//------------------------------// // Enter the Squirrel Filly // Story: Beaks Not Wanted Here // by Starglider //------------------------------// Ferret Keeper trotted anxiously through the outskirts of Ponyville, furrowed brows betraying concern at her sudden summons. She'd left as soon as the scheduled rain shower passed, and the ruts of the track were filled with shining puddles in which her hooves splashed noisily. Yes it was true that Sea Swirl was one of her most enjoyable customers, with an enthusiasm for elaborate water features that might even surpass her own. It was also true that the lilac unicorn (no, not that lilac unicorn, the other one with the blue mane and dolphin cutie mark) was probably her most lucrative remaining customer, after Filthy recently awarded her a lifetime ban from the Rich estate. Swirl was a perfectionist though, and perhaps not entirely stable (being a lilac unicorn and all), which made the crudely scrawled note all the more concerning. What kind of landscaping emergency could demand her immediate attention, and exactly what implicit threat was contained in 'over here with no delay, or else!' ? Answers were not far away now, as Ferret Keeper rounded the final bend of the muddy dirt track and arrived at the gate of Sea Swirl's generously sized cottage. A very lovely gate it was, with fragrant freesias twining up over the arbor arch; she had installed it herself around the running of the leaves last year. Now if she could just convince Sea Swirl to replace the worn flagstones with... A sudden splintering CRASH from behind the cottage stopped her thought cold. Was Sea Swirl having a terrible accident, or was some fiend destroying the pergola she had so lovingly crafted?! The creamy mare sprung into a gallop, her hooves clattering on the stone path as she raced around the corner of the house. Something was wrong here... she thought for an instant before the hard surface beneath her hooves gave way into sucking goop, as she barrelled into the trench of quick-setting concrete. With rising panic the earth pony tossed and struggled, neighing in shock as she sank up to her hocks; to no end, as the stuff hardened almost instantly and left her thoroughly immobilised. Desperately, she looked around for something or somepony that could help her escape... only to see a depressingly familiar green shape sitting bruised but triumphant in the remains of a collapsed pergola. "My dear Ferret Keeper, didn't I say resistance would be useless? Fur-catalysed mix, the perfect means of ensuring us some quality time to reflect on one's choices in life!" crowed the hippogriff stallion, flicking his wings to disloge the splinters and twigs now embedded in his plumage. "Though I think you should have chosen oak for that perch, it must have been balsa to have collapsed so easily," he said, frowning at the unexpected plummet to earth. Near one clawed foot a little grey squirrel chittered up at him, probably angry at the avian monster who'd destroyed of its home, before scurrying off into the undergrowth. "Or perhaps I didn't want to encourage feathered pests to roost on my client's property, Star Glider!" shouted Ferret Keeper. "Surely you can't have built another of those monstrous birdy-beams, you claimed the last one took three years and your entire family fortune," she snorted. "Look, just let me go. If you pay for the damage I might even fix your secret lair up with some nice raised beds; lillies perhaps..." "Oh no, my lovely little mare, you misunderstand me." trilled the green-blue half-avian sweetly, cocking his head to the side and opening his beak a crack (was that smiling? Ferret was never really sure with birds) as he emerged from the ruined structure. "My apologies for the temporary immobilisation, for I mean to offer you something no pony has had before!" "I already said I don't want a beak..." she began. "A choice!" he proclaimed. Before she could object he rushed to explain: "Do you remember it, when you received your... cutie mark?" "My cutie mark?" The pink-maned mare was perplexed, and a little worried at where this was going. "Of course, but what does that have to do with your crazed notions of improving my anatomy?" His fierce eagle face now inches from her muzzle, the hippogriff's voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you remember the magic of harmony, rising out of nowhere, rushing into you before you could realise what was happening? Did it give you a choice, or did it just have its way with you, imprinting its indelible iconography on your rump without consideration of what you wanted?" "It's not like that!" she objected, voice quavering as she wondered how he could know this, when hippogriffs had no such experience? The gleam in his avian eyes was matched only by the gleam from the sliver of pearl hanging around his neck. "Oh but it is. Did you want to be branded for life as nothing but a gardener, to make pleasant lawns for richer ponies as your dreams of adventure wilted and withered like cut roses in a vase?" Tears welled in the creamy mare's eyes as she was forced to look away. Despite her immobile legs she was able to twist around and regard her flank, adorned as ever by the image of a shovel surrounded by three roses. "I like gardening..." she whispered forlornly. "Oh no doubt!" the hippogriff exclaimed, back to full volume and cheer. "I must say your efforts are lovely if sometimes structurally dubious. Best viewed from the air of course! But did you need a cutie mark to accomplish that? Or is it there to mark you as a gardener in the eyes of the other ponies, fixing your role in their society