It was another beautiful day like any other in good ol’ Appleloosa. The ponies were bustling about doing their jobs and roaming around just soaking up the sunlight that shined so kindly on their wonderful town.
A town that would sooner or later get duped for every bit it was worth. For unknown to the townsfolk of this hoof built town the two con brothers were heading their way. Dragging behind them a cart full of supplies they were sure would be their next best sellers.
“This was a genius idea Flim, why I couldn’t have thought it up better myself. A moustache tonic that grants you the most attention and attraction within a day’s notice! It’s simply brilliant! And what’s more is we’ll only need a day to gather as much “finances” before we move on to the next town” Flam said with a smile.
Flim grinned, bowing his head to his brother. “Thank you brother. I guess it came to me one day when I saw how easily you were able to sweet talk those group of mares after our last fallout in the last town.”
Flam merely stroked his lip hair with confidence. Petting the moustache with a smug look of his own. “Well brother when you’ve got it you’ve got it.”
The two brothers continued their walk towards the town, looking around to see some ponies passing by in a hurry to get to the places they wanted to go. None of them really looked like good targets so the brothers continued looking.
Minutes passed as the brothers continued to search for a good target. A target that would rake in the dough, all those bits just waiting to be collected. When Flam’s eyes fell upon a hazel earth pony making his way out of a building.
“Thanks Braeburn! I’ll be sure to tell Applejack that you got the seeds. I’ll see you later on my next visit.” Turning around the stallion made his way down the stairs before heading in a general direction of the two brothers.
“Brother!” Flam whispered excitement in his voice. “I’ve found our next target, look!” he said pointing a hoof in the earth pony’s direction. Flim almost instantly caught the strange air about the earth pony approaching them.
“I see him brother. Hold on one second” and in a flash the unicorn was gone. Swiftly moving towards his new target, ever ready to convince him to buy their newest product of a lifetime.
Le Moustache Tonic
“Excuse me good sir!” the stallion heard, in his general direction. He turned facing the unicorn trotting up to him, that was surprisingly the same height as him. “Hello there, would you mind coming to view our newest product? I promise you, you won’t regret it!” he said sincerely.
I stared for a few seconds, then nodded. “Sure,” and so I followed him back to where his brother was setting everything up. Preparing their stand so quickly I thought he had drank only caffeine for the past hour or so. When they were done the one with the moustache, though I didn’t get how it was possible for him to have one, walked up to me and presented a glass bottle, holding a darkish brown substance in it.
I stared skeptically as he smiled at me.
“Hello there good sir! We are the Flim and Flam brothers!” the other unicorn immediately zipped to stand by his brother’s side. “And we would like to present you with our newest tonic!”
I nodded, waiting for them to continue as I wanted to see what kind of cheap knock off they would present to me.
“Before we begin. What is your name good Sir?” Flim asked.
“Hailstorm” the stallion replied. He nodded grinning. “Well Hailstorm” he said wrapping his arm around my neck and drawing me close to his side. “Do we have a deal for you!”
“Have you ever felt lonely?” Flam asked staring at me with a clever yet relaxed grin on his face. I glanced between him and his brother.
At this moment I wish I was. But being the gentle human I was, or at least former human I nodded. Humoring them wouldn’t be that bad.
“Yeah?”
“Well then don’t worry about that poor pathetic, loveless life you’ve had any longer. You poor sack of potatoes” Flim said practically throwing me aside as he used his magic to snatch a bottle of the tonic off the tray his brother held.
I felt somewhat offended, but ignored it. “We now present you with Le Moustache!” the brothers said in unison.
My eyes narrowed, while I raised a skeptical brow. Lord this is corny, “Le Moustache?” I asked trying to beat the skeptic in my voice to a bloody pulp.
“No. Le Moustache!” they chimed with a sing-song response.
“And what does Le Moustache do?” I asked them. The brothers looked at each other both smiling with a small twinkle in their eyes before they turned back to me. “Well we’re glad you asked” Flam said leaning in close and taking the glass bottled tonic away from his brother, his horn glowing and dragging it to his side.
“It’s the tonic of a lifetime that will make mares fall for you. People that hate you will love you. Stallions, if you’re into it, will want to be like you, with you. Whatever you want!” Flam said exuberantly.
