Author's Note
“The only thing T has ever seemed to be greedy with is Annie. And his cookies. T loves his cookies.”
Love & Cookies
In the dark depths of the castle dungeons, a small, shadowy figure lurked before her favored instrument of revenge, the light generated from its fiery innards lighting her face. Nidra laughed, accompanied by a crack of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning despite the windowless nature of the chamber. “The end is nigh for you, Annie, dear. Soon, soon…”
The timer dinged and Nidra open the oven.
“They are done!” Another lightning bolt filled the room. She turned to the aged pegasus stallion manning her personal storm cloud. “That’s quite enough, Nickelhoof, thank you.”
“Of course, Princess,” he said through his bushy mustache.
She turned her attention back to the oven and pulled out a metal tray with her magic. Upon it sat a dozen smoking, black lumps of char. “They say the way to ponies’ hearts is through their stomach… if that’s the case…”
“Then young Master Turquoise will likely have nothing left in his ‘heart’ at all soon enough,” Nickelhoof said, eyebrows raised.
“Nickelhoof, do I pay you to criticize or do I pay you to… to butler?!” Nidra shouted.
“You don’t pay me at all, Your Highness.”
Nidra rolled her eyes and looked back at her latest attempt. “Nevermind! Still… in spite of my obvious superiority, that cute little unicorn’s confectionary skills do exceed my own… if only by a small margin.” She threw the pan of baked bads into a nearby incinerator and stalked back and forth as the evidence of her misdeeds became naught but smoke. “I must find some way to defeat her on this latest field of battle if the ultimate prize is to be mine.”
“Well, Princess, I might know somepony with the resources to assist you in this endeavor,” Nickelhoof said, stroking his bushy mustache. “But how are you going to win against Miss Anthea at the Ponyville school bake sale and competition?” He held up the flyer for the aforementioned event. “You don’t even live in Ponyville.”
Nidra sneered. “Oh, I’ve already made plans for that,” she said. “All it will take is a little… ‘illusion’...” Muaha… muahaha… muahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!”
Nickelhoof looked on with pride as he gave her a quiet golf clap. “Good show, Princess, good show.”
Miles away in a cottage on the border of Everfree Forest, a teenaged pink unicorn pulled the last tray of cookies from the oven. “There. Perfectly baked.”
“Wow, Annie,” her cyan coated friend, Cotton Candy, said excitedly as she bounced behind her. “You always know exactly how long to bake your cookies, even without a timer!”
Anthea set the cookies down on the counter to cool and turned her glazed eyes to Candy. “I guess you could say that, with my eyesight being so bad, I just… ‘nose’ things…” she tapped her snout and gave a wink.
“Hahaha,” Candy laughed. “That’s not grammatically correct at all, Annie!”
“Uh… right,” Anthea said, blinking. “Well, thanks for helping me out, today.”
Candy nodded. “No problem, even though I can’t really cook I can still be your second pair of eyes!” She leaned in toward the cookies and took a big whiff. “Mm… I’ll bet Turquoise will really love these.”
Anthea blushed. “Y-yeah… which is great, since he’s one of the judges at the competition!”
“Sure, that’s the only reason, huh?” Candy said with a smirk.
“Well,” Anthea said. “There’s also the bits we’ll raise for the school to consider… obviously it’s not all about winning.”
Candy grinned. “Suuuure, that’s it.”
Anthea flushed.
“Alright, my little judges,” Principal Cheerilee said as she trotted happily in front of three of her school’s students and stared down at her smaller charges. “You all understand the rules, now?” She then paused and raised her head to look up at the twelve-year-old half dragon that stood between Prism and Starburst. He had sprung up over the summer and now stood a bit taller than the average stallion, even overtaking his eighteen-year-old sister. She idly wondered if he’d end up even bigger than her own husband, the famously massive Big McIntosh.
“Sure thing, Mrs. C,” Prism said, donning a pair of shades. “We got this.”
Princess Starburst, the youngest and smallest of the group, side-eyed her rainbow-maned friend. “We’ll all be sure to execute our duties with the utmost diligence, ma’am.” She put on the most serious face she could, which was, Cheerilee noted with a shiver, incredibly intimidating, and saluted.
“When do we start eating?” Turquoise asked, licking his lips greedily as his eyes roamed the campus, which was filled with tables piled high with confections.
