The Outhouses

by RenaissanceBrony

Rating: teen
Tags: Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy
Length: 2925

There used to be outhouses in Equestria. Now ponies just do their business in the dirt. How did that happen?

There used to be outhouses in Equestria. Now ponies just do their business in the dirt. How did that happen?

A grandmother recounts the story of how outhouses fell out of style thanks to a princess and a dumb rule.

Published 2014-04-25 12:40:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-04-25 12:40:05 UTC

Chapter 1

“Do we have time for a story tonight, Grandma?” the young filly asked as she was caringly tucked into bed. The older mare turned towards the bedside clock and thought to herself for a moment.

“I think I might be able to squeeze a quick one into my extremely busy schedule,” she smiled slyly, eliciting a cheer from Cookie. “Plus somepony’s gotta make sure this rocking chair still rocks properly.”

The grandmother stepped towards the rickety old chair she always sat in when she told her stories and lowered herself with energy and grace that would be surprising for other mares her age. She had never been one to slow down, though, and she was still nearly as spritely and light on her hooves as she had been in her youth.

“Have I told you the one about Nightmare Moon’s return?” Her mischevious smile revealed that she was entirely aware that she had told that story countless times before.

“Yes, Grandma,” Cookie replied, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. “You told that one just last night.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to hear it again? I’ll sing the song and everything!”

“I wanna hear something new!”

“Something new? Alright,” the older mare sighed in mock-disappointment. She began to absent-mindedly rock forward and backwards in her rickety old chair as she gazed out the window, trying to think of a fresh story to tell. Nearly a minute ticked by, punctuated by only the slow creaking of the rickety old chair and the occasional humming sound from the mare. Suddenly she sat up and burst into an excited frenzy. “I never told you about what happened to the outhouses, did I?”

“To the… what-houses?” the young filly tried to process the unfamiliar word with little success.

“The outhouses!” her grandmother laughed. “Oh, Cookie, you’re in for a treat! This is a story from a long time ago and you’ll even learn a little bit about Equestrian history as a bonus!”

“Ugh, history?” Cookie stuck out her tongue. A history lesson combined with a story about some kind of weird house she’d never heard of didn’t exactly sound like a treat. “Maybe I’d rather hear about Nightmare Moon after all.”

“But wait,” the mare said in a hushed voice, hopping in a way to scoot her rickety old chair closer to the filly’s bed. “This is no ordinary historically accurate story.”

Cookie raised an eyebrow in response to this strange behavior.

“This story has...” she whispered, pausing dramatically and glancing side to side to make sure nopony else was in the room. Then after she felt the suspense had been built up enough, she finished almost silently, “potty jokes!”

The mare sat back up and laughed her infectious laugh, and of course Cookie laughed right along with her. The tempting offer of bathroom humor had officially piqued her interest.

“Alright, alright. You can tell about the whatever-houses,” she snorted gleefully through her subsiding laughter.

“Woohoo!” the mare cheered, clopping her hooves together, then quickly covering her mouth as a look of realization dawned on her face. “We’ll have to keep it quiet. I’m not sure your mom would approve of me telling you this story.”

Cookie grinned mischievously, shifting her gaze towards the closed bedroom door. “Even better,” she declared.

“Alrighty then,” the mare leaned back in her rickety old chair, pleased with her granddaughter’s consent. “Before I start, you need to know a little bit about what the world was like back when I was just a young mare, long before I ever met your grandfather.”

“The story takes place at the Rainbow Falls Trader Exchange-- a place where ponies would gather every year to trade their old stuff they didn’t want for stuff other ponies were willing to give away. We did a lot of things different back then, and I don’t just mean the Exchange. A lot of things were different throughout all of Equestria, like there were only four princesses, and Ponyville was just a small rural town that nopony gave much thought to.”

“But this story is about the outhouses. The outhouses were these little huts where ponies would shut themselves inside so nopony else could see them taking care of their bathroom business. You see, for some reason back then it wasn’t okay for ponies to just let it all out in the grass like we do nowadays. It was a weird idea in the first place, and I don’t know why we did it, but instead of fertilizing the dirt we kept all our precious poop inside these little outhouses, and if it weren’t for that one year at the Exchange, we might still have been doing that to this day!”

Chapter 2

With Spike, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash all off shopping around, it was just Twilight and Pinkie Pie left by Twilight’s stand.

“Um, shouldn't your princessness be headed to the royal box seats?” Pinkie asked as Twilight began unpacking her books and stacking them on the table with her magic.

“I may be the princess on duty, but I don't think that means I have to sit up there all alone doing nothing. Ever since I became a princess, Celestia's been sending me more books to read than ever.” She continued setting up her stand as she talked, a feat which most magical ponies would not have been able to pull off with such ease. “The library's overflowing, so I figured while we're here, I might as well trade away some books I don't need anymore.”

“Mm-hmm!” the earth pony agreed as her friend threw away the cardboard box she’d been using to carry her books.

