The Conversion Bureau: Setting Things Right

by kildeez

Chapter XXXII: One Lone Filly

Flutterheart should have been scared, she knew it deep down. She should have felt the same way the other ponies looked, with the way they walked around with their heads bowed and ears folded in. After all, the same monsters that had kidnapped not one but two princesses now held them hostage, having overwhelmed the royal guardsponies so easily the guards might as well have been trying to use pillows instead of knives and swords. Not only that, but now mommy had to wear a ring on her horn, just like criminals when they were being hauled off by police ponies, even though mommy hadn’t done anything wrong.

Flutterheart should have been scared, walking outside and in the open, even if it was just to stand in line for another bowl of soup. Because every time she walked outside there was another reminder of the “hyoo-mans” and their occupation in the form of one of their guards, holding their weird, blocky weapons and wearing that bulky green armor. Celestia knows mommy and daddy were scared. Right now, as they walked through the lightening fog towards the food line, mommy and daddy were stopping and ushering her back with their hooves while the sounds of the heavy boots the hyoo-mans wore clopped towards them from the fog. Flutterheart obediently ducked back, but secretly peeked between the larger ponies’ legs, watching the pair of armored green pants come stomping out of the mist, slowly fading into view and then passing by with hardly a pause. As it disappeared back into the fog, her parents’ legs dropped.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” her mother whimpered quietly.

“It’ll be okay, hon,” her father replied, nuzzling her mother. “As long as we stick together as a family, we’ll be alright.”

Flutterheart didn’t say anything, certainly not asking why mommy and daddy were so scared. She could understand why, but maybe if they weren’t so scared, maybe…something. She didn’t know. Maybe they could all be friends?

They finally rounded one of the hyoo-mans' tough, green tents to drink in the backs of a dozen pony heads. Her mommy actually sighed in relief, as if they were little red hood in the fairy-tales, finally showing up at grandma's house. But even though this was the part where the Big Bad Wolf was supposed to show up and chomp at her, she still couldn’t find it in herself to be scared. Maybe it was because there were so many other ponies here? Maybe because the big bad wolf was a cute monkey-thing wearing an apron and ladling out oatmeal?

“Remember sweetie, stay strong,” her mother’s voice cut into her thoughts, and she nearly jumped back from the nuzzle the older mare tried to share. “Just remember to keep your head down, sweetie, it’ll all be okay.”

Flutterheart swallowed and nodded. “Okay, mommy,” she whispered, even as she schemed, preparing herself to recognize the exact moment she could lift her head and catch another glimpse of the hyoo-man chef. She kept her eyes fixated on the dirt ground, now stamped into hard-packed clay by the dozens of ponies that had passed this way. The royal guardsponies had used this same spot to host the distribution of food under their watch, and apparently their new occupiers had seen fit to continue in the same spot, if only for familiarity’s sake. As a result, there wasn’t much interesting on the ground to look at anymore, any plants and bugs had been stamped out days ago. Still, she kept her eyes low, no matter how much it bored her. The line stepped forward bit by little bit, the ponies walking towards the serving table with little more than slight shuffles of their hooves. It took an eternity, at least according to her internal clock, but finally she caught the wooden table legs at the upper edge of her vision. She let a tiny smile of victory flicker across her lips for the briefest moment.

Still, she kept her eyes low as she grabbed one of the many bowls off the table and held it up, trying not to marvel at its metal form. She’d been as surprised as anypony when the hyoo-mans had taken the wooden bowls and wrought-iron pots the guard had used and replaced them with these…she didn’t know what to call them. Whatever they were made of, they were like the wrought-iron pots, but thinner and lighter. She wished she could ask how they were made. Sometime in the past week she had stolen one from the line, subsequently spending an entire day bashing it against the wall, wailing on it with a stick, or throwing rocks at it, trying her very best to break it. Her mother had been livid when she’d walked in and asked what she was doing to make so much noise, telling her she was risking the entire family stealing from the monsters. Her father had only smiled and tucked the dinged-up and dented bowl under their cot, thanking her for their “one tiny victory.”