Cheerilee laughed, her voice shaky. “O-oh, soon, little Turquoise. Very soon. Please, just be patient.”
“Huh?” T said. “Oh, sure.”
“Well, then,” Cheerilee said, pulling out a clipboard. “Let’s go ahead and make sure our contestants are ready.” She began to trot over to one of the tables, the three foals in tow. “Let’s see… first on our list is…”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Cheerilee,” a voice interrupted.
Cheerilee looked up from her clipboard to see a young pegasus filly of around twelve with a cool grey coat and two-tone blue mane standing with determined ice-blue eyes. To her left stood an older dark gray stallion with green eyes and a cutie mark of what looked like black rocks and to her left stood a wizened earth pony with a pencil-thin mustache. She cocked her head at the motley band. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry I’m late, but I am also taking part in this competition,” the filly said, stamping her hoof.
Cheerilee’s brows wrinkled. “But… this is only for Ponyville school students, and I’m afraid I don’t recall seeing you in any of our classes…”
“Oh, but she’s simply a new transfer,” the coal-colored stallion said. He slithered to her side and tapped her between the eyes, causing her vision to go blurry for a moment. “Just look at your list. The list doesn’t lie.”
Cheerilee looked down and saw a name at the top of the paper. “Jet… Stream?”
“That’s me!” the filly confirmed, puffing her chest out. “Like I said, I’m in this competition.”
“Oh,” Cheerilee said, shaking off a wave of uncertainty. She could have sworn she’d seen another name at the top of the list before, but she must have been mistaken. “Of course, dear. It’s good to meet our newest addition.” She patted her on the head and trotted past. “Well, get your table set up quickly. We’ll start judging right after I finish checking on all the contestants.”
Starburst eyed Jet Stream suspiciously. “Okay… so I see Illusion’s here incognito, and… and is that my butler?”
The old stallion bowed. “My brother asked that I assist his charge in her endeavors, Princess. I do hope you don’t mind.”
Starburst glowered at Jet Stream. “No, Pennyhoof. Not at all. Then I take it this must be…”
“One good looking filly,” Prism interjected. “Heyyyy, how you doing?”
Jet Stream looked blankly at this multicolor-maned peasant. “This… will never happen.” She brushed past him and Starburst, focusing on Turquoise, who stared dumbly. “Well, hello you big… guy.” She said, trying to flutter her eyelashes at him and ended up looking like she lacked motor control over her eyelids.
“Hey!” Turquoise said, giving her a close-lipped smile. “Uh… have we met?”
Both her eyelash-fluttering and smile faltered. “Well… yes. Sort of.”
“She’s Nidra,” Starburst said with a snort. “Remember? You met her a few months ago?”
“...” Turquoise screwed his face up for a long moment. “Is… is she the one Del was having nightmares about for weeks?”
“That’s the one,” Starburst confirmed.
Jet Stream’s expression soured, but she shook her head and put on her game face. “Well! I hope you like cookies, T. I daresay I made some of the best you’ll taste.”
Prism cleared his throat. “I, for one, am looking forward to eating your cookie.”
Starburst cut him off with a firm hoof to the snout. “Seriously? You’ve never baked in your life, Nidra. Your cooking is worse than Candy’s. It’s probably worse than T’s aunt’s.”
“H-hey,” Turquoise said meekly, feeling offended for his poor, hapless Aunt Sweetie Belle and the travesty against the living that was her cooking.
“Don’t tell me,” Starburst went on, ignoring her fellow princess’ withering gaze. “You borrowed my butler to bake the cookies for you.”
“N-no!” Nidra said. “You don’t know my life! I… I just had him… advise me.”
“Still not sure advice from a master culinary artist is fair,” Starburst said, giving Pennyhoof a sidelong glance.
Pennyhoof looked momentarily sheepish. “I can assure you, Princess, that my involvement was solely a matter of fire safety.”
Starburst gave Jet Stream and Pennyhoof skeptical looks before relenting. “Fine, I’ll allow it. Come on, T.” She turned to Prism, who was still nursing his muzzle. “And Idiot. Let’s not get too far behind Mrs. Cheerilee.” With that she cantered off, the two colts following behind her.
