With The Best Intentions

by Dancewithknives

The Pursued

Best Intentions…
Epilogue
Read till the very end and I promise I will answer a few questions.

“Could you send in the next ponies, please?” Asked the white alicorn princess. Two earth ponies stepped into the throne room and bowed before their majestic leader. “How may I help you?”
Even though she told herself she would be direct, Maple Syrup felt shaky now that she was actually in the presence of royalty. “G-Good evening P-Princess.” The warm yellow lights felt comforting in the room, and their time waiting in line had allowed her to mentally rehearse what she was going to say. But alas, Maple Syrup feared that her voice would only be met with laughter.
“And good evening to you. Wait…Are you Maple Syrup!?” Had the Princess heard of their night from hell? Maple Syrup’s pupils dilated and shot over to her son who looked back at her. “Yes, and this is my son Maple Leaf. Have you heard?” Maple Syrup as she felt a great weight being lifted off of her chest.
“I have not just heard, I have experienced it! Your maple syrup is the best I have tasted in one hundred years!” The Princess smiled, trying to calm the nervous ponies. “But don’t tell my chef that!” she whispered with a wink.
Syrup sighed in disappointment; it was not going to be as easy as she thought. She quickly made sure Leaf’s handkerchief was still around his neck. One peek was enough to tell that he had never seen the unimaginably tall alicorn before. Maple Syrup exhaled and began to sweat a little. “Ummm, Princess, this is going to sound crazy and unbelievable, but you have to believe us. I- I still don’t understand what happened.”
“Okay.” She approved to the nervous mare, nodding for her to continue. In thousands of years of ruling a kingdom, the alicorn thought she had heard every crazy story.
“I-I’m being serious. I still can’t believe what happened a few days ago and I still don’t know what to call it.”
“Well,” she smiled, “I have to know what ‘it’ is before I can give it an honest chance!” She gave a light giggle to try and put them both at ease even though it failed to perform its purpose due to the anxiety that was covering the mare’s face.
Syrup exhaled and got ready. “A few nights ago, my son and I were sleeping in our cabin and this…this….thing came after us.”
“What happened?”
“I…We heard a loud roar, like a…. ummm, tornado and this big metal thing that stood on –you’re not going to believe this- TWO LEGS broke into our cabin!”
The Princes had a determined look on her face as she pondered what was being said. The story was indeed farfetched, but the fact that the two had waited and wanted to share it with her did grant it a chance to be heard.
Continue.” She said, no longer smiling, but looking down and bearing holes in the mare, unintentionally scaring her more.
“It kicked down our cabin in one strike! Then it used a blue light thing that came from it’s head to follow us wherever we went.” Maple Syrup made sure that Maple Leaf had not wandered off, but he was right where she had left him. “We ran away and tried to get to safety, but we were being chased by the thing and we tried to lose it, but it kept following us.” Syrup tried to organize the next thing she was going to say. “It had this magic stick of metal that could blow Timberwolves into splinters! It even took the alpha male of the pack and ripped it in half!” She tried to describe the other weapons it used. “It had a….a….lightning rod thing that could attract its own lightning and used it to beat up an Ursa Minor!”
“Oh my!” said the Princess. She slowly brought her hoof to her chin and slowly tilted her muzzle back up, her eyes darted around the room as she began thinking.
“And…And it had a thing on its arms -or whatever its front limbs were- that shot fire!”
The princess was deep in thought when she looked back down at the earth pony. “How did you manage to escape?”
Maple Syrup swallowed, “We…didn’t. When we were almost out of the forest, it hit me with a needle that made me dizzy. I used to have a welt but it healed already. It then took my son who was having a breathing attack into a strange flying carriage thing and flew away.”
“But that is your son behind you, correct?”
“Ye-Yes. I woke up later and the thing pulled the needle out of my flank, and it went away before I could orient myself. I couldn’t believe it, but my Maple Leaf was returned to me!”
The princess rubbed her chin. “He wasn’t the same, was he?” Maple Syrup though her eyes were deceiving her, she swore that she saw a smirk tugging the side of the Princess’ lip. But she then shook her head, it must have just been an illusion she was making being that they were standing a long ways away from her.
“No..I..I don’t know how, but my son always had a hard time breathing, He has to take this expensive medicine to help if he has a bad attack. It…crippled him in his figure, but when they gave him back, he looked like a normal colt.” She rubbed her hooves together as she broke eye contact. “I don’t know how, but he says he can breathe easier now!”
The great goddess of the son let a smile slip. She then cleared her throat and wiggled herself in the seat, backing up until her bottom felt the back. “Guards, please leave us.”
The unicorns did as they were told.
The Princess stood and walked down the golden steps.
Maple Leaf backed up as step and looked at his mother for instructions. She likewise checked the walls for some sort of hint as to what to do if approached by the Princess.
She sat right in front of her two guests, the two looked at each other with anxious faces but returned their attention to her when she spoke. “Is that everything?”
Maple syrup shook her head. “No, they left a.. metal collar on his neck, I tried everything, but I can’t get it off.” The mare bit an ear of the handkerchief around Maple Leaf’s neck and pulled, revealing the strange black device that was around his neck. A red light kept pulsing on the black band of metal as both mares inspected it.
“Do you believe us?” asked Maple Leaf as he squeezed the red handkerchief between his hooves.
The Princess smiled, “Yes, yes I believe you. And you have nothing to worry about.”
A breath being held by both of the earth ponies was released with her response. “C-can you remove the collar?”
