Chapter One: Insult to Ignorant |Part One|
“BARBRA, WOMAN, DRAGON GIRL, BEST ASSISTANT TO BEST PONY,” Dusk Shine screamed as he rammed the door open, sending his green and purple assistant flying a good few inches.
“BARBRA-DOBBY-DOO, BEETLEBARB-BEETLEBARB-BEETLEBARB!” Dusk Shine looked left, right, up, behind him, behind a shelf, down, everywhere.
“WHERE ARE YOU?! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!” Dusk shrilly screamed.
“Have you tried the medical hotline known as, ‘Are you okay Barb? Did the door hit you too hard’?” Barb sat up, rubbing her nose which racked in pain.
Barb glared sharply at Dusk Shine. “Or the great way how to start my afternoon, by concaving my face in; which is ironically just fine; thanks for asking.”
“SHUT UP, WOMAN! THIS IS A FORM OF MAGICAL EMERGENCY, THUS MAKING YOUR INJURY IS INVALID SO STAND UP AND TAKE A BLOODY LETTER!” Dusk Shine bounced in place, his face and eyes showing panicky alarm.
“I’m starting to think you’re a misogynist…” Barbra grabbed a quill and parchment from the table that she just landed onto, not even bothering to stand up. “Go, my wonderful father figure.”
“It’s a crime to hold this sort of information from the Princess!”
“No it’s not, Dusk,” Barb countered, watching the purple stallion pace around the bottom of the library. Dusk Shine was yelling from the bottom floor, frantically circling around his telescope, rambling on and on, never staying on one subject.
“Well it should be!” Dusk frantically paced his circle, his mind a constant flurry of words “It’s wrong! It can be considered treacherous! It should be treason to withhold information from the Princess!”
“It’s a crime to waste the Princess’s time,” Barb rolled her eyes, the large blue bowl held a large pile of sea-salted pretzels. Barb occasionally popped the salty baked snack into her mouth, Dusk Shine has always found her way of snacking on literally everything Dusk Shine’s pantry had to offer a stab to Dusk Shine’s wealth.
“No, Barb, it’s only wasting time if we message Celestia about something as mundane as pretzels!” Dusk Shine paused his pacing to glare at Barb, his glare only fell due to his lack of focusing. "If we do, it's a misdemeanor, by the way."
“Pretzels? Mundane?” Barb crossed her arms, giving Dusk a look like he’s crazy. “Pretzels are awesome, Dusky, you’re just being salty.”
“Ignoring that pun, you filthy animal.” Barbra merely stuck her tongue out at him mockingly.
“However, pretzels are everything that is wrong with our snacks! It’s way too salty!” Dusk exclaimed, wildly flailing his hooves. “Salt! Salt, I say, Salt! Too much salt in a body is fattening!”
“Salt is everywhere, you can’t avoid it,” Barb continued, almost shoveling another pretzel twist into her mouth. “The taste you have on salt should be considered a federal offense.”
“In moderation, salt is perfectly fine!” Dusk admitted, using levitation to wrench a pretzel twist from Barb’s claw.
Dusk Shine scraped the sea salt off of the baked snack with haste, before Barbs can react to the fact Dusk had robbed her of her delicious and diabetic-inducing treat.
“You placed butter on salted pretzels, how does you arteries feel about being filled with plaque?”
“Hey, you could have asked for one!” Barb growled. Dusk ignored her as he wolfed the pretzel down. “Never mind, I guess I’ll rearrange your stupid poem collection again!”
“You wouldn’t!” Dusk Shine gasped, his entire body stood stiffly, his ears forward, and his eyes hiding the eternal damning Barbra will face if she touches his perfectly alphabetical poem collection.
“My poem collection is not stupid! It’s the best poem collection; It ranges from Epics, Romance, Grim Dark, and so much more!”
“Let me guess,” Barb rolled her eyes, finishing her pretzel twist. “It’s only the best poem collection because it belongs to you?”
“I’m the best stallion, Barb!” Dusk Shine shouted at the ceiling, his ears pointed towards the roof. “The best stallion has to have the best poem collection!”
“Dusk Shine, did you forget that I know you have a superiority complex?” Barb mused, her claws now dripping in butter and salt. “Also, poems are boring.”
