//------------------------------// // 7. Sticks And Stones // Story: HUMAN in Equestria: A Conversion Bureau Story // by Chatoyance //------------------------------// The Conversion Bureau HUMAN in Equestria By Chatoyance 7. Sticks And Stones Asher's father was yelling at him again. His face was red with anger, his eyes wide and bloodshot with rage. "Bambi? You're watching fucking Bambi?" Asher felt himself roughly seized by the collar and dragged. The massive arm lifted him by his shirt and threw him at the wall. He impacted with a thud and thumped to the floor, his breath knocked out of him. "You can't live on fantasy, you little faggot!" Asher's father was on him now, having dragged him away from the wall. His father's breath, rancid with stomach acid and adrenaline, was a hot wind on the boy's face. "Shows for little girls? This is what you do with your spare time? You want I should cut it off? You want to be a girl, is that it you little shit?" Asher didn't even feel the hit that knocked his vision askew. The ragged hole in his feelings hurt worse than anything his dad's fists could do. "I didn't raise you to be a fucking piece of shit cocksucker! You should be out there, with a job, leading an empire, not sitting in here with your Golden books and girly toys and watching mincing bunnies!" Asher tried to complain that he was only ten, that he was only a kid. "You're nearly an adult you little piece of shit! Grow up or I'll fucking kill you, do you understand? Do you? DO YOU?" Asher's father dripped sweat and hatred as he loomed over the boy. "...yes..." "WHAT? TALK LIKE A MAN YOU LITTLE SHIT!" "...Yes... yes sir. I'm sorry, I won't do it again, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." "No, you won't do it again." Asher's dad was suddenly cold as ice. He began methodically stuffing Asher's entire romball collection, and all of his toys into the waste bin. He picked up Lilly, Asher's stuffed leopard doll from when he was a baby. "Men don't need shit like this." Lilly's arms followed her head as Sergey Brendalthorpe Brin's strong hands ripped Asher's best friend into stuffing spewing bits. All went into the bin. Asher couldn't help crying. Lilly was his only friend. The hand that had tried to erase his tears with violence sent him smacking into the edge of the closet. Asher heard a dripping sound. His head was bleeding, where his scalp had been split by the edge of the door. He lay there, watching a small red pool spread across the floor. His dad would be angry about that. He would get yelled at for staining the floor and making a mess. Suddenly, Asher was pulled back from the closet door. He found himself being dragged across leaves and sticks, pulled by several hands. His dad would be really mad now, with the floor covered in filth like that. "Asher! Oh, Asher!" Seraphina's face was wet. That was odd. Good Family girls never cried. It wasn't proper. "Put this over it. Just do it!" It sounded like Petra, that stuck-up Bettencourt. "Press the cloth in, tight. Just press. Keep pressing!" "So much blood!" Isla. Isla was weird. "Pressing will stop the blood. Use the shirt to soak it up! Press hard!" Petra, always giving orders. She was a little bitch, just like dad said. The top of Asher's head felt cold. He wanted to tell everyone to leave him alone, but his body didn't want to obey. He flopped his arms and legs, but it felt like remote control, like some kind of faulty telepresence with a bad connection. "I found his... hair." Isla stood over a ragged mass of blond and crimson laying sticky on the forest floor. "I don't have to touch it do I?" "Forget about that!" Petra stood up. Seraphina was tending Asher. "Everybody! Grab sticks. Long ones!" The children cautiously darted out from the center of the clearing where they had all gathered together. Milo had managed to grab a long branch that had fallen down. He began tearing leaves and twigs off of it to make something vaguely spear-like. Oliver snagged a whispy branch, then discarded it. It was obviously useless for anything except sweeping. Looking furtively about, he grabbed a pair of large stones to throw. "I couldn't find a stick. I got some rocks instead!" "Whatever! Just get something, anything! It's still out there!" Petra's point was proven by the thin whiplike swish of shimmer and black that threw leaves into the air. A large, dark, insubstantial shadow padded swiftly through the green just beyond the circle of Dog Wood trees. For the briefest of moments, Petra saw golden, slitted eyes. Isla took hold of a stick that would have made a decent pencil or wand, but not much else. She sat down next to Seraphina and Asher, and started to cry, softly. "What is it? I can't even see it clearly!" Milo, crouching low, jerked his head from one edge of the clearing to the next, trying to see where the shadow thing was. The Dog Wood trees had stopped growling long ago, now they howled continuously, enraged to