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“I hate it,” Anon said, shoving the plate away with both hooves.
“It’s a sandwich,” Twilight said. “You love sandwiches!”
“I like normal sandwiches,” Anon retorted. “Daisies aren’t food!”
Twilight sighed. “It’s healthy and nutritious. I eat daisy sandwiches all the time. You need vitamins if you want to grow up big and strong!”
Anon glared at her. It wasn’t much of a glare. It was hard to be intimidated by something that small and cute. They’d been human until an unfortunate accident involving Trixie, the mirror portal, and fifty gallons of raspberry jam. Turning into an adorable filly hadn’t improved their attitude at all.
“I don’t want to grow up big and strong, I just want a decent lunch!”
“Fine,” Twilight sighed. “What kind of sandwich do you want?”
“A hamburger.”
Twilight frowned. “Cows are friends, not food.”
“If they were really friends you’d let them vote and you wouldn’t make them live in fenced-in communes on farms,” Anon mumbled.
“I’m not going to get into a discussion on the socio-ethnic politics of the milk industry,” Twilight said. “It was bad enough when you thought Applejack raised pigs just to slaughter them. Fluttershy had to spend hours calming them down when they heard you talking about bacon!”
“How was I supposed to know she trained them to find truffles?” Anon asked.
“You could have asked. Just like how you could try asking nicely for a different lunch.”
“Ugh!” Anon leaned back, almost slipping when her body didn’t quite shift weight the way she was expecting. “Fine! Can I please have a different sandwich?”
“Much better. What kind of sandwich do you want?”
“Well, now I kind of want a bacon sandwich.”
“Anon!”
“Peanut butter,” Anon sighed. “But not on that weird wheat bread!”
“One peanut butter sandwich coming up,” Twilight said, picking up the plate.
“And, um…” Anon blushed, looking away. “Can you cut the crusts off?”
“I can if you use the magic word!”
“Abracadabra make my crusts disappear.”
“That’s not the magic word I meant.”
Anon rubbed her face with both hooves, frustrated and annoyed. “Please.”
“See? You can learn manners as long as you try.” Twilight reached over and mussed up Anon’s mane. “I’ll be right back.”
Anon watched her leave, glaring.
“Manners my @$%,” Anon mumbled. “I’m gonna get some real food if it kills me!”
“It’s so nice of you to visit,” Fluttershy said. “Especially since you haven’t yelled at any of the animals, or kicked them, or called them names!”
“Yeah, I’m really turning over a new leaf,” Anon said. “So you take care of a lot of animals here, right?’
“Oh yes, all sorts.”
“And some of them are carnivores!”
Fluttershy looked a little uncomfortable with that, but nodded. “A lot of my animal friends have special diets. Some of them, um, need special meals. I don’t like to talk about it too much.”
“I was just wondering, how do you feed them?” Anon asked. “You know, in case I ever, uh, wanted one as a pet.”
“Most carnivores can feed themselves,” Fluttershy said. “Cats and birds are excellent hunters! I teach the ones here not to only hunt away from town to make sure they don’t hurt anypony else’s special animal friends.”
“But when they’re sick or injured, you feed them,” Anon pointed out.
“I do,” Fluttershy admitted. “It’s… difficult, but necessary.”
“So you must have a source of meat!” Anon said, excited. “Look, Fluttershy, you have to help me! Twilight has been feeding me trash and I can’t deal with it anymore! This morning she had steamed grass and oatcakes shaped like a smiling face, and it all tasted like I was gnawing on a stick! I’m at the end of my rope - I need real food, with protein!”
“If you need protein, have you considered beans or lentils? They’re really wonderful if you prepare them correctly--”
“Focus, Fluttershy!” Anon snapped. “Meat! Where do you buy it? I know you don’t hunt for it yourself, so there has to be some kind of market!”
“A filly like you shouldn’t go there!” Fluttershy said. “It’s not safe!”
“Uh, I’m like, thirty on the inside,” Anon reminded her. “I can take care of myself. All I need you to do is point the way so I can get a couple steaks, or some fried chicken or something!”
Fluttershy paled at the thought.
“It’s a really bad idea, Anon,” Fluttershy said.
“Trust me,” Anon said. “If you can handle it, it’ll be no problem for me.”
Anon knocked on the, appropriately, anonymous and unmarked door. Just like Fluttershy had instructed, she knocked three times, waited, then knocked two more times. A tiny window opened at eye level on the door, and the pony inside peered out.
“Who’s there?” they asked. “I don’t see nopony, and I swear if this is a prank or another bloody haunting, I’ve got a bag full of rock salt and it works on punks and ghosts just the same!”
“Down here!” Anon snapped.
“What? I can’t see-- hold on.” The window snapped shut, and there was the distinct sound of several locks being opened before the door swung open. The stallion on the other side of the door looked around, and finally down. “Aren’t you a little short to be a carnivore?” He asked.
