Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
The sun was just touching the horizon as everypony flopped down into their seats, dropping their bags and releasing sighs of relief as they sat down.
“My poor hooves,” whimpered Slip ‘n’ Slide, reaching down to gingerly rub his back legs. Even that was enough to make him wince.
“I don’t suppose there’s a pair of tweezers anywhere?” asked Funshine, examining his rear hooves with a grimace. “I think I have splinters.”
“That’s because you were trying too hard,” chastised Granola Bar.
Funshine gave her a sullen look, hearing the self-satisfaction in her voice. For whatever reason, she’d picked up on the intricacies of their job the fastest out of all of them. “Well maybe if that guy had given us better instructions…”
“I thought it was kind of fun,” offered Hopscotch with a tired smile, before hefting one of the bags that they’d carried on board with them. “And we got all this food.”
“We’re just lucky that family needed help so badly,” murmured Fencer, directing her attention out the window. “We were able to negotiate for enough money for all five of us to buy tickets to Vanhoover, and take a cut of their crops as well.”
“Yeah, except for the part where they got to pick which ones we got,” groused Slip ‘n’ Slide. As if to demonstrate his point, he reached down and picked up an apple from the bag next to him, biting into it. A moment later he grimaced. “Muthy.”
Granola Bar frowned slightly. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“And don’t complain,” added Fencer. “It wasn’t that long ago that we would have been ecstatic to have discovered a bag of mushy apples.”
Her voice was gentle, but the rebuke was still enough to make Slip ‘n’ Slide wince, and he ate the rest of his apple in silence. The sound of his chewing acted as a signal, and the others all dug out apples from their own bags, eating quietly as other passengers filled up the train car, taking the seats around them. It was only when they’d all finished that Hopscotch spoke up. “I feel bad for those apple farmers.”
Funshine paused in examining his rear hooves to her a quizzical look. “Why? That Big Mac guy seemed like he could have kept bucking those trees without getting so much as a bruise. Not like – ow! – us.” Wincing as he pulled a splinter from his hoof, he tossed it out the window with a sigh.
“They just seemed so desperate, since there were more trees than he and his family could handle on their own.” Hopscotch’s ears folded back with guilt. “And we used that to take advantage of them.”
“After how hard they worked us, I think it was a fair deal,” scoffed Slip ‘n’ Slide.
Granola Bar put a hoof around Hopscotch reassuringly. “They’ll be fine. Remember what we heard Spike say when he read Twilight’s letter? Big Mac’s sister will be back tomorrow. She’ll be able to help them turn things around.”
But Hopscotch didn’t look like she felt any better. “We could at least have told him that. He seemed really worried about how they hadn’t been able to buck enough apples with her having been gone for so long, and I know I overheard that poor old lady say something about how they were in danger of losing the farm. They would have been relieved to know that she was coming back.”
Slip ‘n’ Slide snorted. “Yeah, and then they would have asked us how we knew that, and we would have had to mention how we were eavesdropping on Twilight Sparkle’s pet dragon.”
“We weren’t eavesdropping,” frowned Funshine. “We just happened to bump into him when he got that letter, and he was the one who read it out loud anyway.”
“And Spike isn’t a pet,” added Hopscotch with a frown of her own.
Slip ‘n’ Slide huffed. “Yeah, well, I’m just saying I still don’t get why asking Rarity for help would have been too dangerous, but going to Applejack’s family farm was apparently fine.”
“We’ve been over this, Slip,” sighed Granola Bar. “Nopony else had any better ideas, and since Twilight’s letter to Spike let us know that Applejack herself wasn’t there, it was the best we could do.”
“And it worked,” added Funshine. “We got enough money for the train, and enough apples for all of us for the trip.”
But Slip ‘n’ Slide’s response was to paw at the cushion-covered seat beneath him. “Yeah, well, getting enough money for a sleeping car would have been better, instead of having to spend the entire way there in coach.” When nopony replied to his complaint, he heaved a sigh. “How long is it going to take us to get to Vanhoover anyway?”
“Five days.”
