• Published 5th Mar 2013
  • 5,373 Views, 533 Comments

HUMAN By: Twilight Sparkle - Razalon The Lizardman



A unique take on the HiE concept.

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The Twilight of Humankind

Everywhere she looked, Fluttershy could see nothing but carnage strewn about the landscape. Faceless, mangled bodies of unidentifiable origin lay around her as she trotted through the now dead battlefield. She was not horrified, however, but rather relieved that she was alive. She approached one of the corpses on the ground and gave it a slight kick with her hoof. It made a wet, squishy sound on contact, indicating it was still fresh. The yellow pegasus gave no comment as she continued trotting along, eager to reach her destination.

After some time, she could make out base camp about a mile in front of her. Before she could pick up her pace, however, she heard a loud bang followed a moment later by something hitting her in the right flank at high speed. She toppled over, crying out in pain as she realized she had been sniped by an unforeseen enemy. She looked down at her flank to see a bullet hole in between the three butterflies that made up her cutie mark. Blood was gushing out from the wound, slowly draining the helpless pegasus of the life she'd managed to self-preserve thus far. Realizing she was doomed, Fluttershy closed her eyes and braced for the second bullet. When it didn't come she opened her eyes, only to find herself staring up at the princess of the night herself.

“A very morbid dream, dear Fluttershy,” Luna said, turning her head around in observation of their surroundings. “What hath invoked such violent images within your mind?”

“I don’t know-wait, this is a dream?” Fluttershy answered. “It feels so real.”

Luna chuckled. “We can assure that thou art asleep, dear Fluttershy." Her face grew serious as she used her magic to levitate a small, round, metallic object in front of them.

“T’was embedded in thy flank. Even with Our thousand year banishment, We are fairly certain nothing of this sort currently exists in Equestria or elsewhere, though do correct Us if We are wrong." Luna launched the bullet over her shoulder; out of sight, still in mind. "All the same, this is something We wouldn't expect from a dream belonging to thou, dear Fluttershy, Bearer of Kindness.

Fluttershy blushed slightly as she replied. "Well, P-Princess L-L-Luna, it doesn't exist in Equestria. It . . . it . . . it . . . " Fluttershy couldn't bring the words out of her mouth, and she hid behind her mane in embarrassment.

“Speak, dear Fluttershy, for We cannot help thee otherwise.”

Breathing deeply, Fluttershy continued her explanation. “A few days ago, Rainbow told me about this story Twilight was working on. The story was, um . . . well.” She gestured to their surroundings once again.

“So, this dream thou currently has stems from a story which Twilight Sparkle hath recently authored?” Fluttershy nodded in response. "Then We know what thou must do to halt such nightmares in their tracks from now on."

“Really?” Fluttershy got to her hooves. "What do I do?"

“This story that Twilight Sparkle hath wrote; thou must read it firsthoof.”

“WHAT!?” Fluttershy jumped. “How’s that supposed to help me?”

“Thou hath only been told from secondhoof accounts of this story. Therefore, thou lacks a clear understanding of the picture t’was trying to paint. If thou were to see the whole picture, as everypony says, thou would be much less afraid of it. A wise pony once said, 'what everypony fears the most is that which they are the least knowledgeable of'.”

Fluttershy took a moment to calm down and mull over what Luna just said; she quickly realized the moon princess was right. All Rainbow Dash had really made clear was that Twilight’s story told of hatred, warfare, and enslavement. What she hadn't made clear was how exactly all those elements fit into the story, or even if the story was for or against them. Fluttershy steeled her resolve and returned her gaze to Luna.

“Thank you, Princess Luna; I’ll do it first thing in the morning.”

"We wish you the best of luck," Luna replied. She took off from the ground and began flying upward into the sky. "Fare thee well, Fluttershy!"

"Bye Princess Luna!" Fluttershy called back, waving her hoof.

Luna soon disappeared through a distortion in the sky, signalling her departure from Fluttershy's dream. The yellow pegasus stopped and stared for a moment before sighing and sitting down upon the corpse-strewn ground, beginning the wait to wake out of her dream.


Twilight sat at her desk working hard on the next part of her story. Since starting this little project of hers she'd become increasingly fascinated with the idea of a magic-less world and how it could sustain itself. But as the lavender unicorn quickly realized, actually trying to figure such stuff out was excruciatingly difficult. For example, deducing how a sentient race could thrive for generations without magic required a full understanding of how non-magical creatures in reality manage it. To that end, she'd gathered every single book in her library pertaining to the culture, history, and (especially) technology of non-magical races. Twilight was reading a book about the minotaurs' highly-industrial society when she heard a knock at the front door

“Come in!” She turned around as the door opened to reveal a (as was typical of her) nervous Fluttershy with her head slightly slumped and hiding partially behind her mane. The butterscotch pegasus closed the door and slowly trotted inside as Twilight greeted her.

“Hi Fluttershy, whatch’a need?”

Fluttershy briefly glanced at the enormous pile of books surrounding the lavender unicorn's desk before replying. “I was . . . umm . . . wondering if I could . . . read that story of yours? If it's alright with you, of course.”

Twilight blinked. "How'd you kn- Rainbow Dash told you, didn't she?" The pegasus slid further back into her mane and nodded. "Oh well, it was bound to get out sooner rather than later." Twilight used her magic to levitate the scroll upon which she had written the first part of her story over to Fluttershy, who grabbed it in her mouth and flew over to the staircase where she began reading it.

