphed and stuck her nose in the air, tossing her head away from me.

“Good, I don’t have to deal with more of your bullshit. Have a nice day, then.”

I merrily continued on my way for all of a few steps before I heard a barely whispered, “Wait…” I turned back, raising an eyebrow. “I… was going to apologize. But then you had to go and start hitting me!”

“Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t enjoy that.” I had her positioned in a way that it was hard not to tell that she was enjoying it more than she should have been.

And now her face was as red as her ass as she just blushed and stammered for a few seconds before saying, “I do need your assistance with something, however. I believe helping me with what I require might help turn my head from this… incident.”

“I’m listening, though I can’t make any promises.”

Her horn lit up and surrounded one of the saddlebags that I had casually thrown off her when I was dragging her into the bushes. The flap opened and one of the shitty little comics she looted from Earth pulled itself out, surrounded by a light blue glow. It flew over to me. “The spell that allowed me to understand these mangas wore off, Navarone. I was wondering if you would be able to read it and perhaps translate it.”

“Why not just get a translator spell and do it yourself?”

“Do you know how high level those spells are, Navarone? Everypony in the world has been speaking the same language for thousands of years. The kind of magic it takes to cast something like that is more than I could handle without a lot of practice. Twilight might be able to do it, but I would have to explain to her just why I need it.”

“Tell her you want to put something in an ancient dead language on one of your clothes.”

“That’s an idea… But I would prefer you help me instead, if you can.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes, holding out my hand. The comic landed in it and I lifted it up. I looked over the cover before flipping it open and looking at some of the text.

I closed it and shook my head, looking up. “This is in Japanese, or some other moon rune language. I don’t know it. You find me some English and we’ll talk.” That was a bold-faced lie. This thing was in English; I just didn’t want to translate it. To be fair, I don’t think you’d find many people that would willingly read Bible Black, which is what that one was.

Yeah, if I ever saw those manga fuckers she got those things from again, I would be doing some professional ass-kicking.

She sighed, pulling the abomination away from me. “I suppose it was a little too much to ask. Very well then. In that case, would you be available to assist me with something else later on?”

“I don’t know why you keep asking me this. The answer depends entirely upon what the activity you need help with is.”

“Well, if you must know, it’s more modeling stuff.” I immediately got ready to tell her no before she said, “You won’t be the model, of course—I remember your distaste for it after last time. No, I will be asking Fluttershy or perhaps somepony else to help. You will just be a judge of sorts.”

I sighed, rubbing at one of my temples. “You’re making human clothes and you want me to tell you how accurate they are.”

“Close. I’m making human clothes and I want you to tell me how sexy they are.”

“…And you want to use Fluttershy? Rarity, that shit could scar her for life.”

“Relax, Navarone. Nopony will be taking pictures or filming it.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to do it, not if Fluttershy is the one modeling. Someone else, sure. Fluttershy? She’s too innocent for that and I refuse to see her corrupted in any way.”

“…Well, I can honestly say that I’m surprised. Pleasantly surprised, of course. It seems that you do still have some morals left.”

“When all you’ve got left is strings, you cling to them all the harder. If you find anyone else, you know where I live.”

She nodded. “Very well. Have a good day, Navarone.”

“You too, Marshmallow.” She huffed again as she used magic to settle the saddlebags over her back. I debated internally about mentioning the handprints that graced her behind, but decided in the end not to. I also decided not to tell her what happened with Big Mac.

When I finally got home, I found Taya alone, sitting in the living room and reading a book. She looked up at me with a grin. “So what do you think, daddy?”

I debated using the key to make her tell the truth versus giving her the next part of the punishment. I decided not to use the key just yet. “It’s a start,” I answered, crossing my arms. “It amuses me that you think I’m stupid, though.” Her smile faltered slightly. “That’s what I thought. Go find him and apologize. You have one day left to find a friend that wasn’t bullied into being here before I put you in school. After that, if I don’t see you doing friendly things with that friend or another pony every five days, I’m going to have a chat with Cheerilee. Is that understood?”

Her face slowly drooped more and more until she looked close to tears. At the end of it, she teleported away. I sighed and stalked upstairs, more unhappy than I should have been. Why is it so hard to tell her to do something that’s good for herself?

For some reason, Flo burst out laughing at that.

The next day, I took the wolf down to the train station to meet Vinyl and possibly Octavia. The letter didn’t mention if the cellist was coming, but I did ask for her so I was hoping. If she wasn’t there, I know Vinyl could get her down after I showed her the laptop.

I settled down on one of the benches to wait, the few out-of-towners flinching away from Freki as he hopped up next to me and laid his head down in my lap. For being made of wood, he really liked getting petted. I gave him some attention because frankly, I’m slightly neglectful of that poor dog. Not on purpose, of course, I just sort of… forget him sometimes, I guess.

Equestria’s trains are usually on time, so we weren’t waiting at the station for long. “Dude, what’s—What the buck is that?” Vinyl asked, looking at my timber puppy.

“Remember when you asked about the wolves made of wood that lived in the forest? I got one as a pet.”

“…Aren’t those things evil?”

“Nah, just territorial. This guy is harmless until you piss me off. Where’s Octavia?”

“She couldn’t make it on such short notice. What’s this new product you got for me?”

“It’s easier shown than explained. Oh, and good news: I got a house, so you don’t need a hotel. C’mon, you’ll probably love it.”

“Awesome! It’s about time you got a cool pad of your own. Is it a stellar bachelor pad?”

“I wish. It’s hard to live like a bachelor with a daughter, an annoying chick that might as well be your wife, a foal, a maid, and a hulking warrior all living in your place.” I hopped up and started leading her into town.

“You sure there’s gonna be room for me?”

“This place is massive. Even with all of that, I still have four spare guest rooms. I got some stuff to tell you about some of the other tenants, though, and I hope you don’t mind other races.”

“Griffins are pretty cool, for the most part. Very different from ponies, though.”

