Diaries of the Anonymous Filly

Walking up the road to Sweet Apple Acres, shortly before dawn, I couldn't help but be reminded of the backwoods back home for how quiet it was. Under the pre-dawn sky, going through Ponyville had been like travelling to a whole other world. Gone was the hustle and bustle of the lively town. With how barren it all seemed in these early morning hours, and the way that shadows were cast over everything while the occasional early-riser wandered about gave the town an almost ominous, foreboding feeling.

That said, all of the ponies that I saw, be they a stallion with a cart of bottled milk making his rounds, a mare sweeping the walkway outside a candy-shop, or some pegasi flitting about referring to a large diagram of some sort, were quick to wave and offer a pleasant 'Good morning!" I honestly would've expected a bit more suspicion regarding an eight-year-old filly—Am I really just accepting their definitions? Am I just falling into the same patterns as I did with my father?—wandering about at half-past five in the morning, but then again, this was a farming community, and there were bound to be ponies of all ages working or helping out at farms.

Maybe volunteering at one wasn't even that uncommon. I know that in the capital itself, ponies seemed a lot more money-driven, like the capitalists of old, but on the whole, these ponies seemed to be a lot more community oriented. Just yesterday evening, I was reading the newspaper where the headline article was a fluff piece about ponies chipping in to help 'Muffins' the mail mare rebuild part of her home after some pasta related catastrophe. Ponies seemed far more willing to care for their neighbours out here. It even reminded me a bit of where I grew up.

Then again, in rural towns like this, everyone knows everyone. Not only that, but news travels fast in these places; your mother could know what you've done before you even got home, that's how effective rumour mills were in some places. Since Princess Twilight was a well-known member of the community, even if I'd not been out of her castle for the first five days here in town, word that she had taken in a foal would probably have spread. Even if they didn't know what I looked like, an unfamiliar filly was likely to be that new ward of the crown.

When I finally got to the farmhouse, I saw that there were some lights in one of the ground-floor windows. I thought about going and knocking on the door and just offering my services, but then I caught the smell of food on the wind. They were still having their morning meal. I didn't want to impose any more than I already planned—if you could even consider volunteering for farm-work imposing—so I just tucked out of sight against a tree near the farmhouse, keeping quiet as a dog began to bark inside. Deciding I could wait a little longer, I leaned against the tree and ran through a breathing exercise.

The fact that the sanctity of my mind had been violated still weighted heavily on me. I wanted to trust these ponies—I really did—but the fact that one of their leaders, a literal demigoddess just goes door to door viewing and tampering with people's dreams was something nobody thought to mention to me? It was negligent to my mental well-being at the minimum, if not just a straight-up intentional.

That said, I knew to a certain extent I was more paranoid than normal, and given my history, that was no small feat. This discovery that I was not even safe from the machinations of others while I slept only reaffirmed that my wariness of others, especially those who were being helpful, was justified. After all, I wasn't a stranger to pulling scams; the only reason I even started in the first place was out of necessity after being taken advantage of.

Why are you here then? I wondered, looking up at the canopy of the tree as the morning's first rays began to hit the dew in the leaves. You could probably disappear just as easily in this world as you did back home. What is it that's keeping you here?

Taking in the fresh farm air, and the ambiance of the breeze, it started to sink in: I was feeling nostalgic for my childhood. Despite the utter neglect on the part of my father, I genuinely liked living somewhere where there was clean air, fresh water, and you could swing a cat without hitting your neighbor. Not only that, but I was promised the opportunity to acquire knowledge like nothing my kin had ever seen, or would likely ever see in the short span of their lives. Magic and fantasy had been my biggest escape from my father, and now I was living in a magical world with an apparent talent for magic!

How could I turn away from that?

The problem was that I couldn't turn away from that sort of opportunity. It was everything I'd ever dreamed of as a child. I might not be a student at Hogwarts, but I'd be studying under a pony who apparently rose to demigodhood by being that good at magic, and being tutored by a regular unicorn who, if Spike wasn't exaggerating, could give said demigoddess a run for her money. I'm not sure anyone could say no to that sort of opportunity, and that was exactly why I needed to be careful. Until I fully understood their motivations, who was to say I wasn't being groomed to become pony kind's Oppenheimer?

