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Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
1000–25000
Can I keep it? Please, oh PLEASE?
While a multitude of ponies that lived in the quaint and oft forgotten town of Ponyville would tell you that not a soul would dare venture into the curiously unknown horrors of the Everfree forest, most of them would be lying due to the sheer ignorance of speaking for themselves. In fact, a nice bit of the population ventures into the Everfree regularly and laugh all the while about it. However, that group doesn’t know any better; their minds are underdeveloped and had no concern in terms of fear of the unknown.
The little fillies and foals of the town would sneak out at night, supposedly fast asleep, to explore the dark forest. They hoped this would bring glory or significance to their lives, as if they would find a special calling there and not be turned to stone by evil monsters who have no desire but to watch their pitiful world turn to darkness as they shed pitiful tears. But I digress, children are stupid.
Despite the previous paragraph, this is a happy story that has a happy ending depending on whether or not you are a robot and devoid of emotion. I’d highly recommend you not be, as the robot police are always listening. It was one such night, when the fillies and foals of the town snuck out, that a sweet unicorn filly by the name of Sweetie Belle ventured into the forest alone on a dare by her equally kind and dull classmates. She ventured into the unknown, fearless, because fear was unknown to her.
Sweetie Belle felt tired. She squealed to herself in the silent forest. “I’ve been walking through this stupid forest all night, and I haven’t found a single poison joke! I can’t see a thing. Ugh, the girls will never let me hear the end of this if I don’t come back with one! Next time, I’ll, why I’ll just push them into a lake!”
She threw her head back and let out a small roar, stomping her hooves as her frustration grew. Like most children, her tantrum lasted for quite a while before she slammed herself into a tree and fell. Unfortunately, this had attracted a bit of unwanted attention to her. She looked up, to see several of the tree’s inhabitants glowering back down at her. With all her powers of child stupidity, she started running in a random direction. Only when she realized that they hadn’t followed her in the first place did she realize that she was horribly lost.
She didn't feel safe, or happy. In fact, she was already distinctly unhappy, so it couldn't get much worse in terms of general joyousness. She nervously started humming a tune to herself, as all stereotypically do when they get scared and lost. She eventually started to trot in the general direction she thought she had come from. Her humming turned into la-la-la-ing which turned into singing. Despite not learning from her previous bout of being loud and generally child-like, she found that singing put her in a better mood. Or possibly it brought her hallucinations, as she thought she could make out a poison joke growing in front of a tree. Trying to use a little bit of magic to provide some light, she discovered that it was indeed the elusive flower that she had been searching for throughout the night. She began to dig it out, being extra careful to not touch the flower itself, and began to put it in her bag. However, it was then that she realized she had lost her saddlebag. A frown crept over her face. She tossed the poison joke into the darkness and started to hum again as she cantered towards what she thought was an exit. A sleeping pair of eyes opened in the darkness, disturbed by being hit in the face with a clod of dirt and a rather ugly flower. It began to follow her.
Scootaloo woke up before Applebloom did. They had fallen asleep near an entrance to the Everfree, waiting for Sweetie Belle to get back. Scootaloo shook Applebloom to wake her up.
“Applebloom, hey! Wake up!”
“No sir, I didn’t take yer chicken, this here chicken’s MINE.” Applebloom mumbled back in her sleep.
Naturally, the only solution to this problem required Scootaloo to fetch a bucket of water. Politely permanently borrowing the first one she could find, she placed it in front of Applebloom's face, and began to pour it. Conveniently, Applebloom woke up just in time.
"Mmhm, G'morni-ARGLEBLARGLEGURGLEGURGLEBLEHEUGH."
"G'morning Applebloom! Did you see Sweetie Belle come back before I fell asleep, did you?"
Applebloom replied with a series of coughs and hacks.
"I didn't either. Should we be worried? Maybe she came back while we were asleep. Let's go talk to Rarity."
Cough. Cough. Hack. Cough, hack.
"Sweetie Belle, whatever has gotten into you? You're almost always up before I am, burn-I mean cooking us food." Rarity called into her little sister's bedroom. Not even receiving a general groan as a reply, Rarity walked into her sister's room. Her bed was still made, and the nearby window was open. "Mom and Dad are gonna kill me."
