To Serve Bronies

by Fuzzy Necromancer

Conflicted Dragon and Personal Questions

“Hey Twilight, do we have any books about two-legged deers?” Spike said, in a casual tone that wouldn’t have stood up to any scrutiny.

“Hm,” Twilight Sparkle said. She didn’t look up from her scroll.

“Books on two-legged deers? Wild creatures that unicorns used to hunt?”

“Mm?” Twilight volunteered.

Spike looked around the row of Smart Cookie’s travalogues, and the Big Bad Baroque Beastiary. There wasn’t anything about two-legged deer in their tables of contents. He reached for the Princess Platinum volumes, but found Super Naturals instead. As soon as he got the latest library system down, Twilight had to reorganize the entire filing method. How could he get her attention?

"Hey Twilight, I'm about to dog-ear this page," Spike shouted.

Twilight appeared two inches from him in a flash of magic. "I have one-hundred and thirteen bookmarks here for a reason, Spike!"

"Got any books about two-legged deer?" Spike said.

"Well, recipes for two-legged deer are in Princess Platinum'f Booke of Royale Recipef for Fpeciale Celebrationf, To Serve Man, and Onion Sage's Exotic Comestables for the Delight of Guests and Ideal Balancing of the Humors. If you want to learn about the feeding habits, migration patterns, and mating rituals of two-legged deer, I have to recommend Author Tract's One Hundred and One Things You Wanted to Know About Wild Animals But Were Too Uncomfortable to Ask. It can be pretty dry, but it's loaded with witty footnotes and primary source quotes! They should be indexed under the Long Pork/Raw Human, Pony Prehistory, Rare and Extinct Beasts, Dangerous Wild Creatures, and Love Poetry, although as soon as I set up my newest filing system…"

Spike swayed on his feet. It was best to just let things run their course when Twilight got into a serious lecture. Words floated in the void like "curious", "cunning," "savory", "elusive" and "mouth-watering". He could hear the grass growing outside.

"--in the dream, I said 'you're all so Twilightlicious, I'm going to gobble you up! Muahahhah!' And there was a hoard of humans I was talking to, and they were all excited about it. It reminds me of the dream where I asked for a velvet cake full of humans for my birthday. Pinkie Pie thought they were memories from another world leaking into the back of my mind, but that's just ridiculous. The subliminal psionic bleed-through theory has been disproved by every prominent skeptic, from Pillow Fortean to Richard Trotkins. I thought of asking Princess Luna about it, but I didn't really want to waste her time with another crazy Pinkie Pie idea. Still, you have to understand the ideological basis for the subliminal psionic bleed-through hypothesis to see why--"

Spike nodded. He perked up as her voice dropped off, signaling the close of her monologue.

"--and based on those eyewitness reports and collaborating case studies on the survival of isolated species, I think some humans might still be out there. If I could find one, it would be the biggest discovery in the field of cryptozoology since the duck-billed platypus! Plus there's tons of practical applications. Do you know that half of the metamagic scrolls in the King Liticus section of the library need human blood as an ingredient or human claw-bones as a focus component? That's not even considering the healing spells and summoning circles." She sighed and looked off into the distance. "They sound utterly delicious, too. The most-probable historical accounts describe royalty being fed a mouthful of tenderized human on their death-bed so they could die happy. That's only part of the appeal, of course." Twilight whinnied wistfully.
A sinking feeling gripped Spike's heart.

"So, these two-legged deer, they're kind of a rarity, right? This incredibly precious, unobtainable thing?" Spike wiped sweat from his brow, but Twilight didn't notice the quaver in his voice. "As in, you wouldn't be able to find a whole bunch?"

"Well, I suppose if two-legged deer do exist, there has to be a breeding population somewhere, but they'd be pretty reclusive and extremely cautious. There's a reasonable chance that if you found one, it'd be the only specimen you'd see in your entire life."

"Oh." Spike said. A pair of giant scissors closed over his heart. He saw a vision of Rarity's curling mane, of the time he "saved" her from himself, of the sparkling precious little gem she'd given him to watch over Opal. Then he went back to the time he'd caught scale rot, when Twilight Sparkle stayed up all night reading the Tales of Smart Cookie out loud to him while he waited for the soothing balm to take effect. How could he choose between the mare of his dreams and his mo-, the pony who considered him her number-one assistant?

