Doing the Dirty Work [Open!]

[appletastic]

How did Applejack stand working so hard around the farm? Her secret was simple: combining work and play. She'd brought the same styl to Hydroponics, where she'd sectioned off a small patch of the ground to be a place for some of the animals to play. The grass was dug up and seeds were planted elsewhere, water was poured, and Applejack herself was pounding her legs into the dirt. Making mud! Her bright orange coat was now coated in brown, and the longer she worked, the further she sank.

But this wasn't very fun. Back home, she'd done---yeah, that was what was missing! She hopped out of her little mud pit, tracked dirt across the grass, and set off at a fast trot. "Yee-haw!"

If anypony happened to be hanging about, they'd be splattered when the large pony came crashing down, rolling in her little pit of dirt. Her hat sat some distance to the side, miraculously untouched by the splattering of mud. Surely most would know to stay away from such a display.

Comments

[morganknight]

"A little less than most kids, I think!" he said, hoping that she'd interpret kids as children and not young goats. "But once I hit around sixteen or so, man, the trouble I got into!"

[appletastic]

She'd figured it out by now, thankfully. Goats couldn't grow up into people! It just didn't happen.. "How bad?"

[morganknight]

That's lucky.

"Welllll, it's kind of a long story, but if you want to hear it... It takes a lot of background explanation, just as a warning!" Not that he minded telling it, but she might get bored with it...

[appletastic]

"I've got time," Applejack said almost too quickly, plopping back down on the grass. "Can't grow trees if you can't do a little waiting."

[morganknight]

"Well." Morgan rubbed his chin a moment, pondering how to proceed. What did he know about her world that he could use as a parallel to explain --

Wait, why did he need a parallel?

"Your world has magic on it. Do you ever sometimes feeling that magic can be more trouble that it's worth? That it can be more dangerous than good?"

[appletastic]

"Just about every day," Applejack said with a little laugh. "That's why we do some things without magic. Tends to be a big mess otherwise."

[morganknight]

This could set the discussion in an interesting light... "Well, imagine over time that it grew into two groups of people -- a small group of people who could use magic, and a large group of people who wanted to be safe, secure, and live in peace, instead of having weird supernatural creatures and magic threatening them."

[appletastic]

"I can picture it." She did imagine. She did more than imagine. Equestria felt juts like that sometimes, and she was guilty of keeping it going. "I feel it sometimes too. Only unicorn ponies can use magic where I'm from. Pegasus ponies can fly, but earth ponies like me gotta get by on our own four hooves. Sometimes their fancy-saddle magic messes everything right up."

But she was still listening, ears pitched forward.

[morganknight]

"Now imagine the second group of people managed to win over so much public support that they almost, almost crush magic out of existence in the name of safety, security, and progress."

At least this discussion was comprehensible to her! Which in itself was a little odd...

[appletastic]

"Oh my stars..." She's never directly experienced it, but she could imagine it. "I might get grumpy with 'em sometimes, but never that. Never. How bad was it?"

[morganknight]

"Well, as history tells us, in one great battle the forces of Science and Technology broke the back of Magick, and for hundred of years since it's been in a sharp decline. In my modern day, it's secret knowledge. Most people -- almost all people -- don't know it exists. Don't believe in it. It's a fairy tale, a fantasy story, everyone knows there's no such thing as magic."

This is where it stopped working quite so well as an analogy, since as he understood it, all ponies who could do magic had horns. Kind of hard to hide that.

"There's an entire secret organization dedicated to keeping it that way, too. If they find someone who can use magic -- a '"reality deviant' as they'd say -- they'd do something to take them out before anyone could find out the secret."

[appletastic]

"Gosh," Applejack whispered, her ears drooping. That sounded completely awful. "And where do you fit into the picture? Are you...you know?"

[morganknight]

"A Mage, yes. Though I should add that on Earth -- on my Earth, there are a lot -- any human has the potential to work magic in one way or another. Most of them never do, because being able to do it requires you realize, on a very deep and primal level of yourself," he said, touching a fist to the base of his rib cage, "that reality isn't static. It's all based on belief.

"Some years back I kinda got my soul yanked into and trapped in a magic sword. That woke me up real quick. Nothing but trouble since," he said with a grin.

[appletastic]

That was...really neat, actually. She smiled up at him, shaking her head. "But it's all okay here, ain't it? Sure, there's still trouble, but you're not gonna be 'taken care of'?"

[morganknight]

"Nope," he said, his grin turning confident. "But you gotta admit, that's really only trading one problem for another, right?"

[appletastic]

"Yup. But we'll all take care of it together!" she promised, waving her hooves in the air in a little hop. "Now how 'bout we rest up a bit?"

[morganknight]

"You're the one that's been cantering around," Morgan pointed out with a smile. "I've barely done anything but get muddy."

[appletastic]

"That's true. But I thought you might've come from someplace where you were doing that training. I need to do more of that, actually. Things just got wild around the barn," she said apologetically.

[morganknight]

"It's been a long time since I wore myself out training. Most of what I do is maintenance and slow progression, you know? So it's very sustainable." He lifted his fists to flex briefly, just because he liked to show off. "I've got endurance to spare!"

[appletastic]

"Showoff," Applejack rolled her eyes, but fondly. "All right. Not that I'm a branch ready to break myself, but I oughta work on getting up there."

[morganknight]

"When you work as hard as I do, you get to show off a little. It's a reward. But you're definitely not in danger of breaking. You just need to learn to use what you've got!"

Applejack was impossible not to like, in Morgan's view.

[appletastic]

"I will," Applejack promised, smiling over at him. "If I can be the best farmpony, I can be a good warrior too."

[morganknight]

He nodded firmly. "And for a lot of the same reasons. Strength and stamina are good, but those can be learned. It's responsibility and hard work that matter the most."

[appletastic]

"I can do that." It was a date, then. "Guess I'll be seeing a lot more of you?"

[morganknight]

Unless somehow he ended up with a girl stuck in his body, but what were the odds of that happening?

"Maybe too much. You might have nightmares about me once I start really putting you through some paces." He paused, then. "Um, is that a horrible expression to use in this case?" Because despite it having entered into common usage, Morgan had realized that it originally applied to, well, equines...