“No, it was not meant to be removed.” Maple Syrup and Leaf looked at her and tilted their heads in confusion.
“You have not heard of this, but in the past there have been many awful ailments, all so miserable, that angels that have watched from above came down and blessed the poor sick ponies.” The white alicorn removed her Tiara. Celestia continued. “Skin Cancer, Polio, Malaria, Diabetes, Alzheimer, and all things that any other pony would have no knowledge of because they simply do not exist anymore.” She smiled, “This isn’t the first time they came, nor the last.”
“Wh…what are you saying….Your Majesty?” asked Leaf.
Celestia looked up at the moon, somewhat ignoring the little pony’s question.
“They mean well, and come only with good intents, but their methods and results do not always end that way.”
She slowly looked back down on her guests. “We are all lucky.” At that moment, she removed her bracer.
Leaf and Syrup jumped.
Under the neck of Celestia, once concealed by the jewelry, was a similar device.
The end.
Author’s Note.
The entire inspiration for the story came during my freshman year at college.
It was a hot day in September and I was sitting out by my pool.
I had to write a paper on a project we did one day, and I wanted to get out of my house to get my parents to stop nagging on to do the most redundant of chores that was distracting me.
In reality, I hadn’t even started the paper yet, in reality I was on my laptop writing another story that I had been working on since April and it is still in progress.
Anyway, I was typing the story and I was thinking in the back of my mind how I would write my paper for class.
Let’s talk about the project first.
It was called the “Funnel Test”, and we were tasked with trying to take this funnel and marbles, wired onto this tripod about two feet from the ground, and had to make them hit the target on the floor.
We had two variants of the process. Lazy and Diligent.
We first did lazy, we aimed the machine once, and constantly dropped the marble down, and marked where it landed.
All our results were precise, but not accurate.
We then did the Diligent variant.
We aimed the machine, released the marble, marked where it landed, and then aimed again.
The results were very scatterassed, all inaccurate and imprecise.
That was where our professor spilled the beans.
The test was meant to fail, the machines were poorly built and had many inconsistencies and were not meant to work.
We learnt a few valueable lessons he had used when he was paid to improve the processes at large car factories like Jeep and GM.
1. The machine, not the worker, is often the problem.
Even though people commonly make fun of highschool dropouts who work on assembly lines, there is one thing that we cannot deny, they can learn to do a job and do it damn well. Most of the time if there is a problem on an assembly line a worker will know where the problem is before the plant manager or the equipment engineer.
2. Most failures are due to the process not being efficient.
I’ll be honest, these machines he brought in looked like he made them in his garage for half an hour, they were ramshackles.
3. But most importantly, and the inspiration for the story, was the final lesson, Do not expect the best of results because we have the best of intentions.
We were dooped by calling the first process “Lazy”, when in reality it made sense, with the lazy process, we would make similar results, and when we moved the machines, we had even worse results than when we kept it in one spot!
So anyway, I was sitting by the pool and I started writing my paper finally and my mom pokes her head out and tells me to get up and start watering the garden.
Why she couldn’t do it while I was working on homework, I will never know.
But anyway I got the hose out and started watering the garden.
I noticed there were some birds that had nested in a decoration in the garden and they were all doing this annoying bird cry/ thing that I was starting to get a headache with.
So, I had an idea.
If they were hot, (which it was 98 degrees Fahrenheit) I had a hose, I would give them some water.
So I kinked the hose and tried to make it sprinkle down on them.
The birds, freaking the fuck out, jumped and these babies, not being able to fly, fell into an egress to my basement.
I, seeing what happened, turned off the hose and got some gloves.
I had the bright idea to put them back in the nest.
So I chased these two damn birds around for twenty minutes, my mom getting all emotional over “her birdies!” and me rallying all the birds in the neighborhood trying to spook me away.
I, after getting pissed off and had birds doing kamikaze flybys at my head, gave up and grabbed my laptop and went downstairs.
It was at that moment I truly understood the lesson with the funnels.
Even though I had the best intentions of saving the birds, I did not get good results.
So I decided to write this paper and had a supersoldier, a frightening one at that, trying to save an animal that was trying to get away from it even though it truly meant it no harm.
“The pursuer” as I have come to call it has been mainly inspired by The Nemesis from Resident Evil 3. But I specifically did not go into too many details being that I did not want to make it human.
In your mind, you are to read the story and interpret it as what you would think a big and unstoppable giant was.
The story of Maple Leaf and Maple Syrup is just basic human nature, that if we can’t understand something we are afraid of it.
I was also experimenting with my writing style in this story, and yes, I need to improve it based on the fact that I am being FLAMED TO FUCK AND BACK on the fact that I used enter too many times.
My writing style was also trying to be vague, on the basis that the little details were not important, being that a most people would not stop to smell the roses when a big motherfucker is trying to capture you for an unknown reason.
And also I left if Luna was banished or not during the time of the story up to you, being that they were both carriers of something, and they both received treatment, Luna may or may not be in the midst of an intensive treatment that took 1000 years to perform.
I hope you enjoyed it and understood the lesson.
I got a B- on the paper.
My dad joked that the birds got eaten by a Honey badger.