“Dragons are about to become extinct, because you had the audacity to say that, woman.”
“Aw, is poor whittle Dusky’s feelings hurt?”
“Shut up, whittle woman, you’re boring!” Dusk growled, returning to his pacing; unable to keep still for much longer. “I don’t have feelings!”
“So you’re a sociopath?” Dusk groaned loudly, looking up at Barb with a sharp but quick glare. Barb barely noticed it.
“A highly functioning sociopath!” Dusk answered, his voice higher in pitch as his nerves kept growing bigger and bigger, like a snowball for a narcissist. “The best sociopath!”
Dusk continued his pacing for a good and silent three seconds before throwing his head up, realizing he's just been insulted. “—and I don’t have a superiority complex!”
“Nine out of ten psychologists would disagree with you,” Barb’s voice was dripping with smug sarcasm, her entire bowl was finished.
“I am the best psychologist!”
“You’d be the one percent,” Barb smacked her lips in a smug manner at Dusk’s answer, “but you’re not a psychologist.”
“I could be a psychologist if I want!” Dusk Shine continued stomped, his whines echoing throughout the library. “OVER—FLIPIN’—NIGHT WOMAN!!”
Dusk stopped, looking at the afternoon sun with a sudden and out of control blurt. “Speaking of night—what was I talking about?”
“Pardon?”
“What was I talking about again?”
“I believe we were talking about how you don’t have a superiority complex when you clearly do?”
“Nice try, Barb, but my plus twelve-thousand million intellectual superiority prohibits be from being tricked like that,”
“Huh?”
“Have you never played any table top RPG ever?”
“Not really,”
“WHY NOT?!”
“Because I’m not a nerd.” Barb looked down at Dusk again, with her green eyes shooting and flaring up with enthusiasm to mock the almost hyperventilating unicorn.
“We played it yesterday with that green unicorn mare,”
“Lyra and I were playing chess,” Barbra coughed awkwardly into her claws, saying something about it being boring. “Dusky, we thought you were taking it too seriously.”
“WE WENT OVER THIS, BARB! CHESS IS STRATIGIC! IT’S MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY!” Dusk Shine argued, beginning to yell frantically.
“I had to inject you with a fish paralyzer, because you wouldn’t stop yelling.” Reminded Barb, whom was now leaning over the railing.
“I already planned your eternal sleep for that, Barb.” Dusk Shine hadn’t stopped his pacing until now. “Barb, I could kiss you!”
“Please don’t even try,” Barbra exaggerated her gagging noises, proving how disturbed she is. “You’d have better luck kissing a fish paralyzer, than a girl.”
“You’re a girl?” Dusk Shine stopped to look at Barbra, his face sewn up in a condescending confused look. “How long have you been sitting on this information?”
“Back on topic, Dusk.” Barb shot Dusk a glare, Barbra apparently didn’t enjoy it when Dusk mocks her womanhood. If that’s even a thing.
“Eternal sleep, Eternal Night! If you dare enter the woods deep, Nightmare Moon gives out frights!”
“That sounds idiotic.”
“Right?! I couldn’t be the only one!” Dusk Shine continued his pacing, “Did you already get the reply from Celestia, or have I just been rambling the entire time?”
Barb waited for the familiar burp of fire that was the Princess’s soon to be letter declaring an all-out war. “You’ve been rambling the entire time.”
“ARGH, THAT IS SO CLASSIC CELESTIA,” Dusk Shine yelled, frustratingly. “I WARN HER ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY AND SHE IGNORES IT.”
“You told her about aliens the other day, and you didn’t stop wearing tinfoil until Celestia told you to get a life.” Barb let that roll right out of the tongue. “And a marefriend.”
“Let me tell you the story of my people, Barbra.”
“You and what ponies?”
“My future wife and I have been happy for twenty years—” Dusk Shine teleported up to the balcony which Barb was on.
“Your stories always suck, Dusk Shine.” Barb turned around to face the jittery stallion.
“SHUT UP WOMAN; MY STORIES ARE THE BEST STORIES, AND YOU WILL SIT THERE AND LISTEN AND ENJOY MY STORIES OR SO HELP ME GODDESS OF THE SUN, I WILL ETERNALLY SET FIRE TO EVERYTHING YOU EVER KNOWN AND LOVED!”
