To Serve Bronies

by Fuzzy Necromancer

Chapter 43

“What the hay?” Applejack shouted, dropping her pitchfork in surprise. There was a small stampede of ponies coming towards her barn, with Apple Brown Betty at the front of the mob.

The crowd of ponies managed to slow themselves down before actually plowing through the barn (this one had lasted three whole months), but there was a lot of panicked screams and whinnies before she could get anything resembling a coherent sentence out of them.

Applejack had to ask them to repeat themselves many times. She couldn’t believe her ears. She’d lived alongside plenty of unicorns all her life, and they could be a little prissy and persnickety, but trying to eat meat?! Especially living, talking animals? That had to be impossible.

The descriptions of the tailless bipeds they gave were vague enough that she couldn’t be sure if Jamal was among them. Well, how many nearly-hairless critters walking and talking on two awkward legs could there be in Ponyville? At least two, to go by the account.

She had led her new friend Jamal right into Twilight Sparkle’s house. Twilight Sparkle, her trusted friend, chosen by Celestia, another wielder of the elements of harmony. She trusted Twilight Sparkle with her own head and hooves as much as a summer day was long. They’d saved each other’s lives time and time again. They’d beaten Discord, the lord of madness and terrors, together, for Pony’s sake.

Applejack scratched the ground with her hooves as the foals and mares filled in the account of the catastrophe with more details, and probably a small dose of moonshine, knowing the way tales grew in the telling and how panic acted on an ordinary horse’s imagination. Still, they agreed about a lot of the specifics.

…hadn’t Rainbow Dash once mentioned something to her about fishing trips with dad, catching fish to eat them? That was Pegasi, though, not Unicorns.

They’d been through a lot together, they’d learned a lot together, but how much did Applejack really know about Twilight’s background? How much did she know about pre-Celestian history, beyond the simple unification tale of Hearth’s Warming Eve?

Fear sent shivers down her spine, and guilt wriggled into her heart like a worm in a rotten apple.

“So, why are ya’ll comin’ here? Why not go talk to the Mayor Mare or somepony?” Applejack asked the tramping crowd.

They looked at each other sheepishly.

“Well, we thought maybe we should, it’s big and safe in the barn, and-“

“To arms!” shouted a dark blue stallion.

“It’s pitchforks and torches time!” somepony else squealed.

“Death to the carrot-heads!”

“Whoa there!” Applejack shouted. “Just hold your horses and calm the Tartarus down! And watch yer language, my little sister is working just over in the next field!” She glared, searching amongst the shifting hooves and shamed faces for the originator of the slur.

“We’ve got to be ready to defend ourselves!” Caramel whinnied. “And, the ‘humans,’ of course.”

Applejack scratched her nose. “Well, I reckon it’s a bit premature for torches and pitchforks time. That kinda thing can turn ugly pretty quickly.”

She thought about Jamal, with his blunt, useless claws, barely sharp canine teeth, two wobbly legs that couldn’t outrun four, and total lack of spines, scales, venom, or magic.

“Tell ya what. I’ll have a word with Granny about this matter, and maybe if she thinks it’s really serious, we can try to get this sorted out peacefully, like decent folk do.”

A lot of the crowd groaned.

“And just in case, if I think it’s really serious, I can start passing out stun pies and bean bag canons. Maybe a few potato guns, but only to the more level-headed ponies, and only as a precaution. I swear some of ya’ll are jumpy as jitterbugs.”

#

Rainbow Dash woke up to the whirring chatter of Pinkie Pie. She already had a mild hangover, and the buzzing excitement of somepony who, experience had proved, could down a gallon of schnapps and still wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed four hours later, did not improve her mood. She squinted against the painful light, ignored the chatter and the strange swaying figures, puked over the cloud balcony, and groped her way through the kitchen to brew some coffee.

While the kettle heated up, Rainbow Dash stuffed some wads of cloud in her ears and rummaged through her Workout Supplies for some pickle juice. She drained two jars of it in five gulps, then ate some straight mustard and hot sauce. She felt marginally more like a Pegasus and marginally less like a radioactive donkey skeleton with rats humping inside of it.

She stared longingly at the carton of eggs. Fried eggs and hay would be just the greasy kind of stuff she needed to sponge up the poisons inside her, but she could only do that once her stomach had settled enough.

When the kettle screamed, she poured it into the bean mix and honey. It percolated into her “Buck Off and Die” extra-large mug with painful slowness, while the throbbing in her head eased back to a tolerable level. Once the mug was full, she tossed the grounds into the compost, cooled it off with a Zephyr, and began drinking. Thirty seconds later, she paused to take a breath. After that, she finished off the mug, and belched out the acrid, plaster-melting, unpleasantly wet burp that follows a night of drinking and an upset stomach. She took in slow breathes and drank some water straight from the kitchen sink’s faucet. Slowly, reacting to the vague memories nudging in her brain, she turned around.

“Holy Celestia’s armpit tits, what the hay are you?” were the words she tried to say. Because they were routed through her peptic-acid-scorched throat, they came out as a confused mumble. It didn’t help that they were louder inside her skull, and the hypothetical rats hadn’t completely finished their marital bliss.

“We’re humans,” one of them said, while the other one said “I’m one of your biggest fans!”

Rainbow Dash blinked slowly.

“I’m gonna need a lot more coffee.”

Author's Note:

Applejack and Rainbow Dash each get visitors

Comments

[Zaravan]

I wish to bring attention to, first, the fact that the Unicorns who have been known to eat human flesh, are quick to violence when it seems that their next human ‘meal’ is near, note please, the decaying sense of reason displayed.

Second, take heed of both medical and mystical tales of where humans consume the flesh of their fellow man. A variation of the ‘Wendigo’ legend takes from this. And it is noted medically that when another human takes of human flesh, they, in short, lose their sanity, among various other negative afflictions.

The evidence so far points to something quite disturbing.

[bonberjean]

aww, need more chapters

[bonberjean]

8236317
Oh... I forgot to mention...
I hope you're proud of yourself I was unable to sleep until I finished all chapters
and not many fics I read can manage to achieve that

that aside, good job in making an interesting fic

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

8236354
Yes, I am proud. Immensely so.
That is one of the finest compliments a writer can receive.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

8251423
Glad you had a great binging experience, and glad not to disappoint you! :) It's been a long, sometimes slow journey, but I WILL get there in the end.