“Yeah… I’m not talking about griffins. The one I had here left for home and I haven’t seen her in a little while. I’ll tell you a little more when we get out of town, away from listening ears.” Like anyone from that annoying little school newspaper. I didn’t want word about Cadance getting out. “So how’s the business?”

“Booming on all fronts, and I have you to thank for it! Why do you think I came down here immediately?”

“I figured you were bored again and wanted another short vacation.”

“Nah. I’m getting back into the groove of things and remembering why I love it. What about you? How’s… what you do when you aren’t helping the princesses?”

“Going very well. Quills are going to be obsolete soon, if you write a lot. I’ll probably stop writing books, though. Not like there’s a lot of demand for them anyway.” As it turns out, human books about human problems don’t attract a lot of attention from ponies. Some are definitely interested and many of the books grew quite popular, but I don’t think anyone would notice if they stopped coming out.

…I was hoping no one would go Misery on my ass.

“You’re a writer?”

“Yep. Well, not really. It’s more that I transcribe books from my world into this world and make a pretty penny doing it. Long story short, I’m a little bit rich. And if you factor in the mine I accidentally sort of mostly own, I’m more than a little rich.”

“Huh. So, what’s this about your weird guests?”

We were now mostly out of town, so I felt more comfortable telling her. “Do you know what a naga is?”

“No clu—wait, aren’t they mercenaries or something?”

“A lot of them are. That’s about the only occasion you’ll ever find one outside of their home. It’s a large carnivorous snake-fish mix. Just don’t bother him and don’t get him drunk and you’ll be fine.”

“…What happens if he gets drunk?”

“We agreed to never talk about that again. The next person of interest is a changeling maid. You might have met her in Canterlot at the wedding, a girl named Doppel. If she tries to seduce you, go for it. She’s an amazing lay.”

“She’s a changeling, dude.”

“Yeah. That just means she can do whatever fetish you want. Last on the list is Princess Cadance, and you are to tell no one she is here.”

“Whoa. This is where she’s hiding?”

“Yep. And on the off chance Shining Armor visits and you ever get asked about it, tell everyone that he’s cheating on Cadance with me.”

“Dude… Hot. I would pay to see that.”

“Really? How much?”

“I don’t bucking know, a lot. But anyway, why’s lovebutt living in your house?”

I shrugged. “Wish I could tell you. Oh yeah, her kid is also here. A more evil and vindictive baby you will never find. Stay away from her.”

“I never was a foal pony. So what’s the big secret plan to make me more money?”

“It’s another thing you’ll have to keep secret from everyone. This is more important to me than keeping the Cadance thing a secret.”

“Alright, I won’t tell anypony. It’s good to keep business secrets safe.”

“I found a way to get music from my world into this world. There are problems, though; the lyrics are in a very different language. I might be able to translate, I might not. But all the dubstep without lyrics? You should be golden to copy it all.”

“As awesome as that is—and it’s extremely bucking awesome—isn’t that… immoral?”

“Probably. But even if you don’t copy it for your own stuff, it might give you ideas. And if nothing else, you can say that you were one of the first and only ponies to listen to human music.”

“True. So how do you get the music here? Is it some kind of portal?”

“Nope. I’ll show you. As I said, it’s impossible to explain. I have a feeling you’ll love it, though. Just make sure to not tell anyone about it, or I’ll kill your family.”

“…What?”

“That won’t be a problem, though. How long do you have to be here?”

“Uh, a few days? How long should it take?”

“I don’t know. I can show you the songs instantly, but there are a lot of songs to go through. If it goes well, do you think you can get Octavia or some other people out here? Some people that you can trust to keep silent, of course. Needless to say, if a few certain interested parties learned about this, bad things might happen.”

“Of course, dude. Or I can just record some stuff and bring it to her. If it’s really that incredible, I’ll just track her down and drag her here. Depending on what you humans have, I can bring a few other ponies here too. I got a few friends that are trying to ‘find new sounds’ and aren’t having much luck.”

“Tell them to go into a desert and save a village of mares from a bandit.”

“How would that help them do anything?”

“Hey, it would get them laid.”

“Can’t argue with that. So how far away is this little house of yours, anyway?”

“Hah, ‘little.’ It’s not too far out of town. We’ll be seeing it pretty soon. Just a note, though: It’s right up against the Everfree.”

“But it’s safe. Right?”

“Oh yeah. The only problem we’ve really had so far was the giant squid, and that was just because of a misunderstanding. Last I heard, he’s settled down with a sea serpent.”

“I would give fifty bits to live your life for a week when I’m not around, just to see what the buck you’d get up to.”

“It’s mostly kinky sex with Doppel and training with the naga. Pretty boring, I gotta say. And since I can’t sleep at night yet, I spend that time building stuff.” I’ve been tempted to make a cannon, but storing it would be too much trouble and bringing it on an airship would be just asking for trouble.

“What have you been making? More human stuff?”

“Yeah. Nothing high tech or anything, though. What do you do in your spare time, when you aren’t partying or whatnot?”

“Whatever I feel like. I’m swimming in bits, so there’s not much I can’t do anymore.”

“Ever think of settling down? Finding someone nice and popping out a few brats or something?”

“Thought about it, sure. Ever really considered it? Nah. I don’t want to get slowed down by any foals just yet. Not my style.”

“They definitely change your priorities.” Aside from the whole ‘Taya shouldn’t have chosen me’ angle, I didn’t have many regrets with her. I mean, I’ve had to change a little, but not as much as I would have for a baby or something.

“You ready to find a nice mare and settle down yet? I know you gotta be tired of your career.”

“I definitely am tired of it. I’m going to pass on any kind of relationship for now, though. It would be nice, but… Well, I have my reasons.” Emotionally stunted, dead inside, leaving soon. Take your pick.

“How’s your daughter handling not having a mom?”

