The Locating and Capturing of Your Final Boss
The Canterlot Catacombs are an enticing local for any aspiring explorer. Miles and miles of tunnels that are sitting right beneath the very heart of Equestria, yet still largely unmapped and unexplored despite thousands of years of habitation. For the more exploratively inclined it’s like an ancient heap of treasure sitting in somepony's yard that they keep saying they’ll get around to sorting out one day but never do, frustrating and enticing in equal measure. How could any adventure seeking creature deny themselves such an incredible and easily accessible journey?
The answer lies in a very simple fact: the Canterlot Catacombs have been left unexplored for so long because doing so would be a wide awake night terror. Miles and miles of overlapping tunnels are difficult enough to map, but the Catacombs in particular are filled to the brim with thaumically charged crystals whose interference which make any magical mapping extremely difficult.
But the caverns most vexing trait is that said crystals change shape and even location in response to powerful magical surges. As the Catacombs are located directly beneath Canterlot, seat of Equestrian royalty who manage the changing of night and day, surges happen on an extremely regular basis, currently once every twenty four hours in fact. While surges only happen half as often now as every twelve hour surges of the reign of Celestia and Luna, the natural catacombs tendency to completely rearrange all landmarks and accessible tunnels makes mapping or exploring them both extremely difficult and largely pointless.
And so it was that despite the allure and glory that these caves offered, they had long been abandoned by even the most determined of explorers. One would have to be either incredibly overconfident or simply foolish to attempt to conquer such a cavern.
Flurry Heart was having the time of her life down in the catacombs. figuring out how to sneak down here while her mom and dad met with Auntie Twily’s council of friendship was definitely one of the best decisions of her life! And so long as she made it back before the meeting was over the guards that her daddy posted would almost never admit how they had lost track of her again so she would never get in trouble! She was so proud of herself for arranging such a perfect set up, the guards got time off and Flurry got to explore these cool caves!
Flurry giggled as she made faces into the naturally mirror bright crystals which lined the catacombs as she zipped through the narrow passages. She loved the catacombs, since unlike the rest of canterlot they were full of bright and shiny crystals just like back home! She let out a soft snort at the thought of the white castle above. Sure it was nice looking, but it didn’t really compare to the Empire’s crystal spires and domes. Honestly she couldn’t understand why ponies insisted on building their homes out of such drab materials when it was so easy to make beautiful crystals!
Of course the catacombs were, in some small ways, even better than Flurry’s home because they were always different for her when she came! Always full of new pretty crystals, new exciting paths, and new little crevices that only a filly like her could fit through to let her get away from daddy’s guard detail whenever she wanted. It was almost like they had been made as a perfect little playground for foals like her! She giggled again as a warped piece of crystal, probably as sharp as one of her daddy’s guard’s spears, distorted her image to give her a pinhead. Such a silly funny place the catacombs.
“Growthf!”
Flurry started at the noise and stalled in the air, flapping reducing her glide to a hover. Had she just heard... No it couldn’t have been. There weren’t any living things down in the catacombs. But she couldn’t help but shake that whatever that sound had been had really sounded like something growling. Ever the curious filly, Flurry lowered herself down to the ground and stat down with eyes closed, swiveling her ears about to try and pick up-
“Grrrrrrowth!”
There! Flurry beamed as she turned towards the sound, which she was delighted to find was yet another tiny filly sized hole. The sound had definitely come from down that little hole! Flurry was giddy with excitement at her discovery. Clearly some little critter had managed to get lost down in the catacombs, and needed Flurry to save them. Without a moment's hesitation she dove down the hole to rescue the poor little creature.
This was of course an action that was largely shaped by two things. Firstly, Flurry had lived her entire life surrounded by ponies that everycreature called heroes. From her Mother and Father to her Aunt Twilight Sparkle and Uncle Spike and even their friends the Elements of Harmony, most of her role models were defined by daring and virtuous deeds. Growing up in such an environment meant that Flurry Heart attempted to perform her own heroic deeds of her own whenever possible, largely resulting in chaos but occasionally earning her the praise of said role models.
Secondly, Flurry Heart had been born and Alicorn and so had severely underdeveloped survival instincts. Any other pony would naturally have considered their location, a deep dark hole almost a mile underground, and asked themselves what kind of creature would have been able to make it down to this section of the catacombs let alone survive and turned tail and ran. Having never faced a single creature outside of her friends and family who could even come close to overpowering her, and perhaps also by spending a bit to much time with her Aunt Fluttershy and Uncle Discord, Flurry Heart had developed an understanding of wild creatures that put grizzly bears on the same tier of danger as puppies and squirrels.