The answer came from Fencer, looking away from the window at last. “I asked the attendant as we were getting on,” she added. “It’s a five-day trip from Ponyville to Vanhoover.”
Funshine cocked his head, looking confused. “But we got to Canterlot from there in almost half that time.”
“That was because it was an emergency,” explained Granola Bar. “We were carrying injured ponies who needed medical attention, which was why Lex told the train to get to Canterlot as fast as it could. It didn’t slow down at any other stops or try and conserve fuel. But that won’t be the case now.”
“Maybe it should be, with how the sun fell out of the sky for a couple minutes,” muttered Slip ‘n’ Slide.
The comment sent a shudder through Fencer, nor was she the only among them to react that like. There’d been more than enough clues for them to put the pieces together. First was how neither Princess Celestia nor Princess Luna had been in Canterlot, with Princess Cadance and her husband having come down from the Crystal Empire to watch over the city in their stead. Then there’d been Fencer’s meeting with Princess Luna in her dream, and how agitated the princess had become at Fencer’s inadvertent admission that Lex had been cursing ponies. Then there’d been Soft Mane’s comment about “that awful stallion and what he did to Princess Luna,” to which Spike had mentioned Lex in response.
That Twilight Sparkle – the pony who had, with the help of her friends, saved Equestria from monsters such as Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Tirek – was apparently hurrying back in response to whatever had happened had been enough to tie Fencer’s stomach in knots.
But it had been the incident with the sun that had truly worried her.
That the sun had, earlier that afternoon, suddenly set had taken everypony by surprise. But while most ponies had apparently been relieved when it had returned to its previous position a few minutes later and gone about their day with an “all’s well that ends well” attitude, Fencer hadn’t been one of them. For her, it had served as the final confirmation that something had gone horribly wrong.
The princesses had gone to Vanhoover, encountered Lex, and something terrible had happened as a result.
And it might be my fault. From a rational point of view, she knew that wasn’t a fair assessment. Based on her reaction when she’d let slip that Lex was cursing other ponies, it was obvious to Fencer that Princess Luna had already been suspicious of him. Moreover, Lex had never tried to hide his use of curses as instruments of punishment against those ponies that had committed terrible misdeeds, which meant the princesses would have learned about it soon after arriving in Vanhoover anyway. Thus, in her head, Fencer knew she had nothing to feel guilty about.
But in her heart, she couldn’t help but worry that this was like when she’d unwittingly sent Turbo to his death all over again. That thought was bad enough on its own, but with how much had happened to her over the last few days, the mere prospect of even more guilt made Fencer want to scream. Not because of the pain that thought brought her, but because it was yet another shock to her system. Having gone from being a heartless criminal to being punished and forced into repentance, only to then be declared reformed and subsequently forgiven by the ponies she’d hurt most, had left her reeling. The prospect, no matter how remote, that she had more to feel guilty over was quite simply more than she could handle right now.
The one bright spot had been that all indications of disaster had been related to the princesses, rather than Lex. Princess Luna had apparently had something bad done to her, and the incident with the sun had been an ominous sign about Princess Celestia. But as for what had happened to Lex himself, there had been no indication.
That thought had been a source of hope for her, enough so that Fencer had been surprised at herself. While she still felt a lingering resentment at the princesses for never having come to their rescue when she and her friends had been trapped in Vanhoover, to say nothing of their failure to prevent the city from falling in the first place, that had been weak even before Luna had apologized to her in her dream. It certainly wasn’t enough to explain why she was apparently more worried for Lex than for them. But eventually, she’d come upon the answer.
Lex Legis was someone she admired.
The thought had been shocking enough that, when she’d first had it, Fencer had managed to miss her apple tree completely, instead bucking her empty bucket through the air and onto Slip ‘n’ Slide’s head. But she’d barely heard Slip’s indignant yells or Granny Smith’s peals of laughter, too thunderstruck to do anything but figure out why she apparently idolized the pony that had cursed her.
In fact, the answer had been quite simple. Lex wasn’t just the pony that had cursed her; he was the one who had redeemed her. If it hadn’t been for him, she’d still have been the monster she was, cruelly preying on others for her own sake.
