Sandbar looked around, watching the little red balls of fur running circles around his and Comet’s legs as they eagerly awaited the food that Fluttershy told them to portion up between the bickering band of brothers.“Comet can you tell me again why are we here?” Sandbar had to raise his voice up to be audible over the loud gekkering filling the room.
“Because this place is just creepy if you think about it.” Comet said with obvious fascination in his eyes. Sandbar knew this look, and he knew it promised nothing good. The fact that Comet’s reason was not even close to what Sandbar could have ever expected however, was pretty much to be expected.
“Comet this is Fluttershy’s cottage and we are feeding a litter of baby foxes” Sandbar dead-panned. “I’m not sure what can be less creepy than this place.”
“And that’s exactly why we are here.” Comet held up his hoof as Mrs Forgetmenot used to when she explains something to the class. The irony that Comet used their teacher’s signature hoof signal was not lost on Sandbar. “To anypony looking this place is just perfect. Fluttershy takes in the animals she finds wounded, or in this cased orphaned, and nurtures them back to health.”
“Oh I see…, I still don’t see how that is creepy.” Sandbar pretended to nod knowingly, but then changed it to a head-shake mid-sentence. Comet couldn’t help but smile at this display.
“Well that’s because the creepy stuff starts with this thing that I’m levitating here for the dismay of these pups. Fluttershy is the meekest pony there is. So whatever is in these bowls can’t have anything to do with meat. In fact I asked her, just to make sure that this is completely vegetarian. And here we are; holding a bunch of vegetables over a pack of carnivores, who are for the most part completely mesmerised with the content of these bowls.
“What if they are just so young they can’t eat meat yet.”
“They still wouldn’t eat veggies. Or cereals.” Comet added as he peeked into the bowl for a second “Also the fact that the only pup that isn’t ogling us has been nibbling at your tail for the better part of the last five minutes. Which shows that they are already teething. No, this is Fluttershy’s doing.”
Sandbar looked behind him at the cheeky little mongrel that was indeed chewing at the end of his tail, covering the whole thing with saliva. Sandbar lifted his tail up and looked the perpetrator straight in the eyes. He showed no signs of remorse and did so while looking unjustifiably cute. Sandbar shook his tail and let the pup drop to the floor. He didn’t look too shaken, and immediately started to wrestle with one of his siblings. Sandbar made a mental note to himself that his longtail days were officially over, this was the last straw.
“Okay so Fluttershy somehow got a litter of foxes not to eat meat and so what? I mean she can literally talk with animals.”
Comet didn’t answer. He just put the bowls down in a straight line and watched the pups tumbling over one another to get to the bowls and gorge down anything they could find. For the next five minutes the only sound that could be heard was the little foxes munching and sometimes growling at each other. Sandbar however wasn’t really watching the pups. Instead his eyes were on Comet.
But just after the pups finished their feast the food started to do it’s work. The pups who were oh-so-lively just mere minutes ago basically collapsed where they stood. But not before they formed a tightly packed little snuffling mound of fur. Sandbar could have watched them forever. However his bliss was soon interrupted by Comet’s voice.
“I don’t know Sandbar I really don’t. It just seems odd how everything we ponies come in contact with gets tamed so quickly. Even against their nature. For Nightmare Moon’s sake, we even bend nature to our will. The soil, the air; anything really. And it’s not like we would like to rule them or anything. We just want everything to be like us.”
“You mean good?”
“Yeah maybe.” Comet winced. “Not sure though. I was just wondering, what is… us? Because whatever we consider good had to have come from somewhere. I learnt from my parents and they from theirs, but there must be somepony who made this all up isn’t there? If so, isn’t everything ponykind stands for just all made up. And worse yet, what if that pony was wrong? What if we are wrong?
Sandbar quickly got confused by this chain of thought. As happened all too often when Comet went on one of these rants of his. He had no shame admitting that Comet was by far the more clever out the two of them, and he could barely keep up with him at times. This was one of those times. Without trying to look too dumb his gaze lingered on the sleeping pups, as if he was just contemplating on what he heard. The truth was, all he wondered about was how to get out of this silence because it was starting to get really uncomfortable.
The pups were of very little help. As if just to mock him one of them yawned right into Sandbar’s face so widely it seemed the pup’s head was about to split in half. It then proceeded to nudge away one or more of it's siblings to make more room for itself and went back to sleep. It was one of the cutest things Sandbar had ever seen. Ironically enough that finally gave him something to say.
“I don’t know Comet. But whatever is wrong with the world, we aren’t likely to find it here.”
Comet visibly deflated. His eyes closed as his posture slouched and all around he looked as though his day had just been ruined. Sandbar couldn’t help but wonder if this was his fault.
“Maybe you’re right Sandbar, maybe you’re right.” Comet opened his eyes and turned to head for the door. “Anyway, this was the last task I volunteered us to do so we might as well say goodbye to Fluttershy and head home for the night”
Sandbar couldn’t shake off the feeling that somehow he had said something wrong.