the loudest of anger-strangled barks. "It's there!" Petra pointed to a part of the woods where she had been sure she had seen motion. "No... THERE!" The massive shape moved with such lithe precision - it slipped in and out of the ocean of dark leaves in the way that dolphins had once been described. "Petra." Plantain had been convincing the pigs and chickens not to bolt. Hamton and Cutler were working together with Tourt Pière to keep Penderloin and the chickens in place. Their natural instinct was to flee, but that would merely have made hors d'oeuvres of them. The creature would not pass the barking, yowling Dog Wood trees. "What?" Petra had managed to take hold of a long, solid length of branch, mostly straight. She was busy both watching the perimeter and breaking off any leaves or twigs from her makeshift weapon. "I think I know what it is." Plantain swallowed. "It isn't good." "I can tell it isn't good, Plantain, it took the top off of Asher's head!" The sight of the boy's scalp being torn from him and landing in a ragged heap had been one of the more shocking things that Petra had seen in her life. Somehow it was worse than the time in Antarctica where her guardians had gunned down a man who tried to approach her in the wrong situation. She hadn't known the man, she knew Asher. "We can't fight it. We can't even hope to fight it." Petra did not want to hear this from the pony. "So what are we supposed to do then?" Petra briefly flirted with using a rock to try to sharpen the end of her branch, but found that wood was a great deal harder than she had imagined. "Hide, and hope it goes away?" "I'm hoping the Dog Woods will annoy it enough it will leave. Displacer's don't like dogs, even wood ones." Plantain turned her body so that her tail faced away from the center of the group. She took a defensive posture, ready to buck with every last ounce of her earthpony strength. "Dis-what?" It was ridiculous, really, but somehow having a name for what was stalking them felt like having some power, however small, over the situation. A named thing seemed more conquerable than an anonymous creature. "It's a Coeurl. A Displacer Beast. They're like a really big panther. With razor tentacles." Plantain felt a wind whip her tail, so she struck out instinctively with her hind legs. She felt her hooves briefly tap the sweeping snake before it returned to the trees and the dark mass that owned it. It was entirely an accident that she had so much as tapped the horror - Displacer's were never quite where they seemed to be. That was their special, terrible power. Petra saw the dark shape move against the darker forest, then shimmer and submerge into the sea of leaves. There was a terrible, cat-like hiss that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. "The Dog Wood trees - can they attack it? Can they kill it?" Plantain scanned the edge of the clearing, her long neck twisting this way and that. Crème Bûnnée clung to Plantain's mane, her little paws wrapped tight in coils of yellow hair. "No. They just bark. They're trees! They can't move!" Plantain heard, rather than saw, another sweep of a toothed tentacle skim over the floor of the clearing. The creature was fishing for them. "The Bush Baby could move!" Now was not the time to get into an argument about Equestrian botany, but the mere act of talking - about anything - seemed preferable to cowering in silence. Silence seemed like having lost already. "Bush Babies aren't trees!" Milo and Plantain both lashed out with weaponized branch and bucking hoof as another dark, shimmery whip slashed near. Neither hit anything, even though Milo was certain he had smashed his branch down on the long tentacle perfectly. "Then what can they do?" As Petra watched, the dark shape seemed to be becoming more brazen and confident. For a full three seconds, as if taunting her, the creature stood still, no longer shimmering, in a patch of sunlight outside the clearing. Petra felt as if the monster was deliberately letting her see it. The beast was black, dark as midnight, and enormous. It was, without any question, a cat, a big cat. Fluid, sinuous curves defined the feline shape. The creature was supported by six powerful, horribly beclawed legs, rippling with muscles. The two impossibly long, black-furred tentacles swept forward like deadly vipers. Under the flat, spade-shaped tips, rows of jagged daggers made it clear what had playfully scalped poor Asher. The small, narrow head, low and mostly jaw, grinned swords at Petra while the glowing, golden eyes narrowed with evil, and hungry, glee. The Displacer shimmered, fading like a dream and left trails in the air as it slipped back into the enfolding verdure. "They bark." Plantain's answer was far less than enough after the vision that Petra had witnessed. Petra sat on the ground, and let her wooden pole roll from her fingers. Dimly, she realized why the awful cat had let her see it. She felt as if