Bark at the Moon

The door to the former home clicks shut without so much as a creak - Twilight Sparkle, the former resident, had clearly taught the dragon how to care for the place. The dark blue mare's eyes scan the abode for a moment before nonchalantly browsing the many dusty books that were left behind.

So many books, each a well of knowledge for every flavor of spellcraft, every creature (magical or otherwise) and every historical document. Also... there's something else. On the table near the bookshelf, there seems to be a small pile of coins. Well-minted coins without a speck of dust on them. Now, a Royal Princess has no need for money, but that's certainly something out of the blue. Surely Twilight didn't leave all those Bits behind, did she...?

Luna's attention is then caught by a particularly obvious book - Predictions and Prophecies - lying open on a nearby book-stand, untouched for years, it seems. The book is open at the worst possible chapter she could ever hope to read. The Mare in the Moon.

Of all the pages... of all the chapters... of all the books in Equestria...

*******

Whatever that dark pony... thing was that flew over you a second ago, it now seems to be distracted by something. Even with only three legs, you effortlessly slide the door shut without a sound, and hastily crawl out of sight. Leaving your bag of Bits by the door, you take care not to knock your tin leg, held firmly in your fanged mouth, against anything that might give away your location.

This creature, most likely a pegasus of some kind, will probably run for the hills as soon as she sees you - most ponies do. You already have a plan formulating in your head - bop her lightly with your detachable limb, scaring her. Jump out from behind something all scary-like. Make her run away. Then you get to have your own little library in peace without trespassers like her!

Your diamond dog hunter's instinct has you slip by unseen, unheard, unnoticed. Hiding behind the various pieces of furniture, you spy your prey from the shadows. yes, that's a pony all right. Large. Winged. Female, perhaps? One of the most efficient ways you can tell pony genders apart is by looking at their eyes... however, this creature's back is turned to you. You can only tell her gender from behind.

Not that you'd complain about that sorta thing.

Okay, okay! Less starin' at her ass, more kickin' it, please. You retrieve the tin leg from your mouth, and carefully tune up your throwing-arm. Silently, you gauge a few practice-throws to yourself, then count to three in your head.

One... two... three!

Your metal limb is flung through the air with gusto, and collides with the pony's rump with expert accuracy. When you said you were gonna kick her ass, you meant it.

The mare - definitely a mare due to her suddenly confused yelp - stumbles around in a state of alarm, before tripping over the freshly-fallen tin leg itself! Perfect!

Sensing the perfect time to strike, you leap from the corner of the room over your panicked prey... and halt, suspended in mid air by some incandescent force. The mare turns to face you, teeth bared, wings flared... and horn glowing. Wait, ponies can have both!?

It's at this point in time you realize... you may have messed up.

She deftly flicks her horn down slightly. Your entire body collides with the ground. She flicks her horn back up, and you feel yourself sailing across the room at a "well-this-is-going-to-hurt" sort of rate. Your body comically splats against the wall, where it remains pinned by the magical forces that envelope you.

"Just who do you think you are!?" The mare strides towards you with all the confidence of a godlike entity, "To get the drop on ME, of all ponies!? What perverse jest did you think you were trying to commit!?"

She stops just short of you, her ferocious features betraying that of a beast almost as ferocious as you. "A childish - and might I say stupid - attack on me would surely result in me melting you with a thought! I can do that, you know-"

SMACK!

One of your free paws, uncontested by the magic pinning your torso up, leaves a deft pawprint against your rival's pretty face.

"Keep your voice down," you growl. "This is a library."

It takes a moment or three for her brain to process what just happened. She takes a few trots back, her face the absolute picture of disbelief. No hint of pain nor fear is present behind those eyes. Rather bewilderment and confusion. Her forehoof strokes the cheek you struck, as if she needed more proof of what just happened. Then she straightens her expression, an almost stoic transformation compared to her previous behavior. But her eyes? Trace amounts of what you'd call rage.

"Here's how this is going to work," she says, her voice unmoving in its pitch, "I could turn you into soup with a quick blast of magic, sure. But I don't want to do that. I'm simply not that sort of pony. Instead, I'll just tame you through a show of brute force. That is, of course, the only language you unthinking beasts understand. No magic, no tricks, just you and me. Then I will have you thrown in a dungeon, or perhaps just banished. Agreed?"

You consider... whatever the hell's going on right now. After a moment, you nod towards your metallic limb on the floor.

"Can I have my leg back first?" you ask. She looks between you, the synthetic limb, then you again.

"Are you some form of golem?" she raises an eyebrow.

"Are you some form of stupid?"

The mare blinks. Her expression changes from "rage" to "give him the damned thing back so I can sock him one fairly". She floats the limb up to you before finally unpinning you from the wall. Her magic dissipates.

