Ferret Keeper trotted anxiously through the outskirts of Ponyville, furrowed brows betraying concern at her sudden summons. She'd left as soon as the scheduled rain shower passed, and the ruts of the track were filled with shining puddles in which her hooves splashed noisily. Yes it was true that Sea Swirl was one of her most enjoyable customers, with an enthusiasm for elaborate water features that might even surpass her own. It was also true that the lilac unicorn (no, not that lilac unicorn, the other one with the blue mane and dolphin cutie mark) was probably her most lucrative remaining customer, after Filthy recently awarded her a lifetime ban from the Rich estate.
Swirl was a perfectionist though, and perhaps not entirely stable (being a lilac unicorn and all), which made the crudely scrawled note all the more concerning. What kind of landscaping emergency could demand her immediate attention, and exactly what implicit threat was contained in 'over here with no delay, or else!' ? Answers were not far away now, as Ferret Keeper rounded the final bend of the muddy dirt track and arrived at the gate of Sea Swirl's generously sized cottage.
A very lovely gate it was, with fragrant freesias twining up over the arbor arch; she had installed it herself around the running of the leaves last year. Now if she could just convince Sea Swirl to replace the worn flagstones with...
A sudden splintering CRASH from behind the cottage stopped her thought cold. Was Sea Swirl having a terrible accident, or was some fiend destroying the pergola she had so lovingly crafted?! The creamy mare sprung into a gallop, her hooves clattering on the stone path as she raced around the corner of the house. Something was wrong here... she thought for an instant before the hard surface beneath her hooves gave way into sucking goop, as she barrelled into the trench of quick-setting concrete. With rising panic the earth pony tossed and struggled, neighing in shock as she sank up to her hocks; to no end, as the stuff hardened almost instantly and left her thoroughly immobilised. Desperately, she looked around for something or somepony that could help her escape... only to see a depressingly familiar green shape sitting bruised but triumphant in the remains of a collapsed pergola.
"My dear Ferret Keeper, didn't I say resistance would be useless? Fur-catalysed mix, the perfect means of ensuring us some quality time to reflect on one's choices in life!" crowed the hippogriff stallion, flicking his wings to disloge the splinters and twigs now embedded in his plumage. "Though I think you should have chosen oak for that perch, it must have been balsa to have collapsed so easily," he said, frowning at the unexpected plummet to earth. Near one clawed foot a little grey squirrel chittered up at him, probably angry at the avian monster who'd destroyed of its home, before scurrying off into the undergrowth.
"Or perhaps I didn't want to encourage feathered pests to roost on my client's property, Star Glider!" shouted Ferret Keeper. "Surely you can't have built another of those monstrous birdy-beams, you claimed the last one took three years and your entire family fortune," she snorted. "Look, just let me go. If you pay for the damage I might even fix your secret lair up with some nice raised beds; lillies perhaps..."
"Oh no, my lovely little mare, you misunderstand me." trilled the green-blue half-avian sweetly, cocking his head to the side and opening his beak a crack (was that smiling? Ferret was never really sure with birds) as he emerged from the ruined structure. "My apologies for the temporary immobilisation, for I mean to offer you something no pony has had before!"
"I already said I don't want a beak..." she began.
"A choice!" he proclaimed. Before she could object he rushed to explain: "Do you remember it, when you received your... cutie mark?"
"My cutie mark?" The pink-maned mare was perplexed, and a little worried at where this was going. "Of course, but what does that have to do with your crazed notions of improving my anatomy?"
His fierce eagle face now inches from her muzzle, the hippogriff's voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you remember the magic of harmony, rising out of nowhere, rushing into you before you could realise what was happening? Did it give you a choice, or did it just have its way with you, imprinting its indelible iconography on your rump without consideration of what you wanted?"
"It's not like that!" she objected, voice quavering as she wondered how he could know this, when hippogriffs had no such experience?
The gleam in his avian eyes was matched only by the gleam from the sliver of pearl hanging around his neck. "Oh but it is. Did you want to be branded for life as nothing but a gardener, to make pleasant lawns for richer ponies as your dreams of adventure wilted and withered like cut roses in a vase?"
Tears welled in the creamy mare's eyes as she was forced to look away. Despite her immobile legs she was able to twist around and regard her flank, adorned as ever by the image of a shovel surrounded by three roses. "I like gardening..." she whispered forlornly.
"Oh no doubt!" the hippogriff exclaimed, back to full volume and cheer. "I must say your efforts are lovely if sometimes structurally dubious. Best viewed from the air of course! But did you need a cutie mark to accomplish that? Or is it there to mark you as a gardener in the eyes of the other ponies, fixing your role in their society without doubt or escape? Is that what you wanted?"
"Well..."
"But think! The beauty of Mount Aris is widely known, both cultivated and crafted, yet it was accomplished without marks to tell us what to do! How much more beautiful would your lovely pony posterior be, were it not tarnished by the imprint of a harmony that favours the herd over the individual? What could you do, where could you go, if that icon wasn't dictating the shape of your life?" His voice dropped to a whisper again as his emerald beak brushed her whiskers. "I could show you..."
Ferret Keeper struggled to maintain her convictions in the face of his perfectly calculated psychological assault. "Wha.. what do you mean?"