“You must be Crock Pot,” Anon said. “Can I come in?”
“Filly, I don’t know what kind of bet you lost, but you don’t wanna be here,” Crock Pot said. “This isn’t a place for respectable ponies.”
“Fluttershy sent me,” Anon said. “She said this was the place to get… certain items.”
“Well here we are bein’ dramatically vague,” Crock Pot snorted. “Certain items! They ain’t items, it ain’t product, it’s meat, and I won’t have you disrespect it by callin’ it anything else. And I don’t sell to little fillies who--”
Anon tossed a bag of bits at his hooves.
“Oh no, I dropped my huge bag of bits for my magnum dong,” Anon said.
“You know maybe I do sell to fillies when they have a big enough allowance,” Crock Pot said, ushering the bag of bits inside along with the filly it happened to be attached to.
The butcher’s shop was plain, the only sign a chalkboard with the day’s available items and the market price. One glass case stood in the small room, empty with a cooler next to it.
“So I’m guessing this is your first time experimenting,” Crock Pot said. “A lot of ponies try meat once or twice, but usually it’s in college. I’d recommend something easy for your first time. A good red fish like tuna is a little pricey but it’s easy to cook correctly because even if you only sear the outside--”
“Steak,” Anon said, firmly.
Crock Pot stumbled. “Steak? That’s a bit heavy for somepony your age. That’s really for a connoisseur who really understands the complexities of the meat and can properly--”
“Season it with salt and pepper, then let the meat get to room temperature,” Anon said. “Get a cast iron pan extremely hot. Drop the steak in. Three minutes. Flip the steak, add butter and aromatics. Use a spoon to base the butter over the steak while it cooks for another three minutes. Remove from heat, let rest for half the cook time, then slice and serve.”
Crock Pot’s eyes widened with shock. “That’s…”
There was a rapid knock on the door and it flew open before Crock Pot could even start to move towards it. Dash flew in and kicked the door shut behind her.
“Hey, it’s just me,” Rainbow Dash said. “You didn’t answer after two seconds so I figured I should just see if it was unlocked, and it was. Have you thought about getting a window so it’s easier to get in and out of here? Anyway, I’m here for my order and, uh…”
She trailed off and finally noticed Anon standing there.
“Man, this isn’t the soup store!” Dash laughed. “I thought I was at the soup store!”
“I’ve got your order right here, Miss Dash,” Crock Pot said. “One whole chicken, cleaned and de-feathered and ready to cook. You didn’t say if you wanted the giblets for gravy or not so I packed ‘em separate.”
He opened the cooler and put a wrapped bundle on the counter.
“Not in front of the filly!” Dash hissed. “Why did you even let her in?”
“Dash, it’s me,” Anon said. “Anon. You’ve seen me like this before.”
“It is?” Dash narrowed her eyes. “I was trying not to look at you so you wouldn’t be able to see me.”
“I don’t… what?”
“Anyway, you definitely shouldn’t be here,” Dash said. “Twilight’s going to freak if she knows you’re here at, um…”
“At the soup store?” Anon asked.
“They exist!” Dash protested. “There’s a soup store in Manehattan! They’ve got soup, and pictures of soup, and even like, a pony that dresses up like a soup can with a big smiley face on it!”
“Are you gonna pay for this or not?” Crock Pot asked.
“I didn’t know you ate meat, Dash,” Anon said, smirking. “Maybe I should tell Fluttershy.”
“I’m having Gilda over to hang out, and it’s a griffon thing, okay?” Dash hissed. “Don’t tell Fluttershy! She’ll flip! And not the cool kind of flip like how I do backflips every day of my life, the bad kind of flip where she’s upset at me and she wrestles bears in her spare time!”
“Okay, I won’t tell her,” Anon said. “On one condition.”
“What condition?” Dash asked.
“There’s no way Twilight wouldn’t notice me cooking in her kitchen. I need somewhere I can cook.”
The steak hit the pan with a sharp, loud sizzle, the sound of a wonderful, tender cut of beef starting to turn golden brown, the fat bubbling and hissing at the heat and softening.
“This is going to be so good,” Anon whispered. Dash had set her up with a campfire in the woods. A steel grate on thick legs served as a grill over the flames, the pan heating up while Anon finished sprinkling salt and pepper over the steak on the cutting board she’d stolen from Twilight.
It wasn’t much of a kitchen, but it was far enough outside of town that nopony would come across her illicit meal. Importantly, the scent of cooking meat shouldn’t carry far enough for anypony to panic.
Anon flipped the ribeye and tossed a knob of butter into the cast-iron pan. She’d thought about grilling it right over the flames, but if she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. A clove of garlic and a few sprigs of rosemary went into the melting butter, and she grabbed a spoon, basting it over the steak.