She rushed out the front door and found herself mowing down Applebloom and a chicken. She stopped, bewildered, and turned around to realize that the chicken was in fact one of Sweetie Belle's friends. Scooterpony, or something like that.
"You! Oh, you! You're one of Sweetie Belle's friends. Thank goodness. Where is she?"
"I don't know, and Applebloom didn't know either, and so we were going to ask you if she had come home, but we fell asleep before she got out of the forest and I-"
"You let her go into the forest? The EVERFREE FOREST? BY HERSELF? Oh dear, this is the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING. I even made a list this time of bad things that could happen while she stayed with me but my parents didn't want to read it and THIS was on the TOP OF THE LIST. Come on, Sweetie Belle's friend, we need to go find Twilight."
The two fillies shrugged and trotted after her, all the way to Twilight's Library. There was a note on the door, that Rarity snatched off. It read "Gone to EPG meeting."
"Oh, this is just wonderful." Rarity started off, running in a new direction.
"What's an EPG?" Applebloom asked Scootaloo.
"I think it has something to do with books."
"Hah! Books. Nopony reads books but Twilight! I'll bet she's just having a meeting with herself."
They giggled all the way to their next destination, which was Fluttershy's house. There was also a note on her door. It read: "Gone to Earth Pegasus Guild meeting with Twilight Sparkle. I'm terribly sorry if you have a sick pet, I can't help you today. I will try my best to be back as soon as possible.
P.s. Do any pegasi want to come to the next meeting with me? I get the feeling that Twilight doesn't like it."
Rarity was past the point of sanity by now. She considered turning around, and that maybe living life without waking up to the smell of your kitchen burning down may be better than not doing so, but decided that she liked her sister enough to go into the Everfree anyway.
Applebloom didn’t understand why Rarity was so stressed out. It’s not like anyone had gotten hurt in the Everfree yet. The only thing to worry about was the Timberwolves, really, and it wasn’t even Zap Apple season. She tried to communicate this to Rarity, but she seemed to not hear her in the manic state she was in. Scootaloo had no comments on the situation as they followed the crazy lady into the dark forest.
Luckily, their search ended rather quickly, if not horrifically. A manticore was crushing Sweetie Belle in its arms. Rarity ran forward, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu as she hopelessly kicked the manticore in the face. It wrinkled its nose a little and planted its face into the ground. In fact, now that Rarity was taking time to assess the situation and not kicking things in the face, she realized that it was sleeping, and Sweetie Belle was as well.
Scootaloo and Applebloom were confused as to whether or not to giggle at Rarity, or to be scared for Sweetie Belle. In conclusion, they decided to scream and laugh at the same time as they ran out of the forest.
Responding to the girls’ screams, Sweetie Belle forced an eye open to see her quite stunned, almost angry sister. She squeezed her eye shut, knowing that she was in trouble now. Waiting a few moments, she opened her eye again to unfortunately see that Rarity had not gone away. She squirmed out of the manticore’s arms, and kept her head down as she walked towards Rarity.
“SWEETIE BELLE! OH MY DEAR SISTER! I THOUGHT I HAD LOST YOU FOREVER AND DON’T YOU DARE EVER DO THAT AGAIN AND oh dear that’s a manticore we need to RUN!” Thusly, Rarity took off like a speeding bullet into the surrounding tree-line. Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, turned around, and began to pet the manticore’s head. Rarity, realizing that Sweetie Belle was not following her, came back and began to fiercely whisper.
“Sweetie Belle. That. Is. A. Manticore. You’ll get hurt! Get over here!”
“Raaaaarityyyyyy,” Sweetie Belle replied normally, “his name is Sweetie, and he’s nice!”
“You have got to be joking kidding me. Manticores are in NO WAY nice! Get over here, now!”
“Oh Rarity, can I keep it! He’s so sweet? Can I keep it? Please, oh PLEASE? He already likes you!”
The manticore did not, in fact, already like Rarity, but decided to not mention this for Sweetie Belle’s sake. Rarity could not help but stutter now.
“I-I don’t even… I just don’t know how…”
Sweetie Belle put on her best sadface.
“Just, come on! I don’t care what you do with it!”
Sweetie Belle jumped for joy, and crawled onto the manticore’s back.
