Thunder cracked and rolled outside the windows, and rain poured down in buckets. It looked to be a long stormy day in Hollow Shades, at least as far as one could see from the front desk of the Hollow Shades Inn. A few of the regulars were in the drawing room, gathered around the fireplace, when the front door crashed open and in staggered a bookish-looking unicorn mare, loaded down with saddlebags and backpack and as drenched as if she'd been dunked in a bathtub. She tottered up to the front desk, sputtering, and leaned against the counter. "Good NIGHT, it wasn't even a drizzle when we were at the bottom of the HILL-- please, oh PLEASE tell me you have rooms available, I do NOT want to try and set up a rustic campsite by the roadside in THIS!" she said, looking up at the mare behind the counter through waterlogged spectacles.

The dark brown earth filly watching the front desk nodded warily, and quietly slipped her hoof off the silver-loaded crossbow next to her. One just didn't burst in the front door like that, not in Hollow Shades. "How many in your party?" she said, trying to slow her heartbeat.

The door crashed open again, and in staggered two more figures; a lanky pegasus with a blue mane, and a short pudgy reptile. Both were carrying small mountains of camping gear and both were just as drenched as the mare at the counter. "Good NIGHT," the dragonling said, spewing water. "Where did THAT come from?"

"Yeah, are the weather squads asleep or something?" the pegasus demanded. He dropped his bags in a heap on the floor and shook off as discreetly as he could.

"That'll be three of us," Twilight said to the clerk. "We'll be staying for about a week, at least, but we'll go ahead and pay for two weeks in advance--" she slid a bag of bits across the counter.  

One of the ponies huddled round the fire answered Flash's question. "No weather patrol 'round here," he said curtly.

Flash looked surprised. "None whatsoever?"

The pony looked up from the fire. He was a scruffy fellow in a bulky plaid coat with a bright red, shaggy beard that consumed half his face. A flop-eared hat dried on a stool in front of him, and an axe with an onyx-black head leaned against the arm of his chair. "What we get, we get from the forest," he said. He harrumphed, amused. "Just like everything else around here." He patted his axe.

Flash finished shaking off and moved over to the fire, Spike-- ever the heat-loving lizard-- right behind him. Flash sat down next to the plaid-wearing pony while Spike got as close to the hearth as possible. "Flash, Canterlot University Folklore and Mythology department," he said, sticking a hoof out."

"Woodcutter," the grizzled pony said, shaking it. "Timberjack."

"Timberjack?" Flash said, his brow furrowing. "Don't you mean 'lumberjack?' "

"Well that too, but mostly Timberjack," Woodcutter said.

"What's the difference?" Spike said from his seat near the coals.

"OoowwwwoooOOOOoooooooo...."

There was a flash of lightning. A long, low howl, rough with moss and bark, sounded out somewhere in the stormy dark.

"--whhaarrrgggharrrble."

And terminated on a rather odd gargling noise. Flash and Spike half rose to their feet; nopony else in the room even twitched. "Sounds like you got another crop comin' in, Woodcutter," somepony said with a dry chortle.

Woodcutter gave Flash a humorless grin. "Difference is Timberjackin' is a little more excitin' than lumberjackin'," he said. "Got us a lot of timberwolves out there. They're a menace, but they make good firewood--- oncet you whack 'em good with a black iron blade." He patted his axe again. There was another flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder.

"Oooowwwoooooooooo.....wharrrghgarrble."

"What the heck is that noise they're making?" Spike said, alarmed.

Woodcutter idly examined the edge of his axe. "Yer average timberwolf ain't too bright," he explained. "They try an' look up to howl at the lightning, but they forget that it's pourin' down buckets." He paused. "Hain't found any drowned that way yet, but give it time."

"Wharrrghgarblle. Cough, hack."

Spike's eyebrows tabled. "You gotta be kidding me." The bundle in his claws cheeped.

Flash leaned forward, curious. "Whatcha got there?"

Spike held up the bundle. A tousled, half-grown phoenix chick sat in the middle of the rough towel. It peeped cheerfully. " Owlowiscious is off doin' his own thing out there, but I brought Peewee in. Phoenixes don't care for damp weather too much."