Comments

[bahatumay]

You're missing part of the sentence after their tale was indeed fetched.
Interesting take. I thought exactly what you wanted me to think so good job on that.
And here I was about to say you should use the enter key more...

[Dancewithknives]

1535180
did you drop your jaw with the ending?

1536510
This is the point to give you only a bit more closure, but the story is done now. Enjoy.
1545385
I loved the end of your coment, it actually made me laugh for the first time in days.
either way I will fix the sentance that i forgot, it was meant to say "It was farfetched, but the fact that they had waited and wanted to share it with her did grant it a chance to be heard."

[Blue Print]

Nice, was not expecting Cyber-Celestia. Well done. Keep it up, I'll give you a watch.

[Dancewithknives]

1550943
thanks, my next story that I have is still a complete rough draft, but because this was just my forlorn hope, it is having an EXTENSIVE MOTHERFUCKING REWRITE. and in a way has nothing to do with this, but is in the same style, revealing traits about characters hidden in plain sight.
I also have a massive amount of worldbuilding that i use to create a whole picture about everything rather leaving most of the details up to your imagination like in this.

[Dancewithknives]

1650571
even though i did legitimately did want this story to succeed, it was mainly a test of how people liked my writing style. somthing that failed, miserably. I was trying to see if i could not bore the shit out of people with little details that did not have any overall value, but as several people have comented and sent prvate messages, it did not work, thus the real story, the one that is my baby and is having a giant rewrite, is not published yet.
Overall, i intentionally wanted to give a little bit of detail of their family while not sitting you down and holding your hand over all of their history (hence the picture of a stallion a mare and a foal), because it really held no value other than to give them some humanity before the adventure.

like i said, what the pursuer was is your interpretation, i was going to make it speak, but decided against it. and as i said in the author's note, it was mainly based on the Resident Evil 3 Nemesis,being that a giant made of metal is scarier than a little green marvin martian.
I will actually upload what i imagined the pursuer to look like as a new chapter.