“Okay, Sweetie! Let’s go back to the boutique!”
“Wait a moment! Oh dear, I don’t know how I can…ooh! Sweetie Belle, put some leaves on his head. It’ll be perfect.”
Disliking his new hat, Sweetie the manticore was tempted to eat the larger pony that kicked him, but decided that the little one wouldn’t like that. He followed the larger pony out of his home and into the wild and untamed wonders of Ponyville.
Fluttershy just happened to come back from her EPG meeting in just enough time to see Rarity and Sweetie Belle flaunting their new tree about town. She didn’t even know that Rarity was good enough with her magic that she could lift anything more than a couch, much less a giant tree like that one.
“Oh, are you going to plant that tree outside the Carousel Boutique?” She asked as she walked up to them. “It looks lovely! I’d like to have a tree like that.”
“His name is Sweetie!” Sweetie Belle replied.
“Oh, you’re just like Applejack with trees!” Fluttershy called as she walked back to her house, “How cute. You girls have fun today. I’ll see you Saturday at the spa, Rarity!”
Sweetie Belle giggled all the way to the boutique. Unfortunately, there Rarity met the dilemma of Sweetie the manticore not being able to fit through the front door. Sweetie the manticore met the dilemma of hurting his claws after he tore a large chunk of the wall down to get inside. Sweetie Belle the pony met the dilemma of Rarity wanting to kill her.
“Oh, Sweetie Belle…” Rarity ran her hooves through her no-longer perfectly styled mane as she looked at what she had gotten herself into in utter bewilderment. “How did you even get this thing to like you?”
“Oh, that was easy!” Sweetie Belle hopped off Sweetie the manticore’s back. “I was just singing, and then I saw it, and I thought he was angry, so I stopped singing, and then he DID get angry, so I started singing again and then he was all like ‘I like you.’ and he started purring and he was just like Opal but less mean!”
Sweetie the manticore performed a series of grunts that must have been the equivalent of laughing for manticores, or he had just gotten done eating the remains of Rarity’s golden fabric.
Rarity didn’t want to question it further, exasperated as she was. “Sweetie Belle, just… just stay put. I’m going to get Twilight to come help me with this mess your new friend has made.”
Sweetie Belle, being a child of small intelligence, did the exact opposite of Rarity’s command by grabbing a toy ball and taking Sweetie the manticore outside to play fetch near the marketplace.
Crafty Crate was an impatient pony. He worked all day for the Equestrian Mail, and worked a second job on the weekends selling his cousin’s fruit. He wouldn’t mind if he was selling anything but cherries. Cherries were the worst. They smelled like, well, cherries. Simply, he didn’t like them. He deserved to drop a virtue, and patience was one he couldn’t tolerate. He also couldn’t tolerate loiterers hanging about his stand, so when he saw a unicorn filly calling out for a lost friend, the only thing that ran through his mind mostly consisted of ‘Get LOST.’
“Sweetie! Oh, Sweetie! Come out!” Sweetie Belle called through the sides of her mouth, as she held a toy ball in her teeth. “We’ve got lots more to do!”
“Hey, hey kid. Why don’t you find your friend and get out of here. This is no place to play, unless you’re gonna buy some cherries. Seriously. Buy some cherries. I don’t want ‘em.”
Sweetie Belle spit out the ball to talk. “I’m trying to, mister Cherrypony, but I can’t find him anywhere!” The ball rolled underneath Crafty Crate’s table. “Have you seen him, mister?”
“Well kid, I don’t like kids. Kids don’t like me. I haven’t seen any others besides you kid. In fact, I haven’t seen anypony today. Looks like something’s gone and scared everypony off, in fact.”
A deep growl emanated from a nearby rooftop. Crafty crate looked up to see a large tree looming over his stand. He briefly considered if this was a rare growler-tree, commonly found in the far reaches of the Equestrian seaborder, but dismissed it because he knew that they didn’t live on rooftops. He was less curious about the toothy grin that soon accompanied the growler-tree and was horrified to see it pounce on his lovely cherry table.