There was a sound that went around the room, among the old fogeys and bypassers who had stopped in out of the weather. An "oohhh" of recognition, as the phoenix chick made his appearance. Every pony in the drawing room seemed to lean in towards its glow. "Ooh, that's a good sign there, youngun!" an oldster with a trailing white beard said, nodding. "A phoenix chick. Powerful ward against evil, an' things o' the dark. Yer a lucky feller t' have one as a pet..."

The mare at the counter saw Spike cradling Peewee. She brightened so suddenly she seemed to almost become buoyant. "Oh, my! You're keeping a phoenix chick with you? I had no idea! If he shares the room with you we'll cut your bill in half-- we'll even waive the fire hazard deposit..."

Twilight blinked. "Why, that's-- very generous of you," she said, surprised. "Is there any reason...?"

The counter filly's eyes moved briefly to the dark and rain-streaked windows. "Ma'am, anypony in Hollow Shades would be more than happy to have one of Celestia's sun-birds under their roof," she said. "Our inn would have to be run by fools not to make you feel welcome." She hastily went back to counting out the bits and writing the bill. She hoofed Twilight a heavy pewter key. "Room 202, second floor, first door on the right," she said, pointing up the stairs. "Watch your step, the stairwell's not well lit."

"I suppose not," Twilight murmured to herself, looking about. The entire hotel seemed to be a bit under equipped on lighting. Even with the roaring fireplace, chandeliers laden with candles hanging low, and wreath-wrapped candlesticks at every window,  the old hotel still stubbornly clung to its dark shadowy gloom like an old nag clutching at her shawl. The only place free of gloom seemed to be the little space around the hearth, lit by Peewee's glow.

Ah, at least they're making friends with the locals, she thought to herself. She turned her attention back to the mare at the front desk. "Excuse me miss," she said, "We are going to be doing a good deal of looking around Hollow Shades. You wouldn't happen to have any tour guides or travel brochures or... aheh... well anything like that?" She tapered off awkwardly as she realized just how unlikely they were to have such things. But it was a hotel, after all, shouldn't that count for something?

To her relief the counter girl pointed to a wire rack standing nearby. "Oh, thank you," Twilight said, relieved at escaping a faux pas. She collected one of everything, including a town map. There wasn't much and it was covered in a disturbing layer of dust and cobwebs, but it was better than nothing.

She trotted over to where Spike, Flash and Peewee were holding court, and gave Flash a tap on the shoulder. "Got the room key, we might as well go on up," she said, indicating the window. The torrential downpour had let up slightly, but rain still came down steadily. "Oh, miss? The harbor keeper will be sending up the rest of our baggage later. Could you have it sent to our room when it arrives?"

"....Oh. Mister Angler's help is... coming up here?" the counter filly said faintly. She did not sound at all enthused. "...I mean... of course...as soon as it gets here..." she gave Twilight a weak smile.

"Excellent, thank you."

Flash shrugged to Spike and picked up his luggage. "Lead on, Princess," he said--- and the three of them froze. All three of them  struggled to keep their poker face. Cringing inwardly Twilight kept going, not looking back.... maybe they hadn't heard?

One of the greybeards chuckled to Flash. "One o' those kind, eh?" he said, nodding at the departing mare with a knowing wink to Flash.

"Heh. Don't let her hear you say that," Spike chuckled nervously.

"--Just a nickname we tease her with," Flash said, flushing and trying to look amused. "She's not that bad..."

"Excuse me?"

The two males flinched for real this time at the tone in Twilight's voice. "Nothing, nothing!" They grabbed their things and hustled to the staircase, the chuckles of the oldsters following after.

Flash was about three steps up when one of the natives warming his hooves by the fire cleared his throat. Flash paused and looked back.

"You be sure and lock your shutters tight tonight, y'hear?" the rumple-jacketed pony said. "Hollow Shades, 'taint no place to leave no windows open."

The look in his baggy eye was one Flash hadn't seen since field training... when drill sergeant casually told him to be sure and check his sleeping bag for scorpions before climbing into it. He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. "Sure thing," he said. He gave the old stallion a half-grin and trotted up the stairs after Twilight and Spike.

"Arrooooooowwwwhaarrggharrrble."