"Yeah, Winona, Ah know some varmint's out there too," I heard Applejack saying as a creaky screen door was pushed open, accompanied by the barking of a dog. "Go an' give the critter a spook, but remember what Fluttershy said... No catching."

Just as I peeked my head around the tree to announce myself, I saw a brown and white blur shoot out through the screen door and make a bee-line for me: a very large brown and white blur. That is either a very big dog or I've severely underestimated just how small of a horse I am.

Embracing my monkey ancestry, I shot up the tree behind me. At first I wasn't even entirely conscious of doing it, but as I climbed, I felt my back hoof fields also taking the familiar hand shape as my front. That said, I was much more careful about not damaging the tree; I only ever exerted enough pressure to create a stable grip. Before long, I was hanging upside down from a branch, staring down at a barking collie who seemed rather disappointed that she was not able to have a proper chase.

I think upon seeing the dog at the base of the tree, barking up toward the branches rather than giving chase, Applejack must've realised something was up. Not too long after I'd suspended myself from the branch, Applejack came into view, complete with her trademark Stetson hat. She looked up at me, and I smiled awkwardly back at her, my eyes quickly returning to the dog.

"Morning, Miss Applejack," I said with false bravado, as if me being here was the most normal course of events in the world. To be honest though, my heart was still racing from the sudden 'threat' of a dog as big as me. "Now, I know what you're probably thinking... 'One, what is Anon doing here alone at oh dark thirty? Two, why is Anon in my apple tree?' There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this."

Following my gaze, AJ chuckled. "Winona, it's alright; go on back ta the house," she told the dog. At first, the dog gave her a look that seemed to convey the question of 'Are you sure?' before letting out a sniff and trotting back to the farmhouse. "Ya can come down now, Sugarcube."

With a nervous chuckle, I shook my head. "Funny thing... Getting up here was kind of a fear response to a big dog flying at me," I murmured, releasing the branch with my forehoof to scratch the back of my neck. "Getting up was the easy part. I have no idea how to get down without hurting myself or damaging your tree."

"Land sakes, girl," Applejack grumbled, covering her face with her hoof. I thought I heard her mutter something about it being too early for this kinda of horse-apples, before looking up at me. "Ya reckon ya can take a fall if'n Ah catch ya, or should Ah have Big Mac get the ladder?"

Honestly, I wasn't sure which was more intimidating—being caught by Applejack, or facing that titan of a stallion I'd seen in the marketplace. That dude was huge. In the end, I decided, and said "Just tell me when to let go, and what else to do."

Her solution was not so much to catch me outright, but rather to bounce me. Once she'd positioned herself beneath me, Applejack instructed me to let go, and then ready my legs to cushion a landing. I didn't that the moment I let go, she was going to literally just play the part of the mattress and rebound me to the ground. Readying my legs to cushion a landing meant nothing to me, but in hindsight, I think she was telling me to prepare to take the shock of landing on my hooves.

Once I was out of the tree and harm's way, I came clean with her as to why I was there: everything. From wanting to do some farm work to clear my head, to being scared by having my mind penetrated by Princess Luna and my subsequent 'overreaction', to my concern that my mind had been tampered with. She seemed reasonably horrified by my actions and the conclusion I'd jumped to, but to my surprise, she seemed receptive to my offer to do work.

"Apple Bloom is still off at that sleepover with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, so some o' her chores were gonna be put on me an' our brother," she said, a thoughtful look on her face. "Y'all done any farmin' before, partner?"

That brought a smile to my face. "Let's see, for Old <>, I often harvested root and vine crops, sorted his crab-apple crops, and weeded where needed," I listed, going through the motions of counting on fingers that only existed as an extension of a hoof field. "Never mucked out a sty or a stable, but I've collected and candled eggs from chickens, and milked dairy cattle and goats." I shrugged and looked at her. "Not sure if ponies keep either of the latter as livestock, or if society's weird and you just milk mares, but if you need any sorting, egg collecting or even just a fence painted, I'm your... pony."

She gave me this weird look as I mentioned cattle as 'livestock' and then milking mares, but after a moment of thought, she smiled down at me. "Ah think Ah've got just the thing for ya," she said, waving me to follow. To my surprise, we weren't being led into the orchard, but rather toward the farmhouse and its related buildings. "Ya want to talk to some non-ponies 'bout whether or not you can trust the princesses, right? Well, Ah know some ladies that could use your help, an Ah'm sure they'd be willin' to talk about life with ponies."

