I grin to myself as Twilight lets out cries of fascination.

"Look, Rainbow! D'you see that? That's where the mouse is digesting! It's entire body is a stomach!"

Rainbow Dash sighs. "Yeah, well, it'd better hurry up and digest, 'cus it's super boring..."

I smile as the snake seems to give Rainbow Dash an irritated blink. Rainbow simply sticks her tongue out at it, and turns to me. "Daddy, can we go see the cooler animals now?" She begs.

"I think this is cool," Fluttershy says softly.

"Sure," I respond. "And Fluttershy, snakes are cool, but this snake is tired. You should give it time to digest, okay?"

Fluttershy nods, and Barbara follows me with the ponies leashed to her. I have to pause so I don't choke Fluttershy as she presses her face to the glass. The snake slowly slithers towards her, curious as to the new addition to its environment.

"Bye bye, Mr. Snakey," she announces. "I hope you have a good rest!" The tongue flicks its tongue out, and Fluttershy giggles as she trots away to join us.

The next reptile we visit is the alligator. As soon as we do, Pinkie lets out a gasp that should be too loud for he to make, and practically slams her face into the glass.

"They're so adorable!" She cries. Pressing her hooves against the glass, she looks up to me. "Daddy, can we get one? Can we can we?" Her eyes begin to water, and I smile as I shake my head.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but they're very dangerous wild animals," I inform her. She pouts as she collapses onto her haunches, crossing her forelegs and refusing to budge after all the other ponies are done observing.

"C'mon, Pinks," I urge with a sigh. "I promise, I'll get you a lizard, alright? But I can't get you an alligator - they're too dangerous."

"Hmph!" Is all she has to say. I sigh as I kneel down.

"Pinkie Pie, I didn't want to have to do this, but if you don't get up right now, then you're grounded for the next three days," I inform her. She gasps and stares at me as if I'm the devil himself.

"But Daddy, that's no fair!"

"It's very fair," I respond. "And if you don't get up, I'll make sure it's for a week!"

Pinkie Pie frowns, and her lower lip begins to quiver. After a while, she lets out a groan and stands, silently following her siblings as we walk.

After several more animals, we come to a display of Walruses. As we do, we're pleasantly surprised to find that it's feeding time. I put the ponies up on the boundary, against the glass, so they can watch. They all giggle as the walruses begin to put on a show for them. They try to speak to me, but since they're all doing so at once, all I can do is nod and try to answer one or two questions.

A little while later, we've come to the food plaza. After getting a fuck-ton of food for them, a few of the staff join some tables, give us some booster seats, and prepare us for our dining experience.

I smile as the ponies all talk about their favorite animals. They flip through the coloring books before them, and each choose a separate animal to color in. I'm intrigued by their choices, as Vinyl Scratch decides to color in a Chinchilla. She gives it a cape and super powers. Because...Chinchillas.

I help Derpy to color in her animal: a platypus. I gently help her to hold each of the crayons, and eventually let her do it herself. It isn't until she tries to eat one of those crayons that I step in again.

After all of that, we end up going through the rest of the zoo. Well, most of it - some of it is under construction. Fluttershy absolutely loved the elephants, and it took fifteen minutes to convince Rainbow Dash to leave the sloths alone. As she left, the only thing she could keep asking was: "how could something stand going so slow and being so dumb!?"

After that, we enter the gift shop. Barbara and I split up to explore the shop, as the ponies are all rather excited. If I were to guess, I'd say this is what they were looking forward to the most. Well, that and the ice cream.

Rainbow Dash decides to get a stuffed Cheetah. She doesn't so as much: she grabs one off of the shelf, and then, flying as fast as she can go, she shoves it right into my face, making it let loose a threatening growl, and then give me a quick boop on the nose. She gave me a silly grin as she hugs it to herself.

Fluttershy decides to get a rabbit stuffed animal. She picks it up and holds it to herself, nipping at its ears playfully and affectionately. She seems to really like it, as-

"Daddy? Something's wrong with Derpy..."

WARNING: IF YOU HATED ME FOR GIVING DERPY A BRAIN TUMOR, YOU WILL WANT ME DEAD FOR THIS NEXT PART.

I rush over to Twilight, panic lacing through my veins as I spot the gray Pegasus, twitching as she lies on the ground, her uncovered eye wide with fear.

"Barbara!" I shout as I struggle to open her clenched jaw, my panicked voice on the edge of hysteria. "Call an ambulance!"

"What!?" She cries, immediately making her way over to me.

"Derpy's having a seizure!" I shout without looking up.

I finally manage to pry Derpy's jaw open, hopefully without hurting her, and I search for something I can use to hold her tongue down. After realizing that I have nothing to do so with, I silently curse to myself, and, steeling my nerves, shove my middle finger into her mouth and use it to wrestle her tongue into submission. As I do, I lose my grip on her jaw, and it slams shut around my finger. I let out a cry of unending pain as her teeth pierce the skin, but I know that the sacrifice is worth it.

"They're on their way," I hear Barbara breathe. "You've got her - holy shit, Peter! What the fuck is wrong with you!?"

My eyes twitch as her jaw clenches further down. "I know, I know - it was the only thing I had!"

Barbara shakes her head, her eyes wide as she ties the leashes she's holding to a shelf. "I'll get something," she announces. "Just...ugh!" With that, she takes off, searching frantically for something I can use to hold down the filly's tongue.

As she does so, I do my best to block out the pain as I look Derpy in the eye. Tears are forcing their way out, and she's staring at me as if I ask why this is happening to her. My hand shaking, I place it on the side of her face, gently stroking her cheek in as comforting a way as I can.

"It's going to be alright," I whisper, my voice wavering with pain and fear. My tears end up joining her own on the carpet. "It's going to be okay, Derpy - you're going to be okay. I promise. Just be brave, sweetheart..."

A high-pitched whimper escapes from the back of her throat. I clench my eyes shut as her jaw tightens a bit more.

It feels like an eternity when two on-site personnel arrive, and one of them grabs me by the shoulder.

"Mr. Mactylan, the clerk here sent for us, we're going to take care of your pon- I mean, daughter, okay?"

I nod, and one of them starts to pry open her jaw, carefully and gently. As soon as the other has a small, wooden implement ready to hold down Derpy's tongue, I whip my finger back, howling in pain as I instinctively clutch it. It's then that Barbara comes back in, and sighs in relief as she sees that the men have her secured. She unties the leashes from the shelf, and joins me on the bench where I'm struggling to comfort the ponies.

"Daddy, is she going to be okay?"

"Why did you put your finger in her mouth?"

"D-D-Daddy? Wh-what's going on, I'm sc-sc-scared!"

I try my best to calm them, but I can't think past the searing pain. After a moment, Barbara rests a hand on my shoulder, and forces me to show her my finger. My eyes widen as I see what happened.

Despite her herbivorous teeth, she still managed to do quite a number on my skin. It's been pierced, and is beginning to bleed - and a lot.

Out of everything that's happened, the sight of my finger having been almost bitten in half is what causes me to black out. The last thing I hear is Barbara cursing as she fails in her struggle to force me to remain conscious.

Author's Notes:

Yeah...
Please don't hate me, it had to be done...

Please?
If it makes you feel any better...

I thoroughly enjoyed writing this chapter...

But I felt really bad when I published it...