//------------------------------// // They're Playing in Our Parks! // Story: An Invasion of Another Sort // by little big pony //------------------------------// It was a nice day outside. The sun was shining, but it wasn’t so bright that it blinded you. There was a slight breeze, which carried the scent of wildflowers and fresh cut grass with it, in the air that kept the warm summer day from becoming stifling. Birds could be heard chirping in the background; that happy, carefree kind of chirping that birds only did on days like today. Rachel’s steps were measured and careful as she made her way down the sidewalk. It was her day off today, and for reasons that she couldn’t yet discern, she had decided to take a walk in the park. A line of maple trees shielded her from the sun as she walked on the rocky road that served as the park’s main highway. She found herself at ease with each step that she took. It was comforting to hear the birds chirping and feel the sun as it poked through the leaves to warm her body. Here in the park, there was only nature—simple, wild, healing. She sighed in contentment, looking away from the road ahead and toward the expanse of grass to her left. Near the path, a group of ponies were sitting on a blanket, chatting. Out in that sea of grass, a pegasus was playing ultimate Frisbee with a group of college kids. An elderly couple were eyeing a snow white earth pony suspiciously as she poked at one of the trees and muttered to herself. A woman, near her age as best as she could tell, was sitting under a tree with her hands in her lap. Leaning against her, snoozing quietly, was a unicorn stallion. Rachel stopped and took a deep breath, breathing in the fragrances that nature had provided. There were also people on the path. Some of them were dressed up in suits with briefcases in their hands, talking into their earpieces as they made their way to work. Others were jogging or biking, wearing their compression shirts and their running shoes. Again she could see ponies walking around, exercising, chatting, laughing. To her surprise, she even saw one or two of them trotting down the path wearing a shirt and tie. “Excuse me! Coming through!” She ducked as a pink pegasus with a neon blue mane flew overhead, who was followed closely by a heavily-sweating man on a bicycle. “Come on Charles!” the stallion cheered. “Keep those legs pumping! We gotta get you ready for that summer body! Come on! Come on! Just remember how cute you’re going to look in that bathing suit we got for you!” Realizing that she was taking up a lane on the path by just standing there, she once again began walking. For the next couple of minutes, the young woman simply took in the sights while she let her mind wander where it will. A pearl of laughter rang out from behind a pair of trees. Not a second later, a little boy darted onto the path, his t-shirt dirty and wrinkled and one of his knees bleeding. Two other figures leapt out from around the trees and began to chase after the boy. They were a pair of fillies, one of them an earth pony, with a tannish coloration and a reddish, brownish mane and tail, and a grey unicorn with the prettiest blue eyes and a mane of gold. The children ran past her, all smiles, and disappeared behind a great big old pine tree. Despite herself, Rachel grinned. Seeing an empty bench, painted black and gleaming in the warm afternoon sun, a little way up the path she quickened her pace. Making her way toward the bench, she quickly sat down, wiggling her toes to ease some of the discomfort that she had been feeling in them. She wasn’t used to walking for great periods of time and she must have been at it for two or three miles. She needed to take a load off and rest her feet before she made her way home. Just as she made herself comfortable, a middle-aged man ran past, followed closely by a pair of giggling, hungry-eyed mares. She watched them run a little up the path before sighing once more and looking up at the trees above her head. It had been another rough couple of nights for the young woman. No matter what she did or what she took, she just couldn’t sleep. She’d toss and turn all night, her mind ill at ease, wrestling with questions and their answers. She had dated and lived with James for two years. The two of them had done everything from picking out an apartment to buying groceries to bickering about why one needed to put their drink on a coaster before they put it down on the living room table. And as far as she had been concerned, their relationship had been fine. The three children ran past her again, this time with the little boy and the unicorn chasing the earth pony. All three of them were laughing. Up in the tree a brown robin could be seen hopping between branches, it’s head darting back and forth as it flapped its wings and sang its song. “Young filly, would it be alright if I took a seat?” Pulling her gaze away from trees, Rachel looked down. There was a pegasus stallion standing not two feet away from her, but unlike most of the ponies that she had seen, this one looked older by a