The Tale of The Stone-turner

The light came on as the six little ponies screamed in surprise. Blinking until my eyes adjusted, I took a better look at the scene, that is a lot of startled ponies. A large amount of the town was present in the room, many of which I recognized as having attended my little story hour, including the three flower ponies. Putting my grin on I stood up and looked at the six who I interrupted.

“So, I guess you were waiting for me?” Pinkie looked... sad? The pink one can feel sadness?

“Aw, you ruined the surprise.”

“No I didn't, I made it better.” She looked up at me with interest. “Instead of a surprise party, it's a reverse surprise party. I just had to sneak in and surprise everypony else.” She seemed to accept this logic and began bouncing up and down.

“That's a great idea!” I smiled.

“But how the hay did you sneak in, everypony was watching the door!”

“Rainbow, I spent months sneaking thru pony towns, I know how to remain unseen.... mostly.” She huffed at my answer. “But, if you absolutely must know, I climbed in the window.”

“You could have just said that to begin with.”

“But that's not as much fun now is it?”

It was then that music began playing and I excused myself so I could utterly devastate the snack table. Pastries may not be meat, but they are neither fruit nor veggie and as such something I greatly looked forward to. Apparently giving party food a reason to fear the very mention of my name is the same as inadvertently challenging Pinkie to a eating contest. Seriously, how does she eat more than me and still be light enough I could pick her up with one hand? I call shenanigans. Groaning over both my overfilled stomach and bruised ego I decided to actually try and mingle a bit.

Hmm, who to strike up conversation with? There's the white pony with a blue mane and shades, but that's the DJ best not pester a pony on the job. How in the world did that pink pony over there get drunk off plain punch? Whatever, party on little pony, party on... Not really sure what ponies to mingle with I decided to just stick to the ones I know and headed towards Twilight, I should see how she's doing after the little incident this morning.

“Hey, Twilight.”

“Oh, hey Stone.”

“Soooo, umm, you doing better now?” She nodded a little, face slightly reddened.

“Yea, I guess so... It's still a little..
.”

“Embarrassing?” She nodded again. “Well, that can't be helped.” I gently patted her head. “Just don't let it get to you too bad.” I whispered my next words as I crouched down to her level. “And I may have to borrow those books sometime, I've only read the first four.” Twilight just gave a small smirk. “Well then!” I stood and clapped my hands together. “Let's see how well these ponies can handle that jiggling nightmare I call dancing, shall we?”

I strode confidently to the middle of the room where a large group of ponies were already dancing, some of them making me feel much more comfortable about my own dance skills, and then I began to essentially destroy the art that is modern dance. As I began to flail about several of the ponies stopped to watch me, I could tell they found it quite amusing. Then one made a horrible mistake, he laughed. As soon as I heard the laugh I turned to face the offender, he was a light brown earth pony with a brown mane and tail, on his flank was an hourglass. I grinned and stopped all my dancing nonsense to stroll right over to him, he seemed perfectly at ease.

“So, enjoy my dancing?”

“Oh yes actually, that was quite a sight.” I smiled wickedly.

“Care to join me?” Before he could reply I scooped up the pony and began to dance once more, only this time with a very confused pony being swung about. After about a minute of several ponies laughing loudly I set the poor pony down and chuckled. He staggered away, clearly dizzied, and I stepped off the dance floor.

The party continued on for a good while, I spent a fair amount of it just joking around or trying to have a somewhat non-threatening conversation with ponies I hadn't met before. Eventually I had decided to simply relax against a wall and watch the ponies still partying.

“Man, I can't believe I'm going to be living here...” That is when it actually hit me, this is where I was going to live. Sure I had accepted long ago that I would probably never see my own home again, and at this point I didn't much care. My job and everything I owned was surely long gone, and my friends and family wouldn't accept that I lived in a world ran by intelligent ponies for the past several months. But I had always assumed I would spend my days in Equestria on the run, I had never even considered the possibility that I would actually live as a member of a town. Then things began to stir in my head, I would have to find a job, I would have to get some home of my own eventually, I would have to figure out how Equestrian taxes worked, I would either have to never have sex again or stick it in a pony, that last revelation just made me want to cry.