But Lex had forced her to change, for the better. He’d had the strength to not only resist everything she’d thrown at him, but to push back with even greater power, driving her to such desperation that it had shattered the walls she’d built around her heart, letting her hear her father’s voice again. He’d refused to accept the remorse that she’d shown, cursing her for her crimes instead, which in turn had made his subsequent declaration that she’d been reformed – and that he was willing to trust her with other ponies’ lives – feel worthwhile because she’d earned it. And he’d kept her alive until she’d been able to do that, saving her even when she’d been intent on throwing her life away in a suicidal charge against the ghoul horde.
Lex Legis had excised the darkness within her, saved her life, and given her back her self-respect.
And just like that, Fencer had known the real reason why she’d wanted to go back to Vanhoover so badly. The stability she’d wanted wasn’t the stability of a familiar place; it was the stability of the pony whose spirit, unlike her own, had never wavered no matter what had happened. The help she wanted to give wasn’t directed towards the ponies still at the refugee camp; it was directed towards the pony who had been the one to help her.
Lex had been there for her when she’d needed someone, and now she wanted to be there for him. I might be too late for whatever’s happened with the princesses, Fencer vowed as she felt the train begin to move, barely hearing the blare of the whistle, but there’s one thing I can do right now. It was nothing more than a symbolic gesture, but right now it seemed like the perfect way to express her appreciation for the second chance she’d been given. After all, Lex hadn't worked so hard to help her just so she could remain the pony she'd been when he'd found her...
“I’ve decided.”
“Hm?” Granola Bar blinked, sharing an uncomprehending look with the others before turning back toward her. “Decided what?”
“On my name.” Banishing the last of her doubts, she took a deep breath. “I’m going back to being Garden Gate. For good.”
Fencer, or rather, Garden Gate and her friends board the train back to Vanhoover!
With her new resolve to come to Lex's aid, has Garden found a new purpose in her life, or is she making a mistake?
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Well, that's one successful case on Lex's method on dealing with criminals though the irony of how her thoughts of Lex being unwavering is now being tested at the moment is rather amusing.
I also find it funny how Sweet Apple Acres is on the verge of losing the farm and yet still be able to pay five workers enough bits for a ticket to Vanhoover. Either Granny Smith is exaggerating or train tickets are super cheap.
I wonder if we will ever be given a canon full map or even track, rail or distance list that settles the fixed distances then trades off the various times, as explained here, as the differences between plodding, walking, galloping and Pony Express.
Buisiness can fail even when profitable, especially if they are paying off a loan, and the bank decides they waant you to keep paying off the debt, so the instance you fall behind or even pay extra, they call in the loan to take everything and repeat with the next owners. Dont forget Flim Flam banks.
9806357
Given that Garden Gate has had her world thrown into upheaval multiple times in rapid succession, it's fairly unsurprising that Lex's stern and uncompromising nature is appealing to her now. While we know that he does struggle with various things, particularly when they deal with personal issues, she's not wrong to see him as someone who neither bends nor breaks in the face of hardship. Given that she did exactly that, her now looking to him as some sort of paragon of strength is perhaps fitting. Lex might have a problem with how to placate the Night Mare now, but I suspect that if Garden knew about that she'd believe, not wrongly, that whatever action Lex took would still be undertaken on his terms.
The implication there was supposed to be (and I admit that I'm not sure how clearly this came through; the line between "subtlety" and "undetectability" is often difficult for an author to detect, since we already know what we're trying to say and so can't easily judge how much that's coming through to the readers) that Big Mac and Granny Smith weren't able to pull in a full harvest on their own with Applejack gone (a la Applebuck Season, season one, episode four), and so were losing money to the point of their farm being in danger. To that end, they'd dipped into their remaining bits to hire those five as temporary workers in what was basically an act of desperation: spending money in hopes that they'd be able to harvest enough apples to make up for the cost of hiring temp workers and then some. In other words, spending money to make money. That's why they threw in the apples that were about to go bad, in order to try and keep costs down; Fencer and co. were obviously hungry, and didn't want to spend money on food, and those were the crops least likely to sell anyway due to their age (hence why Slip 'n' Slide's apple was mushy).
