//------------------------------// // The First Part // Story: Disregard Safety, Acquire Humans // by SwiperTheFox //------------------------------// You pick up the wrapping and nudge it across the small white box, smiling. You know that Lyra will just have to love these white chocolate covered cherries, especially with the finishing touches of sugary red sprinkles that you caked all over them, and you neatly tape things together. You slide your hand over the marble counter for the box of new bows, and you pick out an especially pretty looking pink one. Finally, you take a sticker with 'Made with love at Sugarcube Corner!' written over it, and you place it against the upper right corner. You make a happy sigh. And, with that, the late afternoon shift is over. You flash back to what you had planned for that night, nothing special. Maybe I'll head on over to DJ Pon-3's house like I said I might. Gosh, as great as her stuff is, she just gets too damn intense about it. She's all up on my face-- 'Didn't you like that drop? Didja like it? Well? Huh-huh? Didja?' So intense! I get enough of that at work from a certain pink mare. In truth, you've only had several days in Ponyville, and you'll need some time to really set into a normal routine. You turn around, glancing about at the kitchen. You've felt pretty relieved to work in the new, revamped Sugarcube Corner. Before the humans started to come, the old building didn't have much in the way of space inside, as beautiful as it looked from the outside. Now, the newly built kitchen complex features a variety of sparkling clean ovens, cupboards, refrigerators, and other items all stretched out against the walls before you your eyes. Expanded just like the rest of traditional market street Ponyville, yep. It mildly irritates you that Twilight and the Mayor have gotten most of the credit, although Twilight has tried to refer to the humans' pivotal work with their alien technology, science, and math as much as possible. Not Twi's fault. Ponies just don't listen. You scoff. They're a lot like humans, aren't they? At any rate, you see nothing but some cooking utensils from spoons to beaters out. Clean enough. The evening crew has got it. You walk over to the side door, carrying the gift box in one hand and taking off your big grey apron with the other. You slow down as you push it open, hearing a conversation at the Corner's side entrance. You glance down the hallway, and you spot a pleasant looking Pinkie talking with a haggard looking Lyra. "And he's touching it, right?" Lyra asks, leaning to the side and holding a hoof against the half-door, half-window entrance. "Right?" "Yippers!" Pinkie replies. "And he's the one that made it, right?" Lyra asks, leaning to the other side and rubbing her hoof against the small wooden half-door in front of her. "He's over there now, in the kitchen, taking his human fingers--" Lyra stressed those last two words intenstely, her ears wiggling. "And letting them go all over those plump, ready cherries? His human thumb is dipped into the chocolate, pouring that sticky cream all over them?" "Yes-a-rooni!" Pinkie seems oblivious to Lyra's mood, with the unicorn's sweat dotting up atop her forehead. "He's wrapping the things for me, holding and placing the bow, with his human skin going all over? With his human fingers clutching the sides of the package?" You feel very self-conscious, even though they don't seem to notice you from behind a stack of boxed cups and napkins on the other side of the hallway. You grip the package of treats even tighter. You take a little breath. "And his human fingers," Lyra coos, waving her hooves around and propping her head against the windowsill as she sweats even more. "Have they written onto the magical sticker that the treat is for me? Just for me? 'Made with love'?" She closes her eyes, breathing harder. "Oh, I'll bet his human breath is spraying all over my box of treats right now, oh Celestia yes!" You freeze. After a painful three seconds, you lean down and see your breath fogging up the sticker atop the box of treats. You smoothly lower your hands down until the thing is out of your mouth's reach. "Oh, Lyra," Pinkie says, playfully smacking the unicorn's hoof with her own. "Why don't you just get a human boy--" "I've gone through five!" Lyra calls out, suddenly standing up straight with a cold flatness coming over her face. "It's just insane. They are all so insane." She leans forwards a little, trembling. "They just can't stand what's normal love, being so emotionally distant. I mean, come on, Kyle told me that he didn't think that my hiding out in the tree outside his apartment all night and singing his name as the sun rose, moving in through the slightly ajar window--" A touch of anger popped up, her heart clearly beating hard. "He said it was 'creepy'! You believe that? 