What happens when the cure for a pony's depression, ends up making things worse?
Diptera is a pony who collects parasprites for research. However, he is also a very lonely pony. After collecting many parasprites, he ends up getting the ability to attract parasprites. However, he attracts too many, and now he is desperate to find a way out.
Then a mysterious dragon knocks on his front door to give him an exit from his way of life.
There once was a pony who was struggling in a harsh and unforgiving world.
This pony had an unusual hobby: while other ponies collected medals and and photographs of unique places they’ve visited, this pony collected parasprites. Everytime he would trip on a parasprite, he would pick it up, bring it to his house, place it in a bottle, and put it on a shelf.
Over the course of his life, he had collected a lot of them and the room he was storing them in was getting crowded. The pony felt smaller and smaller as his collection grew bigger and bigger.
It wasn’t unheard of, to collect parasprites. But usually ponies threw them out after the insects started to gather dust. Ponies would regain continue on with their lives and forget that they ever owned a parasprite, until they encountered one again.
This pony wanted to know everything there was to know about parasprites, so he would study them when he stepped outside his house.
There were different varieties and some of them could blend in their environment almost perfectly until somepony would trip on them.
He, however, didn’t want to be affected by parasprites’ silly tricks. Knowing parasprites in and out would grant him the power of walking on the world without tripping or stepping on one’s cute little head.
His collection was a very special one. It consisted of several unique parasprites showcased on the shelves in his room. After he puts a critter on a shelf, he would not catch another of it’s kind.
As long as they were unique, they intrigued him. In hopes of studying them further, he collected as many different kinds of them as he could find.
His room wasn’t big enough to accommodate several copies of his collection, unfortunately. The amount of parasprites he had collected became pretty unnerving to the pony, but he didn’t know how to part with them. If he lost just one of them, how would he know if the next parasprite he would find would be a unique one or not? He had to keep all of his collection close to him, so he would have something to compare it to when he met a potential parasprite in the world
If he were to throw a parasprite out soon after he had collected it, then in the course of his life he could be collecting one single parasprite over and over again, not knowing that he came in contact with it many times before.
Throwing out parasprites and forgetting about them could be tragic indeed. The pony didn’t want to stroll down that path of ignorance; he was willing to do anything to avoid it. Thus he decided to study them long and hard, looking at them from different angles over and over again until he could understand them thoroughly.
Perhaps, if he only collected unique parasprites, like he first planned to, he would still have room to spare. But that wasn’t an option anymore. The parasprites were of so many kinds that he failed to remember each of the unique items of his collection. He still managed to stumble on some parasprites. He only recognised them after he had already tripped on them and fallen to the ground.
It wasn’t always the pony’s memory that was at fault. Sometimes he just didn’t think enough to recognise the parasprite. Either he had forgotten that he’s already been acquainted with parasprite of this type, or he just wasn’t thinking enough before picking up the new parasprite in his hooves.
The Pony knew this and tried to counter it. He spent more and more time with his collection, studying every item over and over again. When he would go outside he would keep his collection in mind at all time scouring his surroundings and comparing every item in the real world to the items of his collections.
From time to time, despite his dedication being at its fullest, he still managed to trip on a parasprite that wasn’t unique. He wanted to be even more dedicated, but he was already past his limits. This maximum dedication was wearing him down.
Pony knew that he is special. He wouldn’t let some drowsiness stand in his way so he stepped it up a notch.
He started taking every single one of the parasprites he found, even if it wasn’t unique; for having just one was not enough.
Collecting more of the same kind of parasprites took up even more of his room and because of that he had an easier time remembering them.
It was his goal to become an expert in parasprites. He wanted to spot them long before he would trip on them in the world.
But the pony had a problem: He wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t an overpowered alicorn of legends. He was a mere earth pony with limits both in body and mind.
He wanted to overcome his limitations, so he spend a lot of his time in his room with his collection. Contemplating each and every one of his parasprites. Over and over again.
Collection grew bigger, but it was still manageable. By emptying the shelf of his other obsessions, there was just enough space for all the parasprites to cramp up on his shelves.
His collection was never meant to be permanent. He only wanted to keep the critters until he would learn the magical nature that would allow him to avoid any non unique parasprite in the world. If he achieved that level of expertise, he wouldn’t need his collection anymore. He would be able to recognise and counter the parasprites by their magical properties alone.
His friends told him that what he was doing was not earth pony like. “There’s nothing wrong with an earth pony not knowing the use of magic” they said. “It was a part of the universe earth ponies weren’t designed to know.”
The thought of not knowing terrified the pony. He wanted to be more than just an earth pony.