And so it was that Flurry Heart descended deeper and deeper into the depths of the catacombs following the occasional growls of a creature that in her mind was going to be fluffy and lovely and huggable and so happy to see that a princess had come to it’s rescue. She was so set on her goal that she completely failed to notice the shiny green shell that she stomped on as she dashed down the tunnel, or the claw and fang marks which now covered almost every crystal she passed.
Deep down the long tunnel that now suddenly had a princess descending, It gnawed on a rock that was being annoyingly stubborn about giving up it’s tasty contents. It didn’t have anything else to do but gnaw on the rock, but It still prefered that the process go faster, especially because lately it seemed like the rocks had less tasty stuff in them. That was frustrating for It, since it meant more time wandering to find more tasty rocks and less time sleeping. It Liked sleeping. It was It’s second favourite thing to do after eating tasty rocks.
Suddenly It heard something, which startled It to no end. A new thing? It had never encountered a new thing in It’s Entire life, though that was admittedly only a few months at most. It didn’t know how it knew that, or what a month was. it just knew through the Knowing that told it there was tasty stuff in the rocks that it was a few months old.
It briefly wondered what “old” was.
It shook itself out of it’s sudden existential ponderings and turned It’s Attention back to the new thing. The new thing was probably dangerous, new things usually were. It had never met a new thing before but the Knowing assured It that most new things were dangerous. And dangerous was a bad thing, which was even more bad because the new thing was definitely coming closer.
“Hold tight little guy, the Brave and Beautiful and Humble Princess Flurry Heart is on her way to save you!”
That made It perk up. Those sounds were word sounds, the knowing knew about words, and some of the words were very interesting. The Knowing Knew the word Princess, and what the Knowing told It that Princesses were tasty, even tastier than the tastiest of the tasty rocks.
That thought made It happy, but it was still worried because even if the new thing was a tasty Princess it was still a new thing, and the Knowing knew that new was known to be dangerous. It carefully weighed its options, weighing if getting to feed on a tasty Princess was worth meeting a dangerous new thing.
It didn’t get to consider for long, as in the middle of the deepest thoughts that It had had in it’s young life something new and bright and PINK burst into the cave. It froze immediately, suspended in a mix of fear and... Fascination.
As she burst into the room Flurry Heart found herself face to face with something exceedingly rare for her: something new! As a princess she had often been dragged along on diplomatic missions by her parents, aunts, and even on one occasion her Crystaler Sunburst. She had seen almost every creature from Buffalo to Kirin in her short life, and every animal from squirrels to Tatzlwurms as well. For her to encounter something new...
Well excited was an understatement. Flurry didn’t even have the words to express what she was feeling now, and she suspected that only her aunt Pinkie and maybe Auntie Twily’s favorite thesaurus did. And the way this new creature looked!
It’s head was a shiny almost black turquoise and made of a hard shell, yet emereging from that hard shell was a dull greenish greyish teal mane. it’s teeth were the same black shell substance as it’s head and visible as if it’s head were just a skill. Set deep into the skull like sockets of it’s head shell were a set of glowing turquoise eyes. It’s body was covered in mossy looking fur a slightly lighter colour than it’s mane, broken up by more segments of shell like armour that reminded Flurry of the model skeleton that sat in the corner of her science class. It had a long tail and arms, all covered with sell segments that reminded her of a snake skeleton and ending in clawed hands. A droplet of drool fell from it’s mouth to the ground, creating a his as it started eating through the stone.
It was...
It stared at the new thing with amazement. Not only was the new thing a vibrant, brilliant pink in the vision that It usually used, which the Knowing now informed it was called thaumic vision, but coming from the horn in the center of the new things head was a light that was allowing It to use what the Knowing called normal vision for the first time in it’s lift to see how very pink the creature's physical form.
It was a quarter of the new thing, the Princesses It decided, size which was worrying. The Princess also had wings, though they seemed very large and were completely unprotected by a hard shell like It’s own. Actually it seemed like the whole body of the princess seemed bizarrely unprotected to It. She was missing any kind of shell, leaving her whole body a vulnerable fuzzy pink mass. Even her head, adorned with that light making horn and a blue and somehow even more pink mane, was completely shell less. This confused It. It wondered if the reason that a Princess was Tastier than Tasty rocks was that it was easier to eat than the tasty rocks? That made sense to It.
