Dear Princess Twilight,
Today we have encountered a whole new tribe of previously undocumented dogs. They are as dangerous as the wild plains dogs but are not as overtly aggressive. I know we had intended to study their plains dwelling relatives but this is too amazing an opportunity to let pass! If you could please send a secondary expedition, preferably escorted by guards that would be able to stay with us if needed, that would be wonderful. Please find enclosed in this packet my detailed notes and illustrations of the members of the pack that we observed today.
As always, your advice on how to befriend these dogs is greatly appreciated.
Your faithful subject,
Temple Scrivener
Chapters (3)
A very interesting premise.
5552286
Thank you. I was inspired by a forum post asking what kind of misconceptions would ponies make about humans. And well, this happened.
5552499
5552499
Well now I have to read this.
Nice.
Okay that caught me off guard. This was already an interesting premise, primitive human tribe in Equestria discovered by pony explorers is often a very fumbled bag of apples but this one showed promise.
I thought it was strange the humans had preconceived superstitions about Unicorns if this is supposedly first contact.
Then I thought it was suspicious that the ponies could not make out an 'alpha pair', which even though its not quite accurate, a tribal chieftain and his wife certainly would have counted as, their absence was weird.
Then there was the fact they wear more clothes than pony nobles, which suggest they are in fact fully clothed, no biggy, I thought this meant they were an advanced tribal society, or perhaps they lived in a cold/temperate clime where clothes would be awesome. But considering the other oddities this seems strange.
There are no children, yet the humans who stayed at the camp were all female. This seems very odd, even given the ponies misunderstanding that human female breasts are permanent, tribes would also having children running about, reproduction was a prime imperative in ancient societies, to the point were if you didn't have at least SOME children running around, and you had a particularly harsh winter, you can kiss your tribe goodbye. The fact that the women stayed at camp, but have no children means this group was VERY recently put together, and given how happy they were when the men returned back from trapping, this is not a warband tribe that picked these women up from defeated tribes recently (a sad but true fact of Human tribal history) and their lack of worry about being in a forest filled with dangerous predators suggest overconfidence or naivety, pretty suspicious.
And a pile of wood for a fire but no sign of any axes, meaning the wood was gathered, but considering the ponies found this odd the pieces must be shaped regularly or otherwise couldn't be gathered normally in the forest, VERY weird.
But the kicker was this scene where they found a stoned squirrel and brought it to the women, who put it on a grave marked with a cross. A grave. The humans are quite civilised and they respected the dead member with flowers, an ornament that would probably have been auspicious to the person deceased and a necklace, grave gifts. On a grave marked with a cross.
These aren't tribal primitives, these are modern humans trapped in Equestria trying to survive. That explains the lack of clear tribal structure, the naivety of local dangers, the camp traditions, the lack of children the fact that there is only one grave (and a grave in what isn't a permanent settlement to boot), the preconceptions of unicorns. The wood in the pile is likely the remains of carts, or crates/boxes or a boot being put to use.
VERY interesting.
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Thank you very much for your comment. I hope you enjoy the story. Though just a heads up, I've updated the tags to include "Dark."
5552640
Thanks! I love puns.
5693418
Thank you! And if you read chapter one before I added the dark tag, well, I added the dark tag to the story. Just a heads up.
5693564 Oh, I figured. Bring it.
Still can't wait until they find out they aren't 'dogs'.
Aw... dark tag. Hopefully it's not too bad. I tend to dislike it when stories suddenly go stupidly dark, but I do love it when there's something other than slice of life happy fun times.
Hopefully it's the latter not the former.
5694120
I don't have any plans for grimdark dark dark darkfic or anything. It is more that the character death already mentioned and some implied bad things that happened to some of the humans that hasn't been published yet.
5693816
Fertility? They're not going to be happy when they find out about that one
Wow your story is Great!
I just hope they soon find out how horribly wrong they are...
Perhaps by seeing a newborn 'dog' ( i am sure they have build huts with humans inside they have not seen yet..)
and a chapter from the perspective of the humans Would be really Great..
Oh and the ponies would be really confused to discover the 'dogs' eating plants 😂.
Gatherer and Hunter... Perhaps some women (or men) could come back from a gathering trip...
This story has a LOT of potential you only need to be careful when or how the humans side is presented really great so far
J
I wish there would be more...