without doubt or escape? Is that what you wanted?" "Well..." "But think! The beauty of Mount Aris is widely known, both cultivated and crafted, yet it was accomplished without marks to tell us what to do! How much more beautiful would your lovely pony posterior be, were it not tarnished by the imprint of a harmony that favours the herd over the individual? What could you do, where could you go, if that icon wasn't dictating the shape of your life?" His voice dropped to a whisper again as his emerald beak brushed her whiskers. "I could show you..." Ferret Keeper struggled to maintain her convictions in the face of his perfectly calculated psychological assault. "Wha.. what do you mean?" "As I said, a choice!" Star Glider brought up a claw; nestled in the green-scaled palm were two rounded capsules, one vivid red, the other bright blue. "You take the blue pill, the story ends, you go back to landscaping and believe whatever your cutie mark wants you to believe. You take the red pill, I show you what's beyond the horizon, and just how far the sky goes." Trembling and transfixed by the two candy-like capsules, Ferret Keeper's muzzle began to reach down towards the hippogriff's claw, her lips drawing apart as... something fast and brown and fluffy slammed into the stallion, sending him sprawling across the lawn as the newcomer bounced back to her hooves and adopted a fighting stance! The coloured pills bounced out of his grip and flew through the air, landing in a nearby puddle with a splish. "Ferret Keeper! Hang in there!" the new mare shouted, her impossibly large and fluffy brown tail curling over her back as she prepared to leap again. Behind her, a tidal wave of tiny furry bodies crested the fence and poured into the garden, chittering and swarming towards the dazed half-avian. "Squirrel Filly! How in Equestria did you know I was in trouble?" she cried with relief, overjoyed to see her friend coming to her rescue. "Oh I saw that feathered fiend flapping his way towards town," the rodent-themed superheroine explained. "I knew he was up to no good, but I had to wait for one of my squirrel scouts to find his exact location. Now that buck-beaked menace is going to get what's coming to him." "No, wait, it's not like that..." Ferret Keeper started, before something caught her eye. Two somethings, sitting in a puddle now coloured with a distinct blue tint, as the dye washed off one of the capsules to reveal two identical red pills. "...no actually it's exactly like that." she concluded. What a cad! "You are a bad, bad birdie," the brown mare shouted, "making my friend cry like that!" "Okay squirrels, sic him!" she commanded, driving the furry tide to sweep forward and over the poor blue-green griff, teeth nibbling and pulling at his feathers, scratchy claws raking through his fur. "No, no, get awway, get ooooofff, argh!" he screeched, thrashing, bucking and flapping to no avail. Flight was impossible with the horde of rodents crawling over his wings, and if this lasted much longer it would remain impossible until all his feathers grew back. "Have no fear, this stuff can't be that tough." Squirrel Filly boasted. Leaping into the air and bringing her hooves down again and again with sharp cracks, within seconds she had shattered the concrete around Ferret Keeper, who stepped gingerly out of the trap. "Oh thank you Squirrel," she said, closing her eyes and wrapping her friend in a quick embrace. When she opened them again, she couldn't help notice that the beleaguered hippogriff had managed to roll onto the central circular patio... which was missing its usual wrought iron chairs and table, and had gained a thin post on one side. The avian-pony hybrid looked back at the embracing mares with a dangerous look of triumph on his beak, even as the heroic squirrel sidekicks continued to chew and claw at his ruined plumage. "Until next time, ponies!" he shouted, one claw reaching out to the post and revealing it to be a sturdy lever waiting to be pulled. With a tremendous SPROING everything in the centre of the garden shot upwards, a fountain of tiny furry bodies arcing in every direction as the creature at the centre soared skyward at an alarming rate. The patio, or should we say escape platform, hit the top of its travel and sprung back, oscillating up and down on its bed of oversized steel springs. "No! My darlings!" Squirrel Filly screamed, dashing desperately around the garden, catching those pets not blessed with gliding membranes (which was most of them, to be honest) on her back. Others managed to land in trees, or in some less dignified cases, flower beds. High above, the wide-winged form of Star Glider could be seen flapping frantically to stay airborne, his well-chewed feathers whistling chaotically as he struggled for purchase on the air, ragged tail feathers fluttering wildy behind him. The cottage was far enough out from Ponyville's centre that he managed to escape out of sight before the commotion could draw a pegasus pursuit party. Ferret Keeper looked at the remains of the garden and sighed. "Squirrel Filly, um, I know I owe you my life... or at least my muzzle, but would you mind, err, holding up those rafters while I nail them back together? And... I know this is a lot to ask... but if you could perhaps convince your little sidekicks to reinstall edging, and maybe bed some daffodils? That just might give us a chance of getting this cleaned up before Sea Swirl..." It was too late. The horrified screams pierced the cream mare's skull and would haunt her dreams for months to come. "My precious pergola! My perfect patio! What have you two DONE?!?"