Applejack figured that even the most upstanding and exemplary pony was entitled to one real vice, and the one that had slipped into her own life was hardly the worst. Sure most of the locals frowned on it, and the eggheads never stopped reminding you that it was (eventually) bad for your health, but as long as a gal was discrete it didn't hurt anypony else.

Well, it didn't normally hurt anypony else. Not directly anyway. It might make you want to hurt somepony else if they had the indecency to get between you and your fix, which is exactly what happened on the morning the trouble started.

"A'right, listen up frenchie," said Applejack darkly. "I don't like you, and you don't like me, but there's a fine line between just givin' the stink eye and outright feudin', an' I promise I'll make you regret crossin' it. Now, you know darn well that there's my favorite brand, the only one that works fer me, and I know you'll settle fer lots of other brands in this here store. So, how 'bout you act like half the gentlecolt you pretend to be when you're waitin' on those tables and gimme that jar?"

They stood in the shadow of a huge wooden sculpture of a buffalo with a feather headdress and a humorous mouthful of cigars. The pale cream colored stallion with the gelled blue mane and finely waxed mustache regarded her tense body language with indifference. His front hoof stayed firmly planted on top of the nearly empty jar of brown stuff on the ground that was the cause of the standoff.

"I was 'ere first," he said in his French accent from Chevauchée. "Why don't you try somezing new for once, or are your bumpkin tastes really so unsophisticated zat zey cannot tolerate a little variety?"

His name was Horte Cuisine, and although the image of a covered serving dish on his flank marked him as a waiter, one could have thought he was an aristocrat from the airs he put on.

Applejack ground her teeth. "You weren't anywhere near that jar when I came in, but I'm gonna be the bigger pony and not accuse you of snatchin' it just to rub me the wrong way. As a fellow stratobacco smoker you oughta know better than to get between a mare and her medicine."

"And as fellow smoker you should know better zan to start trouble right in front of your supplier, especially when you know she is also from Chevauchée and will not be moved by your brusque western manner."

He looked meaningfully at Madame Bougie, who was sitting behind the counter of the little stratobacco store their confrontation was taking place in. When she realized he was dragging her into their dispute she rolled her bloodshot eyes and shuffled over to them. She was a mare of indeterminate age, with sickly yellow fur, a limp rust colored mane, and a cutie mark of a candle burning at both ends. Years of running a business that was frowned upon in the region had left her with little patience for drama between her few reliable customers.

"I don't play favorites Horte," she said wearily. "Can't afford to." She snatched the jar from under his hoof and look at what was left inside it. "I can't believe you are fighting over 'Tourments de Juments'. Zis is a stratobacco brand for teenagers and bony models. Well, looks like zere's enough for a fair split, no?"

"Heck no!" protested Applejack. "He grabbed it just to spite me, and half won't tide me over till the next delivery. C'mon, have a heart Bougie!"

<This is a matter of honor Bougie,> said Horte in French. <Don't let this insolent garce humiliate me.>

Applejack thrust her face up to Horte's. "Don't you start with your foreign speak just to cut me out of the loop!"

"And what about your 'foreign speak'?" Horte shot back. "You call zat degenerate accent and useless dialect English? It's 'ard enough to improve my language wizout 'aving to figure out what you are braying. I mean vraiment, what kind of word is 'y'all', eh? It sounds like a sick cat moaning.'"

"Well maybe if Y'ALL weren't too stuck up to mingle with the locals you might learn faster!"

"Pfff, maybe I could afford to mingle more if some ponies weren't such shameful tippers!"

"That was just one time, and you deserved it!"

"Oh, assez you two," said Madame Bougie, rubbing her forehead with her hoof as if to squeeze their voices out. "Am I going to 'ave to flip a coin to satisfy you?"

"No!" they replied in unison.

"Alright, so now you take 'alf each, or…"

She gestured at the shoulder of the great wooden buffalo sculpture. A poster had been pinned there to advertise the imminent arrival of the travelling buffalo culture exhibit.

"… I will gift it all to ze buffalos when zey get here on Friday."

Like any good compromise, it made nopony happy. They paid for their shares, poisoned each other with their eyes one more time, and didn't stop grumbling and cursing in their separate languages until well after leaving the store.

---

"And that was the last straw," said Applejack to her brother as she bounced the sack full of gathered components off her back and onto the attic worktable. "It's high time I serve that waxy mustached varmint a big 'ol slice of apple and humble pie, and I know just how to deliver it to his table."

She gave the flexi-lamp attached to the work table a whack of her hoof that switched it on, then took a deep drag on the stratobacco cigarette in her mouth. The slow, airy burn of 'Tourments de Juments' swirled in her lungs like a soothing tornado, then exited through her snout in the form of a great white cloud that lingered near the ceiling. Stratobacco was harvested by pegasi from cloud banks in faraway places, and it showed its sky-grown heritage in the unusual solidity and durability of its smoke. Contemplating her latest billowing 'creation' she thought it looked like a hapless bovine being lassoed and trussed up.

Big Macintosh hadn't said anything yet. She looked over her shoulder, across the attic, at the corner reserved for quilts and stitching and such. He was busy patching up a gift blanket from Little Strongheart that had gotten roughed up in the mail. He worked slowly and meticulously, pushing the needle in with his ill-suited hooves and pulling it out with his teeth. When he realized he had her attention he stopped mid-pull to give her one of those 'meaningful' looks, worse than even the lengthiest moral lecture from Twilight Sparkle.

"Oh don't you start," said Applejack. "It's just gonna be a lil' prank is all, somethin' to knock him down a few notches. I wouldn't start a real feud, you know that."

She opened the bag and spread out the materials she had gathered on the table: A jar of extra-hard dried peas, two old telescopes borrowed from Twilight Sparkle, some of granny's old eyeglasses, a length of very thin plastic pipe, several empty apple juice bottles, a ball of rubber bands, rubber tubing, duct tape, paper clips, half a smashed cuckoo clock… not a bad start, though she was still a little stumped as to how she was going to put a decent trigger mechanism together. Experiments would be necessary, but that was half the fun anyway. She smiled wickedly at the instrument of revenge taking shape in her mind's eye, and breathed another cloud of smoke that washed through its components.

"Besides," she went on, "it's not like he'll know it was me. He won't even know what hit him, literally… and I mean 'literally' literally, as in he won't see the thing that hits him. Heh."

Still not a word from Big Macintosh. She turned just in time to see him finishing a disapproving shake of his great head. She puffed three curt little clouds in his direction. "Who're you to be judgin' me anyway? If you heard the way that frenchie talks 'bout us even your blood would boil. Land sakes, he's been tweakin' my snout fer Celestia knows how long, just 'cause one time I left him a bad tip he deserved. Put yourself in my horseshoes and tell me a prank's too much."

