Hey! Come here, you two. Give your uncle a hug. I got you a present, see?
Yeah, I know Hearth’s Warming was last week. I… hadda go away for a while.
Here. It’s that Daring Do action figure all the kids are talking about.
Oh, that was last year, huh?
Look, her leg kicks when you turn her head behind her. Is that cool?
Well, it’s supposed to. Lemme see that.
Huh. Guess I shouldn’t’a put it at the bottom of my saddlebags. No worry. It needs a little glue, is all.
What? What’d I say?
Well of course I didn’t mean “glue”. I meant “paste”. Slip of the tongue. Comes from spending so much time with gryphons.
No, I guess paste won’t fix that. Here, give it back. I’ll make it right. I’ll use some… special paste. Bring it back good as new.
Dammit, kid! Don’t give me that look. You think your uncle’s a monster? Lotsa ponies use glue. It’s imported, okay?
I am not shouting. Just gimme the lousy toy already. I said I’d make it right, and I will.
Get back here, you two! Cherry, tell your kids they’re acting crazy.
You know what? Forget it. Keep the toy. Keep it, throw it out, I don’t care.
I’ll tell you a story, how about that? I’ll sit right here in this chair and start talking. If anypony came in here and sat behind me, they’d hear a good story. With magic, and the sea, and hot babes in—
I mean romance. It's got magic and romance. Okay, okay, Cherry. It's got magic.
I tell ya, it’s hard to be an artiste around here.
I’m starting the story now.
This is the story of the sea pony.
He wasn’t always a sea pony. At first he was a land pony, an earth pony like you and me. Nothing different about him at all. That was his problem.
He had a job figuring how much money the rich ponies had and how they could keep more of it, and if he did something really clever, his boss took the credit, but if he messed up, he took the blame. Mares wouldn’t give him the time of day. They were all down at the docks, ogling the sea ponies.
Now the sea ponies lived in the sea. Look across the bay on a calm day, water shining like a mirror, you’d think you never saw nothing more peaceful. But the sea ponies were there, just under the waves. On stormy days you’d see their heads bobbing between the breakers, them smiling like those big widow-makers were a kiddie ride. And at night they’d roll in on the waves, shake the water off their flat webbed feet, sharpen a claw on their scales, toss their stringy seaweed manes back, and stride into town like they owned the place, which they did, at night.
They were mean, ugly, sharp-toothed bastards, but they got respect.
So one day our hero finds himself in an alley with a guy says he knows a guy who knows a sea pony. He forks over a month’s bits for a tarnished gold chain that might’ve been copper underneath. “Just put it on and wait,” the guy says.
“What’s the catch?” he asks.
“Why should there be a catch?” the guy says. “Anytime you want out, take it off and throw it away.”
So he puts on the chain. Nothing. Weeks go by. Then one day he sees somepony on the street stare at him and look away quick. He reaches a hoof to his neck, finds slits there, opening and closing each breath he takes.
His hooves stretched out into claws. His hair stiffened and turned to scales. Not long after he was riding the waves and rolling into town at night himself.
He’d never felt so alive. Mares loved him. When he finally found the one he wanted, she took him, teeth, scales, and all.
But he started biting her. Couldn’t help himself. Those long needle teeth, they had to bite. Then he’d run back to the water, and she’d follow, wading in after him until he disappeared under the waves.
Then one day she bit him back. Took him by surprise. He looked at her neck, saw a gold chain and a baby set of gills.
“What,” she said, “you thought there was only one magic chain in the world?”
So they went into the bay together, which was okay, until one day she took up with a shark with three rows of gleaming white teeth and swam off with him.
By now he’s buddies with the sea ponies. They’re okay guys, mostly, but like I said, they bite. They drift. After a few years he’s surrounded by strangers again.
So he climbs back onto shore, shakes the water from his mane, and reaches for the gold chain.
But he couldn’t find it. His scales had grown over it. He clawed at his neck until it was bloody, but that chain was in too deep. So he went back to the sea.
But every Hearth’s-Warming Eve, he comes out. His gills don’t work right in the air. He blinks in the harsh sunlight, lurches around on webbed feet, and goes to the houses of the ponies he used to know. Sometimes he comes inside, dripping marsh-water all over their floor, and tries to remember how normal ponies talk. Sometimes he just looks in at the windows. So he can still recognize them. So he can warn them away from the water.
Yeah, Cherry, I know they weren’t listening. It’s okay.
You are now imagining a pony with the Innsmouth Look.
Aw..