“No clue. She seems okay with it, but then she’s kind of mentally unbalanced. Oh hey, there’s the outer wall of my house.”

“There’s a wall? Awesome. No wonder nothing gives you any trouble. But what about things with wings?”

“The only manticore that tried popping his head over the wall got eaten by the naga. We haven’t had any trouble since then. No solicitors or random songs, either. It’s nice.”

“Huh. Sounds kinda boring, actually.”

“I’ve earned some boredom. And sometimes you just need a break from it all, you know?”

“Eeeh, I guess. Hey, do you have a gardener too?”

“…No. That looks like Lily. And there’s Taya, who I swear you had to have met by now.” Have I introduced them? I don’t remember. “Taya took up gardening, so I assume she had one of the Flower sisters come by to teach her how to keep the flowers alive.” I wasn’t ready to count it as a ‘friend’ just yet, but it was a step in the right direction. And as long as Cadan—Oh wow, I didn’t really think this one through, did I?

Meh. Cadance would be fine. The Flower sisters are harmless and the assassins are dead anyway.

“I wish I had somepony to make a garden for me…”

“Get a loving daughter, then. Or hire a gardener; that would probably be cheaper.” We could barely even see them through the gates, but it looked like Taya was acting a bit more frantically than normal. I didn’t want to rush her too much into making a friend, but she had to force my hand. Honestly, I was hoping she would go for someone closer to her own age, but going after cute mares was also okay.

…As long as she didn’t try setting me up with them. Then we’d have a problem.

When we finally got inside the gates, the two of them noticed us. Lily paled slightly when she saw Freki, but she knew by now that he was harmless. Still, all three of the sisters were pretty much cowards, and spent the longest time being afraid of me. I was honestly surprised Taya even managed to get her to agree to come into my fort.

“Hello, Ms. Lily,” I said, walking up to the two of them. Given that the garden was right in front of the house, I had to walk up to them to get inside. “Welcome to my home. Do you two need anything?”

“Nothing right now, Sir Navarone,” she said. “Taya here just wanted to learn how to take care of these lovely little lilies.” I had no clue what kind of flowers they were. “I’m always happy to help somepony start a garden, so here I am!”

“I’m glad you can help. I know nothing of gardening, other than that you dig a hole and put the plant in it.”

“Ooh, would you like to learn? It’s a great bonding activity!”

…Fuck. “I would, but I need to get Vinyl here situated.” Also, I hate gardening. “Some other time, perhaps?”

Taya put on a smile for some reason. “Surely it won’t take too long, Daddy. I’m sure she’s tired from her trip, after all.” Oh you little… I’m teaching her too well.

“If that is the case, I will be back out in a few minutes. Vinyl, come on.”

She followed me on in. “This place is awesome! How much did it cost you?”

“In terms of bits? Nothing. In terms of other things? An ass-whooping, two pissed off princesses, and being forced to go to Luna’s winter party.”

“Which you’re going to love, by the way. I’m helping her with it, and with the resources we have, it’s going to be the most amazing party in history.” We both jerked as we heard a distant howling that for some reason reminded me of Pinkie, but I dismissed it as something from the forest.

“I’m not much of a party person, but I can survive one night. Up the st—Doppel!” I spotted her peeking out of the living room. “This here is Vinyl Scratch. She’ll be staying in one of the guest rooms for a few days. Vinyl, this is Doppel, my maid.” As soon as I called her, Doppel stepped out of her cover, showing off her sexy body and the frilly Prench maid outfit.

“What’s with the getup?” Vinyl asked.

“Master makes me wear it,” she said before I could answer. “He says he likes the way I shake my hips and the easy access for when he gets bored.”

“Bitch please. You’re the one that refuses to take it off. Given Chrysalis’s threat, that’s probably a valid refusal, but still.”

Doppel grinned, winking. “I don’t hear you complain any more, master.”

“That’s just because you make sure to bend over in my face whenever you have to dust something. We’ll be upstairs if anyone needs us. No listening in; you can get your fill later.”

She sighed, looking disappointed. “Yes master...”

Vinyl and I continued up the stairs. When we got to the second floor, I led her to one of the many unused rooms, far away from Cadance’s with the baby. “This here’s your room. You’re welcome to take another unused room, but all the other ones are closer to a room with a baby—or a foal, whatever you want to call it.”

“Got an awesome maid, a loving daughter, and guest rooms that would make most ponies clop their hooves in glee. You’re living the good life, Nav. Seeing this place makes me want more than just a nice penthouse suite.”

“You got the money. Why not go for it? Though I gotta say, home ownership has its downsides, even if I don’t have that many bills. Anything breaks down, have fun fixing it, or paying to fix it.” With the schematics I got, I was thinking about hiring a few people to build me a generator that would never break and work better than the one that Chrysalis built me.

She shrugged. “I can’t build a big fancy house in the city, where I do most of my work. It would be a very long commute.”

“Eh. Either way, this is your room. If you stumble in drunk to the room next to it in the middle of the night and snuggle up with my daughter, we’re going to have a problem. Namely, of the her brutally murdering you kind. So yeah, watch out for that. Now, you want to see the music thing?”

“Nav, you’re kinda freaking me out, man. First you talk about killing my family, now you’re saying that going into the wrong room’s gonna get me killed. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like or care about my family, but I still don’t want them dead. And me getting killed is even worse.”

“You gotta understand this about my… ‘family,’ then. Taya’s parents were either murdered or abandoned her and she was left on the streets of a place that mistreated her in ways that I still don’t know about. She’s been learning all kinds of magic, but has a disturbing proficiency for combat magic. So she’s not only jumpy and paranoid, she can back it up by making your head pop. Doppel’s a sex addict and instead of the normal taste of love, she prefers lust. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to get it, too. Cadance is Cadance, and that’s all you need to know about that. The naga… Yeah, don’t mess with the naga. And of course, Freki is still a wolf at heart, even if he acts like a little puppy. You already know I’m fucked in the head. Now come along, I want to get started early.”