“Simply take a sip, wait for a day and watch the magic defying effects work it’s magic as the apple of your eye, becomes the sugar in your coffee” Flim finished, both brothers now by my side leaning into me with half lidded suggestive eyes.
“And what is this magic defying effect?” I dared to ask.
They laughed, chortled really. And then they smiled quite widely feeling like I had taken the bait. “Why it gives you the greatest moustache you’ve ever seen of course.”
My brain stopped. I felt like I had just been surprise punched by a kangaroo in the face for no apparent reason as I tried to digest this information only for it to be moved to a shredder in my skull and ripped into pieces.
I felt my jaw tense, the bottle was now in my sights. “W-What?” I managed to say.
“Why it gives you the greatest stache any mare, stallion, dragon, griffon or other creature on this planet has ever seen.”
My cerebrum refused to accept this load of bull that was being fed to my ears.
“Wait.” I said to the brothers still grinning and shaking the tonic in my face teasingly. I moved it aside, then left their side facing them.
“You’re telling me, that if I drink this...this tonic, I’ll gain a luxurious moustache the sights of which no mare, stallion or any creature has ever seen. And even if I desired Celestia and Luna herself, they would come before me and gently stroke the lavish lip hair, that grew on my face. Is that what you are telling me?”
Flim cringed a bit, but Flam pushed on strong. “Exactly!”
I stared, mouth agape. My brain once again refusing this load of crap that dared to waste my precious time of going back to Twilight’s castle and doing absolutely nothing. What is this nonsense? I am a man! A human being who comes from a world where people like you toss this kind of gibberish at us whenever they get the opportunity and you expect me to believe this?!
But no. No that wasn’t what boggled my mind. What boggled my mind was now that I heard this, I came to the sweet realization that Flam had a moustache.
Why was that so? I looked at the unicorn, still smiling at me. Scanning his coat, his face and everything else. Only for it to hit me in the face like a boxing glove, that he had a mustache on his lip.
A unicorn, already covered in fur. Had a coat made of bristles, had more hair, growing on his hair. What the fu- I shook my head stopping myself.
This was stupid. So unbelievably stupid that I was starting to get a headache. I couldn’t believe this. How had I never noticed it before. Of all the things that baffled me since coming to this world one thing stood out. How did they grow moustaches over their coats?
Manes and tails. That I got, but how the heck did they grow a stache, over hair that was already there. Did their coat just somehow extend and change pigment, changing color like a chameleon but only this time it was with hair?
And when their hair grew and began the process of changing color was it a slow process or was it an instantaneous one?
I pouted, just barely able to see my own coat and the hair from said coat on my lip. It was still normal...for now at least.
I had noticed that I had been silent for quite a while and the brothers were both staring at me with tired looks. Like they were getting bored of waiting. Well they weren’t leaving till they answered my question.
I moved towards Flam. Slowly. Carefully, he looked a bit surprised as I got closer to him and then stopped. My eyes on his moustache. Then I looked up at him.
“Tell me, Flam. Does your moustache...know who got the flank for the bank, and who doesn’t? How does a moustache draw in so much attention? Go ahead, enlighten me. And maybe then I’ll buy your little tonic.”
The brothers looked at each other biting their lips. I sat on my haunches now, staring with a blank expression yet within I could feel a grin coming on.
“Well you see it’s quite simple really. Ladies love the stache?” Flim said after a few seconds of prolonged silence.
“And stallions do to apparently?” I asked with a raised brow.
“But of course” Flam chipped in his bit.
“I see,” I said with a slow observative nod. I suppose the power of the stache had wonders. Wonders that could possibly get me laid in more ways than I could ever hope to imagine but one question still baffled my mind.
“How is it you have a moustache?” I said rather bluntly. Flam seemed rather surprised by my question.
He touched his stache, as if to calm the silent hairy beast that slept on his upper lip. For a second or two I thought for sure I heard him whisper sweet tender apologies and moments of love to his lip hair but that must have been my cerebrum still defying all this junk that I was feeding it.
“I don’t get your question” he said with a confused look.
Flim was giving me the same confused look also.