the last of her will to live had simply melted into the ground. The whipping swishes had stopped. There was no sign of the beast now. The children and pigs looked about in fright, jerking at every little sound, every little breeze. Had the monster left? Was it waiting out there? Just like that, there was no sign of it anymore. "How... how do you know such things?" Petra did not for an instant think the creature had left. It was out there. Waiting. She was certain of it. She could almost feel it calculating, planning, as if that brief glimpse had linked them somehow. For all she knew that was factually true - this was Equestria, and this forest was the strangest and most chaotic part of the magical land. Anything could happen here. "What... what do you mean?" Plantain kept darting her head. An attack might come from any direction. "Bush Babies, Dog Woods and Timber Wolves. You're just a filly, you said. An entertainer. You perform in cities. How do you know things like that?" It had been nagging at Petra. Plantain seemed to know an awful lot of very strange things that had nothing to do with ponies and cities and being on stage. Crème jerked at Plantain's mane. Plantain ignored it. "I... just know. You learn things, being on the road. I've met a lot of ponies." The words sounded false even as she spoke them. "Maybe it's safe now?" Oliver began to cautiously stand up. "Maybe the bad kitty gave up!" Isla grabbed Oliver's coat and tried to tug on it to force him to sit down again. A Dog Wood Tree exploded with a canine scream. Fragments of wood and leaves showered the clearing. Bits of fur-fiber drifted down. Some got into Oliver's mouth as he quickly went to ground again. The delicate boy spit repeatedly before using his fingers to remove the last of the hair-like plant fibers. The Dog Wood trees were yowling much louder than before, a cacophony of barks and strangled cries. The clearing was filled with noise that hurt the ears. When the tree had been destroyed, Petra had instantly looked in that direction. Before she had closed her eyes against the flying bark and leaves and fibers, she was sure she had seen a shimmering snake of black. It was impossible to talk with the horrific yelping of the trees, so the children and pigs and chickens and pony and bunny sat together in silence, pressed tight for what meager comfort they could offer each other. The pigs panted, their fat bodies working like pink bellows. The chickens stood like statues, except for poor Beaktrice, who had outright fainted. When the barking and yowling had died down enough for words to be heard, Cutler the pig finally spoke. "I've been considering things." Tourt Pière might be the most learned and intellectual of the swine, but Cutler was the most analytical of the pigs. "I think the Beast cannot bear the sound of the trees. It will come back, I think, again and again, until all of the Dog Woods are gone. Then it will feast." "Shut up!" Seraphina was still pressing on Asher's head, as best she could. She had never stopped. Milo's shirt, which he had offered instantly, was now a solid crimson mass of wetness. Asher didn't seem to be bleeding anymore, but he was not well. He lay unnaturally quiet, shivering despite the steamy warmth of the jungle-like environment. The look in his eyes was very far away. Petra took off her coat. It was her treasure, the first piece of Equestrian clothing she had been given. After she had been reconstructed, she had been taken to a room to change clothing before the pegasus carriage to Equestria. Anything made of earth matter might not survive the flight through the barrier. There had been a number of boxes, each containing clothing that had been made from Equestrian fabrics and materials. Petra had been delighted at the pretty, red coat. "Put this over Asher. Try to keep him warm." Petra tossed the coat over Asher's body as best as she could, then turned and picked up her stick once more. "But it's too warm!" Seraphina's hands were drenched with blood, as was her clothing. She wasn't thinking straight anymore. "He's shivering. Look at him!" Petra turned to stare at Plantain. Instead, she noticed a pair of beady, black eyes looking at her from inside the pony's yellow mane. The bunny doe began jerking Plantain's mane over and over as if trying to tear it out by the roots. "Plantain." The pony wouldn't look at her. Out of the corner of her eye, Petra saw another Dog Wood detonate into woody shrapnel. Again the children were dusted with fibers and leaves and bits of wood. Once more the discordant symphony of shrieking puppies made speech impossible. When their ears had stopped ringing, Cutler could be heard. "Yup. Two down, ten to go. Twelve trees. It may not need all of them gone. Depends on how hungry it is, and how much the barking hurts it." Seraphina raised a hand to slap the pig, to hit it as hard as she could, but then slowly lowered her arm. Cutler, for his part, did not