Suddenly to It’s great alarm, the Princess spoke.
“Oh my goodness you are the cutest thing in the entire world!” The princess said in word sounds louder than anything It had even heard before.
Cute? What was cute It wondered, and It quickly checked to see if the Knowing knew what Cute was. The Knowing did in fact known what cute was, and informed It that it was a good thing. This did not calm It down in the slightest. The only good thing that another thing could be called it had known about before today was Tasty! If Cute was a good thing then it was the same kind of thing as tasty! The tasty Princess was going to eat It before It even got a chance to taste any tasty Princess!
As the Princess reared up on its hind legs It knew what it had to do.
“GRAOWARARAWAAR!” It roared, louder than any sound it had ever made or even heard before, and lunged at the Princess, readying itself for a battle to the death.
“Thank you so much for having us at your meeting again girls,” Cadence said happily as she levitated the papers she had brought back into their case. “I know how much these monthly gatherings meant to you girls, and it means the world to me and Shiny that you would let us intrude on your special time together.”
“Aw tweren’t nothin princess,” Applejack responded, “Yall have the right to contribute to how we help run Equestria anyway. Not to mention that you two are our friends too!” She stretched as she stood up from the table, as dis all of the others who lacked alicorn resilience. “and of course,we really needed to get this sorted sooner than later,” she added.
“And I’m sure the reason you’re in such a good mood has nothing to do with how profitable this is going to be to your family AJ?” Shiny said jokingly.
“Ah am a steadfast member of the Equestrian governemnt now Shin’in,” Applejack said with mock offense before breaking into a contented grin, “But ah must admit knowing that mah family won’t ta worry as much about makin ends meet does put a smile on my face.”
It had been an extra long meeting, owing to a slight market crisis. Evidently the crystal which Crystal Ponies built their homes out and paved their streets with was not in fact enchanted Ice as had long been assumed, but resonance crystal, a substance that formed the foundation for all magitechnology in equestria.
It was a pleasant surprise that the reason for the sudden economic crisis was not overzealous lobbyist wanting to keep the price of the crystals high or crystal ponies not wanting to sell, it was a much stranger reason. The crystal empire had abolished the concept of currency within its borders around one thousand five hundred years ago as a symbol of the magical unity the Crystal Heart granted. The Geodic Council who advised Cadence was not pleased at the idea of bringing it back just for a trade deal, and so asked Cadence to negotiate a different way for them to profit from their newfound resource.
They had managed to reach an agreement that pleased both the Equestrians and Crystal Imperials; the magitech producers would buy food and then trade that for the crystals they wanted. It stimulated equestrias economy, and provided much needed food to the recently reactivated satellite cities that the Empire had been trying to repopulate whose ersatz Crystal Hearts hadn’t drawn enough power to allow for farmland yet.
“Well I for one and delighted at the price drop this is going mean for automatic sewing machines, “Rarity added as she delicately put away her decorated Council of Friendship binder, as well readjusting both Rainbow Dash and Applejacks messily stowed documents. “I’ve never been able to justify buying one for my shops, but now I will finally be able to see what all the fuss is about!”
“You know what makes me happy?” Pinkie asked in a slightly more excited tone than usual, “how much better this is gonna make so many of my party setups! Cheese is gonna flip when I tell him that that super pricey sound system he’s been eyeing is about to be twenty apples!”
“Equestria isn’t switching to a barter system Pinkie,” Twilight corrected as she absentmindedly organized her own stack of papers, “we’re just accommodating the Crystal Empires unique approach to harmony.”She turned to Shining and Cadence and smiled warmly, “And you know that I’m always happy to have you vist. I miss my BBBFF and my favorite Foalsitter slash government Mentor. And my favorite niece of course.”
“Oh, speaking of Flurry, where is the little dear?” Fluttershy asked as she glanced towards the door. Shinings smile faltered and he let out an exaspherated sigh. Fluttershy winced. “Oh dear, did she get into the catacombs again?”
“Last my guards saw her, she had slipped into one ofthe lower entrances,” he said as he massaged his temples with his hooves, “Which was too small for any of them to follow her. She thinks my guards just don’t report when they lose her out of shame or something,” He explained. the last part came out as a grumble more than a sentance.
