Two Background Ponies Revisit Season Five

The Hooffields and McColts

A vast and horrid landscape stretched before the group of ponies. What was once lush, verdant, and beautiful had been turned into scorched earth. Nothing but clay, mud, and stumps as far as the eye could see. The rivers and streams were either fouled or non-existent. The remaining animals that were walking about were dirty, starving, cold, and forlorn. And over it all, there was an odd mixture of serpent and pony hovering to one side and singing a song over the area.

As most of the ponies were looking at the landscape with tears in their eyes over this, including the gold-colored one and the blue-colored one in a group, the green one was kind of blinking at the flying creature.

"Uh...is that a siren?"

The blue one wiped his eyes. "Yeah. That organization hired her. Adagio Forestrings."

"Um...she's not at all related to-"

"Of course not, dude. Naming a kid 'Adagio' is like naming a kid 'John' if you're a siren."

Finally, the siren stopped and an older pony with mane tied back, glasses, and dressed for outdoor work walked up to stand before the crowd.

"Thank you, Ms. Forestrings. I think that's enough guilt-shaming for the ponies who actually volunteered..." As the siren gave a nod and flew away, she turned to the others. "Thank you all again for volunteering for P.F.A. - Ponies For Animality. As you all well know, the ponies of Equestria are in charge of creating habitats, feeding, caring for, and maintaining the natural order of wildlife and not just pets and local agriculture." She turned and gestured. "What you see behind you used to be Neighnali National Park, but it was decimated from continuous saturation 'gourdings' that resulted from Yakyakistan incursion to assist the local rebels with 'nonviolent specialist consulting'." The mare grimaced and rolled her eyes at the concept. "Anyway...as you know from volunteering, our group aims to restore these ecosystems and assist the local wildlife and bravely goes into these areas of former No-Pony's-Land, irregardless of the danger from undetonated land mines, carcinogenic compounds that were used to clear vegetation, or rusted, Ebola-laced caltrops."

The green stallion began to raise a hoof. "Um, excuse me... Did you just say-"

"Alright, let's snap to it." The mare cut off. "This group will be in charge of feeding the local wildlife, that group will be in charge of planting, and that group will be in charge of cleaning up all of the loose munitions. For group three...please make sure your waivers to hold us harmless for any injury or illness you may contract are signed."

About two hours later, Sam and Dawn were working in a giant canvas tent covering a multitude of picnic tables. But rather than ponies eating from them, all of the starving and homeless forest creatures were. Toward the front, the ponies had set up their outdoor kitchen and were currently passing it out to a seemingly endless line of mice, squirrels, birds, and whatever other animal lived in the once-present forest.

Dawn herself was ladling from a giant pot of thin clover soup into tiny bowls, then passing them over to Sam, who dropped a single walnut in each before passing it on to the next in line. Both looked rather somber at the haggard and worn-looking animals coming in, especially with all the ones to go.

"Once again, thanks for volunteering with me, Sam. Groups like this always need more volunteers."

"No problem. I'm sure Carl is going to be ticked that our group got split up and he's working on cleaning up munitions, but I'll make it up to him. I'll make some time next week to listen to his whole treatise on how those two bachelor stallions at the Smoky Mountains managed to sire entire families... Besides, it really is for a good cause..."

Sam trailed off at the next individual in line, who was a wolf. He blinked a moment.

"Uh, Dawn? We need another 'meatatarian' meal here."

The gold-colored mare began to reach into another pot at that, but then paused. Swallowing a little, she looked up and over to a unicorn volunteer nearby.

"Er...um...we're out of the 'meatatarian' meals again."

The unicorn swallowed. She turned and looked over to a table where a number of squirrels were eating. She walked forward and glanced over each one for a few moments...before she found an elderly-looking one that coughed a bit as he ate. Sighing, her horn lit up and pulled him off the table. He immediately reacted in shock while the other squirrels squeaked in horror.

"Sorry, little friends. He's the sickest and weakest one." The unicorn helplessly shrugged as she turned and began to hover him over to a tent splattered with bloodstains. "Tell him to wait about three minutes."

"Everyone!" Carl shouted out to the line. "We're stopping for three minutes!"

The animals still in line threw down their bowls and spoons and began to curse in their various languages as they angrily waited. A few gave the wolf dirty looks...especially the squirrels in line.

Sam and Dawn could only look uneasy at that as they too idled, when a familiar voice chimed in.

"Great. We got time to sneak in some of this shortbread."

