//------------------------------//
// -25- Friday Part: Two 
// Story: The Anthropologist 
// by Weavers of Dreams 
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"So, Jack, you're now scared of one of your best friends because she asked to bite you?" Lyra asked, looking at the rather discomforted human across from her.

He nodded. "Yeah. It was so strange, one minute we were enjoying a friendly lunch at a café, and the next she wants to sink her teeth into me. I've been avoiding her all week."

"Well, that's not good," Lyra said as she wrote on her clipboard.

"Was I supposed to let her bite me?" Jack asked, eyes wide open in shock.

"No, not if you didn't want her to," Lyra explained as she leaned back. "But you should have told her 'no' rather than just avoid her. She's probably very depressed right now."

"W-what did I do wrong?"

"Not so much something you did wrong, as much as something you're unaware of," Lyra replied, setting the clipboard aside. "You see, thestrals have a very hard time fitting in with most of society. After Nightmare Moon was banished over a thousand years ago, ponies saw them as her agents, and attempted to chase them out of Equestria."

"Why would they think that?" Jack questioned, looking over his shoulder as though expecting to see something behind him.

Lyra chuckled and offered a small smile. "Because, Princess Luna, before the corruption, oversaw the birth of their race, and has been regarded as their mother ever since. Even today, they are naturally drawn to her by instinct. But, they prefer to life out in small towns like Ponyville, or the Frontier."

"Discrimination?"

Lyra gave a humorless chuckle. "Discrimination, Jack, is not being allowed to eat at a restaurant, or shop at certain stores. If only their problems were so trivial." She gave Jack a serious expression. "They weren't exactly chased from Equestria. But they were forced into hiding."

"But, What about Celestia?" Jack asked. "Didn't she do anything?"

Lyra nodded. "Of course. She managed to turn her sister into a fairytale, so that suspicions would subside, and then spent centuries coaxing her sister's subjects out of the wilds. But, not everything works out as it is attended.

"Some ponies in power saw the thestrals emerging from the wilds as a great opportunity to throw their weight around. They began spreading rumors about how these bat-winged ponies were barbarians, how they consumed blood to go into crazed frenzies, and had a preference for the flesh of virgins. Got ponies so riled up and in a state of near panic, that Celestia was forced to give into a multitude of demands and make a countless deals with the nobility of the time."

Jack was taken aback. "They forced Princess Celestia to do something?"

"She so desperately didn't want to see her sister's precious thestrals forced into hiding again, and she also didn't want to start a civil war," Lyra said with a small sigh. "She promoted a substitute that was to be rationed amongst them, which would keep the thestral's 'bloodlust' in check. Made laws that punished thestrals caught consuming meat. And even made it lawful for guards to search their houses on a routine basis in search of corpses."

"How long did this go on for?" Jack asked, horror written on his face.

"Up until a hundred years ago," Lyra replied, "just a couple decades after the first humans started falling through."

"What changed?"

"Celestia is not some dumb heartless tyrant," Lyra explained with a small smile. "Yes, she was foolish from grief and worry, but she knew what would happen if thestrals could not get the animal protein that they needed. So she ensured that each ration of the useless substitute was 'contaminated'. Allowing the nocturnal ponies to still live fulfilling, if somewhat weakened, lives.

"Then, one day, she noticed that many thestral mares were beginning to miscarry or produce stillborns, and what few foals that did manage to survive were weak and sickly. Even the malnourished mothers could no long seem to nurse their crying infants. Somepony was sabotaging all her hard work to preserve the nocturnal race."

"That must have made her upset."

Lyra glared at him for interrupting her story. "Yes, Jack, it made her very upset. She had been setting up contingencies since the beginning, and was now forced to put them all into play. From thousands of documents she had collected, and even certain political movements she had set in motion under the guise of third-person parties ages beforehand, she managed to steamroll through the elitist opposition and return full citizen's rights to the thestrals. As well as ensure the perpetrators of the genocidal act were caught and never seen or heard from again."

Jack was silent for a moment. "So, it took a bunch of foals dying to get her to do something?"

Lyra growled. "No, Jack. It just forced her to speed things up. You see, over the years, she had been upping the dosage of the 'contaminate'..."

"It was blood, just say it," Jack groused.

"Ugh, fine," Lyra groaned. "She was continually upping the amount of blood she placed inside the rations, thinking far enough ahead to order that the 'substitute' be dyed red to make it seem more natural than the sludge it was. That way she would eventually be able to tell the public that the thestrals been feasting on blood for years with minimum political fallout."

"Still, can't imagine she's too popular with them, even after all that," Jack mused.

Lyra shrugged. "Ponies are a forgiving lot. But even that took many years to heal. I suspect, there still those that hold a grudge. As well as many who still hold prejudices against the thestrals."

"I know I would. Hold a grudge against Celestia, that is. I'm fine with thestrals... when they're not trying to bite me. Not that do hold a grudge against Celestia... er. Never mind."

Lyra shrugged again. "Oh well. The point of this history lesson being, that your friend is likely very hurt, because some wounds can reopen."

"Because I won't let her bite me?"

"No. Because you're avoiding her," Lyra replied. "Thestral mares can be easily hurt that way."

"Then why does she want to bite me? Will it turn me into a vampire?"

Lyra shook her head. "When a thestral is very comfortable around you, they will offer to bite you, because they will never forget the scent of your blood. It's a way that they'll always know where you are, so that they can find you if they feel lonely or playful, or if they think you're in danger. All of Luna's Night Guard are required to bite each other, and her, in order to keep from getting separated."

"Bite the Princess who can move the moon?" Jack asked in disbelief.

Lyra giggled and nodded. "Kind of a test of courage in and of itself. I suspect they do it to Celestia as well. But... I really don't want to ask."

"D-does it hurt?"

Lyra shook her head as she looked at a particular spot on her right leg. "No. They've got numbing agents in their saliva. The most you'll feel is a bit of pressure. Won't even leave a scar."

"You've been bitten?"

Lyra nodded. "Not in Canterlot. It was when I moved here. Though, I feel I should warn you. Be sure to tell her that you sleep at night. Else she might show up at your window expecting you to come out and play."

"They do that?"

Lyra nodded and shuddered. "I am never, ever going to be that tired on a Monday again."

"So I should let her bite me?"

"Only if you want her to," Lyra pointed out. "If not, she'll understand. Although they do like the taste of human blood."

"What?"

"Oh hush. They only get it when it's donated or offered freely. I'm told it's very high in iron."