“We’re following our new family counsellors advice,” Cadence said, with a tone that sounded more like she was reminding herself than explaining, “and Happy Hearth says that Flurry needs to explore and find her own boundaries so understand why they are there. Too many boundaries and expectations is why Shiny and Twilight both have such bad anxiety. We need to “let her fail on her own terms”.” The certainty of Cadneces wording did not at all carry into her clearly worried tone.
“Aw you’re worrying too much Cadence!” Rainbow dash said, flying around the pink princess and patting her on the shoulder. “It’s just the catacombs, we’ve dealt with them before and Flurry has a tracker spell on her. So the absolute worst that can happen is that she gets lost, we find her, and she learns a valuable lesson about trusting and respecting her parents.”
“I supposed your right”, Cadence signed. She briefly lit her horn and smiled. “Oh good, she’s already out of the Catacombs and coming to see us! You were right Rainbow Dash I was overreac-”
At that exact moment a bright blue magical field slammed the doors open to reveal a hovering flurry heart with a creature that looked like it had spawned in the deepest pits of tartarus in her forlegs, gnawing on her right hoof.
“MOMMY DADDY LOOK AT THIS KITTY I FOUND! CAN I KEEP HIM! HE’S SO CUTE!” Flurry Heart screamed at the top of her Royal Canterlot Voice enhanced lungs.
The creature ceased it’s gnawing, looked around the room, growled at everycreature present and went back to chewing. In return, the Elements of Harmony and Sovereign rulers of the Crystal Empire stared back at the excited child and her hellspawn with gaping mouths.
“So is that a yes?” Flurry asked with a gleefuly.
Author's Note
Well I haven't done this in a while. Hopefully you enjoy this if you read it. Mostly I'm just happy it's no longer going to be taking up real estate in my brain.
The Reveal and Adorableness of Your Final Boss
For a brief moment, silence ruled the room. Well, silence if you ignored the clicking of Kitty’s chewing and quiet contented growls.
Flurry looked around the room, confused as to why everypony was acting so weird. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were just staring at her, Pinkie Pie and Rarity had jumped behind Auntie Twilight when she spread out her wings for some reason, and Fluttershy was just giving Kitty a weird but excited look. Her parents just looked tired for some reason, and her Daddy’s old eye twitch was back.
After several seconds that felt like hours for most of the room, it was Flurry’s mother who finally gathered the presence of mind to ask the obvious question.
“Nordica Flurria Cuore, what under Celestia’s Sun is that!”
Flurry blinked in surprise, both at the use of her extremely rarely used full name and that her mommy would ask such a silly question. Her mommy wasn’t as super smart as Auntie Twilight, but she was usually a better listener. Why would she ask a question Flurry had just answered?
“He’s my Kitty!” She raised Kitty towards her assembled family and friends for emphasis. Her smile began to falter as she finally took in the tone of the room and noticed that nopony but Auntie Fluttershy seemed excited about kitty at all. Her parents were making really funny faces now, which Flurry could tell were bad faces if she wanted to keep her Kitty,
“I found him when he was in trouble and I saved him,” She explained. She quickly put on her best pout, the one that got Daddy or Uncle Sunburst to give her extra cookies. “I don’t want him to get back into trouble again so... Can I keep him? Please he’s really cute and nice!” She said gesturing to the mossy-skeleton-monster that was actively attempting to chew through her hoof with needle sharp teeth. The Adults continued to stare at her, uncomprehending of her new pet’s incredible cuteness.
“Flurry dear,” her father said in a tone normally reserved for his newest recruits. “We understand that it is your... Kitty.” He was even rubbing his temples like when he talked to the newest guards now too. Flurry wondered why.
“What we would like to know is... everything else about him dear,” Cadence said in a diplomatic tone, taking over for her husband. “You mentioned that you found him when he was in trouble, right? Could you tell us a little bit more about that?”
Flurry beamed at the chance to share her heroic exploits then faltered as she suddenly remembered that she had been breaking rules when she saved her kitty. Quickly, Flurry drew upon her princessly wit to spin a new tale that would cover up her misdeeds.
“Oh, you know I was... uh... just kinda around Canterlot and went down a really narrow... uhhhhhh.... alley, yeah, and I found Kitty chewing and scratching on some... errrrr-” Her Aunt Twilight held up a hoof for her to stop, making Flurry pause nervously.
“We know that you went down into the catacombs Flurry,” her Aunt said, clearly amused by her attempt to conceal her wrongdoing. “It’s important that you give us the full story, so no fibbing okay.”
