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Little Rock was faced with a dilemma.

Cut through and cause incalculable harm to the little ponies? Or move on and hope for another source of water?

The problem was three-fold.

As a macro, Little Rock was among the most powerful species in the world. Freer than any other. They went where they wanted, did what they wanted, took what they wanted... and killed whatever they wanted. But not Little Rock.

His logic was simple. He liked living and, despite being so much smaller, he couldn't imagine the tinies were much different. Why should he take their lives? Just because he was bigger didn't make his actions okay. Which made his beliefs a bit rare in the macro world. Rampaging was a popular past-time for most macros. That and wandering around. Which was his favorite thing to do. Exploring never left him bored.

But exploring did occasionally lead him into trouble. Like straying deep into an endless desert.

Now he was desperately thirsty and the only source of freshwater he could find was well... guarded? That didn't seem like the right word, but how else could he describe it. The entire river, on both sides, was lined with stone and wood buildings that pushed his ability to approach without breaking something several steps back. And the lake the river fed into? He could barely see it because the urban sprawl was so big. Even from his high vantage point, that bastion of blue water was blurry in the distance.

He licked his dry lips. How to get to it?

The roads were narrow with buildings both tall and short closely packed together. There was no open ground, whether empty lots or parks that could be sacrificed to his hoof falls, to form a path to the water. Heck, any open ground he found wouldn't fit a quarter of one of his hooves.

Of course there was a simple and easy solution: just go.

The very thought made Little Rock pin his ears in distaste. He was thirsty and he needed that water, but he didn't want to just... ignore the harm he'd be doing to the tiny ponies. That would make him a greedy monster. He should just move on. Try to find another source of water. But it had been almost two days now. Since sunrise he'd only been looking for water. He would start to suffer from dehydration if he didn't get some water by tomorrow morning. Though he wasn't sure what the side effects of that were, Little Rock was sure they included madness.

A delirious macro stumbling around the desert sounded bad.

Walking through a major city sounded bad.

Little Rock looked down at his hooves nervously. The little homes there on the very edge of civilization. Each barely the size of a Lego to him. So small. So helpless. He'd never wanted to talk to a little pony more in his life than that moment. But it just wasn't possible. The micro sized ponies couldn't understand his deeper baritone voice and he had no hope of making sense of their barely audible squeaks.

Eying that precious... life giving... delicious... blue water in the distance...

Little Rock licked his lips again. His dry tongue scraping his cracked lips like two mountains grinding against each other.

What should he do? What would any good pony do?

Author's Note

Quite the conundrum huh? What would you do? I always found those stories and authors who just assume having power would make you evil to be... stupid. Why does having power make it impossible to feel empathy for another? I never understood that idea. Not that feeling empathy is going to eliminate conflict like I describe here. Just exploring some thoughts today.