Chapters Several Silly Short Stories for Sunday
“Hey, wanna come over and have a couple drinks?” Apple Munchies asked.
You only take a moment to consider. Having a couple of drinks would be a nice way to end the day, and you have to admit, she's cute. Probably nothing will come of an evening spent drinking, but you never know.
“Sure,” you say. “Do you need me to bring anything?”
"If you want to. Do you have any hay chips?”
You don’t, because they’re awful, but you’re willing to buy a couple of sacks at Barnyard Bargains; it’s certainly a fair trade for some beers and some companionship. “Yeah. I’ll bring them over.”
“Great!” She grins and then flounces off, and you can’t help but watch her tail and rump sway in counterpoint as she leaves.
* * *
She lives in a kind of dumpy house on the outskirts of Ponyville. When you’d first arrived in town, all the flowers and landscaping that the earth ponies obsessively put everywhere pushed the curb appeal of every house way up, but now that you’re more accustomed to seeing it, you can look beyond it to the actual house. The paint and stucco are both peeling, and the thatched roof is long past its prime. A few spots of new thatches at least imply that she’s doing some repair work.
And anyway, you’re not here for the house. You’re here for her , or at least for her beer if you’ve misjudged the situation.
As you approach the house, you can’t help but wonder if hay chips taste better with beer.
* * *
You’d been expecting beer, but she instead has wine. Several bottles of it, and none of them match. They’ve got mouth-printed labels on them, and your heart sinks. You should have known; lots of earth ponies brew their own.
Still, she’s an Apple, and it could be cider, and that’s pretty good on a hot day.
* * *
It’s not cider, it’s apple blossom wine. That’s a thing you’d never heard of before, but you’d been learning that ponies made all sorts of things into alcohol, so you’re not entirely surprised.
The first sip is unexpected; it’s sweet and fragrant and almost syrupy, and then as the taste of flowers is still lingering in your mouth, the burn of the alcohol kicks in.
“What do you think?”
You consider your words carefully. It’s not polite to insult a pony’s cooking--or brewing--and it might be an acquired taste anyway. From one sip, you can’t really judge, so you decide to tell her so in the most honest but also flattering way possible.
You grab a hay chip and speak. “It’s . . . different. I’ve never had anything like it before.” That’s true, at least. “I wasn’t expecting wine, to be honest.”
Her ears fall. “You don’t like it?”
Are you really that transparent? “No, it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just, um, something I’m not used to yet so it’s hard to judge. Back on Earth we didn’t make flowers into wine.”
“Why not?”
You shrug. “I don’t know, we just didn’t. Well, there was a book by Ray Bradbury about dandelion wine, so I guess some people must have made dandelions into wine.”
“Oh.” She looks over at the row of bottles, and then back at you, and for a moment you wonder if she’s going to kick you out for not being ecstatic about her wine. A small frown passes over her face, and then she looks back up at you. “What about brandy? How do you feel about that?”
“Brandy?” You’ve never had brandy, but you know from movies that it’s something cultured people drink.
“I jacked it myself last winter,” she says proudly.
“Sure, I’ll give it a try.” You eat another hay chip, which at least dulls some of the flavor of the apple blossom wine that’s still in your mouth. “What do you mean by ‘jacked,’ though?”
“That’s where you make it get more alcohol by freezing it,” she says. “I think you’ll like it.”
As she walks into her house, her tail’s swishing happily, and you decide that no matter what, you’re not going to tell her it sucks, even if it does. You might still be able to salvage this situation.
* * *
The apple blossom brandy burns as it touches your mouth, as it should. For a moment you consider asking her what the proof is, but then you’re lost in the flavor of the flowers as they tease your tongue. Clearly, what her apple blossom wine needed was a higher proof and more aging.
You don’t have to say anything; she knows. You finish the glass and wonder why ponies even have glasses instead of a communal bowl while she’s refilling it.
By the time you finish the second glass, hay chips are starting to taste pretty good, and by the third you’re snuggled up together on the lawn. The whole situation’s giving off a picnic or tailgate party vibe, although it’s slightly hampered by the difficulty you’re having petting her mane. Your body isn’t working like it ought to, and your brain’s shouting that maybe you should slow down; this is powerful stuff.
When has your brain ever given good advice, though? You hold out your empty glass and she refills it, the blurry bottle steady in her mouth.