“Ah’m not even sure you could call that fibbin,” Applejack muttered, “even ah coulda done better than that.”
Flurry gasped. She had been discovered? But she had been so sure that she had gotten away from her guards cleanly! And how had her Aunt seen through her story telling so easily? She glanced at her parents who thankfully didn’t look mad, still just kind of tired.
“Twily is right sweetie. Telling the truth is more important here than any rules. We will be having a talk about your catacomb adventures later though Flurry Heart.” Shining said, still massaging his head.
Flurry gulped, and shot a nervous glance down at her kitty for moral support. Kitty continued to chew on her hoof, completely oblivious to or at least actively ignoring everything going on around him. She giggled at how adorable he was. Cheered enough to properly tell the real story, Flurry took a deep breath and launched into her Epic Tale.
Flurry was a little worried about how the little creature she had found hadn’t moved since she found it. Maybe there was something that was scaring it? Her eyes searched all around the small room but couldn’t see anything. Maybe it was just nervous? Yes, Flurry was certain that that was it her new little friend was just nervous.
Drawing upon all of her vast stores of friendship knowledge from being the niece of the Princess of Friendship, she prepared her greatest friend making technique.
“Hi there!” She said in the Aunt-Pinkie-Pie-est tone as she could manage as she stood up on her hind legs to give her new friend a big hug. “I’m Flurry Heart and we’re going to best friends forever!”
And her plan worked perfectly, the little creature completely unfroze and leapt towards her screaming with unrestrained joy at the idea of being her friend. It accepted and reciprocated her hug with both it’s weird snake like arms and it’s weird clawed tail. It even started giving flurry little kisses on her foreleg! She giggled, “stop that you silly billy, it tickles!”
It didn’t understand what was happening. This was harder than the rocks. How was the Princess harder than the rocks!? Try as It might it couldn’t get it’s teeth to even puncture the fur of this Princess thing. At least It was still getting tasty stuff out of the Princess, but that wouldn’t matter much when she started eating It!
Then as It growled and redoubled it’s efforts when it felt something... odd. A strange rhythmic feeling across it’s back that was... actually pleasant. Actually extremely pleasant! It glanced away from it’s chewing, though didn’t dare to stop, to see what was causing the sensation. The Princess was stroking It’s back with her hooves for some reason instead of striking It to dislodge and kill It for some reason.
“Aw you are just the cutest little guy,” The Princess said as she stroked. “How did a little cutie get down to a dangerous place like this? You could have gotten hurt down here, poor little guy that would’ve been terrible.”
It was very confused. The Princess had just called It cute again, but also said that she didn’t want It to get hurt? But if she didn’t want to hurt It, did that mean that she didn’t want to eat It for It’s tasty stuff? Maybe... Maybe cute was a different kind of good than tasty afterall? Or maybe she could just feed instead of eating like It could...
It was so very confused and the stroking was soooo nice that thinking was quickly becoming difficult. But the Princess wasn’t hurting It, and it was still getting plenty of nice tasty stuff from her so maybe it was okay for It to just let whatever came next happen.
“Come on little guy, let’s get you out of here. I can’t wait to show you to Mommy and Daddy!”
Normally It would have checked with the Knowing what exactly ‘out of here’ or ‘mommy and daddy’ meant. Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, It was experiencing a pleasant sensation other than eating for the first time in It’s life, and that was rather distracting. So instead of interrogating the special source of all of It’s Knowledge, It simply went limp and continued halfheartedly nibbling the Princesses hoof as she carried it up and out of the caves and the only home It had ever known.
“... And then when we got out of the catacombs Kitty got annoyed for a little bit because the light was so shiny and he was only used to caves I guess? But he got better soon and then we came here and I showed Kitty to all of you!” Flurry Heart concluded cheerfully.
She made sure her conclusion was extra happy, because in truth she was feeling pretty anxious. Her tale of daring exploration and selfless heroism had gotten a much more mixed reaction than she had been anticipating. Auntie Rainbow and Pinkie were the only ones who had the kind of reception that she had been hoping for, both clearly proud and impressed in her heroism.
Rarity and Applejack had a strange look on their faces like they were watching something they had seen before. They had kept glancing knowingly at each other the entire story, muttering something about how, “she is the same age they were when they started.”
Her parents had at least stopped just looking tired, but now they looked almost as worried as when she had been getting her first flight lessons. That was probably bad, but she figured that they had let her take the flight lessons anyway, so maybe they would let her keep Kitty?