At last, the soup ladle upended itself over her bowl, the hand clenching it darting in and out from her peripheral vision almost faster than she could see: a blotch of color that was there too quick to make out the shape of fingers and hard, pink nails. Whatever. Her mommy was right beside her, now was not the time. Instead, she took her bowl and shuffled along, an ear perked for just the right moment when her mommy would scoop up her own bowl with an unpracticed scrape, coming from using her hooves instead of her magic.

She turned, trotted off, and there was the scrape. Her mommy was now focusing just on her soup, keeping her eyes on spilling as little of it as possible, and so Flutterheart was finally able to peek over her shoulder.

The human wasn’t quite like the others: same basic build, yes, two eyes, two arms, but the lips were thicker and the nose was broader. On top of that, its skin was so dark! Its eyes were the same white though, and that white contrasted with skin the same color of Luna’s night. She had to suppress a gasp of surprise. They had night humans too!? Or wait, she didn’t see any fangs, but still, humans came in different colors too! She wondered if she would see any purple or green humans, she was getting tired of that peach-white…

She set her mind back to trotting along, practically skipping with pride at her new discovery. They came in different colors too, just like ponies! Maybe they also had different tribes? She would love to see a pegasus-human or a horned-human. They probably had ginormous wings!

Her mommy let out a sigh of relief, and she listened to the rustle of one of daddy’s wings unfurling over her withers. “There there, dear, it’s all over now,” he whispered in her ear.

“I’m just glad the line wasn’t too bad today,” her mommy said. “I thought there’d be less food left since we got there so late.”

Flutter paused. Oh no. “What do you mean, mommy?”

“Hmm? Oh, we just went to lunch a bit later today, sweetie, that’s all.”

Flutterheart bit her lip and looked up through the haze of fog. Celestia’s sun…or maybe it was Luna’s now…stared back at her from directly overhead. Oh no, noon already!? She was gonna miss it! She had to act fast!

“Mommmmyyyyyy,” she moaned. “I don’t feel good…”

“Aww, what is it, sweetie?” The older mare pressed a fetlock to her forehead immediately. “Is it the cough? Did it come back?”

“Nooo, my tummy huuurrrttssss,” she whimpered, wrapping her hooves around herself for good measure while she whined. “I wanna go lie down.”

“But we just got lunch!” Her daddy insisted. “How can you suddenly start feeling bad before you even ate!?”

“Honey, shush!” Her mommy fired back, taking Flutter up in her hooves. “If she says she’s feeling sick, she’s feeling sick!”

Flutterheart had to suppress a victorious grin as her mommy swept both her and her bowl of soup up in her hooves, leading them back to the tent, away from the small hill where they liked to eat their meals, back to the cot-filled tent they were now calling home. Her mother tucked her in tight, making sure Mr. Buns was positioned properly on the pillow beside her, then kissing her forehead. “Better?” She asked.

“Lots,” Flutter grinned. “Thanks mommy!”

The older mare smiled down at her. “Of course, my dear heart,” she said, promptly crawling into the cot beside her.

Flutterheart’s teeth clenched. “Mommy? Whatcha doin’?”

“Oh, just making sure you’re okay, sweetheart,” her mommy replied as she crawled into the cot, pulling a dog-eared book out from under her blankets.

Oh crud. “B-but what about your lunch with daddy?”

“Just on hold until daddy can catch up with our meals!” The stallion said from the doorway, striding in victoriously with their food.

Double-crud! Okay, had to think…hold on! Duh! Getting out of this was so obvious! “Mommy, I-I’m not feeling too good again.”

The mare set her bowl down. “Aww sweetie, what is it?”

“My tummy it…ugh—“ that was all Flutter could manage before she sat up again. “I gotta go!”

“Go?”

She nodded with feigned urgency. “Go!”

A blank stare met her, then her mommy threw the blankets off. “Oh! Go!” She quickly helped Flutter out of the cot and galloped with her for the front exit. With a sinister grin, the filly threw herself to the side, galloping off into the deep mist.

“Wait, sweetie!” Her mommy called after her, already panting. “I can’t…keep up!”

Flutterheart’s sinister grin gained an ounce of victory. “I really gotta go!” She called, still galloping off in the direction of the outhouses. She weaved with practiced grace past rows of tents and around poles driven into the dirt, then stopped and ducked behind one such tent. A few minutes later, her mommy galloped past, panting heavily.