As she read, Fluttershy constantly felt a mix of dread and fascination at the contents of Twilight’s story, sometimes even to the point of being physically sick. The sickness dissipated once she'd become desensitized to the violence described in the story, however. Once finished, Fluttershy took a moment to digest everything she had read. It was clear that Twilight’s intention for this story was to show what a world lacking the magic that ponykind holds so dear to itself would be like; war-torn, intolerant, decrepit, etc. With that revelation, Fluttershy gained a greater appreciation for everything she may have once taken for granted.

“So, whadd’ya think?”

Fluttershy started and fell over like a tipped cow. Twilight stared anxiously into her eyes as she awaited an answer to her question, which Fluttershy gave once she'd gotten back to her hooves.

“Oh . . . ummm . . . it’s g-great Twilight.” Fluttershy twirled the tip of her mane with a fore hoof. “But . . . I was wondering, i-if it’s okay with you . . . if I could . . . well . . . help you out with your story?”

“How so?” Twilight responded, raising a curious brow.

“Well,” Fluttershy said, easing up a bit, “you never gave a specific identity to the people in the story. Also, they couldn't all be so awful; surely there's a few who're genuinely nice and tolerant of others. If it’s alright with you . . . I’d like to breathe some life into them myself, so to speak.”

Twilight stared at her yellow pegasus friend awkwardly for a moment before smiling.

“Of course it’s alright. Here,” Twilight levitated a quill and parchment from the nearby desk and brought it over to them, “let’s have a brainstorming session.”

For the next couple hours, the two mares bounced ideas back and forth on how to flesh out the anonymous race of people that Twilight had created. As it turned out, Fluttershy was the more productive one of the two when it came to this. Being a natural introvert, Twilight hadn’t put much thought into her people’s social lives when writing her story. Fluttershy suggested many things for this, including that while the people were spiteful and mean at heart, they would never eagerly take to violence for solving their problems. Another suggestion Fluttershy gave was for the people to adopt certain kinds of animals as pets; this, in turn, meant veterinarians had to exist in their world for taking care of sick and/or dying pets. But by far the most important of Fluttershy's suggestions was a unique appearance for the people as a species. The two searched through the many books surrounding them looking for anything to use as inspiration. Looking through Encyclopedia of Biological ClassificationsBy: Dr. Juni Denbi, Twilight eventually decided to combine certain traits of ponies and minotaurs while using the physical appearance of chimpanzees as a base. She made a mental note to attempt drawing these people as such sometime later.

With that decided the two mares resumed bouncing ideas back and forth. The last thing Fluttershy suggested for these people were manes similar to ponies' as they were a great individualizing characteristic. Finally, it came time to give these previously anonymous people a name for their species. After careful consideration, the two mares decided to use the slang term “man”, itself derived from “mane”, that Rainbow Dash made up to establish when she feels “atop” or "above" somepony, like how the mane is atop one’s head. Twilight liked it because these people were the sole dominant species of their world. She then decided to add the prefix "hu-", derived from “huge”, to which Twilight explained to Fluttershy that she always imagined them as towering behemoths; at least, to anypony besides the two princesses. With that, Twilight’s race of people was officially termed “human”, or “humans” in plurality, and “humankind” for the species as a whole.

As the two mares admired their work, there was a knock on the front door.

“Come in!” Twilight shouted.

The door opened to which Rarity came strolling in wearing a ruby and sapphire-embedded variant of the dress she wore the last time she'd visited.

“Geez Rarity,” Twilight groaned. “Another new dress?”

“Not just a new dress darling,” the fashionista pony replied. Rarity cried out in delight as she spun around while using a single hoof for balance. “This ensemble is a birthday gift for my cousin Sol Do. She lives in Hiddenite, and I’ve been meaning to introduce her to high class fashion for some time. So, what do you think?”

"Well, it does look better than the other one," Twilight admitted.

"You look wonderful, Rarity," Fluttershy complimented.

"Why thank you, darlings," Rarity replied with a smile, then began glancing around the room. "And where might my little Spikey-Wikey currently be?"

"Taking a little nappy-wappy upstairs," Twilight replied with a giggle. "We've been too busy brainstorming to bother waking him up."

It was then Rarity took notice of the giant pile of books around the desk as well as the parchment scroll currently suspended in Twilight's magic.

“Have you two been working on that totally barbaric fable together?” she asked Twilight and Fluttershy.

Twilight nodded. “Uh-huh, Fluttershy’s given me a lot of helpful suggestions on how to improve it.”

“. . . Can I help too?”

Twilight and Fluttershy both froze with their mouths agape in shock. “Are you serious?” Twilight asked.

“What?” Rarity chimed. “I can be interested in things other than fashion.”

“Well . . . okay,” Twilight replied as she got out the quill and parchment again. “What’re your ideas?”

Rarity put a hoof to her chin, lost in thought for about a minute before she exclaimed, “IDEEEAAA!!!”

“These people that you’ve created, Twilight, they should always wear clothes, even outside of formal events and such.”

Twilight and Fluttershy glanced at each other with quizzical looks before returning their gazes to Rarity.

“What for?” Twilight asked.

“Because darling, if you’re aiming to create a world riddled with as many flaws as possible, the people that you’ve created should be completely insecure about how they look. While my dresses do indeed make anything and anyone wearing them look smashing, insecurity about one’s natural appearance is a fashion crime in and of itself.”

Twilight thought about it for a moment before answering. “Alright, that's doable.”

Rarity squealed with delight as Twilight wrote down her suggestion.

“Well darling, it’s been fun helping you with your project, but I must go send this dress off to my dear sweet cousin. Ta Ta!”

Rarity trotted out the door and was gone.

“Yeah, I should be going too,” Fluttershy said. “Thanks for letting me read your story.”

“No problem,” Twilight responded. “See ya.”

Fluttershy flew out the front door and was gone as well, leaving Twilight alone to continue her work.