Lastly Auntie Princess Twilight and Auntie Fluttershy had the oddest reaction in Flurry’s opinion, both looking at Kitty instead of Flurry the entire story. Auntie Twilight had the look she got when she was thinking real hard, but Auntie Fluttershy looked more curious than thoughtful.
“So you didn’t see any other animals or creatures down there at all Flurry?” Fluttershy asked, still without looking up at Flurry herself. Flurry didn’t understand why that was important but Fluttershy was probably her best chance at convincing her parents to let her keep Kitty, so she nodded.
“No Auntie. No creatures or animals the entire time except for Kitty.”
“And you didn’t see any bones around where you found Kitty?”
That was a starling question. She hugged Kitty tighter to her chest. “ Kitty isn’t a meanie who fills his cave with bones! He’s a nice Kitty!” She protested.
Fluttershy finally looked up from Kitty to Flurry herself and gave her a knowing smile. “I’m sure he is a nice Kitty dear, but all creatures need to eat something and if you want to keep Kitty it’s important to know what that is.” Both of her parents blanched at that, but Fluttershy kept on going. “He’s clearly been surviving on his own for a while, so whatever it is that he eats would probably be left around his cave. Bones would mean he eats meat, scraps of fruit husk or twigs if he eats plants. Can you remember anything that was in the cave where you found him Flurry?”
Pleased her Aunt was indeed on board with letting Kitty stay with her, she concentrated hard on remembering the cave she saved Kitty from. “I don’t remember there being any bones or sticks down there.” she said as she thought back carefully. “Actually, I don’t remember there being anything down there at all. Not even poop which is weird if Kitty had been stuck down there for a while.” She frowned, trying to recall if there was anything down in the catacombs that her friend could have been eating. Then a small detail jumped back into her head. “Oh wait there was one weird thing I noticed on my way out! Around where Kitty was there were a lot of scratches and even some bite marks on the crystals! I thought maybe he was just scratching at them for fun but maybe he’s like Uncle Spike and eats rocks! We have lots of rocks back home!”
“Gems sweetie, your Uncle eats gems.” Her mother corrected. “Though I supposed we do have plenty of those at home.” Her father shot Cadence a betrayed look, to which she only gave a resigned shrug. “It’s the truth dear. I’m not saying she can keep it.”
“It’s certainly possible he could be a Gemmavore like a dragon, though I don’t recall the Canterlot catacombs having enough gems to support one.” Fluttershy muttered thoughtfully as she trotted over from the table to Flurry and Kitty, apparently not having noticed Flurry’s parents' exchange. Fluttershy was well and truly in New-Critter-Mode. “I suppose since he’s still so small it’s possible that he was able to last that long due to a smaller appetite, but on the other hoof he’s not that smaller than Spike was when he came to ponyville and he needed quite a lot of gems. And of course if he was eating the rocks in the catacombs...” She trailed off as she inspected the little creature contentedly chewing on her nieces hoof. “Flurry dear, I think I need a better look at Kitty. Do you think you could get his attention for me?”
“Of course!” Flurry said with an excited nod. She stopped petting Kitty and gently prodded him. Almost immediately Kitty stopped chewing and instead turned to glare at her questioningly. “Heya Kitty, there’s someone I want you to meet,” She explained as she gestured towards her aunt. “This is Fluttershy. She’s super nice and kind and stuff so you should definitely trust her and say hi to her.”
Kitty turned his head from Flurry towards her Aunt and tilted his head cautiously. Fluttershy smiled and extended a hoof, which the creature sniffed carefully before retracting back away from the yellow mare.
“Aw don’t be scared little guy,” Fluttershy cooed in her most soothing tone, slowly reaching her hoof towards Kitty as she spoke. “I’m a good pony, I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to get a little bit of a closer look so I can figure out what you are.”
Kitty seemed to react when Fluttershy said she was a good pony, turning his head back to her and once again sniffing it. Then, with a small but extremely fast movement, Kitty nipped Fluttershy on the hoof. Flurry Heart gasped in horror, but Fluttershy’s smile seemed to widen even further.
“Oh my! How fascinating, so the little dear is a...” The sentence went unfinished as Fluttershy’s eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
“No! Bad kitty!” Flurry scolded her pet, who ignored her in favour of staring at Fluttershy with a confused look. “Bad kitty,” she reiterated, giving him a tap on his shell-covered head, “We do not make ponies collapse! Very bad!” She glanced up at everypony else who all looked equally horrified. “Oh this is so bad, this can’t possibly get worse.”