"As I said, a choice!" Star Glider brought up a claw; nestled in the green-scaled palm were two rounded capsules, one vivid red, the other bright blue. "You take the blue pill, the story ends, you go back to landscaping and believe whatever your cutie mark wants you to believe. You take the red pill, I show you what's beyond the horizon, and just how far the sky goes."
Trembling and transfixed by the two candy-like capsules, Ferret Keeper's muzzle began to reach down towards the hippogriff's claw, her lips drawing apart as... something fast and brown and fluffy slammed into the stallion, sending him sprawling across the lawn as the newcomer bounced back to her hooves and adopted a fighting stance! The coloured pills bounced out of his grip and flew through the air, landing in a nearby puddle with a splish.
"Ferret Keeper! Hang in there!" the new mare shouted, her impossibly large and fluffy brown tail curling over her back as she prepared to leap again. Behind her, a tidal wave of tiny furry bodies crested the fence and poured into the garden, chittering and swarming towards the dazed half-avian.
"Squirrel Filly! How in Equestria did you know I was in trouble?" she cried with relief, overjoyed to see her friend coming to her rescue.
"Oh I saw that feathered fiend flapping his way towards town," the rodent-themed superheroine explained. "I knew he was up to no good, but I had to wait for one of my squirrel scouts to find his exact location. Now that buck-beaked menace is going to get what's coming to him."
"No, wait, it's not like that..." Ferret Keeper started, before something caught her eye. Two somethings, sitting in a puddle now coloured with a distinct blue tint, as the dye washed off one of the capsules to reveal two identical red pills. "...no actually it's exactly like that." she concluded. What a cad!
"You are a bad, bad birdie," the brown mare shouted, "making my friend cry like that!" "Okay squirrels, sic him!" she commanded, driving the furry tide to sweep forward and over the poor blue-green griff, teeth nibbling and pulling at his feathers, scratchy claws raking through his fur.
"No, no, get awway, get ooooofff, argh!" he screeched, thrashing, bucking and flapping to no avail. Flight was impossible with the horde of rodents crawling over his wings, and if this lasted much longer it would remain impossible until all his feathers grew back.
"Have no fear, this stuff can't be that tough." Squirrel Filly boasted. Leaping into the air and bringing her hooves down again and again with sharp cracks, within seconds she had shattered the concrete around Ferret Keeper, who stepped gingerly out of the trap.
"Oh thank you Squirrel," she said, closing her eyes and wrapping her friend in a quick embrace. When she opened them again, she couldn't help notice that the beleaguered hippogriff had managed to roll onto the central circular patio... which was missing its usual wrought iron chairs and table, and had gained a thin post on one side. The avian-pony hybrid looked back at the embracing mares with a dangerous look of triumph on his beak, even as the heroic squirrel sidekicks continued to chew and claw at his ruined plumage.
"Until next time, ponies!" he shouted, one claw reaching out to the post and revealing it to be a sturdy lever waiting to be pulled. With a tremendous SPROING everything in the centre of the garden shot upwards, a fountain of tiny furry bodies arcing in every direction as the creature at the centre soared skyward at an alarming rate. The patio, or should we say escape platform, hit the top of its travel and sprung back, oscillating up and down on its bed of oversized steel springs.
"No! My darlings!" Squirrel Filly screamed, dashing desperately around the garden, catching those pets not blessed with gliding membranes (which was most of them, to be honest) on her back. Others managed to land in trees, or in some less dignified cases, flower beds.
High above, the wide-winged form of Star Glider could be seen flapping frantically to stay airborne, his well-chewed feathers whistling chaotically as he struggled for purchase on the air, ragged tail feathers fluttering wildy behind him. The cottage was far enough out from Ponyville's centre that he managed to escape out of sight before the commotion could draw a pegasus pursuit party.
Ferret Keeper looked at the remains of the garden and sighed. "Squirrel Filly, um, I know I owe you my life... or at least my muzzle, but would you mind, err, holding up those rafters while I nail them back together? And... I know this is a lot to ask... but if you could perhaps convince your little sidekicks to reinstall edging, and maybe bed some daffodils? That just might give us a chance of getting this cleaned up before Sea Swirl..."
It was too late. The horrified screams pierced the cream mare's skull and would haunt her dreams for months to come. "My precious pergola! My perfect patio! What have you two DONE?!?"
Author's Note
So close! If it hadn't been for that meddling Squirrel Filly...
Amphibious Shrubbery Inspector
Dapple Dene was a near-perfect mix of careful landscaping and natural beauty, the granite-flagged path winding lazily upwards alongside the babbling brook, shaded by broad-leaved oaks and surrounded by flower-covered banks. Here it would pass over a tiny gorge, a beautifully carved wooden bridge giving one the chance to stop and stare down at the rushing waters, there it would pass by the ruins of the old watermill, inviting one to take a moment’s rest among the ivy-covered stone walls. The narrow valley ran for two miles, from the edge of Ponyville proper up to the Deerwent Dam. Clad in shining marble and topped by oversize statues of pegasi, the dam formed the base of the sizable Deerwent Resevoir.
