Anon and Amber Eyes 3: Ethnographer Anon

    >Be anon
    >You're wandering around the little city of brightly-colored tents and nests outside of Camelot with Amber Eyes
    >Pigeon-pone ghetto
    >It's surprisingly clean and organized. You don't really know what you were expecting, but bird-pones are fairly tidy.
    >It's temporary, like nearly everything else bird ponies construct, since they move from one place to another and can't carry much.
    >they'll break everything down at the end of the season when they migrate to warmer climes
    >Bird ponies can't stand cold
    >But Amber Eyes says that far, far to the south, in Zebrica and South Amareica, there are real cities, but just a few
    >Built into the tops of mountains, and temples to both the Princesses along with Lady Cumulus, the Mother of Clouds and Storms.
    >The combined flocks gather there, on some occasions.
    >Twice each century, the Alicorn Princesses come to them for some sort of remembrance ceremony--the next one is one year from now
    >They're kind of excited that Luna will be attending this one for the first time in a thousand years
    >Apparently this has been going on for a long time.
    >You're recording everything you hear on a digital voice recorder. You'll transcribe notes later
    >You wonder at the precise nature of the relationship between Celestia and the bird ponies, and wonder also at why it never occurred to Twilight to ask
    >there are foals and fillies running around underfoot, playing and laughing
    >Some of them are staring at you in curiosity, or even a little fear; to be sure, you're probably weirder than they're used to seeing.
    >You can hear singing and musical instruments. With some amusement, you notice that you recognize some of the songs
    >They've worked the rhythms and melodies from your gift of music to Amber Eyes into their own music, and changed them in interesting ways
    >You wonder if the Beatles would like what they've done with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," but it sounds amazing to your ears

>The conversation drifts randomly
>You're chattering animatedly about hoofball--Amber Eyes is a major fan of the Canterlot Colts
>heh...pony...Colts.  Much lols, many keks. Wow.
>Bird-ponies are sports fiends, in addition to snack fiends.  Stereotypes aside, at least this one is, and so is her sister, White Thorn.
>the air is filled with scents and sounds, of bird ponies chattering in languages including Equestrian and their own language--they tend to speak a mix of all the languages they find in their travels..
>They have a scent somewhere between beeswax fresh from a hive and something almost floral
>It's a pleasant, dusty sort of odor, hard to describe unless you've ever smelled a beehive
>And then you both smell something you haven't smelled much of since you came to Equestria
>cooking meat.  Whoah.
>Your stomach growls, and so does Amber Eyes'.  Loudly.  She looks a little embarrassed.
>"Oh...wow, have you eaten?  No, you haven't, we've been talking all day and--wait, do you eat meat?"
Uh...yes, I DO, when I can get it, but that isn't often, since most ponies can't stand the smell of it when it's cooking.  I keep some at home and I cook it for myself sometimes.  Do you have griffons or other carnivores around here?

>She cuts through the crowd ahead of you, playing icebreaker.
>You see a few pegasi and unicorns here and there, presumably there to buy whatever it is that bird-ponies only make
>but as you make your way through the hanging sheets that divide the "streets" up, they pretty much disappear altogether
>You arrive at a small vendor's tent, with a fire and racks of cooking...meat.
>Bird ponies apparently eat meat too.  Okay, that's beyond interesting.
>You knew that ponies sometimes ate fish, but it never went beyond that.
>Some pegasi were supposedly trained to eat meat, Twilight had said, but only in an emergency when literally nothing else was available.
>Pegasi need lots of energy. You know you've seen Rainbow pack away the food,
>then clog Twilight's toilet.
>You both thought it was hilarious
>The proprietor is a birdpone mare with the brightest gold eyes you've ever seen, an ivory mane,coat and face and intricate black markings on her muzzle and wings.
>Helping her is a small filly, with the same gold eyes, but with duller colors almost like a baby quail
>Amber and the vendor talk for a few seconds in their own language.  They converse a bit, and the vendor smile and nods.
>A few bits are exchanged from the pound Amber keeps around her neck, and the vendor and her filly carefully pick up four of the roasting
skewers
>Your actually mouth waters at the scent.
>they carefully transfer the meat to flatbreads and top them with some cooked vegetables from one of the kettles nearby.
>Amber Eyes and the vendor talk for a few moments, and then she flutters over to you.  "Just trust me, you'll like this."
>You take two of them, and you find a place to sit down a short distance away.
>You bite into yours--and experience the gustatory equivalent of an orgasm
>It's tender, somewhere between pork and chicken in taste, with that faint taste that tells you it's something wild, not raised as livestock

