Efficiency

Dear Journal,

I’m finally back home from the Equestrian Conference of World leaders. The last few weeks have been so interesting! Learning more about other cultures, their magic, their sciences, and the food!

I’m sure I must have gained five pounds, but I can’t wait for my friends to try out all the recipes that I brought back. I can’t wait to see them all tomorrow, but for now it’s off to bed. That train ride home was a long one, and I got home quite late. Everything can wait for one more night…

The next morning Twilight awoke. It was a few hours after dawn when she made her way downstairs, the smell of pancakes rising to greet her muzzle. She trotted to the kitchen to find Spike hard at work cleaning the morning dishes.

“You should eat your pancakes while they are still hot. Coffee is ready, and you have three weeks of correspondence to go through,” he says, pointing at a stack of scrolls on the end of the table.

“Good morning to you too Spike.” Twilight responds, slightly annoyed to be given work to do the first morning since her return. “Has anything interesting happened while I’ve been away?”

“It’s been a very productive few weeks.” He replies, continuing his cleaning. “I’ve cleaned each room of the castle, organized the mess you left in your lab, your bedroom, and the library. And yesterday I finished planting the spring crops.”

“Spring crops? We have a garden?”

“We do now. The area to the east side of the castle has really good sunlight, and the ground wasn’t being used for anything other than useless shrubbery. Growing our own vegetables is more efficient than having to go to town and BUY them.”

“Wow Spike! That’s a great idea! I’m really proud of you!”

“Thanks Twi, I’m just trying to help you run this place as efficiently as possible. Although I must say, I wish we had a smaller home. All of these rooms, are so unnecessary. So...inefficient.” He says, one of his eyes starting to twitch.

“I know Spike,” Twilight says, not looking up from the scrolls she was going through. “I miss our cozy little library. But I suppose a princess living in a library doesn’t really give off the proper image.”

“I… see.” Spike said thoughtfully. “So, to most efficiently do your job, it is important for you to be taken seriously by everypony. And a proper castle will help them to do so. I understand.”

“Ye-es, that is one way to look at it I suppose.” Twilight says finishing her breakfast after setting down the last of the scrolls before her. “These,” she says pointing to a small stack, “can be put on my desk for later correspondence, the rest can go in the trash” she says preparing to throw them away.

“Twilight, what are you doing?” Spike says, snatching the discards away. “These can go in the compost bin. We can reuse them in the garden. Throwing them in the trash would just be inefficient!”

“Okay, okay! Take it easy Spike! Sheesh, I didn’t know you liked gardening so much!” She says, taken aback at Spike’s attitude. “Well, whatever. I’m going into town for awhile. I want to catch up with my friends and see what’s been going on since I’ve been gone.”

“That isn’t a very efficient use of your time Twilight.” Spike says, a hint of anger in his voice.

“It is to me,” Twilight replies, getting up and leaving the kitchen.

“What has gotten into him?” She thinks to herself, as she makes her way to the castle doors. “He seemed almost… angry?”

She emerged into sunlight. The weather was perfect, the sky was clear, and the temperature comfortable, with a slight breeze blowing. She began trotting toward the outskirts of town, intending to see Fluttershy first, then passing by Rarity’s Boutique, then Pinkie Pie’s and finally ending her trip at Applejack’s farm.

The streets seemed oddly quiet as various ponies went about their business. Twilight could see dozens of ponies hurrying about their tasks, but they were all silent. No greetings to each other, no casual conversations, it seemed everyone was in a hurry.

“How odd,” Twilight thought, “is the weather supposed to change? Or is there some event coming up that I don’t know about? I’ll have to ask Fluttershy.

It took Twilight a little over half an hour to make her way to Fluttershy’s cottage. Once on the outskirts of town, away from the houses and farms, Twilight began to once again appreciate how beautiful and natural Fluttershy chose to live. However as she approached the house, the wind shifted in her direction, and her senses were assaulted by a sickening stench. The smell was nauseating, permeating her very pores. It was a smell that Twilight almost never had to endure. The smell of rotting meat.

