Like a Minotaur in a China Shop
~by Sabre
As the sun peaked through the gilded windows of the little Canterlot shop, it danced between the legs of galloping, porcelain ponies, the horns of fearsome crystal dragons, and the rosewood swords of brave knights. A single finger of light crept through and rested upon the hoof-painted head of the Royal Sun Princess herself and lit up a mote speck of dust like a tiny lighthouse.
As quickly as the beam had landed, a bouquet of aged, grey feathers whipped the speck of dust into the void of the old, old wooden floor. Mere fractions of a second after the speck touched down, a wire-haired brush swept the particle up in a dustpan and promptly deposited it into a trashcan that was even more scrubbed out on the inside than the entire room around it.
Satisfied that the foul invader had been dealt with, the owner of the Canterlot China Shop, Spyglass, let out a grumph of pleasure and trotted back over behind the counter to deposit each cleaning implement on its properly-labeled hook. Looking out over his own shop, Spyglass regarded it with a satisfied smirk and a warm look in his steely-grey eyes.
This was his kingdom, after all. All the still and mercifully silent figures were his subjects, each and every cup, plate and saucer his mortar and brick, his bread and butter. Here, he was the king, and in here, only he held the ultimate power of—
With a tinkle and a skitter across the wooden floor, Spyglass let out a habitual raspberry of irritation as he quickly grabbed the tweezers and dustpan that hung behind the counter.
Time to fix another minotaur figurine, Spyglass thought with a grimace, as he placed the broken legs of the china doll on the counter and ran to grab some craftsman's glue.
----- -----T----- -----
Buried in his magnifying glass and articulate repair task, Spyglass didn’t even bother looking up as the tell-tale tingle-ing of the door sounded inside the empty shop.
“Welcome to the Fox and Hound, please come in and look around.” Spyglass quietly groaned at the unintentional rhyming. From the far end by the door, a rather gruff but calm voice called out.
“Would you happen to have a Royal Canterlot Wedding specialty tea set for sale here?” Spyglass smirked to himself as he glued the first leg onto the figure. What a funny voice for a pony looking for a commemorative collection set. His little chuckle turned into fumbling curses as he begged Celestia for an answer to why he hadn’t been born a unicorn.
“Er, yeah. Go check over by the Summer Sun display over there,” Spyglass said gruffly as he waved an irritated hoof in the general direction.
“Thank you,” the deep voice said.
“Mmm, hmm,” Spyglass mumbled, and cursed under his breath once again as the leg slipped in his awkward grip.
Before long, the shopkeep-turned-repairpony had gotten the first leg on the doll reattached, before he heard the tinkle of china upon the counter and the customer clear his throat respectively.
That sound came up from pretty high up, Spyglass noted as he shuffled his work things aside and looked up to help his customer. First he saw the decorative china sitting upon the counter, and then just above it, a dainty white wicker basket. But it was held in a blue hand that he soon found was connected to an intimidatingly beefy arm that led all the way up to broad shoulders, which were topped by a face with an intimidating, chiseled jaw . The last things he spotted on his trip upwards were fearsome horns that stuck wildly out of the sides of the customer’s cranium.
“Hey!” Spyglass shouted as the reality dawned on him, “Can’t you read? The posted sign outside the door says No Minaotaurs!” Spyglass became more and more furious with the monster as his customer just blinked in confusion.
“What?” the minotaur asked, his eyebrows dropping from surprised arches to lines of upset. “Iron Will just wanted to purchase his commemorative Canterlot Wedding china set! Iron Will will not be denied a vital piece of his already stellar collection!”
Spyglass just shook his head stubbornly. “That’s great, guy, but I’m gonna have to ask you to leave. Like, now.”
“Oh, come on!” Iron Will groaned as he gestured forcefully about the shop with hands splayed in his signature karate-chop style. “Iron Will is tired of being discriminated against, simply because Iron Will is a minotaur! Since when are we lumbering, destruction causing behemoths?” To give his words even further emphasis, Iron Will swung his meaty arms about dramatically, only just missing a Crystal Kingdom tea kettle. Spyglass ignored the minotaur’s question for a few moments though, as he was too involved in mentally wishing the teapot not to be crushed to a scrap metal cup under the giant’s crazy gestures.
