Work Horses

by swedely

Pony Law

“Oh, when can I go outside Mr. Cornell?” Fluttershy inquired, “It’s such a beautiful spring day and all of the birds are playing. When may I join them?” I furrowed my brow, grunted, and looked up from my textbook at the unusually antsy pony.

“For the last time, once Luke gets back with the license he can take you outside! And stop calling me Mr. Cornell. Eric is fine.” Fluttershy returned to her mild demeanor and climbed off of the window.

“Sorry.” She replied softly. I looked back down at the heavy book for a few minutes, but eventually closed it and rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t concentrate on school work with that pony in the room. I didn’t want it here and, from what I could gather, it didn’t want to be here. All it ever wants is to be outside with all of the “cutsie, wutsy, widdow animals” as she would call them. I just kept thinking, Luke will be back soon enough and she’ll be out of your hair for a while. Putting up with that pony is like putting up with a child.

These past three and a half weeks have been some of the strangest moments of my life. First thing I tried to do was establish how she’d do her business. At first I thought newspapers would suffice, but this was a pony, not a Shih-Tzu. Then I figured ponies usually go in stalls on hay, so I cut up a large box and filled it with hay from the local pet shop. When I presented my handiwork to Luke and Fluttershy, all they gave me were confused looks. Then Luke explained,

“You know they used toilets in Equestria, right?”

Then there was the sleeping arrangement. The second night she was with us, she immediately went back to my bed, but I wasn’t going to have any of it. I told her to go sleep on the couch, but she was still too terrified of zombies to get within two feet of the piece of furniture. Luke ended up taking her to his bed. This, however, lasted only three nights since Michelle’s allergies started acting up whenever Luke was around her. He checked his clothes and found yellow fur all over it. Dear God that pony sheds! Her fur was everywhere she laid down, and judging by my bed it looked like she had a wrestling match. So both beds were out of the question, and Luke wouldn’t let Fluttershy sleep on the ground like a common animal.

“But that’s what they are nowadays!” I replied, but he argued that she was “one of the Elements” and deserved better. I tried to force her back onto the couch, but her fears overcame her, and made her surprisingly strong. Finally, I resolved to sleep on the couch with her, but I made it perfectly clear that it would be for one night only. That night, I hardly got any sleep as I felt hooved appendages wrapped around me for dear life. I could only stare into the darkness thinking, why me?

I could get used to her bathroom preferences and sleeping arrangements, but the thing that really startled me, even to this day, was how she moved. She seemed to weigh a decent amount, yet her wings, which didn’t look much bigger than a falcon’s, could still lift her. If she needed something, such as a bowl from the cabinet, she would simply fly up and grab it with her mouth without disturbing anything with air displacement. Even worse was how she moved her legs. I had never seen a member of the Equidae family put its legs over its head to cower in fear, and it freaked me out quite a bit at first.

Besides adjusting to having another mammal in the apartment, I also had to do some extra studying. One day, Luke came home with a tall stack of books and pages printed from online. A few of the covers were the likes of “Equestrian Caretaking”, “Ponies for Dummies”, and “How to Own a Pony.” I asked Luke, “What’s all this? I thought we had everything settled for her.”

“I think we do, but we need a license to legally have a pony in the house.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to walk away, but Luke pleaded that we both needed to know this stuff in case anything bad happened. I argued that I had sacrificed enough for this thing and didn’t need to do any more studying in addition to my vet work, but Luke argued back,

“If I don’t pass this test we won’t have a license, and even if we kicked Fluttershy out, if anyone found out we were keeping a pony illegally we could get in huge trouble!”

I gave him a long stare and finally came over a cracked open a book. It was about the laws of pony ownership. Luke wasn’t known for his choice of legitimate books, so assuming it was a book about etiquette or something I checked the bibliography. It was published by MoPA in 2030 so I knew it was the real deal. I flipped to the first unit which was a brief history on how pony trade came to be. I guess once pony smuggling became a common practice, the U.S. Government decided to make it legal and tax it, like alcohol during the prohibition. Since then, the Management of Ponies Administration, or MoPA, has worked to protect ponies from inhumane conditions. One provision was that owners had to have a license to legally own an Equestrian pony or else they would get ten to twenty years in federal prison. I looked over at Luke and said, “Are you sure we have to go through all of this trouble? We could just give her to a pound and say we found her.”

Luke slammed down the book he was reading and stared at me. “No we cannot! I’m not going to let her rot in a place like that! She’s—”

“One of the Elements. Yeah, I know.”

After that the book got started talking about the bit-to-dollar exchange rate and got really boring so I closed it up and looked at an online article about pony health and medicine. It started with information on dealing with aggressive unicorns. Apparently, a shock behind the ears can disable their magic. In that general area is a section of their brain that allows them to use telekinesis and teleport, but I really didn’t feel like figuring out how any of it made sense. All of this reminded me of the local protests outside of hospitals where I guess they were sawing off unicorn horns to make them safer. The rest of the article went on about clipping Pegasus wings and had a few links to facilities that did pony vocal surgeries. I looked up again and asked, “Hey Luke, what do you suppose is vocal surgery?”

He merely scratched his head as a soft voice floated to my ears. “It’s when they take away our voices.”

We both turned to Fluttershy, who was looking away at us. “When somepony would speak against their master or plot a rebellion, they would be taken away and never speak again.”
For how annoying that pony was, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. Constantly fearing having your voice taken without consent must be dreadful. I went on to read about how dimensional transport can adversely affect some ponies such as fatigue and a lowered immune system. Two of these stuck out; depression and lack of diet. These two seemed to fit Fluttershy perfectly. She always moped around looking out the window and she never finished a whole bowl of cereal. And I thought she was just shy. I mean, she still is incredibly shy, but there’s more to it than that, and now I pitied her.