significant margin. Heavily wrinkled, with a long, greyish beard and an old, worn out straw hat sitting on his head, he stood on two sets of shaking legs. The stallion’s eyes were half-lidded and slightly cloudy, and his entire body was soaked with sweat. Realizing that she had splayed out on the bench, and seeing how exhausted the old pony looked, Rachel sat up and scooted to one end of it. “Of course,” she said as politely as she could, patting the empty seat next to her. With a grateful smile, the stallion slowly, carefully climbed onto the bench. “Thank you very much, young filly,” he said, leaning against the back of the bench with a quiet, slightly pained groan as he closed his eyes. “This old geezer needs to take a load off for a few minutes.” Taking off his hat, he began to fan himself with it. “This heat isn’t good for an old stallion like me,” he continued, cracking open an eye to stare at her. “Celestia only knows how you hyoo-mans manage it with all those clothes.” Rachel tensed slightly at the name Celestia but still managed to smile. “Oh, it’s not that bad,” she said. “You get used to it.” The stallion huffed, fanning himself more rigorously. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.” With that, the conversation lulled into silence. Rachel, with her hands in her lap and her knees touching, eyed the old stallion warily as he closed his eyes and let his body go lax, panting like an old dog in the hot sun. She had never let herself willingly get this close to a pony before, and even though her talk with Chelsea a couple of nights ago had lessened her distrust of them somewhat, a little part of her still couldn’t help but think that he and his ilk might be up to something. He could be trying to lure her into a false sense of security at this very moment. He could be trying to use whatever mysterious powers he had to control her mind. As far as she knew, he could be sucking the life force out of her as she sat there! Nervously tapping a finger against her thigh, Rachel made to get up so that she could disappear as quietly as she could, but her efforts were thwarted when the stallion let out a snort. “Do you know that my mares wanted me to come all of the way here to see the sights?” Fingers digging into her pants, Rachel forced herself to once again smile. “Oh?” The stallion nodded, either completely oblivious to her nervous or just choosing to ignore it. “‘We better go before they decide to stop us from coming in willy-nilly,’ they said. ‘Don’t you want to say that you got to go to a hyoo-man city? And just think of all of the nick-knacks that we can get for the cottage,’ they told me.” He snorted, his nose scrunching up. “And do you know what I said? I told them that we don’t need any more nick-knacks for the darned cottage! We have enough nick-knacks to fill up two cottages. For Celestia’s sake, I’m up to my neck in things from the Gryphon Isles and Labyrinia and the Diamond Dog Republic!” Though Rachel had absolutely no idea what the old stallion was talking about, she continued to nod and smile and pretend like one was listening, as one did when talking to the elderly. “Really?” “Yes really!” The stallion announced with a huff, before easing into the bench a little more. His other eye cracked open, and he looked up onto the grass, where the people and ponies were playing and talking and interacting. Sighing, he looked over to Rachel with a small smile. “…Still, it is pretty nifty being in a new world and all,” he admitted, smiling as the playing children ran by. “I suppose it would be.” A mare and a young man ran by, both of them wearing running gear. Rachel had to look away from the old stallion for a moment to make sure that the mare had, in fact, been wearing a headband and bands on each of her legs. The stallion caught her gawking and his smile widened. “You know, you hyoo-mans have been awfully nice to us pony-folk. Not all of you, of course. A time or two, me and my girls got some dirty looks and somepony tossed an empty bottle at us, but it hasn’t been that bad. It’s nowhere near as bad as when me and the girls—” Rachel jumped slightly when she felt something touch her thigh. Looking down she saw that it was the stallion’s hoof. She immediately tensed, shutting her eyes tightly. This was it. She had let the pony get too close and now it was going to do whatever ponies were doing to everyone else. Seconds ticked by as the stallion continued to prattle on. Rachel waited for a change—a dizziness, a heat traveling up her leg, something—anything that would signal her end. “—Now I might just be some old fuddy-duddy, but I don’t think I really care for all these newfangled contraptions that you hyoo-mans have here, but I’d bet my horseshoes that my daughter String Slip would love them. She’s always been the type that gets a kick out of new do-hickeys like some of the things that you got. Why, I can remember when she was just—” Slowly, Rachel cracked open an eye. She took a few deep breaths, wiggling both her fingers and her toes. Looking back down at her lap she saw that the old stallion’s hoof