Flutterheart giggled to herself. Making her mommy worry after her like this gave her a funny feeling in her stomach, but the victory still tasted sweet enough where she found it easy to trot away, again weaving through the corridors laid out by the human encampment. Still, she couldn’t help but kick herself for the delay. How late was she now? Fifteen minutes? Thirty? Had she missed him?

Slowing her gait, she crept along the tents, passing from the pony part of the camp, under the signs with red lettering she couldn’t read, but had a little black silhouette of a pony crossed-out by a red ‘X’, which was clear enough. She grinned at yet another successful infiltration, but kept herself low as another human patrol passed, again with those blocky weapons and scary face masks. She held her breath every time one of them passed and she ducked into empty canvas tents packed with storage, flitting between stacks of metal boxes with ease.

In the end, for all her acrobatics, she only made it a couple of rows into the growing human side of the encampment, but that was all she needed. The wall of spiky wire the guardsponies were being kept behind was just beyond the thin layer of canvas in front of her, just where it always was, she just had to hope she wasn’t too late.

A lone human sat in a metal folding chair inside the tent, running a grimy cleaning cloth over the little, blocky object he kept on his person at all times. She sighed with relief as he looked up and smiled at her, patting his lap. With a warm smile back, Flutter trotted into the tent and climbed up, curling on the human’s lap like a cat, and feeling a sense of relief as his fingers ran through her mane, their soft tips caressing her scalp. As usual, for the first few minutes, neither of them spoke.

“I saw a dark human today,” she said suddenly. “It was almost as special as when I saw one of your mares.”

“Women, love,” the soldier said. “We call our mares ‘women,’ and that ‘dark’ human is black, definitely not a ‘darkie,’ please remember that if you remember nothing else.”

“How come?”

“Umm…oi, you wanna hear about years of human tradition, or you wanna hear the rest of the story?”

“Can you continue the story?” She asked.

The man’s only response was to keep petting her mane. “Maybe…maybe I changed my mind about tellin’ the rest.”

“C’mon, you promised last time…”

“I did, didn’t I?” The man chuckled. “Alright. Where did I leave off?”

“Mmm…” she thought for a second. “The Tavern on Tatooing…they just showed up with Oobi-One and Look Skywalker.”

“Alright,” the man cleared his throat, and began the tale once more: “’Mos Eisley Spaceport,’ the old knight said with a grimace. ‘You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in the Empire’.”

“Mr. Thompson? How come the Empire killed Skywalker’s parents?”

The man chuckled again. Her questions were why they were still on Tatooine despite having nearly a half-hour every day for more than a week to tell the story. “The biggest reason is a massive reveal later on down the line, but for now, let’s say Luke is very important to the Empire, and leave it at that.”

“Then how come they didn’t just ask to get close t’him?”

“They’re an evil Empire, sweetie. They’re not really in the business of asking for anything when they can just take,” the man nodded, as if affirming his own logic to himself. “You saw how Darth Vader treated the rebels on that ship? To them, that’s how any empire maintains control.”

“Is that why you guys came here and took away the guards’ armor?” She asked, her voice going very low and quiet for reasons she didn’t quite understand.

The petting paused in her mane, but quickly resumed after a moment. “No…sometimes the good guys have to do something not-so-good when they’re fighting bad guys.”

“The guards weren’t bad.”

The stroking stopped completely. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, kid,” the human murmured. “Your princess isn’t who you think she is…”

“H-how do you know?” She stammered. The conversation had taken a turn she wasn’t used to. “Have you met her?”

“Not personally…” he trailed off.

“Then how do you know!?”

“Because I know what someone like her did,” he hissed at last, and the clenching of his teeth, the sudden violent hatred rising on his face, informed her that the discussion was over. Flutter darted back, ears folding back as a whimper rose in her throat. In a flash, the flaming anger faded from Thompson’s face, and he bit his lip. “I’m….sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I got…I let my emotions…I’m sorry, it’s nothing you should concern yourself with.”