Both ponies looked up and saw Carl approaching from the side of the line, looking considerably cleaner and not nearly as exhausted as one would think. As soon as he came up, he reached into his side saddlebag and pulled up a box he had smuggled in.

"It's nice and buttery. I brought some for you too, Dawn."

"Uh, Carl? What are you doing here? I thought last we saw you that you were going to check and see if that tomato ammunition they found was depleted uranium or not..."

"Uh, yeah...forget that, Sam." The green stallion retorted. "While the rest of you spent the past week in Ponyville brushing up on your regional dialect and customs for this part of Equestria, I was checking out A.S.S."

Dawn went wide-eyed. "You were doing what now...?"

"A.S.S. Animals for Sustainable Systems." Carl reiterated. "It's a newer group that advocates independence of animals. Basically it teaches animals that rather than wait for ponies to do everything for them, they should act more to naturally restore their own ecosystems. Like when they eat a nut, don't eat it right there and give the refuse to ponies. Go out in the middle of a wilderness and just...well...'do your business' with the nut remains and it'll grow on its own into a tree one day. Don't wait for ponies to build you a birdhouse. Look for trees that are decaying and have cavities and then carve out a hollow into one of those using your beak. If you're a bear, don't go to a pony beehive farm. Just look for one in nature on your own and get it plus all the yellow jacket larva you can eat. You know...help animals to take care of themselves so they don't freeload off of us."

Dawn thought about that a moment. "Well...I don't know about the 'freeloading' part, although it's nice that you want animals to be more independent, Carl."

Sam was less supportive. "But I don't really see how they'd want to do all that when we can do it for them..."

"What are you, a socialist?" Carl snorted. "Trust me, the animals I shared all of this stuff with wanted to be independent. Think about it, you two. Here I am, some nice and pretty little mouse grazing in the forest. All nice and lovely... Suddenly...look out!" He began to shout as he held up his hooves and gestured. "Some dark alicorn goddess just ripped up the mountain escarpment I nibble on before ruining the stream my fish friends go up for spawning! Ok, that's over and done with, but... Oh no! A whole katamari worth of parasprites just got dumped right on my feeding grounds! Guess I get to starve now! Look out! Ponies just upset the local dragon and they burned down my home! Ack! Giant demon centaurs are ripping apart my 'city block' to vent their new power! And look! All of the ponies in Equestria started arguing with each other and they brought down a whole swarm of Windegos to turn my land into an icy hell and sentence me to a frozen grave!"

Pause.

"...On that note, guys...did any of the ponies back at Hearth's Warming Eve ever go back and 'thaw' their home country or is it still an icy waste?"

Another pause.

"Why do I have the strange sensation somewhere, someway, somehow, an author is sitting at a keyboard thinking that would make a great episode/fanfiction...?"

Dawn looked a bit uneasy at this. "You know, Sam...Carl's got a bit of a point. When he puts it that way, it looks like if animals want to be cared for by us, they've got to put up with quite a lot on our whims..."

Sam scratched his own mane. "I think you're right...which is always scary whenever I have to admit it where Carl is concerned but it's true. They may get free food and shelter but only if we're attentive to their needs. Unlike those animals in the Everfree Forest. They can eat and rest wherever they like whenever they like, seasons and days change of their own accord, and every one of them can live under their own tree without needing to defer to any ponies."

Carl nodded. "That's exactly what I told them, Sam. As well as pointed out by depending on ponies they had ended up in their current situation in the first place. And they seemed to take that message really to heart. Really got a kick out of it."

Sam began to nod back...when he froze. "Wait...what?"

Suddenly, a loud clamor took off from one side of the tent, followed by numerous ponies screaming and yelling before running for their lives. The three looked and gasped as they saw the tent had been set on fire, and a swarm of angry revolting forest creatures were storming the place, killing every pony they could find in a ravenous fashion. Some were brandishing crude knives. Others torches. All were shouting out in their native language and bearing signs that had the following crudely written:

"FOUR PAWS GOOD, FOUR HOOVES BAD"

As ponies began to scream and run for their lives around them, the three were left gaping in shock. Slowly, Sam's face twisted into a glare as he turned and stared at Carl. The green stallion stared a moment, but then shrugged and tapped Sam on the shoulder.

"And that will teach you to drag me along when you volunteer."

Er...ugh...so...so how's the region doing right now, Carl?

Well, last I read in the paper, not so good. 'Animality' is the new law of the land, pigs have taken control and are wearing clothes, half of the animals are being impressed into forced labor to build a mill, they found out they can sell whatever ponies they capture to other nations with processing plants for a hefty sum, which they're using to buy whiskey-

Moving on...