was still on her leg. It felt a little warmer than she was expecting, and it felt a lot heavier and more solid for someone so small, but other than that, it may as well have been a hand. She didn’t feel any different. As far as she could tell no dramatic change had overcome her. She still felt a little leery around this pony and she still wanted to scooch away from him since he had gotten a little too close for her liking. The pony, who was still talking about something or another, hadn’t done anything to her. She was still herself; she was still Rachel. The woman let go of the breath that she didn’t know that she had been holding, leaning against the back of the bench with a relieved sigh. “—So what do you think, hon?” Rachel looked back over at the stallion. He was staring back at her with a pleasant smile on his face, his body language expectant. Her mind raced, trying to piece together what the hell he had been talking about. The longer that she was silent, mentally gripping at strings, the more that the stallion’s smile grew. “Oh, my girls give me the exact same look when they aren’t paying attention to what I tell them,” he said with amusement, giving Rachel’s leg a pat. “It’s good to know that even though this is a different world the mares aren’t that much different from the ones back home…” “I’m, um… I’m sorry,” Rachel quickly apologized, sitting up on the bench and turning a bit to properly look at the pony. “It’s just that I’ve had a lot on my mind and—” “Ah, ah, ah, say no more. I know how busy you young-ins get,” the stallion said with a dismissive wave of the hoof. “I’m surprise that this old bat hasn’t put you to sleep with all of his chatter.” Rachel sighed, looking away from the stallion. “It’s not…” she paused, sighing again, before looking back over at him. “Mr. ...” “Please, just call me Four Score, dear.” “Four Score… I know we just met and all, but... would it be alright if I got your opinion on something?” The stallion raised an eyebrow slightly, pulling his hoof away from her leg. “Well, I’d be happy to give you my two bits if you need it.” Rachel nodded, biting her lip. “Well… a few weeks ago everything in my life seemed to be going great. I had a good job, an alright apartment, a boyfriend, and a lot of good friends. But then I found one of you ponies in my living room. She called herself Princess Celestia and she was sitting on my couch with my boyfriend James.” She shifted uncomfortably. “The two of them were just sitting there and then James started saying that he was dumping me for this… this pony who he had just met a few hours ago…” She stopped, feeling that familiar anger welling up in her stomach. She fought to beat it down, taking a deep breath as she did so. “I started to get upset, and maybe I said a few things that I shouldn’t have, and in the end I was standing outside of my home with bags filled with my clothes.” Four Score’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh my goodness,” he said, placing his hoof on her leg once more. “I could only imagine how that must have made you feel…” Rachel nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Yeah… It didn’t feel very good,” she admitted, looking down at her hands. “It made me angry; angry and suspicious of you guys. I had thought that she had done something to him to make him want to leave me. Mind control or pheromones or she put something in him…” “Oh, the princess would never do that, darling. Say what you will about her, she’d never hurt a stallion in anyway if she could help it,” Four Score instantly said, coming to his ruler’s defense. “Even though I’ve never met her personally, I’ve heard that she’s the nicest and most caring pony that you could ever meet.” Another lump formed in Rachel’s throat, and this one was a lot harder to swallow. “I mean, I had been going out with him for two years! I know that that isn’t long enough to start thinking about marriage or kids or anything like that, but it’s long enough that he should have to think long and hard about leaving me right? Especially for a girl who he had just met a few hours ago and who was…” Rachel bit her lip, not wanting to say more, not wanting to offend the old stallion. Four Score, however, was having none of it. “Who was what, dear?” he asked gently. When Rachel didn’t say anything he scooched over a little more, so that they were hip-to-hip, and gave her leg another pat. “Come on now, dear, there’s no need to be shy. This old stallion’s heard every insult and slur in the book. I doubt you could shock me or even make me mad if you tried.” The young woman looked up from her hands and at the stallion. She looked for any trace of falsehood or mischief but found none. All she saw was the same genuine, tender concern that she had seen in the eyes of Junebug days prior. “…Who was a… pony,” she finished, before quickly adding, “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a pony, you seem like a very nice one in fact, but… people don’t… well, we don’t usually up and start dating people outside our species…” “Oh?” Four Score said calmly. “And it