One Shot
The house is silent. You can’t help but smile to yourself, resting on the couch with a calming cup of tea in hand. Today will be a calm day. An easy day.
The house is silent.
Oh no, why is the house silent?
You rise to your feet and instantly make a dash to Moonie’s room.
Peeking the door open, you see various piles of ash placed inside a crudely drawn magic circle on the floor.
“Moonie! What have I told you about using crayons on the floor!”
The little filly guffaws in laughter, raising her hooves high into the air.
“Silence, peasant! With this alchemical spell, I will bring forth my first wild servant! Equestria will bow in fear before my hounds of darkness!”
As the little menace of the night laughs loudly, and a little wind breezes through the room, you walk forth and rub your foot over her crayon circle.
“NO! You dare spoil my plans for eternal-”
“You need to clean this up, or there will be no Batman stories tonight.”
Moonie instantly drops to all four hooves and sighs.
“Fine,” she says flatly. “You’re lucky I want to figure out how Robin gets away from the Joker.”
Darn it, Anon. You were trying to make her FORGET about Under the Red Hood.
You take a look down at the various piles of ash, water, and… is that cookie crumbs? What in the world was she trying to make with all of this stuff?
You nudge one of the piles with your foot, half expecting something to wiggle, when you see a small piece of fabric at the bottom. Bending down to examine the strange material, you can’t help but feel like you’ve seen it somewhere before. Sure enough, reaching in, you pull out a red dog’s collar.
Moonie trudges in, carrying a dustpan in her mouth and a broom in her magical grasp.
“Is this Winona’s collar?” you ask.
“Nonsense! I don’t even know any dogs.”
You blink.
She blinks.
“Is this Winona’s collar?” you repeat firmly.
“The Apples got a new collar and threw it away!”
“So you dug through their trash?”
“No! I got the youngest Apple to do my bidding!”
You glare her down.
“Tell the truth.”
“Okay!” she exclaims! “I traded for it. Okay?”
“And so, you were going to attempt to create life, and make a dog.”
Moonie stomps her hoof and begins to clean up her mess.
“Not just a dog. A hound! To do my bidding and hunt down my enemies.”
You can’t help but snicker.
“You want a dog to cuddle and play with, don’t you Moonie.”
She stops in place, glaring at you.
“I will destroy you, foolish human.”
“Do you want a big dog? So that you can ride around on it like a-” you pause, realizing you were going to say horse.
“Yes. Speedier means of transportation of course would be a massive benefit for one trapped in such a sluggish form.”
You look down to the collar in your hands, and you can’t help but think of your time on Earth. The responsibility. The growth. The companionship. You look up to Sir Bearington, sitting proudly on Moonie’s bed. Sure, she has friends. But it might be smart for Moonie to learn more responsibility.
“Alright. Well, hurry up with that cleaning. We have somewhere to go.
“Somewhere to go?” Moonie asks. “Since when? Why?”
“Since now. And I cause said so.”
As you walk out of her bedroom, she lifts the mess with her magical powers and throws it out the window. Whatever. Good enough. For now.
You hold the door open for Moonie as she trots into the building indignantly.
“I don’t understand why we had to-”
But the filly stops mid-sentence as she realized her location. You walk in behind her into the Ponyville Humane Society. Moonie’s mouth dropped and curled into an overly-wide smile that you’ve only seen one other time. And it was describing to her that there is ice cream that has cookies -inside of it-, wrapped in two cookies.
“Now, adopting an animal is a really big responsibility. So, we’re going to need to really think hard about our decis-”
“Okay!”
Moonie then immediately dashes past the many gerbils and cats to the back, where the many barks and yips were coming from. You do your best to keep up and only bump into maybe three older mares who are looking for, let’s be honest, a sixth cat. Moonie pushes open the door to the dog section and her eyes immediately lock onto a large play area, where you can see at least a dozen puppies playing.
