Should Have Chosen the Trotting Land Transit Authority Pony Herder
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Twilight Sparkle: The Ride

Should Have Chosen the Trotting Land Transit Authority Pony Herder

"Hey!" My dear companion bellows from directly behind me. "Heeeeey! You guys! Hello?" Vinyl's voice echoes against an unseen mesh of metal tracks and lattices. "Your ride's friggin' stuck, guys! Can you hear me?"

I doubt anypony can. Now that we've screeched to a halt, the dreadful bedlam of this oversized pinball contraption has encased us like a cacophonous coffin. Each eardrum is being slaughtered by a continuous salvo of repetitive music loops, and none of them all too inspiring. Even now, I can barely hear the plebeian groans of the obese tourists two car spaces ahead of us on account of the staccato clicks of robotic pony figures three meters to our right. Or is it to our left? My head won't stop throbbing.

"Hello?!?" I feel the car rocking in time with Vinyl's warbling voice. "I know we can't see you cast member dudes, but maybe you can see us! I get that it has to be dark in here n'all, but could we at least see the reason why everything's stopped?"

My best friend is wearing dark shades.

"Just be patient, Vinyl," I mutter against the noise. "They'll send some ponies to retrieve us. There's no reason to get unruly."

"Hah! Are you kidding?!" I feel a rough hoof slapping the back of my seat. "Even stuck here with the lights out, I'm having fun! Ha HA! Aren't you, girl?"

I'm stuck in a sweatstained wine bottle with a rubber lever pressed tightly against my crotch. My head hurts, and a brilliant neon rainbow to my left won't stop stabbing my eyes with sparkling pastels.

"Why did we even select this garish attraction in the first place?" I hear a pony mutter and she sounds an awful lot like me.

"Because it's friggin' awesome, that's why!" Vinyl leans forward, her raspy voice growing louder, more pronounced. "It's like every badflank thing the Princess of Friendship has ever done all rolled into a two minute package of thrills and spills!" She's practically breathing in my ear now. I have a sudden, insatiable desire to kick a line of kittens against the street curb. "And all the flashing lights makes me think I'm in the Chicacolt Underground Scene again! Boo-ya!"

I glance directly above us. The lavender facsimile of an alicorn sports a seizure-inducing tiara. Her mouth opens and closes repeatedly while a speaker from deep within blasts the airwaves with synthesized giggles: "And magic makes it all complete!" BZZZT! "And magic makes it all complete!" BZZZT! "And magic makes it all complete!" BZZZT!

"Maybe the Griffon Empire finally dropped a mana bomb on Equestria while we finished with the line queue," I murmur.

"Say, you think if the ride restarts right now--like... right now right now... Will we roll over the next hump slowly? Or will be blast forward like friggin' bullets out of the muzzle of a gun? Cuz I'm kinda hoping for the bullet one. Like, I've been saving this wicked orgasmic scream from deep inside my gut for this ride and this ride alone. I'm talkin' shades from our one trip to Mareami three summers ago, and our kiddy glide through 'Pony Pan's Flight' earlier this afternoon didn't quite do it for me. I mean, no offense or nothin', Tavi."

Something even more discordant ripples through the hellish noise. I've become aware of a primeval chant. It would seem, in a futile attempt to amuse themselves, the patrons situated in the car behind us have resorted to caroling the repetitive chorus to "It's a Small Whinny After All." I ponder about the inevitable heat death of the universe.

"Why so quiet, Tavi? Don't tell me those chocolate bananas are dropping the bass on your spleen!" This, of course, is followed by a falsetto chirping sound that scarcely resembles laughter. "Hah! Get it?! 'Cuz I'm a Deejay?!"

I gaze up to the top of the dark chamber housing this purgatorial scene. My eyes have adjusted to the point that I can make out an enormous polystyrene treehouse looming high above everything. Six wire-strung ponies adorned with vomitous rainbow colors are collectively spraying a giant red centaur with copious amounts of fog and laser light. It's precisely at this moment that the key instrumental to "A True, True Friend" repeats itself for the twenty-fifth time through the ride's sound system.

"Have you ever pondered the absurdity of it all?" I mutter, my eyes tracing the robot equines and their robot fetlocks. "We come from nothing, and when we die we return to nothing. It's almost as if the chemicals in our bodies despise being alive, and seek more than anything to return to an inert state. Nopony is ever actually living. We're all simply dying in slow motion. But since it is nothing less than a reunion with the void, then perhaps--beyond the penultimate rush of existential panic--we will all be at peace with ourselves, in that the very concept of 'ourselves' will have dissolved entirely?"

"Burrrrrrrrp!" The air vibrates behind me, accompanied with a foul breath reeking of sugar and corn syrup. "Ahem... pardon me, Tavi. Good thing I smuggled this bottle of Dr. Pony on board. What were you saying? Something about death and diapers?"

