//------------------------------//
// The Perils of Excessive Punctuation in Discourse 
// Story: Vacation to a Pleasant Country Retreat 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
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Ditzy’s lungs burned, her muscles beginning to feel rather as though they had been left to marinade in fermented cider. Her runs with the Doctor had improved her speed and stamina vastly, but the life of a postal worker did not often require top-speed flights for extended periods of time, and panic only made things worse. “After this,” she gasped to herself, “Gym membership.”
Where was she flying to? Where could she go that was safe? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t stop to think and figure it out. Her breaths were growing shorter, her eyes misting with tears and her brow with sweat. She could fly… left! Yes! Left was a good direction! Left was good! She dove, then smacked into a wall. Okay! Left was not a good direction, at least not at this height. She could fly higher, or fly right. Or straight! She could fly straight, or up, or down, left or right, top or bottom, strange or charmed. No. Focus. Pull yourself together, Ditzy. Think, what would Daring do? What would the Doctor do? Hm. No vines, no sonic screwdriver, no bananas. Okay. Different tactic. What, if she were reading this in a book, would she want the character to do? What would she shout at the screen of the movie theater?
Find help. Find other ponies. There had to be somewhere that the crabs hadn’t gotten into yet. More importantly, stay in the air. Crabs couldn’t fly, and neither could robots, so far as she knew. Plus, she could see much farther from up there. Her course decided, she spread her wings and flapped upwards into the blue. From a not-so-distant rooftop, a blue mare watched her rise, scanning her motions carefully. Observing. Learning. Growing.




Pinkie pronked merrily down the streets, as was her wont even in the darkest of times. Especially, it seemed, in the darkest of times. Lily and Daisy had both more or less recovered from their brief bout with unconsciousness, evoking mixed feelings within the group. “Oh, poor, dear Daddy,” Hyacinth fretted. “You know, I don’t think being possessed can possibly be good for his constitution.”
Rose glanced sideways at Daisy, who was currently staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. She was staring very hard. “It was very brave of Carrot to come and rescue you like that, wasn’t it, Hyacinth?” Rose asked, not taking her eyes off of Daisy for a moment.
“Hm? What’s that, dear?” Hyacinth echoed vaguely. “I do hope Civil is alright. Imagine if he was attacked by one of those things. Imagine if Mrs. Number Twenty-Three found out!”
There was a faint sound like sandpaper running over brick. Rose grimaced. That was a sound that she had only heard a few times before, and it only heralded bad things. Not as bad as it was when it came from Lily, mark you, but bad nonetheless. Daisy’s teeth were grinding. Rose swallowed and repeated, “I said, it was very brave of Carrot to come rescue you, Hyacinth.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” Hyacinth agreed vaguely. “Such a pity she couldn’t grab my hat as well…”
There was a faint but audible noise. It sounded very much like the cracking of a whip or the breaking of a chain after far, far too much strain was put on it. In short, something in Daisy’s brain glanced over the readouts, took a calm sip of its afternoon coffee, and pressed the button marked BERSERK.
Daisy stopped trotting. Pinkie stumbled as the air grew noticeably colder, but she turned it into a somersault culminating in a hoofstand. Rose took a few steps away from Daisy. Lily, much like a possum, fell backwards into a faint. Spike caught her before she hit the ground. “It was a lovely hat,” Hyacinth continued amiably. “Just the thing to really show up Mrs. Number Thirty-One. Show her to call my candlelit suppers—”
“SHUT UP!” Daisy roared. The following silence rang and echoed with the florist’s fury.
Hyacinth stared, gawping, at her sister. Rose quietly slipped over to hide behind Spike, as he was the largest thing in the immediate vicinity that probably didn’t conceal any crabs. Pinkie did a backflip and landed on all four hooves, her countenance uncharacteristically solemn. She too scooched over to Spike. “This isn’t gonna go well,” she muttered. “It’s gonna be like the time Marble yelled at Limestone for breaking her favorite rock doll.”
“Marble yells?”
“She did that day,” Pinkie replied grimly, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks as she gazed into the abyss. “And lo, the ground did open and spewed forth clouds of dust and rock and yea, the Boulder of Holder did shudder in its founding…”
Daisy, meanwhile, was still breathing furiously. Her pupils were pinpricks and the whites of her eyes were shot with blood and tears. “You shut up,” she repeated, more quietly. “You come into my home. You insult the decor. You insult the town. You insult my livelihood. Fine. I don’t care enough to fight you. But now, my wife, my Carrot, has sacrificed herself to save your flank, and all you can say is that she didn’t save your stupid HAT?”
Pinkie’s eyes went solid blue. “Ia, ia, Cthulu fh’tagn,” she intoned.
