//------------------------------// // Pets and Livestock // Story: The Little Curiosities // by Comma Typer //------------------------------// By the Apple family home, the apple fields lie majestic and grand. Plenty of apple trees bask in the sunset of a harvest day, their ripe fruit concealing great sweetness. Applejack and her siblings buck each tree in happy routine, her friends chipping in to help: Twilight and Rarity with their unicorn magic capturing the fruits with their magic fields, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy with their wings lifting them up to pick fruit from the air, and Pinkie Pie with her successful attempts at applebucking. Spike sees it all through a window in the dining room, watching his former master levitate a couple apples to her mouth only to be lightly reprimanded by her apple pony friend. At the table, the dragon takes a bite off of a gem—something he never dared eat as a dog, but becoming a dragon instilled a new appetite for the spectrum of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter deliciousness found in the realm of tasty jewels. Good thing Ponyville gems are cheap and abundant, almost like underground grass. Across the rest of the table sit the Apple horses, all munching and drinking in their snack time, having just prepared some apple pies and put them in the oven. Now commences the waiting game. “So, you turned sapient and got uplifted long before everyone else?” Cookie asks in great excitement, sipping on her tiny box of apple juice and eating a couple chocolate chip cookies afterwards. All the heightened tastes, the ability to eat almost anything a supermarket could offer—it cheered her to no end. “Wow! That must’ve been great… but also lonely for a while.” “It was alright,” Spike replies. “Being a talking dog that could also think like a human—“ he sighs “—it was quite the discovery.” He takes a clawful of gems to his mouth and chews on them like a bored human would on potato chips. “They could finally understand me, especially Twilight. We got a lot closer because I could truly be her best friend: we shared our secrets, hopes, dreams, worries… and we can talk back and reassure each other.” “What about talking with the other dogs?” says Oakley. The pegasus still smells like fresh trees, oak to be precise—tryouts for being a lumberjack in the city outskirts went pretty well early in the morning, especially with the rush of air he got from zooming between each tree, axe in his mouth. “Did they get jealous that you could talk?” Spike scratches his scaly head. “Not really. A few shied away from me because I sounded like a human—couldn’t shake off the feeling that I sounded a lot like their masters—but most dogs just didn’t understand me to begin with.” “I take it they treated you just fine, yes?” Cinnamon says, sipping her cup of tea—cinnamon tea, specifically, and she loves it. After turning into a pony, the allures of (former) human society’s high-class nuances attracted her. Now that she could participate in them with full understanding, she stopped in fascination at phenomena like proper manners and etiquette, fancy clothes and fashion, and foods tailored for refined tastes such as tea and biscuits. “Either way, it is good to know that you hung out with your fellow canines.” “Oh, that’s true! But, the alienation…. You did say I got uplifted just like you did, and, well, I’m sapient and they’re not. I understood what they said, but it’s what most humans expected: eat food, protect master, have fun, chase tail, bark loud, go to sleep, so on. I think Twilight’s the one who said it—metacognition… I could do that, but every other dog couldn’t.” Cookie’s eyes brighten at his language. “Wow, that’s a fancy word! Uh, what does it mean?” “It’s the ability to think about your thinking,” Cinnamon answers. “You are aware that you are thinking right now, aren’t you?” “Oh, yes, it’s all fun, much more fun after the Change! So many imaginations in your head—it’s like pretty pictures but they’re not exactly pictures I can see—and it’s like you’re the character of your own story and you’re writing it and you’re wondering what went wrong or right and—“ “I keep forgetting that you’re smarter than you look,” Cinnamon says before taking another sip of tea. If she were far less sophisticated, she would have shoved a hoof into Cookie’s muzzle. Oakley takes the pause in the conversation to look at Spike. “You’re one of the lucky ones, then. What about the dogs that didn’t turn into dragons like you?” Spike takes another bite of a gem, gulping down the shredded remains of a ruby. “Like Winona? I’m not sure. Winona’s fine. She doesn’t have that many dog friends to begin with, so she doesn’t know anyone who’s turned into a dragon except me. All the other dogs I’ve met: only a few are jealous or mad about it. The rest are… uh, not sapient enough to hold any long-term grudges.” He checks his bowl only to realize it is empty. “Still, dragons and dogs stick together. At least we know where we dragons came from.” The dragon pushes the bowl away from him. “So, ponies, how’s your new lives treating you?” Oakley snags a biscuit from Cinnamon, much to her silent chagrin. “Pretty good. It’s like the world just got a whole lot bigger. I mean, I could fly, Cinnamon can do unicorn witchery, and Cookie’s much stronger and faster and more connected to the soil than us—you should’ve seen her grow grain from concrete!” “Yeah, but I had to sleep for like twelve hours after that!” Cookie whines before sipping more on her juice box. “It sucks!” “Why, yes,” Cinnamon chimes in, continuing the conversation with Spike. “To think on the human level—or to be sapient, really, and going to Equestria where horses think for themselves and make their own societies since day one—it was living the dream. You could even say it was beyond our wildest fantasies! A world where we’re our own bosses! It was… heavenly.” “Not that we’re saying we don’t love Applejack and her family!” adds Cookie with a slurp, a sign that she ran out of juice in that tiny box. “We love them to bits, and we thank her and them all for bringing us all together here and for taking care of us… but, you know that feeling that you can do more, so you… want to do more.” Spike sighs. “Yeah, I get that feeling. When I was just a smart and talking dog, we’ve had a couple conversations with Twilight, that I’m more than just a dog or man’s best friend. After a while, she started treating me more like a human than a dog—no baby talk, no dismissing me with treats, nothing like that. I even played fetch with her with me calling the shots! It was better than my old dog self could ever think about… and now, I’m a dragon, you’re ponies, and we’re all on the same level as our former masters. Independence and freedom—we all have that in spades, and I think we’re just getting started.” A bark catches his attention. Spike and the three ponies look out the window. There, Winona licks a happy Applejack who hugs her back. The farmer’s friends stop their work for a while to adore the dog. The dragon rests his eyes on the sight before him. “Okay, most of us are just getting started.”