Your vision’s blurry and it feels like your head might just float off. Something is terribly wrong, but you don’t know what. You’ve drunk Everclear before, and that’s a hundred percent alcohol; there’s no way this stuff could be more potent. Also, she’s matching you drink for drink, and she doesn’t seem all that affected by it.
Is she putting roofies in my drink? Hard to imagine how she could be; it’s not like she’s got sleeves to hide them up, and you’ve been watching each time she fills your glass.
* * *
You’re so very tired and your vision is so blurry you can hardly see at all, so even if it is rude you lie down on the blanket and close your eyes. There’s no way you’d make it home, not in this condition, but maybe after a short nap you’ll be okay again.
Several Silly Short Stories for Sunday
Apple Munchies poked the body on her blanket with a stick.
The body did nothing.
He’d stopped breathing a while ago, and she’d tried earth pony healing magic and CPR, but neither had done anything useful. That was too bad; he’d been kind of cute.
Her eyes darted over to the mostly-empty bottle of apple blossom brandy, and she wondered if that had been the cause, then dismissed it. She’d been drinking out of the same bottle, and she was just fine. A little bit tipsy, yes, that was the point of alcohol, but certainly not passing-out drunk, and especially not dead.
As distasteful as it was, she couldn’t leave a body cluttering up her yard, not to mention it wouldn’t do to report it to the authorities. There was nothing they could do about it, and she’d be left with lots of boring paperwork and interviews which was hardly her idea of a fun time.
He should have told her that he couldn’t hold his liquor.
* * *
Getting the body on her back was the first challenge. He was floppy and heavy and she had to sort of push him partially upright and then let him fall onto her, then shift him around as best she could until he was more or less balanced.
His arms and legs hung off and she had to walk carefully to avoid stepping on them as she walked to Applejack’s farm.
* * *
It would have been more polite to dump him off around the corner before knocking, but she didn’t relish the idea of trying to pick him up again, and it felt undignified to have to drag him by her teeth, so she left him draped across her back as she gently pounded on the door.
A few moments later, Applejack opened it, and looked at her in confusion. “Munchies? What brings you around at this hour?”
“Little problem,” she said, tilting her head towards her back.
Applejack glanced around her. “Ah. Is he dead?”
“As a doornail.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. We were drinking out back of my place, and then he laid down and then after a while he stopped breathing and that was that.”
“Did you take him to the hospital?”
“What for? Dead’s dead.”
“Fair.” Applejack reached over and grabbed her Stetson. “Well, looks like you’re gonna owe me for this.”
“I know.” She shifted her weight then bounced her back—he was starting to slide off. “I don’t mean to be rude, but he’s no lightweight.”
“Of course. Just step back a bit and get turned around, and I’ll follow you out to Piggington’s pen.”
“I really appreciate this.”
* * *
Getting him into the pen wasn’t too difficult. Applejack stood guard, lest Piggington be too eager for a midnight meal, and Apple Munchies simply sat down on her rump, causing his corpse to slide off into the muck. She had to tug a little bit to get her tail out from under him, but that was a small price to pay.
Once she was out of the pen, the two mares hooked their forelegs over the fence and watched Piggington work. There was something both morbid and yet beautiful as he sniffed at the corpse and then dug into the flesh.
“It’ll take a couple days,” Applejack said. “On account of how big he is.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how long it takes humans to spoil . . . could be he won’t eat it all, but I can tell Fluttershy to send her vultures over. They’ll take what’s left.”
Several Silly Short Stories for Sunday
There are a lot of restaurants in Ponyville. Most of them have outdoor seating, the staff are nice, the prices reasonable, and unfortunately they only serve vegetarian food. Well, with the exception of the Sea and Sky, which does serve fish; however, they’re on a cloud and inaccessible to you, and they also only serve fish raw. Not sushi raw, but instead in the ‘whole dead fish on a plate’ manner.
You’d asked Sassaflash about that once, and she said that fish wasn’t as good if it wasn’t crunchy.
You’re not sure if you should believe her.
* * *
Your stay in Equestria has forced some dietary changes. You’ve got no complaints about Sugarcube Corner—their treats are fantastic—but you know that you can’t just eat sugary snacks. That’d give you diabetes, and you aren’t sure if the ponies make insulin. Maybe they do; maybe that’s why they have pigs. You can’t think of another reason why they would.
So you go from restaurant to restaurant, hoping to find the salad that tastes good to your palate.