'Creepy'! And that's nothing compared to what she said after I was romantically packing his lunch for him, dressing up in his clothes, watching him shower, and following him from bush to bush as he walked to work! That's what couples do!" "Lyra, I think that--" *Crash!* A box falls off from the stack in front of you onto your foot. You curse your clumsyness as you try to slide to the side. Thankfully, it was a box full of napkins, and it hardly felt like anything. Yet you suddenly feel a dark pit in your stomach as you look out. You now see both Lyra and Pinkie, staring at you. "Oh!" Lyra gushes. Her eyes drink in your two hands, two arms, two legs, and two feet, with toes wiggling about in your puffy black sandals, and she makes a low, soft whine. You feel so exposed and so naked despite your big shirt and big shorts, with Lyra's eyes seeming to dig into your skin. "Oh, right," you mutter. "Oh, h-h-h-h-hi, Snoopy," Lyra spits out, looking as if she might as well have big red hearts popping up from her head. A transformation seems to come over her. She swirls her mane over seductively, her newly done eyelashes fluttering. She takes a gulp, and she puts on a smooth, measured voice. "You're looking absoutely radiant today." She begins to sweat profusely once again. "My, my, it's like your peachy-pinkish skin is like a small sun, showing off your warmth and tenderness." "Yeah, sure, I'll go with that," you murmur, walking over. Pinkie just seems to be trying, and failing, to burst out laughing. You hold out the box of candied treats with as neutral and blank of an expression that you can manage. Just pretend that you work at the DMV. That look. That tone of voice. Lyra reaches out and, of course, pets your hands with her fluffy teal hooves as she takes the box. She curls little circles in your skin with her fur for a moment, and you pull back. You try to keep the same face. You have to admit, as you watch her smiling even wider and poising her body against the doorframe, that she looks really pretty. Too bad she's just coo-coo with humans as her Cocoa Puffs. It certainly felt nice to feel her hooves against your fingers, but you just let out a breath. "See you later, Lyra!" Pinkie yells. Lyra turns around, and she heads back out the little side street into the main market street. She still has her eyes locked on you, and she swings her tail around with each step. She seems to try to give you as much of a view of her flanks as possible. "Well, that's over with," you remark, turning to Pinkie. "Okie-dokie-lokie!" Pinkie calls out. "Now--" She touches a hoof against your back and leads you down the hallway. "It's time for more 'special projects', Snoopy!" "But I'm done with the shift!" "Oh, you silly-illy not-a-filly," she retorts, grinning, "since when have we discovered any advancements in tasty-treat-technology on the job! Enough work! It's time for fun!" You simply nod. Oh, great, more work as the Beaker to her Professor Honeydew. I wonder if she'll dye my hair green with sprinkles again. Or maybe coat the inside of my ears with raspberries again. Or maybe she'll pull out the 'big guns'. "Hang on, Snoopy! Snoopy, hang on!" Pinkie thrusts open the door to the kitchen, and she pushes you inside. You suddenly flash back to how much you had hated that nickname at first, and how quickly you had accepted it just a few hours afterwards. Dammit! Why did I have to appear in Equestria inside a freaking dog crate with freaking Beagle puppies crawling all over? Why couldn't I have teleported into a Jacuzzi or something with Rarity at my side! Although, using the exact word 'Snoopy' was all your fault. You put your apron back on as you watch Pinkie hopping around the kitchen, throwing open drawers and assembling a variety of tools on her back. It could be worse. I feel so freaking sorry for 'Scooter', 'Pancakes', and 'Peaches'. You shudder. "What are you doing tonight, Pinkie?" "Oh, the same thing we do every night, Pinkie," Pinkie says, putting on her own apron right after she spills her tools onto the counter. "Try to take over the world!" "I..." "Of cooking!" You take a gulp. To Be Continued...