Butter Up stood on the asphalt, her wings relaxed by her sides. In the distance, she could hear a train whistling, and she looked down the track in the direction of the sound. There was no trail of smoke—steam trains had been an anachronism when Butter Up was young—but the distinctive click-clack of the wheels on the rails hadn’t changed in a century. From her vantage point beside the depot, she watched the battered old diesel engine approach, tracking it with her eyes as it curved along its rails. She glanced at the loading docks, but they were empty, and the train didn’t slow down on approach. It blew through the little cargo station, boxcar after boxcar rushing past Butter Up’s vision. The train seemed to stretch on forever, and she could not see its end.

said a cheerful young mare before Butter Up even had time to lift her head. Raising her eyes from the floor, she saw a small podium in front of her, and behind it, a mare who fit the image from the sign nearly perfectly. She was tan instead of blue and wore glasses instead of a hair clip, but she was young, she was beautiful, she was fit, she was smiling, and she wore grey cutie shorts so tight they seemed a part of her coat pattern.

“Welcome to Hayseed’s Hayburgers!” proclaimed the sign nestled on its roof. The sign was written in hot pink, and an equally pink heart dotted the exclamation point. Above the writing was a less-than-tasteful drawing of a pegasus mare, wings upraised as she smiled brilliantly off into the distance. The artist had gone to some lengths to idealize her figure, emphasizing her powerful wing joints, full tail, and the tight cutie-shorts that held her flanks. Any surviving vestiges of subtlety were undone by the three bright spotlights that lit the sign from behind. Even in the middle of the day, it was eye-catching from thousands of yards in every direction. At night, it would practically be a hot pink aerial flare.