Today, you’re at Sweetgreens, sitting outside since it’s a nice day, and scanning through the menu. One item catches your eye—the spicy salad.
The description of the salad doesn’t provide any real clues. It’s hoof-tossed, and made with spicy ivy, spicy sumac, spicy oak, and spicy nettle. You’ve had nettle tea, which is actually decent, although no replacement for coffee. You’re pretty sure you’ve had stuffed ivy leaves before, and sumac in salad. You’re less sure about the oak, but vaguely remember as a kid gnawing on oak leaves.
Whatever the case, it’ll be an interesting change from the normal, boring salads, especially since ponies usually don’t go for salad dressing of any kind, so when the waiter comes by, you order it.
If nothing else, it doesn’t take very long to prepare salads, and before too long a bowl is set in front of you. No utensils; only unicorns are given those as a matter of course.
You pick up a leaf and nibble on it. It tastes just like a leaf, with a vague hint of lemon—you’re not sure where the ‘spicy’ part of the salad comes in.
Still, there are three other kinds of leaves, so you try another. That one does make your mouth tingle just a little bit. You wouldn’t say that it’s spicy, but maybe to ponies, that tingle is spicy. It’s hard to be sure.
Overall, you’d give this salad a five out of ten. Maybe six, if you’re feeling generous. It’s by no means the best one you’ve had in Equestria, but then it’s far from the worst. You pick up another leaf and put it in your mouth.
* * *
You’re about halfway done with your salad when things start to go wrong. That bit of tingling has spread—it’s on your hands, and even worse, it’s in your throat. You’ve had hot sauces that take a while to kick in, but this doesn’t feel quite the same. There’s a pressure behind the tingling, and you notice it’s getting more difficult to breathe.
What is this stuff? Now that you’ve noticed the effects, they seem to be getting more pronounced. You can feel some patches of skin on your face and arms that are burning, too, places where you’d touched yourself, where you’d unintentionally spread whatever it was in these plants onto your skin.
Just then, the waiter shows back up at your table. “Enjoying your meal, sir?”
You’ve always been taught to be polite to waitstaff, but: “No, and in fact I think I need to go to the hospital,” you croak out. “Please call an ambulance.”
He raises an eyebrow, and then turns and trots back to the kitchen, and as you’re sliding out of your chair you remember that they don’t have telephones in Equestria.
Several Silly Short Stories for Sunday
Nurse Redheart and Dr. Stable looked down at the body on the table. His face was swollen and purple, but otherwise he looked reasonably healthy, with the obvious exception of being dead.
“To think, this was caused by a salad,” Dr. Stable mused. “Such a shame.”
“He put up a good fight,” Nurse Redheart said.
“That he did.” Dr. Stable floated his glasses off his face and folded them before sliding them into his breast pocket. “It always makes me feel bad when I lose a patient. Always wonder what I could have done differently.”
“It’s a real kick to the ego,” Redhart replied.
“It is.” Dr. Stable sighed. “Well, might as well see what made him go.” He reached under the table and pulled out a chainsaw.
Several Silly Short Stories for Sunday
Ponyville has a gym.
That wasn’t something you were expecting to find—to your mind, gyms are a modern thing, a necessity for modern people working largely sedentary jobs, as opposed to the ponies who seem to be on the go all the time.
It doesn’t look particularly modern on the outside; it’s more of a whimsical medieval look, like so many buildings in Ponyville.
The inside isn’t significantly more modern either. For what is in many ways an advanced society, they seem to not have advanced very far past wooden construction, which legitimately gives an aura of menace to most of the exercise equipment. It’d be right at place in a torture chamber . . . and now that you’re thinking about that, at the turn of the last century, prisoners were punished by being made to run on treadmills.
There’s a blue-furred, blue-maned mare at the front desk, and she has the overly enthusiastic personality all gym receptionists seem to have. Like she’s happy you’re about to abuse yourself on the stair machine or rearrange your bones in the yoga class or do whatever the kegelcizer does to you.
Maybe you’re a masochist, but their rates are reasonable, and for some reason you’re craving exercise.
* * *
Aside from the primitive nature of their exercise equipment, and the fact it was built for equines, you manage to figure most of it out. They’ve got free weights, and once you’ve gotten over being boggled by a pony doing curls by hoof—both fore- and hind- —you manage quite well.
