//------------------------------//
// To Be Human 
// Story: Wings 
// by Silent Bob 
//------------------------------//


To Be Human



Rainbow skidded to a halt right outside her door before eagerly opening it, Tom quickly running up to join her side. He planted his hands on his knees upon reaching her, panting furiously. 

"OK... you definitely have me beat in the stamina department," he huffed. "What's in that hay you eat? Ground coffee?!" 

Dashie rolled her eyes at that, leading Tom into her familiar living room. She took a quick gaze at the photo of her trio of a family at the couch's side.

"Hey Mom! Ya home!?" she called.

No reply. 

"Awesome. We have the house to ourselves," Dashie grinned, before leading Tom up to her room and opening the door. "Tada!" she said proudly. 

Tom glanced her way. "Rainbow... I told you I already saw it."

She shot him an annoyed look. "Oh just give me this," she grunted, before putting on puppy-dog eyes that would make god himself smile pridefully at his adorable creations.

"Can't. Resist. Cuteness," Tom gasped. 

Dashie grinned at that, obviously amused at the fact she now had a little power over Tom that didn't involve the use of clowns, the devious little devil. A second later though, the tour began.

"That's where I work out!" she said, pointing towards her small light-weight dumbbell collection.

Tom smirked slightly. "About those, I was sort of wondering how you lift them..."

"Duh!" Dashie said, rolling her eyes and flickering her wings. 

Tom caught on at that. "Oooooh... wing training. Gotcha."

Rainbow nodded before making her way over to the large poster on her wall. "And this is the totally awesome and super cool Wonderbolt poster my dad got for me!" she beamed, a small hesitation in her voice upon mentioning the word 'dad.' She soon shrugged it off before quickly gesturing towards the bottom. Signatures Tom hadn't noticed before appeared to be there. "It was autographed by every member of the current team!" She then paused a second. "Well... the ones who weren't..."

A beat.

Tom cocked an eyebrow. "Weren't what?"

She dismissed his question with a wave of her hoof. "Nothin'. I'm guessing you have no idea what a Wonderbolt is, huh?"

"Sounds like the name of some new fancy car or somethin'," Tom said.

Rainbow threw him a confused look. "A wah?"

"Nevermind," Tom chuckled. "Tell me about the Wonderbolts."

Dashie grinned at that before beginning a speech that almost sounded rehearsed. "The Wonderbolts are the elite flying force of Equestria. They double as both a stunt team during peace times and a special operations unit during war time. They also help deal with internal threats. This team alone subdued three dragons with no magic whatsoever."

Tom shook his head in disbelief. "How in the world did they manage to get rid of something three stories tall?"

Dashie put on a smirk. "With crossbows."

"Crossbows?!" 

"Crossbows," Dashie repeated in a badass tone. "My dad never really liked to talk about his dealings with them, but the few times I got him to he always said the trick was to 'shoot them where they don't have scales'."

Tom squinted in thought at that, not only about what Dashie just said but by the fact she kept referring to her father in past tense. A horrible thought quickly came to mind, though he quickly shrugged it off with a shudder before forcing his mind back on topic. "You mean..."

Dashie pointed at a single wide eye, causing Tom to wince. "Ouch." He then thought for a second, quickly coming to a realization. "That'd only blind them though. How did they finish em' off?"

"Oh, they never killed them, just subdued them or 'neutralized' them. Some dragons would back down after you blinded em, the ones who haven't really experienced.... pain before, however others would need to be lured out of Equestria. The Wonderbolts would use themselves as bait, the dragon having their scent and everything, and lure them back to the badlands." Her face soon turned grim. "If that didn't work, though, they'd have to bring in the army with a bunch of siege equipment and unicorns... and that could get messy from what he said."

Tom shook his head incredulously once again. "This whole world is nuts." He then gazed at her curiously. "Anyway, you keep mentioning magic... and then there was something about a mage.... and the spellbook shops I saw.. and well... you're not going to try to turn me into a toad or something if I make you angry, right?"

Rainbow burst out laughing at that. "Of course not, silly! Only unicorns can use magic."

"Oooooooooooohhhh, so that's what their thing is," Tom said.

"Their what?"

"You know, their thing. You gotta respect the thing. Pegasi can fly, unicorns can do magic and stuff, but what do those other ponies I saw do? The ones without horns or wings."

"They farm," Dashie said blankly.

"They farm?"

Rainbow nodded. "Yep."

"Oh."

The two burst out laughing. 

After a second, Tom calmed himself and said, "well, I guess I can't really say much about that." He gestured towards his farmboy suspenders before composing himself further. "Anyway, you said you wanted to show me something?"

"Oh yeah!" Dashie said, face-hoofing herself for her forgetfulness. With that, she scooched down and began to dig under her bed. After a second, she procured a book titled Fourth Grade History -  A Guide to Equestria.

"Oooooohhh..." Tom said, practically drooling. 

Dashie rolled her eyes. "I only want to look up one thing, ya egghead."

"B-But-" Tom said. 

"If you stick around I'm sure you'll be able to pick up our history as you go," Dashie noted.

"Fine..."

Dashie then cleared her throat. "A long time ago I once heard my dad saying how he wished the humans had finished off the vættir in the Frozen North...."

"Wait a minute, you're telling me humans live here?!" Tom said, wide-eyed. He was now growing more confused and curious by the second. 

"Seems that way," Dashie said, flipping open her book and turning towards the index. 

Tom moved to her side, scanning it for 'humans'. After a second, Dashie announced, "there we are."

He squinted to see where she was reading and saw but three words. Humans - See Teranids

"So humans are the Teranids...." Tom mused. 

"Seems so." With that, Dashie quickly flipped through the pages of the index, eventually arriving at 'T'. "Teranids, page 36," she announced.