Were you to spend a Thursday afternoon trotting up the Dene for a leisurely stroll around the still waters at its head, odds would be good that you would encounter a certain cream-and-pink earth pony. Perhaps she would be sitting with a pencil in her mouth, sketching a particular arrangement of plants that had caught her eye. Dapple Dene was the mare’s favourite place in the Ponyville area: beautiful, peaceful, filled with inspiration for her landscape designs, and frequented by potential customers in a mood amenable to commissioning garden improvements. So why would her mood be melancholy, as she ascended the path on this late summer afternoon?
Ferret Keeper sighed, hooves clopping slowly on the mossy stone. This was silly, she told herself. She’d finally got everything straightened out and her business was doing good trade again. Sea Swirl had even forgiven her for the pagoda incident, once Ferret had fixed everything and repaved the front path for free. The key to a happy life, her parents had always insisted, was to minimise stress and unpredictability. She had a skill ponies appreciated, a cute cottage to live in, a fair measure of financial independence, several friends; perhaps not as many or as close as she might have liked, but they were very nice ponies to be sure. Her father still didn’t agree with her move to Ponyville, but the newspapers made it sound much worse than the reality, particularly if you didn’t spend much time in the town centre (which bore the brunt of the occasional visits by bugbears or parasprites).
She was passing Twin Pine Falls, a landmark near the centre of the Dene consisting of a giant boulder in the middle of the stream, broken into halves uncounted millenia ago. About half of the water poured through the cleft, forming a waterfall tumbling into the little pool below, while the rest of the stream splashed and bubbled through rapids on each side of the boulder. The trunks of two huge redwoods rose from each side of the broken rock, framing the waterfall and creating a wonderfully symmetrical arrangement. Ferret Keeper had reproduced the whole scene in miniature for two customers now; her efforts had won her third place at last years’ Central Equestria Gardening Expo. Perhaps it would have been first place if she’d had the seemingly unlimited budgets and labour-saving spells the Canterlot unicorns had…
The mare snorted and shook her head. In truth she’d been thrilled to place third with nearly a hundred serious entrants. Looking back at her saddle bags, two narrow faces were peeping out: she could see her two passengers were getting agitated. She sank to the ground, pink tail splaying out on the grass, and the pair of ferrets immediately sprang out and began cavorting in the undergrowth. At least they were having fun. Back in Ponyville her friends were no doubt enjoying themselves as well, as today was the 34th annual Festival of Amateur Aviation. Which entailed a whole flock of hot air balloons shepherded by a couple of homebuilt zeppelins, surrounded by a handful of brave ponies trying paragliders and magic-assisted pedal copters. Ferret Keeper didn’t have a head for heights, but she might have enjoyed the games and refreshments on the ground, if she’d been in a better mood.
Was she longing for a special somepony? It had been a while, but she was hardly short of options. Several pleasant stallions had asked her out; mostly farmers, but one had a train whistle cutie mark; he was quite handsome and she’d nearly agreed to the date. Of course her mother would prefer she chose one of the farmers, no doubt considered the safest option. No, that wasn’t the problem; nothing was wrong, everything was fine, except that she was still pining for something… else. Something clearly not on the standard list of things, as supplied by her parents and peers, that were supposed to make a normal earth pony mare happy.
Ten minutes of reflection having produced no further answers, she prepared to move on. “Navi! Meadow! Come on, back in the bags.” It took a bit of coaxing to get the two mustelids to nestle into their carriers, but soon enough Ferret Keeper was back on the move and at the base of the steps leading up to the reservoir. Predating the dam by several centuries, the worn granite steps sunk into the hillside were only wide enough for a single pony. As the mare began the long climb, her gaze naturally drew up the towering wall of blue-white stone to end on one of the sejant stone pegasi keeping watch over the valley. The statue was displaying its wings proudly, a sight which immediately brought forth memories of the crazed bird-pony-creature who’d caused her so much trouble in the spring.
The hippogriff seemed to be set on turning ponies into half-bird creatures like himself. He was crazy and ridiculous and definitely the biggest source of stress Ferret Keeper had encountered. By all rights she should loathe his shenanigans, and indeed Ferret was glad when ‘next time’ hadn’t turned out to mean ‘next week’. After all, she was still fixing all the physical and reputational damage from the first two encounters… but when it turned out not to mean ‘next month’ either, she felt… a little disappointed? Try as she might, she couldn’t understand why.
The cream pony ascended the last flight of steps and emerged from the valley, trotting out onto the shores of the reservoir. Looking back for a moment, she took in the expansive view of Ponyville, its crystal castle sparkling in the light, all framed by the sides of the river valley. The festival was well underway, with numerous balloons already in flight and more being prepared on the ground, filling the skies above the town with a riot of colour. Tiny dots darted around them as pegasi welcomed their earth-bound friends into the skies, while slightly larger and slower dots comprised the various experimental flying machines making their debut at the event. The weather crew had arranged a steady south westerly breeze, so she should be able to watch the balloons fly right over her head on the way home.
Sighing again at the fun she was probably missing out on, Ferret Keeper turned back to the reservoir. It looked lovely, with the bright sun reflecting off the warm clear water in a million shifting glints. If only she’d taken Sea Swirl up on those swimming lessons… after getting over her fear of drowning… somehow. Normally a day like this would have a crowd of ponies out on the water, but with the festival she could only see a pair of small sailboats and… a really big swan? It looked like a much larger version of the swan boats she’d seen in Manehattan Park, gliding slowly across the lake. She snorted at the impracticality of the vessel; no doubt commissioned by Canterlot nobles to impress other nobles they’d invited on a ‘countryside excursion’. Not that she wouldn’t compliment them on their taste and ask them if they’d perhaps like to commission a new hedge maze, should she find a way aboard.