“Huh,” Illusion said, still wrapped in his earth pony disguise. “So you’re really going through all this trouble for him? I mean, he’s my girlfriend’s little brother and all, but… the kid’s not really the brightest flame in the candelabra, if you know what I mean.”
Nidra harrumphed and made her way across the field with her nose in the air. “It’s not just about him, Cousin. For you see, at the same time I met him, I also met… her!”
“Uh-huh,” Illusion said as he followed behind.
“That prissy, beautiful, elegant filly thinks she deserves everything,” she ranted. “Well, I’ll show her, today. You hear me, Annie?!”
“I hear you just fine, Nidra,” Annie replied.
Nidra blinked as she found herself looking right into her archnemesis’ cloudy eyes. Granted, they were actually well over twenty meters apart, a distance at which ordinary ponies would be unlikely to hear each other over the din of the crowd. However, Nidra’s batpony heritage and Annie’s sense compensation made it as if they were conversing right next to each other.
“It’s you!” Nidra muttered.
“That’s right,” Annie said with a smile. “And you’re you.”
“So you saw through my disguise, did you?” she went on. “Well, it’s all the better that you’ll know who it is that has bested you, this day.”
Annie blinked. “You… you were disguised? Sorry, you still look like a big, dark gray and blue blur to me. And your voice is exactly the same. You’re going to have to step up your game if you want to prank me.”
Nidra fumed as she approached Annie’s table. “Pennyhoof,” she called over her shoulder. “Set my table up right beside this one.” She looked back and Annie and grinned. “I want her to see her defeat up close.”
“Um,” Annie said with a tiny smile. “I won’t really be able to see it no matter how close you put it.”
“Th-that’s not the point!” Nidra said, turning away, red-faced.
Pennyhoof pulled a large table into place with his denture-filled mouth and draped a silky cloth over it. He then threw a few plates like flying discs, which landed neatly on the table. Lastly, he tossed his cookies, allowing them to fall in neat, pyramid-shaped stacks on each plate.
Annie clapped vigorously. "I have no idea what just happened, but it sounded impressive."
Turquoise Blitz took a deep whiff of the heavenly mix of sugar and flour that filled the air. He sighed, his long tongue spilling out the side of his mouth like a dog. "I'm in heaven."
"T," Starburst said, her tone curt. "I know you've always had a thing for sweets, but you've been really packing them away since your dad got you that huge birthday cookie cake. It's not healthy."
Prism guffawed. "C'mon, Star, he's a growing colt. Maybe if you hit the cookie cakes as hard as you hit the gym you wouldn't have been exactly the same size for half your life."
Star sputtered incoherently.
Ignoring the impending doom of his friend, Turquoise approached the first table up for judgment. "So," he said to the young student proprietor. "What kind of delicious treats do you have for us?"
"Uh, chocolate chip cookies..." the filly replied timidly, the half-dragon's massive form causing her to involuntarily cringe. She picked up one of them from her platter and offered it to him, leaning her body away as she did.
Turquoise didn’t notice her obvious discomfort as he snatched the cookie in his claw-hooves and licked his lips. “I’ve died and gone to Elysium,” he muttered before tossing the entire baked good into his slavering maw. He let out a deep groan of satisfaction, prompting the filly to duck below the table.
“Wow, T,” Prism said with a smirk as he broke a cookie in half and hoofed the other to Starburst. “Sounds like you’re not going to need a girlfriend anytime soon. Maybe I should tell Annie…?”
Starburst nudged him sharply in the barrel and then glared him into submission before taking a bite of her half of the cookie. “Hm. Standard faire, but very good execution.”
“Th-thanks,” the filly said as she poked her head out from under the table. She glanced at Turquoise, who was huffing and puffing as he drooled over the rest of the cookies. “W-would you like another, uh, sir?” She nudged one of the plates closer to him.
“Would I?” he declared before diving at the plate of cookies. “Om, nom, nom, nom!”
“Whoa, buddy,” Prism said, pulling the platter away from Turquoise, causing him to plant his face in the table. “We have to leave some of these to actually be sold, remember?”
“Uh, right,” Turquoise said, his face turning a light shade of pink. “Sorry.”
The three judges trotted on to the next table, where Turquoise immediately devoured his peanut butter cookie. Licking his face clean of crumbs, he glanced over at Prism, who had just picked up his own cookie. His pupils narrowed into slits and his gaze became focused as a hasty plan fell into place in his mind.
