Immediately after lunch the following day, Rarity was on an errand to The Forgemaster's house. Ever since he had returned, he had been making more and more of his hot-water tanks and sales have been booming. Both Rarity and The Forgemaster had made many, many bits from their deal and rarity was delivering The Forgemaster's share of the bits to his home. With a gentle, ladylike knock, Rarity announced her presence.

"Enter." Came The Forgemaster's voice from within.

She found him in the kitchen, cooking a meal the likes of which she had never seen, but it smelled delightful. It smelled of garlic, onions, and spices, with a much more powerful masking it all that she couldn't quite place.

"Good afternoon, Forgemaster. I'm here to deliver your share of the bits. I must say, the ponies in the heartland love your invention. But, in Stalliongrad, they are paying as much as 1000 bits for one tank alone! It's very cold there, you know, so it's understandable. Any who, your half of the bits comes up to… 178200 bits!"

The Forgemaster looked up from where he was preparing his meal.

"Why, thank you Rarity. Your skill at selling our product is only surpassed by your dressmaking ability. I actually had a few more ideas for clothing for me; I'll give those to you later, as I'm busy at the moment. It gets dreary wearing the same thing day after day, it may be different individual clothing, but it all looks the same. I'm sure you understand. Please, place the money on the table. I would invite you to stay and eat some of this lunch with me, but I'm afraid that you won't find this meal very… palatable."

"Oh, nonsense, dearie. I wouldn't dream of interrupting your meal." She sniffed the air appreciatively, "I say, it smells positively divine! What is it?"

He proceeded to describe his meal, pointing out each part of the meal as he said it, "This salad here is your basic Caesar's salad, the drink is an excellent vintage, Fremont Valley Groves, circa 134 B.N., which I discovered that the local shop had for sale. And that part over there on the spit over the fire is manticore."

(A/N – The year unit is 'Before Nightmare', basically; the year Nightmare was imprisoned on the moon. About… 1134-5 years prior.)

"M-M-M-Manticore!" Rarity asked, too shocked and horrified to even yell it.

"No; manticore. It only has one 'M' in it, Rarity."

"What are you doing with it!" Rarity had regained her senses enough that she could at least scream the question.

"I'm cooking it, so that I may eat it without getting a stomach virus. You must always cook meat very well; the creature might have parasites or a virus that I don't want. Cooking the meat kills those."

"You are going to eat manticore!"

"Yes. I chose to eat an animal that most consider dangerous or a pest, so that nopony will miss them when I kill them. It's better than killing Fluttershy's animal friends, isn't it?" he cocked an eyebrow.

"Ugh! I'm truly disgusted by your 'meal', as you put it. I bid myself adieu."

Rarity then hastened out of his home.

He called after her, "Griffons eat meat, too!"

No matter other species' eating habits, Rarity could barely keep her own food down. But, she could hardly hold it against him: it was in his species' nature to eat meat, after all. She had dealt with worse, she supposed.

He shut the door after her, as she had not closed it when she left. He brought his salad and his wine to the table before going back to the spit with a knife. He cut off of the carcass a large steak, thick and juicy; it would more than satisfy his craving for meat. Though he certainly didn't need to eat the meat to survive; old habits die hard. He always went hunting in his native land, no matter the weather or his current work deadlines. It was always nice not having to pay for a meal that you could literally go get yourself.

However, the Everfree forest, the one he currently hunted in, greatly confused him. While there were a great many animals and species inhabiting the forest, there was only one predatory species that he had encountered. Manticores are the only thing resembling a predator that the forest had. And there were tons of manticores! One couldn't simply walk through the Everfree and not see a manticore!

It was infuriating!

The Forgemaster had been honest when he insinuated that hunting Fluttershy's animal friends would be a bad idea. Many times in the forest he came across an animal that he knew Fluttershy wouldn't want hurt, so he didn't hurt it. He found the idea of hurting those she cared about distasteful. Unfortunately, that left literally only one species he had found so far that he was able to hunt with impunity.

Manticores.

Not that manticores were anything bad, but, he was getting used to the taste of manticore. The flavor grew on him and it no longer had a taste of newness about it. Manticores certainly had a unique flavor. The taste that he hadn't found in any of the things he used to hunt he found in a manticore, but he was growing accustomed to it and there weren't any other things to hunt that he had found.

wWwWwWw

The Forgemaster had finished his meal and had cleaned up after himself. He had counted out the bits and found that there was exactly 178200 bits there. Rarity's attention to detail was as strong as ever.

But, the day was still young and he didn't have much to do that day.

However, fate decided to give him a helping hand on this particular occasion.

Rainbow Dash.

Having seen Rainbow Dash's habits, he knew that it was only a matter of time before she crashed through one of his windows. Through much investigation and a suitable application of higher mathematics (Finally), he laid out his cunning trap. In his investigations of the houses previously affected, he found that Rainbow Dash often crashed after attempting one of her tricks which then fell flat or she spun wildly out of control. Her training field was to the north of him, and she always started on the East side of her field, the right side, and worked her way across to the West side, the left side.

The other victims noted that the incidences occurred later in the afternoon, later than earlier in her training schedule. That led The Forgemaster to believe that Rainbow Dash either attempts more dangerous or new stunts at the end of her training period, after she had done her previous material. That fact led The Forgemaster to conclude that Rainbow Dash crashed so often was likely due to fatigue or loss of concentration due to fatigue.

