Cervinism: How to Deal with Depressed Deer

by Deergenerate

Chapter 4: The Streets and The Runaway

Twilight looked positively glum as she stepped out into the streets of Bratistag from the palace. She took a second to scan her surroundings. They were in a plaza just in front of the palace. A dusty, grey, and empty fountain sitting in the middle. Many deer were out and about on the streets now, but none of them were doing anything beyond milling about uselessly. She couldn't even tell if any of them had even noticed the ponies who had just left their palace!

With a sad sigh, she lowered her head turning back towards the hole in the wall they had just come out of. "I think I really messed things up, girls." She said in a pitiful voice.

"Psht, oh come on," Rainbow said waving a hoof. "So what if you just kicked the collective rears of the deer royal guard and just accidentally reinforced the idea that they are completely useless as a race into their heads? It could have gone worse."

Twilight felt herself shrink even further under the crushing weight of her previous actions, a soul-shattering level of cringe suddenly shot out of her chest, making her visibly flinch. Rainbow Dash sucked in air through clenched teeth for a second before she sighed.

"You know, when I say it out loud, it does actually sound like it couldn't have gone any worse." The pegasus sighed, taking to the air slightly and crossing her hooves over her chest. "But, you know, no offense but I don't think we can help these creatures. I don't think anypony can."

"Rainbow!" Applejack stammered, but Rainbow just ignored her.

"Well, it's the truth! I'm sorry but I genuinely don't think there is anywhere we can go from here. We bungled it and I think it's time to just cut our losses and go back home." Rainbow sighed, grimacing as she spoke.

Twilight whimpered, dropping onto her stomach. "Sweet Celestia, if only Pinkie Pie were here. She'd know what to do." She said with a deep whine.

"Well, we could just go get her and come back with her Sugarcube," Applejack said turning away from Rainbow with a slight scoff.

"No... if she actually could solve this the map would have sent her here instead of me." Twilight said sighing as she looked down at her dirt-caked hooves. She looked up for a second with a gasp. "But you might have the right idea."

"I do?" Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, we can't bring Pinkie the pony here, but we can bring Pinkie the idea!" Twilight said, shooting up onto her hooves. "And what's the first thing Pinkie would do?"

"Blast a sad deer in the face with a cannon?" Rainbow asked, locking eyes with Applejack.

Twilight straightened her back, as the air around her suddenly brightened up. The sound of a catchy piano solo started around her, instantly causing every deer in the plaza to turn their head towards her.

"I know, you feel everything is hopeless and bleak." She said in a quiet voice, which somehow everyone in the plaza heard. She suddenly jumped up onto the fountain, spreading her hooves as the music swelled. "But that doesn't mean you have to feel so incomplete!"

Water started spraying from a now suddenly clean and perfectly repaired fountain, all as the invisible music hit a crescendo, causing every deer around them to timidly look around, trying to spot some kind of orchestra in the distance.

Rainbow Dash put a head in her hoof while Applejack let out a sigh, a smile coming to her face. "I swear if this works..." The pegasus groaned.

"Everyone is special! I know that you all feel bad and inconsequential! But I know everyone is-" Twilight sang on as even more of the Plaza fixed and cleaned itself around her. She was interrupted mid-sentence, however, when an empty can suddenly flew through the air and harmlessly bounced off the side of her head. She stumbled slightly, falling off her perch and into the fountain. Instantly everything returned to its same dusty and dirty grey color.

Rainbow and Applejack quickly rushed over to her side helping her out of the stonework.

"Shut up! Your lyrics suck!" A deer they couldn't see yelled. The crowd instantly started to disband with a series of grunts and huffs. Twilight seethed slightly, rubbing the side of her head.

"Hey! Who did that!" Rainbow cried, turning to the departing deer with rage in her eyes but Twilight merely sighed, holding up a hoof and placing it on her leg.

"Don't worry about it. They were obviously talking to the author, not me." Twilight sighed as she stood up.

"How do you-" Rainbow started, but Twilight just ignored her.

"One thing for certain though. I don't think the Pinkie method is going to work here." Twilight sighed. The alicorn shook her head. "Well, if we can't talk about things with the prince, and we can't get a crowd together to talk to them all at once, I think we should try to understand the issue better. Let's split up and reconvene here in a couple of hours. Time for the Fluttershy method."

"The Fluttershy method being..." Applejack started, trailing off slightly.

"We try to talk to them and figure out if there is anything we can do," Twilight said as she straightened her back and turned away from them, walking in a random direction. The two mares merely sighed before they locked eyes, nodded, and went their separate ways for now.

---

"So..." Rainbow said as she stood next to a Deer guard, standing uselessly next to a door to the palace, staring blankly past her with an open mouth and a slight tilt in his head.