"I'm home everypony!" shouted Apple Bloom somewhere downstairs. The excited clatter of her approaching hooves indicated she was coming up the stairs to the attic.

Applejack quickly spat her cigarette onto the floor, crushed it with the edge of her hoof and kicked it under a crate of pie pans. It was a tragic waste of her limited supply of 'Tourments de Juments', not to mention a questionable act for the Element of Honesty, but family came first (and it wasn't like the other five Elements were perfect either). "Welcome back sugar cube! Didja have a swell time in ol' Manehattan? What's with the crossbow?"

Apple Bloom had arrived on the attic landing in front of the work table with her skull print bandana on a broken toy crossbow slung across her back. "You wouldn't believe the crazy stuff that happened! It was great though. I'll tell y'all about it over dinner. How's everythin' been on the farm?" She ran over to nuzzle her big sister.

"This place was like saloon in the mornin' without you," answered Applejack.

Apple Bloom headed over to Big Macintosh for the same greeting, but stopped in her tracks to sniff the air. Her eyes widened in panic. "Hey, do y'all smell somethin' burnin'?"

Applejack shot a glance at the crate of pie pans, then realized her sister was referring to the stratobacco smell in the air. "Nah, that's just… some plant I was burnin'," she said, trying to be vague so as not to depend on her awful lying skills.

"Huh? Why are you burnin' plants in the attic?"

Over her sister's head Applejack saw Big Mac look right at her with one raised eyebrow. The sewing needle hanging from his lips was an uncomfortable reminder of the cigarettes that had once hung there instead. He'd quit shortly after Apple Bloom's birth, and replaced little paper tubes with sprigs of grass and hay.

"It was an invasive weed I destroyed to protect your health," she said finally, stretching the truth to such an extreme that even Big Mac looked impressed. "But never mind that, how 'bout we talk about that there crossbow of yours. Looks like you've been playin' pretty rough with it. Want me to give it a tune up?"

Apple Bloom swung the toy off her back, rattling a few of its broken pieces to the floor in the process. "Yeah, they don't make 'em tough enough fer country roughhousin'.  I think I'll take you up on that offer. Thanks sis!"

Applejack turned and placed the device on the worktable with a look of deviltry in her eyes that would have made her sister suspicious if she'd seen it. "No trouble at all. Now, how 'bout you go help granny with her zap-apple peelin' and we'll be down fer dinner real soon."

Once Apple Bloom was out of earshot Applejack chuckled to herself as she caressed the crossbow's hoof-appropriate activation mechanism. "Looks like I found myself a trigger. We're in business now."

Big Macintosh came up behind her and coughed, meaningfully of course. She didn't bother to turn around this time. "I ain't stealin' it if that's what your thinkin'. It's just a loan. I'll fix it all up when I'm done with it."

He coughed again, more emphatically, and gave the crate of pie pans a little kick.

"Oh, you meant that. Look we've gone over this already, I'll quit too as soon as I think she's mature enough to figure out what's goin' on, and as you can see from what just happened she ain't there yet. Trust me, will you? I know where to draw the lines that matter."

Apparently satisfied for the moment, he circled around her and descended the staircase with the buffalo blanket draped over his back. They had plans to visit the travelling buffalo culture exhibit on Friday so she could introduce him to Little Strongheart.

Once he was gone she turned her attention back to her scheme. "Now, let's get this rodeo started."

---

Narrow pipe to rubber tube

Gonna show him who's no rube

telescopes affixed with tape

Watch my vengeance takin' shape

Airtight seals fer ease of use

With fermented apple juice

The air pressure will then be risin'

Behind projectiles to surprise him

It's a shame they can't be bigger

'least I got me a hair trigger

Rarity's right, art can be fun

And here's the art of the gun

(Or at least the art of the air and fermentation powered long ranged dried pea shooter with an aiming scope attachment, heh.)

---

Lunchtime.

For her hiding place Applejack chose a large tree a few hundred feet away from the front garden dining area of the Trois Trèfles restaurant, Horte Cuisine's workplace. When the coast was clear she used a series of lasso tricks to winch herself and her homemade weapon up to an upper branch that offered plenty of clear shot opportunities without leaving her too visible from the ground.

Although she had already put the pea shooter through its paces back at the farm, it was time to test its range and power on-site.

Looking through the improvised scope and the crude crosshair she had drawn with a fine tip marker, she scanned the area for a suitable target. She settled on a Celestia-shaped weathervane on the roof closest to her, adjusted the air pressure by jiggling some paper clip levers with her teeth, and dragged her hoof across the pony-designed trigger.

*FOOMPH*

That was the barely audible sound of the dried pea leaving the pipe barrel of the shooter. Princess Celestia's thin metal silhouette spun ninety degrees with a much louder clanging sound.

Not bad. Applejack cranked the medicine bottle that dispensed another dried pea into the shooter's barrel in preparation for the next shot. Now for something further away. Again she scanned the world before her scope until her crosshair swept by the edge of a familiar rainbow-colored mane. A few more sweeps confirmed that she was looking at Rainbow Dash sleeping on a cloud.

The grin that spread across Applejack's face would have made Discord proud. "You're supposed to be workin' anyway, lazy bones!" She muttered to herself.

*FOOMPH*

Right in the cutie mark. Rainbow Dash's distant shriek was too adorable for Applejack to resist chuckling like a goon. The pegasus searched the sky in vain for whatever insect or clumsy bird had left her rubbing her flank like a spanked foal.

Test results: satisfactory. Now for the main event.

---

"Eh, Horte!" yelled Service Compris, the manager of the Trois Trèfles restaurant.

"Oui monsieur?" Horte Cuisine yelled back. His boss was somewhere in the nearby kitchen, out of sight but not earshot.

"I want you to take over zat birzday party for ze Silver Spoon group. Your colleague Soupière is too new to 'andle it."

Translation: The Silver Spoon group is a bunch of jerks and Soupière is crying on Service Compris's shoulder.

Horte Cuisine closed his eyes and sighed in sympathy for Soupière. He'd worked so hard to prepare the new girl for a moment like this, but he couldn't blame her for failing to take it in stride. Being a waiter could be so bruising for the ego, especially when you were starting out. He knew that all too well. "Right away monsieur."

He looked out the window at the large round table with balloons tied to its flowery centerpiece. Although it had been set for twelve there were only three ponies seated there, two fillies and presumably a parent. The 'party' had theoretically started thirty minutes ago. He noted that their glasses and the bowl of sugar cube snacks were empty; awkwardness had a funny way of stimulating the appetite. He piled the necessary refills on a tray which he expertly transferred onto the top his head for transport.