bothers you that one of your hyoo-man males might be romantically interested in a mare?” Rachel’s eyes widened slightly. “I wasn’t saying that— I mean; I think it might be a little— I don’t—” she exhaled through her nose, her brow furrowing in frustration. “You know what? I do think it’s weird,” she admitted, looking out onto the grass. “It makes me uncomfortable seeing ponies and people hugging and kissing— I know that you guys aren’t animals, but every time that I look at one of you, I think I’m looking at some kind of colorful dog!” She looked over at Four Score, expecting him to look offended, but the stallion looked completely calm, that small smile still on his face. He shuffled in his seat a bit, getting himself more comfortable, before motioning her to continue. And continued she did; happily in fact. “I know that a weirdo or a pervert or two might have tried doing something with you ponies right out of the gate like this, but I see tons of people walking around with mares! I have friends that are talking to or going out with ponies right now—ponies that they only met a few days ago! I know that I might be a little bias because I lost my boyfriend to a pony, but even then it seems a little off, doesn’t it? I can’t be the only person to think that it’s weird, right?” Rachel looked to Four Score for confirmation. The stallion was staring at her carefully now. She could see a calculating look in his eyes as he looked her up and down, not saying a word. Rachel squirmed under his gaze as the minutes dragged by, waiting for him to say something. Finally, just when she couldn’t take it anymore, he hummed, tapping a hoof against his chin in thought. “…Well, my dear, I don’t really know how things work around here but us ponies have, for the most part, always been a real friendly, open, and loving race.” His tail flicked as he adjusted himself a bit more. “Sure, I’m guessing more than a few of these mares running around are just looking for something exotic that they can tell their friends about when they get home, but I think you’d be surprised just how many want to be with one of your stallions.” “But wouldn’t they prefer to be with their own stallions?” Rachel questioned. “There’s not that many stallions to go around I’m afraid,” he said, with a hint of sadness. “And finding a single colt that’s still on the market is near impossible for most fillies—that doesn’t change if you’re a princess or a bread baker—and the ones that are lucky enough to find a stallion usually have to work their horseshoes off to keep him. It makes for a lot of lonely mares.” After a few moments, the sadness on his face was replaced with a smile. “But I hear that there’s quite a few lonely stallions running around here,” he said. “And I hear that a lot of other ponies heard the same thing. It gets a lot of the young-ins excited; makes them want to rush out here to see if they can find somepony for their own. I imagine that quite a few of them are getting a bit… aggressive in their wooing.” “It shouldn’t matter if you’re lonely though,” Rachel argued. “Most of these guys running around with these mares should—” Four Score patted her leg again. “My dear filly, have you ever felt lonely?” Rachel frowned. “Of course I’ve—” “Oh I don’t mean the kind of loneliness that you feel after not talking to your friends all day or moving into a new place. I’m talking about being lonely in the romantic sense.” Rachel’s brow furrowed. For as long as she could remember, since middle school in fact, she had had a boyfriend in some form or another. Sure, she might not have called it that when she was younger, but she almost always had a guy that would carry her books around or someone to hold hands with or to talk to or hug or kiss whenever she was feeling lonely or upset or needy. There might have been short periods when she didn’t have anyone, but she was a pretty good looking woman with a good head on her shoulders. The second that she was single and wanted to find someone else, she usually could do it in a heartbeat. “I’ve seen fillies that’ve gone their whole lives without touching a stallion,” Four Score said, taking her silence as permission to continue. “I’ve seen ‘em work their hooves to the nub trying and trying and trying to find somepony, and I’ve seen ‘em fail again and again and again.” That look of sadness came back to the old stallion’s face as he looked away from her and toward the trees where those three children were running around playing. “You can see a weight on those mares’ withers, hon. You can see it in the way that they walk and the look in their eyes. Like everypony else, they just want to find somepony to share their life with, to love and to be loved in return. They want somepony to wake up to in the morning. They don’t want a supermodel or a prince, they just want a good stallion to come home to, a stallion that they can kiss on the cheek and say I love you. Most never get to experience that where I come from.” When Four Score looked back over at her she almost flinched at the intensity of his gaze. It was a fiery gaze, one filled