The Anthropologist

by Weavers of Dreams

-82- Mothers and Their Children

The peach mare began to sob brokenly, causing Lyra to take a step back in surprise. Her anger was quick to melt away into confusion as great big tears rolled down the mare's cheeks.

"What are you doing here?" the mare demanded in a cracked voice. "I had moved on. I was finally picking my life back up. Are you here just to bring it crashing back down upon my head?"

Lyra gaped, confused. "W-what? No. What are you talking about? I hardly expected to find you here. Heck, I never wanted to see you again... ever."

The peach mare looked about ready to reply, but just burst into a new fit of sobs. Great Big tears fell upon the tarmac as her body visibly shook.

"I was never expecting to see you again either, but... but this... this is not how I would have thought it going," Lyra found herself saying with wide eyes and a rather uncomfortable feeling in her chest. "I probably would thought it'd be full of more name calling and threats."

"What do you mean?" the peach mare sniffed, looking up from the deck to the mint unicorn. "How can you say that? I never wanted him to die. I was devastated when I heard that. I just wanted to... to... I don't even know anymore. I'm so sorry for what I've done, even if that doesn't really mean anything. It can't ever bring him back."

Lyra didn't know what to say. She plopped her plot down upon the ground and looked at the space between her and the peach mare. "W-what am I doing? This isn't me... I'm not... I'm not... I'm not a monster. I'm not a monster." She sniffed and searched for her son.

He was right where she'd left him, holding back the chubby little filly who was struggling to rush to her mother's aid. "For goodness' sake, Henry, let her go. That's no way for a gentlecolt to act."

Henry shook his head worriedly. "Y-you're mad. It's not good for kids to get between angry grown ups."

"We're not angry, Henry, just very... very upset," Lyra sighed, grateful to find that her son was protecting the filly. She silently scorned herself for thinking ill of his intentions. "Let her go, sweetie."

"You won't yell at her?" Henry asked carefully, his grip beginning to loosen about the struggling filly's barrel.

The mint mare shook her head. "Of course not. I'm... I'm not a monster."

Taking a moment to think it over, Henry let the filly go. She promptly stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at him before rushing over to her mother.

"Mama, why waf tha' mean mare yelling at you?" she demanded, giving Lyra an incredibly dirty look. Her mother was quick to engulf her in a hug.

"She's just very upset, Precious," the mare comforted her filly with a sniff.

"Bu', that doeff't mean fhe can yell at yu," the filly groused. "That'f juff mean."

Her mother was about to reply, but was cut off buy the good doctor.

"That's right, little filly," Lyra sniffed as she rubbed her eyes with the crook of her leg. "I shouldn't have yelled at your mother. That was wrong of me. It's just been... years, since we've last seen each other."

The filly tilted her head to the side. "Were yu fwiendf? If yu were fwiendf, then why yu yelling at mi mama?"

Lyra couldn't help but smile at the innocent way the filly came to that conclusion. "Uh... not really. Just passing acquaintances... with some special history."

"Wha'?" The filly twisted her head in a comical position and just stared.

Lyra shook her head as she gathered up her son, placing behind her neck. "This isn't the time or place for this. We should... meet again sometime... when we've collected ourselves."

The peach mare did the same with her filly, nodding in agreement. "Yes. I-I would like that. Although... even if I waited several lifetimes... I still wouldn't really know what to say."

"Neither would I... apparently," Lyra sighed despairingly. "Just... just go. Anywhere. I'm taking my son to find our cabin."

Wordlessly, the two mare parted ways, leaving a lone pegasus to his own devices. Namely, the short-wave radio.

"Yes, sir," Monkey spoke into the microphone in a hushed voice. "They met, just as you said they would. But, it didn't go down quite like you had planned. It actually ended rather peacefully."

He cringed as the person on the other end shouted through the headphones he was wearing. "Hey. Why are you blaming me? I've done everything exactly like you told me to. It's not my fault if ponies don't behave like you say they will." He waited for the other to reply. "Apology accepted, sir. Now. What is the next step... well, would you kindly refresh my memory, boss?"

He rolled his eyes during the long complaint that issued next. "Very clever, sir. Using my name to complete a vulgar euphemism. Bravo. Now. What's the next step."

He nodded as the instructions were passed to him. "Okay. I can do that. Easy enough. I can take care of that after I deliver the cells. Speaking of which... that kid of hers is something else." He paused a moment for his employer to process that. "What do I mean? Well, he counted the cells and concluded that one was missing. I mean, now that I think about it... forty-nine? That really does seem off. It's as if you're trying to tell everybody that one's missing. For now, anyway. Couldn't we have made a false one to make it less obvious?"

He suppressed a deep groan as his boss replied. "Oh, yeah. All part of your master plan. As you've said many times before. Can't we ever just, you know... skip with the dramatics?" He listened. "Apparently not. Okay. Here's the deal. I'm hanging up now so I can get on with the job."

With that, despite his boss' protests, he unplugged the radio and slipped out the cockpit to run maintenance up his plane.

Comments

[pahnazd]

That... went far better than expected.
And suspicious from before have been confirmed. At least he's not afraid to say what he thinks to his boss

One little typo:

this is not how I would of thought it going

The bold part should be would have

[Dan]

So he's Monkey Spanker now?

[HappyMuffin]

This story's got a bunch of cultural things, is that it? Do ponies only ever ship things in groups evenly divisible by 10 for some reason? 49 is a perfectly serviceable number.

[Weavers of Dreams]

9911578
Things are normally shipped in increments of tens or fives. And for a kid, it would seem a little strange.