THE LAND BEFORE, EARTH, SUNHIGH
"Like buck I'm going to give you more food! There's a set amount we've all agreed upon and now you're asking for more?!" a voice shouted just over the hill.
"Yes, I AM asking for more food. No, scratch that. I'm demanding more food! And who are you to stop us? We rule the skies, little ponies!" she heard a pegasus warrior mock as she came over the hill.
"What they hay is going on here?" Smart Cookie asked concernedly as she once again butted her way into a conversation.
"Stay out of this, earth pony! We're here for food and that's what we're leaving with." spat the pegasus soldier.
"Why would you need more food? You just picked up your quota last week; it's not due for another two weeks!" Smart Cookie challenged.
"I said stay out of this!"
"No, I will not stay out of this! As a secretary to Chancellor Puddinghead of the earth ponies, I-" Smart Cookie began.
"That wont be necessary, dear." Chancellor Puddinghead said as he came bouncing out from the trees.
"C-Chancellor Puddinghead?" Both earth ponies stammered in disbelief.
"Well well well, if it isn't the crazy earth pony who "runs" this place. No wonder they're still wearing sack bags rather than armor!" the pegasus warrior whispered to his partner, who snickered.
"What seems to be the problem, lads?" the Chancellor asked the pegasi, taking in the scene to try and find any visual clues.
"We need more food if we're going to wage war against the unicorns, so just give us what we want and you'll have us both out of your manes...Until of course we're hungry again." the pegasus answered with a smirk.
Chancellor Puddinghead held his snout and giggled heartily before regaining his composure.
"Ahem. Now, listen to me dear fellows. We are all ponies in the end, and it is our duty to take care of each other. So here's what I propose: YOU FLY YOUR MONGREL HIDES BACK TO YOUR LITTLE CLOUD ROCK, WAGE WAR AGAINST THOSE SNOBBY UNICORNS AND GET BOTH OF YOUR RACES KILLED OFF SO WE EARTH PONIES CAN LIVE IN PEACE FOR A CHANGE!" the Chancellor said, his tone quickly turning menacing and his white mustache flaring as if it were alive itself.
The two pegasi's eyes lit up with fear at the sight of the fuming earth pony and quickly took off into the skies.
The chancellor cleared his throat and smoothed down his mustache before turning back to the earth ponies.
"Well, now that that is settled I do believe we have seen the last of them today. Come along now, Smart Cookie; we must speak." the Chancellor said, smiling gleefully and resuming his bounce.
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"Care to run that by me again, your Chancellorness?" Smart Cookie said in stern disbelief.
Chancellor Puddinghead sighed and rubbed his snout in annoyance.
"It's simple! We take all the food we grow and store it in the caves until the unicorns come to pick up their quota. Then, we give the unicorns their quota but not the pegasi. Better to live next to snobs who simply think themselves better than us rather than brutes who actually act against us, right? Eventually, either the pegasi will be too weak to fight either one of us and die off, or they'll fight the unicorns, discover food which we'll claim was stolen from us by the unicorns in an effort to starve the pegasi. In the end, the earth ponies still win!" the Chancellor explained, smacking his hooves against the ground happily, awaiting his secretary's approval.
But the stern and horrified look on the young earth pony's snout did nothing to satisfy that.
"This is some kind of cruel game you're playing with me, isn't it? Good one, your Chancellorness! Ahahah..." Smart Cookie said awkwardly.
The Chancellor just stared at her with a serious expression.
"You can't be serious." she stated.
The Chancellor nodded.
"You're mad! You're psychotic! How could you just plan to let a race die off like that?!" Smart Cookie shouted in disbelief.
The Chancellor sighed, bowed his head and secretly signaled to something behind Smart Cookie.
"I really hoped it wouldn't have come to this." he said. "You were my favorite secretary, after all.".
The last thing Smart Cookie saw before feeling a blunt pain in the back of her head and falling to the ground was the Chancellor's soft, sad smile.
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THE LAND BEFORE, PEGASOPOLIS, SUNHIGH
"You're joking! Sergeant, through these two in the brig for lying and thievery! Have their quarters searched for any food and secure it!" Commander Hurricane ordered.
"N-NO! We swear upon the clouds we didn't get any food from the earth ponies, Commander! They wouldn't give us a thing!" one of the two pegasi warriors stammered.
Commander Hurricane glared at the two shivering pegasus ponies, searching their eyes for any traces of treason.
"Throw them in the brig!" she ordered again, snorting angrily and trotting outside as the pair were hauled off to their cells.
The cold air helped to calm her down a bit as she struggled to make sense of what she had heard.
The earth ponies were with holding much needed food and their own Chancellor practically told the entire pegasus race to go buck themselves. But why? Surely the earth ponies aren't THAT stupid?
Whatever their reasoning, their Chancellor will have to answer to the swarming masses of the pegasus warriors as they raid the land for food and then shower crafted snow for a week upon them.
"Sergeant!" Commander Hurricane bellowed.
"Y-Yes Commander...?" came a soft, male voice from behind her.
"Ready the troops; Earth is our target. Secure all food and then Unicornicus at sunrise!" she ordered, shivering immensely as the blizzard picked up a noticeable amount.
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THE LAND BEFORE, EARTH, SUNSET
"Back! Back I say!" Chancellor Puddinghead shouted as he swung what sounded like a coat hanger at the approaching pegasi.