I had gotten so distracted by my internal panic attack I didn't notice the pony approaching me until it spoke.

“Stone? Are you OK?” I shook myself out of it before smiling down at the pony. It was Rose.

“Huh, oh yea, I'm fine.”

“You sure? You looked.. distressed...”

“Yea, I was just planning for life in Ponyville. It's gonna be weird living in a town and not just surviving in it.”

“But, that's a good thing, right? It means don't have to run or hide anymore.” I looked towards the ceiling and nodded lightly.

“It is a good thing, but that doesn't mean it'll be easy to adjust to.” I let out a low sigh and pushed myself off the wall. “Well, there's no reason for me to worry over it, might as well just get used to the idea.”

That's when a pink pony face entered my field of vision.. upside down...

“Hi Stoney! Hi Rose! Whatcha doin all off away from the rest of the party?”

“Hi Pinkie, we were just talking about how I'm gonna adjust to life in Ponyville, how are you upside-

I frowned, she was not in fact upside-down, but was actually standing on my head, bending over to look me in the face. I have no idea how she got up there without my knowledge so I could only assume dark magics were at work.

“Upside-what?”

“Never mind.” I plucked the pony from my head and set her on the ground, Rose just giggled lightly at my interactions with the pink one. I let a small yawn slip out.

“You're not getting tired already are you Stoney?” I shook my head.

“Nah, sleep is for the weak.” This got me a grin from Pinkie and a raised brow from Rose. I let out another yawn, this one much bigger. “OK, I'm a liar. I hate to depart early from the party, but I am apparently weak and therefore sleep is for me. G'night ponies, I shall be leaving for the library.” The ponies each gave me a 'good night' although Pinkie was very disappointed, and I took a full five steps before I turned around. “How exactly do I get to the library from here?”

Rose led me back to the library and, after thanking her, I vaguely remember stumbling down to the basement and passing out on my fake-bed, pants on.

After waking and grumbling thru my morning rituals, I found it to be much earlier in the day than when I usually awake, the sun had barely risen. Nodding to myself I decided to take care of something that desperately needed done, I had to actually learn my way around Ponyville. After several minutes of checking the books on the shelves, and putting them back where I found them, I finally found a map with a somewhat detailed layout of Ponyville.

It was after two hours of intense map study that I heard the sound of hooves on wood, I turned to watch Twilight walk down the stairs, hah, she had bed-mane. With a chuckle I resumed memorizing the map.

“Good morning, Twilight.”

“Good *yawn* morning, Stone. What are doing so early?”

“Learning Ponyville's layout.”

“Why?”

“Because, I keep getting lost.” Twilight giggled at me. My stomach gave me a small grumble just barely audible. “Ah, that reminds me, is there somewhere around here I could find fish or small animals in the wild?” I turned back to face the unicorn.

“Fluttershy takes care of most of the animals in the area, you could visit her.” I shook my head.

“No, those are essentially her pets. They have to be fending for themselves in the wild.”

“Why exactly?”

“I'm not going to lie, I am tired of eating only fruits and vegetables.”

“Well, we have hay and flowers in the kitchen.”

“Twilight, why would I tell you I am tired of eating fruits and veggies after just asking where wild animals are?” I watched her eyes slowly widen. She understood what I meant.

“YOU EAT ANIMALS!?”

“Yes, half of my diet needs to have once been living, but not anything sentient or that anypony would hold an emotional attachment to. I didn't choose this body, but it's the one I've got and it requires meat from time to time. So, do you know where I could find any?” She shook her head then sighed.

“But, I know Fluttershy takes care of some carnivores, maybe you should try asking her if they would share their food with you.”

“I'll try that. Thank you.” I began to rise, but stopped myself. “Um, where can I find Fluttershy?” Twilight pointed me towards a spot outside of town on the map and I set out on my quest for meat...

I stepped off the dirt path connecting the nearby forest to Ponyville and stared at what I assumed to be my destination. This wasn't Fluttershy's home, it was nature's and the pegasus just happened to live in it. I walked across a small bridge over top an equally small stream and towards the door of the cottage, which seemed to be made mostly of a great bush set atop four walls. I knocked gently on the door. After several moments of waiting I tried knocking again. Well damn, I guess nopony is home.

