Double, Double . . .
a Grumpy Goat >tail<
by
De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)
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My visitor was a gray Earth pony. Nervous as heck, to be in the presence of yours truly. It is not at all uncommon and I actively encourage that feeling. He was staring about the front chamber of my cave. There was the heavy iron and timber braced wall behind him with the door securely latched with perfectly huge forged iron siege bolts and another heavy iron plate wall sealing off the inner cave from view.
Besides the claustrophobic feelings caused by being in a cave and sealed off from the world, he had me. Or more precisely, what is left of me. Had a tiny accident early on in my work. Necromancy, besides being illegal, is downright dangerous. The Necromancy was never either finished or proved and I have taken up totally legal Non Equine magic. Far better for my revenge on ponies than sending some rampaging undead monster after them.
The chamber lit by only the one everburning candle set between the curled horns of my slightly yellowed skull appeared to bother him. Good. The predatory fangs in what should be a goat's inoffensive jaw? That too. Even better.
I leaned back in my easy chair, the only chair in the room, my invisible spirit body denting the leather of the chair.
That all bothered him too. Made me feel far better. I don't really like most ponies much and that feeling is mutual. It goes far past mere “You are a Goat!”, which is screamingly obvious.
I used to study Equine Psychology. Almost got a degree, in fact. Word went around that I was doing EVIL NECROMANCY because the Ponyville Post Office illegally snooped my mail. One of my Abnormal Psych texts got opened enough to read the title. It was a Non Equine University Press edition of the Necronomipony.
The resulting mob burned my house, all of my study notes and files, my library, nearly killed me, and when badly burned, I got free of the fire, started to stone me. I was saved by a pair of Werewolves.
No, I really don't like many ponies. This one included. He glanced around, even more upset than he had been when he came to the ledge in front of my cave.
“You gotta do it!” he snapped again.
Faking curiosity, I retorted, “What? You, like so many ponies lack the wit to say WHAT you want me to do!”
“I ain't gonna pay full price for something so simple!”
I pointed to my heavy, siege crafted door with a hoof that faded to nothingness a few inches up the leg. “Go. This is my home and place of BUSINESS. I am a licensed professional. The One Hundred Golden Bits that you don't want to pay, is my MINIMUM fee.”
“You can't refuse my gold!”
“I just did. You will not say what you want done beyond claiming without evidence that it is dead simple. That is NOT enough to base any contract on.”
He drew his brows down into a sinister vee and said sourly, “I gotta stay anonymous. You gets the whole hundred soon's it's done.”
“NO and NO. My terms, and they are the ONLY terms, are these. ONE: ALL of my work is by PUBLICLY REGISTERED CONTRACT ONLY. TWO: ALL contracts are paid IN FULL IN ADVANCE. THREE: I CAN AND WILL REFUSE ANY CONTRACT FOR ANY REASON.”
The shadows cast by the everburning candle bobbed about the room in a sinister fashion. He gave a shifty look about the room, as if expecting a listener to pop out of the stone or the iron walls.
Conspiratorially, he whispered, “I needs two pony killed. They is Rom. They runs the Midnight's Munchies booth.”
I leaned back in my easy chair and the room pealed to my braying laughter. When I got myself under control, I giggled out, “Midnight's Munchies? You want me to kill Princess Luna and Princess Celestia? You are insane.”
“Damnit! They done put me outen business! No reason at all to it! They gots to pay!”
“NO REASON? I was there at the Ponyville Fair! I remember you perfectly, Mister Fang. You attempted to sell the Rom, the Princesses included, poisoned provisions for their food booths!
“Besides the Princesses, you tried to poison Caramel Treat, Fangrin and their customers at the Caramel Treat's Sweets booth. Tastes of the East was compromised too!”
"You got caught! The Royal Guard closed your business down on Captain Lightning Ray's authority, after a search of the Scale, Fang and Bite warehouse proved that the poisoning was no accident!
Going from amused to enraged, I demanded, “GET OUT, Mister Fang!” I will not report you, as I should. I want you gone!”
I lifted a marginally visible hoof with a sinister ball of red flame in it. He panicked and fled.
The Litch King, Lord of the Dead, Clarence to his few friends, popped out from the back room. “Why did you let him go, Grumpy? I want my hooves on that one!”
I looked up from where I was writing quickly on a contract. “I am giving you a copper bit, Clarence. It is in my money coffer. Do with it as you please!”
Comprehension dawning in the bare bone of his face, Clarence retreated to the back room and returned in a near instant. He flipped me a copper bit, which I caught. I hoofed over the contract. He glanced it over and put a hoof to the signature and seal block. A wisp of smoke arose as his uncounterfietable seal burned into the paper. He did both other copies too.
With a quiet, “Thank you, Grumpy,” he simply faded away.
The next morning, I set out to register the previous day's contracts. About two thirds of the way down the trail off my mountain, there was a gaggle of ponies, some in Ponyville Police uniforms. One of the safety rails on the trail was broken. A gray pony lay still and unmoving at the foot of the drop off.
Ropes were being lowered to retrieve the body. A weeping Coalsmoke was giving the police evidence. “I was coming up to see my friend Grumpy. We were going to read from Daring Do and the Serpent Pit of Zian. I found the broken safety rail.
“I got him to have them put up last winter. Scale, Fang and Bite installed them. They were supposed to prevent anything like this.”
--THE END--
Author's Note
EVERY society has an underside. Those on the bottom rungs of the social ladder. Not even MLP is free of it, though the show is careful not to display it.
My stories are built around that premise and are the View From the BOTTOM. We see the discriminated against, the nut cases and general lower class things.
OR you can regard my stories as Alternate Universe tales. EITHER ONE WORKS.