His tail sagged. He took a moment to take deep breaths and brush back his spines. "So, uh, where can I find these books on how to catch and track down a wild two-legged deer?"

"Oh, Rarity's got Onion Sage's Exotic Comestables for the Delight of Guests and Ideal Balancing of the Humors , I'm reading To Serve Man right now, and Lyra Heartstrings has taken out the rest." She frowned. "Come to think of it, Lyra's overdue on most of the non-fiction works on humans and Daring Doo's Blood of the Wendigos trilogy."

Spike saluted and tried to look dutiful. "I could go collect them and shake the overdue book fee out of her. I mean, if you like."

#

"Make yourself at home," Scootaloo said, waving around the clubhouse.

The creature from the Everfree forest squealed and bounced around. It didn't look very dangerous, despite all the metal pointy bits in its skin and clothing. "I'm in the clubhouse. I'm actually standing in the Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse!" It bounded over on its two thick, awkward legs to stand under their lantern. "This is the coolest thing in my entire life!"

"Aw really? You've gotta be--wait, how do you know about the Cutie Mark Crusaders? It's supposed to be a secret clubhouse, and you've already got a cutie mark." She pointed to the winged skull on its lower back.

"Oh that's just a tattoo. It's a design we paint under our skin with needles. "

Scootaloo flinched and tried not to look scared. It hurt to even think about that. "What are 'we'? Monsters from the Everfree Forest that aren't as scary or dangerous as most of the monsters from the Everfree Forest?"

"I'm Reiko Yakamoto, or Reiko for short. I'm a human, from Earth. It's like, a whole other world. I don't live in the Everfree forest and I have no idea how I got here. The crowds were cheering for Lauren Faust on the stage, and one of her tears fell on me, and then I slipped out of my chair and kept falling. There was some kind of green light and I felt myself walking on a floor of tentacles towards a winged door, only it was more of a taste and sound than a feeling. You know what I mean?"

Scootaloo frowned. "What are you, a thesaurus? I think I understood everything up to the word 'human'. And you still haven't explained how you about our secret club."

"Oh Demeter's breakfast cereal, where do I begin? " Reiko said. "You know how there's lots of old legends, and nopony really believes in them?"

Reiko the human from earth started a longwinded explanation. She had to stop and explain things or backtrack a lot of times. Over on earth, there was a really popular series of stories, like the Daring Do books, only instead of reading them, you watched moving pictures on a mechanical box that was powered by non-magical magic called "electricity." Nobody thought they were real, well, nobody who wasn't crazy or really really into long-term role playing. Despite this, they happened to show exactly what happened to Rainbow Dash and her friends on a lot of different adventures.

The story-picture box had shown how Rainbow Dash became the element of loyalty, and how she got her cutie mark, and the time that Scootaloo and the other crusaders screwed up at the talent show. Reiko was one of the adult humans that liked the stories so much they got together to dress up as ponies, (she demonstrated by pulling off her fake horn and ears) trade pony toys, tell stories about ponies that weren't on the picture box, and meet the actors who put their voices into another non-magic box so that the sounds could match up with the picture-stories.

"--some people even think you're best pony." She said "best pony" like it was something really important. She hesitated. "Um, I hope this isn't a sensitive subject, but your house looked pretty big and fancy. Does that mean you have parents? We're all kind of curious about it."

"Well, everypony has parents, otherwise they wouldn't be here. Miss Cheerilee explained that last week, along with the difference between gender identity, physical sex, and sexuality."

Reiko pulled a notebook with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark out of her pocket and started scribbling in it. "So, no to the budding theory, and it looks like Equestria has way more progressive public schools than the United States of America."
Scootaloo understood about half of the words that came out of the human's mouth. She wondered if all the humans talked like Sweetie Belle and Twilight Sparkle.

"Is earth pony magic a real thing, or are they just good at growing food because nopony else bothers to do that? Do you know anything about who the king and queen of Equestria are if Celestia and Luna are only princesses? Do you worship Celestia and Luna as goddesses, or are they just really powerful mortals? And um, may I cuddle you?"

Scootaloo's jaw dropped. She tried to backtrack through the deluge in her head. Maybe humans were more like Pinkie Pie after all. They reminded her of some of the friends Pinkie talked to about that nobody else saw or heard of.

