Pony Shorts

by Miyajima

Black Bun Pie: Cragodile Hunter

"Twilight! Twilight!"

A pink bolt streaked through the centre of Ponyville and broke down the door of the Treetop Library (for what was, by now, the third time this month), ahalting its progress by colliding with a small dragon, a lectern, and a recently-rearranged bookcase.

Twilight let the dust settle, glanced at her door, and gave a deep sigh. Spike crawled off, groaning, while Pinkie Pie disentangled herself from the book pile she had created.

"What is it, Pinkie?"

"Twilight! I got a package from my uncle Black Bun Pie! He's a cragodile hunter!"

Twilight blinked. "A what?"

"Cragodile hunter! My parents don't approve of him, but he's so amazing! He's really pushing the boundaries of the family profession!" Pinkie exclaimed enthusiastically, hopping up and down, a brown paper package balancing miraculously yet somewhat precariously on her back.

"... Your family profession...? Oh. Oh! Rock farming, of course," Twilight replied, her expression flickering quickly from understanding to confusion, "What have cragodiles got to do with rock farming?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Pinkie retorted, leaping across the library to a chalkboard and beginning to sketch.

"The cragodile (crocodylus lithicus) is a creature of living stone, not too dissimilar to the more familiar and well-known Timber Wolf! Their life-cycle is not well documented and we have little knowledge of their origins, habits or behaviours, but what we do know is that their hide is some of the most purely concentrated geological deposits known to ponykind!"

Pinkie jumped aside, revealing a carefully sketched diagram of a cragodile, overlaid with that of another with its limbs outstretched, enclosed in a circle and a square.

"And my uncle Black Bun is Equestria's first, (and so far, only), cragodile hunter! He tracks and traps cragodiles all over Equestria!"

"I... see," Twlight lied, "what does he do with the ones he catches?"

"Takes the surface strata of rock and gemstone and releases them back into the wild! But that's not what I came for! He sent me something extra special!"

Pinkie placed the package on the table and quickly opened it, revealing what looked like a large, rocky egg nestled within. Twilight peered into the box with curiosity.

"I'm guessing it's a cragodile egg?" she asked, looking up at Pinkie.

"Wrong!" Pinkie chimed, beaming.

"But I-" Twilight stammered, but was interrupted by a marked cracking sound, like that of splitting and splintering stone. She leant back over the box and her eyes met with two emerald-green ones looking back at her.

"It's a baby cragodile! He was just napping! My uncle found him all alone and couldn't leave him so he sent him to me, since I reared Gummy so well, but I don't think he and Gummy will get along and I don't want to upset either of them so I thought, 'I know, I'll take him to Twilight's!' and I realised that's just perfect because-"

"Pinkie!" Twilight interrupted, placing a hoof over her friend's mouth. "I can't take care of a baby cragodile! I don't know the first thing about cragodiles, and I already have Owlowiscious and Spike here with me! I mean, what about food? What does a baby cragodile eat-"

Twilight was halted a second time by another sound, this time of tearing paper. Her eyes widened in horror as she turned to see the baby cragodile rolling around on the table with a book in its claws, nipping off little chunks of text, page by page.

"The mother cragodile chews up tree trunks into wood pulp for the babies, it lets them grow big and strong! And I realised you were the perfect one to raise him because books are made from wood pulp! And you've got so many! Look how happy he is!" Pinkie beamed and nuzzled the little cragodile on the head as it ravenously tore into another chapter. Twilight stood, slack-jawed and speechless, unable to react.

"Well, I can see you love him already so I'll just leave him here and come back to check on him tomorrow! Bye Twilight!" Pinkie said, trotting swiftly out of the door.

Spike walked back into the reading room as Pinkie left, his head wrapped in a bandage and eating a bowl of ice cream. He glanced at the flurry of confetti descending from the table and the stationary Twilight.

"Uh. Twi? Are you okay?"

"I- Ju- I do- Wha- Bu-, " she managed, before her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed to the floor.

Comments

[Zaid ValRoa]

Ha!
Munching tree bark into pulp.
Ingenious

[Spectrumancer]

It eats books.
It's like the ultimate anti-Twilight animal.

[Card Shuffle]

OH WOW, I had an idea similar to this as well :D different title and slightly different purpose. Very awesome though!

[djthomp]

And then it turns out alicorns can have strokes.

[silverMEGAlicorn]

When Twilight starts rattling off source materials from her books, it's to be expected; but when Pinkie does it it should surprise me, but it doesn't! She has GOT to be the worlds' foremost geological expert in all of Equestria, knowing far more about information about the earth than probably even Twilight has learned; even more than her books!

[Swirling Line]

Oh no... Stuff is doing down when Twilight gets out of shock.

[Kage no Brony]

3533013

Twilight, don't make me get the cragodile...

No! Not that! Anything but that!

[Themaskedferret]

Nice...I like this headcanon.

[FanOfMostEverything]

This has certainly proved to be one of the best short collections I've found on this site. Thank you for it.