Of course, she could only guess as she was currently locked in the old, nearly unused dungeon directly underneath the town hall.
Smart Cookie let out a sad sigh and huddled herself tighter into a ball to fight off the cold.
Despite being underground, the cold air seemed like a sharp sword piercing through the ground just to reach her.
Was there no place safe from this menacing weather?
"We have no food because your snow killed all the crops, and the unicorns stole what little we had left!" the Chancellor screamed from above.
Although his voice was heavily muffled, Smart Cookie could still clearly understand what he was saying.
She wanted to shout at the top of her lungs that he was wrong, that there was food hidden in the caves just north of Earth.
But she couldn't, because she had spent the first three hours underground screaming for somepony to let her out of here and nopony seemed to be able to hear her.
Shuddering and flicking her tail like a whip to fight off the cold, Smart Cookie started to cry and pulled herself to the middle of the room; away from the cold walls of her cell.
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"Liar!" Commander Hurricane shouted as she brought her hoof down against the Chancellor's snout.
Around her stood a ring of pegasus warriors to keep the earth pony crowd at bay as they publicly interrogated him.
"I'm telling you, the unicorns came by before you did and stole the rest of our food! We can't even feed our fillies tonight!" the Chancellor admitted in terror, fearing another hoofstrike from the commander on his already bloodied snout.
"Sergeant, search the rest of the town hall and find out where these worms are keeping the food!" Commander Hurricane said, not believing a word from the Chancellor's snout.
Two pegasus guards detached themselves from the ring and followed Sergeant Thunderstorm into the rickety town hall.
Before he trotted out of ear shot, the sergeant heard Commander Hurricane's menacing growl as she started again. "Now...Let's try this one more time..."
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"How can anything get done in this place without any records?!" a pegasus warrior growled in frustration as he flipped over a table.
They had been searching the building for well over an hour now, hoping to find something that gave them any sort of lead. But so far, the only papers they had found were in the Chancellor's office; full of doodles and self-made crosswords.
The Chancellor was a strange one indeed.
Sergeant Thunderstorm was just about to give up hope when he thought he heard a soft scratching from underneath the floor boards.
Apparently the other two guards heard it as well, for they froze and remained hushed; trying to pinpoint the sound.
"Help me move this desk!" Sergeant Thunderstorm ordered as he realized what was going on.
The two pegasi groaned as they struggled to push the heavy wooden desk towards the door and away from the window.
The desk suddenly gave short way, and a satisfying click from a trap door sounded as the bookcase in the office slowly creaked open.
"Well I'll be damned." a pegasus sad softly. "Guess those earth ponies aren't so stupid after all."
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She was almost there.
She could feel the cooler air blow down through the dirt as she stood on top of the dirt pile beneath her.
Why hadn't she thought of this before? The walls, ceiling and floor were all made of dirt.
As the light began shining through the floorboards above her, Smart Cookie grinning happily.
But her happiness didn't last as she realized painfully that she didn't have the strength to break the floorboards.
She weakly dragged her hoof against the sturdy wood in hopes of a miracle, but nothing happened.
And then, everything happened.
As she stopped scratching the floorboards, deep voices sounded from above: "Help me move this desk!" one said firmly.
Hoofsteps hurried over above her and she could hear creaking and groaning as whoever was up there tried to force the desk forward.
Soon, however, a satisfying click could be heard and Smart Cookie's vision was blocked by the bottom of the bookcase.
Hurrying over to the cell door, she could barely make out the shadows of three ponies descending the flight of stairs to her prison.
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"What the hay?! Sir, there's a pony down here!"
"You're kidding me! Let me through!"
There were sounds of shifting hooves as Sergeant Thunderstorm pushed his way past the two pegasus warriors on the crowded stairway.
Sure enough, there was a filthy looking female earth pony with an orange coat and a blonde mane pressed up against the bars; her eyes wide in wonder and pleading for help.
"Earth ponies imprisoning earth ponies? Sir, something doesn't seem right here..." a guard said, looking around the dark room suspiciously.
The sergeant ignored the soldier and slowly trotted towards the iron gate that separated them from the scared looking earth pony.
After inspecting the lock the sergeant called for a spear, which was quickly brought to him and thrust in the lock; popping it open.
"Let's get you out of here." the sergeant said to the bedraggled earth pony.
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"Oh good, another prisoner." Commander Hurricane sneered upon seeing the orange earth pony.
"Not ours, ma'am." Sergeant Thunderstorm replied.
Commander Hurricane raised an eyebrow and glared, suspecting Sergeant Thunderstorm was about to commit treason.
"We found her in their dungeon, m-ma'am." he corrected, catching his superior's glare.
"Hmph. Since I'm not getting any answers from this useless pile of fluff, let's try "talking some sense into you." Commander Hurricane said with an evil grin as she trotted towards the orange mare.
"I'll ask you this once, little pony: Where. Is. The. Food?" the menacing pegasus commander growled.
Smart Cookie glared defiantly at the pegasus leader and then at the Chancellor; her hatred burning in her chest.
She realized in horror what she was doing and quickly ran through her options. Now was her time to tell the truth and keep the races from dying of starvation! But that would only lead to death by war...
"Well?" the commander asked impatiently.
Smart Cookie sighed and bowed her head submissively.
"There is no food..."