//------------------------------// // Nesting Grounds // Story: The Tentacle Demon in the Pony Suit // by Parallel Black //------------------------------// “Is that exactly how she put it?” “Yes. It seems like she’s just here to try and fit in.” “And you’re sure she isn’t dangerous?” Margrave made as if to reply, but found that he didn’t actually know the answer himself. “I don’t… know that for sure,” he admitted. “Judging by what I’ve seen so far, I’m perfectly willing to believe that she isn’t dangerous.” Mayor Mare sat back in her chair and thought for a moment. “Good enough. Bring her to me and we’ll get the initial bureaucracy out of the way.” Margrave started on his way out of the office, only for Mare to stop him. “Oh, and Margrave…” “Yes, Mayor?” “I don’t trust what I don’t know. Keep your eyes on her.” --- “Do I really have to?” “Yes! Otherwise Mayor Mare will have to come to you with the forms.” “But I don’t know anyone in Ponyville! Other than you, Pinkie Pie, Mayor Mare and Quilliam.” Margrave gave one final push and shoved Cuddlhu off the cottage porch, and onto her face. She got up with an annoyed whine and realigned her eyes. They focused on the town laying far too close at the bottom of the hill. The sight reminded her of something Pinkie told her. She looked back to the ground and picked up the wide-brimmed sun hat she had been given to hide her horrible injury. Margrave entered her vision and offered her a hoof, before offering it to Ponyville. Cuddlhu frowned in confusion. “What?” “I’m asking you to come on,” he replied. “Oh.” With nothing else for it, Cuddlhu placed the hat back on her head and followed behind Margrave as they set off down the path. At this point in the day the sun was mercifully low in the sky, and the heat from earlier on was starting to dissipate. The town was still just as busy as before, but everyone seemed to be moving at a slower pace. Cuddlhu stopped at the edge of Ponyville. She was already beginning to look uncomfortable. “Hey, Margrave?” she asked. Margrave stopped and looked back. “What is it?” “It’ll be ok, won’t it? I know I’m not a pony, and others keep figuring out that I’m not a pony. What will I do if everyone finds out?” That depends on how it happens. “Well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Margrave responded. His tone managed to mask just how unsure he was in his answer. “Come to think of it, you mentioned Quilliam just before. Quilliam Strange, right?” Cuddlhu nodded. “Yes. He was the first pony I met here.” “Interesting…” The two of them crossed the threshold and entered town. The forests and plains to either side were replaced by flimsy-looking thatch roof houses. “And how did you get here?” “Well…” Cuddlhu thought for a moment. “I wasn’t awake for the trip itself, but my mother brought me here from a land called Manehatten.” Margrave internally chuckled at that, but stayed composed, just as always. “That was five years ago. Since then I’ve been doing my hardest to grow up strong just like her.” She tried to hide her face behind the hat as a pony waved to her. Grow up. Needs lots of water. Green all over. An idea came to mind. “What exactly do you mean by ‘grow up’? Do you mean your mother brought you here as an infant and left you to develop, or did she… plant you?” Cuddlhu thought to herself once more. “Well… I’m not sure if I count as a tree or a flower or a vegetable, but yes. I came to Ponyville as an offshoot and now here I am, ready to learn how to live as a pony!” Margrave found warning signs going off in his head at that last line. But for what purpose? There’s still so much I don’t know, still so much I’m not willing to ask yet. Not until I get my sword, at least. Again, he stayed composed. “Thank you. That answers a few questions.” Ponyville was a small town. Small enough to cross in just a few minutes at a steady pace, not that the town’s borders were very well-defined given the slightly lonely-looking houses scattered over the surrounding landscape. Before Cuddlhu even realized it, she and Margrave were standing in front of a large building with a tall, red roof. It was covered in windows and, like the other structures in Ponyville, its supports wrapped around it like a giftwrapped present. Cuddlhu looked up with curiosity as the lower of two balconies passed overhead. The town hall had large double doors on the side facing the river, while this side had a single wooden one that gave a slight creak as it was opened. “Here she is,” said Margrave. He stepped aside, giving Cuddlhu and Mayor Mare a look at each other. The room was located on one side of the town hall; a small office with most of the walls covered in bookshelves, and the rest in filing cabinets. Cuddlhu found that the inside of the office was cooler than outside. Mare sat behind her desk, a sheet of paper sitting in front of her with an ink stamp laying next to it, ready to call the document official. Mare’s stomach turned at the sight of Cuddlhu as images of what had happened flitted through her mind. She quickly shook them off and put on a smile. “Hello again,” she said, picking up the stamp. “I trust you are well?” Cuddlhu nodded and smiled in return. “Yep!” She removed the hat, revealing the exposed portion of her scalp. “I don’t feel in pain or anything anymore. I’m all better now!” Mare’s face dropped at the sight of what she had been trying to put out of her mind all day long. Margrave facehoofed before taking Cuddlhu to the side for a moment. “Mayor Mare already knows about you. I shared the