Many of his friends had parasprites laying on their doorsteps. They would trip on them every time they stepped out, but they would just catch their balance and kept on walking; they don’t even realise that it was a parasprite they tripped on. He did not want to be like that. Why trip on something you can avoid or even counter.
Even if the pony wanted to listen to his friends, it wouldn’t have worked. He did not have that good sense of balance as his friends had. When he tripped on a parasprite he would often lose his balance and fall down, and he didn’t like falling down.
The pony’s room had a limited space. It was getting harder and harder to live in the room with all of the parasprites hanging around. The shelves were so cramped with them, that at nights some would fall off and keep the pony awake. The pony knew he had a serious problem on his hooves, and he needed to fix that.
Even if the pony decided to get rid of only some parasprites from his shelves, how would he decide which one would to throw out? There were groups of the same kinds of parasprites, but each one of them represented its own group. Each one of them had as much right to be in the collection as the rest of them.
He wanted to stop collecting new ones. He wanted to throw away his whole collection. It was a bad collection to begin with, but at that point it was already too late. He was already broken.
In dealing with magical parasprites, he acquired a magic of his own, despite being just an earth pony. His hooves became so used to dealing with parasprites that they became sticky, which allowed him to handle parasprites with more care.
It wasn’t a gift, though, it was a curse. Parasprites would stick to him outside and he could only take them off by adding them to his collection.
And there was another problem: He couldn’t throw out the big parasprites, they wouldn’t fit through the door. They had became bigger than they were at the time he collected them. It was another one of their magical properties. The more they were observed, the more there was to observe.
If he only got rid of smaller ones, there would still be some space for him left in his room. Even if he wouldn’t be able to recognise those parasprites he wouldn’t fall down after tripping on them. He should have enough balance for that. They were a mere annoyance and not of a big importance to anyone.
He had admitted that he has unsurpassable limitations as an earth pony and recognised that he will never be a parasprite master. This realization, however, came too late.
Getting rid of the smaller parasprites wasn’t a valid option any more. His collection gained a collective mind. When he would separate a parasprite, he would later find that it has returned on its own. There was no getting rid of them, and that wasn’t the only problem he had.
His hooves soon started to attract new parasprites from the outside world. It wasn’t even just parasprites on his doorstep. Parasprites from entire continents were attracted to his hooves. More and more would get stuck on him and they would hold on to him until he came into his room, where they would separate from him and join the collection.
He became a master at collecting parasprites, but he was not much better at knowing about them than any other earth pony.
The pony lost his smile. His blue mane became gray. His lime coat started to fall out in tufts.
He didn’t know what to do next. He still felt that what he was doing wasn’t bad in itself, he just wasn’t equipped to handle the task of this magnitude. He was just a mere earth pony.
The situation was out of control and he knew it. The nights became sleepless as the sound of parasprites falling of the shelves would not let him rest.
He had started with the goal of getting rid of parasprites in the world and achieved the opposite.
He tried to avoid the worst by distancing himself from the world. Some parasprites could indeed be avoided this way as they would pass him by without sticking to him, but not all of them were like that. The ocean of parasprites was still on the rise; the tide was coming and there was no stopping it.
Days passed and the pony found himself lying on his bed. His head drifted just above the surface of the fuzzy sea. His body bruised by falling parasprites, his mind drifted away. It was the beginning of the end.
In all the chaos, a distinct knock on the door sounded through the room that pony resided in.
The pony shoved his way through the parasprites and opened the door. A small dragon stood before him on the welcome mat.
The pony was losing his sanity, so he was to tired to think. He didn’t care who the dragon was or what he was doing at his doorstep, he just left the door open and returned to his bed to mope.
The dragon took that as invitation and let himself in. He shut the door behind him.
“Quite a collection you have here!” said the dragon.
“Yeah, wish I could get rid of it.” the pony said.
“You know, there is a way for you to organise your collection in a way that will take way less space.”
“There is?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m here. Your failed attempts at using magic called me.” The dragon said
“How did you find out about that?”
“I’ve been in your neighborhood for a while now. However, in your obsession, you failed to even notice me. I, however, have noticed you. Your fixation with little problems intrigued me... and others. So I came to offer my talents.”
“And those would be?”
“Organization, and I happen to be the best organizer around.”
“I would like things to get better, but... I’m so tired.” Pony sighed.
“Don’t you fret. I’ll handle everything for you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Let me give you an example. See this parasprite here.” He snached a parasprite from the collection with his claws.
“What about it.”
“It’s not even a parasprite, it’s only a parasprite-wanna-be.”