Trotting along the shoreline trail, she soon came to the first pier. A sturdy construction of seasoned wood, she must’ve passed it a hundred times and given it no thought… until today, with the sudden appearance of extravagant decorations drawing her eye. Ribbons and bunting were tied to the posts, a literal red carpet had been laid down its length, and copious greenery had been added to the far end. Entranced by the sight of professionally arranged pot plants, Ferret Keeper immediately dropped her saddlebags next to the path and stepped forward onto the carpet. “Play nice, girls” she said vaguely, drawn inexorably down the pier and out onto the water.
It was a shrubbery! Was this to entertain the nobles while they waited for the swan boat to arrive? The arrangement was really quite good, with carefully pruned laurels and different sizes of planters to create a two-level effect, with a little gravel path running down the middle. It filled the last ten yards of the pier, and in the centre was a miniature well, perhaps a foot across. Ferret Keeper craned forward, gravel crunching under her hooves as she peered into the dark opening. Deep inside something glinted pinkish-purple…
Several things then happened in quick succession. The first was a distinct ‘click’ as her hoof stepped on the pressure plate. The second was a loud ‘PING’ as the pearl fragment shot out of its hiding place and booped her on the nose. The third was a dramatic ‘Fwoosh’ as ribbons of golden-white light swirled around the pony, transforming her hooves into fins and her hindquarters into a smooth-scaled fish tail. The fourth was a clumsy ‘splat’ followed by considerable spluttering and gasping as the newly minted seapony belly-flopped onto the pier, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at her transformed body. The fifth gave her no time for reflection, as the grinding of gears and creaking of timber gave her just a second of warning before the entire pier rose up like a drawbridge, dumping its contents directly into the water. Ferret Keeper screamed and scrabbled with her fins at the tilting surface, but within seconds it was near vertical and she tumbled backwards, a drawn-out shriek followed by an enormous SPLASH marking her entrance into the lake.
After accepting that keeping her eyes tight shut wasn’t helping, the first sight that greeted Ferret Keeper was fifty-three assorted potted shrubs, all sinking slowly into the depths. A sudden fury filled her at the senseless destruction; why did nopony ever think of the shrubberies? She tried to kick her legs and ended up thrashing her tail wildly, which drove her with surprising speed straight into the muddy bottom of the reservoir. The resulting screams of frustration worked much better than she would have expected, at which point she realised she was breathing water and screamed again. Well, not breathing water exactly. Her mouth and throat were filled with water, but she didn’t feel like she was drowning, and with each ‘exhale’ she could feel something funny in her flanks. A quick glance confirmed that they’d grown slits; Ferret Keeper was no biologist, but she knew fish breathed through their gills, and apparently she was doing the same.
The panic was starting to subside, allowing her to experiment with more careful kicks and flexes that eventually brought her up to the surface. Poking her head above the waterline, she could see the pier deck now standing straight up like a billboard, the foundations surrounded by shredded foliage and the floating remnants of decorations. On the shore, her saddlebags were where she had left them, and a pair of little faces were watching her avidly. Coughing for a moment as she cleared water from her windpipe, she shouted “Meadow! Navy! Stay, stay there! Nap time!“ The two ferrets disappeared back into the saddle bags. ”Good girls! I’ll be back… soon, I promise.”
Fulfilling this promise would be easier said than done. She peered into the now-horizontal ornamental well, but there was no sign of the pink pebble or whatever it was that had hit her on the nose. She couldn’t see it in the water or in the mud at the bottom either. She vaguely recalled Star Glider wearing something of similar size and colour around a string on his neck, perhaps the same artefact? She scanned the sky but there was no sign of the green-feathered menace. That left her with only one rational option; attracting the attention of other ponies and hoping they were or knew a unicorn skilled enough to undo this. If nothing else, surely they could get word to one of the princesses, who would certainly be able to dispel hippogriff magic, right? Getting her bearings, the seapony oriented herself towards the oversize swan boat and began to kick her tail, sliding under the water as she picked up speed.
As the bizarreness of the new sensations began to recede, Ferret Keeper couldn’t help but feel excited. This was nothing like her previous encounters with deep water, which could be charitably described as a desperate struggle to keep her head above water. The water flowed easily over her smooth scales and she could turn one way, then the other, with a flick of a fin. Below her, clumps of pondweed gave way to full sized kelp forests as she moved out into deeper water. Gaining confidence, the semi-willing seapony nosed over and swam lower, joining the shoals of fish drifting through the depths, before speeding back up with powerful kicks. She effortlessly breached the surface, arching into the air surrounded by a spray of droplets, shouting “Woo-hoo!” at the top of her lungs before falling back and smacking flat onto the surface of the lake, sinking below it with an anticlimactic gurgle.