"Not a lot of love for us, it seems," Tom said. "Only one page?"

"Yeah, that's pretty weird," Dashie admitted. "The changelings had like ten pages about them alone..." She groaned in annoyance. "By Celestia, that homework assignment should have a section itself for being the most boring history assignment in history." With that, she finally reached the page she was looking for. She then rolled her eyes. "Duh, that's why they don't have much mention. The Teranids were around before Equestria. This book doesn't really cover pre-Equestrian history that much."

Nodding, Tom glanced down at page 36, the curiosity within so fervent it felt like it was about to boil his brain. After skimming it for a second, he finally found what he was looking for, though not what he hoped for, a section called, The Fall of the Teranids.

"Fall of the Teranids..." he whispered. "I suppose that means we're no longer round these parts."

Dashie shook he head. "It could just mean that their civilization fell," she said, showing her astute side.

"Score one for us humans," Tom said sarcastically before beginning to read aloud, "around the same era as the settling of the Great Central Planes, a curious happening came in the north near the Crystal Mountains. The Teranid, or human civilization as it was sometimes called came to an abrupt end. Not much is known about this event, as given the strife of the time it's likely that many things were left unrecorded. However, what is known is that a war between the humans and vættir was initiated some thirty years before.

While originally seen as a somewhat just, though vengeful war, the humans seeking retribution for the vættir...." Tom raised his eyebrows. "Harvesting of hundreds of thousands of their population." He then turned to Dashie, his eyes widening in horror. "Harvesting?! What the heck does that mean?"

Dashie shook her head. "I'm not completely sure... but I do know the vættir still do that to this day. They've been known to abduct ponies right out of their homes on the Crystal Mountains and drag them back to the Frozen North. It was what my dad was so angry about. He said that only unicorn magic could do them in."

"So he wasn't just angry about the abductions... he was angry about not being able to do anything about it."

Dashie nodded solemly. "He said he wished Celestia would just give the order to go in and 'neutralize' them." She then winced at that. "He was pretty angry that day." After a second of silent, solemn contemplation she said, "anyway, go ahead and read on."

Tom nodded before complying. "Sympathy for this war was lost when the humans began to kill off large amounts of Arctic Ponies, this people being peaceful, but believed, by the Teranids at least, to be used by the vættir as a form of cattle... their life-energy being used in order to widen the Northern Rift in order to allow the vættir to draw more magical power from the void."

With that, the farm boy slumped onto the floor. "I can't believe it... I can't believe we'd just kill off innocents like that...." He sighed, composing himself. "It explains what the harvesting is for, though... but what's the Northern Rift?"

Dashie shrugged with a 'you tell me expression.'

"We definitely need to hit your library one of these days," Tom said, gaining an annoyed grunt from Rainbow.

Tom then chuckled before reading on, "With outside support for the war ceasing, the vættir closing in, and their numbers dwindling the Teranids hatched a desperate plan. Their leader, one of the most powerful mages in history and of an unknown name fused lion and eagle together to form the first chimeras, the gryphons. These creatures were given the special ability to be able to harm the vættir directly without the use of magic. How the archmage did this is still unknown." The farm boy shook his head at that. "Why can't you harm em' without magic, anyway?"

"They're kind of like ghosts," Dashie answered. "You can't really stab a ghost with a spear."

"Dragons.... ghosts... what's next? Werewolves?" He then cleared his throat before reading on, "the chimeras were successful at almost completely exterminating the threat from the Frozen North. Unfortunately, given the time to regroup, the Teranids soon launched a pre-emptive strike against their own creations, fearing that they would breed out of control and turn against them eventually. Vastly underestimating the gryphons, they  were all but wiped out. The last known location of human activity was near the Northern Rift, archaeological evidence pointing to it being slightly after the attempted gryphon extermination."

With that, Tom slumped down onto the floor, once again growing silent. Rainbow glanced at him with concern.

"Tom?" she said quietly.

The farm boy remained silent, the gears in his head turning rapidly. 

"Hey... it's not all bad... your people have an entire world to themselves from what you told me!" she said.

"It's not that..." Tom whispered, glancing away from her.

Dashie lowered her eyebrows. "What is it, then?"

"Something I should have seen before...." Tom said, shaking his head incredulously before turning his head her way. He paused for another moment before uttering:

"We're monsters."

Rainbow gazed at him, dumbstruck.

"How are you monsters?" Dashie asked, her voice laced with an almost sisterly concern.

"We wiped out those Northern Ponies... innocents... and then we tried to do the same thing to the gryphons without even giving them a chance to prove themselves...."

"But that was them, not you!" Rainbow argued.

"Not just them... the huns too... how they left my father to rot..." Tom gulped. "If what my pap says is true, and that all people are the same deep down... then deep down we're all monsters."

With that, Dashie threw him a stern expression. "Come on," she said.

"Huh? Where are we going?"

"To the..." she paused, sighing slightly. "Library... I'll be an egghead just this once. There has to be more about you humans than meets the eye."

"No there isn't..." Tom said mournfully.

"Yes there is!" Dashie proclaimed. "Humans aren't all monsters, because you're not a monster, now come on!" 



I can't write anymore... I can barely move my damned fingers. I wish I could though. I want to replay what happened after that in my mind... I want to remember. I need.. something to drag my head out of the fire when things get rough up there, because I know they're going to be... I know they're going to-



With that, Tom Mayflower's head slammed onto the keys of the typewriter within the common room of his aerodrome. Within a minute, he began to snore ever so faintly. Nightmares filled his mind, both made of his past and possible future. Waking would give him no reprieve, for the next time his eyes fluttered open he would see fire in the skies of Britain.