“MY CHERRIES! NOT MY CHERRIES! I was gonna buy a new hat with today’s money! Why you, little girl…” Crafty Crate stopped his ranting to consider why the tree just pounced on his cherry table, and ponder why the tree stopped looking like a tree, and that if he closed his right eye, then turned his head seventy degrees to the right, and then closed his left eye, that it almost looked like a manticore.
“Why, that’s a manticore!” he shouted as a fresh epiphany struck him in a bout of intellectual strain. “HELP! MANTICORE! OH PLEASE WILL SOMEONE HELP US?” he screamed as he ran around the corner and towards the nearest robot equestrian animal control station.
Before Sweetie Belle could respond to this situation, the robot animal police were upon her and Sweetie, and had already put a net around Sweetie. Rarity and Twilight were soon upon the seen as well. Seeing a potential opportunity to get out of writing a letter, Twilight stepped into the shadows and let Rarity work things out with her sister.
“Oh Rarity, tell them that he’s not bad! He’s just Sweetie! They can’t take him away! Oh PLEASE, RARITY!” Rarity was not surprised that it had already come to this. The robot animal police had already done this to two of Sweetie Belle’s pet fish and a watermelon. Even if Rarity had decided to speak up, the robot police were already trying to drag Sweetie the manticore away. In a stereotypical heart-touching moment, Sweetie the manticore nuzzled Sweetie Belle’s muzzle, and allowed himself to be taken away. Sweetie Belle began to produce a stream of gushing tears, that didn’t seem to be stopping for a while. Rarity went back to the boutique, brought a towel to lie down on the dirty marketplace floor next to Sweetie Belle, and waited for her to dry herself out. Luckily, no one disturbed them, if the unnerving fact that Twilight was still watching them didn’t disturb her.
“Sweetie Belle, it’s okay. They’re just taking Sweetie back to the Everfree where he belongs, with more Sweeties. I know how much you liked him Sweetie, but you could never be Sweetie enough to be a Sweetie like Sweetie. Do you understand, Sweetie?”
Sweetie Belle sniffled. “It’s just not fair…”
“Oh Sweetie, I know it’s not fair, but it will be okay. Come on now, Sweetie Belle. I’ll make you a hat.”
Together, one elegantly dragged behind the other, they walked off to the boutique. Twilight felt the need to baww a little, but then remembered that she didn’t manage to get a friendship report out of this experience and resolved to write to Celestia about the time she went with Fluttershy to a stupid feather-brain meeting because Fluttershy didn’t want to go alone.
The little fillies and foals of the town would sneak out at night, supposedly fast asleep, to explore the dark forest. They hoped this would bring glory or significance to their lives, as if they would find a special calling there and not be turned to stone by evil monsters who have no desire but to watch their pitiful world turn to darkness as they shed pitiful tears. But I digress, children are stupid.
Despite the previous paragraph, this is a happy story that has a happy ending depending on whether or not you are a robot and devoid of emotion. I’d highly recommend you not be, as the robot police are always listening. It was one such night, when the fillies and foals of the town snuck out, that a sweet unicorn filly by the name of Sweetie Belle ventured into the forest alone on a dare by her equally kind and dull classmates. She ventured into the unknown, fearless, because fear was unknown to her.
Sweetie Belle felt tired. She squealed to herself in the silent forest. “I’ve been walking through this stupid forest all night, and I haven’t found a single poison joke! I can’t see a thing. Ugh, the girls will never let me hear the end of this if I don’t come back with one! Next time, I’ll, why I’ll just push them into a lake!”
She threw her head back and let out a small roar, stomping her hooves as her frustration grew. Like most children, her tantrum lasted for quite a while before she slammed herself into a tree and fell. Unfortunately, this had attracted a bit of unwanted attention to her. She looked up, to see several of the tree’s inhabitants glowering back down at her. With all her powers of child stupidity, she started running in a random direction. Only when she realized that they hadn’t followed her in the first place did she realize that she was horribly lost.