details of what happened today.” Cuddlhu’s eyes went wide as she realized the mistake she had made. “O-oh… I mean… ow.” “Cuddlhu, remember that ponies generally don’t act so calm when they have a hole in their head. All things considered, I should have probably brought your… missing piece along.” Mare removed her spectacles - an act used to both draw the attention back to herself, and blur her vision enough that Cuddlhu’s wound looked more like a large splotch of strawberry icecream. She internally yelled at herself for making the association. “Anyway…” she began, “it’s very nice to finally meet you properly, Cuddlhu.” Cuddlhu noticed Mare’s left hoof. It was stretched out further than the other, and suspended a few inches off the desk. It was preoccupied with holding a stamp, but there was no reason not to be polite. Cuddlhu grabbed the hoof and shook it in greeting. “Hello!” Mare looked surprised, then confused, then accepted the gesture with a short chuckle. “Shall we get started?” “Sure! What do I need to do?” “I need you to fill in this form, and then you’ll be officially recognized as a citizen of Ponyville. Write your name here, give your age and date of birth here…” A thought occurred to Mare. “You can write, can’t you?” Cuddlhu shook her head, looking worried all of a sudden. Mare gave the form a frown. “Ah…” “Will I need to write? I don’t know how…” Cuddlhu asked. “You won’t need to yet, at least. I’ll write for you,” said Margrave, taking the pen and popping it into his mouth. To the young stallion’s surprise, Mayor Mare placed a hoof between the pen and the paper, stopping him. “No,” she said, “I’m sorry, but Cuddlhu needs to do this on her own.” Margrave frowned and put the pen back down. “What do you mean?” he asked. Mayor Mare, the happy, friendly, helpful mare who did whatever she could to keep Ponyville running smoothly, suddenly took on the face of a bureaucrat. Blunt and cold, as if disconnected from the situation. “This is Cuddlhu’s form, so she needs to be the one to fill it in.” Margrave couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But… she just said she can’t write,” he stated. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t fill in someone else’s details. It’s just the way it’s done.” Cuddlhu glanced between them and picked up the pen with her tongue. “Ith ok. I cang do ith.” Margrave ignored her. “Yes, that makes sense for the sake of security, but… she can’t write. How can she fill in the form if she can’t write?” Mare looked at the pen. Cuddlhu was looking worried herself, and could only drag the end of it across the boxes, leaving behind nothing more than a faint trail to serve as her personal information. She shifted back into her normal demeanor. “I don’t know. She’ll have to learn, and I’ll... give her the form to update once she’s good enough.” Come on, Mayor, don’t be like this. “But until then she’ll still be counted as a resident of Ponyville, right?” Mare sighed. “Filling in forms can be quite a messy business when it comes to technicalities. Filling in one’s own forms is one such thing,” She pulled the paper out from under Cuddlhu’s pen, and the odd creature tried to follow it for a few moments to finish blacking out the ‘name’ section. “and writing outside of the boxes is another. The Regional Council can be quite stingy when ponies get things wrong.” “Thorrth,” said the tentacle monster apologetically, blushing with embarrassment. An idea popped into Mare’s head, one that caused her smile to return. “However… Cuddlhu isn’t a pony…” She quickly replaced the form with a blank copy and passed it over. Margrave watched, satisfied, as Cuddlhu began filling the form in again. She kept within the boxes this time, making short, innocent scribbles in each of the boxes. While Cuddlhu didn’t know how to write the Equestrian language, thanks to Quilliam she knew a little of what she was reading. For these sections she did her best to mimic the characters her changeling friend had shown her. A very messy “5” with an extra rung went into Age, and a barely-directed scrawl of random letters into her Location of Birth, meant to say “Manehatten”. Even though it wouldn’t be readable to pony eyes, Cuddlhu still felt a great sense of accomplishment from what she was doing. Keep within the boxes, almost a pony, apply enough pressure, almost a pony… After another minute, the form was filled and stamped in red ink, confirming its authenticity. Mayor Mare smiled and filed the sheet away. “Come back tomorrow, Miss Cuddlhu. The council might be picky, but they aren’t slow. You should be officially recognised as a resident of Ponyville by 6 AM tomorrow morning!” “Yay!” Cuddlhu cried, clapping her hooves together in joy. “Thanks a lot, Mayor,” said Margrave with a smile. He patted Cuddlhu on her side and motioned to the door. “What’re we gonna do now that I’m a pony?” “Well, I could show you a nice café, if you fancy taking a look through part of Ponyville? And if you can… actually eat pony foods.” “I think Pinkie mentioned having a bakery. I’d like to go there.” “That works too.” Mare watched the two with a smile as they disappeared from view. She leaned back in her chair, let out a sigh and looked at the space on the desk where the form had been. The smile fell from her face and she brought it back out of the filing cabinet. “The council will never accept this,” she said to herself solemnly. Even so, she filed it away again, somehow managing to completely miss Cuddlhu’s answer to what her race was: A perfectly legible “Earth-pony”.