//------------------------------// // Of Livestock and Pets 3.8: The Shovel and Metamorphosis (Re-edited) // Story: The Pony Dialogues // by Knowledge //------------------------------// Bon Bon felt great, yet... muddy. All the diggers had been laboring throughout the afternoon, and it was about two hours before dinner time. Working on the land made her focus on herself, externalize herself, create herself. “Okay, everybody move,” ordered Meuler. After approximately thirty minutes, the front diggers would have cleared enough dirt for the team to move down. Whatever they did, Bon Bon had to help Ei Rikr situate zirself. “Right here and... here,” Bon Bon held the philosopher’s forelegs patting where ze would have to dig and placed them on the ground. “Yah shouldn’t be here,” said Pam Ovens bluntly to Bon Bon as she worked beside her. The pig had said variations of this since their break and it was starting to make Bon Bon curious. The earth pony had remained quiet this long only because Ei Rikr, whom Bon Bon was emulating, remained quiet. “Why?” asked Bon Bon, lifting an intimidating load of stones and clay on zir shovel. Pam had tried to match the curious learner’s pace, but failed. It did not help that the stubborn pig had been holding the shovel with one hoof right near the end of spade. Pam took a moment to respond. “It ain’t right, ponies workin’ with animals. That’s why.” “That isn’t a reason,” Bon Bon inquired further. This time ze found a large rock and instead of asking for help, ze put zir shoved in the tool like a lever. Unfortunately, ze pulled it with so much force that not only did ze get the stone out of the ground but ze broke the shovel in the process. “See how useless yah are, breakin’ the Apple family’s tools fa' being rash,” Pam said immediately. “A person immediately notices the mistakes of others, especially when one is trying to hide one’s own,” remarked the horsefly as if ze were talking to no one. The remark did not go unnoticed by Pam. “Ah don’t wanna to hear that from some stupid, blind animal who can’t even dig properly without a pony helpin' him.” Bon Bon felt bad and showed the broken shovel to Ei Rikr, who inspected it with zir magic. “Yeah, it snapped pretty hard. I don’t have any magic that can fix wood,” ze told Bon Bon after a moment. Meuler came down to the pair. “That was, um, a good idea, Miss Bon Bon, but Ah think yah should let the animals finish the job. Why don’t you stand up here with me and watch,” he offered. Bon Bon looked between Meuler, Pam, and Ei Rikr. The mule and the pig wanted zir out of the ditch. The pig in particular didn’t want her around, evidenced by how she stared at zir. Ei Rikr, on the other hoof, remained neutral to the situation. Bon Bon’s head began to throb, feelings of bright lights and dark loneliness swirling deep inside zir. Ze began to caress zir head and teetered from side-to-side. “Bon Bon, you have been very kind in helping me around and I would love for you to stay with me, but if you aren’t feeling well, perhaps you should take a break?” The pony tried to say ze was fine, but ze stumbled to zir knees. Ei Rikr helped the addled earth pony up. As they made their way out of the ditch, everyone watched, continuously shocked by the allowances this new, strange farm animal had with a pony. “Good riddance,” Pam said under her breath. Meuler, overhearing the comment, glared at the pig. “That is enough out of yah, dirty animal. Now, if Ah hear yah treating Miss Bon Bon or any pony as anything less than they are, yah can say goodbye to tomorrow’s break. Now yah get apologizin' before we have us here an insubordination against a pony charge,” he reprimanded. “Yes, sir. Right away. Ah understand my mistake, sir,” Pam said, fear and anger simmering deep in her eyes. Pulling herself out of the ditch and taking her shovel with her, Pam approached Bon Bon and Ei Rikr. The earth pony laid down in the ditch, nursing zir headache with one hoof and holding the pieces of her snapped shovel in the other. Pam snorted at the dirty mare before putting on an actually convincingly nice face and tone. “Ah sorry for being mean, Miss Bon Bon. Ah didn’t mean what Ah said. Ah just didn’t know what Ah was saying because Ah am a dumb animal,” she said. The sarcasm was lost on the pony but Ei Rikr almost doubled over in the thickness of its venom. “Uh, my head,” Bon Bon cried. “You need some water. You are probably dehydrated,” Ei Rikr said, taking out zir full water bottle for zir friend to drink. Bon Bon took a swig but quickly coughed it up as pain in her throbbing temples resurged. “Bright,” the dirty pony wailed. “What’s bright? The sun?” Ei Rikr asked. Meuler became concerned. “Yah better take her into one of the cabins. It could be heat exhaustion,” the mule said. “Then keep zir hooves up while we take her to the cabins,” Ei Rikr said. “Pam and Franks, yah help them go to the barn and show her the shower and a bed. Ei Rikr, since yah know her best, yah watch over Miss Bon Bon. If it gets worse, ask one of the pigs there to get Mrs. Smith. She will make sure she gets better,” the boss commanded. “Right away, sir,” both pigs said. Franks seemed genuinely pleased at the prospect. While Franks and Pam started helping Bon Bon move, Ei Rikr took a moment