“Oww, oww, ok maybe there is a technique to that.” she muttered, sinking slowly back towards the bottom, scaly belly smarting from the impact. Looking around, she could see a dark shape on the surface that was probably the swan boat; a flapping movement at the back must be the drive system. The underside seemed to be painted red, but the colour was bleeding into the water somehow… Further examination was cut short as she became aware of four long brown-furred shapes approaching her, paddling steadily with webbed rear feet. “Oh, small-clawed river otters!” Ferret Keeper exclaimed with delight. She’d caught glimpses of the reclusive mustelids on previous trips to the reservoir, but had never seen them swimming underwater. These ones seemed particularly well fed, being rather plump in the middle. She hung motionless (or as near as she could manage, buoyancy control takes some practice) until the otters were floating in front of her, staring at her with oddly blank expressions.
“Um, hi?” she gave a little wave of one of the fins that had replaced her hooves. It was at times like this she wished she had Fluttershy’s special talent; the yellow pegasus was the only pony she knew who could talk to her ferrets as if they were other ponies, with complete mutual understanding. The otters continued to stare at her blankly, before turning as one and swimming off in a seemingly random direction. “Hey, where are you…” she began, and the creatures immediately stopped swimming and stared back at her, expectantly. “Do you want me to follow you? Is that it?” Ferret Keeper said, kicking her tail gently and closing the gap the otters had opened up. As soon as she began to move, all four immediately looked forward and began swimming again. “Ok then, I guess I’m following you…”
The creatures seemed to know exactly where they were going as they swam perfectly straight, leading her down into a deeper section of the lake. They spent several minutes pushing through thick green strands of slimy kelp before emerging into what she could only describe as an underwater clearing. Her tail fell still and she floated to a stop as her eyes took in the scene below.
It was nothing short of stunning. A substantial stone mansion had been abandoned here when the reservoir was created, its peaked roof now forty feet underwater. The house had possessed substantial formal gardens before being submerged, and miraculously they were still in good order, the original shrubs replaced with different kinds of aquatic plants. The classical sculptures were scrubbed clean of lichen and even the fountains had been given new life with shimmering, floating ribbons that danced and swayed in the currents as if to mimic the original sprays. Colourful fish were swimming through the ornamental maze and the whole scene was illuminated by shifting beams of sunlight shining through gaps in the duckweed above.
Once again, Ferret Keeper was entranced. This was a whole new world of aquatic horticulture, simultaneously new yet familiar. The river otters had split up and headed to different areas of the underwater garden, looking up at her as if imploring her to follow. Her new body was perfectly suited to explore it, and it was a joy do discover her new capabilities. She could happily spend hours exploring …. wait. Wait, this was… who had created all this? Who was maintaining it? A horrible feeling began to penetrate her euphoria as she realised she’d fallen for the same trick twice in one day. Suddenly she was very conscious of being in a strange body, in an alien environment, alone except for four… um, how long could otters hold their breath again? They were still down there, staring at her.
Panic began to rise, but she forced it back with determination to find the bird-creature she knew must be responsible for this. The seapony began to turn away, preparing to head back towards the surface. This produced a new sensation, tugging at her shoulders… a quick glance confirmed her fears. A new set of fins had begun to blossom out from her upper flanks. She was still transforming, and that could only mean… things suddenly clicked for Ferret Keeper as she realised what the red cloud around the boat must be. She began to kick for the surface, but almost immediately a loud keening made her start and look over her shoulder at the sunken garden below.
Eight glowing red eyes stared back at her as the keening rose to a crescendo. The four pseudo-otters exploded in clouds of steam and shredded brown fur, out of which drove sleek metallic shapes. The cigar-shaped chrome bodies each sported a cruel beak at the front, a pair of flippers emerging from the middle, and counter-rotating propellers at the tail, trailing a stream of cavitation bubbles as they drove through the water. The robot penguins had shed their disguises and were coming straight for her!
Ferret Keeper thrashed her tail as hard as she could, trying to reverse course without the benefit of landmarks or really any way to tell which way she was going. The blasted kelp was doing its best to entangle her, wrapping around her neck and forelegs as she struggled furiously to get into open water. Behind her, the ominous whirr of the mecha minions was getting louder and louder. With strength born of desperation the novice seapony broke free of the cloying strands and sped across the lake. There! The swan ship, rear paddles moving lazily, releasing something that looked like red fog into the water beneath it. Behind her… oh Celestia those things couldn’t be more than ten yards away. There was no time for a plan, all she could do was try the first idea that came to mind. The mechanical menaces were fast to be sure, but rigid and hopefully not too bright.
The underside of the giant waterfowl loomed larger and larger as Ferret Keeper zoomed towards it. She couldn’t afford a tight turn lest the synthetic penguins close the gap but she managed to stay out of the main plume of… whatever that stuff was, as she approached from the port rear quarter. The monstrous machines were so close she could feel her thrashing tail fin brush their beaks, snapping open and shut as they tried to clamp on. At the last possible second, she splayed out her fins and dove for the bottom, her spine bumping along the rounded bottom of the hull as she shot under it; thank Luna there was no protruding keel or she would have broken it. The robot penguins attempted to follow but were not so lucky, their fins actuating a second too late even as their propellers remained locked at emergency pursuit speed. The four steel missiles slammed into the strange vessel, punching through the thin white hull and exploding inside as their power sources shattered.