So, he had a time, and therefore an angle, he had a direction, now all he needed was where she would end up once inside his home. Complex scenarios and simulations played through The Forgemaster's head, leading him to the conclusion of where exactly she would end once entering his home.

He set his trap, and waited for when Rainbow Dash would spring it.

It was on this day that the trap was sprung.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-"

*CRASH*

Perfect, everything went perfectly.

Rainbow Dash lay where she had landed, stunned. She shook her head and cured her momentarily disabled motor function. She then looked up from the floor to see the oddest sight yet that day.

Her cutie mark.

*WHAM*

A half dozen blueberry pies slammed into her from all angles, which was immediately followed by a barrage of cherry pies, then apple pies, blurpleberry pies, and finally another round of blueberry pies.

Completely covered head to hoof in the remains of 30 pies, Rainbow Dash finally heard something from whomever had done this to her.

LAUGHTER.

Rainbow Dash immediately flew up into the laugher's face. She couldn't see much of anything due to the pie chunks being in her eyes, but she knew where the pony was laughing from because she could still hear him.

"What was that for!" she screamed at the pony.

Whoever it was grabbed a towel and started to wipe her face off. As soon as her eyes were clear, she looked at whoever it was that had done this to her, and then gasped as she caught sight of him.

The Forgemaster was standing in front of her, towel in one hand, pie in the other, a gigantic grin on his face.

"That was for fun." He said, and then slammed the pie into her awe-struck face.

Booming laughter filled the room for many minutes, long enough that other ponies appeared at the door. They started to laugh at the sight in front of them, but he waved them home and shut the door. He began to wipe rainbow Dash off in earnest this time, and didn't slam another pie into her face once she was cleaned. After she was cleaned, he wrapped her in the towel and set her on the couch. He then began to clean up the mess. The mess he had made was easy to clean because he had prepared for this moment: the nearby walls and floor had been covered in a thin plastic tarp, so all he had to do was wrapped it up and throw it out. The chair he had expertly positioned to catch her would require some additional cleaning, but the prank had been worth the cleaning it would take.

He sat down next to her on the couch, her still wrapped in a towel, and handed her a glass of the wine he had had for his lunch. She accepted it eagerly and then splashed it across his face.

"That was uncalled for, Rainbow Dash."

He picked her up and used the towel still wrapped around her as a washcloth.

"Why did you do that to me?"

"Honestly Rainbow Dash, I thought a mare like you would appreciate a good prank."

She glared at him for a few moments more, before smiling and laughing.

"Yeah, that was a pretty good prank. How'd you do that, anyway?"

"As all good prankers know, it required a lot of planning. I studied you and your after-effects for many hours to set this up perfectly." He reached over to the table and picked up a file, he then offered it to rainbow Dash "Here, this is your dossier. Everything I learned about you that I needed to create this prank."

She looked at the large file and her eyes widen, "Jeez, this thing is huge!" she then looked at him, "Yah, know, if I was any other mare, I would find this kind of attention creepy."

"I'll give you the run down on how I did this so you don't have to read the dossier if you want."

She smiled sweetly at him and nodded.

"Well, after consulting the other victims of your window smashing, I discovered that you always crash from the direction of your training field. I also found that the longer you train, the further to the West of the field you get, I also found that most crashes occur later in the afternoon than earlier in the morning. In fact, 9 out of 10 crashes that you were involved in happen from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. So that gave me a time, an approximate angle, and a direction. All that I needed was to place the chair in the way of the window most in-line with those statistics and prepare the traps."

She looked at him as though he were stupid.

"There's no way you did all of that just to prank me."

He smirked and walked over to the chair that had caught Rainbow Dash. Grabbing it, he took it over to Rainbow; he brushed off some of the pie and pointed to the only thing distinguishing it from the other chairs at his dining table.

There, sitting high on the back of the chair, was an insignia sewed into the cloth backing that she recognized on an instinctual level.

It was her cutie-mark.

He chuckled at her amazed look; he leaned over and whispered into her ear, "That chair has been sitting there for days."

She gasped and then punched him playfully on the shoulder.

"You numb-skull! Why did you do all of that to me?"

"Rainbow Dash, it was the most fun I've had in several days."

They both laughed at that.

He looked down at her thoughtfully for a few moments, "Rainbow Dash, I believe I have come to the point in our relationship where I may comfortably call you Rainbow or Dash. Is that acceptable?"

She punched him in the shoulder again, "Of course it is, you silly filly!"

He looked around his home for a moment, "Rainbow, more time has been spent here than I realized. Would you mind helping me with something?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"I'm going to tether Crimson Hammer's cloud house to mine."

Her face seemed somber for a moment, before brightening again, "Sure, I'll help!"

He had noticed the look that crossed her face, however, and said, "Rainbow, I know that for some reason which I cannot fathom you love Crimson Hammer." He sighed, "I'm going to have to tell you a story about him one day that will either cause you to hate me… or something else."

She looked questioningly at him.

"I'll tell you at a preferably much later date." He sighed once more, "Come on, we had better get his house tethered before it floats away."