She just sighed and fell into step behind me. “So after you start showing me this music stuff, you’re going to go and spend some time with your daughter and her garden?”

“I don’t like gardening.”

“And if what you said is true, you need to spend more time with her anyway. She’s safe in Equestria, and you spending more time with her will hopefully help her remember that. That way she won’t make my head explode.”

“And I suppose it means you can keep making my head explode instead.”

“Wha—Oh.” She grinned and said, “Well, I wouldn’t say no. But I thought you had a bit more fun on the more feminine side of things.”

“It would take a lot of convincing to get me to bring those stones out of storage.” Doppel managed to do it a few times. “But no matter. Here’s my office.” I pushed the door open and stepped on inside, almost expecting someone to be there waiting for me. Thankfully, there wasn’t. I walked to the other side of the desk and plopped myself down in the chair. “You ready for the big secret?” I asked as I pulled the skeleton key out and unlocked the laptop’s drawer.

“Sure, I guess.”

I shrugged and set the laptop on the desk. “This here is some powerful human technology.” I opened it up and turned it on. “I don’t know how good the speakers really are, though; it was not at all designed for this purpose.”

“What was it designed for, then?”

“Rebuilding society in the event that it collapsed.” It booted up almost immediately and I opened the folder I made for Vinyl. “What are you in the mood for?”

She shrugged. “I’m cool with whatever.”

I grinned. “Then I’ll start with my preference: Chillstep. I can set you up with a good long playlist. If you get tired of one song, just say ‘next.’ If you want to hear the song that was running before, say ‘back.’ If anyone opens the door, say ‘stop.’ If that person leaves, say ‘play.’ Feel free to look around the office if you want, but don’t touch this device. It’s sensitive and it is irreplaceable.” I clicked the play button. “I’ll be back in less than an hour, hopefully. If you need to use the bathroom or whatever, just stop it and go next door; there’s a bathroom in my room. Any questions before I go torture myself?”

Her head was tilted, listening to the music. “Can you turn it up? And do you have some paper?”

I turned the volume up a few pegs before reaching into another drawer and pulling out some paper and a pen. “Just click the top and use the point if you need to write,” I said, standing. “See you soonish, then.”

She mumbled something as she listened to the sounds of Woon’s “Night Air.” The lyrics would go over her head, but at least she could hear the basic sounds of chillstep.

I walked over to my room to get some work clothes, the wolf still dogging my heels. When I got some clothes I didn’t care about getting dirt on, I looked down at the wolf and got a decent idea. “Guard the door to my office. Anyone but me or Vinyl tries going in, hurt them. Can you do that for me?”

He happily wagged his tail, glad to finally have a task from his master or whatever he considered me.

“Good boy. Or… girl, I guess. Whatever gender you consider yourself. I’ll be back up in a few minutes, hopefully. If you see me, sniff me. If I smell more like Doppel than I should, be ready to bite.”

I let him out and he actually took a position at the door, sitting down in front of it. I shrugged and grabbed my rifle and loaded it, not bothering to chamber a round. But there’s no reason not to be careful, you know?

Unfortunately, it was a rather typical summer day out. The sun was being an asshole and attempting to oppress the citizens of the world. Normally, I’d be all too happy to let it do so and stay inside, but Taya had to go and try to make me look like a bad father in front of Lily. So instead, I joined them outside in the shitty little garden thing I was stupid enough to get Taya to try to grow.

Since this wasn’t my garden, I was doing my best to not pay attention to most of what Lily was trying to say, instead doing the minimum amount of work possible to make it seem like I cared.

You know, when I write it that way, I do seem like a terrible father. But since I knew that was true and I had been trying to tell everyone that since the beginning, it didn’t weigh much on my mind.

After about half an hour, Lily looked up to the gate entrance. “Who is that?” she asked.

I looked behind me and saw that it was a pony that was completely covered in some kind of clothing or something. “I have no clue,” I answered, grabbing my rifle and finally locking in a round. I didn’t pump it just yet, because this didn’t look like a unicorn. “Hello!” I called, getting the fidgety pony’s attention. It started walking to us. “Who are you?” I asked when the pony was close enough.

“Fluttershy,” she quietly whispered, twitching. “C-can you help me, Nav?”

I immediately put the rifle down. “What do you need?”

“I’m… I’m…” She mumbled something else that I couldn’t hear.

“You’re going to have to repeat that,” I said, crossing my arms. I’ve played that game with her a few times. When she gets nervous about something, her voice just disappears.

“I have fleas,” she whispered so quietly that I could barely understand it.

Lily jerked back, almost stepping in the garden. “F-f-f-FLEAS?!” She immediately bolted for the gate.

“God that mare is skittish. Taya, you passed. You have five days starting tomorrow. Fluttershy, I have no idea how to get rid of fleas. Or at least, not on something that enjoys living.”

“I… I have some—Ee!—some things you can use. And if those don’t work, I’m sure somepony in town or Zecora can help.”

I shrugged. “Do we need to be inside to do it? No offense, but I don’t want fleas in my house if I can help it. Bad for Taya and Skyla, you know?”

She rooted around in a pocket and pulled out a comb. A very fine-toothed comb, too. “We can try this part outside. Can you, um, hurry?”

“Get outta those clothes and I can get started. Taya, go inside, or away from here. You do not want fleas, trust me.”

“Okay, daddy.” She sprinted inside, not giving it any kind of second thought.

I pulled my shirt off and tossed it on top of the gun, then walked over to the side of my house and sat next to it, resting my back against it. I really didn’t want to risk getting fleas living in my shirt, after all. Those things spread and you have to bake clothing to get them out of it.

Soon enough, Fluttershy was out of her silly little clothes and was standing next to me, averting her eyes and flinching every few seconds.

“Do you need an invitation?” I asked. “Come on, lie across my lap. And pass me that comb.”