She didn't feel safe, or happy. In fact, she was already distinctly unhappy, so it couldn't get much worse in terms of general joyousness. She nervously started humming a tune to herself, as all stereotypically do when they get scared and lost. She eventually started to trot in the general direction she thought she had come from. Her humming turned into la-la-la-ing which turned into singing. Despite not learning from her previous bout of being loud and generally child-like, she found that singing put her in a better mood. Or possibly it brought her hallucinations, as she thought she could make out a poison joke growing in front of a tree. Trying to use a little bit of magic to provide some light, she discovered that it was indeed the elusive flower that she had been searching for throughout the night. She began to dig it out, being extra careful to not touch the flower itself, and began to put it in her bag. However, it was then that she realized she had lost her saddlebag. A frown crept over her face. She tossed the poison joke into the darkness and started to hum again as she cantered towards what she thought was an exit. A sleeping pair of eyes opened in the darkness, disturbed by being hit in the face with a clod of dirt and a rather ugly flower. It began to follow her.
Scootaloo woke up before Applebloom did. They had fallen asleep near an entrance to the Everfree, waiting for Sweetie Belle to get back. Scootaloo shook Applebloom to wake her up.
“Applebloom, hey! Wake up!”
“No sir, I didn’t take yer chicken, this here chicken’s MINE.” Applebloom mumbled back in her sleep.
Naturally, the only solution to this problem required Scootaloo to fetch a bucket of water. Politely permanently borrowing the first one she could find, she placed it in front of Applebloom's face, and began to pour it. Conveniently, Applebloom woke up just in time.
"Mmhm, G'morni-ARGLEBLARGLEGURGLEGURGLEBLEHEUGH."
"G'morning Applebloom! Did you see Sweetie Belle come back before I fell asleep, did you?"
Applebloom replied with a series of coughs and hacks.
"I didn't either. Should we be worried? Maybe she came back while we were asleep. Let's go talk to Rarity."
Cough. Cough. Hack. Cough, hack.
"Sweetie Belle, whatever has gotten into you? You're almost always up before I am, burn-I mean cooking us food." Rarity called into her little sister's bedroom. Not even receiving a general groan as a reply, Rarity walked into her sister's room. Her bed was still made, and the nearby window was open. "Mom and Dad are gonna kill me."
She rushed out the front door and found herself mowing down Applebloom and a chicken. She stopped, bewildered, and turned around to realize that the chicken was in fact one of Sweetie Belle's friends. Scooterpony, or something like that.
"You! Oh, you! You're one of Sweetie Belle's friends. Thank goodness. Where is she?"
"I don't know, and Applebloom didn't know either, and so we were going to ask you if she had come home, but we fell asleep before she got out of the forest and I-"
"You let her go into the forest? The EVERFREE FOREST? BY HERSELF? Oh dear, this is the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING. I even made a list this time of bad things that could happen while she stayed with me but my parents didn't want to read it and THIS was on the TOP OF THE LIST. Come on, Sweetie Belle's friend, we need to go find Twilight."
The two fillies shrugged and trotted after her, all the way to Twilight's Library. There was a note on the door, that Rarity snatched off. It read "Gone to EPG meeting."
"Oh, this is just wonderful." Rarity started off, running in a new direction.
"What's an EPG?" Applebloom asked Scootaloo.
"I think it has something to do with books."
"Hah! Books. Nopony reads books but Twilight! I'll bet she's just having a meeting with herself."
They giggled all the way to their next destination, which was Fluttershy's house. There was also a note on her door. It read: "Gone to Earth Pegasus Guild meeting with Twilight Sparkle. I'm terribly sorry if you have a sick pet, I can't help you today. I will try my best to be back as soon as possible.
P.s. Do any pegasi want to come to the next meeting with me? I get the feeling that Twilight doesn't like it."
Rarity was past the point of sanity by now. She considered turning around, and that maybe living life without waking up to the smell of your kitchen burning down may be better than not doing so, but decided that she liked her sister enough to go into the Everfree anyway.
Applebloom didn’t understand why Rarity was so stressed out. It’s not like anyone had gotten hurt in the Everfree yet. The only thing to worry about was the Timberwolves, really, and it wasn’t even Zap Apple season. She tried to communicate this to Rarity, but she seemed to not hear her in the manic state she was in. Scootaloo had no comments on the situation as they followed the crazy lady into the dark forest.
Luckily, their search ended rather quickly, if not horrifically. A manticore was crushing Sweetie Belle in its arms. Rarity ran forward, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu as she hopelessly kicked the manticore in the face. It wrinkled its nose a little and planted its face into the ground. In fact, now that Rarity was taking time to assess the situation and not kicking things in the face, she realized that it was sleeping, and Sweetie Belle was as well.