“Don’t make me get the fish paralyzer.” Barbra was unfazed with Dusk’s yelling. Barb had lived with the hyperactive stallion, who refuses to take his medication as instruction, for years now and he’s said a lot worse to her.
“I mean it, woman! One of these days, I’m ‘bout to set fire to the rain!”
“I’m about three seconds from paralyzing you,” Barbra had a visible vein popping from her forehead.
“I will end you’re unhappiness, you will be happy! YOU WILL LISTEN TO THE REST OF MY BLOODY STORY, WOMAN, OR I WILL DESTROY THE PESEANTS!”
Dusk Shine just has a habit of saying things out of impulse, sometimes it comes off as rude, sometimes it’s more or less a psychotic rant.
“Alright, then, bloody heck!” Barbra pinched Dusk in the neck, causing him to freeze and cease his nonsensical screams.
“—then we met…”
“Are you still on about you and Bon-Bon?” Barb crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow while lowering the other. “I told you from the start it was never going to last.”
“She didn’t mind it when I went on about my intellectual superiority!” Dusk Shine growled, his eyes peering at the different shelves in his library. “Then she gets cross one night for no reason!”
“You didn’t give her any—”
“Don’t worry about looking for your god anymore, Barb.” Dusk bared his teeth at Barbra, whom gave Dusk a daring look. “Because he’s standing right in front of you—”
“You have such a god complex, you know?”
“And he’s fresh out of mercy,”
Barbra rolled her eyes, deciding to move on before she presses his narcissism any further. “Mares love confidence, Dusk, you should know this.”
“Mares also love jerks, I’m not a jerk.”
Barbra smirked. “Debatable—”
“NOT FLIPIN’ DEBATABLE, WOMAN!”
“I love how you refuse to swear,
“I love how you refuse to conceive a letter, woman.”
“Wow— that sounded like a shot on women.”
“It was.”
“There, right there!” Barb clicked her tongue, leaning on the railing once more, and then pointing at Dusk Shine. “This is why you’re still single, you’re either European or gay!”
“You know nothing, peasant!” Dusk Shine yelled at an action figurine and swiped it with his hoof, sending it flying over the balcony. “I EXPECT YOU TO DIE SUPER-MANE!”
“Already breaking priceless things, such as that limited edition Super-mane.” Barbra sighed. Watching her artifact, which would potentially be worth millions of bits, fly outside and hit an orange stallion with blue mane.
“I’ll buy you another one,” Dusk Shine shook like a coke bottle rocket, he struggle to stifle his laughter but ended up failing anyways. “Oh wait!”
Barbra scowled.
“There isn’t another one!” Dusk Shine was now crying from laughter, holding his sides for they ached with every passing hiccup/laughter.
“Because I destroyed it!” Dusk Shine laughs weird, Barbra noticed. “And I’m not sorry!”
“I take every single nice thing I’ve ever said about you, to any and every pony ever,” Barbra glared sharply at Dusk Shine, her own Dusk Shine-Tolerance building to the max. “And then blend the crap out of it, leaving nothing behind. Not even a mess to clean up.
You really are a self-absorbed, psychotic, jerk who finds other’s destruction and happiness being destroyed hilarious.”
“LOOK AT MY HORSE, BARB!” Dusk wasn’t even paying attention to her, having been fiddling with a crystal ball that he keeps for evil reasons.
Dusk Shine had conjured up an Alicorn sized purple hue rainbow version of himself, or rather, a female purple hue rainbow version of himself. “MY HOSE IS AMAZING!”
“That’s just you, recolored, and as a mare, and rainbows…” Barb’s anger shot from her face to be replaced with a disappointed face palm.
“GIVE IT A LICK!”
“Give…” Barbra did a double take, her palm leaving her face to expose a shocked Barbra. “I beg your pardon?!”
Dusk Shine was already on the mare’s back, licking the mare’s ear out of pure impulse. Dusk, as far as Barbra was concerned, was an idiot when it came to things such as intimacy or other ponies reactions to his actions.
“She tastes just like raisons!”
“Dusk, stop, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Barbra warned, panic running up her chest.
“Shut up, woman, get on my horse!” Dusk Shine snapped at Barbra, “I’ll take you around the universe! And all the other places too!”
