//------------------------------// // What the hay? // Story: Displacing the Displaced // by odeeyou //------------------------------// “I talk to the trees, but they don’t listen to me. I talk to the stars, but they never hear me! The wind hasn’t time, to stop and hear what I say. I talk to them all… in vain.” “But suddenly my words reach someone else’s ears… at someone else’s heartstrings too. I tell you my dreams, and while you’re listening to me… I suddenly see them- TOMATOES!” 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 So yeah, he’d been here a while now. Not sure how long since the days kinda run together and keeping up with the calendar served no purpose since he currently had no purpose here. He has since adjusted here… after a while. A bunch of intelligent ponies helped. Since then he’d been given a residence, he had friends and he had food. Kind of. His family had horses when he’d been little. He remembered well enough about horse care though the knowledge was mostly moot on account of the ponies taking well enough care of themselves. The problem was the food. The main staple of horse food around here was hay. Now, it’s not like they ate it out of a feed around their neck or anything. But they did eat a lot of it. They ground it into a thick paste, or slurry, or powder and then shaped it, seasoned it and cooked it. They did this usually with or alongside other cooked or uncooked fruits and vegetables. It was like baking with flour being the main ingredient. Or in this case, hay was the main ingredient. They still had and used flour. Wheat, bleached, stone ground and everything. They had plenty of vegetables: carrots and celery and beets and beans and corn and lettuce and squash and more. They had plenty of fruits: apples and oranges and pears and mangoes and bananas and peaches and plums and lemons and limes and so on. They had flour and yeast and sugar and everything else to make any sort of confectionery you might want. They even had dairy products! They also had hay. They mostly had hay. Aside from name brands, they came in two types. The first was the cheap stuff. This was made of various grass like rye, timothy, brome and fescue. The second was the expensive stuff made from various legumes like soybean, peas, beans, lentils, linseed and more. The first one was entirely indigestible. The second was only barely digestible. Many of the seeds and beans that went into it were edible. A lot of the grasses and chutes that were harvested with them were not so much. Now before you start getting all shirty, he knew what he was talking about. He used to be a chef. He went to a four month culinary school, took a two week independent bakers course and a two week independent nutrition course. He was a line cook. A glorified cafeteria cook really, but he had the advantage of cooking for 12 years now. As he’d gotten promoted, he’d gained all sorts of knowledge and abilities to his career. He’d even made assistant manager position! And he wasn’t afraid to cook and try new foods. Still, this was a bit of a limit on his new eating and dietary habits. Fortunately, ponies ate eggs and the pegasai ate fish so he wasn’t entirely without protein. But it was still a large limitation on what he could eat. So today he was going foraging in the big (scary?) forest. The ponies around here seemed scared of it anyway. “Oh, onion grass! Sa-weet!” So far, it wasn’t going too badly. Found some wild potatoes earlier after some digging. Tiny little things though. He’d give some other guys left foot for some wild garlic. Looking over his shoulder, he watched one of the wooden puppet wolf things watching him about 100 yards back. Those glowing eyes were a bit of a giveaway in this gloomy forest. Now, he’d never lived in an area frequented by wolves. That was way out of his territory. But he did watch Discovery Channel. Wolves typically didn’t go after anything that wasn’t natural prey unless they were starving. If it got too close, he should make himself look as big as possible and make a lot of noise. Or was that for bears? Maybe he should have watched more Discovery Channel. 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 “Don’t eat that!” WHAM! Ah yes. Aside from the food, there was one other problem. That was his near complete and utter lack of communication. “Spit it out!” PROD “Drop it!” PROD “Bad monkey!” PROD “Hack!” My tomato… “These are poisonous! They’re a part of the nightshade family! You can’t eat those!” He looked forlornly at the tomato he’d just spit to the ground. “I have no idea what you just said, but you just cost me a tomato.” He glared at the yellow and pink butterfly pegasus. “I swear, you treat me more like a pet monkey than anything else.” “Bad monkey!” Turns out, pegasai can control the weather with magic. Regulars can grow things… with magic? And unicorns can cast spells with magic. This became apparent when he met the purple unicorn star butt pony. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a magic pony. He wasn’t a magic human either, or a magic anything really. So all of those spells the purple unicorn cast of him had zero effect. Some of which were presumably translation spells because that’s how these fantasy settings usually worked. Of course, that didn’t stop the purple unicorn from getting excited and trying again every couple of days. Still you couldn’t argue that ponies weren’t smart. They had to be. Their society damn near mirrored his in several aspects. Despite having hooves they still became a tool wielding race. So pantomime and charades went a long way in communication where other attempts had all failed. This was mostly because teaching was not one of his talents and his attempt and speaking pony got him a kick to shin and a glare. “Bad monkey.” His caretaker repeated herself and gave him a consoling pat on the head. “No!” He swatted the hoof away. “These are good! I’ve snacked on tomatoes since I was a kid!” He pantomimed eating one and rubbing his stomach, complete with ‘yum’ sounds, a big smile and a thumbs up. “Oh, you must be hungry! Come on, I’ll get you something good to eat back at my cottage!” Of course, that only works when said pony bothers to listen to you. He grumbled as the yellow and pink butterfly pegasus started dragging him away from the forest. He looked back at the tomatoes. “I’m coming back for you.” “Gasp!” And yes, he actually said the word gasp instead of just gasping. “Peppers…” YOINK! “Don’t eat that!” WHAM! Someday, yellow and pink butterfly pegasus… some day…