Winded and momentarily stunned by the shockwaves, Ferret Keeper flipped over and looked back at her handiwork. The explosion had rocked the ship half way to capsizing, and as it rolled back up a dark green shape crashed into the water in front of her. A large feathered shape, with two hooves, two bird claws, oversize wings and blue-green plumage streaming from its neck and tail. And around that neck… she gasped as she recognised the artefact responsible for her predicament. Kicking her tail again, she lunged forward just as the golden-white light enveloped the hippogriff stallion and he instinctively transformed into a shape akin to her own (albeit with much bigger wing-fins). Before the shocked bird-creature could understand what was happening, she had yanked the pearl amulet from around his neck and was swimming at full speed for the shore.
“Argh! Sybil, how could this happen… wait, what?” Star Glider pawed at his neck with a forefin, before his gaze settled on the thrashing pink tail fin of a seapony heading away from him as fast as possible. ”Ferret Keeper?! Come back! I can explain!” he shouted, as he set off in pursuit. Larger and a much more experienced swimmer, he gained steadily but couldn’t catch the mare before she reached the shore. Bursting out of the water and sliding onto the sand, she pressed a hoof-fin onto the amulet, closer her eyes tightly and concentrated on being a pony as hard as she could. “Come on, come on… yes! YES!” Another swirling lightshow faded to reveal the cream and pink pony as she’d been before this crazy underwater adventure. With a couple of substantial additions, that is.
His head popping out of the water just short of the shore, Star Glider stared at Ferret Keeper with an improbable mixture of admiration and despair. “No! So close, yet… so far. But progress, of a kind, I must say! Positively beautiful, perhaps, if you could just hide your forelegs behind that large rock…”
“What?!” she shouted back, instinctively stepping backwards with wings flared out. Wait… with what flared out? For the second time in under an hour Ferret Keeper found herself staring at her own body with a weird mix of horror and exhilaration. Feathered wings, but sensibly sized, still had all four hooves… “I’m a pegasus. You turned me into a pegasus.”
Closing her eyes for a second and struggling to get her emotions under control, she tried to keep her voice level. “Why did you do this to me?”
“A partial dose to be sure, no way to test it in advance, but it makes sense that a ground pony with a little more bird in them would be a pegasus, yes?”
“I… suppose. But why all this… ridiculously elaborate… planning just to make me a hippo-griff?”
The seapony smiled. “Oh no, my dear Ferret Keeper, you misunderstand. My goal has always been to bring the benefits of hippogriff existence to everypony. The pills were merely a sample, a test before I was ready to operate at scale.” He cocked his head to one; a gesture that apparently didn’t go away with the beak. “Do you realise this reservoir is the sole source of drinking water for no less than three towns and seven villages. Once the contents of Cybil’s tanks are properly mixed, the whole population should be transformed in, oh, not more than a week.”
“Hmm, that’s quite clev… I mean, that’s horrible!” she cried. ”You won’t get away with it! I’ll warn everypony! I’ll warn the princesses!”
The sea pony smiled wickedly and produced a grey box, cupped in one hoof-fin and topped with a bright red button. “All I need to do is press this and every drop of serum is dumped immediately! At such a concentration, one good sip will be enough to trigger the transformation!” He looked away, suddenly troubled ”Oh, without proper mixing some ground ponies might only become pegasi, and some might become birds entirely.” The maniacal smile quickly returned. “But I’m sure that can all be sorted out afterwards!”
The pegasus shivered, and then frowned. “How did you even build that thing? You said you spent your entire family fortune on the giant laser chicken.”
“Oh I did. Sacrifices had to be made, if the work was to continue.” Star Glider looked anguished. “I had to… sell my entire collection of Groundlanders. Even the special editions. Especially the special editions.” Seeing Ferret Keeper’s blank look, he tried to clarify. “You know, the figurines that work with the magical game boards? Highly collectible, went out of production a few years back? No?”
The pegasus shook her head, trying to ignore this latest madness. ”But… if you’d just left me alone and gone ahead with it... it would have worked. No one would have known until ponies started getting eagle heads. Why in Equestria did you set up those traps and go through all that effort to make me a sea pony?”
Star Glider’s expression of surprise was easier for her to recognise now that he had an almost normal pony face (ignoring the fin-ears). “Why? Isn’t it obvious? You are my nemesis! If I hadn’t ensnared you in tailored traps of devious design and distracted you from the very ponyhood that drives you to futilely oppose my plans, you would surely have interfered!”
“That makes no sense!” Ferret Keeper shouted, her wings stiff and her face flustered, ”If I’m your ‘nemesis’, it’s only because you made me into one!”
To that the seapony stared off into space for a moment. “They do say we create that which destroys us.” he said, philosophically, before his gaze snapped back to Ferret Keeper, the manic gleam back in his eyes. “But you cannot destroy my destiny!” With a triumphant grin he mashed his other fin down on the gleaming red button.
Out in the lake, the swan ship had been paddling around in small circles, one leg trailing uselessly behind, its driving mechanisms smashed by the misguided mecha-penguins. At the touch of the button, the paddling stopped, the head dipped towards the water and the 100 foot wingspan began to unfurl. The machine was pointed directly at the beach where the pegasus and seapony were watching in horror.