You grasp the tin leg in a front paw, keeping yourself low to the ground with your natural limbs.

"Hurry up and reattach it before we begin," she snarls, "I'd rather defeat you while fighting on equal ground, as a representative of Equ-"

Too late. You are already bounding across the room towards your enemy, brandishing your tin leg as a club. You swing at her face with all your strength, but she swiftly dodges the blow with all the dexterity of a deer.

Your missed swing leaves you wide open - a dark blue hoof strikes you sharply in the side of your rib-cage. With a roar, you let out a backswing towards her, the tin leg glancing off the back of her head. She exclaims in shock, before charging forward with all her strength and throwing you to the floor.

The next thing you know, you're on the ground, the mare towering over your body. She kicks the metal from your paws, before laying into you with a hoof-punch to your chin. Then another.

As she winds up for a third punch, you anticipate her. Grabbing her wayward hoof mid-strike, you bury your teeth into her foreleg. She yelps in pain, which you quickly cut off via a good, clean uppercut. Just as she loses her balance, you pull her to the ground with you, positioning yourself on top of her. Your front paws, clenched as fists, play merry havoc with the side of her head, rapidly bouncing blow after blow off her skull. Suddenly you feel a jolt of pain in your stomach as her rear legs drive into your belly. That moment of hesitance is all she needs; another hoof-punch collides with your nose, causing you to recoil from the pain to explode across your face.

She scrambles free from under you, then shifts her weight to her front legs. You guess her attempt at her bucking you with her rear hooves. Just as she tries to kick you, a paw grabs one of the wayward legs. In a sheer fit of adrenaline, you swing her by her own leg and fling her at full speed towards a nearby bookcase. Her body thuds against the wooden shelves, causing every last book to tumble off. A moment later, she's buried under the avalanche of dusty literature.

As your opponent disappears from view, your senses begin to catch up. Suddenly, all the knocks and bruises from the fight start to throb quite painfully, to the point when you have to lie down...

You take a moment sprawled out on the floor to catch your breath. Then another. Then another. At first, you ponder if your last attack may have been a bit much - you only wanted her to leave, after all - but finally signs of movement show within the pile of books. A blue hoof bursts out from the mess of paper, before the rest of her crawls out from underneath.

Oh no, she's still around... time to get back up... But you can't. Instead, you can only drag yourself up to all-fours. Well, threes.

The pony numbly crawls towards you. She loses her balance twice on her way over, before she finally kneels no more than two feet away from you, wobbling slightly. You look into her eyes. She looks into yours.

"Still want to... go without magic, toots?" you taunt weakly. Talking makes your jaw hurt.

"You're stubborn, I'll give you that," the mare's voice didn't even seem pained, despite her inability to stand up straight. "But no, I think I have won this round. Thieves never prosper."

"Wait, what?" You could've sworn you heard something wrong among the dull throbbing in your head, "I'm not a thief! You are!"

The mare's face flinched, as if she'd just been punched. I mean again. "Pardon? No, that can't be right... you're trying to steal from my acquaintance's abode!" she jabs an accusatory hoof in your direction "You're breaking into her house to take her money!"

"What money?"

"That money!" You follow her point towards the gleaming coins sitting undisturbed on the table across the room.

"That's MY money, idiot!" you scoff, "I put Bits there whenever I borrow books from this place!"

Your words linger in the air for a while. You can see by the mare's expression that it's only just dawned on her...

She begins slowly: "So... that's your money..."

"...Yeah, I thought you were trying to steal it..."

"...and I thought YOU were trespassing, and that YOU were trying to steal it!"

"...so we both thought the other was a thief!"

The awkward ringing of silence fills the air between you both. Finally, both you and your opponent's faces contort into a smile. Then she chuckles, first quietly, then it grows to a fever-like laughter. You join in, unable to hold your own mirth anymore. What madness that just unfolded there was probably the funniest thing to happen to you in years! You laugh and laugh with her, your roaring guffaws and her melodic giggling being the only sounds in the abandoned library.

You belly-laugh until it hurts - though truthfully, that was probably because she kicked you in the stomach earlier - and finally, the two of you calm down.

"I - I still can't believe that," she smiles diligently. The way she's acting now, you wonder if you ever truly hurt her in the fight. "You thought a princess would possibly have need to be a thief!"

"Eh, I guess it is kinda... wait, you're a princess?"

"Was it not obvious?" the mare gestures towards her horn, and unfurls a wing as if that was supposed to mean something to you. "I mean, I was even threatening to throw you in the dungeons earlier..."

"Hey, I thought you were just being kinky or somethin'."

"What's a Kin-Key?"

"Never mind."