Scootaloo and Applebloom were confused as to whether or not to giggle at Rarity, or to be scared for Sweetie Belle. In conclusion, they decided to scream and laugh at the same time as they ran out of the forest.
Responding to the girls’ screams, Sweetie Belle forced an eye open to see her quite stunned, almost angry sister. She squeezed her eye shut, knowing that she was in trouble now. Waiting a few moments, she opened her eye again to unfortunately see that Rarity had not gone away. She squirmed out of the manticore’s arms, and kept her head down as she walked towards Rarity.
“SWEETIE BELLE! OH MY DEAR SISTER! I THOUGHT I HAD LOST YOU FOREVER AND DON’T YOU DARE EVER DO THAT AGAIN AND oh dear that’s a manticore we need to RUN!” Thusly, Rarity took off like a speeding bullet into the surrounding tree-line. Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, turned around, and began to pet the manticore’s head. Rarity, realizing that Sweetie Belle was not following her, came back and began to fiercely whisper.
“Sweetie Belle. That. Is. A. Manticore. You’ll get hurt! Get over here!”
“Raaaaarityyyyyy,” Sweetie Belle replied normally, “his name is Sweetie, and he’s nice!”
“You have got to be joking kidding me. Manticores are in NO WAY nice! Get over here, now!”
“Oh Rarity, can I keep it! He’s so sweet? Can I keep it? Please, oh PLEASE? He already likes you!”
The manticore did not, in fact, already like Rarity, but decided to not mention this for Sweetie Belle’s sake. Rarity could not help but stutter now.
“I-I don’t even… I just don’t know how…”
Sweetie Belle put on her best sadface.
“Just, come on! I don’t care what you do with it!”
Sweetie Belle jumped for joy, and crawled onto the manticore’s back.
“Okay, Sweetie! Let’s go back to the boutique!”
“Wait a moment! Oh dear, I don’t know how I can…ooh! Sweetie Belle, put some leaves on his head. It’ll be perfect.”
Disliking his new hat, Sweetie the manticore was tempted to eat the larger pony that kicked him, but decided that the little one wouldn’t like that. He followed the larger pony out of his home and into the wild and untamed wonders of Ponyville.
Fluttershy just happened to come back from her EPG meeting in just enough time to see Rarity and Sweetie Belle flaunting their new tree about town. She didn’t even know that Rarity was good enough with her magic that she could lift anything more than a couch, much less a giant tree like that one.
“Oh, are you going to plant that tree outside the Carousel Boutique?” She asked as she walked up to them. “It looks lovely! I’d like to have a tree like that.”
“His name is Sweetie!” Sweetie Belle replied.
“Oh, you’re just like Applejack with trees!” Fluttershy called as she walked back to her house, “How cute. You girls have fun today. I’ll see you Saturday at the spa, Rarity!”
Sweetie Belle giggled all the way to the boutique. Unfortunately, there Rarity met the dilemma of Sweetie the manticore not being able to fit through the front door. Sweetie the manticore met the dilemma of hurting his claws after he tore a large chunk of the wall down to get inside. Sweetie Belle the pony met the dilemma of Rarity wanting to kill her.
“Oh, Sweetie Belle…” Rarity ran her hooves through her no-longer perfectly styled mane as she looked at what she had gotten herself into in utter bewilderment. “How did you even get this thing to like you?”
“Oh, that was easy!” Sweetie Belle hopped off Sweetie the manticore’s back. “I was just singing, and then I saw it, and I thought he was angry, so I stopped singing, and then he DID get angry, so I started singing again and then he was all like ‘I like you.’ and he started purring and he was just like Opal but less mean!”
Sweetie the manticore performed a series of grunts that must have been the equivalent of laughing for manticores, or he had just gotten done eating the remains of Rarity’s golden fabric.
Rarity didn’t want to question it further, exasperated as she was. “Sweetie Belle, just… just stay put. I’m going to get Twilight to come help me with this mess your new friend has made.”
Sweetie Belle, being a child of small intelligence, did the exact opposite of Rarity’s command by grabbing a toy ball and taking Sweetie the manticore outside to play fetch near the marketplace.