"Well?” Iron Will demanded after some moments of silence, throwing his arms wide in irritated impatience. His hands once again rocketed themselves between delicately placed china and glassware. So close were they from literally striking the china, that the residual wind from the monster’s upset dramatizations set a wine glass spinning dangerously at the rim of its base.
With a shout, Spyglass had quit willing the china to stay put and instead sprang over to the glass, catching it just mere moments before its own momentum tipped it over.
“Get out! Out!” he bellowed at the minotaur, far too cross to even think.
Iron Will, at almost a loss for words, merely managed to string together a generous amount of stuttered curses and upset words. Stopping altogether, he huffed a hot breath, and eyed the shopkeep with a gaze that could paralyze a charging Manticore. Finally turning about, he stomped angrily out of the building on heavy hooves. The tingle of the door could be heard and a gentle murmur of the streets poured inside, and then a shout resounded through the shop that made the glass vibrate dangerously.
“IF SOMEPONY TRIES TO BLOCK, SHOW THEM THAT YOU ROCK!”
And with that, the door shut with a gentle murmur of hinges and the last ingle-ing of the welcome bell. Spyglass merely laughed out loud at the ridiculous difference in noise level.
Finally. I can get work done.
----- -----T----- -----
Shortly after Spyglass had set down to work, there came a little tingle-ing of the door opening and closing. In whooshed the sounds of mid-morning Canterlot Square, and as soon as the whisper of the door shut, the sounds were ceased. The sound of hooves pattered on the wooden floor, not in any particular direction.
“Welcome to the Fox and Hound. Have a look around.” Spyglass almost swore aloud. That dumb, stupid, unintentional rhyme…
“Mm, mhmm,” came an oddly falsetto voice from across the room, through a handful of shelves. Spyglass chuckled to himself at the weird sound, and continued back to his work.
Eventually, he heard the clatter of plates and china upon the counter and the customer clear her throat in a high-pitched, shrill sound. Setting the Luna doll aside for the second time with a little sigh, Spyglass looked up and was stunned beyond belief at what he saw before him.
Towering above him was a hulking blue lady. With blonde curls falling haphazardly over her gigantic, beefy shoulders, even the tastefully-applied makeup couldn’t hide the truth.
Spyglass’ temper raged to a boil as he felt his face get hot and red.
“You know I know that’s you, right guy?”
The minotaur in front of him just made an “o” with her heavily lip-sticked mouth and blushed a bit. In a very odd voice, she spoke up daintily.
“Excuse me? I don’t believe we’ve made any sort of acquaintance, Mister…?”
Spyglass cleared his throat and stood up on all fours. Taking a deep breath, he ground his back hooves in the wooden floor.
“Look buddy, I already yelled at you once to get out, and the cheap wig and gross makeup doesn’t cover the fact that you’re trying to pull a fast one on me, you big stupid minotaur sack of dung. Now. Get. OUT!” The stallion had all four hooves planted firmly and his anger was boiling up violently. The hulking she-beast in front of him merely blinked in complete surprise, her mascara-laden eyelashes batting like fans in a summer heat.
Just as he was about to bellow out another string of insults at the minotaur’s weak disguise, Spyglass spotted another hulking mountain of horns come around the corner of some bookshelf. Raising an eyebrow with his mouth wide open, he was sure that he looked like quite the ass.
“Iron Will came back to say he was sorry. Iron Will knows his temper can get the best of him, and Iron Will…” The minotaur stopped mid-sentence as he spotted the other beast in front of him.
“Oh, so now you’re letting HER in!? Is it because she’s a lady? HUH!?” His eyes bugged out as nothing but the throbbing veins in his skull kept them from popping out and landing in Spyglasse’s open mouth.