Food service may not have been his true talent, but at this point only the most perceptive royal investigator would have been able to notice the act. He took great pride in that fact. Where others had practically been born to perform this role and had the cutie marks to prove it, he had earned his skill against the tide of nature. Though his serving tray cutie mark was as fake as most of his identity, in his heart it was real.

As he approached the birthday table he caught the tail end of what the grey filly with the spoon cutie mark had been saying.

"… dare say this is my fault. You're the scary one! They should call you Diamond Terror."

"As if," answered the pink one with the absurd tiara. "Face it Spoon, your friends didn't even offer excuses. At least mine all came down with simultaneous cases of… oh finally, here comes another waiter. Hey mustache, you better not run off all gushy-eyed like the last one. If she thinks she's getting a tip after that then she has another thing coming. Silver Spoon's dad here could buy this place just to fire her you know."

Horte knew better than to react in with anything other than a neutral look of acknowledgment, especially while balancing a tray; there would clearly be no parental discipline coming from the bored looking gold stallion with the platinum credit card cutie mark seated next to the birthday filly. Better to just begin the delicate maneuvers necessary for transferring the tray from his head to the table…

---

Applejack snorted out a tiny skull-shaped cloud of stratobacco smoke and readied her aim. "With a mane that greasy you really oughta avoid perchin' stuff on it."

---

*FOOMPH*

*PING*

The pea hit the edge of the tray and set it spinning on top of Horte Cuisine's head like a roulette wheel.

"Oh bordel!" he exclaimed, and reflexively stumbled forward to rebalance the whirling bowl and pitcher before it all came crashing down. The party ponies gasped and recoiled when his front legs bumped into the edge of their table, but a heroic last-ditch stretch of his neck steadied the tray, and it slowed to a stop a few inches from the fillies' faces.

The tiara wearing one recovered first. "It's a little early for the birthday clown isn't it? Honestly Spoon, next time I'll pick the restaurant."

They went back to bickering while a perturbed Horte Cuisine tried to go about his business under the glower of the stallion. He hadn't blundered like that since his earliest days in his second profession. Or had it really been clumsiness? He could have sworn he heard a pinging sound. Did something hit the tray? Low-flying bird perhaps? He set the tray down and leaned in to push the fresh sugar cube bowl onto the table…

---

The cigarette slid from one corner of Applejack's grin to the other. She increased the air pressure for her next shot. "You got a little somethin' on your snout there frenchie…"

---

*FOOMPH*

*PSHRK*

The pea smashed into the contents of the bowl and the resulting cloud of pulverized sugar went right up Horte's snout.

"What are you doing you amateur!?" demanded the tiara kid with both hooves on the table and her shoulders squared in all the haughty outrage someone her age could muster.

Horte turned to apologize profusely, but instead sneezed the full load of his sugar logged nostril into her face with such force that it blasted off the tiara.

"Yeeeeeeewwwww," moaned the grey filly as she fell off her pile-of-hay seat in her hurry to get away from the horror of it all. The realization of what had just happened, combined with the moist yet grainy sensation all over her body, shut down the pink filly's brain. All she could do was stand there, both hooves still on the table, slack-jawed, wide-eyed, with one ear twitching erratically in the mess of her mane.

Panic started cracking through Horte's considerable discipline. What had he done to make that sugar explode? "I am so very sorry mademoiselle," he said in a tone too calm for the circumstances, his muzzle and mustache powdered white like the aftermath of a Cloudsdale crash. "Please, let me assist you."

He began pushing the heavy glass water pitcher toward her with his hoof to help with the cleanup.

---

For about a second after the sneeze Applejack felt a responsible adult's guilt over what had happed to Diamond Tiara. Then she went ahead and cranked the reload mechanism for the next shot. "What the heck, consider that payback fer messin' with my sis!"

---

*FOOMPH*

*CRACK*

The high pressure pea smashed the water pitcher, leaving Horte pushing a weight that wasn't there anymore. He stumbled forward and his hoof just kept on going, landing as a punch to the pink filly's gut. She released a long, quiet squeak and passed out.

"For the love of Puddinghead, get away from us you freak!" shouted the credit card stallion, torn between starting a fight and running away for dear life.

Humiliated in ways he had never experienced before and could never have prepared for, Horte was only too happy to oblige. He started heading for the restaurant door, head and tail down, roasting in the heat of the looks he was getting from clients and fellow waiters alike.

---

Despite the alarm bells of her conscience going off in the back of her mind Applejack couldn't help laughing great clouds of dark imagery out of her cigarette.

"You'd best stop now," said her inner Big Macintosh. "You've already gone too far."

Aww, c'mon, it's a prank big brother, and pranks are all about pushin' the envelope just that little bit further. Where's the fun in holdin' back now? What lastin' harm could it do? And Diamond Tiara don't count, she had it comin'. In my day I woulda personally kicked that kid's flank fer hasslin' me.

Crank, reload. Drag on the cigarette.

---

*FOOMPH*

"Aie!"

It felt like someone had snapped his flank with a whip. Instinct, reflexes, and jittery nerves jolted him forward. He tripped on a dessert cart piled with muffins and fell on top of a hapless mare patron. "Oh, I am so sorry madame!"

*FOOMPH*

"Eek, how dare you!"

The pea had felt like a bite to the mare, and she gave him a horseshoe-shaped welt on the face for his presumed cheekiness.

After stumbling away from that he galloped toward the restaurant door like a bombed-out soldier heading for a bunker, hoping that whatever dark force was out to get him would go away after an hour or so locked in a bathroom stall.

*FOOMPH*

*SNAP*

The pot full of clovers that usually hung over the restaurant door came crashing down on his head, knocking all his worries and other conscious thoughts out of him.

---

The pot had been too much, and Applejack came down hard from her vengeful high. When she took her eye away from the narrow perspective of the scope she saw a concerned crowd gathering around her unconscious victim. The sadistic grin faded from her face.

"Darn girl, what got into you?" she asked herself. When she tried to adjust her cigarette in her mouth it slipped out, tumbling through the branches below to land at the foot of the tree.

Best to beat a hasty retreat. She re-wrapped the pea shooter in non-descript packing paper, lasso-winched herself down to the ground and walked away with a nonchalant whistle and the brim of her hat pulled low over her eyes.

Not her proudest moment.

The worst part was that she knew she was going to confess the whole fiasco to Big Mac in pretty short order. She was too honest to do otherwise, and then she would have to admit he was right. That burned almost as much as the shame. Then it would only be a matter of time before she wound up spilling the beans in front of Horte Cuisine himself.

Yeah, well, that last part could wait. Should wait, in fact. Let the humiliation fade a bit. Give him time to cool off and see the lighter side of the whole thing. Think about how to word the apology right.

Thank Celestia he didn't know who was behind it all.