"I know when I was trying to get into the wonderbolts I felt super inferior and angry whenever someone else was picked to join them instead of me." She said, sitting next to him and frowning slightly. "Is that how you guys feel?"

The deer kept his gaze blankly ahead for a moment before slowly turning his eyes to stare at her.

"I dunno," the deer sighed. "Probably not."

"Why? I mean, everytime that happened I definitely felt inferior," Rainbow replied, determination covering her face. "But you know what I did? I used it as motivation to keep going. To get back on that horse-" The deer blinked several times at the analogy "- And keep going. Maybe it was spite, maybe it was anger, but that always made me want to work harder. So maybe you guys should do that too, you know?"

"Again, I don't think they are comparable," He sighed loudly. "I mean, you still had a chance at becoming a... wonderbolt I think you called it. We don't have a chance to do anything."

The deer sighed and sat down, looking down at his hooves.

"Sure you do! You have a chance at doing anything you want. So what if you don't have magic? Why don't you use like... technology or something." Rainbow chuckled.

"Technology can't compare to magic," the guard replied his lips turning up slightly.

"Why not? I mean, I heard of griffins matching unicorn's magical beams with those weird tubes they have," Rainbow said with a chuckle, a smile coming to her face. "I think they call them muskets."

"Technology is invariably tied to the laws of the physical world, while magic surpasses and ascends from it. No matter how much technology advances, magic will always be able to do it easier, faster, and better," the deer replied turning his head to stare her down, the bags under his eyes growing slightly. "We deer will always be limited by our own physical limits, while thanks to magic you ponies can constantly do the impossible."

Rainbow couldn't help but stare in stunned silence for a moment, opening and closing her mouth several times before frowning. "Y-yeah but-"

The deer continued. "You probably weigh the same or even twice as much as a full-grown emu, and yet you can fly while they are locked on the ground. Nothing we do will ever be able to match that."

Rainbow's frown deepened. She turned and started to walk away.

"Besides, you can probably fly something like 10 times the speed of the fastest air animal on the planet, while we are-"

She didn't listen as he continued on his rant. No, she'd be better off finding someone else to talk to... somehow. She still couldn't help but feel that all of these deer were way too far gone, and neither of her friends was having much luck either...

---

Twilight had her face in her hooves as she stared miserably at the ground, sitting down near the same fountain she had left from earlier that very same day. She sighed, staring up at the sky. The alicorn shook her head. Nothing she had done had proven successful, it was just failure after failure.

"Sweet Celestia... what am I doing wrong..." She mumbled, returning her gaze to the ground.

"No luck?" Applejack said as she walked up to the alicorn, taking a seat next to her with a slight grimace.

"No..." Twilight said, shaking her head. "Rainbow was right, we sabotaged ourselves earlier, I don't think we have even the slightest chance of fixing this..."

"Speak of the devil," Applejack mumbled as Rainbow Dash landed next to the two of them.

She was quiet for a moment. "We should just cut our losses and go home."

"Rainbow!" Applejack cried, frowning deeply, but the other two ponies ignored her... all three knew she was right, she was just the only one with the courage to say it.

"Yeah..." Twilight exhaled, feeling her eyes well up slightly. "Still, I guess my first big friendship problem was a bust, huh?"

"Don't beat yourself up, Twilight," The pegasus sighed. "We were probably the worst choices for this out of anypony. We just plain can't relate with these deer. I don't think anypony we know could. They're kinda right! We are all too special."

Applejack's face turned glum as well. "Yeah... as much as I don't want to hang up my hat, I think the issue is on the map this time Twilight, not you."

The alicorn nodded up at her as she stood up, Rainbow and Applejack quickly coming to her sides as they prepared for the long trek home. Twilight threw one last glance at the palace in the center of the city, just as the central tower gave in to the centuries of neglect, buckling over to the side. There was an earth-shaking crash as it tumbled backward, smashing into the rear courtyard. Twilight felt her soul shatter at the sight... so far as she was concerned, with the tower came the last scraps of deer civilization, and it was her fault.

Wresting her sight away, Twilight lowered her head and started to walk, keeping her eyes on the ground the entire time.

Just then, however, the three mares heard something they never thought they'd hear in Cervus. Running. Frantic running. They all turned their heads up to see a certain deer sprinting directly at them.

"Buckley?" Twilight asked, furrowing her brows as the stag reached them. He came to a screeching halt in front of them.

"The... the prince... he..." The deer said between pants, before he interrupted himself by bending over and hacking.

Applejack quickly rushed forwards, catching Buckley as he buckled over almost falling to the ground.

"Woah woah, calm down," Rainbow said, bending down and offering him a bottle of water. The deer was quick to take it from her, chugging it all down in a single sitting before returning to his panting.