With a sigh I turned to leave. I had only taken a couple steps when something caught my ear. Closing my eyes I focused on trying to hear it again, it was.. humming? Curiously I began turning my head until the sound was more easily heard and started to head towards it's source. I had to walk around to the back of the cottage to find the cause of the humming. I couldn't help but grin.

There was the pegasus I was looking for, and for once she wasn't hiding in her hair. I watched Fluttershy for a little bit, she was humming some tune while she flew about feeding various animals. I would bug her when she finished what she was doing or noticed me, whichever came first. I sat on the grass to wait and it wasn't long before something took notice of me, but it wasn't Fluttershy. Whatever it was, it was pounding on the side of my leg.

I looked down by my leg, there was a small white rabbit, it looked annoyed. I raised an eyebrow as the creature gave me a look laced with disapproval and pointed out towards the road. Just a hunch, but It may want me to leave. With a smile I patted it on the head and resumed watching Fluttershy. The bunny bastard jumped right into my face and kicked me, feisty little guy. He gave me a very dirty look and pointed at the road again, I put on my grin. I knew exactly how to deal with uppity rabbits, I used to own one when I was a little kid, although it wasn't nearly as intelligent as this one seemed to be. Slowly I held up my right hand, index finger extended, and moved it back and forth in front of the rabbit. The bunny tracked my finger closely as I brought it up between his eyes and slowly ran it down to the end of his nose.

The poor rabbit didn't know what hit him, immediately his eyes began to droop. He weakly tried to bring up his front paws to stop me, but it was too late. I repeated the motion until against his will the rabbit laid down and began to breath silently, sleeping like a baby. Carefully I picked up the rabbit with one hand, making sure to keep petting along it's nose with the other, and set it in my lap. From the attitude this rabbit seemed to have, I would not want to stop and let it wake up, it probably wouldn't take long for it to chew my arm off.

I resumed watching Fluttershy, making sure to keep the rabbit asleep in my lap, for about five minutes before she finally noticed my presence. After a small gasp she shyly fluttered towards me, no idea where her name comes from, and began to speak.

“Oh, Stone, what are you do-

She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening and her mouth agape when she noticed what was in my lap.

“OH MY GOSH! How did you get to be such good friends with Angel so quickly!?” She sped right up to me, clearly excited beyond what her shyness can contain. “He would never let anypony hold him or pet him, but he's napping right in your lap and letting you pet his nose!”

“He's not quite just letting me pet him...” The pegasus looked both less excited and a bit confused. “See he was giving me a bit of a hard time so I used this little trick I learned from having a pet rabbit of my own a long time ago. I just run my fingers along their nose like I am doing now, and they fall right asleep.” I chuckled lightly. “Although when I stop he'll wake up and probably bite me.” Fluttershy gasped at me.

“Oh no, little Angel wouldn't ever bite somepony, he might get a little rough but never actually hurt anypony.” She smiled. “But I should probably be the first one he sees when he wakes up, just in case.” She gently lifted the rabbit up away from me and placed him on her back, I have no idea how she did that with hooves. “So, um, Stone.. why are you here, if you don't mind my asking, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.” Angel had begun to stir, and with a yawn spotted me from Fluttershy's back. He gave me the dirtiest look a rabbit has ever given a man.

“Well, I had a couple questions.”

“Questions?”

“Yes, involving the animals around the area.”

“Oh, well feel free to ask me anything... if you want to.”

“Alright then, you take care of most of the animals in the area, correct?” She nodded. “And sometimes these animals happen to need to eat meat?” She nodded again, then spoke up.

“You want to eat some of the meat I feed the animals, right?”

“Yes that is exactly wha- How did you know that I eat meat!?” She flinched at my outburst.

“I saw your teeth back at breakfast in Canterlot when you smiled at me, all of the animals that eat meat have similar sharp ones. It's the reason I was so scared of you back then.”

“Oh, well, sorry if you thought I was gonna eat you or something. I don't eat anything sentient if that helps.”

