Chapter One
The whip cracked over Chocolate’s back with a satisfying snap.
“Plow faster, you bumbling, good-for-nothing horse!” sneered the voice of his owner, Harvey Dobson, the owner of the Cricket Creek Farm. He was a short, stout man, about 40 years of age. He had a pointed nose, beady black eyes, and a shiny bald head. Though not very bright, he more than made up for it with his unquestionable cruelty towards his horses, of which he owned five--Strawberry, Buttercup, Honeycomb, Cream, and Chocolate.
The farm occupied seven picturesque acres in the Shenandoah Valley, a fertile area of farmland situated between the ridged peaks of the Allegany Mountains in Virginia, in the southeastern United States. Mr. Dobson grew fields of leafy vegetables and corn, kept a small orchard of apples, and even operated a small, three cow dairy barn. Chocolate was currently occupied plowing one of the fields so corn seeds could be sown.
“I said faster!” Dobson cried, once again bringing the whip down on Chocolate. A sturdy yoke was fastened to his neck, which was attached to the metal plow by way of thick ropes. Dobson sat saddled on top of the already overburdened stallion. His back ached from pulling the overweight plow and overweight man, and the burning sensation caused by the whip’s sharp lashing did nothing to help.
“Must...work...harder!” Chocolate whinnied, leaning his head down and beginning to make faster traction on the soft earth. Dobson and his fellow humans didn’t know it, but the animals could all talk amongst themselves in a universal language of sorts. They were just out of the loop, and anything the animals said sounded only like their habitual calls.
“Attaboy, Chocolate!” was the response elicited from Dobson, who congratulated the horse for his efforts by swinging his whip again.
Chocolate wearily trotted back into the horse stable and settled down on his meager bed of straw just after sundown. The four other horses had already eaten up the small ration of cold mash Mr. Dobson emptied in their feeding trough every night, and as such Chocolate went hungry as he often did.
After finishing his plowing, Dobson had then put Chocolate to work watering one of the other fields, which was planted with spinach, and before he was done for the day some rotten apples that had languished on the ground for months on end needed collecting.
“There you are, Chocolate,” Buttercup commented as she came over to him. She was to have two foals in good time, twin fillies if Chocolate recalled right from what Dobson had said.
“Evening, Buttercup,” Chocolate replied through a mouthful of stale hay he had begun to chew in an effort to alleviate his hunger pains. “Any day now, you think?”
“Oh, yes. What’s odd is that while, of course, I can feel them kicking, there’s something sharp, maybe pointed, in there. I can’t liken it to anything I know of.”
“Every foal is special. You’ll make a fine mother, Buttercup, I’m sure of it. You ‘ought to be proud.”
Honeycomb, a thin racehorse the color of light amber, joined the two. Most of the other animals didn’t like him--as a racehorse, his privileges included exemption from work and access to a lush grazing pasture out back of the stable--and he was very much a cynic.
“Wasn’t the grazing excellent today? I always do live a mouthful of fresh, dewy grass for breakfast.”
“Oh, quiet, Honeycomb,” Buttercup chided. “You know not everypony is as well off as you.”
“Really? If that is true, then it’s their own fault for not working hard enough. I didn’t get here by lounging about, after all.”
“You never worked a day in your life, Honeycomb,” Chocolate scoffed.
“You’re just jealous,” Honeycomb haughtily retorted.
Chocolate rested his head on the ground and snorted. “Jealous I am. I’ll be the first to admit that. But what I’m not jealous of is your self-absorbed manners. I’d rather live a life of hard knocks than be a pampered coward and a braggart.”
“Suit yourself,” Honeycomb conceded, tossing his mane about before turning tail and returning to his little corner of the stable.
The dog Mr. Dobson kept as a pet, Winona, bayed loudly at the first sign of light. She was a liver-and-white border collie, with a smart red collar adorned with a golden license tag that glimmered in the sun.
She made the same call every day, rousing the entire farm from their sleep. Chocolate stood and made his way across the stable to the feeding trough, which had been recently filled with a mixture of ground oats and milk. He dipped his snout in and began to slurp the mash greedily.