“Okay I’ll fill you guys in on a little something” I said calmly. Forcing back the feeling called: Bafflement, into a closet and blocking the exit with a broom in the handle.
“You see your bro?” I asked pointing a hoof at Flim. Flam nodded, looking at his brother he stared at the hoof I pointed at him, inches away from his muzzle.
“Now I want you to take a nice long look at his face” I said, in the kindest manner possible. Luckily neither brother seemed offended by this. Flam did as such, staring at his brother’s face for a few seconds before he gained an annoyed look.
"What exactly am I doing this for?”
“You know how you ponies have coats? You know fur to keep you warm for the cold and change in climates that you seem to have control of?” He nodded, seeming to follow me so far.
“Explain to me how he would grow a mustache and whether that would make a major change his social status.”
Flam grinned confidently then opened his mouth to say something. But no words came out.
He froze, closed his mouth. Pondered in thought, then opened it again to speak. But once again he found he had nothing to say to this revelation.
“How exactly did you even get your moustache?” I asked him.
He gave me a look and said “I grew it myself, just like any other stallion.”
“Yes but don’t you already have a coat over every inch of your body minus your hooves?” I stated. He opened his mouth again to retort but no words came of it.
“How is it that you ponies can do things that even I can’t seem to fathom. Magic. Okay I get that. Using your hooves that lack the necessary devices like fingers to pick things up, we’ll touch on that topic another day. Why all of you seemingly break into random song at the drop of a hat and music seems to come out of nowhere? That’s something I need to talk about with Discord, but you can’t tell me to believe that you grow hair over your hair.”
The brothers were silenced by my glorious statement. They looked at each other. And then Flim touched his own lip, to feel his own coat on it. Stacheless, as if he too now desired a stache to smother his lip.
The brothers shook their head, returning from the stupor.
“Well I think we’ve gotten a bit off track don’t you Flam?”
“We sure have Flim!” Flam said with a weak grin. “Now Sir, if you would buy our tonic so that you too could experience the amazing effects of a moustache-”
“Ooooh! I heard moustache!” a voice said, and quite suddenly with a crack of thunder there he was. The draconequus with his very own moustache. Staring at us with a pleasant smile was Discord.
Flam’s eyes widened upon seeing the master of chaos before him and his brother backed away slowly.
“W-Why Discord, how’s it going there?”
“Oh you know the usual” the draconequus said in a bored tone. “But after hearing about a new moustache tonic I simply must try it out.” Pulling the brothers close to my side he leaned in and whispered to us. “Haven’t been hitting it off with the ladies lately if you get what I mean. My moustache seems to have lost a little of it’s oomph.”
“Ah Ha!” Flim said surprising us as Discord gave Flam a bag of bits.
“What is it Flim?” Flam asked as he gave Discord his tonic.
“Why does he have a moustache! He has scales.”
The gears in my head locked up. Then I knew...there was bullshit that needed to be solved.
Slowly, almost robotically I turned my head to stare at Discord and raised a hoof to touch his face. He stared at me with a worried look as my eye began to twitch as I drew near.
Retracting my hoof away, quickly regaining my senses before I attempted to rip the very essence of stupidity that was on his face clean off I recalled that Discord was the element of chaos. He was the very representation of chaos itself.
He had an excuse.
I turned my attention back to the brothers who now held a tonic before me.
“He has an excuse though” I stated. “He’s chaos, he’s fine. You have hair growing on your hair. I can’t get that.”
“Look Hailstorm you’re blowing this way out of proportion here” Flim tried to reason.
“Oh no no he’s not actually” Discord said in my defense. “I’ve honestly wondered how you ponies are able to grow hair on your hair. I’ve seen foals become stallions and grow moustaches but not once did it make sense to me at all. And that’s really saying something."
“See what I mean!” I turned to Flam who was staring at me with a mixture of worry and a desire that told me he still wanted to sell this tonic.
“Explain to me man! How do you grow hair on your hair!? Did your hair change pigment or something I mean- I just! I can’t even- UGH!” I could feel all logic leaving me at this point. My brain couldn’t’ take much more of this. None of this made sense.