“O-okay,” she said. For a split-second, she considered ending the session then and there, just excusing herself as needing to be back before her parents noticed she was gone, but then his fingers played in her mane again, and once more she found herself unable to move from the spot. Eventually, she surrendered. “So…what was the bar called again?” She sighed.

“Mos Eisley,” he replied, and she could hear the smug smile in his voice well before she turned to see it plastered across his face. “You would never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in the Empire’s outer rim, and here, Luke, Obi-Wan, C-3PO and R2-D2 had to find a pilot to help them escape the Imperial forces…”

He trailed off sharply. He sat up straight in his seat, looking around as if he’d just heard something in the tent. Flutterheart sat up too, her ears perked up. “What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Hold on, love,” Thompson gave her a last scratch of the ears as he set her aside and stood up. His hand went to the long black object, his “rifle” as he’d called it, and scooped it up. Remaining crouched, he approached the tent’s entrance. Flutter stood from her seat, dropping to the ground to tip-hoof carefully behind him, but he ushered her behind his back with a quick wave of his arm. “Stay behind me,” he whispered, not taking his eyes off the canvas entrance, then he started moving again, his feet gliding along the dirt with the grace and skill of a ballerina. Flutter let herself watch for a half-second, then caught up, her body sticking close to the soldier’s heels.

He eased out, his thigh tensed beneath his uniform, and then he peered into the small, dirt avenue just outside the tent. Flutter took the opportunity to peek out with him, her little face poking from between his ankles. At first glance, everything appeared normal. The tents laid empty of everything but supplies, the guardtowers remained as looming shadows in the mist over the lines of tents. Then she perked up an ear. Where was the crunch of human combat boots as soldiers patrolled the supply caches? And now that she looked again, where was the sweep of spotlights from the towers? Where was the buzz from the wires overhead?

“Bollocks,” the soldier cursed. She turned, trying to see what he might have seen (while cataloguing the new swear word for later use). She caught a flash of colored pelt, a cutie mark of crossed swords, and then his powerful hands wrapped around her barrel and scooped her up.

“Wh-what’s going on?” She moaned as he ran with her.

He didn’t reply, just kept running down the street, the little filly under one arm while the other clenched the rear part of his “rifle.” She turned, catching glimpses over her shoulder of a line of ponies at the far end of the street. At first, her face lit up seeing them. Were the humans letting the guardsponies they’d captured go?

Then a shot rang out, and a splotch of red appeared amidst the rainbow of different ponies’ coats. Her heart leapt into her throat again, and the soldier’s pace increased while a whole stream of swears passed by his lips. More shots followed. More red splotches caught her eye. A scream rang out. Flutterheart craned her neck up, seeing the flitting motion of numerous wings high above her head. A siren’s wail filled the air. A shadow loomed over them.

The world reeled.

Flutterheart slowly climbed to her hooves, not remembering falling. One second, she was bobbing with the human, the next she was on the ground. She looked around, spotted a pile of dark cloth along one of the dirt paths, and realized it was Thompson. Before she could go to him, a mare in golden armor descended from the sky, tan wings splaying out as she swooped in for a landing.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” the mare said, offering her hoof. “Nopony’s gonna hurt you, not anymore. You’re safe now.”

The filly gazed up at the massive mare, shivered, tried to peer around the pile of golden armor at the fallen pile of cloth. The mare’s wings flared out, blocking her view. “You don’t have to be afraid of these monsters anymore, okay?” She said.

“I-I’m not afraid….” Flutter said, her voice trailing.

The mare blinked, but gave her a friendly smile as she wrapped her wings around Flutter. “You don’t need to act all brave for me, sweetie, it’s okay to be afraid, especially of the awful monsters in the dark.”

“Th-they’re not…” Flutter started, but trailed off in an instant. The mare whirled around, a short dagger in her grasp. Thompson had stood, looming over them both, the rifle clenched in his hands, the same soft hands that had been gently caressing her mane not five minutes ago. He circled around, the weapon levelled on them as the guardsmare flared her wings, trying her best to cover Flutter. She reciprocated his circling path, pushing them both further from Flutter.

“I’m not gonna let you hurt any more ponies!” The mare cried, her deep, blue eyes flashing in the thinning mist.