“You don't need to worry about it, I know a lot of meat eating animals that are really sweet, they can't help what their tummies have to get.” Tummies? Weird little pony.

“Right, so may I please have some meat Fluttershy?” She shook her head.

“Sorry Stone, I don't have any meat. I had to feed it all to a family of sick bears yesterday, they had just the most awful cold. I hope you're not upset.” I sighed and shook my head.

“Don't worry Fluttershy, I'm not upset or anything. I can stand going a while longer without meat, it's just.... inconvenient.”

“Well, um, you can come with me to get some fish for the bears, if don't mind, and we can get some extra for you too. But, um, you have to be very quiet while we do that, if you want to that is.”

“I'll gladly come with you Fluttershy, but why stay quiet?”

“Because, the only place left to check for already dead fish is Froggy Bottom Bog and a hydra lives there, we don't want to accidentally wake him up.”

“Oh, OK. Whenever you're ready, lead the way.”

Fluttershy nodded and after feeding the rest of the animals, she put on a pair of baskets designed to hang on her side while the strap sat across her back and we departed for the bog. It didn't take too long to get there, but it was a fairly silent walk. She was too shy to start a conversation and I didn't know what to talk about. The bog itself was, well it was a bog. Large patches of murky water, semi-solid muck rather than dirt or solid ground, large trees supported by equally large roots sitting atop the water, and enough bugs to make me want to burn the entire thing down. How would one burn down a bog? No idea, but I was willing to learn. We squished our way quietly towards one of the larger bodies of water, both her hooves and my shoes good and muddy.

“So, Fluttershy.” I whispered. “What exactly is the plan for quietly getting fish?”

“Well, I thought I would fly over the water and pick up any that were floating on the surface, and you could go around the edges and get the ones that have washed ashore. If you don't mind. We don't have to do it that way.” I practically had to hurt myself to make out her whispers, she talked quiet enough normally that I don't think she'd wake the hydra.

“That plan sounds fine, let's just no take longer than we have to.”

With a nod we separated and began our own parts of the mission, she flew silently over the lake while I squish squashed my way around it's shore. After an hour of my fun in the mud we regrouped to view our haul. I had collected a full seven fishes that had washed ashore, she found eighteen that were just floating in the water, showoff. I set my fish in Fluttershy's baskets.

“So we all ready to sneak out of here?” She nodded.

“Yes, hopefully we can make it out of the bog safely.”

“Heh, knock on wood.” I lightly knocked my knuckles on the nearest tree three times. In my defense I did not know how rotted that tree was, or that the whole thing would fall back into the water with a very loud splash when I did that. “Oops...”

There was a loud churning coming from the lake, I looked back towards it to see four large serpent-like heads rising from the water. Turning back towards Fluttershy I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards it.

“That would be the hydra, wouldn't it?” She nodded. “It's probably going to eat us, isn't it?” Another nod. “Would you like to run screaming to the right or to the left?”

“L-l-left...”

“Good choice.”

We took off running in opposite directions, screaming like it would actually help in some way. The ground began to quake fiercely, guess the hydra made it on land, the quaking made it a little difficult to run at first, but that was OK because the quaking was getting.... weaker? OH SHIT IT WENT FOR FLUTTERSHY! I almost fell flat on my face as I stopped and turned around, taking off in a mad dash to catch up to the pegasus and the hydra and do.. something.

“What got something against humans!? Prejudice asshole! Fluttershy, just fly up above, I'll lead it off away from you.”

“I c-cant f-fly! Too Scared! And I won't l-leave you alone!” I am displeased with this response.

I charge after the hydra as fast as I can, not really sure what to do if I reach them. I definitely can't fight the hydra, I more than likely can't reason with it, hell the only thing I could ever really do about confrontation since I came to Equestria was.. turn things into STONE! Aha, I have a way to stop it! Now.. how do I do that? With a frown I thought about what I had done with the leaf back in the Ponyville park and tried to focus just on the hydra. On the way it's four necks bent, the patterns its orange scales formed, the movement of it's long tail as it ran on its two legs. Nothing, well fuck. I better come up with some kind of plan B while I keep trying to petrify the four headed monstrosity. Ooh a rock, that might help somehow. I scooped up a rock roughly the size of my palm and threw it at one of the hydra's heads. I missed the entire barn sized creature by a mile and a half.