“Hey, Prism, have you heard what Starburst thinks about your eyes?” he blurted.
“My eyes?” Prism said, face contorted in confusion. He turned toward Starburst and pulled off his shades. “What about ‘em?”
Starburst’s head looked not unlike a ripened tomato as she sputtered, caught in his glittering gaze. “Ah, I… I mean, it’s not like I… they’re very… you should stop wearing the…”
During the two pegasi’s momentary confusion, Turquoise’s tongue darted out, stretching further than he’d ever stretched it before, and snatched the cookie from Prism’s hoof not unlike a gecko. A moment later, he was munching happily on his latest conquest.
“I know some ponies think sunglasses are cool,” Starburst concluded, her flush fading. “But, uh, no one will be able to see your… super cool… smolder?”
“True, true,” Prism said. “I do smolder well. Yeah, I guess I can ditch the shades. I’d hate to offer the citizens of Ponyville anything less than my 100% coolness level.” He turned back to his still-raised hoof and his face fell. “Uh… guess those shades really messed with my vision, too. I could have sworn I’d grabbed… ah, well.”
The two pegasi took another cookie to share between the two of them, but in the meantime Turquoise was sweating, his eyes shifting from side to side in search of his next fix. “All these cookies… they could all be mine… all of them!” he muttered to himself.
Turquoise slithered behind his fellow judges to the next booth, a wicked smirk on his face as his cookielust filled him. He feigned detached professionalism as he sampled the snickerdoodle beside his companions, but hung back when they made their way to the next table. Recalling one his father’s favorite movies, he pushed onto his hind legs and sauntered over to one of the stands.
“Mnyeh!” he declared, leaning across the table, his face a whisker away from the proprietor-colt’s. “This is a nice establishment ya got here. Be a shame if somethin’... happened to it, see?” He grabbed a snickerdoodle and crushed in his hoof-claw before licking the crumbs up, all the while maintaining his unnerving stare.
“I do,” the colt acquiesced. “And I am prepared to offer you a modest portion of my profits in order to…”
“It ain’t the profits I’m interested in,” Turquoise said, squinting one eye at the colt. “It’s da merchandise, capiche?”
“C-capiche,” the colt said, sweat beading on his forehead. “H-how about a dozen…?”
Turquoise’s tongue shot out, wrapping around the entirety of the colt’s wares, and pulled it into his mouth. His cheeks were stretched to bursting, but he nonetheless managed to chew and swallow every last snickerdoodle. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
The colt stared at his now-empty table, his lip quivering. “M-my… my goods.”
“Hey, T,” Prism said as he licked his lips of the almond cookie he had just eaten as the aforementioned half-dragon stalked up to them. “Those cookies already weighin’ you down?”
Starburst gave Turquoise a suspicious look. "You weren't trying to sneak extra cookies, were you?"
Sweat poured off Turquoise's head as he racked his brain for the perfect lie. "No," he finally declared proudly, completely confident in his deception.
"Oh, okay," Starburst responded, her suspicions alleviated.
"Well, go ahead," Prism said, gesturing toward the table of cookies. "Have at it."
Turquoise licked his lips as he studied his prey. He would have to devise an ingenious plan to have his fill of this hoard while keeping his friends in the dark.
"Look over there!" he said, pointing in the distance. Everypony turned their heads and he lunged at the cookie platters, picking them up and pouring their contents into his mouth
"T, I don't see what you're..." Prism said, turning back to his friend. "Whoa, what are you doing?" He jumped to stop Turquoise, but a massive hoof socked him in the mouth, sending him flying.
"T! T, stop!" Starburst demanded. She braced herself as he did, but only because the haul at this station had already been spent. "Listen, you need to control yourself, or else..." Her eyes hardened and she spread her disproportionately large wings to strike an intimidating figure.
Turquoise sneered and approached her, heedless of the display. "T... want... cookie!" He roared in her face, spittle and his hot breath blowing her mane back.
"Eep..." Starburst said squeakily. She remained frozen in place as Turquoise leaped over her into the air to have at his next batch of victims.
“Alright, Pennyhoof, you understand what you have to do,” Nidra whispered to her borrowed butler.