“It’s a solid parasprite! I know, because I remember tripping over it!”
“But you see, you couldn’t have prevented tripping over it. When your friend tripped on the parasprite at his doorstep, it produced an offspring. Those are called parasprite-wanna-be’s as they aren’t original in their lineage, and this is that kind of creature”
“How do you know all this?” The pony looked at the dragon.
He had the pony’s journal in one claw and the parasprite-wanna-be in the other.
“You wrote everything down in your life’s journal. Every memory you have, I can access it at will; it’s just another of my... special talents.” The purple dragon smirked as he looked around the shelves.” By analysing the parasprites in a logical way, I can separate the parasprites from the parasprite-wanna-bes.”
“That sounds... complicated.”
“It is, but I can handle it.” the dragon smiled as he put down the journal and picked up the parasprite the pony had collected from his neighbour’s doorstep. He pressed both creatures in his claws and rubbed them on their special spots with his claws.
The parasprite-wanna-be merged into it’s forebear.
Pony gasped as he had never seen such a thing before. An item of his collection, even if it was just a parasprite-wanna-be, disappearing into another. It was something he had wished for, but could never find a way to accomplish.
The dragon put the original parasprite back on its shelf
Closing his gaping mouth as he sighed, the pony shook his head and waved his hoof in dragon’s direction. “Even if you could distinguish parasprites from parasprites-wanna-bes, I’m sure there are still a lot of parasprites that are the real deal.”
“That is true, but I have a solution to that as well. If you let me analyse them. I can reconcile each and every one of these parasprites. I can also encase you in a thick protective armor that will prevent any parasprite from getting to you. You will never trip over a parasprite again in your life.
“How is that even possible?”
The dragon put his claws around his back,“It’s about the way you walk on this world. If we fix that, then no parasprites will be able to harm you.”
“How can I walk differently? I didn’t know there were different kinds of walking. I just walk when I want to walk.”
“Your way of walking is filled with hopes and aspirations. When you walk you look up to the sky:That is what your problem is.”
“But those hopes and aspirations make me who I am.”
“And how has that worked out for you so far?”
The pony bowed his head. “Not that well.”
“They are the reason why you are miserable. I can free you of that misery, but you will have to give in and trust me all the way.” The dragon adjusted a clover symbol with the number ‘7’ on his scales
“Give in?”
“Even without all the parasprites, there wouldn’t be enough room for me to operate. Not with you that is.”
“But where would I go?”
“I’ve set up a place just for you.” The dragon walked around the room, his slitted eyes scanning the area
“What is it?”
“You don’t like yourself and you don’t like the harsh world outside. Does it really matter what this new place is?”
“I don’t know. Will it make me happy?”The pony asked with a smile
“Again with the hopes and aspirations! I will keep you away from things that make you miserable, and I will grant you moments of pleasure in times of my choosing.”
“I don’t know. This all feels wrong somehow.” The pony shivered
“Suit yourself.” The dragon grabbed the door handle.
“Wait! don’t leave me alone with my parasprites. I can’t take it anymore.” The pony cried,” Are you sure you can make them go away?”
“I can protect you from them, but only if you let me do it my way.” The dragon turned his head and frowned.
”Fine! If you can make it all stop than that’s good enough for me. I just don’t want to deal with it anymore!” The pony shouted,” I will take your offer.”
“Are you sure you’re okay with all this, Diptera? If you struck a deal with me, there won’t be any turning back. I’ll be rearranging everything.” The dragon waved his claw around.
“I don’t know, but I also don’t care! I don’t care about anything anymore. I’m just so tired. I-I can’t go on like this! You say, you’ll take care of everything?”
“Yes, I’ll take care of everything. You included.” The dragon said with a chuckle.
“Okay, show me to my new place.”
The dragon led the pony out of the house to the backyard. There was a rectangle hole in the middle of it. A pile of dirt laid beside it. There was a narrow metal shaft leading from the side of the hole.
“How come I hadn’t noticed this hole before?” Asked the pony.
“You haven’t been noticing much of anything lately. You’ve been... broken.” The dragon looked to his side.
The pony stepped closer and saw an empty opened casket at the bottom of the hole.
He turned to the dragon. “You want to take over my entire life? You want to destroy me?”
“Oh, no!” The dragon grinned,”That’s not part of the plan.” he pushed the pony down the hole.
The casket closed shut behind him.
The dragon started throwing dirt on top of it.