to gather zir saddlebags. Franks noticed that the horsefly had placed a screw in them. “Where did you get that?” Franks asked Ei Rikr, indicating the piece of metal. “Oh, I noticed it while I was digging. The clinking of metal against metal is very distinct. I assumed it belonged to someone’s shovel, so I will be keeping it until I can find a match,” the horsefly said. ` Author: Knowledge Editor/Proof-reader: Rewrite “That is a good idea. We animals can get in a lot of trouble if we break the farmer’s tools,” the well-mannered pig explained. “We should probably get going.” The party left the irrigation ditches behind and made way towards the barn sector. Both Pam and Bon Bon held onto their shovels, which made the process much slower. “Why are you carrying that shovel around?” Bacon asked Pam. “Ah just didn’t want anyone taking my shovel when we were gone,” she replied. Bacon looked skeptically at his fellow pig but decided not to push the topic further. “You come from a very different place, right, Ei Rikr?” Bacon asked. “Huh, oh, there are some similarities but many more differences,” ze replied, swirling a hoof in the air. “Are you feeling alright, Bon Bon?” The pony nodded. “Much better. My head hurts only a little.” “I still think you should rest until we are sure nothing’s wrong,” Ei Rikr responded. Memories of treating zir daughter when she was sick underneath zir actions. “It will take awhile to get to the barn. Do you think you can stand on your own, Bon Bon,” Franks asked. Pam gave Franks the same suspicious look he gave her earlier. “Yes, I think I can,” Bon Bon replied. The people surrounding the curious learner gave zir a little room. While ze did not look great, it was important for zir to stand on her own four legs as a proof of zir health. Franks smiled at Bon Bon and then at Pam. “Ei Rikr, tell us a little bit about your species. I’m sure most animals and ponies have never seen your kind before.” “Well, that is not unusual,” the philosopher began. “Most people have never seen my species before, and for good reason. We are called horseflies where I am from because we look like insectoid equines.” Pam wanted to ask something, but Franks interrupted her. “Where do you come from?” “Oh, we call it the Southern Continents. It is the land below your Everfree Forest,” ze answered. “Yah telling me yah came from the other side of that evil forest?” Pam asked. Ei Rikr flapped zir wings nervously. “Uh yes, but I don’t really say it is evil. I heard that you people think it is evil because it doesn’t have your kind of weather. People from the Southern Continents just associate it with getting lost. Explorers have never been recorded as ever crossing it.” “It is the same with us,” Franks said. “There must be a lot of countries where you are from.” “Oh, of course. There is Bufgium, Fetland, Germaney, Mareica, Zebrica, Giraffe Lands, and the Wilds.” “All these countries have never heard of ponies, I presume?” Franks led. “Yes and no. We know of ponies but only in legends and ancient manuscripts. We have evidence that they existed in the Southern Continents,” Ei Rikr said in an academic tone. “How did all those countries manage without ponies to do their weather and such? It must be awful down there,” Pam guessed. “It wasn’t horrible. It could be bad, and trust me, I have seen the worst people have to offer,” the horsefly answered, zir fangs clinking at a memory. “But we can handle ourselves without ponies. We have for thousands of years, and unless there is world-ending war, we will for the next thousand years.” “What do yah know of war?” Pam asked incredulous of the pet-like animal before her. Ei Rikr buzzed angrily. Ze had a long day of being disrespected. “You say that as if I am some pampered know-nothing. I have done every job imaginable, seen a good half of the southern hemisphere. Most importantly, I have been in the middle of war countless times and in my early years, I even participated in several of them.” Pam was shocked. Ze had never met an animal who ever actually been in a war. Bacon was intrigued. “We pigs have ancient tales of revolutions,” he said through his smiling lips. “But pony magic wielded by the few has quickly subdued most enemies of the peace for centuries. As a consequence these stories have turned to legend and from legend to fable. Your land to the south is as forgotten to animals as much as the idea of revolution. This makes me curious. What are your thoughts about revolution? Do you think they are ever justified?” “I think revolution is always justified, but only in that people always justify it. Now, to your question, I think that one thing I can request of anyone thinking of committing to a cause which entails revolution is that they step away from their reasons and try to understand them first before dying for them. I don’t think it is a controversial thing to ask because if you really care about those reasons, wouldn’t that imply that you also care to understand them? I often say that if you do not understand your conviction enough to explain it, then you don’t really have a conviction.” Ei Rikr turned to Bon Bon. “This is important for you. You cannot just repeat what others say and say you understand.” Bon Bon stared intently at the horsefly. “Don’t repeat what others say and say ‘you understand.’” No one could tell if the pony was being serious. Ei Rikr just kept zir wings straight, Franks giggled at the two, and Pam was struggling between her desire to listen to the horsefly and to run as far away from this maddening pony as possible. Returning to the topic, Ei Rikr began speaking again. “If you still want to revolt after understanding your reasons the point that you can explain them to another, then I won’t stop you.” Franks looked at Bon Bon and decided to change the topic. “Now you said something interesting earlier. You said that ‘most people have never seen your species, and for good reason.’ Mind explaining that?” “It is kind of complicated.” Franks waved it off. “At this pace, we got a lot of time to the barn.” Bon Bon nodded zir head in agreement, not for what Franks said but rather for the desire to hear more. “Okay. First, I should clarify that I have never been in a real hive with other horseflies due to my queen dying soon after creating my spark, so I can only speak about why horseflies, as individuals, would hide from other species knowledge. It all starts when an organic person like you guys loves someone else very much…” Ei Rikr started. “We are not children, yah laut,” Pam interrupted. The horsefly buzzed with annoyance. “I am not treating you like a child. What I am saying is important. When an organic person loves someone else…” “What’s a person?” Pam asked interrupting again. “A person is any being who can trace the history of their lives and continuously find themselves. The important thing about persons is that with their self-awareness, every person, you and I included, can decide to change who they are because our identities are not tied to any particular form we take. For instance, you today are an unpaid laborer on a farm. As a person, if you step away from your situation and really look at yourself, you could decide that tomorrow you want to be someone else. If anyone told you no, like a pony farmer, you could always resist, demanding to be recognized for your sovereignty over your own existence.” Pam stopped walking and took a step back, needing a moment to reflect. Franks stood with her, while Ei Rikr just kept walking. Ze was tired of stopping and starting. Ze just wanted to get somewhere, not go on more tangents. Ze had a plan: inspire thought in people and through that form a new life with zir daughter. “That is the exact opposite from what the ponies say. They are all about destiny and being who you truly are, which is being a baker or something like that. Are yah sure yah aren’t part of the BH?” Pam asked. “Oh he isn’t. But ze should be. We could use another horsefly in the organization,” Franks said. “What is the BH?” Bon Bon asked confused. “Oh just animal babble. I might explain it to you later when we are friends. Now, Ever, finish telling us about this reason for horseflies hiding from everypony,” Franks replied. Ei Rikr waited a moment before compiling. “First I should probably clarify some things about my species before I explain how love plays into it.” Ei Rikr formed a spark at zir shoulder to demonstrate. “Unlike you organics, horseflies are actually completely made out of green flames. We don’t eat food or anything like that, we have to grow by being given energy from others In this sense, even though you call me an animal, physically you and ponies are more closely related than you are to me. “Back to what I was saying earlier, when an organic person loves another person a lot, they create a bond in which their natural energies are shared between them. In times of difficulty, one can give the other the strength they need to persevere. “However, people often form bonds with a possibility. An expectant parent forms a bond with a possibility of a child who hasn’t been born, a teenager with a friend who has disappeared, and an adult with a friend who has died all are are all examples of possibilities horseflies depend on for purpose and life. We horseflies call these possibilities holes, which is inspired by the holes in our horsefly form’s chitin that we are constantly trying to fill with your energy.” The horsefly indicated the holes on zir hooves while hovering the green flame above one of them. Ze demonstrated zir point by having the green flame descended into the hole in zir hoof, which began to fill it up with shiny new chitin. “What a horsefly queen does is plant sparks like this green flame in an open space a person has created for some other, and that person will feed that spark into a full-fledged horsefly, shaping it into the form of the person they need. For instance, if you always wanted a sister, a queen could give you the chance. While there is some magic at work initially to help you believe the spark is a sibling, your desire would form it into your piglet sister you imagined.” “In my case, I was born to two very loving sheep parents and I became the son they always wanted. This process is like a potter shaping clay around a space that will one day be filled with water or wine. The empty space acts as the reason why, or the final cause, as another horsefly Aristrotle called it, the clay becomes a vase just like the hole acts as the reason why the spark becomes a horsefly. But as you can