She settled down on me with a sigh. “Sorry for bothering you, Nav,” she whispered as I started combing at her. “It’s just… you’re the only one without any fur.”

“Except for Spike.”

“…Um…”

“And the naga. And Doppel. And you might be able to get Stephen Magnet to do it, if you could find him.”

“I… I didn’t mean to bother you…” She tried getting up, but I held her down, continuing to comb her.

“I don’t mind. Between you and me, this is a lot more fun than gardening. Am I doing it right?”

“Um… No. Here, let me show you how…” She maneuvered over until she was lying on her back and took the proffered comb. She then demonstrated the proper way to comb fleas off of something. I crushed one of the ones that was squirming on the end of the comb and she flinched again. “Can’t you just… knock them off and leave them in the grass?”

“And let them jump back on you? Pass.” I took the comb back and began properly running it down her belly. A few minutes later, I had her flip over. “So if this doesn’t work, what do you want to try next?”

“Well, I have a special shampoo… I just… Well, I need somepony to help me wash. Everywhere.”

“So wash your body. Awkward, but not too bad.”

“Um… Everywhere, everywhere.”

“…Oh.” We sat in silence for a little while as I continued to comb her. Eventually I said, “Well, it’ll only be weird if we make it weird. Do you feel any less itchy, at least?”

“A little…”

A few minutes later, I asked, “So has Rarity bothered you yet about modeling?”

“She asked me if I could help her. She didn’t say what lingerie was, though. I told her that I couldn’t help until all of the fleas were gone. She… she didn’t stay much longer.”

“Tell her no. As a favor to me, if nothing else.”

“Why? Do you know what lingerie is?”

“Yes. It’s something a mare uses to attract a stallion. In my world, it was used in sex-play. I made the mistake of mentioning it to Rarity and she got all gung-ho about the idea. It isn’t something you should do, Flutters.”

“…Why not?”

What? “Fluttershy, do you really want to be identified as the first mare to wear something that sexualizes women and turns them into little more than sex objects?”

“Well no, but it can’t be that bad. It’s just clothing.”

“Clothing designed to make someone look sexy and inviting in bed. That goes against your entire personality. You’re too innocent for something like that.”

“Says who?” I stopped combing her, surprised. She turned her head to look at me. “I’m a mare with needs, Nav. I might be… more shy than most…” Her eyes flicked to the side for that before meeting mine again with an uncomfortable intensity. “…But I still want somepony to want me. To love me. Is that so wrong?”

“…No. But you shouldn’t resort to something so base to do it.”

“If somepony else ignores everything else, maybe appealing to his base desires would do it.”

“Or maybe it’s just a sign that it wasn’t meant to be. Do you really want to change yourself to get someone?”

“It’s not changing anything. It’s just showing off a side of me nopony has ever seen before.”

I sighed, closing my eyes and rubbing at a temple with one hand before saying, “Well, let me know how that turns out for you.” I began combing her again. “For what it’s worth, that would probably piss me off.”

She didn’t answer.

When I had determined that I combed over all parts of her at least once, I patted her back. “Still itchy?” I asked.

She twitched and sighed. “Yes…”

“Fuck. Well, time to give you a bath… Though I don’t know why you need me so much for that.”

“I can do most of it myself! I just can’t reach my back that easily. And… some other places.”

“Well, hop up and grab the shampoo. I don’t want to dally in the house, letting the fleas get anywhere. Do you mind cool baths?”

“They’re good for my mane, I guess. Why?”

“Because it means that we can go in through the back and straight down to the spring instead of running through the house and getting fleas everywhere. The water feeds into a stream behind the house, so the naga shouldn’t have to worry about getting soap and shit where he sleeps.” And if he does bitch about it, I’ll just let him try to say no to a miserable looking Fluttershy.

She finally hopped off me and went to her clothes, rooting around in them for the shampoo or whatever. She finally leaned up with the bottle in her mouth. I stood up, grabbed my rifle and shirt, and started leading the way to the back door.

“I do hope you got the fleas gone from all your animals before coming here. You’re just wasting your time, otherwise.”

“I hope I did… Poor Angel Bunny was so distraught over them.”

I grinned to myself at the thought of that little fucker running around with fleas eating him alive, but didn’t comment on it aloud. Instead, I said, “Most people would concentrate on getting better themselves first, so they don’t spread the disease around while they’re trying to help.”

“That’s people. I’m a pony. We help others first.”

“Which works well enough when what you have isn’t communicable or disabling. But whatever.” I pushed the back door open, stepping inside. Cadance looked up from trying to feed Skyla some kind of harder food than crotchtit milk. I held a hand out to stop Fluttershy. “Cadance, put a shield around yourself and your kid, please.”

“Uh… Why?”

“I’m helping someone get rid of fleas and I don’t want you to bitch at me if Skyla gets them. We’ll be out of the kitchen and down the stairs in less than a minute.”

She shrugged and put a shield up. “When you get done, we need to talk,” she said as I led Fluttershy inside. “Oh. Hello, Fluttershy.” There was more coldness in her voice than I was used to hearing from her, though it still wasn’t all that dark sounding.

“Hello, Princess,” Fluttershy answered, also not sounding overly amused. I sensed an undertone in there, but decided not to press my luck in asking about it. So instead I pushed the cellar door open and started down the stairs.

“Um, Nav?” I stopped and looked back to find her looking down the cellar in confusion. “I can’t see.”

“What? The light’s...” I looked up to see that the light bulb was off. “Oh yeah. The light switch is to the right.” She reached up and flipped it, letting her see what my messed up eyes already could.

“So… what’s that thing?” she asked as she pushed the door shut behind her and started walking down. She was looking at the generator.

“Industrial hair dryer. The naga likes them for some reason. Come on.”

She followed me for a few more steps before it clicked. “But… the naga doesn’t have hair…”

“I know, that’s why it’s so weird. It’s no problem, though. Just don’t ask him about it; he’s sensitive about his strange habits.”