She led me past the farmhouse, and past the large barn off to the side to a familiar livestock barn out back. "See, here in Equestria, we live alongside many different kinds o' folk," she pulled open the barn door to reveal about forty head of cattle in various states of consciousness. "It's a mutually beneficial system; Daisy Jo and the others get food, shelter and a fair percentage of the profit from sales, and in exchange we get claim to the milk of any cow not currently with calf." She looked to the one nearest the door, who seemed to be following the conversation and asked, "Ain't that right, Daisy Jo?"

To my surprise, the cow actually chuckled. "I still think we get the better end of the deal, don'cha'know?" I didn't like the way she waggled her eyebrow at Applejack, nor the expectant, "Now where's that stud of a brother of yours? Can't wait for him to put his hooves on my mommy milkers."

~ 06 ~

I learned many, many things in the six hours I spent milking those cows. First and foremost, the herd of cows were very bawdy. Even more so when they thought I wouldn't have the knowledge to understand just how pervy they could be. They, at the very least, didn't direct any of that at me. Sure, there were some who might've enjoyed the milking experience a bit too much, but there were no flirty comments. At best, I might've overheard one or two discussing getting me to teach Big Macintosh how to treat a teat.

I'm not sure how to take that.

Besides that, it seemed to be a general consensus among the cows who were willing to chat during the milking that ponies were overall good folk. The bigger cities might get a bit snobbish, and they might get treated as second-class citizens by nobility during trips to Canterlot for the biannual MilkCon, but on the whole they were treated just as well as any other sapient who lived in or visited the lands.

The Princesses especially seemed to be held in high regard. Although Luna was more of an unknown to them, having only recently resurfaced, the general consensus that Celestia was something of a humanitarian—or whatever the pony term for it is. She had apparently singlehandedly ended the practice of carnivorous races like dragons and gryphons hunting and eating other sapient creatures, although the cow who mentioned that tidbit didn't explain how. Like, it's all well and good if she was able to end that through diplomacy and not just the threat of genocide. I wonder if its legal for a cow's family to sell their deceased loved ones to carnivores on the sly, though.

That said, none of them were too happy when I'd asked them if they thought it was within the character of the princesses to alter a being's mind, even if for the 'greater good'. Apparently there was significant evidence that Celestia may have influenced a being's destiny every once in a while by providing guidance or through manipulation of events, but never anything that would actively threaten said beings individuality. That said, she's apparently lived for untold centuries—if not millennia—beyond the historic dark ages called the Age of Discord, where much of history lay forgotten.

The whole experience, I decided as AJ came to get me, left me feeling even more conflicted than I did before. I had no reason to doubt that these cows, who had a pretty sweet deal, were genuine in their beliefs, but I couldn't shake the concern that like everything else, it was just a symptom of mass indoctrination. It could easily be true that they only think they're getting a good deal but are getting exploited.

It honestly still concerned me that I was being so paranoid of others. A person's race or heritage never mattered to me back home. Hell, for how much my father was a bastard, he had the decency to teach me that a person was not defined by their colour or class, but by their actions. If he'd been racist on top of all that, well, this paranoia might be explainable, but he trusted Old Thom like a brother.

When AJ sat me down on the front porch of the farmhouse for lunch, I was no closer to finding an answer. It was all well and good to have asked non-ponies who lived in Equestria, but without an outsider... It's no good. Could I have been just overthinking things? Was I just seeing malice because of cultural differences?

"Still not sure, partner?" she asked, placing a plate of apple slices and cheese sticks next to me, and then passing me a glass of juice. While I greedily drank down the apple juice—definitely sweetened, but not cloyingly sweet like candy—she took a seat next to me. It caught me off guard when she laid back and pulled her Stetson over her face. "Maybe you're just overthinking things, Sugarcube. Ya had a scare, and darned if that don't stop some ponies from thinkin' clear-like for a bit."