“Indeed, Princess,” he replied, holding up a nondescript herb shaker. “One whiff of this and young Master Turquoise will be unable to even taste Ms. Anthea’s cookies.”
“Not that I think she could in any way stand up to our cookies’ unmatched flavor,” Nidra said with rare apprehension.
Pennyhoof nodded understandingly. “Indeed, just a bit of foul play to spice up the competition. Completely expected of any evil overlord.”
“What?”
“Not a thing,” Pennyhoof replied quickly before turning sharply toward Anthea’s table. “Ahem! I say, I shall be simply meandering purposely by…” he announced as he strode purposefully toward Annie’s table.
“Yes, yes,” Nidra said, rubbing her hooves together with a maniacal grin on her face. “Soon, Annie, you will feel the wrath of a filly scorned!” She threw her head back and laughed wildly, a bolt of lightning flashing behind her.
Anthea screamed as the loud burst of thunder assaulted her delicate ears and she bucked forward, right into Pennyhoof. The herb shaker flew into his face, a cloud of powder puffing out before it spilled to the ground.
Pennyhoof hacked and wheezed on the ground as his eyes watered and his sinuses filled.
Nidra sighed and looked to a nearby stormcloud. "That will do for today, thank you."
Nickelhoof saluted her crisply and promptly flew the evidence of his deeds toward the horizon.
Candy landed in front of Nidra, a stormy look upon her face. "Now you see here, Ms. 'Jet Stream,' if that is your real name..."
"It is not," she replied.
“Nopony pranks Annie,” Candy went on. “Why, what if you’d hit her with lightning? What if she lost her memory and became some kind of delinquent vagrant?”
“Candy, that’s silly,” Anthea said, rubbing her ear. “It was just loud, and it would be pretty silly to lose my memory from something like that. Although…”
Nidra puffed out her chest. "You're deviously clever, taking my minion out with his own weapon, but you'll not get the best of me!" She gestured toward her table. “T will still prefer my cookies to yours, and then he shall be mine.”
“Oh, Nidra,” Annie said with a laugh. “I’m sure he’ll love both our cookies. In fact, I’d like it if we could share each other’s cookies, too.” Her moist eyes widened as she put a shy but friendly smile on her face.
Nidra mantled a dark red. “You may have others fooled with those… those soft, cerulean eyes and that adorable smile and your delightfully pert flank, but not me!”
“I’m confused,” Anthea said. “Are you trying to challenge me or confess?”
“Both!” Nidra growled. “I mean… but not to the same… arrgh, but you are an infuriating unicorn!”
Anthea opened her mouth to respond, but then her ears twitched, and her face brightened. “Oh, it sounds like Turquoise is coming over.”
Surprised that she hadn’t heard him first, Nidra turned and saw a green form bounding toward them. It was, she now saw, indeed Turquoise Blitz, but he seemed to be acting strangely. His movements were not unlike a predator chasing down its food, and a moment later her assessment was confirmed as he dove upon a nearby stand, burying his face in the treats. In the blink of an eye he had devoured everything, and he stood back up to his impressive height and let loose with a draconic roar.
“Ooh, he sounds so excited,” Anthea said giddily. “Isn’t he so cute when he gets heated like that?”
Nidra watched as Turquoise shook his mane and gnashed his sharp, dripping teeth. Drool and crumbs oozed down his face. His eyes were fully reptilian and glinted with a carnivorous light. “... Yes. Cute. That’s it.”
“Ummm,” Candy interjected. “I might be wrong, but it kinda looks like T might be on some kind of dragon greed induced rampage. Maybe we should stop him?”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Anthea said, waving her hoof dismissively.
At that moment, their friend Golden Delicious, who had inherited his uncle Big McIntosh’s size and was, at three years Turquoise’s senior, just about the same size, intervened. “Hold up, T, you’re makin’ a mess.”
Turquoise snarled and threw himself at Golden, who braced himself to stop him. However, though their sizes were similar, Turquoise’s draconic strength was more than a match for Golden’s earth pony strength, and with a sweep of his neck he knocked his friend aside.
“Hm,” Nidra observed. “He may, in fact, not be as fine as first assessed.”
Anthea nodded. “You’re right… maybe if we stop him from eating cookies for awhile… or make him not want any! I don’t suppose you still have any of that joke powder, do you?”