---

It was neither sight nor sound but smell which first greeted Horte Cuisine's impressively quick return to consciousness. One particular smell to be exact, faint but unmistakable to an equine nose as experienced as his.

'Tourments de Juments', the brand of stratobacco he had recently fought over with that awful Apple clan barbarian.

He opened an eyelid still heavy with dirt from the smashed pot and looked toward the source of the smell, a small green object about four inches away from him snot and sugar crusted mustache.

It was a pea. A dried pea that stank of smoke, fermented apples and shenanigans.

---

A triple Fleur de Lys was her cutie mark, and as was often conveniently (some might even say disturbingly) the case with ponies that was her given name too.

She stood up on her long hind legs, braced her immaculately pedicured front hooves against the bookshelf, and began browsing the 'A' authors of the World Cultures section of the Ponyville library. It looked like an elegant photo shoot pose. Indeed, given her statuesque white physique and expensively styled pink mane it was easy for the casual observer to assume she was a model and that a hidden camera was at work. Sometimes that's what she told ponies, and sometimes it was even true.

Horte Cuisine was under no illusions about her however. He knew her true talents just as she knew his, and he was starting to get a sinking feeling that her visit had more to do with 'business' than catching up with an old friend. Still, he went on telling his story in French, their shared native language. <So I looked and found more of those infernal peas in the wreckage of my humiliation. And just in case you think I'm being paranoid, I also spotted one of her cigarettes under the tree she must have perched in to do it. Oh, how it stank of peasant cider and unwashed teeth! >

<Shhh, lower your voice,> She said gently without looking away from the books. <You'll embarrass us in front of the princess's protégé.>

She then inclined her horn just enough to draw his attention to Twilight Sparkle, who was standing at a polite distance, ready to serve in her capacity as librarian if the call came.

Horte snorted, frustrated at having to wait in an establishment run by his enemy's friend. <You should just ask her to find what you're looking for so we can get out of here. What is it anyway?>

<Mmm, I would rather not reveal my literary interests to any of the locals at this time. That could come back to haunt me later.>

<So you are planning a heist.>

She shot him a warning glance and gestured toward Twilight Sparkle with her horn again.

<Don't worry,> he said. <I know that one doesn't speak French. Come on Fleur, when are going to abandon that life?>

She started searching a lower shelf. <I don't know, when are you going to quit smoking?>

<That's not the same thing! What you are doing is wrong, and it's going to get you into trouble.>

<And smoking hasn't gotten you into trouble? You're now plotting revenge against a popular and implacable member of the town's founding family, just because you couldn't let her have her silly 'Tourments de Juments'.>

<That was not about stratobacco, that was a question of honor! She and I have a history you see. It all started when she left me an insultingly small tip one time, so I informed her that –>

Fleur interrupted with a sigh and placed a hoof on her face. <No, stop, I don't want to hear any more about these petty small town dramas. Oh, just look at what you've become Horte La Loi.>

The mention of his real name startled him, and he reflexively looked at the purple librarian to see if she recognized it. No reaction other than a helpful smile.

<You used to be a somepony,> Fleur went on, dropping back to all fours. <You used to be the terror of the Chevauchée Riviera, a burglar with class and daring and wealth. No safe could stop you, no guard could track you, and old mares would clutch their jewels in fear and excitement at the mention of your name. Now here you are, letting your true talents go to waste as a mere waiter, getting into fights over small change or pinches of stratobacco, and still you speak of honor.>

Her horn glowed with magic, and a book flew down from the shelf to float near him. Its title was 'Treasures of the Buffalo Tribes'. It opened and started flipping, revealing color photos of humble yet priceless antique totem poles, necklaces, headdresses, blankets and ceremonial belts woven with symbols representing historical events.

<I found what I was looking for,> she said. <Perhaps I've found what you're really looking for too.  What do you say, hmm?  Talking about the old days can't compare to reliving them.>

Horte shook his head without hesitation. <Retiring and giving all that dirty money to charity is one of the few really good things I've done. I will always be your friend, but never again your partner. Besides, I only have time to plan one bad deed right now, and thanks to this little library visit I now have the perfect idea of where to start.>

He reached up to the bookshelf and pulled down another book he had had spotted during her search. 'Radical and Revolutionary Movements in Chevauchée History'.

He went on. <Now, since we've both found what we needed, how about we check out and find a nice café to sit in and talk about your new stallion?>

Fleur de Lys looked disappointed, but nodded in acceptance. <Could you at least distract Ms. Sparkle while I substitute an arcane duplicate for this book? I promise I'll return it later.>

Horte frowned at her, then rolled his eyes and went to check out his book the legitimate way.

---

For years afterward the sheep of Sweet Apple Acres would tell the story of the night the Great Teacher came. While the details of would change depending on the imagination and political fervor of the individual sheep, the general truth was well agreed upon. It went something like this:

After yet another ordinary day of grazing and wandering the hills of Sweet Apple Acres the sheep were herded into their pen for the night. Applejack had seemed less lively than usual, but otherwise it was just another repetition of the daily cycle, one that had been supervised by generations of Apple ponies and seemed likely to continue indefinitely. The sheep thought they had no reason to complain, except for the occasional carless lack of courtesy on the part of the ponies.

But then he appeared.

Framed by the light of the full moon, balancing effortlessly on the fence of their enclosure, dressed and masked in dark blue, with the Wondrous Book sticking out of his saddlebag and the red glow of a cigarette lighting up his trickster eyes. He was a pony, true, a member of the race that lorded over the farmyard beasts, but he was different. He moved like a cat, spoke with an accent from some strange land, and treated them with great deference. He asked for nothing but the opportunity to teach them, and the things he taught them changed their world completely.

Why, they never knew how many complaints they had about the current system until he told them what they were! His speech filled their craven bellies with righteous fire (and a little bit of anxious gas). He read beautifully from the Wondrous Book, telling of a faraway land called Chevauchée, where sheep and cows and mules and other talking farm beasts were treated with much more respect by their ponies. This respect had not come freely though; it had been forced. The farm beasts had learned from other Great Teachers, and combined their voices to demand things. They had protested, gone on strike, wandered where they should not, eaten what was forbidden, played pranks, and made such a nuisance of themselves that the ponies had had no choice but to negotiate.

He made their simple little minds swirl with possibilities, and when he was done he vanished into the night forever. In a way that was the most important lesson of all, that they should not expect him to stay by their side and guide them further. No longer would a pony tell them what to do. They would live free or whine trying.

And so they spread the word to the other beasts and plotted in preparation for the red of dawn.

---

Sunrise.