The stench was everywhere. It got into her nose first, then her mouth, and then her eyes began to water. Unable to contain herself, she bent over the side of the road, and threw up the contents of her morning meal.

“Sweet Celestia, what happened out here?” She says aloud, her horn flaring as she magically began to filter the air around her.

As she regained her breath, she began to hear buzzing. Thousands of jet black flies, all beating their wings at once. It set her teeth on edge.

“What in Equestia is going on?”

She began galloping towards Fluttershy’s house, her imagination running wild. Fear for her friend making her heart pound. She skidded to a halt at Fluttershy’s front door. Hoof trembling, heart beating wildly in her chest, she knocked upon it.

“Just a minute! I’ll be right there!”

It was Fluttershy’s voice. She was okay. “Oh thank Celestia”, Twilight thought in relief, her breath escaping in a huge sigh. Then Fluttershy opened the door...

She was covered in blood.

“Twilight! You’re back! Please come in!” She said, not at all concerned with the blood dripping from her hooves and wings. Bits of unidentifiable flesh clung to her in places, an occasional piece falling to the floor when she moved. “Excuse the mess, I wasn’t expecting company today. Can I get you anything?”

“N-no.” Twilight replies, still shocked at her friends appearance.

“Oh, okay. Well then, do you mind if we talk while I work? It’s more efficient that way.”

“Sure. Um, that’s fine. Uh Fluttershy, is that… blood?”

“Oh, um yes. You see it’s more efficient to just finish all the work first and then clean it off.” She says, leading her friend through the house and into the back yard.

“Work? What work?” Twilight says, but then stops short at the doorway, stunned speechless at what she sees.

The back yard is filled with corpses. Hundreds upon hundreds of dead animals. All neatly sorted into piles, each of their own species.

Twilight’s eyes go wide in horror as she watches as Fluttershy calmly makes her way to the farthest stack. Beside it are a barrel partially filled with guts, organs, and meat. Another barrel was filled with bones, and a pile of animal skins lay next to it. Fluttershy takes a seat between the barrels, reaches for a carcass off of the pile, and begins to cut it open with a long sharp knife. Humming as she does so.

“F-Fluttershy… what... what in Celestia’s name are you doing?”

“I’m processing dead animals Twilight.” She says, neatly gutting the corpse of a rabbit.

“But, but why?” Twilight says, holding herself against the door frame, as she tries not to retch once more.

“Well we can’t let the remains of all these poor creatures just go to waste. That would be inefficient.” She says, dumping the guts in the barrel as she begins to de-bone the meat. “All of the meat and organs can be used to feed the carnivorous animals of the forest, all of the skins and furs can be used to make warm clothes, and the bones can be ground down into fertilizer. Nothing should go to waste Twilight, it wouldn’t be right.”

“Oh, I see.” Twilight says, beginning to calm down. “So whatever happened to these animals, you were just making sure that they didn’t die in vain.”

“Exactly.” Fluttershy says smiling. “I love ALL the woodland creatures, I couldn’t bear to just let there bodies rot away. That would be incredibly wasteful. Inefficient”

“But Fluttershy, what exactly happened to all of-” Suddenly Twilight cuts herself off as Discord appears in the yard before her.

“This should be the last of the rabbits.” Discord says, dumping a load of fresh corpses on the pile of rabbits nearby. “I’ll start culling the squirrels next. But can we take a break after that? Honestly, there are just so many of them, and they all make this horrible crunching sound when I snap their necks.”

“DISCORD!” Twilight shouts, “What have you done? What are you making Fluttershy do?!?”

“Twilight? Oh thank the Sky Stallion you’re back! Maybe you can talk some sense into her. She’s had me killing animals for weeks now. Now I’ll be the first to admit, that I’m still all about chaos whenever possible, but this kind of thing is NOT something that I enjoy. Tell me you can change her mind about this.”

“Change her mind? This was FLUTTERSHY’S idea?” Twilight says, turning to face her friend. “What in Tartarus is going on here?!?”