“Unfortunately, no, I…” Nidra started. “Wait. You knew about that part?”
Anthea grinned. “Yeah, I got a little whiff of it, myself. I can’t smell anything right now, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as what that butler guy got.”
Nidra eyed her suspiciously. “Huh. Well… in any case, we don’t have that option right now. Wait, maybe Illusion…!”
“He snuck off with Claire pretty much the moment you started planning on how to sabotage me,” Anthea said.
“Curses!” Nidra cursed. “Wait. Again. You heard me talking about that from the beginning? And just went along with it?”
Anthea smiled sheepishly. “Well, it’s just that nopony ever pranks me, so I thought it would be fun…”
Their conversation was cut short when Turquoise landed with a thud on Anthea’s table. He leaned over his prey and inhaled deeply of their sugary goodness. "So delicious..." he rumbled. "T... want!"
Anthea couldn't help but smile as her crazed friend began to gobble her cookies. "Aw, look how much he likes them."
"Not our foremost concern right now!" Nidra snapped.
Anthea coughed. "Right! Ah, T, as much as I love that you enjoy my cookies so much, it would make me very happy if you could leave some for the paying customers?"
Turquoise looked up from his gluttonous task and saw Anthea standing before him, an earnest expression on her small face as she stared in his general direction. His jaw dropped open, his tongue going slack.
"T..." he said as he looked the young filly up and down. "Want!" His long dragon-like tail darted out and curled around Anthea, pulling her to him.
"Oh, T!" Anthea squealed, an odd mixture of terror and happiness on her face. "This isn't how best friends treat each other!"
Turquoise's wings flared as he stood on his two hind legs and pounded his chest like a gorilla.
"Somepony call the Wonderbolts!" Prism shouted, bounding back onto the scene after pulling his head out of an apple barrel.
"Forget it, son!" Rainbow Dash called from above. "I've seen how that goes down. Somepony call Rarity!"
Nidra lowered herself into a fighting pose as Turquoise leaped into the air, his eyes fixed on her table. "I wanted you to eat my cookies, but not like this. I will stop you." Her disguise dispersed as she summoned her magic to her horn.
"No, Nidra!" Anthea said, her own horn glowing. "I can calm him down... I know I can."
Turquoise began his dive toward Nidra, his jaws wide open and sharp teeth glinting in the sun. "T want!"
A jagged bolt of alicorn magic burst from Nidra's horn as he approached. At the same time, unicorn magic bloomed from Anthea's horn. The two spells collided on Turquoise, exploding into a shockwave of flowers and Zs made of light.
Gigantic ripples of green and blue washed over the entire town, dragging every waking creature into the land of dreams. Snoozing ponies were strewn about the streets, some having crumbled into cuddly heaps. Prism and Golden in particular would find themselves in a rather compromising position when they awoke which would he henceforth be known between the two of them as "that thing we never talk about."
Nidra grimaced. "Oops."
"Aww," Anthea cooed, patting Turquoise's head as he lay snoring amidst the ruins of Nidra's table. "He's like a giant teddy bear."
"This is not the time to be so carefree!" Nidra scolded as she unabashedly scratched T behind the ear with a wing, earning a purr. "We may have very well knocked out the entire town with the combined force of our spells. Oh, Mother is not going to be pleased."
"Hmm," Anthea hummed with a hoof under her chin. "I suppose you're right. Then again, an opportunity like this doesn't come by very often, and since we're probably going to get into trouble anyway, might as well make the most of it." She levitated her saddlebag from several feet away and rummaged through it with magic.
Nidra cocked an eyebrow. "An opportunity? How is this situation in any way—What are you doing?"
Anthea giggled, carefully tracing the black marker over Starburst's serene face. "Let's turn that frown upside down."
"A-Anthea!" Nidra exclaimed, scandalized. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like, silly?" Anthea asked as she moved on to Candy and began to scribble across her face. "This'll learn ya to exclude me from you pranking."
"You wanted to... prank ponies with them?" Nidra said.
"No, they never prank me!" Anthea complained.
"Ah," Nidra said as she watched Anthea's continued defacement of Candy's face. "Oh, really! Give my that marker, Annie, your drawing is atrocious. This is how you draw a proper swirl." She took over the marker and began to sweep elegantly across Candy's cheek.