Applejack sat drooping over t the breakfast table, the steam from her coffee mug condensing in the creases of her baggy eyelids. Rough night, as expected. The confession to Big Mac had taken its toll on her peace of mind, but even as she contemplated a hard day's work on no sleep she felt better for it. Somewhat purified you might say. There was still the matter of making amends to Horte Cuisine, but that seemed less daunting with every passing moment. No matter how the waiter would react it was bound to hurt less than the bloated sensation of secret guilt squeezing around in her ribcage.

She drained the last of her coffee in one gulp, slapped her hat onto her head and turned to head for the door. That's when she saw Apple Bloom standing there, looking very confused and a little scared. "Everythin' a'right sugar cube?"

"Applejack, what does reactionary capitalist oppressor spawn mean?"

"I uh… don't rightly know, sis. Why d'you ask?"

"Cause that's what the sheep just called me."

"… Uh huh."

"They got this funny look in their eyes AJ, and they don't seem to wanna move out of their pen. I think you'd better take a look."

Applejack turned a lighter shade of orange. She'd heard stories about things like this, and she could already feel the money leaking out of Sweet Apple Acres. She galloped toward the sheep pen, followed closely by her dog Winona, who had sensed from her owner's tense body language that something was amiss.

They found the pen door open and a mass of grim fluffy faces waiting inside when they got there, but that wasn't the first thing that grabbed Applejack's attention. She came to an earth-plowing halt when she saw the object sitting prominently in the center of the old tree stump next to the pen.

A half-smoked cigarette.

There was no way she had been that careless, yet when she leaned in to confirm the smell it was definitely full of 'Tourments de Juments'.

The pieces came together in her head. Her angry snort sent the cigarette tumbling off the tree stump.

"Winona," she said in a low, no-nonsense voice, "get those critters movin'."

The dog rushed to do as she was told, but when she got closer the mass of sheep glowered down at her like a cloud full of dark thoughts and lighting fast hooves. The experience was too alien for her canine mind, and she backed off, whimpering.

Applejack didn't flinch at this development. It had just confirmed what she suspected. "Don't feel bad Winona. This here's a pony's job now."

She walked right up to the pen door, and stared down imperiously at the sheep who stood a little more prominently than the rest. The leader. "Go graze and stretch your legs and stuff," she said flatly.

The leader sheep looked up at her, defiant. "Ask nicely," she said in a voice that quivered from being a sheep, not fear.

"Since when do I hafta ask nicely fer you to eat and do whatever you want?"

"Since we saw the true extent of your despotism revealed in the light of the moon."

"Uh huh, more like the light of a cigarette. A'right, whatever, pretty please with alfalfa on top, go out and eat and play and get stuck in ravines and fall into old wells I'll have to pull you out of and do all the other neat things sheep do."

"Say it without that ruling class sarcasm."

Applejack ground her teeth, twisted her front hooves in the dirt and prepared to say something undiplomatic. Then she felt the weight of sleep deprivation and the absurdity of the situation breaking through her resolve and surrendered. "Look, I had a real sheet twister of a bad night and I've got lots of work to get to. I'm sorry if I haven't always been as polite and all as I should, and if that's what you want then I'll try harder in the future. Now please, won't y'all go graze and stuff?"

The leader sheep smiled, but not really from satisfaction. It was the smile of a card shark making her opening move. "That's a start, but we have other demands."

"What!?"

"We want some control over our schedule, the right to go in and out more freely. We want more territory to roam, better grazing, and less pushiness from you and the dog. Oh, and no bringing in that yellow pegasus to give us 'the stare'. Also, the cows have some demands too, and we're going to speak on behalf of the chickens and pigs."

"But… but… the timber wolves will… the neighbors won't let… we can't afford to... aww fer Celestia's sake!"

"So, how about we start these negotiations with a question. Why exactly do you ponies raise pigs anyway?"

---

The negotiations went on for most of the morning and early afternoon. The final price tag for the changes that would have to be made, which included hiring some extra farm hooves, buying up more land, providing better feed, building new structures and planning for the eventual loss of darned fool sheep to timber wolf predation, made Applejack's freckles turn red.

"Is everythin' a'right sis?" asked Apple Bloom when her sister finally emerged from the study where she had been running the numbers. Big Macintosh asked the same question with his exhausted eyes; he'd had to work double to make up for Applejack's absence.

"Sugar cube… go fetch me my black hat."

Apple Bloom gasped and big Macintosh groaned.

"I don't understand," said the youngest sibling, her eyes adorably wide with fear,

"who are you feudin' with? The sheep?"

"Of course not the sheep, and never you mind who it is! This here's officially a feud now, and I swear on Nightmare Moon's cold shadow I won't rest until that foreigner is cryin' uncle, aunt, and second cousin twice removed!"

---

Wednesday afternoon – guests at the Trois Trèfles restaurant report that their soup tastes like ozone and old books. Upon investigation a wad of stratobacco is found in the soup pot, and clues indicate that Horte Cuisine is somehow responsible. In light of his recent behavior, management has no choice but to fire him.

Tuesday morning – Sweet Apple Acres is rocked by an explosion. The cause is discovered to be a 'malfunction' in several newfangled fermentation vats caused by some 'stray' stratobacco getting caught in a mechanism. The damage is expected to cost a lot. Applejack takes to patrolling the farm with her pea shooter set to 'excruciatingly painful'.

Thursday night – At the end of a long day spent job hunting Horte Cuisine discovers that the resumes he has been handing out all demand that his potential future employers provide plenty of spittoons for his stratobacco chewing habit.

Friday afternoon – Granny Smith realizes that, despite her granddaughter's security measures, the family's best jewelry has been stolen and replaced with stratobacco cigarettes.

Friday evening – Instead of joining her brother at the travelling buffalo culture exhibit as they had planned, Applejack is roaming the streets of Ponyville with a fresh jar of stratobacco, looking for Horte Cuisine so she can force feed it to him.

---

Moonrise.

The teepees were enormous, even bigger than what the buffalo would usually use to live in. They had clearly been made and decorated just for the traveling buffalo culture exhibit, and they were works of art unto themselves. Big Macintosh, wearing the buffalo blanket on his back and green makeup stripes on his cheeks, spent as much time basking in their grandeur and poring over their detailed imagery as actually entering them to see the treasures they contained. It was almost enough to make him forget his heavy heart. Almost.

He studied an image on the side of one of the teepees that depicted, as far as he could tell, some abstract stick buffalos warring over who was at fault for knocked over a pet cactus… or something. It took a lot of head rotation to figure out, but the emotions involved were clear enough. He sighed.

A young voice boomed out over a set of nearby speakers. "And now citizens of Ponyville, we of the buffalo tribes would like to invite you to our travelling village's central area for a demonstration of our traditional dances."