Spike sighed. "I hope they quit when the thunder stops, or that's gonna get annoying real fast." He grunted and shut the window.

The quarters they were in were fairly nice, if a bit on the gothic side. Everything was made of thick cut timbers and trimmed with wrought iron, and built solid as the trees from which the timbers came.  There were two heavy, four-poster beds, a large fireplace and a large desk and table. The room was lit by old fashioned iron lamps--- old fashioned, even by Equestrian standards; they used actual wicks and oil, rather than caged glowbugs-- that hung from the exposed beams in the low ceiling. Both windowsills had candlesticks as well, still unlit and looped by garlands of dried flowers and herbs. The windows were made of heavy leaded glass, too rippled and bubbled to see through clearly... not that it mattered; nopony could see anything outside anyway. Between the storm and the perpetual gloom of the forest, it was nearly as black as midnight outside.

Despite having few furnishings there were little touches here and there, tiny touches that showed the place had been built with a craftsman's care; carvings on the bare wooden beams, a touch of fancy ironwork on the window shutters and doors and around the fireplace.... though as for that, the subject of the artwork had an effect far less than homey and far more unsettling; odd, leering faces, strange symbols and cavorting, skulking, slinking animals that one could not quite identify.

Since the rain outside was keeping them shut in, Twilight had decided that time would be best spent setting up their temporary headquarters. A little wheedling and a few spare bits hoofed to the inn's staff(1) and a few extra tables and a set of shelves had been hastily shuffled to the room from other quarters. The rest of their luggage arrived, borne by ponies wrapped in lumpy hats and mackinaws who said nothing as they shuffled the trunks and cases into place, took their tip and hunched their way down the stairs. In short order Twilight had the shelves stacked with portable thaumaturgical gear, and the walls and table festooned with papers, photos, leaflets, and diagrams.

Flash had been busy in other ways. The moment they had arrived at the room he had surprised both Twilight and Spike by pushing past them and entering first. Twilight had almost barked at him for being rude.  Before she could get out a brief "Ut--?" He'd dropped his backpack in the doorway and proceeded to sweep the room.

The change from his easygoing, loose-limbed air from downstairs had been startling. He'd swung in around the door frame, scanning every corner of the room with his left flank to the wall, then checked the wardrobe, the water closet, even under the bed with a speed and professionalism that surprised her. He'd finished his quick search of the room and said "It's clear, Princess," pulling his camping bag out of the doorway and flinging it on one of the beds as if nothing had happened. "Dibs!"

Even now he was poking around the room, idly examining the windows, walls, furniture, even the floors and ceiling, poking at metal scrollwork around the windows and the engravings in the beams and posts. "It kind of dawns on me to ask," he said as he scrutinized the carvings in one of the bedposts, "Um, isn't our cover a lot thinner than it should be? I mean....a purple unicorn traveling with a purple dragon....considering everything, won't somepony put two and two together?"

Instead of answering, Spike and Twilight shared a look and started snickering.

"Was it something I said?" Flash said.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Spike said. "About us being conspicuous, that is."

"Well, ponies with dragon companions are actually more common than you'd think. (3) Plus you're forgetting one of the first rules about alicorns," Twilight said. "Or at least alicorn magic. Unless you're looking for us, or looking right at us, If we don't want to be noticed, we aren't." Twilight twiddled with one of the magical dinguses in her workplace and smiled at Flash.

Flash "aahed" and nodded. "The Somepony Else's Problem field. I read that memo..." he paused at her gimlet stare. "Okay, I skimmed it."

"Anyway, you know the gist of it," Spike said. "All alicorns do it distinctively."

"Instinctively," Twilight corrected. "There are a lot of rules and exceptions, and it's not a one hundred percent thing... and it has a chance of rebounding if you push it too hard. But alicorns have an aura that makes ponies forget that they saw them a moment after looking away. Or, well, not exactly forget," she amended, waving a hoof as she fished for the words. "More like forget that they wanted to remember."

"It makes them slide right out of your short-term memory," Flash suggested.

Twilight tapped her nose. "Exactly. Celestia tells me that she and Luna had one over them for a long time after they ascended," Twilight said. "They think it's like a protective adaptation for young alicorns. It certainly kept them safe during Discord's reign. They've really refined it over the centuries, too."