Diptera banged his hooves on on the casket, but his attempts were useless and pathetic,”Get me out of here, you-”
The dragon filled the hole with earth and started to pound on it with his feet. “I’m sorry. little pony, but this has to happen. If I am to save your life, they have to be buried in your suit of armor, deep under the surface. Sadly, everything that you were, everything that you are, has to be buried with them.”
“This is not the armor I’ve envisioned! It’s a casket!” Yelled the pony.
The tall serpent threw seeds of grass on top of the flatten earth. “No, it’s our solution, Diptera.”
The years passed and the pony got used to being stuck in his prison. He wasn't bored, as he was able to find pleasure in the small screen his new dragon friend put inside this strange casket.
The dragon wasn’t evil, at least, he would like to think that he wasn’t evil. However, his entire plan revolved around this pony being stuck in this casket. His benefactors needed the pony’s talents. However, he didn’t want to be too cruel to the pony. So whenever the pony got thirsty or hungry, the dragon would lower dishes down the shaft.
When there was an apple season, the pony would get those. Most of them would be fine, but some of them would be rotten and some would have worms in them. The pony ate them anyway, he didn’t really have a choice.
The pony did try to protest about the state of his meals once
“Hopes and desires attracts parasprites and so does a wasteful life of luxury!” The dragon explained as he left the pony with his rotten food and the pony had no choice but to eat it.
“I can’t work with your hopes and dreams looming around.” Dragon would tell him through the shaft. ”Cabbage is cheap and healthy. Water is free. I need bits for fixing your long term parasprite problems, so I can’t waste time and money on your whims. It would make the parasprite collection grow and I promised you that I won’t let that happen.”
The pony understood, but there were days where he just couldn’t take it. He would bang his hooves on his casket screaming to get out. But the dragon ignored his pleas. After all, he knew what was best for the pony.
There were days when the pony could hardly stand the loneliness in the casket. He only had dragon to talk to, but he already knew everything about him. There wasn’t much to talk about, anyway. The dragon was strangely quiet about certain subjects. Every once in a while he would hear other voices, but he couldn’t call to them.
The pony felt safe with that dragon on his side, but it was still a lonely and empty life. If he could only feel the embrace of another pony. He liked the physical connection, but more than that, he wanted acceptance.
It didn’t even need to be support or admiration, if he could only feel another’s touch, then he would be happy.
The pony had played the game with a spouse before. It attracted a lot of parasprites to both sides.
The common parasprites that had looked similar on both sides would prevent them from coming together for extended periods of time. The longer they would hold on to each other, the bigger the common parasprites would had become.
The parasprites that had been unique would attach to their tails and they would pull them apart. When the ponies had pulled harder, the unique parasprites had grown bigger and the force pulling the couple apart had increased.
The ponies had tried to remove the parasprites, find a repellent of some sorts, but nothing had worked permanently. Even those that they had threw away had come back eventually. New ones had attached to the couple every day.
After a while, the pony would have only seen a lump of parasprites whenever he had looked at his spouse. The sight of it made him cringe and he had to look away. The parasprites had been pushing so hard on him that it had hurt.
There had been just one option left for getting rid of the lump of parasprites that had formed: Abandonment. He had to walk away and never look back.
Lightning and thunder had accompanied the separation, but the lump had stayed behind the pony. After so long, the pony could have finally taken a breath to fill his lungs full of fresh air. No parasprites had gotten into his mouth. It had been a joyous moment for the pony. It had felt so good, that he had sworn to himself to never let go of his freedom to breathe.
Whenever a potential lump of parasprites had been in pony’s sights after that, he would avoid it. If the lump had approached him, he would make up a reason to turn around. He would not let any lumps attach to him ever again. The closer the lumps have come, the more effort pony had put into getting rid of them. It had not been a hard thing to do, even though it had hurt pony a lot. It was like having an Ursa Minor on his chest, but it had still hurt less than the parasprites would had hurt him.
His strategy had kept the parasprites away, but it had never sated his longings. He had brought those with him to the casket. Along with every other yearning for closeness.
“Abandon all hope pony,” The strange dragon had told him repeatedly. “You must never feel the touch of another pony for as long as you live. Your casket will be the only place you can ever immerse yourself into. You will never be part of real world again, but you will be safe and the world will be safe from you. The parasprites will keep invading, but ponykind will survive, just as they always have. Ponies above the surface mostly survived by ignoring the parasprites and fixing anything that the parasprites broke. You, Diptera, could never counter all the parasprites on your own. Surface ponies would only stick to what they know and not join your noble goal. If you kept your struggle against the menace, then you would eventually lose everything. Be happy that you’re safe and forget about everything else. After all, It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Pony knew that the dragon only meant good. He never got used to it, though, but he did accept it as inevitable consequence of having a dragon to do his bidding. The pony understood that it was his hopes and dreams that attracted the magical parasprites. The only place left for him in this world was deep underground, away from the parasprites roaming the surface world.