9806635
I doubt it. The various canon maps that we've gotten for Equestria so far (three of them) have not only not shown a key to measure distance, but have at times gone out of their way to tell us that they're not to scale. I can understand why they do that, since it would be just another thing that the writers would need to keep in mind without helping them make the show entertaining (which is their primary goal), but it's quite inconvenient for those of us who want to invest more deeply in the setting.
We're told repeatedly in the early seasons that the Apple family is having trouble making ends meet. This is directly referenced in The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 (season two, episode fifteen) and Magical Mystery Cure (season three, episode thirteen), and is alluded to in Bats! (season four, episode seven). But we're never told exactly why that is. It seems odd to think that they'd have issues with a mortgage (the word "mortgage" is never once mentioned in any episode to date, I'll note), since Family Appreciation Day (season two, episode twelve) tells us that their family founded Ponyville. Likewise, there's never any mention of needing to repay a loan (the word "loan" only ever being mentioned by Discord in The Break Up Break Down, season eight, episode ten, as part of his backstory for "Skellinore," so that doesn't really establish anything). The only other thing I can think of would be problems paying taxes, presumably property taxes, but other than a background yell of "I'll do your taxes!" by an off-screen (as I recall) pony in The Ticket Master (season one, episode three), Equestria doesn't seem to have those, since one throw-away line isn't really enough to go on.
For whatever reason, keeping Sweet Apple Acres afloat is definitely hard to do without Applejack there to help. Of course, that's the sort of thing that an agriculture subsidy would help with...as Lex explained to Apple Bloom in chapter 43 of The Apple Falls Far From the Tree.
9806875
They could have a mortgage because they needed a loan at some point. That's how a lot of mortgages work, although they're typically 'second mortgages' since most people don't get the land granted to them outright.
Or it could be some sort of internal apple-family matter -- like, the rest of the family was skeptical that an old lady and some kids could take care of the farm after the parents disappeared and wanted to let some adults take over, and Granny Smith made some sort of stupid bet that she could keep the farm productive.
9806921 That's certainly a possibility (presumably it'd happen when there was a bad harvest one year, due to something like apple blight or a vampire fruit bat infestation), but it doesn't really help with the show's total lack of evidence for that level of financial infrastructure (if we're presuming that their loan came from a bank). We could just as easily (perhaps more easily) say that they received a personal loan from Filthy Rich and that's what they're struggling to pay back, presumably because he demanded their land as collateral in case they defaulted.
Cute to hear about this gang doing stuff like working the apple orchards for train fare.
Still surprised Garden gives more credit to Lex than her friends, but she's set her mind on that.
That said, I feel like she is not going to take news of the death of Silhouette well.
9807443 Well, with Applejack not there, someone had to help tend Sweet Apple Acres.
With regards to Garden's crediting Lex for her redemption rather than her friends, I'm not sure why you'd be surprised. While her friends have always been supportive of her, that was as much part of the problem as it was the solution. They were just as supportive of her being cruel and ruthless as they've been of her coming back from that. They're followers, and they ultimately take their cues from her. It's not so much that they're yes-mares, but rather that they fall in line with the reasoning and ideals that their chosen leader puts forth, so while they can offer comfort or advice or encouragement, they don't have it in them to be the ones to step in and force a change when one needs to be made.
As for Silhouette's death...we'll just have to see how Garden reacts to that.
Also, any thoughts on the previous chapter?
9807522 Not really an expert on the harem genre per se. Have to see how that plays out.
This means we might get a meet up soon, which would mean less time spent away from Lex, hopefully.
9808032 Well, it's going to take some time for the gang to get back to Vanhoover, and between now and then Lex has to figure out how to deal with the Night Mare's demand. But that will put him back in the spotlight, at least.
it sounds like Garden Gate has chosen her side for the coming war.
9810043 Well, there might not be a further round of hostilities; Lex and the alicorns could still find a way to sit down and work everything out, right?
...right?
9810068