That was Little Strongheart, serving as the master of ceremonies. She'd probably been chosen as the 'face' of the show due to her unthreatening size and cuteness. Unfortunately it also made her somewhat inaccessible to Big Mac, who had never met her personally and couldn't count on Applejack to introduce him now. He hoped he might get an opportunity later in the evening.

He circled around the teepee and entered through its flap, pausing to let Ms. Cheerilee out (and giving her a thoughtful second glance as she went by). With the dances starting, most of the crowds had headed for the central area, leaving the display cases to him and a few other stragglers. He kind of liked it better that way; ever since the Smarty Pants doll incident a mass of ponies swarming around an object made him nervous.

The only light inside the teepee was an open fire in the center. The square glass display cases were arranged in a circle around that source so that the objects they contained could cast rippling shadows on the angled canvas walls. It was a genius effect for evoking an atmosphere of mystery, and the sound of the dance drums coming in only added to it.

He walked around each of the cases in turn, absorbed in thoughts of cosmic awe and personal sadness.  The fourth case was especially ironic to him. The object displayed there was a long smoking pipe made of pure white wood, painted with bright teal patterns and decorated with a carved creature that had the head of a pony but the fins of a fish and a long spiraling tail. The label under it declared that it was the water spirit peace pipe.

"Doesn't look like much, does it?" asked a rich feminine voice on the other side of the display case.

Big Macintosh peered through the glass and into the darkness beyond to see who was talking to him. He found a pair of long lashed eyes underlined by red buffalo makeup.

"Yet this is easily the most valuable object in the entire show," the voice went on. A white unicorn mare with a single red feather in her pink mane stepped around the case to face him. "It has been smoked at almost every major diplomatic event in buffalo history. Even her majesty Celestia's lips are said to have graced its never washed mouthpiece on two occasions."

She tilted her horn to caress the case, and the glass pulsed with a lattice of harsh red magic when she did. "It's also protected by a spell that might have cost almost as much as the pipe itself to cast. I'd say those rumors of gold in the buffalo hills and rivers are starting to sound pretty plausible."

Big Macintosh merely nodded.

"A stallion of few words, hmm?" she said. "Forgive me for disturbing your thoughts, but I think we might have a common problem in need of a solution. Would I be right in guessing from your cutie mark that you are Big Macintosh of the Apple family?"

Nod.

"My name is Galette des Rois," she lied just in case, "and unfortunately my friend is Horte Cuisine."

He inhaled deeply.

"Please believe me when I say I've had nothing to do with any of his actions and I only want this whole thing to stop before somepony gets hurt. I assume that since you are not currently running around town with you sister looking for a French-speaking waiter to brutalize you might feel the same as I do."

Thoughtful pause. Nod.

She smiled. "Good. Then why don't we sit by the fire and find a way to get them to smoke the peace pipe. Metaphorically speaking of course."

She was careful to seat herself so she could see the pipe's display case over his shoulder.

---

Hiding from Applejack in the middle of the buffalo culture exhibit had seemed like a brilliant idea at first. Horte Cuisine knew from his break ins at Sweet Apple Acres that this was where she would have been tonight if she hadn't gone on a rampage looking for him, so psychologically it would be the last place she would check. Unfortunately her accursed dog had a nose that could apparently track a rain cloud if need be, and he'd deliberately left too much of his scent on that farm.

Now that he was galloping to escape from his raging nemesis the sheer quantity of buffalo bodies filling the area was making it very difficult to stay ahead.

"Come back here you sniveling varmint!" bellowed the barbarian. She'd clearly had plenty of experience dodging massive bovines and was gaining on him fast.

Horte leapt up onto the side of a teepee and used the springiness of its canvas to propel him to another, then another. Somewhere below his arcing flights the dog barked madly. His last jump left him sliding down the considerable back of a started buffalo, whose reflexive whirl propelled him into a wide open space in the middle of all the teepees. He barely had time to stand up from the hoof-churned dirt when the crazy mare slammed him back to the ground and pinned him.

"Gotcha frenchie," said the pitiless face under the brim of a hat as black as the Nightmare's heart. She breathed a cloud of stratobacco into his eyes that looked like a landslide closing in. "Stay back Winona! Now I may have lost that jar I was gonna feed you Horte, but don't you fret, I can still show you a real good time. As a filly I was tortured by quite a parade of older cousins, and I learned a thing or two, yes indeed. You might think it's all just kid stuff, but brother you ain't ready fer the buffalo burn and horseshoe noogie, back to back!"

"Oh hey Applejack, I'm so glad you could make it after all!"

The two ponies turned to look up at a stage where Little Strongheart stood waving at them. The young buffalo was flanked by several adults of her kind equipped with a variety of instruments.

"Hi there kid," said Applejack. She spat the cigarette aside and got up with a smile while making sure she had Horte Cuisine in a headlock that could look like a hug. "Good to see you again. How's the master of ceremonies gig workin' out fer you?"

"It's great! Hey, you're just it time for us to open the floor for everyone to dance. You want to kick things off with your friend?"

Horte spoke up before Applejack could turn the offer down. "Absolument yes mademoiselle, it would be our pleasure!"

He slithered out of Applejack's grip and faced her for the dance with his head held high, as if he wasn't disheveled from running and spattered with dirt.

"What are you playin' at?" whispered Applejack through gritted teeth.

"You don't want to make a bad impression on your young friend do you?" he asked innocently.

Suddenly a brisk country violin tune began, and they were both startled to see a colossal buffalo onstage playing the instrument. It looked like a toothpick and a nutshell in his hooves. Applejack shot Little Strongheart a questioning look.

"What?" asked the young buffalo with an impish grin. "Cultural exchange goes both ways you know."

Horte's hooves began moving to the tune, and although it was clear he'd never dealt with this sort of music before his improvisations weren't too far off the mark.

"Not bad fer a foreigner," said Applejack as she began her own dancing to keep up the charade. "I'd be inclined to give you lessons if I weren't about to twist those fancy legs into rope as soon as this is over. I shoulda figured waiters could make good dancers, what with all the weavin' and dodgin'."

He danced in tight circles around her, following her lead and the example of the other couples joining them. "Actually, I learned to dance wiz royalty in ze palaces of Monture Carlo. I also learned to make a very quick escape once ze fun was over. Zose royals can be such a conversational bore vous savez."

She spun to bring her face to within an inch of his and slammed a hoof into the ground between his front legs. It took him a second to realize it was part of the dance and not the beginning of an attack. "You ain't getting away this time, thief. I don't know why you left those palaces and came here to make my life miserable, but you're gonna regret it long after you relearn how to walk."

In a smooth response to the music he advanced and forced her to dance backward, staring down into her eyes from his slight advantage in height. "I left zat world so I could become a better pony. All I ask for now is respect for a job well done and a good tip at ze end."