tell I don’t look like a sheep. All horseflies are made of flame, which makes them essentially different from a true organic being.” Ei Rikr removed the flame from zir hoof again. “This flame is constantly changing, never truly formed, actualized as one thing. It always remains a potentiality.” Ze quickly changed the shape of the flame into various geometric objects like balls and blocks. “One horsefly philosopher once argued that the world was all made out of flame because it was always changing.” Ze then returned the flame back to zir hoof. “Aristrotle claimed that flame was the closest thing matter. According to him, everything is a mixture of form and matter. Form is the properties and dispositions a thing has. Matter is what has the potential to be formed. A horsefly’s flame may have a green color and a disposition to burn, but it has such extreme potentiality to take on so many forms almost instantly as compared to the matter of other living things which is slowly formed through processes of nutrition and reproduction. Because this flame, horseflies are not bound to the hole our loving parents created. “When our parents expect their children to leave as a rite of passage, horseflies and biological children must go out in the world and find their place. For organic children this often a joyous time where parents cry happy tears, but for horseflies, this is the time when we become aware that we cannot just be a normal child. We come to learn we are actually horseflies. Like a hermit crab, we shed our old shell by necessity and find a new one, but the first time we will not know we are doing this until some other horsefly explains it to us. If a young horsefly’s parents were good, which is often the case, ze will often turn to them to reveal zir horsefly form underneath the shape zir parents gave zir. It makes sense. If anyone is to be trusted, it is one’s parents. They love zir and always guided zir in the past. Also, it is the least a horsefly can do since chances are the parents will never see their child with the same face again. “But this meeting hardly ever goes well. The parents immediately believe a monster has replaced their real child. If their culture has stories about us, it is even worse because a single sighting will lead to a horsefly hunt.” “That is so bad. What happened to you?” Bon Bon asked, pointing at the horsefly with zir shovel head. “Don’t point with a shovel!” Pam complained. The pig had taken a hoof off of the head of her shovel, and for some reason, the head fell off. Bon Bon was shocked. Franks just laughed. “I know you were a fish!” Bon Bon asserted. “The word is fishy,” Franks explained. “Ah can explain,” Pam protested. “I don’t see how, Miss Complains About Everything!” Franks said mockingly. “Ah don’t want to hear anything from yah, Mr. Fancy Talker from Neighara Falls. If it wasn’t for me, all of the other pigs wouldn’t trusted yah,” Pam retorted. “Just let me fix it. I knew that screw belonged to someone.” Ei Rikr just picked up the shovel head from the ground and its staff from Pam’s grip with zir magic. Then going through zir pack, ze found the screw ze had found earlier. It had unfortunately scratched the picture of Spike’s beloved Rarity, which made the horsefly swear quietly. “Bon Bon, I understand wanting to learn more about me. I barely told you anything about me, but I warn you, my story is particularly horrible. Most people have this grandiose idea that I am some saint who never did anything wrong in zir life, who abstained from war and violences, and single-hoofedly invented philosophy. This fiction has inspired some of the greatest minds in the world to overcome their contemporaries’ mindset in order to seek greater understanding of Truth through scholarship and experimentations in living. However, when people hear my real story, they find that nothing was obvious for me, that I committed every crime against reason possible. Even to this day, those who know me best, see in me prejudicial baggage from my formative years in the Central Continent. Bon Bon, this a long story about an idiot. Do you still want to hear it?” Ei Rikr asked. The horsefly had mixed feelings. As ze had told Locke this morning, that an ancient being like put the past behind zir. Bon Bon nodded, now even more curious because of zir warning. Ei Rikr could tell that Bon Bon wanted the horsefly to pour out zir memories and fill the reverent silence she had created. Resigned to zir new task, Ei Rikr began to tell zir story while securing the bond between the two parts of the shovel with the screw. “I remember my parents. On one hoof, there was my father, Lachares, who was a stonemason, who had only seen wealth when there was a need for specially sized stone blocks for some artist and engineer to carve into a fine column.. On the other hoof, there was my mother, Alcestis, who came from an aristocratic family, and she had been raised with the expectations of the finer things in life. “You might be asking: ‘How did my father, a lowly stonemason, get married to one of richest people in Fleece.’ First, they were part of the same family. My father only came from the poorest branch of it. At the wedding, I was told by my father, the celebration was framed as the noble parents of the family reaching out to its long lost son. That was only half of truth, which leads me to the second reason: my mother was afraid of the outdoors, dirt, insects, being unclean, disease. She was an embarrassment to the family and my grandparents needed to put her somewhere outside of the public sphere and that was with my father who worked near a quarry, and lacked the means to justify a noble’s social posturing. “What is important about my parents was that they were people who didn’t love each other but still needed each other. My mother need my father so that she had a house to live in and someone to connect her to the outside world. My father needed someone to take care of everything economical in nature and to provide a steady source of revenue, which came from the main family, to bolster his failing occupation as a stonemason. he was only a second generation stonemason afterall. Their lack of love, however, caused my parents to fight each other often, vying for power in the relationship. My mother used her closer connection to the main family, which had ultimate authority, as leverage while my father simply asserted himself as the ram of the house. “Whoever my queen was, she placed me into a hole my parents had created but probably didn’t even fully comprehend comprehend themselves. My parents hole was that I become an ultimate resolution to the mutual displacement their sham wedding had created. While the fights never went away because of my presence, for I remember them after all, my parents would always end them by ‘teaching’ me who I was supposed to be. My father wanted me to be the great ram he could have become had he the means my mother provided. In other words, if I succeeded, his poverty would not be the fault of his or his father’s lack of virtue but rather a lack of resources. He would be validated as a full noble. My mother told me everyday that I was going to be someone famous and respected, and when that happened, I was going to remind them all of the daughter who was abandoned by her family to a dirty half-noble. These contradictory goals overlapped in me in such a way that it forced them to cooperate just so they could find victory over one another. My parents ironically named me Lysis, which means to separate.” Ei Rikr punctuated zir last sentence by hoofing Pam back zir shovel now completely functional due to an expertly fastened screw. “One of the biggest fights my parents had that I remember was that my father had killed our only slave, which was an inheritance from my mother’s branch of the family. I cannot remember the slave’s name, but I remember he was a young plow horse and that I was responsible for making my father release him. “My father needed the horse to help him carry light loads of tools and bricks up around quarry and to his workstation. At the end of the day, the equine would come home with my father and help my mother with dinner, especially with the more messy parts of the cooking process. When I was only eight, I realized that the slave had more attention from my parents than I did, and the equine was even allowed to do things I wasn’t like cooking and working with tools. Jealous,I broke my father’s tools and hid the evidence in the slave’s cabin. I went out of my way to lead my father away from the slave’s cabin in search for his missing tools. This led him to ask the horse if he knew, which naturally the slave did not know. “It took a week for my father to finally go to the slave’s cabin. There was the slave, who was desperately trying to fix the tools he had just found. My father had not only beleived the slave had stolen his tools, but also that he broke them and had lied to him earlier. He was so furious, everything the slave said only fueled his hatred. My father took the slave and had me watch because, as he said, ‘Lysis, you’re a ram now.’ My father took the head of the broken hammer and smashed into the horse front foreleg, marking him a thief. Ei Rikr felt a particular part of his face. “I remember the blood. It hit me in the face here. and stain my father’s coat. Like a child, I didn’t think what would happen. I was terrified, not because I felt I had done wrong, I was too thoughtless for that, but because I had never seen such violence. When my father was done, he released the slave to a life of begging and starvation. Turning to me, he saw my expression. He told me, ‘You are my child. You will have to do that many times over. Not just to horses, to sheep too. Life is violence, and as a ram, you are expected to live. Remember this when you walk into your mother’s house and meet those wolves who banished your grandfather and spat on his grave.’” Ei Rikr paused to rekindle the flame of ancient memory, ancient lesson. “My mother just about murdered my father for releasing the slave instead of chastising him. Because the equine was crippled, he was basically useless to my parents, so they couldn’t just bring him back. I pleaded with my mother that things wouldn’t be bad if she just let me help her with chores. My parents weren’t happy, but they let me help, and due to their formative attention during those chores, I gained the strength and skill to replace the horse slave.” “What’s a slave?” Bon Bon asked resolute to maintain her composure through Ei