Just then the universe made the sound of proving Flurry completely wrong, which in this case sounded like a mix between a zipper being pulled down and a whoopee cushion being stomped on by an elephant. A swirling purple vortex opened in mid air and yet another member of Flurry’s large extended/honorary family flew out of it. The room went perfectly silent in horror, only broken when the new arrival launched into a cheerful speech.
“Why hello everypony,” said Uncle Discord with his usual bombast. “I hate to come collect Fluttershy so soon but It seems we made a slight mistake in our scheduling today. It turns out that dear Smoozy and Treehuggers poetry slop is at three instead of five thanks to time zones so we really do need to...” He trailed off as he glanced at the dead silent room, confusion visible on his face. “Why so serious? Normally you all at least roll your eyes at me, but you’re all acting like somepony-”
Discord cut himself off as he followed the stares of everypony in the room to where Fluttershy lay still on the floor, A small bite mark visible on her for leg, and the tiny creature which had just delivered it clearly right beside her.
“Oh,” He said in a subdued tone, before continuing with a much more threatening, “OH!”
Flurry Heart gulped as Discord fixed her Kitty with a glare that she didn’t think she would be able to describe without using words her parents told her not to use. Discord’s face contorted into a furious mask that reminded her of her parents' stories about how he used to be a bad creature.
Kitty simply returned his attention to gnawing on her hoof, oblivious to what he had just done.
“You....”
“...How dare you!”
It was rapidly coming to the conclusion that words were massively overrated and wished that the new creatures would just stop so It could enjoy the Princess in peace. The Knowing had been right, Princesses were definitely tastier, but the Knowing had failed to tell It that Princesses also had so much more tasty stuffthan rocks did. It had been feeding at it’s usual rate on the Princess but It had already gotten so much more out of her than any of the rocks. The Princess didn’t even get crumbly like the tasty rocks always did when he drained them a lot!
The yellow thing on the other hand wasn’t nearly as tasty as the princess, and definitely had a lot less tasty stuff. The yellow thing had said that she was a good pony so It had assumed she meant like the other kinds of good like tasty and so It had tried to feed on her. Clearly It’s Theory that not all kinds of good meant tasty was gaining proof, as supported by the fact that the Princess called him the good word Cute but hadn’t eaten yet him and the meager snack that the Yellow thing had offered It.
And now this newest thing was yelling word sounds at It and disturbing it’s feeding! And it did not like this newest new thing, it was the wrong colours! All the other new things had the decency to be the same colour to both kinds of It’s vision, but this newest new thing had the audacity to be brown and grey to one sight and purple and yellow to the other! It was a headache even without all the words the newest new thing kept yelling!
“Are you even listening to me!” The newest thing shouted, punctuating its words with a snap and a streak of it’s purple and gold self that yanked It away from the Princess. It was incredibly offended with the newest new thing, and also a little bit confused how the newest new thing was holding it using tasty stuff. It glared at Its captor and let out it’s deepest growl.
“Oh good, now I’ve got your attention,” the Ugly Thing, as It now decided to call the newest thing, said with a glare. “So let me resume my tirade. How dare you hurt my dear Fluttershy like that you little...” The Ugly thing visibly strained to find an appropriate word “You little whatever you are! I can’t even tell what you are! And that's an impressive feat since I’m, well, me.” The Ugly Thing growled back at It. “But I know what you are in, and that’s a LOT of trouble! I am going to-”
It tuned the Ugly Thing out again. Clearly the Ugly Thing was very fond of words, using so many of them in so little time. Instead of listening, It turned its attention to more productive things. Namely, why on earth was the Ugly Thing so mad at It, the Ugly Thing had just showed up and started yelling at It!
It turned it’s thoughts to the knowing, and Knowing answered with more strange knowledge. From the way the Ugly Thing was talking about her the Yellow thing seemed to be the Ugly Thing’s mate, and creatures don’t like it when you feed on their mates. That was why the Ugly thing was so mad at It.
It was slightly amazed at the Knowing, both for having this information and for not having shared this information earlier. Apparently there was an entire category of things that It hadn’t been aware of called creatures? They were the kinds of things that moved and talked and thought and stuff. Apparently It was a creature as well?
How strange.
It shook itself out of it’s sudden sense of discovery and formulated a plan. So the Ugly Thing, or Ugly Creature apparently, was mad at It for feeding on the Yellow Creature. If it was the feeding that made the Ugly Creature mad, all It needed to do was un-feed on the Yellow Creature and the Ugly Creature would shut up and let It get back to the Princess!