“Just surrender now, nobody’s gotta get hurt!” The human yelled in response.

Flutterheart, for her part, felt tears welling up in her eyes. She tried to force them back, to be brave like the guardsponies and mommy and daddy, but it was no use. Her vision blurred, and she couldn’t suppress the loud sniffle and shivering gasps that overtook her tiny body. A high, keening wail rose up in her throat, barely-suppressed by sheer effort. The result was a high squeak not too unlike a rusty door hinge being used again and again, rising from her throat.

Both the human’s and the pony’s gaze drifted towards her, but the pony was quicker. Though she’d only had a few moments, the mare dove across the small space between the combatants, closing the distance in an instant. The human was only just in time to bring his weapon up across his chest, allowing it to take the force of the bone-shattering buck that had been aimed at his ribcage. There was a pained grunt. He threw himself atop the pony. They thrashed, limbs flailing about. Scrambling, the mare went for the closest thing on his gear: a funny little black cylinder shaped like a pineapple. Her teeth clamped around its body. His arm pinned in place between their bodies, the human grasped for the closest part of the weird thing: a little ring sticking out of the cap on top.

More writhing limbs, the human whipping out a funny, little square black object not too unlike the ones Flutter had seen other humans practicing with. There was one shot, and the pony fell back, grasping at the fresh wound in her thigh, her teeth parting as she gasped in pain. Which served only to throw the little black pineapple in Flutter’s direction.

There was a ping. The little black thing bounced across the ground. The pony hit the ground, grasping at her thigh. The human backed up, the square thing in his hands levelled at her, and then the skittering of the little pineapple as it rolled to Flutterheart’s hooves caught his attention. Flutter stared at the object as it bounced off her hoof, too stunned to even move. In a flash, the human moved at a dead sprint. Flutter still stood, rooted to the ground, as he bounded past the guardsmare’s fallen form and slid by the pineapple like he was sliding into home plate. Batting it away as he passed, his body folded around her, powerful arms wrapping her into his embrace.

A second later, there was a boom. A flash of light. A surge of heat washing over her body. She was picked up off the ground a few inches. She was dropped. Her head swam. She blinked and looked around, poking her head out over the human’s form.

A black scorch mark had been baked into the ground. Flutter’s ears rang. The guardsmare stood at the other side of the road, blood gushing from a cut across her forehead and from the hole in her thigh as she wandered dazedly around, trying to shake her head clear. Something warm and sticky touched Flutter’s hoof. It took her a second to realize it was blood, and another few seconds of panicked crying to realize it wasn’t hers.

The crying turned to screaming, and then a set of iron-shoed, blood-covered hooves wrapped around her and pulled her away. One set of hooves was joined by another, then another, and she looked up as she was being dragged off to where the human still lay, curled around his stomach, red seeping from the back of his vest.

“He saved me!” She screamed frantically, fighting against the squad of ponies that had practically materialized around her. “He saved me! He saved me!” She repeated the words like a mantra.

It was only after she saw a few of the guardstallions break off and huddle around the human that she finally allowed herself to be taken into the mist, her eyes red and swollen, her choked sobs echoing into the gray around them. She vaguely heard a pony mention the failure of the “secondary objectives,” but “the primary, at least, was a success.” She wished she knew what that meant. She wished for a lot of things then. For Mr. Bun to be in her hooves again. For her parents to appear out of the fog and tell her everything was going to be okay. For her to be back home again with mommy cooking some of her apple cobbler while daddy pulled weeds in the garden outside.

She wished for a lot of things, even though she knew most of them wouldn’t come true.

Comments

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

It's sad when two good sides fight eachother

[Fireheart 1945]

Not sure what happened. Did Luna's army liberate the camp, or did some random Guardspony responsible for ordering the attack, and what's the fate of the other human soldiers?

[Earthpatriot117]

Damn, that was really intense! And it's only gonna get worse as time goes on.
Glad your back!

[DOOMRIDER]

9234982
Too true.

[Green-Venom]

The actions you take on the line between life and death can give you a glimpse into the true nature of a person. I hope our hero survives.

“A strong man is required to fight a war, but only a good man can end it…“