Hyacinth took a few steps backwards. The last time she had seen Daisy this mad was… well, never. “Well, of course, darling, Carrot was, ah, very brave,” she began.
“No.” Daisy shook her head. “She wasn’t brave. She didn’t need to be brave. She did what needed to be done, like she always has, and now she’s… she’s…” Daisy sniffled, her face softening for a moment.
“Dear…” Hyacinth murmured, stepping forward. Spike and the other mares cringed. Lily peeked an eye open and promptly decided that appearing unconscious was the better part of valor.
Daisy looked up at her sister, her eyes burning. If looks could kill, Hyacinth and the buildings immediately behind her for three blocks would have been incinerated, their ashes swallowed by the earth while lightning flashed overhead, and everypony present knew it. Everypony, that is, save Hyacinth. “I am terribly sorry that Carrot was caught up in that dreadful uproar, of course,” she said, smiling warmly. Her survival instinct was apparently on the blink, assuming she had ever had one to begin with. Why would she need one, after all? Up in Trottingham, about the worst thing you had to fear was the milk being late. The blood began to rush to Daisy’s cheeks.
“You’re… sorry,” she said slowly. “You’re sorry? YOU’RE SORRY? I’m not asking for your apologies, Hyacinth. I’m not asking for you to say you’re sorry and wish me the best. I’m asking for you to get down on the ground and kiss where my beautiful, brilliant, patient wife has walked!! I’m asking for you to set her above Celestia and Luna!!! I’m asking for your eternal gratitude to my Carrot for saving your obtuse flank!!!! I don’t think that’s so much to ask, do you?!?!” She turned to Spike and the others. “Do you!?!?!?”
The excess punctuation was audible and was a sure sign of a mind pushed too far. Nopony could answer a question with that many exclamation points in it.
Pinkie Pie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Daisy…” she said gently, “I understand. You’re feeling frowny-upside-downy, and that’s okay. But there are better things you can do with that.”
Daisy stared, confused. Pinkie Pie walked forward at what was, for her, a sluggardly pace. “Right now, you’re really mad, right?” she said quietly. “You wanna break things. You wanna hurt ponies, and Hyacinth makes the best target. But if you turn into a Shouty Snipperson, you aren’t helping anypony. Not yourself, not Hyacinth, and not Carrot Top, either.”
“I…” Daisy’s lower lip wobbled. “I just…”
“Shh, shh,” Pinkie consoled, wrapping her hooves around the mare. “It’s okay. I get it. So let Auntie Pinkie tell you what to do with that anger. Take it, and control it. Remember those crabs? Remember what they did? Get mad at them. Get… get that one off your sister!”
Daisy spun. Hyacinth was standing perfectly still as a silver crab scuttled up her back. A long, silver tentacle extended from its abdomen. For a moment, both sisters stood perfectly still as the robot, like a scorpion, prepared to strike...
Then, a blur of grey smashed Hyacinth to the ground, sending the little silver crab flying. Ditzy rose from the impromptu dogpile, grinning broadly. “Hooves up everypony not being controlled by little, shiny, and silver over there!” she said.
“Ditzy!” Pinkie cried happily. “Not everypony’s been gotten, then?”
The grey pegasus’s smile faded. “Well… not me, anyway,” she said quietly. “I was with Rarity and Mac…”
Pinkie’s smile faltered. “Oh…”
“Rarity?” Spike repeated. “Is… is she okay?”
Ditzy stared at the ground. “I was the only one who could escape,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, Spike.”
The dragon stared. He inhaled heavily, his fists clenching. “Okay,” he said calmly. “Fine. This is fine. We just need to undo whatever it is these crabs do to ponies and then make sure that they never do it again. Simple, simple, simple.”
Pinkie looked around helplessly. The situation was getting steadily worse. “Okay,” she said, her voice tinged with desperation. “Great. Let’s just keep moving until we can get to Romana.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Ditzy said, gratefully smiling at the pink pony. “I wish I’d thought of that instead of just flying toward the shouting.”
“Is that how you found us?” Rose asked, a small smile gracing her face. “Guess I’m not surprised. Everypony in town musta… heard that…”
There was a long moment of silence. In that silence, the sound that had been tingling at the back of every mind present became clear. It was the sound of beating wings. Everypony turned to look the way that Ditzy had come to see Rainbow Dash slowly but steadily flying toward them.
“Okay, time to go,” Ditzy said quickly, spinning quickly in the direction of the Stick and Carrot. She stopped when she saw the ponies blocking off the street ahead of them. The ponies blocking off the street behind them and to either side of them. Macintosh, Rarity, Carrot Top, and too many others to count. Each one had a blank expression and empty, empty eyes…
“Ya know,” Rose said, staring around. “There are days when I really hate living in this town."
And the things in the bodies of their friends and neighbors began to close in.