Rikr’s harrowing childhood tale. Ei Rikr slowed down to a halt. Ze seemed not even to notice Bon Bon’s question. After several moments of silence, Franks felt he could maneuver the conversation for his benefit. Franks looked around for equines aside from Bon Bon, who seemed like a pony who could be a friend to the animals. Seeing no other ponies, he took this opportunity to get on his soap box. “A slave is what you ponies call animals,” he said. “We exist for our equine overlords much like a chisel exists for a carpenter. To weaken us, the ponies separate us from our families and our friends regularly to prevent us from gaining strength from any sense of community distinct from ponykind. To reinforce this dependence on ponies, we must appeal to them for the right communicate to our families, but few animals even try to appeal because the prolonged separation with every familiar face leads to death of the idea of kinship in our hearts.” This revelation awoke the horsefly from zir memory stupor. “Franks, I don’t know much about ponies, but is it true that ponies will separate us from our families?” ze asked worriedly. “Yes,” Pam and Franks replied in unison bluntly. “Every few weeks, we are moved to another farm as designated by the department of Non-equine Immigration. Princess Star Shine in Cloudsdale heads this department with the understanding what they are doing is kind because they are giving us harmony our species naturally lack by reorganizing us according to the ever shifting needs of the pony farmers or pet owners,” Franks explained. “Franks is right about ponies always changin’ their minds,” Pam added, “You and Franks wouldn’t know it because you are new here, but a year ago, Rainbow Dash, an important pegasus pony in Ponyville, wanted a pet. All the animals were talkin’ about it so we on the farms eventually got wind of it. Story is that Rainbow spent the whole day lookin’ for a pet who was fast, flying, and ‘cool’ but at the end of the day, she got a tortoise. We animals have no stability when ponies have some kind of complete change of mind about what they want midday.” “That’s interesting, but I need to know if the ponies will separate me from my daughter,” Ei Rikr asserted in voice strained with passion. “You never told me you came here with your daughter,” Franks said, his face fully abandoning its jovial facade. “You have three days before they will separate you two. At this point, they want to make sure there is nothing wrong with your family, but after words they will assimilate your daughter and you into new farms around Ponyville, or worse, elsewhere.” “I had planned to just waltz in here and just philosophize my way into my preferred mode of living, but with only a few days, there isn’t enough time to make a new home here and get into my new position. Is there anything I can do?” the horsefly pleaded to the pig who had been leading zir all this time to the barn where ze would only be living for a short time. “Does anyone in your family need to learn Equestrian?” Pam asked. “I came only with my daughter. I learned this language long ago, but she only knows how to read and write currently. How will this help me?” Ei Rikr asked. “The ponies will send a teacher here tomorrow to help foreigners assimilate to Equestrian norms,” Franks replied. “As long as your daughter is taking those lessons, the immigration department will keep her here to accelerate the assimilation process. You, however, will need to find one of the Apples here to vouch for a continued presence on the farm. This will force the department to leave you together with your daughter.” “What if I cannot convince one of the Apples to keep me?” Ei Rikr further inquired. Glancing at Bon Bon, Franks replied to the horsefly. “Just remember to stay at the barn we are bringing you tonight. It shouldn’t be hard, seeing that you and your daughter will be there tonight. The other animals will be getting off work in a few hours and after we eat, Marks, Angles, and I will be hosting a meeting tonight.” “What are you talking about?” Bon Bon asked confused. “It is not important for you,” Pam told the pony, still not trusting her. “I will explain it to you later, my dear, when you prove yourself loyal to our kind,” Franks said with a joyous, reassuring smile. “You already done much by befriending a strange species like a horsefly.” Ei Rikr understood that ze should probably return to the story before talking about such dangerous things so openly again. “As my jealous maneuvering to get my parents love might suggest, I had mixture of normal childlike behavior mixed with horsefly strategies for getting nourishment. These distinct horsefly traits caused me to learn at a very young age that I wasn’t a normal sheep. I didn’t play sports competitively. I didn’t care for candy. I didn’t even have a real opinion about the attractiveness of other sheep, and insults about my how unram-like I was did not bother me. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t fit in. I did all that was expected of me. Fleece had a very rigorous set of moral and religious codes which I was expected by my parents and everyone to believe and follow without question. It was just that there was a difference between the face I showed others when I repeated their beliefs and the face I kept deep inside. “The time came when I was no longer simply being formed by my parents but started to take charge of who I was going to be. Pam, this is also the time people make a revolution of sorts and say ‘World, recognize that I am my own person.’ So I did what I was supposed to do when I came of age; I got an apprenticeship as a scholar of mathematics. My parents were very proud of me, seeing me make something of myself. The problem is that by taking on this apprenticeship I realized why I was so different from other sheep because in attempting to be something new, I literally changed to look like the ideal mathematician. More importantly, I found out that I didn’t know how to transform back into my old form. “If I had a hive to fall back onto, they would have found me and explained to me what I was before this, but I had no one. I ran all the way home from my teacher’s house and sought my parents for the advice my kind was not there to give me. My parents saw some old mathematician at the door, they thought I was one of the academics teaching their son. They let me in and offered me wine. I entered the house, but refused the wine. It was expensive wine and my parents were offended that I rejected a valuable gift. I told them that I was really their son. They thought I was mad. I became desperate that I accidently removed my outer form all together, revealing the horsefly form below. At this point, I had never seen this form, and was as shocked as they were of what seemed like a monster with long white fangs and unsheeplike blue eyes. “Immediately, I was attacked by my father with the wine bottle as my entomophobic mother fainted. Seeing no love in them, I ran. I remember the red wine on my face, bleeding on the floor and staining my mother’s coat. I hid in a nearby street for the night as some horse beggar’s long lost friend, whose right foreleg had been broken. I didn’t know how or why I transformed into a horse, but I did and I didn’t question it because it allowed me to be completely invisible while being so near my parents. Though the horse’s love fed me for the night, I knew he didn’t really love me, only the idea I represented. It hurt while I silently nodded to his endless cries of joy and sad confessions of past misdeeds because I realized that had been true for all my relationships I had in my life to that point, including my parents. The next morning, I watched my parents.They had already discovered that their son had disappeared without a trace, and last night, they had apparently gone to the guard and told them of the ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ “That morning my parents joined a large mob in front of courthouse. This had been the third report of this ‘wolf’ this week, which makes sense now because queen horseflies create multiple sparks in a single day, but it caused the already paranoid sheep to take extreme measures. My parents and the other sheep went through the town seeking my destruction. They didn’t actually find any horseflies, but it didn’t stop them from killing a few sheep they thought were suspicious. A guard actually took the beggar next to me and had him taken to be beaten to death. The only reason I didn’t get caught was that I hid my face and didn’t ask the guard for money like the real beggar did. I remember the pegasus calling out to me to back him and me acting like I never seen him in my life, which only reinforced the guards belief that he was a horsefly. I also remember the shadenfreude I had when the equine become shocked and terribly hurt because his friend had betrayed him. I wonder if that pegasus was the slave I had forced on the street, and if so, if he made the same face of betrayal when I had him thrown out. Either way, another person died by my selfish, uncaring black hooves.” Ei Rikr paused to ‘smoke’ a bit, blowing zir memory into the stagnant, pungent Equestrian air, which provoked for the horsefly a feeling of base kinship with the nation because they both shared a betrayal of their modern popular image. Ei Rikr knew the truth that both zirself and the ponies were far from the modern ideals back then. Ponies had slavery in every sense except in word. Especially in the way the unicorns and pegasi took advantage of earth ponies from labor and food production. All the evidence Ei Rikr had seen in the last day seemed to indicated that ponies have retained most their ancient traditions of duty to destined talent. For a moment, Ei Rikr became rather dour as a thought that ze had really not changed at all from zir childish self entered zir mind. Thinking of Bon Bon and Sophia, however, reminded the horsefly that at least ze had overcome some of zir ancient prejudice against equines. Andrea’s beliefs in the overcoming our current self played in the background of the horsefly’s mind as ze finished the story. “Officially, the Fleecians had a decree that all of my kind had to leave Fleece or be exterminated. Though I loved my home country, I accepted my exile, never to see my home, my teacher, or my parents again because I was young and didn’t really think independently from the laws that had cradled me throughout my life. I learned later from word of mouth that Fleece descended into chaos where the closer a person was to another the most they suspected them to be a monster. It became known as The Day Love Died. In the end, thousands of horseflies and sheep were killed because the sheep needed to purify themselves of the ‘wolves in sheeps clothing.’ I wouldn’t have been surprised if my parents without me got into a fight and had one another killed. Consequences like what happen to me and other hiveless Fleecian horseflies are why almost all horseflies never show their horsefly face to others, especially their parents. No one understands that just because their child does not conform to what they expect them to be in the end, that does not mean they are any less their child.” The three people listening were not sure what to make of the story. It was indeed sad, but Ei Rikr had buffered so much of it with zir own follies and immaturity that it was hard to sympathize with the horsefly. However, despite the lesson being shoehorned at the end, Franks found the lesson particularly relevant to his own ideals. “You must be a great parent to be so open to your child’s development of her own identity,” Franks said. Ei Rikr, at first, buzzed proudly of the lesson ze shoehorned at the end of zir story, but Franks assumption about zir parenting technique reminded zir of the poison joke which began to weigh heavily in zir saddlebags. “I have a saying to those who see me as their teacher. ‘Words mean more to those who hear than those who speak,’” Ei Rikr said. “Yah mean that people think too much of what others say?” Pam asked, pretty sure she figured it out. “Do you mean words can be more hurtful to the ponies who hear them than the ponies who say them?” Bon Bon asked, not sure if she understood, having been fairly confused by the last few exchanges the pigs and Ei Rikr. “Uh, not what I had in mind, but the fact you two interpreted my saying in novel ways reflects what I did have in mind. Allow me to explain,” Ei Rikr said. “What I meant is that those who listen to teachers often interpret novel ideas into the teacher’s words which go beyond the teacher’s intention. Furthermore, though the student is origin of the new ideas, they often believe these ideas are actually their teacher’s. In other words, when you perceive another person as wise, you utilizing your own capacity for wisdom to do so. Pam and Bon Bon, your alternate ways of interpreting my saying are your own insights.” “Kind of like how your scholars in the Southern Continents impose their own values of freedom on the ponykind of ancient past,” Franks added. Pam felt a bit validated in herself since Ei Rikr implied that she was wise, but she wasn’t willing to stay here all day listening to an old animal talk about his pre-Equestria days. She had a shovel to return to the tool pile. “The barn is right ahead,” Pam told Ei Rikr. “Just take an empty stall. Each adult gets one to themselves. The children all get a separate stall, so your daughter will be with them. If this pony is actually suffering, she can use yours. There are showers in the back.” “We will be heading back now,” Franks said with a proud salute to his fellow animal before walking back with Pam to Meuler’s ditch. With the pigs gone, Ei Rikr addressed Bon Bon. “Are you feeling okay?” Bon Bon smiled weakly and nodded. “You should still probably get a shower and rest,” Ei Rikr said while feeling zir way to the barnyard door. Bon Bon ignored zir friend because ze was too curious in the barn. Once inside, the two friends found three dozen stalls. Most of the stalls were small but one stall was extra large. Bon Bon didn’t know why there was a difference, but the larger one did look comfortable. Laying down on the hay matting in the larger stall, Bon Bon watched Ei Rikr deposit zir belongings in the empty next door stall. “I think that stall is for the children, Bon Bon,” Ei Rikr said. “Problem?” the curious learner asked. “I guess not,” Ei Rikr said. “We probably stink, so why don’t we take a shower now.” Bon Bon pouted. “I want to hear more,” ze demanded. “Of my story? You know if we go through my whole story, you be die of old age before I’d finished.” “Problem?” the curious learner asked again. “While you make a good argument, Bon Bon,” Ei Rikr said with a mirthful buzzing. “I think now it would only be appropriate after telling you so much about myself that you tell me about yourself. Conversations should be acts of reciprocal gift-giving.” “My life, my life,” Bon Bon repeated. A dour tone began to seep into zir voice as a soft throbbing built up in her head. This caused concerned for the horsefly, who quickly finished what ze was doing and moved to the large stall where Bon Bon was. “I believe you told me you forgot many things, but I would like to know what you do remember. You told me already about the shopkeeper with the quills and sofas, but what about your parents. If you don’t like talking about that, tell me about your country or about ponies. I am new here, and anything you would have to say would be just as new,” Ei Rikr assured zir friend. Bon Bon thought back as far as ze could but something scary and painful seemed to be forcing zir back, but because zir friend was here, Bon Bon felt that ze could beat back the darkness in zir mind. “I remember magic,” Bon Bon began.