Do the Crime, Pay in Rhyme
When the smoke cleared, Zecora was just...gone. In the place where she once stood, there remained a huge pile of ribcages and skulls.
"This cain't be, this just cain't. Is Zecora really...gone?" Apple Bloom muttered, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Wow, I had no idea zebras had this many bones inside them," Sweetie Belle squeaked, walking over and tentatively prodding at the pile of bones.
"Wait a minute...this is a joke, right? We aren't really this stupid, are we?" Scootaloo asked rhetorically.
The three fillies turned their heads as they heard a deep, rich laugh start to rise from the floorboards. To their surprise, Zecora pushed a trap door open and climbed out into the open. "It appears you've seen right through my ruse, your trust I did not mean to abuse. It happened on the last moon, I was visited by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They paid me many bits to participate in their dirty tricks. Had I known you would react this way, I never would have accepted their pay."
"So they were lying! Argh, I knew it!" Scootaloo fumed, gnashing her teeth.
"Um, so you don't need to rhyme all the time and it won't kill ya?" Apple Bloom asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"No we don't, I'm sorry. It's just a cultural thing, you heard the story," Zecora replied, though she could not help but continue rhyming even as she attempted to reassure the young filly.
"Ohhh, we just gotta get them back for this, you know that, right?" Sweetie Belle said, scrunching up her face. The three Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged knowing looks and nodded to one another.
Back in town, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were sitting at a table outside the local Cold Pone Creamery, eating sundaes and enjoying the afternoon's sunny weather. Diamond Tiara had their signature Maud Pie Mojo® and Silver Spoon was enjoying a traditional banana split.
"Can you believe those goofy blank flanks bought that ridiculous story we made up?" Diamond Tiara smirked, dipping a spoon into the slowly melting ice cream.
"No way! Ah, I was sure I overdid it when I made Zecora explode and almost gave away the ending, but they've been gone all day! By now, I'm sure that Zecora has blown up into a million pieces and scared them out of their tiny little minds! Ha-haha-ha!" Silver giggled until her sides hurt, and she pantomimed a zebra exploding again, to Diamond Tiara's amusement.
They didn't notice the three filly-shaped shadows slowly stalking towards them...
"Well if it isn't Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, thanks for ruining our afternoon!" Scootaloo said, curiously speaking in rhyme.
"Ugh, what do you blank flanks want? How did your trip to Zecora's go?" Diamond Tiara sneered in reply.
"That's just it, it's the strangest occurrence. We saw her explode, and in a flash of transference—we found ourselves afflicted: to speak in couplets we are addicted!" Apple Bloom explained, her cadence quickening as she spoke.
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon squinted hard at the Cutie Mark Crusaders, then huddled up.
"You think they're messing with our heads?" Diamond Tiara whispered.
"Maybe. Hard to say for sure, those three attract magical curses like moths to a flame," Silver Spoon hissed back.
"So what do we do, play along?"
"At least until we figure out their angle."
"That shouldn't take too long, they're dumb as babies!"
"You're so smart, D.T."
"I know it, marefriend. Alright, let's get this over with."
"Ahem," Diamond Tiara cleared her throat, "Zecora's speech impediment somehow transferred to you after she 'exploded,' you say?"
"Yes, that's what we're saying," Sweetie Belle chirped. And then exploded.
The remaining four fillies stared at the gigantic pile of bones that was once Sweetie Belle.
"OH MY CELESTIA, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" Silver Spoon screamed, hairs popping out of her braids.
"Oh no, the vulnerability to speaking in normal speech patterns must have transferred along as well! Ah'm too young to die, Ah don't wanna go to– to Tartarus!" Apple Bloom panicked and then too burst into a gout of dozens of skeletons.
Diamond Tiara was trembling, on the verge of losing her very sanity and ending up in the asylum alongside her mother. "No...this can't be happening. This isn't real."
"Oh no, my friends are all dead. All they had to do was rhyme instead," Scootaloo said, tears streaming down her face. "Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, I fear that I, too, may join them soon. I'm worried you may now be infected, but heed my words and be protected: you need not share our fates, just make sure you always...um..."
Scootaloo trailed off, her eyes unfocusing as she gazed intensely past Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. "Welp, I'm boned," she said, followed by a loud 'pop,' and femurs raining from the sky.
"I don't wanna die!" Diamond Tiara wailed, then quickly added, "Um, I really like pizza pie!"
"C'mon D.T. let's go see Twilight, I'm sure she can resolve our plight!" Silver Spoon rhymed through her tears in a show of quick-wits, her vocabulary sharpened from years of debutante schooling.
Together the two set off down the road to Twilight's castle, crying and carrying on the whole way.
Meanwhile...