“Well, first off. Discord if you don’t like the sound, then just teleport them into a barrel of water until they drown. And we can take a break when it’s time for dinner.” Fluttershy says as she neatly finishes skinning her current pelt and reaches for a fresh body.

“As for what I am doing Twilight, I’m helping all of my animal friends in the most efficient way possible.”

“Helping them? You’re having Discord slaughter them for you!”

“Not slaughter Twilight. Cull. He’s culling them for me. I’m not sure how much you know about wild animals Twilight, but I know quite a lot. Every species of animal, from the largest to the smallest, needs the same basic things to be happy and thrive. They all need a certain amount of territory depending on their size and species, they need a certain minimum of natural resources, and they need a certain amount of predator species to keep their numbers in check. Unfortunately, all of these factors are always in flux. If there isn’t enough food, some species will starve, if there aren’t enough predators, smaller species will overpopulate and then consume too many natural resources, and then they too will starve. It’s an incredibly inefficient system.

What I’m doing is fixing all of that. First I’m having Discord cull all the overpopulated animals. Then he will use his magic to balance the ecologies in the forest. After that it’s only a matter of keeping track of population growth. Then all of my animal friends will finally be as happy and fulfilled as possible!”

“Fluttershy… this, this is crazy! Trying to control nature? Killing animals to save them? Fluttershy, something is wrong with your mind. Badly, badly, wrong. We need to take you back to the castle. I can fix this! I just need to run a few tests to see what happened to you,” Twilight says, reaching out a hoof toward her friend.

“Don’t TOUCH me!” Fluttershy says, pointing her knife at Twilight. “I don’t have TIME to waste on tests! Do you see all these bodies? If I stop, then some of them will rot! Think of the WASTE Twilight! It would be worse than disrespectful to them, it would be INEFFICIENT!”

Hurt, Twilight backs away from her friend.

“I’ll be back Fluttershy. I’ll fix this.” She says, backing her way into the house.

“Close the doors on your way out,” Fluttershy says to her retreating form. “The flies have been terrible recently.”

As Twilight turns to leave, Discord appears in front of her. “I’m truly sorry you had to see that. Please tell me that you can DO something.”

“Me? Can’t YOU do something? What’s happened to her? And why are you helping her”

“Twilight, don’t you think I’ve tried. The problem is, that I don’t know what’s causing this. If I imprison her she gets violent, and starts hurting herself trying to get free. Should I enslave her mind, and leave her just a shell? No, I decided that as long as she isn’t a threat to other ponies, that I would let her do as she pleases. As to why I’m helping her, do I really have to say it Twilight?”

“Because you love her.” Twilight says solemnly.

“Yes.” Discord admits. “But it’s been hard Twilight, so very, very, hard. Angel was the worst.”

“Angel? Angel Bunny? Wait, where is he?” Twilight says, frantically looking around the house.

“He wouldn’t leave.” Discord says, tears forming at the corner of his eyes. “Fluttershy decided that having a pet was an inefficient waste of resources. She said that he could survive perfectly well on his own. But he wouldn’t leave. I tried everything I could, even teleported him to the other side of the Everfree, but he kept coming back. Finally Fluttershy had had enough, and she made me…” Discord’s voice trails off, unable to finish.

“Oh sweet Celestia! We’ve got to DO something, figure out what made her become this way!”

“Twilight. It’s not just her. It’s everypony. Every pony in Ponyville has been behaving like this. I try to check on our friends when I can, but Fluttershy keeps me constantly busy. Please, you need to find a way to stop this!”

“All of Ponyville is like this?” Twilight says incredulously.

She thinks back to this morning. Spike’s behavior. Everypony hurrying around town, but no-one speaking to each other.

“I need to go check on them.” Twilight says. “I need to make sure that our friends are okay. But I’ll be back. I’ll find a way to fix this. I promise.”

Discord’s face becomes slightly less strained. “Thank you Twilight. I’ll keep her safe until you return. Who would you like to see first? I can send you there.”

“Rarity first then. I can make my way to Pinkie’s from there.” Twilight says.

“All right then. Good luck!” And with that, Discord snaps his claw.