“Okay…”

When we finally got to the spring room, we found that the naga was nowhere to be seen. “Now, this pool thing is deep. Very deep. You know how to swim, right?” She slowly nodded, looking down into the pool. “Good. Now, can you get started? I need to go talk to another guest I have. I told her I’d be back in an hour, an hour ago. I should be able to get down here quickly.”

“I can wash most of myself.”

“Cool. I’ll be down soon, then. And don’t worry, this place isn’t haunted.” It did seem kind of spooky, with the sound of the water echoing in the cave and the light playing off the water and spreading around the place.

“I… wasn’t scared,” she whispered, looking around.

“Cool.” I set the gun and the shirt down as a hint to the naga that she wasn’t an intruder if he got back before I did. Fluttershy eased into the water as I started back up and out of the dark cellar.

Cadance was waiting for me in the kitchen, where she belonged. “Two things. First, who’s the new guest? Doppel mentioned somepony?”

“A friend of mine. She won’t sell you out, trust me.”

“I just wish that you had asked me first, Nav. Shiny could have checked up on her! I know most of the ponies that planned the attack were caught, but I don’t want to risk my foal…”

“I know. But I also know Vinyl. She’s mostly harmless.”

“Okay. I trust you know what you’re doing with her. But I don’t trust that you know what you’re doing with Fluttershy. First you say you don’t want her, and now here you are helping her! Nav, I went and talked to her on your behalf already. She didn’t take it well. If you truly don’t want her, doing this isn’t a good way of showing it.”

“I’m just helping her. Have you ever had fleas? They aren’t fun.”

“By giving her a bath? And I see all that yellow fur on your legs. I bet you were brushing her coat, weren’t you?”

“Combing it, actually. It knocked loose a lot of fleas.”

“Navarone, as your friend and as the princess of love, it is my job to tell you that you are being foolish.”

I pulled the cellar door shut and crossed my arms. “Alright. Tell me what to tell her to show her that I’m not interested. What more can I really do, aside from straight up tell her?”

“Offer to help her get a special somepony. You don’t actually have to do it, but if you word it correctly, you can make sure she knows you don’t consider her anything more than a friend.”

“You’re surprisingly good at this.”

“And I find the entire idea abhorrent. If you weren’t leaving Equestria, I would never even consider this. You and Fluttershy would make a good couple and I hate myself for helping you avoid it.”

“Trust me, you get used to hating yourself after a while. Now, I need to go check on Vinyl so I can help Fluttershy and hopefully get her off my case.”

Cadance just rolled her eyes and went back to attempting to feed her little brat. “Open wide for the train!” I left before I could see the reaction, knowing that Cadance would clean any mess her kid made. Of course, as long as I wasn’t around, Skyla would be a perfect angel.

So off I went to make sure Vinyl was being good and not… “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, standing at the door of my office with the puppy wagging his tail next to me.

She jerked her head toward me so quickly that her goggles slid off her face. She stared at me like a fat kid stuck in front of a train, her eyes wide as saucers. One of her hooves was in an inappropriate place and she was sitting on my desk in a very Lyra-like fashion.

“…This is exactly what it looks like.”

“You masturbating to “Breathe in Air”?”

“Yes.”

I rolled my eyes before stepping inside, closing the door in front of the puppy. “I have ten minutes.”

A few minutes later, I left a much more relaxed Vinyl in my office with an enlarged playlist, since she seemed really pleased with chillstep. I walked right on back down to the kitchen. “Nav, what’s that on your face?” Cadance asked.

“Mare juices. My guest was feeling frisky.”

“And you’re going to help Fluttershy with that dripping down your chest?”

“Yeah. Is that a problem?”

She just sighed and shrugged. I walked on down to the cellar. Fluttershy flinched when I stepped inside, quickly moving to cover her chest for some reason. I looked at her hooves for a moment before turning an incredulous look to her face. She grinned sheepishly, blushing and moving her hooves.

Then she noticed the fluids on me. “What’s that?” she asked, shifting in the water.

“My guest was rather enthusiastic.” I did a quick pocket check before sliding into the water. “So what is there left to wash?” I asked after a quick dunk.

“What do you mean, enthusiastic?” she whispered.

“Eh, you don’t want to hear about that. I suppose you need me to wash your back?”

“Would you please tell me?” She even tried the cute, innocent triple blink thing on me.

“How about this: I’ll tell you when you find yourself a good stallion—or mare, if you’re into that. Hell, I can even help you find a special somepony, or whatever you guys call them.”

“N-no, that’s—”

“I know a lot of stallions would probably be interested. I’d be happy to help you find someone. I’m not looking for myself and I know it’s fun looking, so just say the word.”

Her ears seemed to fall back with each word until they were lying against her head. “N-no thanks…”

“Then let’s get rid of those fleas. You’ll definitely never attract a good stallion if you make them itch whenever you’re around.”

“Okay,” she whispered, holding out the shampoo. She reached out with one of her front legs and grabbed the side of the pool so she wouldn’t sink while I was applying the shampoo.

“So you want to do this the easy and awkward way, the easiest way that also involves a mess, or the unnecessarily annoying way?”

“Which is the easiest?”

“Both of us getting out, me lathering up your body, and you jumping in.”

“The regular easy way?”

“Me straddling your back and applying it that way.”

“…The annoying way?”

“Doing the entire thing underwater through air transfer.”

“Um, how would that even work?”

“I can sort of breathe underwater. One of the perks of being a half-wallflower.” Or a tree, I guess. But it’s mostly the voice I have in my head.

The voice that decided to make itself known. “You realize that air transfer involves kissing her, right?”

Oh fuck. Well, she doesn’t know that.

“The easy way seems fun… I mean, I don’t want to make a mess, after all.”

I sighed and nodded at the side of the pool. “Turn around and hold onto the side, then. You’re going to steadily be scooting up to make it easier on me.”

