//------------------------------// // Solution // Story: For the Study of Parasprites // by RickHammersteel //------------------------------// The years passed and the pony got used to being stuck in his prison. He wasn't bored, as he was able to find pleasure in the small screen his new dragon friend put inside this strange casket. The dragon wasn’t evil, at least, he would like to think that he wasn’t evil. However, his entire plan revolved around this pony being stuck in this casket. His benefactors needed the pony’s talents. However, he didn’t want to be too cruel to the pony. So whenever the pony got thirsty or hungry, the dragon would lower dishes down the shaft. When there was an apple season, the pony would get those. Most of them would be fine, but some of them would be rotten and some would have worms in them. The pony ate them anyway, he didn’t really have a choice. The pony did try to protest about the state of his meals once “Hopes and desires attracts parasprites and so does a wasteful life of luxury!” The dragon explained as he left the pony with his rotten food and the pony had no choice but to eat it. “I can’t work with your hopes and dreams looming around.” Dragon would tell him through the shaft. ”Cabbage is cheap and healthy. Water is free. I need bits for fixing your long term parasprite problems, so I can’t waste time and money on your whims. It would make the parasprite collection grow and I promised you that I won’t let that happen.” The pony understood, but there were days where he just couldn’t take it. He would bang his hooves on his casket screaming to get out. But the dragon ignored his pleas. After all, he knew what was best for the pony. There were days when the pony could hardly stand the loneliness in the casket. He only had dragon to talk to, but he already knew everything about him. There wasn’t much to talk about, anyway. The dragon was strangely quiet about certain subjects. Every once in a while he would hear other voices, but he couldn’t call to them. The pony felt safe with that dragon on his side, but it was still a lonely and empty life. If he could only feel the embrace of another pony. He liked the physical connection, but more than that, he wanted acceptance. It didn’t even need to be support or admiration, if he could only feel another’s touch, then he would be happy. The pony had played the game with a spouse before. It attracted a lot of parasprites to both sides. The common parasprites that had looked similar on both sides would prevent them from coming together for extended periods of time. The longer they would hold on to each other, the bigger the common parasprites would had become. The parasprites that had been unique would attach to their tails and they would pull them apart. When the ponies had pulled harder, the unique parasprites had grown bigger and the force pulling the couple apart had increased. The ponies had tried to remove the parasprites, find a repellent of some sorts, but nothing had worked permanently. Even those that they had threw away had come back eventually. New ones had attached to the couple every day. After a while, the pony would have only seen a lump of parasprites whenever he had looked at his spouse. The sight of it made him cringe and he had to look away. The parasprites had been pushing so hard on him that it had hurt. There had been just one option left for getting rid of the lump of parasprites that had formed: Abandonment. He had to walk away and never look back. Lightning and thunder had accompanied the separation, but the lump had stayed behind the pony. After so long, the pony could have finally taken a breath to fill his lungs full of fresh air. No parasprites had gotten into his mouth. It had been a joyous moment for the pony. It had felt so good, that he had sworn to himself to never let go of his freedom to breathe. Whenever a potential lump of parasprites had been in pony’s sights after that, he would avoid it. If the lump had approached him, he would make up a reason to turn around. He would not let any lumps attach to him ever again. The closer the lumps have come, the more effort pony had put into getting rid of them. It had not been a hard thing to do, even though it had hurt pony a lot. It was like having an Ursa Minor on his chest, but it had still hurt less than the parasprites would had hurt him. His strategy had kept the parasprites away, but it had never sated his longings. He had brought those with him to the casket. Along with every other yearning for closeness. “Abandon all hope pony,” The strange dragon had told him repeatedly. “You must never feel the touch of another pony for as long as you live. Your casket will be the only place you can ever immerse yourself into. You will never be part of real world again, but you will be safe and the world will be safe from you. The parasprites will keep invading, but ponykind will survive, just as they always have. Ponies above the surface mostly survived by ignoring the parasprites and fixing anything that the parasprites broke. You, Diptera, could never counter all the parasprites on your own. Surface ponies would only stick to what they know and not join your noble goal. If you kept your struggle against the menace, then you would eventually lose everything. Be happy that you’re safe and forget about everything else. After all, It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Pony knew that the dragon only meant good. He never got used to it, though, but he did accept it as inevitable consequence of having a dragon to do his bidding. The pony understood that it was his hopes and dreams that attracted the magical parasprites. The only place left for him in this world was deep underground, away from the parasprites roaming the surface world. The dragon had been right so many times and the pony had been wrong so many times. The pony trusted the dragon more than he trusted himself. That is why the dragon was out there, living the pony’s life, while the pony was underground hiding from the parasprites. The dragon grew weary as he got accustomed to the pony’s room. He worked tirelessly to tidy up the place. The neighbours didn’t notice anything strange. They didn’t even notice the strange carriage with the Clover Corporation’s symbol on it. They were just glad that the house was so tidy. However, things weren’t normal at all. There was a massive collection of parasprites living in the pony’s house.The neighbours knew about the collection, but they had no idea how big it was. By far the strangest thing, however, was the fact that there were ponies in suits inspecting a dirt pile in the ground. Neighbours never cared to investigate, though. As long as the pony’s house seemed to be tidy, so everything was fine and dandy in their eyes. They didn’t even notice that there was now a teenage purple dragon instead of a pony saying ‘good morning’ to them when they went to work. Same house, same neighbour they thought. They got a bit suspicious when the dragon build a high fence around the house. Many neighbours had fences, but the one the dragon built was white, sterile, and very plain.There were many neighbours, so the isolation of one didn’t affect their lives enough for them to care. The dragon worked hard, but eventually, he got tired. When it was time for him to rest he would turn off his lamps and leave only his Clover Corp. communicator on. At that point, the Clover Tech TV Screen inside inside the pony’s casket would turn on. The pony liked it when the screen lit up. It made him forget about the casket he was in. It was a window to a whole new world, where he was free and parasprites didn’t exist. If he could, he would spend all his time staring at that screen, but the dragon wouldn’t let him. There was only enough power in the house for one of them. Either for the dragon to run all the equipment for tidying the house or for the pony to power up the screen in the casket. One day the pony saw a new world on the screen. It was a perfect world that he could immerse and lose himself in. The dragon allowed the pony to see everything there was to see about the new world, but pony still wanted more. He didn’t care about being in the casket anymore, he didn’t care about the other worlds that he could observe through the screen, he just wanted more of that perfect world. When the screen turned on the next time and it showed a different world than the one pony fell in love with, he refused to watch it. The other worlds could not compare to the perfect world pony has seen. In his mind he was immersed in that world.The pony got immersed so much that he struck at the screen with his hooves and broke through it. As darkness enveloped pony, he felt something hollow and unexplored behind the screen. It was a drawer he didn’t know about. Not even the dragon knew about it. If he did, he hadn’t told the pony about it. As pony opened it, a light illuminated the casket and a book with a clover on it fell out of the drawer.. The pony browsed the book. It was completely blank on every page from cover to cover. The pony kicked at the drawer and a pen with a similar clover symbol fell out of it. He picked it up in his mouth and started writing in the empty book. He didn’t know how he managed to write in the dark, but he managed it. He wrote about the perfect world he had seen. The pony had been inside the casket for so long that he almost forgot how to write It wasn't a problem, though, for he knew that when his book was finished he could send it up the shaft that lead out of the casket. He trusted the dragon to correct his writing and let ponykind know that there used to be another pony living among them. A pony with hopes and aspirations.