With two quick bites It freed itself from the purple yellow tasty stuff the Ugly Creature held It in. It grimaced at the taste of this tasty stuff, which immediately plummeted to It’s second least favorite kind of tasty stuff. Much worse than the Princess or even the Yellow Creature’s tasty stuff, and only slightly better than chewing on the rocks.
As It dropped down to the floor all of the creatures in the room suddenly breathed in very loudly. It wondered why they all kept doing that. Maybe because they were on a mountain? It remembered the Knowing knew that It lived in a mountain, and if you went to high up a mountain breathing got hard. That was part of why It had always stuck to the tunnels so it could keep breathing well.
Satisfied with it’s highly scientific answer, It padded over to the Yellow creature and gave her a quick bite again. This time instead of feeding on her It Un-fed on her, pushing some of the tasty stuff It had stored up into her. The Yellow Creature stirred almost immediately as her body accepted thetasty stuff.
It turned towards the Ugly Creature and gestured to the Yellow Creature with Its tail paw, happily indicating that It had fixed the problem. It had even given the Yellow Creature more of the tasty stuff than It had taken, including the tasty stuff It had gotten from the Ugly Creature, to make her feel extra better! There was no reason at all for the Ugly Creature to be mad at It.
The Ugly Creature continued to glare at for some strange reason.
“Oh so you think just because you woke her up I’m going to forgive you? Well I think-”
“Leave it Discord.” The Purple Creature cut in, leaving the Ugly Creature sputtering in midair.
It liked the Purple Creature, It decided. She clearly also disliked the Ugly Creature and had the decency to be the right colour in both sights.
“It clearly didn’t mean to hurt Fluttershy, otherwise it wouldn’t have tried to fix her. You of all people don’t really have ground to stand on holding grudges for honest mistakes.” She turned from the Ugly Creature to It, giving It a warm gaze. “Isn’t that right? You didn’t mean to hurt Fluttershy did you?”
It was startled by the insinuation that just feeding on the Yellow Creature could hurt her. The Knowing had always told It that feeding was harmless, and that only eating hurt things when you did it to them. Perhaps the new creatures were confused and thought it had eaten the Yellow Creature instead of just feeding on her, since it had used it’s mouth for the feeding? It would have to avoid that in the future to avoid misunderstandings then.
It nodded in agreement with the Purple Creature, It definitely didn’t mean to hurt the Yellow Creature, It had just wanted to taste her to see if good and tasty were really the same thing.
The Ugly Creature continued glaring at it for a moment, then breathed outward heavily and crossed it’s arms. “Fine,” he said, still clearly angry about something It didn’t understand, “I guess I can at least forgive it since it did try to make her better.”
Suddenly It felt more stroking on it’s back and swiveled it’s head towards the source. The Yellow Creature was awake again, and smiling the same warm smile she had shownwhen she told It she was a good pony.
“Well, I’m still not completely sure what you are, but at least I know for sure what you eat,” she said with a strange laugh that the Knowing told It was called a giggle. “Flurry’s new friend here is a little Thaumovoric Chimera. What fascinating creature you are, yes you are.” The Yellow Creature stroked It in a way somehow even more pleasant than the Princesses. It surprised itself by letting out a long vibrating chirp from deep in it’s chest.
“No fair!” Said the voice of the Princess, and suddenly It was scooped up. “He’s mine, I get to pet him!” And so the Princess began repeating the same motions that the Yellow Creature had done, and It chirped contentedly. The Princesses strokes were still nice, even if they weren’t as good as the Yellow Creatures.
It was about to start feeding on the Princess again when It realized it had no desire for any more tasty stuff. It quickly checked with Knowing to see if something was wrong, but the Knowing simply informed It that the feeling It was experiencing was called being full.
...What a strange sensation. But a very nice one, It decided. It’s eyelids grew heavy as the sense of fullness fell over Its whole body. It let out a long yawn, causing the Princess to giggle for some reason.
Distantly, It heard voices. Something from the Winged Pink Creature about the Princess going somewhere with her Kitty, which was not what It was called, and how they were going to use more words again. It didn’t care, as it drifted off to the first restful sleep of its life in it’s Princesses arms.
She was much softer than the rocks after all...
Author's Note
This was supposed to be longer, but that just felt like a nice place to end it.