"Well…father says I'm not supposed to talk about farts in public. Yeah, earth ponies use a kind of magic to make plants grow faster. Granny Smith has the most powerful earth pony magic. Um, I don't think there's any king or queen in Equestria. Cheerilee mentioned that princess is the highest rank royalty can have, even though there's some official princesses and some honorary princesses and princes, like Blueblood. My mother is really active in the Church of Celestia, and sometimes I go to the prayer meetings and sacrificial pomegranate feasts of the Luna's Witnesses. There are some ponies that think they're just really powerful unicorns. Featherweight's a pretty cool guy, and he's agnostic, but the neigh-theists I know most about are Richard Trotkins and his cronies. He thinks that campfire stories and old mare's tales cause brain damage in children. After Nightmare Night, Princess Luna had Richard Trotkins tried in a court for war crimes against fun. And…I'm not really the cuddly type. I bet Ruby Pinch or Sweetie Belle would hug you though."

"Ruby Pinch IS her name! She's the daughter of Berry Punch, the town drunk, right?" The human was standing a little too close, and a made hungry look came into her eyes. "This is so incredible. Everyone's going to be so jealous!"

"Berry Punch drinks a lot of stuff, and Ruby's her name, so yeah."

Reiko looked around. She pulled a stuffed animal Rainbow Dash out of her backpack. It was the perfect likeness of her, right down to the pinkish-violet of the shiny eyes. The colors stood out bright as a rainbow. Reiko squeezed it. It said "so awesome!" in a tinny little voice.

Scootaloo reached a wing towards the idol of her idol. Reiko pulled it back and waved it over her. Scootaloo jumped after it, desperately working her wings for extra lift, but the human kept the prize just out of her reach. It was as if the monster had spent hours calculating how high she could jump.
Scootaloo growled.

"Just one hug," Reiko said. "I won't even ask to brush your hair."

Scootaloo looked around. "Don't tell anypony about this, okay? I don't want to ruin my reputation."

Reiko nodded, flapped her arms, and mimed sticking a cupcake in her eye. "Pinkie Promise."

Scootaloo stood up and raised her front legs wide. The human swooped down and picked her up, squeezing her into a soft fat embrace. Reiko swung her around and squealed like wheel in need of grease. It was embarassing, but comfy.

"This is the best day of my life!" the human gasped. Reiko set her down again and blushed. "So, um, do you think you could take me to meet Rarity? I'll make it worth your while. I've got more plushies, and I'm halfway-decent at drawing."

"Hold on," Scootaloo said. She galloped to the other end of the clubhouse, pulled out a screen between her and the human, and squeezed the action plush toy until the stitches strained. A faint "so awesome" betrayed her. She heard a muffled giggle from the other side of the room.

Maybe humans were more mush-wushy, like Fluttershy. Scootaloo tucked the velvet-soft likeness in with her other relics. She looked at her Rainbow Dash shrine. For all her efforts, the scale model didn't look realistic, and she'd only collected four molted feathers. She preened the human germs off her feathers and sidled out from behind the screen.

Comments

[Seether00]

Okay, so all I can say is... NOMNOMNOM!

[Prime 2.0]

There wasn’t anything about two-legged deer in the tables of contents.

It's not really a mistake per-say, but "in their tables of contents" would probably work better here.

Yeah, earth ponies use a kind of magic to make plant's grow faster.

This one meanwhile is just garden variety apostrophe misuse. You should probably fix this before Bob the Angry Flower makes it to your house.

At the end, Reiko takes out a Rainbow Dash plushie, and the two of them seem to act as though she had used it to bribe Scootaloo despite not saying anything about giving it to her. If she actually is bribing Scootaloo, you should probably make that more explicit, whether in the dialogue or in the narration if you wanted the proposed exchange to be silent.

So with human number one dressed in vaguely described clothing(but obviously crazy or out there in some regard) about to meet rarity, I have to wonder what the reaction will be; shock and horror at her species with appreciation of what she's wearing, or shock and horror to both as is probably more likely?

[Zephyrus Scary]

Oh, Celestia. I didn't realize what Lyra's (fanon) obsession with humans would mean in this story--if she is that way in this story--until you mentioned her name... Now I have an even worse feeling than I had before!

[FasDap]

Belle.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

2181375
Made the changes you suggested. Thanks for the crit, and I hope the Reiko-Rarity encounter lives up to your expectations.

[Red Bomber]

It's so awesome a girl is one of the unlucky bronies in this story. I hope her friendship with Scoots will keep her safe.