I once had a lengthy discussion with a goat about the differences between their herds and sheep herds. It happened when I was younger, the herd had decided to move from some farm outside Dodge City to the outskirts of Baltamare which involved quite a lengthy train ride. Now herds don’t usually have a lot of money to spend on accommodations, so they usually opt for freight level transport. Here I was, having found a spot on top of a crate in a mail car when a group of minotaurs walked in followed by their goat attendants. At some point in ancient history, a minotaur must have run into a goat herd, and like the little patsies they were, they must have followed him all the way back to their lands where they have become indispensable to minotaurs as servants.
How did this happen? You see, goats and sheep have radically different philosophies when it comes to herds. Sheep tend to agree on whats best for the group to do, and as such they live collectively on farms where they can arrange for good accommodations. The larger the herd, the better the deal, ect ect. Goats on the other hand, seek out the strongest thing they can find, and follow it around.
To an uninformed pony, the relationship between sheep and goats would look like the one they share between their distant cousins the donkeys. While most sheep are too timid to take that as an insult. If you were to say compare sheep herds to goat herds; that would be grounds for many passive aggressive letters and inconvenient road blockages.
Anyway, so here I was, barely out of lambhood, stuck between a pair of goats, watching their minotaur masters play some kind of card game. It was about an hour in when the goat next to me finally turned to me and said, and I quote, “BWaaaaahHH, bhAAAh?” which roughly translated from Ovish was “Why do you sheep cling to the weakling ponies for guidance? ”
Yes sheep and goats share some weird common language, not to get into details but sheep all learn to read and speak Equish like all the ponies we live around, but instinctively we also have this second language that the goats also use. The minotaurs don’t exactly encourage language skills, as it is useful to have servants that can only communicate with their masters so most goats get by using this guttural language.
Back to the story.
I responded to the goat in their language to something like this “hey! sheep don’t cling to ponies, we decide what our herds do, not the other way around!”
The old goat laughed and responded. “Yes that ‘collectivist’ approach is interesting, but what happens when you need protection? We goats have been all around the world for our leaders are strong and ambitious and fear nothing. If you sheep had strong leaders like them, you wouldn’t be shuffling from farm to farm, you could be out seeing the world!”
The next couple hours would be filled with this back and forth in this fashion until the train reached its stop and the minotaurs disembarked and I no longer had to defend my race from the twisted philosophies of the goats.
Why do I bring this story up, you may ask? Well you see the one fair point that goat made was that having a minotaur around sometimes has its perks, like right now.
I scrambled up the broken steps on all fours. Behind me, the forest was alive with action. A dozen large bushes broke off from the canopy and charged into the castle after me.
Bucking timberwolves. Why does it always have to be timberwolves! I thought as I dove behind a stone fountain. At least I had found the castle while I was running for my life, so things are looking up.
I had been following the path just like the map said, when it started getting dark. Off the path, I began to see more and more movement in the bushes, until a pair of green eyes caught my eye. Having lived by the Everfree for some years now, I do know what a timberwolf looks like, big, leafy, made of wood… but the giveaway is the glowing green eyes, and the stench of rotting plants.
The wolves surrounded me all at once. They weren’t going to pounce, no they knew I was easy food, instead they circled me.
Buck me… I looked around the path for something to throw at them, but there weren’t any rocks or things I could really use.
One of them closed in from the circle and pounced, its claws raked my cloak. I fell backwards, and the beast rolled over me. Scrambling around, I managed to grab onto something that felt like a rock, and threw it right at the thing’s head.
The beast recoiled in pain. The rock hit the beast squarely on the snout. Bizarrely it rolled around on the ground, dragging its snout everywhere. It took me a moment to realize why. The rock I had tossed, wasn’t a rock at all, actually it was one of my smelly turnips that had fallen on the ground when the beast attacked.
Scrambling up I pulled out the rest of the turnips and waved them around. To my surprise, the rest of the wolves backed away.
“Ahhaa you guys don’t like turnips very much do ya?!” I said, posturing. “Well there’s plenty more where that came from!” I tossed another turnip and they backed away.
At this point the wolf on the ground rolled up and charged straight through the circle, presumably heading to some water to dislodge the turnip bits from his snout.
Seeing the opening, I took off running, which caused the rest of the pack to follow after me. After a few minutes of frantic running, I managed to find the castle and charge through the front door.