A lone white hoof stuck out from one of the piles of bones. The rest of Sweetie Belle soon followed. Apple Bloom emerged from her little pyramid of spinal columns, and Scootaloo dug her way out of tibia mountain. "Hehe, can't believe they really fell for that, even knowing the whole time it was a farce," Sweetie Belle snickered.
"Ah'm just amazed Zecora had so many bones layin' about that we could borrow. It sure is gonna be rough havin' to cart all these back to her hut," Apple Bloom said with a wide grin.
"Bah who cares, it was all worth it if those two learn not to mess with us anymore," Scootaloo chuckled dismissively.
"Yeah, they'll think twice next time they have a...bone to pick with us," Sweetie Belle remarked, donning a pair of sunglasses.
"YEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The Cutie Mark Crusaders triumphantly screamed in unison.
The Real End This Time!
Author's Note
Er, yeah, don't worry y'all, Zecora was fine the whole time! Everypony was fine, the whole time! Even Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!
Those Three Little Words...
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle were walking down the road, headed to the clubhouse. "Did'ja see how pleased Twilight was with how mah potion-makin' skills have improved?" Apple Bloom said excitedly. Her friends nodded in agreement. "Later this week Ah'm gonna go get some more reagents from Zecora an' then—"
"Zecora? Don't tell me you're actually friends with that monster!" Diamond Tiara popped out from behind a bush with Silver Spoon in tow.
Apple Bloom gave Diamond Tiara the stink eye as she drawled, "Zecora's not a monster, she's a zebra. Are you really that much of a slowpoke that you—"
"I heard zebras are immortal," Silver Spoon interrupted, "and you can only kill them by tricking them into ending a stanza with one of the words that have no rhyme." The Cutie Mark Crusaders were stunned speechless. "Yeah, I'm surprised Zecora can even bring herself to be around a purple-maned orange filly like Scootaloo, since she's basically a walking deathtrap. Lucky for me I'm silver, so if she ever corners me I can just say, 'What color am I?' And Zecora would go, 'Silver...oh no!' And then KA-BEWM she bursts into flame!" Silver Spoon jumped into the air as she mimed a pony exploding.
The flabbergasted trio just stared in awe at Silver Spoon. "That-...that's not true!" Apple Bloom stuttered.
"Well you don't have to take our word for it, since you're friends with her you can just go ask her yourself," Diamond Tiara smirked, chuckling with her friend as the two walked away.
Back at the clubhouse, the three fillies had one thought on their minds: Could it be true?
"I think Diamond Tiara lied to us," Apple Bloom spoke up. The other two crusaders nodded thoughtfully.
"Yeah, I mean lots of words rhyme with purple," Scootaloo scoffed nonchalantly.
"What? Name one!" Sweetie Belle shot back, eyebrow raised incredulously.
Scootaloo scratched her neck, unprepared to have her statement challenged. "Er well, I can name a whole bunch! Like blurple, kerple, herple, derple, gerple, lerple—"
"Now you're just making sounds," Sweetie Belle interjected, scrunching her brow.
"Fine, if you're so smart, rhyme 'silver' for us," Scootaloo said, gesticulating wildly.
Sweetie Belle cleared her throat and said, "Chilver." A moment of silence followed, and as Scootaloo was in the process of opening her mouth Sweetie Belle continued, "A female lamb. No I am not a dictionary, but I knew you'd ask and you can look it up if you don't believe me."
Scootaloo squinted at her white friend and slowly got up, walking over to the sparse bookshelf where they kept all their comics, coloring books, reference guides and one severely worn and weather-beaten dictionary. As she started paging through the tome, Apple Bloom asked, "Well, so what about orange?"
"Splange?" Sweetie Belle suggested. Apple Bloom frowned and shook her head. They sat in quiet contemplation, seconds turning into minutes. Scootaloo eventually rejoined them, having found the word she was looking for to her dismay.
"We're gonna have to ask Twilight on this one, girls," Apple Bloom finally sighed.
Arriving at the library, the Cutie Mark Crusaders found it was closed for renovation, so they left and went to Princess Twilight Sparkle's Friendship Castle™ (from $29.99) instead.
As they were leaving, Scootaloo paused to carve an inscription onto the side of the burnt down tree/library:
† Rest in pepperonis Golden Oak Library 5/10/14 nvr 4gt †
Arriving at Princess Twilight Sparkle's Friendship Castle,™ Twilight was standing outside supervising the delivery of a sofa from Davenport's Quills and Sofas emporium. "Hey girls," she greeted them warmly.
"Ohh, what an awesome sofa Twilight!" Scootaloo gasped excitedly, running up and jumping onto the cushions. The ponies from the moving company were none too pleased at that, nor when Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom ran up and jumped aboard as well.
"Now girls, get down from there and let them do their job," Twilight gently chided. "If you come inside I'm sure Spike could be persuaded to make you some of his famous nachos." The enticement of a treat did the trick, and soon the fillies were gathered around a table in Twilight's sparsely-furnished castle, enjoying piping hot Tex-Mex-Equex fare.