The smell was incredible, savory meat and fat after so many meals that had been various flavors of salad. It was enough to make Anon tear up. Well, that and the smoke. She coughed as it blew into her face, but didn’t lose focus. She was going to cook this steak perfectly. It had cost almost all of her saved bits and she had no idea when she’d get another chance.
She waited until it had a good crust, then took it off the heat, moving the meat to a cutting board and beginning the hardest part of the whole process - waiting. Letting the meat rest was important. The residual heat was finishing cooking it to a perfect medium-rare, and cutting into it too soon would release that heat and a lot of juices before the steak could reabsorb them.
“Finally, some good $&#*ing food,” Anon said quietly.
It was so hard, so tempting to just go right for it, to bite into the slab of beef. Anon stared at it, and the smoke blew right into her face again. She coughed and waved her hooves, trying to move it away, but it just kept getting worse.
She finally looked up from the steak to see the fire.
Not the one in the firepit. Well, that one was also there, but it wasn’t the important fire. As would later be discovered, Dash was in fact not terribly careful when putting the campfire together. The flames had spread, and what had been a lovely dinner was now turning into a less-lovely brushfire.
“No, no, no,” Anon said, looking around for something, anything, to put out the flames. She had tongs, a spoon, a fork and knife, a perfectly cooked steak, and absolutely no firefighting equipment.
She grabbed the pan in a panic and tried to beat the fire into submission. Hot, flammable oil sprayed over the fire, and it flared up, the branches overhead starting to catch.
Anon shrieked in a very non-manly way and ran away from the fire, instincts screaming for her to panic and run in circles.
And then she remembered the steak, and turned around so quickly she almost gave herself whiplash.
The cutting board was already starting to burn. The steak sat on it, the flames closing in. Every instant, the perfect medium-rare was turning medium, the very limit of steak acceptability.
“I have to save it!” Anon gasped, running back towards it. Waves of heat beat at her, smoke choking and blinding her, embers falling on her coat like stinging insects.
It became overwhelming, and she fell to her knees, reaching for the steak. So close, but so far away.
The edges of the meat blackened and started to curl.
Anon wept, her eyes burning from the harsh smoke. It was too late now. She lowered her hoof. Even if she saved it, it would be well-done. A fate no steak should endure. It was better now if the cleansing flame just erased it all.
“You’re just lucky you didn’t get hurt,” Twilight said. “You know you shouldn’t play with fire.”
“You probably played with fire,” Anon mumbled. She still couldn’t get the smell of smoke out of her nose. Two baths later and it lingered on her coat and mane to remind her of her terrible mis-steaks.
“I did. But I played with fire in a very responsible way!” Twilight said. “And I always had a fire safety assistant with me.”
“I don’t need a fire safety assistant,” Anon said. “It was an accident.”
“Accidents are why we practice fire safety. I’ve signed you up for some classes with the other foals at school.”
Anon sputtered “What?!”
“You need to make friends with fillies your own age!” Twilight said. “You’ll love it, I promise.”
“You also said I’d love daisy sandwiches,” Anon pointed out.
“And you didn’t even try them,” Twilight said. “As I recall you didn’t even take one bite.”
“Because I know it won’t be good!” Anon said. “Daisies are flowers! People aren’t supposed to eat those!”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Twilight said. “If you try a daisy sandwich and you really don’t like it, I’ll think about canceling the fire safety class.”
Anon’s stomach growled. She hadn’t gotten to eat her steak. The whole day had been a total cook-block, and her guts were
“It sounds like you could use a snack,” Twilight said.
“Fine, make the dumb sandwich,” Anon huffed. “I’ll try it, but when I hate it and can’t even swallow one bite you better be ready to make something that I can actually eat!”
Twilight nodded and put the sandwich together, setting it gently in front of Anon once it was finished.
“I even cut the crusts off,” Twilight said. She’d cut it into cute little triangles, perfect for filly-sized hooves.
Anon spitefully grabbed a triangle and bit into it, expecting a bitter, horrible flavor like a mouth full of pine needles. Instead, it was sweet, almost buttery, with a texture between cold cuts and leaf lettuce. Without thinking, she took a second bite, then a third, and then the whole triangle was gone.
She reached for a second, and Twilight coughed politely.
“Would you like a glass of milk with that?” she asked.
Anon blushed and nodded, defeated.
Twilight left to get the milk, and Anon sighed to herself, looking out the window and into town. Just visible in the distance was the plume of smoke from the forest fire she’d started. A few pegasus ponies were dragging rainclouds over it to try and smother the flames. She reached out towards it.
“I’ll avenge you, steak,” she whispered. “I promise. Next time, I’ll get it right.”
She could almost see it there, watching from the sky above, smiling down at her with its perfectly seared sides.
“Next time,” she promised.