The Anthropologist

by Weavers of Dreams

-26- Friday Part: Three

"Miss Heartstrings?"

"What is it Millie?" Lyra asked her secretary.

"Twist came by with a message from her mother."

"Oh? What's did she say?"

"I was getting to that," Millie chided her like she would an impatient child. Lyra got that a lot. "She was instructed to tell you that the oven broke down today, so they would like you to join them for dinner this evening at the Jade Counter."

"Oof," Lyra rolled her eyes. "I kept offering to get her family a new oven, but no, she insisted that it would last a few more years at least. And she wonders why I pay the rent I do. I live there too, I oughta have a say in a few things. Right?"

"Mm, yes, Miss Heartstrings?" Millie answered with a shrug, not really a part of the conversation. "Well, that was all. I leave you with your client now."

Lyra waited until the earth pony closed the door behind her. "Well, thanks for waiting a little longer than usual. Had to reassure a guy that a thestral wasn't going to have him for a midnight snack after I pushed all his buttons for a laugh. Wound up with a headache instead." She sighed in disgust. "Let that be a lesson to you. Never tease humans about their most basic fears. They'll either panic or pummel you into pudding."

"Shouldn't you know not to do that then?" the stallion across from her asked with a smirk on his face.

Lyra was miffed. "Don't you dare question my status as the world's greatest anthropologist, Caramel. I earned that title with hard work and intense study at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted unicorns. Not even Princess Twilight's personal library contains as many human-related works as I have. Trust me, I've checked."

"Then how did you manage to mess it up?"

"Because I'm not perfect," Lyra groaned as she rubbed her temples. "I'm young and impulsive, and my mouth jumped ahead of my brain. But, at least I managed to resolve it without the need of violence." She stole a quick look at her baseball bat and ceiling fan, untouched.

"Well, could we hurry this session up, please?" the stallion asked, looking at the watch on his hoof. "I have a date in a half hour."

"Okay-okay, fine," Lyra replied. "Anime isn't real, you can't call upon breathe fire by force of will, climb on the ceiling, or keep animals inside of balls."

The poor earth pony turned bright red and covered his face with his hooves. "Why'd you have to bring that up? That was over a year ago."

Lyra smirked at him. "What goes around comes around, Caramel."

"Okay, fine, I'm sorry, alright?" the earth pony muttered apologetically.

Lyra got off her chair and went over to pat him on the head. "Apology accepted, Caramel. Though I'm not so sure if Fluttershy's quite forgiven you yet."

"None of the animals were hurt."

"Which is why you got let off easy," Lyra chuckled as she climbed back into her chair. "On a related note, I saw Princess Twilight earlier this week when I returned a book, and she said she loved your transcript on giant fighting robots."

Caramel perked up with a big smile. "Really? That's... that's great. I've got several others ready to go if she's interested."

"You betcha she's interested," Lyra beamed. "She's been looking for authors to help fill the foals' section of her library."

Still smiling, Caramel's eye twitched and his ears splayed out to the sides. "What?"

Lyra rolled her eyes, then adopted serious expression. "Caramel. You're a bright stallion, a hard worker, and have a magnificent imagination. But, you really need to not take these things so seriously. Human's enjoy stories that are bigger than life, and it's so easy to get swept up in them. You have to remember that it's just for fun."

"So were flying machines," Caramel pointed out defensively. "But humans proved that ponies like us could fly just like the pegasi. Why not go beyond that?"

Lyra bit back a sigh. This was reminding her of that one colt, who a propeller beanie, that kept on asking for her to check the anthropological archives for Half-Life 3(1). "Because the Equestrian government is interested in useful things, not novelties. The aesthetics alone would cost more than the technology to make it operate. Not to mention, the maintenance would be a combat engineer's worst nightmare."

Caramel looked like he was about to object, but then thought better about it. He instead opted to lower his and moan in despair. "Then it was all just a waste of time?"

Lyra rolled her eyes and bopped him on the head with her clipboard. "Knock it off. What you've done is incredible. You took human creativity and melded it with Equestrian imagination to make something entirely unique. Princess Twilight herself loved it, and that's saying something."

"But...," Caramel started, but then yelped when he was bopped again.

"No buts," Lyra ordered him. "You wanted this to be a quick session, so no interruptions. Understood?"

The stallion nodded.

"She loved your work, and if the bookworm princess herself likes it, that means everypony who is anypony will want some." She chuckled to herself. "Heck, all those nobles and sycophants have probably boosted the book market by trying to copy Twilight's library." She looked at Caramel to make sure the message was getting through. "In other words, Caramel, you have goldmine on your hooves. I would suggest you take advantage of it."

Lyra turned to look at the clock. "You'd better get going now. But, remember what I've said. Because, every mare wants a stallion that can provide, and being a famous author is probably more lucrative than doing a bunch of oddjobs around town."

"Thank you, I-I'll think on it."

Caramel left that session, his final session with the good doctor, with those thoughts in mind. He took them to heart and eventually became one of the forerunners of Equestrian manga. Going so far as to found and preside over the Equestrian Manga Society. Within a decade, nobles reading comic books(2) in public was as common a sight as fillies with ice cream in summer.

(1) Gabe Newell even makes ponies sad.

(2) Not just manga, but many different genres.

Comments

[Ledgion]

I wonder if there will be any human's playing live music at the restaurant. I've always thought the ponies would be blown away by our varied genre's and styles of music.

[Rokas]

...I can't help but wonder if that wasn't a jab at me, given I criticized something and now there's mention of a story involving giant robots and ponies and how silly it is.

Ah well, joke's on you if it's true; I know the dang things are impractical.

More seriously:

Human's enjoy stories ...

I think that should be a plural s, not a possessive.

And I still don't understand why Lyra had to go after Caramel about his silly misunderstanding. It's the old misdirection of "oh, I screwed up, well, YOU'RE not perfect either!" Of course everyone screws up, but we weren't talking about other screwups, we were talking about YOUR screwup, just now. Throwing something like that back at someone is really immature and waspish.

[John Tannius]

How long until somepony writes 'Watchmares'?

and remember, chicks dig giant robots.

[Curtis LeMay]

Not to mention, the maintenance would be a combat engineer's worst nightmare.

Nitpicking, but either "maintenance section" or "technician's" would be more appropriate here. Combat engineers mainly deal with demolitions and the construction of fighting positions and other structures.