Crafty Crate was an impatient pony. He worked all day for the Equestrian Mail, and worked a second job on the weekends selling his cousin’s fruit. He wouldn’t mind if he was selling anything but cherries. Cherries were the worst. They smelled like, well, cherries. Simply, he didn’t like them. He deserved to drop a virtue, and patience was one he couldn’t tolerate. He also couldn’t tolerate loiterers hanging about his stand, so when he saw a unicorn filly calling out for a lost friend, the only thing that ran through his mind mostly consisted of ‘Get LOST.’
“Sweetie! Oh, Sweetie! Come out!” Sweetie Belle called through the sides of her mouth, as she held a toy ball in her teeth. “We’ve got lots more to do!”
“Hey, hey kid. Why don’t you find your friend and get out of here. This is no place to play, unless you’re gonna buy some cherries. Seriously. Buy some cherries. I don’t want ‘em.”
Sweetie Belle spit out the ball to talk. “I’m trying to, mister Cherrypony, but I can’t find him anywhere!” The ball rolled underneath Crafty Crate’s table. “Have you seen him, mister?”
“Well kid, I don’t like kids. Kids don’t like me. I haven’t seen any others besides you kid. In fact, I haven’t seen anypony today. Looks like something’s gone and scared everypony off, in fact.”
A deep growl emanated from a nearby rooftop. Crafty crate looked up to see a large tree looming over his stand. He briefly considered if this was a rare growler-tree, commonly found in the far reaches of the Equestrian seaborder, but dismissed it because he knew that they didn’t live on rooftops. He was less curious about the toothy grin that soon accompanied the growler-tree and was horrified to see it pounce on his lovely cherry table.
“MY CHERRIES! NOT MY CHERRIES! I was gonna buy a new hat with today’s money! Why you, little girl…” Crafty Crate stopped his ranting to consider why the tree just pounced on his cherry table, and ponder why the tree stopped looking like a tree, and that if he closed his right eye, then turned his head seventy degrees to the right, and then closed his left eye, that it almost looked like a manticore.
“Why, that’s a manticore!” he shouted as a fresh epiphany struck him in a bout of intellectual strain. “HELP! MANTICORE! OH PLEASE WILL SOMEONE HELP US?” he screamed as he ran around the corner and towards the nearest robot equestrian animal control station.
Before Sweetie Belle could respond to this situation, the robot animal police were upon her and Sweetie, and had already put a net around Sweetie. Rarity and Twilight were soon upon the seen as well. Seeing a potential opportunity to get out of writing a letter, Twilight stepped into the shadows and let Rarity work things out with her sister.
“Oh Rarity, tell them that he’s not bad! He’s just Sweetie! They can’t take him away! Oh PLEASE, RARITY!” Rarity was not surprised that it had already come to this. The robot animal police had already done this to two of Sweetie Belle’s pet fish and a watermelon. Even if Rarity had decided to speak up, the robot police were already trying to drag Sweetie the manticore away. In a stereotypical heart-touching moment, Sweetie the manticore nuzzled Sweetie Belle’s muzzle, and allowed himself to be taken away. Sweetie Belle began to produce a stream of gushing tears, that didn’t seem to be stopping for a while. Rarity went back to the boutique, brought a towel to lie down on the dirty marketplace floor next to Sweetie Belle, and waited for her to dry herself out. Luckily, no one disturbed them, if the unnerving fact that Twilight was still watching them didn’t disturb her.
“Sweetie Belle, it’s okay. They’re just taking Sweetie back to the Everfree where he belongs, with more Sweeties. I know how much you liked him Sweetie, but you could never be Sweetie enough to be a Sweetie like Sweetie. Do you understand, Sweetie?”
Sweetie Belle sniffled. “It’s just not fair…”
“Oh Sweetie, I know it’s not fair, but it will be okay. Come on now, Sweetie Belle. I’ll make you a hat.”
Together, one elegantly dragged behind the other, they walked off to the boutique. Twilight felt the need to baww a little, but then remembered that she didn’t manage to get a friendship report out of this experience and resolved to write to Celestia about the time she went with Fluttershy to a stupid feather-brain meeting because Fluttershy didn’t want to go alone.
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