"Just ask Celestia about her collection of fake mustaches and beards sometime," Spike deadpanned.

"I'd... rather not," Flash said. "So... moving on from the magical see-me-not stuff... what leads you to think there's an alicorn or nascent here to be found, Twilight?"

"Setting aside all the in depth detailed  geographical and thaumaturgical data and analyses..." Twilight began.

"And the audience thanks you--" Spike interjected.

Twilight stuck her tongue out at him. "-- it boils down to the fact that this area is, well, a statistical anomaly," she continued. She poked at some charts taped to the wall, and a detailed map of the continent. "This valley is one of the biggest thaumatic turbulence zones in Equestria, next to the Everfree Forest and two or three other areas. Mana flows here are especially turbulent, and the natural geography tangles up the ley lines here something fierce. Researchers used to believe they were remainders of Discord's reign, but Celestia and Luna recently confirmed(2) that they predate even Discord."

"If I was a big shiny magick-y Alicorn, I'd want to hid in a place like that," Spike agreed.

"It's more than just that," Twilight said. "First, this place is a source for an almost endless river of superstition, folklore, bizarre happenings, weird encounters and outright horror stories than Ooky Spooky Writer Con '85. It's never been officially surveyed but there have been sightings of pretty much every monster that exists and a few that don't. If you believed half the tales, this place should be more dangerous and uninhabitable than Ghastly Gorge.

Second, besides getting here by balloon or by, as far as I can tell, one unmaintained, zig-zaggy perilous one-pony trail over the mountains, there's no connection with the outside world. Farmland consists of little one or two acre plots they hack out of the hillsides up above the forest line, a few herds of sheep.... Despite having a dock, they don't seem to have any fishing....  This place should be impoverished.

"In fact you'd think it was impoverished, going by the failure rate around here."

"Failure rate?" Spike said.

"Yes. There's a couple of small factories out here, a college, a hospital, an insane asylum-- though I think a couple of those last few are the same building-- A housing project, a military fort, a scattering of farms and frontier style settlements, at least a couple of mansions..." Twilight poked at pins on her map as she spoke.

"Big valley," Flash commented.

"But all of the above are shut down, dying out, abandoned or near-abandoned," Twilight continued.

"So.... something here is running them off?" Spike said ominously. "Or... making sure they never leave...."

Flash shrugged. "There's a much simpler explanation, Spike," he said. "It's easy enough to figure out. Ponies hear about how undeveloped this area is, how cheap the land is, and figure they've found the deal of the century. They come out here and start their businesses or farms or whatever and then find out there's no infrastructure to sustain them, not even a rail line or even a decent road. So their little enterprise fizzles out.

"Same story with the rich ponies and their mansions. They think this is a great place to get away from it all, then they find out that there's nothing here at all to get away TO." He looked out the drizzly window. "Let's face it, this place isn't exactly Rio de Ja-Mare-o." Thunder boomed. "So they get bored, leave and never come back."

Spike looked "Yeah. Bored. Like that one tycoon pony who moved out here and came back a month later. So 'bored' that his mane turned snowy white. His private nurses told folks he wouldn't look in mirrors and he woke up every night at midnight screaming..."

"Spike! Rein it in," Twilight snapped. Spike crossed his arms and glared at her defiantly.

"Ugh," Twilight said, rolling her eyes. "Spike's drama aside, it's bizarre. Everything that comes out here dies off..."

"Could you please not phrase it that way?" Spike pleaded.

"Yet... here we are." She gestured around her. "In a centuries-old inn, at the edge of a centuries-old village, smack dab in the center of a "haunted" forest. This place is on the far end of every bell curve you care to name. Everything that comes out here fades away, but the town of Hollow Shades just goes on and on." She tapped her chin. "Something... or somepony... is loading the dice in Hollow Shades' favor."

Spike's eyes went a little rounder. "Are you saying that the reason you think that there's an alicorn hiding here is because this place should actually be a whole lot worse?"

Lightning crashed outside. Everyone jumped a little. Flash grunted. "It makes sense," he said. "I mean if you stuck Ponyville in the middle of the Everfree, by the end of the week there wouldn't be anything left of it but a pile of monster poop."