* * *
One thing that the gym offers is locker rooms, oddly enough. While it seems like a thing that every gym should have, and it was a thing that you just accepted as you were being given the quick pamphlet tour by Lighthoof, the more you think about it, the weirder it is. Not only because most ponies generally go naked around town, but also because most of them dress up for the gym. They’re wearing exercise shorts and sweatbands and apparently need to change in a locker room because it would be embarassing for somepony else to see them half-naked before they’re fully naked.
Whatever, even if it doesn’t make sense you’re happy that you haven’t got to walk home in sweat-soaked clothes.
Maybe it’s the showers. Maybe it’s not proper to shower with ponies of the opposite gender. Who knows.
* * *
You’ve never been all that comfortable with getting fully undressed in a locker room. Maybe it’s a feeling of inadequacy down there, or maybe it’s a fear of accidentally checking out another man, so while you could use the shower, you decide that just changing into your street clothes will be enough. True, your underwear will still be sweat-soaked, but it’s not that far to walk home and take a shower and change into something clean and dry.
The locker room isn’t empty; Thunderlane and Rumble are changing into their workout shorts. You give the two of them a polite nod and peel off your shirt.
A moment later, while your shirt’s still covering your head, Thunderlane lets out a girlish shriek, sending shivers down your spine. You yank your shirt the rest of the way off—that’s faster than pulling it back down—and notice that he’s got a foreleg up blocking Rumble’s eyes.
You snap your head around, wondering what’s behind you, but there’s nothing. You turn back to face Thunderlane and temporarily-blinded Rumble.
“Not cool,” Thunderlane says. “This is the stallion’s locker room.”
“Yeah?” Lighthoof had said that, too. Obviously, pony iconography was different than human; they didn’t have little dresses on the silhouette-ponies marking the door, but the square muzzle and cropped tail make it clear.
“You shouldn’t be in here.”
“I’ve got a memebership.” For all of an hour, but still. “I’ve got as much a right as—”
“Showing off your teats.”
You cross your arms. You’re not exactly Adonis, but that’s a low blow.
“You should go to the proper locker room.”
“But I am in the proper locker room,” you protest. “For men. For stallions.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t lie, I can see plain as day you’re no stallion.”
Another low blow. Even if stallions are unfairly more endowed than you are, that’s no reason for him to be insulting.
“Get out of here before I have you kicked out.”
You cross your arms. “And where should I go?”
“To the fillies’ room, where you belong.”
“I don’t—I’m going to get this sorted out.” You toss your sweat-soaked t-shirt over your shoulder, grab your street clothes out of your locker, and storm out to the front desk.
Lighthoof’s still chipper, even as you come up to the desk with a cloud over your head. You give her a quick run-down of the situation with Thunderlane, and she eyes you up and down. You’re naturally expecting her to take your side, so it’s a complete shock when she nods her head and tells you that you should use the other locker room.
For a brief moment, you’re tempted to just whip it out in front of Lighthoof and anypony else who cares to see, just to prove that you’re a man, but you suddenly imagine her getting a sympathetic look on her face, maybe a soft apology and you’re not willing to face that. Besides, it’ll be her fault and Thunderlane’s if you get kicked out of the mare’s locker room, too.
* * *
It turns out that the mare’s room is nicer than the stallions, and even better, they don’t try to have you kicked out.
Several Silly Short Stories for Sunday
Having one girl interested in you would be unusual.
Having three is completely out of your experience, but there you are in the bar, and there are no less than three mares swooning over you, appropriately enough one from each tribe. There’s a lavender pegasus, a greenish unicorn, and a bright red earth pony.
Since you’ve never been in this sort of situation before, you have no idea how to choose. Or even if you should try.
One part of your mind suggests that when girls fight, it always ends with them kissing to make up, and that’s not a bad way to end things. Another part of your mind suggests that there’s the possibility that the fun will be doubled or maybe even tripled. After all, if they’re willing to make out with a person, there might be other inhibitions they don’t have.
* * *
The fact that all three of them follow you home implies that there are many inhibitions they don’t have, and you’re all set to have the best night ever.
At least until you get into proper make-out territory. Muzzles are soft and velvety and you’ve had enough drinks that kissing a pony doesn’t seem sinful even though it probably is. Kisses lead to fondling and fondling leads to licking and too late you remember that many animals are brightly colored in order to warn would-be predators that they’re highly toxic.
The only good news is that as you’re dying, you’re still conscious enough to witness them first fighting about the fact that they’ve killed you, followed by the inevitable kissing and making up.
Author's Note
Click HERE for story notes!