"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Our scheduled Twilight Time isn't for another few days if memory serves," Twilight mused, levitating a nacho laden with jalapeños.
In between bites, Apple Bloom gave Twilight the rundown, explaining that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had run their mouths again and made up some dumb story about Zecora that rubbed them the wrong way. "...An' that's why we wanted to come to you an' see if you *urp* knew if what they said was true or not. Pardon."
"Hmm," -Twilight rubbed her chin with the tip of her wing thoughtfully,- "I'm sorry girls but I'm afraid offhand I don't know for certain whether zebras are unable to stop themselves from speaking in rhyme. Very few books exist on the topic of zebra culture and norms, and what books there are tend to contain a lot of bad information. I'm awaiting a large shipment of books from Canterlot that might have the answers you're looking for, if you can wait a couple weeks."
"A couple weeks?!" all three fillies shouted at the same time.
"Well, you could get it straight from the zebra's mouth and ask Zecora herself if you—"
"Thanks Twilight!"
"Will do, Twilight!"
"Thanks Twi', an' Spike!"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders ran out the door in a flurry of dust and pico de gallo, leaving Twilight alone as she finished her thought, "—want...to?"
Trekking through the Everfree Forest, Sweetie Belle looked around and commented, "Hmm, place sure seems a lot less scary than the last time we were here."
"Yeah, maybe the Tree of Harmony is working overtime lately," Scootaloo added.
"Shh, I think I see Zecora's hut up ahead!" Apple Bloom shushed them.
"Why 'shh?' We aren't sneaking up on Zecora, are we?" Scootaloo asked.
"Yeah, I thought she was our friend," Sweetie Belle piped up.
"Just in case," -Apple Bloom explained in a hushed tone,- "and remember yer 'safewords' girls."
As they stepped into the clearing, Scootaloo strode up to the door and knocked loudly.
"So much for the element of surprise," Apple Bloom mumbled.
"Is that one of the Elements of Harmony? Ooh, can I be the Element-Bearer of Surprise?" Sweetie squeaked excitedly.
"Ah, if it isn't Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. I hope this day finds you all well," Zecora beamed as she answered the door. "Please come in, make yourselves at home. I have fresh berries and honey comb."
"Er, no thanks, we just ate, an' this isn't rightly a social visit..." Apple Bloom spoke hesitantly. She repeated her tale of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon calling Zecora a monster, and of how the three of them balked when told that zebras could only be killed by uttering words that didn't rhyme. She went on to say that they'd visited with Twilight and had been told to just ask directly, and that's what brought them here.
Zecora listened patiently, her expression darkening the longer Apple Bloom talked. "You tell of words that destroy zebras, I see. And you thought to try them out on me?"
Apple Bloom looked aghast at the accusation. "Oh no Zecora, we didn't mean any harm! We just—"
"Ohohohoho," Zecora laughed loud and hard, dropping the angry façade. "Don't worry yourselves, for I simply jest. I know the goodness of your hearts, I must profess." Apple Bloom let out a sigh and wiped her brow, becoming markedly relieved to hear Zecora bode no ill will.
"If knowledge of zebras is what you seek, then perhaps I can show you I am no freak. It's true those words have been forbidden, but the reason behind the rule is long hidden. Shrouded in mystery is our strange proclivity, but it does not obscure some malign quality. A story my granny used to recount, told the tale of the King on the Mount...
"He hated the zebra kind with a passion, and cursed our flanks with stripes turned ashen. But the zebra folk did not object, in fact they found it quite perfect. So he tried another magic spell, plaguing the tribe with swarms of flies as well. But the zebra rejoiced light-heartedly, as the flies avoided our stripes quite unexpectedly.
"Finally, he tried an incantation, affecting in us this poetic fixation. But the zebras found this too to their liking, and all raised their voice and began to sing. The King of the Mount, his hexes depleted, resigned himself, soundly defeated."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders reflected on Zecora's tale, until Scootaloo's restraint eventually broke down and she asked, "So, zebras aren't monsters?"
"No, my little filly, that allegation was and is quite silly," Zecora smiled.
"So, you don't really hafta rhyme, you just enjoy doin' it, as part of yer heritage," Apple Bloom slowly reasoned.
"Tis true when young we all are taught, which words to say and which to not. But words have no power over us, unless we choose to make a fuss. Then it is a crime of choice, when zebras and ponies give up their voice," Zecora intoned solemnly.
"And saying the forbidden words won't make you burst into flame?" Sweetie Belle chirped quizzically.
"Not at all! Purple, silver, orange," Zecora said, dropping her usual rhyming scheme. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stared intently at the zebra, waiting with bated breath to see what would happen. Zecora let out a rich, hearty giggle and continued, "See? Nothing bad happened."
And then Zecora exploded.
The End