She groaned and pivoted to dance side by side, making him follow her lead. "Not this again. When're you gonna admit you service was just not up to snuff that day."

He reversed the direction of the dance and jostled her until she bumped into the stage. "You came in angry and took it out on me!"

She jostled him back into a vendor cart full of corn on the cob. "The tip wasn't that bad in any case!"

They started circling each other like cobras in a pit. "It was if you remember 'ow many times you changed your order!"

Some of the other dancers had noticed the aggression and were starting to back away from them. "Well if you'd gotten it right the first time… aww, this is so pointless!"

They reared up on their hind legs at the same time and slammed their front hooves together, right against right and left against left, pushing back and forth like wrestlers trying to throw the other backward. The crowd gasped. The music stopped.

"Yes," snarled Horte, "It is quite pointless. Everyzing we've done to each ozer has been pointless, and all zis over pocket change and stratobacco. Why don't we, 'ow do you say, call a truce?"

"Why sure," said Applejack while slowly winning the fight to force him and his soft waiter muscles to the ground. "Right after I get my stolen property back and give you the whoopin' you earned."

Practically on the ground and out of honorable options, Horte grabbed the brim of her black hat with his teeth and pulled it down over her eyes.

"Hey, no fair!"

He rolled and stumbled away from her flailing hooves, barreled through the startled crowd, in through an open tent flap. He paid no attention to the display cases or crazy firelight he found inside, looking only for another exit.

"Horte?" said Fleur's voice, somewhere in the dark.

He turned to find her sitting by the fire, apparently in conversation with… <Him! What are you doing with my enemy's brother?> he demanded in French.

<Trying to help you! … and myself. Listen, this is actually a really bad time to further divide my attention. I'm just about to substitute the ->

An orange missile tackled Horte to the ground. "Gotcha again!"

There was nothing left to do but brawl, and so they did - Hoof to jaw, head to gut, flank to convenient fire. Somewhere in the rolling and kicking one of them found some kind of hollow stick on the ground and started smacking the other with it. The other grabbed it, and tried to pry it away.

*CRACK*

They fell apart, each with a splintered half of the stick in their mouth. Fleur and Big Mac were nowhere in sight, and both combatants wondered why their natural ally hadn't offered any assistance. They would have gone right back to the fray if Little Strongheart hadn't screamed at the entrance to the teepee.

"The sea spirit pipe!" she cried.

For the second time that night the two ponies turned to unexpectedly see the young buffalo, again flanked by adults of her kind. There was nothing like joy in her face this time however.

"They've destroyed our most sacred relic!" said one of the adult buffalo.

Applejack opened her mouth and allowed the splintered shards of white wood to spill out. Yep, peace pipe pieces. Horte did the same, spitting out the carved pony's head for that extra classy touch. In the glow of the fire they looked at each other like a fool married couple who had just realized their home was burning down around them.

"How did they get it out of the display case?" asked another adult buffalo, pointing at the empty glass box. "That Trixie swindled us with that security spell!"

Little Strongheart wept.

Applejack tried to think of something to say, anything to make that pitiful sight end, then felt like a heel for even trying. She barely had the will to struggle when the adult buffalo grabbed her and dragged her to the center of the exhibit village. She and Horte were thrown to the ground with the remains of what they had destroyed for all to see.

Deep buffalo voices started yelling "vandals," "monsters," "savages," and more unpleasant things. The other ponies didn't know what to think yet, but watching two of their kind getting tossed around for reasons they didn't quite understand wasn't helping to lighten the atmosphere.

"Typical, just typical," bellowed the voice of chief Thunderhooves, who had appeared on stage to tower over the two like a judge. "We come here to spread peace and understanding, and what do we get? Brawling ponies making a mockery of our efforts and a massacre of our heritage. This blow is made all the worse for having been dealt by you Applejack, someone we trusted. What do you and your fellow outlaw have to say for yourselves?"

They could have made excuses, talked about misunderstandings and mix ups, tried to muddy the issue with the mystery of what had happened. They certainly would have had some ground to stand on if they had. But neither of them did, and in the quiet of their shared shame they respected each other just that little bit more for it.

"Well, thank the great spirits we didn't have to listen to them babbling," said the chief. "Now, how shall we punish them for this infamy?"

"You're not punishing anypony!" said another stern voice. All eyes went to the mayor of Ponyville, who had stepped in behind the two. She was still wearing the feathers she'd been given at the start of the evening's events, but was in the process of wiping off the buffalo face paint with the back of her hoof. "These are citizens of our town, and they shall be punished according to Equestrian law, not yours."

"Oh, of course," said the chief with a note of sarcasm. "Equestria's notoriously fair and balanced justice system. Really, do you think we are still dumb enough to go along with that old charade after watching generations of ponies get nothing more than a slap on the hoof for wronging us?"

The mayor narrowed her eyes. "I guess that depends on whether you want to revive the old feuds or not."

Applejack's heart sank so deep a diamond dog could have tripped over it.

"Sure, why not?" said Thunderhooves. "As I recall the legends you were the last ones to wrong us, so we owe you some retaliation anyway."

"Oh I'm pretty sure our records will show you were the final aggressors."

The lines were being drawn in the crowd. Buffalos sorted themselves apart from the ponies they had been reveling with moments earlier. The angry murmurs were building toward a roar. Someone called for pies to be brought in for use as weaponry. And in the center of it all, on their knees and covered in dirt and fresh bruises, Applejack and Horte Cuisine stared at each other with the childlike horror of those swept up by awful events of their own making.

"Hey!" shouted a voice that cut through all other sounds like a dam exploding. It was a voice of such total authority that even the chief and the mayor stopped flecking each other with their shouted spittle. No one there had ever heard anything like it aside from the roar of a dragon or Princess Luna's royal vocal chords.

Applejack couldn't believe it when she pinpointed where the shout had come from and found her brother. She'd never heard him shout before.

Big Mac was standing by the open tent flap with a look of pure disdain for everyone who met his eyes, pony or buffalo. Without even the slightest trace of drama he pointed into the tent, at the display case that shouldn't have contained a peace pipe.

It contained a peace pipe.

"Wha… I don't understand," said chief Thunderhooves.

They all looked at the fragments of what they thought was the pipe lying between Applejack and Horte Cuisine. Gingerly Little Strongheart stepped up to them and turned them over a bit with her hoof. Then she murmured.

"What was that?" asked the mayor.

"It's a fake!"

"Buffalo hoax!" some pony cried out. "They were looking to start something!"

"No!" shouted Applejack standing up. "For Celestia's sake, no. That case really was empty a moment ago, I swear. I don't know what's goin' on, and I don't care. Y'all can figure it out later, but nothin' changes the fact that this mess started with me. I'm the bad apple. Don't go diggin' up those old hatchets by makin' this 'bout ponies and buffalos. You wanna blame somepony, blame me."