“No, no, not flight mode. Sybil, what are you doing?!” shouted Star Glider, futilely mashing the button again and again. With an enormously deep HONK the robot swan began to beat its huge steel wings, surging forward and straining to lift from the water. It was not to be; while the good leg lifted into hydroplane position, the broken one dragged behind, kicking up a massive rooster tail of water and preventing the ship from reaching take-off speed. The robo-swan tilted and slewed around, one wingtip smacking into the water while the other lurched skyward, smoke and sparks trailing from its damaged hindquarters. While it wasn’t getting airborne, it was moving with frightening speed; on an arc that would take it directly into the centre of the dam.
“Sybil!” wailed the seapony again, as his doomed creation struck the lip of the wide stone structure. It bounced into the air, underside gashed and crumpled, while the top of the dam began to crumble and buckle, as if in slow motion. The noise arrived a few seconds later: a thunderous clank followed by cracking and rumbling as millions of tons of water began to force themselves inexorably through the breach. Star Glider immediately turned tail and swam away, vanishing into the depths of the lake before Ferret Keeper could say another word, leaving her alone on the shore.
A literal tidal wave of chaos and destruction was heading for Ponyville, and Ferret Keeper was the only one who could help. Without thinking she she slung the peal amulet around her neck and flung herself into the air, gaining altitude and streaking over the dam through sheer force of will. At least the breech seemed limited to the top section, but a lot of water was pouring through all the same. Snapping her head up into the wind, she caught a glimpse of the damaged mecha-swan, winging its way down the canyon. It seemed to be losing altitude fast, which she was thankful for given the fleet of balloons and flying machines drifting slowly up the valley. In fact it was heading right for…
The flailing ornithopter flew straight and true between the paired trunks of Twin Pine Falls, seemingly determined to test the old irresistible force, immovable object paradox. Neither proved up to the challenge as the machine burst apart into three large pieces and an enormous shower of fragments, with two shattered flanks spiralling away, wings still attached and flapping madly. Meanwhile the long neck and central body, now shorn of all adornment, became a bobsled bouncing madly down the valley towards Ponyville, shedding gears and springs with every impact. As for the pines, one trunk managed to withstand the onslaught but the other was not so fortunate, shattering into splinters and kindling from the force of the impact.
Ferret Keeper watched in horror as one flailing wing clipped an oversize hang glider; she could see three tiny bodies strapped beneath, screaming as they were knocked into a wild spin. Pulling her wings in, she dove towards them, determined to stop the looming crash… somehow. Flaring her wings back out a little to late, her hooves hit the central strut, and… it was impossibly light. Somehow, the whole glider and its three passengers felt like it weighed a few pounds. All she had to do was gently steer as they floated down to earth; she aimed for a clearing half way up the valley wall, mindful of the flood following close behind. Was this how the guard pegasi propelled those massive air carriages?
Her grin of triumph was cut short by the sight of the swan-ship’s other wing sailing into the purple envelope of the nearest hot air balloon, trailing sparks and wires as it sliced the fragile vessel into ribbons. A fresh set of screams filled the air as the basket began to plummet into the chaos below. The cream pegasus flapped her aching wings once again, futilely trying to reach the falling ponies, but there was no way she could reach the far side of the valley before…
A dark green shape swooped down out of her peripheral vision and gracefully caught the severed basket, carrying the six ponies inside as if they were nothing. His huge wings flapped firmly as he pulled upwards and set his cargo down gently on the ridge overlooking the valley.
“Star Glider! You came back!” she shouted, even if it was doubtful that he could hear her over the utter chaos still unfolding through her beloved Dapple Dene. Her lips pulled back into a slight smile; yes, he was horribly reckless and incredibly… misguided, but at least the hippogriff was genuinely concerned about ponies getting hurt. It was at this point, as the adrenaline receded, that she realised she was being held up by two new appendages she absolutely no idea how to use. Suddenly losing her grip on the air, she tumbled and fell; wings flailing uselessly, instinctively closing her eyes as the unforgiving ground rushed up to meet her.
Instead of a bone-shattering impact, she felt giant bird claws wrap around her barrel, lifting her back up into the sky. Opening her eyes, she saw that raptor face again, looking down at her with another beak-gaping smile. “Easy, easy. I’ve got you. Just spread your wings and glide, like this.” the hippogriff suggested.
The pegasus stretched her wings out again, feeling her air underneath, adjusting the angle until it seemed right. Her body seemed lighter again, and after a few seconds she felt confident enough to nod. The claws released her, and she was gliding on her own. “Thanks! For catching me, I mean! Not for any of the other crazy stuff you did, just to be clear”
“How do you like being a pegasus?” he asked.
“Scary! But awesome! Uh, I mean, not as bad as I thought, when I’ve got wings to keep me up…” her voice trailed off as her eyes focused on the scene below. The last intact section of the swan ship; the head, neck and forward part of the central body; was sliding down the last part of the valley, ponies screaming and galloping away from it. Directly ahead was the layered cylindrical shape of the Carousel Boutique, looking rather like a wedding cake from this altitude. Surely the mangled robot would stop short of the Ponyville landmark, it couldn’t have that much momentum left…
With a grinding screech the wreckage slid to a halt, its metal beak protruding just far enough to smash through one of the boutique’s windows. The machine let out one final, distorted HONK! and fell silent for good, save for residual hissing and sparking. The same could not be said of the building’s owner, who waited mere seconds before proclaiming this was the most heinous and unfortunate event that had ever befallen any pony in the history of Equestria. This in turn appeared to summon a certain blue blur, streaking rapidly towards them and trailing a rainbow as it weaved between the remaining flying machines.