“And now that we’re done setting up here, I have to go take care of something,” she smiled awkwardly, hoping Pinkie hadn’t noticed the way she’d been squeezing her legs together.

“Okie dokie lokie! I’ll stay here and make sure nopony tries to mess with your royal merchandise.” Pinkie waved enthusiastically then turned her back to the books and tried to act how she thought a guard should act, which was to lower her head and growl menacingly at nopony in particular.

“It’s not royal merchandise, Pinkie,” the alicorn sighed. “It’s the same as any other goods anypony else--” she stopped suddenly with a sort of uncomfortable “Oh!” expression frozen on her face as her insides reminded her that they needed attention.

“Nevermind,” she blushed, scurrying away. “I’ll be back soon.”

She weaved her way through the crowds, trying to find a good balance between walking too slow to make it in time and walking so fast that everypony would know exactly where she was headed. She ended up quickly trotting, stiff-legged, with a painful grimace on her face. Luckily, most ponies were too busy looking at merchandise to pay any attention to her, and those that did notice her didn’t say anything out of respect.

As she walked she regretted having passed the outhouse on the way in. At the time she hadn’t had to go so badly, but all the tea she’d had with Rarity on the train was catching up with her. It came as a temporary relief when she spotted the outhouse ahead of her on the outskirts of the Exchange. This close to the edge the crowd was thinner and it was easy for her to make her way towards her destination. Even better, it didn’t look like there was a line, and the door was cracked open, almost as if the structure was saying, “Come here, Twilight Sparkle. You’ll find that I am unoccupied and willing to accept your secretions. Enter, and all your wildest dreams will come true!”

She thought to the outhouse, “Oh, thank goodness! I don’t know how much longer I could have made it. Thank you! Thank you!”

As tiny tears of joy began to form in her eyes, her bladder continued to scream, “I can’t take it any more! What are you doing? Why do you punish me so!?!”

And Twilight tried to soothe it, mentally cooing, “There, there, little bladder. I’m sorry about all this. Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon.”

“WAIT!!!” screamed a voice which Twilight didn’t recognize as the imaginary voice of any of her organs. In a sudden blur of movement, Pinkie Pie was standing between Twilight and her sweet, sweet relief. “I can not believe that almost just happened!”

“Gah! Pinkie!” Twilight cried as she nearly fell over backwards, wincing from the strain of keeping her balance. “What are you doing?”

“I’m saving you from a life of shame and loneliness and and probably a lot of sitting around doing nothing, that’s what I’m doing!”

“Move out of the way, Pinkie! I have to use the bathroom!” the princess tried to step around her friend, but Pinkie moved to block her. Twilight could feel the pressure building inside of her.

“What kind of a friend would I be if I let you do that?”

“Um, a good one? I’m pretty sure friends don’t stop friends from going to the bathroom when it’s kinda an emergency. And when I say kinda, I mean a lot.” Twilight crossed her hind legs, forcing herself to squeeze as hard as she could. It crossed her mind that she’d never before been able to empathize so well with volcanoes.

“The rules say that there must always be a princess at the Rainbow Falls Trader Exchange,” Pinkie explained, pointing to a sign planted in the ground next to her, which Twilight might have noticed had simply not existed until about a second ago if she hadn’t been too preoccupied blocking out mental images of a supernova inside her bladder.

“Okay, so I won’t leave,” Twilight agreed hurriedly, not entirely understanding her friend. “Just let me in to the outhouse. I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

“Oh, no. That’s not happening,” the pink mare warned. “You see those flagpoles? One over there and one over there? They mark the boundaries of the Rainbow Falls Trader Exchange. Anyone could see that this outhouse is at least five noses outside of the bounds.”

“It’ll be okay if I’m gone for just a minute!” she tried to reason with her while simultaneously trying to push her way past. Pinkie proved to be like a pink, marshmallowy wall, however, and she held her ground firmly. Even worse, the effort only served to exacerbate Twilight’s pains.

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, Twilight. If you disregard the rules of the Exchange, chaos would break loose. It would be everypony for themselves! Civilization as we know it would crumble and cease to exist! You’d be forever remembered as the princess who single-hoofedly destroyed Equestria, and Celestia would banish you to the moon for eternity!”

“You’re being ridiculous, Pinkie. I’m going to the bathroom!” Her horn started to glow as she prepared a teleportation spell.

“No, you’re not! You’ll hold it, for all our sakes! This is what being a princess is all about!” She flicked Twilight’s horn, disrupting her focus and dispelling the gathering magic. By this point, the earth pony’s shouting was starting to attract the attention of the nearby crowd.

“Let me pass!” Twilight growled, angrily heaving her wings to try to fly over the pink menace.

“Never!” Pinkie cried, grabbing the alicorn and pulling her back to the ground. Her eyes shimmered with a look of desperation and concern. She clearly was doing what she thought was best for her friend and everypony else in Equestria, but all that was lost on Twilight, whose sole purpose in life was now to eliminate the urine from her bladder.