"Fla-ash--" Twilight said, exasperated. Spike just snickered. The pegasus bodyguard shrugged as if to say 'well...?'

Twilight shook her head and went back to perusing the papers in front of her. She tapped her teeth with a pencil. "That's one of two possibilities, Spike" she said. "The more rational one is that the stories and legends about this place are just that-- stories and legends, and the dangers out here are wildly exaggerated. Let's be frank;  we flew in here and the only evidence we've seen so far of any 'dark and terrible horrors' are those timberwolves we heard..."

KRACK-Booom. "ARrroooooowwharrgarble."

"...Which don't impress me all that much," she finished with a wry look at the window.

There was a cry outside of "Hold still, yer bastid!" followed by the loud "whack." The timberwolf let out a loud "Yaaaik" and fell still.

"Noisy pests," they heard the resident timberjack growl. Followed by the slow, steady "thwack" of an axe at work. They all cringed and flinched as they listened to the timberwolf meet its splintery demise.

"I wouldn't think he'd work out in the rain," Flash remarked, flinching at a particularly loud 'crunch.'

They all nearly jumped out of their skins when something rapped against the windowpane . A distant flash of lightning revealed a sodden and rather disgruntled looking owl perched on the windowsill. "Owlowiscious!" Twilight exclaimed. "Quick, let him in, Spike." The window was thrown open and the library owl hopped his way inside. He shook off-- eliciting a shout of annoyance from Spike, who was in splash range-- and fluttered over to perch on a chair near the fireplace, giving the rest of them a disgusted look and a reproachful hoot for good measure.

"Don't give us that, Buster," Twilight said. "You wanted to fly off and do your own thing, get acquainted with the forest and all that." Owlowiscious sulked, but made no further comment. "So what did you find?" Owlowiscious proceeded to hoot, whistle and coo for several seconds. "Huh, you don't say..."

"You can understand him?"

"Fluttershy taught me some basics in Owl," Twilight explained. "He says he's been out talking to the other wildlife in the forest, getting the lay of the land..."

"Figures," Spike huffed. "Spooky old owl, flies around the Everfree all the time on his nightly hunts. He's probably right at home in this place."

Owlowiscious hooted. "He says 'not really, this place gives me the creeps.' "

"Nyerrgh."

"He says it wasn't easy getting them to talk; the forest critters around here are really skittish. But a couple of ravens told him a few things. Spike, write this down--- Owlowiscious, could you repeat that bit?" Spike obediently fetched a quill and paper. Owlowiscious hooted and cooed some more; Twilight translated.  "They said... the places where 'those who build nests on the ground'(4)--- that's what they call us--- "the places where 'those who build nests on the ground' live are bad for animals, but places where they used to live are worse. Stay away from the darkest parts of the woods, and the deep waters, and go to your burrows in the deep of night, because there are things that walk there that shouldn't."

The stallion and the dragonling stared at her. There was a crash of lightning outside. And, unfortunately no gargling wolf made of wood for comic relief. "Things... that walk... that shouldn't," Spike recited carefully.

"That could mean anything," Twilight cautioned. "Forest animals use that phrase for anything that moves around on its own that isn't alive. They call locomotive engines 'Things that walk that shouldn't.' "

"Like dead things," Spike said, unrelenting.

"Spike!"

"You read those stories too..." he complained.

"Yes, and the point is they're just stories."

"Stories that the ponies around here believe, your Highness," Flash pointed out. "I talked with the oldsters down in the lobby. They had more than one ghost story to tell-- and I could tell they took them dead serious. To the point they cautioned me to lock the window shutters at night as if all our lives depended on it."

"You got that impression?" she asked.

"They looked at PeeWee like he was a lifeline." The phoenix chick fluffed up at the implied compliment. "And it's more than just that. Look--" he proceeded to point out features around the room. "The doors and shutters on this place are made of planks thick enough to stop a cannonball. The windows are thick leaded glass. Even the inside doors have bolts and sliding bars.

"Now look at the decorations. Iron horseshoes--- old school ones, the kind that NAILED on, over the fireplace and on the crossbeams, at the four cardinal points."