I keep reading these in a voice somewhere between Rodney Dangerfield and Joe Pesci...
4381989 I'm surprised at that. For there is another that should be, I think.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/38761/doctor-horrible-is-adorable
When you stay in the brine long enough, you become a pickle.
With needle-sharp teeth.
Why am I reading this in Grunkel Stan's voice?
This is delightfully demented.
I still love this story and its narrative voice.
I feel vaguely... sad.
So, this is obviously a metaphor for something, but I'm having a hard time recognizing, what, exactly, it is a metaphor for. Is it crime? Growing up? Deep cover espionage?
I don't know. Maybe it's not meant to be anything in particular and I'm looking at it too deep.
5502370 because Grunkle Stan is pretty much a rated Y-7 version of this version of Bad Horse. Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
5502316 Okay; so add it.
5502595 No, it's a metaphor. I'm not gonna say it yet; I want to see how many people get it / don't get it. Did you read the other stories? 'Coz you need to know who the narrator is.
My shitty attempt at understanding this metaphor:
The Sea ponies must be the mafia, who go high-rolling into town at night.
I think water represents organized crime or drugs
The protagonist changed and now he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere.
She left with the protagonist for status, and then she left the protagonist for status. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
So the narrator tells his stories to try and protect
histhe kids from making his mistakes. Just like the protagonist, he fails in his attempts and knows it, but still tries.His
wifesister, Cherry, understands his sea pony story and she is either-upset about her decisions and he reassures her that he's okay with how things turned out
or
-amused that his kids didn't understand him, and sort of rubs that in his face
EDIT: Well, it is Uncle Bad Horse, and he visits his kids in a previous chapter ("ask your mother"), so Cherry is most likely his sister(-in-law). With this correction in mind, I think Cherry feels pity for her brother(-in-law, possibly) and she apologizes to him about her kids not listening, and he tells her that he knows and its okay, cause he knows that one day they'll listen.
Damn, I'm kind of saddened by this one.
Who needs to walk on razors when they stab into your heart? Very nicely done, Bad Horse.
And now I'm imagining seapony crime bosses.
As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a seapony...
Sad, but good. Thanks.
Like talking to a wall, but sadder.
Aww, I wasn't expecting one of these to be so touching. Yeah, you keep those kids out of the water, Bad Horse. You do that.
I reviewed this story. You can find my review of this story here.
Incidentally, you may want to fix the indentation on the first line; it didn't work right.
5506820 Thanks for the (good) review!
I know it looks weird, but take a book of fiction off the shelf and look at the first line of any chapter. Surprise! They're not indented.
5507713
This is true.
Ah, writing conventions.
Huh. I came expecting a Little Mermaid parody, and got Mafia-riddled Lovecraft instead
5507713
Though, books that use indentation do so to save paper by not having open lines between paragraphs... and you do have open space between paragraphs.
"I shall drink your soul!"
"I shall feast on your flesh!"
"I LEFT THE OVEN ON!!!"
th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2014/345/b/d/equestria__come_and_heed_us_by_harwicks_art-d89hx17.jpg
I wonder if the uncle's own kid listens to his story.
I was expecting the usually fairy tale rewrite ... I was wrong. Bad horse is an entertaining guy with some real insight! Horrible but true. I also really like the format as it makes for easy reading on the website! Looking forward to more.
This story is awesome.
(Great Comment there, jackass.)
5565740 I still appreciate it!
5588623 Hey! You there! You read this story twice before some ponies even got to read it once. What would your dam say?
5588815
Well, last weekend when her daughter-in-law brought New Orleans bread pudding for my dad's 80th birthday, she said "This needs more bourbon."
Then she got the bottle of 90-proof 1836 Texas whiskey that I'd got her and dad for Thanksgiving, and sprinkled some on.
I don't know exactly what she'd say about me reading Damon Runyon-My Little Pony crossovers, but--y'can kinda extrapolate.
I get the feeling something very bad happened to our Narrator on Hearths Warming Eve... Something that wants him to keep children away from the water...
Sounds like Uncle Bad Horse is in need of Aslan's claws. Gotta dig deep, see?
5730739 They are all the best one.
I feel dead.
5730792 Haha. same.
5894051 I made a bunch of small changes to make it less brutal.
More.
Yeah, this is definitely the best one.
Always read this as Carl from Aqua Teen.
Well, that's a bit of change from first one, where he basically said that certain skillset is must-have for everypony who wants to live an ok life. Also he somehow seems... older here, I guess?