Ferret Keeper looked back at her hippogriff wingman, but he was already gone, having peeled off and headed back up the valley as fast as his wings could take him. The blue blur streaked past the cream pegasus, tossing her around in its wake and nearly causing her to fall out of the air again, and headed straight for Star Glider. Seconds before it could catch him, he dived towards the rushing flood waters and disappeared into a half-flooded cavity. She recognised it as the entrance to Blue Jenny Grotto, supposedly a sizable cave system although she’d never found the courage to venture into it herself. Unable to follow its quarry underwater, the blue blur slowed down and resolved itself into a very frustrated Rainbow Dash, who zoomed back over to Ferret Keeper at an only slightly less breakneck pace.
“Weasel Herder? You’re a pegasus now?” she said, staring at the cream pony’s new wings. “Was it that insane hippogriff again?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Ferret Keeper was panting now, both from physical exhaustion and the delayed impact of all the stress and confusion. An hour ago, everything had been normal. ”Look, I really need to warn everpony…” she croaked, struggling to stay coherent. ”The water is… dangerous, someone has to tell the Princess…”
“Dangerous huh? Turning ponies into pegasi doesn’t sound so bad. But… I guess he was trying to make us all hippogriffs again? That would not be cool.” The blue pegasus tossed her multihued mane, as if to emphasise that she didn’t want it replaced with feathers.
”Yeah so anyway, you need to talk to Twilight?” the other mare asked. ”Honestly, you don’t look so good, and I guess you haven’t really figured out flying yet? Tell you what, I’ll fly you over to her, you can fill her in. Then I can concentrate on getting all these crazy contraptions down safely. Deal?”
“Deal.” Ferret Keeper said weakly.
The glow of alicorn magic subsided, leaving Ferret Keeper’s wings tingling. “And that should do it”, the princess said with a definite note of satisfaction. “I’ve completely purged the toxin, which will cut the time you have to put up with the effects from three weeks to twelve hours. Those wings should shrink down overnight and disappear completely by tomorrow morning. You were lucky, a slightly higher dose and it would have been permanent.”
“Lucky? Sure, I was lucky.” the cream mare said despondently, staring at her soon to disappear wings.
“Oh, Chrysanthemum Yearning, what that hippogriff did to you was horrible, but it wasn’t…”
“Ferret Keeper” she interrupted, too tired to care if she was breaching royal protocol.
“…your fau… What?”
“Everypony kept mispronouncing Chrysanthemum. But they’ve seen me walking the ferrets, so… Ferret Keeper rolls off the tounge better anyway.”
“…Riiiight. Ferret Keeper, Equestria is in your debt. Without your warning, who knows how many ponies would have been affected. Of course the clean up and decontamination will take approximately thirty seven more days, assuming Celestia sends another two Hazmat teams, but I think we can confidently say the crisis is over and the situation is under control!” The alicorn was pacing around the throne room again, glancing at the magical situation map hovering over the central table. ”It’s just a shame about the festival… and my balloon… and the trees, I suppose we’ll have to call it Lone Pine Falls now…”
“Um, princess, if I could ask… what happened to Star Glider?”
“That unhinged hippogriff? I’m sorry to say, he slipped away again. Of course we couldn’t enter the grotto until the flooding subsided; I posted pegasi to watch the known exits…” with a tiny gesture of her horn, several icons were highlighted on the map “…but it turns out the lower cavern connects to an underground river…”
Trying to put the shaken cream mare at ease, she continued “Don’t worry! Wanted posters are already going up, all over Equestria, and I’ll see to it our allies have his description as well. Queen Novo has already apologised and promised to redouble hippogriff efforts to bring this menace to justice.” The lavender alicorn sighed and looked away. “It’s a shame really, some of these designs are really quite amazing. If only that ingenuity had been applied to good instead of evil.”
After a day that had seemed like an eternity, Ferret Keeper finally made it back to her cottage. Her saddle bags dropped to the floor, and their two inhabitants spilled out to join the tide of tiny furry bodies mobbing her body. Once the feeder was refilled, the litter boxes cleaned out and the water replaced, she could finally go to bed. But first, she reached behind a cabinet and hoofed out a small jar from the hidden cavity. Inside were two gleaming red pills. Next, she pulled on a cord hastily woven into her mane, and retrieved the pearl amulet; the one she’d taken from the hippogriff. The cream pony stared at it for some time, her expression unreadable, before dropping it in the jar with the pills, replacing the cap, and placing the stash back in its hidey hole.
Author's Note
I swear I wasn't planning to add another chapter, much less one that more than triples the total word count, but once the story was added to this illustrious collection of fine literature, I felt I had to up my game. Dapple Dene is a real place in Northumberland, UK (slightly renamed). Sybil was of course the ill-fated three-headed clockwork griffon in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Lone Pine Mall (originally Twin Pines Mall) was the site of the world's first time travel event, on October 26th 1985.