even flinch. "Plantain." Petra watched as the little white shape of Crème Bûnnée began slapping and pounding the withers of the chestnut filly. When that did not work, she dropped to all fours, knocking her hat entirely off. The little top hat fell to the ground. Crème pushed aside pony coat and bit as hard and as deep as she could. Petra saw a tiny bead of blood on Plantain's ruddy neck. The trees were almost quiet now. "The spiders had a hard time convincing the princesses to let them stay. Celestia wanted to send them back to the Everfree the moment she saw them. She said I was irresponsible for putting them into the show." Plantain had not reacted at all to Crème biting her hard enough to break her skin. "But I translated for them, I fought for them, as much as I could. If it hadn't been for princess Luna stepping in..." "You know another creature from the Everfree, don't you?" Petra watched as Crème stopped biting and looked up at her. The dark eyes stared back, as the little bunny's crimson-stained mouth slowly closed. "She's my best friend, Petra. Nothing I could say would convince either princess, if they knew." Plantain's eyes filled with tears. "My best friend in the whole world. She made it possible to get the other bunnies to dance. She taught me how to speak with the spiders. I would be nothing without her. Nothing. Just... just some fancy stallion's 'plus one'. Another empty, Canterlot socialite for my mom." "I don't understand. She's completely sweet. She is utterly charming. How could the princesses ever dislike dear little Crème?" Petra noticed the other children slowly beginning to catch on as they looked at the little creature. "They can't help it, they really can't. I've been lucky so far, I know it." Plantain was crying now, she couldn't stop. "She's warned me. She can write you know. With a pencil, she can write. She's taught me all sorts of things. So many things." "What, what did she warn you about?" Petra had an inkling, but she needed to know for sure. "They can't help it. She's only part Snow Bunny, but it's still part of her. She's cold to the touch. It's their defense, the only one they have!" Plantain sniffled. "They can't help that they can't always control it. There's always a risk, but Crème's only lost it twice, and both of those times were out in the fields..." "What happened?" It was not merely a question. "She didn't mean to. The bunnies... the other bunnies just weren't fast enough. They tried to run... but..." Plantain was crying again. "Crème got spooked! They said there was a cockatrice on the loose, it was all over, and... Crème just got spooked and..." "That's why... you said you had a whole troupe of dancing bunnies and... oh dear." If rabbits couldn't outrun what a Snow Bunny could do... the thought sent a shiver down Petra's back. She looked into the dark eyes of the little lapine on Plantain's back. The little bunny was a living, carrot eating, deadly cryogenic bomb. "It wasn't your mother, was it?" Plantain cried harder still. "That wasn't why you had to leave your show." "There... there weren't any... any bunnies... left... to dance..." Plantain collapsed, perilously almost unseating the clinging Crème. The little bunny doe clung to her friend, stroking her withers gently, lovingly, trying to comfort her. It was terribly rude of course, but inside herself Petra couldn't help but think how much better it would have been if Crème had detonated over the banana spiders instead. Bunnies were so much cuter than spiders, there was just no getting around that fact. "Could... Crème... do that to us?" The question had to be asked. It would have been in any case - it was in the minds of nearly all of the remaining children, pigs and chickens except for Asher, who was in shock, and Penderloin, who was perpetually absent in mentia. "But she hasn't!" Plantain looked up with pleading, reddened eyes. Another Dog Wood was shattered by the slash of a ropy, ghostly tentacle. Petra saw the event clearly, the dark shape bolder now, dashing close to the clearing, whipping the little tree en passant, before flowing back into the endless darkness of the Everfree. It was some time before anyone could speak again, but it was shorter than before, and the Dog Woods sounded more mournful and baying than their previous ferocious barking. Where Equestria was gentle and kind, the Everfree was harsh and cruel, and every warning the children had heard before entering seemed now to mock them in their hearts. "All this time!" Seraphina was busy tending to Asher, who had stopped shivering, but still looked very pale and far gone. "All this time we've been under the most terrible threat and you never thought once to tell us?" She was livid, angry and betrayed, afraid for herself and the others, and overcome with the horrors of the moment. "How could you do such a thing? You're... you're a PONY!" She had spoken the word as if it answered everything. In a way, it