I used to think that the ponies were basically good.
They only hunted us because they feared us, I thought. We were... different. To ponies, different is bad, I thought. They were scared, probably, and felt the need to push us back, protect their foals, their elderly, and, well, theirselves. But our lives were natural. We survived with no houses, no readily prepared food, like the ponies. We were the stronger species, the survivalists, able to live longer in the wilds of Equestria and beyond!
...I thought.
But we aren't, or rather weren't, bad. Bunyips may have been carnivores, but we're not bad, and generally not pony eaters. Only two bunyips in my lifetime had said they had eaten pony meat. And they were probably lying, too.
Other animals eat meat, like the little ferrets I see, running around on slippery stone bridges, every day. The ponies don't hunt them though. What's the difference between a bunyip and a ferret? Did we have bigger teeth? Were we scarier looking? Was it the shaggy fur, or the webbed paws?
No. We were larger. Dog bunyips grew to about the size of an ahuizotl, and the larger species could get bigger than dragons. To the ponies, bigger was certainly not better. To them, we appeared as a threat. Maybe it was how life was meant to be.
That's what I used to think.
But then the ponies changed everything. They waged a war on us. Us, who, out of the entire species, only a select few could even speak the language of ponies. We had no hope in that war. But there was no need for the war. We hadn't ventured near pony territory in a hundred years, and I can say that from personal experience!
In all 1,000 years of my life before that war, I had never seen a pony.
I'd heard the stories, of course. We all knew the stories. "Prine," mother would say in bunyip language, "don't go out too far into the woods, or the ponies will get you."
I may not be a pony, but that doesn't make me a monster. I'm just different. Even that up there wasn't a monster. He, or she, was just doing what's natural. But he or she is up there now, leaving me the last of my species. The last bunyip.
There are none left to know the secrets of the lakes and swamps, that only we knew. None. The war changed my perspective on ponies, and it only worsened when I met the grey one. Greys.
But, I am the only live soul who knows this. The ponies from the war had slipped into oblivion centuries ago, the bunyips and other creatures were all dead, and grey is trapped by a magic spell.
So I am the only one left. The only one able to pass on my tale to future generations, in the hope that something like this may not happen again. The complete extinction of a species. A tragedy. It has been ten thousand years since the war, and eleven since my birth. I am now the size of an ahuizotl, and I am growing old. Violet grey fur now a pale, faded grey. grey blue "mane" now simply grey, and wilted. I am wearing out. I am... soon to be with the other bunyips. Soon to be with my... family. This cave is getting boring anyway. Seeing the same grey rock walls every day. The same 'drip drip drip' of the water. The lake itself was dirty, horrible for swimming in. Ponies again. Ponies had polluted it. ALWAYS ponies.
Up there, it will be nicer. I know it. Pony free, with nice water. And other bunyips... and family.
Bunyips are supposed to live long, peaceful lives.
Well, we're supposed to be dead now, but before that, all was peace.
We have long since passed into legend, an old mares tale, told by ponies to keep their foals from misbeheaving. Just like they were to us. The war ensured our passing, both literal and metaphorical. No, the war hadn't ensured it. The ponies had.
I still do try to sympathize with them. But I can not. I could understand their need to drive us back, but to wipe us out was needless. Brutal, violent and needless... I remember...
.
I was only a cub back then, the small size of a pony colt. Yet I remember it all, in vivid detail. I remember the friends I made, actual pony friends. Some ponies were good. But... I also remember the enemies I made.
But as I said, the bunyips are all but gone now, and I am the only being left from the war besides grey, and probably Discord. He was different too. He looked different to the ponies, and he liked chaos. The ponies hated chaos. He was different. The ponies hated different. The ponies hated him. Him, a GOD no less!
But I digress.
Scorpio, Fluttershy, Capricorn, little old Spike.... they, the more willing ones, would all be gone by now. Even the dragon, assuming the stories of their lifespans that I heard were true. Discord would be impossible to find, and the grey one is trapped and, well, evil.
So it is up to me to pass on my story.
Therefore I want to show you something. Something magic, yet natural. The tale of how the former destroyed the latter. A story which shows how different ponies can be. A story which shows bunyips are not monsters. A story which, long ago when I was living in it, changed me, for better or for worse.
These are the secrets that I have kept, the tale that has never left my lips. The secrets of the lakes and swamps. Much like myself, hidden down here, away from the ponies, this tale is the last legend still unknown to Equestria.
Nobody was really that surprised when I wandered away from the home lake that day.
The other bunyips had grown used to my adventure seeking personality. They didn't necessarily condone it, but they let me out on my little explorations nonetheless.
My mother was brown with a deep blue mane, as was my father; how I got my grey fur was a mystery for all those years. There was gossip that my mother, Rumiel, had been with another bunyip. I hadn't really understood at the time.