“I… uh... l-lady..?” he managed to stutter as he looked at Iron Will, to the minotaur in front of him, and back to Iron Will. “I uh… eheh...” he managed to stutter as his ears tucked straight back and his face dropped into a frightened grimace.
With a split-second lapse from shocked to utterly and completely furious, the lady who Spyglass had just humiliated cocked back her gigantic arm, and let loose the biggest damn slap he had ever had the incredible misfortune to experience.
In fact, as he lay in shock upon the floor, he could have sworn he heard the sound barrier break twice- once when she whipped her arm back, and a second time as her meaty hand slapped him squarely across his beet-red face.
As the world spun around him and little figures of a dancing pink pony cartwheeled backwards in and out of vision, he could only hear the stomp of angry hooves out the door.
A gigantic blue head peeked over the counter.
“Iron Will can tell you’re busy for the time being. Iron Will thinks that he will try back again later.”
Spyglass just groaned aloud.
----- -----T----- -----
With an ice pack propped up with one hoof, Spyglass could barely handle the figurine in front of him. A tell-tale chime of the door rang out. Looking up, the pony winced as he saw a particularly grungy pony stagger over to him.
“Hey uh, man, you got somethin’ I’m lookin’ for, it’s a uh, uh,” The stallion scratched frantically at a balding patch on his neck and seemed to read some scribbling off his arm. ‘A Conterlot Wedding Commie Moral tea set?” His breath reeked of ever-clear as he mumbled to himself.
Spyglass put down the ice pack and the tool in his hand and smirked at the scraggly pony in front of him.
“Really? You’re looking for that specifically? You, of all ponies?”
“Hey man, don’t discriminate here, man. I was in the war, man. I wear my stars and stripes proudly. Don’t hate on a brother alright?” He itched ferociously at his underbelly, wincing. Spyglass grimaced as he thought he saw some fleas jump off the decrepit old stallion.
Begrudgingly, Spyglass picked himself up off his stool and trotted up to the pony.
“For your wife, right?”
“Yeah man, that’s right. For the lady. So you got em?” Spyglass sighed and made a motion to the pony.
“Yeah, they’re up at the front, come here.”
“Righteous, man.”
As the pair wound their way through stacks of painstakingly-assorted china, Spyglass quickened his step from a walk, to a march, to a canter, and finally, he burst through his door, making the little bell fly off into the market square with it’s last tingle-ing.
“Ah-hah! I knew it!” the stallion screeched, shoving a hoof at the hulking giant that sat crouched just outside the door. “I’m not an idiot, buddy! For the last time, shove off, or I’m going to call the royal guards to escort your blue butt off my premises!”
Spyglass shouted at the homeless pony to get out, which echoed with a resounding cry of “You’re a god damn communist, man!”
“Iron Will doesn’t get it!” the beast cried, rounding on the shopkeeper, “Why do you hate minotaurs? What did we ever do to you?”
“You want to know why I hate minotaurs?” Spyglass bellowed, “it’s because you’re all big, dumb, inconsiderate brutes! You do nothing but hulk around and smash everything in your path. And I am sick. And tired. Of you behemoths coming into my perfect little kingdom and ruining everything!”
To punctuate his fury, Spyglass punched out a hoof. Much to his horror, it collided with a shelf, and like a bad snuff film, the earth pony could only stare in shock as the heavy shelf started to tip over.
A tidal wave of painted porcelain crashed and thundered as thousands of bits worth of hand-made china careened into the floor. Spyglass shot into the chaos, screaming as he tried to grab at falling chalices and figurines.
“No, no, no!”
In a mere matter of moments, the entire shop was nothing but splintered wood, cracked glassware, and shattered dreams. Spyglass could only lie on his back amidst the rubble as tears streamed down his face.
“Iron Will feels like there’s a word for this, but Iron Will can’t quite place a name on it.”
“Just… get... out…” the stallion mumbled. He lie alone for several minutes before Iron Will stuck his head back in the shop.
“Oh yeah, it was irony.” The minotaur chuckled to himself as he walked away.
END