“I’ll think you find the Alicorn you just conjured up wants your attention, stud.”
“Stud?” Dusk Shine looked back at the mare he conjured up.
The mare had a red blush hanging on her snout. The mare made a needy noise that brought confusion to Dusk Shine’s face.
“Uh Barb? Why is my horse acting weird?”
“Congrats, stud, you just turned on a mare for the first time in your life.” Barbra commented, “Even though the mare is a fake replica of yourself, easy-goer.”
“OH—well that’s enough of that,” Dusk Shine rubbed the crystal ball once more, this time with haste, and the mare disappeared. “Anyways—what was I talking about?”
“AH, something about Nightmare Moon.” Barbra clicked her fingers together as the thought came into her mind.
“Oh yeah…”
Barbra waited for Dusk Shine’s eventual rambling.
“IT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED TREASONOUS TO HOLD ON THIS INFORMATION, BARB, I DON’T WANT TO GO TO JAIL!”
“What did I do in the past life to deserve you?”
“SHUT UP, WOMAN, YOU LOVE ME.”
“That’s a pretty strong word, HIE-ACK—!” Barbra choked out some fire, it caused a scroll to appear, which was quickly grabbed by Barbra.
“What does it say?! The anticipation is killing me!” Dusk Shine leaped on his hooves, “I MUST KNOW.”
“What’s with you today?” Dusk Shine paused his leaping. “You’re more hyper than usual, and don’t tell me because it’s about Nightmare Moon.”
“I had my first bar of chocolate today,” Dusk Shine blurted out. “I guess it’s the sugar and the ADHD messing with my self-control...”
“Really?” Barbra raised her eyebrow at him, staring at him for a moment before looking back at the careful undoing of a knot. “You never had chocolate?”
“…didn’t have sweets as a foal.”
“Ah, that’ll explain it.”
“Is there anything about the epic battle, defense against Canterlot, a battle that school fillies will read about for eons? An ass whooping our decedents will honor for GENERATIONS!? I MUST KNOW, BARBRA-CHAN.”
“Err…” Barbra unraveled the scroll and read it, her eyes skimming over any word for any important detail about Dusk Shine being arrested or being punished in any way.
“Hmm,” She rolled her eyes when there wasn’t, and reread it again. This time actually paying attention to what it said.
“Nope, she said stop being a conspiracy theorist whack-o and go outside.”
“TO BATTLE MY EQUESTRIAN BROTHERS–wait, what?”
“She wants you to go outside,” Barbra explained slowly, as if Dusk Shine was the slowest pony in the world. “And stop looking into legends that are thousands of years old, you nut-job”
“I… what,”
“Need to go outside.” Barbra unfolded the last piece of the parchement. “But wait there’s more.”
“Oh come on,”
“We also need to watch over the Summer Sun Celebration as punishment for you wasting her time with a Fillytail, also tasked with talking to somepony.” Barbra looked up at Dusk with disappointment, “Only you would be punished by talking to somepony.”
“ARGH, IT’S A STATE OF NATIONAL AND MAGICAL EMERGENCY THAT HAS BEEN DECLARED BY ME, BEST GUY, BEST STALLION!” Dusk Shine screamed to no one in particular, but Barbra actually flinched at the Bi-Polar anger on the stallion.
“WE SHOULD BE PANICKING, WE SHOULD BE GEARING UP FOR WAR, I SHOULD BE IN CHAIN-FLIPPIN’-MAIL AND A NAGASAKI IN MY HOOVES!
BUT INSTEAD WASTING TIME BY DOING CHORES A SIMPLE ERRAND COLT CAN BLOODY RUN, SURE, LETS’ DO THAT. I’LL BE HAPPY TO WATCH THE WORLD BURN IN ETERNAL NIGHT! YEAH! ONLY THEN! ONLY B-BLOODY THEN WILL I BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY BY THE ROYAL GUARDS!”
“It says ‘Dear my faithful student, Dusk Shine’ uh oh, it already started backwards. She’s not happy.”
“Going on… Oh dear: ’You do know I hear everything you say within twenty minutes of sending a letter, correct?’” Barb paused, looking up at a flustered Dusk Shine
Dusk Shine was now slowly, gravely rewinding what he’s said.