The dragon had been right so many times and the pony had been wrong so many times. The pony trusted the dragon more than he trusted himself. That is why the dragon was out there, living the pony’s life, while the pony was underground hiding from the parasprites.
The dragon grew weary as he got accustomed to the pony’s room. He worked tirelessly to tidy up the place.
The neighbours didn’t notice anything strange. They didn’t even notice the strange carriage with the Clover Corporation’s symbol on it. They were just glad that the house was so tidy.
However, things weren’t normal at all. There was a massive collection of parasprites living in the pony’s house.The neighbours knew about the collection, but they had no idea how big it was. By far the strangest thing, however, was the fact that there were ponies in suits inspecting a dirt pile in the ground.
Neighbours never cared to investigate, though. As long as the pony’s house seemed to be tidy, so everything was fine and dandy in their eyes. They didn’t even notice that there was now a teenage purple dragon instead of a pony saying ‘good morning’ to them when they went to work. Same house, same neighbour they thought.
They got a bit suspicious when the dragon build a high fence around the house. Many neighbours had fences, but the one the dragon built was white, sterile, and very plain.There were many neighbours, so the isolation of one didn’t affect their lives enough for them to care.
The dragon worked hard, but eventually, he got tired. When it was time for him to rest he would turn off his lamps and leave only his Clover Corp. communicator on. At that point, the Clover Tech TV Screen inside inside the pony’s casket would turn on.
The pony liked it when the screen lit up. It made him forget about the casket he was in. It was a window to a whole new world, where he was free and parasprites didn’t exist. If he could, he would spend all his time staring at that screen, but the dragon wouldn’t let him. There was only enough power in the house for one of them. Either for the dragon to run all the equipment for tidying the house or for the pony to power up the screen in the casket.
One day the pony saw a new world on the screen. It was a perfect world that he could immerse and lose himself in.
The dragon allowed the pony to see everything there was to see about the new world, but pony still wanted more. He didn’t care about being in the casket anymore, he didn’t care about the other worlds that he could observe through the screen, he just wanted more of that perfect world.
When the screen turned on the next time and it showed a different world than the one pony fell in love with, he refused to watch it.
The other worlds could not compare to the perfect world pony has seen. In his mind he was immersed in that world.The pony got immersed so much that he struck at the screen with his hooves and broke through it.
As darkness enveloped pony, he felt something hollow and unexplored behind the screen. It was a drawer he didn’t know about. Not even the dragon knew about it. If he did, he hadn’t told the pony about it.
As pony opened it, a light illuminated the casket and a book with a clover on it fell out of the drawer..
The pony browsed the book. It was completely blank on every page from cover to cover.
The pony kicked at the drawer and a pen with a similar clover symbol fell out of it.
He picked it up in his mouth and started writing in the empty book. He didn’t know how he managed to write in the dark, but he managed it. He wrote about the perfect world he had seen.
The pony had been inside the casket for so long that he almost forgot how to write It wasn't a problem, though, for he knew that when his book was finished he could send it up the shaft that lead out of the casket.
He trusted the dragon to correct his writing and let ponykind know that there used to be another pony living among them. A pony with hopes and aspirations.
The dragon stared at the mound for a long time. He stood, listening to the pony sleep. He then heard a voice near his right,”Number 7?” It came from a blue pegasus stallion in a white suit with a clover symbol on his lapel,”How is Dieptra?”
“Number 8- no- Sky Fall,” The dragon looked at his partner,” We are alone here, my friend, we can use our real names.”
“Scale, that’s improper.” Sky Fall said,”I know we’re nowhere near The Institution right now but we still have to follow regulations!” The pegasus known as Number 8 sighed,”Now, how is our... special one doing?”
“He’s doing fine. A little more time in the incubation chamber, and his power to control insects will be marvelous. I had to-,” The dragon frowned,” -tell him to abandon hope and aspirations, though. It was the only way his power would increase.” Scale turned to the stallion,”He should be ready to become Number 20 when Number 9 breaks out of her stone prison.”
“Good,” The stallion sighed,”Now can we go home now? I think you handled the sprites enough, and my wife is really worried about me!” He growled.
“You go home, Sky,” The dragon turned back to the mound,”I’ve taken a liking to this little pony...”
The stallion rolled his eyes as he turned and spread his wings,”Always the softy...” He flew off.
“Soon, little one, soon we’ll bring you to your full potential.”