"Oh, thanks," Anthea said. "The whole blindness thing can really put a damper on this kind of thing." She pointed to Candy's forehead. "Does that look like anything crude to you?"
"What, that long box with a badly written w under... oh, yeah, no. I know what that is," Nidra said. "You pretty much got it."
"Yay!" Annie cheered. She began to trot over to Prism. "Come on, I've got something special in store for this colt."
Nidra snickered as she saw him. "My, my. But that is a rather compromising position."
"I'm pretty sure we can make it more compromising," Annie said, grabbing Prism's hoof and moving it to Golden's flank.
"Very Art Nouveau," Nidra commented as she began drawing something she remembered reading out of a pilfered copy of the Pony Sutra. She paused and looked at the marker gripped in her magic. "What am I doing?"
Annie took the marker from her and proceeded to completely ruin the saucy artwork on Prism's face. "Um... having fun, I guess?"
Nidra looked at Anthea as she drew with her snout scrunched and little tongue sticking out in concentration. She smiled. "I guess I was wrong about you," she said. "You aren't prissy."
"... And what do you say, Son?" Spike the dragon prompted.
Turquoise sighed morosely. "Sorry for going on a dragon-greed induced rampage and ruining the bake sale and competition."
"Well," Cheerilee said. "I suppose it's understandable. And at least you didn't destroy the water tower and flood the town."
Spike flushed and made a silent gesture of negation.
"So you got to sample everyone's wares, right?" Prism said. Nopony had had the heart to tell him about his face as of yet. "Who would you say won?"
Turquoise held back his laughter after looking at Prism. "Oh... well, it was a bit hazy, but..."
Nidra, back in her guise as Jet Stream, looked downcast. There had been one pony's cookies Turquoise hadn't eaten, because they had been crushed beneath his unconscious body. There could really only be one choice.
"I'd have to say Del's apple cinnamon crisps were pretty incredible," Turquoise concluded.
Nidra gasped. "Golden Delicious?" she whispered. As she watched the two colts look at each other, her vision was suddenly filled with cherry blossom petals and everything went soft focus. "Does that mean... T and Del...?"
"Probably not," Annie said. "Just because a colt likes your cookies doesn't mean he likes you and vice-versa, right? Still, for some reason my heart starts beating really fast imagining it..."
"Indeed," Nidra agreed.
A flapping of wings signaled the arrival of Nidra's pegasus butler. "Princess," he said. "I have arrived with your... package." He presented a small, neatly wrapped bundle.
"What's this?" Nidra said.
Nicklehoof allowed himself a small smile beneath his bushy mustache. "Perhaps your best attempt before enlisting the aid of my brother. These half-moon cookies were more or less edible."
"Oh," Nidra said, taking the cookies in her magic. She gave her butler a grateful smile. "Well done, Nickelhoof." She turned and trotted up to Turquoise.
"T!" she called. "I know the contest is over, and I don't expect to win at this point, anyway, but..." She held the package up to him. "Here."
Turquoise looked at the bundle, the smell of the cookies within wafting out to his nostrils. "I... I can't eat these."
Nidra's ears fell. "I... I see. I didn't think... they were quite that bad, but..."
"No, no," Turquoise said. "It's not that. It's just that after eating so many cookies, I'm stuffed and my stomach hurts pretty bad. But after I get the last of Annie's cookies out of my system, I'll be sure to enjoy your cookies just as much." He smiled broadly.
"Oh!" Nidra said, brightening. "Well... I guess I can wait a day or two for you to eat my cookies, then."
Spike tapped Turquoise on the shoulder. "Ah, Son, it might be a little longer than that. After this display, I'm pretty sure your mother will be grounding you from cookies for at least a month."
"A month?!" Turquoise exclaimed. "You might as well ground me for 27 years!"
"That oddly specific timeframe can be arranged," Spike said, turning toward home. "Come on, T, let's go."
Nidra gave Anthea one last respectful nod before taking to the air, her butler at her hoof. "It seems I have chosen a truly worthy rival."
"Yes, indeed, Your Highness," Nickelhoof agreed. "Some of the best evil overlords' rivalries are fueled by unresolved romantic tension."
"... What?" Nidra said.
"Not a thing, Princess."