"That's a common enough decoration," Twilight said. "A bit medieval, if you ask me, but--"

"The mantelpiece over the fireplace and both windows are decorated with dried herbs," Flash continued. He walked around the room, pointing things out. "Rosemary, blackberry, sage, even some dried-out bits of mistletoe. The decorative glassware, those little jars on the sill and mantel? Filled with rock salt. And I bet some of them are silver salts. The fireplace and window frames are done in old school wrought iron, or cold iron as it's called. And you can barely see it under the tarnish but the candlesticks in each window are silver.

"The floorboards are oak--- to be expected--" he stamped for emphasis. "But the paneling on the walls? Ash. I suspect the shutters are made of oak or ash as well." He picked up a vase that had been left on an end table. "Take a look at this...." he held it up to the light. A tangle of thin spindly wires and thread could be seen inside. "This is an old fashioned witch bottle or fairy trap. Weak protection, wouldn't hardly stop a unicorn foal's sneeze, but if you were pestered by malicious breezies or pixies or will o' wisps.... The decorative carvings in the beams? X's overlaid on O's, five-branched trees, nested crosses, leering faces--- Symbols that supposedly repelled ancient horrors.

"And for a final touch, pop quiz: what color was the inn painted?"

"I didn't get a good look, what with running inside in the rain-- but wasn't it painted cream and blue?" Twilight said.

Flash nodded seriously. "All the doors, shutters and trim are painted in a color known as 'Haint blue...' a color believed in folklore to repel ghosts and evil spirits. And from what I've seen on the way up, this is the way the whole place is decorated."

Twilight looked at the features her bodyguard pointed out, her eyes flitting back and forth as she added up everything Flash had shown her. "You're right," she said. "This isn't just an inn; it's an anti-monster fortress."

The thunder rumbled again. "Iiiiiii'm gonna lock the shutters," Spike said. He waddled over to the windows with unsurprising haste.

"So, your Highness," Flash said, taking a deep breath. "What's our next step?"

Twilight Sparkle was a very intelligent pony. She was sometimes too clever for her own good. She had forgotten more book knowledge than the next three ponies had ever learned, She was analytical and deductive and fastidious and methodical to the point of bordering on obsessive compulsive personality disorder, but she was not, as some more unkind souls had sometimes said, an arbitrary skeptic.

Because, after all, as we have just pointed out, she wasn't freaking stupid.

She bit her lip. "We proceed as planned," she said. "This is our headquarters. We go out and work during the day, bunker down here at night, and go nowhere without being armed for Ursa Minor... and try and see if we can't find the alicorn that's keeping the monsters at bay."

"Um, Twilight..." Spike said, hesitantly.

"What, Spike?"

"Um, aren't you kind of assuming that this mystery alicorn, if there is one here, is one of the good guys?"

All of them, even Owlowiscious, got very very quiet at that.  "Note to self," Twilight said. "Slight oversight in our preparatory measures for possible new alicorns....

"I'm.... really really glad that Fluttershy isn't here right now," Twilight said, in a weak attempt at humor. "She has a hard enough time on Nightmare Night...."

"Yeah, ahhehheh," Spike said. "She'd be so petrified we'd have to put her in a trolly and roll her around. Her next stop couldn't possibly be as as much trouble for her as this one would have been."

The Unicorn Mountain National Forest was a delight to the eye, a rolling green carpet of emerald and gold in the morning light. The breeze that blew over it was fresh with dew and the smell of green, growing things, every lungful invigorating. Birdsong could be heard in the branches below, waking to the dawn.

The Nature's Child glided in over the Unicorn Mountains, brushing the treetops, serene as a swan on a mill pond. Princess Fluttershy and the young Duke Breezy Shy were on already on the deck, warming their wings in the morning sun. Rather than her regal finery, Fluttershy was kitted out in woodland explorer gear--- pith helmet, saddlebags, and pink butterfly neckerchief(5). Breezy wore the same, along with a many-pocketed ranger vest and a neckerchief was a considerably more manly blue. Fluttershy was pacing back in forth in excitement. "Oh my, I can't believe how much I've been looking forward to this," she said.

Breezy Shy couldn't help blinking in surprise. He wasn't the only one; even Captain Snowflake was giving her a surprised look.  "Neither can I," Breezy said. "I mean, not to be mean or anything, Fluttershy, but you've never... really.... liked crowds much."