"And me," said Horte Cuisine, rising to stand beside her.

She gave him a squint. "Don't you go stealin' my thunder on top of everythin' else," she whispered. He shrugged.

"That's all well and good," said the mayor, looking very awkward in her smudged face paint, "but there will be a lot more to answer for in the morning. For now I advise we all go our separate ways as peacefully as possible."

The crestfallen crowd began to disperse.

"Wait!" Applejack shouted again. "It can't end like this. Are we really gonna let two fools ruin the whole night? Is that all it takes? Sure, some unkind things were said just now, no denyin', but there's always gonna be one more fight at that rate."

She turned to look at the buffalo fiddler and his tinker toy instrument. "How 'bout strikin' up that dance tune from earlier, eh friend? I'm not ready to give up on havin' a good time, and I'll bet you ain't either."

The massive musician hesitated, but then went to work with all the verve of his earlier performance. The crowd started to loosen up again, and the mayor and the chief gave each other sheepish looks.

Applejack turned back to Horte and adjusted the black hat. "Now don't you go thinkin' we're friends now, 'cause we ain't," she said at a volume only he could hear. "We've still got a score to settle, but I'm willin' to do it in a civilized, law abidin' way if you are."

He nodded. "With pleasure mademoiselle."

"Now, let's give 'em the show they need to see."

And though neither of them would ever talk about it again, the dance that followed became the inspiration for several pony and buffalo songs.

---

The letter was written in a familiar code.

<< My dear Horte,

I'm so sorry to have caused you so much trouble and then run off. As you have probably guessed, I was the one who removed the pipe from its case. It was a fairly impressive feat if I do say so myself; though I hear the Great and Powerful Trixie™ is something of a charlatan in most respects, she does not sign her name to anything less than the most stellar security spell. I actually spent an hour studying the thing before planting my lockpick spell in it.

The object you broke was my arcane duplicate of course. I was just about to put it in place when you barged in. It is tragic that as an earth pony you cannot fully appreciate the difficulty of what I attempted, levitating two pipes and phasing them through glass, all while suppressing the glow of my horn and trying to maintain a conversation with the Apple stallion.

He had nothing to do with any of this at the beginning by the way, at least not intentionally. I just saw him as both a convenient alibi if things went wrong and an opportunity to try and intervene in your feud before it got out of hoof. Yes, I really was trying to help, not just thinking of myself. When you started fighting I pulled him to the shadows as a precaution, and after you were dragged out I was forced to explain everything to him. We came to an arrangement: I put the pipe back to save you and his sister, and he drew the crowd's attention so I could make a getaway. Rather generous of him, given that he could simply have thrown me to the mercy of the crowd and had every right to do so.

Perhaps you can guess from that last sentence that my conscience has been troubling me since those events. I am sure this pleases you. Restarting an ancient feud is not my idea of fun, especially when it threatens a dear old friend. Do not be too hopeful, I am not giving up this lifestyle yet. I will just be more careful and 'moral' in my choice of target from now on.

As long as you are unemployed, why not pay me a visit in Canterlot so we can finish catching up? As I said, Fancy Pants is quite open-minded, though naturally you would have to check how much you can reveal to him with me first.

Sincerest regards and apologies,

-  FDL >>

Horte smiled faintly, then crumpled up the letter and kicked it into the nearby goat pen, where one of the obliging beasts quickly devoured it. That was typical of how he handled letters from Fleur; he didn't want to risk anypony finding something that could get her into trouble.

Big Macintosh raised an eyebrow at him after seeing that.

"No worries pardner," said Horte in an awful fake southern accent, "jus' some junk mail iz'all. Mighty kind of yer ta bring it over ta me."

He spoke that way on account of the nearby sheep, who had been giving him thoughtful looks since he started working at Sweet Apple Acres as a temp shepherd. Thank Celestia he had worn a mask that night.

Big Mac nodded, but still looked skeptical. Clearly any friend of the pony he knew as 'Galette des Rois' (Horte groaned internally at Fleur's choice of pseudonym) bore careful watching. Who could blame him?

"Well, I'd best keep chasin' zese ol' sheep, eh pardner? Crazy 'ow much trouble zey are wiz all their newfangled rights an' privileges. See y'all at chow time!"

He watched Big macintosh gallop back to the farmhouse, and saw him stop to greet an orange shape in the distance that could only be Applejack. That orange shape grew bigger and more detailed as it approached him and the sheep grazing the hills. Horte sighed and twisted the sprig of grass hanging from his lips. What was about to happen should have been satisfying, but he knew too much about these ponies now.

"How'd it go pardner?" he asked when she was in earshot.

"You and I gotta have a talk later 'bout that accent of yours. You're makin' me reconsider lettin' you keep that secret from you know who."

Horte looked sideways at one of the sheep. It had a red bandana tied too low on its forehead and stared at him with unblinking eyes. It seemed to be struggling to remember something.

"I apologized to everyone on the list," Applejack went on. "Fer what it's worth your old boss said he knew the whole thing was fishy from the beginnin', but unfortunately your job's already been filled. Guess you'll just have to keep workin' your debt off here fer a spell. Sorry."

"Quite a'right, I weren't expectin' no quick fix." If anything his job prospects would have been even slimmer if the mayor, acting as a mediator, hadn't gotten Applejack to agree not to reveal his recent acts of deliberate sabotage and thievery.

Applejack sat down in the grass and took her plain old brown hat off to scratch under it. "Diamond Tiara was the worst. I just know she's gonna take it out on Apple Bloom. I failed her like I failed Little Strongheart. Never again, I swear."

Horte Cuisine counted the sheep one more time to be sure and sat down in front of her. "Yeah, 'bout zat, 'ow're you 'anging in zere?"

"Sheesh, those two accents really shouldn't mix. What in tarnation did you just say?"

"I'm asking 'bout your resolution, ze one y'all made fer your sister's sake. 'Ow do you feel?"

"Oh, right." She noted the long sprig of grass her was sucking on, decided that looked like the right idea, and plucked one for herself with her teeth. "My lungs feel like they're full of electric mosquitoes. You?"

"Like I want ta scratch my own gums out."

"Yeah, I felt that yesterday. I gotta say, this whole quitting business is easier when there's someone else sufferin' with you."

"Heh, as long as y'all are sufferin' more, I agree."

"I hate you too, Horte."

For a while they said nothing, content to observe the pegasi bringing out clouds that looked nothing like the smoke of stratobacco.

Then they heard frantic splashing.

"Up and at 'em frenchie, sounds like one of the sheep is drownin' in that hot tub they asked for."

THE END