They could grab things with their hooves for no apparent reason. They had moustaches! They had f-ing moustaches! None of this made sense! I couldn’t care less if I wasn’t in my world anymore I just wanted to grasp this understanding of how they grew a freaking moustache!
My head was starting to hurt now. Discord patted my back whispering words of reassurance and offering me the moustache tonic he had taken a swig of. I refused, I felt if I did my body would spit it back out for not only forcing it to listen to all this rubbish but at the same time making it consume the very thing I didn’t understand.
Then I felt a gentle tap on my forehoof. Looking up I saw Flam smiling at me, his moustache seeming to enhance his appearance.
“Hailstorm. It’s alright. I will show you the truth of the power of the mustache” he said. “But before I do so I must say one thing.”
I nodded, then noticed the twinkle in his eye.
By the doors of Odin if you say what I think you are going to say.
“Hailstorm” he said gently.
“If you say it I will lay waste your world” I warned.
Discord seemed pleased by this and hovered over me goading Flam to continue. “Hailstorm please. I must-”
“Don’t you do it.”
“Hailstorm.”
“If you do it I will kick your flank all the way to the moon.”
“Hailstorm cmon. I moustache you this question.”
I stared, at him. Nodded, my eye twitching just a bit. Flam smiled and said “I’ll need a bit before I perform this task. If you would please?”
I complied. He stuffed it in his shirt pocket.
“Ladies and gentlecolts!” he bellowed grabbing a few ponies attention. “I have to ask you a question, you see my friend here is a bit curious and says I can’t do but will all of you be so kind as to answer me this. Look into my eyes, and tell me what do you think of my...moustache?”
Silence travelled through the town as the echos of Flam’s voice died with the swaying wind. Several mares gave the unicorn a skeptical look, others giving him a look like he was nuts. Then I saw something strange happen.
The mares that had been staring at Flam suddenly found themselves, standing straight. Their eyes widening as they saw something I clearly could not. Some of the stallions that had looked in this direction upon Flam’s announcement began to move towards us in a steady stride before breaking into a gallop.
No. I thought in disbelief as Flam winked at the mares and I watched them all fall to their haunches with looks of gratitude as if having been graced by the power of his eyes and stache were a message from the heavens itself..
This can’t be happening. My expression displaying my thoughts clearly.
“Oh but it is Hailstorm.” Discord said with a satisfied smile. “It is.”
A few stallions had now surrounded Flam, asking him questions of where he was from. If he could meet up for a drink or hang out later. Mares had surrounded him from the back asking him questions by the second, each mare holding a twinkle in her eye as she stared at Flam’s face and gently tried to touch his stache only for the hoof to be swatted away by one of the stallions or another mare.
Dumbfounded was an understatement for how I currently felt. I was stunned.
Flim trotted over to me staring with just as much a puzzled look as I had, my mouth slightly open, before Discord moved a paw under it and gently closed my mouth.
“That’s...my brother?” he said confusion more than confidence in his voice.
I simply stared a few more seconds before getting up shaking my head, and heading back with Discord in the direction of Ponyville.
“Ponies. I just don’t get them.”
That very night I grew a moustache fuzz in my sleep. And awoke to find myself in bed with Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Dash, Twilight, Rarity, Applejack and several other mares including the spa sisters whom I’d never talked to.
Getting up quietly I left the room, and went outside and stared up into the night, as a ray of light peaked out over the horizon.
I screamed into the night, venting all my frustration and confusion by the strange hairy thing that was now just a fuzz on my lip.
Once done yelling I panted, my breath heavy, but soon enough my ears twitched for me to see two alicorns landing beside me. Both holding grins on their faces.
“Hello Hailstorm” Celestia said.
“We have heard you have grown a moustache. May we come inside.”
A weak whiny that I didn’t think I should have been able to make escaped my throat as the princesses wrapped me in their magic and dragged me back to the room where the others slept.
I managed to leave marks on the balcony that night I was dragged away to my doom.
Yelling one last time before the doors were shut and locked. “I don’t fucking get it!” The door slammed shut, darkness enveloped my vision and soon enough I could sense the lustful eyes of every mare along with the two alicorns now on me.
Another whiny, "I still don't fucking get it."
Fin.
