Short Shorts

by Coranth

210. Killer?

"Why did you do it? Why did you kill that Noble?"

"Top Hat?" I responded as Celestia looked at me through the bars of the prison cell.

She nodded and I answered sadly, "He insulted me... just... it was the culmination of something that'd been building for a while." I sighed sadly then kept on. "Don't get me wrong: you and Luna have been great to me, you really have; getting me a place to live, setting me up with a Job and small stipend... but while you've been great - what all your ponies ought to be in fact - the ponies of Equestria--weren't."

I went silent, rested my head in my hands... then raising my head up to look at her again, I continued. "It was the little things, you see. Despite all your efforts to promote the peace and harmony thing - and it all looks good on the surface, mind you - your ponies are xenophobic as all get out. I'd go to deliver mail in my job as a postman; mares would look at me like I was going to eat their foals; stallions viewed me with disgust, like I was something scraped from the bottom of their hooves. It started small like that, the looks of disgust, sideways and backwards glances...

Then it gradually escalated to name-calling, ape, monkey, shit-flinger, oh, and monster; ponies loved to use that one, especially when they found out I ate meat, as any obligate omnivore does, along with everything else I eat. After that, slow denial of services, bills and taxes being higher than usual, even though I know my budgets, and keep track of my spending. Got worse after that; lost the job, lost the cottage-house due to pony bigotry... and then the big one: some fucking pony set it up to look like I MURDERED A FOAL! Investigation, yadda-yadda, but by the time the police-ponies found it was a setup - fuck you conveniently 'lost' paperwork - it was too late; I was run out of Whinny-Shire.

Came here... and then Top Hat - that fucking Top Hat. When that fucking snake you call a Noblepony flat called me a monster to my face, I -- my world went red, I just reacted; grabbed a pruning-blade from a flower-salespony and... and... I split open his barrel from chest to dock. Disembowelled the bastard. Pony hides are thick, the knife wasn't that sharp... after dealing with it all, the glares, the veiled threats, insults, sometimes outright blatant racism, the loss of my job, house, land that you gave me -- that they shouldn't have been able to take away but fuck your bureaucracy -- Top Hat's insult was... it was the last straw. His screams were fucking music.

Part of me outright enjoyed listening to him scream -- until I came to and I didn't and my handswere-were-were-coveredwithponyblood...! It was my dream to be here in Equestria and now it's all ruined and oh god I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." Didn't remember curling into myself, rocking back and forth. Didn't remember Celestia teleporting into my cell at all -- but I did remember the feel of her wings wrapped around me, her muzzle as she nuzzled all over me, the moisture of her tears staining my skin. "It seems..." she whispered to me later as we stared at each other, our eyes red from crying, "that my little ponies need to be reminded, that if you treat someone like they are a monster... then a monster they may well become. I... will be back shortly, gentle-human."

That day, the Ponies of Canterlot, and indeed, Greater Equestria, learned the fury of an Alicorn -- and they suffered. "Closed" meetings were blown open as with magic and Royal Voice Celestia shouted and made ponies cower before her furious rage. But if they thought Celestia was bad... Princess Luna was worse; the bigoted, the vain, the venal, the cruel and uncaring gibbered and withered at the haunting sight of her Thestral Guard dressed to the nines in full old ceremonial regalia come to take them away. The stockade, beatings, good old fashioned floggings, and lastly, their minds burned by a taste of their own medicine; all the while as the Princess of Dreams and Nightmares laughed evilly, finally - with her sister's consent! - she could re-enact the good old days and truly punish the wicked.

As for me, well, I was released on account of good behaviour plus grounds of true temporary insanity. I'm not the Joker, folks, just an ordinary man, given a bad run. Time with a neutral pony psychologist helped a lot. As it turned out there were ponies who acted just like they were depicted in the show, open, gentle, friendly, and the psychologist was one of them -- but oh man did she get seriously angry when she started probing into how I'd been treated by other ponies. We sort of helped each other out then, and parted as friends when my sessions with her were done. I also did community service, of course; whatever jobs I was assigned by the Princess that I could do, I did; labour, construction, fixing small items for ponies, and of course, my old job as postman; anything I could do with my hands. Gradually, I got to know ponies and they got to know me; my life in Equestria gradually turned into the dream I'd expected it to be all along.

Comments

[BestinDworld]

Ya know the phrase even in paradise there are snakes come to mind