“Apparently I am the kind of stupid that can never be fixed.”

I froze in place, my legs locking up from fear. Fluttershy had tripped. My eyes widened and everything seemed to begin moving in slow motion. The hydra stopped and began to lean towards Fluttershy, one of it's mouths opened wide. Fluttershy looked up towards the gaping maw and somehow found the strength to pass out before it could envelop her.

I began to breath heavily as I watched the scene.

“No.”

My heart began to race faster than it ever had before.

“No.”

The hydra's head came down around Fluttershy.

“NO!”

My vision filled with blindingly bright red. Oh look, I got my petrification to work, hooray. I walked towards the hydra as my vision returned to normal, only its four heads and its feet were petrified, the neck, tail, and body were all still flesh. Creepy. I got to the head that had come down around Fluttershy and breathed a sigh of relief, the jaws had completely surrounded her but they had not even come close to touching her. She was slightly curled and perfectly unharmed between a set of giant stone teeth. I reached into the mouth and carefully pulled her out, laying her some ways away from the hydra I went back to the half-statue. Might as well inspect my handy work.

Cautiously I walked under the beast and pressed my hand against its underbelly, it was soft and slightly warm to the touch. I ran my hand along to one of its scales, they were large and felt sturdy. I pulled at the scale and it came free with a small amount of resistance. I dropped the scale as it cut my finger, fucker was sharp. I picked the scale back up from the ground, careful not to cut myself again.

“Hm, it would be almost pretty if it didn't come off something that tried to eat Fluttershy.”

I frowned, this thing next to me had tried to eat Fluttershy. This now immobilized beast had tried to eat a pony. No, not just eat a pony, it tried to eat a pony I knew! It tried to eat one of MY PONIES! I had gotten mad, no mad isn't strong enough, I got fucking furious. I looked towards the hydra's underbelly then back at the scale in my hand, and I decided this thing would not ever be able to try that shit again, even if it did somehow de-petrify.

I.. well I went a tad crazy. I had begun slinging the hydra's own scale madly against its underbelly, leaving large gashes and splattering blood against the ground and myself. I had begun laughing at one point as I swung over and over again, until eventually I had taken one slash large enough that the wound allowed the hydra's entrails to spill out of it and onto me. I didn't care, I just threw the entrails off of myself and slashed apart the bits still hanging out of the hole.

“Oh look at what we have in here.” I pulled the wound open slightly “I see something beat~ing” the hydra's heart was easily seen, it was large and pulsed slowly. “Let's put a stop to that shall weeeeee?” I drove the scale deep into the heart until it ceased its movements. “Look at that, hah, your dead! You tried to make a meal out of one of my ponies and now look where that got you, you'll never eat anything again! You'll probably just be eaten by everything else in this bog, haha. YOU'LL JUST BE NOTHING MORE THAN FOOD! HAHAHAHA!! WHO THE FUCK GETS TO EAT WHO NOW MR. HYDRA!!!?” For emphasis I ripped off one of the looser bits of flesh from the hydra, it was quite a large piece, and chewed it loudly, blood squirting out and running down my face, before swallowing it. “MMMMMM JUST LIKE FUCKING ROAST FUCKING BEEF!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

My laughter started to die down as I heard small movements, I looked towards the source of the sound. It was Fluttershy she had begun to stir. I held my breath, my brain has started working normally again and it knew Fluttershy would probably not handle the current situation very well. Fortunately she did not wake up, but the thought of anypony seeing me like this was enough to snap me back to reality. I went to the nearest lake and dove in, crudely washing off the blood.

Getting out of the lake I looked down at myself, expecting my clothes to be ruined from bloodstains, I was pleasantly surprised. The blood had run off as if the clothing were laminated, I was impressed. Wait, stay focused, be impressed later, get Fluttershy out of the area before she wakes up and sees the horrible mess I made now. Soaking wet and getting cold I walked over to the pegasus and scooped her up. I squished-squashed my way out of the bog and towards Fluttershy's home. This has been a hell of a time just to get breakfast.