with sadness and longing and hope and love. Rachel’s breathing hitched as she stared back at him, frozen in place as if some greater power was holding her there. “It’s a shame, and every time I see it, it breaks my heart.” He looked straight ahead, freeing her from the spell. “You can almost see it eating at those mares, leaving a bigger and bigger hole until there’s nothing left but a husk. And it’s even more of a shame that I can see the same in some of the hyoo-man stallion’s that I’ve seen here.” His gaze softened. “Ponies, and I’m guessing hyoo-mans too, want that hole that loneliness makes filled. It really shouldn’t matter who fills that hole, or what they look like, as long as you care about them, right hon?” Rachel opened her mouth, but just as quickly closed it. “B-But James…” she whispered hesitantly after a moment. The old stallion smiled, reaching over and grabbing her hand with a hoof. Rachel, with tears in the corners of her eyes, looked down at his hoof just as he gave her hand a squeeze. “I don’t rightly know what happened between the two of you, dear, but maybe everything wasn’t going as well as you think.” Rachel’s body twitched as if she had been struck by lightning, her mind racing. Had everything been going as well with James as she thought? The two of them went to work, they came home, they sat on the couch. Every once and awhile she’d make him take her someplace—out to a movie or to dinner or to something that she wanted to go to—and they’d go to sleep to start it all again. But when was the last time the two of them had laughed together? When was the last time that she had let James take her someplace that he wanted to go? Rachel looked away from the stallion, blinking away her tears, and looked out onto the sunny grass. She had yelled at him a lot for collecting his cards and his stamps. They were stupidly expensive; they took up too much space. None of her other girl friends’ boyfriends had such a stupid hobby. Why didn’t he start golfing or lifting or something like that? That was normal, that was useful. But he would never listen. She could make him change his diet and the way that he dressed but she could never change that hobby of his. She remembered trying to throw some of his cards out once when he wasn’t home. The neighbors had almost called the cops after the fit that he had thrown when he had found out. He had searched half of the garbage cans in the city looking for those cards, and after he somehow managed to find them and bring them home, he hadn’t spoke to her for days after. She had later found out that the cards that she had thrown away were the ones that his father had given him right before he had passed. Back when it had happened, she had blown it off. He was overreacting. They were just stupid baseball cards. She even got upset at him for the fit that he had thrown because of what she did. But now, as she looked back at it, she couldn’t help but feel horrified with herself. How could she have done something like that? Why had she thought that it was okay at the time? If it would have been the other way around and James would have tried to throw something like her grandmother’s wedding ring out because he thought that it was stupid, she would have thrown him out of a window. She would have been so angry! And James had been angry, she now realized, but he had been very good at keeping it contained. After he had found his cards, he became distant. He didn’t laugh as much as he had before, and whenever he smiled around her, it seemed force. Whatever talking they had done vanished, and they’d sleep on separate sides of the bed, as far away from each other as physically possible. For the longest time she hadn’t thought anything of it, barely noticed that James was growing more and more distant, but now… Rachel sniffled as she quickly wiped her face of tears. Four Score, still holding her hand, unfurled one of his wings and wrapped it around her shoulder. Though it was nowhere near as big as Celestia’s had been, it was shockingly soft and oddly warm and comforting. “Now, now, there’s no need for tears,” the stallion said, pulling her against him. “We all make mistakes in our lives, young missy. Trust this old geezer when he says that.” He unfurled his other wing, using it to wipe a stray tear that she had missed. “What you need to do is learn from those mistakes, become a better pony, or hyoo-man in this case.” Sniffling, Rachel leaned into the stallion, who held her all the tighter. “If I were you, I’d go and talk to your old stallion. The two of you might not be romantically acquainted anymore, and you might never be again, but at least the two of you could leave each other on better terms.” He gave her hand another squeeze. “And while you have every reason not to like us ponyfolk, I ask that you give us a chance. We might seem like a bunch of silly-fillies at times but most of us are good folk that know one very important thing.” Cleaning her face up as best as she could, Rachel looked over at the stallion. “W-What thing?” she asked The stallion grinned. “Friendship is magic.”