"Oh, well," Fluttershy said, scuffing a hoof. "working with little foals is different. I feel so much more confident, really. Oh I'm so looking forward to teaching all the young colts about nature and the forest critters..."

Captain Snowflake and Lieutenant Captain Zephyr gave each other a look. Zephyr, by long association, knew that he would have to be the one to speak; Snowflake had volume control problems around non-military.  "Ah, your Highness, we should warn you: young foals, especially colts, can be a rambunctious lot..."

Princess Fluttershy giggled. "I'm not totally inexperienced with handling young ponies, Captain Zephyr," she said. "There are these three fillies... oh I could tell you stories." She gave him a smile.

"Yes, but, how good are you at platoons of them?" Zephyr insisted. They were gliding in now over the campsite; he waved a hoof over the rail at the seeming hundreds of tents that clustered under the trees below.

Fluttershy hesitated. There were a rather lot of them... "No, everything will be fine," she insisted. "Besides, I'm not doing this all by myself. I'm sure the troop leaders have them well in hoof."

They came in over the sun-dappled forest to the landing field, coasting in for a picture perfect landing. "Oh look, how nice," Fluttershy said. "They're in formation to welcome us." It was true; scores of young colts in Colt Scout uniforms were standing in... somewhat regular rows and columns, interspersed with older stallions who were obviously the troop leaders. Even from here several of the colts could be seen yawning; it was apparently an early morning for everypony.  

Zephyr frowned as he regarded the rows and columns of ponies with a practiced eye. "There seems to be a couple of troops missing..." he shrugged it off. It was Colt Scouts, not the Royal Guard.

"Private Roughy, Private Aegis, attend the Princess!" Captain Snowflake barked. The two stallions jumped and fell into place on either side of Fluttershy and her little brother.(6) "Lower the gangplank!"

"PRESENTING HER HIGHNESS, PRINCESS FLUTTERSHY!" Snowflake bellowed. Fluttershy glided down the gangplank, Breezy Shy trailing bashfully behind, her two guards stepping in time on either side.

Fidgety colts jumped to an approximation of attention, standing stiffly in place with expressions on their faces like they were badly constipated.  Fluttershy quickly stepped to the microphone waiting at the bottom of the gangplank. "Oh! um.... at ease?" The colts slouched with audible relief. "Thank you, thank you one and all for your welcome," she said, smiling. "I'm very happy to be here for the Colt Scout Jamboree. I'm sure we're all going to have lots of fun---"

"FIIIIIRE!"

The colts roused in alarm; the troop leaders barked orders, barely hemming in the spreading disorder. in the distance, up the middle of the campground came a group of colts, running hell bent for leather straight for the assembly. The one in the lead was bellowing "FIRE!" with every other breath; the others were just yelling in panic. And behind them, in a rolling, smoky grey wave, came---

Squirrels. Hundreds and hundreds of barking, chattering, squalling squirrels.

They were bounding along in hot pursuit of the fleeing colts, and even the ponies present who couldn't speak to animals could tell from the sound that they were pissed. They spread out as they came, engulfing the campground in angry furry rodent.

That did it. The carefully regimented scouts panicked and scattered in every direction, their troop leaders in pursuit. Some ran for the trees, others ran for the hills, others ran in circles.

"Guards! On the Princess!" Snowflake bellowed. Half a score of armored ponies leapt or flew down from the ship to form a phalanx around Fluttershy and her brother. Golden Aegis lit up his horn, surrounding the group in a glowing field.

"Aegis! Set that field to squirrel-only, and I cannot believe I just said that," Zephyr shouted.

"Already done, Sir," Aegis said. The glow spread outward, taking in more ponies and sending some of the squirrels running. The rippling bubble of light stopped at about a hundred feet. "Best I can do sir," Aegis said apologetically.

"It'll have to do," Zephyr replied. It seemed to be more than enough; already campers were flocking to the safety of the squirrel free zone, nursing bites and scratches.

