Mare Incognitum

by Grey Jay

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Smart Cookie, Chancellor Puddinghead, Comedy
Length: 1791

Chancellor Puddinghead isn't a seapony. Really, she isn't.

A flood and a prophecy? Chancellor Puddhinghead knows what to do! Shoo be doo!

I’m not sorry at all.

Published 2018-07-25 23:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-07-25 23:10:01 UTC

MARE INCOGNITUM

Steady Quill readied his pen in his mouth. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take dictation fast enough—he had a certification in Hayline shorthand, even—it was that listening to what the Chancellor said was enough to distract anypony. The trick, he knew, was to ignore the content, and transcribe the individual phrases and words.

“Given the lay of the land, everything west ah Dodge Junction’ll flood, I reckon, so that's Fillydelphia, Baltimare, and Manehatten too”, said Smart Cookie. “If the prophecy's right, Yer Chancellorness-ship”, she added, topping it off with a teensy bow.

“OooooOOOOh, I like toppings! What toppings would you use for a bow? Orange sprinkles? Black sprinkles? Orange AND black sprinkles?”

Smart Cookie noticed the chancellor pop up behind her, and steeled herself--

“AAAAHHHH, orange and black sprinkles! It’s like niiiightmaaaare niiiiiiight! EEK!”

Smart Cookie unsteeled herself, and put on a brave grin.

“Don’t you belong to you, though? How could you steal yourself? Silly Smart Cookie!”

It was brave grin #3, if you were counting. Brave grins 1-9 were used to indicate varying levels of composure while still being brave and grinning.

The chancellor vrooped back to her place on the other side of the table. It was a very official table, for conducting the most solemn state business on, around, or sometimes underneath. Today, it was even turned right side up.

Steady Quill let out a little breath. That caught chancellor Puddinghead’s attention.

“Steady Quill, you’re supposed to be writing everything down, you silly seahorse!” Pinkie giggled, and looked at the audience. She adjusted her very fancy hat. Her, uhh, her chancellor hat. She was a chancellor and also named Puddinghead, and not Pinkie. Right. A chancellor who was supposed to be dealing with a prophecy about a flood that would break forth as soon as the portal to a world of dark and duplicitous magics was unsealed, dooming Equestria to madness for all time. But she knew that she was in a comedy without a dark rating, so that meant her job was to make everypony laugh and not take any of this too seriously, because how bad could things really get?

Steady Quill looked at Chancellor Puddinghead quizzically. Or was it testily? No, definitely quizzically!

“You're supposed to be writing everything down--like this!” The chancellor pulled a green broad-tip sharpie out of her mane, and wrote “It was Brave Grin #3” after the last thing Steady Quill had written on the parchment, “Silly Smart Cookie!”, the last thing the chancellor had said. Steady didn’t remember anypony saying anything about a brave grin at all, though? He nodded, to fake understanding, and thereby excuse himself from the spotlight.

Smart Cookie came over to look at the parchment. Chancellor puddinghead trotted back over to the Table for Solemn State Business, humming. She wondered why they had to call it parchment, instead of just calling it paper. Smart Cookie shook a little, almost dropped the parchment, looked at it again to confirm that she’d read it right, and--

“AH AM NOT A SILLY PONY!” She glared at the Chancellor. “Pinkie, ah said--”

“Pinkie? Who’s Pinkie? Maaaaaybe she’s Chaaaaaancelor of the muffinheads! Or of the muffinbutts! Maybe she’s a muffinbutt! Or--”, the Chancellor gasped, “Maybe she’s a muffin! A big, brown, banana muffin! Or pear muffin! Do they even make pear muffins? I sure bet they’d be tasty if they did!” Chancellor puddinghead pulled three pudding-covered pear muffins out of her hat, and placed one on top of Steady Quill’s paper, and ate the other two without removing the wrapping. “Mmmmm! That was a good pear of muffins! Or, wait, Pinkie could be a cookie! But not a smart cookie, because you’re a smart cookie, Smart Cookie!” Chancellor Puddinghead beamed at Smart Cookie for long seconds.

“Ah. Am not. A silly pony.” Smart Cookie was still upset about that.

“Oh, of course you’re a silly pony, you silly willy filly! But it's ok to be silly!” She wrapped Smart Cookie up in a hug. Smart Cookie just let it happen, because she was a smart cookie. You just had to let Chancellor Puddinghead happen, sometimes; that was often the easiest way out of her antics. She was a good mare, once you got to know her, though.

Smart Cookie leaned in to the hug a little in return, and patted the Chancellor on the back with one hoof while the Chancellor wrapped herself around the mare. Sharp Quill recorded the event on parchment, contenting himself to simply record and let any future readers be judges to the whole saga. He scratched in descriptions of the earlier parts of the same discussion as the two mares finished their hug.

Chancellor Puddinghead gasped, really loud.

“Ohmygosh I forgot you'd wanted to talk about the super crazy flood prophecy, Smart Cookie!”

“That’s right, your chancellorship-ness, ma’am.” Smart Cookie bowed gracefully. “Ah was goin’ to say we’re fixin’ to have a real big flood on our hooves.”