“Okay.” She did as I asked, leaving the shampoo bottle floating. I grabbed it with one hand and one of her withers with the other, pulling myself onto her back and latching on with my legs around her flanks

“You already get your mane?” She weakly nodded. I popped the shampoo bottle open and squeezed some onto my hands before setting the bottle on the side. “I still say you could get just about anyone to do this,” I said as I started gently rubbing it into her back.

“Nopony with fingers, though,” she moaned, her wings twitching.

I looked down at those wings. “So do fleas get in wings, too?”

Immediately after asking that, I flew off her back from the force of her wings shooting straight out. It took a few seconds for it to register what happened. When it did, I pulled myself out of the water to find Fluttershy looking very flustered and trying to force her wings down.

“I-I-I… Please don’t hate me!”

“You took care of me when I was hurt and you helped me learn how to use my wings. It’s only fair that I help take care of you now that you’re in need. Now turn back around and let’s get on with this. And remember: It’s only weird if you let it be.”

She gulped very loudly before turning back around, her wings still sticking straight out. “At least this gives me something more to hold onto,” I said as I reattached myself to her back. She just whimpered as I continued applying the soap to her back.

She slowly relaxed again, her wings going limp and somewhat floppy instead of sticking straight out or folded against her back.

The naga slithered in when I had Fluttershy mostly out of the water and was applying soap to her flank. “Ah, human, it is good to see you finally took the yellow one as a mate.”

And I went soaring back into the pool as Fluttershy’s entire body jerked, kicking me and shooting her wings out again. She was stammering something as I resurfaced, spewing water. “What?” I asked, cutting off Fluttershy’s confused stammers.

“It is customary for naga mates to wash each other. Is it not the same for ponies and humans?”

“Well, some couples do that, but it’s not really customary. We also occasionally help our kids or our friends wash.” But not usually the second one. “We aren’t together. I’m just helping her with a problem.”

“You are helping wash her. Alone. In the dark, somewhat romantic light of this cavern. And you are washing her backside. And you say you two are not mates?”

“Yes, that is what I say. Is there a problem?”

“I think the two of us need to have a talk one of these days. Anyway, I will wait to make you practice for now. I need to hunt anyway.” Fluttershy ‘eeped’ at that. “My apologies for interrupting you.” And just as quickly as he entered, he left.

I waded back to Fluttershy and continued rubbing the shampoo into her nice plump ass. I think she wanted to say something about what the naga had said, but lost whatever she was going to say when I began touching her again.

“Don’t mind him,” I said, gripping her tail to steady myself in the water. “Naga have some very weird customs. And we’re almost done, thankfully.”

She whispered something that I didn’t hear and shifted slightly. I started moving down her legs, leaving the weird part for later.

Unfortunately, later has to come eventually. “Alright, Fluttershy. We’re down to the most awkward part. Let’s make this quick, shall we?”

Before she could answer, I lifted her tail up and spread the soap around places I wasn’t supposed to touch. She flinched and almost sent me back again, but I was holding on tightly to her tail and just continued lightly molesting her and trying to get the soap wherever a flea might try to hide.

When the unpleasant task was finished, I gripped her tail with both hands and used my legs to push back from the wall, pulling her into the water by her tail. She squealed as she hit the water and I let her tail go so she could flail around, getting all the soap off of her in the funniest way possible.

When she finally stopped jerking around, I was chilling out on the other side of the spring. She slowly turned her head toward me. “Still itching?” I asked.

She lost her look of concentration for a short time before slowly nodding. “I… think they’re gone.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay the night here just in case. No reason to risk starting the infestation all over again.”

“Oh, I don’t want to impose!”

“You’re too quiet to impose on anything. You’d just be sleeping in one of the rooms and then leaving in the morning.”

“I… I don’t know…”

“Eh, no one sleeps in my room and it’s far away from the foal, so that’ll do.” I pushed myself out of the water. “Whenever you get out and dried off, come on back up. I’ll probably be in my office on the third floor.” In hindsight, I should have grabbed some towels while I was up there…

That didn’t bother me, though; I grabbed my rifle and my shirt and started walking back up. Sure I was dripping, but there weren’t any carpets in the areas I was going to be walking through.

Cadance was no longer in the kitchen, but thankfully Taya was. She jumped when she heard the door to the cellar open, but relaxed when she saw me. “Hey, do you know how to dry someone off?” I asked.

“I could try.”

My eyes widened. “No thanks! I’ll just go find a towel.”

“You don’t… trust me?”

“The first thing that comes to my mind when drying someone off is using heat. If you don’t know how to do it, I don’t want you to start on me. We’ve been through what could happen once and I don’t want to be even more of a tree than I already am. If you’re still in here when Fluttershy comes out, don’t jump at her. She’d probably freak out and fall down the stairs.”

Flo sighed. “Dammit, Nav.” I blinked, not understanding why Flo was pissed. “You just had to tell her you thought she’d go and kill you again.”

Taya didn’t look like she thought I meant that at all. She was looking back at whatever she was making. I just shrugged and kept walking, hoping no one slipped and broke something on the water trail I was leaving behind.

It didn’t take me long to get to my bathroom, where I promptly dried off and put some shorts back on. I didn’t bother with a shirt, because why would I? I unloaded the rifle and popped the one in the chamber. When I was back in business, I went next door to where Vinyl was listening to “The Storm” by someone called Draper. I let the wolf in and pushed the door shut, walking over to the other side of the desk and sitting down.

I waited for the song to end before saying, “Stop.” The music stopped. “That’s enough of that one genre, I think.”

“I love humanity,” Vinyl said, slowly taking off her glasses. “If this is what you humans can do, I want to be wherever you come from.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I started looking for another of the playlists I made up for her. “Here we go. What do you know about rock?”

“Uh, they’re hard and good for throwing?”