The crowd gasped as they witnessed their princess being torn out of the sky and thrown to the ground. Twilight landed on all fours and fiercely lowered her body, an animalistic glare meeting Pinkie’s kind, pleading eyes. Pinkie had never thought she’d see a pony appear so wild and savage.

In an instant, the barbaric glowing of Twilight’s eyes faded, replaced by a strange expression of unbearable shame and unimaginable relief. Pinkie froze with shock. The crowd fell absolutely silent. Twilight’s cheeks glowed like heated metal. Her eyes showed fear while a shaky smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

For several immeasurably long seconds, the only sound in the universe was the muddled splashing of Twilight’s pee pouring onto the grass. And then she was done.

Nopony moved. Twilight held eye contact with Pinkie, dreading the moment when she would turn around and find out exactly how many of her loyal subjects had just witnessed her peeing in the dirt.

Pinkie grimaced then broke eye contact to look nervously at the crowd. Her eyes flitted from face to face, and each one wore the same expression of dumbfounded shock. She looked back at her friend and read her pitiful expression, which seemed to say, “Please… do something.”

Pinkie gulped, looking once more at the gathered ponies.

“Well--” she shouted, startling herself into silence with the suddenness of her own voice. She cleared her throat and started again, a little quieter, but still loud enough for everypony to hear.

“Well? What are you looking at?” she questioned, fighting to control her shaking vocal chords. Quiet murmurs of confusion rippled through the crowd. “Don’t you see what Princess Twilight has done?”

“Pinkie!” Twilight hissed, “Don’t draw more attention to me!” she begged.

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing,” the earth pony whispered, trying to assure her friend and herself at the same time. Then she lifter her voice and once more addressed the crowd.

“Princess Twilight, in her infinite princessy wisdom, has seen that the terrible reign of the outhouses should come to an end! She has declared that every pony should be free to relieve themselves wherever they see fit! Be happy, for the Princess has freed you all!”

Nods of realization, approval, and all-around agreement broke the crowd’s stillness. They began talking quietly amongst themselves, still not entirely sure what to make of this bizarre situation. Pinkie realized her job was not yet finished. The crowd wasn’t convinced, and she had to fix that.

“Now join me! Join the Princess! Let us celebrate the end of the outhouses’ tyranny!” she called. “Let us come together and overthrow the repressive outhouses!”

Her rousing speech seemed to have the desired effect upon the crowd as whoops and cheers of assent filled the air.

“Now there is only one way to win this once and for all,” she declared dramatically, pausing to let the crowd build up their own frenzy. “We must pee!”

And with that Pinkie Pie relaxed, letting her stored up urine trickle to the ground as she smiled, making direct eye contact with each pony in turn. Slowly, the sound of peeing ponies grew louder and louder as more and more of them joined in. Soon nearly everypony there was cheering and shouting and peeing and congratulating each other all at once.

Twilight, who had not moved since Pinkie first started talking, slowly turned to face the crowd in awe. They looked at her, hollering their approval and thanking her for freeing them. The overwhelming emotions of confusion, relaxation, disbelief, and amazement made her mind go numb. She stared at the crowd, dumbfounded, simply unable to understand how Pinkie had just convinced all these ponies that it was okay to pee in public.

In her numb incredulity, she forgot that pee had not been the only thing inside her yearning to come out. With yet another look of terror crossing her face, she realized that it was too late to stop what was coming. Her intestines rumbled and her bowels shifted.

Before hundreds of watching ponies, who were cheering her on and applauding her, princess Twilight Sparkle pooped in the dirt.

She smiled, and the crowd roared.

Chapter 3

“Did… Did you just make that up?” Cookie asked in disbelief.

“Nope!” the older mare rocked contentedly. “Every word of it’s true. I should know!”

“So… outhouses aren’t a thing anymore because Princess Twilight couldn’t get to a toilet in time?”

“That’s right, little filly! Didn’t I tell you you’d learn some important history?”

“Well,” Cookie paused to think. “Yeah, I guess that is good history to know.”

“Now if your mom ever asks where you learned it, tell her they taught that to you in school. I don’t want to her to know these are the kinds of stories I’ve been telling you,” the grandmother winked, springing out of her chair.

“Alright, grandma. Your secret's safe with me, as long as you promise to tell me more stories like that one!” she laughed as the older mare kissed her forehead and tucked her in once more.

“Anything for you, my little Cookie,” she cooed.

As she bouncily trotted out of the room, her fluffy pink mane still just as poofy and bright as it had been in her youth, she turned back once more to look at her yawning granddaughter. She smiled and turned out the light, gently closing the door behind her and bouncing away down the hall, humming to herself.

Author's Note

I wrote this for the Equestria Daily Writer's Training Ground #016. The prompt I chose was "There must always be a princess at the Rainbow Falls Trader Exchange."

I bet you'd never have guessed, but I had the idea for this story while I was on the way to the bathroom! XP

Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it!