• Published 3rd Nov 2021
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Rose and Sam - Admiral Biscuit



Lily's conspiracy newspaper said that there was a monster near Ponyville, and while it was mostly wild speculation, town gossip said that Ginger Gold suddenly had somebody unexpected working in her woodlot.

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The Creature

Rose and Sam
Chapter 1: The Creature
Admiral Biscuit

The first I heard about the creature was in one of Lily’s conspiracy theory newspapers. I didn’t usually read those, since they just made me nervous, but she’d left it out and the headline caught my attention.

The creature had been spotted by passengers on a Ponyville-bound train, and the witnesses who had described it had been remarkably consistent about its appearance—bipedal, wearing tattered clothes, a brownish mane, and that it appeared to be heading in the direction of Ponyville.

Of course, it was all Lily could talk about, offering her own speculation on what it might be capable of and why it might have come to Ponyville and why it might have walked near the railroad tracks to begin with. Could it have been trying to wreck a train?

Over the next couple of weeks, a few more distant sightings were reported from overflying pegasi, vague enough they could have been that creature or they could have been anything else. A few ponies saw strange shadow-shapes in the Everfree, but that was little to go on. No trains were wrecked.

Roma claimed that it had sneaked into her garden and stolen some tomatoes, and after that there was a brief flurry of speculation around half-eaten food vanishing from compost piles near the edges of town. Nopony really thought that there was anything remarkable about that; plenty of animals would take food from a compost heap; likely as not, the actual culprit was a raccoon or an opossum or maybe even a skunk.

Even Lily stopped talking about it after a few weeks. It was probably a diamond dog or a juvenile minotaur who had been misidentified, coupled with some overly reactionary ponies jumping at literal shadows. Besides, there were other, more immediate threats to worry about.

Then once the whispers had nearly died down, somepony mentioned that Berry Black, a donkey who lived in the Everfree and made his living gathering firewood, had the creature as a helper. Nopony wanted to go into the forest and find out for sure, and the creature—if it existed at all—didn’t accompany him into town when he delivered logs.

I kept an eye out for him just the same, and spotted him a couple of days later, his wagon empty of firewood and loaded up with supplies instead. He was a familiar-enough sight in town, but nopony really trusted him all that much. If anypony would have a monster for a helper, it would have been him.

I didn’t see any mysterious creature with him, nor could I see one waiting on the edge of the woods for his return, so surely it was an unfounded rumor. If he really had the creature working with him, why wouldn’t he bring it into town to help him unload his wagon?

Then one day I was at the train station, waiting in line to send a telegram, and I happened to glance over at the platform and Berry Black was out there, waiting for a train. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him—or any donkey—riding a train before. I wasn’t sure that was allowed, although if they’d sold him a ticket it must be. Spike was the only non-pony I’d ever seen on a train.

By the time I’d finished sending my telegram, I’d almost forgotten about it. When I got home, though, Lily was practically dancing on her hooves with a combination of fright and eagerness.

“It’s real!” she told me.

“What’s real?”

“The creature in the Everfree! I went to Sugarcube Corner and got donuts for us—” she gestured vaguely towards the kitchen— “and I heard it from Red Gala who was telling Florina about how she’d overheard from Apple Cider that Berry Black was going on vacation and he’d loaned the creature to Ginger Gold to chop and stack firewood out at her woodlot.”

At first I thought that this was going to be another ‘sighting’ where somepony had overheard a conversation from somepony else who’d heard it from a third pony, but my ears perked when she mentioned Berry Black—I had seen him on the station platform, and why would he be waiting for a train if he wasn’t going somewhere?

If it really existed and if it really was working for Ginger Gold, it would be easy enough to find out. Her woodlot wasn’t that far from our house.

“I don’t like that look in your eyes,” Lily said. “You stay away from it, it might be dangerous.”

“Nopony would allow it in town if it was,” I countered. “Ginger wouldn’t have it in her lot, wouldn’t let it near her axes and mauls. Have you talked to anypony who’s actually seen it up close?”

Lily shook her head.

“It’s probably another rumor, then.”

“It isn’t, Red Gala wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.”

Just then the front door opened, and both of us jumped. It was just Daisy, who looked between the two of us with confusion.

At that moment, my mind was made up. No more jumping at shadows. “Daisy, do you want to go with me to look for a monster?”

•••

“What’s gotten into you?” Daisy asked as the two of us made our way through town.

“I don’t think the creature’s real,” I said. “I think it’s just another thing that Lily’s obsessing over, or at least I thought that until I saw Berry Black at the train station. Maybe it is real, and maybe if I—if we see it with our own eyes and smell it with our own noses she’ll stop worrying about it.”

“I doubt that,” Daisy said. “But I’m curious, and it should be safe in town, there’ll be other ponies around.”

We were still a few blocks away when the distinctive sound of an axe splitting wood began cutting through the normal sounds of Ponyville. Both of us fell silent as we got closer. Finally, Daisy spoke. “That doesn’t sound like Ginger’s normal rhythm.”

“Maybe the creature is real.”

“She hires other ponies to help out all the time, it could be anypony.”

That was true—and she wasn’t alone in that. Lots of ponies had busy times and slack times, and sometimes hired extra help. We did. There was always a need for additional labor in a farming town during busy seasons, and while it was too early in the year for Ginger to be really busy, firewood didn’t go bad if it sat around for a while, and she was shrewd enough to get extra help and build up her stock for winter if it was offered.

Then as we rounded the corner and caught the first glimpse of her woodlot, there could be no doubt: the creature was real and it was there splitting wood.

Author's Note:

Pre-read by TheLegendaryBillCipher and The Red Parade