“Huh, that’s scary.” Barb continued, her words fell on deaf ears. She looked back at the parchment, reading it, and not daring to skim any detail. “Err… lets’ see here…”
Barbra dropped the parchment.
“You flipping idiot.”
“AM I BEING EXECUTED?!”
“NO, BUT RIGHT NOW: I’D PREFER THAT THE GUARDS COMING WOULD DRIVE THEIR SWORDS THROUGH YOUR NECK,” Barbra screamed as she attempted shoving Dusk Shine, failing due to her size relevance to the stallion.
“SO I’M NOT BEING EXECUTED?”
“NO!”
“SO WHY ARE WE YELLING?!”
“DOES EVERYTHING HAS TO REVOLVE AROUND YOU?!”
“YES?!”
“OH MY GODDESSES, DUSK, YOU SCREWED US BOTH OVER!”
“THERE’S ONLY ONE GODDESS, SO IT SHOULD BE SINGULAR!”
“WE’RE BEING FORCED TO MOVE INTO PONYVILLE, YOU SHINEY IDIOT, BECAUSE YOU DON’T THINK BEFORE SCREAMING!”
“NEITHER DO YOU, WOMAN!”
“WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SUCH A FLIPPIN’ IDIOT?!”
“I’M NOT THE FLIPPING IDIOT, I HAVE MULTIPLE DOCTORAL DEGREES”
“SO DOES THAT MAKE ME AN IDIOT?!”
“YES IT DOES!”
“I’M GOING TO GET THE FISH PARALYSER NOW.”
“You. Wouldn’t. Dare.” Dusk Shine leaned into Barb’s face, his eyes narrowed, snout scrunched backwards, barring his teeth.
Barb’s face twitched with as her face slowly drained of color except for red, her ears shooting out steam, her tiny knuckles clenched so hard they were white. The vein on her forehead looked about to burst.
As powerful as Dusk Shine is, hell hath never seen fury like a Barbra scorned.
“Ugh, my face feels weird…”
“Good, you’re awake.” Barbra groaned, “I thought I given you enough of that stuff for a hard sleep.”
“Fish Paralyzers don’t knock a pony out, it only stuns them consciously. I felt all of those stairs.” Dusk Shine kept rubbing his jaw, the place where thousands of stairs met his face. “You flipping psychopath.”
“You raised me.” Barbra shrugged, “I wouldn’t say it’s the correct way to raise a dragon, but I could be worse.”
“What’s worse?” Dusk Shine asked, “Than a psychotic baby dragon sticking a needle into my neck with surgical precision, and then purposely dragging me down the stairs even after the guards offered to carry me?”
“The way you were raised?”
Dusk Shine grunted, rolling over to his side and curling up. “Touché.”
“You’re tired?”
“Well, I had a lot of time to break a good sweat with about thousands of millimeters of paralyzers, meant for not so humane ways of killing fish, coursing through my veins.” Dusk Shine spat, acid metaphorically dripping from his voice.
“If it means anything, it’s for my Super-Mane which was limited edition, and no longer sold.” Barbs crossed her arms. “We’re almost there.”
“I’ll get you something even better than that old doll,”
“What? You acting like a normal pony and me not having to raise you when it should be the opposite way around?”
“Oh goddess no, that’ll be boring.”
“How is that boring?!”
“I’d have to be sober,” Dusk Shine giggled, “Gross.”
“…What…”
“Remember when I said I would stop drinking?”
“Dusk…” Barbra warned, her claws digging into the gold that was the chariot. “You’re not… are you?”
“I did stop, but I would kill you for one right now. You know, because you stunned me with drugs.” Barbra snorted, realizing she literally walked into that one.
“Next thing I’ll know, you’ll leave me in a pit and force me to put lotion in a basket or you’ll hose me down with water.” Dusk Shine tugged on his ears, “Buffalo, flipping, Barb
“That’s oddly specific.”
“You’re just jealous that I can hear the voices and you can’t!” Dusk Shine yelled at the two stallions that were pushing themselves to the limits of moving. “C’mon, at this rate: a hot air balloon would be faster!”
“Would you rather take a hot… air—” The first stallion huffed,
The second pony finished for him. “A hot air… balloon instead, you annoying jerk?”