did, for most of the children. "Crème is my BEST friend!" The reply was defiant, fierce. "You... you humans might turn on each other right and left and think evil things but you're right - I AM a pony, and I take care of my friends NO MATTER WHAT!" Plantain, standing again, shifted her hindquarters, no longer aiming exclusively at the dangers of the forest. Any child that went for Crème would face her hooves. The dark shape was approaching. This time, it was ever so slow. It padded soundlessly out of the sheltering trees, head low and tentacles wide and high above its nigrescent back. It's panther mouth grinned knives and daggers at them. "Plantain!" Petra whispered harshly. "Everyone!" All divisions between the group vanished instantly with the advent of what likely was an earnest attack. The Beast was huge, and they had already seen how quickly it could move. It was difficult to even hit, because it shimmered and shifted in some strange direction that neither eye nor stick could follow. The living nightmare left a clawed print for the first time within the boundary of the clearing. With three Dog Woods gone, the perimeter was no longer a barrier. The ebon nightmare stopped, holding still as if it had been turned to stone. Then the powerful muscles of the two hind pairs of legs began to tense and thicken. The yellow eyes narrowed, the slits within them widening. The claws on the forward pare of legs dug into the ground. The massive jaw began to slowly open, the knives and swords of enamel within them drooling thin streamers of digestive juice. Milo had slowly been bringing his branch up, to hold it as a spear. Petra had done the same with her own. Oliver readied a rock, prepared to toss it overhand at a moment's notice. Little Isla held her short twig ahead of her, as if she imagined it a wand of fireballs. Seraphina, whimpering, covered Asher's coat-shrouded body with her own, making a shield of her living flesh. Plantain, her flanks facing the incarnation of death, braced her forelegs. "Everypony! Drop flat! Don't even try. It will go for me, I know it will. I've got the most meat. Just drop! Now!" Petra was aghast. "That's stupid! We're in this together!" "You don't understand! Celestia will come for me, after! In that moment, I can tell her where we are and she can save you!" "You mean..." The true horror of their real vulnerability suddenly struck Petra. "After you die." "You can't afford to get killed!" Plantain wiggled her rump and swished her tail like a flag at the beast. "You've got nothing inside!" The Covenant. Father always said Celestia was a stickler for the law. If it was written down, if she gave her word, she would keep it to the letter, no matter what. No matter who got hurt, no matter what the result. Celestia was Law. Human. The entire Covenant existed so that the elite could remain human while the entire world was turned into ponies. And Celestia had kept her word, as she always did. Celestia always kept her promises. Humans could lie and cheat and steal. But Celestia existed to protect her peace, and her peace was based on her promise. Petra, like her parents, like all the elite, were as human as it was possible to be within Equestria. Completely human. Completely mortal. She felt the fear take her. Petra began to shake, her stick quivering in her grasp. It happened so very quickly that the motion only registered after the fact. Petra felt dark fur against her cheek. She did not feel the errant claw slash open the side of her arm. When the tenebrious wind had blown past, before the blood began to trickle from her accidental wound, she found herself being dragged by pony teeth. Plantain was galloping, running as fast as she could while stumbling and dragging Petra like a rag doll. Her every hoof fall thudded desperately, pounding not always into ground, but more than once onto Petra's dragging arm or leg. Petra did not feel her arm snap during one such impact, all she was aware of was the sensation of motion and the blossom of white behind Plantain's flowing tail. It looked like an explosion in slow motion. Spikes and jagged blossoms of niveous alabaster expanded outward at a frightening pace. The chickens could not hope to escape it, Cluckalina was a statue of frost, wings spread, attempting hopeless flight. As the ground bumped below her, and the enshrouding leaves claimed her view, she glimpsed the pink bulk of silly Penderloin turning to snow, his dumbfounded eyes unaware of his last, frozen, heartbeat. The last thing Petra comprehended about the scene, before the thick Everfree turned the spreading white to endless growing green, was the petrified ice-sculpture that had once been a living Displacer Beast, frozen in mid bite of it's terminal meal. Dangling in halves, held perpetually in deceased jaws by icy, solidified strands of saliva, was the last stand and final testament of devotion by the greatest of all dancing bunnies, Crème Bûnnée.