“But not if you live in a glass house.” I clicked play. “This here is what we call rock and roll. It’s not nearly as calm as most of those songs, but it might be that new sound some of your friends were looking for.” After what she told me, I loaded up “Johnny Be Goode” first. It got progressively harder. Vinyl was bobbing her head and taking notes or something. I was content to just lean back and listen, happy to finally hear some of the music I had been so long without.

Some time later, I heard a very gentle tapping on my door. “Pause,” I regretfully said. “Come on in, Fluttershy!” The door slowly pushed open and we got to see Fluttershy standing in her birthday suit. “Fluttershy, meet Vinyl. She’s one of my other guests.”

“Um, we’ve met,” Fluttershy said.

“Yeah, I remember you! You’re the mare that doesn’t talk!”

“That’s accurate,” I said, nodding. “Fluttershy, you don’t really have to quarantine yourself here. It was just an offer. If you do want to stay, I have a study somewhere on the first floor where you can find plenty of books to read. I would offer to let you stay up here, but I have business with Vinyl.”

Fluttershy’s eyes flicked to Vinyl and she blushed deeply. “I… I think I’ll just go home. Thank you for the help, Nav.”

“No problem, Fluttershy. You’re always welcome here if you need anything else.”

“O-okay…” She stood at the door for a few seconds more before awkwardly walking away.

Vinyl turned back to me and said, “That mare needs to get laid.”

“Yeah. Play.” The music kicked back on and Vinyl used her magic to shut the door again.

The next morning, Spike showed up at my place with the crossbow awkwardly strapped to his back and a quiver over a shoulder. He may be a lot bigger than when I got to Equestria, but he was still too small to be using straps and stuff designed for me. It would take him a little while to grow into it.

“Hey Nav. You wanted to talk?”

I was about to go hunting anyway. “Yeah. Let’s walk, shall we?”

“Uh, okay?” I stepped out of the house, pulling the door shut behind me and the puppy and lifting up my rifle to load it and chamber a round. “What’s that?” he asked as he watched me operate it.

“The reason I was able to give you that crossbow. You’ll learn more about it and some other things if you decide to take me up on my offer. Let’s go hunting.”

“Awesome!” He immediately pulled the crossbow up and began pulling the string back, but I stopped him.

“If you’re going to be carrying that around, there are some things you should know. First, don’t load it until you think you’re about to enter a place where you’ll need it. So never leave it loaded in town. Second, don’t dry fire it; if you’re going to cock it back, you have to shoot a bolt off with it. If you aren’t shooting it at something you want to kill, use a practice bolt into the ground for decocking. Third, never point it at something you aren’t willing to pull the trigger on. Fourth, don’t carry it around everywhere. Sure, it’s useful to be ready to defend yourself, but you don’t want to worry any of the ponies by having a weapon.”

“Nav, I’m a dragon. I worry the ponies by existing.”

“No, a dragon they don’t know would do that. You’re the cute and loveable Spike that would never harm a pony. Carrying a weapon around might ruin that very useful image you have. Now let’s go.”

I started walking to the gate. He jumped to follow me and did his best to keep pace. “Normally I fly in, but we do have some important things to discuss. I have an offer for you, Spike. But first, I need you to give me your word that you will stay silent about all that we discuss here. That means telling no one unless I give you permission.”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I won’t tell you until you agree to tell no one.”

“Alright, I won’t tell anypony. You have my word!”

“Excellent.” I pumped my air rifle, stopping in front of the forest. “Load up. We’re about to enter dangerous territory.”

“You made me wait just to get in front of the forest?”

“Yes. Now load it.” He rolled his eyes and did so. “I’m leaving Equestria at the start of spring and I won’t be back for a while.” He gasped. I nodded and started walking into the forest. “I’m going on a long journey away from Equestria to look for some important things. I’m offering you a spot on my crew.” He had been automatically following me, but stopped when I made that offer. I turned back to look at him.

“Really? Why me?” he asked.

“Look at yourself, Spike.” He took a second to look down as I continued, “You’re a dragon in a pony country. You belong here less than I do. I’m offering you a chance to see what’s out there, beyond this herbivore’s paradise. Dragons thrive on violence and combat. You’ll find little of either here. I’m offering you a chance to find out more about yourself. And if you don’t like what you find, you are welcome to leave my crew at any time. I’ll pay for you to get back to Equestria.” He was silent for about half a minute, looking away from me. “You don’t have to answer now. I just need an answer before winter, so I can know if I need more supplies. I will allow you to talk to Twilight about it, because she already knows. Don’t talk to anyone else about it. Promise me you’ll think about it, Spike. I wouldn’t mind having another close friend with me.”

“I’ll… think about it,” he finally said.

“Good. Now let’s go kill something, shall we?”

A note from Discord

I sighed as I leaned back on my throne, clutching at my skull with both hands as I wondered how things had come to this. “It should be impossible,” I whispered.

I thought back to what I remembered of the time before I tried to wipe out humanity, the events that kicked off the disorder I needed. I thought back to the MacCraig family.

Jessica made a big mistake when she let that family stay in their little home after taking Navarone away. As it turns out, Irish Catholics are very vocal about angels being kidnapped by what looked like government agents storming the place. And since they had very well hidden cameras set up around their house, footage of the event was put on the internet immediately. Within a month, it was the talk of every major news agency. A year later, tensions were brewing everywhere. Soon enough, war was the only option.

And so died a mighty race, killed by the great and almighty Discord by their own weapons.

…Or so I thought. Several bunkers survived, created by several different companies and a few governments. There was too little chaos and Discord in the world. For once, everyone was getting along with the mutual goal of survival. They knew humanity was either dead or would never be the same, but they had ideas for what to do, ideas for a future.

Ideas given to them by one time traveling living construct.

When I created Navarone, when I started the little game with Celestia… Had I known that it was the catalyst that killed humanity, I would have rather risked a time paradox than start the game.

Learning that my attempt at suicide had been thwarted by none other than myself was enough for me to decide to throw one of my pawns sooner than I had anticipated…