>It manages to hit all the right notes between sweet and savory and its flavored with rosemary and woodsmoke and something you can't identify
>there's at least two different meats, both with their own unique flavor.
>TASTES_LIKE_CHICKEN.jpg
>No, it totally fucking doesn't, Brainon, I don't know what this tastes like, but shut the fuck up and enjoy it
>LOL I TROLL U
>Don't make me come up there.  Anyway...
>The vegetables are crisp and spicy, and there's several beans in the mix
>the flatbread you could eat as a friggin' meal all by itself, you gun get you summa dat waht for taking home.
You've tasted some awesome things in Equestria but this has to be in the top ten
>Sorry, Applejack's apple fritters, Anon has a new love.
>With amusement, you note that while you're halfway through yours, Amber Eyes has wolfed hers down and is starting on the second one
>And they're substantial.
Geez, where are you putting it?  Wanna slow down so you can taste it?
>Amber belches.  Cute.  "Hey, I was hungry.  Sue me. Migrating, remember?"
So, uh...out of curiosity, what exactly am I eating here?  Should I even ask?
>You're not altogether sure you want to know the answer, since you're enjoying what may be the single greatest meal in the history of great meals
>Why spoil the magic?
>"It's tatzlwurm and basilisk," she finishes wolfing down the second one and licks the juice off her hooves.
>Oh.  Wait, what?  Big, ugly wormy-snakey thing that combines all the worst traits of a worm with a snake.
>It spreads diseases.  Major equestrian pest.  Which probably explains why they're tolerated.
>but the meat-eating probably creeps out some ponies even so.
But you don't think that's really Twilight's problem here.
>You've seen petitions circulated among canterlot elite to close down Griffon and Minotaur restaurants.
>Oddly enough, Ponyville is much more tolerant in that area than Canterlot

    >But anyway, the food..
    >okay, you've eaten some weird things. You've never felt an urge to eat snake.
    >Or worm.
    >Or snakeworms.
    >But you've eaten alligator, which wasnt' bad
    >and a basilisk is basically the uglier mutated crossbreeding of a chicken with...something
    >And it's also kind of a pest.
    >You look at the rest of the flatbread. Well, you liked it before, and it still tastes awesome, why stop now?
    >You resume munching on it. yes, it still tastes fuckawesome. No, we're not gonna dwell on it being snek
    >LOL UR EATING SNEK MEAT ANON
    >shut up, brainon, or I swear I'm coming up there.
    Seriously, though, you guys eat meat?
    >She seems a little surprised at your question. "Yeah, sometimes we have to find any food we can.
    >Sometime's dinner's whatever you can trade for or scavenge or gather in the woods and fields. Sometimes dinner's whatever you can catch and kill. And meat's good, rich food
    >"We try to get as much as we can before we migrate. You need all the fat you can pack on, you know? We don't eat a lot when we're moving north and south.
    >She shrugs. "Usually there's no time. When we're over the ocean, there's usually noplace for a pony to stop and land.
    >We'll stop and make camp for a few days, when there's an island or something or somepony's ill or hurt. But usually it's a nonstop flight.
    >You finally finish the flatbread-thingies.and marvel that not only did they STILL taste good when you knew what they were
    >You were probably gonna wind up coming here again