The head of the pack, so to speak, was Kur; large and black furred, with millennia of experience. He may have been ageing, and quite frankly a jerk, but none of us dared to question his will. Being the leader, he naturally had two pups, a male and female. The male was grey like me, and the female snow white.
So, they were all accustomed to my ways, and were probably even expecting me to wander off somewhere. Quite surprising really, since the home lake bordered the aptly named Everfree, which was fraught with creatures even more dangerous than ponies themselves. I may have liked adventure, and perhaps a little danger, but being devoured by manticores is, was, and always will be an undesirable, with no redeeming qualities.
But, what I really had to watch out for were ponies. Their siege on us had already started, making much of the surrounding land dangerous. Fortunately, ponies would rarely enter the Everfree, lest they be attacked by the creatures. It's natural ways disturbed them. Anyway, only a madpony would visit the Everfree just to find a bunyip.
And it was that very forest in which I playfully hopped around in, blissfully aware of the shock I had thought my parents were going through. I enjoyed getting under people's skin almost as much as adventuring. We were all a bit like that. Jerkish.
The Everfree forest had always interested me, full of wildife, wildlife that could look after itself, without ponies. The Everfree was, well, free. That forest didn't need ponies. Luckily, it had a few large bodies of water, although they were sometimes already inhabited.
Being an amphibious mammal came with its disadvantages. I had to stay near a water source much of the time, if I wanted to be in peak condition, although it wasn't completely necessary. On the upside, we had something other water mammals didn't; gills. Usually mistaken for scruffy bits of fur by ponies brave, or stupid enough to get close, the little fluffy slits in the necks of all bunyips are actually gills, enabling us to spend vast amounts of time under the water, which was useful when being pursued by predators.
But right now, I was more interested in a small brown ferret than swimming. All of the underwater caves in the home lake had all been discovered by other bunyips; no exploring was to be done there.
The ferret, for some obscure reason, didn't fear me. It simply sat there, staring into my eyes with its own black ones, not moving a single muscle.
"What do you think about ponies?" I asked it, in my own language of course. The unmoving ferret didn't respond, or even give any sign that it heard me. It was like a statue. Was it trying to hide? Was it playing? Confused, maybe?
Pony. The very word instilled more fear in me than the presence of a full grown manticore ever could. Manticores didn't have weapons, or carts, or entire armies to back them up. Ponies did.
Ponies found us... discordian.
I reached out a paw, claws retracted of course, and gave it a pat on the head. I was small back then, and ion its back legs, it was just as tall as me.
CRACK
The huge red stallion broke through the tree's trunk, smashing down the whole thing, and in one swift motion, hauled up the ferret to his fanged mouth and devoured it. After gulping it down in seconds, the stallion turned towards me, his mouth frothing, fangs broken and bloodied. His eyes were bloodshot and quivering, the pupils tiny. His arms were muscled and hairy. I had evidently been right when I thought that "only a madpony would visit the Everfree".
As I turned to escape, he leapt at me, catching my tail with his enormous hoof and ripping most of it off. He ate the tail without a second thought, and roared at me, "Mah-her-hotsh!"
This pony, if it could be called that, couldn't even speak. Sure, I couldn't speak Equestrian either, but he was a pony, I'm not.
The stallion dived at me again; however, this time I wasn't prepared. He knocked me to the floor, and pinned me down under his massive body. His face lowered to mine, and I could smell his horrid breath. Amongst the rotting and broken fangs foresting his mouth, I could make out bits of the ferret, mostly scraps of fur. I gasped, and a glob of his spit fell into my mouth.
Disgusted, I kicked out my kangaroo-like back legs and flailed madly, like a fish out of water. But, it was no use. The stallion was huge, far larger than me, and far stronger. I accepted my fate as he lowered his head to my neck and... licked me?
The stallion leapt off me and ran around in a circle, before sitting on his rear and staring above me. It was probably the most bizzare situation I had ever been in. I turned around to see just what he was looking at, and wished I hadn't.
"Good work, Macintosh," the armoured batpony said to the stallion, wrapping a peice of rope around his robust neck. The other two batponies grabbed me, an arm each, and softly glid over to the mare holding 'Macintosh'. She examined me carefully, and slowly raised her right hoof. She slapped one of the two guards holding me, and all three began to fly away, still holding me.
"You're lucky us Crystal Soldier batponies found ya, 'cause if a normal pony had seen you, then let me tell ya, you--" The batpony holding my left arm cut her off with a hard 'tap' on the soldier, and she remained silent for a moment, before piping up again.
"Ooh! You forgot to put the special muzzle on him, you dense skulled idiot!" We stopped in the air for a moment, and one of my guards, who I could now see to be a stallion, pulled out a black muzzle just the right size for me. I opened my mouth as wide as I could without hurting myself, in an attempt to keep him from muzzling me. He simply turned around and bucked me out cold.