A red-maned earth pony, wearing a campaign hat and a whistle and a face so red it looked boiled--- presumably the Scoutmaster General--- came galloping up. "Princess, I have no idea what is going on but I do apologize for--- " he began, only to be interrupted when the five colts everypony had first seen fleeing the rodent wave barreled into his legs. He rolled to his feet and regarded the five scouts sprawled all around him. "TROOP THIRTEEN THIRTEEN!" He shouted, his face going even redder. "What is the meaning of this?"

Ignoring the angry stallion, the five colts turned their attention to the princess. "We're sorry--"

"We don't know what went wrong--"

" WHAT DID YOU DO?"

At the Scoutmaster General's roar, the colts jumped and spun around to face him.

"It's not our fault!"

"We just wanted to invite some of the local animals to the welcoming party," one said.

Another jumped in. "So we had Chatterbox--" he pointed to a colt with a double word-bubble cutie mark and a guilty expression. "--Talk to a couple of squirrels to try and invite them...."

"And we dunno what he said to them but he really cheesed 'em off--"

"It's not my fault!" Chatterbox protested. "I don't know what I said wrong, I'm bad at squirrel and rodent--"

"AAAAGH!" one of them shouted, pointing at a nearby squirrel-mobbed tent. It was shaking and spewing shredded belongings out the flap like someone had set loose a running weed eater inside. "They've gotten into our tent! They're going for my Fruity Oaty bar stash!" He grabbed a fallen tree branch and raced to rescue his precious hoard of candy.

"My comics!" "My sleeping bag!" "My underpants!"  Colts began grabbing whatever weapon was handy--- branches, butterfly nets, pillows, campfire utensils---and charged off to try and save their campsite from the angry rodents.

Fluttershy couldn't help it. There were just some things that inevitably had to be said. "But why were you yelling 'FIRE?' " she asked Chatterbox.

Chatterbox gave her a look that said worlds about what a boy thought about the smarts of dumb ol' girls. "'Cause nopony woulda COME if I'd shouted 'SQUIRRELS,' " he said scornfully. He grabbed a hotdog skewer and ran off to do battle with the squirrelly horde.

The Scoutmaster General turned to Fluttershy with an expression of stonefaced stoicism. "Welcome to the Jamboree, Ma'am," he said with a tip of his hat brim. That said he turned and ran off after his campers, yelling orders he knew would be ignored and blowing blasts on his whistle that were ignored only slightly less.

Fluttershy watched the growing bedlam all around her in dismay and said the only thing that came to mind:

"Oh...My....."

(1)Two lanky, crack-voiced colts who were the innkeeper's sons.

(2)The study of ancient history gets a lot less ambiguous when you have eyewitnesses to it sitting on the throne. At least after one of them learns her lesson and stops playing Cryptic Maiden of Mystery with her interviewers.

(3)She was quite correct. It was an unsurprising consequence of her alma mater's predilection for using abandoned dragon eggs for admissions testing. While most of the hatchings that resulted were adopted back into dragon clans, some few stayed in pony hooves. Most of the dragon-unicorn partnerships that resulted were far flung explorers in service to the crown, chosen because they represented-- right from the hatching-- the ideal partnership of high magical talent and physical toughness.

(3a)It has to be noted the ponies in question tended to have rather... unique talents. For instance you had the she-dragonling Flambe' who was partnered with the dashing and often slightly crispy vulcanologist Asbestos the Inflammable, and the Monsterologist duo of Fang the Fierce and Bezoar the Indigestible, whose discoveries concerning proper procedure for giant monster diplomacy were of questionable value (generally summed up with the single word "Don't"), but compensated for with his startlingly detailed studies of various monstrous creature's alimentary canals. The inside view, one might say.

(4)The meaning of the phrase is different depending on the species of critter, of course. 'Those who build their nest on the ground' is the phrase used by birds. But groundhogs call them 'those who have burrows on top of the grass,' beavers call them 'those who build their lodges on dry land,' et cetera. The common thread being the obvious one:  they think that the talking beasts are crazy for building their homes where they do.

(5)Said outfit was making some of her Guards' brains sizzle with fantasies of heroic rescues from savage cannibal pony jungle tribes featuring themselves and an artfully disheveled and ever-so-grateful nature loving princess...

(6) Zephyr noted with some amusement that Orange Roughy took the side furthest from the young Duke.