Chancellor Puddinghead gasped, really loud.

“Ohmygosh that sounds really fun and great!”

“Well, your serene chancellorship-ness, ma’am”, Smart Cookie briefly kneeled before straightening, “That means we'll have to redistribute food to everypony who loses their fields, and help a whole bunch of ponies evacuate”.

“Wowie! I guess we’ll have to let them eat, uhh, pudding?”

Steady Quill corrected the misspelling of his name as “Sharp Quill” above in the document to “Steady Quill”, and looked up to interject. “I believe, your effulgent and serene chancellorship-ness, madame, that the saying goes, ‘let them eat cake’”.

Chancellor Puddinghead giggled, and waved a dismissive hoof. “Nahh, PUDDING! Pudding is the best!” She sidled up to Steady, and whispered, “I’m just kidding, I know it’s really supposed to be cake!”

“Well, ah, your most effluent and serene and serenely chancelloryshippy-ness ma’am”, Smart Cookie paused for breath, “Where do you reckon we’ll send everypon' after there’s water everywhere?”

Chancellor Puddinghead put on a detective hat on top of her pudding hat. She paced a little. “Effluent”. She tasted the word, not quite spitting it out, but not swallowing it either. It was rude manners to chew on a word too long, though. “Effluent, that’s something that drains off from something else! Like… water in a pipe, or agricultural runoff! I think you meant effulgent, silly! Or maybe eloquent? But actually, Celestia is more effulgent and Steady Quill is more eloquent, so maybe I am more effluent! And that’s where the brilliance comes in! We’ll turn into effluent! Or rather, something like effluent!”

Steady Quill and Smart Cookie nodded at each other sagely. This was clearly going to be an excellent idea, which was to say that they knew they wouldn't have to entertain it much longer if they just nodded and smiled. Then they could move on to address the actual problem.

“We’ll turn into seaponies!”

Steady Quill and Smart Cookie smiled. Sure, whatever.

Pinkie Pie squeed a bit, and disappeared, with a whoosh sound.

Steady looked at Smart cookie, “what do you think she’s off to do now?”

“Only one way to know, Steady; just wait and see.”

HIC SVINT HIPPOCAMPINKIES

Chancellor Puddinghead looked into the Mirror pool, her chancellor hat set aside. This was a great idea! With a seapony copy of herself, she could teach all the other earth ponies how to swim. She'd keep the hat, though, so everypony would know she was the chancellor. Though if they got confused, they could remember that the chancellor was still an earth pony, and not a seapony. But she was still going to help everyone learn to swim, too! This was going to be so much fun!

Chancellor Puddinghead jumped down into the pool, with a big splash, and all of a sudden her legs felt tingly, like she was just coming out of local anesthesia. Ooh, she had a fin and two front legs, now! She hadn't known she'd turn into a seapony by jumping in, but since she'd came all this way to find a seapony to help, she might as well use the mirror pool, too. She extended a hoof down into the waters, and pulled up a seapony. The seapony cheered her on with a cry of "fun, fun!"; this was going swimmingly. "We're going to have lots of fun indeed", Chancellor Puddinghead grinned.

Chancellor Puddinghead flopped onto the edge of the shore. She rose on her front two legs and let her weight rest on her fin as she would have risen on four, and tried to move forward, but she couldn't pull herself forwards, with all the weight on her tail.

The pink seapony flippered around a bit, and gave Chancellor Puddinghead a push from the pond, getting her a couple feet closer towards the door. The chancellor rolled a few times, ending up face-down. "Fun?" The chancellor stuck her forelegs out above her head and straightened her tail, and rolled a few times on her own. "That sure works--so, fun indeed!"

"Fun, fun!", replied the seapony, who then extended a flipper back into the pool, and out came another pink seapony. The second summoned seapony gave the first a shove as she climbed out of the pool, and she in turn helped the first one climb out. That was pretty clever of her, now they’d be able to teach everypony how to swim in even less time!

Then four pink seaponies jumped out of the pool. Chancellor Puddinghead twisted her head around 270 degrees in thought.

“Well, girls, the more of us, the less work for each individual one of us!”

One of the increasing number of seaponies rolled over to pinkie, and bumped into her. The pink chancellor began rolling too, but the collision hardly slowed down the seapony. Chancellor Puddinghead giggled. That was funny! "I didn't know seaponies were bouncy! That is fun!"

"Fun, fun, fun!", seven more sea ponies rolled across the room to agree with her, while eight others stood on the edges of the pond, pulling out another eight seaponies. Chancellor Puddinghead giggled again. This was going to be great! Soon a stream of seaponies was continuously rolling out of the pond, and the chancellor led them up out of the cave of the mirror pool.

Smart Cookie looked out on the plains. There hadn’t been much rain, actually, but there was a sea covering the land nonetheless. A very pink sea.

The still one-pony-deep sea of Pinkies writhed and giggled, and cries of “fun, fun!” could be heard from a mile away from the border of the pink menace.

The blob of pink seapony mares stretched all the way from the cave of the mirror pool to the Eastern Equestrian Sea, where they giggled, rolling into the sea, one by one.