He could hear Honeycomb stretch from behind him and doze off back to sleep--one of the race horse’s many perks. Strawberry, Cream, and Buttercup joined him. The former two were caught up in a discussion about which color of mane ribbon was better. The two were show ponies, exhibited at fairs and the occasional rodeo down in Tennessee or Kentucky. The attention often got to both of their heads, like with Honeycomb.
“I prefer bright pink,” Strawberry gushed, showing off the ties in her light brown mane, which was just a tad lighter than Chocolate’s. Cream, on the other hoof, was greyer in coat, with a light yellow mane, true to her name.
“Well, light blue complements my fabulous colors better,” Cream countered, stroking her own mane and making sure the light blue bows were prominently visible.
Nearby, through a mouthful of the cold mash, Buttercup nudged Chocolate. “Ugh...so vain, so naive...when will they ever get over it?”
Chocolate took a large swallow of the oats and looked over at the mare. “Never. They never have.”
Buttercup laughed and the two continued to eat until Dobson unlatched the stable’s doors and slid them open, announcing that--surprise, surprise--it was time for work.
“Chop, chop, Chocolate! The corn seeds don’t plant themselves, you know!”
Chocolate groaned, but for fear of the whip, reluctantly stood and made his way out of the stable, where Dobson saddled him up, fitted his yoke on, and took his position on top of the workhorse. He carried a large bag of corn seeds with him, and with a snap of the whip rode Chocolate out towards the recently-plowed field. Upon arrival, he rode slowly back-and-forth through the plowed rows, carefully dropping seeds in the ruts every few inches, then filling in the holes to bury the seeds down in the ground. This was followed by a few sweeps with the watering can. All the while the whip cracked, and Chocolate tired within just a few hours.
But there was still almost a full day’s work ahead.
Mr. Dobson had allowed Chocolate an hour or so to rest at lunch while he delivered some gallon bottles of fresh milk into town. With Dobson gone, Chocolate was able to sneak in a bite or two of clover from Honeycomb’s private pasture and get a nice drink from a small brook that meandered along one edge of the farm.
The solitude also allowed Chocolate some time for thought, an activity he normally didn’t partake in much due to his limited time and less-than-optimal intellect.
He posed an interesting question to himself.
“What would happen if there were no humans, no rules, if animals were free?”
Chocolate, however, quickly dismissed the idea as wishful thinking and a concept that would never work if put into practice. He, in fact, forgot about completely it within an hour, as Dobson returned, slipped the yoke back over Chocolate’s neck, and uncoiled his whip.
Buttercup was groaning in pain on the floor of the stable, flanked by Cream and Strawberry, who were grinning eagerly, when Chocolate returned from another hard day at work. Honeycomb looked as disinterested as ever while he swatted a fly away with his hoof.
“Do you think the foals are coming?”
“Uhhh...” Buttercup moaned. She finally managed a weak “yes...”
Chocolate immediately galloped towards the farmhouse, whinnying as hard and fast as he could manage for his current depleted energy level.
Dobson angrily lurched outside two or three minutes after Chocolate had began his fussing. He had clearly been relaxing--he was wearing a crumpled red-and-green checked robe, with a matching beret and pair of bedroom slippers.
“What do you want, you mangy mule?”
Chocolate whinnied frantically again and began to trot back towards the stable. Dobson turned to go back inside and return to his TV dinner, but soon thought better of it and followed Chocolate at a distance.
A spectacular sight greeted Chocolate and Dobson when they pushed open the stable’s door. The two fillies had apparently been born without further incident and were skipping merrily around as Buttercup watched fondly and Cream and Strawberry cooed. Honeycomb was still impassive.
Dobson promptly turned and returned to the house, seeing that nothing on his part was required. In his haste to return to his meal, he neglected to notice a few peculiar things about the fillies.
They were both around the same size. One was white, with a light pink mane and tail, and the other darker purple, accented by a baby blue mane and tail. They also each possessed small feathery wings and stubby horns. Odd markings adorned their flanks--the white one had a burning sun, and the purple one, a crescent moon.
Buttercup pointed to the first one. “I think I’ll call her Celestia,” she finally announced. Pointing to the other, she continued. “And I think I’ll name this other one Luna.”