I nodded, popping an apple slice into my mouth. "Yeah, I get that," I murmured, watching that titanic red stallion drag a cart full of apples into the barn. "But this isn't just a simple scare. That my mind could be touched while I slept—that my mind could be touched at all—had shaken me to my core. Back home, science fiction and fantasy sometimes touched on mind-control as a point of horror, and in general we abhorred the concept of brainwashing and indoctrination, even if we were faced some form of indoctrination or another. It was easier for the powers that be to make things into 'Us vs. Them' issues if they had enough people with similar beliefs behind them."

Applejack just peeked out at me from beneath her hat as I stuffed my face. I couldn't be sure, but she seemed to be deep in thought. When I'd eaten the three apples worth of slices and the cheese, she sat up with a sigh and fixed me with a blank look. "How much do ya really know about Princess Luna?" she asked, her voice surprisingly... sad. "About what she went through back then and since?"

"Nada," I said being honest. "I heard something about a princess who became a demon a thousand years ago and almost killed all life on the planet, but that's about it... Are you saying that the pony who became a demon was..."

She held a hoof up to silence me, and then looked in the direction of Twilight's castle. "Word of advice, Anon," she grunted, her tone harsh. "Don't ever let anypony ever hear you say that again. What happened with Princess Luna an' the Nightmare ain't nowhere near that simple, so callin' her a demon is a cruelty you can't begin to comprehend. Ain't nothin' black an' white."

I blinked at that. She'd simultaneously just confirmed that Luna was that princess one thousand years ago, while also denying that she'd done any of it. Not only that, but the way she said it carried another, unspoken message: that the Princess of the Moon was as much of a victim in all of whatever went down. I couldn't wrap my head around it, because it almost sounded like a nightmare was a justifiable excuse for attempted omnicide.

"How could a bad dream be an excuse for omnicide?" I argued, gripping the side of my head as I began to rock back and forth.. My blood was pumping loudly in my ears, and it was getting hard to think. "Some real atrocities happened back home, and if a bad dream is an excuse for almost succeeding in killing all life on the planet..." My wide-eyed gaze locked on the mare as my breathing picked up. "Then you're saying the shitty life <> had during and after the first war justified the entirety of the <>, and that the millions of exterminated <>, <> and other 'undesirables' was okay!"

I didn't even see the mare's hoof move. One moment I was spitting rage, and the next my cheek was stinging something fierce as we both stared at each other in horror. "Anon, Ahm sorry; I shouldn't have done that," she said, withdrawing the hoof she'd just slapped me with. She looked absolutely shaken, as if she'd never struck someone out of anger before. "But ya were bein' hysterical, and Ah need ya ta understand, that thing possessed not one but two of mah friends. Ah will not be havin' ya dismissing it as a 'bad dream'." She looked away, and sighed once more. "Ah just need ya ta know before ya face her that she takes the health of a pony's mind awful serious, an' that she likely didn't mean nothin' by it. From where yer standin', it probably don't look like it, but she's a good pony."

Before I could help myself, I hopped onto my hooves and started walking down the path into Ponyville. "Hopefully that won't be for a long time," I muttered. My cheek was probably gonna be stinging for a good long while, but funny enough, I wasn't upset with AJ—not in the least. I was starting to get hysterical, and—like it or not—that slap snapped me out of it. This was nothing like how my father would hit me because I'd gotten him mad. I'd gone and compared one of this country's rulers to one of the worst human beings in the century... and for what? Things that were completely outside my realm of understanding... No small wonder she'd smacked me.

Maybe... maybe I've been too uncharitable. I already know that I acted rashly with the princess in my dream. All this suspicion and based on what? Paranoid theories based on sci-fi and fantasy concepts... and then the moment I heard a partial fact, I went and compared her to Hitler. I'm nowhere near as rational as I used to be, and it seems like I'm just getting worse.

It truly is like I'm becoming a kid again... A kid with the mind and knowledge of an adult human, but the brain of a child. Every little thing is now a crisis, like it's the end of the world. My brain is underdeveloped and likely could remain that way for a long time... and until I can get this nailed down...

First thing is I need to apologize to a lot of ponies... To Starlight for heaping all that on her and leaving her with the responsibility of telling Twilight where I went. To Twilight for being a little shit... To the princess for possibly traumatising her more than she might already have been from her own issues and not giving her a fair shake. I don't think there's anything I need to apologise to Spike for yet, but I'm sure given time I'll probably achieve something...

I'll apologise as many times as I need to until I can control myself again... But the question is... how?