//------------------------------// // Chapter 57 // Story: To Serve Bronies // by Fuzzy Necromancer //------------------------------// Rarity was crying. Applejack was crying. Rainbow Dash was crying. The herds of assembled ponies were weeping, red-eyed, and blowing their noses, even before the three-armed human jumped. When that happened, most of them froze. The Earth Ponies charged forward, hooves outstretched, but they were going to be late, far too late. The unicorns prepared Feather Fall, Force Pillow, and other catching spells. They were all aiming at different places. Twilight Sparkle had reached out with her own telekinetic field when the human landed firmly on the back of an accelerated Fluttershy. “Take me back!” Reiko shouted. Fluttershy ignored her. Reiko reached down and punched Fluttershy in a very sensitive place. Fluttershy screamed, threw up in mid-air, and slowly lowered herself to the ground. “Oh my Celestia, what have we done?” Twilight Sparkle asked. She stampeded forward, knocking back the other hungry unicorns with waves of force magic. Her stomach rumbled. Spit foamed and screamed down her neck. Twilight bit into her own leg. She bit harder, until the pain turned her vision red and blood flowed. She tasted and drank her own blood. Aside from the pain, she felt a little better. “What are you waiting for?” Reiko shouted. “Eat up, bitches! This meatbag has nothing left to lose!” “I’m sorry,” Twilight said. “I’m so, so sorry.” “Darling, can you ever forgive me for what I’ve done to you?” Rarity asked, blowing her nose in a monogrammed hankerchief. “I acted like a savage animal!” “Oh cut out this horse-apples,” Lemon Hearts shouted, slamming Rarity to the ground. “Lemme at it! Flesh! FLESH!” A rock slammed into Lemon Hearts’s head. She swayed, and then went down when Fluttershy kicked her in the face. “What a thoroughly unpleasant pony,” Fluttershy said. “Anypony else want to eat our friends?” Rainbow Dash shouted from the feinting couch. # “Dear Princess Celestia…” Where to begin? Twilight Sparkle chewed on her quill. “Equestria has existed in a state of relative peace for the past millennium. For eons, we’ve read books, used tools, cooked our food, and slept indoors. It’s easy to forget that this isn’t our natural state of being. We aren’t just people, we are animals.” Rainbow Dash sat on a pile of cushions, her wings in casts and the rest of her covered with a variety of enchanted bandages and thunderblossom ointments, and a cone around her neck that had proved necessary to keep her from licking open the skin grafts. She watched the progress of Twilight’s quill with heavily medicated fascination. Fluttershy was clutching a magical ice-pack and hiding her head behind her wings. Neither of the two legged-neither of the humans was making eye contact with her. Rarity gave an embarrassed grin, the closed her mouth to hide her teeth. She levitated some teacups and cucumber sandwiches over to Applejack. Applejack, for her part, was watching Twilight Sparkle the way you might watch a caged wild manticore just after you noticed the door to its cage was open. Pinkie Pie was counting the “fingers” and “toes” on the humans. “I…I like to think of myself as a rational pony. Somepony who uses reason to rule her emotions, who thinks of long-term consequences instead of short term gain.” She sighed. “But ponies haven’t always been civilized. We grew up in a harsh land, full of predators, competition,” she dipped her quill again, “and limited food sources. We couldn’t always go down to the market for a bushel of carrots or a hayburger. Different living things shape themselves to fit different niches for survival, and that happened even more when the whole world was as wild and chaotic as the Everfree.” She was stalling, running up the page-length, and she knew it. She looked at the humans, really looked at them, their scrapes and bruises, their bright tiny eyes, their useless claws, their tender flesh, devoid of scales or fur or other protections. “What I mean is, we can get as smart as we want, as cultured and refined and self-controlled, but we are still things shaped for survival. There will always be a part of us that is obsolete, that knows nothing about consequences, or mercy, or reason.” She bit her lip. “Good friends can remind us of that, they can watch out for that part of us, but it’s up to us to keep it in check.” She slumped on the ground and dropped the quill. Rarity picked the pen up and tapped it thoughtfully. She cast an apologetic gaze at the human Reiko. Reiko gave her a thumbs up, then patted Twilight gently on the head. “Dear Princess Celestia, I’ve always thought of myself as a respectable mare. I don’t wear white after Labor Day, I spend as much time on aftercare as I do on a scene, I always offer the last