Grace before Mealtime

by helmet of salvation

5. To Serve Manticore

"Apples, apple fritters, apple tarts, apple muffins and candied apples." Applejack proudly listed the baked goods on the display stand at her family farm. "Sorry we didn't have time to make any apple pies," she added.

"'Sorry'?" Fluttershy squeaked incredulously. "This is amazing! You didn't have to do this."

"Now, what kinda friend only does stuff she has to do?"

Fluttershy felt humbled. A busy farm worker who could have lost her younger sister to the manticore, Applejack had good cause not to assist in this matter. Yet she had put herself out anyway, for no other reason than that Fluttershy was her friend and needed help. The pair watched as the manticore paced slowly back and forth in front of the display stand, peering and sniffing curiously at the assortment.

* * *

"Thunderation, Fluttershy, that persnickety puss has turned his snoot up at everything we got!"

Fluttershy shuffled in anxious regret. "Oh no, all that time, all those ingredients. I'll make it up to you. I promise."

"Never mind all that. Just ..." Applejack closed her eyes for a few seconds, controlling her breathing so as to subdue her rising anger. "Get him outta here."

* * *

Fluttershy's discomfort was intense, and steadily rising. She did not really like flying for long periods and she especially disliked being the centre of attention. Yet she could see no other choice. She was leading an adult manticore—a predator with a spike-studded, scorpion-like tail, a lion's body and an unEquestrian face—through the main street of Ponyville, in search of some food source she had not yet considered. The only way to avert a general panic was to ensure that everypony who saw the monster also saw her, and could see that she was calm and at ease. If she was clearly not afraid then there was no reason for anypony else to be afraid, either. So she hovered a foot above the manticore's head as the pair searched the town for something else that might appeal to the creature's taste buds.

The tactic seemed to work. The other ponies stifled their instinctive alarm once they caught sight of the notoriously timid pegasus, and eyed the unlikely pair with fearful yet quiet caution.

Except for one.

"FLUTTERSHY!" Pinkie Pie squealed exuberantly, bounding from seemingly out of nowhere. The sudden, loud greeting sent the startled pegasus shooting several feet into the air, shrieking in terror. The tense wariness of the townsponies snapped like a wafer and they stampeded wildly in all directions, screaming and whinnying, until they were all shut tightly indoors.

Recovering from her initial shock, Fluttershy cast her dejected eye around the depopulated street as Pinkie Pie, oblivious to the panicked desertion, rattled excitedly on. "I've been looking everywhere for you, including places where you had no logical reason to be which, in hindsight, might have slowed me down unnecessarily. Anyhoo, this morning Sugarcube Corner took delivery of a huge, whop-tastic, faburrific shipment of nuts and Mr and Mrs Cake said the manticore could come over and sample some of them! Isn't that great?"

"Um, yes, Pinkie Pie, I really appreciate that." Fluttershy was still unhappy about causing the panic she had hoped to avoid but she was too grateful for another purely voluntary offer of help to let on. The three set off for the local patisserie, leaving Ponyville's main street empty, save for the lone figure of Applejack, towing her display stand up and down the street, trying to entice the townsponies with her one-day-only half-price special on her apple-based treats and wondering why nopony was venturing outdoors.

* * *

"Welcome, welcome, to Sugarcube Corner, the number one nucleus for all your nut needs!" Pinkie Pie's eager, rapid-fire voice rang out through the patisserie's spacious storeroom. Wearing a straw boater and fake moustache, she stood behind a display stand filled with assorted nuts. "We've got peanuts, filberts, almonds, pistachioes, walnuts, off-the-wall nuts. Cash in on cashews, or pecan exciting new taste."

The manticore clasped a scoop handle between his teeth, dug into a tray of macadamias and, with surprising care, rolled one of the round nuts onto a bench.

"Ooo, macamadamia nuts. Excellent choice but a super-hard nut to crack. Thankfully, we have a handy-dandy gadget here that'll snap that sucker like..."

Before Pinkie could continue, the manticore slammed the tip of his tail powerfully yet precisely onto the nut, the impact of a spike splitting the shell cleanly down the middle. He raked the kernel out with an unsheathed claw, lapped it up and chewed thoughtfully for a second, before he contorted his hairless visage with distaste and spat the nut out.

"Um, that's something nut tasters do to make sure they don't over-indulge, right?" Pinkie Pie asked hopefully.

"I ... don't think it counts if it flies across the room," murmured Fluttershy.

The other nuts the manticore tasted met with similarly unhappy results, and the creature showed no interest in any of the baked confections Pinkie Pie retrieved from the main section of Sugarcube Corner.

"Augh!" the pink earth pony cried in dismay, scowling at the half-chewed kernels splattered around the storeroom floor. "And now I have this disgusting mess to clean up!"

"I'll help you," said Fluttershy quickly. "Where do you keep your buckets?"

Buckets.

The two ponies gazed with chagrin at one another, simultaneously realising how useful a bucket might have been before the manticore started his tasting.