Ever since I gained that knowledge, things started to go a bit more smooth for the pony and I. Sometimes, when I would play guitar, she would sing a song that she made up as she went. I have to admit, she is pretty good at adlibbing, you know, for a talking pony. Eventually, things became more casual between us, though she remained very meek and shy. Finally, Luke got the results of his test back. At first, he was afraid to look, but after coaxing him to just get it over with he opened the envelope and instantly lit up. He passed! I congratulated him and Fluttershy gave soft “Yay!” which put Luke in a fit of laughter. I’ll never understand bronies. The letter said he would have to wait a week to get his license at the government building, and that’s where he is today.

Suddenly, there was a thud on the window, and Fluttershy shrieked. I looked up and shrugged. “It’s probably just a bird, nothing to worry about.”

Fluttershy gasped. “Oh, that poor creature! I have to help it!”

She started unlocking the window, but I grabbed her hind leg and pulled her down. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked furiously, “I said not until Luke gets back!”

Fluttershy half hid herself behind her forehooves. “But it’s just twitching on the ground. I can’t just let him suffer like this.”

“Birds fly into windows all the time. They’re just dumb animals. I see dead animals all the time in class.”

“…Okay.” Fluttershy responded softly.

I sat back down and tried to get back to studying. Man, Luke still isn’t back? Is there a party that I’m missing? I like parties…well, I like them when they’re with friends. I get lonely when it’s a bunch of people I don’t know. Maybe we should have a party for our floor, but there’s that one guy in 412 who likes to put mouse traps in peoples’ beds.

My thoughts were disturbed by a creak. I thought, Finally! Now this pony can get out of here for a while…wait, that wasn’t from the door. I looked over to the window and saw a yellow flank hurdle out. My eyes widened and a flurry of obscenities spewed from my mouth as I stumbled over to the accursed hole in the wall. The vibrant pegasus was gliding to the ground, but at the same time two uniformed men with wire leashes spotted her and were approaching.

Comments

[fuck mcdickbutt]

Editor: yer gud. I fixed some "Wrong word" errors and reformatted it, but otherwise, your golden. Send me the next chapter as soon as you're done.

[swedely]

830392 alright! Thanks a ton!

[OkamiDash]

Exiting. Wonderful. Scary.
I can't even begin to imagine how the story is going to flow from now on. Please kind author... make Rainbows with this story!

[Quad Ruple]

Oh shit the suspense!

[Quantum_Shift]

The plot is now thick enough to cut with a knife...
Awesome!

[ToscoFarrax]

YOU CANNOT TOUCH FLUTTERSHY, SHE IS UNDER THE PROTECTION OF MR. BEAN!!
encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTUEg9AP0hTEosn-1cIEHSvd067xEGODrWtysDe-xztC4JZleLG

[ghostlywolf]

Due to my hatred for at the moment i will no longer be able to read this fanfic im afraid if i ready any more i will go into a fit of rage that i might not be able to come out of and go on a killing spree with my bare hands were i will kill everyone i think hates ponys i need blood mother fucker BLOOOD!!!!! please when u finish this fanfic please add soem death and dimemberment that is all good bye.
denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw560_131219298135.png

[Frost]

To quote another fanfic, on why this would never happen in a realistic situation:

"Have you ever seen the alternate ending," he asked, "where E.T.'s alien buddies come back to pick him up, find out we've slaughtered him like an animal, and nuke our population centers in retaliation?"
"Um..." I scratched the back of my neck. "Was that before or after they replaced the guns with walkie-talkies?"
"Neither," he said, furrowing his brow. "It was never a part of the movie. And do you know why?"
"Because..." I hesitated. "Because it would have destroyed the film thematically?"
"Because we don't go around cutting aliens open without a damn good reason! Our policy toward extraterrestrial intelligences is and always has been to show them the same deference we would show any other official guest of the United States. That includes respecting their funerary customs, so even if one came to our world already dead, we wouldn't do an autopsy until we could confirm that their family or other basic social unit was okay with it." He leaned back in his chair. "But I'm getting off topic. You're here to discuss your experiences with Twilight Sparkle."

Yes, I am fairly sure that the real-life policy to extraterrestrials is similar to what is said above. Even if it isn't, I'm sure most people would instantly realize that other intelligent life could possibly have a superweapon. And, of course, we do not want to annoy the species that could wipe us out with the military equivalent of a flick of the wrist.

All logic aside, I do like the premise of your story. Even though most civilians would treat enslaving another intelligent species like most of the world treated the Nazis during WWII, good premise.

[swedely]

838067
I don't know what you're complaining about buddy. I said where I found it, and I'm sure that it originally came from Deviantart.com, that's just not where I found the picture.

[Red Bomber]

You think a brony who kept claiming that Fluttershy was "one of the elements" would actually have a license before the end of the second week rather than the third and would keep looking around for the rest of the elements of harmony while he was outside. Maybe that's what he was doing when he was gone, but since this story is from Eric's point of view and not Luke's then Luke will most likely not talk about it unless he gets asked about it or Eric decides it's important to mention it now. Either way at least the world is explained now, but I just don't understand how did Luke know about what Fluttershy did in her world, are you going to explain what a brony is in the next chapter?

[Justanothabrony]

If anything bad happens to Fluttershy Ima have to kill a bitch

[swedely]

842765

a brony in the story is what a brony is right now. he knows what fluttershy did because he watched the show, just like the rest of us.

[Dragonsong]

Amazing story.

[DianaWinters]

To Eric, WATCH THE DAMN SHOW!