You look to the puppies. Then Moonie. Moonie isn’t there. Moonie is now with the puppies.
“Hey!”
The cute of the puppies has overcome the filly and she lies on the ground, allowing them to blanket her with kisses.
“I want to adopt all of them and they will develop a taste for blood.”
“Moonie.” You say to her. “We’re going to look at the older dogs.”
“I will hear no more on this matter! We will adopt all of these puppies and they will be our loyal pack. With our trained army of dogs, I will be unstoppable.”
You look down at the filly, clearly overwhelmed by the many puppies.
You reach down and grab her by the scruff of her back.
“We’re going to look at the older dogs.”
The puppies leap up toward the flailing filly, thinking a new sort of game is now underway, but you pull her out of the puppy area and to the older dogs.
“But I want a puppy!”
You sigh.
“If you can’t find a single older dog that you like, then we can get a puppy. But we’re looking at the older dogs.”
A few more steps, and the long row of larger cages is filled with dogs of all sizes. You drop Moonie, and she lands on all four of her hooves.
“Fine. I’ll look.”
She sprints all the way down to the end, and sprints back.
“I looked.”
“We can go home without a dog, you know,” you say.
“Noooo!” she pouts. She turns to the closest cage. “Okay okay, so this is a bagel dog?”
“Beagle,” you correct.
The excited female beagle jumps up to moonie and leaps against the cage door. Her tongue hangs out, clearly happy to see some friendly faces.
“She seems nice,” Moonie says. “But I think I would want a bigger dog.”
“That’s okay,” you say, checking her sheet. “She’s already adopted.”
“Why would they leave already adopted animals out for ponies to see?” she asks.
“Some ponies want to watch the world burn.”
Moonie nods and smiles.
“Good for them.”
The two of you move down from cage to cage, viewing a large assortment of Terriers, Huskies, Shepards, Collies, and other mixed breeds. She stops several times in front of a larger black shepard named Yugo, but sadly, his sign also showed adopted.
The journey takes you and Moonie down to the very final cage. There, curled into the corner of his cage is an older Golden Retriever. You look up at the chart.
‘Josie. Found in wild. 7 years old.”
Moonie looks into the cage at the retriever, and she raises her head at her two new visitors.
“Josie, huh?” you ask. “She is a bigger dog, Moonie. Goldens are really nice.”
Moonie steps forward and places a hoof on the cage. Josie looks to Moonie with large, dark eyes, then rests her head down on a hoof.
“Moonie? Are you listening?”
“She’s so sad.”
You move closer to her and bend to one knee.
“Well, I’m sure she’s been here a very long time,” you reply. “A lot of ponies want puppies. So they get adopted really quickly. Older dogs… well-”
“She just wants to be understood.”
You open your mouth to reply, but as you look down at the little one, you can see the gears in her mind turning harder than you’ve seen since her last math homework. You let her words sit in the air, deciding to not press on what may be churning in her mind.
You reach into her cage and push a small ball towards her. Josie’s head raises. She slowly rises to her paws, claims the ball, and walks towards Moonie. Josie hesitantly cranes her head down to her. Moonie reaches out with a hoof, and Josie drops it into her hoof. The retriever's tail gives a small, hesitant wag. Moonie lofts the ball towards the back of her cage.
The retriever grabs the ball and urgently brings it back to her, her tail wagging slowly, but steadily.
“This one,” Moonie says.
You look down into her expression, calm and sure, as she takes the ball and throws it for the dog again.
“Yeah?” you ask. “Why this one?”
Moonie shrugs a hoof as Josie comes back, closer to the bars. Moonie reaches in and scratches the top of the doggo’s head.
“It’s just a feeling. This one’s special.”
You nod, feeling something warm fill up inside you.
“That’s usually how you know,” you say softly.
You place a hand on top of her head, feeling your own sense of warmth fill up inside you. Nothing specific that you could put your finger on. Just something that felt right.