"Thanks... I'm not quite used to runnin'" He said between pants.

"Well, why were you running then?" Rainbow asked, frowning slightly. "And what was that about the prince?"

Buckley instantly sprung up, remembering what had him so desperate. "The prince is gone!"

"What?!" The three mares all replied in unison.

"I was just sitting out on my porch again a couple of minutes after you left - and yes I only came out again because you left, what of it - and then I saw the prince walk by and leave through the city gate. He wasn't wearing his crown and he looked manic!" Buckley shouted, sitting up. "He was talking to himself and laughing, except not the good kind of laughing you ponies do all the time, the madstag kind. Then he turned on his hooves and started heading towards the temple mountains."

Twilight gasped, her eyes widening. "When did this happen? Do you know where he was heading?"

"Hours ago, he's probably already in the foothills by now. I tried to go to the palace guards to get them to do something, but they were more useless than usual." Buckley said, dread filling his voice. "And there is only one place he could be going in that direction. Weald's Asylum."

"And I'm gonna assume that place is just as rundown as everywhere else in Cervus?" Rainbow cringed.

"Worse. The Asylum's cursed I tell you! After Weald died everyone who tried to enter the place was never heard from again." Buckley responded.

Twilight frowned. "Do you know what kind of curse? Was it magical?" She asked, sudden determination filling her voice.

"I don't know. No one knows..." Buckley covered the sides of his head with his hooves. "Please, I'm begging you. You have to save the Prince. If he dies... I can't even imagine what everydeer is going to do. He's the only thing keeping so many alive."

Applejack's eyes widened slightly. "You don't mean..."

Buckley didn't respond, his gaze told her everything she needed to know.

Twilight straightened her back, horn shimmering as she did. "Don't worry Buckley, we won't let that happen. We're going to get him, and bring him back."

"Yeah, believe us," Rainbow responded with a smile. "No cursed building is gonna stop us."

The alicorn turned to her friends, head held high. "Come on girls, this is our last chance. Let's not mess up this time."

Then the three took off sprinting towards the city gate. Now they had a real goal they could accomplish, and nothing was gonna stop them.

Comments

[SUPERETHAN2]

With a sad sigh, she lowered her head turning back towards the hole in the wall they had just come out of. "I think I really messed things up, girls." She said in a pitiful voice.

"Psht, oh come on," Rainbow said waving a hoof. "So what if you just kicked the collective rears of the deer royal guard and just accidentally reinforced the idea that they are completely useless as a race into their heads? It could have gone worse."

Doesn't she mean we? Why are they acting like only Twilight did that when they did so together? I could buy Twilight putting it all on herself, as a character flaw, but I figured at least Applejack, since Rainbow would likely not accept blame at all, would point out she and Rainbow did so as well and share the blame, but ok.

[0]

This fictional world of depressed deer makes me smile; I don't know why, though.

[LordSiravant]

The entire thing with the map always felt off to me, given how it feels a little imperialistic in how it basically sends Twilight and company to meddle in the affairs of other peoples or nations for the sake of spreading their philosophy of friendship. Those reservations feel reinforced when applied to what are basically a soft caricature of modern day humanity, and Twilight and her friends are probably the worst emissaries Equestria could have sent because they are each extraordinary compared to regular Equestrians and are pretty much so far beyond most naturally occurring beings in their world as to be alienating by nature. To a race that does not have regular contact with ponies, Twilight's delegation just emulates an air of racial superiority, unintended or otherwise, that will only reinforce the deer's own nihilism. She does not truly understand the deer and is here trying to change them.

Realistically I think it's best if this mission fails. It would probably be a more effective lesson for Twilight to learn than if she just finds some arbitrary way to succeed like the show would have done.

[Kobalt]

A depressed deer is still a deer, and I love them! Can't wait to read more! Maybe the ponies can teach them runic magic, that would help even things out.

[J-90]

And now we wait and see what this asylum holds, other than being a potential monument of depression.

11469244
I think we need to be careful with the words ”ponies” and ”magic” in a same sentence here… Maybe the word ”teaching” too… It could end up being seen at worst as ’ponies just proving their superioty’ or something similar by the deer.

[Matthais Unidostres]

I'm calling it. The Asylum is full lf happy non-depressed deer who are hiding from all the other downers outside.

[TheFancyFoal]

Just then, however, the four mares heard something they never thought they'd hear in Cervus. Running. Frantic running. They all turned their heads up to see a certain deer sprinting directly at them.

Unless I have misread, I believe there are only three mares.

[Deergenerate]

11493904
Whoopsie! Fixing

[Revluc_The_Pony]

I've been waiting for a long while for this. It's awesome. Hope to read some more of this.