CSR Brush Pony

by shysage

Chapter 1, Preliminaries

Hi, it's me, Princess Twilight, and I absolutely love doing this! I have helped friends record stuff that happened, and it has always been such amazing fun. This is all mine. I guess I am the official Canterlot Recorder, for this episode, anyway.

The focus of this account is a completely new species of pony that walked into Equestria one day. That was an exciting thing all by itself. But maybe we, maybe us Equestria ponies, we should have expected this. Equestria is such a big kingdom, hundreds of miles in many directions. For centuries we have been the only 'sentient', thinking animals in our kingdom and surrounding areas, that we knew of.

Well, there have always been Cougars around us. I guess, early on in Equestria's history, the Cougar clans were almost the death of the pony race. But as we pony tribes banded together, well, that was a different story. Since then, most Cougars have been content, and maybe wise enough, just to stay away. Those that ventured close were quickly put to death before they killed a pony, which they would do, given the chance.

The concensus of Equestria's leadership is that Cougars are not sentient, or just barely sentient if that is even possible. My brother (Shining Armor, the head of Equestria's military) told me once of an expedition that he headed years ago, as a junior officer. I found and read his account in the military journals. The expedition was pretty risky, and took Shining Armor and his batallion far out West where there are more Cougars. The whole goal of the expedition was to actually explore this aspect, to try to see if the Cougar clans, if a single Cougar possessed any thinking behavior that would qualify them as sentient. The plan was simple enough. Orders read to capture a Cougar, transfer it to a cage, then try various attempts at communicating with it. The rest was vague, since it just was not clear what the next step would be. Of course being able to understand if there was any substantive motive for the fact that Cougars usually attack a pony on sight or scent, and usually without any sort of advance warning or provocation. This whole behavior seemed to mark the Cougars out as primative animals, relying on native responses and abilities just to calm a hungry belly. The expedition's goal was to try to find some reason, any reason why the Cougar race should not be treated in this way. Equestria does truly value justice, and even ravenous Cougars... The leadership of Equestria just wanted to make sure.

Catching a lone Cougar was not too hard for this group, and sleep and levitation spells allowed it to be transferred into a cage. When it woke up, it went absolutely crazy, clawing at the iron bars, pushing with all its might against the cage, the door, growling loudly the whole time. While Unicorns stood ready with sleep magic, that Cougar fought valiantly to get free. And if any pony of the batallion walked a little closer, the Cougar would stretch one of it's front legs past the bars, claws bared, and swipe madly in the direction of that pony. After maybe three hours of this, the Cougar wore itself out, and lapsed into what was guessed to be sleep, or maybe exhaustion. The Cougar didn't move. An hour later that Cougar woke up, started moving again, but just sat up in that cage, growling loudly.

Shining armor came up with this part. All the ponies around the Cougar stayed completely silent. Every five minutes or so, Shining Armor himself would slowly but clearly say one simple word. He repeated the word three times. The goal of this part of the study was to try to see if the Cougar had any cognition of the pony language. This would tell us a lot. After maybe thirty or so basic, simple words, the Cougar responded to one word, and immediately went crazy again, clawing at the cage, the doors, the bars, and putting a front leg, paw and claws out, swinging it towards Shining Armor. The word? It was "food"... The entire expedition was concluded at that point. It was further concluded that the Cougar race could not be reasoned with. Shining Armor said that particular Cougar was put to death as painlessly as possible. It was clear that this test Cougar would immediately attack the ponies of the batallion as soon as the door of the cage was opened. Shining Armor valued his batallion, and had the beast killed.

Beyond that, the books I have read seem to paint a picture of Equestria as an idyllic, never-ending meadow where ponies can frolic in the Sun. Well, there is still the occasonal Cougar, so we need to be careful.

And, I guess, this is more anecdotal evidence. One of our friends seemed to have encountered large, jet-black Panthers in Equestria, well in the future, and recorded in a dream of all things. And I know that sounds weird. Still, if that is true, they are probably 'out there somewhere' now, just far beyond the outer reaches of Equestria. They helped the ponies and fought the Cougars, from the record that I am familiar with, so who knows. Still, this is just another piece of the puzzle.

And there is my good friend Zecora. She calls herself a Zebra, but has so many pony-like features. Her kind also lives far away, but are considered just a slightly different kind of pony. And Zecora is very gifted magically, even though she is not a Unicorn.

Overall, for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, it has just been the three main pony races. Pegasus ponies can fly, Unicorn ponies can learn and use magic to varying degrees, and Earth ponies can do neither, but are usually very capable physically. We all seem to balance out each other, and I think that is the important thing. To survive, we absolutely have to work together. We have felt that urgency since the kingdom of Equestria was founded.

And the history of Equestria's language is somewhat uncertain. What we consider "modern Equestrian" is the same language that has been spoken here for at least a thousand years. From what I have read, there seemed to be an older version, called 'old pony' in some accounts. Evidently this all changed when Princesses Celestia and Luna were crowned, at the birth of Equestria as a kingdom. Our language has evolved little over that period, easily exceeding a thousand years.

And this account unfolded early this last Summer, and seemed to be over and done before Fall set in. We were also starting to help a young Unicorn mare that wandered into town early this summer. Us girls were all over that! And with exciting new lessons, along with helping with Princess Celestia's resulting commentaries, this made for a busy summer, busy, but very fun!

Well, I have tried to do my homework. All this serves as important background information. Of course, I have tried to be thorough, and do what supporting reading and research I could. I am not sure how much any of this prepared us though. Imagine my amazement when Fluttershy led three of an entirely new and different species of pony into my Library!

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Author's Note:

Note: Unless otherwise noted, the music flowing in the background for this entire story is "A New Horizon - Tavnazian Archipelago" from the Original Soundtrack for the "Chains of Promethia" expansion for "Final Fantasy XI", and this all is copyright by Square Enix.

Comments

[Bronzedragon]

Ok I'm nibbling at the bait, lets see if you can set the hook.