bread roll to somepony else. I put my personal needs aside when we’re trying to save the world from a corrupted alicorn or evil shapeshifters or a spirit of chaos.” She levitated a plate of cucumber sandwiches and a tray of home-made lemon bars around the group. Everyone except Rainbow Dash and Jamal took one. She sighed. “But the laws of friendship and morality can be muddier when there isn’t some world-changing catastrophe or existential threat at work. I try to treat all my friends with respect, certainly, but what of the stranger to these lands? I thought, when I became friends with Zecora, that I had worked my way past judging a book by its cover and relying too much on rumor and folklore for my information.” For the first time, Rarity looked Reiko full in the face. She looked at the jagged scar along the human’s ear, where she had torn out that succulent, inexcusable, unforgettable bite. “Just because somepony, …just because Some One is delicious, and comes from a world of violence and hatred, that does not make them any less deserving of respect. Even if you intend to share something wonderful, be it a pile of gold or a pile of raw human flesh, that doesn’t make it okay to take something that doesn’t belong to you.” “It’s all cool,” Reiko said, through a mouthful of lemon bar. “These are great, by the way.” “Thank you,” Rarity said, with humility and a bit of choked-up held-back tears. Fluttershy stepped up and gripped the quill with her wing. Rainbow Dash was busy drooling and trying to nibble on her skin grafts. “Dear Princess Celestia, Today I learned that, even if a cause is just, you can alienate people who might otherwise support it by being overbearing and—EEK!” Fluttershy yelped as Rainbow Dash sank her teeth into her tail and yanked the quill out of her feathers. “Sh-shouldn’t you be OW resting?” “No, not yet! And this isn’t the painkillers talking!” Rainbow Dash slurred. “You’re wrong, dead wrong, you stupid…stupid little fluffbutt.” Everypony stiffened up. The humans took a step back. “Because,” Rainbow Dash said, grabbing the quill with her mouth, “you have nothing, nooooothing, to apologize for, you pretty dumb cute mare.” Rainbow Dash scribbled furiously, then spat out the quill. “There.” Twilight Sparkle gave her a would-you-like-to-share-with-the-rest-of-the-class? gesture. “Oh, right,” Rainbow Dash chuckled. She cleared her throat, chased her tail for a few seconds, and then focused her differently sized pupils on the text she had written. “Today, like, I learned that um, other ponies don’t owe me respectability. I shouldn’t regulate their tone and yell at them for being bitchy or some stuff like that if they are just saying ‘murder is wrong’ or ‘don’t strangle kittens’. I let my purses, pus, personal feelings about shutter fly override the very real moral truth of the situation.” Her eyes watered. “I just…I dunno man. I didn’t want my friends to fight, I was torn between two worlds, and I let the indecision paralyze me. I just thought about this like it was me and Applejack getting competitive or Rarity being prissy, instead of thinking about the very real lives at stake.” She looked Reiko and Jamal in the eyes. “I am so, so sorry you guys. No matter how abrasive butter dry was, I shouldn’t have let myself wash my hooves of the whole affair and throw you four to the timber wolves.” She sniffed hard. “I love you awkward dorks so, so much, and like, after this,” she wiped away tears, “we’re gonna graduate, and I’m never gonna see any of you again!” Fluttershy stepped up and carefully patted Rainbow Dash on the back. “It’s okay Dashie.” She raised a handkerchief up to Rainbow Dash’s face. Rainbow Dash filled it immediately. “Applejack, do you want to write anything?” Twilight Sparkle said, her voice tight and her eyes watery. Applejack picked up the quill, dipped it, made a few scratches, and returned it. “Dear Princess Celestia, Today I learned that friends don’t let friends eat people, even if those people eat ungulates in a parallel whatsit where ungulates can’t talk. “ Jamal snorted. Pinkie Pie took up the quill. “Dear Princess Celestia, Today-“ Pinkie Pie was interrupted by a feral dragon scream as Spike lunged after Reiko and Jamal with a huge net. “Dude, read the room!” Reiko said as she pushed out from under the net. “Oh,” Spike said. “Uh, Rarity? Twilight?” The two unicorns sighed. “Good grief! Why didn’t anypony tell me we’re not trying to catch the humans anymore? Honestly!” He walked off in a huff. Everypony laughed. Reiko chuckled and Jamal smiled. Pinkie Pie resumed her writing. “Dear Princess Celestia, Today I learned that some of the funny humans who watch the highlights of our waking lives have some very silly ideas about what can go in a cupcake and what is the hardest part of a body to dispose of…