Twilight Sparkle's googly eyes glimmer with something darker than apathy. I stumble upon the knifing edge of her aluminum smile, and stand upon the brink of her plastic feathers, gazing into nothingness.

"Hey! Check it!" Vinyl's voice raises a few decibels, if that's even possible at this point. "They're coming to get us!" She points; I know this because I can see it. Halogen lamps all around us are coming to life with the sluggish grace of waking glow-worms. "Aw yeah aw yeah!" She slaps the back of my seat, messing my mane up. "Dude, I've always wanted to see Sparkle Mountain with the lights on!"

"Mmmff," I mmmff'd. I watch with squinting eyes as the interior of the attraction gets illuminated. The residual magic of the illusory animatronics vanish altogether, revealing an intricately detailed assortment of wires and mana-conduits all threaded through a convoluted network of gray steel coaster tracks. The cars to the front and back of us are full of cooing, awestruck mortals. As for Vinyl--

"Omigosh! Omigosh! Tavi, duck!!"

"Guh!" I grunt, feeling my head shoved forward by her hoof. I grimace through a tussled mane. "Vinyl--!"

"Hah!" She grins, gawking at the white effigy of a stallion high above us. "I knew it! I totally knew it!" She points. "With the lights on, you can see that they have a whole cluster of circuits and wires where Shining Armor's enormous junk is supposed to be! Hah hah hah! Ohhhhhhh boy that's rich!"

"Grrrfff..." I sit up once more, tossing my mane back and struggling to straighten my bow tie. "I fail to see how any of this can be so amus--"

"Hey! Heeeeeey!" Vinyl bellows all of the sudden. I glance over to see why: several cast members have shuffled out of the metalwork, and now they're traversing the walkway, approaching each stranded car one by one. "Heeeeey, guys!" Vinyl adjusts her goggles and smirks. "Sup?"

"Greetings, Space Travelers!" a mare with a name tag warbles, and I try not to vomit. Her wide smile is a tiny sharp pebble stuck in the back of my eye. "Wow! Some turbulence, huh?"

"Would be more awesome if we got a refund for our Fast Pass!" Vinyl immediately fires off with a grin. I want to bludgeon her with something.

"Unnngh... Vinyl..."

"Hee hee hee!" The cast member nods and curtseys, her tail flicking out the back of her faded cadet uniform. "Don't worry! We'll get you to the end of the track, and once you're at the exit there'll be a friendly Sparkle Cadet ready and willing to give you a fresh ticket for your next visit!"

"Well yeah! Alright!" Vinyl claps her hooves, causing my left eardrum to pop. "That's what I'm talking about!" She gestures towards the brightly lit endoskeleton all around us. "First a peep show, and then an encore! Paint me with glitter and call me thrilled!"

"Hehe! Nothing brings us better pleasure than to make sure our spacefaring guests are feeling absolutely comfortable."

Just then, another cast member shouts from further down the track. "Hey Suzie! The exit's clear! They've given us the signal!"

"Alright! Thanks for the heads up, Arin!" The mare waves back. I can see the car ahead of us being manually pushed by the other custodian. Its passengers clap gleefully. Suddenly, there's a hydraulic hiss directly beneath our seats, and I feel the hooves of the pony gripping our vehicle. "Brace yourselves, brave Friendship Explorers! Harmony awaits!" And she gives us a swift shove.

The rest, well, is up to gravity. It's delightfully anticlimactic, with our car rolling over the remaining humps and dips with the speed of molasses.

"Whoahhhhh... haha--whoahhhhhhhhh!" Vinyl nevertheless whoops and hollers with genuine enthusiasm.

I sigh, bracing myself with a belated spurt of nervousness as we forge dip after dip.

"Awwwww... why you gotta be so grumpy?" Vinyl leans forward as we coast along a straightaway lined with bouncing plastic parasprites. I assume that they would be all the more dazzling in the dark. "You gotta admit... this is a lot more interesting than hanging out at the Canterlot Opera House all weekend!"

"Guh..." I rub my head as we glide away from the noise and echoes and forced screams. "It's just... it's tiring, Vinyl. Everything tires me." I gulp. "I guess I can't help it."

"I know you can't, Tavi." A pause, and then I feel her squeeze my shoulders. "You know... we could just skip the refund ride. Head on over to Epcolt Center. Check out the Crystal Empire Pavilion at the Equestrian Showcase."

"Oh yes?"

"I hear they have one last Princess Cadance Meet-And-Greet at sundown." Her utterance ends with a playful hum. "But, y'know, that's just for babies."

I say nothing. The reason for this may or may not have to do with the sudden lump that has formed in the back of my throat.

"Soooooo... whaddya say, grumpy girl?"

"That... th-that sounds rather divine." There's a flutter to my chest, and I don't think it's due to the last dip before the glowing exit.

"Hah! You and pretty pink princesses, Tavi." Vinyl leans back. There's yet another grotesque belch. "Read you like a friggin' book."

Author's Note

Just kidding.

I love you.