“Rah! I’m a big scary snake!” said the lamia that had thrown itself in the path in front of you.

This was the creature that had been “attacking” travellers on this path? you thought to yourself. You were practically speechless. Twilight Sparkle had asked a huge favor of you, one that she felt bad about asking of you because of the potential danger. Apparently a “snake monster” had been accosting anyone who took this path and, because nobody had actually been hurt yet, she had asked you to confirm it. She had been quite clear in that she didn’t want you to try and get rid of it yourself, but merely to confirm the report because she was ‘too busy’.

“Hey! Didn’t you hear me?!” the lamia said, clearly annoyed you weren’t paying enough attention to her.

Or too scared, you thought with a smirk. It was pretty obvious Twilight was afraid of snakes and would only go if she absolutely had to. On any normal day either you would have been too scared to go: even confirming a dangerous monster was well above your expertise you figured. This time however, you had your own assumptions and, from the looks of things, you had assumed correctly.

“Hey!” she hollared, whipping her tail left and right like an angry cat. “Big! Scary! Snake! Rah!!!”

They had described her as looking like a coral snake, with yellow stripes on black. Of course you remembered a tv show that discussed Batesian Mimicry: ‘Red touches black, you’re OK Jack; red touches yellow, you’re a dead fellow’ had stuck with you for some odd reason. You also remembered the monster never actually attacked anyone, merely spooked or threatened them. There was little wonder why, once you saw her. She was just an entirely harmless milk snake on a power trip, and not even that big. Her ‘pony’ part was just barely half the size of a regular pony, and odds are you actually could take her in a fight. You had something different in mind, however.

“…You’re not even scared?” she said, sounding utterly disapointed. “Worried?”

“Oh yeah, terrified” you said, barely even trying to sound convincing as you took your backpack off and opened it up. “Which is why I’ll give you this if you promise to show mercy.”

Her eyes locked onto the carton of milk you had taken out and were waggling in front of her and she flopped down on the ground, eyes wide open, with a big toothy grin. She was actually wagging the tip of her tail like a dog. So much for being a ‘big scary snake’: she was begging. You were starting to figure Equestria out. Of course the belief that milk snakes drank milk was just a myth… in your world. Here, where it seemed every myth was real in some bizare, nonsensical, or downright perverse way, it didn’t surprise you in the least that they loved the stuff.

You popped it open and let her take it from you, giving her time to take a few good sips out of the carton. “You know,” you said as you dropped to a knee to meet her eye-to-eye, “there’s a lot easier ways than threatening ponies to get this stuff.”

“Wait, no!” she said, “I didn’t want anything. I was just having a bit of fun.”

“Well…” you said, dancing around the possibility of telling her the princess and her friends were poised to charge in here and drive her away if the rumor was true. She did appear to be an adult, but her stature meant you couldn’t tell if she was just a kid or not, and couldn’t bring yourself to essentially threaten a kid that just wanted to play. “Maybe… uh… maybe you might want to lay off a bit, huh? I mean, they… they’re kind of getting the wrong idea, you know?”

“Oh…” she said, seemingly getting the message, “I didn’t think they’d take it that seriously.” Her ears went limp and she hung her head like a child that had been scolded. “I’m sorry.”

“No harm done, right?” you said as you offered her your hand. She didn’t want to let go of the milk and instead coiled the tip of her tail around your hand for you to shake. “Well, I have to get going. I’m on the clock right now.”

You had put some distance between you and her when she called out to you. “Hey! Come back some time! With some more milk! I’ll think of some way to pay you back, I promise!”

You didn’t stop but looked over your shoulder at her, “I’ll keep it in mind.” You were pretty satisfied with the outcome. Not only had you actually solved the problem, but you had apparently made a friend as well. Twilight Sparkle would be proud of you.

…At least she would be if you told her the truth. You knew better than that. You knew for a fact she’d probably start asking you to help out with more of their monster problems if you told her. “Yep, looked and looked. No snakes at all!” you said aloud, rehearsing the lie you’d tell Twilight when you got back to town.