“No, because your services are free provided the Princess pays for them.” Dusk taunted, smiling at the two stallions.
“Dusk, honestly, stop mocking them,” Barbra frowned, “I haven’t gotten a chance to do it yet.”
“Wow, that’s selfish of you Barb.” Dusk Shine curled up again.
“Oh the irony,” Barbra rolled her eyes. “What are you giving me instead of my priceless figurine that I had for years, and had the mistake of taking my eyes off of the both of you for a moment to write a letter that screwed us both to punish you?”
“Don’t forget the mention I was on a sugar high,” Dusk Shine felt jittery again, his brain loosing focus of his self-control again.
“Never again, chocolate is the work of female aggravation calming method and also the devil.”
“You know nothing of females, Dusk.”
“I read books about females, Barbra.”
“The only reason you know what a female anatomy looks like is because of your brother’s rather exposing magazine,” Barbra mused.
“We agreed to never speak of those magazines.”
“You agreed to take your medication.”
“You agreed to never use the fish paralyzer again.”
“It’s a humane way of shutting idiots like you up,
“You wonder why I have such an intense fear of females, like you keep calling me a misogynist when you would gladly just inject me with fish paralyzers,” Dusk Shine turned to Barbra, his right eyebrow raised. “I think you hate males.”
“I hate idiots, not my fault you’re one.” Barbra leaned on the side of the railing, gazing lazily at Dusk Shine. “You happen to be a male.”
“You’re sexist.”
“And you’re not?”
“I’m sexy,”
“You’re like a cold shower.”
“Wow, you’re rude.”
“Whatever,” Barbra groaned.
“Are you still on about that figurine?”
“Dusk.” Barbra finally turned to the stallion, “That thing, besides you, is my only best friend and you kind-a killed him.”
“If I say sorry, would it matter?”
“No.” Barbra looked forward.
“You’re still the best assistant to the best stallion, Barbs!”
“Shut up.”
“Come on, Barbs it’s just a doll.”
“Smarty Pants is just a doll,” Barba blinked, still facing forward.
“Wow, low blow,”
“Says the pony who threw my childhood friend out the window to hit a worthless rookie,” The two stallions glared at Barb. “Oh bugger off, you’re literally doing taxi service for us!”
“If I gave you something of equal value, would it matter?”
“Impossible, Dusk, but you’re welcome to try.”
“A statue of my image in town!” Dusk Shine smiled warmly, staring at Barbs. “With you on my shoulder, not as big as me, but you should still be there!”
“Oh my goddess, Dusk, I still have three vials of this stuff. I will kill you.”
“I can’t die.”
“Let’s test that theory.”
“NO—BARB!”
“C’mon Dusk, you can at least act like you’re excited for this!” Dusk deadpanned at Barbs, whom as using the unicorn as a pillow
“I’m very ecstatic, can’t you tell?” Dusk Shine dryly growled, “I finally got feeling in my vital organs, without you killing me again, I can tell you how much I want to strangle you.
“You look paralyzed.” Barbra chuckled, leaning on Dusk’s immobile and incapacitated body. “You make a comfy pillow.”
“You look like a goddess damned psychopath, I bet you get off to seeing the only unicorn, best unicorn, for eons with enough magic to hatch a dragon feeble and helpless on the ground.”
“Shut up, pillow, I’m trying to nap.”
“You’re going to pay for this, you know that right?”
“What are you going to do? Hit me?”
“Set fire to everything you know and love.” Dusk Shine growled, eyes closing again. “I am the best pillow you’ve ever had the luck, and the audacity, to place your inferior head onto, woman.”
“So you’re going to set fire to yourself?”
“Aww…”
“Shut up before I throw you off of this chariot.”
“Not that, it’s cute how you think I’ll actually set fire to myself.”
“I hate you.”
Author's Note
Link to image.
Don't worry, I'm still working on that other story.
I just needed to write a story that actually addressed to real life me, a way to sort of be what I truly am in real life.
I doubt that next chapter, if I want to release it quickly so I can explain the story better, will be as long. But if you do, go ahead and let me know!
My inspiration for using Dusk instead of Twilight, because it would be a lot harder addressing Spike as "MAN" without realizing it's a compliment.
